WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.480 welcome back to the deep dive today we are not 00:00:02.480 --> 00:00:05.740 just stepping into a topic we are uh stepping 00:00:05.740 --> 00:00:08.880 into what feels like a battlefield and i really 00:00:08.880 --> 00:00:11.000 don't say that to be dramatic no it's true we 00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:13.519 are looking at a figure who occupies a space 00:00:13.519 --> 00:00:16.300 in the modern world that is well it's almost 00:00:16.300 --> 00:00:19.000 impossible to reconcile on one hand you have 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:22.120 a philosopher who receives the adorno prize which 00:00:22.120 --> 00:00:25.629 is the highest cultural honor in Germany. A huge 00:00:25.629 --> 00:00:27.809 deal. A huge deal. And on the other hand, you 00:00:27.809 --> 00:00:30.350 have a person who, while visiting Brazil for 00:00:30.350 --> 00:00:33.469 a conference on, of all things, democracy, was 00:00:33.469 --> 00:00:36.350 burned in effigy by a furious mob in the streets 00:00:36.350 --> 00:00:38.560 of São Paulo. It is. I mean, it's a level of 00:00:38.560 --> 00:00:40.780 polarization that you usually reserve for heads 00:00:40.780 --> 00:00:44.119 of state or, you know, revolutionaries, not for 00:00:44.119 --> 00:00:46.460 an academic who spends their time analyzing French 00:00:46.460 --> 00:00:49.159 post -structuralism and German idealism. Exactly. 00:00:49.159 --> 00:00:51.759 We are talking about Judith Butler. Now, if you've 00:00:51.759 --> 00:00:54.399 set foot on a university campus in the last 30 00:00:54.399 --> 00:00:56.359 years or if you've scrolled through some of the 00:00:56.359 --> 00:00:59.219 darker corners of Twitter, you know the name. 00:00:59.320 --> 00:01:01.719 Yeah. You definitely know the buzzwords. Gender 00:01:01.719 --> 00:01:04.620 is a construct. Performativity. Queer theory. 00:01:05.880 --> 00:01:08.400 These phrases have become cultural shorthand. 00:01:08.640 --> 00:01:11.340 And that's precisely the problem, isn't it? When 00:01:11.340 --> 00:01:14.239 ideas become shorthand, they lose their texture, 00:01:14.400 --> 00:01:17.859 they lose their rigor. Butler has become a symbol 00:01:17.859 --> 00:01:20.760 for a certain kind of culture war, a stand -in 00:01:20.760 --> 00:01:24.120 for everything people love or hate about modern 00:01:24.120 --> 00:01:27.299 progressivism. Right. But the actual work, it's 00:01:27.299 --> 00:01:30.260 dense, it's challenging, and it's surprisingly 00:01:30.260 --> 00:01:32.180 different from the slogans you see on the T -shirts. 00:01:32.590 --> 00:01:34.530 That is our mission today. We're going to strip 00:01:34.530 --> 00:01:36.969 away the memes and the outrage and actually look 00:01:36.969 --> 00:01:38.930 at the text. We have a massive stack of sources 00:01:38.930 --> 00:01:42.170 here. Biographies, the dense theoretical books 00:01:42.170 --> 00:01:44.150 from the late 80s, the political writings post 00:01:44.150 --> 00:01:47.129 9 -11, all the way up to the 2024 release, Who's 00:01:47.129 --> 00:01:49.170 Afraid of Gender? It's a huge body of work. It 00:01:49.170 --> 00:01:51.170 is. And we want to understand not just what Judith 00:01:51.170 --> 00:01:53.849 Butler thinks, but how they think and why this 00:01:53.849 --> 00:01:55.909 specific thinker has become the lightning rod 00:01:55.909 --> 00:01:58.209 for global debates on everything from, you know, 00:01:58.230 --> 00:02:00.769 bathrooms to foreign policy. And it's worth noting 00:02:00.769 --> 00:02:03.280 that while gender is... the headline, the scope 00:02:03.280 --> 00:02:06.120 is so much broader. Butler gives us a toolkit 00:02:06.120 --> 00:02:09.740 for understanding violence, mourning, language, 00:02:09.860 --> 00:02:13.639 and really what it actually means to be a human 00:02:13.639 --> 00:02:16.300 subject in a world that is constantly trying 00:02:16.300 --> 00:02:18.789 to define you. So I have to ask the question 00:02:18.789 --> 00:02:20.469 that I know is on everyone's mind before we start. 00:02:20.710 --> 00:02:23.110 Butler is legendary for being difficult to read, 00:02:23.169 --> 00:02:25.250 right? I remember hearing about a bad writing 00:02:25.250 --> 00:02:27.949 award years ago. They absolutely did win that 00:02:27.949 --> 00:02:30.310 award back in the late 90s. And we're going to 00:02:30.310 --> 00:02:31.949 talk about that because Butler actually has a 00:02:31.949 --> 00:02:34.750 fascinating defense for why the writing has to 00:02:34.750 --> 00:02:36.490 be difficult. Oh, I'm interested to hear that. 00:02:36.689 --> 00:02:39.770 But my promise to you and the listeners is that 00:02:39.770 --> 00:02:42.169 today we are going to do the translation work. 00:02:42.210 --> 00:02:44.750 We're going to take those complex sentences and 00:02:44.750 --> 00:02:47.080 hopefully... Turn them into those aha moments. 00:02:47.319 --> 00:02:49.300 I love that. So let's rewind the clock. Because 00:02:49.300 --> 00:02:51.199 when I look at the biography, I sort of expected 00:02:51.199 --> 00:02:54.219 to see someone born in a Parisian cafe, you know, 00:02:54.240 --> 00:02:57.280 debating Sartre. But the origin story is much 00:02:57.280 --> 00:03:00.539 more American heartland. Cleveland, Ohio, 1956. 00:03:01.400 --> 00:03:04.120 That is where it begins. But to understand the 00:03:04.120 --> 00:03:05.960 environment, you really have to look at the lineage. 00:03:06.620 --> 00:03:09.280 Butler was born into a family of Hungarian Jewish 00:03:09.280 --> 00:03:12.539 and Russian Jewish descent. And this isn't just 00:03:12.539 --> 00:03:14.539 trivia. It's foundational. Most of the maternal 00:03:14.539 --> 00:03:16.819 grandmother's family was murdered in the Holocaust. 00:03:17.180 --> 00:03:20.060 Wow. So that shadow of state violence, of just 00:03:20.060 --> 00:03:22.740 catastrophic loss, it's there before Butler even 00:03:22.740 --> 00:03:25.000 speaks a word. It's the atmosphere of the home. 00:03:25.340 --> 00:03:27.280 Butler grew up in a practicing Reform Jewish 00:03:27.280 --> 00:03:29.620 household, went to Hebrew school, the whole nine 00:03:29.620 --> 00:03:32.280 yards. But there is this incredible anecdote 00:03:32.280 --> 00:03:35.080 from their childhood that I think is the skeleton 00:03:35.080 --> 00:03:37.560 key to understanding Butler's entire intellectual 00:03:37.560 --> 00:03:40.319 life. The punishment story? I saw this in the 00:03:40.319 --> 00:03:42.060 notes and I couldn't believe it was real. It's 00:03:42.060 --> 00:03:45.139 very real. So imagine a young Judith Butler in 00:03:45.139 --> 00:03:48.240 Hebrew school, extremely bright, but also what 00:03:48.240 --> 00:03:50.139 the teachers called talkative. A troublemaker. 00:03:50.300 --> 00:03:52.620 A bit of a clown. Butler was the kid asking too 00:03:52.620 --> 00:03:55.819 many questions, disrupting the flow. So the rabbi 00:03:55.819 --> 00:03:57.560 decides that Butler needs to be disciplined. 