Judith Butler on US and world politics, feminism, gender-theory, non-violence, and many other things

[Music] foreign [Music] and welcome my name is Frank Ruda and together with my colleague Argan Hamza I welcome you to the uh new episode of The Crisis and critique podcast philosophy and its other scene um today's guest is someone who um basically suspends the very idea of being introduced I think uh in a way that um even exceeds the formula the commonly used formula of someone not needing an introduction I'm doing um The Impossible thus and um I will mention a number of uh introductory words in the most profane manner um just to indicate how impossible it is so I'm reiterating what I just already pointed to and then afterwards uh argon Hamza will start off kick off our conversation Judith Butler is distinguished professor at the graduate school and former Maxine Elliott professor in the department of comparative literature and the program of critical theory at the University of California Berkeley they received their PHD from Yale in 1984 and published numerous numerous influential highly influential famous and I mean given the present ideological climate one could also say Infamous um books um subjects of Desire that was a 1987 gender trouble 99 the bodies that matter in 1993 psychic life of power 97 excitable speech 97 as well antigones claimed 2000 I'm leaving aside the subtitles forgive me just because there there are so many and they're also important precarious life 2004 undoing gender 2004 um I'm jumping ahead to little frames of War 2009 um parting ways jewishness and the critique of Zion is in 2012 census of the subject 2015 uh notes toward the performative theory of assembly 2015 the force of non-violence 2020 what world is this a pandemic phenomenology um a phenomenal book uh on the experience everyone went through in 22 numerous translations into numerous language languages soon there will be a new book next year uh on anti on on the anti-gender ideology movement um which we will I think sort of um um talk about indirectly directly in in some way with some of our questions today um thank you so much for being with us students and taking the time it's immensely appreciated and I think we're both looking um forward a lot great thank you I'm very pleased to be with you today Judith thank you thank you so much for being with us here so I'll start with uh with a first question and which we thought would be like a bit of a politically tainted question so to speak uh how would you articulate your relation with and to uh to Marxism uh do you think Marx's work is relevant in our present historical and uh political uh conjunction if it is not what is missing and if it is how uh in what way could we identify its relevance yes um well thank you um well maybe I could start a bit autobiographically and then move to the question of the present let me pose um as a um as a young person um about 14 or 15 I started to read philosophy and um demanded in my own way um uh individual tutorials in my uh schools and um and for the most part I was indulged uh and I certainly read Marx then although nobody could teach remarks and um because that was not being taught in schools uh a primary and secondary schools so um but um I did uh read um uh Eldritch Cleaver I read um black black Marxism uh at the time and I um also read uh Marx's early manuscripts what was available to me then and um I um considered myself a revolutionary um although I couldn't quite answer the question of what kind of world I wanted to bring into being but I was fairly certain that I wanted this one to be overturned and that it would be a good thing if it were um and then later in college I um studied economic anthropology and also um red marks more academically and uh really enjoyed the field of economic anthropology especially the ways in which we were asked um to think about how the economy has been uh prior to capitalism embedded in social structures and historical norms and that it became a separate area of study and that the market became treated as something distinct um only with the rise of capitalism and this wasn't very important field for me but it also um set me up in an odd way um to refuse certain kinds of distinctions that my Marxist friends were making like well here's economics and here's culture and society and history and you're on that side and we're on this side it was like well wait I thought that we actually were learning something from Marx's pre-capitalist economic formations or the uh extraordinary work that followed um so I actually understood myself as involved in economics but not in the way that took um the economic sphere to be distinct and I was somewhat surprised when marxists themselves started to or told me you know I'm still fairly young uh it filled me that it was separated and had to be and that I was on the cultural side um and some of my good pals still say that to me but I'm still in conversation with them um so um you know it set me up the reading uh Marx um especially the pre-capitalist economic formations which became something of a paradigm for economic anthropology you know the work of Mark Block in history or Harry Pearson and in economic anthropology I I was not or carpalani's role in that in a uh formation of that field so I you know I had already deconstructed or had had for me deconstructed a set of oppositions that um uh turned out to be alive and well uh both among the capitalists and the Marxist so I I was disoriented in the theoretical field into which I eventually um emerged and of course I also um uh went to Germany as a Fulbright scholar in um I guess 1978-79 a long time ago uh and on the one hand I went to Heidelberg to study German idealism and I suppose that that Brands me as a true idealist and maybe I am at the same time once a week I went up to Frankfurt to hear what cover boss and his critics were doing so you know I've always been shuttling back and forth and in my teaching and in the formation of the critical theory program here at Berkeley um I've always taught Marx but I have focused mainly on the early manuscripts the German ideology and um and capital volume one I I certainly know the queen Chris and I I many of my students are that quite committed marxists and read widely um and uh I I love reading marks and I think Marx has first of all a kind of irony and piercing Insight that uh would help us in this day we don't have a lot of really good criticism of the kind that Marx offered um and I guess I should also say that the 18th group mayor has been enormously important to me both as a teacher but as a thinker since um I think we have all experienced this moment where you anticipate a revolutionary Uprising and everything is set up for that Revolution to take place and then it takes another turn and it turns out to people you were expecting to rise up in this fabulous way maybe are committed to Fascism or maybe they're committed to authoritarian States or maybe they're um discriminating against other minorities who don't fit there more or less narrow idea of what the working class should be um and you know I suppose um the final thing I would say here is that uh you know as somebody who works in gender studies I was very uh formed by socialist feminism and those debates they became really important for my thinking about kinship as an historically variable uh structure so from angles through the Socialist feminist Legacy has been enormously important and um and my more recent work with Ernesto Le club before he died um thinking about new social movements and how we uh how we think about them in relationship to a traditional notion of class but also ATM balibar who remains one of my uh most treasured interlocutors in this world okay that's there's much more to be said including what I think um uh about the work of Angela Davis who I think is constantly trying to renew Marxism in light of uh um questions of feminism and race and showing the interconnectedness of these issues without precisely being intersectional um so you know uh that has been enormously powerful for me and uh and and has shown me more or less that we shouldn't accept the idea that there are there's a kind of Marxism over here