Lenguaje, poder e identidad

by Judith Butler

Judith Butler, una de las principales inspiradoras de la Teoría Queer, nos hacer replantearnos en esta obra clave nuestras ideas convencionales sobre el poder del lenguaje. Si hablar es actuar, ¿qué consecuencias se derivan de ello? Butler se enfrenta a los problemas más espinosos de la actualidad referentes a la relación entre hablar y actuar, problemas como el discurso racista, la pornografía y la política del ejército, que convierte una declaración de homosexualidad en un acto punible.
A través de una lectura original de Lacan, Althusser, Austin y Derrida, la autora realiza una apasionante reflexión sobre los límites del sujeto, la función del lenguaje en la constitución de la subjetividad y su articulación con el poder. Asimismo, Butler pone de relieve el estatuto performativo –y no solamente descriptivo– de las enunciaciones de sexo y de género. Expresiones como “maricón” o “bollera” deben considerarse, según esta nueva perspectiva, como invocaciones ritualizadas que producen posiciones de identidad.

Judith Butler es Catedrática en el Departamento de Retórica y Literatura Comparada de la Universidad de California, Berkeley. Es autora de los libros El género en disputa, Cuerpos que importan, Mecanismos psíquicos del poder, y El grito de Antígona.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Theory, Feminism, Politics, Language, Academic

271 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Judith Butler is an American post-structuralist and feminist philosopher who has contributed to the fields of feminism, queer theory, political philosophy and ethics. They are currently a professor in the Rhetoric and Comparative Literature departments at the University of California, Berkeley.

Butler received their Ph.D. in philosophy from Yale University in 1984, for a dissertation subsequently published as Subjects of Desire: Hegelian Reflections in Twentieth-Century France. In the late-1980s they held several teaching and research appointments, and were involved in "post-structuralist" efforts within Western feminist theory to question the "presuppositional terms" of feminism.

Their research ranges from literary theory, modern philosophical fiction, feminist and sexuality studies, to 19th- and 20th-century European literature and philosophy, Kafka and loss, and mourning and war. Their most recent work focuses on Jewish philosophy and exploring pre- and post-Zionist criticisms of state violence.

Reviews

[Ike Sharpless · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great ideas - catastrophically obscurantist delivery.

[Parlei · Rating 4 out of 5]

Judith Butler makes an important contribution here by emphasizing the stakes of power and agency in speech-act theory. She revisits key authors in speech-act discourse, such as J.L. Austin and Althusser, revising many of their theories which posited language too conventionally (Austin) or posited language as issuing from a sovereign or divine (otherwise non-human) agent (Althusser). In doing so, Butler questions the presumption that hate speech always works; this is not to minimize pain suffered as a consequence, but “to leave open the possibility that its failure is the condition of a critical response.” (19) A key term which she introduces to the equation is the notion of speech-act's "efficacy," or the presumption that speech-acts always somehow works. The inclusion of Toni Morrison's parable about young children playing a cruel joke on an old woman represents beautifully the way that power and agency can be subverted, and that language, as a kind of 'Schrodinger's' bird in the children's hands, is both a nonliving system and a 'living' thing which is contingent upon something beyond itself, particularly beyond anything you or I could contain.

Ultimately, this relates to the term 'Excitable' of her book, which she appropriates from law discourse to emphasize her point about language: "My presumption is that speech is always in some ways our of our control… Untethering the speech act from the sovereign subject founds an alternative notion of agency and, ultimately, of responsibility, one that more fully acknowledges the way in which the subject is constituted in language, how what it creates is also what it derives from elsewhere." (15-16) This is then tied into the concept of injurious speech, namely: hate speech, (mis)naming, and interpellation in ways that subverts a subject (e.g. the famous Althusserian scene of the policeman 'hailing' a subject; the subject, upon responding, then inscribes him/herself in guilt). The question becomes: when and how does an utterance perform meanings beyond that which is stated? Are we rendering more power to hate speech by regulating/legislating against it, thus calling it into a more privileged existence than it had before? And ultimately, what kind of language 'ought' we use--I ask, furthermore, how should that 'ought' be rendered?

