Judith Butler: Performativity

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I face the first difficulty of writing this document as I am trying to introduce a thing of thought which doesn’t necessarily ever begin or end. For me to be able to communicate this thing of thought to you I must phrase it as though it belongs in time; for me to do so I must first see and then try to convey how my thoughts are presented to me as best I can. Through both courses of Modern Philosophy and Phenomenology with Professor Seltzer, the main understanding of philosophy that was being communicated to me was that Philosophy is thought for the sake of itself, pure thought. The main problem that arises for me is that now Philosophy (Thought for-itself) is now disturbed by things such as class, grades, vocabulary, class standing, age, gender, etc to the extent that that it ‘feels’ completely outside of itself. As much as the topics were impactful for my thought in both courses, as much as there were topics in other courses that were able to guide my thought in a similar manner. Ultimately, what I’m trying to convey is how a series of both random (taken for any reason outside of personal interest) and intentional courses, were things that allowed me to both shape and convey my thought by “validating” my own intuition. What I mean by validating my own intuition, is feeling like I already had a prior understanding of the concepts named and defined in a class setting. I have been put in multiple situations where typologizing my relationships with other people obstructed both my and the person’s view, whether it be a (friend, parent, brother, teacher) of the present. The Stanford Prison Experiment, which I learnt in a prerequisite Psychology class, is one of the instances where a random course not only added to my prior understanding of “social roles,” that I perform but also gave me stronger insight on how much I abide by these roles unconsciously. The conclusion of this particular experiment was that people will readily conform to the social roles they play due to situational factors rather than dispositional ones. In one of the courses I took out of intent, namely Introduction to Sociology, I learned of an example that showed me the extent of which some of these roles I play remained unconscious. “When Simone de Beauvoir claims, "one is not born, but, rather, becomes a woman," she is appropriating and reinterpreting this doctrine of constituting acts from the phenomenological tradition.1 In this sense, gender is in no way a stable identity or locus of agency from which various acts proceed; rather, it is an identity tenuously constituted in time-an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of act,” a quote from Judith Butler’s “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution.” A very simple explanation of performative versus performed is that contrary to that of the performed, the performative is as much of an act as the performed, but the only difference is that in the performed you have an awareness of your own performance. Journey I was raised in what I would describe as a loving coptic orthodox household in Egypt. My parents once told m e that I came back from the nursery crying because one of the other kids told me that I was going to go to hell because I was Christian. From that experience I was forced to deduce, because of my situational factor (religion), a perceived role that I played in a social aggregate. Because my parents knew how the christian minority is treated in Egypt, they taught me that I could become a victim of that mistreatment and further taught me various ways in which I can protect my faith when faced with situations like these. Early experiences of competition, particularly those of a religious manner (Muslim vs Christian), resulted in my carrying of anxiety(vulnerability) in the world. The world being in a highly competitive state (for example the school setting which was filled with ideas of which kids are coolest, smartest,etc) was a highly stressful place for me to be in, and for me to be able to cope I isolated myself as much as possible from situations in which I could be defined by my roles. I had no understanding that my going to school was a matter of choice, until I travelled to study abroad where some of my friends would drop out without actually receiving any of the crazy consequences I would’ve imagined for myself in that situation. I went to school in California State University, Long Beach as an Economics major believing that money was “the” main indicator of success. What I lived, however, showed me a side that wasn’t predicated on money and success . I started living my life through that side, and put myself and my thought ahead of monetary motivators. Therefore, my university performance fell and I started not caring about my education as much. I, however, was also bearing the guilt of lying to my parents about my standing, fearing that it could jeopardize my being there. I was later disqualified from school, and my visa was revoked. I came back to my parents in Egypt faced with the idea of being a failure. Initially, that put me in a severe state of depression being faced with things I wouldn’t have been able to say that I could face then, I felt like I still had much more learning to do and wasn’t ready to move back to Egypt, but in order to continue the same learning I thought I needed to return to California. For me to do so, I set a goal for myself to try to balance my life out in Egypt in order to get another chance at continuing my journey over there. I couldn’t do so, without putting aside some of the things I learned over there in the first place. I tried to mediate between both what I learned over there and what I needed to do in order to go back. My coming back from California signified a failure for me, which kept getting stronger with my inability to keep up with my work the way I set out to do. I tried to go about my studying in a way where I appreciated greatly what I was given, I looked at it as a gift from God that I would be undermining if I was to misuse it.
