A BLOG

blog mash-up #2, part 1: Foucault, Butler and Virtue

My first attempt at a blog mash-up was not successful. I have spent the past 10 (or more) days trying to put my entries together in a way that would generate an academic journal-worthy article. Trying is the key word. Trying and failing. But, maybe failing here isn’t so bad. I think that that mash-up (in which I combine Horton, We Care and feminist ethics of care) shouldn’t be the first one I write. Instead, I need to finish up the article I started on Judith Butler, troublemaking, virtue and Foucault. Here are the entries that I will use in this mash-up:

So, in my first entry about my blog mash-up project, I asked if anyone had any good mash-ups for me. No response. While I still haven’t found any mash-ups that I really like, I did find this very disturbing one:

That’s right. You’ve just been rickrolled. And, okay, this video isn’t really a mash-up (or is it?). No worries. My project of combining these different entries isn’t really a mash-up either. Maybe I need to call it something else…

blog mash-up #1, part 3: shifting my attention

Note: I last edited this entry on June 15 (but I had started it at least a week before that). As I indicated in this post, I have decided to shift my attention away from this mash-up and towards another one. Before I completely shift my attention, I want to post this entry. I am adding a few more ideas at the end…

So, my big issue in my latest blog mash-up is this: how to frame what I already have in relation to some of the literature within feminist ethics about care. In my last entry, I came up with a promising approach: focusing on “daring to be bad” and its connections to troublemaking/troublestaying and ethics. In that entry, I briefly discussed Marilyn Frye’s essay in which she rejects ethics and its call to be good by arguing that being good is too mired in a desire to please others/be seen as acceptable. Such a desire, she cautions, encourages “good little girls” to reinforce/support oppressive structures. For Frye, the solution is to grow out of this need and to stop looking to ethics for guidance.

It is interesting to note her word choice. She writes that we should grow out of ethics instead of grow up beyond ethics. Could we read her growing out instead of up as something akin to Kathryn Bond Stockton’s growing sideways, which I discuss here?

In encouraging us to reject ethics, Frye reinforces a popular understanding of ethics by many feminists (and those engaging in queering theory too): ethics, which is created by those in power, a. is based on rigid rules/structures that regulate behavior and reinforce oppressive structures and b. is in opposition to politics (and political resistance/justice). I like this idea and all day yesterday I thought about how it might work for this essay. Then, I stopped thinking about it. I realized that I am trying to do too much. I need to focus in, at least for this paper, on how I fit my thinking about troublestaying as care into feminist care ethics.

As I struggle to polish up some of my ideas for publication, I am struck by how much more difficult traditional academic writing is then blog writing. When I start to put together an essay, I think I panic a little. I think about all of the ideas that I should include and then worry about how I might be leaving something out or not exploring something else enough. How much of this anxiety is helpful (as in, helpfully reminding me to to be “rigorous” and thorough in my thinking/research/writing) and how much of it is damaging (as in, damaging to my ability to ever produce something of publishable quality? And, how much of this anxiety is just a necessary part of trying to really do something with my ideas (and produce something that is fixed and finished)?

The question I need to ask myself is, what original ideas do I want to present and how I can use the background literature to support/clarify/explain those ideas? I am interested in thinking about troublemaking/troublestaying as a form of care (or, if not a form, at least connected to it) and I want to think about it in relation to Foucault and his use of care in the essay, “The Masked Philosopher.” I want to think about care as a willingness to:

  • see the world strangely/differently
  • pay close (and serious) attention to what exists or might exist
  • maintain a critical awareness of limits/problems
  • act on what one cares about
  • question/challenge/reject traditional hierarchies

These descriptions all point to care as curiosity and making/staying in trouble. I want to read this vision of care in relation/against/next to Joan Tronto and Berenice Fisher and their definition of care. Here’s the definition:

On the most general level, we suggest that caring be viewed as a species activity that includes everything that we do to maintain, continue, and repair our ‘world’ so that we can live in it as well as possible. That world includes our bodies, our selves, and our environment, all of which we seek to interweave in a complex, life-sustaining web (103).

In addition to their general definition, Tronto and Fisher offer up four different phases of care (which Tronto also discusses in greater detail in Moral Boundaries and which I discuss here): caring about, taking care of, giving care and receiving care. Tronto/Fisher are interested in giving serious attention to care and providing a detailed description of how it is practiced. I appreciate their efforts here and find their analysis to be very helpful as I try to think through what I mean by care and troublemaking as care. (In fact, I always really appreciate it when scholars develop clear, concrete and detailed definitions of terms/ideas. Clarity, what a concept!) So, I want to use this definition as a starting point and as something to work with and against.

