Practice of shame in social discourse
The classical philosophical dualism is the main approach of West European ontology. All of current things are classified by dualism according to the general binary oppositions into: good/evil, external/internal, transcendental/immanent, active/passive, masculine/feminine. The binary ontological model conduces to binary stratification of social system formation, thereby the social scope contains specific contradistinctions of social groups among themselves. Moreover, several of them are identified as a social norm in comparison with the other anomalous groups. An attribution of some individuals to the anomalous social group and the formation of an appropriate mentality that expresses their self-comprehension and self-consciousness is denoted as the ''practice of shame'' by Judith Butler, an American gender philosopher. And the identity created as a result of various practices was introduced as ''a queer identity'' or ''a shamed subjectivity''. The mechanisms that help to implement shame practices are connected with the subject formation activity of power discourse which has constituted abnormal subjectivity and then conceals its constitutive function in order to show the shamed subject in a non-discursive and essentially deterministic manner. In this way discursive fund binary social stratification is preserved, performed with the help of the shame practices of a non-discursive natural entity. The article covers three types of gener/sexual identity as examples of social shame practices action. All of ''the shamed subjectivity'' types are projected according to the circulation in the ''intelligible gender'' culture. The ''intelligibility'' is understood by Judith Butler as an order of sex/gender/desire coordination, that sets a one-piece identity as a social norm, wherein the biological sex is supposed to find its non-contradiction presence in an appropriate social behavior that, in turn, realizes sexual desire. As a matter of fact the norm of intelligibility is funded by androcentrism and heteronormativity, i.e. postulates a heterosexual man as the social sample forcing out of the social norm (''shaming'') the feminine, the non heterosexual but vainly tending to approach the mentioned model of the damaged masculine. Thus, the general logic of shame allows considering the feminine subjectivity, homo identity and marginalized masculinity in terms of social discourse as non-coordinated gender identities, whose internal self-comprehension is stroked by the ''closet mentality'' that includes the fear of exposure and the shame of one's situation.
Keywords
homophobia, heteronormativity, homo identity, gender identity, practice of shame, marginalized masculinity, feminine subjectivity, гомофобия, практики стыда, гетеронормативность, гомоидентичность, гендерная идентичность, маргинализированная маскулинность, женская субъективностьAuthors
| Name | Organization | |
| Khitruk Ekaterina B. | Tomsk State University | lubomudr@vtomske.ru |
References
Practice of shame in social discourse | Vestnik Tomskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta – Tomsk State University Journal. 2014. № 384. DOI: 10.17223/15617793/384/10