tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post6485914726750448962..comments2024-03-28T09:56:06.298-04:00Comments on Grim's Hall: Against Feminism and the Modern WorldGrimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07543082562999855432noreply@blogger.comBlogger40125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-24575408601731556282013-03-05T13:05:36.846-05:002013-03-05T13:05:36.846-05:00Yes. And the words I'm saying here were craft...Yes. And the words I'm saying here were crafted by me and posted by me.<br /><br />Words are an imperfect tool, and the moreso when they are a quote from someone else you are adapting to your own purpose. There are things that poster captures that are important to me, but there are other things it does not capture. You are worth it to me. Nothing changes that.Grimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07543082562999855432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-2978779935416360772013-03-05T12:59:30.706-05:002013-03-05T12:59:30.706-05:00The poster was made by someone else but posted by ...The poster was made by someone else but posted by you.Texan99https://www.blogger.com/profile/10479561573903660086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-27495404116262177762013-03-05T12:51:38.327-05:002013-03-05T12:51:38.327-05:00Thank you, Elise.
Tex, my expressed view is that ...Thank you, Elise.<br /><br />Tex, my expressed view is that you <i>are</i> worth it. The poster was made by someone else. You tell me you don't aspire to be that kind of person, but you don't need to aspire to anything. You're worth it to <i>me</i>, just as you are.Grimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07543082562999855432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-20121336385812581362013-03-05T12:49:06.846-05:002013-03-05T12:49:06.846-05:00i completely forgot about that book, and it's ...i completely forgot about that book, and it's actually an exception to my statement above. It influenced me profoundly. A really terrific book. Available via Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Games-Mother-Never-Taught-You/dp/B000GR5LHY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1362505667&sr=8-1&keywords=games+mother+never+taught+youTexan99https://www.blogger.com/profile/10479561573903660086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-89791003384475184392013-03-05T12:43:25.216-05:002013-03-05T12:43:25.216-05:00What was this 'one reviewer' reviewing?
A...<i>What was this 'one reviewer' reviewing?</i><br /><br />A book called <i>Games Mother Never Taught You</i>. The link to her site seems to be dead which is a shame because it was very interesting. The quote I gave was from a blog post where I referenced her:<br /><br /><a href="http://is.gd/9PK0Qg" rel="nofollow">Fourth Wave, Part 2: Women in the workplace</a>Elisehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06594477709835944165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-59022027100392503642013-03-05T12:28:38.895-05:002013-03-05T12:28:38.895-05:00It's not that I haven't encountered them. ...It's not that I haven't encountered them. It's that I don't find them useful.<br /><br />Why in the world would you be willing to die for me, if your expressed view is that I the sort who isn't worth it?Texan99https://www.blogger.com/profile/10479561573903660086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-67678760241094364932013-03-05T12:17:40.612-05:002013-03-05T12:17:40.612-05:00I'm not sure it's right to say that I find...I'm not sure it's right to say that I find these thinkers useful -- mostly I think they are wrong. All I'm inviting you to do is encounter them, if you wish. And since you don't wish, you won't, and that's that.<br /><br />There are things I get to decide, too, including who is worth dying for. I imagine you would find it uncomfortable if I died for you, but I would do it anyway. Perhaps I should apologize! But it is how I was made, do you see? I don't know how to be otherwise; nor can I imagine wishing to be.<br /><br />I suspect you are saying something similar.Grimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07543082562999855432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-9332298629753522792013-03-05T12:05:49.713-05:002013-03-05T12:05:49.713-05:00That's how I take a friendly suggestion to re-...That's how I take a friendly suggestion to re-identify myself. I do understand you were suggesting that I do it on my own terms, but somehow according to all the thinkers you find particularly useful, and whom I do not.<br /><br />I realize you're not literally asking me to become like the ideal you seem to hold for women -- like the chick in your "Chivalry" poster -- but there's nevertheless a dissonance between your ideal and what I am. I can't aspire to your ideal. I can't imagine being "one of the ones worth dying for" in your formulation. I guess that makes me not worth dying for, which is just as well, since I wasn't asking for it, or at least not if the motive was my correct form of womanhood.Texan99https://www.blogger.com/profile/10479561573903660086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-32651670216626342902013-03-05T11:49:36.843-05:002013-03-05T11:49:36.843-05:00Well, that's all I'm asking for. I don'...Well, that's all I'm asking for. I don't want to introduce it where it isn't relevant -- that would be an error in the other direction.<br /><br />Nor, I hope you realize, have I asked you to be anything other than what you are. Far from that, I handed you the keys to the blog and asked you to be what you are right here. I like you -- you, and Cass, and Elise, each one. Nothing about what I am after involves trying to tell you that you ought to be otherwise than you are.Grimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07543082562999855432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-11094521430893001842013-03-05T11:33:02.403-05:002013-03-05T11:33:02.403-05:00As for laws that take sex into account, I'm al...As for laws that take sex into account, I'm all for it whenever sex is relevant. I just think it's relevant far less often than many people do.Texan99https://www.blogger.com/profile/10479561573903660086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-45668390710638058902013-03-05T11:31:33.790-05:002013-03-05T11:31:33.790-05:00I've never read Betty Friedan that I can recal...I've never read Betty Friedan that I can recall. Nor do I recall that anything I've ever read has had a huge effect on my feminism one way or the other. I was just raised to think of myself as human first and female second. I don't remember a time when I was ever any different. When I started to run across men who thought I should be a different way, I was a little baffled, but I never could take them seriously. The same goes for authors. I just can't understand what universe they're describing, because I apparently don't live in it.Texan99https://www.blogger.com/profile/10479561573903660086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-9081054804648415182013-03-05T11:27:20.893-05:002013-03-05T11:27:20.893-05:00What was this 'one reviewer' reviewing?
