To recap:<\/p>\n
In Part One<\/a> of this series we looked at how our impulse to reduce messy situations to nice clean epistemological facts can cause us to miss what is at stake for people\u2014the normative entanglements at issue.<\/p>\n In Part Two<\/a>, we looked at how such normative entanglements show us what is going on in the politics of claiming, \u2018I\u2019m hurt.\u2019 The famous 1995 Princess Diana interview shows us how \u2018I\u2019m hurt\u2019 is often interpreted through a (false) dichotomy of options:\u00a0 Accusation (I\u2019m hurt because someone hurt me) and Admission (I\u2019m hurt, as in, I\u2019m broken, unstable, not whole).<\/p>\n Now we come to the final post of the series, where both pieces of the normative entanglement puzzle will be brought together. My aim here is to show the explanatory power of using the normative entanglement approach to assessing public discourse, by showing how it can help us parse some of the dynamics at play in conversations around gender and race.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n The polarity between Accusation and Admission shows up in sharp relief in Kate Manne\u2019s work. In Down Girl<\/em><\/a>, she set out to articulate the background logic of women\u2019s \u2018I\u2019m hurt\u2019 in a misogynist society.[1]<\/a> The challenge in articulating this has always been that it\u2019s difficult to effectively lay the charge at the feet of \u2018men\u2019, when #notallmen is such an easy dodge. If our impulse is to reach for isolated epistemic facts, then we can easily ignore the systems in play and point to one man who is kind, and another who has not directly advocated for the subjugation, and so on. Taken in isolation, against the sanitised backdrop of mere epistemology, it\u2019s quite easy to build what looks like a solid case for claiming that \u2018men\u2019 are not the reason for the \u2018We\u2019re hurt\u2019 claims of women.<\/p>\n I call this tactic epistemic whack-a-mole<\/em>,[2]<\/a> named for the classic fairground game in which motorised mole puppets periodically appear through an array of holes in a game board, and the player attempts to \u2018whack\u2019 down each mole before it disappears and turns up at another opening. The game is only interesting because the player cannot see the hidden mechanisms controlling the appearance of the moles at various holes. The mere epistemology tactic of #notallmen depends on a similar blind: if we look at each wounded voice in strict isolation, ignoring the normative entanglements which ground the grievance and call for acknowledgement, then each complaint can be whacked down, like a mole, with a flippant fact-grab: not this guy, not that guy, not all men.<\/p>\n But the point in examining misogyny, as Manne shows, is that regardless of who <\/em>the charge falls on, the fact of the matter\u2014what we epistemically know to be indubitably true, is that \u2018we\u2019 (in this case, women) are hurt, and are hurting. And if the \u2018We\u2019re hurt\u2019 is going to motivate the kinds of normative adjustments called for\u2014like the downed football player calls for a pause in play, or a penalty to be given\u2014then we need to know at whose feet the charge of accusation should be laid.<\/p>\n The usual whack-a-mole logic says there are three options. 1. Accusation: all men are the problem\u2014easily defeated by the mere epistemology move. 2. Admission: women are too weak\/sensitive\u2014a tired and disingenuous tactic. 3. Accusation, revised: it\u2019s not all men, just a few weirdo creeps who are at fault. Option 3 is the default in public discourse for many at this stage. It allows the charge to fall at someone\u2019s <\/em>feet, whilst exempting \u2018most\u2019 men from the blame, resulting in a stable discourse. But one of the problems with this option is that, as Manne argues, it conceals from view the normative context in which such harms take place, and blocks the \u2018I\u2019m hurt\u2019 from making the kinds of normative changes we need it to make in terms of calling for men\u2014all men\u2014to participate in changing the systems of misogyny which drive such harms.<\/p>\n The same is true of racial discourse. When Colin Kapernick took a knee during the national anthem in protest of police brutality against Black people, he was saying \u2018We\u2019re hurt.\u2019 He gave his charge focus, by directing it not toward an entire race or toward a few vicious individuals, but toward a clear class of people with a certain kind of institutional role (policing), where injustice exists not only as a matter of how (at least some) officers act but also as a matter of a complex set of institutional and structural racial injustices.<\/p>\n Kapernick made use of the same polarity which Diana was resisting in the Panorama interview. She fought hard to avoid making direct accusations of anyone in particular or of the institution of the monarchy as a whole, whilst also fighting hard to keep the accusatory charge from landing back at her own feet. It seems to me that what was so effective\u2014and so remarkably inflammatory, in the best sense\u2014about Kapernick\u2019s protest and those like it, is that his \u2018We\u2019re hurt\u2019 was a clear accusation, with a specified accused party. It was the right kind of party for the charge to stick to (police and policing), using a posture that blocked the charge from returning home\u2014using a nonviolent pose.<\/p>\n So often, accusations of racially-driven police brutality can be easily dodged on one side or the other of the polarity. Either the charge is sent back to the accuser (\u2018I felt threatened and thought he had a gun\u2019 relocates the charge of violence to the Black person and claims the officer\u2019s entitlement to use violence in self-defense) or it is diffused in the insidious gulf between individual and institutional responsibility (\u2018not all cops\u2019, and so on). Instead, what happens here is that the charge gets laid at the feet of an institution, American policing, and its constituent members. This is a stable form of accusation, in that the charge stays put. It still elicits the whack-a-mole response of appealing to isolated epistemic facts: this <\/em>officer is decent, or that <\/em>Black person has a history of violent behaviour. But what we have seen in the last few years is that laying the charge at the feet of racialised brutality in policing has defined the scope of the whack-a-mole game that makes it much, much harder to win.<\/p>\n With each additional instance of bodycam and bystander video footage of police brutality towards Black people, it is increasingly evident that, whatever the nature of the relationship might be between the institution of policing and the individuals who carry it out, there is a problem in the institution<\/em>. The \u2018we\u2019re hurt\u2019 claim against racialised police brutality enacts a change to the normative context, placing an obligation on those bound up with the institution to put a stop to and offer restitution for systemic brutality.<\/p>\n The charge is laid, and the standard evasion strategies are growing more implausible with each passing year. The obligation is beginning to get recognition at higher institutional levels<\/a>, and while an adequate response appears to still be a long way off, we can see more clearly than ever what is at stake\u2014the normative entanglements and who they attach to\u2014in the discourse of protest.<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Manne, Kate. Down Girl: the logic of misogyny<\/em>. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2018.<\/p>\n
