Dispossession and Appropriation

Lynette Dixon

I find Butler and Athanasiou’s discussion about appropriation in Chapter 10 to be quite interesting. Athanasiou asks “if the vulnerability of the other calls upon our own susceptibility to previous and current violent modes of appropriation, how might we retain a responsive openness to the political and futures of alterity, as a prerequisite for the openness of political temporality and spatiality?”(116) Leading up to this question is a discussion about a shift from the I, the “ethnocentric, moralistic, and narcissistically unilateral narrative of trauma” to a third person view of struggle that is affected by the vulnerability of others as “I cannot conceive of my own struggle…without him or her”. This point worried me because I think about the ways in which the vulnerabilities of different groups are not matched so I don’t see how we can operate from this third person view. The vulnerability of those who are made to become dispossessed by systems of oppression is higher than those who are not.  So I’m back to the question I quoted originally, I don’t see how such a view escapes violent acts of appropriation as the vulnerability that comes along with becoming dispossessed is not a feeling that all groups have. I was not able to pinpoint an answer to this question in the reading.

 In thinking about appropriation, I thought back to the conversation we had earlier in the semester when Iggy Azalea came up. She has become the poster child for appropriation and I think that Athanasiou’s question can be applied here. Where do we draw the line between the interconnectednesss that comes with being dispossessed and appropriating culture or experiences?  Where/what are the lines between being in hip hop culture end and living hip hop or living in the conditions that lead to the emergence of hip-hop and  continues to inform it?  Are Butler and Astanasiou arguing that there are none/shouldn’t be any?

Dispossession CH 8-11

I was most intrigued by the concept of "counting" lives in this week's reading. Butler and Athanasiou discuss what it means for a life to matter- both in a bodily, material sense and more abstract, social sense. They also examine how systematic racism/oppression and the dispossession of individual lives factors into placing value on people's lives. Athanasiou argues that the value of a life is intrinsically political, as individuals involved in political struggles are in essence fighting for "the possibility of living (and not merely or barely surviving)" (99). The political struggles that prevail are those that people in positions of power have deemed as made up of people whose lives matter more, and are thus deserving of a higher quality of life. Butler counters this argument in addressing the issue of the "duality of number and significant" (100). When people speak about the tragedies in Gaza, how does the "value" of each life change depending on how many casualties there are? I think the duality of number and significance is a really important concept to grapple with. Large-scale casualties tend to get more focus in the media, which makes it seem as though the lives lost in these instances "count" more than individual lives lost in other effects of the war. On the flip side, when casualties are grouped together, this may discount the value of each individual life.

This chapter relates to Butler's previous writings in "Undoing." Butler introduces this chapter with asking, "who counts as the human... and whose lives count as lives... what makes for a grievable life?" (17-18). While in Disposession, Butler and Athanasiou focus on the lives of the deceased, in Undoing, Butler spends more time discussing the life of the grieving individual. Butler speaks to the idea that in the process of grieving, something about our own identity is revealed, and we change in some way. This concept made me think about how individual lives are valued based on lived experiences. Is an individual who has grieved, overcome tragedy, and gone through emotional hardships and identity transformation more "valuable" than someone who has lived an "easier" life with less self-searching and growth? Butler speaks to the value of a life in both of her pieces, and thinking about this concept in terms of both lives lost and living lives adds another dimension to her work.

Butler and Athanasiou 8-11

Chapter 10, responsiveness as responsibility, was very similar to Zerilli's idea and problem of making a political claim. The founding paradox in Zerilli is the idea that once you make a claim you create a foundation that may be excluding people from making more claims. This is akin to the idea in Butlers discussion that we are responsible for maintaining certain norms in society but also need to be aware that maintaining these things may lead to greater dispossession for others. A key example of this was discussed in class as the problem of feminism where some feminist were speaking for all women but were not represented by many women from  different races and cultures.