I...What was this 'one reviewer' reviewing?<br /><br />I have concerns about attempting to structure the law in such a way that it doesn't take sex into consideration: it's another step on the road to universality, which means a law increasingly detached from the facts of the world we really live in. <br /><br />But even if you think this is not a serious problem -- to me it seems serious -- it's not the only one: clearly the Violence Against Women Act, for example, brought enough pressure that Republicans caved on it last week. That's all the more amazing given that their opening position was 'we'll agree to pass the old one again.' Apparently there was enough pressure that re-authorizing the existing special protections wasn't enough even for the allegedly-rabid Republican House.Grimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07543082562999855432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-17632798068041166572013-03-05T10:58:22.717-05:002013-03-05T10:58:22.717-05:00It may be possible to structure a kind of conserva...<i> It may be possible to structure a kind of conservative feminism that refuses to include special protections for women in the law.</i><br /><br />There was and is exactly that kind of feminism. Certainly that was first-wave feminism. It was also something one reviewer called <br /><br /><i>"right-wing second-wave feminism” which “embodies the 1970's version of ‘make it on your own by playing within the system’-- ie, conservative feminism.”</i><br /><br />That version of feminism got drowned out by what I call Institutional Feminism and, sadly, was abandoned by women and men who refused to call themselves "feminists" for fear they would be associated with IFs. Conservatives did, as Ace says, cede the word and it's costing them dearly. Perhaps if Republicans had adopted Conservative Feminism (or, as I like to call it, Real Feminism) as enthusiastically as Democrats adopted Institutional Feminism (without the warping that accompanied that adoption), things would look brighter for Republicans.Elisehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06594477709835944165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-109881812051968372013-03-05T10:49:34.045-05:002013-03-05T10:49:34.045-05:00I don't really buy Grim's assertion...
I&...<i>I don't really buy Grim's assertion...</i><br /><br />I'm right here! :) My thought is that it's French and German philosophy, which you may have received secord or third hand even though you haven't read it directly. All I want to invite you to do, if you wish, is to encounter it firsthand and see what you think. (You, Cass, should especially read Kant -- those who brought you up were clearly influenced by him, though you probably haven't read more than his <i>Groundwork</i> even with your excellent education. I think you'd have a lot to contribute, though, if you decided to take the time.)<br /><br />Now a moral sense that resembles aesthetics would be quite right, given what I've argued here. You know I think that the Good divides first into the True and the Beautiful: so a moral sense, which looks to the Good, has to be able to do both kinds of calculation.<br /><br />What you say about your husband makes sense to me. I think even you and I, or Tex and I, don't really disagree about what 'right looks like' (to use the military expression). What I disagree with are fundamental assumptions. Now to me that seems important, but perhaps that is a flaw in my approach to the world. <br /><br />But I don't think it is. I think it matters. If your assumptions are right, you get to the right place for the right reasons. If not, you may get to the right place, but there's something accidental about the fact that you do. Nor can you be sure that you'll remain right: you can go wrong, and easily, because your guides are not reliable.Grimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07543082562999855432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-56770920734523989022013-03-05T09:35:29.402-05:002013-03-05T09:35:29.402-05:00That's part of my problem with so many of thes...That's part of my problem with so many of these discussions - I am female, and much of what Tex argues makes sense to me, but there are areas where we differ.<br /><br />My husband and I, though we have different plumbing, agree on most things related to feminism. But there's an overlay for both of us that I can only describe as an instinctive or natural reaction born of seeing life through the lens of our very different experiences.<br /><br />We get to the same place, mostly for the same reasons. But he instinctively bristles at certain things that don't bother me so much, and vice versa.<br /><br />I don't really buy Grim's assertion that feminism springs from French philosophy. I think he's giving these folks waaaaaaaaaaaay too much credit. From what I've been reading lately, large numbers of ardent feminists haven't even read Betty Friedan.<br /><br />Honestly, I don't find that most people think deeply (or read deeply, or discuss deeply) the majority of their beliefs. Maybe they should, but they don't.