LIGHT OF NATURE
I will use the sentence “Light of nature,” throughout the rest of my writing and I mean it in a way where I received an unanticipated response to a question that I had within, and I will give examples that further reflect that. That same Psychology course mentioned above, I took 2 semesters ago for the intention of getting an easy A grade. I was going into that course with a very solid view of myself as a failure and “the light of nature” turned my eyes towards two defining concepts that are very relevant to my entire journey. The first concept was that of extrinsic versus intrinsic motivation, this is the way that it was both explained by the professor and the way in which I can recall it: I was told that if I wanted to do something for the sake of me being interested in it and an extrinsic motivator(money,grades,etc) is involved then I would be less likely to perform. I made sense of it with an image of a man riding atop a horse dangling a carrot in front of its eyes in order to motivate the horse to move. However, according to the extrinsic versus intrinsic concept, if the horse was internally motivated to run then the carrot’s mere existence would stop it from doing so effectively. I will give an example of my experience as a basketball player and how I made sense of my experience with my newly learned terms. I started playing basketball with my brother when we were kids and a love for the game arose. I kept playing throughout my childhood when one of the other kids’ parents in school saw me and suggested to my father that I play and train for a club. And surely, at the age of 11 I started training with a team (Gezira Sporting Club). That’s when basketball for me started morphing from a thing that I did for the genuine fun of it with my brother, to a thing of competition, performance, comparison, being the “star” of the team, and basically everything but the fun of basketball itself. My parents taught me to be respectful and well-mannered, and that specific basketball environment was directed in a way that was a little too vulgar for me to remain comfortable. My teammates would cat-call the girls in the club, our coach used to verbally insult us, and they used to be physical as well. All of that added to my anxiety of being there, and what started as a love for the game developed into a state of intense anxiety and self-doubt. I started off one of the best on the team, and ended up pretending to sleep during the games as I was too scared for the coach to call me into a game. My fear of the competitive context was another instance in which I felt like a failure. I attributed my performance to a fault within myself, rather than see it explained through the intrinsic and extrinsic model. Another “light of nature” instance was learning the “Self-fulfilling Prophecy” in the same Psychology course. The Self-fulfilling Prophecy is the socio psychological phenomenon of someone "predicting" or expecting something, and this "prediction" or expectation coming true simply because the person believes it will, and the person's resulting behaviors align to fulfill the belief. I had the realization finally through that that I wasn’t necessarily a failure, but that essentially the situational factors were preventing me from doing the thing for itself. Another instance of “light of nature,” was me being chosen to present on Ursula Le Guin’s “The Ones that Walk Away from the Omelas” in my Sociology course. The story takes place in a city that was portrayed in the most beautiful of ways, depicted as a place with no pain and only happiness and self-actualization with no ifs and buts. Later after Le Guin describes every corner in the city and the joy radiating from there, she pans and zooms to a house with a basement. In that basement there are no windows, a barely working light bulb, and an extremely malnourished and abused child. She explains that when the children of the Omelas “come of age” they must come to see how their city remains prospering and happy. She further stresses that without this abused child that the Omelas would tarnish; some are sickened by it, some let out rage, some cry, and finally some leave. She explains that everyone living in the Omelas is aware of the suffering child and have come to accept the child’s pain as their only way to attain such a life. The gist of my presentation at that time revolved around explaining that this is somewhat the world we live in in many ways. The child in Omelas could stand for the people in sweatshops in East Asia, that get paid extremely insufficiently for a corporation that makes and has billions. The story expresses the exploitation that is currently going about in the world, and on an even deeper level the child that one sacrifices within themselves to be able to (survive) in this world. The child in that sense can be a representation of the individual and the individual’s sacrifice of themselves for the greater good (society). I made more sense of this story and its interpretations when “Alienation” by Karl Marx was introduced to me by three different classes in the same semester, namely: Modern