“Revenge tries to solve the problem of vulnerability. If I strike back, I transfer vulnerability from myself to the other. And yet by striking back I produce a world in which my vulnerability to injury is increased by the likelihood of another strike. So it seems as if I'm getting rid of my vulnerability and instead locating it with the other, but actually I'm heightening the vulnerability of everyone and I'm heightening the possibility of violence that happens between us.” IfsWorldTryingProblemSeemsHappensViolencePossibilityProduceSolveRevengeStrikesVulnerabilityInjuryTransfersLikelihoodStrike Back Author:Judith Butler
“It seems to me that responsiveness is a better source for understanding what moral claims are and how they work upon us.” SeemsUnderstandingMoralSourceClaimsResponsiveness Author:Judith Butler
“Not all bodies are born in male or female. There is a continuum of bodies and it seems to me that trying to persuade medical and psychiatrist establishments to deal with the intersex involves critique of the binary gender system. Similarly there continues to be extreme, sometimes very extreme violence against transgender people.” PeopleTryingSometimesBodySeemsBornDealsViolenceFemaleMalesExtremesGenderMedicalEstablishmentTransgenderPsychiatristCritiqueContinuumBinaryIntersex Author:Judith Butler
“It seems to me that "Gender trouble" will always be important to try and open up our ideas of what gender is. So, I don't know if it's revolutionary, but maybe it still has something to say to those issues.” IfsKnowsTryingStillsImportantIdeasSeemsIssuesTroubleGenderRevolutionary Author:Judith Butler
“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.” IfsThinkingWayKindSeemsCertainGender Author:Judith Butler
“The real question is how do you survive at the same time you pose those risks? Because you need to survive. And it seems to me that you survive in community or in solidarity, with others who are taking the risk with you.” NeedsRealSeemsCommunityRiskSolidarityReal Questions Author:Judith Butler
“You could protect a religious minority against gays and lesbians. Or you could protect gays and lesbians against a religious minority. And then, it seems to me something political is happening. Because we're not really looking at the kind of speech that is injurious.” KindSeemsPoliticalReligiousGayProtectSpeechHappeningsMinorities Author:Judith Butler
“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.” SeemsLosesQualityTakenRapInstanceRacistRap MusicHomophobic Author:Judith Butler
“Maybe we need to start with the rethinking of what is "west" and what is "non-west." It seems to me that there are any number of populations who already cross that divide, and we could probably point to several existing states that belong exclusively neither to one category nor to the other. Do we use these terms to designate geographical realities, geopolitical ones, or perhaps sites of power, exploitation, orientalism that move through space and time in ways that have to be tracked historically.” WayNeedsStatesUseRealitySeemsMovingTermSpaceNumbersCrossesWestPopulationCategoriesDividesExploitationSiteTime And SpaceGeopoliticalOrientalismRethinking Author:Judith Butler
“Because Al-Qaeda has been a non-state centered organisation, many of these scenarios do not exactly apply. These are not wars between states. And yet, it seems to me that we make a mistake if we accept the view that states are fighting terrorism, since we have abundant evidence for accepting the idea of state terrorism, and what is most urgent is to track and expose how state terrorism operates under the rubric of "democracy."” IfsHas BeensIdeasWarStatesSeemsFightingViewsMistakeAcceptingDemocracyEvidenceTrackTerrorismAlsUrgentScenariosOrganisationAl QaedaFighting TerrorismRubrics Author:Judith Butler
“Maybe one of the jobs of theory or philosophy is to elevate principles that seem impossible, or that have the status of the impossible, to stand by them and will them, even when it looks highly unlikely that they'll ever be realised. But that's ok, it's a service.” LooksPhilosophySeemsJobsPrinciplesImpossibleTheoryUnlikelyRealised Author:Judith Butler
“Let's face it. We're undone by each other. And if we're not, we're missing something. If this seems so clearly the case with grief, it is only because it was already the case with desire. One does not always stay intact.” IfsDoeSeemsFacesDesireGriefCasesMissingUndoneMissing Something Book:Undoing Gender Source: Undoing Gender
“It seems, though, that historically we have now reached a position in which Jews cannot legitimately be understood always and only as presumptive victims.” SeemsPositionUnderstoodVictimJew Author:Judith Butler
“Race and class are rendered distinct analytically only to produce the realization that the analysis of the one cannot proceed without the other. A different dynamic it seems to me is at work in the critique of new sexuality studies.” DifferentSeemsRaceClassStudyProduceSexualityRealizationAnalysisCritique Author:Judith Butler
