We Need Each Other

Judith Butler and Sunaura Taylor in Examined Life (2008), a documentary by Astra Taylor, discussing about disability as not merely some physical status but largely a social status:

Sunaura Taylor: When in those in-between moments of in between male and female or in between death and health, when do you still count as a human?

Judith Butler: My sense is that what's at stake here is really rethinking the human as a site of interdependency. I think when you walk into the coffee shop, and you ask for the coffee, or you, indeed, even ask for some assistance with the coffee, you're basically posing the question, Do we or do we not live in a world in which we assist each other? Do we or do we not help each other with basic needs? And, Are basic needs there to be decided on as a social issue and not just my personal, individual issue or your personal, individual issue?

So, there's a challenge to individualism that happens at the moment at which you ask for some assistance with the coffee cup. And hopefully, people will take it up and say, "Yes, I too live in that world in which I understand that we need each other in order to address our basic needs. And I want to organize a social, political world on the basis of that recognition."

Blog Archive

We Need Each Other