The Feminine Perspective against the Manosphere

[Murphy]

 

[luka]

This has gotta be one of the more surreal threads on Dissensus.

first one that really made me think we should close the forum down for good.

 

[?!..!?]

Only if I accepted analytic philosophy, which I don't.

That's not the issue. The issue is that you probably accept a totalizing view of science in which there is know alternative to scientific, natural knowledge.
I fight views like this by promoting a non-naturalistic cultural perspective. Science doesn't intepret our gendered interpersonal behavioral self-expressions. Culture does.

Well clearly these lesbians don't want it.

Oh they want their pussies ate alright...their girlfriends just don't want to do it for some reason.

 

[thirdform]

That's not the issue. The issue is that you probably accept a totalizing view of science in which there is know alternative to scientific, natural knowledge.

I fight views like this by promoting a non-naturalistic cultural perspective. Science doesn't intepret our gendered interpersonal behavioral self-expressions. Culture does.

See, you're off the mark, but it's impossible to converse with you because you want to not talk about anything but your fascination with some brat who teaches at Burkley. Whereas relative to what you said, I'd like to go on about how kulturkampf did more harm for womens liberation in Bismarkian Germany.

Oh they want their pussies ate alright...their girlfriends just don't want to do it for some reason.

Hmmm wonder why that is. It's not big and not clever.

 

[?!..!?]

See, you're off the mark, but it's impossible to converse with you because you want to not talk about anything but your fascination with some brat who teaches at Burkley.

I'm willing to hear your arguments against scientism, if you have any.

 

[thirdform]

I'm willing to hear your arguments against scientism, if you have any.

scientism is a bourgeois ideology. Because as much as positive science is based on the materialist method, it is still inextricably tied up with the class content of the social relations of the society we live in. The dialectic demands we be more scientific than the scientists, expose the mystifying traps they fall into. I.E: what we require is a science of the sciences as such, I.E: historical materialism.

 

[?!..!?]

scientism is a bourgeois ideology. Because as much as positive science is based on the materialist method, it is still inextricably tied up with the class content of the social relations of the society we live in. The dialectic demands we be more scientific than the scientists, expose the mystifying traps they fall into. I.E: what we require is a science of the sciences as such, I.E: historical materialism.

Good answer. But you still haven't accounted for a non-scientific cultural interpretation of material things alternative to the scientific, naturalistic explanation of things. Hence you retain a vulnerability to the criticism that your marxism involves a degree of scientism.

 

[thirdform]

Good answer. But you still haven't accounted for a non-scientific cultural interpretation of material things alternative to the scientific, naturalistic explanation of things. Hence you retain a vulnerability to the criticism that your marxism involves a degree of scientism.

I mean your non-scientific cultural interpretation of things leaves the backdoor open for the most reactionary forms of patriarchy, so long as they can be justified relatively. But I've spent 30 pages expounding this and it doesn't seem to be getting through, so I'll leave it. If you think I capitulate to scientism, I can live with that, I have never required any form of validation in my perspectives. But then you should be honorable enough to acknowledge that based on my interpretation of your method, you capitulate to idealism, whilst claiming to be a materialist. I might have misinterpreted you, but then you would need to work on your presentation.

 

[?!..!?]

I mean your non-scientific cultural interpretation of things leaves the backdoor open for the most reactionary forms of patriarchy, so long as they can be justified relatively.

That's not clear. It does seem to me that your post-colonial mix of religious fundamentalism and hard headed scientific marxism support some of the worst tendencies of the patriarchy. But perhaps you have an argument for how you counter the patriarchy?

But I've spent 30 pages expounding this and it doesn't seem to be getting through, so I'll leave it.

The worst trend I've noticed in this thread is people claiming they've made arguments against me that they never me made. This is really a new troll tactic, one I've never encountered before. But if you really have so much content arguing this point, post a summary. I posted a summary of my view and I can do it again. Don't be an anti-intellectual, if your arguments are so good.

If you think I capitulate to scientism, I can live with that, I have never required any form of validation in my perspectives. But then you should be honorable enough to acknowledge that based on my interpretation of your method, you capitulate to idealism, whilst claiming to be a materialist. I might have misinterpreted you, but then you would need to work on your presentation.

