Proposition 8: Ruling against Prop. 8 could lead to federal precedent on gay marriage - latimes.com
Andy Pugno, a lawyer for the backers of the ballot measure, said he believed Walker would be overturned on appeal.
Walker's "invalidation of the votes of over 7 million Californians violates binding legal precedent and short-circuits the democratic process," Pugno said.
He called it "disturbing that the trial court, in order to strike down Prop. 8, has literally accused the majority of California voters of having ill and discriminatory intent when casting their votes for Prop. 8."
This is a 4GW-style attack.
4GW
I'll backtrack to an explanation of why this is 4GW on the part of the backers of Prop. 8, but only for those who are already somewhat familiar with the term.
While frequently many theorists and strategists who discuss GMW (the "Generations of Modern Warfare") focus on the blood-and-guts style of activity used by what might be called, more or less, hit-and-run guerrilla-style combatants or else simply terrorists -- or in some cases, Global Guerrillas -- the primary goal of those using such bloody tactics is the psychological transformation of others in the battlespace. In other words, 4GW tactics are used to accomplish three general results:
- Sap the will of a foe who is otherwise superior militarily, economically, and/or technologically, so that the foe ultimately retreats;
- Cause the foe to overreact in ways sure to cause outrage among the locals and even around the globe (during the process that will ultimately lead the foe to retreat) -- perhaps even in the foe's society;
- Simultaneously with the above, recruit new supporters within the field of engagement by displaying staying power in the face of the superior forces while causing the foe to display not only excessive force but also, gradually, diminishing staying power.
Although these are the three general governing aspects of 4GW, a fourth possibility, although unlikely most of the time, exists: Given an extremely entrenched foe and/or an extremely mad or suicidal foe (i.e., one whose willpower or staying power simply can't be sapped), the continual looping of #2 and #3 might eventually give birth to a large enough force that can swamp and overcome that foe in a decidedly un-4GW manner before the foe has a chance to retreat.
As with any other strategy, 4GW may be employed well or poorly. Additionally, 4GW may not be the best possible choice of strategy for every imaginable set of circumstances. Similarly, those fighting against a 4GW force may choose inapt strategies of their own or poorly employ whatever strategies they choose. I mention these considerations because many theorists who discuss GMW or its variant xGW exhibit a purist tendency; ideals of 4GW are set against ideals of other generational strategies, and universal grand statements are made about the efficacy of 4GW or those other strategies.
The fourth possibility for a 4GW campaign, mentioned above -- the unlikely mass swarming of large numbers to the 4GW fighters' side, allowing that side to swamp the entrenched opponent through direct force and thus negating the need for a shameful retreat by the opponent -- is not a good goal for any who would employ 4GW. Such a swarm may be a last hope or else a serendipitous, happy turn of events, but as an organizing principal for the budding 4GW effort it is unwise. 4GW campaigns evolve or are chosen because the foe is superior technologically, economically, and/or militarily. Overcoming such a foe with pre-4GW strategies requires a significantly large mass; the foe may well be able to defend and neutralize most surges. If the foe is also using 4GW tactics, the pool of recruits and sympathizers will likely be diminished, preventing such a swarm. Finally, a 4GW force that begins its effort with the belief that a significantly sized alliance of recruits and sympathizers will form, allowing it to swamp the foe kinetically, is likely to take its eyes off the ball and fail to do what well-run 4GW efforts are supposed to do (#1 - #3 above).
Yet many would-be 4GW fighters do live in such a hope, particularly in America where that elusive creature, The Public, lurks half-hidden and thus, one hopes, up for grabs.
American politics is rife with 4GW activity, and it is tempting to assume that all politics in America is nothing but 4GW, albeit without the guns and bombs.*
Performativity
If we could sum up the general stance of a 4GW force by adding #1 through #3 above, it would be this: "You are either with us or you are against us!" In order for that summation to have full meaning, we should understand that it is not merely descriptive, it is not us describing the stance of every 4GW force, but is performative. In imagining the stance of a 4GW force, if we also imagine that force to be saying this with every action it takes, we will have the gist of it. The principal actions committed by the 4GW force force the reality of the utterance; observers are not only required to be either with that 4GW force or against it, but naturally choose to be for or against the 4GW force as a consequence of the activity. Whether the auditors of that utterance are an organized military force or merely other citizens and neighbors living in the area, anyone actively choosing to be against the 4GW force becomes a target -- just to reinforce that message.
One might say that a pre-4GW style of attack also forces the question -- for instance the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor forced America to be against Japan -- and one would be correct; however, the difference between such instances and a 4GW's modus operandi is great. In a 4GW campaign, the performative communication is unremitting. This is most easy to see with #3 above, since one cumulative effect of a 4GW campaign is supposed to be the continual gain of recruits and sympathizers. However this may be seen in #1 and #2 as well. The unremitting utterance may force the foe to express ever-new and escalating answers of "We are against you!" (#2), thus reinforcing the 4GW force's continual utterance and escalating the pressure among bystanders to choose sides. If all goes as desired for the 4GW force, the foe's withdrawal from the battlefield after his will is sapped (#1) aligns that foe with the 4GW force's stance on matters, or essentially, "We are no longer against you" means the foe is with the 4GW force.