Butler and Athanasiou: 8-11

Continuing with Butler and Athanasiou’s discussion on dispossession, chapter nine: “Uncounted bodies, incalculable performativity” stuck out to me. Butler and Athanasiou discuss how “counting” people can either aid in maintaining the political or social norms of society by dictating who counts or can be used by those being dispossessed to demonstrate their rights and existence. Even when laws do not uphold the rights of everyone, the ability to be “countable” is exertable outside the confines of the law and does not need to be state-supported, as exhibited through their example of the human rights group Btselem, which published their calculation of Palestinian civilian casualties in the last war against Gaza and was subsequently charged with treason. This example brought to mind a situation that I was confronted with while working in Belfast, NI, where there was still a debate going on about what constituted a person being a ‘victim.’ With two extreme sides that still feel the effects of the conflict fighting over who is a victim or a perpetrator, many people who died during the almost thirty years of violence are lost to politics.

Judith Butler then states that “when bodies assemble without a clear set of demands, then we might conclude that the bodies are performing the demand to end conditions of induced precarity that are not livable”(102). This reminded me of Honig’s article “Difference, Dilemmas, and the Politics of Home,” where she advocates that people must leave the comfort of their ‘home’ and address the issues of society. Honig talks about confronting and challenging our differences and forming coalitions that are not natural or easy, which I think Butler is advocating for. The dispossessed don’t need to have specific goals or agree on exactly what they want, but they need to show unification, which Honig admits isn’t easy.

Butler and Anthanasiou's "Responsiveness as Responsibility"

In chapters 8-11 of Dispossession, Butler and Anthanasiou continue their dialogue of performativity through means of dispossession on the account of others, counting of lives, and responsibility of disspossession. This week, I was particularly drawn to the chapter, “Responsiveness as Responsibility.” Anthanasiou raises the question of who is culpable and how do we prosecute incidents of racist and sexist speech. To her question, Butler responds:

“Yes, we are in a quandary, since we cannot say, “Pay no attention to that racist act – focus instead on the structures of racism that make it possible”; we would then end up in a form of dualistic thinking, separating the structure from its instance. The fact that the structure requires its instance to repeat itself, which is why every racist regime requires its acts of racism, its racist speech, its daily forms of discrimination and exclusion. If we extract the structure from the everyday, then we have produced an “inverted” world in which what happens at the level of structure is more important than what happens at the level of the instance. The same thing happens, as you suggest above, when we only seize upon the instances, raging infinitely and recurrently against the instances without ever seeing the broader institutional and political structures at issue. This is why we have to understand structures as both temporal and spatial, since they have to renew themselves through their instances, where the instance is also always both a temporal and spatial matter. This is why the enraging instances have to be taken seriously, even if they cannot remain the ultimate or exclusive referent for political analysis and opposition.”

When reading Butler’s response, I immediately thought about the SAE scandal that has been plaguing our news for the past couple of weeks. There have been many who applaud the University of Oklahoma’s immediate response of shutting down the fraternity and expelling the two students who led the racist chant. However, sociologists and academics have argued that rather than focusing on culpability and expelling the students, this incident should have been the opportunity for greater introspection and change at the institutional level. This is something Butler argues in her response, saying that if we solely “seize” upon the instances, we will never see the broader structures at issue. With the rise of incidents of racial discrimination and violence, I agree with Butler’s argument in that instances and institutional structures should not be mutually exclusive, but rather we should take incidents, like the SAE scandal, seriously and use them as ways to bring greater systemic change.

Over spring break, I watched Alex Witt’s program and her discussion of the SAE incident. I think it is a good example for Butler’s argument: (Start at 4:40) http://www.msnbc.com/alex-witt/watch/fallout-continues-for-oklahoma-frat-413213763853

Butler and Athanasiou chapter 8-10

Chapter 8 through 10 greatly reminded me of the Lugones' piece on the oppression of women of color by white women. In chapter 9, the two philosophers center around a discussion of freedom of body and mind through the "politics of performativity."Athanasiou state that "in various forms of racism and land dispassion, we well as in neoliberal forms of governance through market assessments, social mattering emerges as an apparatus that regulates contemporary processes of making live and letting die (97). According to Lugones, in Western feminist theory, the voices of women of color are excluded in that they are addressed by enforcing marginalization, a social construct synonymous, I believe, with what Athanasiou is describing. When feminist theory is constructed, it is at the expense of non-Western middle class white women, explains Lugones. This is the process Athanasiou and Butler discuss and describe within these chapters. Another social construct that reminds me of these chapters is the Mohanty piece, where the main theme of the article reveals around the idea that oppressors know better than their victims, who, if "they knew better," would embrace what the oppressors are presenting before them. In almost every instance, this is also a social "mattering" where a culture places itself above another and labels itself superior to enact oppression and dominance by way of social escalation.