This is actually the classic complaint against Butler: that she claims materialism while maintaining a closeted idealist. I'm going to seriously respond to this argument, because I think I have a solution. Once we classify constructionism as a branch of materialism, as Butler does, we have a seriously viable alternative to idealism, and dogmatic materialism, which I'm guess your view suffers from. Dogmatic materialism is that materialism which reduces dualism to a monism, and recognizes only one side of the dualist binary, the physical interpretation of matter. I think a scientific marxist like you, who claims base entirely determines superstructure would have to reduce consciousness to matter.

Materialist constructionism, on the other hand, allows for both a scientific and cultural interpretation of one and the same material substance. So it defies easy classification as dualism or monism. It just grants that humans and human-made artifacts have a special status because human consciousness can reflect on the original human element in cultural entities. Humans are cultural entities able to reflect their consciousness to self-direct it, to reflect on its humanity and its culturality. This reflective element is absent from strictly third-person scientific views like yours. Hermeneutics can do some things natural science alone can't. We see how Butler's view escapes scientism.

But now I must deal with the bigger problem: how does Butler's view escape idealism?

First, we must acknowledge that Butler's view takes human bodies as its object of study. That's why it counts as a materialist view. Her view concerns "biopower" as Foucault put it, she studies the socio-political relations that stand between living human bodies. We wield and use power to influence others. That's why Butler's compatibilist view leaves room for determinism. But more importantly, materialist constructionism evades idealism based on its assumption of the materiality of all its claims.

The question is, do Butler's views about language obstruct our knowledge of material objects? Let me note that Butler's view about language are very complex and intricate, and I won't recount them here. But I will say that my view about language argues that if anything, language clarifies our relation to our bodies. Gender performativity ask us to look at language as performative, thus we must consider an utterance, a speech-act as a practical appliance, not just a descriptive proposition. We have to understand speech-acts as the acts of embodied people embedded in a society. Following Gadamer, interpretation is like a conversation, it's intersubjective, I must combine my interpretation with those of others to get a more universal interpretation. The picture of gender as performative involves a person self-identifying as a a member of a gender, other people part of a community who can accept or reject the person as a member of their gender, and a larger society involving institutions such as the gender binary which influence anyone's gendered behavior. So Butler's gender performativity presupposes the existence of at least three material entities: the embodied individual, the other members of a community, and the particular society where the community exists.

But maybe you want more: you want a naturalistic scientific explanation of gendered activity. It's true Butler can't supply that and neither can I. Butler and I both don't know enough about science to give third person causal arguments about cultural activity. I don't think we need to do this. I think interpreting material things in an actual society suffices to evade idealism.

 

[Leo]

The arguments are all over the map, and beats the hell out of me what they're about most of the time, but I tip my hat to the amount of effort you two put into it.

 

[thirdform]

I'm going to respond to you one last time in good faith but I think you're mistaking your personal antagonists for me, which means you end up tilting at windmills. But never mind that, let's get stuck in right?

Materialist constructionism, on the other hand, allows for both a scientific and cultural interpretation of one and the same material substance. So it defies easy classification as dualism or monism. It just grants that humans and human-made artifacts have a special status because human consciousness can reflect on the original human element in cultural entities.

I have not denied that human consciousness reflects on the human, material element. Neither do I assert that ideology as such is merely a kind of base determination, but that it also itself entails a certain level of production and reproduction. What the Aristotelians would call autopoiesis. Just as the oppressor participates in denying their humanity through their oppressive actions, the oppressed also reciprocates in partaking in (and at times, seeing their alienated power in the oppression they are subject to.) What I deny is a kind of crude egalitarianism which reduces culture to a voluntaristic element, where economics, politics and social history can be subjected to dissection via the microscope, but art and culture must continue to exalt the cult of the great man, or great woman!

Further more: consistent materialism must by nature be monistic, because leaving the room open for dualism would mean you equate your sense impressions with matter. The mind is secondary to the brain and the body, necessarily so. Now it is true, that there is a form of idealist monism, in that it completely denies the primary nature of the human body (I.E: biological organism) what one would call solipsism. But these are the two ways to avoid a crude dualism. Any other method is essence an eclecticist jumble of materialism and idealism, which compatibilism ultimately is.

Humans are cultural entities able to reflect their consciousness to self-direct it, to reflect on its humanity and its culturality. This reflective element is absent from strictly third-person scientific views like yours.

