t"'.

,z
THE REIFICATION
OF DESIRE
Tiward a
Qacer
Mdmisrn
KBVIN FLOYD
UNIVERSITY O8 MINNBSOTA PRESS
MINNEAPOLIS o LONDON
introdaction
ON CAPITAL, SEXUALITY, AND THE
SITUATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE
One evening in December 1996,
Judith
Buder delivered a plenary pre-
sentation that would eppear te following year as en essay called
*Merely
Cultural."r In this essa Buder posits a certain conservative Man<ist rein-
forcement of schisms within the Left: a representation of 'new social
movements" as 'merely" cultual, a reactionary dismissal of these move-
ments as insufficiendy engaged with questions of material production.
The plenary itself quickly took on a certain notoriety, for understandable
reasons: it was delivered at a conference in Amherst, Massachusetts, spon-
sored by the journal Rethining Mamism-to ar audience, that is, about
which we cn reasonably assume some significantlevel of interest in Man<-
ism, and some other significant level of allegiance to it The highly charged
chaacter of the presentation was certainly in part a product of the skeptical
response of many Mancist intellectuals to efforts to "rethinli' the tradition
to which .h.y * committed, a skepticism vocalizcdeven-or especidly-
at the conferences Rcthinhing Mamism periodtcally sponsors. Although I
attended the conference, I missed Buder's presentation. Others who were
there ae likely to remembe the snowstorm that hit western Massachu-
se$s thet evening. I was not the only one who found it impossible to avoid
missing the plenaq, after dinner in Northampton and given the time it
would alre to neflotiate the roads leading back to Amherst. Secondhand
accornts of Buder's presentation and the audiencet response did not keep
me, in the following weeks and montlx, om wondering now and then
what kind of storm I would have orperienced in that room, and how it
would have compared to the one outside.
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
Budert critique, like her work generall proceeds om an explicidy
antiheteronormative point ofview, and her conuoversid presentetion and
subsequendy published essay marked a schism between Man<ism and
queer theory. Even her essay's unusual condidons of publication seemed
to perform the assumption that these nvo fields of inqu were of inter-
est to distinct, even polarized audiences: after appearing initially in the
second in a series ofspecial issues of .Socz, lTctdevoted to the current state
cfqueer studies, the essay appeared the following year in Neut Lfi Rnieut2
,
In t}.e early to mid-nineties especiall a schism beveen Mamism ard
I
queer tleory w impossible not to notice if you were reading in both
interventions in social th*ry a shift that could even be said to mak rhe
emergence of queer theory proper. This shift was announced by a number
of influential publications that appeared in the early nineties, notably Eve
Sedgwickt Episttmolog ofthe Chset which combined litera4 analysis with
fu from exdusive literary claims, indeed with a genuinely paradigm-
shifting andysis of the most basic suuctuing of\estern knowledge itself
by the hetero/homo divide; Buder's Gendr T|oubh and, Bodies That Mt-
tex tro texts that should have made it impossible any longer to accounr
for gender witlout also accounting for the normalization oFhet.rorer,u"I-
ity; and a collecdon of essays orplicidy identifying itselfas a queer interven-
tion in social theory, appearing inidally as the fist special issue of social
Txt de,tod to queer studies and soon thereafter as the volume Fear of
a
Queer
Plnet A number of different contributors to this collection dis-
cussed the ways in which cenain blindnesses to sexuality and its politics
chaacterize Mamism in particular.3
It is dl t}re more striking, then, that in the last decade or so, a trend has
tendency to elide questions of sexuality, was cenual to and even constitu-
tive of what we might call queer theory's early stage. This field has since
I
as its focus, for example, has been ei I
'
'
the restriction, in that same time and
sean lesbian arrd geY
olitical"
im
relation to at least two
Potentially
co
queer social life of contemPorarY
"Uru"g
sense of Marxism's blind
ts conte)c' this book revisits cerain
r Man<ism or formative for queer
onical, bringing those arguments
which theY can be read in relation
e chaPters
of histori-
callyandnationallyspecificconjunctuestot}reorizetheseconjuncnrresin
their terms, but also, and more -po't"tttl to thinktluough
theecplana-
..|*p""irio
",
*.tt
",
the limitions of these sme terms' Thislbook
urrLot rd" Mancism and queer theory as f
edddness, as well as their situations
I
the way in which they are defined in
I
relation to what theY o<clude'
This book's basic methodological
orientation
is dawn from Manrism'
TNTRODUCT\ON
But far from representing just another efforr, ar rhis late date, ro trump a
queer form of critique with a Marxian one, rhe implications of bringing
Man<ism and queer tleory together in such a fashion rurn our to be rather
easy reiteration of a pejorative buzzvvord, queer skepticism about Marxian
efforts to think totality has also been more than justited in dre face of
a persistent Marxian tendency to deprioritize questions of sexualiry when
those questions lvere acknowledged at all, to subordinate these questions
to other, more "total" concernts'to represent soruality, in other words,
not only as "mere cultual"
@.t
I don't think it is too
theory generdly, and in Manrism especiall cenually conditioned queer
thought as it emerged in the early nineties.