Butler and Athanasiou: Dispossession

Judith Butler and Athena Athanasiou’s book “Dispossession: The Performative in the Political” explores dispossession through varied conversations that range from establishing a basic definition to discussing the modern economy. I found the conversational style very approachable, and their arguments were more understandable as they built upon and questioned one another’s points. Their early attempts to define and discuss dispossession result in two types of dispossession: the first, as I understood it, being under the control of an outside source that is “necessary,” such as government and law, while the second type pertains to “a condition painfully imposed by the normative and normalizing violence that determines the terms of subjectivity, survival, and livability”(2).  These definitions and further discussions around them remind me of the early reading “Five Faces of Oppression” by Iris Young, where she describes the five types of oppression: exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence. Our “necessary” dependence on the government for rights puts us in a precarious position where we can easily be oppressed and dispossessed. Much of the discussion on “being” dispossessed and “becoming” dispossessed reminded me of the many small and subtle ways that people can be oppressed, as discussed by Young, and how it only takes one of the five types of oppression to be oppressed. While oppression and dispossession usually go hand in hand, I think the general consensus that if one type of oppression is present, then a person is oppressed, applies to dispossession, whether it is present for the start or an active process.

A lot of issues were covered by Judith Butler and Athena Athanasiou in the first seven chapters of the reading. What stood out to me the most was the underlying implication that perhaps language is faulted in the description of differences by being to dualistic or deterministic. This is especially prevalent in the first chapters in which dispossession is defined as having a dual and paradoxical nature in that being disposed may be fundamental to identity as well as destructive for identity.

This aspect of dispossession seemed similar to the paradoxical nature of making political claims in Zerilli. When making a political claim one begins to speak for the entirety of the political collectivity for which one associates with. In this sense, the making of political claims is necessary for progress in a community but is also detrimental for those whose voices isn't heard by simply being associated with the claim of someone else.

"Dispossession: The Performative in the Political" CH 1-7

Judith Butler and Athena Athanasiou's introduction of "dispossession" as a troubling concept holds true throughout the first half of their book. They define this concept in once sense as a condition of autonomy and in another sense as painful experiences of oppression and subjectivity. In both cases, dispossession is inherently relational and ultimately unavoidable in the social world. Butler and Athanasiou comment on the inescapable and paradoxical nature of dispossession with their claim that "we can only be dispossessed because we are already dispossessed" (5). Essentially, they claim that being dispossessed is a fact of life. One aspect of their concept of dispossession that I found intriguing was the explanation of dispossession as staying in one place. The authors draw on Rosa Parks in this example, and they also touch on Palestine as another example. I found this concept related to Honig's use of the idea of "home."

Honig defines home as “a place free of power, conflict, and place—an identity, a form of life, a group vision—unmarked or unriven by difference and untouched by the power brought to bear upon it by the identities that strive to ground themselves in its place” (258). The concept of dispossession seems to relate to Honig's idea that home must be challenged and interrogated in order to establish political engagement and democratic practices. In refusing to get up from her seat, Rosa Parks challenged the idea of "home" by sitting in a place she was not "supposed" to sit. This form of resistance was a crucial part of the Civil Rights movement that led to substantive change towards democratic practices. In a different context, many Palestinians believe in the "right to return home," and that they are currently living in exile. Related to the idea of dispossession, I wonder how the concept of "home" changes if it is not the safe space that Honig describes, but rather a place of the past and idealized place in the future. It seems that populations would have the autonomy being dispossessed creates at "home," but in both of these examples, Rosa Parks and Palestinians are seeking that autonomy by leaving home (staying on the bus/hoping to return to occupied land).