Philosophy, Arabic World Literature, and Introduction to Sociology. The concept of Alienation was first explained to me as the potter being disconnected or separated from his craft. “Marx believed that the capitalist system encouraged mechanical and repetitive work patterns that do not create any intrinsic value for the workers. The power of workers is transformed into a commodity which is manifested in the form of wages (Carver, 78). “Marx argued that capitalism eventually confines labor to the position of a commercial commodity. This means that social relationships are ignored while human beings under the system strive to attain endurance or betterment. The competitive nature of capitalism eventually creates conflicts and disputes. This can cause high levels of alienation and resentment among the masses (Carver, 80).” The reason I mentioned the quotes and the story of Omelas is to draw parallel with my experiences with basketball, religion, and education. (My experience with religion and God are subjected to the same type of cycles, perpetuated by school and basketball; God became a thing that I learned about from other people (church leaders, parents, pastors) rather than through my own being, became bits and pieces of information that I spew rather than an understanding built from within. I fell into the same pattern of healing myself of this (leaving the church setting, leaving the basketball court, leaving my studying), for it was the only way I could come back and truly learn. The “light of nature” showed me the Banking method.The Banking Method: depositing where the educator is the depositor and students are the depositories. Instead of communication the banking method involves students waiting, receiving and memorizing information, then restating this information back. This is the same model that was used to teach me of God, of course it had to fail!) This idea of Alienation played a rather pivotal role in my understanding of how the world works now, where people’s actions are more motivated by gaining forms of capital. Pierre Bourdieu’s “Forms of Capital,” was one of the topics introduced in my Sociology course where he posits three different forms of capital: Social, Cultural, and Economic Capital. Cultural Capital specifically, represents the “Instruments for the appropriation of symbolic wealth socially designated as worthy of being sought and possessed.” Symbolic elements such as education, knowledge, and skills are examples of cultural capital passed down that grant social advantages. Bourdieu further explains how the passing down of cultural capital is one of the major sources of inequality. I feel like education in this setting, which is a form of cultural capital, perpetuates the cycle of conflicts and disputes that Marx mentions because of it being a tool for endurance and betterment, rather than education for itself. When the topic of “Forms of Capital” was introduced to me it highlighted to me who I was in the world and why, the reason I get to ‘be’ the way I ‘am’ and the reason another person isn’t even given a chance to live . Neoliberalism is one of the final concepts shown to me by the “light of nature,” this quote regarding Neoliberalism, I felt is the most relevant to the overall picture I am trying to paint, “We internalise and reproduce its creeds. The rich persuade themselves that they acquired their wealth through merit, ignoring the advantages – such as education, inheritance and class – that may have helped to secure it. The poor begin to blame themselves for their failures, even when they can do little to change their circumstances.” The last thing shown to be by the “Light of Nature,” the thing that finally pushed me to take the step of reaching out was when my Sociology professor confirmed this semester that, “Competition is a by product of Neoliberal policy,” and further explained how competition didn't even exist in nature but we saw it there because of the place we put ourselves in. (Ilka Eickhof)
Paralysis
The issue at hand is that of a paralysis, not physical, but an overall incapacitation. The current Neoliberal direction of the world has taught us to compete for resources, and on a deeper level we begin to compete within ourselves. We have become ultra-aware of where we stand in the social aggregate to the extent that we are chronically disturbed by our own standing. The fundamentally ‘unequal’ state of the modern world stems from society’s competitive drive and causes the individual to internalize their own adequacy or inadequacy. The self-consciousness/awareness experienced through the social aggregate in turn drives individuals to either fulfill their perceived evaluation or struggle against it. The fulfillment of perceived evaluation is reminiscent of the concept of Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, while the struggle against is a form of Self-Negating Prophecy. Ultimately this places humans in a position that prompts us to behave through a mostly external drive. This external seeking is a product of our entangled lifestyles and is the driving force behind modern capitalism/Neoliberalism.