The critique of what was eventually called heteronormativity emerged
ucuon to can now be.
INTRODUCTION
is to indicte some of the ways in which this very move requires a fun-
da.mental rethinking of rhat perspecrive iaelf. To e<amine queer critical
(
\
r^
ir.
i-
cations of this rethinking.
TOTALITY
I want to begin moving towad a more detailed elaboration of this book's
objectives by revisiting some potentially familiar ground and by suggesr-
ing some of the ways in which this ground may nor be so familia after
.
dl. Perhaps the most basic way of understanding the impasse berween
" lfan<ism
and queer theory that persisted dro"gh the nineties, and ro a
foro .*t nt still does, is in terms of Mamismtraditional emphasis on
way rn
brought to bear, cenain Mandarr terms retain qn explanatory power, but
categofles
lon.
ux-
lenge, the assertion that "an understanding of vimrally any esPect of mod-
ern'W'estern culne must be, not merely incomplete, but damaged in its
central substarce to the degree t}rat it does not incorporate a criticalanal
sis of modern homo/heterosexual definition."8 Developing some of the
implications of Sedgwick's argument,'Waner's introduction announced
that queer critique was "* point of having to force a thorough revision
within social-theoretical traditions.'\aner insisted drat the normaliza-
tion of heterosexualiry is "deeply embedded" not only in "an indescribably
wide range of social institutions" but also in "the most standad accounts
of the world."e These accounts included not only dominant ideologies
about democracy, nationalism, and t}re so-called maket but dso a renge
of critical knowledges t}rat fall under the heading of social *ry knowl-o'
---
Io thrs representauo i
blindnesses, it is imporant to offer an initial resPonse, now om a Man<ian'
,
l

t'-
.41
L
1-
thinking a toliry of soc rf
.
I
ism, in the domailof queer ihought and elsewhere, have long been artic-
to keep
lhis
from happening. In explicidy approaching the insights
of queer critical pritice f*roi"t penpectin
,
-y
".rrl"l
objective
practice from the vanrage of Man<ian critical practice will in this way also
nean doing the reverse, simultaneously and inseparably. It will mean con- seen to have anticipated many of the fieldt subsequent developments'
Michael'$?'aner pointed out not only that "materialist thinking about
ulated with reference
reference to "totalizati
!
TNTRODUCTION
is a rrously negatiue practi..,
"
pr".. opposed .o .t. t irr of
way of understarding
t and Marxir* *ort
shae in
TNTRODUCTION
work has indeed avoided anything that srnacks of totality
eKemrnauon
culrurd'? How else to .understend the implications of a tide like Fear of a
v
v
positive imposition ofrotality ofwhich Mancism h"rrrg u..r
".*J- an imposition referring,
, not ro thinking ar
fl
but to the objective,
that is capital itself.
Preemptive rejections of
-
critical practice have too ly ta ,o
,., .T*...T""u:..r.
uus generel way ot Undrsta[ding Mancian effoms to
tfunk rordiry will soon be necessary here, but I want fisr to suggest that
"
rthis very practice of totaliry thinking provides,
"..h.
,Jl ;;. way of
rndersarding a cemein .nn,onoonnolLn ,^^
|
"
,
-Arrt
rnnrr?r.no}.aa,,oon r\/^_-:an
and queer accounts
|
"
,
r :ilIo. queer accounts
.
l:t Tt
have dready begun to
Armply,
knowledg is_one of
horizons of social realiry, has given rise here again to parricularization's
dialecticl opposite. .A V{rrq"t it in what would become one of
c:m
as
rll queer have aspi an analysis
INTRODUCTION
ing es totalitiiitsintntioh
3
aspiration that
t
INTRODUCTION
refusal
Its ongoing development aPPea$ here to
to totality, an
DueJw
theoretical
from
| rvtf ,
-_t
'r\--
,0'
ies, in 1997 and in 2oo5, arerevealing here. They anicul"t
,*t
L suongly
as
t?'aner's
ealier introduction this constitutive queer ,.firr"l of the ana-
lpic isolation of sexuality from a broad ,ange of ,ocial and historical hori-
f
zons. These texa introduce the new work their respective volumes collect,
that constitutes their ground, by emphasizing the
which sexuality is understood to be, ,s th. irrtro_
e put it,
ointersectional,
not enrareous to other
ey underscore the indispensability of a dynamic
critical movement
*acro&s,
between, among vaious ,o.ii dom"in.
"rrd political experiences," which is simultaieo*ty
"r,
e*ercise in
.traversing
and creative transforming conceptual boundaries," a movemen t the
ry97
isue called'trarso<ion."l5
These discussions perform a critique of onto-
logical and epistemological
lispersar
and segregatiorr, .-phr"iring inter-
sections benveen instances ofsocid hierarchythat, while operating ii q""l-
itatively different va)s, ae also constitutive of each
"trr.
oo stud.ies
studies been joined
with an i-to--Eii
two more recent intro-
fo
wirin queer studies of simultaneous )
on' even as this interaction between
constandy raises the question
'other." These more recent develop-
be understood not in terms of a
persistent rejection of generalizing impulses but in terms of a critique im-
(i,'*.rr..o
i, generalizing impulse it elf, a critical dynamic in which ana-
rrrtic intersectiott ard
differentiation, at the level of the teld and sometimes
J'
che level of specic interventions in the field, tend to operate in tandem.