Dispossession and Undoing Gender

Judith Butler and Athena Athanasiou present a lot of information in the first chapters but I am going to focus on the main definition of dispossession as it relates to the concept of grief that Butler presents in “Beside Oneself: On the Limits of Sexual Autonomy” . Butler and Athanasiou distinguish between two types of dispossession in which one can either be dispossessed or can become dispossessed.  Athanasiou states that being dispossessed means that “the subject comes to exist by installing within itself lost objects along with the social norms that regulate the subject’s disposition to the address of the other.”(2)  Butler adds to this by asserting that “we are dispossessed of ourselves by virtue of some kind of contact with another.” In this definition of dispossession, a subject is can only defined as such because of the dependency and relationships they have with the other and with culture. From my understanding, in this form identity is formed in relation to what it is not, by what it lacks. Becoming dispossessed, on the other hand, happens when a subject has normative culture and values imposed on them in a way that renegotiates the terms of their subjectivity. This form of dispossession describes the process in which one is violently relegated to the sphere of the other.

In the chapter we read in Undoing Gender, she talks about mourning and what this process proves about the dependency of subjectivity. She states that while grief is temporary, “something about who we are is revealed, something that delineates the ties we have to others, that shows us that those ties constitute a sense of self, compose who we are…”(18) Butler calls this the process of being undone by another but she also explicates that grief should be understood as one of the modes of dispossession. She states that the self that relies on relationality does not replace the autonomous self but rather explains the rupture between self and other that it the crux of identity itself. I think this is the same point that is being made in the book. 

Chapters 1-7

Athanasiou's discussion of having vs. not having in relation to having or not having a phallus. Butler and Athanasiou go on in the chapter to address lines of division within a group made up of females and males. Mostly, this reminded me of the division that occurs in Mackinnon's article. On the first day, according to page 87 of her article, dominance is achieved by a group. In the second day, the dominant group provides a division, or a structured having vs. not having system where the group that lacks the "having" is the submissive. The discussion Athanasiou and Butler have in chapter 4                          reminds me of these stages.
Chapter six of the book reminded me greatly of Young' fives faces of oppression and Tuana's taxonomy of the epistemology of ignorance. The line "when the 'self' who struggles for recognition and self-recognition has been violently mis-recognized, constituted as radically or uncannily unfamiliar by a recognizable self-same human," is reminiscent of four of Young's faces of oppression (65-66). In this, we see violence, powerlessness, imperialism, and marginalization of the smaller group. By this same logic, we can see how Tuana's epistemology of ignorance is then tied into the faces of oppression.

"Sexual Dispossessions" and "Difference and Dominance: On Sex Discrimination"

In reading Butler and Athananasiou’s Dispossession: The Performative in the Political, I was captured by their style in which they used to explain and analyze philosophical and political issues. Though we have read collaboration pieces written by two theorists (e.g. Lugones and Spelman’s “Have We Got a Theory for You!) Butler and Athananasiou’s work read more like a conversation, where two colleagues went back and forth discussing the political issues at hand. Though many times Butler and Athananasiou were in agreement, they often questioned and challenged each other’s language and concepts, making the reading more engaging.

While these first seven chapters discussed many of the concepts we have discussed previously, I was very interested in their chapter “Sexual Dispossessions.” This idea of regulatory versus constitutive means of power when discussing sex and gender made me reflect on Catherine MacKinnon’s “Difference and Dominance: On Sex Discrimination.” In her piece, MacKinnon argued that measuring women in accordance with man transformed sex into a “bipolarity” rather than a continuum, thus identifying women always as “the other” (MacKinnon). Similarly, Athananasiou and Butler discuss the complexities that come with “biopolitics” and sexual orientation. While Athananasiou argues that possession of a phallus strengthens masculine-feminine binary of power, Butler takes a step further from MacKinnon and Athananasiou’s ideas and argues that variances of sexuality and individual choice make the normative concept of “biopolitics” now ambivalent. Butler and Anthananasiou later enter a dialogue in which both talk about the problems of “sexual orientation” and how it must be released from the “hegemonic heteronormative” it cannot seem to escape. 

