On Vulnerability as Judith Butler's Language of Politics: From "Excitable Speech" to "Precarious

Life"
Author(s): George Shulman
Source: Women's Studies Quarterly, Vol. 39, No. 1/2, SAFE (SPRING/SUMMER 2011), pp. 227-235
Published by: Feminist Press at the City University of New York
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On Vulnerability as JudithButler's Language of Politics:
From Excitable Speech to Precarious Life

George Shulman

It is oftensaid thatphilosophybeginsin wonder,but it maybe the case

thatpoliticaltheorybeginsin a sense of danger - in emotionsoffearor
dread,in perceptionsof impendingor potentialharm,in experiencesof
vulnerability orinjury. Most famously, ThomasHobbes madetheEnglish
Revolutiona "stateofnature"to elicitand mobilizefearofpremature, vio-
lentdeathin the serviceof a state-building projectpromisingsafety.So
also, afterSocratess judicialmurder,Plato dreameda republicin which
philosophy(and itspractitioners) wouldbe safe,notvulnerable. And did
Marxnotdepictcommunismas the"specter"ofdestruction hauntingthe
Europeanbourgeoisie? If canonical politicalthought is animatedby rep-
resentations ofdangerand harm,whichmustbe apprehendedat all to be
addressedbyaction,so politicaltheorists oftenspeakin a voiceofwarning
about"whatis to be done."
Of course the otherside of warningand injuryis (the hope for)
safety, evenplenitude.So Platoimaginesa worldsafeforphilosophy, while
Hobbes promisesthatmortalsafety, and indeedmaterialwell-being, are
if
possible people consent to a sovereignpower that"overawes them all."
The capacityofthismortalgod to terrify is theconditionofitscapacityto
protect. As these examplessuggest,however,the move fromdangerous
vulnerability to abidingsafetymaycome at theexpenseof (democratic)
politics itself
as a distinctivehumanpractice.
Plato and Hobbes seem to seeksafetyby imaginingsovereignstates
and extrapolitical truths:by these absolutestheypromiseto overcome
or at least containthe conflictarisingfromhumanpluralityand social
inequality.On the one hand theyarguethatthe absence of sovereign

WSQ:Women's
Studies 39:1&2(Spring/Summer
Quarterly 201
1) ©201
1by Shulman.
George 227
All reserved.
rights

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228 OnVulnerability
as Judith
Butler's ofPolitics
Language

powerand truth - and so themessypervasiveness ofpoliticsbecausejus-

ticeis notself-evident nororderautomatic - is themajorcause ofhuman
suffering. On theotherhand,theircriticssay,byweddingphilosophyand
powerto securea sovereignframework oflife,theywouldrescuehuman
beingsfromdangerattoo higha cost.Indeed,theorists whovaluepolitics
depictPlatoand Hobbes as makingimpossiblepromises:thatphilosophy
cangeneratea principleof(absolute,extrapolitical) authority thatcangive
politicallifea secure"foundation," and thereby endit.Ifitis impossibleto
transcend conditionsoffinitude andplurality, however, thenpoliticsis not
onlyinescapable, butvaluable.Foras Machiavelliargues,humanbeingsdo
facemortaldangerunlesstheygeneratedurablepoliticalforms, butthey
mustcreateorderfromamongthemselvesby politicalmeans,and their
- we shouldsayendangered - bydespair
capacityto do so is jeopardized
in theircapacityto act,by excessivefearof conflictand by fantasiesof
escapingthecontingencies thatmakeactionand choiceat once necessary
and costly.For Machiavelli,then,thepriceof falsepromisesof safetyis
freedom, butconceivedpolitically as an agonisticpracticeoffashioning a
commonworldoutofplural(and oftenacute)differences, freedomis also
a
thebestmeansto sustain durable framework for human lifein all ofits
dimensions.
Accordingly, a centralelementin the "genre"of politicaltheoryis
argument aboutdangerand howto forestall it.When figures likeMachia-
velliandArendttakeup the"vocation'ofpoliticaltheory, therefore, they
takeon therhetorically complex task of persuadingpeople to face what
theyare investedin denying:the importanceof dangersnot yetvisible;
thenecessity(and fatefulness) ofchoicespeople wouldratherdefer;the
impossibility ofmoralpurityin makingthem;theburdens,risks,and suf-
fering that inhere to humanfreedom. JudithButlersurelyplaces herself
amongthosewho challengetheillusionsand longingsthatgeneratesub-
jugationin thenameofan impossiblesafety. Let us assess,then,thevalue
butalso thedangersin herargument aboutthechimeraofsafety, byread-
ing Excitable Speech in
, published 1997, in tandem with her more recent
work,especiallyPrecarious Life,publishedin 2005.
It is typicallysaid thatButlers workhas shiftedfroma critiqueof
identity politics,to an accountofmelancholicsubjectformation, and now
to an ontologyunderwriting ethics, but what if we imagine that injury
and vulnerability remainher abidingconcern?Roles do reverseas we
shiftfromthe earlierExcitableSpeech , whichaddressesinjuredsubaltern

