[Vows] TILL DERRIDA DO US PART ‘The following manscaipe is from the Jome 1 wedding of Cary Wolfe and Alison Fhenuer. Wolfe weaches ert ical theory at SUNY Albany; Hreneer is an artist. JUDGE SILVERMAN: Friends andl relatives, we are gathered here coday to witness the marriage Of Allison and Cary. To do so, we must perform these vows in an act of ceremony, Buc what are these things: to wed, to marry, to take a wedding vow? They are what the philosopher J. L. Austin sn bis study How to Do Things With Words, calls “speech acts." of which there are to different kinds: constative speech acts, whose primary attribute is that they say something; and performative speech nets (of which this ceremeny is an example), whose primary attribute is that they do some thing. A performative speech act, as Austin puts it, doesn’t cleserihe a state of affairs i posesses the crucial fenture of accomplishing the very ace eo which it refers. The very act of saying. it makes ie so. snot enough just to think the wor of the wedding vow, no matter how sincerely you may be thinking them. (If it were enough, then | wouldn’t be here and neither would you) And it’s nor enough even ro say them. (I ir were, Allison and Cary could just recite these lines to each other on the subway, say, or while making risorto, and—voital—they'd be married.) No, fora perlormative to earey out is fune- tion, it must meet a number of criteria, To quote Austin: (A.1) There must exist an accepted eonvien tional peocechite having avert conventional effect, thar procedure to inelude the uttering of certain words by certain persons in certain ee ‘eurostances, and farther, (A.2) the particular persons anal circurustances in 9 given case must he appropriate forthe invocation ofthe partic tlie provedure invoked. (B11) The procedure tnt he exer by ll participa hos corey na (8.2) completely, Although we've just begun the ceremony — 26 HARPER MAGAZINE AUGUST 2002 or have we?—some interesting questions have already gathered on the horizon: Is this set of ‘words, s0 far, “accepted”? Are they “appropri- ate for the invocation of che particular proce- dure invoked”? Are we executing the procedue and “completely”? Is it enough sin ply to say, "Do you, Allison, take Cary to be ‘your layfully wedded husharal?” ALLISON: “I do.” JUDGE SILVERMAN: “And do you, Cary, tke AL- lison to be your kawfully wedded wife?” Zany: do.” JUDGE SILVERMAN: As ittums cut, itis enough, and the words just uttered by both Allison’ and Cary are sufficient —but not because of the words themselves. First of all—aceording to Austin and ac- cording to the law—the words must be meant “seriously” and nor self-xeferentially ‘The problem with that, though, as Jonathan Culler has pointed out in his discussion of Jacques Derrida’s critique of Austin, is that the distinetion between serious and nonserious is always uncertain, always subject to decon- struction, and any attempt to solve that probe lem by insisting on the “proper” context fora statement is bound ce fail For example, we are all familiar with the signs at airport security cheekpoints thar read, “All remarks conceming bombs and weapons will he taken seriously.” Such signs, Culler notes, attempt “to preclude the possibility of saying in jest, havea bomb in my shoe,’ by identifying such utterances as serious state~ ments, Bot this codification fails to arrest the play of meaning,” because “the structure of language grafts this codification ont the con- text it attempts to master,” creating “new op: portunities for obnoxious behavior,” such as, “ll [were to remark that Lad a bomb in my shoe, you would have to take it seriously, wouldn't your”—a statement “whose fares is function ‘of context hut which esenpes the prior atterapr to codify contextual force.” I's a bit like George Carlin’s observation about those same signs. “No JOKES," perhaps, “ue what about riddles?” ‘Our poine is that the distinction between “se- rious” and “nonserious” as determining whar makes a performative binding doesn't solve the problem; it only pushes it back a notch. At which point, we ean only fill back on the very invocation of “sincerity” that Austin’s idea of the performative seems designed to deflate We can only ask, Did you, Cary and Allison, seriously mean what you just said about taking each other as husband and wife? ANE) ALLISON Yes, we did. HF SILVERMAN: Okay, good, Now we're getting somewhere, legally speaking, Austin may inthe end be wrong, as Derrida suggests, abou se- riousness being decisive, bur what he is right about is this: when such words are uttered in the “appropriate” context—by two parties who have obtaines! a marriage license, presided over bby me (“by the power vested in