Response

In order for me to fully understand the text, specifically the idea of critique as a self-formative practice and a site of production, I reluctantly drew some parallels between certain ideas within the text and my experience with Christianity. I want to preface this by stating that I enjoyed my childhood very much, I just had a problem with the religion I was brought up in. Here is an excerpt and my response below:

Excerpt from text: The critical practice does not well up from the innate freedom of the soul, but is formed instead in the crucible of a particular exchange between a set of rules or precepts (which are already there) and a stylization of acts (which extends and reformulates that prior set of rules and precepts). This stylization of the self in relation to the rules comes to count as a “practice.”

At a young age I identified that hell was a conceptual barrier between the self and the 'epistemological horizon' i.e. the limit, of the belief system. Of course I didn't have these words to describe that discovery until now, which is why I am writing about this time in my life. Hell was known as a force of coercion, something that was referenced frequently by the administer of power within the church. The preacher. I often asked why the idea of hell was needed to convince large groups of people to be good to each other and eventually realized that it was not a necessary reference point for creating a system of ethics to live by. Which brings to mind Foucalt's question referened by Butler "not to be governed?" By this I believe he is describing a function of critique that aims to redefine a source of motivation for certain types of behavior. An example would be identifying the reason to be good to one's neighbor as a form of praise to God and a way of assuring one's self eternal peace in heaven and then redefining that reason for being good to one's neighbor as an act that could build trust and camaraderie among a community. The difference here is that one of these options produces something else. The critique of the belief system led me to a place, a site of production, where I was able to create my own system of ethics. Admittedly, I continue to embrace a large portion of what I learned in the church with regards to how to treat people. That being said, there are a lot of curious perspectives that have the possibility of being manifested and affirmed within that belief system that I do not agree with and have come to understand as harmful biases and prejudices.