Difference and its ineradicability

Honig sees difference as something that is inherent and a part of the human condition. The problem of difference is that people attempt to flee from it. The ways in which this is done, according to Honig, occur through purely utilitarian ethics which, "... treats agents as point in the line of a satisfaction system, it obligates them to preform even very unpalatable actions if those actions are necessary to produce utilitarianly preferred outcomes." (Honig 263), and through adhering purely to ones integrity which, "consists in her being the sort of person who refuses to or is unable to dissociate herself from her emotions, feelings, principles, or projects even for the sake of a larger or more general good." (Honig 263) the reason that these two ways of dealing with ethical questions are flights from difference and dilemmas is because they are done as though it is outside oneself. From a standpoint that ignores the differences of the people involved. Honig suggests that the way to combat this is to work in coalition, among people with differences, and to realize that the comforts of home are imaginative projections of a life that cannot be and that we should be honest of the reality that the foundations on which we base this imagination of home may in fact be at the cost of the freedom of others. So then, through facing the reality of difference and working in coalition people will become de-centered and be more democratically inclined to change the institutions that ignore difference.

Difference, Dilemmas, and the Politics of Home

Bonnie Honig states that difference is “a problem for identity, not one of its adjectives” (258).  Honig wants ‘difference’ to become a more complex political term that encompasses, not only the surface identity of citizens only confirming their diversity, but also “the inescapability of conflict and the ineradicability of resistance to the political and moral projects of ordering subjects, institutions, and values” (258).  Democratic theory is no longer only responsible for finding and identifying the proper ways to organize people in successful democratic societies, but must respond to the vibrant changes and conflicts in modern society and redefine how political structures should handle and evolve with the changes. Honig states that democratic theory has previously allowed for the private realm of the home, which is free from the conflicts of politics and difference, allowing for a secure identity. Difference does not allow for a retreat from conflict or an identity outside of society, but requires each person to view themselves in relation to others and what is going on around them. Democratic theory should respond to this by requiring participation, as people’s identities are no longer disengaged from society.   

Bonnie Honig, "Difference, Dilemmas, and the Politics of Home"

Honig thinks about the challenges of difference to democratic practice and theory in terms of the concept of dilemmatic spaces. In this view, dilemmas are when the underlying differences that are always present in society reveal themselves, rather than being circumstantial challenges that occur. Honig conceptualizes differences as not just a descriptor in group identities, but the very integral core of an individual's identity. Therefore, the dilemmas that transpire due to differences can transcend government and politics and, Honig argues, serve as "a site from which to interrogate... the cultural constructs that support and stabilize conventional gender differences [and] value pluralism" (260). Ultimately, Honig claims decentered subjects working in social democracies is the ideal government format to deeply engage with and interrogate these differences. Honig claims social democracies are an ideal forum for these decentered subjects because they provide "the greatest potential to permit and even energize the sorts of mobilities and settlements these renegotiations [of difference] require" (273). In democratic practice, social democracies are a space that encourages challenging differences and transforming society for new generations. When decentered subjects occupy these democracies, they are successful in examining differences because they are both plural themselves and acutely aware of the major role that differences play in identities and dilemmas. They can, therefore, tackle these differences with a realistic worldview. This means they will utilize their in depth understanding of dilemmas and differences as integral to identity in order to "energize their social democracies" to renegotiate the meaning of justice.

Honig and Difference

Honig begins his article by outlining the difference between his definition of “difference,” stating how the past definition presents difference as “nothing more than [something that] identities different from ‘ours,’” an idea synonymous with pluralism. Honig explains that the definition of “difference,” the one he uses and supports, evolved to include a difference in identity, focusing on how this identity is formed and the concept of “that which resists or exceeds the closure of identity.” Unlike the past definition where difference was in fact a difference from others, this definition took on an approach where the difference stemmed from within. One of the major challenges of difference to democratic theory and practice is the adherence to the previous definition, from which division and segregation stem. As Honig states, “difference as simply a different identity enables them to affirm a diversity that is potentially unruly but is also reassuring insofar as it does not threaten to be ungovernable;” this is exactly what the true threat is. This diversity originates from a perceived division that, according to the past definition of difference, stems from the difference in identity. This is misconceived and allows for the development of the idea of the ‘other’ from which the hurtful and prejudicial side of ‘difference’ develops. An identity that stems from within impedes outward difference, as in, difference that is perceived based upon a physical or visual variance. Any type of difference that can be identified or labeled by an outside party, as the first definition practically defines, allows for a division to be made from the outside instead of from the inside. Division from the inside does not mean more segregation, but individuality, a concept the second definition promotes and encourages. Individuality allows democracy to prosper, while division based upon an outward difference promotes segregation and inequality.