Traditionally (although it is a relatively new tradition on the whole), performativity in the theory of language was understood to be merely the description given to utterances which were also acts that change the world in some way. For instance, "I promise I will [do something]" when spoken is an act rather than a descriptive utterance; the act of saying it is also the act of promising. Consequently, performative utterances were thought to require first-person structures: I promise, I do (in marriage ceremonies), I apologize.
As with the example of a tree falling in the wood, however, these examples display a necessary correlative: these utterances would not be performative utterances in the absence of a social milieu or, that is, without an auditor or group of auditors. The examples of "I promise to do [something]" and "I do [take this woman to be my wife]" are actions only because they can be uttered in a social context. Rather than change the world in the way a tree falling unobserved in a wood nonetheless changes the local environment, these performative utterances work, or act, by changing the social "world" of the speaker. They are acts which create, alter, or in some cases reinforce a social contract. Furthermore, "I promise" and "I do [take this woman....]" and other performative utterances create, alter, or maintain social contracts by creating, altering, or maintaining one's stance toward others in an obvious, upfront, and direct way. Those who observe that new or reinforced stance are forced into an evaluation of their own position within the social milieu with respect to and as a consequence the speaker's stance. E.g., if the speaker has now promised some future activity, I should be able to shape my own activity from this moment on with the understanding that the speaker will in fact do what he says he will do.
Some forms of performative speech are not as direct as "I promise to" or "I apologize" and so forth. For instance, the Wikipedia article on the topic gives as an example of performative utterances, "This church is hereby de-sanctified" and "I christen..." (Here, the Wikipedia gives "christen you." For the purposes of this consideration, however, consider the christening of a boat.) These are not so much the creation of a direct one-on-one social contract between distinct individuals but an indirect contract intended for all future observers. The person who de-sanctifies the church is letting all know his stance and the Church's stance in relation to that building with the expectation that others will modify their stances toward the building similarly; e.g., brewers using that building in the future must be aware that the Church expressly denies any connection to that brewery, as should all who look upon the building. Similarly, the person who christens a boat is letting all know how to modify their stances in relation to that boat. If in the future you refer to "the Surprise" when discussing the boat, others who know the boat was christened "the Acheron" will have no idea what you are talking about. (Incidentally, if this discussion occurs while you are at battle on the sea, expect to be useless in that battle and to suffer reprisals. You are either useless or perhaps a spy.) Additionally, christening the boat may communicate ownership of said boat. Even more indirect might be the example of "I dedicate this [book, etc.] to [who/whatever]" -- this does not necessarily force a similar stance toward that book, although it does demonstrate the speaker's stance toward a third party and this might promote a change in stance between speaker and auditor and thus between book and auditor. ("I dedicate this book to the Dear Leader" for example, might have such an effect.)
Performative utterances need not be full sentences. Very similar to the example of christening, expressions such as Faggot! and Nigger! quite directly express a stance within the social milieu and force a responding change in stance. The response can be antagonistic or friendly, depending on whether the auditor approves or disapproves of those declarations of standing. Judith Butler and Eve Sedgwick have used the concept of performativity in Feminist Theory and Queer Theory quite effectively: Not only certain words but whole manners of speaking may be used to construct, reinforce, and in some cases subvert the dominant interpersonal and social framework, typically by presenting a normative stance which others pick up and strengthen or else attempt to subvert.
Beyond the linguistic communications, actions also may be performative utterances, insofar as non-verbal communication, or expression, occurs. One current example of this may be the distinction made between mere homicide or other criminal acts and acts of terrorism. Homicide may be committed purely for personal reasons and with the desire to remove individuals from this world, but terrorist acts seek to force a targeted society or group into a difference stance relation. Another example: the close association of monetary political donations to the idea of free speech or free expression. Similar to this, "buying American" or boycotting companies are expressions of a stance intended to force producers and retailers of products into a similar or corresponding stance. (The actual exclusive buying of American products -- that is, the act of purchasing -- is a substantially different type of expression than the use of slogans such as "Buy American!" although both may be performative utterances.)
Recently, some economists have been taking a much closer look at how performativity affects economies and markets. Much of that look would focus on how certain economic models, being propounded as representative of what actually occurs within the marketplace, may be less representational and more performative insofar as they lead others to operate within those models. Members of the audience receiving those models might be blind to the true relationship, however tenuous, between the fact of the market and the theoretical representation of it -- never having made the close examination themselves -- but nonetheless adopt those model and through their actions reinforce it or make it so.
