Homophobia, Intuition and Logic - By Martin Prior

Homophobia, Intuition and Logic

            I have recently written two articles on Sexism, Intuition and Logic, and I could continue on this topic, especially as The Sun produced one (possibly more) ‘toplessless’ editions.  I said there that it is not the actions which are sexist, but the persons pursuing them.  And so, despite the toplesslessness, the patter was the same.

I could say more, but I think I should turn to homophobia, where the issues are complimentary with racism and sexism.  Let us look at what ethics might say:

(i)            Social liberalism: gays are OK, they should be free to do as they wish provided nobody else suffers, and who else suffers apart from homophobes, who are really suffering from their own prejudices rather than homosexuality?

(ii)           Universalisation: what would happen if everybody ‘did it’?  The human race would not survive.

(iii)          The Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  Naturally… if I were gay I would expect them to bash me.  [really?]

(iv)         The ethics is nought, homosexuality is a sin… like abortion is murder, and some say corporal punishment is violence and pornography is violence.

Well, the gays don’t seem to do too well, three to one against!   I shall look briefly at (iv), then more closely (ii) and not at all at the Golden Rule.

Number (iv) passes the buck to some emotive but poorly defined concept.  Murder is unlawful killing but we are talking about what should be lawful, so we have a circularity.  And war is violence too.  As for sin, which many warmongers deplore, we have the Tom Lehrer song – at least a verse:

And when at last the police came by

Sing rickety tickety tin

And when at last the police came by

Her little pranks [murder of her whole family] she did not deny

To do so she would have had to lie

And lying she knew was a sin, a sin

And lying she knew was a sin.

Universalisation (ii) is more complex: in a society where survival is more crucial – and precarious – than social liberalism, people may well get nervous.  Marriage and property are intricately intertwined.  If sex outside marriage is a sin, and many societies see it like that because of the risk of disease, then homosexuality is clearly ‘outside marriage’ at least until recently.

People try and rationalise customs which have a pragmatic base: as I said before, they try and justify gender roles through an unproven innate difference.  Likewise with what people see as sin, since apart from anything else, it enables people to see themselves as virtuous.

To my mind, homosexuality is an essential part of an evolving species: evolution requires variability.  Furthermore, for much of human evolution I believe there has been a surplus of women, and society will be more stable if the imbalance is alleviated through gay women.  This is less problematic than polygamy – perhaps.

But then when missionaries impose polygamy on a society with a surplus of women, the imbalance is made much worse, and we can easily comprehend why another feature of Christianity, homophobia, was also taken up.

A caveat here: what I have said above should be regarded as hypotheses rather than proven fact or argument.  More on scientific method below.

To my mind we should not only tolerate homosexuality, but accept it as a positive force, as did the pre-missionary First Nations in Canada and America, who called them ‘two-spirit people’.  Their role might approximate to avuncular.  If they were called ‘aunties’ as a colloquial description, this might capture such a role, though as I have said, it would depend on who used the term whether it was a homophobic or positive term.

So much for the ethical analysis, with a little bit of sociology/anthropology and biology thrown in.

Scientific method: it is now possible for male gay couples to adopt children, and there is some evidence that the adopted children are strongly loyal to their adoptive parents.  But while this is a form of equal rights, do not children have an equal right to have a mother?  We come back to the issue of psychology and the innateness of the maternal role.  This is the realm of scientific method, and I am not sure the scientists are in agreement over these issues.

So while equality is important, not least when there is a conflict of interest, why not re-assert the positive role of these ‘uncles/aunts’?

Martin Prior

 

The Philosophy Takeaway 'Open Topic' Issue 43

Open to read: the responsive body - By Alexandra Baybutt

Open to read: the responsive body

            It is remarkable that those who regularly practice meditation are reported to have smoother fascia. Fascia is connective tissue, running in waves throughout our whole body in deep and more superficial layers. It means things get to stay together, but also glide against each other. Fascia is necessary. Yet it varies in the degrees to which it is more responsive, making movement easy, or to the degrees where it is more held, making movement less easy. Like so many materials, it is transformable, mutable through changing conditions.