Disagreement with Butler ultimately comes from a worldview which sees race, sexuality, and sexual performance as even issues, and which does not define 'hate speech' beyond what is currently the norm in today's liberal-political schema; her arguments are nonetheless strong. I do appreciate her inter-systematic approach in using supreme court decisions, law, censorship, and other culturally-derived spheres to make her arguments. This webpage has a good summary of her arguments: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/theatre_...

[Sofie Amalie]

Jeg tror jeg forstod den? 😅

Ingen tvivl om at Judith Butler er utroligt klog og der er helt klart noget viden i den her bog, som jeg kan bruge til min SRP, men det er nok også lige niveauet over en gymnasieelev. 😆

[Nahid Dolatshahi Piroz · Rating 4 out of 5]

"At forblive uvillig til at genoverveje sin politik på grundlag af spørgsmål, der stilles, er at vælge et dogmatisk standpunkt på bekostning af såvel livet som tænkningen."

[Rasmus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Faszinierende Ausführungen über den hate speech Diskurs in den USA. An einer handvoll Beispiele (Verbot der homosexuellen Selbstbekundung in der Armee, Urteile zu brennenden Kreuzen á la KKK) werden zahlreiche Theorien ausgebreitet und verhandelt. Zitate dienen lediglich als Hinweis, dass bestimmte Überlegungen bei bekannten soziologischen Größen vorkommen. Sie sollen die Überlegungen weder durch eine höhere Instanz legitimieren, noch dienen sie als eine dem Inhalt gegenüber gleichgültige für "*als* wahr genommene" Grundlage, auf der dann ohne Verantwortlichkeit herum gedacht wird. Eine sympathische Abgrenzung zu den Techniken des Geschwafels, die in Sozial-Studiengängen gelernt werden. Die Autorin gehört zu den Feministinnen, die Geschlecht dekonstruieren wollen, nicht zu den Feministinnen die Geschlecht zu ihrem Hauptargument machen. Butler leistet in diesem Buch keinen Beitrag zu Fragen, die Sache von Herrschaft sind: Sorten
Gruppenbezogener Menschenfeindlichkeit kommen nicht als eine Problemstellung für die Zweckdurchsetzung einer (z.b. demokratischen) Staatsgewalt vor, sondern werden hinsichtlich der Art und Weise ihrer Wirkung untersucht. Zensur-Aktivisti, die meinen Rassismus, Sexismus, Transphobie seinen Dinge, die bestraft und unterdrückt, statt erklärt und abgeschafft gehören, sollten in diesem Buch eigentlich nicht fündig werden: Bei manchen politischen Gruppen aus den USA (etwa solchen in Demokraten-Nähe), die sich auf Butler berufen, fragt man sich nach der Lektüre ob die Leute lesen können. Umgekehrt liefert aber das Buch auch keine Erklärung der besagten Phänomene. Das Vorhaben ist viel abstrakter. Es werden Wirkungsweisen, Beschränkungen und Möglichkeiten von Sprache untersucht. Die Abstraktheit ist sowohl große Stärke als auch große Schwäche dieses Textes. Die Autorin schafft es Zusammenhänge zu beschreiben, ohne Wille und Bewusstsein der Subjekte ihrer Darstellungen wegzuerklären oder gar zu leugnen. Man würde sich den destruktiven Text wünschen, dessen allgemeine Möglichkeit Butler beweist. So ziemlich das beste, was die Soziologie zu bieten hat - Leider halt trotzdem noch Soziologie. Bin sehr gespannt auf konkretere Texte der Autorin!

[Alberto Grandi · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Basterebbe solo pensare al modo in cui la storia del fatto di vedersi attribuire un nome ingiurioso sia incarnata nel corpo, come le parole entrino nelle membra, modellino il gesto, pieghino la spina dorsale. Basterebbe solo pensare a come gli insulti razziali o di genere vivano e prosperino nella carne della persona cui sono rivolti, e a come questi insulti si accumulino nel tempo, dissimulando la loro storia, assumendo la sembianza della naturalità, configurando e restringendo la doxa, che vale come realtà."

[Victoria Olsen (tid til tanker) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastisk. Intet mindre kan gøre det. Jeg har allerede brugt Butler til en million universitetsopgaver, og jeg har tænkt mig at bruge hende til en million mere 😎 (overdrivelsen fremmer forståelsen😂👏🏻)

[liv ⋆˙⟡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Judith butler I LOVE YOU

[Rachele]

???