In their definition of care, Tronto and Fisher emphasize care as being about maintaining, continuing and repairing our world. Where do I fit making and staying in trouble into this definition? Is staying in trouble a form of repair? Interestingly enough, I wrote about this problem right after posting my entry on Tronto. In that entry, I pose the question:

Is it possible to imagine making trouble–disrupting the status quo, challenging ideas that are assumed to be givens and emphasizing the brokenness of ideas/images/visions–as actually contributing to the sustaining and repairing of the world?

Since writing that entry, I have checked out and skimmed Elizabeth Spelman’s book, Repair.  Her book is really great. I especially appreciate her writing style which is fairly relaxed and less-academicky (and mind-melting) than most philosophy books.

For Tronto, the notion of care as repair is all about solving problems and fixing things/people/needy situations. While I agree that these are important activities (we do need to find solutions, even if they are temporary, for meeting the needs of various groups), I don’t think that this is the only way to imagine what we could do with care. What if care wasn’t just about identifying problems and then solving them, but about giving focused and careful attention to how those problems get created and why they are problems in the first place? Here’s where Foucault and his notion of care (and problem posing) could come in. And what if repair was not only about fixing things or restoring them to their former glory, but about reworking them in new ways?

My understanding of the implications of  repair as taking care of a problem (Tronto’s second phase) was enhanced after talking with STA about a computer/web problem he needed to fix. He wasn’t able to get rid of the problem (which was the desired, and potentially achievable, goal), so he had to work around it. This solution was less than ideal because he really wanted to finally and fully take care of the problem. Now this sort of language concerning repair–taking care as getting rid of–makes a lot of sense when you are talking about computer bugs or code breakdowns. But, does it make sense to use this language when we are talking about people and their needs? Is it possible to take care of their problems once and for all? How can we think about care-as-ongoing repair? Or, how can we think about care as tinkering and experimenting instead of solving?

When I return to this mash-up later in the summer, I want to make sure to start with Elizabeth Spelman’s idea of the tinkerer as one who repairs, in her chapter, “From Bricolage to Invisible Mending.

oh bother, part 13

Is this a brussel sprout or are you just happy to see me? Here’s an advertisement for Subzero refrigerators on the first page of this month’s Bon Appetit:

Hello primary signifier and hello food porn! Does anybody write about this (as in, food porn/exploitation of food) from feminist materialist or queer ecologist perspectives?

Note: I also posted this image (with a slightly different discussion) here on another blog.

Agonism, criticism and the trouble with fault finding

Last night, I came across an article in The Chronicle Review that immediately caught my attention (yes, it made me curious). Entitled “In Praise of Tough Criticism,” this article argues for the value of tough, combative criticism over and against compassionate and supportive engagement with ideas. Even though warning bells went off in my head and one of my inner voices sang out (because my inner voices sing out, with lusty vibrato, of course), “Prrrroblemaaaatic!,” I kept on reading. Before getting to why and how I found this essay to be problematic, let me appreciate (as in, summarize) the author’s argument. Here it is, in a nutshell.

At the beginning of the essay, the author wants us to consider two typical ways in which to engage (or eschew) criticism in the academy. On one hand, we have Professor Jones. Jones is patient, friendly, compassionate, non-confrontational and, above all else, positive. Their mantra is: “If you don’t have something positive to say, then it is best not to say anything at all–at least not in public.” Jones is so invested in collegiality that they will decline to review a poorly written book by a colleague, rather than write anything “negative” about that colleague. Jones strongly dislikes (and avoids) harsh criticism–or criticism at all, for that matter; they understand it to always and only be harsh. On the other hand, we have Professor Smith. Smith likes to tell people they are wrong and has built a successful career doing just that. They understand criticism to be primarily concerned with both persuading others to agree with them and proving that ideas other than theirs are wrong. For Smith, criticism is about competition, being a brute and having strong (as in, not “wishy-washy”) ideas. They are very good at arguing. They like to say, “Public criticism is as valid as public praise.”

According to the author, we need to be more like Smith. While being compassionate and caring is nice, and could help foster more collegiality, it doesn’t encourage us to become better intellectuals (or critics). Rejecting the idea that compassion is an intellectual virtue, the author writes,

If a compassionate, caring form of criticism entails removing the “critical” from “critical exchange,” then I would rather see the field move toward a more combative, confrontational style–even if it means ruffling a few feathers.

