Clli\PTER FOUR

WILLFULNESS
AS A STYLE OF POLITICS

I
n this final chapter I aim to reflect on how willfulness has been, and
can be actively, we might even say willfully, claimed. To affirm will­
fulness or to find in willfulness "something" affirmative is not the
only way we can respond to the charged histories of willfulness I have
presented thus far in this book. To affirm willfulness does not mean pre­
scribing a set of behaviors, such as those that have been historically diag­
nosed as willful,1 as if they are an appropriate or necessary way of doing
politics. I have questioned the very status of willfulness as a diagnosis,
and I will keep questioning its status even as I mobilize the language of
willfulness for different ends. In my discussion of how willfulness can
become a style of politics, I do not assume we can always recognize this
style. By "style" I refer to a mode or manner of expression. Willfulness
is not only what subjects are assigned with but shapes the bodies who
receive the assignment. Willfulness could be thought of as politica! art, a
practical craft that is acquired through involvement in politica! struggle,
whether that struggle is a struggle to exist or to transform an existence.
Willfulness might be thought of as becoming crafty.
Willfulness can become a style of politics through the use of the word
"willful" to describe oneself or one's own politics. To claim to be willful or
to describe oneself or one's stance as willful is to claim the very word that
has historically been used as a technique for dismissal. The word "dis­
missal" derives from dis (apart, away) and mittere (to send, let go). To dis­
miss is to make something apart. We can accept this dismissal in refusing
to become part. Not surprisingly our histories are full of self-declared
willful subjects. Take the Heterodoxy Club that operated in Greenwich
Village in the early twentieth century, a club for unorthodox women. The
members described themselves as "this little band of willful women," as
Judith Schwarz reveals in her wonderful history of this club (1986, 103).
Heterodoxy refers to what is "not in agreement with accepted beliefs." To
be willful is here to be willing to announce your disagreement, and to put
yourself behind it.
Feminist, queer, and antiracist histories can be thought of as histories
of those who are willing to be willful, who are willing to turn a diagno­
sis into an act of self-description. Let's go back: let's listen to what and
to who is behind us. Alice Walker describes a "womanist" in the follow­
ing way: "A black feminist or feminist of color.... Usually referring to
outrageous, audacious, courageous or willful behavior.Wanting to know
more and in greater depth than is considered 'good' for one .... Respon­
sible. In charge. Serious" (2005, xi, emphases in original). Julia Penelope
describes lesbianism as willfulness: "Tue lesbian stands against the world
createci by the male imagination. What willfulness we possess when we
daim our lives!" (1992, 42, bold in original). Marilyn Frye's radical femi­
nism uses the adjective willful: "Tue willful creation of new meaning, new
loci of meaning, and new ways of being, together, in the world, seems to
me in these mortally dangerous times the best hope we have" (1992, 9).
Together these statements can be heard as daims to willfulness: willful­
ness as audacity, willfulness as standing against, willfulness as creativity.2
As we know from assembling a willfulness archive, willfulness is usu­
ally a charge made by someone against someone. I want to explore how
willfulness becomes a charge in Alice Walker's sense: being "in charge." If
we are charged with willfulness, we can accept and mobilize this charge.
To accept a charge is not simply to agree with it. Acceptance can mean
being willing to receive. This chapter explores a history of willfulness as a
history of those who have been willing to receive its assignment. In fol­
lowing subjects who are willing to be willful, who might even transfo rm
a judgment into a project, my argument moves across a range of political
situations. There is a risk that in moving across time and space, I move
too far, and too quickly. This is a risk I have been prepared to take. I ac­
knowledge that willfulness is a fragile thread that can be stretched only
if it is not broken.
Willfulness and Disobedience
A willfulness archive is full of acts of disobedience: the willful child is
the one whose actions are not only punishable by law, but can be treated
as justifications of punishment and thus justifications of the law. It is
perhaps not surprising, then, that the histories of willfulness available
to us (examples in which someone has set herself or himself the explicit
task of writing "a history of willfulness") are histories that explore how
willfulness became a legal term. For example, Michael Louis Minns offers
a "history of willfulness" with the aim of demonstrating that "willfulness
is an important legal standard" in criminal tax law (2007, 396). "Willful"
comes to mean intentional in two relateci but distinct senses: an act car­
ried out not in ignorance of the law but in knowledge of the law, and an
act carried out "with bad purpose" (403). "Willful" insofar as it qualifies
the nature of an action with reference to knowledge and intent remains
obscure and difficult as a legal term. As Andrew M. Stengel notes, in an
artide that draws on the earlier work of Minns, "In American criminal
law generally, willful is the legal lizard of mens rea, a chameleon-like term
that defies a single, constant definition in New York or any other jurisdic­
tion, and is thus a 'wild' term" (2011, 781).3
Wild indeed! Both Minns and Stengel give one case of the use of "will­
ful" in law the status of an originary case: the case of John Cooke, the
first solicitor general of the English Commonwealth who led the prosecu­
tion of Charles I. John Cooke was accused of "willfully and knowingly"
engaging in conduct that led to the death of Charles I and was executed
in 1660. I include John Cooke as part of a willfulness archive, one that
can be assembled out of biography among other threads, in part because
of how his story has been forgotten. John Cooke was an individuai will­
ing to stand against injustice. Minns has the following note: "John Cooke
was the first recorded person to daim that poverty was 'a major cause
of crime'; to suggest that national healthcare would be appropriate; to
suggest that lawyers should do ten percent of their work pro bono; to
suggest an end to debtor's prison; to suggest the abolition of Latin in
courts so that common people could understand the proceedings; and
to suggest the abolition of portions of the death penalty" (2007, 396).