            It is from this first definition that Honig suggests that the other threats of difference, such as ungovernability, stem. Though Honig goes to outline various other issues difference confronts democratic theory and practice with, I believe the one he opens and details in the first part of his article is the most important.

Honig's Concept of Difference in Democratic Practice (Post #7)

Using Bernard Williams’s analysis and examples of ordinary and radial dilemma and pluralism, Honig takes a critical step further in explaining the concept of home and its application when facing difference in democratic practice. Honig argues that people have an idealistic concept of home, “a place free of power, conflict, and place—an identity, a form of life, a group vision—unmarked or unriven by difference and untouched by the power brought to bear upon it by the identities that strive to ground themselves in its place” (258). Often compared to a mother’s womb, home is a conceptual place where our internal beliefs and integrity take precedent. As a result, we forever yearn home and have an internal instinct to preserve it. However, Honig recognizes this concept of home brings a plethora of issues. First, Honig argues (citing Bernice Reagon’s “Coalition Politics”) that home, a place with no conflict or difference, does not mirror the real world, a place filled with “Others” (people differing from us ideologically, racially, emotionally, and psychologically). Rather, it leaves certain people confined to a place a privilege, while “Others” are repelled and dismissed. Additionally, Honig recognizes that this desire to maintain the home and keep it away from conflict leaves people with two options—withdrawal (“to a supposedly safe home that is elsewhere, away from the all this tumult”) or conquer (“of that tumultuous disorder in order to build a supposedly safe home here.”) (270). For this reason, Honig describes home as “dangerous” and “engag[ing] zealotry” (Ibid). Consequently, she, in addition to feminist theorists Teresa de Lauretis and Bernice Reagon, believe that in order to establish democratic empowerment the concept of home must be challenged and interrogated. They argue this is the only way difference and dilemmas bring social democratic struggle. 

Democracy and Difference

Lynette Dixon

Address the question of how the author thinks about the challenges of difference (in terms of race, gender, etc.) to democratic theory and practice. 

Hoing asserts that difference challenges democratic theory and practice because it poses challenges to home and agency. Home, a space of identity, is said to be centered around the I and is a place that is free of conflict and difference. Hoing states that this type of home can only be made upon the displacement of Others, with clear demarcations from all that is different. She also states that difference destabilizes certain concepts of agency but allows for a type of agency that is open to and not threatened by such difference. What difference allows is a new type of subject, one that doesn’t retreat to the private home or use agency to seclude themselves. All this seclusion causes is a subject that sees difference as coexisting within a single self which limits how we view identity. The new subject is decentered and understands identity and difference as constantly engaging and perpetually moving. This is a concept similar to what Kristeva proposed for revolt wherein this perpetually moving self destroys categories that are restrictive. I think in this case, the perpetual motion of identity destroys this concept of the home as a stable and unchanging haven for identity. Without this home, the I is destabilized and the subject is not separate from all that is different. This allows for subjects that advocate for politics that are inclusive, just, and sensitive to difference because now everyone has an equal stakes in the implementation of these inclusive policies. 

Kristeva, "New Forms of Revolt"

In Julia Kristeva's article, "New Forms of Revolt," she focuses on the evolution of different methods of revolt throughout the world. While I found her article somewhat disorganized, the two forms of revolt that stood out to me were the more traditional, physical revolt vs. the newer, more subtle "inner experience" revolt. Kristeva focuses most of the article on these newer forms of revolt, which she defines as an inquisitive form of revolt that rebels against underlying problems through sharing knowledge and experience, rather than collective action against a governance or leader. She claims these rebels have realized "there is no answer to social, historic and political impasses without a radical inner experience; an inner experience that is demanding, unique, and able to appropriate the complexity of the past in order to approach the present and the future" (2). Kristeva uses examples such as poetry, prayer, and art to demonstrate her understanding of an "inner experience" revolt. Essentially, she argues that this form of revolt is a revolution of people's minds rather than their experiences.

