International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, VoL 8, No. 3, 1995
Straight Thinking About Queer Theory Guy Oakes
PERFECTLY QUEER At this stage in its evolution, the postmodernist movement is distinguished primarily by the formation of unconventional modes of intellectuality. One of the more colorful species created by its recent development is queer theory, recently celebrated by a symposium in Sociological Theory. 1 Social theory has always lived parasitically off philosophy. Marx's debt to Hegel, the influence of the neo-Kantian movement on Simmel, Durkheim and Weber, the relationship between American pragmatism and the Chicago school, the attempt by much mainstream social theory to satisfy the methodological strictures of logical positivism, and the links between critical social theory and European neo-Marxist philosophy--all testify to the dependence of social theories on influential academic philosophies of their time. Queer theory is a product of the vulgarization of recent European, and predominantly French, post-philosophical criticism, executed principally by American academic advocates of an anti-heterosexual politics of identity.2 Queer theorists represent their project as a self-conscious and uncompromising program of theoretical critique or "transgression." In the slogan of Marx's youthful ardor for the Hegelianism of the Left, queer theory urges a ruthless criticism of everything that exists. "Queerness," we are told, is "an encompassing identity that challenges and resists the calcification of identities and categories,''3 queer theory a "theoretical sensibility that pivots on transgression or permanent rebellion. ''4 The aim of queer theory is to undertake a "massive transgression of all conventional categories and analyses.''5 The transgressive fervor of queer theory is directed with special passion against the taxonomy of sexuality that is centered on the heterosexual/homosexual opposition, a polarity that queer theorists represent as an audacious conceit of the nineteenth century. Thus queer the379 9 1995 Human Sciences Press, Inc.
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ory's commitment to "deregulating heterosexual hegemony" by "displacing heterosexuality, homosexuality, and the relations between the two. ''6 In challenging seemingly stable categories, queer theorists deploy their weapons not only against the dominant heterosexuality, but against lesbianism and gayness as well. Indeed, queer theory is an assault against "the regime of sexuality itself. ''7 The ultimate principle on which this regime is said to rest is the exhaustive binary opposition between homosexuality and heterosexuality. In the final analysis, therefore, the "universalization of queerness" and the objective of building a queer theory depend on contesting the assumption that sexuality is necessarily grounded in this dichotomy. Perhaps because of the iconoclast zeal of queer theorists and their ardent conviction that they are engaged in a heroic attempt to storm the citadel of heterosexuality, they dream the fantasy that is characteristic of a hermetic sect of cognoscenti." the illusion of their own originality--the audacity of daring to speak the word that has never been uttered and to reveal what remains concealed from the uninitiated. Confidence in the theoretical originality of the queer imagination can be sustained only by imputing suspicious "silences" to the classical sociological analyses of modernity. It also seems necessary to convict the authors of these analyses of ignorance or prejudice in failing to investigate the formation of the modern conceptualization and organization of sexuality, which ascribe a privileged status to their own sex and gender. The claim that the sociological classics are silent about sex and gender--that they "never examined the social formation of modern regimes and bodies and sexualities"S--is, of course, false. Georg Simmel, mentioned neither by the symposiasts nor by their preferred authors, wrote extensively, systematically, and throughout his career on the German women's movement of his time, the social production of alternative codes and conceptions of femininity, masculinity, and eroticism, and the theories of the constitution of sexual identity now called "essentialism" and "constructionism. ''9 The absolute conviction of the certainty and righteousness of their cause--a vision of ethically enlightened avant-gardists attacking a morally bankrupt orthodoxy--may also explain the curious disposition of queer theorists to celebrate one another, presumably without irony, for their "courage. ''1~ Queer theorists circulate among the most prestigious American institutions of higher learning, including Amherst, Cornell, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Princeton, Wesleyan, and Yale. Their research has been published by major journals and academic presses and supported by the American Council of Learned Societies, the Institute for Advanced Studies, and the Guggenheim Foundation. These triumphs of career management are likely to leave those not so impressively endowed with institutional charisma gasping for breath and rapt in wonder and envy. In spite of modest teaching