that's only concerned with uh homogenized notion of class and then there are new social movements over here who are messing things up I don't terrify that I think we need the larger the larger uh uh solidarity the larger Alliance and a an analytics that is is worthy of that um thank you so much I mean this this um we I think we can take a cue from your comments on the 18th Premiere because somehow I mean or very directly the 18th Premiere deals with failed Revolution with a strange repetition in it constantly worsening forms right um an attempt to break out of what seems to be almost a I don't know um maybe one could say historical para Praxis right it's one intense Revolution and it constantly goes wrong um so in this sense around the time maybe um um that Marx problematizes these things um I mean it's a bit earlier but still I mean psychoanalysis comes uh enters the scene and and and and and just to repeat somehow the the same question that we already raised um vis-a-vis psychoanalysis how do you relate um to to psychoanalytic theory psychoanalytic practice is that a partner in in your project in your Endeavor um are there limitations you see you see I mean of course there are limitations you know but yes um so so how would you relate to uh what what is your take on that um on psychoanalysis um well um uh I personally um find that psychoanalysis is enormously useful I don't really accept it um as an entire package nor do I work exclusively within that framework but I find myself turning to it on key occasions and I suppose um that um you know when I started writing about gender it was during the um the North American AIDS crisis which I say uh very distinctly because there are different histories of AIDS and some of them are quite contemporary so we we can't say like oh AIDS is over it's not over um and even like the good drugs that are available are not always affordable in different parts of the world and we know that there are massive um uh uh geopolitical differentials at work in the assessment of where we are with with AIDS but at least in the North American instance in which I was absorbed um it was quite shocking that uh people would lose their lovers and their friends and were not able to have any public acknowledgment of that loss or couldn't tell their parents uh or couldn't be out about it because their sexuality was criminalized the way they lived um and I thought about this a certain form of psychic suffering where you uh you undergo a massive loss but you cannot acknowledge it and there's no words for it and of course you know Floyd did talk about Mongolia in that way and so I wonder whether we could talk about a broader cultural Melancholia are there where where certain kinds of losses remain unspeakable that have to be suffered um in this uh in this way uh without acknowledgment and if there is no public language for a loss then um that suggests that there's also a public organization of who can be griefed and who cannot publicly speaking and given that grief needs the mark and needs the public acknowledgment According to Freud you kept openly more without openness um and uh to be pushed back in the closet not just in relationship to your desire but also your grief struck me as a form of psychic suffering it was also social so for me um I'm always trying to push in the direction of the psychosocial like how does psychic processes get organized under certain social conditions and how do social and cultural norms also enter into psychic life in a way that um reorganizes them but also tells us something about the um the forms of of suffering and potential uh that exist from within uh a psychoanalytic socially inflected uh framework um I mean that's just one example of it but um that's sort of how how I work yeah uh well can we maybe move at the beginning of your uh philosophical career which was in phenomenology uh we think you wrote your thesis with uh Maurice Nathanson yes uh who was himself a student of Alfred schutz no uh um uh should should Drew from uh from phenomenology in order to create uh the foundations or bases for for sociology uh does this relationship maybe even rivalry between uh sociology and philosophy or or even Theory as such uh plays a role in your thinking um I I find it extremely interesting to think about um philosophy and social theory together and you know the the phrase uh social and political philosophy uh usually only appears in certain kinds of philosophy departments not all of them go that way they might have political philosophy and then they might work very hard to say well there's political Theory over here and political philosophy over here I mean I'd take the wide lens I want to read Vapor I want to read shirts I want to read a uh Rousseau uh but uh probably I'm not going to find them in a philosophy Department sometimes rarely find Rousseau but mainly over in political Theory um so I'm I'm constantly traversing those boundaries and worry that um certain questions can't be asked well if we stay stuck in narrow disciplinary Frameworks I did appreciate that Maurice natinson my advisor um would reiterate this comment from sakhra that if a philosophy can't describe you know what's happening at a table in a cafe if it's not able to give an account of ordinary life in some um interesting or Illuminating way then it's really not worth it and so you know for him um philosophy couldn't just uh exist in a self-referential way it really had to be engaged with the description of the world and I I appreciated that uh very much I didn't end up following uh a strict phenomenological you know uh um trajectory and I I worked on the wrong phenomenology that different one hegel's um which I loved uh uh only because I as I started reading uh so-called French uh philosophy um of the uh late 20th century I um uh I found that this concept of Desire was really crucial for a lot of thinkers and I was thinking well who were they reading and why so I went back and looked at Hegel on desire but desire and recognition as concepts are obviously in my work in different ways in gender and War and precarity in in ways that I don't know I wouldn't know how to track but I'm aware that it's there I think we can very very well tap into the question of let's say the link between philosophy and sociology or the what you call psychosocial Norms or the psychosocial normative earlier because recently in in the most recent episode we talked to a link at the panchic member of um um the slovene school for um well maybe one could say philosophical psychoanalysis she just wrote a new book on Antigone you also wrote a book on Antigone yes um in uh which appeared in 2000 I'm taking this clan kinship between life and death um and you show in that book I mean to abbreviate massively that Antigone in her take on the strange and paradoxical Choice she has given on the First Choice one could say she she allows to problematize uh natural kinship relations and their normative restrictions um which then has massive implications also for the discussion with psychoanalysis because if one takes Oedipus on the one hand side as a normative Paradigm or Antigone one ends up somewhere very very differently with very different normative um settings um so we wanted to raise the question do you think we can still learn something is antigonous claim to cite the title of your book again still pertinent today does it have to be re-articulated is it still telling us something is it maybe more forceful than ever um I mean we were we were thinking here in part of the new kinship that is abortion legislation that were implemented um very worryingly from from from a perspective on the other side of the Atlantic um in some states uh of the US for example yes um well thank you um you know Antigone is an interesting figure she she can't be a model for a political action and alinka I think also makes that clear sheet argues that a link that Antigone is in fact a kind of self-negating character um and I understand that but one reason [Music] um uh that Antigone remains interesting is precisely because she refuses solidarity at the moment which she's offered it she wants to be alone in her Defiance of Creon um her sister says I'll I'll take care of