[Joseph Sverker]

Excitable speech is a fairly odd book in many ways. Butler takes on a very difficult task. On the one hand she tries to argue, despite taking much support herself on that theory, that speech acts are not necessarily ‘acts’ when it comes to hate speech and pornography. Instead, she argues that hate speech is not an ‘act’ in itself. It is inconsistent with the theory iteslf, for Butler, if hate speech would be an ‘act.’ But in this she does not reject the idea of performativity in speech (that would certainly be blowing a gargantual hole in her own foot), rather, she points out that the people arguing for hate speech as a speech act is not understanding the uncertainty in the context of speech. What is meant by that is that speech (like all things performative for Butler) is never able to establish itself fully. There is always a failure in meaning in the hate speech, and even derogatory words is in constant need of negotiation of meaning. When that is the case, hate speech needs to be recognised as hate speech before it can be deemed to be hate speech. In that way no speech can be hate speech prior to the judgement.

Having done that, Butler, however, does not want to argue that one can freely defame one’s other. It is certainly the case that words can hurt for Butler, but that does not lead her to argue that hate speech is the same as physical violence for example. The main problem in the book is, I suppose, that when Butler locate the meaning of lagnuage in discoursese and power structures rather than directly in the speaker, she undermines individual responsibility for speech. She acknowledges this problem, but I am not completely convinced that she argues strongly enough for how to solve it.

A very interesting and valuable point, for me, in this book is how Butler stresses the materiality of speech. Speech never stops to be material she says. Speech comes from the the body in the speaker, travels in the physical waves and is taking in in the physcial body of the receptor. However, what speech does, and this is a point I find original, is that it works to detract from its own physicality. The focus in communivation is always on the meaning, and never on the means. In that way speech undermines the body, while being completely dependent upon the body. Speech acts as if it is immaterial, whilst it is fully material.

Bulter does not make this connection, but what I think is that this way of seeing speech makes it very interesting to compare the differences between music and dance. Music does in a way affirm speech in that it makes speech even more immaterial. Music, at least to me, masks itself as something ephemeral, mystical and transcendent. It does, in a way, want to separate itself from it material roots of the musical instruments, create a whole that is greater than the sum of its part. However, music provokes the body into movement. And in dance, music (and speech) is actually made corporeal. Or, more carefully put, the incorporreality and transcendence of music and speech is unmasked by dance. In that way dance is the more ‘true’ artform, if ‘truth’ is the same as unmasking things as they really are.

[Guilherme Smee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ler um livro de Judith Butler, para um homossexual, pode substituir muitos anos de terapia. Sim, os textos dela não são fáceis, e a maioria em inglês, mas aqueles capazes de dar uma chance à educação e ao pensamento crítico, conseguirão entender. Neste livro, Excitable Speech, um baita dum livro que devia ser traduzido ao português depois do "queimem a bruxa", fala exatamente sobre isso: até onde o discurso de ódio é ético e moral? Até onde ele deve ser regulado pela lei, pelo Estado e pela sociedade? Esse livro me fez entender bastante como minha sexualidade foi construída e desconstruída social e culturalmente, principalmente pelas teorias de Freud sobre censura e autoridade, algo que já era minha hipótese aqui corroborada pela Bubu. Butler explica como o discurso, a censura, a autoridade, a violência fragilizam certas identidades e cortam a sua agência e autonomia, desconsiderando-as socialmente. Isso vale não só para homossexuais, mas negros, indígenas, mulheres, latinos, pobres e tantos outros. Ela mostra como a agência do discurso influi numa censura implícita, que não está no papel, mas faz parte do habitus - termo estabelecido por Pierre Bourdieu - da sociedade. Butler também explicou minha paranóia e minha fobia social através da situação do "dont ask dont tell" do exército americano, no qual as pessoas ficam desterritorializadas, deslegitimadas, sem ter para onde fugir por ter sua identidade negada. Se dizer homossexual nos exército americano induz a um monte de segregação e que é ainda mais fragilizada na imaginação do soldado gay, que produz imagens de culpa e de castigo pelo fato de ser quem é e pelos desejos que tem. Para Butler, o desejo homossexual na sociedade atual produz o que Paul Ricoeur definia como o Circuito Vicioso do Inferno, ou seja, um círculo vicioso de desejo e interdição infinito, que acarreta em altas doses de culpabilidade e não-merecimento de participar da sociedade por aquele que "sofre" desse desejo. Essa transformação da homossexualidade em culpa e, portanto, na base do sentimento social, ocorre quando o medo do castigo parental se generaliza como o medo de perder o amor de outros. A paranóia, para Sigmundo Freud, é a maneira pela qual esse amor é consistentemente reimaginado como sempre quase retirado, e é, paradoxalmente, o medo de perder esse amor que motiva a sublimação ou introversão da homossexualidade. Ela também fala de performatividades soberanas, que guiam conduta tanto moral quanto de gênero dos seres humanos e, portanto, moldam a sociedade através de poder e autoridade. E, de tanto ela falar em discurso, em discurso de ódio, em censura, ela acaba falando de silêncio e silenciamento, tanto físico, como espiritual, como moral e psicológico das minorias, mas principalmente dos homossexuais, que foram erradicados da História e continuam sendo perseguidos por gente que não tem paciência e nem capacidade de ler um livro da Bubu. Seja ele em inglês ou em português. E tenho dito.

