1
00:00:01,720 --> 00:00:12,680
Speaker 1: All Zone Media. Hello, Welcome to it could happen here today.

2
00:00:13,480 --> 00:00:16,959
Speaker 1: My episode is going to be a bit more philosophical.

3
00:00:17,680 --> 00:00:21,320
Speaker 1: I love me some philosophy. I don't always understand it,

4
00:00:21,400 --> 00:00:24,439
Speaker 1: but I do like it. And I read something recently

5
00:00:24,520 --> 00:00:27,600
Speaker 1: that really stuck with me, especially in the context of

6
00:00:27,640 --> 00:00:30,600
Speaker 1: what is currently going on right now in Palestine and

7
00:00:30,760 --> 00:00:34,080
Speaker 1: the genocide and Gaza. I read something and I couldn't

8
00:00:34,080 --> 00:00:36,239
Speaker 1: stop thinking about it, so I thought, let's just make

9
00:00:36,280 --> 00:00:39,280
Speaker 1: an episode. So today I wanted to talk about this

10
00:00:39,680 --> 00:00:45,479
Speaker 1: word I learned called grievability. It was coined by Judith

11
00:00:45,520 --> 00:00:49,360
Speaker 1: Butler in this blog post from twenty fifteen, when Butler

12
00:00:49,440 --> 00:00:54,040
Speaker 1: is asking the question when is life grievable? In twenty sixteen,

13
00:00:54,080 --> 00:00:57,240
Speaker 1: Butler wrote a book called Frames of War. When is

14
00:00:57,280 --> 00:00:59,880
Speaker 1: Life Grievable? And this is a quote from this book.

15
00:01:00,960 --> 00:01:03,720
Speaker 1: One way of posing the question of who we are

16
00:01:03,920 --> 00:01:06,840
Speaker 1: in these times of war is by asking whose lives

17
00:01:06,880 --> 00:01:11,000
Speaker 1: are considered valuable, whose lives are mourned, and whose lives

18
00:01:11,040 --> 00:01:14,800
Speaker 1: are considered ungrievable. We might think of war as dividing

19
00:01:14,840 --> 00:01:18,000
Speaker 1: populations into those who are grievable in those who are not.

20
00:01:18,760 --> 00:01:22,040
Speaker 1: An ungrievable life is one that cannot be mourned because

21
00:01:22,200 --> 00:01:25,760
Speaker 1: it has never lived, that is, it has never counted

22
00:01:26,080 --> 00:01:29,520
Speaker 1: as a life at all. We can see the division

23
00:01:29,560 --> 00:01:33,200
Speaker 1: of the globe into grievable and ungrievable lives from the

24
00:01:33,240 --> 00:01:36,479
Speaker 1: perspective of those who wage war in order to defend

25
00:01:36,520 --> 00:01:39,600
Speaker 1: the lives of certain communities and to defend them against

26
00:01:39,640 --> 00:01:43,360
Speaker 1: the lives of others, even if it means taking those

27
00:01:43,480 --> 00:01:47,920
Speaker 1: latter lives. So that quote kind of encompasses the idea

28
00:01:48,040 --> 00:01:51,640
Speaker 1: of grievability. I really just thought it was poignant to

29
00:01:51,680 --> 00:01:56,560
Speaker 1: talk about and relevant because we are being inundated with

30
00:01:56,600 --> 00:01:59,920
Speaker 1: all these numbers every day of casualties and death count

31
00:02:00,280 --> 00:02:05,200
Speaker 1: and collateral damage. And people accept these things because it's

32
00:02:05,280 --> 00:02:07,840
Speaker 1: part of being human. It's just the way war is.

33
00:02:08,400 --> 00:02:10,760
Speaker 1: But I really don't think we should accept that as

34
00:02:10,960 --> 00:02:13,720
Speaker 1: the reality. I think that makes us callous. And I

35
00:02:13,760 --> 00:02:18,040
Speaker 1: think accepting human death, no matter in what context, is

36
00:02:18,080 --> 00:02:20,440
Speaker 1: a little bit inhuman And so I think maybe that's

37
00:02:20,440 --> 00:02:25,760
Speaker 1: why this concept fascinated me, because tying grief to the

38
00:02:25,800 --> 00:02:29,679
Speaker 1: concept of being alive, it truly is indicative of if

39
00:02:29,720 --> 00:02:32,919
Speaker 1: that life is worth something to you or to the world.

40
00:02:33,680 --> 00:02:36,519
Speaker 1: And so we're reading and hearing about all these lives lost,

41
00:02:36,639 --> 00:02:39,799
Speaker 1: and we're giving these numbers and stories, and these numbers

42
00:02:39,840 --> 00:02:42,600
Speaker 1: are repeated every day, and they increase every day, and

43
00:02:42,639 --> 00:02:47,320
Speaker 1: this repetition seems endless and impossible to change. And Butler

44
00:02:47,360 --> 00:02:50,600
Speaker 1: is saying that we don't often consider the precarious character

45
00:02:50,720 --> 00:02:54,960
Speaker 1: of the lives lost in war. And Butler defines precariousness

46
00:02:55,000 --> 00:02:58,720
Speaker 1: as the following. To say that a life is precarious

47
00:02:58,760 --> 00:03:02,320
Speaker 1: requires not only that a life be apprehended as a life,

48
00:03:02,520 --> 00:03:05,640
Speaker 1: but also that precariousness be an aspect of what is

49
00:03:05,680 --> 00:03:10,000
Speaker 1: apprehended in what is the living normatively construed. I am

50
00:03:10,160 --> 00:03:12,720
Speaker 1: arguing that there ought to be a more inclusive and