Again, this is a falsification of my argument, because I've never claimed that all phenomena must be looked at in terms of third person scientism. What I reject is the idea that this conception of humans as cultural entities must be taken as a base framework, and to traverse will take us beyond metaphysics. Well, jolly good! I'm not interested in one aspect of cultural production (I.E: the manosphere) I'm interested in how culture itself becomes culture, how it becomes both an indespensible framework for human interaction, and also a factory product. I do not impute an autonomy to cultural production, it's true, but that does not mean I dismiss it. That would be akin to say that I dismiss all products necessary for my survival as an individual, and hence I could dismiss the table in front of me and the keyboard I am typing on. Clearly this is absurd. As far as I can understand it, your view wants to impute an autonomous existence to the arts and culture, whilst still keeping the determinist tonic for economics and politics. If we make that distinction, then, why not just become religious? Why not simply claim that good triumphs over evil and the promised land is in sight? Why not, further more, resurrect the old aristocratic opposition between the noble and the abject?

In fact, was this not Thomas Carlyle's proposition? That the issue with capitalism was it was being spearheaded by a merchant class who was uncultured and didn't know true artistic and intellectual genius. Propounding such a perspective, to me, would mean you would have to classify people into political typologies of noble and ignoble, the Noble will eliminate the ignoble, the Noblest of the Noble will hang the most villainous of the villains, and so on until only Carlyle remains who has to hang himself.

Hermeneutics can do some things natural science alone can't. We see how Butler's view escapes scientism.

On the contrary, by elevating the cultural interactions of humans to the constitutive method of her enquiry, she simply avoids responding to the challenge of scientism (or more correctly, mechanical materialism.) Her sin in this sense is to precisely remain a positivistic British empiricist, just like Foucault, and Deleuze, who could never ascend to coherently formulating a history of philosophy as tributary relations consolidated in their most abstract form, I.E: philosophy precisely holds sway in societies where the state collects agrarian tax whilst not being able to subordinate landed property. All philosophy in this regard has reflected the attempt to understand the landlord-peasant relation, and why Hegel was in essence, with his doctrine of geist, the last important world philosopher. After Hegel, bourgeois philosophy has merely tried to reintroduce religious thinking into the profane and secular firm, which is why it is rotted, and has no relevance outside of the academy. Avoidence does not equate to escape.

First, we must acknowledge that Butler's view takes human bodies as its object of study. That's why it counts as a materialist view.

Your problem here is that you think it's an either/or, either she is a materialist or an idealist. I say she capitulates to idealism, that she remains truncated in her enquiries. You could say the same for Feuerbach, who Marx rightly praised for subjecting Christianity to a materialist critique, but then did not hesitate to criticise Feuerbach's system (by remaining at the level of religion) and not penetrating deeply enough.

Her view concerns "biopower" as Foucault put it, she studies the socio-political relations that stand between living human bodies. We wield and use power to influence others. That's why Butler's compatibilist view leaves room for determinism.

Precisely, it's empiricist, not historical. What you object to is not determinism, what you object to is the demystification of history. You want a hundred flowers to bloom, but you have no practical proposals for making this a reality, and must retreat back to the liberal American milieu which nurtured you. This is akin to fundamentalist Christians who have no problem with human ideology and human interactions, so long as their providential history is left untouched. Except for the modern secularist, this is merely reduced to particularism, and universalism is stridently denied. It is certainly true that gender appearance and gender performativity appears to us as a blind necessity, however what we require is clarity and illumination, gender must be known to us, we must deepen this project, we must never accept it as mysterious. I do not deny the gendered subject, but the subject is itself an imprint, a reflection ofobjective reality. This is why we demand a universalisation of language, in order to communicate pertaining to this objective reality. Word play is a worthy artistic enterprise, and I won't dissuade you from it, but the artist does not exist within the mists of Rumpelstiltskin, she must work with what is furnished to her.

But more importantly, materialist constructionism evades idealism based on its assumption of the materiality of all its claims.

That is not true, the question is about sense impressions. A constructionist could deny objective reality whilst still recognising the materiality of objects, he would merely be trapped in the dilemma of knowing the thing in itself. Kant, for instance, could never recover from this. He pushed the enlightenment critical method to its limit, and then was truncated. Precisely because he denied the essential anthropocentrism necessary for human existence. Humans are egotistical animals,there is no need to shy away from this, the thing in itself carries weight for us insofar as they are things-for-us in terms of our labours. Not all materialisms evade idealism, only historical materialism does, by decentring the importance of the personage in the inauguration of historical cataclysms.