We need this case to leave a trace: it helps to show not simply how will­
fulness is criminalized (to disobey willfully a law) but how willfulness
can be an orientation toward crime (to expose willfully the injustice of
the law).
Assembling a willfulness archive is another way of addressing one of
the oldest political questions: that of sovereignty. Tue sovereign is the
one whose will is given as a command. This is the argument of Hobbes's
Leviathan, written during the turmoil of the English Civil War. As Ross
Harrison describes, for Hobbes, the command "is obeyed just on the basis
 cited but equally important sentence follows: "Because it would be just a
To become subject to the will of the tyrant is thus to provide him with
matter of obedience" (1997b, 167). 8 For Foucault, there is power because
the very organs of this power: you become his feet, his arms, and his
there is disobedience. Our Grimm story is a lens through which we can
eyes. Becoming the limbs of the tyrant means becoming the agent of your
show the intelligibility of the argument: if it was "just a matter of obedi­
own harm: when you provide the tyrant with arms, you are beating your­
ence" the story would not be necessary. I have already suggested how the
self. This is another way of considering how the willful arm becomes the
story can be heard as a command: "obey!" In order for a command to be
straightening rod.
given, it is not necessary that this or that person has disobeyed. A part We can interrogate further the idea that power "over you" can only take
is commanded given the possibility of disobedience; and this possibility
place "through you." This "through you" is explicitly tied to will: the ty­
rests on will. Obedience is required when a will has not been completed.
rant exists "only to the extent to which they have willingness to bear with
Another way of responding to willing obedience is thus with sur­
him." Such a model implies, of course, that power depends on subjects
prise: why do some obey the sovereign will if that will requires their
being willing to be subjected. Tue problem with this model is how it can
will in order to be completed and if that will would also complete their
imply yes as origin (and thus will as culpability). Power can be precisely
subordination? Consider the concept of "voluntary servitude" devel­
what makes yes seem necessary for survival. In the first chapter of this
oped by Étienne de La Boétie in the sixteenth century, a concept that
book, I reflected on the intimacy of will and farce. A usual formulation
has had a profound influence in the history of anarchist thought (see
is that if subjects are willing they are not forced; but I suggested that a
Newman 2010). Boétie begins with his own surprise about the consis­
subject can be willing in order to avoid being forced. Avoiding the conse­
tency of obedience to a tyrant: "For the present I should like merely
quences of being forced can be a consequence of farce. Becoming willing
to understand how it happens that so many men, so many villages, so
to bear might be to avoid the costs of not being willing to bear. Subjects
many cities, so many nations, sometimes suffer under a single tyrant
might become willing if not being willing is made unbearable.
who has no power other than the power they give him; who is able to
And yet, as we know, there have been those who have been unwilling
harm them only to the extent to which they have willingness to bear with
to bear: more unbearability has been risked in the project of creating a
him; who could do them absolutely no injury unless they preferred to
less unbearable world. Tue project of becoming unwilling to bear can be
put up with him rather than contradict him. Surely a striking situa­
thought through the lens of willfulness: you have to will "too much," you
tion!" ([1576] 2008, 40, emphasis added). Willingness to bear involves
have to will "wrongly," in order not to be willing to bear. It is important
not only that subjects agree with the tyrant-or agree to his rule-but
to note that for some, any act of will would be designated as willfulness:
that they be willing to carry out or complete his will, to become his
any will is too much will when you are not supposed to have a will of your
subordinate parts. Obedience thus entails being willing to provide the
own. When we use the word "own" we are most likely to hear ownership:
limbs of the tyrant, to refer back to my discussion in the previous chap­
what is my own as what belongs to me and not to others. But think
ter, as Boétie himself notes:
back to the Grimm story: the wrong of the arm is how it ends up willing
He who thus domineers over you has only two eyes, only two hands, on its own. My arguments thus far have shown how only some "owns"
only one body, no more than is possessed by the least man among become wrongs. As Max Stirner notes: "Tue own will of Me is the State's
the infinite numbers dwelling in your cities; he has indeed nothing destroyer; it is therefore branded by the State as self-will" ([1845] 1993,
more than the power to confer upon him to destroy you. Where has 196). 9 In the case of rebellious action, "ownness" can thus be a diagnosis:
he acquired enough eyes to spy upon you, if you do not provide them not only as a way of implying rebels act out of self-will as I discussed in
yourselves? How can he have so many arms to beat you with, if he chapter 3, but as a way of denying the extent of support for rebellion, as
does not borrow them from you? Tue feet that trample down your if the rebels are the ones who are out on a limb. One way the judgment
cities, where does he get them if they are not your own? How does he of willfulness works is to create this impression: that disobedience of
have any power over you except through you? (46) the law is unsupported. This impression is how the judgment of law is
supported.
138 CHAPTER FOUR
WILLFULNESS AS A STYLE OF POLITICS 139