I would rather look at multi-level, cross-domain competition within the marketplace in any search for performativity within the marketplace and label it simply, "Keeping up with the Jones's." Quite similar to the conventional 4GW force's attempt to elevate its own perceived value while diminishing the perceived value of foes, the ubiquity of any given product (read here: the successful market saturation) and sometimes the design of any given product work to force a stance in competitors and consumers in relation to that product and its producer, either promoting imitation/competition or in the case of consumers greater consumption and loyalty to the product or producer. There are those who love Justin Bieber and those who hate him. There are those churning out 3-D enabled movies, those who go to see those movies because "3D's the thing now, and everyone's going to see it", and those who wish those movies were not being churned out. In these cases, the performativity may be in the ubiquity of products, but the ubiquity may be localized as in the case of the Jones's or peers: by buying products and displaying them, the utterance of near peers may be, "I'm the kind of person who LOVES this kind of thing; are you with me or against me on this?" Incidentally, this view of the performativity within the marketplace is not altogether different from the ivory tower version propounded by some economists: these models are fellow, near-peer, familiar consumers but they are still models of consumption.
It would be helpful here to note a few important shortcuts for understanding the existence of and relative importance of performative and non-performative actions and utterances.
Intent
Whereas it might be said that all acts of communication or expression require an audience and social milieu, the difference between a performative utterance and a non-performative utterance lies in the particular intent behind the utterance or action. The intent behind a performative act is a) specifically to express a stance while performing the act. b) specifically to expect a target audience to react to the performance of that act by shifting its stance in relation to oneself and to the object explicitly or implicitly referenced by the utterance, and c) specifically to let the target audience know of this expectation of a real change in the audience's stance. Thus, for example, the simple purchasing of a product because one likes or needs a product may not be a performative utterance, but the purchasing of that product with the expectation of displaying that product and ownership of it to others probably is. ("Conspicuous Consumption." Note however that the display need not be for the purposes of implying one has a large bank account. The avid purchase of sports memorabilia, religious symbols, clothing lines, etc., for the express purpose of displaying these to express an identity would also fall in this category. ) Similarly, the distinction between homicide and acts of terrorism may serve as an example since, like the purchase of products one merely likes or needs which is an entirely personal and perhaps selfish endeavor, homicide is a personal action meant to fill a personal need or desire but terrorist acts are intended to communicate a - c above. The mere ubiquity of a product or of homicides is not performative -- products are not actors and so do not have the power of intent-directed action -- but the purposeful glut of a market with a new product may be an example of performative expression and wide-ranging and numerous killings as part of a terrorist strategy would certainly be an example of performative expression.Felicity and Infelicity
Success rates don't determine the performativity of an expression. The targeted audience may not "get the message" for one reason or another and/or may not react to it in the way the user of a performative utterance intends for them to react, but this does not negate the performativity of the utterance. The person or group of persons using performative expression may be at fault; the audience may be at fault; or the actual expression may be at fault -- although I am using the term "fault" rather loosely here, since, again, performativity is not determined by the success rate so it cannot be described as faulty.
John L. Austin, who first delineated performativity in linguistics, referred to those performative utterances that were "happy" and those that were "unhappy" -- or, those that were "felicitous" and those that were "infelicitous"-- and he outlined "felicity conditions" for describing what is necessary for a successful performative utterance. Again, however, use of the term "successful" is loose, here. Examples of performative weakness, or of performative expression most apt to be infelicitous, might help for understanding the concepts of felicity and infelicity in performativity.
An old friend might find a new interest and shower me with conversation and memorabilia relating to that interest expecting that I will also begin to share his interest, perhaps even to the point that we begin to travel to conventions together, start a specialty shop as partners, or engage in other joint endeavors relating to the interest. I may take a deep interest in what he is showing me and become a fan as well as a partner in future endeavors; or, although politely listening all the while, I may ignore much of what he says because his interest does not interest me. If his interest is a new designer drug, then all the paraphernalia and t-shirts and music in the world may end the friendship.
Just because an acquaintance says, "I apologize," does not mean I am going to accept his apology. I may know him well enough to know that his apology is insincere or, under the circumstances, even if he is sincere I may not care to hear a sincere apology. Similarly, if he promises me to do something in the future, I may doubt either his sincerity or his ability to carry through on the promise, and therefore I may not reorganize my future endeavors in concert with a belief that he will do as he has promised to do.
If all that I know about the Joker is that he's announced that a gangbanger is going to be shot tomorrow, I might not change my stance toward him; but if he announces that the mayor is going to be killed, I might. Likewise, the Joker's message to the watching public constitutes a performative utterance because it is a promise: "If Coleman Reese isn't dead in 60 minutes, then I blow up a hospital." The people do not actually kill Coleman Reese; but, some do try while others do not. A similar performative utterance near the end of the movie goes further to display the type of infelicitous performativity that may occur: No one, not even the Joker, blows up the two ferries, despite the Joker's promise. The civilians on one ferry come close to aligning their stance with the Joker (they almost blow up the ferry with the convicts) but one particular individual on the ferry refuses to do so at the last moment and all the others on that ferry acquiesce by sitting tight. The Joker does not blow up the ferries because Batman stops him.