[Jay Jolles · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't have much exposure to Judith Butler, mostly because I very easily fall into the paradigm of having read Gender Trouble first and then automatically assuming that any and all of her contributions would stem from/take issue with ideas of gender/sexuality/etc. This is incredibly small-minded of me because in reading Excitable Speech I found myself so very taken with the ways in which she explores ideas of trauma and mourning through language. I think where her ideas intersect with Derrida's is a place that could lend itself to very fruitful further exploration and I was so pleased with the reading I was tasked to do in this book for class. What I think I found most disenchanting with Butler's work, and the reason that I can't conscionably give this a higher rating, is the fact that her use of language is seemingly so arbitrary. While this, in and of itself, could be performative of the very things she is trying to explicate in her writing, I find that she either writes with such striking clarity or buries so much of her work in unnecessary jargon that is basically unreadable. Regardless, this book just made me want to read Precarious Life.

[honey · Rating 5 out of 5]

acho que consegui entender a razão pela qual normalmente colocam butler como uma autora complicada de se compreender, mas não me arrependo nem um pouco de ter ido direto da fonte dessa vez. butler constrói uma narrativa de questionamentos acerca do que entendemos como discurso, o impacto da linguagem, suas nuances e a leitura atual. o livro é repleto de referências excelentes e contrapontos muito bem fundamentados. senti um pouco de falta de um capítulo final com uma conclusão sobre todos os tópicos abordados, mas isso não diminuiu a experiência de leitura. certamente vou reler alguns pontos em algum momento.
livro excelente e linguagem complicada porque algumas coisas na vida são complicadas mesmo. a temática em si é complexa e quando você consegue entender isso o jeito que butler escreve se torna a última das preocupações.

[Octa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I gave it two stars, not for the content, but for the writing style.
It's extremely dense, overly complicated and hardly accessible to people who are not familiar with her field. Which is a shame with this book, because as far as I understood it, it's a very pertinent analysis. However I am so uncertain about having understood the actual meaning that I won't comment further on this.
Also, I made the mistake of trying to read this translated in my mother tongue at first. Her analysis of language is so tied up in english vocabulary and speech that part of its significance gets lost in another language.

[Jesse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Butler's analysis of censorship is nuanced, and as always she resists drawing easy conclusions. The political issues she considers are still very relevant today, even though the book was published well over a decade ago. The theory of accountability that Butler proposes in Excitable Speech sets the stage for the even better Giving an Account of Oneself.

[Nated Doherty · Rating 5 out of 5]

When people criticize Butler for this book, it makes me think they are stupid, also it makes me want to punch them. (is that hate speech?) Anyway, it's very interesting, deep book. About law and speech (and consequently the way we live in the world all). Illuminating.

[Johannes · Rating 1 out of 5]

I never finished this. This book represents my very mixed emotions about contemporary academia. I can't really stand it, but I also feel terribly guilty for not putting the effort into knowing it and being able to express why I can't stand it.

[Fluffy Singler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Judith Butler's writing can be very dense and difficult to read. This book is a little more accessible than some of her work, but you definitely have to have the vocabulary in her subject matter to follow it. If you do, you will find this work very valuable and worthwhile.

