COURSERA COURSE:

THE MODERN AND THE POSTMODERN WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY

Peer Assessment 7

Respond to one of the two following prompts:

Butler writes that gender is a practice of improvisation within a scene of constraint.
Discuss how her idea of improvisation compares with notions of creativity and self-invention we
have seen in one other writer we have read in this course.

Or

Butler is very concerned with the idea of vulnerability. Compare her views on the vulnerable
with another thinker we have read in this course.


BUTLER AND EMERSON: IMPROVISATION AND SELF-RELIANCE

Mario Ramos Salas


The concern about the self, the questions regarding how it is constituted both through social and
individual experience, and of how one may be capable (or not) to shape ones own identity, are
common subjects addressed by two prominent American philosophers: namely, by J udith Butler
and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Concretely, one may draw a comparison between Butlers idea of
improvisation and Emersons notion of self-reliance to understand how both of them approach
the aforementioned topics and to clarify any existent similarities and divergences.

Firstly, it is necessary to mention that Butlers idea of improvisation becomes relevant in the
context of her considerations regarding the subject of gender. She claims that gender is a kind
of doing, an incessant activity performed, in part, without ones knowing and without ones
willing
1
but disregards the opinion that because of that gender would be of an automatic or
mechanical nature. Instead Butler asserts that gender must be understood as practice of
improvisation within a scene of constraint
2
.

1
J udith Butler, Undoing Gender (2004).

2
Ibid.

To understand said assertion one must considerer that for Butler desire and recognition are
closely intertwined inasmuch as desire is always a desire for recognition and that it is only
through the experience of recognition that any of us becomes constituted as socially viable
beings
3
. Furthermore, said desire is translated into norms which endow or deny recognition and,
insofar as one is subjected to those norms, one is molded by them. As a consequence Butler
states that:

If I am someone who cannot be without doing, then the conditions of my doing are, in
part, the conditions of my existence. If my doing is dependent on what is done to me or,
rather, the ways in which I am done by norms, then the possibility of my persistence as
an I depends upon my being able to do something with what is done with me
4
.

For Butler, on one hand, one is heavily influence by the norms imposed by society but, on the
other hand, what those norms do to one must be understood as a space in which one is enabled to
participate in the constitution of oneself through improvisation. Yet, Butler recognized that said
space for improvisation is quite limited.

Thus, Butler recognizes the possibility for self-invention in a restricted manner. Conversely,
Emerson believed in a wider range in which human beings could transform and invent
themselves. Emerson holds that a self-reliable human being is the one that is liberated from
thinking through others and how instead learns to think on its own. Consequently, for him [t]o
believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all
men that is genius
5
.

Emerson is interested in enhancing the opportunities for transformation in the individual which
are limited if one is seduced by a conformist attitude towards life. Therefore, Emerson holds that:

Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members.
Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of
his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue
in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion
6
.

For Emerson when one interacts in society one is expected to act in a repetitive manner which
leaves no room for self transformation. In his view, one should not conform to what society and
3
Ibid.

4
Ibid.

5
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance (1841).

6
Ibid.

its individuals expects from us, but he also recognizes the need to engage with others. Thence, it
is no surprise that Emerson claimed that:

It is easy in the world to live after the worlds opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after
our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect
sweetness the independence of his solitude
7
.

Now then, as a conclusion, it seems valid to assert that a comparison between Butlers idea of
improvisation and Emersons notion of self-reliance evidences that both notions, at their core,
strive towards the opening of new possibilities for a more livable life in Butlers terms, freeing
oneself from the constraints which social life imposes, and thus enabling the transformation of
oneself. However, it must also be properly noted that differ in a significant manner regarding the
extent to which said transformation could be plausible. Butler attributes a greater importance to
the constraints brought about social norms and their demands which reduce the range of self-
invention significantly; whereas Emerson portrays a more individualistic perspective which
entails that the possibilities to increase ones freedom in society lay in the hands of human
beings.
7
Ibid.