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assignments, challenging students, stimulating colleagues, and liberal financing of leaves of absence for travel and research, queer theorists underscore the "risks" they incur, an exercise in pseudo-gravitas that seems possible only on the basis of an extravagant ethical narcissism or colossal self-illusions. The philosophical hammer brandished by queer theory to deconstruct received sexual taxonomies is a radical interpretation of the doctrine of social constructionism. This interpretation maintains that social reality is not an ensemble of objects that exist independent of human intentions, purposes, and interests. The social world is understood as an artifact, constructed or constituted in discourses and practices that produce social categories and taxonomies. Because social categories are products of human agency, they are merely "inventions." Social categories are fabrications, none of which enjoys a privileged "authenticity" or validity. All are contingent, arbitrary, fluid and unstable, "permanently open, and contestable." Indeed, we are told that the destabilization of social categories entails not only their arbitrariness and flux, but their internal inconsistency as well. Because choices between social categories cannot be logically or empirically grounded, they should be understood as "pragmatic" issues, based on considerations of "situational advantage, political gain, and conceptual utility. ''n If "all cultures are historically contingent and invented," and if the social world and the categories that define it are permanently in flux, then the same must hold true for sexual categories and taxonomies. Therefore, the destabilization of social knowledge also results in "problematizing the heterosexual center" by placing in doubt both heterosexuality as a universal norm and the general validity of the heterosexual/homosexual dichotomy.12 Despite their compulsive reiteration of the fabrication, contingency, and instability of social categories, queer theorists insist on the singular conceptual status of sexuality and the supreme importance of sex as the master key to social identity. Even though "all cultures are constructed" and meanings are determined as a result of "fluid negotiations" of social categories, "sexuality and culture will continue to be central social issues." It follows that the category of sexuality will remain "in the foreground of social theory.''13 The ensuing analysis examines the following tenets of queer theory: the doctrine of radical constructionism; the conception of social indentity; the principle of transgression; and the queer conception of culture.
THE PARADOXES OF RADICAL CONSTRUCTIONISM Queer theory maintains that all social categories and conceptual schemes are social constructs, arbitrary fabrications that have no binding
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validity. Radical constructionism is, of course, a conceptual scheme as well, fabricated by social theorists who reject an empiricist and realist epistemology. But if radical constructionism is merely a social construct, it can make no claim to general validity. This means that there are no reasons for preferring radical constructionism to any other analysis of social reality, including all analyses with which it is inconsistent. Radical constructionism, the philosophical hammer of queer theory, is shattered in the very act of wielding it. The development of radical constructionism by queer theorists is intended to subvert the legitimacy of certain "hegemonic" categories and dic h o t o m i e s - s u c h as heterosexuality and the heterosexual/homosexual binary--by establishing that they are social constructs. However, queer theorists fail to appreciate the self-destructive power of their own argument. Radical constructionism, along with all other social constructs, is invalidated by this same logic. On this point, queer theory has no escape. The premises of radical constructionism entail that this doctrine is itself nothing but a social construct, from which it follows that its validity and the basis of queer theory collapse. Radical constructionism also generates an infinite regress. It entails that a given social category, such as heterosexuality, is socially constructed from certain practices and discourses. These practices and discourses are, in turn, socially constructed from other practices and discourses, which are themselves socially constructed. Heterosexuality, the practices and discourses on which it is based, and the further practices and discourses in which they are grounded are all revealed as arbitrary inventions by demonstrating that they are socially constructed. In principle, this chain of demonstrations is interminable. Either it produces an infinite regress that invalidates every category in the regression, or it terminates only by assigning a non-socially determined validity to some specially favored category--which becomes an epistemological unmoved mover. However, such an arbitrary decision would be inconsistent with radical constructionism, which cannot except itself from the fate of every other conceptual scheme. It is socially constructed from practices and discourses, which are also socially constructed from other practices and discourses that have the same status. The regression back to a generally valid practice or discourse that would provide a foundation for radical constructionism cannot succeed since, according to this doctrine, no such practice or discourse exists. Thus radical constructionism can escape this regress and claim its own validity--thereby differentiating itself from all other conceptual schemes and exempting itself from its own consequences--only by contradicting itself. The result is not a happy one. Radical social construetionism either generates an infinite regress that negates its claim to validity, or, in order to forestall this regress, commits a self-contradiction.