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 Shulman229
George

subjectstemptedbytheidea ofregulating hatespeech,to Precarious Life,

whichaddressesan American state-subject using violence to deny vul-
its
nerability.Buthowsubjectsunderstand andrespondto injuryremainsher
keyquestion,and her answershave drivenprevailing academicviewsof
gender,theOther,thestate,and "politics"mostbroadly.
The firstchapteroftheearliertextis titled"On Linguistic Vulnerabil-
w in two senses.First,she arguesthatwe
ity,and she meansvulnerability
become subjectsbywayofsubjectionto language,exemplified forherby
thetropeofinterpellation. Allhumanbeingsbespeakin theirveryforma-
tionas subjectsa "vulnerability" to theconstitutive poweroflanguage.But
ifsubjectsare formedthroughsubjectionto injuriousinterpellation by
invidiouscategories, howshouldtheyrespond?She arguesthatwe should
not respondby usingjuridicallanguageto identify a culpablesovereign
agentresponsibleforour suffering, or by usingstatepowerto proscribe
(hateful)speech. Rather than collapsethedifference betweenwordsand
acts,equatespeechwithinjury, and thenproscribespeechto resistinjury,
subjectsinjuredby interpellation shouldforgea "political"responseby
"resignifying" hateful words,categories, names.
At thecruxofthese alternatives is a theoryoflanguagethatadvances
a secondsenseofvulnerability. On theone hand,shemakesthegreatdan-
gerin languagethepossibility thatthemeaningofwordswillbe totalized
or fixed,because sedimentedmeaningsand social hierarchies are mutu-
ally sustaining,and more broadlybecause people reifyconcepts.Our
formation as speaking(and sexed/raced)subjectssuggeststhisdanger,
but on the otherhand,she argues,neithersubjectsnor wordsare ever
so fixedbecausewordsmust"fail"to capturetheirreferent, and because
theirmeaningalwaysexceedssedimentedconvention as wellas theinten-
tionsof speakers.In Butlers Derrideanmetanarrative about the danger
and possibility in language,therefore, its"woundingpower"is tiedto the
dangerous and always-imminent (fore)closureof meaning,yetthe "vul-
-
oflanguage itsinevitableexcessand failure - sustains"per-
nerability"
formative" practicesof resignification. Accordingly: "One is not simply
fixedbythenamethatone is called The injuriousaddressmayappear
to fixor paralyzetheone ithails,but it mayalso producean unexpected
and enablingresponse.Ifto be addressedis to be interpellated, thenthe
offensive call runs the riskof a
inauguratingsubject speechin who comes
to use languageto countertheoffensive call"(2). In turn,byarguingthat
languageprecedessubjects, that words are signsnot tightly tiedto refer-

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 Butler's
as Judith
230 OnVulnerability ofPolitics
Language