Whereas merely descriptive language "succeeds" or "fails" on its own in the moment -- it is either true or false, whether we know which now or not -- performative utterances extend into the future: a certain amount of chance is involved, so they end happy or unhappy, are ultimately felicitous or infelicitous, but they are still performative.
En-Actment or Re-Enactment
Performative communication need not be startlingly new. By "startlingly" I mean, unexpected or innovative in the historical discourse between the parties. The examples I have already given may suggest that some new standing between speaker and audience is always implied by performative utterance, with the expectation of a new interpersonal, social arrangement between or among the parties, but this need not be the case. Since none of the future is already then all future arrangements are by nature new events even if they are merely new iterations of past arrangements; rather than being innovative, performative utterances may be reinforcements of long-standing social contracts.
After looking at the distinction between mere homicide and the terrorist's killing of others, we might look at capital punishment for an example of the re-enactment of prevailing stances and arrangements through performativity. Unlike homicide, capital punishment is not the mere accomplishment of a personal desire; it is intended to send a message from the Public/State to the future homicidal criminal within the Public. One might therefore be tempted to link capital punishment and the murder committed by terrorists, since threats of death delivered by a dictatorial regime, a terrorist organization, or a democratic republic may constitute promises ("I promise to...") and are therefore performative utterances unlike mere homicide. However, one might also note that any code of justice, or legal code, is merely a complex set of performative utterances. Every legal code that is practiced -- i.e., that is iterative to the extent that practice is reiteration -- bears a dual performativity: not only the written form of the code (or a linguistic performative expression) which constitutes the original promise but also a nonverbal performative expression when the punishments are handed out. Capital punishment, unlike most acts of terrorism, performs the function of reinforcing a longstanding performative communication as one component of an ongoing discourse; as the Joker might say, it's all "part of the plan."
The distinction between enactment and reenactment may not always be clear. Ubiquitous and reiterative terrorist activity may in fact assume the appearance of a legal code or a longstanding and ongoing communication between actors and audience. Although individual terrorist acts might appear to target only local audiences and seem to affect them personally, repeated attacks on those localities and persons might build an understanding of what social contracts or arrangements prefigure those attacks. Individuals repeatedly targeted by the performative expression (i.e., they are witnesses to the expression, the terrorist activities) may modify their behavior with an understanding of what the future portends. Similarly, the failure to reenact, or reiterate, performative communications may appear to dissolve heretofore ongoing performativity. Thus, for example, when considering contemporary American affairs some within the American Public might say that our laws on immigration trend toward infelicity. The linguistic performativity of immigration laws surely exists but the reenactment of those promises, through appropriate enforcement of the laws, is not being performed in a consistent manner. Many would-be breakers of those laws do not change their stances toward the laws and toward the State/Public in the way that the State/Public intend.
I would note along with this example of U.S. immigration laws that a speaker's failure to act on a linguistic performative utterance is not the only factor that might cause a trend toward infelicity. As already stated above, the "fault" may lie in the utterance itself. In the case of legal codes, unclear laws or a failure to disseminate those laws to the intended audience may cause a trend toward infelicity. In any of these cases, however, the infelicity of performative legal codes results from a breakdown in the reiteration of performative communications; or, the re-enactments. (To the person not receiving the original linguistic promise, because it is unclear or was not disseminated to him, the punishment will seem arbitrary, or an enactment rather than reenactment.)
Beyond these considerations, one must also consider those performative "promises" not formalized in a legal code, such as unwritten community and friendship standards which are communicated on a daily basis through both, the spoken discourse and the activities of those who constitute the members of the community or social group. This latter form of performativity within a social group may be so ubiquitous and so familiar that it goes largely unnoticed, or unacknowledged in any direct sense, by those within the social group, by both the speakers (communicators) and the auditors. Indeed, members of a social group act as both, speaker and auditor, alternatively. Social arrangements and agreements are reiterated on a daily, perhaps moment-by-moment basis as a matter of course. Those outside a particular social group may have less difficulty perceiving this performativity, however.
Community and Comrades
What should be obvious from the examples of performativity already given: This communication of a stance in relation to others who are the targets of that communication and assumed able to interpret said communication has a strong influence on our conception of any given community. Indeed, not only do performative communications influence our conception of a given community, but because they are performative they shape the community. Although much performativity may be infelicitous, the ubiquity of performative communication insures a measure of felicity within every community, so that no community is free of its effects.
