To Love Strong and Do Right: Or, When I Nearly Peed My Pants

This post feels hard to start. I can't let on to too many details (which is already part of the problem) but I hope to write. I need to write. So let me try.

For the past couple of years I've been thinking and writing about many of the same topics: Academic philosophy. Graduate school. Relationships (that start and end). What I'm doing with my life and what I want to do. Where I'll be when I do it. About a year and a half ago I noticed that the nature of my posts was starting to change. Rather than reflecting on the philosophy that I was reading and writing about how it relates to real life, I started to simply write about real life. This blog went from somewhat academically-informed to pseudo self-help insights from a twenty-something-year-old.  That slow distancing from academic philosophy in my blogging reflected a slow separation from academic philosophy in my personal life.  I stopped reading philosophy because I got bored with reading philosophy. Even the stuff that was aimed at me--as a member of the target audience of academic researchers interested in Nietzsche, rhetoric, and writing styles, for instance--was painful to get through. When I would force myself to go to public talks or conference presentations, I found myself getting frustrated and angry. Even the stuff by feminist philosophers seemed to be too insular, too arrogant, or the comments and questions that followed too self-aggrandizing or too antagonistic (and I lost all hope for other philosophy that didn't even try or pretend to be relevant to life and interests outside of academic philosophy). The summary of my relationship with philosophy over the past year goes something like this: I haven't been feeling very inspired. Like a stale marriage, philosophy, it has seemed, just got too far removed from my life. I'm around it all the time. I force myself to keep working at it. I try to make it exciting and plan fun activities whenever I can. Overall, though, we're probably heading down the path toward a divorce. But that's not the part that's hard to write.

In the past couple of weeks my life has taken an unexpected turn. It's not the kind of turn that would immediately change everything in my life like a terrible car accident, getting married, or winning the lottery. However, it could have been. And nevertheless, this event has changed my life in a different way. On the surface, for those who aren't receiving phone calls from me every few days, it very likely appears as though nothing has changed at all. But for me, something very, very big has occurred that has forced me to look deeply, carefully, and lovingly at my life. I've been taking stock of where I am, what I am doing, where I am going, and where I want to be. Same old, same old, right? Wrong. Because this time it's serious. Rather than just musing about the possibilities in a free-floating kind of way that is kept afloat by a low-level, ever-present anxiety about the unknowns of one's future, this is is a type of reflection that takes priorities, values, needs, goals, and dreams very seriously into account. It's the kind of thinking that functions as if you just realized that you're heading into some rapids and you don't have a raft. You start thinking, "How the hell do I get a raft?" or "I need to get off of this river."

These types of moments call for a real practical kind of reflection. One person referred to it as a moment for "course correction." You realize that you are in a place where you don't want to be and never wanted to be. And you come to the painful realization that instead of boldly walking toward your next goal you have been timidly dancing around in circles like a child who has to pee. My apologies for taking this image too far, but these past couple of weeks have been the metaphorical moment when I nearly pissed my pants. Fortunately, I found a really nasty bathroom. It was unpleasant to say the very least, but I'm lucky I could find a bathroom before it was too late. Again, no one need be the wiser about the fact that I almost peed my pants since I'm not walking around with that embarrassing mess all over me. In the public eye, when things are smoothly humming along, "going to bathroom" is one of those things that we have the privilege of forgetting that everyone does. But my goodness, now I know for sure that the next time I'm dancing around in circles it better be out of joy for putting my skills to good use, following my passion, living each day filled with gratitude, and having confidence that if I ever have to pee that badly again that I've already cleaned up my own bathroom, installed a skylight, and decorated the counters with fresh wildflowers. (Sorry. I've been known to take metaphors to the extreme.)

This delicate little branch has been around my neck for over a week now. In that time, it's taken on a symbolic meaning as a reminder to love strong and do right.

With great surprise, and also an unexpected amount of relief, my recent experiences have reinvigorated a deep appreciation in me for philosophy. After all of my years of doing philosophy while saying that it can be incredibly helpful and therapeutic by providing ways for people to think through their experiences and understand them in new ways, this return to philosophy was almost instinctual. In fact, I might even say it was necessary. I started to talk and process and think about what I was going through in ways that called into question the cultural values that perpetuate a kind of shaming silence about our experiences (and how this silence reinforces politically and ethically problematic structures that also maintain an unfortunate--if not unjust--status quo). Suddenly, I was very grateful that I had the tools within myself to understand my own situation in a philosophical way that helped me see how there are identifiable reasons that would typically seem "unrelated" but that are part of why this has been such a difficult situation. Thankful for my own ability to see a picture that went beyond pitiful-ol'-me-who-unexpectedly-had-to-pee, I was reminded that there are many, many, many important issues that affect lots of people's lives in profound ways. Rather than embracing the notion that "ignorance is bliss" and acting like these things don't affect us or the people we know and love, I remembered just how important it is to raise awareness and encourage a kind of public discourse that empowers, supports, and honestly addresses people in thoughtful and helpful ways. In short, thanks to the difficulty of recent events in my life, I have suddenly felt very much inspired to do philosophy.

As part of my effort to build up a better bathroom for myself and others, I'm refocusing my energy on what I'm good at, what I value most, and how I can best use the skill set that I have been gifted through my experiences. (Did I say I would quit with the metaphor? No. Is it confusing if you don't know what I'm talking about? Probably. Here's a hint: "bathroom" refers to a number of things so don't think about it too hard. Just keep reading...I'm almost done anyway.) I don't know if this means that I will be doing professional academic philosophy. But I really want it to mean that I find a way to help people think about their experiences in ways that inform practical ways of living that are empowering, therapeutic, and transformative on social, political, and personal levels. In other words, my goal is find a way to keep doing philosophy that remains true to the real reasons why I got into it in the first place. That way may be known by a different name but I want philifesophy to be at the heart of it.

The Difficult Silence of Ineffability

my heart, my body, my brain

 

The waiting of three months with not-knowing certainty pushed me to new limits of patience and understanding. With its end came sadness, but at least also a sense of finality. In the three weeks that have passed I've been trying to openly embrace my transition into a different phase, but here, it's been difficult. Arriving at this new place meant acknowledging that the few things I held close were more deeply falling away. Truthfully, I can muster heavy welcomes to greet these changes, and despite my wish to be filled with the lightness of being, I'm holding breath with my insecurities. Keeping them next to me without pushing away means finding new resources of courage to battle the loneliness of independence. In the meantime, I've managed to maintain. It results, however, in a penetrating silence.

At once, I turn to write. To explain. If only through signs and gestures.

What one fears must not be stated was admitted in these past few weeks. Numerous times. It's been no secret, however, that the narrow path which leads to a well-outlined yet seldom-realized future has always stirred up fears of compromise and settling in me. Nevertheless, the audience changes everything. Lest one be confused, I'm referencing multiple things, for the pattern is similar and provides a structure for one big picture. Within a matter of days I managed to articulate my biggest worry of becoming something that I never wanted to be--pushed further ahead, yet at the same time away, by the expectations of what it means to do philosophy. Without missing a beat, questions of love, passion, commitment, insight, creativity, and utilizing one's strengths immediately come to the surface. Not surprising, of course, because strengths serve as anchor points. They find holds, take root, and support successes. Like seeds, they are what nourish any amount of life, growth, and change, and once planted, something can emerge. The matter for consideration is where to do one's planting. In whom and under what conditions. At the same time, I wonder if one can wait to realize a different when.

At these moments I can feel overwhelmed, discouraged, and weak. It's not the levels of complexity that I see which feel burdensome, but rather the inability to share with others what is burgeoning within me. Words cannot be robust or quick enough. They would each need something like four dimensions in order to reach across the overlaps and  the scope that constitutes the nexus within me. So I turn elsewhere for inspiration. As I hold my exhale, I read.

Thinking back on all that I have gained in the last year and the efforts that I put in to bear those fruits, the light falls on my relationships. But my sadness is compounded by the fact  that one of my most unique relationships has had to be reshaped, relegated, and in a sense, released. For years I longed for time enough to develop a sufficient amount of understanding, to acquire the required sense for feeling meaning and living theory, and finally, after five months of realizing this profound connection, my own experience has left me speechless. The reality is that I am not capable of overlooking this insufficiency. It seems strange that the words of another who is so different could resonate so intimately, and yet like any love relationship, it takes effort and commitment to meet with someone in this space. That, no doubt, is a rare achievement. Don't let another beat skip. You might mishear what I mean. Nevertheless, I feel something like a sense of...betrayal, for his words have wrapped me in a contradiction that is nearly too difficult to bear. A 'Yes' means I do, and the affirmation reaches to my bones. But simultaneously, such an affirmation leaves me feeling alone. The deeper I go, the harder it is to wear the necessary masks and perform. I do not resent him for sharing his wisdom, and I know that my task it to go on, but for the next year, I am making it all up from a false start. And I anticipate what a struggle it will be to remain on the surface and play as I outline the contours of these errors. 

