Janice, I always appreciate your insight and experience in the area of feminist thought. As an engineer and pragmatist, I am always at a loss when I encounter work by Butler et al. I recall trying to read something from one of the French post-modernists in the early 1990s (t was all the rage) and I couldn't past a few pages and all I could really say was 'what the fuck is this'? It was literal gobbledegook and any of it that was comprehensible (not much) was very obviously sophistry. I still cant get past the fact that anyone at all would consider it anything more than pulp for recycling. Do the people that read it and take it seriously (academics, 'philosophers', intellectuals, etc ) REALLY think that incoherently, and/or get some emotional meaning from gibberish? I can understand why we are where we are today IF people were taking that shit seriously.
I suspect that most people find it what it is: gobbledook. I read the entirety of *Gender Trouble* (Butler's first book) and didn't understand much; or rather, I thought I understood it until I tried to explain to somebody who saw me reading it on the bus one day (very embarrassing). But people take the ideas, in a simplified form, quite seriously: "All gender is performance." "We imitate femininity and masculinity rather than express them." In a way, it's not untrue, but it becomes a dogma that justifies contempt for biology and the conviction that gender can be remade according to our (usually feminist) preferences.
Cool. I think with a lot of this stuff, there are grains of truth in it (as you say), but they are nothing more than semi-obvious observations about life, and then these 'intellectuals' try to turn these basic ideas into something profound. Its seems like its all kind of a make-work project, in academia, for intelligent people who are otherwise unemployable.
As with all good horseshit, there have to be grains of truth in the mix for it to stick; bona fide, 100% made up nonsense is usually harder to sell.
Then again, one could look at the Sokal affair (and the Lindsay one more recently) and conclude that the whole edifice of capital-t Theory has now come completely unmoored from reality and is sailing away to rainbow unicorn land. We can only hope that there are still some Kraken in those waters.
"They muddy their waters to make them seem deep" - Nietzsche on poets, but it applies here.
I work in a university with a variety of faculty from various departments. It's common for faculty in the arts, humanities, and social sciences to write this way. They have to do research to keep their jobs. They have nothing to say, but can't admit to themselves. They have dedicated a lot of time and money to obtaining their degrees. They have built up an identity around it. It would be too painful for them to admit they've been wasting their time. They believe every word they write.
These faculty are also the most difficult to work with. While some are very nice, all the faculty problems I encounter at work come with these departments. They have zero social skills and are the biggest hypocrites among faculty. They are the most vocal about helping those who have less in society, yet they treat staff who make considerably less than them very badly.
There was a conference of private school presidents a few years ago. The speaker complained that the general public was criticizing higher ed. His speech was about how to make the dumb peasants understand how great higher ed. He never once considered the possibility that an ounce of their criticism could be correct. This is actually how many faculty and higher ed administrators think. They really do live in an ivory tower. They hate you.
Thank you, that offers some great insight. I studied at McGill and had the grades to go to graduate school probably anywhere in just about anything, but I didn't really like school all that much. Four years was just right, anymore would have made me very unhappy. I have always related more to pragmatists and empiricists rather than theoreticians or philosophers. I could see the snobbery in academic 'intellectual' circles, and it turned me off. It is obviously alive and well, and even thriving in the modern woke academy.
You are not wrong; it’s basically narcissistic word salad, only with footnotes. People in social sciences nod along as if it meant something because their careers depend on compliance - and if you pretend to believe something for long enough, you will eventually internalise it. Everyone outside of academia just gets fobbed off with “it’s above your pay grade, bud”: deliberate obscurity passed off as depth.
Yes, appears to be some what the case. That said, I can think of two other non academic experiences I have had encountering genuine gobbledegook, one was a politician who spoke for 45 minutes about 'innovation' at an engineering conference I attended, and literally said nothing. I was kind of shocked. Another was reading renewable energy 'guru' Amory Lovins, and it was pages and pages of meaningless word salad. I am just amazed that the audiences of these people dont react more.
I'm at a loss also. I attempted to read the given short extract of Butler's work but it didn't make any sense to me either. I don't think that it has to. These academic pieces are written for a tiny 'in crowd' and I'd bet hardly anyone actually reads them.