A more pointed though in many ways far too off-point exploration of the topic can be found in a couple of recent blog posts: "People Like Us Give Mobs a Bad Name," by Joseph Fouche at the blog The Committee of Public Safety, and "The Mob of Virtue" by Mark Safranski at the blog ZenPundit. In both of which, the disappearance of social "cement" is lamented because a diminution in social cohesion has led to a lack of civil engagement which in turn, they theorize, has left Big Government with a blank check. (I use these examples because I am familiar with these writers; one might substitute many other contemporary writers to find similar examples.)
A wise man once told me that a weakness of our Constitutional system was that the Framers implicitly presumed that people of a truly dangerous character, from bullies to bandits to political menaces to the community, would primarily be dealt with in age-old fashion by outraged neighbors whose rights had been trespassed and persons abused one time too many.
Mark Safranski
Latter Day Saints can testify to the vigor of mobs in nineteenth century America. Between 1830 and 1847, members of our church lived in states with existing white populations. Because of the numbers we settled in and our tendency to vote as a block, we seemed to threaten existing local political arrangements. Since we traded among ourselves, we seemed to threaten existing local commercial interests. Because of our distinctive religious beliefs, we seemed to threaten local ecclesiastical establishments. During our attempts to settle in Missouri, all of these factors were compounded by a culture clash between local Southerners and the Saints, most of whom came from Greater New England.
These and other factors generated friction between the Saints and their neighbors. Eventually, this friction always found its expression in mobs. Mobs would attack, starting with isolated farms and settlements and stray individuals. Local authorities would read the political tea leaves and either do nothing to help the Saints or actively connive with the mob. Eventually state authorities would step in and expel us from their jurisdiction, using the mob violence inflicted on us as an excuse. Many Saints lost their lives along with their property.
Joseph Fouche
Furthermore, I use these two blog posts as examples of the sort of dread that may occur in a social group or society when issues of control over that social group or society begin to be raised with greater frequency due to what may be called "mixed messages," unclear performativity, or an apparent rise in instances of misfiring or abuses of performative communications. Because performative utterances are heavily concerned with future conditions, or the establishment of relative stances which will find fuller expression in the future and in fact influence the shape of future relations, the inability to perceive clearly the dimensions and parameters of that future social organization often causes dread. Though I use "control" for describing the issues raised, a better description would include the terminology, preponderance of influence, since, as with all issues relating to performative communications or future developments resulting from those communications, a certain amount of chance is involved. Performative communications are infelicitous or felicitous, and the inability to determine what they are now leads to dread of the future.
For example, one suspects Mark Safranski might at a future date use the term "influence peddlers" when describing the extraordinary and un-checked powers of those within Big Government. We would not be wrong to label all those within the Legislative Branch with that term; every proposition for a new law or amendment to a law in the normal operation of that branch of our American government is the peddling of a performative utterance: will my fellow legislators buy this amendment, will my constituents buy this law? (Keeping in mind that the law, once written, constitutes the State's stance and makes a promise to the Public expecting all members of that Public to adjust their stances accordingly.) If we admit others into the mix, such as lobby groups and members of the wealthy class, we might expand this system of influence, since they can make promises to support the legislator in the future based upon what that legislator does now. Indeed, the general Public is not without some influence in this process. Members of that Public can promise to support a legislator on the basis of what that legislator does in the legislative body: via campaigning, monetary donations, and an actual vote. "I vote for Barack Obama" when expressed by a check mark at the ballot box is a performative expression; when expressed as a campaign slogan on buttons and posters plastered ubiquitously it is another type of performative expression. The utterance of the intention to vote may prompt a corresponding performative utterance, "Well then, I will vote for McCain!" Such is the friction created via performative communication as individuals align and realign on the basis of perceived stances -- or on the basis of promissory notes.
In the American system, such promissory notes come attached although this might be true of most performative communication. The individual's vote at the ballot box carries with it the promise --- some might say, the threat -- of a more complex set of promises. A vote for Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, or Harry Reid might be a vote for all policies they would enact and the laws they would write; these in turn would constitute stances held by the State and promises of future activity by the State. A vote might be felicitous or it might be infelicitous, those voted into office may or may not carry through on what were perceived as being campaign promises, but either way the original vote constitutes a broader performativity: a vote thus carries with it the promise -- or threat -- of future legislation.
Joseph Fouche's consideration highlights this aspect of the role of performativity on communities. The Latter Day Saints circa 1830-1847 tended to vote as a block. As a homogeneous community they therefore threatened what before may have been another community, the comfortable majority. In the terminology of performativity, that comfortable majority had a preponderance of influence but the new arrivals, the LDS, introduced uncertainty, or dread, because they introduced a block of influences not necessarily aligned with the old block, from influences on the political system to economic and religious influences. We might also say that a preponderance of influence when it is large enough may appear to be a system of control insofar as felicity of performative communications can be guaranteed; and, that threats to the strength and scope of that preponderance of influence might be perceived as promises to wrest control from those who believe they have it.