51
00:03:12,760 --> 00:03:17,079
Speaker 1: egalitarian way of recognizing precariousness, and that this should take

52
00:03:17,200 --> 00:03:23,200
Speaker 1: form as concrete social policy regarding such issues as shelter work, food,

53
00:03:23,639 --> 00:03:27,639
Speaker 1: medical care, and legal status. Butler goes on to explain

54
00:03:27,800 --> 00:03:32,840
Speaker 1: that although this initially seems paradoxical, precariousness itself actually cannot

55
00:03:32,880 --> 00:03:39,240
Speaker 1: be properly recognized. Butler says, it can be apprehended, taken in, encountered,

56
00:03:39,480 --> 00:03:42,600
Speaker 1: and it can be presupposed by certain norms of recognition,

57
00:03:43,160 --> 00:03:46,600
Speaker 1: just as it can be refused by such norms. But

58
00:03:46,680 --> 00:03:50,840
Speaker 1: the main recognition of precariousness should be as this shared

59
00:03:50,880 --> 00:03:55,080
Speaker 1: condition of human life, so precariousness being a condition that

60
00:03:55,200 --> 00:03:59,560
Speaker 1: links human life and humans to non human animals. So

61
00:03:59,640 --> 00:04:03,000
Speaker 1: for nat to say that a life is injurable, that

62
00:04:03,040 --> 00:04:07,280
Speaker 1: it can be lost, hurt, destroyed, or systematically neglected to

63
00:04:07,320 --> 00:04:10,480
Speaker 1: the point of death is to underscore not only the

64
00:04:10,520 --> 00:04:14,120
Speaker 1: finitude of a life and that death is certain, but

65
00:04:14,240 --> 00:04:18,200
Speaker 1: also the precariousness of life, that life requires various social

66
00:04:18,240 --> 00:04:20,719
Speaker 1: and economic conditions to be met in order to be

67
00:04:20,800 --> 00:04:25,640
Speaker 1: sustained as a life. Precariousness implies that living socially means

68
00:04:25,640 --> 00:04:28,839
Speaker 1: that one's life is always, in some sense in the

69
00:04:28,960 --> 00:04:32,799
Speaker 1: hands of the other. It implies exposure both to those

70
00:04:32,880 --> 00:04:35,279
Speaker 1: we know and to those we do not know, a

71
00:04:35,320 --> 00:04:38,560
Speaker 1: dependency on people we know or barely know, or know

72
00:04:38,960 --> 00:04:43,479
Speaker 1: not at all. This existential reality that everything ends and

73
00:04:43,560 --> 00:04:47,640
Speaker 1: everything is temporary. This encapsulates our relation to death and

74
00:04:47,720 --> 00:04:53,040
Speaker 1: to life. Precariousness underscores what Butler calls our quote radical

75
00:04:53,120 --> 00:04:58,000
Speaker 1: substitution ability and anonymity, and that dying and death is

76
00:04:58,200 --> 00:05:03,200
Speaker 1: just as socially facilitated a humans persisting and flourishing. So

77
00:05:03,360 --> 00:05:05,440
Speaker 1: Butler is saying it's not that we are born and

78
00:05:05,480 --> 00:05:09,680
Speaker 1: then later become precarious, but rather that precariousness is intrinsic

79
00:05:09,760 --> 00:05:14,880
Speaker 1: with birth itself, and birth is by definition precarious. It

80
00:05:14,960 --> 00:05:18,520
Speaker 1: means that it matters whether a newly born infant survives,

81
00:05:18,720 --> 00:05:21,440
Speaker 1: and its survival is dependent on what we might call

82
00:05:21,520 --> 00:05:25,919
Speaker 1: a social network of hands. Precisely because a living being

83
00:05:25,960 --> 00:05:28,760
Speaker 1: may die, it is necessary to care for that being

84
00:05:28,839 --> 00:05:31,920
Speaker 1: so it may live. I put the following sentence in

85
00:05:32,040 --> 00:05:35,960
Speaker 1: bold because I think it's kind of underlying what I'm

86
00:05:36,000 --> 00:05:38,560
Speaker 1: trying to say, even though it sounds really simple. But

87
00:05:38,720 --> 00:05:42,000
Speaker 1: only under conditions in which the loss would matter does

88
00:05:42,040 --> 00:05:46,039
Speaker 1: the value of the life appear. And again, maybe it

89
00:05:46,120 --> 00:05:49,120
Speaker 1: sounds simple, but I don't think we actually absorb the

90
00:05:49,200 --> 00:05:53,000
Speaker 1: meaning of what that means to value a life and

91
00:05:53,040 --> 00:05:56,039
Speaker 1: to mourn a life. And this is how we come

92
00:05:56,080 --> 00:05:59,680
Speaker 1: to the idea of grievability, the idea that grievability is

93
00:05:59,720 --> 00:06:03,719
Speaker 1: a pre supposition for the life that matters. Butler gives

94
00:06:03,800 --> 00:06:06,920
Speaker 1: us this example, so let's think about this. An infant

95
00:06:07,000 --> 00:06:10,599
Speaker 1: comes into the world, is sustained in and sustained by

96
00:06:10,680 --> 00:06:13,400
Speaker 1: that world as an infant, and through to adulthood and

97
00:06:13,480 --> 00:06:18,520
Speaker 1: old age, and finally, eventually it dies. We imagine that

98
00:06:18,560 --> 00:06:21,560
Speaker 1: when the child is wanted, there is celebration at the

99
00:06:21,600 --> 00:06:25,279
Speaker 1: beginning of life. But there can be no celebration without