The Isolated Individual, and one way to resist being her.

A strange and unsettling image haunted me all throughout last semester. It was that of the isolated individual.

It took a while for me to realize that many of  the frustrations I felt during conversations in my ethics seminars, discussions with my own class, and even while processing some of the reactions to the Penn State sex abuse scandal in November were rooted to a very familiar notion that effectively derails conversations, undermines discussions, or truncates the ability for people to makes sense of their own actions (or lack thereof). In all of these situations, we always seemed to hit bedrock once people took it for granted that we, as separate, independent individuals, can only ever do so much.

Here's how the story goes: Especially when it comes to doing the "right" thing, there are very few people who have the purity of heart and fortitude of moral conviction to always buy the right products, donate a sufficient amount of their income, challenge oppressive stereotypes, not live according to social expectations of the norm, and risk their job, reputation, loyalties, and faith in their own life-long held beliefs  in order to protect the interests and well-being of others first. Sure we hear about the really exceptional folks who manage to do heroic, miraculous things. We admire the Mother Teresa's, the Gandhi's, the moral saints, for there just aren't that many of them in the world, and this is precisely what makes their actions so heroic and miraculous--hardly anyone else can or would dedicate themselves so fully to do them.

For the majority of us, we are simply too afraid of what our friends or families might think of us if we "acted out," out of the ordinary, blew some whistles, or genuinely questioned the status quo of how things are. If one already nicely fits into all of the social norms and reaps their benefits, then one would quite literally be self-imposing disadvantages on her own life, including perhaps financial loss, the loss of social privilege, or even risk becoming alienated among one's social groups. None of which are particularly attractive or desirable self-selected fates. Even if we ultimately valued such actions, we often also tend to think,  "Well, geez, it's just not worth putting in all that effort and disrupt the order of things when my actions alone won't really make a difference anyway!" So, even if it we "know" that it would probably be better for everyone if we veered off of the beaten path, even just a little bit, for the most part, we stay on it. And as probably anyone who tries to facilitate conversations in a socially critical, progressive, and self-reflective classroom could attest, the attitudes of students eloquently capture the essence of the brick wall that one hits. The easiest way for a student to conclude a reflection essay or end a semester-long dialogue is to state, "I agree that (fill in the blank with some oppressive attitude, institution, or practice) is bad, but it will never change since things have always been like this." This leads to nowhere new. And that is precisely why I don't let my students say such dismissive (and clearly false) things. [you can read something about this here]

I won't harp on the trouble presented by this kind of cynicism and how it is very philosophically and politically significant in its own right, but I will note one thing that kept occurring to me in all of these frustrating and prematurely-hopeless exchanges--The notion of the separate, independent individually is only an assumption. Many people, from contemporary feminist philosophers to ancient Buddhist monks, have noted that we are not actually, nor are we ever, fully independent subjects. Of course we depend on other things, such as the environment and resources and creatures and all of the people around us. Even those who are very, very far away in time and space whom we will never know, whose faces we can't even imagine, we depend on them, too. And just as we depend on others, others depend on us. This means that we have the capacity to affect those around us. In fact, we always do. So with just a little bit of reflection, we see that we are not independent and that we are not ineffectual.

Instead, we are actually already situated and embedded within relationships, groups, and communities. Now imagine what would happen if we took this for granted.

Rather than mistakenly viewing ourselves as separate and independent individuals, which quickly lends itself to feelings of alienation, isolation, and vulnerability from the outset, we could find ways to recognize, appreciate, and strengthen our actual positions within collectivities, which quickly lends itself to feelings of being more supported, more valuable, and more capable of taking on bigger challenges. Perhaps we would feel more inclined to ask for help because we know that one person just simply can't do it all for herself. And perhaps we would also be more inclined to help those who need our support because we could trust that others would also be there to provide their support. This means that we wouldn't have to shoulder the impossible burden of holding ourselves and another person up, too, because we have the support of others even in how we support each other! Of course individual actions can accomplish great things, but privileging that over the effect of collective actions is like comparing the waves I can make by doing a cannonball into a pool to the waves of the ocean itself. Or, to be consistent with the metaphor, to the waves that my friends and I could make if we all jumped into the pool together at the same time. We could quite literally displace the water right out of the pool.

Anyway, I hope the point is well taken: Thinking of ourselves as isolated individuals is often more disempowering than it is motivating, and the potential for growth, support, and meaningful action that is present by virtue of the fact that we are always already situated in interpersonal relationships with others is often overlooked, under-appreciated, and under utilized.

And now it's time for the connection to my life, which is very far from suggesting that I am a Mother Teresa or moral saint...For me, of course, the connection goes to my work and my relationship with philosophy.

I have finally entered the final stage of my graduate program: the writing of the dissertation! I have set the ambitious goal to get the bulk of my writing done before August. That means in seven months (which includes already-scheduled travel interruptions for about three weeks and a big move to another city). I know it will be difficult, but thanks to another dissertating graduate student friend who shared with me some advice that she got about the whole ordeal, writing that much that fast doesn't seem completely impossible. How will it get done? By writing 300 words a day. At least that's how this guy recommends going about it.

Three-hundred words a day isn't really all that much when you think about it, especially considering how much time during the day that I have to do it. I'm done with courses. I'm on a teaching release this semester. So aside from my commitments through the Rock Ethics Institute to go to a some ethics seminars and continue working on the Public Philosophy Network, the demands for attention from my all-too-human cat, the care I must give to maintain the health of my relationships, and perhaps my own physical health in the process, all I have to do is write. Yep, in all of those hours between waking up and going back to sleep, for seven months, all I have to do is write. write. wriiiiiiiiite.

us, this morning, writing this post. me, sick and congested.

But that, my friends, is also kind of scary. Because what can quickly happen, and often does, is that I find myself sitting with my computer in a room somewhere all. day. long. I've got nothing but my books, the blinking cursor on the screen, and the sea of convoluted words twisting through my mind. I won't make phone calls to friends and family because I could be writing. I don't exercise because I should be writing. And since this is my big project, I don't have anyone to bounce ideas off of, no real philosophical exchange to keep my thoughts fresh. It's an exhausting, consuming process of intense, solitary philosophical immersion (with the exception of my cat's company). I've only ever had intense writing periods like this for final seminar papers, so I don't exactly know what going through this will be like, day in and day out, for seven months. But honestly, the thought of it alone is enough to make me feel nauseated with a deep, unsettling sense of academic isolation. And that's precisely when the frustrations and doubts and insecurities and feelings of being completely overwhelmed usher in. "Why is this worth it?" "Who cares about what I'm writing?" "How is this going to help the world in any way?"

To battle this feeling of isolation and keep my motivation up, I invited some of my friends and family members to become my "daily receivers" of the 300 words that I write each day. In the initial email I explained that if they agreed to it, they would only be signing up to receive my email. They certainly wouldn't have to respond with any thoughts or comments on what I wrote (in fact, it would be better for my progress if they didn't) and they wouldn't even have to read the words from each day. Hence, rather than being my "daily readers" or "daily reviewers," they are my "daily receivers." I guess the basic idea here could be that they help me hold myself accountable to get the writing done each day by holding me accountable to them. But since I'm not really one for shaping people's behaviors by hanging the threat of shame and disappointment over their head, this isn't exactly the position that I wanted to put myself in. Instead, I wanted to find a way to break out of the isolation.

By inviting some of the most important people in my life to receive my daily emails, I have opened myself up in a way that says, "This is gonna be a hard project, and I anticipate many days ahead that will leave me feeling pretty discouraged. I also imagine that I may feel like I can't do it. So, please help me. I would really appreciate your support, because I know that I'm gonna need it. And here is how you can help me." My loved ones have shown me support already by simply signing up for the long-haul, and I've made it much easier for them to respond with little bits of encouragement like, "Good work!" "I know you can do it!" or "Keep it up!" Any and all of which, of course, will be nice little boosts of encouragement as I push on.