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Finally, radical constructionism reflexively controverts not only its own claim to validity, but its intelligibility as well. If all social categories are invalidated by demonstrating that they are socially constructed, then this also holds true for the categories essential to the constitution of society, such as the concepts of social action, social meaning, and social relations. If these concepts are invalidated, the concept of a society cannot even be articulated. In that case, radical constructionism, which is possible only on the basis of some concept of society, is unintelligible. As a result, the doctrine undermines its own coherence.
THE PARADOXES OF QUEER THEORY Queer theorists characterize the queer project in the objectivist language of epistemological realism, thereby securing queer theory against the subversive consequences of radical constructionism. On the one hand, queer theory exhibits a peculiar loathing for binary oppositions and seems to damn them all by subjecting them to the implacable logic of radical constructionism. On the other hand, it is evident that queer theory is possible only on the basis of the binaries queer/straight or queer/conventional. Without these or equivalent dichotomies, queer theory would have no redoubt from which to launch its attack against conventional wisdom, no position from which to criticize categories and transgress rules. Without some epistemically privileged distinction on the basis of which the concept of the queer can be formed, queer theory would be impossible. 14 Thus queer theory is compelled to protect the "universalization of queerness" and the presuppositions on which it rests--including the central theoretical status of the category of sexuality--from the conceptual devastation wrecked by radical constructionism. In short, queer theory exhibits a raging enthusiasm for characterizing all positions but one in the language of radical constructionism. That position is, of course, queer theory itself. To vary an epigram from Schopenhauer, radical constructionism is not a taxi from which ode can exist at will. The price that queer theory pays for exempting itself from radical constructionism is inconsistency. Because of this internal inconsistency, queer theory cannot provide a coherent account of itself. How can queer theorists avoid self-contradiction? Only by remaining true to their premises. Queer theorists must concede that the queer/straight binary and the concept of sexuality are merely social constructs. The same holds for all the theoretical premises of queer theory, the concepts that are employed to frame these premises, and the criteria for truth and validity on which both its premises and its concepts are based. If the constructionist
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logic of queer theory is followed consistently and applied to queer theory itself, then the queer project is exposed as nothing more than another arbitrary social invention. Logically, it has the same inconsequential theoretical status as the entire universe of positions that queer theorists reject. The result? Queer theory is either self-contradictory or reflexively self-defeating.
THE PARADOX OF IDENTITY In order to displace heterosexual identity from its hegemonic status in the modernist normative system of sexuality, queer theorists employ the weapon of radical constructionism and launch a general attack against the concept of social identity. Following the logic of radical constructionism, they argue that any identity is fabricated, arbitrary, unstable, and selfcontradictory. However, this putatively universal invalidation of the concept of identity also dismantles the identity of the queer and the queer theorist as well. A plausible case can be made for the view that queer theory, in its current programmatic and "pragmatic" stage, is principally a means of defining, legitimating, and promoting the identity of the queer theorist. This suggestion would explain the remarkable propensity for autobiographical digression and confessional footnotes in the otherwise dense theoretical writings of queer theorists. These personal addenda generally cover the themes "What I am and How I got that Way" or "What I believe and Why it's so Important. ''15 But if identity is merely an arbitrary construct, why should queer theory and its proponents be taken seriously? On the premises of queer theory, the queer theorist would appear to constitute a historically contingent species of economically privileged and leisured intellectual, peculiar to the late twentieth century and committed to the establishment of its own professional standing, security, and prestige. Because of the fluid and unstable character of identity, queer theorists will disappear when the historical conditions for their existence are no longer satisfied. The queer thesis of the self-contradiction of identities--intended as a means of nullifying the conventional sexual identities based on the heterosexual/homosexual dichotomy--entails even more ruinous consequences. On this view, no coherent concept of social identity is possible, because any such concept contradicts itself. This thesis destroys the identity of the queer and the concept of queerness on which the project of queer theory is based.