[Will Jackson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating thread of ideas and insights into the power of language, the mechanics of language and hate speech. I hate the obscurity of the writing and style, jumping from topic to topic. But still, exceptionally detailed and interesting.

[Daniela · Rating 1 out of 5]

Butler deviously pixes up pragmatics with ever-changing-fuild-never-congealed entity view! The result: bamboozling gibberish!

[Nat Baldino · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read alongside J.L. Austin's How To Do Things with Words.

And who said that early Butler wasn't clear and concise? This definitely was. If only this line of thinking was present for GT

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The habitus is not only a site for the reproduction of the belief in the reality of a given social field-a belief by which that field is sustained-but it also generates dispositions which "incline" the social subject to act in relative conformity with the ostensibly objective demands of the field.”

“Indeed, all performativity rests on the credible production of "authority" and is, thus, not only a repetition of its own prior instance and, hence, a loss of the originary instance, but its citationality assumes the form of a mimesis without end. The imposture of the performative is thus central to its "legitimate" working: every credible production must be produced according to the norms of legitimacy and, hence, fail to be identical with those norms and remain at a distance from the norm itself. The performance of legitimacy is the credible production of the legitimate, the one that apparently closes the gap which makes it possible.”

“…the restriction of speech is instrumental to the achievements of other, often unstated, social and state goals. One example of this includes a conception of censorship as a necessary part of the process of nation-building, where censorship can be exercised by marginalized groups who seek to achieve cultural control over their own representation and narrativization. A similar, but distinct kind of argument, however, is also made typically on behalf of a dominant power that seeks to control any challenges posed to its own legitimacy. Another related example is the use of censorship in an effort to build (or rebuild) consensus within an institution, such as the military, or within a nation; another example is the use of censorship in the codification of memory, as in state control over monument preservation and building, or in the insistence that certain kinds of historical events only be narrated one way.”

“To the extent that Foucault is right to describe contemporary relations of power as emanating from a number of possible sites, power is no longer constrained by the parameters of sovereignty. The difficulty of describing power as a sovereign formation, however, in no way precludes fantasizing or figuring power in precisely that way; to the contrary, the historical loss of the sovereign organization of power appears to occasion the fantasy of its return-a return, I want to argue, that takes place in language, in the figure of the performative. The emphasis on the performative phantasmatically resurrects the performative in language, establishing language as a displaced site of politics and specifying that displacement as driven by a wish to return to a simpler and more reassuring map of power, one in which the assumption of sovereignty remains secure.”


“To what extent does discourse gain the authority to bring about what it names through citing the linguistic conventions of authority, conventions that are themselves legacies of citation? Does a subject appear as the author of its discursive effects to the extent that the citational practice by which he/she is conditioned and mobilized remains unmarked? Indeed, could it be that the production of the subject as originator of his/her effects is precisely a consequence of this dissimulated citationality?
If a performative provisionally succeeds (and I will suggest that
"success" is always and only provisional), then it is not because an intention successfully governs the action of speech, but only because that action echoes prior actions, and accumulates the force of authority through the repetition or citation of a prior and authoritative set of practices. It is not simply that the speech act takes place within a practice, but that the act is itself a ritualized practice. What this means, then, is that a performative "work" to the extent that it draws on and covers over the constitutive conventions by which it is mobilized. In this sense, no term of statement can function performatively without the accumulating and dissimulating historicity of force.”

[Attasit Sittidumrong · Rating 4 out of 5]