I'm still the one doing all the writing. The project is still my own. But I no longer feel so entrenched in my own thoughts and texts, and I don't feel so secluded and cut off from everyone else in my life. This project, which is very personally and philosophically important to me, is also something that I can share of myself with those who I care about and who care about me. In addition to knowing what I am doing all day long, if they choose to read the words that resulted from my effort on any given day, they can peek into the ideas and issues that I have been focusing on for the past six years since I've been doing philosophy. In short, in addition to hopefully addressing some of the vulnerability and anxiety and pressure that I feel about writing for months on end, I've found a way to let people into my academic world, and it might be the first time that they actually get to see why and how I do what I do in philosophy. Finally, the often stifling walls of academia seem a bit more permeable.

Multiple Models of Marketability: My Encouraging Realization from the Eastern APA

I just returned from what a friend and faculty member referred to as "the death-march known as the Eastern APA." Very much like last year, and quite unlike what most people report about their experiences there, I had a really great time. I'm not kidding, exaggerating, or indulging in some weird kind of masochism--I really enjoyed myself, the people around me, and the philosophical content that was being discussed. Okay, perhaps it has to do with the sessions that I attended--I go to pretty cool and inspiring ones (more on this in a bit)--and it probably helps that I am still not on the job market (that's coming up later as well). So maybe this time next year, when I actually will be on the market, I'll be writing a completely different post. Maybe the stress, anxiety, terror, and misery that is usually associated with interviews at the Eastern will finally be felt deep within my bones. But maybe not. And I don't think that it's simply because I've had two years of exposure to this beast-of-a-conference either (more on this later, too).

Some of the delights of this year's E-APA for me were found in the connections that were had there. I met some really wonderful people for the very first time. I saw people again whom I see only about once this time every year. And I finally met a number of people face-to-face for the first time. These are people with whom I've had email exchanges, facebook friendships, Google+ connections, and other sorts of "virtual" relationships for quite a long time...even years. Among my peers, professors, mentors, new acquaintances, and friends, we talked about lots of important things like relationships, planning for the job market, the surprisingly common horror stories from prospectus defenses gone bad, to teaching kids baby-sign language. I know that the Eastern can exacerbate social alienation and awkwardness in many people, but if you are lucky enough to have the social skills and comfort to use them, the whole affair can actually be quite an enjoyable social hub.

All of that aside, the real reason why I went was to present a paper. It was the second time I presented my paper, "Irigaray, (Trans)sexual Difference, and the Future of Feminism." It's funny when people ask me about what I'm going to do with it since I'm not an Irigaray-scholar and I'm not trying to set myself up as one, and although I am serious about the questions that I ask in the paper, it's not part of my current work or even related to the research in my dissertation. Nevertheless, some good things came out of presenting the paper. Just as it was at SPEP in October, I was very pleased with how the audience engaged one another in a discussion afterward rather than simply firing questions at me. I prefer when papers lead to philosophical exchanges among the people in the room who know more and different things than I do, and I've always (even if especially very recently) been skeptical of the productivity of "defense" like attacks from interlocutors. I also got a cash prize for it being accepted to the main program. As one professor said to me that evening, mine was very likely the first grad student paper with "(trans)sexual difference" in the title to ever be accepted to the main program at the APA. That's pretty sweet to think about, but I also like that I just used some of that money to buy a new, cute winter coat. 

I attended some really great sessions while I was there, and while I didn't get to make it to many of the ones that I wanted to, I did go to a session entitled "From Philosophical Training to Professional Blogging." Among the three panelists, two had a PhD in philosophy (the other a BA in Philosophy from Harvard).  Andrew Sullivan, one of the most widely read bloggers at present, had a number of really great things to say that resonated very deeply with me. Whenever he spoke, Sullivan emphasized the importance of philosophical dialogue. Being influenced by Plato's dialogues, he noted how the blogosphere presents greater opportunity for philosophical exchanges in the way of Plato. Dialogues that go back and forth. Invitations to take a step in one direction and see what follows from there. In addition to stressing his conviction that there is a real hunger in people to engage in meaningful, important philosophical questions, he also repeated a few of my favorite key words: "honesty" and "humility."

Without dogging the Academy, which he claimed to revere, Sullivan simply stated that after his time within academia it became clear to him that it didn't fit his style. As he continued to speak, I identified more and more with what he said, and I thought about the blog post that I had written just a week or so before. Academic philosophical writing comes with an air of authority. The arguments have to be well-crafted, exact, and fully-formulated. Essays are written as presenting mostly completed, self-contained ideas. Even if they lead to more questions or rely on previously established notions, academic writing often assumes that it has to come off as "right." But as Sullivan explained, this sense of authority, and the compulsion to write as if one is right, knows the answer, and has it all figured out, stems from a deep insecurity in the Academy about itself. This leads to a defensive sort of writing that asserts itself without really being willing to listen to others, especially those who are outside the walls of the ivory tower. Moreover, this kind of posturing is not conducive for allowing oneself to change one's mind.

In contrast, blogging about philosophical questions, especially when undergone as a philosophical activity in itself, only needs to offer the beginnings of an idea or the start of an argument. Because the writing is more "loose" it's very likely that one will say something stupid, or even wrong. But that's okay, because it can be acknowledged as part of the process...and it doesn't mark a failure unless one assumes authority in the first place. The process is necessarily open-ended, and the one who writes has a more explicit responsibility to respond to readers' comments and reactions. In this way, Sullivan explained that he has often changed his mind on issues in light of what his readers sent him. And if nothing else, he cannot dodge engaging with big issues that columnists and certainly academics can avoid. Sure, being a blogger is different from being a journalist, and both are quite different from being an academic philosopher, but that does not mean that the virtues of honesty and humility are less valuable, if not fundamental, qualities upon which each profession should be pursued.

And importantly, this is all still very much philosophy. Reasons, thoughtful explanations, and logical connections are part of the writing. There is definitely a space to hold a position, one that seems to hold some relation to truth even if that is not a stable truth. AND there is even room from wanting to persuade others through one's writing. But rather than being a political propagandist who seeks to persuade others merely for the sake of promoting an ideology, one is more of a philosopher who engages others through the genuine activity of thought. The entire practice, it seems to me, is housed in making the process the intended result, rather than already having an end point, a position, and a "certain truth" that one only works to preserve.

While I don't have aspirations to become a professional blogger, it was nice to recognize my own thoughts, words, and feelings in Sullivan's words as he continued to speak on the panel (read more of his thoughts here). I saw my own style for writing, which is also often reflected in the way that I teach, present, lecture, and read--one that doesn't formulate water-tight arguments but rather finds connections that lead to asking different questions that in turn spur new ways of thinking. And it's a style that depends on the input from others, whom Sullivan eventually called "friends." I've noted before that I learn most from teaching, and that is because I engage with my students in ways that provoke all of our thinking together. Of course, I start out as the one presenting the material, but I do so in order to provide a launching pad from where we can take-off and not as an authority on the matter at hand (this is a strategy for any grad student who suffers from an "imposter-complex" while teaching: change your attitude and goals for teaching, and realize that you don't have to pretend like you know everything if you don't assume that your students want to know everything that you think you know. My guess is that they are pretty disinterested in acquiring a carbon-copy of your brain anyway).

All in the all, I really enjoyed the session, but I was left with one unfulfilled wish: I wish that there could have been more discussion on movement in the other direction. In addition to noting that maybe there is something significant about the fact that some of the top professional bloggers have philosophical training, I wanted the discussion to at least touch on the other side of the coin, namely, how "professional blogging" could influence "philosophical training." What could professional academics in philosophy learn from those who write in philosophical ways on philosophical questions to public audiences as a philosophical endeavor? I think that could be a really rich and fruitful exchange....Unfortunately, there were a couple of times when it was stated, even by Sullivan himself, "Don't do this unless you want to lose your job. Wait until you have tenure, then you can write in this way and blog about these sorts of things."

This rather disappointing acquiescence to the "standard way of things" is what people usually say about going against the grain. Just wait. Don't do it yet. Despite my efforts to grow into a more patient person, I'm better at this in some areas than I am at others..and after four years of graduate school professional philosophy doesn't get a whole lot of it from me anymore. I don't like to tolerate the status quo without putting in at least some effort in the hope of making deeply desired changes. In that way, I guess I'm at base a pretty idealistic optimist. And ironically, this eventually led to one encouraging realization.

Sadly, I took very few pictures at the conference itself. This is from lunch. At least there's a name tag.