Kristeva does not focus much on the traditional understanding of revolt as a people's rebellion, rather, she uses it as the backdrop from which she defines, compares, and critiques other forms of revolt. In the beginning of her article, she cites a few examples of "inner experience" rebels that have acted within large-scale revolutions. While I understand Kristeva's encouragement of this "new species of rebels," I think she discounts the realistic importance of traditional forms of revolt. Yes, the democrats who took part in the "Arab Spring" were important in spreading knowledge of new values, but would their work have mattered at all if not for the popular uprising that overthrew dictators? I think "inner experience" revolts are important- I visited an Ai Weiwei exhibit over winter break that was very powerful and demonstrated the influence of art as a form of revolt. Both forms of revolt are necessary to affect change, and I wish Kristeva had touched on that a bit more.

Concepts of Revolt

In Julia Kristeva’s piece, she examines and criticizes the forms of revolt through a political and psychoanalytic perspective. Politically, Kristeva’s describes modern revolt as “a challenge to pre-established norms, values and powers” (3). Yet, Kristeva’s articulates that this idea of political revolt should not be mistaken with the nihilist’s belief of revolt. For nihilists merely reject old ideas and replace them with new dogmas. Consequently, this suspends internal thought and creates a space for totalitarianism and other deadly spaces. As an alternative, Krsiteva puts great emphasis on the importance of “questioning the self” as a form of revolt (3). She states it is essential that men and women internally struggle and develop an inner experience that are “unique, inquisitive and uncompromising” (2). For this internal questioning allows people to be liberated from social standards of stability. Moreover, it enables men and women to express innovative ideas and language (through prayer, art, poetry, etc.) of revolt.

In reading Kristeva’s analysis of revolt and questioning the self, I see the importance of self-reflection and inner experience. For the “new rebels” who intersect or stand outside the standards of political governance, it is important that they construct new language and ideas in order to rebel against fundamentalism, while re-constructing the present and the future. However, I am curious in discussing the Freudian ideas of good and evil that come with this internal self. Though I personally struggled with the psychoanalytic jargon, Krsiteva focuses a large portion of her article on the paradoxes of jouissance and the relationship to “the One.” I look forward to discussing this more in class. 

Revolt Kristeva

From my understanding of the text the author is discussing the way revolt has been and the way that revolt in becoming. Revolts in the past have been rooted in the need for new dogmas to replace old ones and have had political implications. The new revolt, to my understanding, is actually a revolt from facing evil. Kristeva explains this through the analysis of adolescence, where she states that in adolescence one tries to break the Oedipal tensions by following a pleasure that has absolute satisfaction. the adolescent becomes either radically idealistic or falls to a state of nihilism, choosing not to see evil and good in order to ignore evil. This is called extreme evil, "In addition to this type of evil, however, there is an extreme evil, which sweeps away the meaning of the distinction between good and evil and thereby destroys the possibility of accessing the other’s existence, meaning, and self." (Kristeva 18) through this nihilism or blind idealism the adolescent does not recognize the values that exist by proxy of there being other beings and therefore becomes a force that excludes or harms.The only way out of this is through rational thought and questioning the roles of some grand other in ones life.

Kristeva's Revolt

The word revolt, as Julia Kristeva defines it in her article “New Forms of Revolt,” as a “challenge to pre-established norms, values, and powers” that, since the French Revolution, is seen as the “secular version of the negativity that is characteristic of the life of conscience when it attempts to remain faithful to its internal logic.” She goes on to say that the “New World Order” does not work in tandem with revolt as one looses sight of who to revolt against in cases of corruption or vacant value while loosing the ability to revolt as one ceases to be “subject” and instead turns into a “patrimonial person,” or a sack of organs. Overall, she cites various examples of revolt throughout her article as examples and evidence to her claims. However, an over-arching theme in her writing, I believe, is the contrast between “old” and “new” revolt. She likens “old revolt” to something akin to “revolution,” something that, for the past two centuries, has been associated in politics as “the abandonment of retrospective questioning in favour of an outright rejection of the old (old as in previous, not old revolt), so that new dogmas can take its place.” By contrast, “new revolt” is the “ nihilistic (rejection of old values in favour of a cult of new values that are unquestioned) suspension of questioning in favor of so-called new values which, precisely as “values,” have forgotten to question themselves, and as a result, have essentially betrayed the meaning of revolt.” Mainly, I see her thought process throughout the article as a criticism of the development of “new” revolt as it has developed and changed through various stages of both various psychological and physical manifestations of revolt. She mentions other forms of revolt (humble revolt, intimate revolt) and presents examples (Possession) she deems fits her categories. Though I may have completely misunderstood the article, I believe she is arguing that the modern development of revolt damages more than liberates, and should therefore be changed.

Kristeva and revolt

Kristeva’s article “New Forms of Revolt” contrasts two different types of revolt, one old and political, the other new and internal. My understanding of Kristeva’s article is basic, as I found it to be disorganized. Kristeva states that the commonly known definition of revolt is “a challenge to pre-established norms, values, and powers,” but the act of revolution has been tainted by politics such as “trade-offs between parties”(3). The ‘old’ revolt is based on the action of rejecting old values for new values without question, or as Kristeva puts it, “the questioning of values turned into nihilism”(5).

Instead of the ‘old’ revolt, Kristeva advocates for the ‘new’ internal type of revolt. We should abandon the nihilist approach to life, where we see life in absolutes. The new form of “intimate” revolt would have us constantly question ourselves and our internal emotional development, instead of seeing ourselves as having to fit into designated stages or the nihilist revolt of moving from one set of values to another (11). This new revolt means that people can recognize that they are always emotionally and mentally evolving, and through psychoanalysis can separate themselves from the constraints of society.

Kristeva Response

Lynette Dixon 

Kristeva delineates two types of revolt:

1)      Political revolt: This type of revolt interrogates social norms and external oppression and fights to change these norms politically. One yearns for the all the rights that come along with being a subject of a state.

2)      Revolt within the subject: This form of revolt interrogates subjectivity. It calls for an internal revolution that will reverberate through the collective. This internal revolution should come by way of an active self-analysis wherein the subject will recognize the ever-moving and ever-morphing self because this self is in constant motion. What follows is the annihilation of restricting categories and universal thought.   

I think Kristeva really nails what it means to revolt. I don’t think that complete freedom can be fostered within the same system that previously oppressed you. While there may be change, the foundation of the system will always be contingent upon your oppression. Rather than dismantling the whole system, which would be nearly impossible, there is a call for one to dismantle the idea of subjectivity. By doing this, the system can no longer hold you. There is no place for you in a political system because the system accounts only for subjects. By not occupying that space, the system cannot touch you. So now you’ve accomplished something better that eradicating the system. You are existing in it without being defined and confined by it. This is a far better accomplishment in my eyes because you serve as a constant point of resistance. You will definitely still be a target for violence. However, you will be internally free and you would not depend on the recognition of the system that seeks your oppression and eradication.

This idea is also wonderful because it account for a moving self which deconstructs the ideas of  a stable self. I think this allows for a type of existence that accounts for all the facets of self. I like this better than the idea of intersecting identities.  The concept of intersectionality is bound up with the negative. The language of the theory poses “intersecting” identities usually as intersecting oppressions. One is only intersectional if they are considered to be outside the norm, we wouldn’t consider a white, straight man as intersectional. Therefore the theory ascribes to the language and logic of the dominant discourse by othering and negating identities that fall outside of it. It also creates a hierarchy of identity which I think is harmful. What I like about a self in perpetual motion, as Pascal states, is that it open more possibilities for identity. One doesn’t have to choose between their gender identity and racial identity, as black women often have to do. Rather it can be recognized that there are multiple selves which exist: all of which she occupies, all of which equally inform her, all of which are valid and positive, none of which  signal her oppression but her capacity for greater understanding.