Drawn closer to each other due to countless media, we begin to learn about ourselves in the eyes of others and evaluate ourselves even closer. The famous behavioral Psychologist, B.F. Skinner, states that is undignified to get caught working for a reward. Another pair of Psychologists, Goffman and Johnstone, further explain that it is undignified because it is something children can’t avoid, and adults receive status-enhancement when they don’t. We have learned that material wealth means a bit less than it used to, and identified that it is not the cause of happiness/satisfaction but rather a promise of satisfaction. A promise that I believe fails us, suppresses our soul, and even more prominently, is killing our planet. Individuals learn that there is value in aligning personal energis with societal demand, in other words: finding intrinsic motivation. However, a distinction must be made between the finding of intrinsic motivation that is aimed at status-enhancement from a deeper form of intrinsic motivation. Status-enhancing behavior is one that presents itself in civility and fine manners (etiquette), which contributes to the acquisition of social capital, an extrinsic cause.
A deeper understanding of intrinsic motivation can be illuminated by Freud’s theory of Ego formation. Freud posits that the Ego (the self) is formed as a mediator between two hostile forces, them being the ID (the primal-animalistic drive) and the Superego (the ideal self, the eyes of society). If we are to equate the Superego’s effect on our lives to the evaluative consciousness that was mentioned in the first paragraph, then the ID presents itself in this context as the counterpart to the externalizing pressures of society. True intrinsic motivation is actually child-like, the reversal of the Ego formation process is thus conceptualized as a solution to this problem. However, it will remain that a level of civility and restraint is needed. We must therefore come to be aware of our motivators and attempt to realize which of them are being suppressed in fashion that is detrimental to us while on the other hand realizing which ones are being expressed in a similarly detrimental fashion.
Here manifests the issue of paralysis. We have come to realize the extent to which our motives are detrimental to nature, while simultaneously having to ‘endure’/survive. Death follows life everywhere, with every step one ends the ‘lives’ of millions of microorganisms without feeling an ounce of guilt. That is because the human footstep, in this case, bears no consciousness of what it induces. Therefore, the paralysis comes from our consciousness of malignant intention and simultaneous reluctance to follow through with it given our knowledge of the consequences.
The Historical

The Historical, as handled by Heidegger, is to be freed from its object conception, from its common-sense quality of moving in time. The Historical is experienced immediately in the present in a vivacious manner. Being conscious of the Historical is something that determines our culture by disturbing it in two ways: Primarily by providing a foothold in the diversity of cultural forms, and second by burdening us with that same diversity. Heidegger claims that humans attempt to secure themselves against Historical consciousness by participating in the panarchy of understanding or opposing the ‘obstructive’ quality of it. It dawned on me that the Historical could be understood in parallel to the section on paralysis, as the self-awareness mandated by the social aggregate and Neoliberal considerations. Heidegger states that if a new spiritual culture is insisted upon, one that attempts to quell the disturbance, then we must openly struggle against History. 

Open Struggle

 To openly struggle against the chains of Neoliberalism, which in the context of this message has been derived from the understanding of Heidegger’s Historical, is what we are willing to explore. We want to address the paralysis, and ultimately escape it. Religion My struggle with religion came in the form of unrelenting skepticism. I would not accept anything I could not fathom, and spent a large portion of my adolescent and adult life on a ‘mission’ to disprove its credibility. I believe this stemmed from my initial conception of religion as a man-made fairytale, and even more so an opioid for the masses. Also, my experience of religion being used as a tool of othering and the perpetuation of hatred was defining. The place that presumably resembled God did not resemble God for me, I experienced extreme dissonance due to that realization. The skepticism did not fare well with me initially, it turned me to nihilism and became confused that the ‘truth’ did not set me ‘free’. I would openly discuss religion with many individuals and always end up feeling more skeptical than before. ‘The Light of Nature’ had a huge role in the transformation of my view on religion, I had come to think of God as an everythingness rather than a patriarch. An everythingness meaning literally the total sum of all experience. in the world and beyond. That was established through an Apophatic approach, which entailed a way of speaking about God via what it is not (negation). A narrowed down understanding of God comes in the fantasy-like and utilizing realization of it, which I had been exposed to throughout my life. The narrowing down is much like the narrowed down understandings of language, consciousness and Historical that were addressed in the selected topics for the Phenomenology course. The narrowed down understanding of God is the one I associate with the saying “religion is opium for the masses”. Similar to the Heideggerian method of understanding phenomena, I attempt to approach God through factical life experience, freed from an object-conception. 

