Performativity, in a Vague Nutshell

Today on Facebook, Eddie Beaver posted the following YouTube clip while remarking on the fact that AT&T – amazingly – got so much right when predicting the future from 1993:

 

 

I commented as follows:

There is a theory that Moore's Law moved from being merely predictive to .... well, to performative. I.e., companies convinced of the reliability of Moore's Law set out to stay "on the curve" if not quite ahead of it, so a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy dynamic occurred. Rather than use that concept, I'd just leave it as a matter of performativity, in the same way some economists have theorized that economic models may become performative rather than merely predictive insofar as practitioners follow the models when they choose to act. A really good article on Moore's Law:

http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2009/07/was_moores_law.php

I have kept that link in my browser’s bookmark toolbar for nearly a year.  A Google search on performativity and economics would reveal the related links not supplied above.

I have almost made the very raison d'être of this blog, the subject of performativity.  This was not my original intention for this blog (indeed, I had no specific original intention beyond the maintenance of a forum for unloading-via-uploading any current brainstorms), although as time passes, I begin to understand more and more why performativity has become such a focus.

The subject relates rather strongly to the WOODA diagram as I have conceived/defined it:

Performativity, as a concept, has and will continue to be applied in various ways, usually with a limited focus.  One can merely peruse my earlier post on Performativity and 4GW to find one grappling with the subject as I explore various but particular socio-political applications of the concept; these were intended to move beyond the simple bounds Judith Butler and others have inhabited when they use the concept of performativity and, for instance, heteronormativity (but not entirely); and, following the link on the Google search above, one might find a particular application of the concept to economics.   My linking above to the article on Moore’s Law while referencing the idea of performativity could be considered another application of the concept.¹  The original use of the concept of performativity, before these others came into consideration, was rather limited to a study of particular semantics, or to explain words and sentences which are actions as well as descriptions:  the speaker performs an action when he speaks, so for example, “I take this woman to be my wife.”

The short of it is this:  that performativity as a concept generally takes a limited shape depending upon the use any given theorist has for the concept, but nonetheless, applications for the concept of performativity may abound.

At root – or, in a vague nutshell -- performativity addresses a particular locus of interaction between separately conceived entities.  Using the terminology of grade school science, we might say that performativity addresses not so much the locus of a cause-effect interaction as it addresses the locus of an action-reaction interaction.  —The distinction here is of extreme importance.  “Cause-Effect” is a conceptualization not only of entire linearity but also of dominance and subordination or superiority and subordination in interactions between distinct entities, whereas “Action-Reaction” may be a conceptualization of co-ordinance and real-time interaction of distinct entities acting upon and being acted upon by one another simultaneously.

For the purpose of distinguishing between “Cause-Effect” and “Action-Reaction” as conceptual frameworks for understanding performativity, we might re-conceptualize our understanding of the WOODA (pictured above) to included an understanding that the second O, Concrete Orient, represents the-thing-itself distinguished as a separate entity within the larger framework of The World.  For conscious beings, that Orient may appear to be a rather complex physiological state of being which includes consciousness, but if we expand our understanding of WOODA, we might consider any state of being which determines the individuation of an entity considered in itself.  We can consider the WOODA process as representing the interaction of that individual entity with the rest of The World on the basis of the properties which determine the involved entities.  A rock will orient, let’s say, depending upon 1) its own properties and 2) the state of the entities co-incidental to it:  the Earth, the other soil and rocks and beings (perhaps even including humans!), the rain or wind, etc., which are co-ordinate with the rock.  These other entities are co-ordinate with the rock because they are acted upon by the rock while acting upon the rock, even if the resulting orientations of those other entities are not as easily discerned by a third-party (or 1000000th party) observing them.  (This “other” party is not quite so other, since the act of observation means that this party is also co-incidental, co-ordinate, etc.; i.e., there is still performativity occurring and no entirely separate observer.  Indeed “entirely separate observer” considered absolutely is an impossibility, an absurdity.) ² 

A reconsideration of events in The World founded upon the idea of performance, and through it, performativity, informs almost everything (if not everything) I write.  For instance, looking at an old post on a different blog titled, “Principles of 5GW:  Evolved EBO,” I utilized a consideration of a Social OODA Loop – a Social WOODA Loop – to suggest this frame for understanding performance within the WOODA:

 

 

In short, common Orientations may lead to generally common Activities which, in combination, lead to particular changes within the larger framework of the World – but, as I’ve previously noted when using this image, the individuals so acting continue to Observe the World and act accordingly.  In other words, tying this consideration into the lead-in to this blog post, economists or industries following a particular model, whether an economic model or Moore’s Law, may act in such a way that the World is changed according to that model; and, future observers of that World may see these effects as justifications for that model—indeed, to other observers, that model may appear to be predictive rather than performative.