In movement terms, what constitutes 'open'? Smooth, pliant fascia, lubricated joints, being adaptable to a range of stimuli, having access to full range of motion and dynamics. Translate that into aspects of simply 'being', we're looking at the actuality of responding, choosing to respond, adapting to a change in an environment and other people, or even simply surviving.

We need to expand out a bit, put this act of opening in relation to something, someone or somewhere. Being open or closed, as an end point, is subjective. Even when we explore an act of opening or closing in a particular context, it is still governed by the margins and colours inherent and unexpected in that context. The flower opens towards the light, but it needs water and good soil for that growth to proceed.

We open in order to grow. This could be to take in new information or new sensory stimulus. The flower opens to reveal its centre so the bees can be received. Opening implies change, primarily the change in the state of the thing or person opening, a change in the quality of the body’s tissues, and secondly in its relationship to its environment. However, the degree of change is on a personal continuum, or personal scale.

Opening is useful, actuated through change and simultaneously activating change, and when manifested through the immediacy of the body, change is sure-fire. But then, closing is also useful. From the perspective of survival, we resist, literally recoil, back away before we go with or advance, where there is shape change in the body’s core. It is important to acknowledge this reflex.

In order to resist, we open a small way in order to perceive something, then 'know' to recoil, though this 'knowing' is at such a deep layer it can hardly be considered 'knowing' in cognitive way. This is the information of the tissues and their vast intelligence. If we accepted everything we encountered, we would be subject to imminent death through lack of discernment. Closing off then, is necessary. Exploring harmony between open-ness and closed-ness seems to be the game. Closing off, turning inwards for reflection, digestion and consolidation are equally valid parts of the growth and learning process.

Actively open could mean awareness, the capacity for empathy or a high degree of perception of the environment. Being open to perceive, however, doesn't necessarily lead to less prejudice or acceptance, but perception of things 'different' to you - in mass, velocity, quality - can still be included as part of a shared landscape.

Being actively closed could refer to high levels of muscular tension, stubbornness, or even deliberately ignoring or not seeing the position of another. But beware of associating closing with negativity.

If we return to the materiality of the body and its many kinds of tissue, some muscular tension (or tone) is needed to protect as well as to move. A lot of muscular holding could be considered a container, a physical barrier between me and you, as well as a shell protecting, defending even, the contents. Necessary then, in times of trauma and recovery.

Greater pliancy in the body isn't a direct route to an increase in the ability to include and accept others, but maybe it helps. Whilst also overly simplistic, this notion is highly difficult to begin to measure. The appearance of being open may not be the same thing as being open; how you perceive yourself may not be as others see you and physical manifestations of open-ness continue to exist on a continuum. How we transition from open to closing, or closed to opening does not have a set speed or even a necessary linear progression: it is sometimes subtle, imperceptible. But working from the perspective of the body and the senses, this transition can be more tangible.

Let us return to the importance of taking account of personal continuums as relative in exploring the notion of 'open'. Granted, there are a multitude of versions of open. Perhaps closing off withdraws the attention to the environment, retreating to no longer notice sounds, smells and light. This could be a kind of numbing, where tissue is held tight or where it loses so much tone it is limp: either way, information cannot easily travel through. Perhaps, though, closing off from the outer is in order to open to an inner landscape. This is opening attention towards meditation or to imagination.

Smooth fascia, as supportive of a state of being open to receive, transmit, connect and exchange, allows movement impulses felt from within and without to travel through the body. We could be seen as constantly in a process of opening or closing: towards, away, inward, outward.

Alexandra Baybutt

For more of Alexandra's work visit: http://alexandrabaybutt.wordpress.com/

Life Instinct, Death Instinct - By St.Zagarus

Life Instinct, Death Instinct

            For myself, the life-instinct itself has died. It amazes me, from this cold vantage point, how readily people are able to accept 'life' as a given. Nourishment of the body, its pleasuring, the generic love of husband and wife -- how do they maintain it? I would always find myself asking this question. Then it became quite, quite obvious. They do not answer the question, 'Why this life-instinct', because they never got round to asking it.