100
00:06:25,279 --> 00:06:29,120
Speaker 1: an implicit understanding that the life is grievable, that it

101
00:06:29,160 --> 00:06:32,160
Speaker 1: would be grieved if it were lost, that this future

102
00:06:32,240 --> 00:06:36,839
Speaker 1: possibility is installed as the condition of its life. Life

103
00:06:36,880 --> 00:06:40,799
Speaker 1: is celebrated because it can be lost an ordinary language,

104
00:06:40,800 --> 00:06:44,200
Speaker 1: Butler says, grief attends the life that has already been

105
00:06:44,279 --> 00:06:48,400
Speaker 1: lived and presupposes that life as having ended. So the

106
00:06:48,480 --> 00:06:53,040
Speaker 1: value of life comes from the reality and certainty that

107
00:06:53,120 --> 00:06:56,160
Speaker 1: it will end. And if we think about this idea

108
00:06:56,200 --> 00:06:59,840
Speaker 1: of possibility of future, this lack of possibility that has

109
00:07:00,000 --> 00:07:03,720
Speaker 1: happens when death happens. Grievability is a condition of a

110
00:07:03,760 --> 00:07:08,200
Speaker 1: life's emergence and sustenance this future concept that a life

111
00:07:08,200 --> 00:07:11,280
Speaker 1: has been lived is presupposed at the beginning of a

112
00:07:11,320 --> 00:07:15,160
Speaker 1: life that has only begun to be lived. In other words,

113
00:07:15,160 --> 00:07:18,440
Speaker 1: Butler says, this will be a life that will have

114
00:07:18,640 --> 00:07:22,920
Speaker 1: been lived. Is the presupposition of a grievable life, which

115
00:07:22,960 --> 00:07:25,000
Speaker 1: means that this will be a life that can be

116
00:07:25,080 --> 00:07:29,760
Speaker 1: regarded as life and sustained by that regard. I know

117
00:07:29,920 --> 00:07:31,960
Speaker 1: it sounds heady, and I really had to read this

118
00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:36,080
Speaker 1: multiple times to even try to comprehend it. But essentially,

119
00:07:36,120 --> 00:07:40,080
Speaker 1: without grievability, without the impulse to mourn a life, there

120
00:07:40,200 --> 00:07:43,720
Speaker 1: is no life, or rather, there is something living that

121
00:07:43,880 --> 00:07:47,880
Speaker 1: is other than life. This other than life thing is

122
00:07:47,920 --> 00:07:50,160
Speaker 1: a life that will never have been lived in the

123
00:07:50,200 --> 00:07:53,080
Speaker 1: first place, because it's not mourned, and it's sustained by

124
00:07:53,120 --> 00:07:56,960
Speaker 1: no regard, no testimony, and it is ungrieved when it

125
00:07:57,080 --> 00:08:00,760
Speaker 1: is lost. The unease and anxiety and at apprehension of

126
00:08:00,800 --> 00:08:05,280
Speaker 1: grievability precedes and makes possible the unease and anxiety and

127
00:08:05,320 --> 00:08:12,160
Speaker 1: apprehension of precarious life, and so grievability precedes and makes

128
00:08:12,240 --> 00:08:17,040
Speaker 1: possible the apprehension of the living being as living exposed

129
00:08:17,200 --> 00:08:20,560
Speaker 1: to non life. From the start, to put it in

130
00:08:20,600 --> 00:08:25,080
Speaker 1: maybe a simpler way for me to understand even is

131
00:08:25,360 --> 00:08:29,920
Speaker 1: that a life is worth grieving because we already know

132
00:08:30,160 --> 00:08:33,560
Speaker 1: it will die, and that life is worth celebrating because

133
00:08:33,600 --> 00:08:37,080
Speaker 1: it has already been exposed to death or the implication

134
00:08:37,360 --> 00:08:41,079
Speaker 1: of certain death. From the start. It is pretty heady,

135
00:08:41,440 --> 00:08:44,000
Speaker 1: but maybe I'll just leave you to marinate with that

136
00:08:44,440 --> 00:08:48,800
Speaker 1: during a break and we can get more heady when

137
00:08:48,840 --> 00:09:03,720
Speaker 1: we get back. Okay, we're back. Let's go back to

138
00:09:03,760 --> 00:09:07,360
Speaker 1: the idea of war. One way of posing the question

139
00:09:07,520 --> 00:09:10,080
Speaker 1: of who we are in these times of war is

140
00:09:10,080 --> 00:09:14,319
Speaker 1: by asking whose lives are considered valuable, whose lives are mourned,

141
00:09:14,600 --> 00:09:19,400
Speaker 1: and whose lives are considered unagrievable. War is essentially the

142
00:09:19,440 --> 00:09:22,560
Speaker 1: division of populations into those who are a grievable and

143
00:09:22,640 --> 00:09:26,440
Speaker 1: those who are not. An ungrievable life is one that

144
00:09:26,480 --> 00:09:30,080
Speaker 1: cannot be mourned because it has never lived, that is,

145
00:09:30,520 --> 00:09:33,920
Speaker 1: it has never counted as life at all. And we

146
00:09:34,000 --> 00:09:37,040
Speaker 1: see this division of the entire world into grievable and

147
00:09:37,160 --> 00:09:40,280
Speaker 1: ungrievable lives when we look at the perspective of those

148
00:09:40,320 --> 00:09:43,880
Speaker 1: who wage war in order to defend their certain communities.

149
00:09:44,320 --> 00:09:46,800
Speaker 1: This is kind of reiterating the quote that I'd started

150
00:09:46,800 --> 00:09:49,720
Speaker 1: with at the top from twenty sixteen, but essentially to

151
00:09:49,800 --> 00:09:53,760
Speaker 1: defend these certain communities against the life of others, it

152
00:09:53,880 --> 00:09:58,080
Speaker 1: usually implies the taking of those other lives. Butler here

153
00:09:58,120 --> 00:10:00,800
Speaker 1: makes a reference to nine to eleven, explating that after

154
00:10:00,840 --> 00:10:03,400
Speaker 1: the attacks of nine to eleven, the media showed us

155
00:10:03,440 --> 00:10:06,480
Speaker 1: graphic pictures of those who died along with their names,

156
00:10:06,600 --> 00:10:10,920
Speaker 1: their stories, and the reactions of their families. Public grieving

157
00:10:11,120 --> 00:10:14,320
Speaker 1: was dedicated to making these images iconic for the nation,

158
00:10:15,000 --> 00:10:18,360
Speaker 1: which meant that, of course, there was considerably less public

159
00:10:18,400 --> 00:10:22,320
Speaker 1: grieving for let's say, non US nationals, and none at

160
00:10:22,360 --> 00:10:27,360
Speaker 1: all for illegal workers. Butler says the differential distribution of

161
00:10:27,400 --> 00:10:32,400
Speaker 1: public grieving is a political issue of enormous significance, And

162
00:10:32,480 --> 00:10:36,319
Speaker 1: Butler asks, why is it that governments so often seek

163
00:10:36,520 --> 00:10:40,720
Speaker 1: to regulate and control who will be publicly grievable and

164
00:10:40,760 --> 00:10:44,760
Speaker 1: who will not? Because it means something to state and

165
00:10:44,840 --> 00:10:47,560
Speaker 1: to show the name of someone who has died, to

166
00:10:47,640 --> 00:10:50,480
Speaker 1: put together some remnants of a life, and to publicly

167
00:10:50,520 --> 00:10:54,600
Speaker 1: display and draw attention to the loss. So Butler's asking,

168
00:10:54,760 --> 00:10:57,360
Speaker 1: in this context, what would happen if those killed in

169
00:10:57,440 --> 00:11:01,319
Speaker 1: war were to be grieved in such an oath? Why

170
00:11:01,520 --> 00:11:03,400
Speaker 1: is it that we are not given the names of

171
00:11:03,440 --> 00:11:06,920
Speaker 1: all the war dead, including those the US has killed,

172
00:11:07,440 --> 00:11:10,400
Speaker 1: of whom we will never have the image, the name,

173
00:11:10,760 --> 00:11:14,760
Speaker 1: the story, never have a testimonial shard of their life,

174
00:11:15,280 --> 00:11:19,960
Speaker 1: nothing to see, to touch, to know. Open grieving is

175
00:11:20,040 --> 00:11:24,400
Speaker 1: bound up with outrage. Outrage in the face of injustice

176
00:11:24,559 --> 00:11:29,800
Speaker 1: or of unbearable loss, has enormous political potential. Butler draws

177
00:11:29,800 --> 00:11:33,439
Speaker 1: a similarity here to Plato. Apparently, one of the reasons

178
00:11:33,440 --> 00:11:36,240
Speaker 1: Plato wanted to ban the poets from the Republic is

179
00:11:36,280 --> 00:11:38,840
Speaker 1: that he thought that if citizens went too often to

180
00:11:38,920 --> 00:11:42,360
Speaker 1: watch tragedy, they would weep over the losses they saw,

181
00:11:42,920 --> 00:11:46,319
Speaker 1: and that such open and public mourning, in disrupting the

182
00:11:46,440 --> 00:11:49,800
Speaker 1: order and hierarchy of the soul, would disrupt the order

183
00:11:49,800 --> 00:11:54,199
Speaker 1: and hierarchy of political authority as well. And I didn't

184
00:11:54,240 --> 00:11:56,040
Speaker 1: know this, but to put it in that context is

185
00:11:56,360 --> 00:12:00,719
Speaker 1: really fascinating to me, because it's essentially saying that if

186
00:12:00,760 --> 00:12:04,959
Speaker 1: we expose human beings to the reality of tragedy in life,

187
00:12:05,160 --> 00:12:08,160
Speaker 1: they might care too much and start to fuck up

188
00:12:08,160 --> 00:12:12,160
Speaker 1: our politics. Essentially, so, whether we are speaking about open

189
00:12:12,240 --> 00:12:16,520
Speaker 1: grief or outrage, we are talking about effective or emotional

190
00:12:16,559 --> 00:12:20,880
Speaker 1: responses that are highly regulated by regimes of power and

191
00:12:20,960 --> 00:12:25,600
Speaker 1: sometimes subject to explicit censorship. The blog post I'm referring

192
00:12:25,600 --> 00:12:28,200
Speaker 1: to that Judith Butler wrote was written in twenty fifteen.

193
00:12:28,480 --> 00:12:31,439
Speaker 1: So Butler uses the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as

194
00:12:31,480 --> 00:12:34,480
Speaker 1: examples of what they're trying to say. For the wars

195
00:12:34,520 --> 00:12:38,239
Speaker 1: in Iraq, in Afghanistan. We saw how emotion was regulated

196
00:12:38,280 --> 00:12:42,959
Speaker 1: to support both the war effort and more specifically, nationalists belonging.

197
00:12:43,720 --> 00:12:46,160
Speaker 1: When the photos of Abu grab were first released in

198
00:12:46,200 --> 00:12:49,640
Speaker 1: the US, conservative television pundits argued that it would be

199
00:12:49,720 --> 00:12:53,400
Speaker 1: un American to show them because we were not supposed

200
00:12:53,400 --> 00:12:55,800
Speaker 1: to have graphic evidence of the acts of torture the

201
00:12:55,920 --> 00:12:58,480
Speaker 1: US has committed. We were not supposed to know that

202
00:12:58,480 --> 00:13:02,839
Speaker 1: the US had violated in nationally recognized human rights. It

203
00:13:02,920 --> 00:13:06,440
Speaker 1: was Unamerican to show these photos, an Unamerican to glean

204
00:13:06,559 --> 00:13:10,280
Speaker 1: information from them as to how the war was being conducted.

205
00:13:11,000 --> 00:13:14,000
Speaker 1: Bill O'Reilly thought that the photos would create a negative

206
00:13:14,040 --> 00:13:16,520
Speaker 1: image of the US and that we had an obligation

207
00:13:16,640 --> 00:13:20,319
Speaker 1: to defend a positive image of the country. Donald Rumsfeld

208
00:13:20,360 --> 00:13:24,079
Speaker 1: said something similar, suggesting it was anti American to display

209
00:13:24,120 --> 00:13:29,000
Speaker 1: the photos. Of course, these idiots didn't consider, and neither

210
00:13:29,120 --> 00:13:31,960
Speaker 1: did the vast majority of people in power. But the

211
00:13:32,000 --> 00:13:35,280
Speaker 1: American public should have a right to know about the

212
00:13:35,320 --> 00:13:38,680
Speaker 1: activities of its military, and it should have the right

213
00:13:38,760 --> 00:13:43,080
Speaker 1: to judge a war. Understanding and judging a war on

214
00:13:43,160 --> 00:13:46,280
Speaker 1: the basis of full evidence is or at least it

215
00:13:46,320 --> 00:13:50,880
Speaker 1: should be part of the democratic tradition of participation and deliberation.

216
00:13:51,800 --> 00:13:55,520
Speaker 1: So what was this really saying Butler's asking they say,

217
00:13:55,920 --> 00:13:58,960
Speaker 1: it seems to me that those who sought to limit

218
00:13:59,040 --> 00:14:02,400
Speaker 1: the power of them image in this instance also sought

219
00:14:02,480 --> 00:14:06,240
Speaker 1: to limit the power of effect of outrage, knowing full

220
00:14:06,280 --> 00:14:10,040
Speaker 1: well that it could and would turn public opinion against

221
00:14:10,080 --> 00:14:13,560
Speaker 1: the war in Iraq as it died it did. I

222
00:14:13,600 --> 00:14:17,080
Speaker 1: feel like this is especially fascinating and parallel to what

223
00:14:17,120 --> 00:14:22,160
Speaker 1: we're seeing now with the people in Palestine broadcasting horrific

224
00:14:22,200 --> 00:14:24,600
Speaker 1: images of what is happening to them because of the

225
00:14:24,640 --> 00:14:29,160
Speaker 1: state of Israel, and how there is selective outrage because

226
00:14:29,600 --> 00:14:33,120
Speaker 1: it is almost impolite to show or proliferate these images

227
00:14:33,160 --> 00:14:37,480
Speaker 1: that only show reality. It really feels like people are

228
00:14:37,480 --> 00:14:42,480
Speaker 1: only outraged when they consider a life grievable, which takes

229
00:14:42,520 --> 00:14:45,320
Speaker 1: us to this whole topic. It brings us back to

230
00:14:45,360 --> 00:14:49,600
Speaker 1: the question of whose lives are regarded as mournable, as grievable,

231
00:14:49,920 --> 00:14:53,400
Speaker 1: and whose lives are regarded as worthy of protection, whose

232
00:14:53,520 --> 00:14:56,800
Speaker 1: lives are regarded as belonging to subjects with rights that

233
00:14:56,960 --> 00:15:00,920
Speaker 1: should be honored. This ties in direct to the idea

234
00:15:01,000 --> 00:15:04,400
Speaker 1: of how effect or emotion is regulated and what we

235
00:15:04,520 --> 00:15:08,240
Speaker 1: mean by the regulation of emotion at all. Butler references

236
00:15:08,280 --> 00:15:11,960
Speaker 1: the anthropologist Talal Assad, who wrote a book about suicide bombing.

237
00:15:12,320 --> 00:15:15,600
Speaker 1: In this book, the first question he poses is why

238
00:15:15,600 --> 00:15:18,520
Speaker 1: do we feel horror and moral repulsion in the face

239
00:15:18,520 --> 00:15:21,520
Speaker 1: of suicide bombing when we do not always feel the

240
00:15:21,560 --> 00:15:25,600
Speaker 1: same way in the face of state sponsored violence. He

241
00:15:25,720 --> 00:15:27,920
Speaker 1: asks this question not in order to say that these

242
00:15:27,960 --> 00:15:31,600
Speaker 1: forms of violence are the same or equatable, or even

243
00:15:31,600 --> 00:15:33,480
Speaker 1: to say that we ought to feel the same moral

244
00:15:33,560 --> 00:15:37,720
Speaker 1: outrage in relation to both. But Asad finds it curious,

245
00:15:37,840 --> 00:15:41,800
Speaker 1: as does Butler, that our moral responses, responses that first

246
00:15:41,880 --> 00:15:46,040
Speaker 1: take form as effect, are tacitly regulated by certain kinds

247
00:15:46,080 --> 00:15:50,480
Speaker 1: of interpretive frameworks. His thesis is that we feel more

248
00:15:50,560 --> 00:15:53,720
Speaker 1: horror and moral revulsion in the face of lives lost

249
00:15:53,800 --> 00:15:59,240
Speaker 1: under certain conditions than under certain others. Asad explains that,

250
00:15:59,320 --> 00:16:02,440
Speaker 1: for instance, if someone kills or is killed in war,

251
00:16:03,240 --> 00:16:06,240
Speaker 1: and the war is state sponsored, and we invest the

252
00:16:06,240 --> 00:16:11,720
Speaker 1: state with legitimacy, then we consider the death lamentable, sad, unfortunate,

253
00:16:11,960 --> 00:16:16,720
Speaker 1: but ultimately not radically unjust. And yet if the violence

254
00:16:16,760 --> 00:16:20,880
Speaker 1: is perpetrated by insurgency groups regarded as illegitimate, that our

255
00:16:20,880 --> 00:16:26,480
Speaker 1: emotion invariably changes, or so ASAD assumes. Asad is saying

256
00:16:26,520 --> 00:16:30,080
Speaker 1: something here that is really important about how the politics

257
00:16:30,080 --> 00:16:35,520
Speaker 1: of moral responsiveness really feed into public perception. That what

258
00:16:35,560 --> 00:16:38,880
Speaker 1: we feel is in part conditioned by how we interpret

259
00:16:38,920 --> 00:16:42,160
Speaker 1: the world around us, that how we interpret what we

260
00:16:42,200 --> 00:16:46,600
Speaker 1: feel actually can and does alter the feeling itself. If

261
00:16:46,640 --> 00:16:50,080
Speaker 1: we can accept our emotion could be affected and structured

262
00:16:50,120 --> 00:16:53,880
Speaker 1: by things we do not fully understand, can this help

263
00:16:53,960 --> 00:16:56,640
Speaker 1: us understand why it is that we might feel horror

264
00:16:56,680 --> 00:16:59,800
Speaker 1: in the face of certain losses, but in difference or

265
00:16:59,840 --> 00:17:03,680
Speaker 1: even righteousness in the light of others. Conditions of war

266
00:17:03,800 --> 00:17:08,880
Speaker 1: bring something really interesting here, this feeling of heightened nationalism.

267
00:17:09,359 --> 00:17:12,400
Speaker 1: In this feeling of heightened nationalism, it's as though our

268
00:17:12,480 --> 00:17:16,760
Speaker 1: existence is bound with others with whom we find some

269
00:17:16,960 --> 00:17:20,240
Speaker 1: kind of national affinity for who are recognizable to us

270
00:17:20,440 --> 00:17:24,600
Speaker 1: and who can conform to certain culturally specific notions about

271
00:17:24,600 --> 00:17:28,879
Speaker 1: what the culturally recognizable human is. And sure, maybe some

272
00:17:28,920 --> 00:17:31,000
Speaker 1: of you are like, well, this is really obvious. Of course,

273
00:17:31,040 --> 00:17:33,280
Speaker 1: some people care more about people who look like them

274
00:17:33,720 --> 00:17:36,760
Speaker 1: or about things that directly affect them. But what I'm

275
00:17:36,880 --> 00:17:40,800
Speaker 1: arguing is that I can't accept that as reality. I

276
00:17:40,840 --> 00:17:45,040
Speaker 1: don't think we should accept humans as by default callous.

277
00:17:45,359 --> 00:17:48,320
Speaker 1: There's no way change happens that way. I think we

278
00:17:48,400 --> 00:17:52,480
Speaker 1: have to question why we unconsciously are more outraged by

279
00:17:52,520 --> 00:17:55,480
Speaker 1: certain losses than others, or why the public is this

280
00:17:55,520 --> 00:17:58,800
Speaker 1: way even if you are not. Oh, that's a lot

281
00:17:58,840 --> 00:18:00,760
Speaker 1: of stuff, it's a lot of information. Let's take our

282
00:18:00,800 --> 00:18:03,199
Speaker 1: second break. We can just marinate with all of that,

283
00:18:03,600 --> 00:18:18,439
Speaker 1: and uh, we'll be right back to wrap us up. Okay,

284
00:18:18,560 --> 00:18:23,000
Speaker 1: we're back. So we discussed the differentiation of the population

285
00:18:23,080 --> 00:18:26,560
Speaker 1: of the world into grievable and unagrievable lives, and now

286
00:18:26,600 --> 00:18:29,400
Speaker 1: we are going to differentiate between the populations on whom

287
00:18:29,440 --> 00:18:33,640
Speaker 1: your life and existence depend on, and those populations represent

288
00:18:33,760 --> 00:18:36,840
Speaker 1: a direct threat to your life in existence. This is

289
00:18:36,880 --> 00:18:39,600
Speaker 1: a concept that really struck me as something we don't

290
00:18:39,640 --> 00:18:42,879
Speaker 1: even give a second thought to that when a population

291
00:18:43,080 --> 00:18:46,359
Speaker 1: appears as a direct threat to your life, they do

292
00:18:46,480 --> 00:18:50,200
Speaker 1: not appear as lives, but as a threat to life.

293
00:18:50,960 --> 00:18:53,919
Speaker 1: Butler asks us to consider how this is shown with

294
00:18:54,040 --> 00:18:58,320
Speaker 1: how the world views and interprets Islam. Islam is portrayed

295
00:18:58,359 --> 00:19:01,520
Speaker 1: and seen by our media, whether it's implicit or explicit

296
00:19:01,920 --> 00:19:05,960
Speaker 1: as barbaric or pre modern as not having yet conformed

297
00:19:06,000 --> 00:19:08,919
Speaker 1: to the norms that make the human recognizable to the West,

298
00:19:09,119 --> 00:19:12,800
Speaker 1: to the American. So those who Americans kill by following

299
00:19:12,800 --> 00:19:16,320
Speaker 1: this line of thought are not quite human. They are

300
00:19:16,320 --> 00:19:19,439
Speaker 1: not quite alive, which means that we do not feel

301
00:19:19,480 --> 00:19:22,840
Speaker 1: the same horror and outrage over their loss of life

302
00:19:23,240 --> 00:19:26,240
Speaker 1: as we do the loss of life that bear national

303
00:19:26,440 --> 00:19:30,320
Speaker 1: or religious similarity to our own. And again, this isn't

304
00:19:30,359 --> 00:19:33,400
Speaker 1: a novel concept. In simple terms, it can be whittled

305
00:19:33,440 --> 00:19:36,080
Speaker 1: down to the reality that most people only care about

306
00:19:36,080 --> 00:19:39,119
Speaker 1: things that directly affect them or things that happen to

307
00:19:39,160 --> 00:19:43,119
Speaker 1: those who look like them. And again, maybe that seems

308
00:19:43,160 --> 00:19:46,600
Speaker 1: like an obvious realization to make about our society. But

309
00:19:46,680 --> 00:19:49,360
Speaker 1: what I'm asking you to do is not just accept

310
00:19:49,480 --> 00:19:53,080
Speaker 1: this as part of the human condition and to question

311
00:19:53,160 --> 00:19:56,119
Speaker 1: why it is like that in the first place. True

312
00:19:56,359 --> 00:19:59,919
Speaker 1: deep understanding of ourselves and of our humanity is to

313
00:20:00,000 --> 00:20:04,440
Speaker 1: dependent on us excavating ugly truths about ourselves and humanity

314
00:20:04,960 --> 00:20:08,080
Speaker 1: that we are not even maybe aware of. I think

315
00:20:08,080 --> 00:20:10,919
Speaker 1: this is something that bothers me about how Israel's narrative

316
00:20:11,040 --> 00:20:15,400
Speaker 1: or desion, this narrative of the conception of Israel almost

317
00:20:15,400 --> 00:20:18,639
Speaker 1: makes them seem sinless, they had done nothing wrong. The

318
00:20:18,680 --> 00:20:22,440
Speaker 1: Arabs or barbarians that didn't leave them alone. The same

319
00:20:22,480 --> 00:20:25,600
Speaker 1: can be said about how American history books talked about

320
00:20:25,840 --> 00:20:29,879
Speaker 1: Columbus and the Native American people here. Usually history is

321
00:20:29,920 --> 00:20:32,600
Speaker 1: written by those who want to appear in a better light,

322
00:20:33,320 --> 00:20:36,879
Speaker 1: and by default I feel like this makes them sinless

323
00:20:36,960 --> 00:20:42,440
Speaker 1: and pure and can do no wrong. But again, better

324
00:20:42,520 --> 00:20:47,280
Speaker 1: understanding of humanity means accepting that sometimes it is grotesque,

325
00:20:47,359 --> 00:20:50,240
Speaker 1: and I think that is something we need to accept

326
00:20:50,600 --> 00:20:54,080
Speaker 1: and understand. I think Israeli's need to accept that the

327
00:20:54,160 --> 00:20:57,399
Speaker 1: Nekba happened in order to move on from it. Things

328
00:20:57,440 --> 00:20:59,600
Speaker 1: like that is what I'm thinking about when I read

329
00:20:59,600 --> 00:21:04,000
Speaker 1: about this stuff. But anyways, tallal Asad is wondering why

330
00:21:04,080 --> 00:21:08,120
Speaker 1: modes of death dealing are apprehended differently, Why we object

331
00:21:08,200 --> 00:21:10,840
Speaker 1: to the deaths that are caused by suicide bombing more

332
00:21:10,880 --> 00:21:14,160
Speaker 1: forcefully and with greater moral outrage than we do those

333
00:21:14,240 --> 00:21:17,840
Speaker 1: deaths that are caused by aerial bombings. And then Butler

334
00:21:17,880 --> 00:21:21,520
Speaker 1: takes this back to how we differentiate populations, how some

335
00:21:21,600 --> 00:21:24,960
Speaker 1: are considered from the start very much alive and others

336
00:21:25,040 --> 00:21:29,040
Speaker 1: more questionably alive or as living figures of the threat

337
00:21:29,119 --> 00:21:33,640
Speaker 1: to life. Perhaps they're even regarded as quote socially dead,

338
00:21:33,960 --> 00:21:37,639
Speaker 1: which is the term that Jamaican American historian and sociologist

339
00:21:37,720 --> 00:21:41,640
Speaker 1: Orlando Patterson developed to describe the status of the slave

340
00:21:42,640 --> 00:21:46,359
Speaker 1: war relies on and perpetuates a way of dividing lives

341
00:21:46,400 --> 00:21:50,080
Speaker 1: into those who are worth defending, valuing, and grieving when

342
00:21:50,080 --> 00:21:53,120
Speaker 1: they are lost, and those that are not quite lives,

343
00:21:53,480 --> 00:21:57,800
Speaker 1: not quite valuable, recognizable, or mournable. And it should come

344
00:21:57,800 --> 00:22:00,800
Speaker 1: as no surprise that the death of ungrien fable lives

345
00:22:01,080 --> 00:22:03,960
Speaker 1: would cause deep outrage on the part of those who

346
00:22:04,080 --> 00:22:07,680
Speaker 1: understand and are seeing that their lives are not considered

347
00:22:07,720 --> 00:22:10,679
Speaker 1: to be lives in any meaningful sense of the word

348
00:22:10,920 --> 00:22:14,639
Speaker 1: in this world. Butler explains that although the logic of

349
00:22:14,720 --> 00:22:18,720
Speaker 1: self defense portrays such populations as threats to life as

350
00:22:18,760 --> 00:22:22,840
Speaker 1: we know it, they are themselves living populations with whom

351
00:22:22,960 --> 00:22:28,880
Speaker 1: our cohabitation presupposes a certain interdependency among us. What does

352
00:22:28,920 --> 00:22:34,600
Speaker 1: that mean, Well, it's about how interdependency is interpreted and executed,

353
00:22:34,840 --> 00:22:38,879
Speaker 1: and how it has concrete implications for who survives, who thrives,

354
00:22:38,960 --> 00:22:42,000
Speaker 1: who barely makes it, and who is eliminated or left

355
00:22:42,119 --> 00:22:46,520
Speaker 1: to die. Butler writes, I want to insist on this

356
00:22:46,600 --> 00:22:51,119
Speaker 1: interdependency precisely because when nations such as the US or

357
00:22:51,200 --> 00:22:55,320
Speaker 1: Israel argue that their survival is served by war, a

358
00:22:55,359 --> 00:22:59,399
Speaker 1: systematic error is committed. This is because war seeks to

359
00:22:59,440 --> 00:23:02,800
Speaker 1: deny the ongoing in irrefutable ways in which we are

360
00:23:02,840 --> 00:23:06,280
Speaker 1: all subject to one another, vulnerable to destruction by the other,

361
00:23:06,720 --> 00:23:10,920
Speaker 1: and in need of protection through multilateral and global agreements

362
00:23:11,200 --> 00:23:15,639
Speaker 1: based on the recognition of a shared precariousness. The reason

363
00:23:15,680 --> 00:23:18,880
Speaker 1: I am not free to destroy another, and indeed why

364
00:23:18,960 --> 00:23:22,439
Speaker 1: nations are not finally free to destroy one another, is

365
00:23:22,520 --> 00:23:26,400
Speaker 1: not only because it will lead to further destructive consequences.

366
00:23:26,880 --> 00:23:30,600
Speaker 1: That is doubtless true. But what may be finally more

367
00:23:30,680 --> 00:23:33,800
Speaker 1: true is that the subject I am is bound to

368
00:23:33,840 --> 00:23:36,879
Speaker 1: the subject I am not, That we each have the

369
00:23:36,960 --> 00:23:40,560
Speaker 1: power to destroy and to be destroyed, and that we

370
00:23:40,600 --> 00:23:43,439
Speaker 1: are bound to one another in this power and in

371
00:23:43,480 --> 00:23:48,640
Speaker 1: this precariousness. In this sense, we are all precarious lives.

372
00:23:49,560 --> 00:23:55,320
Speaker 1: That's essentially the takeaway that I got from the article

373
00:23:55,359 --> 00:23:57,359
Speaker 1: as a whole, or this blog post as a whole,

374
00:23:58,440 --> 00:24:01,600
Speaker 1: kind of just unifying us into the fact that we're

375
00:24:01,960 --> 00:24:06,280
Speaker 1: all the same and our divisions are truly man made.

376
00:24:06,800 --> 00:24:10,040
Speaker 1: Whether it's about grievable lives and ungrievable lives, or just

377
00:24:10,080 --> 00:24:13,960
Speaker 1: this concept of grievability in general, I think it's worth examining.

378
00:24:14,119 --> 00:24:17,159
Speaker 1: I think it's worth examining how now in real time

379
00:24:17,400 --> 00:24:22,200
Speaker 1: we're seeing how certain people value lives over others. This

380
00:24:22,280 --> 00:24:24,840
Speaker 1: is across the board. I'm not just talking about one

381
00:24:24,880 --> 00:24:29,560
Speaker 1: group of people. Grievable lives I think are this concept

382
00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:35,520
Speaker 1: for me, and tying grief intrinsically to life is essential

383
00:24:35,560 --> 00:24:38,960
Speaker 1: to understanding why it is life is valuable at all.

384
00:24:39,040 --> 00:24:41,840
Speaker 1: It's because it can be lost. And if life isn't

385
00:24:41,880 --> 00:24:44,200
Speaker 1: valuable to begin with, if that life that you're looking

386
00:24:44,200 --> 00:24:46,600
Speaker 1: at isn't valuable to begin with, you won't grieve it.

387
00:24:47,400 --> 00:24:49,760
Speaker 1: And I think this also can go back to how

388
00:24:49,840 --> 00:24:53,640
Speaker 1: we're seeing really dehumanizing language being used to specifically right

389
00:24:53,640 --> 00:24:57,399
Speaker 1: now describe Palestinians or Arabs or Muslims. This all leads

390
00:24:57,440 --> 00:25:01,439
Speaker 1: to dehumanizing a group of people to make them seem

391
00:25:01,960 --> 00:25:06,520
Speaker 1: inhuman and in a way unalive. So with all of that,

392
00:25:07,320 --> 00:25:12,600
Speaker 1: I hope this philosophical pivot was interesting to you. And yeah,

393
00:25:13,440 --> 00:25:20,879
Speaker 1: until next time, you know how it goes through Palestine.

394
00:25:22,040 --> 00:25:24,520
Speaker 1: It could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media.

395
00:25:24,640 --> 00:25:27,320
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website

396
00:25:27,320 --> 00:25:29,560
Speaker 1: cool zonemedia dot com or check us out on the

397
00:25:29,600 --> 00:25:33,040
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

398
00:25:33,600 --> 00:25:35,719
Speaker 1: You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated

399
00:25:35,800 --> 00:25:39,840
Speaker 1: monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.