00:03:57.759 --> 00:03:59.879 Okay, usually that means detention or writing, 00:03:59.960 --> 00:04:02.340 I will not talk in class on a blackboard a hundred 00:04:02.340 --> 00:04:05.860 times. Not for this rabbi, no. He assigned Butler 00:04:05.860 --> 00:04:08.800 special ethics tutorials. It was essentially 00:04:08.800 --> 00:04:11.319 a private philosophy class as a punishment. That 00:04:11.319 --> 00:04:13.520 is the best punishment I ever heard of. Right, 00:04:13.620 --> 00:04:17.360 but here's where it gets wild. At age 14, Butler 00:04:17.360 --> 00:04:19.899 wasn't just reading the basics. They asked the 00:04:19.899 --> 00:04:23.160 rabbi to study three specific topics. First, 00:04:23.339 --> 00:04:26.040 why Baruch Spinoza was excommunicated from the 00:04:26.040 --> 00:04:28.560 synagogue. OK, that's a heavy hitter for a 14 00:04:28.560 --> 00:04:30.939 -year -old. Spinoza is not light reading. Not 00:04:30.939 --> 00:04:34.589 at all. Second, whether German idealism. The 00:04:34.589 --> 00:04:37.189 high philosophy of Kant and Hegel could be held 00:04:37.189 --> 00:04:39.670 accountable for the rise of Nazism. And third, 00:04:39.810 --> 00:04:42.769 existential theology. My God. At 14, I was trying 00:04:42.769 --> 00:04:45.529 to figure out how to get out of gym class. Butler 00:04:45.529 --> 00:04:48.250 is asking if the entire structure of German rationality 00:04:48.250 --> 00:04:50.629 accidentally created the Third Reich. Exactly. 00:04:50.889 --> 00:04:53.589 And just think about what that signals. It signals 00:04:53.589 --> 00:04:56.529 a mind that is deeply engaged with its own community. 00:04:57.079 --> 00:04:59.079 Butler didn't run away from the synagogue. They 00:04:59.079 --> 00:05:01.600 dug deeper into it. But it's also a mind that 00:05:01.600 --> 00:05:03.860 is obsessed with the failures of authority. Right. 00:05:03.980 --> 00:05:06.240 Why was this guy kicked out for thinking differently? 00:05:06.639 --> 00:05:09.540 Why was Spinoza kicked out? How did this civilized 00:05:09.540 --> 00:05:12.500 philosophy of Germany fail to stop or maybe even 00:05:12.500 --> 00:05:15.300 enable the Holocaust? It's this constant questioning 00:05:15.300 --> 00:05:17.639 of the rules, even the rules of your own team. 00:05:17.819 --> 00:05:19.779 It sets the stage perfectly. It's this blend 00:05:19.779 --> 00:05:22.339 of like insider knowledge and outsider critique. 00:05:22.420 --> 00:05:24.920 It's a rebellion, but a scholarly rebellion. 00:05:25.199 --> 00:05:28.730 Precisely. Intellectual DNA takes Butler to Bennington 00:05:28.730 --> 00:05:32.170 College and then to Yale for a PhD. And interestingly, 00:05:32.449 --> 00:05:34.930 the early work isn't about gender or sexuality 00:05:34.930 --> 00:05:38.110 at all. It's about that heavy German stuff, Hegel, 00:05:38.189 --> 00:05:41.790 phenomenology, the mechanisms of desire and recognition. 00:05:41.910 --> 00:05:43.970 Which is, I guess, the direct line from those 00:05:43.970 --> 00:05:45.949 punishment tutorials. It really is. It's all 00:05:45.949 --> 00:05:48.410 about how we become who we are in relation to 00:05:48.410 --> 00:05:50.509 others and to power. Which brings us to the late 00:05:50.509 --> 00:05:54.480 80s, the moment the academic earth shook. We 00:05:54.480 --> 00:05:56.319 have to talk about the book that launched a thousand 00:05:56.319 --> 00:05:59.759 dissertations, Gender Trouble. We do. But to 00:05:59.759 --> 00:06:02.079 really, really grasp Gender Trouble, which dropped 00:06:02.079 --> 00:06:04.660 in 1990, we need to look at a precursor essay 00:06:04.660 --> 00:06:07.459 from 1988 called Performative Acts and Gender 00:06:07.459 --> 00:06:10.120 Constitution. This is where the concept of performativity 00:06:10.120 --> 00:06:13.339 is born. Okay, let's unpack this. Because performativity 00:06:13.339 --> 00:06:16.079 is one of those words that everyone uses, but 00:06:16.079 --> 00:06:18.839 I feel like 90 % of us are using it wrong. When 00:06:18.839 --> 00:06:21.480 I hear performance... I think of a stage play. 00:06:21.620 --> 00:06:24.040 I think of an actor putting on a costume. Right. 00:06:24.120 --> 00:06:25.800 And that is the most common misunderstanding. 00:06:26.660 --> 00:06:28.740 People think Butler is saying, I wake up in the 00:06:28.740 --> 00:06:31.339 morning, I go to my closet, and I decide to perform 00:06:31.339 --> 00:06:35.680 man today. Tomorrow I might perform woman. As 00:06:35.680 --> 00:06:38.279 if it's a singular voluntary choice, like putting 00:06:38.279 --> 00:06:41.759 on a hat. And Butler says, that is not it. Butler 00:06:41.759 --> 00:06:45.420 explicitly rejects that. To understand performativity, 00:06:45.879 --> 00:06:48.060 you have to go back to linguistics. There's a 00:06:48.060 --> 00:06:50.040 philosopher of language named J .L. Austin who 00:06:50.040 --> 00:06:52.139 talked about speech acts. Speech acts, okay. 00:06:52.399 --> 00:06:53.959 He pointed out that there are some things you 00:06:53.959 --> 00:06:55.959 say that don't just describe the world, they 00:06:55.959 --> 00:06:57.579 actually do something in the world. They bring 00:06:57.579 --> 00:07:00.060 something into being. Like what? Give me an example. 00:07:00.259 --> 00:07:02.079 Okay, so the classic example is when a judge 00:07:02.079 --> 00:07:05.819 says, I sentence you to 10 years in prison. The 00:07:05.819 --> 00:07:07.800 judge isn't describing a prison sentence that 00:07:07.800 --> 00:07:10.660 already exists. His words create the sentence. 00:07:10.920 --> 00:07:13.480 They make it real. Or when a couple says, I do 00:07:13.480 --> 00:07:16.779 at a wedding. Exactly. The words change their 00:07:16.779 --> 00:07:19.639 legal status. They aren't just reporting on a 00:07:19.639 --> 00:07:21.759 feeling. They're performing an action that has 00:07:21.759 --> 00:07:24.060 consequences. Those are performative utterances. 00:07:24.240 --> 00:07:26.779 Okay, so the language creates the reality. I'm 00:07:26.779 --> 00:07:30.420 with you so far. Now, apply that to gender. Butler 00:07:30.420 --> 00:07:33.259 argues that gender is not an internal truth. 00:07:33.560 --> 00:07:37.339 It's not a soul or a biological destiny radiating 00:07:37.339 --> 00:07:41.319 from your core. Instead, gender is a set of acts 00:07:41.319 --> 00:07:44.040 repeated over time. It is the way you walk, the 00:07:44.040 --> 00:07:45.839 way you speak, the way you sit, the way you dress, 00:07:45.920 --> 00:07:48.199 all of these things. So it's a script. It is 00:07:48.199 --> 00:07:49.800 a script that has been rehearsed for centuries. 00:07:50.240 --> 00:07:53.220 And this is the key. We perform it so often and 00:07:53.220 --> 00:07:55.439 everyone around us performs it so consistently 00:07:55.439 --> 00:07:57.980 that we forget it's a script. We start to believe 00:07:57.980 --> 00:08:00.600 that the acts are the result of an internal gender. 00:08:00.779 --> 00:08:03.480 Ah. Butler flicks it. The acts create the illusion 00:08:03.480 --> 00:08:05.939 of the internal gender. The repetition of the 00:08:05.939 --> 00:08:08.199 performance is what makes gender feel real and 00:08:08.199 --> 00:08:11.000 natural. So when a doctor says, it's a girl. 00:08:11.600 --> 00:08:15.000 That isn't a description of the baby. No. Butler 00:08:15.000 --> 00:08:18.160 argues that it's a girl. It's a performative 00:08:18.160 --> 00:08:20.560 speech act. It is the first command. It's the 00:08:20.560 --> 00:08:23.019 director yelling action. It sets the script in 00:08:23.019 --> 00:08:25.660 motion. The pink blanket, the name, the tone 00:08:25.660 --> 00:08:28.439 of voice used, the expectations, the girling 00:08:28.439 --> 00:08:31.560 of the child begins immediately. That is a mind 00:08:31.560 --> 00:08:34.139 bending shift because the old feminist slogan 00:08:34.139 --> 00:08:37.639 was sex is biological. Gender is social. Sex 00:08:37.639 --> 00:08:40.259 is the hardware. Gender is the software. Right. 