An “Action-Reaction” conceptual framework when viewed partially and with a limited scope may appear to suggest cause-effect relations, but inferring strict causality while losing that “Action-Reaction” conceptual framework will often mislead.  Thus, when I originally considered Effects-Based-Operations (EBO) in warfare, I considered the limitations of the old EBO conceptualization which had as its basis a somewhat Objectivist-capital-O point of view:  the idea that any given action would lead, through Observe-Orient-Decide to a predictable reaction by an enemy, and that this action-reaction considered purely as a cause-effect process failed because it did not fully account for an enemy’s particular and peculiar Orientation.  In other words, an enemy would React according to an Action on the basis of an Orientation that had largely been determined – but not entirely — long before the Action occurs.  An “evolved EBO” (so to speak, and as I’ve referenced it in the past) would take into full consideration an enemy’s long-standing Orientation while recognizing 1) the inability to determine that Orientation entirely, and 2) the independence of that enemy from a strict cause-effect predetermination (as pre-determined by the Actor targeting that enemy).

 

Postscript

The above began as a quick response to ideas inspired by a Facebook conversation and, since the response is growing and may continue to grow, is here being cut short and perhaps in mid-stream.  I would reiterate what I said above:  “A reconsideration of events in The World founded upon the idea of performance, and through it, performativity, informs almost everything (if not everything) I write.”  There will undoubtedly be much more to say on this topic.  Take any abridgements in the above blog post as you will; I’ll surely address some of those gaps as time goes by.  (My tendency is to want to tie an idea, such as this consideration of performativity, to all its consequences; but that often leads me into a state of non-writing if I do not find some way to arbitrarily cut the consideration short.)

Also, consider this blog post as an interlude and a prelude to another post I’ve been, er, “commissioned” to write on Nietzsche and anti-realism/anti-nihilism.  All this ties in together — or will, if I ever get around to tying it together in a format observable by others.  Note:  That blog post, already mostly written, has already been titled, “The Worldviewer in the World.”  So, given what I’ve written above, perhaps this will clue the observant into what the forthcoming blog post might hold…

 

 

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¹ The article on The Technium remains linked in my browser’s bookmark toolbar because it is an excellent article on Moore’s Law; the author considers the performative aspects of the Law without using the concept of performativity per se, although using the idea of a self-fulfilling prophecy.  There are distinctions to be made however between the concept of a self-fulfilling prophecy and the concept of performativity.

²  In fact (if I may call it fact), what is described in this paragraph will be more obvious whenever a human is involved, first; and second, if no human is involved during the supposed interactions, then verifying the truth of these statements will become problematic.  Two rocks sitting 100 yards from one another, with no human around:  Do they interact whatsoever?  We might say, yes, there is gravitational interaction, at least. However, there arise the questions of whether any two or more objects always Act-React in relation to one another; or if some objects are completely “ignorant” – let’s say, “immune”  or non-reactive -- in the presence of one another; not to mention, whether the interactions may sometimes be uni-directional, sometimes indirect, sometimes qualitatively different for the objects involved in interaction.   So drawing our conception of performativity into some framework able to accommodate all possible events and/or theoretically non-eventful objective realities may push the concept beyond its usefulness – but this does not mean that “Action-Reaction” as a conceptual framework for understanding performativity is not useful.  I.e., if performativity does occur, then it will be best understood in terms of Action-Reaction:  This can be said without saying that performativity always occurs whenever objects are co-incidental.  Here also I might note that the absurdity of the concept of an “entirely separate observer” will, in the future, be tied by me to Nietzsche’s evaluation of the concept of “free will.”

Comments

[Daniel Griffin]

For what its worth, I recently learned about performativity from a class taught by Daniel Coffeen at Berkeley, Rhetoric 10, that was podcasted. I did not attend the class but found it on iTunes.

Class website:
http://arhetorslife.blogspot.com/
Podcast:
http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details.php?seriesid=1906978535

[Curtis Gale Weeks]

Thanks, I will check that out!