<br /><br />I always liked Haidt's formulation of "a moral sense" that resembles aesthetics more than anything else. That seems to be how most people make up their minds about big issues.Cassnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-44668326590851693092013-03-05T08:37:22.777-05:002013-03-05T08:37:22.777-05:00I think that to approach the issue the way you sug...I think that to approach the issue the way you suggest, I'd have to re-identify as more than a different kind of feminist or woman. I'd have to re-identify as Grim!Texan99https://www.blogger.com/profile/10479561573903660086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-46065878266528445752013-03-05T00:27:42.256-05:002013-03-05T00:27:42.256-05:00Of course. But that is simply because no one but ...Of course. But that is simply because no one but yourself has the right to command you to rethink something so basic as your identification. If you undertake the project seriously, you may rethink it (and re-identify) on your own terms. And if you do not, then you never will. <br /><br />It would be a service to provide a better-rooted version of these ideas you call <i>feminism</i>. But to do it means a great deal of work: Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Aristotle, Aquinas, and others. It would be a great charge for anyone to understand, let alone to challenge, what these great thinkers say.<br /><br />From here you have in front of you a free choice. It's up to you what you do. Grimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07543082562999855432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-54064959618427168032013-03-05T00:00:46.306-05:002013-03-05T00:00:46.306-05:00You must realize that nothing at all changes in my...You must realize that nothing at all changes in my long-standing description.Texan99https://www.blogger.com/profile/10479561573903660086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-59240607285953578882013-03-04T23:33:21.219-05:002013-03-04T23:33:21.219-05:00Does it? You should lay it out, then. If you can...Does it? You should lay it out, then. If you can get to the same place from a different way, rooted in good earth, I might well endorse it.Grimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07543082562999855432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-86573097760180735212013-03-04T23:29:22.264-05:002013-03-04T23:29:22.264-05:00OK by me. My view of feminism starts with the eye...OK by me. My view of feminism starts with the eyes of God, too. Gets to the same place, though.Texan99https://www.blogger.com/profile/10479561573903660086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-23412913790208273392013-03-04T23:23:26.574-05:002013-03-04T23:23:26.574-05:00Well it is, and it isn't. It's not an arg...Well it is, and it isn't. It's not an argument against feminism <i>per se</i>. It's really an argument against the grounds out of which feminism grew.<br /><br />But it isn't an argument against the dignity of women. I think a wholesome argument of that sort is really possible, and indeed really right. But it grows in a different ground than what we call "feminism." It starts where Ace wanted to start it: not in modern philosophy, but in the eyes of God.Grimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07543082562999855432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-25074965098756081942013-03-04T23:14:25.955-05:002013-03-04T23:14:25.955-05:00If it's not an argument against feminism, then...If it's not an argument against feminism, then the title may have led me astray, but in any case I'm relieved to hear it. We appear to be even more in violent agreement!Texan99https://www.blogger.com/profile/10479561573903660086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-68261994442258968152013-03-04T21:57:42.132-05:002013-03-04T21:57:42.132-05:00Elise:
But my point is that I don't consider ...Elise:<br /><br /><i>But my point is that I don't consider my abhorrence to form a structure for rules. I consider discriminating against women (or men) in hiring and salary to be abhorrent; I am not arguing that we should have rules prohibiting it. </i><br /><br />That's workable on market principles. It may be possible to structure a kind of conservative feminism that refuses to include special protections for women in the law.<br /><br />On the other hand, I've generally supported sexual harassment law (not that I find it enjoyable, just that I find it necessary), precisely because it seems to be necessary to make the workplace workable for most women. Some women are just really tough, and don't give a damn about the constant harassment they might otherwise endure. But I think most would find it uncomfortable enough that they would eventually bail out of such a workplace. <br /><br />This is not a criticism of women, because I think they don't deserve to be subject to harassment: it just seems to be a natural feature of male/female relations that, without rules to guide it, harassment happens. Some rules, and periodic training (the Army does it as often as quarterly) seem to be necessary to making an intersexual workplace practical. <br /><br />It's a sort of <i>phronesis</i>, which is why I can see my way clear to supporting it.Grimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07543082562999855432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-14403772200736658912013-03-04T21:46:07.964-05:002013-03-04T21:46:07.964-05:00Cass:
The law doesn't treat ANYONE as an indi...Cass:<br /><br /><i>The law doesn't treat ANYONE as an individual, really. Nor should it. </i><br /><br />It really can't, right? The law as it exists on paper can do no more than set out general rules (which is to say, universals). This is true even if it were to try to exempt someone by name. Consider: "For all <i>x</i>, if <i>x</i> is Grim, <i>x</i> shall be immune." I don't think it's possible to write a law that doesn't take the universal form.<br /><br />But <i>phronesis</i> comes in with the jury, and indeed with the judge. The reason that we have courts and trials and juries is that justice needs must be concerned with the particulars of the case, and not only with universals. This is Aristotelian (although juries smaller than 'the whole of Athens' are more Viking than Greek). <br /><br />Otherwise we could push the law off on administrative bureaucracies, whose job would be to determine which universal laws had been violated, and apply the penalties in the book accordingly. We wouldn't need a judge, or sentencing guidelines, or even a jury beyond their fact-finding function of "guilty" or "not guilty." <br /><br /><i>I've pointed out all the male bloggers who talk of repealing the 19th amendment, even though far fewer women vote Dem than Blacks, or Jews. I don't think I've ever read a post talking about repealing the 15th Amendment. Where does that come from?</i><br /><br />I would say it comes from the fact that the sex difference is the most fundamental difference in human biology. Differences in race or religion are, in a way, artificial. Differences in sex are not: they really are unbridgeable differences.<br /><br />I started with Arendt, and maybe I should say something about her view of unbridgeable differences. She thanked God for them, in her private letters, and thought of them as a real gift. The reason is that the differences we can't bridge are what keeps us away from the scourge of her hours on earth: totalitarianism and fascism. A thousand men might make themselves into SS officers, each a copy of the other for all you can tell; but one woman is going to introduce a difference into their unit, no matter how hard she and they work to eliminate it. <br /><br />We've talked about how introducing one woman to an all-male office changes its moral structure elsewhere, and as I recall we've agreed on the point. It isn't that adding a woman makes it <i>better</i>; it's just that it necessarily makes it <i>different</i>, so that new rules have to apply that weren't needed before. You need rules about what kinds of behavior might constitute sexual harassment, for example. That's kind of the point that Arendt was after, and that I am after. It's not that women are better or worse that is important; it may not even be true that women are better or worse in any way we can reasonably discuss. But the fact of <i>difference</i> has its own moral quality.<br /><br />I think you are right to fear that women might be made into scapegoats, because this obvious and fundamental difference makes them the most obvious choice for blame for anything that went wrong. Anytime we're dividing humanity up into groups, and blaming groups instead of individuals, women are likely to be first on the line.<br /><br />That makes universality attractive as a standard, because it wouldn't allow you to break women out as a category. But I'm convinced -- and I have given an argument above -- that it's not a workable approach. If you can't consider relevant differences, you're at sea. And here, as elsewhere, the difference is itself morally valuable. We don't ignore it in practice, nor should we do so. I think the fact of difference makes us better. Arendt was right about that.Grimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07543082562999855432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-17947332330370615902013-03-04T21:32:39.818-05:002013-03-04T21:32:39.818-05:00Wow, we got to 15 comments quickly!
Tex:
...we ...Wow, we got to 15 comments quickly!<br /><br />Tex: <br /><br /><i>...we probably have no disagreement -- except that I'm far from sure I see what you're getting at in your provisions.... even better... But... then I'm left in doubt...</i><br /><br />So you may be confused because this has the form of an argument against feminism. But it's not really an argument against feminism at all: it's an argument against modern philosophy, which is to say, philosophy since the 1700s. Feminism is wrapped up in all that, for reasons that may not be entirely its fault: it may have a Marxist wing, for example, simply because it came of age at the same time as Marxism, and there was some cross-pollination that was a factor of breathing the same air on the same university campus.<br /><br />Maybe not, though. It's worth thinking about how that. But if you look through it again, you'll see (I think!) that there are no rules for women <i>qua</i> women. I haven't said anything about what I think your nature is like, or how you ought to be in view of that (unstated) difference. What I've made a case for is the idea that differences are an important part of justice, and that our ideas about what a just society looks like don't easily admit of rules against prejudice v. women (or anyone else, it turns out). <br /><br />That may be a way in which our ideas are wrong. That's one possible conclusion, though it isn't mine. But it's a discussion that would be rational, starting from this ground.<br /><br />Or it may be that we're right about markets (given an allowance for your and my significant differences on that topic, and taking our position as a kind of unified whole), but wrong about other things. <br /><br />It's a program of thought I think is worth undertaking. It may lead somewhere interesting over time. It's almost accidental that we're coming to it out of feminism, and not out of one of the other modernist philosophies that grow from the same roots in Rousseau and Kant and Hegel (say Marxism). <br /><br />On the other hand, if I'd written a piece called "Against Rousseau, Kant and Hegel," you'd have skipped the whole thing. :) Well, maybe not you, but most people. It's in seeing how these bad ideas have flowed into concepts we might even otherwise approve of -- I certainly approve of a generalized program defending the dignity of women in the eyes of God -- that we find the location of the tectonic plates.Grimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07543082562999855432noreply@blogger.com