00:08:40.360 --> 00:08:43.000 The classic distinction. Sex is between the legs. 00:08:43.080 --> 00:08:45.740 Gender is between the ears. That was the consensus. 00:08:45.860 --> 00:08:48.409 And Butler. blew that up in gender trouble. They 00:08:48.409 --> 00:08:51.509 argued that sex itself, the biological categorization, 00:08:51.649 --> 00:08:54.690 is also socially constructed. Hold on. How can 00:08:54.690 --> 00:08:57.409 biology be socially constructed? Bodies are real, 00:08:57.509 --> 00:08:59.289 right? I mean, chromosomes, hormones, they exist. 00:08:59.669 --> 00:09:01.389 Oh, absolutely. And this is a huge point of confusion. 00:09:01.730 --> 00:09:03.970 Butler isn't saying bodies don't exist. They 00:09:03.970 --> 00:09:06.190 aren't saying matter isn't real. But they are 00:09:06.190 --> 00:09:08.149 saying that we can never access the body raw. 00:09:08.370 --> 00:09:10.850 We always, always view the body through the lens 00:09:10.850 --> 00:09:13.049 of our culture, our language, our expectations. 00:09:13.529 --> 00:09:15.350 So we're wearing gender glasses all the time. 00:09:15.549 --> 00:09:18.320 You are. When a doctor looks at an ultrasound 00:09:18.320 --> 00:09:21.279 or a newborn, they aren't just seeing tissue. 00:09:21.539 --> 00:09:24.120 They're looking for specific signs that allow 00:09:24.120 --> 00:09:26.240 them to categorize that tissue into a binary 00:09:26.240 --> 00:09:29.539 system, male or female, that our society invented 00:09:29.539 --> 00:09:33.080 and is deeply invested in. So the binary isn't 00:09:33.080 --> 00:09:36.139 a fact of nature. It's a grid we place over nature. 00:09:36.440 --> 00:09:39.289 Exactly. And because we are so committed to that 00:09:39.289 --> 00:09:42.450 grid, we ignore, or even surgically correct, 00:09:42.730 --> 00:09:45.509 the complexity of biology. Things like intersex 00:09:45.509 --> 00:09:48.409 traits, hormonal variations, to force everything 00:09:48.409 --> 00:09:51.789 into those two neat boxes. So it's less a scientific 00:09:51.789 --> 00:09:54.210 fact and more a regulatory system. It's a regulatory 00:09:54.210 --> 00:09:56.950 system. And that system creates trouble for anyone 00:09:56.950 --> 00:09:59.210 who doesn't fit. Yeah. If you don't perform the 00:09:59.210 --> 00:10:00.950 script correctly, you are punished. You are seen 00:10:00.950 --> 00:10:03.690 as wrong or unnatural or sick. Your very existence 00:10:03.690 --> 00:10:05.850 is called into question. But if it is a script... 00:10:06.169 --> 00:10:08.370 Scripts can be rewritten, right? That seems to 00:10:08.370 --> 00:10:10.350 be the hopeful part of the theory. That was the 00:10:10.350 --> 00:10:12.789 glimmer of hope Butler offered. If gender is 00:10:12.789 --> 00:10:14.909 built through repetition, doing the same acts 00:10:14.909 --> 00:10:17.090 over and over again, then maybe we can disrupt 00:10:17.090 --> 00:10:19.970 it by subversive repetition. By doing the acts 00:10:19.970 --> 00:10:23.330 wrong. By glitching the system. And this is where 00:10:23.330 --> 00:10:25.409 the drag queens come in. This is where Paris 00:10:25.409 --> 00:10:28.529 is Burning comes in. The seminal 1990 documentary 00:10:28.529 --> 00:10:32.549 on New York's drag ball culture. Butler analyzes 00:10:32.549 --> 00:10:34.710 this film to make a crucial point about imitation. 00:10:35.470 --> 00:10:37.850 Which is? Well, people often think drag is a 00:10:37.850 --> 00:10:40.990 fake version of a real woman. It's a man imitating 00:10:40.990 --> 00:10:42.690 a woman. That's the common understanding, yeah. 00:10:43.029 --> 00:10:47.289 Fultler says no. Drag reveals that being a woman 00:10:47.289 --> 00:10:52.080 is itself a performance. When a drag queen exaggerates 00:10:52.080 --> 00:10:54.700 the walk, the makeup, the hair, the mannerisms, 00:10:54.860 --> 00:10:57.259 they're exposing the fact that cisgender women 00:10:57.259 --> 00:10:59.919 are also performing those things. They're just 00:10:59.919 --> 00:11:01.799 performing them in a way that's considered natural. 00:11:01.940 --> 00:11:04.379 So there is no original. Exactly. Yeah. We're 00:11:04.379 --> 00:11:06.539 all copying a copy of a copy. Drag just admits 00:11:06.539 --> 00:11:09.179 it exposes the imitative structure of all gender. 00:11:09.240 --> 00:11:11.159 It pulls back the curtain. I can see why this 00:11:11.159 --> 00:11:12.740 blew people's minds. I mean, it's a fundamental 00:11:12.740 --> 00:11:15.240 reordering of how we think about identity, but 00:11:15.240 --> 00:11:17.360 it also led to that criticism we touched on. 00:11:17.399 --> 00:11:21.190 The idea that gender is just a whim. Gender voluntarism. 00:11:21.330 --> 00:11:23.649 Right. And this was a huge problem for Butler. 00:11:24.110 --> 00:11:26.529 Critics said, oh, so I can just change my gender 00:11:26.529 --> 00:11:29.330 like I changed my socks. Yeah. It was a massive 00:11:29.330 --> 00:11:32.470 and I think often willful misreading of the work. 00:11:32.629 --> 00:11:34.629 So Butler had to come back and say, no, that's 00:11:34.629 --> 00:11:36.809 not it at all. They spent the next decade saying, 00:11:36.990 --> 00:11:39.970 no, that is not what I meant. And that leads 00:11:39.970 --> 00:11:42.870 us to the 1993 book, Bodies That Matter. This 00:11:42.870 --> 00:11:46.610 was basically the sequel written to fix the misunderstandings 00:11:46.610 --> 00:11:48.549 of the first movie. The correction. It was the 00:11:48.549 --> 00:11:51.490 clarification. And this is where Butler introduces 00:11:51.490 --> 00:11:55.490 a concept called conspitative constraint. Okay, 00:11:55.549 --> 00:11:57.850 that sounds dense. Break it down for me. It means 00:11:57.850 --> 00:12:01.149 we are made by norms we didn't choose. You are 00:12:01.149 --> 00:12:03.610 born into a language you didn't invent. You're 00:12:03.610 --> 00:12:06.210 born into a body you didn't select. You're constrained 00:12:06.210 --> 00:12:09.289 by what Butler calls the matrix of intelligibility, 00:12:09.470 --> 00:12:12.710 the rules of what makes a person make sense to 00:12:12.710 --> 00:12:14.409 others. You can't just wake up one morning and 00:12:14.409 --> 00:12:16.779 decide to step outside of that instantly. So 00:12:16.779 --> 00:12:19.019 we are improvising, but we are improvising inside 00:12:19.019 --> 00:12:22.019 a straitjacket. Or at least inside a very rigid 00:12:22.019 --> 00:12:24.379 stage set. You can push the walls, you can bend 00:12:24.379 --> 00:12:27.399 the bars, but you are formed by the very things 00:12:27.399 --> 00:12:30.139 that limit you. Performativity isn't a free -for 00:12:30.139 --> 00:12:34.000 -all. It is repetition under pressure. The materiality 00:12:34.000 --> 00:12:36.379 of the body is real, but we can only understand 00:12:36.379 --> 00:12:39.399 that materiality through the language and culture 00:12:39.399 --> 00:12:42.399 available to us. That pressure, I imagine, creates 00:12:42.399 --> 00:12:45.100 a lot of psychological weight. And this leads 00:12:45.100 --> 00:12:47.759 us to the late 90s work, Sophistically Excitable 00:12:47.759 --> 00:12:50.700 Speech from 1997. This is where Butler starts 00:12:50.700 --> 00:12:53.340 talking about language and censorship. And this 00:12:53.340 --> 00:12:55.879 work is incredibly relevant right now. I mean, 00:12:55.899 --> 00:12:58.120 we are constantly debating hate speech, cancel 00:12:58.120 --> 00:13:00.080 culture, and what the government should or shouldn't 00:13:00.080 --> 00:13:03.179 ban. And usually the progressive stance is ban 00:13:03.179 --> 00:13:05.360 hate speech. Use the state to protect vulnerable 00:13:05.360 --> 00:13:07.539 people. And Butler, the ultimate progressive 00:13:07.539 --> 00:13:11.500 icon, says, wait, be careful. Why? That seems 00:13:11.500 --> 00:13:14.039 counterintuitive. Butler relies on Foucault here. 00:13:14.360 --> 00:13:16.740 The argument is about power. If you ask the state 00:13:16.740 --> 00:13:18.940 to define what hate speech is, you are giving 00:13:18.940 --> 00:13:20.799 the state the power to define the limits of all 00:13:20.799 --> 00:13:22.600 language. And the state might not always be your 00:13:22.600 --> 00:13:25.360 friend. Exactly. That's a massive understatement. 