I would propor., then, an initial reading of the relf3n between
Yen'-
ian and qo", ior-, of critical knowledge in terms of simultaneous diver-
gence and convergence'
I
- -f -::^-^-^l^-:
critique of epistemologi*
I underscore
us v/alzs in which
'
Mamism * q,r.., th*ry diverge but because this very commonality-l')
will ultimately make it possible to see this divergence in a different light'
'what
are some of the ways in which the limitations of Marxian categories
ae thrown into relief by competing efforts to think totaliry? what might
Man<ian versions of totality thinking look like if they really did incorpo-
oi rt. cmplex heteronormative
dimensions of
aspire to
-"pl 'Ulh".
if they tried to acco-unt for
in q,r.., ttt*ry rather than, sa alwars framing
i.iy tr.oiatt terms' assuming that capital medi-
consistent, predictable wa1n, in terms of tradi-
f privatization and commodication,
for o<ample?
Though Ma:r's work explicitly critiques a totdity of capitalist socid re-
lations, "org Lukcst Hi;tury and CIss ContciousnessPilW*a9

-
making the epiffil$cal
categorY
io Marxian
lntenuon or
condnues in rhis resecr to be informed bv a
l. l,r'
separered, finall om a specific his_
I
rude of the totality,,, he writes, "does
]
..d into the *o.r.o *-"q.*
"f I should be n acnirrti^- r^,,,--l
-^-^l
tlltt
I want ro propose not just
that
..lhe
dwelopmenr
of queer for-. of .
r' -cnded to ake the form of this kind of
INTRODUCTION
asPrratron
. rnougn an examrnaron
TEEffilin
which Luldcs th-
INTRODUCTION
that bot}r frffi
ciallY situated history
ispecific
rsocial
phenom-
enolory," a distincdve "group o<periencd':
owing to ia suucrural situation in the social order andto the specific forms
of oppression and exploiation unique to rat situation, each group lives te
world in a phenomenologically specic way that allows it b see' or beer
still, that makes it unavoidable for that group to see and to know,'fearures
of the world that remain obscue, invisible, or merely occasional
^oa ""ol/
ondary for other grouPs.le
aon.hao"r.tistic of
wayof think-
differentiated'

f,/.,
I
l
t\
lr
t
L
ing) defense of Lukcs.
Jameson has
rre1ce,
g"l ft operates according.to
;lj:'Tlifr:,#;iHff
asliration wi-ll be imponant in the fonowing secrion, for the moment I
want to emphasize that the rm asiratior'rd.rr.oro
d'e eniste-^r^-i-
social movemen$,"
but the way il. whi.h he und.erstands
Marxism in
relation to these movemenrs is radicalry different from the
"-*rri.r,
lr"9: ::1,":d. Td'
it.
Jameson Lmphasir.s *p..idfy .r*i"".,
or History and class conscioustzessto
facilite
" ".*i";;;;;;i_
t
i
.
-
r. .r ! t:
-
:^^^lf
^-^--^^
T-
fr"-o differences internal to a soci'!'
a /lRr4n
tell-
der-
sandine Manrian and queer asP
and
of the distinc forms of critical
I
INTRODUCTION
a
Posron
operating at some ineviable level of analic abstrecrion,
"
. .il;;
first vol-
a range o
very distinction between these perspectives uhimate leads that fis6rlssion
INTRODUCTION
13
Xl
rt
takes the form ofa clea
'
ucdon over that
iiffiitizal\7hat
we might call Capil's narrative temPoralrty cons'ts
r
ital's internal differentiation only becomes *o* to*PL * it d*fi
,--'
new Der-
t
fficourseoi". '.,.,.{i
histrical developments.
Marism
I ,.
\-
competing intellectual lineages, undeniabl
between Maxian and Foucauldian modes
ever much some of us rvant to insist, as
and Foucault's respective bodies of work
is sometimes suggested), these intellecnral
this polarizati"il*hi"h
needs instead to be understood in terms ofbroader
Itu
'of
it priofltrzes. What \ile mrgnt cau wa'ltb
'.r4lrv!
r.rvqr.
'-"-** t
offt-r..*ring arriculation and subsequent displacement of whatvlam
repeatedly ."llJ"o*
Present
sundpoinf Any pretensiott t:,". birj's-ere
view is ,.rr..Ld h.r" to be the effect of a failure to account, witlin the very
effort to tlink totality, for the speci-tc social location of t}at same effort.
But Ma:<'s rigorous emphasis on capital's internal differentiation brings-
v
us also to the historical implications of
.*.sott's
rereading of Lukcs. If ,
the very orclusions that mak from the girrrring the rimits of drar effon.
This book's own version.ofthis
aspiration[
h;dly U.
"r,
oofrior,, ,
example,-prioritizing
as it does an analysis of the *p*i.i*
-'ti-i,"
or
. nro specific forms of critical knowledg.