Not every minority will display all their difference in a conspicuous manner. Some minority communities might rather choose to fade into the background to reduce the potential for future conflict over "control" -- or else a minority group might assimilate sufficiently into the larger community, modifying its performative communications to assure the majority community that the minority community's own expectations of future social structures match those of the larger community. In these ways, the degree of the perceived threat to the majority community's felicitous performativity might be reduced. The minority group may answer the majority group's performativity, or expression of a stance, via acquiescence: You are with us or against us! may be answered, Believe us when we say we are with you! or Believe us when we say we are surely not against you!
Such assimilation may not always be possible without a great and, presumably, unacceptable price. For example, forced conversion of Jews in Spain in combination with other severely punitive measures led many Jews to flee Spain; and, as with any promise, those conversions were often met with disbelief and even hostility by the dominant majority. Similarly, in America African-Americans not willing to acquiesce to the promises inherent in Jim Crow laws (not to mention the performative communications delivered via lynchings) chose to migrate to the North. The Latter Day Saints were forced to move on from Missouri.
Behind these examples of "forced" migrations, we see the hand of violence. (Scare quotes around forced: could these groups have stayed, assimilated, acquiesced; or did they make the conscious choice to migrate because the only other choice would have been between either assimilation/acquiesence or death?) As with the enforcement of laws when said enforcement is itself a performative act displaying the stance of the State and communicating future similar action by the State, mob activity reinforces the performative communication of what are often unwritten (though rarely unspoken) community standards. Actions often speak louder than words: indeed, that very cliché would have absolutely no meaning, would not even exist, if no action were a form of performative communication. A close second to expressive action, words with the threat -- or promise -- of violent action behind them work upon the members of a society who must make a choice to stand with or against those words; but such speech comes second to action for performative expressive power only when the threats or promises of future activity are carried out. (I.e., are historically felicitous.) If promises are routinely broken or else appear to be routinely broken, performative language from those making the promises begins to lose its felicity and thus, its predictive capability.
A modern and variant example of minority-majority conflict might serve to highlight the consequences of a loss of felicitous performativity.
What if, rather than fade into the background or quietly assimilate, or migrate into a ghetto, another nation, or a desert wilderness as the Jews of Spain and later the Latter Day Saints chose to do, a minority chose to stay and fight openly with that majority? For many, the Stonewall Riots were an example of what Mark Safranski called "outraged neighbors whose rights had been trespassed and persons abused one time too many" who responded to the enforcement arm of "bullies to bandits to political menaces to the community" by rioting in response to a police raid on a bar that openly welcomed gay patrons:
[The Stonewall Riots] are frequently cited as the first instance in American history when people in the homosexual community fought back against a government-sponsored system that persecuted sexual minorities, and they have become the defining event that marked the start of the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world.
Wikipedia
For a time, State action and community-driven action in the form of violence or threats of violence served to limit the influence of gays and lesbians, but ultimately that very form of performative communication backfired, just as violent responses to the civil rights demonstrations in the American South backfired. The terrorist-type communication of promises of future violence defeated itself: You are with us or you are against us! was met with the response, We are against you! by more and more Americans who sided with gays and lesbians and African Americans rather than side with those who would use violence to limit the influence of those groups. Part of this change in stance toward gays and lesbians might be attributed to the LGBT slogan, "We're here, we're queer, get used to it!" since the political and, yes, performative expression in combination with the related performative act of coming out publicly has forced many Americans otherwise largely unaware of homosexuals to alter their stance or indeed choose for the first time a stance toward the LGBT community. Similarly, the televised civil rights demonstrations in the American South forced the understanding that standing on the side of those who would use violence as a governing principle would mean choosing what many in the audience considered too high a price: namely, the acceptance of violence as a governing principle in the American way of life and thus the implied promise (or threat) of future performative violence within America.
The gradual trend away from an acceptance of violent mob activity, or of performative violence as a felicitous expression of intentions and expectations -- a trend often backed by institutionalized threats of violence for those who would use violence in such a manner; i.e., by the legal code and lengthening historical precedence within the legal code -- has had two major consequences. The first is greater diversity within geographical bounds; the second, increasing factionalism, political and social conflict, and extremism.
By diversity, I mean not only a diversity of individuals but also a diversity of stances and a diversity of influences, and by geographical bounds I mean to point at the way geography matters far less than it once mattered. For a consideration of performativity, we must consider the audience for any performative expression, and current modern technology has extended that audience beyond, for instance, the Missourians and Mormons of 1830-1847. However, not only the audience but the set of performers has expanded. Modern technology not only brings performance from a wide geographical stage into the local community but also allows individuals within a local community to reach a broad audience. Within America, this diversity extends from the national level down to the local level and back from the local level to the national level although America may often seem more diverse from the macroscopic level than from the microscopic level. While what may be called local communities in modern America still exist, they are far more diverse than ever before and, because of the influence of broadcast, cable, and broadband media, experience far more influence from geographically distant regions of America than ever before. Add to the mixture international media and international travel, and the diversity of performers/audience increases even more.
Because of the diversity of influences within America, ascertaining the preponderance of influence has become far more difficult than ever before in our history. This difficulty has led to a general trend toward dread of the future. Whether borrowing from Marx or seeking further back in history, one might be tempted to say that, if every revolution carries with it the seeds of its own destruction, then the establishment of Constitutionally recognized freedoms and the subsequent protection of those freedoms in America has led us to this complex and ill-conceived sea of influence. It is ill-conceived because it is difficult to discern; it so complex, no simple understanding of the competing influences seems adequate.
Knowing I have such freedom in our society as I do, I feel happy and secure; but knowing that every single individual around me has equal freedoms under the law may fill me with dread. I may know what I will do in the future, I may have a reasonable expectation and understanding of what my family and closest friends will do, but the murmur of voices in The Public may be too complex and diverse for me to have any reasonable faith in the felicity or infelicity of any performative communication received from them. Insofar as elections are held as a remedying solution -- they are a method by which a single influence is temporarily brought to the forefront from the sea of influences and allowed greater sway over future developments -- I and others may dread the rise in prominence, or that institutionally established preponderance of influence, from such an ill-conceived sea of potential influences. One vote may seem to matter little when one conceives of a multitude of potentially competing votes having relatively equal influence over future institutionalized performativity.
The limitation placed upon the use of performative violence for regulating a community, in combination with the increase in diversity within American society, has promoted a non-violent strategy of performativity in response to the type of dread that may naturally arise within a democratic society. Far from being merely a ubiquitous and thus often overlooked feature of any society, performativity may be utilized consciously. The examples of coordinated lynchings and other citizen-on-citizen violence (including all forms of terrorism) already mentioned above should demonstrate the potential for conscious utilization of performativity; but within a society which has largely ruled out mob violence, a resolution to the problem presented by the complexity of a diverse society may take another form: the creation of workable communities via largely non-violent performative communications.
Though nominally non-violent, performative communications utilized to build workable communities may still bear a relation to violence insofar as these communications promise a leveraging or suggest the threat of leveraging of institutionalized violence -- i.e., from local, state and federal governments -- to carry their point across to all potential audiences. For an example, consider the quote at the top of this page:
Walker's "invalidation of the votes of over 7 million Californians violates binding legal precedent and short-circuits the democratic process," Pugno said.
Whereas in the past little difficulty may have been encountered in securing a community to deny gays and lesbians the right to a legal marriage, increasingly the influence of the community traditionally opposed to gay marriage has been shrinking relative to the influence of the community that supports gay marriage. Those who would leverage influence to prevent the State from recognizing gay marriage have had to create ever larger nets for catching a sufficiently influential majority. Traditional arguments about the sinful or perverted nature of homosexuality or that heterosexual marriage is the bedrock of American society and is threatened by homosexual marriage may not be sufficiently influential. Arguing that the State may take away anyone's vote at whim might therefore seem a viable and valuable argument, given the fact that every American who votes depends upon the felicity of the Constitution's promise of a vote: You are with us or you are against us; if you are against us, you are against democracy and thus against yourself. Combine these arguments, and perhaps a preponderance of influence might be achieved. The other side in this conflict works to create a preponderance of influence in similar ways. By suggesting that all those who oppose gay marriage are bigots, some who express a pro-gay marriage stance would influence others to choose the side of the non-bigots and thus be a non-bigot; institutionalized bigotry is prohibited by the U.S. Constitution, so the implication that all who choose the side of bigotry might be penalized by the State lies latent in the accusation. Other proponents of gay marriage may suggest that opponents of gay marriage are against our particular form of institutionalized democracy and thus against themselves: the Constitution makes other promises, such as equality under the law, and all who live in America should be able to have faith in the felicity of the Constitution. To oppose the Constitution's guarantee of equality under the law, and in fact to rewrite that guarantee with a simple majority vote, is to risk having no such guarantee for oneself in the future.
The competition for workable communities able to successfully leverage the power of the State thus may lead toward factionalism as these workable communities begin to take form. The trend toward factionalism may be exacerbated when multiple exclusive narratives within the public discourse prevent the maintenance or formation of a unifying discourse capable of cementing the public trust. The example given above contains within it real fears producing real dread, since gays denied the right to marry really will continue to experience a diminished influence within our society if opponents of gay marriage successfully deny them the right to legally marry, and opponents of gay marriage really will be forced to acknowledge the existence of legally recognized gay couples and all that entails if proponents of gay marriage succeed.
The curious feature of performativity (whether utilized consciously or not) over an extended period of time between competing factions is the fact that they, the competing factions, must continually change their positions, or stances, in relation to one another and in relation to other factions within the society. The competition produces evolution, or at least change, as each faction repositions itself in order to better produce a workable community in the quest for a preponderance of influence. One might even suppose that what has been called "The Great American Experiment" derives from this mutability which results from performative strategies employed over an extended period of time: the need to evolve or change in order to secure a workable community within an ever-shifting society may, over time, and thus subtly, produce alterations in competing factions. For instance, and not unrelated to debate over gay marriage within America, some Protestants who in 19th century America might have violently driven out the Mormons from Missouri may now find themselves aligned with the LDS in their opposition to gay marriage; or, may find a cultural leader in Glenn Beck, a Mormon. This alteration has occurred after the LDS itself changed, forsaking polygamy as the normative family structure. Many gays and lesbians are now seeking that very historically heterosexual family structure of two adults married with children; furthermore, many gays and lesbians would like to be welcomed into either Protestant churches or perhaps even the LDS, if only they would be welcomed without the corresponding demand that they "convert" from homosexuality.
This feature of performativity may be curious and always present, but the exact and particular natures of the alterations which occur over time as a result of performative strategies are not preordained, particularly within a complex society within which so many potential alliances, however temporary, are available. Rather than produce an ameliorating evolution in either side in this debate over gay marriage, a failure by one side or by the other to win this contest of narratives (and it seems one side must fail, ultimately) may exacerbate the dissonance within our public discourse -- particularly if the stances (or standings) of the individuals on the losing side remain precarious from their point of view with respect to other issues and frictions within our society besides the issue of gay marriage. The degree to which institutionalized performativity is leveraged in this conflict between these two sides, in order to produce a "win" or a "loss" for the two sides, may determine the level at which mistrust between the Public and the State and between individuals living within our society intensifies.
[Note for revision: Include the growing awareness of performativity as a force in our societies as pressure toward 4GW. Not only for the development of more strategic and sophisticated utilizations of performativity, but also as a force increasing the trend toward factionalization and away from peaceable amelioration and evolution/change within/between factions.]
Multiplication of factions within a society, in combination with greater geographical diversity, may in fact weaken the public trust in the felicity of the promises made by the government sufficiently to remove any sense of strong national community, state community, or city community -- indeed, any strong sense of community beyond factional loyalty. This diminution of trust may result from:
- The government's inability or unwillingness to carry out its promises -- its laws are infelicitous; i.e., it is not able or unwilling to enforce its verbal or written performative communications;
- Preferential treatment by the government for one faction over others: a fundamental and strong opposition to a government's performative communications may result, in which case the government's laws and enforcement of those laws are felicitous but a large number of factions or else sufficiently influential factions within the society do not trust or approve of what those laws promise;
- The government's mutability -- frequent changes in either a definite written code or the interpretations of its legal code -- in which case its legal code or constitution trends toward infelicity on the whole.
A faction's performativity, from its establishment as an identity group to its efforts to leverage influence and thus to leverage other members of the society as well as ultimately the government, may pressure non-aligned individuals to choose between a) joining that faction or an opposing faction, b) forming tenuous ties to weak communities whose influence upon the discourse of the society is as mixed as the confederacy of its constituent narratives, or c) developing much smaller but stronger social groups -- bands of comrades -- capable of offering moral and material support. "A" and in some cases "C" may be the choice of politically active members of the society; "B" and in some cases "C" may be the choice of largely apolitical or disengaged members of the society.
Extremism may be another response to an inability to ascertain the felicity or infelicity of performative utterances within the multitude of narratives in a society. For extremists, the ability not only to form a faction but to form an influential faction turns upon the group's ability to distinguish itself within the dissonance of the society's discourse: by word or by deed, and sometimes by both, the extremist band of comrades seeks to force a choice, or a realignment of stances, in relationship to it. Multiple extremist groups may form within a society that is so fractured or fracturing, sometimes in opposition, and the success or failure of a particular extremist group's attempt to achieve a preponderance of influence will depend not only on the type and number of other factions within a society but also on its ability to achieve a sufficient public trust in opposition to other groups and, in some cases, in opposition to the ruling government.
Indeed, a State's very character and structure in combination with its willingness and ability to carry through on its performative communications will determine the type and scope of factionalism most likely to arise within the society governed by it as well as the type of performative communications chosen by the various factions. The State's historical relationship to the Public may affect what threshold -- between felicity and infelicity -- it must cross before a society dissolves into social discord and the State becomes unstable, but historical precedent is more likely to merely affect the speed with which civil instability replaces stability, not whether. We see failed states in which the government is reduced to a mere faction within the society, through its inability to ensure felicitous governance and, in response to instability, a preponderance of influence within that society. We also see the advent of opponents to U.S. governance within failed states: insofar as military might would represent governance of and to a Public, and insofar as performative communications force a choice by members of that public, and insofar as both verbal and nonverbal performative communications fail to achieve a preponderance of influence within failed states, 4GW factions will continue to oppose said governance.
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* In fact, aspects of 5GW can also be found in our politics and our political system. But this is not the place for discussing that.
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