[-empyre-] Queer *Is* Violent: Response to Part of Judith's Position/Statement
naxsmash
naxsmash at mac.com
Fri Jul 17 10:11:04 EST 2009
speaking of peace, I 've got to head out to yoga but back in a few
hours.
thanks for the great exchange so far and we can keep it going shortly.
-moderator
naxsmash
naxsmash at mac.com
christina mcphee
http://christinamcphee.net
http://naxsmash.net
On Jul 16, 2009, at 5:02 PM, davin heckman wrote:
> Absolutely! And, I must confess, that I am not entirely sure what I
> think about it either way, only that I have been thinking about it.
> Even my own professed pacifism is hard to trust, because pacifism
> itself is only truly pacifism when survival would seem to require one
> to be something other than a pacifist.
>
> Davin
>
> On Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 6:50 PM, virginia
> solomon<virginia.solomon at gmail.com> wrote:
>> totally, which was the thrust of the not just the billy club point!
>>
>> I wanted to make the point of ontologic/epistemologic violence and
>> change
>> enacted by the minoritarian subject as being distinct from the
>> violence,
>> either physical or let's say ideological, of the dominant. does
>> that make
>> sense?
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 7:44 PM, davin heckman <davinheckman at gmail.com
>> >
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Virginia,
>>>
>>> I wouldn't necessarily say that my comments were meant to condemn
>>> ontological "violence," particularly as it has been deployed as a
>>> defense against actual physical violence... only that it strikes me
>>> as an area of caution (and the ethical aspects of it most certainly
>>> depend on who holds the power). I think it is important to note
>>> that
>>> ontological violence often paves the way for physical violence. I
>>> would say that in "post" civil rights United States, people with
>>> power
>>> and privilege seem to do much of their work at the ontological level
>>> (defending abstractions, arguing principle, speaking
>>> hypothetically),
>>> as a way of concealing the real consequences that their policies
>>> have
>>> for various populations. In many cases, these policies translate
>>> into
>>> various sorts of hate crimes or policies, but rarely do the
>>> leaders of
>>> these anti-social "culture warrior" movements speak in any way where
>>> direct lines can be drawn between, say, a particular speech and the
>>> "random" acts of violence that happen daily.
>>>
>>> Peace!
>>>
>>> Davin
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 3:47 PM, virginia
>>> solomon<virginia.solomon at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> so in all of this talk of violence and the violence attendant to
>>>> any
>>>> sort of
>>>> queer operation or tactic, I very much understand Robert, Davin,
>>>> and
>>>> Christina's arguments but I am nevertheless troubled, with
>>>> Judith, about
>>>> the
>>>> stakes of referring to that as violence. What are the stakes of
>>>> calling
>>>> an
>>>> ontologic/epistemologic shift violence when those enacting that
>>>> 'violence'
>>>> face the very real threat of actual physical violence? Is this
>>>> different
>>>> for different subjects, ie might calling upon dead male french
>>>> theorists
>>>> (ok
>>>> agamben and guattari aren't men but you get my point) say something
>>>> about
>>>> the positioning of the producers of a particular kind of theory?
>>>> Reconfiguration is certainly violent, enacts a violence, because it
>>>> changes
>>>> the meaning of bodies for those whose very bodies have been the
>>>> site of
>>>> their power. But what is at stake for emphasizing that violence?
>>>>
>>>> I think this is less a meta question than a practical one. Davin
>>>> discusses
>>>> definitions of violence from the dictionary (its own framework,
>>>> to be
>>>> sure)
>>>> with a different set of terms - alteration, fervor, discordance.
>>>> To that
>>>> I
>>>> would want to add ambiguity and contradiction. Do these different
>>>> terms
>>>> acknowledge the violence inherent in the changes that need to
>>>> take place
>>>> for
>>>> social justice? I think so. And yet they don't place that
>>>> violence at
>>>> any
>>>> kind of premium. I think of practices that practice inaction, but
>>>> that
>>>> nevertheless enact what we seem to be collectively arriving upon
>>>> as a
>>>> queer
>>>> operation - the labor slow down, masochism, Jamaica Kincaid's
>>>> 'Autobiography
>>>> of My Mother" (in which a narrator refuses, though various steps,
>>>> to be
>>>> interpellated by any number of the systems with which she comes
>>>> into
>>>> contact).