:::l*.*d
from within i1 The tort gradually
*' o, r-.*flfroro
1.^:l:::.:1._"*"$ryexchange,wh;,.*ptJ;;;;;::r.
)
ae limited simp. by virnre of being socialry situated * ..o*irr"*. 'r'ith
reference to Sarre,
Jameson hasrsewh*.
arri"g"iri.
u.*..r, *o
differentversions
ofthe effort to think totaliry, orr..r, ".*..-o
r..-,
necessary symprom: any given insance of this properly critical,
will
ial, Mar:r suggests'. can be accounted for
rmDues let nev
ial's
ofproduction,
where it appears another way. ;.r:i;;;;.hrl
,^.
of new
, omwithin
14
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
social consolidation
ofan opposition
betweerr two distbqcrasses-in
con-
::i'^:lllti1stasesi.,...pi.ai"t@d..io,,
i*:*:r::t_.?-"oiri
ovetapf . *l,
""."."ir"0.,"i;;
piiliut
to tu.rn into a socid norm rullIl
from the early twentieth.*.,.ry.
Th. ongoing requirements
ofsocual nor-
nativirycompel
this newfot-
"ri*.inL.i""
*
"-*",
or---iii"i
@tqt'
From the l"r. rrirr"
tury, es ; as historians have long
kind of critical
larger numbers ofpeople from rural
aeas into urban ones, a displacemen.
t". op..,, ,rp .i. ielative
new
possibi
that
l
large ponio., of the nation's population
can survive eco-
nomically
outside the family unit, a
unir sra d\, becoming
much more
c:ntTal to consumption
than to prodG;
,TIL
The increasingly
varied
entiation ae, within the confines of the united states, botl as totl and
as uneven * ,h. ftr.gi*io,
of opiolfrolql"bo..
H..;ffi
is a location that some unpredict-
or partiall permanendy or tempo-
rarily or interminendy inhabit, or through which they will
Pess,
a location
mediated by'entrancs' and "exits," as luen Berlant and Michael'W'aner
have put it.to If to speak of a queet vantge or aspiration is once again to
risk the absuactions imposed by the term 'queer," to risk eliding dre ways
in which socuality is constitutive interfered with by odier axes of social
'
lence, and then begins gradually to be redirected in the service of a critique
of the se:<ual normativity that legitimates such haued and violence, it to
dlfferentiation co
next secuon,
's differentiation of the
4

v
a

I
I
I
t
I
. rvtE
":::"rubcultures
in the United
-states
articulated
a hugely varied
::::l,T*
foms of minority sexual id.,'tity:d;;ii,O*_
g
lan
implies some relatively stable set of identitaian or communita-
::3::nditioned
by broader social foms
"f
;i*,i,i".;"r;]1,
*, tpiffif collective, pqfqcalgperience rhat develops from withirr;s
:
-----:--t-- --
-ffi*:^^'-i-h-
rraa rrnraaa h
i:::*::"*,*oJ:b':1dyj:cialdif
reentiati""b;;;;;;;;
irrcre"rirrgly.om@on.
The queer ventge to
size hee is not
which I am referring s
Mediating the relatio
\
d
of lesbian, ga antihomophobic and queer struggle, which emerge from
within certain "experiences of constraint." This is a history of struggles
that take a range of relatively radical or liberal forms, om early lesbian
, awey
ci
a.'
I
f
\'
(
dr
r
-
o'r
!\
context, tor e)m
of su
this extent
\ilay m whrch tne term
distinction. A new form
tFform of difierentiation
term
on
ties refr in dre present conretc ro
to social-not individual-sub_
binaized, oppositional
social locations,
T6
*1*:::: ff:y:.
'::",
t1 the m3re conservadve
homophile
Tl]l1jji,lj,1.-lf-;bsayliberationandACr*,;_,*il,i;
;*:T1^:T*
m;
i,yr," ;;i;;
,
::,ili
knowledge
has as its
INTRODUCTION
which
and is
lt
t
,
\
ing forms of critical knowledge
proa"oirr,
tur/ or comPet-
pulsoryhererosexuarin
*h^r.
^^^-^-
L-
-
"*P:'i^"gcritiques
of com-
pulsory heterosexualiw.
whi" ;.-::;":'rv7
Lrruques
o com-
k^.r,
-_^_^^
_
,;,
:hl.l nnot
be s.p"r"t d,o,,, prj;;,
which
both
from and feed back into
ice.
And the quer critique
is agin ielf as dynamic as
1,:]:,::11
these limitio.,,
*. dJ.-,;;Jffi;#
id
ff i
;T::j:::: ?l*:v.",:p
out into il;d*;;;"
r.o
ffi :,
",:_::::j_1
:reai;tab{.
va'abte
dimens",
li,"J",u.y.
e
::f#: :::*'1-_-,y
* ,"', .r *riJ;;,#i
{uccr
T::.:^.::j:]^:?
s'"'p,.