00:13:25.379 --> 00:13:27.960 If you create a legal weapon to ban injurious 00:13:27.960 --> 00:13:30.259 speech, that weapon can be turned around and 00:13:30.259 --> 00:13:32.779 used against you. A conservative government might 00:13:32.779 --> 00:13:35.679 decide that teaching about systemic racism is 00:13:35.679 --> 00:13:39.649 injurious speech against white students. Or that 00:13:39.649 --> 00:13:42.690 displaying a pride flag is hate speech against 00:13:42.690 --> 00:13:45.389 religious people, which is not hypothetical. 00:13:45.529 --> 00:13:47.769 We are seeing that happen right now. We are. 00:13:48.250 --> 00:13:50.509 Butler warned that marginalized groups should 00:13:50.509 --> 00:13:53.509 be very, very wary of giving the state the power 00:13:53.509 --> 00:13:55.950 of censorship because the state usually protects 00:13:55.950 --> 00:13:58.940 the status quo. By appealing to the state for 00:13:58.940 --> 00:14:01.539 protection, you may end up reinforcing the very 00:14:01.539 --> 00:14:03.840 power that oppresses you. There's a paradox there. 00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:06.700 A huge one. But there's a deeper point in excitable 00:14:06.700 --> 00:14:08.960 speech, too. Something Butler calls the linguistic 00:14:08.960 --> 00:14:13.100 I. The I, as in myself. Yes. Butler asks a really 00:14:13.100 --> 00:14:15.500 fundamental question. How do we become a subject 00:14:15.500 --> 00:14:17.860 who can say I? How do we get an identity in the 00:14:17.860 --> 00:14:19.299 first place? I've never really thought about 00:14:19.299 --> 00:14:22.059 that. Butler argues that we form ourselves through 00:14:22.059 --> 00:14:24.820 a kind of primal censorship. We learn to speak 00:14:24.820 --> 00:14:27.580 by learning what not to say. As children, we're 00:14:27.580 --> 00:14:29.519 told, don't say that. We don't talk like that. 00:14:29.600 --> 00:14:31.620 We prune away the parts of ourselves that are 00:14:31.620 --> 00:14:35.019 unspeakable or unacceptable just to become intelligible 00:14:35.019 --> 00:14:37.539 to others. So becoming a normal person involves 00:14:37.539 --> 00:14:40.740 a kind of self -violence, a cutting away of possibilities. 00:14:40.940 --> 00:14:44.860 A melancholic loss, yes. We sacrifice parts of 00:14:44.860 --> 00:14:47.460 our potential humanity to fit into the norms 00:14:47.460 --> 00:14:49.759 of language and society. And this happens so 00:14:49.759 --> 00:14:51.690 early we don't even remember it. That is profound. 00:14:51.870 --> 00:14:53.389 It connects right back to the gender theory. 00:14:53.470 --> 00:14:55.450 We kill off the parts of us that don't fit the 00:14:55.450 --> 00:14:59.070 boy or girl box just to survive socially. Precisely. 00:14:59.070 --> 00:15:02.210 And that theme of survival, of who gets to survive 00:15:02.210 --> 00:15:04.629 and who doesn't, takes a very dark and literal 00:15:04.629 --> 00:15:07.629 turn as we move into the 2000s. September 11, 00:15:07.830 --> 00:15:11.009 2001. The world changes. And looking at the bibliography, 00:15:11.210 --> 00:15:14.190 Butler's work changes too. It pivots from gender 00:15:14.190 --> 00:15:17.309 theory to political philosophy and war. It does. 00:15:17.970 --> 00:15:20.580 Though Butler would say it isn't a pivot. but 00:15:20.580 --> 00:15:24.100 an expansion. The question moves from how are 00:15:24.100 --> 00:15:26.360 bodies gendered to how are bodies destroyed? 00:15:26.759 --> 00:15:29.860 The key texts here are Precarious Life from 2004 00:15:29.860 --> 00:15:32.940 and Frames of War from 2009. And the central 00:15:32.940 --> 00:15:35.879 question that haunts these books is, when is 00:15:35.879 --> 00:15:39.320 life grievable? Such a powerful question. Think 00:15:39.320 --> 00:15:41.820 back to the days immediately after 9 -11 in the 00:15:41.820 --> 00:15:44.340 U .S. The New York Times ran the portraits of 00:15:44.340 --> 00:15:47.159 grief. We saw the faces, the names, the favorite 00:15:47.159 --> 00:15:50.019 hobbies, the little life stories of the people 00:15:50.019 --> 00:15:51.720 who died in the towers. It was heartbreaking. 00:15:52.080 --> 00:15:54.320 They were fully humanized. We were invited to 00:15:54.320 --> 00:15:56.259 mourn them as individuals. They were publicly 00:15:56.259 --> 00:15:58.740 mourned. Their lives were framed as grievable. 00:15:58.759 --> 00:16:01.460 Now, contrast that with the response. The U .S. 00:16:01.460 --> 00:16:04.240 began bombing Afghanistan and later invaded Iraq. 00:16:04.559 --> 00:16:06.659 Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of civilians 00:16:06.659 --> 00:16:09.039 died. Did we see their photos in The New York 00:16:09.039 --> 00:16:11.299 Times? Do we read about their favorite hobbies? 00:16:11.460 --> 00:16:14.580 No. We saw numbers, collateral damage, faceless 00:16:14.580 --> 00:16:17.179 casualties. Butler argues that those lives were 00:16:17.179 --> 00:16:19.850 cast as ungrievable. It isn't just that they 00:16:19.850 --> 00:16:22.690 died. It is that they were framed from the outset 00:16:22.690 --> 00:16:25.289 as lives that never truly counted in the first 00:16:25.289 --> 00:16:27.690 place. Their deaths were not registered as a 00:16:27.690 --> 00:16:29.970 loss in the same way. They are ghosts before 00:16:29.970 --> 00:16:32.850 they are even dead. Exactly. And the danger is 00:16:32.850 --> 00:16:35.230 that if a life is ungrievable, you can destroy 00:16:35.230 --> 00:16:38.389 it without it being considered a crime, a tragedy, 00:16:38.529 --> 00:16:41.730 a murder. If you kill a grievable person, it 00:16:41.730 --> 00:16:44.509 is murder. If you kill an ungrievable person, 00:16:44.629 --> 00:16:48.649 it is just... It is just war. It's national security. 00:16:48.950 --> 00:16:51.570 And Butler focuses a lot on Guantanamo Bay in 00:16:51.570 --> 00:16:53.750 this period. Yes. As the perfect example of this, 00:16:53.750 --> 00:16:55.350 the state of exception. This is a concept Butler 00:16:55.350 --> 00:16:58.350 explores deeply. The U .S. government created 00:16:58.350 --> 00:17:01.210 a legal black hole in Guantanamo. The detainees 00:17:01.210 --> 00:17:03.570 weren't criminals within the U .S. justice systems. 