Judith Butler: People who expect enmity to suddenly convert into love...

It is clear that whatever language of democracy [Barack] Obama and his administration use is very tactically deployed, and has as its main aim the extension of US power and interests.

Judith Butler

administration democracy use

If we think about sexual life for a gender life, it seems to me that we have to allow for certain kinds of changes or certain kinds of ways of reconceptualizing ourselves.

Judith Butler

kind way thinking

We're trying to divide groups or decide that some of them are truly victims and some of them are truly aggressors.

Judith Butler

groups victim trying

One struggles always with these norms. So one doesn't construct oneself freely without respect to norm but one works with one's historical situation and sees where there might be some play. Where there might be some freedom to move.

Judith Butler

struggle play moving

When I was young there were lesbians who said "Oh, I will free myself of all norms of masculinity, all norms of heterosexuality ". And then, they ended up in very complex relationships that were maybe full of heterosexual power dynamics or full of lesbian forms of masculinity and they became very confused.

Judith Butler

dynamics heterosexuality confused

In the US the problem has been, for instance, that Nazis have rights of free expression, right? But other kinds of racist speech is not protected. And you have to link the speech to conduct or to a certain kind of threat against minority population. I know that in Europe, this kind of framework doesn't exist in the same way so it's very difficult to make the analogy.

Judith Butler

expression rights europe

It's important that if one opposes discriminatory speech, one opposes all kinds. That is that one decides on a principle that it will include all minorities. But if the protection of one minority against another minority is what is happening, then I worry about that.

Judith Butler

important principles worry

A certain kind of permission is given to live differently, to conceptualize and to act according to a new conceptualization.

Judith Butler

given kind permission

It wasn't possible just to rid oneself, simply, of the norms through which one is constituted.

Judith Butler

norm oneself

I want to say that the way in which we understand gender actually changes the way we live gender.

Judith Butler

gender want way

I think it's important to live with a certain danger and a certain risk.

Judith Butler

risk important thinking

So for instance in rap music, you very often hear words that would seem very racist, or very misogynous or very homophobic but in some of those instances, the words are being taken back or redefined so that they lose their injurious quality.

Judith Butler

rap quality taken

I think we have to ask, not, what "Gender trouble" is today but where "Gender trouble" is today.

Judith Butler

trouble today thinking

I think I never expected "Gender trouble" to have any particularly revolutionary effect so whatever effects it has, I'm always surprised.

Judith Butler

revolutionary trouble thinking

For instance, when "Gender trouble " is translated into Japanese, it produces a problem of vocabulary and a way of thinking about a quality for instance that is somewhat controversial in academic circles and also outside of the academy. In other places, "Gender trouble" is old.

Judith Butler

vocabulary circles thinking

"Gender trouble" is old. I mean, you know, in New York, it is old. I mean it's sweet. I mean people are really kind about it but it's like a former love affair you had and you're done.

Judith Butler

new-york sweet mean

It's not my concern. It's your concern. I just keep working. I keep posing certain questions and I think there are times when people think "What happened to the Judith Butler I used to know?" or "She's not doing gender trouble. Does that mean she refuses it or she's disavowed it?" And I would say no. I have not refused or disavowed anything.

Judith Butler

mean people thinking

I have simply taken some of the same questions and reposed them in new ways. But, you see, I must live. Right? I mean I can't stay the same for everyone to be consumed as the author of "Gender trouble". I have to continue to live and that means I have to "reposer les questions".

Judith Butler

taken mean way

The United States are such a large place. And there are some states and some cities where the questions of gender or sexuality would not be asked, or where scholars or academics are working in small little corners of the universities trying to raise these questions and being told that either that they're strange or not appropriate or being actively opposed. There are other places where there is very active scholarship going on. Certainly on gender.

Judith Butler

united-states cities trying

It's not like it's a brand new vocabulary that permits to have a new reality. It's rather a new vocabulary that lets us see that our lives have always been more complex than traditional categories allow. So, I think, you know, maybe the introduction of new words permits us to rethink what we've taken for granted about what forms bodies take, what the name is for certain kinds of sexual, intimate relations, how we think of a life.

Judith Butler

taken reality thinking

People who expect enmity to suddenly convert into love are probably using the wrong model.