entsor conduct,and thatsubjectsarenot sovereignoverthemeaningof

whattheysayand do,Butlershifts theviewsofpowerand agencythatlead
injuredsubjectsto use thestateto proscribehatefulspeech.
First,shearguesthat"inresponseto thedemandto see accountability
forinjury"defenders ofhatespeechregulation "resurrect"theidea ofa sov-
ereignsubject,justas "thelamb"in Nietzsches parableinventsthefiction
ofa "doerbehindthedeed"to hold "theeagle"accountableforitsaggres-
sion. As a resultof such "juridical"language,moreover,"the elaborate
institutional structuresofracismas well as sexismare suddenlyreduced
to the scene of utterance[and a sovereignspeaker]"thatcan be legally
proscribed. Ratherthansee impersonal practicesinstantiatehierarchyand
injuriousinterpellation, hatespeechregulationentailsthe"phantasmatic
production ofthe culpablespeakingsubject. . . prematurely identified as
'thecause oftheproblemofracism"(80).
Second,"thefirmer thelinkis made betweenspeechand conduct...
thestronger thegroundsforclaimingthatspeechnotonlyproducesinjury
as one ofitsconsequences,butconstitutes an injuryin itself,
thusbecom-
ingan unequivocalformofconduct"warranting legalactionbythestate
(23). To see speech as conduct is to empower state:ifwe giveit"dis-
the
cursivepower"to definehatefulspeech acts as conduct,it will "invoke
precedents[ofinjury]againsttheverysocialmovements thatpushedfor
theiracceptanceas legaldoctrine"(24, 77). Thusare efforts to resignify
-
injuriousinterpellationin rapmusicorin RobertMapplethorpe s art-
castas hatespeechto regulate, whilespeechaboutsexuality inthemilitary
is proscribedas dangerousconduct.Ifgiventhe"thetaskofadjudicating
theinjuryofspeech,"Butlerwarns,thestate"re-signifies onlyand always
itsownlaw"to extenditspowerandjurisdiction ( 100).
Whereasthe stateis a siteof mererepetition, Butlersees "political
advantagesto be derivedfrominsistingon . . . the disjunctionbetween
utterance and meaning," whichshe calls"theconditionofpossibility" for
"theperformative." On theone hand,as "linguistic to appro-
vulnerability
priation" enables of and
practices "de-contextualizing recontextualizing"
any word, so actsofmis-appropriation"
"radical sustainan "ironichopeful-
ness thattheconventional relationshipbetween wordand woundmight
become tenuousand evenbrokenovertime"(100). On theotherhand,
democratic
thereis a specifically meaninginthe"riskandvulnerability" of
a "sociallifeoflanguagethatexceedsthepurviewofthesubject."For"one
cannotknowin advancethe meaningthatthe otherwill assignto ones

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 Shulman231
George

utterance, whatconflictofinterpretation maywellarise,and how bestto

adjudicate the difference The thattakesplaceatthesceneof
translation
thisconflict is one in whichthemeaningintendedis no moredetermina-
tiveofa 'final'readingthantheone thatis received,and no finaladjudica-
tionofconflicting positionscan emerge"(88, 92).
Denyingthateffective politicsrequiresa clearreferent and subject-
denyingthattheirabsence is a real danger - she sayswe mustinstead
"forestall" and "undermine" the real danger,whichis the "powerof any
figureto be the last word" (126). Indeed,thateveryterm"gestures toward
a referent it cannotcapture. . . constitutes thelinguisticpossibilityof a
radicaldemocraticcontestation," foreverytermthus remainsopen to
"future re-articulations" (108). But "makinga wordthatwoundsintoan
instrument ofresistance" meansopposingtheconventions andritualsthat
givewordstheircontextual(ordinary)meaning,whichin turnrequires
"speaking withoutpriorauthorization andputting intoriskthesecurity of
linguisticlife,thesenseofones placeinlanguage[and]thatones wordsdo
as one says"(163). Thusdoes "performative" speechcreate"anxiety and
discomfort," and notonlyamongthealreadyenfranchised.
Imagine,then,thatExcitableSpeechaddressesNietzsches lamb:"No
one has everworkedthrough an injurywithoutrepeating it Thereis no
possibilityof notrepeating. The onlyquestionthatremainsis: How will
thatrepetition occur,atwhatsite,juridicalornon-juridical, andwithwhat
pain and promise?"(102). Butleradvises,don'tposita doerbehindthe
deed or turnto thestateto protectyou; respondinsteadby seeingboth
how languagedeprivesanysubjectof sovereignty and how its failureto
"capture" the world is a condition of democratic Now imagine
possibility.
thatPrecarious LifeaddressesNietzsches eagle,nothislamb:How can the
strong persuadedto register
be and respondto thereality, thesuffering,
theclaimoftheweak?
Not surprisingly, she appeals to the powerfulthroughtheirown
vulnerability to injury.After9/11 she asks,"How does a collectivedeal,
finally,with its vulnerability to violence?At what price,and at whose
expensedoes it gainpurchaseon security'?" Now she positsa political
subject: "In recent months a subject has been atthenationallevel,
instated
a sovereignand extra-legal subject,a violentand self-centered subject;its
actionsconstitute thebuildingofa subjectthatseeksto restoreand main-
tainitsmastery . . . [and]imaginedwholenessbutonlyatthepriceofdeny-
its
ing vulnerability" (41). Ratherthanrespondto injuryby reanimating