00:17:03.590 --> 00:17:05.630 They didn't have rights to a trial. Right. But 00:17:05.630 --> 00:17:07.470 they also weren't classified as prisoners of 00:17:07.470 --> 00:17:10.309 war under the Geneva Convention. So they were 00:17:10.309 --> 00:17:13.440 legally nothing. They had no status. They were 00:17:13.440 --> 00:17:15.799 stripped of personhood. They were living, breathing 00:17:15.799 --> 00:17:19.460 bodies with no legal existence. Butler argues 00:17:19.460 --> 00:17:21.779 that the state produces its sovereignty, its 00:17:21.779 --> 00:17:24.579 ultimate power, by deciding who gets to have 00:17:24.579 --> 00:17:27.240 rights and who doesn't. By suspending the law 00:17:27.240 --> 00:17:29.579 for these people, the state shows it is above 00:17:29.579 --> 00:17:32.380 the law. So if the reaction to injury like 9 00:17:32.380 --> 00:17:35.579 -11 is to lash out, to make ourselves invulnerable, 00:17:35.579 --> 00:17:39.069 and to make others ungrievable, What is the alternative? 00:17:39.190 --> 00:17:41.470 Because that desire for revenge, for security, 00:17:41.589 --> 00:17:44.730 it feels very human. It is human. But Butler 00:17:44.730 --> 00:17:47.130 argues that the quest for total invulnerability 00:17:47.130 --> 00:17:49.970 is a fantasy that leads to endless war. You can 00:17:49.970 --> 00:17:51.730 never be completely saved, so you will always 00:17:51.730 --> 00:17:54.789 find another enemy to destroy. Instead, Butler 00:17:54.789 --> 00:17:57.589 proposes vulnerability as a resource. That sounds 00:17:57.589 --> 00:17:59.769 counterintuitive. Usually vulnerability is a 00:17:59.769 --> 00:18:01.970 weakness we're told to overcome. Butler reframes 00:18:01.970 --> 00:18:04.809 it. We are all, by definition, vulnerable. We 00:18:04.809 --> 00:18:07.589 are precarious. My body can be hurt by you. Your 00:18:07.589 --> 00:18:10.450 body can be hurt by me. We need food, shelter, 00:18:10.589 --> 00:18:12.890 and other people to survive. We are fundamentally 00:18:12.890 --> 00:18:14.970 interdependent from the moment we're born. So 00:18:14.970 --> 00:18:17.329 we are fragile by design. We can't escape it. 00:18:17.450 --> 00:18:20.309 Yes. And instead of trying to armor ourselves 00:18:20.309 --> 00:18:23.769 against that reality, which is impossible, Butler 00:18:23.769 --> 00:18:25.630 suggests we should build our ethics upon it. 00:18:25.990 --> 00:18:28.490 If I recognize that you are just as precarious 00:18:28.490 --> 00:18:30.769 as I am, that our bodies are equally fragile, 00:18:31.289 --> 00:18:33.710 That creates a shared responsibility. It's an 00:18:33.710 --> 00:18:36.289 ethics of shared fragility. Exactly. It is a 00:18:36.289 --> 00:18:38.549 plea for nonviolence based not on high ideals 00:18:38.549 --> 00:18:41.170 or religious commandments, but on the brute physical 00:18:41.170 --> 00:18:44.250 reality of our bodies. And this idea of making 00:18:44.250 --> 00:18:46.930 life livable bridges the gap back to the gender 00:18:46.930 --> 00:18:50.450 work, doesn't it? In 2004, Butler published Undoing 00:18:50.450 --> 00:18:52.789 Gender. Yes, and this book is often described 00:18:52.789 --> 00:18:55.109 as being a bit more accessible than gender trouble. 00:18:55.480 --> 00:18:58.259 It's less focused on deconstructing French philosophy 00:18:58.259 --> 00:19:01.599 and more on the human cost of these rigid norms. 00:19:01.819 --> 00:19:03.839 The central question seems to be, what does a 00:19:03.839 --> 00:19:06.920 person need to have a livable life? Right. It's 00:19:06.920 --> 00:19:09.220 not just an academic theory. It's about survival. 00:19:09.819 --> 00:19:12.180 If you are recognized as a valid subject, if 00:19:12.180 --> 00:19:14.339 you're trans or intersex or gender nonconforming, 00:19:14.500 --> 00:19:17.450 your life can become unlivable. You face violence, 00:19:17.670 --> 00:19:20.349 discrimination, a lack of medical care, a sense 00:19:20.349 --> 00:19:22.789 of profound alienation. There is a specific case 00:19:22.789 --> 00:19:25.349 in Undoing Gender that I found absolutely heartbreaking 00:19:25.349 --> 00:19:29.150 and really clarifying. The David Reimer case. 00:19:29.509 --> 00:19:32.069 It is a tragedy, but it is essential to understanding 00:19:32.069 --> 00:19:34.410 Butler's view on the nature versus nurture debate. 00:19:35.470 --> 00:19:38.970 David Reimer was born male in the 1960s. As an 00:19:38.970 --> 00:19:41.369 infant, a botched medical procedure destroyed 00:19:41.369 --> 00:19:44.410 his genitalia. And the doctors... specifically 00:19:44.410 --> 00:19:47.150 a famous expert named John Money, decided that 00:19:47.150 --> 00:19:49.829 since gender is learned, they could just make 00:19:49.829 --> 00:19:52.430 him a girl. It was the ultimate test of the blank 00:19:52.430 --> 00:19:55.329 slate theory. It was nurture in its most extreme 00:19:55.329 --> 00:19:59.329 form. They castrated him, named him Brenda, and 00:19:59.329 --> 00:20:00.849 told the parents to raise him as a daughter. 00:20:00.990 --> 00:20:02.869 Give him dolls, put him in dresses, never tell 00:20:02.869 --> 00:20:04.890 him the truth. The theory was that the social 00:20:04.890 --> 00:20:06.829 script would override everything else. And it 00:20:06.829 --> 00:20:10.420 failed. Catastrophically. Spectacularly and tragically. 00:20:10.880 --> 00:20:14.380 David, as Brenda, never felt female. He was miserable, 00:20:14.539 --> 00:20:17.220 bullied, and felt deeply wrong. Eventually, as 00:20:17.220 --> 00:20:19.019 a teenager, he discovered the truth, transitioned 00:20:19.019 --> 00:20:21.359 back to living as a man. But the trauma was so 00:20:21.359 --> 00:20:23.839 severe, he eventually died by suicide. Now, I 00:20:23.839 --> 00:20:25.980 can hear the critics screaming right now. See? 00:20:26.160 --> 00:20:29.420 Judith Butler is wrong. Biology is real. You 00:20:29.420 --> 00:20:32.240 can't just perform gender. This proves it. But 00:20:32.240 --> 00:20:35.799 that is the most fascinating part. Butler analyzes 00:20:35.799 --> 00:20:38.519 this case to argue the exact opposite of what 00:20:38.519 --> 00:20:41.119 you might expect. Butler doesn't side with the 00:20:41.119 --> 00:20:44.240 doctor, with the nurture argument. Butler sides 00:20:44.240 --> 00:20:47.839 with David. Wait, really? Yes. Butler argues 00:20:47.839 --> 00:20:50.099 that David Reimer's story proves the violence 00:20:50.099 --> 00:20:52.759 of norms. The doctors tried to force a gender 00:20:52.759 --> 00:20:55.200 script on a body, on a person, that rejected 00:20:55.200 --> 00:20:58.500 it. That coercion, that forcing, is the violence 00:20:58.500 --> 00:21:00.799 Butler fights against. So it doesn't matter what 00:21:00.799 --> 00:21:02.779 the script is, the violence is in the forcing 00:21:02.779 --> 00:21:05.079 of the script. Exactly. The enemy is the system 00:21:05.079 --> 00:21:07.900 that says you must be this. Butler defends the 00:21:07.900 --> 00:21:09.759 right of the individual to determine their own 00:21:09.759 --> 00:21:11.900 reality against the medical and social authorities 00:21:11.900 --> 00:21:14.099 who claim to know better. It's an argument for 00:21:14.099 --> 00:21:16.599 radical self -determination. That is a crucial 00:21:16.599 --> 00:21:19.640 nuance. It's about autonomy. And speaking of 00:21:19.640 --> 00:21:21.900 autonomy and identity, we should mention Butler's 00:21:21.900 --> 00:21:24.539 own evolution here. The notes say Butler is now 00:21:24.539 --> 00:21:27.839 legally non -binary. Yes, in California. Butler 00:21:27.839 --> 00:21:31.220 uses share and they them pronouns, but has expressed 00:21:31.220 --> 00:21:33.990 a preference for they them. And they've said 00:21:33.990 --> 00:21:36.269 in interviews that they were never at home with 00:21:36.269 --> 00:21:38.150 the assignment of female at birth. Which just 00:21:38.150 --> 00:21:40.829 adds such a layer of personal resonance to all 00:21:40.829 --> 00:21:43.289 this high theory. When Butler writes about being 00:21:43.289 --> 00:21:45.710 homeless and language are not fitting the categories, 00:21:45.869 --> 00:21:48.049 it isn't just abstract. It is lived experience. 