I wrote:
>>I don't know anything about Butler, so I can't comment on her views. If
>>she's indeed one of the "language is the only reality" types, then forget
>>her. Doug, aren't all of the statistics you wield so well in LBO
>>"discursively constructed"? Does that mean that they should be flushed
>>down the toilet?
Quoth Doug:
>Why do people think that calling something "discursively constructed"
>means it's trivial? GDP is a discursive construction - it has no existence
>apart from the system of monetary representation that it emerged from. It
>doesn't feed people or make them happy, but important folks pay lots of
>attention to it and it guides their actions.
The idea that the distinction between sex and gender (or between biology
and society) is "socially constructed" (similar to "discursively
constructed" without the over-emphasis on language, which is only one
aspect of society) is so trivial and obvious that I assumed that the only
reason bring it up is as criticism, that I should change my point of view
in some way.
In any event, I think there's an objective basis for the socially
constructed concepts of sex & gender. I gave some evidence, some argument.
Was there something wrong with my presentation? is there an alternative to
the sex/gender distinction that can help us deal with these issues more
effectively? does Butler suggest one?
>>More importantly, I really don't like the kind of argument in which
>>someone says "But Authority X says you're wrong," where here X is Butler.
>>I think that the old bumper-sticker slogan "Question Authority" was quite
>>valid.
>He said, citing an authority...
yeah, but that authority is _correct_!
Actually, I wasn't citing an authority as much as using the anonymous
bumper-sticker writer as a summary for a position I've been arguing on and
off on pen-l for years. I'm willing to take responsibility for that view,
independent of some authority figure's assertions.
<snip>
>>If we are to reject the sex/gender distinction, what is the alternative?
>>How does that alternative concept help us understand the relevant issues?
>
>Even if you don't take the whole Butler dose, I think it's always
>important to ask what is happening ideologically when biology - or
>"nature" - is invoked. When people start talking about hormones, there's
>some invocation of physical necessity against whose judgment there's no
>appeal.
There's nothing in the notion of the role of hormones that says that one
can't overcome the urges that result from them. Simply bringing up the flow
of testosterone (or whatever) is not that same thing as advocating
determinism, essentialism, or reductionism. Look, I'm horny a lot
(seemingly due to the baleful influence of hormones), but that doesn't mean
that I always do something about it, right? it also doesn't determine
exactly what I do about those hormones, right? That means that not only
does the "natural" sphere play a role but society does too.
Hey, if you and Don Roper don't mind, I'll use a dirty word. The
relationship between biology and society is a _dialectic_.
>Or in the dismal science, "natural" rates of interest or unemployment. As
>Keynes said of the "natural" rate of interest, it's the one that is most
>likely to preserve the status quo; I think you'll find the same when
>"natural" differences between the sexes (not genders) are invoked.
This is not a good analogy. The natural rate of unemployment, for example,
is mostly a code-phrase for capitalism's need to have a reserve army of
labor, an institution created by society. On the other hand, is the fact
that men have "outies" and women have "innies" somehow socially
constructed? No. What's socially constructed is the fact that the former
have the lion's share of the power.
This shunning of the role of biology threatens to veer into prudish
Platonism ...
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~JDevine