Without taking the life-instinct for granted, there is the possibility of becoming absolutely still, of starvation, and thoughts of void. Nothingness. A wise man once told me, “Philosophy is something you do. Then you go home and have your dinner.”

Well if only it was that simple! Dinner itself is the life-instinct, something which should be so obvious, but humankind is not so simple. There are some people who starve themselves for emotional guilt, or to reach a certain artificial ideal. Yet not all such starvers are bound by emotion, for we need only look at religious fasters, or the scientist,who is too engaged in her discovery for anything other than caffeine (caffeine, caffeine!). This is philosophising beyond the basic needs. They have done their philosophy, but they are not having their dinner. Still, these people, with their grumbling bellies, are saying yes to life in other ways. The death-instinct is something different altogether. It is emptiness for its own sake.

When one struggles even to exist for a day, let alone longing for eternity, it becomes obvious that there is nothing substantial after this life; for dreams of after worlds and reincarnation are themselves just the continuation of the life-instinct. It is so obvious a child might see through it. So, why are we so carried along by the stream of life if it is fundamentally futile? Challenging the life-instinct can be quite a frightening prospect; like putting a violent political ideology in a newspaper. It will not convince everyone, but it will convince someone. To even ask the question might lead to the possibility of danger. It is better for people to remain ignorant of such decisions and let the basic drives of the human body answer the biggest philosophical questions for them.

A man once asked me, “Isn't the point of it all to bring new children into the world?” As if it were so obvious, like two and two making four. If we took him for his word, then the mere reproduction of humankind would itself complete us, and answer all of our questions. Yet it is ridiculous logic, for it never reaches any end point, nor does it provide us with any conclusions. The goal is to recreate, and the offspring’s goal to recreate, and so forth, and so forth, forever. No. Besides, human kind is never just satisfied with the physical creation of its offspring. There is always more to do, more to get, and more to be. This is, naturally, entirely self-deception, yet still it demonstrates how ludicrous it is to suggest that procreation alone is enough to provide anyone with purpose. The life-instinct does not take us anywhere except to the life-instinct.

The death-instinct can only be self-destructive. A murderer is not taken by the death-instinct in my definition. Murder is often premeditated, it encourages the body to be filled with emotion and energy, it has a purpose very much of this world. The murderer often intends to live after the act, and tries to conceal what they have done. In contrast, the death-instinct has no such purpose but death itself. Nothingness and slow decay is the death-instinct, and it is solitary, indifferent to the people around it, never causing harm to anything.

The conclusion of the death-instinct is always eternal nothingness. In this, it has more of a solid argument than life. Yet do not think that just because something has a more logical argument that this means anything at all. The argument is more valid because it reaches a conclusion, but whether or not it is acceptable or desirable is up to you to decide.

There is fundamentally nothing out there, we all know it, deep down inside. However, we cannot accept it. You might say, “There is no meaning except that which you create,” but this is greatly problematic. For it is advocating self-deception. Every idea needs a starting point. A humanist will want to end suffering, for instance. Yet in order to validate themselves, they must prove beyond doubt that there is a reason to sustain human life, and that it is of universal value. Human rights are the result. This document objectively declares the value of all human beings.

Yet if this document were objective (that is, true outside of the ideas of an individual’s perception) then all who looked upon it must be convinced of its validity. I am not convinced. It is a great idea, and better that it exists than it does not. This does not mean it is true. Something that feels good does not give it weight. To go back to our example, humanism is grounded in nothing. It begins with an assumption. This assumption cannot ever be challenged for there is nothing to weigh it against, except the bleakness of a meaningless cosmos. In this light, it can only be maintained by self-deception. It is a guess like any other.

To conclude, what would you be without other people around you? Strip the layers away from yourself, one after the other. The names of people and places, of gods and masters, of possessions and creations, dreams and purposes, and then of your own titles. You are left with nothing but raw experience, without a hole in which to bury your head and without the possibility of continued self-deceit. We need other people to actualise ourselves in this world of philosophical shadow (that is, philosophy which is useful, but ultimately meaningless).