But maybe you want more: you want a naturalistic scientific explanation of gendered activity. It's true Butler can't supply that and neither can I. Butler and I both don't know enough about science to give third person causal arguments about cultural activity. I don't think we need to do this. I think interpreting material things in an actual society suffices to evade idealism.

Again, you're confusing mechanical materialism with historical (and by nature dialectical) materialism. What I want is a historical science of gender, not a crude empiricist one. You can do this, and so can Butler, but the rejects of the bourgeoisie, so long as they claim to be representatives of the workers movement, go to retire in the academy. What some people have called recuperation.

 

[thirdform]

I do not know if they teach you this fairytale in America, but it will answer all your questions.

There was once a miller who was poor, but he had a beautiful daughter. Now it so happened that he came to speak with the king, and to make himself seem important he said to him: "I have a daughter who can spin straw into gold." The king said to the miller: "That's an art much to my liking; if your daughter is as skilful as you say, bring her to my palace tomorrow and I will put her to the test." Now when the girl was brought to him he led her into a room that was filled up with straw, gave her spinning-wheel and reel, and declared: "Set to work at once, and if by morning you haven't spun this straw into gold, you shall die." Then he locked the room himself, and she was left there alone.
The poor miller's daughter sat there, and for the life of her she didn't know what to do; she had no idea how you could spin straw into gold, and she grew more and more afraid, so that in the end she began to cry. Then all at once the door opened and a little manikin stepped inside, saying: "Good evening, Miss Miller, why are you crying so much?" 'Oh dear,' replied the girl, "I'm supposed to spin straw into gold, and I don't know how to do it." Said the little man: "What will you give me if I spin it for you?" "My necklace," said the girl. The little man took the necklace, sat down at the wheel, and whirr, whirr, whirr, three times the thread was drawn – and the bobbin was full. Then he put on another, and whirr, whirr, whirr, three times the thread was drawn – and the second one was full; and so it went on until morning, and there was all the straw spun and all the bobbins were full of gold. As soon as the sun rose the king came, and when he saw the gold he was astonished and delighted, but his heart grew still more gluttonous for gold. He had the miller's daughter taken to another room full of straw – one that was much bigger – and he commanded her to spin that overnight as well, if her life was dear to her.
The girl didn't know what to do and began to cry; then the door opened again and the little manikin appeared, saying: "What will you give me if I spin the straw into gold for you?" "The ring on my finger," answered the girl. The little man took the ring, began whirring again with the wheel, and by morning he had spun all the straw into shining gold. The king was delighted beyond bounds by the sight; but he still did not have his fill of gold, but had the miller's daughter taken to an even bigger room full of straw, and he said: "You must spin this yet again tonight: but if you get it done, you shall become my consort." Even if she is a miller's daughter, he thought, I shan't find a richer wife in the whole world. When the girl was alone the little man came again for the third time, saying: "What will you give me if I spin the straw for you this time too?" "I have nothing more I can give you," answered the girl. "Then promise me, when you are queen, your first child." "Who knows how things will turn out?" thought the miller's daughter, and in her distress she had no idea what else she could do; so she promised the little man what he desired, and in return the little man once again spun the straw into gold. And when the king came in the morning and found everything as he had wished it, he celebrated his wedding with her, and the beautiful miller's daughter became a queen.
A year later she brought a beautiful child into the world, and she no longer gave a thought to the little man; then suddenly he stepped into her chamber, saying: "Now give me what you promised." The queen was stricken with fear, and offered the little man all the riches of the kingdom if he would leave her child with her. But the little man said: "No, I would rather have a living creature than all the treasure in the world." Then the queen began to weep and wail so sorrowfully that the little man took pity on her. "I'll give you three days," he declared, "and if by that time you know what my name is, you shall keep your child."
All night long the queen called to mind all the names she had ever heard, and she sent a messenger far and wide throughout the land to find out what other names there might be. The next day, when the little man came, she began with Kaspar, Melchior, Balzar, and listed all the names she knew, one after another, but at each one the little man declared: "That's not what I'm called." The second day she inquired all round the neighbourhood to find out what names people were called there, and recited the strangest and most peculiar names to the little man. "Are you called Skinnyribs perhaps, or Sheepshanks, or Pegleg?" But each time he answered: "No, I'm not." On the third day the messenger came back and told her: "I couldn't find out a single new name, but as I came upon a high mountain round the forest corner by the back of beyond, I saw a little house, and in front of the house a fire was burning, and over the fire the funniest little man was leaping and hopping on one leg and crying:
'Today I'll bake, tomorrow I'll brew,
The next I'll fetch the queen's new child;
Still no one knows it just the same,
That Rumpelstiltskin is my name.'"

