DiscussionHow many lives has Judith Butler ruined?

submitted by JulienMayfair from self.LGBDropTheT

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[–]Neo_Shadow_LurkerPronouns: I/Don't/Care 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (12 children)

I wonder how many people have been sent down the gender path because of Butler's seminal work in the field

Not too many.

Again, some people here tend to overestimate the influence academia has on the world.

Do you think your average AGP twitter handle knows who Judith Butler is? Are they phds on the theory of performativity, eh?

I would argue Twitter, Tumblr and Discord have wayyyy more of a role in TRA shit than Judith ever had.

[–]xanditAGAB (Assigned Gay at Birth) 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

There are alot more graduates of gender studies classes that help push her ideas, doing the enforcing for the tra's. Though i agree that social media pushed them further.

[–]JulienMayfair[S] 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

True. Butler quickly developed an intensely dedicated following of grad students to whom she was a kind of high priestess. They became her "faith militant."

And everyone forgets Riki Wilchins, who played a big part in the 1990s in disseminating versions of Butler's thinking that were easier to understand than Butler's own writing. Wilchins' main career was in tech, and Wilchins helped created a movement in internet tech that supportive of gender ideology, which is part of why companies like Google and Twitter are so pro-trans.

Butler, on the other hand, has mainly remained above it all, but she dog whistles to people like Antifa by calling belief in biological reality "fascism," reassuring them that when they attack people critical of gender, they are attacking fascists.

[–][deleted] 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Wilchins helped created a movement in internet tech that supportive of gender ideology, which is part of why companies like Google and Twitter are so pro-trans.

Nobody has really explored the link between AGP and profession, but there has been a lot of casual observation from reputable people about how well AGP and technology get on. Probably having to do with... whatever makes someone AGP also inclines them to be interested in computers, which are very much mechanistic things--an interest typical of males. Also, activists classes love professions having to do with "journalism" or other platforms of thought--because they can tell you what to think.

Just ask Chelsea Manning about her very female-typical behavior:

https://twitter.com/xychelsea/status/1318306498724900865

https://twitter.com/xychelsea/status/1371156400949301251

https://twitter.com/xychelsea/status/1371850938751840262

https://twitter.com/xychelsea/status/1378342724512976904

[–]JulienMayfair[S] 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I've theorized about this in the sense that the use of technology is never a one-way street. It's a feedback loop. The use of technology changes the user. Think about people who live their lives in worlds where people are focused on interacting with others via a disembodied online persona, where it's easy to pretend to be someone else and get rewarded for pretending to be that person. That's one reason I think that transgenderism was so rare when we were in a world where we were largely limited to living in our physical bodies. I think tech has amplified or even created impulses for people to live through identities that they've made up instead of being limited to the "meat."

Where I think you're wrong is in calling computers "mechanistic things." Older physical machines were purpose built. They did one thing. Computers are universal machines. They're largely not mechanical. They do anything you program them to.

[–][deleted] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Well the internet let people with these interests to anonymously congregate. So it did play that role. E.g.: search: "I'm a man but I wish I were a woman." Find yourself on some BBS...

This is an explanation I've also heard regarding sadomasochistic communities in the US--they tend to be nerdy. They love fantasy board games, and there's a fair bit of people who make their living with technology.

So, as it goes, they say, the nerds with an SM interest were the first to be able to congregate in meatspace and do SM, because they had the means with the internet to find like-minded persons before networked computing was available to others less technologically gifted or inclined. This supposedly set the cultural stage.

Could be true, but my preferred explanation is as above with regard to AGP. Whatever etiologically sets the groundwork is the same, and it results in an interest in SM and fantasy board games, generally speaking.

I agree with your point about the Internet and personas. In today's culture/climate, identity is everything. It's fetishized. People have been crafting all sorts of identities on the internet. Whether that's Facebook, or Instagram... the medium makes it nigh impossible to see the reality, so the falsehood does not crumble. They're chasing the fashion of the month.

I think people are bored and lacking meaning--another outcome of technology, in general.

[–]Neo_Shadow_LurkerPronouns: I/Don't/Care 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

There are alot more graduates of gender studies classes that help push her ideas, doing the enforcing for the tra's.