Without the fleeting goals of our fleeting cultures, we are faced with the yes or no of pure human freedom - life, or death. This is what separates us from all of the other creatures. For whilst creatures may lie to one another (just think of the cuckoo, or the camouflaged snake, or the orchid mimicking a fly's mate), no creature has yet been able to lie to itself. And no creature doubts that it ought to continue existing, to strive and try as it might to maintain itself. Yet we humans -- at the pinnacle of reason and intellectual power, inheritors of such incredible bodies and capable of so much -- are prone to one fundamental weakness. Questioning whether we should even continue to exist at all; I wonder, is this the source of all our freedom, and all of our creative power?

This is the death-instinct itself, the temporary absence of any life-instinct.

By St.Zagarus

The Philosophy Takeaway 'Open Topic' Issue 43

Masc / Fem

We are now the masculine and the feminine.  We are the hunters, the gatherers, the fathers, the mothers, and the workers.  I  cook, I clean, I work, I study, I spend, I shop, I drink, I diet, I commit, I explore, I travel,  I settle, I go on top, and under. Who am I? What sex am I? Can you tell by considering any of these activities I do? I am not a he/she I am the new masc/fem, masculine, feminine. Whatever new crappy term you would like to use it does not matter. What question this raises, however, is as follows: are these terms, these ideas (masculine and feminine) still

useful or are they becoming out of date?

Notice, however, that the subject is I, and not everyone. I can only speak for myself, the activities I do. I cannot speak for all. I could perhaps speak of my culture, but not everyone in my culture does what I do. Maybe the majority does do the above, but this is a concern of sociologists to investigate not a philosopher.  So I pass the task on to them, what do people do now? Are there any clear distinctions in our activities between the sexes? I’m not sure there are. 

Nevertheless, if, for example, men generally are: staying at home, rearing the children, doing the cooking, the cleaning, and spending, whilst the women are working, travelling, drinking and being on top; can we describe the men as masculine and the women as feminine? Are these gender roles based on sex? If they are based on sex, I’m not convinced there is strict correlation. And if they are based on sex, then we would have to constantly modify the meaning of the terms to fit with the complex behaviours -- which may be distinct between man and women, or not.

Or did a philosopher think of these concepts then just apply them to which object fits with it? Is this likely? That a philosopher sat on the steps of a stoop, and said, “Let’s make up two separate ideas where one is defined by being physically strong and the other is physically weak.” They then went out into the world and looked at the males and the females and noticed that men were more physically strong, and that more women were physically weak. And then the philosopher defined man as masculine and women as feminine?  This doesn’t seem that likely.

From these thoughts I would conclude that I would want to see some scientific evidence that there are a lot of women that act the same, a lot of men that act the same, and these same ways are different between men and women. If this can be proved to be true, then these ways may be defined as feminine or masculine, but until then I am happy to abandon the notion all together.

Ellese Elliott

Art - By Angela Gooderson

This weeks artist was Angela Gooderson:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Angela-Gooderson-Portrait- Artist/212749708758739?fref=ts 

The Philosophy Takeaway 'Gender' Issue 38

This is a man’s, man’s, man’s world

Before this enterprise even takes its most basic shape, I would like to clarify the following point: under my understanding of people, a human being is an individual, a person, a personality so to speak, before they are a ‘man’ or a ‘woman’. Thus my article will concentrate not on the fact that this world is mainly controlled by the biological male, but on the fact that what we classify as ‘male’ characteristics are the dominating side of our culture. 

So why do I say that you are an individual before you are a man or a woman? I’d like to present three arguments to support this claim. The first argument is found in the observation of children. Children are thinking, feeling human beings who are not yet of reproductive ‘capabilities’ and thus do not display specific gender characteristics. They have not yet being assigned gender roles; at least at an early age. At a later stage we force this upon them. These beings who are not yet manly men or femme fatales still ARE, they live, feel, create, experience, laugh and cry without a specific gender role to fulfil. Children in play, also play with their identity. They have personalities and make choices, yet when a boy likes dancing for example, we might fall on the prejudice of claiming that that’s a feminine tendency, here we are assigning the activity a gender and thus we impose this prejudice on the boy. The boy was expressing a liking for the activity, not a sexual preference or a gender tendency. To a big extent that is what we have done; we have given what originally is a biological role, the gender, to an activity, an abstract concept or a thing. We do that assigning constantly.