.i1f:.
th1 are cond itioned,
faciliated,
of Man<ist theory-to
the blind
thet
ic. How,
then, might o'. .h.r@
H _tl".i nd
timis,"
l
Jameson p"" ii,-J".;;;"_
:;
this influential
form of Mamisr thouihtl
REIFICATION
:ffi:j:li:1y$:ll, ",.r,
identined
with thework
not on
'l
.o'
il/
I
:llf ::l,J'-:.;r*a,"1rp,.L"...,i.-;.,,;.:frH
--T---
V
rNTRoDUcrroN
17
bound toqethr. In its effort to mediate these competing critical aspira-
+
tior*t to totliry, this book insists on the importance of a critical movement
rrffifft-afst thought, to lend itself nonetheless to higttly absuact
employments, to conflict with some of Manrism's key methodological prior-
ities--social and historical specificity, for orampl+is relative familiar-
If Marxist intellectuals have repeatedly examined the category of totaliry,
of critical knowledge under consi-
ion of capialist
social relations;.it
No mere
as
tions between
static, autonomous things, things that appear to be independent of people.
Y. thir wa social differentiation is the contradictory odrer side of formal
,
""
ttc binding
\
L
r'
"r
J
\
)
V
r..\^t
-1,
-6t
l
J
;
I
4(^
It
chapter of capital.wherewefind the famous theoryof commodityfetish-
'(
..' *r-'
7
"
cr
".count
of mediation, of capital's simul-
[q"..*"di;g rf r]riffiIri. will require a critique of t]re concept
-- l--- o
of ,.icetion. The capacity of this rffito
so
INTRODUCTION
$
INTRODUCTTON
19
it, a skepticism fueled precisely by this capacity for seemingly endless
abstraction, by the way in which the concept, according to some accoun6,
*
proximates
everhing to a single nerretive,o as Bewes puts it. eres
\,
1
'bbSolescence' in light of its absuaction in general and its metaphysical
generalization in particular, remarking, for instance, that the concePt
could be used, given the narative of decline it so often
PresuPPoses'
to
refer to the fall from grace, from organic wholeness, elaborated in the
Eden myth. Then, wirin e pe, Bewes also suggests that reicationt ref-
erence to t}re objective, material isolation of broad processes-the "thing-
importance.
How could such a tem contlibute to andlnis that clls itself historical
and materialist if its capacity for metaphnical andysis is so elastic t-hat
thorough
ous forms
of orplanation unfolds, as it tuns out, in a volume that fonhdghdy en-
dorses this tendency. In the face of the term's potential obsolescence, as he
sees it, for precisely this reason, Bewes's response is to advocate the termt
religious o<pansion. contending thar the relation between Lukcs's Man<-
ist work and his earlier, o<plicidy metaphysical work is best understood in
"Rather than discd the concept ofreification on the grounds ofis covert
religiosity," Bewes endorses a religious transcendence of mere historical
periodization, seeking to "discad th prohibition on 'religiosity' within
critical thinking-or rather, med.iatethe opposition beveen seculaism
and religion," and in this way "to rehabilitate the concept of reification." It
is not simpl for Bewes, tht the concept is implicidy religious or idealistic;
\
'i,r'
r
|,
,r
,[
''
kr
I
"r\
.:
INTRODUCTION
}
,
/
ffi4ff:r
h""ffi,
urtimate
,ots-'ig:k::-rtso:u
My,ethinkiru
-^:^ r- .r
r
'
f *ir. .lr* i,
:cise the opposite
direction.
,
,itations,
tlu ]T

.rffigT.oii:
:o
tr:*:trkT
_.
,
d .socioll" o^-i4^
^-^---:
0-
I 't
xi
tr
I
'
?Iic
,{
I
:rtr

a queer aspiration
i toali
^
i^^ P-.lllf-^-::::--:r :
$
S
t
'X
")\
.t
\
I u
*r
rt*oanalic
demonsrrarion
of the sexuar dimensions
of ovenly non-
( " sexual conscious
o<perience
is possible
onry when the sexual tisposid.
or
INTRODUCTION 2t
Y
^.1
appuetus has by a process of isolation, autonomization, specialization, de-
function.
Recall the familia opening words of this textt preface: "Alwayn histori-
cznl.'3r \7'hat kind of historicizing practice does the concePt of reification
enable
Jameson
to perform here?
\hat
kind of future and what kind of
past does this way of historicizing sexual presuppose? \e could nd
this reiction
lnsrsB
()n
seParats
m rts from what
Jameson
calls its
historically specific content, and in this way sus the
of this
historical im-
N
\\,

\fr
/.
o-f se"ruality?