it or I'll come with you it's like no you know she wants individual what we would call heroism I'm not sure that's really the quick the term but but I I would I would say it's a heroic individuality of the peripheral feminist um and I I think um uh that you can't resist authoritarian power uh Alone um uh you can't speak for people you can be exemplary um I don't think she is um in part because uh she doesn't have a strategy for taking down that uh that power um uh she does show that that power can be rivaled and uh imitated uh mocked that she could speak in the voice of that same power and I think that's absolutely maddening for for Creon to see that he doesn't possess the voice of power uh she actually enters into his grammar and um gives it back to him in in a in a quite powerful way um but um Antigone is a is a kind of example of courageous speech uh uh under conditions in which it is fatal to speak um so if if we if we ask the question what would it have taken for Antigone to live that is to say not to end up dying at the end of that play well it would have taken a really well orchestrated uprising of a whole lot of people who wanted to see a different kind of power um so my my way of reading which is not exactly lakinian um and maybe even not psychoanalytic is uh to ask um uh what would it have taken well for Antigone to live and for um something other than a self-defeating political project to have emerged and that means experimenting with the book and allowing the figure to change so I'm interested in the fact you know that Antigone is also trying to mourn her brother and that this is a singular relationship um she doesn't think the state should have anything to do with that it's made very complex by the fact that the state is also her uncle so she's trying to articulate a difference between kinship and the state and it keeps re-entwinding and re-entwining right so you know much like I was saying earlier about the economy it's a kinship it's not really an autonomous system I know that the structuralists really wanted it to be I understand why I even think um uh the um uh the work of of Marshall Sullins before he died was a kind of last effort to give it a kind of autonomous character and I I appreciate that really deeply if anyone could have done it he could but kinship is constantly being worked through the law right um you know legal entitlement to my child I mean it took two years of fighting you know even like yes you are in fact parents like thank you um so you know that there is uh there's an in inevitable uh intertwinement there and you know I would also say not that Antigone should be the frame over and against Oedipus but Oedipus has been uh widely overestimated as the only possible framework for psychoanalytic thinking and many of the feminist thinkers like Jessica Benjamin and others and and object relations or the newer work in relational psychoanalysis have made clear like there's a pre-edible there are some other things Philly Mitchell says what about siblings why didn't we start with siblings right so you know there are many people coming in at different angles or LaPlace let's just talk about a primary caretaker it doesn't have to be the father the mother and just said well it could be a maternal field you know it's let's not focused just on the mother so there have been his social and historical changes in the psychoanalytic Paradigm that interests me and um you know some older versions maybe uh more normative versions of psychoanalysis have obviously uh and some Orthodox lacanians have been uh instrumental in pathologizing gay lesbian families and the like so we really need to push back against that Orthodoxy of psychoanalysis is going to continue to inform uh social and political um uh theory and practice in some interesting ways I think it can but I think it needs to push back against those more normalizing and rigid orthodoxies thank you uh can we move to another continent uh since mid-september 2022 there's been a massive a series of massive demonstrations and civil unrest in Iran this all started with the murder of Masa Masa amini but her family used to call her Gina if I'm if I'm pronouncing this this while which in English translates as life uh but the Iranian State doesn't permit its citizens to be registered with a name that is neither Persian nor uh nor or Islamic uh we think this is one of uh only one of the aspects of the historic discrimination against the Kurds not only in Iran but in in the in the entire uh region uh uh so so to speak what is really fascinating about is that her National debunking is not mentioned neither by the Iranian progressives or blacklists but neither abroad but in the international uh level so we were wondering what is your view of the protests in in Iran and uh how do you see the Kurdish question in general yes uh it's a great question um well I don't know how well uh educated I am to answer this question well but of course I read and I'm in touch both uh with Kurdish feminist groups um through my friends in Istanbul but also um uh I know that some of the the history of the regional um issues there I I think we have many issues going on um uh uh I have great respect for the protests in the street especially the young girls who are running through the street and singing I think singing is great um I remember when people from Tahir Square came to um Wall Street and they said well where's your music and people said oh we don't have music but we have a library and they said no no you'll never have a revolution without your music so I think it's the song like I really I love the singing it that's open morning and it also links morning with um rage and demand for justice which is maybe the Antigone for the present that we're we're trying to think about um I think uh that there's also I mean it was complicated for me because there were some people who contacted me and said we need you to denounce the Iranian regime for being Theocratic and I thought oh I'm not sure I'm going to do that um uh um the idea being that uh if they were not Theocratic and secular they would not be doing this but we know secular regimes count um inflict enormous abuses so I I was concerned about that and I also wanted to make sure that wasn't an anti-islam position at the same time I did want to and did on occasion uh condemn the Iranian regime for its brutal repression and it's murders and I worry you know the problem with the example right like this young woman of course she's the example she stands for the oppression but the Press did not um the major media did not follow how many young people were killed how many protesters were killed and how many of them were put in um in in uh the uh the political prisons there so you know there's no follow through when you focus on a single issue because it's that figure who comes to condense and represent the entire movement you actually need a little bit more patience to find out who else is being affected and what are the modes of resistance um I think uh that uh for many people the fact that um uh that Kurdish uh people are not recognized as such or are treated in a um a deeply demeaning or subjugating or a facing manner within Iran it's not it's not part of the public understanding but I think um I think it is really important and in fact the Kurdish people as We Know um have been suffering uh disproportionately in this massive um uh earthquake catastrophe and have been explicitly targeted by the erdogan regime um I have enormous respect for uh many of the people who are struggling for Kurdish autonomy and um uh trying to get uh International attention on that issue is no easy matter um not sure I addressed your question but those are my my thoughts about it maybe I think I think we can connect the next thing we wanted to raise quite well to this two issues maybe of could call um female emancipation that that are linked to the feminist feminist movement or the signifier feminism because it seems to be um quite a if if that's an okay thing to say a topsy-turvy one or in to a certain degree a disorienting one in the Contemporary situation um which brings back maybe some motives we touched upon in between the 18th Premier and Antigone so to