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232 OnVulnerability
as Judith
Butler's ofPolitics
Language

thefantasy ofsovereignself-sufficiency thatinjuryundoes,bystipulating

a culpable(terrorist) otherto hold accountable,and bystriking violently
at them,Butlerarguesthatinjuryand loss,ifacknowledged, not denied,
"makea tenuouswe' ofus all" (20).
In responseto violence,she thusasks,"Whatis it in theexperience
of vulnerability thatmightlead us to treatthe other,indeed anyOther
wherever andwhoevertheyare,as deservingan ethicalresponsefromus,
moreover, a responsethatrevealsourownpotentialvulnerability at their
hands?"As experienceofinjurycan be an opportunity forself-reflection
about our "fundamental dependencyon" and "primary vulnerability to .
. . anonymousothers"(xxi),so can itgenerate"anapprehension ofcom-
mon humanvulnerability" thatmightyield"theprincipleof protecting
othersfromthekindsofviolencewe havesuffered" (30). In effect,then,
Americansmustlearnto livewithterror(ofvulnerability) ratherthanwar
on it; thisshiftdependsboth on acknowledging mortalfinitudeand its
inherent risksand on mourningthestatefantasy ofsafetyas sovereignty.
Addressing the American nation- stateas a subjectshe interpellates into
ethicaldiscourse,Butlerproposesresponding to injuryin a waythatwill
notcontinuethechainofblows.
She no morestipulates thetermsofthatresponsiveness here,however,
thanshe once gavecontentto resignification. Rather,each textcriticizes
thereactiveandpunitiveresponsethatmovesfromdenialofvulnerability
to theuse ofstatepower,whichshelinksto fantasies ofsovereignty andto
violenceorproscription. this
Against response as thekeydanger, each text
endorsesan engagement thatis anchoredin and arisesfromacknowledg-
ment(not disavowal)ofhumaninterdependence and incompletion. The
actsthatwouldsignify acknowledgment remainopento specification and
context.What,then,can we learnfromrelatinghow thesetwo textsuse
vulnerability to movefrominjuryto politics?
First,both textsrejecttheidea ofsovereignty, butButlerstruggles to
fashiona politicalmeaningforresponsibility. HannahArendthad desig-
natedas "moral"our responsibility forwhatwe have directly done,and
designatedas "political"and "collective"our responsibility forwhatwe
personally have not done, but are in
implicated by virtue of our participa-
tionin a community or in a stateactingin ourname.At momentsButler
echoessomething likethisdistinction, butherfearthat"culpability" rein-
stallssovereignty makesithardto articulate thesensesin whichpolitical
actionaboutinequality, say,requirespeople (men,whites,straights, Amer-

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 Shulman233
George

icans) to avowboth a collectiveresponsibility forhistoricand systemic

practices and a collective to
capacity change them. Correspondingly, in
responseto injury, socialmovements haveresignified inherited meanings
ofdemeaningcategories, buttheyalso haveorganizedto generatecollec-
tiveaccountability forinequalityand thusauthority forstatepoliciesto
addressit.Turningexperiences ofinjuryintoclaimsabout(in)justice,they
do notrefuseideas ofpoliticalresponsibility and sovereignty, butrework
(resignify?) thesein democratic ways.
Accordingly, second, Butler s view of the stateseems one-dimen-
sional.She rightly sees both the limitsof juridicalapproachesto injury
and how social changerequireslanguagethatshiftsat viscerallevelshow
people judge themeaningoftheirpracticesand categories.Butwhynot
see the state,and not onlylanguage,as a conditionof both injuryand
possibility? Whynot enlistthe stateon behalfof communities withreal
needs?For as criticsofwhitesupremacy articulated thedangerand hope
in a democratic sovereignty,so theysaw the stateas a resourceofpower
to struggle overand use,notonlyas a dangerto avoid.To refusethestate
maycreatean imageofradicalism ormoralpurity, butatwhat(andwhose)
politicalcost?
Correspondingly, and third,thereis a kindof formalism in Butlers
argument aboutvulnerability. Forpartly, it selectsonly the universalvul-
nerability to injuryand death,whileignoringotherformsofvulnerabil-
ity,say,to climatechangeor economicoppression, whichmightgenerate
differentpolitical conclusions- and profound conflict.Partly,she would
foundcommunity on acknowledgment ofthefactoffinitude, whilefini-
tudein anyofitsmanysensesactuallyyieldsno determinate outcomeor
subjectivity, as the contrastof Butlerand Hobbes readilysuggests.Even
on thetermsitestablishesbyitsselectiveviewofvulnerability, Precarious
Lifecan be said to avoidpoliticsbecauseButlerdepictsan unconditional
"ethical"obligationto (the suffering of) theother,butneverexploresthe
politicalquestionsthatmustmediate(and complicate)it:Whose suffer-
ing,respondedto how,atwhatothercosts?She addressesa nationalsub-
ject aboutimperialpower,butbyproposingan extrapolitical truthabout
humanlifeas such,whose (ethical)implications she stipulatesas itwere
philosophically, In contrast,
butnotpolitically. a "political"argument must
address(eventorevise)an audiences conceptionofself-interest, andrelate
thisconceptionto theimpacton othersof alternative coursesof action.
We mightsaythatButlers intervention meansto givesucharguments an