You can imagine how glad the queen was when she heard the name, and when soon afterwards the little man stepped in and asked: "Well, Lady Queen, what's my name?" she asked first of all: "Is you name Tom?" "No." "Is your name Dick?" "No."
"Might your name perhaps be Rumpelstiltskin?"
"The devil told you, the devil told you," shrieked the little man, and in his anger he stamped his right foot so deep into the earth that he sank down as far as his waist; then he seized his left foot with both hands in a rage, and tore himself right down the middle into two.

 

[?!..!?]

Now presenting an epic, two-part post!

A good argument against Butler, finally, and it only took 30 pages! I'm going to try to respond to this criticism slowly, to reply to as many of its points as I can.

I have not denied that human consciousness reflects on the human, material element. Neither do I assert that ideology as such is merely a kind of base determination, but that it also itself entails a certain level of production and reproduction. What the Aristotelians would call autopoiesis.

Pretty good so far. But what do you mean by autopoeisis? I don't know what this term means in a Marxist context. Does ideology self-organize?

Just as the oppressor participates in denying their humanity through their oppressive actions, the oppressed also reciprocates in partaking in (and at times, seeing their alienated power in the oppression they are subject to.)

Right, and that's why I say some women promote phallocentrism.

What I deny is a kind of crude egalitarianism which reduces culture to a voluntaristic element, where economics, politics and social history can be subjected to dissection via the microscope, but art and culture must continue to exalt the cult of the great man, or great woman!

Butler agrees with you here. Her commitment to Foucaultian power relations evades a voluntarism about culture. Institutions and communities influence all our decisions about culture. When it comes to our theory about culture, it suffices for us to study these power relations that condition the creative behavior of individuals. History is not made by great men, as Gang of Four say. The people responsible for making history (if anyone can do such a thing) are themselves products of a larger institutional and communal environment.

Further more: consistent materialism must by nature be monistic, because leaving the room open for dualism would mean you equate your sense impressions with matter.

I agree only to the extent that any materialist must affirm that only one kind of entity exists: matter. I don't leave the door open for dualism, I allow for a non-scientific interpretation of matter as a mind, an autonomous interpretation independent of, but potentially supplemented by science.

The mind is secondary to the brain and the body, necessarily so.

You're saying that base determines superstructure. This is reductionist scientism.

In my opinion, mind and body are two different interpretations of the same material entity. Each interpretation has its own independent virtues and vices.

Any other method is essence an eclecticist jumble of materialism and idealism, which compatibilism ultimately is.

I'm fine with mixing materialism and idealism, so long as I remain a materialist.

I've never claimed that all phenomena must be looked at in terms of third person scientism. What I reject is the idea that this conception of humans as cultural entities must be taken as a base framework,

I only take it as a base framework for our cultural studies. I consider it a near truism to say that our studies of culture should be based on humans as cultural entities. Natural science can be based off non-cultural things.

and to traverse will take us beyond metaphysics.

I have no desire to transcend metaphysics.

Well, jolly good! I'm not interested in one aspect of cultural production (I.E: the manosphere) I'm interested in how culture itself becomes culture, how it becomes both an indespensible framework for human interaction, and also a factory product.

Well alright, how does culture become culture? You've got my attention.

I do not impute an autonomy to cultural production, it's true, but that does not mean I dismiss it. That would be akin to say that I dismiss all products necessary for my survival as an individual, and hence I could dismiss the table in front of me and the keyboard I am typing on. Clearly this is absurd. As far as I can understand it, your view wants to impute an autonomous existence to the arts and culture, whilst still keeping the determinist tonic for economics and politics. If we make that distinction, then, why not just become religious? Why not simply claim that good triumphs over evil and the promised land is in sight?

Like I said I do consider my view compatible with religion. Someone can build a religious view based off Butler, but I choose to remain a secularist. And I can find nothing in my beliefs that supports a religious optimism.

Why not, further more, resurrect the old aristocratic opposition between the noble and the abject?

The answer here is simple: we critique the noble members of the dominant culture and defend the abject followers of feminine non-phallic culture.