speak the vast Fields um maybe the not the maternal view but maybe the feminist field that lies in in between of them simply because if one thinks about what are the present weaknesses um let's say theoretically and practically and maybe also the strengths but maybe addressing the weaknesses or impasses is is is is is is a it's an interesting interesting way of approaching the Contemporary situation I mean if one considers for example the the relationship between gender Theory and feminism it has been quite a difficult one in uh in in the most recent period um and we were just thinking of the of the role that some I'm in Scotland so Nicholas sturgeon just resigns because of some I mean links one could say to some um um a legislational changes that she implemented vis-a-vis self-determination rights that directly pertain right I mean to to the ways in which people self-identify uh and two problematic cases which fuels exactly I think the position of some very prominent turfs I mean just the trends exclusionary radical feminists um that often endorse very conservative positions um yeah so so we wanted to to raise uh what what is your what is your take in the Contemporary situation what are the challenges for a feminist position if one factors in if one takes seriously the inside of of of gender Theory and what what what what is the ideological ideological toxic turbiness that we're right now facing well I have to say that the way in which this topic is treated um in in the UK is very different from how it's treated in the rest of the world so I think something very specific and um uh um intense intensified is happening there uh maybe in part because when the uh National Health Service in um the UK opened up uh public debate on whether um young people should be able to identify or whether adults should be able to identify with whatever gender they choose um uh it It produced all kinds of views on this topic and it was opened for public debate as part of the policy consideration right so they had the policy then they opened it for public debate and sure enough you got a state-sponsored um intensification of a conflict that otherwise could have been dealt with in a much better way so you know for me I don't understand I mean it would it would be very sad to me if we said there's gender Theory here and feminism over there no gender comes out of feminism um there's no uh there's no contemporary way of thinking about gender critically without feminism um I myself am a feminist there's no question about that of course gender we could say as a term like precedes feminism and it's grammatical history but also in sexology and John money's clinic and the rest but uh for the most part um anthropology um economics has used gender for a very long time um and that's within the feminist framework so I I must refuse that uh standoff right because it deprives me of my feminist history and commitments but it also um uh it's a tactic the distinction is itself a tactic in a battle right so if you accept the distinction your push and gender outer feminism and you've already agreed that they're they're separate but the debate is about whether they're separate no I don't think gender has to be the only Paradigm within feminism right there are people who work on sexual difference or people who work on intersectionality who use gender differently there's you know it's it's not like the only framework but um I think we have to uh be careful here uh in in Argentina and throughout Latin America as I'm sure you know the new naminos movement and um uh many of the movements that came to to Europe and to other parts of the world um as massive feminist mobilizations uh uh uh our our constitute the largest feminist mobilizations of our time and I I've been shocked to see how feminism has become just such an important galvanizing uh force on the left throughout Latin America and it is a it's a form of feminism that is trans inclusionary like the state um has deprived trans people of their rights or has deprived women of their rights or women in a large sense inclusive obviously of trans women um uh the rates of femicide or the killing of women the rates of of uh the killing of trans people uh are both very high and very much linked in a patriarchal order that believes that violence against um uh women trans people gain lesbian people is is somehow okay because it's either uh um uh supporting a sexual order that is uh heterogram a different patriarchal in character uh or because these are crimes of passion and uh passion is okay uh as a as an alibi uh so or um if the state itself is criminalizing or fails to enforce its laws people do feel um that they're free to act on their hatreds in some ways that are completely unacceptable so the alliance has to there has to be an alliance uh um between gay lesbian uh bisexual people asexual people um uh uh queer a transgender not conforming whatever the multiplicity is we we need to be connected not on the basis of identity but on the basis of a shared opposition to State violence and to other forms of violence a shared commitment to Freedom the freedom to live and move on the street and this includes uh of course centrally um in Latin America and elsewhere uh indigenous rights uh rights of belonging rights of uh movement uh rights of protection against the violent uh violent forms of um uh uh not only the physical violence targeting indigenous people but the the violence of extractivism and the violence of dispossession and the violence against the the Earth and and the various life forms that are intertwined with that land so I I feel like um we need to keep our our we need to be really clear about what we're opposing right we need to be opposing forms of authoritarianism and extractivism and racism thing this is these are interconnected we need wide ways of thinking and Broad solidarities to stand any chance on these small internescent fights are uh they're just painful uh and they've lost track of who the enemy is uh uh it's very it's very sad to me uh but I do think in the UK the state the state-sponsored debate has actually made the focus more narrow what you know what should kids at the Tavistock be told okay that is an important question and I have some views on that but it's not the only political issue in the world I mean de-pathologizing trans kids would be just the basic thing you know when and where hormones are given when and where surgery becomes an option we can publicly debate all of that but you know you don't strip people of their rights and you don't deny them recognition that they ask for this is like a basic there's no solidarity that can be built if those uh simple um uh Rec requirements are not met I think that was more of a rant than an answer but okay I like the rounds uh I mean we would like to talk a little bit more about the Contemporary situation but we can follow up very nicely from what you said uh Donald Trump recently said that should he be elected uh he plans to strength yeah uh exactly just traumatized me that I'm I'm here yeah no he declared that should he be elected he plans to strengthen the nuclear uh family and uh he would push a bill that recognizes only to Sexes which are determined at Birth and no no gender and this seems to further uh decrease the right to self-determination and bodily autonomy especially after the overturning of uh bro and versus versus Wade or all this clearly shows as you said that these issues are highly uh highly politicized what is your assessment both political and philosophical of these developments that could hardly see more reactionary yeah well um first of all Trump already tried to do this once um and he failed he asked the health department to declare um that um that gender is sex assignment and That There's no distinction between them and and the health department the health Ministry that we have refused to do that um but but look he's um he's uh giving his version of a Playbook that is uh is being circulated by Orban uh um who also wants to define the family uh as in a heteronormative way um by Maloney who uh claims that gender or gender ideology will make it impossible for people to say mother or father because because those terms will be