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 Butler's
as Judith
234 OnVulnerability ofPolitics
Language

ethicalorphilosophicalframe, butthequestionremainswhatwouldmake
it a convincing politicaltruth, forpoliticaltruths, unlikephilosophicalor
ethicalones,areforgedthrough conflict anddebateamongmultipleactors
speakingvernacularidioms about carnal interests and not onlyabstract
principles. In thissensetheformalism ofButlers ethicalargument enacts
bothan evasionand displacement ofpolitics.
Perhaps this is not surprising, forwhile ExcitableSpeechendorses
performative (indeed "insurrectionary") speech,it neverexploreswhat
makesspecificspeechacts"felicitous" or"successful" in gainingassent.To
do thatmeansemphasizing, nottheessentialarbitrariness and openness
of signs,theDerrideanor disidentificatory move, but ratherthe embed-
dednessofsignsinlivedexperiences, localcultures, andcriterialgrammars
thatspeakersactuallymustdrawon and addressto be politically effective.
To be sure,Butlerwould tracetheseas theconditionsdefining and so -
limiting - intelligibility ofa speakerto himor herselfletalone to others.
Butwhatmustcontestatory speechdrawon, and not onlydisturb, to be
felicitous? In thehistoricstruggles against white for
supremacy, example,
performative speech does demonstrate the "resignification"thatButler
celebrates, but not her of
theory language and politics. For such (even
"insurrectionary") speechhas notsimplyrefusedinherited meaningsbut
also has projectedconcepts(likeequality) into new contexts;ithas given
accountability a political(not merelyjuridical)meaning,and ittherefore
has appealedto reconstitute community.
FromtheWittgensteinian viewoflanguageI am presuming here,the
greatdangerin politicsis notquitetheclosureofmeaningand thesafety
itseemsto providefromcontingency, change,and conflict. Fromthevan-
tageofordinary languagephilosophy, thedangeris notbeingtrappedin
as a
language prison, and the solution is notinsisting on thegapbetween
wordsand theworld.The danger,rather, is theskepticalproblematic that,
by depicting words as
only arbitrary signs abstracted from the practices
constituting a form of life,excuses us from saying what we mean and
meaning what we say to concrete others; the avoidance or deferral of
meaning,professedin thenameofkeepingsignsopen,in factprotectsus
fromcommitting to or owning(up to) ourwords- and fromtheconflict
and disappointment thatinvestment entails.Greatexamplesof"excitable
speech," whether that ofFrederick DouglassorEmmaGoldman,do notso
muchrefusetheordinary meaningofwords,as transfigure theminthefire
ofwhatDouglass called"scorching irony." Both the value and thedanger

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 Shulman235
George

in "excitablespeech"surelyresthere,foras it fuelspassionatejudgment
of conductand militantdemandsforfreedom,so we are endangeredby
intransigence. But thisriskseemsinescapableifwe are to use thefireof
speechto transform injuryintoaction,and transform the"terms"of our
language into thecommitments ofour To
politics. assertthatwe facemore
seriousdangersthanself-righteousness or moralism, ofcourse,is to dem-
onstrateagain,and leaveopen to contest,theidea thatcontrasting claims
aboutsafetyand dangerareatthecoreofpolitics,and ofpoliticaltheory.

GeorgeShulman
teachespolitical attheGallatin
theory SchoolofIndividualized
Study,
NewYork Hissecondbook,American
University. Prophecy:RaceandRedemption in
AmericanPolitics ofMinnesota
(University Press,2008) wasawarded theAmerican
DavidEaston
ScienceAssociation's
Political Prizeforthebestbookinpolitical
theory
in2010.

WorksCited

Butler,
Judith. 1997.Excitable A Politics
Speech: NewYork:
ofthePerformative.
Routledge.
Life.NewYork:Verso.
. 2004.Precarious

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