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THE PARADOX OF TRANSGRESSION The major critical intention of queer theory is transgression--a merciless war on all sociological categories. This principle also entails self-defeating consequences that nullify the program of queer theory. In attacking all sociological categories, queer theory heedlessly indicts itself as well. Like Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution, the queer theory of permanent theoretical rebellion destroys itself in an orgy of indiscriminate overkill. For example, queer theory rejects the assumption that sexuality is necessarily organized around the heterosexual/homosexual dichotomy. It even challenges the "regime" of sexuality. Both attacks are mounted on behalf of "universal queerness." But in queer theory, universal queerness has the status of a sociological category. Indeed, it is the axiomatic sociological category par excellence. Therefore, it also fails under the universal devastation visited upon sociology by the principle of transgression. Queer theory launches its critique of sociological categories in order to nullify the power of dominant sexual taxonomies. Because of the universal pretensions of this critique, it embraces queer theory as well. Thus if queer theory is taken seriously, its own principle of transgression by means of the destabilization of categories invalidates the theory itself. Indeed, if all social categories are in flux and have no claim to validity, the same holds for the categories employed to state the principle of transgression. Here again, queer theorists are reduced to a choice between repudiating their own premises or accepting their self-defeating consequences. Like the doctrine of radical skepticism, which purports to place all propositions in doubt, queer theory refutes itself and thereby fails to generate any critical consequences.
THE PARADOX OF QUEER CULTURE Queer theory represents culture as an invention. All cultural artifacts are historically specific and arbitrary products of human agency, none of which can sustain a claim to general validity. On the assumptions of this theory of culture, every premise of queer theory is condemned to the arbitrariness and cognitive irrelevance of a mere fabrication. Radical constructionism, the doctrine of "negotiated" social identity, and the principle of transgression are all cultural inventions, the effects of distinctive historical conditions that impinge upon the intentions of specific queer agents. As a result, their claims to validity have no more weight than the positions they reject.
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Because the queer theory of culture is itself an invention, it is invalidated by this same reasoning. If cultural artifacts are mere fabrications to which no validity can be ascribed, then the same holds for the queer theory of culture. Like the other premises of queer theory, the queer conception of culture is incoherent. It cannot be stated without refuting itself.
CAVEAT AND CONCLUSION Queer theorists cannot dispose of this critique with the complaint that it is articulated within a phallogocentric logic of domination, the product of a modernist heterosexual intellectuality that is incommensurable with the logic of queer theory. The foregoing arguments constitute an immanent critique, engaging queer theorists with the same weapons they have forged to do battle against the evil empire of heterosexual social science. Employing only premises that are drawn from queer theory itself, the above arguments attack queer theory by means of strategies that queer theorists place at the disposal of their critics. Queer theorists also make claims that they expect to be taken seriously, and they attempt to support these claims by means of arguments. This essay, borrowing the theoretical instrumentarium constructed by queer theorists, argues that they fail. Queer theory is undone because it violates a rule important enough for the sociocultural sciences to deserve a name. Let it be christened the rule of theoretical reflexivity and formulated as follows: Any theoretical principle in the sociocultural sciences that has the property of universality is reflexive in the sense that it must be true of itself. Such a principle must apply to itself; its referents or the objects it covers must include the principle itself. Such a principle must apply to itself; its referents or the objects it covers must include the principle itself. The basis of this rule lies in the consideration that any theoretical claim in the sociocultural sciences that has the property of unrestricted generality is self-referential. Because sociocultural theories are also sociocultural artifacts, a theory that makes claims of unrestricted generality has the property of self-reference: The objects covered by the theory include the theory itself. This is the sense in which the truth of such a theory depends upon its reflexivity. The rule of theoretical reflexivity identifies the source of the self-destructive consequences of queer theory. Because its premises cannot refer to themselves without generating paradoxes, they fai) the test of reflexivity. There is undoubtedly a case for "making theory queer." In principle, however, it is no more compelling than the case for making theory physically handicapped, undernourished, or depressed. The possible directions for social theory, while not infinite, are truly intimidating. As Max Weber
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observed: "The irrational reality of life and the content of its possible meanings are inexhaustible. ''16 What follows from this consideration? The conceptual frameworks within which the social world can be an object of observation and scientific explanation are impermanent. The presuppositions of the social sciences remain variable into the indefinite future, at least as long as an Oriental petrification of thought does not stultify the capacity to raise new questions about the inexhaustible nature of social life.17
Regardless of what sort of theory is made and irrespective of its extra-theoretical interests and its value for advancing political objectives, confirming a social identity, or promoting a career, the elementary lesson of this essay applies: The theoretician must possess a conceptual apparatus that does not collapse under the weight of its own inconsistencies.