somehow outlawed by the radical gender people which I find you know almost funny except that it has enormous power to incite people who are worried about all the ways in which their lives have been upended economically and um through climate disaster as well um and then um uh and and by Putin clearly who who understands that the family is uh under attack by Ukraine because Ukraine is a uh uh um becoming part of the European Union or or is allied with the European Union and their gender mainstreaming Norms will be an imposition of gay ropa on Russia so in 2015 right Putin says um that uh that these uh movements uh gay and lesbian movements feminist movements from the so-called West um are all attacks on uh Russia's spiritual uh uh Center or values and he he in fact named gender uh in particular as a national security threat so but we have to you know ask like what is the incitation that um that this is meant to accomplish because Trump cannot get it through he tried already and it didn't work um uh uh but um but I think that um uh um he's he's appealing to people who are disturbed by new family formations by gay and lesbian lives by by feminist freedoms including the freedom to get an abortion if you want to uh and if you need to um uh and he's trying I think as as are some of the rest of the um uh ultra-conservative uh uh leaders to um to demonize gender so that it's the place uh and it's the force that is destabilizing um the lives like once we return to a header and wanted to order whoever order we will all the anxieties and fears you have about the future will be fine so it's a you know it's a it's a false ticket to order but it it obviously appeals to a lot of people as does Melone um who does a pretty good imitation of Mussolini when she starts talking about gender I mean to to stay with the with the humanization of theory it is it's pretty interesting that there is a strong belief in the efficacity OR practical efficacity of theory only from the wrong people one could say right yeah um it is and and like recently if we're informed correctly the Florida Board of Education banned critical race Theory from classrooms in Florida yes I've I only saw some reports where there were actually no books in schools in in some schools right I mean um which which is is really bewildering and puzzling we were thinking how how does um how does does that affect or how how would you account for that against the background of your your earlier Reflections um on words or discourses on signifiers that can hurt or inflict pain we're thinking about exciting excitable speech book of course so in a vulgar way is that almost like a weaponization uh a weaponizing of the idea of vulnerability for the most conservative and reactionary purposes um like a a reappropriation of a of a a trobe almost of a of an idea of a concept that was once had clearly emancipatory potentially and is right now and and these are attempts to appropriate that very potential for the exactly uh opposite purposes what is is that what is happening what you would you say about it um well it's hard I mean let's start just with the concept gender ideology right I mean this is a a notion that that emerged out of the World Congress the family and it was discussed um um in the um over the last uh 25 years uh if not more the Vatican took took some pretty strong stands against gender and the idea of gender as an ideology is is um is the idea that it is uh one position it's a it's a a Dogma and that those who adhere to it are um uh either um totalitarians um as some of the German critics have said or they are trying to seduce your children uh they're in danger to children they're trying to teach children to be gay or teach children to masturbate or teach children to be trans or you know and and of course the idea that it's an inculcation okay here's the Dogma now we're going to impose it on people and these kids have to you know they're recruiting or at worst we're pedophiles who are seducing um so you know for some uh it is a a diabolical ideology uh and in fact the Vatican did use that word suggesting that this is the Contemporary work of the devil um and if it's the devil um it will try to trick you and its aim is to defeat uh God to be the Rival to God and to defeat God so when Pope Francis said um that uh gender is like a nuclear bomb or uh likened its adherence to Hitler Youth um we recognize right away that this is an inflamed idea of the power of a certain kind of construct and you know we could take it apart intellectually he doesn't think people should be free to choose their gender he can accept gay and lesbian people as long as their sexuality is not a choice that's not an expression of Freedom it's a necessity of some kind you know they're God's children we have to accept them um but um but there's also an idea of freedom that is very frightening um to at least some of the uh both Evangelical and Catholic opponents of gender um which is uh also I think clear in the abortion debates should women really have the freedom to decide or should pregnant people more broadly to decide to have an abortion or not or should that be the state's interest and the U.S Supreme Court said it's the state's interests we need to intervene because women should not be exercising this freedom right so the limitation on freedom is very intense and I'm sure I'm talking not metaphysically or anything like that I'm actually talking about political freedoms so we could all have different accounts of why we have the sexuality that we do if we have one or why we're drawn to be this or that gender or how we experience that you know those are all interesting intellectual questions but you know should this be a permissible zone of freedom is the question that many people are asking and when the Vatican says look they think they can create themselves those trans kids those trans people those genderqueer whatever they think they can create themselves well the power of creation belongs to God Alone they're trying to steal the power of creation Now most gay lesbian trans people don't think they create themselves from nothing they are dealing with a complex Constitution like this is my desire this is my identification we can debate about where that comes from but the idea that the political freedoms that gave lesbian trans people should have women pregnant people but those political freedoms should be restricted because freedom challenges the primary place of God and religious Authority um is uh is is really Central I think to this whole um uh this this whole thing and and you know and it's contradictory and in some interesting ways right like oh if I'm a gender theorist then I believe in a set of precepts like somebody who believes in the Bible right I mean I I cite things I believe them I don't think about them critically and I pose them on others I mean they've never been to a gender and women's studies class where everybody's arguing about every term okay anyway we're we adhere to document we impose it but they're actually projecting what they do onto us and then imagining that we're a kind of rival Dogma or a rival Authority just like the devil is coming to defeat God where the Rival authority to religious Authority um you know I could go on and on but it's it's in a it's an astonishing configuration and it links you know that the same almost I think within 10 days of each other Putin said you know if we let Ukraine win European gay gender ideology comes in we won't be able to sing mother and father anymore Milani said the exact same thing in Italy it's like where are they in conversation no but there are these world congresses and a very uh amazing uh amazingly effective digital um uh Network on the right that does uh uh propound and repeat these phrases in different parts of the world sometimes very the very same phrases I think we can move but connected to uh another topic you criticized the identity politics and I'm quoting a sentence from notes toward uh performative theory of assembly it fails uh to be to furnish a broader conception of what it means politically to live together across differences sometimes in modes of unchosen proximity especially when living together however difficult it