I left the eastern APA with a realization that was actually made from a number of conversations and not just from this particular session. Here's the short of it: I constantly hear concerns about the job market. Aside from the fact that the market itself sucks--there are few jobs, competition is outrageous, and if you are good enough and lucky enough to get a job it will take you to who-knows-where and will overburden you with who-knows-what kind of or how many other unwanted obligations and responsibilities--I hear lots of concerns about doing things differently and how that poorly sets one up for the market. In my own experience, this comes off in comments like "How in the world do you expect to get a job with this?!" Or I've heard it more politely as, "I'm just concerned about how you will get the job that I know you deserve." But what comments like this fail to acknowledge is that there are other ways to be "marketable." If I cultivate my deepest sense of compassionate and open-minded understanding, I can actually see how apparently antagonistic words and actions from my superiors really are coming from a place of looking out for my best interest. Sort of like when parents say,"I'm only enforcing these rules on you because I care about your safety and well-being."

But from my experience of also always being the kind of child who questioned and challenged my parents attitudes about what was "acceptable," "appropriate," and "right," (even when it turns out that at times they were sharing bits of valuable wisdom), I think that parents operate best as parents if they adjust to their kids' specific needs and desires and interests. They can care best if they actually know how their kids need to be cared for (this is a standard line in the ethics of care and maternal thinking..yes, I also went to the APA session in honor of Sara Ruddick's life and work). The same goes for teaching: we are better teachers if we teach to the individual interests, strengths, weaknesses, etc of the student. And the same goes for medicine....and so on and so on.

So in this situation there are a couple of things that I think should be understood and communicated between graduate students like myself and the professors who advise them. First, it was only recently mentioned to me that there are number of types of jobs out there, even among the academic jobs. And there are programs that value research, teaching, outreach, and other things in a diversity of ways that put greater weight on different kinds of philosophical work. So the goal shouldn't be to get a student just any job, and not even "the best" job if that is understood simply in terms of reputation and prestige, but rather the best job for that particular person.

Second, and this is related to the first point, it has to be understood that there are different pictures of "marketability." I can see why some very successful and well-respected philosophers are panicking about how I am going to fare on the job market since I don't conform to their image of marketability. Even though I have plenty of presentations on my CV now and thank goodness I got that prize (not just for the new coat)!, if I wanted to be how they want me to be, I would be freaking out, too. But the good news is that I have a handful of strengths and lots of ambition and passion to fuel me in my philosophical work, and I have other  qualities that I think make me very marketable.  Maybe that means I'm attractive to a different market all together, but I don't think that necessarily has to be the case. I think that there are more ways than one to be marketable even on the professional, academic job market that gives the eastern APA a bad, anxiety-provoking reputation. After all, this session on professional blogging was at the eastern APA and the award for excellence and innovation in philosophical programs this year was awarded to Thomas Wartenberg for his development of the Philosophy for Children.

Maybe doing things differently, being honest, and at the same time humble, in one's work, could actually serve one quite well. I guess only time will tell. Check back this time next year.

Faith in and Frustration with Philosophy

**This week I've been following the conversation on a feminist philosophy listserv about an article that appeared this week in The Chronicle. With each message that gets posted I've wanted to add something from my prospective as a grad student who passionately teaches philosophy to non-majors, but as I started to write, my response got too long. I didn't feel comfortable posting the whole thing on the listserv and thought that maybe people could just follow the link to my blog if they really wanted to read. But that second-guessing is part of the process I've been dealing with for the past few days and even now as I write. I have been self-censoring so that I don't come off as arrogant, but then I swing back and forth, compelled to say something because I am especially frustrated with the lack of internal and institutional support that I have been facing regarding my own research and methods. But I need to write. About philosophy. About life. About my practice of philifesophy. After all, that is precisely why I have this blog. So, I'll write the message that I wish I had the confidence to post on the listserv here.**


I want to thank all of you for engaging with this topic. As a graduate student, I have been following the thread of emails with a sense of optimism thanks to the generally shared sentiments that seem to be coming through in each message. But I've also been concerned about how we seem to be at a loss for what to do about the concerns at hand. I hear the worries about potentially negative student evaluations if one were to bring up relevant, everyday, and very political examples in class, the fears about losing jobs (or in my case, not getting one), the frustrations around philosophy being treated like a mere commodity that could be distributed to bring in more majors, etc. Even though I've only been teaching my own classes now for three years, I've had to face similar worries about how I run a classroom. But I've also had the good fortune of putting together my own course syllabi and use my own pedagogical techniques from the very beginning. While teaching classes like Love and Sex, Race and Diversity, and Philosophy and Feminism lend themselves to difficult yet highly personal and relevant conversations, I've employed the same methods in my Basic Problems and Asian Philosophies classes. I have decided to make sure that every course and every class period takes the issues head on with honesty, integrity, and courage. My students are often surprised by how ethically and politically charged our discussions can become, and I don't even hesitate to show my own cards, but so far, I have had very few students openly state their disapproval of my style in evaluations or on ratemyprofessors.com. Perhaps my students respond more favorably to me because I am relatively young for an instructor and close to them in age. Maybe this allows me to get away with more polemical and often surprisingly outrageous things. But I have to think it is something more than that.

Could it be that they appreciate my style precisely because I'm not afraid to bring up polemical issues and say and do pretty outrageous things?

An overwhelming majority of my students have loved my classes, precisely because it helps them be not only better thinkers but better people (by the way, these are their words--I have them write final reflection papers on their thought processes at the end of every semester). My classes are never easy-A's; I run intro courses more like 300 level classes. They require young 18 to 21-year-olds to actually think, read, speak, and write in ways that they often haven't ever been expected to do before. In fact, at the start of the semester many don't  really know how to think, read, speak, and write well at all. And it's true that in my class on race, some students even admitted in their final papers to being so filled with anger at me and the material we were covering that they said they hated the class. I already knew, of course. I could feel it during the semester from the line up of four white male students against the back wall. But those same students came around with gratitude and eventually wrote about how and why they responded that way for the majority of the semester. The material is personally challenging, but also personally rewarding. For being non-majors seeking a simple gen-ed credit, I've had students re-enroll to take my other classes and decide to become majors (all good things as far as the college is concerned, right?). But more than that, they see value in philosophy and appreciate the work that we do over the semester because it means something to them in the end. And you know what? It means something to me, too. There have been numerous times where conversations with my students have made me think harder and learn more than any of the graduate level seminars that I have taken since my senior year in college. I suspect that they see how I am also learning with and from them.

Related to Marilyn's email, the real shame here, though, is that no one taught me how to teach. I was just one of those undergraduate students who was always frustrated when my own professors didn't seem to care enough to go out of the box in terms of their own teaching. With the exception of two classes as an undergrad, I found the majority of my philosophy classes to be painfully boring and useless, and so I used the experience to note what didn't work. (By the way, I didn't even want to major in philosophy. I only declared a major because I already had some credits from my religious studies classes and a professor convinced me to not drop out as a sophomore. I used those credits so that I could still graduate in four years. During the fall of my junior year I took a crucial class that introduced me to a different approach to philosophy. Then I attended PIKSI at Penn State before my senior year. It was there, not in my department, where I saw what I could do with philosophy and what philosophy could do...I write more about this journey to academic philosophy and what to do with it now, here).  And I'm one of those people whose passion for philosophy is so strong--how it can change us, empower us, help shed new light on our lives and experiences--that I can't even imagine "talking about" philosophy in the usual way. So, with teaching, I've just had to wing it. Ironically, winging it has worked best. Maybe that's because I start from a place that avoids conventional assumptions about teaching...

Whereas some professors above me have said (quite unfavorably) that I am bull-headed about how I do philosophy, I have wished all along that I didn't have to force my way against such resistance, but that there were more mentors and examples around me who supported and demonstrated how to talk with people and students without excluding them or shooting them down, how to ask questions that invite critical thinking rather than dismissive or defensive apathy. But since I see these unhelpful tendencies around me all the time in many professional philosophy settings, I have started to think that many academic philosophers simply don't know how to relate to others on philosophical issues without it turning into a very narrow, unproductive event. I hesitate to even call them genuine dialogues of philosophical exchange.

If philosophers really want to start teaching in new ways and engaging the public in new ways, then we should probably put more effort into making sure that we are the sort of people with whom others (students included) want to and feel like they can have meaningful, enriching conversations. In other words, I agree with Marilyn that professional philosophers should give more attention to teaching graduate students how to teach. But it has to start with cultivating a sensibility for how to communicate, how to listen, how to openly engage with others, and how to encourage people who aren't familiar with philosophy to think philosophically. These are skills that you simply can't learn from reading the work of your favorite thinker in the history of philosophy or from mulling over one specific philosophical problem for years on end. Being the sort of people who can actually do the kind of philosophy that we are all hoping for and talking about through listservs and higher-ed articles requires a different kind of work. A different kind of cultivation of character that, frankly, most philosophers lack.

And here's the real kicker. The "crisis in philosophy" isn't just about being poor teachers who can't engage students. It's also about the very work that we do. Part of how I keep my classes interesting and relevant is by teaching interesting and relevant material (so, thanks, to you who publish such material). And part of how I keep myself motivated to do philosophy and finish my degree is by working on questions that are professionally and personally important and relevant to me. Trust me, I know that there are risks for how I am doing things. People might say that I am too unprofessional in how I teach because we talk about things very openly and casually, but they could not deny that we are also very philosophical. And thanks to the push back that I get from professors above me who don't seem to like or get what I do (I don't know which is worse), I am constantly reminded that I have to do what is "standard" and "conventional" in philosophy so that I can eventually get a job. Put simply, I probably won't get a job after writing my dissertation, which uses contemporary feminist work on affect and Nietzsche's views on physiology and philosophy to reframe how we can think of philosophical practice (in the old school sense of reading and writing theory) in ways that embrace its potential for therapeutically transforming those who do it as a mode of resistance to oppression.

So let's talk about risks. If people in tenured positions are worried about the crisis in philosophy, the budget cuts in the humanities, or what it means for their livelihoods, what are they doing to respect, support, encourage, and defend young scholars, un-tenured faculty, and graduate students who lack any kind of job security (or jobs at all), but are committed to doing philosophical work that stays true to the notion that philosophy is an intrinsically valuable practice, a way of life? I see how the work that I do is especially risky, but I am unwilling to jump through the hoops of conventional standards of philosophy in order to get a tenured position with the supposed promise that I will eventually be able to do what I want to do. (By the way, so far many of the comments from even the top feminist philosophers are making me question the tenability of such a promise.) Yes, I'm bull-headed on this. But let's face it. There aren't a whole lot of jobs out there to begin with. And if I had compromised on how I do philosophy at any point leading up to now, I know that I wouldn't have lasted this long in the discipline or in my program. I would have burned out, thrown up my hands, and said, "Fuck this, it's not worth it"  (which I almost did, multiple times, much like most people I know who've gone through this whole process).

But that's a real shame, because I know lots of people like me who are passionate and dedicated to philosophical practice, but who just get tired of having to fight the uphill battle against philosophical conventions and hierarchical bullying from unsympathetic professors. However, I know that sticking to it is worth it because philosophy is worth it....when it's done in certain ways. At the very least I know what philosophy has done for me and I see how my students react at the end of every semester.

So rather than wringing our hands and worrying about the backlash that we might face if we actually try to do what we feel like we should do and want to do in philosophy, I think it's most important to actually support each other in doing precisely those things. Be bold with our teaching. Be ambitious with our philosophizing. Be humble with our profession. And be open to doing things differently.  We need to learn how to communicate, how to improvise, how to listen, how to really ask genuine questions (with our students but also with one another) without needing to know the answers ahead of time. Perhaps we could also accept the possibility that we won't get to a stable answers, and that's a good thing. We can make these changes much more easily if we know that we are not alone and that we have support from others in the field, even if they aren't in our departments. If we can trust that others are going to be constructive, helpful, and cooperative, rather than just trying to tear us down or prove us wrong, then we can let our guards down, be less defensive, and actually work with a kind of honest curiosity, interest, passion, and sincerity that seems to be so hard to find and maintain.

After writing all of this, I want to thank you again for having these conversations. When I was faced with a challenging question at my prospectus defense this week that basically asked, "So you mean to suggest that you will go into a room of people who are interviewing you for a job and tell them that what they do is boring and irrelevant?" I responded, "In a sense, yes, because it's a pretty safe bet that what I am doing is not what they are doing. Philosophy can do more than it has typically been given credit. And I know that it's a risky position to hold if one's on the job market, but I also know that I am not alone. There was an article in the Chronicle this week that raises this precise issue, and some of the top names in feminist philosophy have been discussing it on the FEAST listserv for the past couple of days."

Your support and encouragement on these issues are appreciated, even by those (like myself) who you may not know are reading along and following your leadership.

Public Philosophy and Me

 

Over the weekend I attended the Advancing Publicly Engaged Philosophy Conference in Washington, D.C. Thanks to my involvement with the Rock Ethics Institute and the Public Philosophy Network over the past year, I have already met a number of people who have been helpful and supportive of my interests in philosophy. This weekend, however, came with many very pleasant and very unexpected surprises.

The two weeks leading up to the conference left me feeling reluctant to go anywhere and do anything at all related to philosophy. I was feeling exceptionally overwhelmed, very emotional, and like a breakdown could happen at any minute. After a death in my family and feeling far, far away from my loved ones, forgetting my phone charger in another city, the breaking of my laptop screen without a replacement in stock anywhere across the country, and realizing (yet again) that whatever progress I thought I had made on my prospectus was not really progress at all...avenues for communication and connection were not working. The last thing I felt prepared to do was drive myself to another city, attend sessions and present my own at a conference, talk with lots of other philosophers, be engaged and thoughtful at all times, and stay positive about the current relationship I was having with my work. So when I set out to DC on Thursday afternoon and the barista at Starbucks made me the wrong drink that cost nearly $6, I sort of started to tear up over it. I knew it was ridiculous, but I was just that emotionally spent.

It didn't end there. Once I made it through DC traffic and finally collapsed on my bed in the hotel, I read an email from my advisor about our need to set up a meeting to re-frame my dissertation topic. Feeling like I am already pushing my time limit and that this turn in the project (although very necessary) is already months too late...I broke. I cried. I panicked. And, unfortunately, that crack was enough to sufficiently prime me for the rest of the night. An hour later, when I went to the first plenary session of the conference and gave my initial "hello, good to see you again!"s and people asked, "How are you doing?" I couldn't hold the tears back anymore. They had gained their own momentum, so I would say, "I'm doing okay" and try to leave the conversation before any more questions were asked. Yes, to answer any doubt, it was very awkward. I was extremely embarrassed and uncomfortable.

I wasn't so much uncomfortable with the fact that I was emotional though, because I knew multiple reasons as to why I was especially sensitive that day (I was stressed, but it also had a lot do with the abruptly increased levels of synthetic hormone that were coursing through my body). I think I was also uncomfortable because over the previous two weeks the worrying that I have done for years about what to do after grad school dramatically increased. After my second year of grad school I tried to keep the worrying at bay by simply deciding to only focus on one short term goal: get the PhD. But now, as that gets closer and closer, I have started to freak out about the next step. Do I go on the job market next year? What if I'm not sure about how I fit into academia (it's been painfully evident for so long that if I fit into it, I do so very unconventionally at best)? What other options are there? I don't know!!! And what about other important things in life, like nurturing relationships and pursuing other passions. What if I don't want to do a long-distance relationship for years on end and what if I really enjoy talking to people while cutting their hair all day long?! But at the present moment in DC, an equally pressing lurking concern was probably that of  "What if they're on to me?"

My session with Chris Long on Philosophy and the Digital Public

The amazing thing about this conference though is that it is perhaps one of the most appropriate places for me to have a break down of this sort. One of the main theoretical themes of the conference was to ask, "What is publicly engaged philosophy?", and while perhaps the majority of people there would answer in terms of forming public policy, there were also a handful who share my values in doing philosophy more publicly. If there were to be a place where academic philosophers would be sympathetic to wanting to make philosophy accessible and relevant for people outside of the academy, this was probably as good as it could get. Fortunately, that meant that when I would start feeling really frustrated because people started to talk about philosophy in ways that made it sound like either an exclusive club for only the most arrogant of experts or a mere luxury that we do simply for our enjoyment, there was probably another person in the room who shared my sentiments.

Thank goodness I found them.

I was encouraged to hear comments from people whose departments automatically begin with questions of social justice and where one can equally identify as an academic AND an activist. I appreciated the questions from tenured faculty members who willingly challenged a defensiveness about maintaining certain "standards" for scholarship if/when that defensiveness stems from an unwillingness to change with the social climate. And I was intrigued to hear about academics who are planning on leaving academia, even after getting tenure and becoming chairs of their departments.

Dinner with Rock Ethics Institute and Public Philosophy Network folks

In addition to meeting plenty of new, sympathetic, and supportive folks, I was relieved to actually have honest conversations about my academic and professional queries with the people with whom I work most closely. Rather than hiding the fact that I am curious about what other options really are out there for people with PhD's in philosophy, I noted my concerns and was met with great support. Of course people are still pushing me towards taking an academic position when that time comes, and that is greatly appreciated because I am certainly not opposed to the idea of being in academia. What I am concerned about, however, is how to be in academia and still be able to do the kind of work that I want to do, how I want to do it.  To that, the best response I got over the weekend was, "We'll do what we have to do, even if that means putting together a resume for you instead of a CV." Okay. Wonderful. Thank you.

