If it isn’t one thing it’s an Other: a critical reflection on Judith Butler’s Giving an Account of Oneself
Judith Butler positions the self in an interesting light: she determines that one cannot define aspects of oneself without the Other — whether person be real or imagined, known to you, a standard by which you measure yourself, or even another iteration of you from another time (2001). Questions whether one’s life story belongs to the self, as it is reliant upon the perception of and conversation with others. For example, I can only know of the circumstances surrounding my conception, birth, and early childhood through third-party tales, each of whose storytellers has biases and agendas that may or may not be made clear. For most of my formative years, my interpretation of events was largely shaped by siblings, parents, teachers, and other perceived authority figures. As an adult, my world views have developed, evolved, and changed, mostly due to the influence of individuals, groups, and communities around me.
An interesting wrinkle to consider here is the phenomenon of code-switching. From a sociolinguistic perspective, this term refers to “someone who is equally proficient in [multiple] languages”, and who moves back and forth between languages for the purposes of communication (Nguyen, 2015). Speakers may change their accent, grammar, language choices, physical gestures, and body postures based upon the audience and desired communicative effect — I posit that this is not limited to spoken or written output, but expands to include every variety of life choice, from clothing to behaviour, from travel destinations to career moves. Every decision we make is somehow informed by how those around us might judge it; the Other is acknowledged even by someone who says, “I don’t care what anyone else thinks.” The very act of bucking popular opinion is based upon knowledge of just what is popular. Getting a funky hairstyle is usually accompanied by thoughts such as, “Wait ‘til Joe sees my new do”, or “My first wife would have hated this; let’s go for it.” And yet, when I go to a job interview or visit my grandfather on his 99th birthday, I might keep that unusual cut, quite literally, under my hat.
All of these Others to whom I look for guidance, inspiration, and judgement are, quite selfishly, going through the same I-don’t-rightly-know-myself-ness that I am. We are all able to tell stories about ourselves, but we are not omnipotent narrators with all the information necessary to accurately construct a complete tale: “… at the moment when we narrate we become speculative philosophers or fiction writers” (Butler, 2001). Human animals frequently do things that seem sensible in the moment, but later admit that they don’t know what they were thinking at the time.
Often, the most difficult Other to deal with is the one each person harbours in their own breast. As the saying goes, I am my own worst critic. Having such intimate knowledge of my own skills and talents, give me any task, and I perceive that I know exactly what my ceiling is. If I achieve a personal best for a half marathon, I can list a dozen moments from the run when I slacked off for a few minutes; if I cook a lovely three-course meal, I could tell you three ways that I cut corners during its preparation. Even if Others compliment me, and I know that the performance was good, there’s a part of my brain begging to point out the couldas, wouldas, and shouldas. At the same time, the Other within can be an apologist for mediocrity. Enter procrastination, excusemongering, rationalization, and pretend apathy. This is where the practice of mindfulness can pay hefty dividends — recognizing the destructive nature of one’s inner Other allows enjoyment of the moment, whether or not thar be warts in that all.
I’ll be honest, the closest I’ve come to studying moral philosophy in my 51 years is repeat viewings of The Good Place. As such, Butler’s references to Hegel, Kant, Lacan, Cavarero, Foucault, et al are largely lost upon me. Much of this text therefore proved pretty much impenetrable, the very picture of “work that is highly abstract, jargonistic, difficult to read, and containing obscure references that may not be at all clear or explained” (hooks, 1991). I quite appreciated the responses that fellow students offered, but perhaps most interesting was my reaction to only having six respondents — “the other two writers this week had more than ten each!” I thought. I didn’t realize just how much this bothered me until I realized that I hadn’t signed back into the course for three weeks afterward. Clearly, I am quite reliant upon the Other for perceived validation of my own thoughts; I’m not as independent a learner as I once thought.
These are the two questions that I posed to classmates. I would like to thank the six who answered on the forum, and no longer judge those who didn’t:
- Is it truly impossible for the self to exist without the language, perception, and judgement of the Other?
- Does my inability to fully account for my own pre-history truly result in, as Butler suggests, “the story I have to give of myself… [being] partial and failed”? Do these precepts “[constitute], in a way, my failure to be fully accountable for my actions”?
References
Butler, J. (2001). Giving an Account of Oneself. Diacritics, 31(4), 22–40.
hooks, b. (1991). Theory as liberatory practice . Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, 4(1). 1–12.
Nguyen, T. (2015). Code Switching: A Sociolinguistic Perspective. Anchor.