NOTES 1.
2.
3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
Sociological Theory 12 (1994): pp. 166-248. Contributions are by Steven Seidman, "Symposium: Queer Theory/Sociology: A Dialogue," pp. 166-177; Arlene Stein and Ken Plummer, '"I Can't Even Think Straight': 'Queer' Theory and the Missing Sexual Revolution in Sociology," pp. 178-187; Steven Epstein, "A Queer Encounter: Sociology and the Study of Sexuality," pp. 188-202; Chrys Ingraham, "The Heterosexual Imaginary: Feminist Sociology and Theories of Gender," pp. 203-219; Ki Namaste, "The Politics of Inside/Out: Queer Theory, Poststructuralism, and a Sociological Approach to Sexuality," pp. 220-231; and Janice M. Irvine, "A Place in the Rainbow: Theorizing Lesbian and Gay Culture," pp. 232-248. Thanks to Burdett Gardner for comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Contributors to the Sociological Theory symposium seem to be especially indebted to the following: Judith Butler, Gender Trouble (New York:; Routledge, 1990); Teresa de Lauretis, "Queer Theory: Lesbian and Gay Sexualities," Differences 3 (1991), pp. iii-xviii; Alexander Dory, Making Things Perfec@ Queer (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993); Diana Fuss, ed., Inside/Out (New York: Routledge, 1991), especially her introduction "Inside/out," pp. 1-10; and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Episternolo~ of the Closet (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990). Lisa Duggen characterizes Sedgwick--liilariously but also with dead seriousness--as the "Judy Garland" of gay studies. See Lisa Duggen, "Making it Perfectly Queer," Socialist review 22 (1992), p. 24. Irvine, "A Place in the Rainbow: Theorizing Lesbian and Gay Culture," p. 243. Seidman, "Symposium: Queer Theory/Sociology: A Dialogue," p. 173. Stein and Plummer, '"I Can't Even Think Straight': 'Queer' Theory and the Missing Sexual Revolution in Sociology," p. 182. Namaste, "The Polities of Inside/Out: Queer Theory, Poststructuralism, and a Sociological Approach to Sexuality," p. 230. Seidman, "Symposium: Queer Theory/Sociology: A Dialogue," p. 174. Seidman, "Symposium: Queer Theory/Sociology: A Dialogue," p. 167. See the following essays by Simmel: "Die Verwandtehe, pp. 9-36 in Heinz-Jiirgen Dahme and David P. Frisby, eds., Georg SimmeL"Auf~dtze und Abhandlungen, 1894 his 1900. Georg Simmel Gesamtausgabe, Volume 5 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1992) [1894]; "Der Militarismus und die Stellung der Frauen," pp. 37-51 in Geotg SimmeL"Aufsi~tze und Abhandlungen, 1894 bis 1900 [1894]; "Der Frauenkongress und die Sozialdemokratie, D/e Zukunft 17 (1896), pp. 80-84; "Die Rolle des Geldes in den Beziehungen der Geschlecliter. Fragment aus einer 'Philosophic des Geldes'," pp. 246-265 in Georg Simmel: Aufsiitze und
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10. 11.
12. 13. 14. 15.
16. 17.
