Friday, October 10, 2008
Universe pushing back?
So, I was talking to a human friend of mine about Butler and what we discussed in class today. We were discussing possible problems with idealism--believing that human beings are the only active agents in the universe, that the external world is inseparable from human consciousness. Karen Barad was brought into the conversation. She basically critiques Butler as being a way-too-extreme constructionist. The universe is always "pushing back"--there are so many other agents that help give rise to the reality we perceive. Seeing humans as the sole creators of everything we experience seems to give us too much credit. "Rampant Idealism" is the term she uses I think. Do you think Butler's ideas are too extreme in the realm of idealism? Do we really construct everything that we perceive? What does the rest of the universe have to do with this? If there is no foundation, what started all of this?
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I did not find Butler to be quite the extreme idealist, as Berkeley for example, but she also didn't cover too much ground in the three chapters we read (and that is the only Butler I've ever read).
In general, I find idealism pretentious. Admittedly, it is fun to think about though =)
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