My second point is the huge psychological variety of shades and degrees of between male and female that we have amongst individuals. Who is completely male or completely female? None. We have different shades of the palette of assigned role activities. Yes, some cultures and people are stricter than others in their assigning of roles; but human beings keep coming to the world with an extreme originality and variation in the scale between male and female. People come into a society which is frightened of that obscurity and forces upon every individual the so called way of belonging to their genre. The person is only validated (especially during adulthood-productive and reproductive age) on basis of their gender. The person then becomes obsessed on being this male or female ideal rather than whatever version of human they are. This of course creates a schism and its obvious conclusion of suffering and a feeling of inadequacy. Sad times. We cannot bear the beaming individuality of the human creature.

This doesn’t mean that we would all be ambiguous beings if there weren’t gender roles, but it would mean that a man who enjoyed fashion wouldn’t immediately be classified as a homosexual and a woman who plays sports and is of larger physical mass wouldn’t either - and the same with personalities. A freer ‘gender’ concept would give us greater freedom to do different activities whilst still remaining true to ourselves. Besides the fact that men can’t bear children and women can’t father children, we have a greater leeway in gender roles than we think.

My third point as to why we are individuals before we are a gender is that although our body is male and female, our psyche is not. The mind of human beings, both, the one that collects information and logically processes it and the one that creates and imagines, are neither male nor female, they are both. We have yet again tried to give gender to things such as creativity, saying it is a more female attribute than, say, scientific thought. This last point is very important as it brings me to the thesis of this article. This is a man’s world because the accepted thought characteristics of our historical time belong to the assigned category of male.

We have reached a point in our culture where we have assigned different affects to different genders. For example, our culture identifies violence with male thought, and female with a nurturing principle. We also think of ego consciousness as male; aggression (thus wars), the logical mind (thus science), inventiveness, outward acting. The male is the builder of civilization, and I should also mention religion is a male institution, culturally. On the other hand, we think of the subconscious as female, as female characteristics in our culture are thought to be passive, creative, intuitive, uninviting and concerned with preserving the status quo.  Yet in this division, we can clearly appreciate that the first set of characteristics are the most widely accepted in our culture, as we find the subconscious frightening. Even in this separation we can tell that what we have built up to be the ‘male consciousness’, is the accepted consciousness and what is considered the ‘female consciousness’ is feared and unknown and thus repressed. Our society keeps hurting and trying to control what represents the unknown part of the psyche and the connection of humanity to nature through birth, the female.

Thus when I say this is a man’s world I mean the choice of consciousness we have adopted; the masculine-technological. This man’s world represses female elements, including his own. If the male was to be devoid of nurturing elements and compassion, he would be biologically hard wired to be so, yet he is not. Here I would also like to add that the great human qualities of love, strength, compassion, intellect and imagination, do not belong to one sex or another and thus we could advance and reach a true civilization if we merged the different types of consciousness, instead of repressing them, in order to reach true understanding.

Till that day, good bye.

Eliza Veretilo

The Philosophy Takeaway 'Gender' Issue 38

Sex differences and Philosophy

I will set out here what I believe to be the relationship between sex differences and the practice of philosophy. I should be quick to point out that by ‘philosophy’ I don't mean ‘academic philosophy’, but, rather, I am using the word in the traditional and historic sense of ‘the pursuit of wisdom’ - or the pursuit of absolute truth. That's not to say that an academic philosopher can't be interested in such matters, but only that if such a person exists then they had better keep it a close secret if they want to keep their job - or their spouse.

By ‘sex differences’ I mean the psychological differences between the sexes.  For purposes here, I am not concerned with the source of those differences, and to what degree those differences are due to purely genetic, or cultural factors.  Rather, I am primarily concerned with the differences themselves, and what they mean for the practice or the survival of philosophy.

Some people maintain that there are no observed psychological differences between the sexes, and that both sexes have an equal degree of interest in, or affinity for, all pursuits.  I don't know what planet those people are living on, but it's not the one that I experience, from whatever corner of the globe I find myself.  I can only tell you of how this world presents itself to me.