![https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Black_Lives_Matter_Mural_San_Francisco_02.jpg<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To recap: In Part One of this series we looked at how our impulse to reduce messy situations to nice clean epistemological facts can cause us to miss what is […]","protected":false},"author":1319,"featured_media":1188,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The final post in the series \"Normative Entanglement in Public Discourse (Part 3)\" by Susan Notess on Open for Debate","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[198,199,131],"custom_author":[290],"class_list":["post-1184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-open-for-debate","tag-discrimination","tag-language","tag-racism","custom_author-notess-susan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8KPlM-j6","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1179,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/normative-entanglement-in-public-discourse-part-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1184,"position":0},"title":"Normative Entanglement in Public Discourse (Part 2)","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"April 19, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"To read Part 1 of this series, click here. Let\u2019s start simple. \u2018I\u2019m hurt.\u2019 Taken by itself, this tiny phrase has an obvious meaning. Without any context, however, it is difficult to guess what is the upshot of the statement. Notice how the upshot changes when we add different kinds\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Open for Debate"","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2021\/04\/Melicsohn_hurt-BW.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2021\/04\/Melicsohn_hurt-BW.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2021\/04\/Melicsohn_hurt-BW.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2021\/04\/Melicsohn_hurt-BW.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2021\/04\/Melicsohn_hurt-BW.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2021\/04\/Melicsohn_hurt-BW.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1173,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/normative-entanglement-in-public-discourse-part-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":1184,"position":1},"title":"Normative Entanglement in Public Discourse (Part 1)","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"April 5, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"In an episode of The West Wing, a comment is made to the press that the fictional US President, Josiah Bartlett, is not particularly fond of green beans.[1] On the day in question, the president\u2019s staff confront the usual mayhem of low- and high-octane problems, among them the problem of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Open for Debate"","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2021\/04\/151872.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2021\/04\/151872.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2021\/04\/151872.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2070,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/friendship-and-understanding\/","url_meta":{"origin":1184,"position":2},"title":"Friendship and Understanding","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"August 5, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"In Nicole Holofcener\u2019s recent film You Hurt My Feelings, an author, Beth, overhears her partner confess to a friend that he thinks her latest book is no good. 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Thomas More, the author of Utopia, believed there is no need for lawyers in an ideal world, as its inhabitants will plead their own cause. Without lawyers, he thought, people will be more successful in determining what is true and what is false. Long before,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Open for Debate"","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/11\/law9_0_image002-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/11\/law9_0_image002-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/11\/law9_0_image002-scaled.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/11\/law9_0_image002-scaled.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/11\/law9_0_image002-scaled.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/11\/law9_0_image002-scaled.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1891,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/fundamentalism-as-a-contested-concept\/","url_meta":{"origin":1184,"position":4},"title":"Fundamentalism as a contested concept","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"February 19, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Fundamentalism is a contested concept. In ordinary language and public discourse, it is applied to actions, beliefs, or groups that we condemn, disagree with, or wish to delegitimize. Highly mediatized examples include Hamas, the Taliban, and the Iranian government and clergy, but also Hindu nationalist RSS, Jewish settlers, and Trump\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Open for Debate"","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2024\/02\/jr-korpa-_ZNLoTRTEKs-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2024\/02\/jr-korpa-_ZNLoTRTEKs-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2024\/02\/jr-korpa-_ZNLoTRTEKs-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2024\/02\/jr-korpa-_ZNLoTRTEKs-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2024\/02\/jr-korpa-_ZNLoTRTEKs-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2024\/02\/jr-korpa-_ZNLoTRTEKs-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":217,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/the-ethics-of-linguistic-plurality\/","url_meta":{"origin":1184,"position":5},"title":"The Ethics of Linguistic Plurality","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"September 11, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"A guest post from co-authors Matteo Bonotti (Cardiff University) and Yael Peled (McGill University) How we think about language tends to significantly influence, if not shape, how we think about the political ethics of language, namely how we theorize language when considering the empirical and normative dimensions of political life.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Open for Debate"","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2017\/09\/font-705667_1920.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2017\/09\/font-705667_1920.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2017\/09\/font-705667_1920.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2017\/09\/font-705667_1920.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2017\/09\/font-705667_1920.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2017\/09\/font-705667_1920.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]}],"meta_box":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2021\/05\/Picture1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1319"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1184"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1187,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184\/revisions\/1187"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1184"},{"taxonomy":"custom_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/custom_author?post=1184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Black_Lives_Matter_Mural_San_Francisco_02.jpg\"){kind=link}