The author’s big concern seems to be that compassionate criticism is not criticism at all. Academics like Jones “bend over backwards to praise books more than they deserve” and, when they do disagree, they are either quiet about it or offer only faint praise. This type of engagement is no serious engagement at all and leads to mediocre and banal criticism.

Towards the end of his essay, the author contrasts Professor Smith’s brave and brutal criticism with one other, seemingly inferior form of critique: anonymous blog/web comments. Drawing upon Foucault and his discussion of the “nameless voice” in The Archaeology of Knowledge, the author argues that unduly harsh comments posted anonymously on a blog are cowardly and “antithetical to critical dialogue.” He concludes his essay by encouraging critics (particularly literary critics) to stop being a Professor Jones and start being a Professor Smith:

We need to grow thicker critical skin. Why? Because critical behavior that always results in a chorus of affirmation is nothing more than conformity; because allowing views to persist that need to be challenged is nothing less than critical mediocrity; and because failure to tell our colleagues what we truly think about their work is simple dishonesty. A reshaped critical culture will help build a more robust, honest, and transparent academy.

While I agree with the author’s promotion of a robust, honest, and transparent academy and the need for scholars to be better (as in more seriously engaged and honest) critics, I disagree with both his approach to achieving this type of critical scholarship and his framing of the problem altogether. In presenting us with Professor Jones and Professor Smith, he offers two opposing options: either we are compassionate and eschew criticism in favor of supporting each other or we are combative and embrace harsh (but honest and responsible) criticism. Putting aside the extremely problematic gendered implications of the author’s favoring of the one position over the other (Professor Jones, the caring/nurturing/uncritical professor, is repeatedly referred to as a she and Professor Smith, the harsh, brutal, yet honest and full of intellectual integrity professor, is referred to as a he), I can’t help but wonder if these are our only options? Are we either compassionate or harsh, positive or honest? His articulation of the problem produces a very particular, and limited, vision of what criticism is, what it does and how it does it. Furthermore, it suggests that compassion, caring (and openness to other’s ideas) are all enemies of criticism. Here, let me elaborate. The author defines critique in the following ways:

  • Aimed at fault finding and pointing out how an idea or an author are wrong
  • Harsh, but honest
  • Negative, not positive
  • In opposition to compassion, caring, and nurturing support
  • Demands that we take strong (and firm) positions on a topic and that we diligently attempt to convert/persuade others to our ways of thinking
  • Demands that we stop being so soft and cowardly and develop courage and a thick skin

Wow, as I read over this essay again, I am struck by how much it seems to be a veiled critique of feminism and a call to return to a more “manly” (and, therefore, proper) form of critique. It’s not just that he refers to Jones as a she (and therefore, pins the “bad” behavior on the woman); it’s that his reference to Jones as a she further reinforces the already strong (and essentialized) connection between caring/ nurturing and women, a connection that is part of a dangerous hierarchy of reason over emotion and critical thinking over feeling. On top of that, his language of combat and courage in opposition to compassion and friendly engagement, immediately conjures up images of boys (the warriors) versus girls (the mushy, touchy-feely types). He almost (but doesn’t quite) seem to say: Come on men! Are you going to let those ladies strip us of our manly criticism? Of course not! Grow some thick skin (and a pair, while you’re at it) and start fighting! This is war!

But seriously, I appreciate reading this essay because it brings up some very important issues concerning critique and, importantly for me, care. While the author positions care and critique against each other in this essay, I have been thinking a lot lately (especially as I attempt to write my blog mash-up about troublemaking, care and feminist ethics) about how we might link them together. In my own work, I want to argue that care and critique (as a form of making and staying in trouble) are connected and not in opposition. But, such a move requires that we rework our understanding of critique and criticism. I’m glad that the author brought up Foucault. I want to look briefly to him too in order to point to an alternative way of imagining what criticism is and what it can and should do.

In much of his later work, his “turn to ethics,” Foucault is interested in imagining a different way of engaging in critique. Since I am running out of energy (and time without the kids), I need to keep my description brief for now. Instead of providing much explanation, I want to offer a few passages from Foucault as a response to critique as agonism, antagonism, fault finding, and harsh/brutal honesty. I think, in some ways, Professor Smith is who Foucault imagines as the polemicist when he writes about critique in “Polemics, Politics, and Problematizations.” He writes:

The polemicist proceeds encased in privileges that he possesses in advance and will never agree to question. On principle, he possesses rights authorizing him to wage war and making that struggle a just undertaking; the person her confronts is not a partner in the search for truth but an adversary, an enemy who is wrong…For him, then the game consists not of recognizing this person as a subject having the right to speak but of abolishing him, as interlocutor, from any possible dialogue; and his final objective will be not to come as close as possible to a difficult truth but to bring about the triumph of the just cause he has been manifestly upholding from the beginning (Ethics 112).