In fact, was this not Thomas Carlyle's proposition? That the issue with capitalism was it was being spearheaded by a merchant class who was uncultured and didn't know true artistic and intellectual genius. Propounding such a perspective, to me, would mean you would have to classify people into political typologies of noble and ignoble, the Noble will eliminate the ignoble, the Noblest of the Noble will hang the most villainous of the villains, and so on until only Carlyle remains who has to hang himself.

Honestly, dude, it seems to me like you're the one into cultured noblemen. I'm more aligned with the common man. Ordinary queer and feminine people demand more representation and inclusion in more spaces. Butler views cultural universals as gradually expanding to include people of more diverse identities. Butler the democrat wants to let in as many people as possible into our culture, even if these people are quite unrefined and less than "noble."

Her sin in this sense is to precisely remain a positivistic British empiricist, just like Foucault, and Deleuze, who could never ascend to coherently formulating a history of philosophy as tributary relations consolidated in their most abstract form, I.E: philosophy precisely holds sway in societies where the state collects agrarian tax whilst not being able to subordinate landed property.

I don't see why Butler remains a "positivistic British empiricist" just because she doesn't have an economic theory of history. You'll have to say more about what makes her an empiricist and why this entails idealism.

All philosophy in this regard has reflected the attempt to understand the landlord-peasant relation, and why Hegel was in essence, with his doctrine of geist, the last important world philosopher. After Hegel, bourgeois philosophy has merely tried to reintroduce religious thinking into the profane and secular firm, which is why it is rotted, and has no relevance outside of the academy. Avoidence does not equate to escape.

The master-slave relationship is central to Butler's thought. And contrary to your belief, I've found academic philosophy sorely lacking in religiosity.

Your problem here is that you think it's an either/or, either she is a materialist or an idealist. I say she capitulates to idealism, that she remains truncated in her enquiries.

Right, but what does it mean that she's truncated? And I'm fine with mixing materialism and idealism, like I said above. The question is, does my view have the flaws you accuse it of having as a result of my alleged idealism. And it's unclear what those idealist flaws are.

You could say the same for Feuerbach, who Marx rightly praised for subjecting Christianity to a materialist critique, but then did not hesitate to criticise Feuerbach's system (by remaining at the level of religion) and not penetrating deeply enough.

Why do you remain so religious then? You leave out the fact that eventually Marx abandoned religion altogether. Isn't it more faithful to Marx to take an atheist approach to the economy?

Precisely, it's empiricist, not historical. What you object to is not determinism, what you object to is the demystification of history.

You still need to say how we demystify history.

Except for the modern secularist, this is merely reduced to particularism, and universalism is stridently denied.

I consider myself a modern secularist universalist.

It is certainly true that gender appearance and gender performativity appears to us as a blind necessity, however what we require is clarity and illumination, gender must be known to us, we must deepen this project, we must never accept it as mysterious.

I don't see how Butler mystifies gender. If anything, she provides the clarity you want: she defines gender in terms of concrete actual behaviors and appearances. If we want to know about gender, Butler's work is pretty much fundamental to gender theory. It seems to me like our inquiries into gender should start with Butler.

 

[?!..!?]

PART 2

I do not deny the gendered subject, but the subject is itself an imprint, a reflection of objective reality.

Right, but Foucault and Butler agree with this. While they might deny the distinction between objective and subjective reality, they would definitely agree that the subject reflects social reality. That's what it means for power relations to partially constitute the subject: the subject depends on institutions for its identity. Butler and Foucault are often criticized for underemphasizing the subject, and replacing it with social relations. The true picture is more complicated: thus I interpret them as compatibilists. The subject has the power to change social reality even as reality influences his actions. This avoids the overly simplistic view that base determines superstructure.

This is why we demand a universalisation of language, in order to communicate pertaining to this objective reality.

Butler would accept a universalization of language. She would just push for this language to include more marginalized groups. Furthermore she would classify this language as cultural and non-scientific. Would that make it any less "objective"? Hard to say. Like I said, Butler rejects the distinction between subjective and objective reality. Her work more concern intersubjectivity: the relations that stand between people. Others must affirm my membership in my identity group, else I will fall into abjection.

That is not true, the question is about sense impressions.

Let me note that gender performativity stands or falls independent of one's views on mental sensory representations. Butler's emphasizes behavior rather than representations in order to show how our bodies express our identities.