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Abhandlungen, 1894 bis 1900 [1898]; "Philosophie der Oeschlechter. Fragmente," pp. 74-81 in Alessandro Cavalli and Volkhard Kxech, eds., Georg Simmel: Aufsi~tze und Abhandlungen, 1901-1908. Georg Simmel Gesamtausgabe, Volume 8 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1993) [1906]; "Die Frau und Die Mode," pp. 344-347 in Georg SimmeL" Au.fsdtze und Abhandlungen, 1901-1908 [1908]; " D a s R e l a t i v e u n d das A b s o l u t e im Geschlechterproblem," pp. 67-100 in Philosophische Kultur (Leipzig: Klinkhardt, 1911); "Die Koketterie," pp. 101-123 in Philosophische Kultur; "Weibliche Kultur," pp. 278-319 in Philosophische Kultur; "Uber die Liebe (Fragment)," pp. 47-123 in Fragmente und Aufsdtze aus dem Nachlass und VerOffentlichungen der letzten Jahre (Munich: Drei Masken, 1923); "Der platonische und der moderne Eros," pp. 125-145 in Fragraente und Aufsiitze aas dem Nachlass und Ver6ffentlichungen der letzten Yahre. Some of this material has been available in English for ten years. See Georg Simmel, On Women Sexuality, and Love, translated with an introduction by Guy Oakes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984). See Seidman, "Symposium: Queer Theory/Sociology: A Dialogue," p. 174; Ingraham, "The Heterosexual Imaginary: Feminist Sociology and Theories of Gender, p. 203; and Sedgwick, Epistemolo~ of the CIose~ pp. ix-x. See Seidman, "Symposium: Queer Theory/Socinlogy: A Dialogue," p. 173; Irvine, "A Place in the Rainbow: Theorizing Lesbian and Gay Culture, pp. 241, 243. On the role of social constructionism in queer theory, see David Greenberg, The Construction of Homosexuality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988); David Halperin, One Hundred Years of Homosexuality (New York: Routledge, 1990); and Celia Kitzinger, Social Construction of Lesbianism (London: Sage, 1987). Steven Epstein, one of the Sociological Theory symposiasts, maintains elsewhere that: "To the extent that there is a coherent theoretical perspective on homosexuality as homosexuality, it is constructionism." See his "Gay Politics, Ethnic Identity: The Limits of Social Constructionism," Socialist review 17 (1987), p. 13n. On the radicalization of the constructionist conception of social reality, see Melvin Pollner, "The Reflexivity of Constructionism and the Construction of Reflexivity," pp. 69-82 in Gale Miller and James A. Holstein, eds, Constructionist Controversies: Issues in Social Problem Theory (New York: Aldine De Gruyter, 1993). See Stein and Plummer, '"I Can't Even Think Straight': 'Queer' Theory and the Missing Sexual Revolution in Sociology," p. 185, and Irvine, "A Place in the Rainbow: Theorizing Lesbian and Gay Culture," p. 241. Irvine, "A Place in the Rainbow: Theorizing Lesbian and Gay Culture," p. 245. On this point, see Doty, Making Things Perfectky Queer, pp. xv-~dx. See, for example, Stein and Plummer, '"I Can't Even Think Straight': 'Queer' Theory and the Missing Sexual Revolution in Sociology," p. 179 n. 2; Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closer pp. 54-63; and Steven Seidman, "Identity and Politics in a 'Postmodern' Gay Culture: Some Historical and Conceptual Notes," pp. 105-142 in Michael Warner, ed., Fear of a Queer Planet: Queer Politics and Social Theory (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993). Seidman confesses his commitment to "a postmodern perspective," "pragmatic, justificatory strategies that underscore the practical and rhetorical character of social discourse," and "genealogies, historical deconstructionist analyses, and local social narratives," without pausing for breath to explain the import of these various positions or to consider whether they are individually or collectively consistent. See p. 142n. 58. If the point of Seidman's confession is to produce a ritualistic incantation of cliches, recognizable by members of a sect as staking out an identity, then questions of coherence and consistency indispensable to the statement of an intellectually defensible position are, of course, irrelevant. Max Weber, '"Objectivity' in Social Science and Social Policy," p. 111 in Max Weber, The Methodology of the Social Sciences, translated and edited by Edward A. Shils and Henry A. Finch (New York: The Free Press, 1949). I have altered the translation. Max Weber, '"Objectivity' in Social Science and Social Policy," p. 84. I have altered the translation.
