Subjectivity

In one of our classes we touched on the the idea of subjectivity and I've wanted to explore my own ideas about the term in relation to what was discussed.

(I was very tired in class, so I may muddle things up here quite a bit...I recall that at the time I was uncertain as to whether I should concentrate on taking notes or on listening for better comprehension. I ended up doing a bit of both, neither particularly well)

Judith Butler was one thinker Curtis referenced and her idea of subjectivity:

'The subject is the linguistic occasion of the self':
'The subject is the linguistic occasion for the individual to achieve and reproduce intelligibility, the linguistic condition of its existence and agency' (Judith Butler, 1997, p11)

In the 'hey you!' moment where an individual turns in response to the utterance, they become a subjective entity. They become determined momentarily, their subjectivity is not fixed, it occurs as a moment in time, as a body, as a linguistic occasion, and more...they are robbed of personal agency...subjective forces push down and through the individual...whether the individual is aware of them or not and the individual's free will becomes questionable.

Apparently this perspective was depressing for Foucault: everything we express is just power/subjectivity through the individual...we just express power...until his idea that the subjective forces expressing through the individual represented an opportunity/power to influence these forces.

Queer Theory example: the degree to which I am subjected/read as an intellectual is the degree to which I can subvert this, the degree to which I can shift meanings.
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Something that struck me was how different these ideas of subjectivity were to ideas of subjectivity I have inherited from the Alexander Technique, Hatha Yoga and the Breath Meditation traditions I have experienced.

I felt myself agree with the idea that subjective forces push down upon us and express through us, and that it is in their expression that we are given an opportunity to subvert them. However, I'm skeptical as to whether we really are powerless to resist subjective forces acting upon us. If I recall correctly, the 'hey you!' is an example of how the individual is irresistibly drawn into the subjective web in the moment of responding and turning. But...I consider it possible to achieve a degree of subjective control enabling no response to the 'hey you' or rather a delayed or inhibited response. Here I'm indirectly referring to the Alexander technique (F.M. Alexander 1869-1955) and his idea of inhibition:

‘All those who wish to change something in themselves must learn... to inhibit their immediate reaction to any stimulus to gain a desired end' [and in order to stop falling back] 'upon the familiar sensory experiences of their old habitual use in order to gain it, they must continue this inhibition whilst they employ the new direction of their use' (The Use of the Self, p. 115).

Inhibition in this sense should not be associated with an idea of emotional repression or suppression. The idea is that instead of reacting to an external force, we momentarily inhibit that reaction and then either restrain it or allow it depending on the outcome of an immediate questioning judgement. I consider this idea similar to experiences I've had in practicing 'breath meditation' where through a singular focus I attempt to inhibit my mind's habit of thinking.

Some meditation practitioners I have talked to have described the process of learning 1-pointedness as a process of allowing thoughts, accepting them, not engaging with them and through a process of releasing them eventually quietening the mind to complete focus and then stillness/silence. This is not complete silence/stillness because that only occurs when the brain is dead.

In my experience, this doesn't work. When I accept my thoughts, when I allow them, I just get more of them. My rationalized concept of what I am doing in a breath meditation is that I am inhibiting my brain/mind's inclination to think, to move. I am mindfully stopping thoughts (albeit with limited success).

Perhaps I am confused, but for me, the very act of thinking, of ideas, of a search for meaning, is a search for objectivity, for an objective reality. An inevitable and valuable search for truth, for connections, for a recognition of causes and effects, a necessary conflict from which my identity slurps into existence, but not subjectivity, not the true inner self. For me, subjectivity can only occur when my mind's fixative eye becomes truly mine, when it becomes silent, when it becomes still. I liken the mind to a light beam (Sauron's Eye :D). It flickers to and fro, always looking outwards, always responding to what it encounters. It can move at different speeds, it can look afar or near, it can be diffusely focused or it can be a narrow beam, it (almost) never stops moving. In the act of breath meditation (focus) the light beam fixes onto a single thing, a single point...eventually, the light beam will wink out as the sustained focus dissolves into a withdrawal of the mind from the external world, from the senses of the body, into itself...a complete inhibition.

As a Zen Buddhist might say, the idea cannot be grasped, it can only be experienced: "it's not this!" (I think it likely a Zen Buddhist would be calmly horrified at this subjective mixture of conjecture, half baked ideas, and unreferenced confusion). To my mind, the experience cannot be grasped because that is the objective urge to understand, to project, to critically reflect, not the subjective capacity to just reflect, to just experience. To me this is the 'beginner's mind' the Zen Buddhist seeks, where within any activity a mind and body are only engaged in that activity. When you cook, just cook...when you eat, just eat...a steady light beam.

These terms subjectivity and objectivity are troublesome, in particular objectivity. A mind independent truth is unavailable. An apt analogy for the conundrum is a quote from the Greek mathematician Archimedes “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world”. But of course, he/we are incapable of leaving the world to place that lever. We cannot leave our subjectivity.