00:21:48.410 --> 00:21:50.009 And that brings us right to the present day. 00:21:50.109 --> 00:21:51.930 Because if you thought the gender wars of the 00:21:51.930 --> 00:21:54.970 90s were intense, the 2020s are a supernova. 00:21:55.170 --> 00:21:57.589 And Butler is right in the center of it with 00:21:57.589 --> 00:22:00.430 the 2024 book, Who's Afraid of Gender? This book 00:22:00.430 --> 00:22:02.390 feels like Butler entering the ring against the 00:22:02.390 --> 00:22:05.410 modern anti -gender movement. We see this global 00:22:05.410 --> 00:22:08.849 rise of rhetoric in the U .S., in Hungary, in 00:22:08.849 --> 00:22:12.250 Italy, in Russia, railing against gender ideology. 00:22:12.549 --> 00:22:14.750 Butler analyzes this phenomenon and calls it 00:22:14.750 --> 00:22:17.349 a phantasm. The ghost, a phantasm. A created 00:22:17.349 --> 00:22:20.069 monster. Butler argues that for the far right, 00:22:20.150 --> 00:22:22.750 the word gender has been detached from its actual 00:22:22.750 --> 00:22:24.900 meaning. It has become a container for every 00:22:24.900 --> 00:22:27.819 anxiety people have about modernity, about change, 00:22:27.940 --> 00:22:30.900 about the economy, about national identity. It's 00:22:30.900 --> 00:22:33.119 the boogeyman. It's the scapegoat for everything. 00:22:33.440 --> 00:22:36.079 It is portrayed as a foreign force. It's often 00:22:36.079 --> 00:22:38.220 called Western in the East or Marxist in the 00:22:38.220 --> 00:22:41.440 West. It is coming to destroy the family, destroy 00:22:41.440 --> 00:22:44.460 the nation, destroy God, and even destroy biology 00:22:44.460 --> 00:22:46.940 itself. It sounds like a classic conspiracy theory. 00:22:47.079 --> 00:22:50.000 It functions exactly like one. And Butler points 00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:52.960 out the fundamental incoherence of the movement. 00:22:53.440 --> 00:22:56.519 Think about it. On one hand, critics say gender 00:22:56.519 --> 00:22:58.960 is fake. It's a construct. It's weak nonsense. 00:22:59.220 --> 00:23:01.240 It's just feelings. Oh, right. They dismiss it. 00:23:01.319 --> 00:23:03.920 But on the other hand, they claim it is a terrifyingly 00:23:03.920 --> 00:23:06.380 powerful ideology that can brainwash children 00:23:06.380 --> 00:23:09.779 instantly and topple entire civilizations. So 00:23:09.779 --> 00:23:12.619 it's both weak and strong at the same time. Pathetic 00:23:12.619 --> 00:23:15.500 and all -powerful. Which, as Butler points out, 00:23:15.559 --> 00:23:18.420 citing the scholar Umberto Eco, is a classic 00:23:18.420 --> 00:23:21.319 feature of fascism. The enemy must be simultaneously 00:23:21.319 --> 00:23:24.180 ridiculed as weak and feared as an existential 00:23:24.180 --> 00:23:27.240 threat. This confusion, this contradiction, is 00:23:27.240 --> 00:23:30.000 a feature, not a bug. It allows leaders to mobilize 00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:32.980 pure, unthinking anxiety. And this rhetoric has 00:23:32.980 --> 00:23:35.660 very real -world consequences. We mentioned the 00:23:35.660 --> 00:23:39.339 effigy burning in Brazil earlier. 2017. Sao Paulo. 00:23:40.180 --> 00:23:42.480 Butler was there for a conference on democracy. 00:23:42.980 --> 00:23:45.829 Not even on gender. But a mob gathered outside 00:23:45.829 --> 00:23:48.089 the venue. They built a puppet of Butler dressed 00:23:48.089 --> 00:23:50.369 as a witch. They burned it in the street. That 00:23:50.369 --> 00:23:52.950 is medieval imagery. A witch burning. Absolutely. 00:23:53.109 --> 00:23:55.930 They held signs calling Butler the Antichrist 00:23:55.930 --> 00:23:58.329 and accusing them of coming to destroy the identity 00:23:58.329 --> 00:24:01.230 of children. It shows how visceral this phantasm 00:24:01.230 --> 00:24:03.769 has become. Butler wasn't a person to that crowd. 00:24:03.990 --> 00:24:06.819 Butler was a symbol of existential dread. And 00:24:06.819 --> 00:24:09.259 this tension spills into the media, too. There 00:24:09.259 --> 00:24:11.259 was a controversy with The Guardian in the UK 00:24:11.259 --> 00:24:14.559 in 2021 regarding a comparison to fascism. Yes, 00:24:14.740 --> 00:24:17.099 this is a big one. In an interview, Butler compared 00:24:17.099 --> 00:24:19.819 the anti -gender movement, specifically including 00:24:19.819 --> 00:24:23.000 TERF ideology, which is trans -exclusionary radical 00:24:23.000 --> 00:24:25.819 feminism to fascism. That is a very volatile 00:24:25.819 --> 00:24:28.180 comparison to make. A very charged comparison. 00:24:28.740 --> 00:24:31.819 Butler argued that both groups share a structure 00:24:31.819 --> 00:24:36.099 of thought. The desire to purge the impure to 00:24:36.099 --> 00:24:39.079 save a pure category, whether that category is 00:24:39.079 --> 00:24:43.000 the nation or womanhood. The Guardian published 00:24:43.000 --> 00:24:45.460 the interview, but after a massive backlash from 00:24:45.460 --> 00:24:48.420 gender -critical activists online, they deleted 00:24:48.420 --> 00:24:50.779 that specific section of the interview. Just 00:24:50.779 --> 00:24:53.339 scrubbed it from the article. Gone. Vanished. 00:24:53.839 --> 00:24:55.619 Which, of course, triggered the Streisand effect. 00:24:55.700 --> 00:24:58.579 The Internet exploded. People asked, why is a 00:24:58.579 --> 00:25:01.259 major liberal newspaper censoring a world -renowned 00:25:01.259 --> 00:25:03.759 philosopher for making a philosophical argument 00:25:03.759 --> 00:25:06.000 about political structures? It proves Butler's 00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:07.940 point about censorship from excitable speech. 00:25:08.259 --> 00:25:10.779 It really does. It showed that even discussing 00:25:10.779 --> 00:25:12.380 the structure of these arguments is considered 00:25:12.380 --> 00:25:14.940 so dangerous it must be silenced. Eventually, 00:25:14.940 --> 00:25:17.160 the paper reinstated the quote, but the whole 00:25:17.160 --> 00:25:19.829 affair was incredibly revealing. Controversy 00:25:19.829 --> 00:25:22.029 really does follow Butler everywhere, and we 00:25:22.029 --> 00:25:24.009 cannot do a deep dive without addressing the 00:25:24.009 --> 00:25:26.430 other major pillar of Butler's activism and, 00:25:26.490 --> 00:25:29.670 well, controversy, Israel and Palestine. This 00:25:29.670 --> 00:25:31.970 is a huge part of their public life, and arguably 00:25:31.970 --> 00:25:34.109 the most polarizing, even more so than the gender 00:25:34.109 --> 00:25:36.789 theory. As we established, Butler is Jewish. 00:25:37.009 --> 00:25:39.670 Their ethics are deeply rooted in Jewish thought 00:25:39.670 --> 00:25:42.109 and the memory of the Holocaust, but they are 00:25:42.109 --> 00:25:45.190 a staunch critic of Zionism. Butler supports 00:25:45.190 --> 00:25:48.650 BDS boycott, divestment, sanctions against Israel. 00:25:49.019 --> 00:25:51.700 They describe their position as post -Zionist. 00:25:51.720 --> 00:25:54.140 They argue for a Judaism that is distinct from 00:25:54.140 --> 00:25:56.799 state violence. The ethical mandate of never 00:25:56.799 --> 00:25:59.859 again, in Butler's view, must apply to everyone, 00:26:00.039 --> 00:26:02.079 not just to Jews. And this came to a head in 00:26:02.079 --> 00:26:05.059 2012 when Butler won the Adorno Prize. Theodore 00:26:05.059 --> 00:26:07.680 Adorno is a giant of critical theory, himself 00:26:07.680 --> 00:26:10.019 a German Jewish intellectual who fled the Nazis. 00:26:10.519 --> 00:26:13.200 Winning that prize is a massive honor. But when 00:26:13.200 --> 00:26:15.200 Butler was announced as the winner, the backlash 00:26:15.200 --> 00:26:17.900 was fierce. The Israeli ambassador to Germany 00:26:17.900 --> 00:26:20.519 called it a disgrace. Major Jewish groups accused 00:26:20.519 --> 00:26:22.460 Butler of anti -Semitism for their support of 00:26:22.460 --> 00:26:29.910 BDS. Which must be an incredibly Butler responded 00:26:29.910 --> 00:26:32.829 forcefully. They wrote essays, gave interviews, 00:26:32.990 --> 00:26:35.089 and argued that criticizing the policies of the 00:26:35.089 --> 00:26:37.750 State of Israel is not anti -Semitism. They refused 00:26:37.750 --> 00:26:40.049 to let the Israeli state speak for all Jewish 00:26:40.049 --> 00:26:42.690 people or define what authentic Jewish identity 00:26:42.690 --> 00:26:45.109 is. And this has continued right into the current 00:26:45.109 --> 00:26:48.950 conflict, the 2023 -2024 war in Gaza. It has 00:26:48.950 --> 00:26:51.250 been extremely contentious. Butler condemned 00:26:51.250 --> 00:26:54.589 the October 7 massacre by Hamas. They called 00:26:54.589 --> 00:26:57.359 it... terrifying and revolting. There was no 00:26:57.359 --> 00:26:59.460 ambiguity in their emotional reaction to the 00:26:59.460 --> 00:27:01.099 violence against civilians. I thought of a but. 00:27:01.259 --> 00:27:03.700 There was a but. Butler insisted on contextualizing 00:27:03.700 --> 00:27:05.599 the violence within what they call 70 years of 00:27:05.599 --> 00:27:08.500 horrors of the occupation. And in a climate of 00:27:08.500 --> 00:27:11.559 raw grief and anger, many people hear context 00:27:11.559 --> 00:27:14.319 as justification. There was a specific comment 00:27:14.319 --> 00:27:16.940 in Paris in March of 2024 that really set people 00:27:16.940 --> 00:27:21.779 off. Yes. This created a firestorm. Butler was 00:27:21.779 --> 00:27:23.839 speaking at a meeting and got into a debate about 00:27:23.839 --> 00:27:26.779 definitions. Butler argued that the October 7 00:27:26.779 --> 00:27:29.220 attack should be described as armed resistance. 00:27:29.680 --> 00:27:32.119 They stated it was not a terrorist attack in 00:27:32.119 --> 00:27:34.220 the traditional definition, although they did 00:27:34.220 --> 00:27:36.400 acknowledge it was an uprising and an attack 00:27:36.400 --> 00:27:38.420 on civilians. That feels like splitting hairs 00:27:38.420 --> 00:27:41.299 in a burning building. To a normal person, saying 00:27:41.299 --> 00:27:43.519 it wasn't a terrorist attack seems designed to 00:27:43.519 --> 00:27:46.420 enrage people. Butler was trying to make a technical 00:27:46.420 --> 00:27:49.579 academic point about asymmetric warfare, about 00:27:49.579 --> 00:27:52.259 how we define terror when a non -state actor 00:27:52.259 --> 00:27:54.880 fights a powerful state. But to the families 00:27:54.880 --> 00:27:57.599 of victims and to many, many observers, it sounded 00:27:57.599 --> 00:28:00.200 like a denial of the atrocity's nature. It sounded 00:28:00.200 --> 00:28:02.259 like an academic game being played over dead 00:28:02.259 --> 00:28:04.900 bodies. And the consequences were real. The U 00:28:04.900 --> 00:28:07.059 .S. Department of Education is now probing UC 00:28:07.059 --> 00:28:09.579 Berkeley, where Butler teaches for anti -Semitism. 00:28:09.720 --> 00:28:12.359 And Butler is named in that probe. And true to 00:28:12.359 --> 00:28:15.039 form, Butler condemned the university for cooperating, 00:28:15.099 --> 00:28:18.180 calling them an informant. So, yes, Butler is 00:28:18.180 --> 00:28:20.440 fighting this battle on every single front. There 00:28:20.440 --> 00:28:23.579 is also that old clip from 2012 that always resurfaces 00:28:23.579 --> 00:28:25.980 in these debates. The one where Butler is accused 00:28:25.980 --> 00:28:29.019 of calling Hamas and Hezbollah part of the global 00:28:29.019 --> 00:28:32.960 left. It haunts them. The clip is real. Butler 00:28:32.960 --> 00:28:35.500 was at a teach -in and was asked if those groups 00:28:35.500 --> 00:28:38.200 belong to the global left. Butler said, yes, 00:28:38.319 --> 00:28:40.700 it's possible. Which to most people sounds like 00:28:40.700 --> 00:28:42.640 an endorsement. I like these guys. They're on 00:28:42.640 --> 00:28:45.960 my team. And that is how it is heard. But Butler's 00:28:45.960 --> 00:28:49.490 clarified this repeatedly over the years. It 00:28:49.490 --> 00:28:51.509 was a descriptive statement, not a normative 00:28:51.509 --> 00:28:54.349 one. It was a taxonomy question. These groups 00:28:54.349 --> 00:28:57.210 describe themselves as anti -imperialist. The 00:28:57.210 --> 00:28:59.990 left is traditionally anti -imperialist. Therefore, 00:29:00.250 --> 00:29:02.650 in the academic taxonomy of political science, 00:29:02.930 --> 00:29:05.509 they sit on the left. So it's a categorization, 00:29:05.509 --> 00:29:08.470 not a thumbs up. Exactly. Butler emphasized that 00:29:08.470 --> 00:29:10.670 you can be on the left and still be violent, 00:29:10.849 --> 00:29:13.910 wrong, misogynistic, homophobic, reactionary, 00:29:13.910 --> 00:29:16.849 and worthy of total criticism. But again, it 00:29:16.849 --> 00:29:18.750 is the philosopher answering a taxonomy question 00:29:18.750 --> 00:29:20.730 while the public is hearing a moral question. 00:29:20.950 --> 00:29:23.329 It is the peril of the celebrity academic. You 00:29:23.329 --> 00:29:25.309 are speaking in footnotes, but the world is listening 00:29:25.309 --> 00:29:27.549 in soundbites. Which brings us to the footnotes 00:29:27.549 --> 00:29:30.309 themselves. We teased the bad writing award at 00:29:30.309 --> 00:29:33.069 the beginning of the show. 1999, Dennis Dutton, 00:29:33.150 --> 00:29:35.890 a philosopher, gives Butler the first prize for 00:29:35.890 --> 00:29:38.930 bad writing. The critique is that the prose is 00:29:38.930 --> 00:29:42.230 impossible. It's a dense forest of jargon and 00:29:42.230 --> 00:29:45.230 convoluted sentences. I have read Gender Trouble. 00:29:45.529 --> 00:29:47.930 It is chewy. It requires a lot of effort. It's 00:29:47.930 --> 00:29:50.130 not a beach read. So why do it? Why not just 00:29:50.130 --> 00:29:53.849 write simply, gender is a script? Boom, done. 00:29:54.049 --> 00:29:56.109 Easy to understand. But Butler has a defense 00:29:56.109 --> 00:29:58.509 for this, and it is actually quite compelling 00:29:58.509 --> 00:30:00.950 whether you agree with it or not. Butler argues 00:30:00.950 --> 00:30:03.609 that common sense is built into common language. 