@]4
tf

p;'r m;", "

f priorsocidintegtatiojr--dog--itf"t*"I"t"
, was se:ruality ever as integrated into social life
n
"r-tittg
(leaving aside the question of the socid and historical integration
ofreification this passage presup-
poses, about what some of the historical consequences of dris reication
of sex'eliw mieht be. In at least one important sense, The Politica.l Uncon-
sbzs employs the concept of reification itt
"
@
than
relation to the of Freud that was
Foucault's-a
Fcotrtt t? One of the lessons of Foucault and queer
like
lt
new$ays rn
INTRODUCTION
f

2t-3jt
compels
1p1i"". .-ntemplative"
subjectivityeven
""
i.pr*iao
tK
the r-. .-. fo, th. objective
e"..".iii";:;r. ,.,. ,
reeJoductior-r
of reality with the acnal sucrure of reality itseL,,r
Luldcs insists on
correcdon ofconc
conceptud change
d
r*?*
Erng or rhe objecrlve to which Hisry and clss consciousness responds,
{/|remo99nt,
y ed ''1r"
*'rL' r.uLuuafery e.. ra.uo.uy abs*a.trng the objective. Lukcs
on theon_e hand proposes that Maxism is, fust L roort, a criticar ti.,
-"
i'-
v! rqu prupuqr ura. rvllfxlsm rs, lrst and toremost, a critical
'-
method. Hisnry and ctss consciousnessis
one of the rwentieth centuryt
most influential defenses ofdiarecticar method, a text that fa-oudf open,
with the claim rhat Manciar 'brthodory"
refers "excluri"J,;.";;il;"
r.
v_.
But sim
and i
reali
Lukcs akes issue with the
from
rnsrnuates
in this
INTRODUCTION
of Heeel insis-and as
tltthe
subject is the more
crucid moment for Lukcs
b.o*. he wants to underscore the
importance of class consciousness,
s con
of reification cr in
become
quantitatively morc lntenseS!
U
^ F
,l-
.:\
,,'
01
.
- -_o
i
e folded back into the subjec-t-
I
'
ffif. *.,, s"y fold back prematu':tv-?*1:bi:11:.*:1"::::
-
*-
.f ,L"i subject
"t
.d.q,r.t ly registered' And in this respect' Jameson's
defense of Hisnry and Clasi Conscioustess
as an unnished project, his
conrention that it provides a way to accotnt for the internal differentia-
,i." .i*pi.fist social relations into a range of irreducibly distinct ways
of .rrcoorrt"ring
and understanding
those relations; is a reading ttrat is as
generors as it is suggestive
more drorough
-.itin,,a
f the text than he
to be rethought
tions of it on
analysis of the rettred obrect $
4'
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
-.J-{b!'lL'
,h:dev:Ll
fers to an abstract form ofsub-
more
@s
that posit a narative of decline even
more rnwaveringl perhaps, ran the narative ofreification rve encounter
in Lulccs, his work also faciliates an understanding of tIre way in which
the social differentiation this
g as well as a closing of hori-
\
I
"oncPt-by
no means onlY
Lulccs'rtend to recapinrlate this prioritizing of subject over object, rep-
resenting t
g!|"*
tendency is
regimes of socual knowledge have complex social effects' Re$g$ tftit
,Jn.o seems ro have a raicllJ unfreezing social i^p"i66E
may not
a new
to move away
we might begin to eremlne
than takine its
to totauty
revisions of the concept
INTRODUCTION
)
\
v
{
J
I
(
U
FROM THE ABSTR.A.CT
TO THE CONCRETE
I began this discussion
by
lShLSh{"g
a cerain convergence
beween
Marian and queer forms of criti."l k rd.dg.,
a convergence
that itserf
forms of critique diverge. I want now to suggest the way in which this
emphasis on
{
iaelf beei to lead us back in the other direction,
the way it can us to e different
ins of how these
to specify
INTRODUCTION
27
led inevitabl as I suggested, toward an examination of reifiction' an ex-
amination .ir". .'d.rr-red instead the way in which these respective
This book will maintarn
this fashion is also to
pri-i.* *i:4" Ud *.3
racce.
turns
mentally on the practice of
requires. His work performs this method, but he rarely steps back to olrer
iG-n.d .labor"tins of it, more often articulating it in relative brief
comments scacered tluoughout his corpus' One of these lere excePdons'
a notoriously elliptical one,-is found in the secion ofhis inuoducdon to the
Granrissccellei,'Th.
Metod of Potitical Fronomy." Here he frames his
The population is an absuaction if I leave out, for er<ample' the classes of
*t i"i ii is composed. These classes in tun are an emPty phrase if I am not
ague, ln
egory
*poPultion,"
tor
refen. This concePt, he
gues, leads necessarily to a series of 'more simple @ncepts"'-"thinner
absuactions" tlat internally diferentiate this total by identifying its
multiple determinations:
I
I
INTRODUCTION
familiar
wirh the
These lamer in ru
rest. E'g. w^age labor, capial, erc.
division oflabor, prices, erc. For
a^
example'
capiel
ut urase lahnr *,i.r,^,, ., r.-^
^ nai"" pr^'I'L,,^
.,^
i*,..t"'
Thus, ,^
'
J
cheouc concepcion
o
t'l
1i:':i-1:-*
the imagined
concrere rowads ever rhinner absnacdors
undl I had arrived
at the simplesr
determinations.
From drere the jo*n.y
wourd have ro be
I
\
I
the population
again, bur dris dme nor
| ",
but as a rich toaliry of many derer_
In this conceprual
movemenr
from an abstract
'nity
to an internary
di ,ferentiated
one, rhe
.,imagined
*".r.;Ji;elf
first ofall, turns out to be
an absraction:
a chaotic abstraction,
one that requires
specification.