>>>>
>>>> I think it might be useful to distinguish ontologic and
>>>> epistemologic
>>>> violence from physical violence, where we include in phisycal
>>>> violence
>>>> social violence, or the violence enacted upon minoritarian
>>>> subjects by
>>>> structures and policies that aren't necessarily a billy club to the
>>>> head.
>>>> And that we think about the stakes of Derrida talking about
>>>> violence in
>>>> ways
>>>> that, say, Angela Davis or Gloria Anzaldua don't.
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 11:25 AM, davin heckman <davinheckman at gmail.com
>>>> >
>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> I was reading Agamben's State of Exception, and then stumbled
>>>>> across
>>>>> Robert's post. It strikes me that Agamben's discussion of
>>>>> Benjamin's
>>>>> "pure violence" might be useful here. Also useful here might be
>>>>> Agamben's discussion of anomie (lawlessness) and nomos (the
>>>>> law), and
>>>>> the sort of lawlessness that results where the law is too weak
>>>>> (there
>>>>> is no norm) or too strong (where the norms are impossible to
>>>>> follow).
>>>>> In my mind, queer tactics reside in between the two poles of
>>>>> anomie.
>>>>> On the one hand, as Foucault demonstrates, norms play a critical
>>>>> role
>>>>> in shaping and cultivating desire. On the other hand, where
>>>>> norms are
>>>>> too severe, they have the effect of criminalizing everyone.
>>>>>
>>>>> I think there is a metaphysical "violence" in queer tactics
>>>>> here, but
>>>>> I think they are the kind of violence that the Merriam-Webster
>>>>> online
>>>>> dictionary defines as "undue alteration (as of wording or sense in
>>>>> editing a text)." Occasionally, this violence might also
>>>>> describe a
>>>>> category of emotional state ("fervor) or aesthetic state
>>>>> ("discordance"). And, as a fundamental goal, an anomic relation
>>>>> to
>>>>> the law (which verges closer to the kind of physical confrontation
>>>>> associated with "violence.") At some point, as we progress from
>>>>> "undue alteration" towards a critique of the law as a system, we
>>>>> move
>>>>> from a discussion of improvised means towards a discussion of
>>>>> strategically defined ends... which might mean that it is
>>>>> impossible
>>>>> to theorize a "queer tactics," as they would more properly
>>>>> regarded as
>>>>> "strategies."
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't know what to make of these connections. In my mind,
>>>>> such a
>>>>> conception of a "pure violence," if it is to be applied, veers too
>>>>> close to an outright nihilism. If it is to continue as an
>>>>> abstraction, it does not offer practical utility. And, finally,
>>>>> as a
>>>>> pacifist (I am, I think, as I write this, a pacifist), I wonder
>>>>> what
>>>>> the implications of an abstract pure violence would have for my
>>>>> opposition to the forms of violence that we are familiar with
>>>>> (from
>>>>> physical force to threats of force). On the other hand, it is
>>>>> hard
>>>>> for me to imagine a "queerness" which is not, in some way,
>>>>> threatening.... not by its own design, but by the very laws
>>>>> written
>>>>> to prevent its transient character from emerging. I have a hard
>>>>> time
>>>>> seeing "violence," say, in the kinds of cultural queering that
>>>>> takes
>>>>> place in borderlands. Rather, the laws that seek to prevent this
>>>>> process... through linguistic purity, the construction of
>>>>> barriers,
>>>>> and nativist movements... exert a violence on what would
>>>>> otherwise be
>>>>> an organic process. Yet, all the same, the very sorts of queering
>>>>> that take place in the various borderlands of our structured
>>>>> society
>>>>> are not insignificant... they have ontological power... they
>>>>> "harm"
>>>>> (end, dissolve, destroy) one way of being by becoming another.
>>>>>
>>>>> Very, very interesting reading this month.
