The right to appear

josealba

    José Alba

    Yes, the readings were difficult to read that, I built an outline. Dissecting Hannah Arendt’s writings I came with the conclusion that action is: Disclosing identity of an individual, freedom to appear, creating and sustaining a public space to appear, and make power, narrative and remembrance articulating action by means of storytelling to preserve memory. Ardent emphasizes that action is fundamental to humans because of its relation to activities like labor, however, action simply reaffirms its reality. Butler talks about the concept of public gatherings and human togetherness and how these bodies when “being together” is a form of politics. When togetherness occurs itself becomes a form of resistance based on persisting. Butler writes that an assembly has its own political form, a form of survival and equality. “Acting in concert can be an embodiment form of calling into question the inchoate and powerful dimensions of reigning notions of the political” pg 9

    If you wish to read more, please see below my breakdown of the readings.

    Notes on: The Human Condition/Action

    • Freedom
      • Is the place of birth,  new beginnings, the moment the human is born freedom begins, human beings are given freedom the moment they are born giving them the capacity to act.
    • Plurality
      • Arendt mentions that in order to act, we need plurality the same way that a performing artist needs an audience. Action being public, known, and consented through deeds and words. Action as human togetherness.
    • Speech
      • Through speech and action human beings disclose of their identities. Ardent says that individuals reveal themselves as who they are. She also makes a clear distinction pointing out the “who” and “what” they are. Therefore action and speech when humans interact with each other through words, it becomes a moment of revelation of who they are. Ardent claims that speech is crucial in action because it will loose in which one reveals oneself to the other. 
    • Narrative
      • Storytelling, significance of being, truthfulness, and maintaining archives and historical contexts
    • Remembrance
      • As a historical and archival tool to immortality 
    • Power
      • According to ardent, “power” does not necessarily mean strength or a source deriving from violence, though it is not excluded from this acts. On page 200-201 she says “human power corresponds to the condition of plurality” Action communicates and speech discloses. Power comes from human togetherness, acting in concert through persuasion. “Power is what keeps the public realm” pg 200
      • Power is unchangeable, measurable, reliable where this is always available for actors. 
    • The space of Appearance
      • Gathering politically? Voting booths, protests, assemblies, without the help of speech, humans humans cannot act through performance of deeds. Acting in concert
    • Unpredictability
      • The power of promise, there is no power that can control the outcomes and consequences of words of individuals.
      • Consequences are boundless
      • Action as a reaction
    • Irreversibility
      • The power to forgive, one cannot retrieve what they have done, there is no control, yes, one can construct by the work of a hand and deconstruct, and do it again , but actions cannot be undone. 

    Notes on: Notes Toward a Performance Theory of Assembly 

    • Gender and Politics
      • Situations of precarity
        • A common understanding of individuals through shared experiences in a socio-economic and political system. 
    • The Right to Appear
      • On the subjects, Butler questions who has the right to appear as human and what we call the other, or who cannot appear within the hegemonic discourse
        • “When bodies assemble they are exercising a plural and performative right to appear are that asserts and instates the body in the midst of the political field, and which, in its expressive and signifying function, delivers a bodily demand for a more livable set of economic, social, political contributions no longer afflicted by induced forms of precarity”. Pg 11
    • Bodies in Alliance and Politics of the Street 
      • Perform activity of mass demonstrations
        • The United Stares Black Lives Matter
        • The role of media reporting on ‘who’ the people are and Butler touches on the topic of “the people” as well as “we the people” where she mentions that these statements are not inclusive because to which “people” do they refer to when this statements are used in a political space. “a) those who seek to define the people (a group much smaller than the people they seek to define), (b) the people defined (and demarcated) in the course of that discursive wager, (c) the people who are not “the people,” and (d) those who are trying to establish that last group as part of the people.” Pg 4