What I could not have anticipated is the terrifically positive, understanding, and warm response I got from people at this conference. I didn't know that I would leave feeling so encouraged, but thanks to the conversations and the connections that I actually did end up having, that was exactly how I felt when I left DC. I felt excited, relieved, and motivated. This wasn't the sort of conference experience that was all about networking and rubbing elbows (though I always resist doing that in these situations anyway), instead it was an opportunity to openly and genuinely discuss questions about philosophy and what it means to be a philosopher today. And it felt good to passionately talk to people about the things that I am passionate about. It also was very rewarding to think that I actually have a voice that can contribute to those conversations in meaningful ways.

Despite my shift in emotional valence, I know that nothing has really changed after the conference. While I have been assigned a new research project for my work on the Public Philosophy Network, which is finding out what people have done outside of academia after earning PhD's in philosophy, I'm still a graduate student with a terribly uncooperative prospectus to write. I still have no clear direction for what happens after graduation, and in many ways I have very little control over that in the near future. People still expect for philosophy to be done in a certain way in order to "pay one's dues." I get it. I know. And the people who are wonderfully supportive of me are speaking from their tenured positions with job security and good salaries. They know that I know that, too. So, my position still feels tenuously underdetermined and overdetermined at the same time. But at least I was able to do one thing. At least I was able to be honest.

Being pretty blunt and upfront is my M.O.  Most importantly, though, I was reminded again of why it's important to be forthcoming: so that you give others the opportunity to respond to you. They may not like what you show them or they might surprise you and become one of your biggest advocates. People might disappoint or pleasantly surprise you. But you have to give them the fair chance at doing one or the other...or something completely unexpected.

I know that my future does not depend solely on me and my actions. I can be a good, diligent, passionate, and honest hard worker, but others are and always have been involved in terms of blazing paths, opening doors, and presenting me with new opportunities. For those people in my life, I am grateful. And I'm thankful for things like academic professional philosophy conferences that are part of the whole process. :)




You can listen to an engaging and wonderfully supportive conversation that I had with Christopher Long, Mark Fisher, Ronald Sundstrom, Jessica Harper, and Vance Ricks on Chris's Digital Dialogue podcast here:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2011/10/digital-dialogue-51-digital-public.html

You can see a picture of it here.

Notes from Noelle McAfee's blog: http://gonepublic.wordpress.com/2011/10/17/notes-from-advancing-publicly-engaged-philosophy-conference/

Chris and I also had a previous conversation last year about the Public Philosophy Network, which you can find here: http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2011/04/digital-dialogue-46-public-philosophy.html

The Philosophical Pursuit of Pleasure

My title, "The Philosophical Pursuit of Pleasure" indicates an underlying strangeness about this piece for at least a couple of reasons. First, for a lecture series on Spirituality and Sexuality, the title already indicates that I am fudging with interpretations of the relationships between philosophy and spirituality on one hand, and pleasure and sexuality on the other.

One way to connect philosophy and spirituality is to follow Foucault when he says, "We will call 'philosophy' the form of thought that asks what it is that enables the subject to have access to the truth" and "we could call "spirituality" the search, practice, and experience through which the subject carries out the necessary transformations on himself in order to have access to the truth" (Hermeneutics of the Subject 15). Viewing spirituality as a set of practices and exercises entails that "for the subject to have access to the truth he must be changed, transformed, shifted, and become, to some extent and up to a certain point, other than himself" (HS 15). The process of becoming other than what one already is, of straying afield of oneself in a peculiar type of movement, of a subject working on herself to transform herself, precisely describes the labor of an ascesis. So while philosophy might be understood as merely the form of thought that asks questions of a subject's access to truth, Foucault elsewhere notes that the activity of reading and writing the philosophical text, which is "the living substance of philosophy," is also that by which "one undergoes changes" (The Use of Pleasures 9). That is, of course, if "we assume that philosophy is still what it was in times past, i.e., an "ascesis"... an exercise of oneself in the activity of thought" (The Use of Pleasures 9).

As for the other relationship upon which the title draws--between pleasure and sexuality--this might seem less strange of a connection. Pleasure and sex are often thought together, and although, of course, pleasure need not derive solely from sex, the type of pleasure that I am analyzing in this paper is sexual pleasure. Let it be quickly noted, though, that "sex" and "pleasure" are complexly related. For instance, not all of what might count as "sex" leads to pleasure--there are situations where sexual acts cause great pain, and not a kind of "pleasurable pain," but pain pain, bad pain, the kind that people don't want. Furthermore, even if pleasure is derived from sex, this does not mean that one's pleasures are automatically unproblematic. Some people view particular pleasures, such as homosexual pleasures, as taboo at best, immoral at worst. And other pleasures are part and parcel to forms of oppression. I'm not only referring to how some people get off by seeing really atrocious things in porn that reflect, reiterate, and concretize sexism, racism, and violence (among other things), but also to other ways in which domination and inequality are eroticized to the point where even those who are dominated claim to actually like it, want it, and enjoy it. Pleasure is a strange thing, then, and despite how badly we might want to think of pleasure as a "good," pleasure already appears to be deeply enmeshed in ethical and political grounds which require that it be constantly put it into critical question.

This unsteady ground of sexual pleasure sets the foundation for what follows, but first, there is another reason why I think that my title is strange. The way that I am putting philosophy and pleasure together implies more than simply engaging with philosophical texts about pleasure (though there will be lots of that). "The Philosophical Pursuit of Pleasure" gestures toward the possibility that pleasure itself might be an outcome of philosophical practice. In other words, I don't just want to philosophize about pleasure's pros and cons and the political implications of what we like. I also want to discuss how pleasures, including sexual pleasures, can come out of doing philosophy. The hope, of course, is that these will be ethically, politically, and even sensually "good" pleasures.

* * *

At present, the idea that sexual pleasure could be problematic is probably more evident in arguments over gay and lesbian rights than anywhere else. As Chris Cuomo argues, claiming the right to be queer, and thereby affirming one's queer sexual acts (which can also be done by many straight people, mind you), is an important part of the political agenda for LGBT rights.  More specifically, on issues like legal protection against homophobic discrimination and violence and the right to marry, attempts to undermine moral judgments that homosexual sexual pleasures are problematically wrong, unhealthy, or sinful are implicitly or explicitly at work. The goal, then, is to upset moral frameworks that tend to unjustly trump universal rights to sexual freedom, and an appropriate political slogan would be something like, "It's okay to be gay and to do gay things, so give me my rights!" Whereas this affirmation of homosexual pleasures as "okay" might be a step towards dismantling the normative structures of heterosexuality today (a question that I will get back to in a while), the predominant battle cry about sexual pleasures a couple of decades ago rang out in a different tune.

In the eighties and nineties some of the hottest debates about the problematic nature of sexual pleasure were emerging out of radical feminist circles. Contrary to Cuomo's political suggestion of asserting that it's okay to be who you are, the one who enjoys her sexual pleasures, there was an explosion of theorists who challenged the idea that our sexualities should be embraced for what they are.  That is because, at the very core of our bodies and our beings, even in our seemingly basic pleasures, inequality, injustice, and oppression construct our realities and our experiences.

Adrienne Rich's classic essay on compulsory heterosexuality and the erasure of lesbian existence argued that heterosexuality is not a natural orientation for women but rather the consequence of a "cluster of forces" that keep women in social, political, psychological, and economic, positions under the power of men. Thus, heterosexuality is compelled by patriarchy, and its comprehensive reinforcement occurs through practices, such as the romanticization of heterosexual marriage and limiting women's reproductive rights. These often serve to benefit men at the grave detriment of women. At about the same time, Andrea Dworkin relentlessly pointed out that the central theme of pornography is male power. The access, abuse, and violence that men hold over women and of their bodies is constructed, materialized, and reinforced through pornographic images.

Catherine Mackinnon picks up this argument to claim that both sexuality and gender are constructed only in reference to male power over women. Dominance, force, and violation are what make up masculine sexuality. They are, indeed, what make one a man at all. And women are thereby defined in terms of what men want from women, namely, to be the dominated, powerless, objects of sex for men. Regarding women's sexuality, then, it is assumed that "women really want what men want from women [which] makes male force against women in sex invisible. It makes rape sex" ("Sexuality" 213). Rich, Dworkin, and Mackinnon drive home the fact that our experience of sexuality is not natural.  Women's sexuality is not their own--it wreaks of male dominance. Indeed, it has been constructed by it. And this is because, as Mackinnon states, all of what sexuality means culturally is only understood in terms of "what gives a man an erection. Whatever it takes to make a penis shudder and stiffen with the experience of its potency" (210). That is, domination.  Hierarchy.  Inequality. With a stroke of insight, Mackinnon notes, "[P]erhaps gender must be maintained as a social hierarchy so that men will be able to get erections; or, part of the male interest in keeping women down lies in the fact that it gets men up. Maybe feminists are considered castrating because equality is not sexy" (214, my emphasis).