00:30:03.890 --> 00:30:06.769 How so? Our everyday grammar subject, verb, object, 00:30:06.910 --> 00:30:09.670 reinforces the way we see the world. I hit the 00:30:09.670 --> 00:30:12.470 ball, the boy kissed the girl. The grammar reinforces 00:30:12.470 --> 00:30:15.700 the idea of a stable, pre -existing doer. behind 00:30:15.700 --> 00:30:18.140 the deed. It reinforces the binary. It makes 00:30:18.140 --> 00:30:20.240 the world seem simple and fixed. So if you write 00:30:20.240 --> 00:30:22.420 simply, you are just reinforcing the status quo 00:30:22.420 --> 00:30:25.720 with every sentence. That's the argument. Butler 00:30:25.720 --> 00:30:28.160 believes that to challenge the common sense that 00:30:28.160 --> 00:30:30.559 oppresses people, you have to break the language 00:30:30.559 --> 00:30:33.240 that produces that common sense. You have to 00:30:33.240 --> 00:30:35.039 make the reader stumble. You have to make them 00:30:35.039 --> 00:30:37.339 work to understand the sentence because that 00:30:37.339 --> 00:30:40.400 very work shifts their thinking away from the 00:30:40.400 --> 00:30:43.579 default settings. So the difficulty is a feature, 00:30:43.680 --> 00:30:47.079 not a bug. It is a political strategy. Though, 00:30:47.160 --> 00:30:48.940 honestly, many of their peers have criticized 00:30:48.940 --> 00:30:52.660 it, too. Martha Nussbaum, another giant of philosophy, 00:30:53.000 --> 00:30:55.420 wrote a scathing takedown called The Professor 00:30:55.420 --> 00:30:58.960 of Parity. Ouch. That's a title. She accused 00:30:58.960 --> 00:31:02.480 Butler of quietism. She basically said, you are 00:31:02.480 --> 00:31:04.400 sitting in a room playing these complex word 00:31:04.400 --> 00:31:06.880 games while real women out in the world are suffering 00:31:06.880 --> 00:31:09.490 from violence and poverty. Your philosophy offers 00:31:09.490 --> 00:31:12.849 no clear path to legal reform, no path to better 00:31:12.849 --> 00:31:15.589 wages. It just offers subversive performance. 00:31:15.950 --> 00:31:18.750 It is the classic clash, revolution of the mind 00:31:18.750 --> 00:31:21.329 versus revolution of the streets. And that debate 00:31:21.329 --> 00:31:23.650 is still raging in activist and academic circles. 00:31:24.109 --> 00:31:26.809 Does high theory help the revolution or does 00:31:26.809 --> 00:31:28.930 it just create a new elite club of people who 00:31:28.930 --> 00:31:32.089 know the secret password? So we have gone from 00:31:32.089 --> 00:31:34.549 the troublemaker in Hebrew school to the professor 00:31:34.549 --> 00:31:37.519 of parody. to the target of effigy burnings. 00:31:37.539 --> 00:31:40.920 We've covered gender, censorship, war, and the 00:31:40.920 --> 00:31:43.420 definition of the human. When you look at this 00:31:43.420 --> 00:31:46.480 whole arc, what is the through line? What connects 00:31:46.480 --> 00:31:49.019 it all? I think the through line is the resistance 00:31:49.019 --> 00:31:51.720 to the unlivable. Say more about that. Whether 00:31:51.720 --> 00:31:53.960 it is the gender binary that forces a person 00:31:53.960 --> 00:31:56.539 like David Reimer to suicide or the definition 00:31:56.539 --> 00:31:58.940 of citizenship that leaves a Guantanamo prisoner 00:31:58.940 --> 00:32:02.160 indefinitely detained in a legal black hole or 00:32:02.160 --> 00:32:04.220 the definition of grievable that allows a bomb 00:32:04.220 --> 00:32:07.160 victim in Gaza to go unmourned. Butler is always 00:32:07.160 --> 00:32:10.900 looking at the system of norms and asking. Who 00:32:10.900 --> 00:32:13.119 is this system killing? Who is being erased? 00:32:13.440 --> 00:32:15.319 This life is being made impossible. And then 00:32:15.319 --> 00:32:18.039 trying to stretch the frame, stretch the language, 00:32:18.099 --> 00:32:20.759 stretch the law, stretch our empathy to let those 00:32:20.759 --> 00:32:23.160 people in, to make their lives livable. That 00:32:23.160 --> 00:32:25.720 is a powerful legacy, even if the prose is hard 00:32:25.720 --> 00:32:28.259 to read. Even so. Before we go, I want to leave 00:32:28.259 --> 00:32:30.660 our listeners with one final thought. We've talked 00:32:30.660 --> 00:32:33.609 about a lot of heavy political stuff. But there 00:32:33.609 --> 00:32:36.630 is a concept from Butler's book, Giving an Account 00:32:36.630 --> 00:32:38.529 of Oneself, that I think is really beautiful 00:32:38.529 --> 00:32:42.490 on a personal, human level. Ah, yes. The concept 00:32:42.490 --> 00:32:45.410 of opacity. We live in a world that demands transparency. 00:32:45.509 --> 00:32:47.650 Tell me who you are. What is your identity? Put 00:32:47.650 --> 00:32:50.690 it in a bio. Kitsch yourself. We want a neat, 00:32:50.750 --> 00:32:53.109 clean story. We want the elevator pitch of the 00:32:53.109 --> 00:32:55.609 soul. We want coherence. We want people to make 00:32:55.609 --> 00:32:58.950 sense to us instantly. But Butler argues that 00:32:58.950 --> 00:33:01.660 we can never fully have that. Not for others 00:33:01.660 --> 00:33:04.259 and not even for ourselves. Right. Because we 00:33:04.259 --> 00:33:06.980 are formed by forces outside our control, by 00:33:06.980 --> 00:33:09.400 parents we didn't choose, by a language we didn't 00:33:09.400 --> 00:33:11.140 invent, by a history we didn't live through but 00:33:11.140 --> 00:33:13.440 that shaped us anyway, we can never fully know 00:33:13.440 --> 00:33:16.339 ourselves. I am a mystery to myself. You are 00:33:16.339 --> 00:33:19.420 opaque. You cannot tell a fully coherent story 00:33:19.420 --> 00:33:22.140 of you because you are a collision of a million 00:33:22.140 --> 00:33:24.740 things you don't even understand. There are gaps 00:33:24.740 --> 00:33:27.099 and contradictions in your own narrative. That 00:33:27.099 --> 00:33:29.339 sounds anxious, like I don't have control. But 00:33:29.339 --> 00:33:32.609 Butler flips it. Butler says, what if instead 00:33:32.609 --> 00:33:35.710 of demanding total clarity from each other, explain 00:33:35.710 --> 00:33:39.740 yourself to me, justify your existence. We based 00:33:39.740 --> 00:33:42.960 our ethics on that shared mystery. So I admit 00:33:42.960 --> 00:33:44.700 that I don't fully know myself, and because of 00:33:44.700 --> 00:33:46.619 that, I should be more gracious about the fact 00:33:46.619 --> 00:33:48.740 that you don't fully know yourself either. Exactly. 00:33:48.779 --> 00:33:52.140 A humility born of opacity. We stop demanding 00:33:52.140 --> 00:33:54.940 that everyone fit into a box we can easily understand. 00:33:55.400 --> 00:33:58.400 We acknowledge that we are all unfinished, all 00:33:58.400 --> 00:34:01.240 dependent, all struggling with scripts we were 00:34:01.240 --> 00:34:04.299 handed at birth. It is a call for a little less 00:34:04.299 --> 00:34:06.819 judgment and a little more acceptance of the 00:34:06.819 --> 00:34:10.300 messiness of being human. Precisely. And in a 00:34:10.300 --> 00:34:12.500 world that wants to burn effigies and draw hard 00:34:12.500 --> 00:34:14.460 lines in the sand, that might be the most radical 00:34:14.460 --> 00:34:17.280 idea of all. I love that. Thank you for unpacking 00:34:17.280 --> 00:34:18.940 this with me. This was a heavy one, but I feel 00:34:18.940 --> 00:34:20.880 like I finally understand why that effigy was 00:34:20.880 --> 00:34:22.579 burning and why those books are still flying 00:34:22.579 --> 00:34:24.659 off the shelves. It was a pleasure. A real deep 00:34:24.659 --> 00:34:26.480 dive. And thank you for listening to The Deep 00:34:26.480 --> 00:34:29.360 Dive. Go find some opacity in your life today. 00:34:29.400 --> 00:34:30.260 We'll see you next time.