Janice, I always appreciate your insight and experience in the area of feminist thought. As an engineer and pragmatist, I am always at a loss when I encounter work by Butler et al. I recall trying to read something from one of the French post-modernists in the early 1990s (t was all the rage) and I couldn't past a few pages and all I could really say was 'what the fuck is this'? It was literal gobbledegook and any of it that was comprehensible (not much) was very obviously sophistry. I still cant get past the fact that anyone at all would consider it anything more than pulp for recycling. Do the people that read it and take it seriously (academics, 'philosophers', intellectuals, etc ) REALLY think that incoherently, and/or get some emotional meaning from gibberish? I can understand why we are where we are today IF people were taking that shit seriously.
I suspect that most people find it what it is: gobbledook. I read the entirety of *Gender Trouble* (Butler's first book) and didn't understand much; or rather, I thought I understood it until I tried to explain to somebody who saw me reading it on the bus one day (very embarrassing). But people take the ideas, in a simplified form, quite seriously: "All gender is performance." "We imitate femininity and masculinity rather than express them." In a way, it's not untrue, but it becomes a dogma that justifies contempt for biology and the conviction that gender can be remade according to our (usually feminist) preferences.
Cool. I think with a lot of this stuff, there are grains of truth in it (as you say), but they are nothing more than semi-obvious observations about life, and then these 'intellectuals' try to turn these basic ideas into something profound. Its seems like its all kind of a make-work project, in academia, for intelligent people who are otherwise unemployable.
As with all good horseshit, there have to be grains of truth in the mix for it to stick; bona fide, 100% made up nonsense is usually harder to sell.
Then again, one could look at the Sokal affair (and the Lindsay one more recently) and conclude that the whole edifice of capital-t Theory has now come completely unmoored from reality and is sailing away to rainbow unicorn land. We can only hope that there are still some Kraken in those waters.
Amen to that!
"They muddy their waters to make them seem deep" - Nietzsche on poets, but it applies here.
I work in a university with a variety of faculty from various departments. It's common for faculty in the arts, humanities, and social sciences to write this way. They have to do research to keep their jobs. They have nothing to say, but can't admit to themselves. They have dedicated a lot of time and money to obtaining their degrees. They have built up an identity around it. It would be too painful for them to admit they've been wasting their time. They believe every word they write.
These faculty are also the most difficult to work with. While some are very nice, all the faculty problems I encounter at work come with these departments. They have zero social skills and are the biggest hypocrites among faculty. They are the most vocal about helping those who have less in society, yet they treat staff who make considerably less than them very badly.
There was a conference of private school presidents a few years ago. The speaker complained that the general public was criticizing higher ed. His speech was about how to make the dumb peasants understand how great higher ed. He never once considered the possibility that an ounce of their criticism could be correct. This is actually how many faculty and higher ed administrators think. They really do live in an ivory tower. They hate you.
And yes, they hate you (you meaning not them, that is, ordinary people). Perfect.
Thank you, that offers some great insight. I studied at McGill and had the grades to go to graduate school probably anywhere in just about anything, but I didn't really like school all that much. Four years was just right, anymore would have made me very unhappy. I have always related more to pragmatists and empiricists rather than theoreticians or philosophers. I could see the snobbery in academic 'intellectual' circles, and it turned me off. It is obviously alive and well, and even thriving in the modern woke academy.
You are not wrong; it’s basically narcissistic word salad, only with footnotes. People in social sciences nod along as if it meant something because their careers depend on compliance - and if you pretend to believe something for long enough, you will eventually internalise it. Everyone outside of academia just gets fobbed off with “it’s above your pay grade, bud”: deliberate obscurity passed off as depth.
Yes, appears to be some what the case. That said, I can think of two other non academic experiences I have had encountering genuine gobbledegook, one was a politician who spoke for 45 minutes about 'innovation' at an engineering conference I attended, and literally said nothing. I was kind of shocked. Another was reading renewable energy 'guru' Amory Lovins, and it was pages and pages of meaningless word salad. I am just amazed that the audiences of these people dont react more.
I'm at a loss also. I attempted to read the given short extract of Butler's work but it didn't make any sense to me either. I don't think that it has to. These academic pieces are written for a tiny 'in crowd' and I'd bet hardly anyone actually reads them.