I wonder, in his attempts to persuade others of his position, does Professor Smith leave time/space to listen to other perspectives? Is he willing to relent his position if proven wrong or must he steadfastly hold onto it as a matter of courage, fortitude and intellectual integrity?

Foucault contrasts the polemicist with the problem poser (or what I like to call dun dun duuunnn: The Problematizer. Right now FWA is in a camp where they talk about and create their own comic books. His super hero is “Fishy man.” I think mine is “The Problematizer.” I can already imagine the super cool comic book. But what would she wear and what would her super-hero powers be?). He writes:

…my attitude isn’t a result of the form of critique that claims to be a methodical examination in order to reject all possible solutions expect for the valid one. It is more on the order of “problematization”–which is to say, the development of a domain of acts, practices, and thoughts that seem to me to pose problems for politics.

In posing problems, one is not merely pointing out the faults of a system in order to judge that it is wrong and should be corrected. Instead posing problems, and giving serious critical attention to those problems, could enable us to engage in experimental (and potentially productive) conversations about what is being done and how we could not do it in this way or that way.

Now, Foucault is talking specifically about politics and political judgments (particularly in relation to what is to be done in situation x or y). So, my applying his words to literary criticism might not totally work, or even be fair. However, Foucault’s call to think about the implied goal of critique (winning a battle) and its implications for those engaged in critique, are helpful as we attempt to think about critique outside of the framework of either compassion or serious intellectual and critical engagement.

I want to conclude my list of Foucault passages with one that points to a different way of imagining critique and what it can or should do. This one is from “The Masked Philosopher,” perhaps one my favorite Foucault essays.

I can’t help but dream about a kind of criticism that would try not to judge but to bring an oeuvre, a book, a sentence, an idea to life; it would light fires, watch the grass grow, listen to the wind, and catch the sea foam in the breeze and scatter it. It would multiply not judgments but signs of existence; it would summon them, drag them from their sleep. Perhaps it would invent them sometimes–all the better. All the better. Criticism that hands down sentences sends me to sleep; I’d like a criticism of scintillating leaps of the imagination. It would not be sovereign or dressed in red. It would bear the lightening of possible storms (Ethics 323).

I really like this passage. It speaks to me and what I want to do with my own critical thinking. Being critical can require that we point out the faults in an argument or an idea, but surely that’s not all that being critical does or requires of us. As Foucault suggests in this passage, being critical doesn’t mean we have to wage a war against others or their ideas. And it doesn’t demand that we shut down other possibilities, condemning them with our judgments about how/why they are wrong. Critique/criticism can open up possibilities and wake up new ideas. Instead of draining us and making us weary from battle, it can energize us and give us renewed strength by introducing other ways of being. For me, this type of critique is caring and compassionate and, most importantly, critical.

Note: This entry was helpful as I struggle to figure out what to do with my essay on feminist ethics, care and troublemaking. While this entry remains somewhat unfinished (and perhaps underdeveloped), it speaks to and connects many different ideas I have about caring. confrontation, critique, and troublemaking. These ideas, which have been brewing for years, first came up in my disseratation. This entry also gave me a great idea for a kids’ book: The Adventures of the Problematizer. Okay, I don’t like that title, but you get the idea.

Being Wrong (but not about the iPad; it kicks @$$!)

I haven’t had a chance to get back to my blog mash-up series for over a week now. I have been thinking a lot about it, but not necessarily in productive waysmaybe I am letting it simmer too long. Honestly, I have spent the past few hours (and some of yesterday too) trying to figure out what to write and where to go with it. The kids are out of school and I started another blog project with STA. I am also struggling a little as I try to negotiate the different writing styles required for blogs and academic journals. Oh well.

I am now taking a break from it for the rest of the day. Time for some fun writing. A few days ago I purchased my very first iBook for the iPad: Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Schulz. I found out about this book in a New York Times review. I was drawn to it because of my serious interest in troublemaking (and the trouble that being wrong and failing to be right causes). To me, being wrong seems a lot like being uncertain, which is also a lot like staying in trouble. To be wrong is also to come up against one’s limits of knowing what to do or how to do it. This reminds me of Foucault and his discussion of the limit attitude in “What is Enlightenment?” Now, I don’t think Foucault would describe this as being wrong, which seems to be a judgment, always made in relation to its opposite: being right. However, I think Schulz’s ideas about the value of wrongness do share some similarities with Foucault and his promotion of limits and problematization (or problem posing). But, in the interest of keeping this entry on the light side, I won’t get into those similarities right now. I am trying to work on the value of problem posing in relation to repair and care for my mash-up and I am still struggling with it.