Time Time is yet another narrowed down and commonsensical concept that we believe we fully understand . We are tool-using creatures, what we portray must have meaning and familial use. Our object conception of phenomena stems from our tool using character, thus we begin to believe in the concept of time (also God, consciousness and etc.) as being the one at our disposal. A short while ago, I remember hearing about an event that took place in France and involved a dog being used as a witness for a court case. The dog’s recognition of a suspect was deemed as evidence, and was used to conclude the murder case. This raised several questions, since the murder happened two years prior to the case. Do dogs perceive time? The answer is dependent on what one perceives as time. If time is the linear-spatial conception that humans use to structure their existence then one cannot say that dogs perceive time, however if one were to free time from its linear-spatial conception, they can begin to realize that dogs experience time as a motive rather than a numerical system. This reminded me of when my father used to answer my questions about God by saying that God is outside of time and space, which would only fuel my confusion. The Everythingness The concept of the everythingness of God, and its permeation of existence had led me to the following thought: Religion did not mystically fall into the hands of humans the way one would imagine the events of the movie “The Lord of the Rings” taking place, rather it rose out of humans being inseparable from the everythingness of existence. It rose out of Religious consciousness. The Abrahimc religions are openly known to have been compiled literature, albeit the ‘word’ of God, but nonetheless there is an undeniable human involvement in the process. The word “Bible” for example means something akin to a library, the authors were identified through their writing styles. Religious text is aggregated wisdom that attempts to address a separation humans are experiencing, the word Re-ligion itself means to re-bond.
Adam and Eve

The Abrahmic narrative of Adam and Eve is prominently dealing with the idea of separation on many levels. Firstly, the separation of man and woman. It is stated that Eve was born from Adam and Adam from God. This opens up many modern day questions about the sexist implications of religion, however, I believe that the separation of Adam preceded conception of man and woman. It only became man and woman after the separation took place in what could’ve possibly been a hermaphroditic Adam. Adam and Eve lived in paradise, a word that translates to “enclosed garden” from its Hellenistic Greek translations. Paradise being an enclosed garden might indicate “nature but with structure”. The events proceed to the indulgence in the fruit from the tree of knowledge which was the result of Eve being tempted by a serpentine (in some renditions it is Satan himself) creature. The serpent is a widely used symbol of slyness and subtlety, and the use of intellect for self-interest. Eve is tempted and Adam follows, they both become fallen from paradise to Earth, and become aware of their own “nakedness”. The creationism narrative is thus one that essentially deals with a degree of self-consciousness being the ‘punishment’ that humans receive by disobeying God. The facticity of the events to me is irrelevant, given that religion is a consciousness, the events could indicate a deeply embedded psychological angst that one experiences in a state of separateness. Even some of the widely practised eastern religions, such as Buddhism and Hinduism, essentially deal with the issue of self-consciousness and Ego as being the root of suffering. Naming and Separation Once again we briefly return to the Freudian concept of “Ego”, which translates to “I”, in order to establish a link between self-awareness and a separateness from God. According to Freud children are not born with a conception of the self, and I believe we can all attest to that. Egos are formulated in response to societal values and pressures. One of the primary forms of Ego formation is that of receiving a name. Naming serves to distinguish something from everything, the Ego and one’s name go together in stressing one’s individuality and separateness. Naming is a form of typology that one becomes convinced is the reality, it is a primal form of rationality. One puts together multitudes of information to gather from them a common theme in order to make meanings that allow us to endure (survive), that is dangerous since the common theme becomes more real than the experience itself. The Anti-Christ Prophets of God prophesied, and God is not limited to its temporal-historical understanding here. Therefore prophecy is not an expectation of the future. The Arabic word for prophecy means to tell someone something they did not know, rather than predict the future. Thus it could be that prophets prophesied to that which is extra-temporal, to God and its wisdom, which is occurring eternally. This understanding allows me to remove the concepts of the Anti-Christ, heaven, hell, etc. from their obstructive understanding as things that will only happen in some magical form in the future. These phenomena are occurring extra-temporally and find their way in our lives in varying forms. 