If, as Mackinnon argues, this gendered sexual system of hierarchy and inequality is the only model of sexuality that we've got then sexuality does seem...yeah, a little problematic. It's force, not love and affection, that frames sex. Furthermore, this means that heterosexual women are not the sole recipients of this model of sexuality.  The same model of inequality is expressed even in homosexual relationship and inverted sadomasochistic scenes where women dominate men. Oppressive structures in sexuality are ubiquitous.

Hierarchy and inequality are so ubiquitous throughout our experiences of sex that it has even become pleasurable for those who are subjected to it. According to Mackinnon, these structures make women live with objectification and domination like fish live in water--"With no alternatives, the strategy to acquire self-respect and pride is: I chose it" (215). But while Mackinnon suggests that women "choose" and accept their subjugated status and domination "only to make it through another day," thus only as victims, not everyone experiences their sexuality as a victim.

Celia Kitzinger responds to Mackinnon's argument by noting that "many women insist that they have voluntarily chosen to engage in sexual intercourse, and that they enjoy it, and have orgasms through it...When radical feminists argue that heterosexuality is an exercise of male power, that it is degrading and humiliating for women, many women feel that their own personal experience is being negated" ("Problematizing Pleasure: Radical Deconstruction of Sexuality and Pleasure" 200). Ultimately, Kitzinger agrees with the feminist arguments that sexuality is constructed and that it is constructed of and by male power, but she explains that these arguments must be sophisticated enough to account for the real, genuine pleasure that many women feel when they have sex with men. For such women, who robustly choose to engage in the kind of sex in question, it doesn't necessarily feel like rape. Lots of sex is actually great, and wanted, and enjoyed. It's pleasurable.

At this point, it's easy to see how women's pleasurable sexual experiences could support the rhetoric of the women's sexual liberation movement from a couple of decades ago, which suggested that an empowered woman should not feel ashamed of, but rather embrace, her sexuality. She can want it, go out and get it, and enjoy it! It would be inaccurate, though, to think that this was a thing of the past. This position seems to be increasingly popular among young, twenty-something-year-old, self-proclaimed lady "bachelorettes" who are just "living free and single." Thus, it's not just that women reluctantly "choose" to have sex because they have no other option. Nor is it that women despise all the sex that they have with men because it centers on men's desires for domination. Many women actively, and quite happily, pursue and enjoy having sex, even if it reflects a model of sexuality built on force and inequality.

But simply recognizing that some, or perhaps even many or most, women enjoy their subjugated sexual roles and find pleasure in powerlessness does not automatically mean that it is "okay," especially when that pleasure is contingent on oppression. A key task of the radical feminists was to question the very idea that "anything which gives pleasure is justifiable" (202). Without denying that many women do in fact enjoy hetero-sex, Kitzinger problematizes this pleasure by noting that women find it enjoyable and pleasurable precisely because domination and subordination have been eroticized. Power differences are sexy because they have been made to be sexy. Or, to echo Mackinnon, inequality is sexy—equality is not.

The political and moral implications cannot be under-emphasized. What these feminist analyses of problematic pleasure reveal is that something so apparently individual and personal and presumably "natural" as one's sexual pleasure is actually produced and developed within social, public, and cultural influences. Even our deepest pleasures are not untouched by politics and structures of inequality. These forces reside within our bodies throughout our muscles and bones. In terms of ethics, it seems important to argue that not all pleasure is good.  Participating in and supporting some sexual pleasures might even be ethically bad. In other words, just because it feels good and you want it does not mean that it should be the case or that we should not put effort into changing the circumstances the produce those pleasures. 

* * *

Not all pleasures are good?! Where else have we heard something like this before? Oh right, in plenty of anti-gay rhetoric. Or, as Marcus Bachmann said, "just because someone feels it or thinks it, doesn't mean that we're supposed to go down that road." That's why he dedicates so much of his time to facilitate "therapy" for gay-leaning kids. And this reminds us of Cuomo's previously mentioned arguments about the claim, "It's okay to be gay!” and how this claim entails doing queer things. For LGBT rights, some pleasures have to be defended as okay so that the people who do them can be legally protected.

At this juncture, I want to recognize that the strategy of "problematizing pleasure" can be twisted in such a way that it seems to be applicable to homophobic positions like that of Bachmann. This means that the arguments for challenging patriarchy and heterosexism can appear to be contradictory at the level of if, how, and which pleasures are problematic. However, there is a serious difference between a feminist attempt to problematize the pleasures that stem from the eroticization of power differences between men and women (which reiterate and reinforce male dominance) and Bachmann-esque attempts to problematize homosexual pleasures. Where the former seeks to critically address pleasure to resist gendered oppression, the latter actually participates in the oppression of sexual minorities. Suggesting that homosexual pleasure is a "problem" simply because it is homosexual only works to reinforce the heteronormative status quo—it doesn't do the ethical and political work of realizing equality. (Again, according to the feminist arguments above, it still could be problematized if the sort of homosexual pleasure in question comes from eroticized power differences.)

With that potential confusion thwarted, there is an important and interesting insight to be gleaned from viewing homosexual pleasure and pleasure from eroticized power differences alongside one another—both reveal that pleasure is subject to politics. I already described how politics are involved in women's heterosexual pleasures because they are based on inequality with specific reference only to male pleasures, i.e., male dominance. The politics involved in homosexual pleasure can be found, even very minimally, in the fact that insofar as homosexual pleasure is homosexual pleasure at all it has to first be named and produced within a cultural system that gives it meaning as such. In other words, to meaningfully talk about homosexual pleasure requires that there be a discourse that structures what it means to be homosexual in the first place. Why are we not just talking about pleasure without specification based on lines of social identities like sexual orientation, or gender for that matter? What makes something a specifically homosexual pleasure? To answer these questions is to invoke the influence of a dominant discourse about sexuality, one that already has established meanings, moralities, taboos, prohibitions, and political effects. Not to mention a hierarchy of inequality between heterosexuality and non-hetero-anything-else. Given our current time and place in history, then, sexual pleasure comes with political ramifications and is already imbued with political significance. However, none of this is necessarily set, as if things are the way they are because they always have been and always will be. It is rather the case that they have been contingently set through the historical development of the discourse on sex.

Which means that it could have been otherwise. And it could still become otherwise. How?

Ironically, in The History of Sexuality Volume I, Foucault famously suggests that the rallying points for resistance against dominant discourses on sexuality could actually be bodies and pleasures. If it's the case that our experiences of pleasure are not necessarily natural and innate but rather produced in part as effects of political discourses, whether that be of heteronormativity or male dominance (or both and more), then it's possible that they can be "constructed" or "produced" in new ways. People change and grow, and as they do, they may come to enjoy or like new things. Pleasures can be cultivated and developed. Consider learning to play the guitar or training to become a runner. Both tasks require practice and discipline, and both change our bodies' muscular structures and how the activities feel to us while we move from the pain and frustration of a novice to the skill, satisfaction, and grace of a musician or an athlete.

This leads to the thought that perhaps a similarly disciplined approach to other kinds of practices can be useful for creating new kinds of pleasures.  In addition to creating new pleasures, these practices might also be pleasurable in themselves.

In an attempt to elucidate what Foucault meant by "bodies and pleasures" as points for resistance to oppression, Ladelle McWhorter suggests that we use pleasure as a mode of discipline to re-create ourselves as new subjects, newly transformed, and perhaps even so new that our subjectivity and experiences exceed the limits that have been set before us by normalizing discourses of domination. She writes

Counterattack against sexual normalization in general and sexual identities in particular...depends on affirming the free, open playfulness of human possibility even within regimes of sexuality without getting stuck in or succumbing to any one sexual discourse formation. We need to find ways to continue to grow in capability, even in sexual capability, ways to be strengthened and enabled, that don't make us more docile, more disabled at the same time. Growth, development, change must be fostered, but it must not lead to a narrowing of behavioral possibilities (Bodies and Pleasures 181). 

McWhorter gives gardening and dancing as two examples of pleasurable practices that she has undertaken that have opened her up to new ways of understanding and being in her body. They also opened her up to new pleasures. Through the experiences afforded to her by taking up the disciplined practice of learning to dance, her relationship to her body changed. She felt it move through space in different ways, and saw that her body was capable of movements and feelings that she had not yet experienced. And it was enjoyable.

Where McWhorter turns to gardening and line dancing to cultivate new pleasures through disciplined practices, Foucault more provocatively suggests that we experiment with good drugs and sadomasochistic sex. Of course, intensifying our bodily experiences through the use of pleasure would ultimately seek “to open new possibilities for new pleasures and for new ways of being" (BP 185).  The arguments from the above feminists suggest that they would be skeptical about the promise of sadomasochism since it frequently involves power play, but Foucault's reasoning is still in line with their main concerns.  Rather than focusing on the eroticizing of power differences, he explains that people who practice S/M are not being aggressive but that "they are inventing new possibilities of pleasure with strange parts of their body—through the eroticization of the body" (BP 186). Rather than merely eroticizing power inequalities, the body is eroticized in new ways to produce new types of pleasures.

According to both Foucault and McWhorter, these are examples of promising bodily practices that we can undertake in order to disrupt the dominant, and dominating, structures that have constructed our experiences of pleasure. Drugs, S/M, line dancing, and gardening can be pleasurable practices on their own, and when they are approached in a particularly disciplined way, they can create new capacities in us for the new types of pleasures that they afford. But this paper is about the philosophical pursuit of pleasure. Where does philosophy fit in all of this? 

* * *

In addition to drugs and sadomasochism, Foucault suggests that the practice of philosophy—philosophical reflection, the exercises of reading and writing—holds promise for political resistance regarding how we experience ourselves and the world around us. As an ascesis, philosophy does not seek to definitively answer questions but rather to continually open onto new questions, and in so doing, open up new possibilities for thinking and being. Philosophy, then, is a great example of a practice that can be undertaken for change and transformation precisely because there is no end goal in sight but to be a continuously open-ended process. As McWhorter explains, "I disciplined myself to the dance, and I became something I never imagined I could become...And in the process I discovered and cultivated immense capacities for pleasures I'd never dreamed of before. The same is true in becoming a philosopher and has been true for me in the practice of writing this book. This discipline of thinking...has changed me in ways I didn't foresee when I started" (187).

But when compared to other practices like drugs, sex, gardening, and line dancing, there seem to be pretty important differences between these and philosophical practice. First, the sort of practices in question should not just open up new capacities for pleasure, such as how one can eventually learn to deeply enjoy dancing, but the process of undergoing that disciplined practice is itself often pleasurable. Like, for Foucault, the drugs and the sex are already pleasurable before (or because) they open up to other and new pleasurable experiences. Does the same apply to philosophy?

Not all people find philosophy to be a source of pleasure. Some find it boring, some find it frustrating, some find it futile. But there are some, even if they are few in number, who do find pleasure in philosophical practice.  We can acknowledge that it might take a certain kind of person to be drawn to philosophy and find the reading and the writing and the thinking intensely pleasurable. Nevertheless, not everyone likes gardening or line dancing either, so the idea isn't that the practice at hand has to be pleasurable to everyone.  Thus, probably depending on things like one’s own predispositions, who one reads, how one reads, how one writes and thinks, and how one engages with a question, philosophical practice can be enjoyable. It can be fun. It can be pleasurable.  But can philosophy really create capacities for new types of sexual pleasure?

Well, maybe. Thinking philosophically about our standard ideas of sex and the historical contexts for these notions is a good place to start. Critically evaluating notions such as that sexual intercourse is one thing and not another, that it is "natural" for some people to do certain acts, that some sexual pleasures are "bad," or that reproduction is the primary purpose for sex, can help open up our minds and bodies to new ideas and experiences that might otherwise be deemed too weird, inappropriate, taboo, futile, or even literally unimaginable. Simply asking, “Why and how has sex contingently become what it is for us today? And who does this serve?” are gateway questions that could lead to the creation of a new model of sexuality that seriously challenges the political limitations that have been imposed on sexual pleasures. It’s likely that such a model could involve different feelings, different kinds of bodies, different roles played by different individuals, different actions, different goals, and different motives.

Luce Irigaray’s early work provides an example of how sexual pleasure might not only be re-figured through philosophical reflection but also through different modes of writing. Her writing, especially her essay “When Our Lips Speak Together,” is sophisticated, playful, and multi-dimensional in terms of what it states and what it enacts, but for now, it’s enough to simply note how Irigaray’s philosophical points manifest through poetic, erotic language.  Challenging masculine, phallocentric metaphysics and economies, while emphasizing reciprocity and inseparability among women, Irigaray writes, “What need have I for husband or wife, for family, persona, role, function? Let’s leave all those to men’s reproductive laws. I love you, your body, here and now. I/you touch you/me that’s quite enough for us to feel alive” (This Sex Which Is Not One 209).  Because we—you/I—are indistinguishable, Irigaray asks, “how could one dominate the other?” And since Irigaray views women as the sex which is not one, but always more than one, she notes, “You touch me all over at the same time. In all senses. Why only one song, one speech, one text at a time? To seduce, to satisfy, to fill one of my “holes”? With you, I don’t have any” (209).  

Perhaps most importantly, though, is that when we push the questions of whether and how philosophical reflection might produce new sexual pleasures, we push toward the fruitful possibility of shifting what we first mean by "sex" so that "sexual pleasure" can refer to something that is not yet considered sexual. This is much like Foucault's example of sadomasochism's eroticization of different parts of the body. As McWhorter explains, Foucault understood that the process of erocitzing the body, and not merely the power relations between players, "eventually turns sexuality against itself, because it draws on sexual contexts, energy, and imagery to create forms of behavior that are not recognizably sexual at all" (186). This means that critical philosophical reflection can help us unhinge pleasure from what we have come to know as “sex” so that pleasure can stand more firmly on its own. As Foucault describes, "I think it's...a creative enterprise, which has as one of its features what I call the desexualization of pleasure" (BP 186).

And maybe separating pleasure from what we know of as sex so far is a really good thing. If the feminist arguments from people like Mackinnon are correct and the only model of sex that we have experienced so far is one grounded in domination and inequality, then maybe challenging this paradigm of what "counts" as sex is the most important first step for us to take. If our experiences of sexuality can only be understood in gendered terms where male dominance is masculine sexuality, and if the cultural meaning of sexuality is currently set up according to discriminating lines of normalization between heterosexuals and homosexuals, then maybe we should aim for cultivating new pleasures that are not "sexual" in the way that we currently think of them. If what we are aiming for is equality, or if what we hope for are interpersonal (and perhaps political) relations that are based on love and affection, there's a really good chance that "sex" as we know it can't get us there. But perhaps pleasure can, especially if we discipline ourselves to imagine, create, experiment, play, and also to philosophically think, write, and teach in ways that cultivate new pleasures.

 

This leaves me with one last thing to note.

If all of this talk about philosophy being able to produce new pleasures seems a little far out, this might have something to do with another seeming difference between philosophical practice and other types of suggested practices. One striking difference, at first glance, between philosophy and gardening, dancing, drugs, or S/M, is that the latter are all obviously bodily practices whereas philosophy has been typically understood as a mental, rational, thoughtful, intellectual enterprise that engages the mind and not the body. Even if one were tempted to agree with this split between mind and body and suggest that philosophy engages one and not the other, I want to suggest that philosophy itself can also be reconceived, and re-experienced, in ways so that it does directly involve and engage the body.

Due to the limit in time and space at present to make a sustained argument for philosophy as a bodily practice, my sincere gesture to this possibility will have to suffice for now (and this notion is part of a larger project). I think it is important to emphasize a theme that has been running throughout this paper, which is that philosophy could be approached through the reading of a text, or the writing of a text, or even the presentation of an idea in a way that reveals how undertaking philosophical practice is not just something that changes our minds, but changes who we are, including our embodied experience as subjects. Doing philosophy with this kind of attention to its potential as a bodily practice might make it more similar to the other mentioned bodily practices. It could make the doing of philosophy more pleasurable on its own. It might also more readily reveal how philosophy can produce new pleasures, such as the pleasure of ambiguity, of uncertainty, of not knowing the goal, or of knowing if there even is one...and not needing to get there. Not only do such pleasures resonate with the view of philosophy as an ascesis, one which continually opens onto new questions rather than cementing definitive answers, but I imagine that an openness to things like non-teleological uncertainty would also greatly influence and enhance our experiences of things like sexuality and pleasure.