ข้อเสนอสำคัญของจูดิธ บัทเลอร์ในหนังสือเล่มนี้คือการทำความเข้าใจสิ่งที่เรียกว่า hate speech และท่าทีที่เราควรมีต่อ hate speech โดยบัทเลอร์เห็นด้วยกับนักวิชาการหลายๆคนที่มอง hate speech ว่าเป็น speech act หรือคำพูดที่ไม่เพียงแต่เป็นแค่คำที่สื่อความหมาย แต่ยังสร้างผลกระทบเปลี่ยนแปลงสภาพของวัตถุที่เป็นเป้าหมายของคำพูดนั้นๆ เพราะเวลาที่่ฝ่ายหนึ่งใช้ hate speech กับอีกฝ่าย ฝ่ายนั้นกำลังทำ (act) ให้อีกฝ่ายที่เป็นเป้าหมายของ hate speech สูญเสียความเป็นมนุษย์แล��ตกเป็นเบี้ยล่างบนความสัมพันธ์ที่มีต่อกัน เพียงแต่ในสายตาของบัทเลอร์แล้ว ชนิดของ speech act ที่ hate speech เป็นจะไม่ใช่แค่ speech act ทั่วไป แต่จะเป็นสิ่งที่เรียกกันว่า the sovereign speech act นั่นก็คือ speech ที่มีพลังในการทำร้าย/ริบ/ตัดทอนความเป็นมนุษย์ของอีกฝ่าย อันถือเป็นคุณสมบัติที่เคยถูกสงวนไว้ให้กับรัฐในฐานะผู้ครอบครองอำนาจอธิปไตยท่านั้น การแพร่กระจายของ hate speech จึงแฝงนัยยะของการที่รัฐสูญเสียอำนาจอธิปไตยให้กับประชาชนผู้ที่ครั้งหนึ่งต้องคอยเชื่อฟังคำสั่งของรัฐ สอดคล้องกับกระบวนทัศน์เรื่องอำนาจที่ความนิยมในวิธีคิด���รื่องวาทกรรม(ซึ่งนำเสนอโดยมิเชล ฟูโกต์) ได้เข้ามาแทนที่วิธีคิดที่ยึดองค์อธิปัตย์โดยรัฐเป็นศูนย์กลาง

อย่างไรก็ตาม ขณะที่การขยายตัวของ hate speech คือดัชนีชี้วัดถึงความเสื่อมโทรมของกระบวนทัศน์ที่เน้นองค์อธิปัตย์โดยรัฐ บัทเลอร์กลับเห็นต่างกับนักวิชาการจำนวนมากที่เรียกร้องให้มีการตรากฏหมายว่าด้วย hate speech เพื่อลงโทษคนที่ใช้ชุดคำพูดดังกล่าว ด้วยเหตุผลที่ว่าการเรียกร้องให้ตรากฏหมายนี้คือหลุมพรางของกลไกรัฐที่ใช้ปกปิดความเป็นจริงที่ว่าอำนาจอธิปัตย์ที่ตนเคยผูกขาดได้ถูกท้าทายและทำลายไปจนหมดสิ้นแล้ว ในแง่นี้แม้ การดำรงอยู่ของ hate speech อาจมีความหมายถึงชุดคำพูดที่ส่งผลทำร้ายผู้เป็นเป้าหมายของตัวมัน แต่นัยยะที่สำคัญกว่าของการมีอยู่ของ hate speech กลับคือนัยยะที่ว่าชุดคำพูดดังกล่าวเป็น "อาชญากรรม" และสมควรที่จะถูกลงโทษโดยรัฐ ดังนั้นการแพร่ขยายของ hate speech จึงมิได้เป็นเรื่องของความหมายที่ว่ารัฐกำลังสูญเสียอำนาจอธิปไตย มากเท่ากับการแสดงออก (performance) ของตัว hate speech เองที่สื่อนัยยะของการเรียกร้องให้รัฐเข้ามาควบคุมเสรีภาพในการพูดของผู้คนในสังคม hate speech จึงเป็น state speech ไม่ใช่ในแง่ที่ว่ารัฐเป็นผู้กล่าวคำพูดเพื่อทำร้าย/ตัดทอนความเป็นมนุษย์ แต่คือในแงที่ตัว hate speech เป็นอาวุธทางอุดมการณ์ที่ทั้งปกปิดความอ่อนแอของรัฐและยังคอยกล่อมเกลาให้ผู้คนในสังคมยินยอมมอบเสรีภาพและอำนาจให้แก่รัฐอีกครั้ง