In that regard it should be made clear that this essay is not of only iron-clad, absolute philosophy, but also draws on empirical experience, and is therefore open to the uncertainties inherent in all empiric observation.  For this reason, I cannot say with absolute certainty that the behaviour of women, or anyone, is not entirely an elaborate act, and a deception, and for that matter I also cannot say with absolute certainty that women even so much as physically exist.

What I observe is that women, on average, and across all cultures, tend to gravitate more towards passive, unconscious ends: emotions, feelings, comfort, friends, immediacy, and (passive) connection to all that surrounds them.  Dave Sim, the notorious independent comic publisher and self-styled genius, refers to the feminine mind as ‘The Merged Void’.

To the degree that a person -- male or female -- exhibits these qualities, I say that they are ‘feminine’.  And the assignment of this label is regardless of whether the associated behaviour has a genetic or cultural cause. All men share those same ‘feminine’ qualities to greater or lesser extent - and for the most part, it must be said, to a very large extent (e.g., the sexual impulse).  However, I observe that men, on average, and across all cultures, tend to gravitate more towards the active, the conscious, the abstract, towards cold hard logic, isolation, distinction, difference, structure, identity over time (rather than momentary), (conscious) relation, and the absolute. As before, to the degree that a person - male or female - exhibits these qualities, I say they are ‘masculine’.

My source data is infinite, but as one tiny, simple, and concrete example of my everyday experience I can tell you about the subscription rates on YouTube video channels.  Around ninety-five percent of the subscribers to my own philosophy channel are male.  Getting away from philosophy channels, to channels that have a significant component of abstract and logical content, such as a standard atheist channel, it is not uncommon for 90% of the subscribers to be male.

It may be objected that there is little formal scientific evidence establishing these observed behavioural differences between men and women.  I put this down to two reasons: the first reason is that the differences in question do not lend themselves to be studied by science. For example, how could researchers identify whether a person has an attraction to logic if the researchers themselves don't have a very clear grasp as to what logic is? In this case, which is all too common, the researchers are not qualified for the particular task.

The second reason is that any researcher who expresses evidence for any observable psychological differences between men and women is immediately in danger of losing their job and their career, since our society is not one that encourages free inquiry.  As dissatisfying as these facts might be, and as much as we would like science to help, it is a limitation we simply have to accept.

I realise that no amount of my personal experience will ever be truly convincing, since different people have different experiences – however, I'm telling you about my experience, and so we can continue.

Two things should be noted with regard to my use of the terms ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’. Firstly, as should already be clear, neither is inherent in either sex.  That is, ‘femininity’ is not a property of being female, nor ‘masculinity’ of being male.  The labels are mere tools of convenience and can be discarded any time they cease to be useful, such as might occur if women ever become more masculine than men.  Secondly, my use of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ is descriptive only, and not prescriptive. Our conclusion, then, is that anyone who wants to pursue wisdom should cultivate the ‘masculine’ aspects of personality, since logic is a requirement of wisdom.

At this point the question of elitism is often raised.  What about those who enjoy their emotions, who are content with the simple and immediate pleasures of life, and who don't want to be philosophers? What about those who are feminine?  "What about women?" I am bluntly asked.

I don't imagine for a moment that all people, and indeed all beings or things, should become philosophers. The world would be a strange place indeed if all things were philosophers. Philosophers for breakfast, lunch, and tea? It's not a sensible idea.

While philosophers are unquestionably ‘superior’, they are only superior at being philosophers.  Yes, philosophers have god-like, seemingly magical knowledge, but wisdom can never make up the sum total of all existence.  At the very least, the things upon which wisdom depends, such as memory, or logic itself, will forever and necessarily remain unwise (i.e., without wisdom) . . . yet the philosopher cannot exist without them. In this manner the wise and the unwise form a unity; in modern parlance, a team.

