Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable?
Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable?
Judith Butler
Verso Books 2009
£9.99
Being alive as a human being, according to Judith Butler, does not simply mean that one exists. Rather, in order for one’s existence to be “live-able” one needs to be sustained by social and political conditions rather than some internal, isolated will to live. While this drive may be crucial, it must be supported by outside forces, on others, on institutions, and on sustained and sustainable environments. In other words, Butler argues that human beings are fundamentally social animals. As in all of Butler’s feminist theory, she challenges the western rationalist view of humans as atomic individuals. Rather, she argues, we are social, dependent and thus deeply precarious beings.
This view carries essential meaning, as it necessarily creates a differentiation between those existences which are sustained and those which are not. It is only under conditions in which the potential loss of a life matters that the value of the life appears and thus “grievability is a presupposition for the life that matters.” The fact that not everyone counts as a subject is a central problem in today’s politics, Butler argues. The distinction between valuable and loseable lives is fundamentally linked to a classical distinction between Self and Other. As Butler focuses particularly on the War on Terror, the Self is “the West” or more accurately the United States and the Other is predominantly Iraqis, Afghans and Guantanamo prisoners, or more generally every population group which does not belong to “the West.”
Religion is being portrayed as a deeply destructive and dangerous force in the Middle East, while Butler reminds us that historically religious networks often provide a wide social support network
The perception of the value of lives is thus very dependent on how wars are framed, and thus how the Other is portrayed. There are several ways of doing this, i.e. through the framing of a photograph, the public justification of going to war (or so-called intervention), the framing of border- and immigration issues as a “war at home”, etc. For example, religion is being portrayed as a deeply destructive and dangerous force in the Middle East, while Butler reminds us that historically religious networks often provide a wide social support network. “It would appear that both the secular frame and the civilizational mission, itself only ambiguously secular, are figured as advanced positions that entitle them to bring notions of democracy to those who are characterized as pre-modern, who have not yet entered into the secular terms of the liberal state, and whose notions of religion are invariably considered childish, fanatical, or structured according to ostensibly irrational and primitive taboos… It is precisely this particular conceit of a progressive history that positions “the West” as a articulating the paradigmatic principles of the human / of the humans who are worth valuing, whose lives are worth safeguarding, whose lives are precarious, and, when lost, are worth public grieving.”
An important frame at work throughout Butler’s book is that of the West’s view of itself as a source of civilization and progress. This crucially allows those who fight wars to see some lives as already lost or forfeited in this drive towards the greater good of “democracy” and “liberty.” This perception of the anti-modern Other allows rationalization of acts such as torture, as seen in Abu Ghraib. In the excellent essay, Sexual Politics, Torture and Time, Butler explains how torture was not only a way to humiliate the supposed enemies in Iraq—it was a way to frame and produce the Arab Other. Interestingly, then, the torture used in the War on Terror was neither a product of deviant individual acts, nor were they a conscious part of US strategy. Rather, they were symptoms of a wider coercion at work in the US civilizing mission against an Islamic culture framed as “abject, backward, foreboding ruination and, accordingly, as requiring subordination within or exclusion from the culture of the human itself.” Such acts, and especially on such a systematic level as seen under President Bush, were part of a frightening imperial culture which must be acknowledged and resisted.
This is but one example of thought provoking analyses which present themselves throughout Frames of War. Yet, it should be mentioned that the language and writing used in this book may be likely to frustrate some readers. In her previous work, such as Gender Trouble, Butler has insisted on freeing language from its limitations. This principle is applied in a similar fashion in Frames of War, where terms such as “grievability” and “recognizability” are frequently applied. While this tactic is clearly applied to promote the book’s message, they do contribute to Butler’s at times almost impenetrable sentence structure. At points, one gets the paradoxical feeling that Butler’s book, although advocating a cause which should be recognized and fought for by all, is aimed at a select few belonging to a specific intellectual community.
However, in the end, this book is a crowd-disturber rather than a crowd-pleaser, which is a good thing. But it does demand that we are willing to listen. If we are, we will be encouraged to rethink identity, suicide bombing, state-violence, immigration, homosexuality, and how all of these may be connected. Frames of War is a demanding book with a potential to enlighten, disturb, transcend, inspire. By reminding us that each of us possess the power to destroy and the vulnerability to be destroyed, she prompts us to realize our own precariousness and thus take responsibility for the lives of others.