ดังนั้น การดำรงอยู่ของ hate speech สำหรับบัทเลอร์จึงไม่ใช่ปัญหาที่ต้องจัดการด้วยกฏหมาย เพราะนั่นจะส่งผลต่อการลดทอนให้ประเด็นทางการเมืองกลายเป็นประเด็นทางกฏหมายซึ่งเบียดขับกระบวนการในการต่อรอง/ปะทะ/ประสานในสังคมการเมือง ตรงกันข้าม การจัดการกับ hate speech ได้ดีที่สุดคือการรักษาเสรีภาพและขยายพื้นที่ทางสุนทรียศาสตร์ให้มากขึ้น เพราะการขยายพื้นที่ทางสุนทรียศาสตร์คือการเชื่อมั่นในพลังความสร้างสรรค์ของผู้คนที่สามารถเปลี่ยนแปลงความหมายของคำต่างๆจนทำให้ hate speech สูญเสียความหมายดั้งเดิมของมันได้เสมอ ถ้าอำนาจเป็นสิ่งที่ดำรงอยู่ในรูปของวาทกรรม นั่นก็หมายถึงโอกาสที่ทุกคนสามารถฉวยใช้ เชื่อมต่อและเปลี่ยนแปลงความหมายของวาทกรรมนั้นๆได้ แน่นอน คำพูดบางคำในยุคสมัยหนึ่งอาจแฝงนัยยะของการเหยียดและลดทอนความเป็นมนุษย์ของผู้เป็นเป้าหมาย แต่เพราะตัวเป้าหมายเองก็เป็นมนุษย์ผู้มีศักยภาพในการสร้างสรรค์ความหมายใหม่ๆได้เช่นกัน ดังนั้นพวกเขาจึงมีโอกาสที่จะเปลี่ยนแปลงนัยยะและทำให้คำพูดเหล่านั้นกลายเป็นอาวุธโต้ตอบของพวกตนได้เสมอ

โดยรวมๆแล้ว ถือว่านำเสนอประเด็นได้นาตื่นตื่นใจมาก อย่างไรก็ตาม คำเตือนสำคัญสำหรับผู้ที่จะอ่านหนังสือเล่มนี้ก็คือ มันเป็นงานเขียนช่วงแรกๆสมัยที่บัทเลอร์ยังได้ชื่อว่าเป็นหนึ่งในนักวิชาการอเมริกันที่เขียนหนังสืออ่านยากที่สุด เนื้อหาในหนังสือจึงเต็มไปด้วยสัมพันธบทที่อ้างอิงไปมาระหว่างตัวบททางปรัชญากับการเมืองและวรรณกรรม ซึ่งถือได้ว่าเป็นงานเขียนที่เรียกร้องสมาธิและความอดทนของผู้อ่านสูง และอาจพูดได้เลยว่าหนังสือเล่มนี้เป็นหนึ่งในตัวอย่างการเขียนหนังสือที่ไม่ควรเลียนแบบ

[Giuliana Petrucci · Rating 2 out of 5]

Assunto importante e interessante ,mas é hermético (trancado, impossível de acessar). A escrita ta desnecessariamente densa e não é por causa da tradução. O desencadeamento dos argumentos é que são intransponiveis.. às vzs da pra pegar umas ideias. E é mt densa a quantidade de autores e suas teorias que ela usa no caminho pra opiniar e traçar as próprias teses, que são de difícil compreensão.

Mas resumindo o livro, eis o post que fiz no meu instagram @crocodicas:

👉Já ouvir falar dos Atos de fala do filósofo John Austin?

💬 É a ideia de que a linguagem não serve apenas para descrever situações e sensações. Vai muito além: nossas falas são também atos, performances que tem intenções e muitas vezes buscam obter ou provocar algo em alguém.

Como exemplos temos as perguntas, as ordens, os pedidos, os desabafos, os conselhos, as frases de amparo. As ordem e os pedidos mobilizam e requisitam. Os conselhos oferecem alternativas. As frases de amparo buscam tranquilizar.

É nessa linha que Judith Butler analisa os discursos de ódio. As palavras tem o poder de ferir, elas acessam a nossa vulnerabilidade, já que estamos submetidos à linguagem e precisamos dela para existir como humanos. 🤯

Mas ela não só nos constitui; a linguagem pode ameaçar nossa existência.

Butler afirma que o discurso de ódio não apenas comunica ideias ofensivas, mas coloca em ação a própria mensagem que ele comunica.

Há, no entanto, a possibilidade de se apropriar da ofensa e ressignificá-la, como aconteceu com a palavra "bicha" pela comunidade gay. Vemos isso no documentário no Youtube: "Bichas - O documentário".