may be remains an ethical and political imperative is the the current re-emergence and intensification of xenophobia racism you mentioned Euro but I would also add their pollen you know with their right-wing uh government which has been going on for quite many years now but uh Latin America India us as well at least in at one level this emergence is it like an outcome of the failure of identity uh uh politics and maybe even strengthened by it hmm um you know I think there are this is a complex matter because what people call identity politics differs um across the political spectrum and why they tend to call something identity politics rather than something else is also kind of interesting so you know black lives matter would we say that's identity politics it's about black people yes but it's also about police violence and it's also about State violence um and also about prisons it's about radical inequality why wouldn't we say it's a Justice movement or an equality movement why do some people say oh that's identity now it could be that some people on the left think that um that all these issues like race and gender and class and usually it's said with something exasperation that that you know we need a broader left framework and that these are subordinate they're secondary or they're important to include or um but there's a broader framework that has to take precedent over that um in a way um I understand that but with black lives matter or with perhaps uh the very idea of freedom is being um redefined or maybe the very idea of equality is being redefined and if we're committed to radical democracy and we know that over time we are asked to rethink the basic concepts by virtue of challenges especially the challenges of those who've been excluded from the history of Freedom or the history of equality it's like I see you're committed to Quality but it's not for me or not from mine I just feel that we need to be uh we need to hear a little bit differently what some of these movements are about um now I think there is some a kind of left that thinks it has a either a Marxist framework or an overall framework that's being chipped away at by what is called identity politics but maybe those are actually challenges to the framework that the framework needs to take up in order to have a broader coalition so you know I mean I um I think um and I think I think we just need to rethink that more broadly what I what I do worry about is people who say well I only uh enter politics from the point of view of my identity and four people who share my identity and my aim is to achieve recognition or Justice for this identity and this identity alone now if we do that um but we're okay with discrimination or oppression being suffered by others then we are contradictory we're not generalizing from our condition or asking what kind of solidarity we have to have with other people who are in a similar kind of situation maybe not the exact same which is why um it upsets me that a feminist some feminists who say um that um they're in favor of um the the rights of women uh to exercise Freedom are not in favor of the rights of trans people to do the same so what would it mean to limit one's uh the the generalizability of the of the form of Freedom that you are that you're defending it means you're actually committing a rather severe contradiction because you are agreeing to discrimination on the one hand and um uh and fighting it on the other uh so I think those kinds of contradictions need to be overcome I am in favor of um kind of ever widening Circles of solidarity I think there are forms of cultural linguistic political translation that have to happen for solidarities to emerge that really work um I want them to be transnational I don't want them to be like re-vivifying the nation-state as the as the the necessary framework within which people elaborate their their political goals um um and um so you know I have some skepticisms of the critique of identity politics because I feel like it's not being heard right and then I also have my own concerns about very narrow views that aren't interested in in in the broader solidarities that we need I think that the next issue we wanted to raise and um uh talk about with you is directly connected because it concerns somehow the question of identity and solidarity or maybe one could say identity and universalizability um of a certain position namely maybe that that pertains maybe one could say to the material conditions of theory um namely to to the to the framework of the University I mean you are um maybe the the the most um um the the best person to uh raise this question to your distinguished Professor with a distinguished career um you're clearly uh someone who Foucault would have described as a Creator invented the inventor of a new discursive regime one could say so that distinguishes you on three levels at least um so it's um um how would you describe the the the status of higher education and today I mean um to raise the the um age-olds question already raised by cons and others what what do you think that the the the role what what is the situation what are your thoughts on the University today as somehow the material conditions of transmitting um a certain certain theories what is the role of humanities within that it's a huge question we know but we think it's important to raise it especially because I mean it's it's not easy to make a career in the humanities for many many scholars out there PhD students right especially when they follow certain paths that are politically contested and highly highly debated yes well you know um I think in recent years maybe the last decade or so we've seen a shift from um an interest in public intellectuals you know who could be identified as such to the idea of the public Humanities um public intellectuals put the in these distinct and exemplary individuals into the Limelight and of course there are many and and they do great work um very often uh but uh the public Humanities is different it's an orientation of the University towards the the public world and uh a recognition that the the the world outside the walls of the University is also inside the walls of the university and those walls are porous as they should be so um my my sense is like that the university is not a place for the transmission of theory I'm not sure I transmit anything maybe I hope not uh but but it is a place where certain kinds of critical uh thinking takes place and by that I mean uh really considering what are the presuppositions of our ways of knowing and our ways of living how are they leading to destruction um how are how are they implicated in forms of violence or forms of exploitation or oppression what are the promising dimensions of our public Worlds how do we think about them what about the Arts how do they Galvanize us or give us a way of thinking about our world in a new way or even planning or or pledging uh um a different world than the one we're in so I um I think that open uh critical debate on key topics especially those that are controversial and difficult to talk about is the task of the humanities we have to read closely and carefully what is it that people are saying let's not use a paraphrase let's not come in with a prejudicial understanding of a position let's study turn it over have a public debate allow your own viewpoint to be revised by what someone else says be asked to return to the text and show me the evidence for your claim I mean these are these are not just activities that happen inside the university they happen in public debate and we either act like we know already what critical race Theory means yeah um and in Florida people will tell you um some who oppose this idea who have never read the books you know can't spell you know Kimberly crenshaw's name um uh those folks will tell you that oh critical race theory has a single message and that is that we are a racist Nation well we reject that therefore and we don't want our children being told we're a racist Nation so we're it's like well let's see what does it say you know where did it start where what are its claims what where what what is the importance of the legal framework for this Theory