A System Exists Here, But not Well Articulated

One of the problems in the aftermath of terorism is that our Western system remains non-articulated. No one has explained the system that exists here in the West. We have a system. But it is not well articulated.

A whole raft of writers recently appear, all of whom have at least one thing in common, which is that they are talking about how a person in this system of ours is, or perhaps how s /he should be, which is to say how s /he can exist as a "cosmopolitan" individual who wears a variety of hats at different times but is no one, absolute category. No one is so to speak, just black, or just white. rather, the modern person is, or perhaps s /he should be, the ultimate version of the noncategorizable. One of the writers doing this kind of work (and doing it "perfomatively," one hopes) is J. Butler.

Many others have joined the trend recently. There are books or articles or pieces that are about just what kind of modern person it is who is not gendered, or "partitioned" --as Sen puts the matter in his recent book aimed (condescendingly) at the mass audience -- not partitioned that is to say into unitary cultures or parts. No, this modern person is representative of all. This is the anti-Al-Qaeda side of the issue. One is, or should be, free of such monolithic, categorical "identity."

This is the new trend I am seeing. It is a specification of the modern viewpoint. It seems to be something like a clearer, refocused attempt at the tolerant, multi-dimensional kind of thing that is characteristic of modernity from the beginning of the capitalist, bourgeois age, when rigid identities were broken down in favor of free trade or global travel or other such modern practices. What it is, really, is merely an articulation of a certain kind of modern viewpoint, but something which perhaps was not articulated well enough in the past (although I believe that Isaiah Berlin may have tried).

You can appreciate it if you read Butler, or if you read this recent book "Identity and Violence" I think, or something like that, by Amartya Sen. He normally writes very detailed theoretical accounts of things socio-economic that are a bit beyond my capacity. He writes some very articulated argument, detailed stuff that just goes on and on (especially if you don't get it). In Butler's book on the Seagull imprint, "Who Sings...", she mentions Hannah Arendt, who speaks of the "stateless" person. A persons who has lost his or her identity as a member of a state has no exact affiliation, and would be an example that helps us understand the issues here, although that seems more from the negative side rather than seeing the universal man as a positive pattern. Butler is well-known for taken the "gender" category away in general.

So, J. Butler is trying very hard to find him, or place him ----- this stateless person who needs to create an identity. Sen and Butler both want anything except the person who is hard-wired into some identity. But where could such a person be placed? Anywhere at all, perhaps. All of these persons --now I mean the successful, privileged authors extolling the death of fixed identity in favor of some kind of universal moderniy --are basically globetrotters themselves, so it is quite natural that they should like this kind of thinking. It hardly seems irrelevant that this whole bunch have exactly the lifestyle that would correspond to the idea of the person being many things, or any----wearing many hats.

But never one. You shouldn't be Christian, or Jewish, or Muslim. What you need to be is all three, with a little paganism or shamanism thrown in. Know what I mean? Pogo-stick?

Still ---- I think it is a really good idea to get a better articulation of just what being one of "us" actually amounts to. What does "developed world democratic modernist" actually mean? Just who is that?

What are you? ---- gender queer or something...?

This is a very stimulating idea on the part of Butler and Sen, and certainly one to fit the times.