Marx
delineares
a double movemen
firsr, a movemenr
through a series of these
increasingly
simpler
absuacdons,
concep
.rr", ia.",if,"-i"*
L*r*i
I
I
simulaneousditro.,,ti"ti;*:ffi
:'::x3x#:*,*:
ations ro which they refer_by
establishing,
for *._pfJ.
r;;
Orr_ cess of capital of which social. class,_wage
lor, ,rd rriu. *. all defining
momen. 'hlong
the fi''t path the full orr..ptio'was
waporated
to yreld
an abstract determinatiorr,
.lorrg th. ,.-rr, the abstract deteminations
lead,towads
a reproductio'
of
jr.
.orr.r...
by *"y.il;!h;.;:
Theoretical
abstractions,
in this
".-*a
can be moe or less chaotic"
more or less concrete.
In dre rwo movements
Mam describes
i.;a *r"._
ments leading
to the
iblish1ent
in thought
"f""
i;;;;;r.rro_
rated
whole, theoredcd
absuacdons
"r.
.oJr.ti".d,
a chaotictrr..p.ior,
/of toatiry is concretized
u *v .r** ,i"Jir"*
"ur**.ions,
and then these
simple abstractions
ae themselves
.orr.r.i".d
r, *' rro'*rr rJ**u
lishment
of their determinate
interconnections,
through
"
*r. cornprex
rocess began, now rnder_
and reladons."
The speci_
INTRODUCTION
29
Even concepts that are not chaotic, as Mar emphasizes' vary in-their level
of
-*pl"*iry;
they operate at different levels of absuaction. Capiul is a
-or..o*plo,
"bru."t
concePt than price, for instance' Reification is a
highly complor abstraction referring to a broad set of socid phenomena-
*r, i' Luka's ac@unt' before one approaches subsequent elaborations
and expansions of the te
the extent that it fails to
the srtent, for example, that it exclu
objective moment oitlre soci"l
It is chaotic to
th. ot rrt tlat it accounts for s
abstract terms
ons, for tm-
f-rfffii rurn, Manc then *nderscores the wap in which the think-
ing subjectwho aspires to move 6
whole
;t*dt embedied within t}re
would
"".o.rr,a.
H. emphasizes that re co
tlink-
ing . . . as e p(rcess of concentratis
depar-
.,r., .',r.r, thotgh it is the point of departure in realiry and hence also
the point of depamue for ob
remains ontoloeicllY Prior
to
the tort's avoidance of direct
ffi\,nn perqPettve on caPi to a move-
nacy by identifying this thi
individual terms' bY insistin
INTRODUCTION
This objective,
dererminare
sociar siruadon
of thought
is further com_
:l1:,;{-ll*: l
":.,.o.14
11l,.,
J.r,. ni*" ricailydynamic.
rhe
determinate
situation
1f.the .r{nkj"s
,'b;:r';^J*
il i".,'ri;
and historicall
this subjecr is iaelrJp-u..
of a specific historical iunc-
ture within
dynami
Max
dynamrc
method that
itself; just
rs concrere
, dynamic,
it has opened conditions
critical practice,
for orample_that
itself always historically
conditioned.
deployment,
theydso
toical relocation
iaelf
in this way
eq
ons, adevel
INTRODUCTION
as I indicated ear-
cen
blind-
Efen-Fnrfr;
oPPonent
social and his-
"KIfet,A
ealier, for e:rample, Lukcs's privileging of reificationt
subjective moment is in part a resPonse to the privileging, in the official
,t
r'lLr.1 I
nesses imposed by its own operative categories. An effon from witin
Maxism's reffns to eccounr for t-he horizons of social ruIfty drat Man<ism
has tended to erase needs to be joined wittr an immanent scrutiny of those
same terms.
\7'hen
these two imperatives fail to operate together, what can
result, for example, is the endlessly expansive use of a category like reifi-
cation, reitcation as bad infinity, shorn of any attention to the way in
which its meaning will have to change if it is to retain its ability to account
for constantly changing social relations- Marxism itsjlf isin til:S;pectiS\
always .rrrfirrlh.d
f.o."t,
constitutive
"Pe"
t" tet*ffigt of its terms'
tical forms of analysis.a3 This dehistoricization of concepts is sometimes
referred to as a reification of concepts,
"t,
*
g*
P"i"tt
t"t- g*
32
TNTRODUCTToN
INTRODUCTION
dialectic that is dso a Man<ian concretizing of this dialectic is my most
b'asic objective, an objective that insists throughout on the simultaneous
*rru.rgrr". and divrgence of these open, unfinished forms of criticl
REGULATION
This boolc emphasizes the way in which this queer variation on reifiction
and toul is mediated by stages in te relatively specific history_of capi-
ul accumulation in the twentieth-century united states. The discouse
of reification, moving as it does om re specifics of commodification
and
the division of labor out towad the kind of epistemological
forms and
capacities these dynamics tend to produce, hardly in iaelf provides an ade-
q;. baris for,rrd..rt*ding capitalt operation at t}ris
lltt:|dJ Td
knowledge.
course of
attenuon on
p.riod", must always be institutionally secured at a range of dlfferent levels,
historically detailed elaborations of socioeconomic
develoPment, on tlre
accumulation in a rela-
GitStates.KReculatin
theory em-
ilir to be sustained over long
th-ty focuses not on caPi
other.47 Reeulation theory focuses not on cPltl j
but on the hist
for broad and recur-
TNTRODUCTION
efforr
wically
impricate, in one u/ay or anorer, capital and rabo as
rePre-
social
tradictions consistendy
produce, and
oned strategies necessa.ry to keep cri_
.
Cenual to this discourse is the
first is th
cohesive
tained over an extended period. Fo
dened social norms and habits, an
e level ofeveryday
practical life, to the
reproducdon
of the conditions of
egime o
#there
,.1
f-.nt
of
,{
myriad individual,
corporare, institutional,
and state decisions, many of
them unwitting politi choices ot L".ot;.k responses to trre crisis ten-
l"^.:-Ld:l _*:
rpect rhe.::rk of Gramsci is one of regulation theory,s
r
'or
obvious touchsrones.5o
Bur mystudywill
pt".. rp.J;;
emergence
thewaysi"@
is normalized at the
it is
precsely le more
INTRODUCTION
$e)ts rn
as this
as genurne
any
argue
th. Uttit.d States during the past
;w i, *eated by Jt t. effora to- forestdl ac"ulT:o".*"t:
l:
,ri, *; the followingchapters
contendthat
reification's objecive effeca
*o.tb.understoodrro.o,,lyinrcrmsofthetenaciousresilience-ofcapi;
typi."lly emphasized by the discoruse of reitction..,Th1
also need"
instability, iin terms of
as-inerely'' cultural or suPersuctul'
's
Persistent
instabilitY'
lY
*"Y-
sis highlighrc one other,tajor
theme from regulatiln theor *::-
which unprecedented
and
efforts to social
demard-to socialize e
one
tt
,)l
cfltlcll,
reP
its fundmental
INTRODUCTION
try to concretize re performative normal_
ating that norm not in Buder's relative
a socially and historically speci6c phenom-
i
.lol medrated by capital. This discussion will require some consideration
i-of
the historicl limits of Butler's rerms, limits that are anhing but or-
t6
v\
to
]trtr:",Elg
The fust two chapters .pprorh
plicit in her work But this also
INTRODUCTTON
movement.
,7
ffi.n.
oPens oPPortunities
for
i: :L;;;;
;; f.;;: or i.i."1, antiheteron^orm,ative
subilvi+
-L^
ll
beginning tre book's shift fr"* an emphasis
on reificetion
to an empha-
It',:;;:J'.tr'".*o*:"l:.,-,i:.:":,:""::.:S
il':i-*'ijit;;"'":
L"J"
"i "str""'n
bv resum:r
P' T':*
i,i;l;;;,;.h'pr"'*""1"'11:::::
il"i.'.*i.iXt;.d;.i"*".b.**".*:t:,:\ltl^1n:t-*^:f
;
''ffi
ii."'L""tt*'easinglvvisib*0,-::'-:f"i:-"j
in a heteronormalizing
I hrs
idcal
fefufus
criticd
Chapte
:
-i-
-:--t --ll--
cacc
ls
-**ffi-inuod-ucdon
began, a qrreef Iorflr ur
{
feflffns
-^
rh r^r. wlrn wlllLrl uu qvY-
uhaPte
the determinate
social anclhi$orlcal
concuuons
L'aL uu.-r
States after ftrdi,-,
" "gtlatory
conjunctrre
most
Precisely
chaacer-
rt H;i"r;T'J'iJ&'.i'j;'#i'i;:
tt
eralism in the United States' and the oPenng stage
and
ouctrout auur
iro,
that is' leaG
jectiviry with revolwionarY
18j
INTRODUCTION
,i: ?;.epidemic
in re United States_David
\ojnarowi
ds Cbse
tl
ll -rhrough
reitcations
objective
momenr
[
*^r,.From*the
"*,r*0"1,i"T::ff:r;;**f
leAiat"_an
ech
from the reifiction/to
some ofmychapters
develop
*il;;
Dook otters not a continuous
historical
naradve
seriesof
conjuncnresi:.Hffi_1rJ1"i._:;
;Tf; J:;it'l*"o""oi'i*v'-J"t"h'-"h"i,oJ,i"ur"
with historically
specifi c
totality
to the kind of historical
scrutiny
Marx delineates
in the Grurdrisse
is also, in the presen.
T.,
to subject
i .
"
q,r.., kind of scrutrny-
Only
in retadon
to s uch a critiq
y
ir i, p"*i ui. ;r-fi .;;;-"";ii,Lo""
of Marxism,
the way in which i.r ri-i."J"e
indicatirre
of queer hori-
zons it routine
fails to register.
chapter r
DISCIPLINED BODIES:
LUKCS, FOUCAULT, AND THE
REIFICATION OF DESIRE
more
andClzss Consciou-
be understood not mere in terms
moment ln
tpfaieot3@e
history of socuality in
rms ofthe psychoanalic culmination of a more long-term epistemolog-
ical "deployment" of sexuali.y,
ologywithin the "family cell." \
@q3.lie"
analpis ofsexualityto beaon Luldcst
l rffiii";