The world has become dominantly controlled by time and money, the temporal and mathematical (the rational), and thus our understanding of God has taken up a distanced form. All prophets of the Abrahamic religions had their respective miracles. Moses would speak to God, Muhammad was the book of God and Jesus was God in human form. Miracles are thus instances in which humans and divine prominently intersect. In this sense, Christ, for example, is the coming together of God and Human. Thus the idea of Christ being the son of God. The Anti-Christ could mean the distance between God and Human. I believe that the case can be made that the ‘advancement’ of the modern world has also been distancing Humans from God. The fact that the ‘leading’ countries of the world have the highest reported suicide rates speaks miles that ‘advancement’ is not necessarily betterment. The system is beginning to ‘eat’ itself The Anti-Christ is within us.
St. Paul’s Letter

Given that the fall from paradise and the ‘nakedness’ that took place is what the creationism narrative is fundamentally addressing, I think that the grounds of human advancement, that we have been distanced from, is motivated by an attempt to reconcile with God and return to what paradise means: “an enclosed garden”, abundant nature with structure. St. Paul’s letter was addressing those who 

misunderstand what is meant by “the day of the lord comes like a thief in the night”, those who sit around and chat everyday waiting for the cataclysm to come upon us. On the other hand, he addresses those who obstinately (stubbornly) wait as they are face to face with the lord. This first struck me as the foundation of the current morale of the western world, one that attempts to reconcile with God through work, but ultimately one whose work distanced them from God. This is not to say that the effort is vice, but rather to point out that the effort has become misdirected and that we are coming to notice the misdirection gradually.
Science and Rationale

This entire effort is one that is based in rationale and science. If one were to deduce from the creationism story and the renditition of the Antichrist that rationale and science are the root of the current state of the world, then they would be ignorant to the reasons that these factions were developed in such a way in the first place. The human can become so caught up with the afterlife that they cease to make in effort in what they perceive as a temporary life. I believe this is what St.Paul is addressing through the letter. The separation between current life and afterlife is a problem of division of experience that is possibly causing the current rift between God and Human. During the time of the plague (Black Death), for example, people would flock together in places of worship and ultimately spread the disease even further in the name of religion and God. This prompted individuals to realize that religious congregations, which must be differentiated from religion itself, were shrouded with ignorance. Religion would answer people’s questions about death, now however the world has shifted to science because it visibly ‘healed’ people more than religion. People have stopped being consciously concerned with what happens to us when we die. For example, neither a feminist nor a communist are concerned with the afterlife, they are concerned with the ‘quality’ of life (which is why people turned away from religious congregation in the first place). Here is a quote from the progenitor of protestantism during the times of the plague, Martin Luther, who was famous for opposing the catholic in it church for its abuse of power:“I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine and take it. I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance inflict and pollute others and so cause their death as a result of my negligence. If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me and I have done what he has expected of me and so I’m not responsible for either my own death or the death of others. If my neighbor needs me however I shall not avoid place or person but will go freely as stated above. See this is such a God-fearing faith because it is neither brash nor fool-hardy and does not tempt God.” The Luther quote marks what I believe is a pure motive of science, the betterment of quality of life. 

Relation
St. Paul's letter speaks of an anguish which those who have been 'called' experience and others who are 'blinded' by Satan cannot attest for. The Abrahamic religions preach a working productive life with God that will ultimately grant us our lost place in 'paradise' and relieve us from our 'nakedness' (vulnerability), however the human must become aware that the working/productive/capitalistic ethic of Neoliberal policy has become increasingly reductive and typologizing (scientific/rational) to the extent that it perpetuates cycles of frustration and hatred and in our case a paralysis. The Anti-Christ, an ever-occurring phenomenon, finds its abode in this schism between Human and God. The coming of Christ, another eternally occurring phenomenon, is the gradual realization of our separateness from the everythingness of God which is from my point of view beginning to take place on a large scale. One cannot change the world, the world is already ever-changing and evolving, one can only realize how they change with the world and from that realization openly struggle against History.
We wrote this document in light of everything going on in the world right now and also in light of where our free thought took us over the span of the last 4-5 years.
References:
(n.d.). Retrieved from https://study.com/academy/lesson/intrinsic-and-extrinsic-motivation-in-education-definition-examples.html#lesson (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/hegelphilhist/summary/ Bourdieu, P. (n.d.). The Forms of Capital. Readings in Economic Sociology, 280–291. doi: 10.1002/9780470755679.ch15 Butler. (n.d.). Being Performative. Performativity, 112–138. doi: 10.4324/9780203391280_chapter_6 Chua, E. J. (2016, November 29). Disenchantment. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/disenchantment-sociology Jackson, M. (1996). Things as they are: new directions in phenomenological anthropology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Jackson, M. (2001). Knowledge of the body. Marxism & Alienation. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.marxists.org/subject/alienation/index.htm Mcleod, S. (n.d.). The Stanford Prison Experiment. Retrieved from https://www.simplypsychology.org/zimbardo.html Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems. (2016, April 15). Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/ap15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot OliviaN13. (1970, January 1). Banking vs. Problem Posing Education. Retrieved from http://theoretical-lens.blogspot.com/2012/03/reflection-3-banking-vs-problem-posing.html K., L. G. U. (1993). The ones who walk away from Omelas. Mankato, MN: Creative Education.

I'll try and write these summaries within as short a time as possible after having had the lecture, in order to work with fresh and hopefully accurate information. I make no guarantees when it comes to quality, but will strive to make it as high as possible, as I intend to revisit these notes come the exam period. I'll also attempt to present the information presented in the course and the material, and leave out opposing information I believe I have access to, if I did not share it with the rest of the course.
First, quick information about the course. It is explicitly made with a Nordic perspective, and carries clear influence of this. Additionally, it is meant to be a critical course, with an understanding of academic work as intent on influencing society. Finally, it focuses on a sociocultural approach, taking primary inspiration from the social sciences and the humanities.
As an opening to the course, this lecture focused mostly on the historical development of the perspectives on sex and gender, and a brief introduction to most perspectives. While it did not define any lens that is the right one, it was helpful in deciding on one that is wrong. We proceed to biological determinism
First, the lecturer did grant that biological sex is a thing, and that it causes certain differences between men and women. Among these differences were: Genitals, different on a rather essential level, serving different functions and the like; differences in anatomy, physiology, and hormones, which are relatively small and nearly all biologists agree about that. Furthermore, the small sex differences in biology are not big enough to offer a valid explanation of societal differences between the genders.
Biological determinism was seen to rise out of the inception of the two-sex model. This segment takes Thomas Laqueur's book "Making Sex" as the primary source. In it, a history of views on sex is detailed. Put briefly, for a while it followed the logic of a one-sex model, where men were men, and women were incomplete men, where the differences between men and women were in degree. On the other hand, coming around with biology and anatomy research, a dichotomy of the sexes as different in essence came around. This difference was seen as an absolute, and separated the sexes with little to no acknowledgement of overlap. This information was used to discriminate based on sex, fueling such arguments as different voting rights, or different pay.
When asked whether the fault in this lay with the underlying facts, or the reasoning that accompanied them, the lecturer called it a good question. It was extrapolated upon that the reasoning was not necessarily wrong, different lengths in parental leave being brought up as a reasonable way to discriminate based on biological facts. On the other hand, it was acknowledged that it depends on whether one were to identify as a "liberal" or a "radical" on the matter of equality, where the former would be more prone to want equal treatment, and the latter more likely to condone differential treatment.
Then we asked the question of what defines sex. What counts, who decides, and when/where is biological sex important? Intersex examples were offered to outline the blurring of the line, the ethics of sex conforming surgeries on intersex infants was questioned. Hormones and chromosomes were offered as possible measurements of what biological sex is. As for when it is important, reproduction was a clear example, while sports was mentioned, and the lecturer offered that one might find some other metrics than genitalia to sort people in categories that might be just as fair for the competitors. Affirmative action was also mentioned, where a counter that it regards social gender, was offered.
The matter of gendering items was also discussed, where the students were prompted to find different items that were gendered, and discuss how they were gendered, and why. This takes inspiration from this research, featuring a broad set of household items, and how they have been gendered. The example I will bring up is an electric screwdriver versus an electric whisk. Where the purpose of both is to make things spin, they tend to be different in design. More rounded lines, lighter colors, less accessibility to dismantle, and ease of operation were things described to be associated with gendering an item as feminine. Social commentary about how we in turn treat these items was offered. In this sense, designers were presented as ignorant as to what gender their product was getting, and unconscious bias was briefly mentioned, but not elaborated upon. I don't completely understand the offered perspective, but will try and dive deeper into it if anyone is interested in discussing the gender of things.
The matter of social gender was next up. With the defined areas being gender role, gender identity, gender relations, gender in relation to society, and gendered language. The main argument seemed to be that sex and/or gender inform all of these, who in turn affect gender.
After this primer, the course proceeded to extrapolate on how the different understandings of gender were created. We have the biological-medical perspective, which has been extrapolated on, and will not be very relevant going forward. Then we have sociocultural perspectives, and critical perspectives, forming the main categories that will be brought forward into the course.
Margaret Mead, an anthropologist and the author of "Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive societies" (1935) was used as an example of a sociocultural perspective, representing anthropological and ethnographic studies of gender which challenged biological understandings. The research is an example of criticism against understandings of gender based on white, western culture. Outlining three societies living on a single island, with widely different gender expressions, it was used as activist research, prompting the quote: "if the characteristics we consider as feminine can easily be considered as masculine in other cultures, there is no ground for linking these characteristics to the biological sex." On this note, the book does briefly acknowledge that her research has been criticized for being overly simplistic, stating she did it to clarify her arguments in relation to the American society. It (the book, not the lecture) concludes that even though her overarching points underline cultural organization of gender, and are correct, her handling of details in research shows that the relationship between activism and science at times can be strained.
Simone de Beauvoir, with her book "the second sex" (1949), forms a representation of gender seen from the humanities. And Toril Moi, with her interpretations and critique of Beauvoir was brought up in the same category. In this case, it was described that Simone described society as she saw it, with gender roles put on women, and being something that was learned. While transcendence was something she considered tied to the masculine, she argued that the immanence of women was a necessary contrast in the dominant system. Transcendence in this sense refers to a certain accessibility of the future, and freedom of action, while immanence is the lack of awareness of free choice brought on due to oppression.
Our ending note is on Judith Butler with Gender Trouble (1990), whose attributed view is that sex is as much a product of social construction as gender. A central theory is centered around performance. Where one performs gender in ones daily life, and thereby reproduce the social norms connected to that gender. An additional note is that she doesn't consider gender to be something one is, but rather something you do, act like, and look like. Her view of gender comes across more as if it was a tradition, where stepping too far outside ones gender causes social sanctions, and seemingly arguing that "misquoting" ones performance of gender serves as a way to change gender. Strikes me as very "be the change you want to see in the world."
Next week, we will look at feminism and gender studies, the former being another category of lenses to view gender through. I have noticed that I haven't been able to get everything down, but this was a four hour course, and a couple more hours of comparing notes, literature, and the slides. I'll try and see if I can produce a more accurate transcript to work with next time. I'll also, happily accept comments on the format. Could be that I should use bullet-points, and extrapolate on the most interesting bits in the comments upon request.