“We may remark that it is one thing to give a report in which we tell about entities, but another to grasp entities in their being. For the latter task we lack not only most of the words but, above all, the ‘grammar’.” – Heidegger
“If gender itself is naturalized through grammatical norms, as Monique Wittig has argued, then the alteration of gender at the most fundamental epistemic level will be conducted, in part, through contesting the grammar in which gender is given.” – Butler
Introduction
When a certain impact is interpreted by contemporary opposants, what awaits that impact is not only the heterogeneity by others, but the addition of connotations and meanings that were cluttered with denotations, and a set of epochs that begins to fill the (temporal) gaps of the contemporaries. Every subsequent reception of philosophical impact is a departure from the same, and an attempt to alleviate “the rust of the world.”
This article builds on two main works: Gender Anxiety and Being and Time. Despite the wide gap between the two, the presentiment with being and time differs from the anxiety of gender, in addition to the difference in the cognitive and historical intersection in which each work is written, and a great difference in the approach and use of concepts, and above that the stylistic uniqueness in the two works, all these factors make it difficult to combine both of them. Yet, there is a field that is vital to both works, which is: Ontology. This article will attempt to present the Butlerian accomplishment in subverting what she called “gender ontology.” However, the extent of the Butlerian accomplishment is only understood when compared to the Heideggerian accomplishment in Being and Time to deconstruct ontology in general. For limitation purposes, this article will not explore all possible philosophical connections between the two works. Rather, it attempts to touch on some Heideggerian ghosts (senses) in a work in which Heidegger is not mentioned at all. At the beginning, the article seeks to clarify two concepts in undermining ontology. In the second paragraph, I will discuss the importance of the Butlerian conception of gender fulfillment in conjunction with Heidegger’s concept of Dasein (the human being). In conclusion, we will review the concepts of sorge and parody.
1. Ontology: Between Destruction and Subversion
What should be destroyed in Being and Time? What is the task of destruction in this work? The matter begins with an ontological and interpretive problem related to the reinterpretation and appropriation of tradition, from which Dasein inherits a previous understanding, and since every understanding starts from priors, destruction works not to destroy what was, but rather to “loosen up” the accumulated traditional content over time that permeates Dasein in its daily life. To Heidegger, destruction only takes place “by taking the question of Being as our clue,” and thus the question about the meaning of the being does not arise again except after a reinterpretation of the questioner (Dasein). From here we understand this insistence on Heidegger’s avoidance of the word human, and replacing it with Dasein. Destruction directed towards humans and their traditional content in which they grew up; makes them Dasein. Heidegger points out that there cannot be a fundamental ontology (related to the question about the meaning of the being) except after destroying the ancient ontological traditions that obscure Dasein from many of its potentials. For Dasein to become a superpower of possibility, that is the task.
If destruction is the Heideggerian choice to destroy the history of ontology, then subversion in Gender Anxiety comes to a different place. This article does not attempt to establish an identical and complete analogy between destruction and subversion. Butler is not too preoccupied with providing definitions of subversion and subversiveness. For her, the matter is not concerned with a fundamental ontology, which main concern is asking the question of the meaning of the being that has been recalled after forgetfulness. The concern that drives her is of a different nature; for Butler, forgetting is not the forgetting of being, which requires destruction in order to remember and possess, but rather gender, which was thought about in its most radical aspects, either as a cultural interpretation of the body/sex by society (structural anthropology), or a sexual difference in which the sexes are distinguished from each other (phenomenology and psychoanalysis). Butler declares that she seeks “a radical rethinking of the ontological constructions of identity,” and asks, “What is the metaphysics of substance, and how does it inform thinking about the categories of sex?”. Butler’s goal is to think about gender as an identity ontologically grounded in a metaphysics of substance to its end. The matter then requires a critical genealogy whose mission will not be to question the beginnings of the categories of identity, or to search for the original truths of feminine desires, or to reveal a pure identity somewhere, but rather to emphasize the multiplicity and increased spread of the effects resulting from the practices, institutions, and discourses that legitimize and firmly naturalized an identity as if it is the one. As a result, we notice in her book a disturbance of the essentialist categories of self-identity, considering that the “ontological perfection” of a self that precedes what is legal and social is a foundational illusion, resulting from classical liberal perceptions founded in the hypothesis of the state of nature. This hypothesis still governs the “structures of law” in our contemporary day. Butler rejects every hypothesis that proposes in its content an identity for the self that is fundamentally established beforehand, as if her presupposed identity is the only translation of it.
Overall, in her subversion of identity based on the metaphysics of substance, Butler does not suggest what kind of ontology of gender can adequately tell us who is man? and who is the woman? In conclusion, we find that the subversion is nothing but a parody of the two sayings “man” and “woman,” the two heroes in the “wedding of the world”. Subversion does not imply removing the mask or adornment from those attending that wedding, but intensifying and diversifying the gendered adornments and masks so that the wedding itself be evident, and every one of those present has lost the ability to ask, “When did we start?” Who is “the groom?” Who is “the bride?”