me," as one of- ten hears), and so on—then those words are nevertheless binding, no matcer what anyone thinks. All of which is why the very fist definition of the word “tarry” in the Oxford English Dic- tionary iso join for life as husband ancl wife ac- cording tothe laws and eussoms of ation.” And this, in curn, is why it is misgorided to think that what valicesa wedding ceremony is the making public of innermost feelings, and the sincerity or eamestness thereof, That may bea satisfactory performance, but it is beside the point of the wedding vow as a performative, This is why Austin insists (in a stipulation almost too good to be true for our purposes) that “the aet of marrying, like, say, the act of hettine’—which is, incidentally, one of the imeaniags of the word “wed"—“is to be de- scribed as saying certain words, rather than as performing a different, inward and spicitual, netion of which these words are merely the outward and audible sign.” To understand the act otherwise—to see it as, indeed, the outward sign of an inward and spiritual action—is precisely what makes most ‘wedding vows written hy the bride and groom so unsatisfactory to Cary and Allison. Such pronouncements, heartfelt though they may be, indulge in a fondatental mis- tnderstanding. They do not understand thae the power of the wedkling vow asa performa- tive utterance derives not from its external registration of the bride and groom’s intinate, spiritual feelings—as if somehow the more hheartfele and confessional your ceremony is, the more married you are—but rather from the ex- ternal, conwuntional nature of the act itself This is why Cary and Allison are not going to drone on roday about how much they care about each other, how they promise to do this ‘and not do that, and so on. Fitst ofall, they as sume that you all already know how they feel about each other without being told in graph- ic und maudlin detail—thar’s why you're here. And second of al, it takes a lifetime, not nwen- ty minutes, for two people ta define for them- selves what the word “marriage” means. Your presence here is simply to witness their com- ‘mitment to undertake such a definition: In sum, then, it is not the “uniqueness” or “originality” or “sincerity” of she vow that car- ries its foree hur precisely sehat Derrida cals its “ivetability” or “eitationality,” its repeat ty; its utter umoriginality (Culler: 316 itis thar we find ourselves at this moment in the middle of a vow that is itself langely about ‘vows, That such a vow may itself be taken as highly “original” perfectly exemplifies Deerida’s point about statement and context that pro- vides the lift in George Carlin’s joke about airpor: security signs: Ife wrote a vow abot vows, you would have to take it seriously, woulds’t you! Soit is nox that you, Allison and Cary, have said particular words, or even thar you have per- firmed particular acts such asthe customary ©x- changing of rings to symbolize your commit- ment to each other: [Cary and Allison exchange vings.] [Scholarship] THE CHICKEN, RECONSIDERED From a tise of discussion groups and papers feared aq Mey conference at Yale University ened “The (Chicken: lis Biological, Social, Culteral, and Indus tril History fom Neolithic Middens 4 MelNugaets.” Chicken Consumption: History, Culture, Choice, and Taste Chicken Eacers and Choice in Hartford Chicken Flavor—the Quintessential Ingredient ‘of Good Taste! Chickens as Social Mediators and Curreney in Borneo Corn People on a Poultty Line Images of the Medieval Pheasant: The Chicken and Other Fowl in Medieval Cuisine and eremony Chicken Flu, Free-Range Chickens, and ‘Other Poultry Polities in Post-Secialist China Making the Chicken of Tomorrow The Chicken and Globalization The Chicken Business: Southern Women andl Poultry Production, “The Chicken in America: The Past -. the In- remet, the Future? The Chicken in Folklore and Symbolism ‘The Fighting Cock and the Brooding Hen: Chickens as Symbols of Gender in Folklore and Literature The Historical Creation of che Chicken Thinking Like a Chicken We're All Mexican Here ‘When Chickens Come to Town KI READINGS 2Brownie Hawkeye and Ansco Shur Shot, hy Robert Cottingham, were on display lat fall at Forzan Galery. im Les Angeles Rather, itis that you have agreed to doand say these things under certain binding cir ‘cumstances circumstances to which you have, as it were, surzenclered yourselves. And now L will say, “by che power vested in me,” that | now pronounce you husband and wife. Cary, you may now kiss not your girl friend, or your domestic permer, but your wife with a binding force more powerful than all he kisses that came before [Cary cond Atison kiss] ARPES MAGAZINE / AUGUST 2002