O termo era embutido de um sentido pejorativo, mas sua repetição pelos proprios sujeitos a quem a ofensa era direcionada criou um sentido de resistência e apropriação. Então por que não correr o risco e mergulhar dentro de um termo, se apropriando dele e batendo no peito pra ser o que se é? Isso o que Butler quer dizer com o caráter de insurreição da linguagem! Uma verdadeira disputa pela polissemia.

Existem muitos exemplos mobilizados pelos movimentos sociais dessa ressignificação! E Butler considera esse discurso inssurrecionário como alternativa às injúrias e ofensas.

[T. Tokunaga · Rating 5 out of 5]

【Excitable Speech; A Politics of the Performative / Judith Butler / Routledge, 1997】

Judith Butler is prolix from time to time, I do admit. But that's because a really large part of her writing is to have you picture what, more than often really performative, equivocal texts of equivocal philosophers and academics. When she writes about Toni Morrison, Derrida, Bourdieu and JL Austin she's writing it as 'portable explanation,' a version that's more portable to base.

This is probably the ideal style of citation, the action of which she says as follows:

--The form of the name depends not only on iterability, but in a form of repetition that is linked to trauma, in what is, strictly speaking, not remembered, but relived, and relieved oh and through the linguistic substitution for the traumatic event. (Introduction, p. 36.)

--The citationality of the performative produces that possibility for agency and expropriation at the same time. (Chapter 2, p. 87.)

--By understanding the false or wrong invocation as reiterations, we see how the form of social institutions undergoes change and alteration and how an invocation that has no prior legitimacy can have the effect if challenging existing forms of legitimacy, breaking open the possibility of future forms. (Chapter 4, p. 147.)

As a scholar, she discussed the representation of reiteration (or repetitive circle of conventions) in the events of 1990s, namely, hate crimes to black households, porn controversy, forced gay outing in the US military and whether censorship would help them change these problems - and she really used the power of reiteration, of which she is aware, for a more just, comfortable world which has a better relationship to this proneness.

[Morgan U. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to read this as a “main text” for a course and at first I honestly regretted my decision. Not because of the content but because Judith Butler writes at such a high level that makes it so hard to comprehend what is happening. I loved their argument. They actually allowed me to develop and change my argument on hate speech regulation. So yes, it was a very complex (but short) book. If I also didn’t just have like two or three weeks to analyze this and then 3 more to write a 14 page essay on it, I would have spent much longer reading this. This isn’t my first time running into Judith Butler’s work and it certainly won’t be my last.

[Mélanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Judith Butler, philosophe spécialiste des études de genre, analyse les discussions, souvent passionnées, sur la génèse de la violence verbale dirigée contre les minorités. Soulignant l'ambivalence du "hate speech" et de la possibilité de le retourner et d'ouvrir l'espace nécessaire d'une lutte politique et d'une subversion des identités.
Judith Butler nous propose de puissants instruments pour repenser les questions soulevées par les débats sur la pénalisation des discours de haine.

[Indumugi C · Rating 4 out of 5]

If someone convinced you that reading Judith Butler's work is difficult, this is your cue that it is not. This is the first time I picked up her work, and it was eye-opening, and brilliant. I'm going to go on a reading spree of her other books. Excitable speech investigates language as a scene of injury than its cause. In particular, she argues that utterances can attain a resignification over time, and such an insurrectionary speech becomes a necessary response to injurious language.

[Iris Core · Rating 4 out of 5]

Doesn't have the same depth as some of her other works, but still a very interesting overview of censorship, discourse etc. Certainly feels like essential reading wrt hate speech and free speech, and the chapter on homophobia in the military was a great case study. Would definitely say it needs to be read in conjunction with 'Giving An Account Of Oneself' if the ideas of the subject are to be properly explored but yeah, solid book overall.

[José Ignacio Gallo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Calificar y reseñar un libro de Butler es imposible. Éste es una lectura particularmente disfrutable en muchos momentos, aunque en otros (sobre todo en partes vinculadas más con fenómenos legales y casos de los 90 en Estados Unidos) también demasiado específico. Su escritura y pensamiento siempre apuesta por la complejidad y profundidad, y éste en particular me parece muy interesante por la capacidad de aplicar sus consideraciones a problemáticas afines y disímiles.
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