what kinds of standing does a person need to have to make a legal claim how did critical race Theory emerge from certain kinds of reflections of that sort what is it saying what is it not saying what other you know kinds of studies in the field of race are there that are different paradigms you know like it's it stands for everything what other critiques of racism are there that are not we're not part of that particular legal movement I mean we either say we're not interested in knowing what we're talking about uh we just want to oppose it because this figment of my imagination is politically useful to Galvanize um a reactionary public or to pull them in a reactionary Dimension or we bring our thinking out into the public which is what I think we actually need to do we need to we the university needs to open its laws and be part of public debate and you know you don't have to become a dry scholar to ask some key questions like what is meant have you read this I met a woman in Switzerland who who came up to me after a lecture and she she said I pray for you I said why and she said because you don't accept the biblical um uh claim that that God created man and woman and she looked at me like what's wrong with you and I said um and she said and uh it's natural God created nature and this is a natural distinction and I said well nature permits of some complexity actually and maybe there are different ways to read the Bible and she was like no that's not the case and then I said did you ever reap my work anything from and she said no I would never read your work I would not touch such a book I thought exactly exactly my point if she touched the book she'd be contaminated or she'd be trafficking with the devil like right so it's critical race theory gender the whole point is never to read them not to know what they stand for so that you can substitute a phantasmatic projection or a reading it means those of us in the University who think critically or even part of critical theory broadly construed need to be out in the public World talking to people um trying to make clear what is happening and that also means publishing in media that are not academic or not narrowly academic so you know we can't just hang with our own people and you know think well at least we're smart they're dumb right that kind of cultural arrogance doesn't work we need to be involved in the practice of public thinking and more and more people are doing that I see that it's extremely important thank you well let's move to another another topic one of your recent books I don't think it's the last one I think it's the one before the last examines is the force of non-violence uh a non-violent position uh if we may rephrase you in these terms inscribes an ethical stance into uh the political field uh confronted with another war in Europe and also clearly referring to your frames of War Book we were thinking about how would you assess the Russian aggression against Ukraine I mean more concretely uh we were wondering what do you make of this situation where it seems quite impossible to even think about uh about uh non-uh violent position um well you know I've been in touch uh in the last year with some Ukrainian feminists who um are clearly in favor of self-defense and I would never say Ukraine should not defend itself against Russian uh aggression no I would not say that my point about uh non-violence is actually one that some of them also think about which is um uh um how do we create a world in which um non-violence can become uh a shared norm and um and of course for me non-violence is not a principle that I impose on situations like oh you should be non-violent no matter what the circumstance um it's rather a um a perspective that asks um the question of how do the tactics we use also um reveal the kind of world we want to make so you could see it perhaps in the in the tradition of of pre-figuration within Marx's Theory like are we acting in such a way in resisting aggression that we risk becoming likely aggressor or are we acting in such a way that uh will end this aggression so that we can live in a world without aggression and it's it's a it's a way of testing tactics to see whether they hold up um are we bringing more destruction into the world are we bring less destruction into the world in acting in the way that we do so a number of the Ukrainian feminists I spoke to are still they're still holding out for a non-violent world I mean in a way that is their aim but they're they want more arms and they want or they want a a more stronger diplomatic efforts uh more courageous ones uh more more clever ones um and I think um you know I think that's where I that's where I I stand I I I do believe in self-defense I was trained in self-defense as a young feminist and that's an important idea but you know in self-defense you know the violence comes at you from the outside and you you try to move it against the one who is um attacking you uh and that's a that's an important um uh principle of Aikido it's an important principle of uh uh of of of struggle so um I guess what I'm critical of is the idea that you can um I mean let's put it this way when one defends or country defends itself how does it make sure it's not committing the same atrocities how does it make sure it's not becoming like the power that it opposes and that's a kind of ethical moment in the mid St of conflict and it's one that I think needs to be constantly posed in uh in the course of a Justified resistance to uh to aggression as we as we see in in the Russian Ukraine instance to move um from the philosophical and political discussions onto somewhat well maybe lighter but maybe not lighter turnout but at least to another to another scene um soon there will be the Oscars happening in a few days and there have been quite a number of politically sort of politically charged uh movies around that that were appraised um and we were in general just wondering if if if you if you have seen anything that you found intriguing incisive bothersome or whatever we were just thinking for example tar raises the question intricate questions maybe somehow that relates to to the entire metoo movement and questions of power uh the benches of initial questions of friendship and identity in a very and maybe also when friendship tips over and becomes lebittenized and what that means for for uh censorship um the triangle of sadness is maybe a an articulation of how frustrating it can be to play through all the forms of resistance against capitalism and they all fail everything seems to fail and how to represent it this is just an arbitrary list and if you if you tell us you haven't seen any anything that was worth your while that's obviously fine no I thought the triangle of sadness was a brilliant film quite frankly um for the reasons that that you say um you know what is a resistance and how how did how is it that what you resist can nevertheless enter you and take you over or partially take you over or you realize that there's a kind of constant um um a failure involved in a in in a resistance to something that is that powerful um tar I found um complicated um I wasn't I wasn't as much a fan as some other people um that I know um I accept the thesis says it were that uh um uh uh that women harass men harass um uh they as professors or as mentors we do have a certain kind of power people who work with us depend on our ethics because they their well-being and their Futures depend on our ability to support them um and when we um undermine their well-being by getting involved with them or by involving them in our own narcissistic uh um circuits uh We've we fail as mentors we we fail ethically um so even though I think there's lots of libido everywhere that doesn't mean we act on it all the time and in certain certain circumstances it's benign and then others it's actually potentially undermining um but then I have to ask like for that film the way it gets taken up like oh good finally we now see that women harass too and uh that means it's not a problem for men to deal with or it's not primarily a problem for men to deal with and I think for most people uh who think about this um most of the wrestlers are men and uh