Improvisation in the disorders of desire: performativity, passion and moral education

Abstract

In this article, I attempt to bring some colour to a discussion of fraught topics in education. Though the scenes and stories (from education and elsewhere) that feature here deal with racism, the discussion aims to say something to such topics more generally. The philosophers whose work I draw on here are Stanley Cavell and Judith Butler. Both Butler and Cavell develop (or depart from) J.L. Austin's theory of the performative utterance. Butler, following Derrida, argues that in concentrating on the illocutionary force of utterances (their capacity to do things), Austin fails to account for the force of words themselves. The iterability of language means that words are never at one with themselves. They carry their old contexts with them as they enter into new ones. This has important consequences for ethical issues that pertain to what Butler calls the ‘performativity’ of gender and race. Though we are performed by language, this performance has a dynamic quality that leads to the reshaping of identity. In contrast, for Cavell, the disappointing aspect of Austin's thought relates to the latter's neglect of the perlocutionary effect of language – what is done ‘by words’. By taking on this project, Cavell embraces the unconventional aspects of language characterised by ‘passionate’ expression and exchange. Butler and Cavell approach the performative utterance from different directions. In the last part of this article, the significance of this difference is discussed in relation to the provision of a moral education with regard to tackling issues surrounding racism.

Keywords:

• performative utterance
• passionate utterance
• performativity
• iterability
• perlocutions

Notes

Notes

1. (AI) There must exist an accepted conventional procedure having a certain conventional effect that procedure to include the uttering of certain words by certain persons in certain circumstances, and further, (A2) the particular persons and circumstances in a given case must be appropriate for the invocation of the particular procedure invoked. (BI) The procedure must be executed by all participants both correctly and (B2) completely. (ГI) Where, as often, the procedure is designed for use by persons having certain thoughts or feelings, or for the inauguration of certain consequential conduct on the part of any participant, then a person participating in and so invoking the procedure must in fact have those thoughts or feelings, and the participants must intend so to conduct themselves, and further (Г2) must actually so conduct themselves subsequently (14–15).

2. The example of ‘outrageous’ statements marks the beginning of a nagging problem, which haunts How to do things with words, and is a problem Austin, to his credit, seems almost to revel in. The example of an outrageous statement which Austin refers to is ‘The present king of France is bald’ (Austin 1976, 9). Austin's point is that because the present king of France does not exist, the statement, rather than remaining subject to verifiability, might be described as ‘void’. His justification for making this claim derives from ‘a presupposition of existence’ which pertains to the statement (Austin 1976, 9). Having apparently superseded the possibility of simply saying the statement is false, we might note that the unhappiness surrounding the statement in its entirety, seems to take over. The outrageousness of the statement points to the fact that it is ‘doing something’ and leads Austin to maintain that:

• the more we consider a statement not as a sentence (or proposition) but as an act of speech (out of which the others are logical constructions) the more we are studying the whole thing as an act. (1976)

What the example of ‘the present king of France’ shows is that language seems to be doing something regarding the possibilities that follow on from individual instances of speech. The outrageous example allows us to focus on the way in which words ‘perform’, regardless of whether they are explicit performatives or not.

3. This quotation derives from a new introduction that features in a more recent Preface to Gender trouble. The first edition of Gender trouble was published in 1990.

4. It has become customary, though still controversial (particularly within black American popular culture), for black people to refer to themselves and each other as ‘niggers’. Such instances reflect a kind of ‘talking back’ as regards the language of oppression.

5. Cavell indicates that Austin's suspicions regarding perlocutions partly stem from the latter's distaste for political rhetoric, which partakes in the insincerity against which his philosophy rails.

6. What might this mean? The significance of this claim becomes clearer when we consider Cavell's example of a judge who utters the words ‘you were wrong’ to a defendant. Such an utterance cannot be considered ‘passionate’ or expressive because illocutionary force dominates – it can amount to a sentence. Of course, such an utterance will have perlocutionary effects, but we are dealing with a different kind of perlocutionary field. Cavell argues that what the judge is doing does not amount to an ‘ordinary exchange’. It is clear that the word ‘exchange’ is heavily loaded here. That Cavell wishes to occlude the judge's verdict from the field of ‘exchanges’ is very telling. A study of the passionate utterance (and perlocutions generally) involves the recognition of the individual, which becomes distorted (perhaps sidelined) in the case of illocutionary force. I say distorted rather than negated in compliance with Cavell's point that illocutions do not silence the other. Rather they signal the end of the matter; the convicted criminal may protest against the verdict, but this is hardly an exchange, as we may ‘ordinarily’ understand that term. Passionate utterances, as such, require ‘exchange not mediation or arbitration’ (Cavell 2005). Consequently, let us say that ‘You were wrong’ could exemplify a passionate utterance, but only under different circumstances.

7. This notion of voice is as indicated in Cavell's account of ordinary language (roughly). It is not really to do with the politics of recognition, the place where voice has its obvious thematic home in much writing.

8. I am not suggesting that Butler's arguments in their undiluted form exemplify PowerPoint philosophy.