Most of the people who shield AGPs don't have any kind of academic background. They're mainly internet slacktivists who enforce their will by ganging on people on huge numbers.

Hell, most people on academic settings don't even know 'AGP' exists or how TRAs communities articulate online. For them, it's just about defending an poor 'opressed' group they have little to no real-world (or online) experience with.

[–]JulienMayfair[S] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

I would argue Twitter, Tumblr and Discord have wayyyy more of a role in TRA shit than Judith ever had.

But I think that's the trickle-down effect of her ideas.

[–]Neo_Shadow_LurkerPronouns: I/Don't/Care 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

But I think that's the trickle-down effect of her ideas.

How so?

The ones chilling transgenderism to the large public weren't sociologists, but the legal and medical industries. Hell, even STEM is more into this than most people might think.

These two are rarely adressed, even thought they have a way larger share of blame in this than the humanities ever had.

[–]JulienMayfair[S] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

How so?

It may be the case that it's hard to explain to anyone who wasn't there, but back in the 90s, I attended two lectures by Butler, and you had to arrive early just to get a seat because the whole place was packed with fans of hers hanging on her every word. She had major academic celebrity status, and it's clear now as it was then that she wanted to replace biological sex with gender.

In a way, it's about who has the authority to speak on a subject, and the postmodernists have always tried to expand their purview, including expanding that critique into the sciences. Now, for that, Butler is not singularly responsible. There were a lot of postmodern theorists questioning science as a discipline back then, with a lot of it actually coming from branches of feminism. There was a whole philosophy of science group that met at our university, and it was primarily populated by women and coordinated via Women's Studies. It was pushing the same idea found in most postmodern critiques -- that what science considers "knowledge" is actually produced by covert structures of power that seek to maintain the status quo.

[–]Neo_Shadow_LurkerPronouns: I/Don't/Care 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

She had major academic celebrity status, and it's clear now as it was then that she wanted to replace biological sex with gender.

In Butler's theory gender and sex are different things, which makes sense considering her framing.

The thing is: does she and her groupies were the ones directly responsible in changing the DSM V and baking transgenderism into law? I don't think so: she and her fellow gender theorists arrived late to this party.

There were a lot of postmodern theorists questioning science as a discipline back then, with a lot of it actually coming from branches of feminism.

One thing you're not getting is that 'science' is also responsible for our current situation.

Many psychologists and surgeons were in the forefront to this mess, as transgender surgeries mean a very lucrative market, full of healthy people who will be hooked on medical treatment for life, all with very little accountability and risk on their part.

The only countries pushing back on this have public funded health systems, which translates to government accountability, as happened in the Keira Bell case.

[–]JulienMayfair[S] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I think I would separate science from medicine here as they are not always the same thing. Medicine is supposed to be based in science, but since medicine has to straddle science and social policy, it's never been immune to social pressures. Take, for example, the disaster of the "fat makes you fat" approach to nutrition, which we now know was hardly based in science at all and ended up just making people fatter by replacing fat with sugar.

Johns Hopkins stopped doing gender surgeries because they followed the science and found that the outcomes were not improved. But then people demanded these surgeries, and there were always places where someone would provide a service for the money, like the transwoman who's going to Brazil to get a womb transplant, probably because no doctor in the U.S. or Europe would do it.

[–]Neo_Shadow_LurkerPronouns: I/Don't/Care 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think I would separate science from medicine here as they are not always the same thing.

But medicine is a part of science.

The difference between biology and medicine is that the former is an applied science and the latter isn't.

Medicine is supposed to be based in science, but since medicine has to straddle science and social policy, it's never been immune to social pressures.

Did you know that funding is a fundamental part of science, specially in the US?

If a certain company nudges your reaseach team to manufacture certain results by threatening to cut your funding, what would you do? That's the dillema several scientists are faced with everyday.

Take, for example, the disaster of the "fat makes you fat" approach to nutrition, which we now know was hardly based in science at all and ended up just making people fatter by replacing fat with sugar.

Which was based entirety on manufactured studies by labs and research teams with ties to certain corporations.

The vision that the only things between science and it's conclusions are scientists and the evidence is very naive.