Check out a few passages from the book (and what I have read so far) on:

the value of being wrong

Of all the things we are wrong about, this idea of error [as failure] might well top the list. It is our meta-mistake: we are wrong about what it means to be wrong. Far from being a sign of intellectual inferiority, the capacity to err is crucial to human cognition. Far from being a moral flaw, it is inextricable from some of our most humane and honorable qualities: empathy, imagination, conviction, and courage. And far from being a mark of indifference or intolerance, wrongness is a vital part of how we learn and change. Thanks to error, we can revise our understanding of ourselves and amend our ideas about the world (12, in iBooks version).

the pedagogy of being wrong

…however disorienting, difficult, or humbling our mistakes might be, it is ultimately wrongness, not rightness, that can teach us who we are (12).

the connection between being wrong and imagination

We already say that “seeing the world as it is not” is pretty much the definition of erring–but it is also the essence of imagination, invention and hope. As that suggests, our errors sometimes bear far sweeter fruits than the failure and shame we associate with them. True, they represent a movement of alienation, both from ourselves and from a previously convincing vision of the world. But what’s wrong with that? “To alienate” means to make unfamiliar; and to see things–including ourselves–as unfamiliar is an opportunity to see them anew (35).

So far, I am really enjoying this book. I want to spend some more time thinking about the ways I agree and disagree with her assessment of being wrong. For right now, I am happy to be reading a book that sees value in erring or, as Schulz eloquently puts it, “fucking up.” Cool.

I’m reading this book on my iPad. I really like it. Let me list just a few reasons why:

  • It turns the page like a real book. I know everyone mentions this feature. There’s a reason why they do; it’s pretty damn cool. Not only does it look cool, but it feels cool and makes it really easy to flip back and forth between pages. It’s like a “real” book, but better. And much better than kindle books (yes, I have the kindle app too).
  • It has a useful bookmark feature. Sure, many people complain about how the bookmark feature doesn’t bookmark anything (unlike the Kindle). Instead, it highlights text. While I agree that calling this feature a bookmark is rather strange, I happen to like that it highlights (and in at least five different colors!). I used it to keep track of the passages that I cited above. I anticipate using this feature a lot during the semester.
  • It can download books instantly.
  • It lights up so that you can read in bed. I don’t have a bedside lamp right now and I have been lamenting the fact that I can’t read much at night. That is, until now. I can read the iPad all night if I want to (which I don’t) and, if I’m feeling considerate to STA (which I usually am), I can dim the light a little so that I can still read without blinding them. While I have never used a Kindle, I’ve been told (and have read) that it doesn’t have its own light. What’s the point, then?

But, of course, the iPad and iBooks aren’t perfect (not even close. But, if you have been reading this entry you will hopefully recognize that I don’t mind when things fail or when things go wrong). Here are a few things I don’t like:

  • As others have suggested, the iBooks selection is pretty pathetic right now, especially for academic books. Does it have any books by Judith Butler? No. Sara Ahmed? No. Jasbir Puar? Yeah, right. Michel Foucault. Just one: Abnormal. If the selection doesn’t change in the next few months, I won’t be using iBooks for my classes at all. Now, the Kindle app for the iPad does have quite a few choices. Several Butler books. One by Ahmed. Tons of Foucault. While I don’t like the Kindle app experience quite as much, I do appreciate their selection of books.
  • You can highlight text but you can’t take notes in iBooks. At least, I don’t think you can. I know that you can on the Kindle, but I don’t see how in iBooks. Any iPad users out there?

In reflecting on being wrong, I can’t help but think about failure and the seemingly ubiquitous internet meme, FAIL. I know that this has been around for years, but I have never taken the time to explore its origins or meanings. Thank goodness I don’t have to; youtube as done it for me. Check it out:

Speaking of memes, I must present my own FAIL. I recently posted a clip called “The Dramatic Chipmunk”. Well, I knew it was old and had gone viral some time ago. But I didn’t realize it was three years old or that it was the dramatic prairie dog (okay, I knew it wasn’t a chipmunk; I was torn between thinking it was squirrel or a hamster). My bad (and how old is that phrase?). Here’s a youtube video that exposes my (epic?) fail: