Tag: Definitions of trouble

terms? what terms?

July 27, 2009

This blog is all about experimenting. Experimenting with blog writing. Experimenting with teaching ideas. And experimenting with how best to organize my posts, both for the reader who is reading it (in theory, at least) and for me who is using it as a reflecting-on-my-research-tool. Sometimes experiments fail. Well, maybe fail is too harsh. Experiments go awry or have unanticipated effects; they don’t work quite right. Like my “terms” category. If memory serves me right (ah, Japanese Iron Chef how I miss you so), this was my description of the purpose/goal of this category:

TERMS: While writing in this blog, I may come across terms that need some clarification or explanation. Perhaps they are loaded (with theoretical baggage) terms. Perhaps they come off as too jargony and inaccessible. Perhaps they are rich with meaning and require some unpacking. For whatever reason, I will devote an entry to explaining/reflecting on a term that requires additional consideration and file it under this category. Right now I am experimenting with how best to engage with (and explain/reflect on) these terms.

Here are the entries (all 10 of them) that I have done so far. They aren’t working quite like I had planned. Everything started out okay. My first three entries follow my goal as it is outlined in the “about the categories” post. But, then I lost steam. In the abstract, offering a glossary of loaded terms seems great. I even have a to do list, which includes:

  • liminal
  • abject
  • virtue
  • queer/queering
  • performativity
  • agonism (versus antagonism)
  • excess
  • livable life
  • beside oneself
  • truth-telling

If you are thinking that this looks like A LOT of work, you are right. Maybe that’s why I haven’t done these posts yet. Would this be a good assignment for students in my queering theory course? Hmm…

Okay, here comes a mini brainstorming session. Now you can really see how my brain works. Is the idea of creating a glossary terms just more work than I can do or is there something inherently wrong or too difficult about the task? I have assigned students certain terms in past classes, but it hasn’t ever worked out very well. Part of the problem could be that I made the assignment too informal–it was an in-class, small group assignment. Also, I didn’t offer any models/examples of how to describe/engage with the term. Would it work better if I made this term assignment formal (as in, built into the syllabus and with detailed instructions) and if I provided more examples of how to do it? Should students do these terms independently or work in pairs/groups? Or, what if I picked out a term for each week, one that the readings touched on particularly well, and then have students focus their reading/thinking around that term? Then, I could have the students get together at the beginning of class and compare their ideas before we launch into our discussion? Any thoughts? I will report back on what I actually decide to do.

Okay, enough of that musing. Back to the terms as I have written them on this blog. Even though they don’t exactly fit with my intended goal, I do still think that my posts are useful (for me? yes. for you? who knows). I have written about several terms that describe a particular way of embodying the troublemaker: the rebel, the whisteblower, the bullshit detecter. I have also written about terms that engage with the ethical implications of trouble: queer hope, queer optimism, curiosity-as-care. Perhpas I shouldn’t judge the terms so soon–maybe I should assess them later, once I have spent more time writing in this blog?

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Is trouble an adjective, a verb, a noun, or what?

July 26, 2009

I was very excited to see the subtitle of this book by Samuel A. Chambers and Terrell Carver: Judith Butler and Political Theory: Troubling Politics. Like me, Chambers and Carver are interested in giving serious attention to Butler’s idea and practices of troublemaking. Excellent. As political theorists, their focus is on the politics of troubling. Connected but different, my approach is on the ethics of troublemaking and troublestaying.

Check out their description of the goal of the book:

Our goal in this book is to explore the types of trouble that Butler has got herself and her readers into, to investigate the manner in which she has made trouble and to track the effects that her troubling has had on politics and the political. In so doing we seek to bring Butler into clearer view as a political thinker–to bring to light her political theory as a politics of troubling and troubling of politics (2).

I find their discussion of troubling, especially in the introduction, to be very helpful in clarifying how troubling functions within Butler’s work. In that introduction, they offer three different ways in which to understand troubling politics

Cov_118221First, the troubling in troubling politics is an adjective. The vision of politics that comes out of Butler’s work is troubling (as in worrisome, disturbing, unsettling, problematic) to many theorists/activists. These critics describe Butler’s politics as troubling to indicate that there is something not quite right about her project, especially her understanding of the political subject. Sure, she might develop a vision of politics and political action, but that vision produces a politics that is troubled/troubling and that, according to some, doesn’t ultimately work. And because it is troubling to others/doesn’t really work, Butler’s vision of politics gets her in trouble.

Second, the troubling in troubling politics is a verb. Through her interrogation of feminist politics and her challenge to gender, Butler is destabilizing feminist politics as usual with the aim of transforming it. In this sense, Butler is engaged in the act of troubling politics and the term troubling describes that act.

Third, the troubling in troubling politics is a noun. Throughout Gender Trouble and beyond, Butler has developed a political vision that is predicated on (it is its groundless ground perhaps?) troubling everything: subjects, identity categories, politics, ethics, democracy, The Brady Bunch (oh wait, that’s me, not Butler). Troubling is not a description used to modify and undercut politics (adjective). Nor is it something that one does to politics (verb). Instead, it is “its own politics” (9).

Exactly. Could there be a correlation between these three types of troubling and my versions of trouble on this blog (that is, making/being in/staying in trouble)?

  • Does trouble as an adjective describe the state of being in trouble?
  • Does trouble as a verb describe the act of making trouble?
  • Does trouble as a noun describe the ethics of staying in trouble?

Wow. I need to think about this some more. How do these three understandings of trouble work together/against each other to form a more systematic politics and ethics of troublemaking? Are there other ways to describe trouble? How is my vision of troublemaking connected/disconnected from Chambers’/Carver’s vision here? Is it helpful to think about trouble in this way or do I just like it because of my fixation on things-in-threes (I am my father’s daughter) and things-that-fit-in-neat-packages? Ah well, three is a magic number…

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in honor of my 50th post!

July 23, 2009

Yes, this is my 50th post. 36,301 words, give or take a few. Not that I am counting or anything. In honor of this very “important” occasion I want to do a series of entries on my theory of the ethics of making, being in and staying in trouble. Rather fitting since making/being in/staying in trouble is the theme of this blog, don’t you think? Okay, there is another reason why I am posting these entries now. I am presenting on this subject at the Feminist Ethics and Social Theory (FEAST) conference in September and I need to start polishing my remarks. I thought working through them on the blog might be helpful.

Initially I was planning to post the entire presentation on here–in chunks of course. But, now I am thinking it would be better to pull out some troublesome bits (as in parts that I want to flesh out/clarify)and reflect on them. But in this entry, I think I will just introduce my project. Here is the abstract for the FEAST presentation:

ABSTRACT: In the 1990 preface to Gender Trouble, Judith Butler reflects on trouble and its value, concluding “that trouble is inevitable and the task, how best to make it, what best way to be in it” (Gender Trouble, vii). With this statement, Butler introduces a central theme that continues to shape and motivate much of her work: learning how to make trouble and be in trouble are important tasks of the resisting subject. In this presentation, which comes out of a larger project on troublemaking as a virtue, I argue that Butler’s opening statement about troublemaking in Gender Trouble is not only a critical and provocative intervention into feminist politics as usual, but is an ethical gesture towards the dignity, desirability and necessity of troublemaking. This gesture, which is taken up more explicitly by Butler in Undoing Gender, points to two separate but related ethical projects involving troublemaking. The first project is concerned with making trouble and being in trouble in ways that extend and rework norms so that they make more lives possible and livable. The second project is concerned with exploring what is demanded of us as moral selves as we strive to stay in trouble.  I will conclude my presentation by tentatively linking the second of those projects with my own work on troublemaking as a feminist virtue.

9780415389556I am exploring the ethical possibilities of Butler’s work on troublemaking. It is exciting to see the recent interest, both by Butler and those writing about her, in connecting her work with ethics. For too long, the popular (among academics, that is) understanding of Gender Trouble is that is was not only counter but harmful to ethics/ethical projects. I remember this happening a lot in grad school. Ah, grad school…On the first day of every semester you had to go around the room and give your little spiel about what your academic interests were. Although I tried to mix it up, I usually ended up saying something about the ethical possibilities in the work of Judith Butler. One time, after giving my spiel, the professor sarcastically uttered, “good luck with that.” Oh bother. Anyway, the tide has changed and more scholars are writing and thinking about Butler and ethics. Moya Loyd writes about it. So do Samuel Chambers and Terrell Carver and Gill Jagger. Butler writes about it here, here, here, and with Catherine Mills and Fiona Jenkins here.

But, even as scholars have begun to think about ethics and Butler, their attention has frequently been on Butler’s Giving an Account of Oneself. What about Gender Trouble? Does it have anything to offer to ethics, feminist, queer or otherwise? Or is it part of a different stage in Butler’s thinking? On one hand, I can appreciate the need to turn to other texts. It is true, as Samuel Chambers and Terrell Carver suggest in their introduction to Judith Butler and Political Theory: Troubling Politics, that an overemphasis on Gender Trouble (which is often the only book that some people think Butler wrote) can obscure our understandings of Butler’s contributions to political [and ethical] thought beyond gender and gender performativity (5). However, failing to consider the ethical import of Gender Trouble could be sending the worrisome (well, at least to me) message that troublemaking/troublestaying, which is first and most directly articulated in Gender Trouble, has no ethical value. And often implied in that message is the idea that engaging in the troubling of gender is something that Butler used to promote–that is before she grew up and turned to more serious matters, like ethics and morality.

This idea that Gender Trouble and troublemaking is immature and therefore unethical raises several questions for me: 1. As Butler (and her work) has grown older, has she matured beyond Gender Trouble and troublemaking? Has she replaced her “childishness” and lack of seriousness (playfulness?) with more weighty matters–like being undone, normative violence, grief?; 2. Does one have to be “serious” and mature (that is, not young and immature) in order to engage in ethics? Can we imagine ethical visions that are not predicated on this equation of  maturity + seriousness = responsible/accountable and ethical?; and 3. Is troublemaking too playful, too immature, and therefore not ethical?

In my own work, I offer a very strong “No!” to this last question. Indeed, I am devoting a huge chunk of this blog to the idea that troublemaking, as a practice and an approach to life, has much to offer to feminist and queer ethical visions/projects. And in my presentation at FEAST I argue that Butler plants the seed for her future work on troublemaking as ethical in Gender Trouble. It is my contention that Butler’s recent work on ethics is not so much a turn to ethics (and a turn away from all that playful/immature performativity of her past) but a return to or maybe an extension of the ethical gesture towards troublemaking/troublestaying that she first makes in the 1990 preface to Gender Trouble.

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Trouble = worry = more insurance?

July 8, 2009

The other day I saw this Travelers’ commercial about a dog who is troubled (which, in this commercial means worried) over how to properly and effectively protect his bone. He tries various hiding places which don’t seem safe enough. Then he puts it in a safety deposit box at the bank which makes him worry even more (and lose sleep). Finally, we see him peaceful and playful as the camera cuts to the bone in his dish with a Travelers’ umbrella looming over it. A disembodied voice says: “When it comes to things you care about leave nothing to chance. Travelers. Insurance for auto, home, and business.”

Ah…more insurance (on everything and for every living thing) = no more worry and no more trouble!

I like the connection they make between trouble, worry and caring about something. We are troubled (and we remain/stay in trouble) when we care about something deeply. This trouble/worry/care enables us to keep trying to find better ways to care for (in this case, protect) those things that we care most about.

Here is what I don’t like about this commercial: Trouble, represented as worry, is something bad that we don’t want and that we suffer through. In this commercial, the uncertainty of the world and our inevitable exposure to others–and the danger that that exposure leads to–are implicitly linked to financial insecurity and the current economic crisis. The solution is not to learn how to deal with our vulnerability (and the inevitability of uncertainty and lack of control which is part of being human) or to develop skills/strategies for staying in trouble in productive ways. Instead, the solution is to buy more insurance, thereby shoring up the illusion that we can have complete and total control over what happens to us. This enables us to stop worrying (and stop thinking) about those things we care about and start enjoying life (because, of course, thinking and enjoying are diametrically opposed). The message in this commercial is: You want to stop being troubled by your tenuous financial situation? Don’t worry. Stop losing sleep over it. Buy more insurance and then you don’t have to think about it anymore. Or, put more simply: Don’t think. It makes you worry too much. Leave the thinking to someone else, like Travelers Insurance.

But isn’t not thinking (and leaving the thinking up to someone else) part of the reason we are in such a worrisome situation now?

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Whistleblowers as Troublemakers?

June 25, 2009

The other day, I came across the following article online: Whistleblowers: Troublemakers or Virtuous Nurses? My first thought was, can’t they be both? If you have been following my blog, you already know my answer to this question. Yes! Troublemaking is a virtue. My second thought was, what exactly is whistleblowing? Are whistleblowers troublemakers? If so, what kind of troublemakers? How and why do they make trouble? And what is it about their practice of making/being in/staying in trouble that is virtuous or not virtuous?

Here is how the author of the above article defines whistleblowing:

Whistleblowing is an attempt by a member or former member of an organization to issue a warning to the public about a serious wrongdoing or danger created or concealed by the organization.

So whistleblowing is truth-telling; telling people truths that they don’t want to hear. Whistle-blowing is about holding people and organizations accountable to the larger ethical principles that the society espouses and demonstrating how organizations are failing to honor those principles or are claiming to honor those principles but are secretly (or not so secretly) violating them for their own gain. In this way, whistleblowing is not about disrespecting the status quo, but trying to make sure that everyone follows the rules that have been established. Far from violating rules, the whistleblower wants to honor them. Is that what distinguishes a whistleblower from a troublemaker? Can a troublemaker make trouble by honoring the rules? Hmm….was Socrates-as-gadfly an early whisteblower (let me think about that one some more…)?

Addendum as of 6.27.09: I just found the following passage in “Whistleblowers: Moral Principles in Action” from The Art of Moral Protest which reinforces my idea about whistleblowers honoring the rules:

Scholars have found that employees are more likely to go public with damaging information if they “are committed to the formal goals of their organization or to the successful completion of their project; identify with the organization; and have a strong sense of professional responsibility. In other words, they are more committed to the rules than others (138).

The whistleblower is not merely an appointed or self-proclaimed enforcer of the rules/principles (like a hall monitor or a tattle-telling kid). Her truth-telling is aimed at those who benefit most from the system-as-it-is (this is called the hegemony in academese): large scale organizations, institutions, or privileged public figures. Not those who benefit less (that is, those with less privilege and less access to that mythical norm).

I found several articles online about the virtue of whistleblowing. I hope to read them in the next few days and write more about the specific ways that whistleblowing could be considered a form of virtuous troublemaking. In thinking more about the whistleblower, I will NOT be watching The Insider, however. The movie is fine. I saw it when it first came out. But, sorry, Russell-who-throws-phones-at-hotel-clerks-Crowe is not my kind of troublemaker.

Addendum as of 6.26.09: Reading through another essay on whistleblowing (Whistleblowers: Saints of Secular Culture by Colin Grant), I came across a reference to Silkwood with Cher and Meryl Streep. I definitely want to re-watch this movie–I saw it about 15 years ago. Must put this on Netflix queue! Too bad I can’t watch it instantly.

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Union Activists as Troublemakers

June 23, 2009

Did you know that many union activists/activist organizations proudly embrace the label of troublemaker? Labor Notes sponsors troublemakers schools and they even have a handbook. Check out what they say about the schools (which were held this spring in New York, Chicago, the Bay Area and Kansas City):

Are you angry that bankers get bailed out and workers get sold out?

Labor Notes readers across the country are stirring up trouble and connecting with grassroots groups to think through big-picture responses to big-picture problems—positive action on jobs, contracts, health care, and the environment. Learn tactics, skills, and strategies you can use right away. Join with other activists to figure out what this economic crisis means for everyone.

And, here is how they define troublemaker in The Troublemaker’s Handbook:

By “troublemaker” we mean someone who dares to defend her or his rights and those of fellow workers. That often means making waves and making management uncomfortable—so management tends to call such brave souls “troublemakers.”

I have not read the handbook yet, but I have been wanting to order it ever since I found it on the web last fall. The handbook focuses on tactics and strategies (as told by worker-activists) for claiming and defending one’s rights while on the job. Central to their mission (Labor Notes, troublemakers schools, and The Troublemaker’s Handbook) is the importance (1) of real stories from workers-on-the-floor and (2) of linkng resistance to education and to social justice.

Here’s another online article, Savvy Troublemaking that describes (and in positive terms) union activism as troublemaking. I particularly appreciate the author’s (Amy Carroll’s) explanation of savvy:

The AFL-CIO tends to stress that skills, as an organizer or staffer, are what young activists need most of all. And while such skills are imperative, they are better derived from experience than through a pamphlet. Rather, the best tool of the activist is political savvy. Such understanding is derived from knowing the relevant questions to ask, both of ourselves and of the movement. Towards the end of developing sophisticated politics, we tell here the stories of union reform caucuses, activist newsletters, community groups, and strikes that embody the best of vision and struggle, and are helping to rebuild the labor movement from the bottom up into the militant fighting force that it has the potential to be.

So, much like Labor Notes with their handbook, Amy Carroll emphasizes the importance of real stories and experience; for her, savvy is akin to being streetsmart. And, savvy is about developing the skills and tactics (a real world education?) for how to resist/transform and survive on the floor.

