同一与差异的辩证法——朱迪斯·巴特勒性别操演理论的价值形式意蕴

Dialectics of Identity and Difference:The Value-Form Connotation of Judith Butler's Theory of Gender Performativity

价值形式理论在西方左翼中产生了重要理论效应,朱迪斯·巴特勒也深受其影响。价值体现了私人劳动和社会总劳动的关系,它只能在商品形式转变为货币形式后被回溯性地确证。价值的这种特性被以齐泽克为代表的后现代左翼形容为是以操演形式运作的,体现着同一与差异的辩证法。这种辩证法揭示了商品交换中“真实的抽象”建构的同一性形式,以及被同一性形式遮蔽的社会对抗性。巴特勒则将性别理解为同价值一样,也蕴含着同一和差异的辩证关系的社会形式。一方面,操演生成了同一性的性别形式(规范),只有符合这种规范的性别身份才具有可理解性,正如劳动只有以价值为形式才可获得社会的承认;另一方面,每一次操演又生成了现有规范无法容纳的性别差异,这种差异如同被价值的同一性形式所掩盖的对抗性矛盾一般,具有颠覆现有规范的潜能。不过,巴特勒过度强调差异,最终走向了身份政治。

The theory of value-form had an important theoretical effect on the Western left-wing,and Judith Butler was also deeply influenced by it.Value,which embodies the relationship between private labor and the total social labor,can only be retrospectively confirmed after the transformation of the commodity form into the money form.This characteristic of value is described as“performatively enacted”by the postmodern left-wing represented by SlavojŽižek,which reflects the dialectics of identity and difference.The dialectics reveals the identity form constructed by“real abstraction”in commodity exchange,and the social antagonism covered by the identity form.Butler regards gender as a social form as the same as value,which also contains the dialectical relationship between identity and difference.On the one hand,gender performativity generates a gender form(norm)of identity,and only gender identity conforming to this norm can be intelligible,just as labor can be recognized by society in the form of value.On the other hand,performativity generates gender differences that cannot be accommodated by the existing norm,which has the potential to subvert gender forms like antagonistic contradictions covered by the identity form of value.But Butler overemphasizes gender as the inherent difference of form,leading his analysis of form to identity politics.