Here, we tried to explain two methods of undermining whereas the thin thread that unites them is their effort to fragment the possible as it is, and they do not seek to provide content for the possible, as the possible has limited itself to humans with all its embodiment and all its variations.
2. Dasein and Gender Accomplishment
Returning once again to Dasein (the human being), I will begin from paragraph 25 (of Being and Time) that seeks to ask the question “Who is Dasein?”. First, Heidegger responds that any conception of the self as a value (presented before us), attributing the self to an essence that has permanence in time; then it multiplies according to the change in contexts, and the world is represented as its subjectdoes not fit with Dasein. The Dasein concept was known as “being-in-the-world,” and as a result, the question will not be what Dasein is but who it is. “Who” here has an ontological denotation, thus, Dasein acquires existential variations (that constitute existence) of the “who”. Dasein is not separated from its own who except after a formal existential understanding that captures the original modes of being. The essence of Dasein lies in its existence, but with whom does it exist? with others. Dasein’s encounter with others is an ontological specification of its being-in-the-world as being-together (others). Heidegger notifies that this does not mean an assembly of selves in some place, rather it is the structure of Dasein as long as it is in the world. The world is preoccupied with the tools that bring everyone together, every Dasein is always in the middle, with the people (or “they”) who have always preceded it and to whom it most likely belongs more than to itself.
What is the status of gender in this understanding that describes itself as ontological and formal? We return back to Butler with great caution; Butler stresses, “…gender is not a fact” and if we shift the approach of her statement within the analysis of Dasein, where we have explained some of its features, then gender is not an original essence, but rather it is most likely people’s interpretation of the status of gendered and sexualized individuals before. Butler understands that gender accomplishment is not only the interpretive understanding of the gendered subject but also the act of daily practice, the ritual that accompanies the passing of every gendered being. “Gender is the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts.” Thus, even what we call an interiority of identity or nature is naturalized through the styles that penetrate the surface of the muted body, which, if we try to return it to its ontological origin, is nothing but “being-in-the-world”. It has become a mere incident of its gendered (and sexualized) body, as if Dasein, through the accomplishment of gender, has been projected into the world; in order to be gendered and nothing more. For Butler, it is not a matter of completely transcending the binary gender system. Likewise, for Heidegger, he does not search for an authentic self or pure identity that has been stripped of people and their everydayness. He proposes (existential modification) of people (or them). In the end, if the analysis of Dasein does not aim to be used culturally, Butler’s subversion of gender identity has been widely used by minorities. There is a gap between Being and Time and Gender Anxiety, which can only be bridged by sorge towards the (unique) reality of being-in-the-world that ends with death (Heidegger) and granting the possibilities for a livable life more than before (Butler).
3. Conclusion: Sorge and Parody
For Heidegger, sorge will be a mode of being that binds the whole of Dasein. He defines it as “ahead-of-itself-Being-already-in”. Sorge is an already-existential description of being-in-the-world. Every practice and preoccupation with tools and care for others are forms of sorge. Even will, motivation, and tendencies, and perhaps even the desire that has become a greed at last are modes of sorge, but they relate only to the capability-of-being that each individual has, to bear the event of being thrown-into-the-world, and authenticity and inauthenticity become possibilities for enduring the anxiety that strips Dasein of its everydayness and to bring it back to the reality of its existence. For a person to come ahead of themselves means that they take care of this potential (devoid of content) that belongs to them and does not leave it obscured by people. Heideggerian sorge will find its diversification and its embodied realism with Butler and Bell. Here we mean gender parody; the mockery of gender identity becomes a kind of sorge for the possible that does not appear because the social context has practiced a form of deprivation of the possible. Every gender is in the end, “…a regulatory fiction,” the narration of that fiction is its actions in accomplishment, and only the subversion and sarcastic repetition implicates that story, stops the narration, and re-forms pronouns and traits. Gender parody will not be an acceptance of everything, only a destabilization of identity categories filled with discourses and standards that no longer see anything but themselves as an origin. To convince us that the story of gender identity has a root and a branch.
In paragraph (44) of Being and Time and within his discussion of truth and openness, Heidegger returns to appropriating truth ontologically, not epistemologically. For him, truth becomes revelation in that Dasein is based on openness and understanding, and this is the meaning of including existence as its essence. This definition only proceeds because Dasein is sorge (ahead-of-itself-Being-already-in). Openness (understanding) makes it possible to assume the primacy of truth in a special way, and since we are “…’we’ must also presuppose ‘ourselves’ as having the attribute of disclosedness.”. This ability to assume is evident in Gender Anxiety whether Heidegger is mentioned in it or not. Perhaps he himself, through being and time, had previously ridiculed gender identity when he considered the being and destiny of someone.
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