um which doesn't mean that women don't uh exploit narcissistically their students in ways that are unacceptable but I do believe that the film um shifts from the um tries to uh uh erase the structural problem of harassment as mainly one in which uh more powerful men are exploiting less powerful women um so the heteronormativity of harassment the um the masculine privilege that harassment articulates that that gets backgrounded I don't and I you know so on the one hand yes of course there are women and it's wrong on the other hand if we make that into this Central statement at this moment of time in time are we deflecting from the the structural dynamics that that should be the focus um I I think um I also think there was something else going on in that film about uh kind of European civilization and the love affair that working that that this working class American had with certain civilizational ideals um which I found very painful that you know that class the class dimension of that film wasn't talked about as much as some others um and I also found rather uh disturbing the final scenes which struck me as a kind of rank orientalism I wasn't quite sure whether we were supposed to think that being in a nameless um East Asian country possibly Thailand and playing in that setting um with people in masks and costumes was like the most demeaning thing in the world you could do where we also asked to as viewers to agree in the that this was vulgar and horrible I mean it was vulgar and horrible in light of her her values but are they supposed to be our values as well um and I I was very suspicious of that ending and thought that the film was maybe complicit in the the idealizations that it was also trying to expose also her journey wasn't good enough and she's not a plausible lesbian so it was really weird for me my partner said that the um conducting acting was also not very believable you know it was histrionic it was histrionic so can we move from here to your relationship with artistic uh practices in general uh how does the Contemporary Art let's say Music Theater film uh affect your work at all if it does it does um I would say that some of my most important public engagements have been through Arts institutions so for instance the the center for um contemporary um culture in Barcelona is uh is a place I've gone to many times and what I find really important is the way that art events and public discussions work together I um I've worked with many uh people in performance studies because my own work has contributed to some of the theoretical apparatus of that field and um and that's been very important to me uh certainly written about painting and and films uh on occasion uh but I I think that um uh I've recently been been thinking about the climate activists who through uh who through food or paint or on onto iconic works of art or glued their hands to the to the to them and on the one hand I I very much appreciated the uh critique of the museum and the elitism of that cultural that kind of cultural institution on the other hand I feel like a lot of museums are trying to open themselves up as new public spaces for performance dance discourse and so it's also important to me to um to be part of that becoming public of the museum the opening of the door um so uh I um I do think that uh so many people find um impossible to imagine the future uh they're terrified many young people are terrified there is no future um either because of uh fossil fuels and climate destruction or because um of uh the overwhelming uh wealth disparities that capitalism has produced in in this it's late uh stage um that um that there's no way to imagine the the future that it's just terribly grim I think that sometimes um artworks or art experiments can allow us to think about things we otherwise find intolerable to think about um like what what I mean rather than throwing the food or the paint on the artwork of art I would like to see radical aesthetic experimentations that try to imagine the world otherwise or help us to deal with what feels impossible to think about um uh to overcome our denial about extractivism and climate destruction to overcome our denial about violence so that we can thematize it and work with it a bit more constructively so I actually put a fair amount of faith in um aesthetic practices to help us think the unthinkable and to um imagine a political future that's more compelling and stronger than the phantasms of the right wing uh on gender and race or whatever else they're they're they're carrying on about we we need a powerful um imaginary that can counter the imaginary of the neo-fascists and the authoritarianism the authoritarians and I don't know where that comes from other than a politically engaged kind of art form I think that connects we're slowly approaching the end already um but that connects well I mean the the question of um let's say the political value of an artistic imagination of what seems impossible to imagine this counter imaginary Force what would you say um it's a very broad question and we're almost asking for a slogan but please don't give us one if you if this is uh too much of a reification um what would you say the ultimate stake just again uh turning it back to the Contemporary situation for for political action for political practice and theory is today foreign state did you say the ultimate stake the ultimate what is what is that the most precious the most pressing concern um just to identify not a solution but the task for which then our I mean yes it's it's a it's an impossible question we know but maybe not um I think uh that maybe uh uh I would um accept the the distinction between faster and slower forms of violence um that there are ways in which where populations are being plunged into poverty precarity forced into um displacement might enforce migration [Music] um uh abandoned to toxic uh environments and and also ways that people are being incarcerated or killed or killed in war or killed in um in in continuing uh um violent assaults as we see in Palestine um I I think that um uh from for me um uh linking the institutional forms of violence to the explicit forms of violence is extremely important in order to build a solidarity that understands um uh uh Anders and resists um uh the the violence of capitalism and the violence of um from a side uh and all all of this um in an interconnected way um I mean I think I I am uh I would call myself an anti-capitalist for sure and their versions of Marxism I do accept I'm not sure capitalism alone can explain everything that we need to be thinking about right now so um I I'm not sure there's one issue maybe the one issue is the inter-articulation of these struggles and you know the commitment to building forms of solidarity that accept the the the differences among struggles and the interdependency of the struggles and that that is what we need an imagination for a critical imagination whether it's in the academy or on the street or in the Arts institutions or in aesthetic practices that are outside of Institutions altogether um I guess that's my answer so we want to end this with a series or either or questions uh I mean you can elaborate on your choice or you don't have to can we do this go ahead yeah okay so the first question either or Hana aren't or Walter Benjamin oh the two together you're asking the wrong person these questions together and in the end Benjamin okay so the second Julia christeva or Sigmund Freud segment Freud okay the third Wagner or Beethoven Beethoven maybe surprise so the fourth one uh Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden pretty Sanders ah the fifth one uh higel or Marx and the very last one uh Lenin or Mao ah probably now wow okay if I had to yeah thank you so much to this thank you so much uh it was it was really great okay why can't we talk ground she okay anyway go ahead okay it's all right thank you so much for being thank you thank you very much okay take good care everybody [Music] [Music]

Channel: Crisis and Critique

Views: 14,238

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Id: yHaO7XoPJdY

Length: 89min 55sec (5395 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 04 2023