Savvy as streetwise…tactics…skills…real stories…I love the language they use. In my work on virtue ethics, I have long been interested in comparing virtues with skills and tactics. When is something virtuous and when is it skillful or tactical? Also, what are the differences between being streetwise and being intellectual (or theoretical)? This last question makes me want to revisit María Lugones and her fabulous chapter in Pilgrimages/Peregrinages entitled “Tactical Strategies of the Streetwalker/Estragias Tácticas de la Callejera.”  More on this later…

Incidentally, in the process of googling troublemaker for this entry I came across this little gem. Sweet. I have already netflixed it. Look for an entry on Laura Ingalls Wilder as the troublemaking schoolgirl soon. Ahh the interwebs how I love you so.

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TAKING CARE = STAYING IN TROUBLE?

June 11, 2009

I happened to be looking up trouble on dictionary.com and found this connection between trouble and care:

CARE DEFINITIONS
3. To take care, pains, trouble (to do something) implies watchful, conscientious effort to do something exactly right. To take care implies the performance of one particular detail: She took care to close the cover before striking the match. To take pains suggests a sustained carefulness, an effort to see that nothing is overlooked but that every small detail receives attention: to take pains with fine embroidery. To take trouble implies an effort that requires a considerable amount of activity and exertion: to take the trouble to make suitable arrangements.

TROUBLE SYNONYMS
1. concern, upset, confuse. 4. pester, plague, fret, torment, hector, harass, badger. 12. concern, grief, agitation, care, suffering. 14. See CARE 15. trial, tribulation, affliction, misfortune.

So, taking care = being vigilant/watchful = persistent (critical) attention = making an extra effort = not being complacent = staying in trouble.

I like this connection because it enables us to think about troublemaking as something other than disruptive and destructive; it is a form of care. For me, this connection is key for thinking about the ethical implications and import of making/being in/staying in trouble.

Word Count: 193 words

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Mavericks, Renegades, Troublemakers

June 10, 2009

I was doing a random google search of troublemakers and I came across this article from Rolling Stone (12/2005). It was part of a special feature on Mavericks, Renegades and Troublemakers of 2005. Michael Moore wrote the introduction for it. Here are some highlights from Moore’s reflections on making trouble [emphasis is mine]:

Thanks to a number of individuals who, in 2005, dared to step out of line and say something real, the public had begun a seismic shift away from the chokehold of uniform and uninformed thought.…As a rule, we are instructed from childhood that serious consequences shall arise if we dare to rock the boat. We learn instinctually that it is always better to go along so that we get along. To slip off the assembly line of group think means to risk ridicule, rejection, banishment. Being alone sucks, but being alone while you are attacked, smeared and scorned is about the same as picking up a hot poker and jamming it in your eye. Who in their right mind would want to do that? Especially when conformity to the community offers as its reward acceptance, support, love and the chance to be comfortably numb.

So, troublemaking (and rebelling, rabble-rousing, being a brat–which are all categories in this special issue) is: daring to step out of line; saying something real; and shifting away from uniform and uninformed thought–from being the same and being ignorant.

We don’t make trouble because: there are serious consequences for rocking the boat (troubling the waters); refusing to participate in group think is risky and leads to rejection and ridicule; challenging others is often an ostracizing and solitary endeavor which can lead to violent attacks; and conformity is comfortable and comforting.

Note: Moore’s description of being attacked because you rock the boat as the equivalent of jamming a hot poker in your eye reminds me of Theodor Adorno and this passage from Minima Moralia: “The splinter in your eye is the best magnifying glass.” I will have to find my copy of the book (at least I think I have a copy) and reread it. That might provide for an intriguing way in which to read Moore’s comments.

Here is some more of Moore’s introduction:

This year’s mavericks and rabble-rousers stuck their necks out — and they didn’t get them chopped off. They helped the nation make a turn toward the truth, and average Americans began to speak their minds freely in the diners and the churches and the bars, little words of discontent and dissent and growing outrage. You can argue that it was five years and 2,100 dead soldiers too late. Or you can say that Americans may be slow learners, but when we finally figure something out… well, watch out. A new majority forms, and there can be no stopping it. Stands taken by this year’s troublemakers had become, by year’s end, the mainstream position of the American people. Every poll shows the same thing: The majority now oppose the war and no longer trust the president when he speaks. The time is ripe to get this country back in the hands of the majority. Will we seize the moment? Or will we need a whole new crop of rebels next year to keep us honest? Thank God we will still have artists and writers and everyday citizens willing to sign up for the call. Those who dare to be different are the closest thing we have to a national treasure.

This passage raises some interesting questions for me: Can we be a nation of troublemakers? Or, if troublemakers become the majority do they lose their ability to make trouble? What is the process that occurs when troublemakers unsettle us to the point that we listen–really listen–to what they have to say? The image I get of the troublemaker from Moore’s description here is that of someone (or a bunch of someones) who provoke us into action. These troublemakers are not part of the action, instead, they cause the action. But, is that the only role of the troublemaker? What kind of action is troublemaking itself? And, how can troublemakers participate in the action themselves?

Finally, what do we make of Moore’s final statement: “Those who dare to be different are the closest thing we have to a national treasure”? If you are part of the majority can you dare to be different? Earlier in the passage, Moore argues that the majority of American’s disagree with the direction of the country and the President (this is 2005, remember). If you are part of that majority and you share the same opinion, can you dare to be different (whatever that means) and still be part of the majority? If not, is Moore suggesting that those who are different–who stand out, who don’t conform and who are willing to challenge the mainstream–are not us (the majority) but simply treasures (objects) that we should keep around to remind us of where we are going wrong or how we should change? If so, where and how do these figures fit into the community–are they just exalted figures that are different from us OR can we learn to be our own troublemakers?

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Films with Trouble in the Title

June 10, 2009

Here are three different films that have trouble in the title (and that have some connection with making/being in/staying in trouble). As of this post, I have only seen one of them.

ONE Trouble the Water is a documentary from this year (2009) that was nominated for an Academy Award. It is about Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath and includes footage by an aspiring rap artist–Kimberly Rivers Roberts–whose home and community were devastated by the storm and the chaos and destruction that it caused.

What or who is it that is troubling the waters? Is it the storm and its aftermath? Is it the filmmakers (the “professionals” and/or the “amateurs”)? Is it Kimberly’s/Scott’s community and the people of New Orleans? Is the trouble the water of the title a good thing or a bad thing or both? I will report back to this blog once I have watched the movie. Hopefully it will be sometime soon.

TWO Making Trouble (2007) is a documentary about some key Jewish women comedians and the important contribution that they have made to the entertainment world.

I like the connection between making trouble, comedy and women. I am very interested in the exploring how comedy/laughter/humor fit into troublemaking and its role in resistance and transformation. I have wanted to watch this for awhile, but it is not available on DVD. I just might have to arrange for a special screening this year.

THREE Female Trouble is part of John Water’s Trash Trilogy. It came out the year I was born (1974) and chronicles the descent of Dawn Davenport (Divine) into the world of crime and the criminal.

What can I say? This movie is crazy and gross and fabulous. I previewed it this spring and then screened parts of it in my Feminist and Queer Explorations in Troublemaking class. Judith Butler makes reference to it in the original preface to Gender Trouble and it (and Waters and Divine) has a lot to say about the links between troublemaking, deliquency, gender performance, and trash-as-abject. It is available on DVD and worth a screening–just don’t watch it on a full stomach.

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Trouble, the board game

June 8, 2009

This morning I played Trouble with my sisters and niece. I used to love that game.

So, we were sitting around playing it and I asked AMP: Why is it called trouble and when are you in trouble? Do you make trouble when you send somebody else back to the start or are you in trouble when another player is trying to send you back or is the whole thing about being in the state of trouble (always staying in it) because your situation is so precarious? And, why is it called trouble at all? What is it about making/being/staying in trouble that attracts people? That is, why are people drawn to a game with trouble as the goal?

AMP suggested looking at the rules for an explanation (thanks AMP!), but it doesn’t say anything about why you call it Trouble instead of SORRY or AGGRAVATION (for example). When the rules didn’t help, I decided to search on the interwebs. At Board Game Central they describe trouble as what you are in when an opponent that you have sent back to home gets out and comes after you (as in…uh oh. You shouldn’t have done that. You’re in trouble now). This description is very different than SORRY which is described as being about seeking revenge on others when they send you back or AGGRAVATION which is described as being about aggravating others or shutting them down when they try to take shortcuts through the game. TROUBLE, in contrast, is not about seeking revenge or upsetting your opponent; TROUBLE is about getting in trouble by suffering the consequences of your misbehaving actions (see what happens when you do something bad to someone else, you get in trouble). The focus of the game is not on the trouble you make for others (that is, on getting back at others for how they have treated you or on preventing them from moving ahead in the game), but on the trouble you make for yourself.

Trouble in TROUBLE is not an action you take but a state you are in because of your actions. Hmmm….

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