>>>>>
>>>>> Peace!
>>>>>
>>>>> Davin Heckman
>>>>> <www.retrotechnics.com>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 3:19 AM, Robert Summers<robtsum at gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> I would respectfully yet disagree with many aspects of what
>>>>>> Judith
>>>>>> wrote,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> One passage: *Robert's original call asked about the _possible_
>>>>>> heteronormativity of
>>>>>> *relational aesthetics.* I'm not interested in *torturing*
>>>>>> anything,
>>>>>> whether
>>>>>> bodies or the proper names of continental theorists, but I am
>>>>>> interested
>>>>>> in
>>>>>> *the democratic space of the *violence of participation,*
>>>>>> though I'd
>>>>>> add
>>>>>> quite emphatically not as the repetition of violence or even the
>>>>>> metaphorical torturing of anything but as the exploration of, for
>>>>>> example,
>>>>>> behaviors, obedience to authority among them. *Queering*
>>>>>> relational
>>>>>> aesthetics, then, is productive inasmuch as it forces that
>>>>>> metadiscursive
>>>>>> activity.*
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Indeed, there is, I argue, a certain *violence* to/of
>>>>>> queer(ing). In
>>>>>> the words of Sedgwick, "'[q]ueer’ is a continuing moment,
>>>>>> movement,
>>>>>> motive—recurrent, eddying, troublant. The word ‘queer’ itself
>>>>>> means
>>>>>> across -- it comes from the Indo-European root -twerkw, which
>>>>>> also
>>>>>> yields the German quer (transverse), Latin torque (to twist),
>>>>>> English
>>>>>> athwart” (_Tendencies_, 1993: xii). This *speaks* of a certain
>>>>>> violence (*torque* can also be traced to torture, which is an
>>>>>> act of
>>>>>> violence), and to queer (or queering -- which I want to also
>>>>>> use as a
>>>>>> transitive verb, which would violate/torture rules of grammar)
>>>>>> *is*
>>>>>> violence against the normative (and queer _does_ do/enact more
>>>>>> than
>>>>>> just this), and we can *see* a certain *queering* as a certain
>>>>>> *violence* when Derrida states, in a way that shows the slippage
>>>>>> between binary oppositions, *... a caress may be a blow and vice
>>>>>> versa. … And let us not exclude either that certain experience of
>>>>>> touching (of 'who touches whom') do
>>>>>> not simply pertain to blows and caresses. What about a kiss?
>>>>>> Is it
>>>>>> one caress among many? What about a kiss on the mouth? What
>>>>>> about a
>>>>>> biting kiss, as well as everything that can then be exchanged
>>>>>> between
>>>>>> lips, tongues, and teeth? Are blows wanting there? Are they
>>>>>> absent
>>>>>> in coitus, in all the penetrations or acts of homosexual or
>>>>>> heterosexual sodomy? Is a 'caress,' more so than a 'blow'? (_On
>>>>>> Touching_, 2005: 69)*
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I do not think we need to participate in the reifying of binary
>>>>>> oppositions (either/or), and I do not believe in *meta*
>>>>>> anything. I
>>>>>> would never argue that *queering* is a *meta* anything. Why this
>>>>>> turn
>>>>>> to the *meta* -- which implied both a transcendence and an
>>>>>> outside?
>>>>>> And it is interesting that Judith states *Queering* relational
>>>>>> aesthetics, then, is productive inasmuch as it _forces_ that
>>>>>> metadiscursive
>>>>>> activity* (emp. mine). Here we are at a certain violence, a
>>>>>> force,
>>>>>> even as it is disavowed.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I mean this to be polemical, btw.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Robert Summers, PhD/ABD
>>>>>> Lecturer
>>>>>> Art History and Visual Culture
>>>>>> Otis College of Art and Design
>>>>>> e: rsummers at otis.edu
>>>>>> w: http://ospace.otis.edu/robtsum/Welcome
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> empyre forum
>>>>>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>>>>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> empyre forum
>>>>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>>>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Virginia Solomon
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> empyre forum
>>>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> empyre forum
>>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Virginia Solomon
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>
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