A constructionist could deny objective reality whilst still recognising the materiality of objects, he would merely be trapped in the dilemma of knowing the thing in itself.

Right, but where do I deny objective reality to material objects? Like I said, the question for me is one of reality, not objectivity. I admit that science can know the mind-independent reality of material things. At the same time, I affirm the human-dependent social reality of cultural objects. True, we may never know the full extent of the relations between nature and culture, but that's a problem for science to solve on a case-by-case basis. If we want to claim that natural science can give us information relevant to a particular political issue, we need to cite the particular experiments as evidence to support this claim. Further, this claim supports no generalization about human nature. For we can only do experiments about particular things, thus it would take an extraordinary amount of experimental evidence to support any generalization about human nature independent from culture. My point is, as our discussion pertains to culture, we take only mind-dependent entities as relevant.

Kant, for instance, could never recover from this. He pushed the enlightenment critical method to its limit, and then was truncated.

Truncated how? Again you're not completing your thought here.

Precisely because he denied the essential anthropocentrism necessary for human existence.

This is a bizarre claim, sorry. Kant's Copernician Revolution literally affirmed an essential anthropocentrism necessary for human existence. If he didn't, who did? Heidegger? Well. maybe...But Hegel is arguably LESS anthropocentric than Kant, since spirit is identified with no particular human individual.

Humans are egotistical animals,there is no need to shy away from this,

I think there is! My whole view centers around promoting altruism and critiquing the egotism so rampant in capitalism.

the thing in itself carries weight for us insofar as they are things-for-us in terms of our labours.

You seem to instrumentalize the thing in itself. If anything, I argue that we should treat the thing in itself as unconditional, independent of any use we might have for it. Scientific facts do not necessarily help us in practical, cultural affairs, and when they do, we only know that they do because of very particular empirical, experimental evidence.

Not all materialisms evade idealism, only historical materialism does, by decentring the importance of the personage in the inauguration of historical cataclysms.

Right, but I still don't see what the problem is with my idealism as long as I combine it with materialism. And I do affirm the mind-independent reality of matter interpreted scientifically, which I argue avoids idealism's mistake of denying our access to non-mental entities. I am interested not in means-end rationality but rather in the larger moral goal of helping people, of acting for the sake of another. Thus it doesn't matter to me what things exist for me. I exist for others.

Again, you're confusing mechanical materialism with historical (and by nature dialectical) materialism.

What is the difference between mechanistic materialism and historical materialism? What does Marx have that mechanists don't?

What I want is a historical science of gender, not a crude empiricist one. You can do this, and so can Butler,

I wouldn't call empiricism "crude", but I agree, we must study gender in historical context. Butler affirms gender as historical since they allow for the definition of gendered terms like "woman" to change. What more would it take give a historical science of gender? A study of the material conditions underlying gendered behavior? I would support that study, but I don't think I have the skills to do it.

but the rejects of the bourgeoisie, so long as they claim to be representatives of the workers movement, go to retire in the academy. What some people have called recuperation.

No argument here! I wish academia allowed some room for radical politics....Much of analytic ethics does recuperate mainstream ideology, I find.

 

[luka]

2 bald men. 1 comb.

 

[luka]

good morning get your day started. i look fantastic. im pure muscle and testosterone like a prowling purple steak

 

[luka]

probably the best looking and most handsome man in my age bracket, also the most physically and spiritually powerful

 

[luka]

i watched the swimmer the other day thats bascially me except i can still gain access to my apartment

 

[thirdform]

I think there is! My whole view centers around promoting altruism and critiquing the egotism so rampant in capitalism.

If your view is indeed this, then why do you want to feminise hypermasculine men, an approach which shares quite a lot in common with CBT therapy as a model of horse training? Aren't you just trying to make these men better integrated into the labour market? Further more, how do you expect humans to carry out their daily affairs with diminished sense of ego. Women are necessarily so (like men) highly egotistical, otherwise they wouldn't as such, have a sense of self and womanhood, what Lacan was hinting at with proclaiming that 'there is no such thing as a sexual relationship.' You talk about the unconditional openness of the feminin, but surely then you could only keep this unconditionality up through masculine oppression? This is where you tend to mystify gender.

 

[Mr. Tea]

probably the best looking and most handsome man in my age bracket, also the most physically and spiritually powerful

In sum, then, your brain is rotting but you look like a Greek god, correct?