Putting aside all things, should all people become wise philosophers?  Is a person necessarily inferior if they put handbags, sport, art, or sex, ahead of philosophy? Does a philosophically naive, sense-centred (feminine) person make a better nurse for infants than an old and seasoned philosopher, mind sharp as a razor, and deep as darkest space? I honestly don't know, but one thing I do know is that one or two philosophers would be a promising start.

Kevin Solway

For more of Kevin's work visit: http://www.theabsolute.net/

Sexism, Logic and Intuition II - Martin Prior

Sexism, Logic and Intuition II

I was originally intending to write on ‘Socialism and the ethics of gender rôles’, but I got bogged down.  Anyway, this article is of course going out on the Valentine’s Day Issue, when very recently Rupert Murdoch was thinking aloud that perhaps Page Three might well be scrapped.

So I am now adding a Part II to the paper I wrote last year, where I argued:

“Let us know get to the substance of the issue: certain activities are regarded as ‘treating women as objects’.  Well firstly, an argument condemning activity between consenting adults on the basis of a simile is a very questionable ethical argument.  Many things have a resemblance to something else: if I lift somebody up from the floor, in a sense I am treating somebody as an object, so one must go directly to the basis of the similarity that causes concern.

“But even if we accept this description of the activity: treating some adults as objects with their consent does not imply we should treat all such adults as objects regardless of their consent.

“So we cannot condemn say beauty contests for treating people as objects, but I believe we can go back to intuition: if our intuition is that the people present at such activities ‘treat blondes as stupid’ and the like, then we may feel that even if the event is not intrinsically sexist, in practice that is precisely what it is.  But we must also avoid making generalisations.”

I think that Mr Murdoch’s reasons for having (and perhaps not having) Page Three are entirely cynical: he wants to boost his circulation.  Indeed it is a perversion of democracy that opinion-formers can attract a readership by such cynical methods – not least those who push their views by scare-mongering against Trades Unions, and thereby induce working people to act against their own interests.

I don’t believe in banning Page Three: if in our idealistic monogamous society the numbers don’t match, let the remainder of dividing by two pursue their needs privately and unobtrusively, perhaps towards the end of the paper.

But Mr Murdoch is to my mind a sexist since he has so little respect for women that he can use them in this way.  I think that if he wants to drop Page Three, this will also be cynical and disrespectful to women – particularly the moral self-congratulation - and he should be compelled to run it, and endure the loss of circulation he fears would happen.

Note on the ethics of gender rôles: in previous articles I have discussed

(i)             the importance of rôle combination in gender rôles, probably any rôles – permitting the learning of skills at a young age,

(ii)           the need for socialism to relate society and/or customs through skills to the environment.

Skills and technology are to my mind pivotal to the egalitarian goals of socialism, and I believe that whatever customs are evolved for effective combination of rôles, there should not be the stereotyping between the genders at the level of skills and technology.

But then, if there is no aptitude stereotyping, so that each subject attracts equal numbers of men and women, will the sciences attract more women.  Or the humanities attract more men?

Martin Prior

The Philosophy Takeaway 'Gender' Issue 38

Child Support - By Johannon Davis

Child Support

The traditional model of the masculine presence within the family as the provider has been embraced vastly throughout innumerable cultures and traditions. Yet within a comparatively short time frame within history, this role has been resisted and altered through economic, legal and  moral attitudes with a noticeable pressure now placed on women in the familial setting to provide emotional, spiritual  and now economic support for her dependant young.

While the attainment of equal employment and educational opportunities for women was sought to improve choice, social standing, protection (from abuse within the home and wider society) and to support ambition and social failings, the emphasis on the modern female has become that of ever growing responsibilities and ever diminishing support. The modern mother may now in the face of the ruins of her relationship find herself as the sole source of emotional and physical support for her children, with the male presence within the life of the child too often reduced to a faceless cash source only. The stigma of the modern mother is that should she find herself emotionally or physically taxed by the unequal distribution of the labour of daily child rearing she all too often faces criticism while the absent male is commended for the faceless ‘child support’. Surely the deserting of the post of father, once a socially endorsed entry into manhood, should reflect not on the mother, but indicate the disillusion of the masculine role within the family.

One may argue that the pursuit of activities external to the home (through the hunter and gatherer roles seen in historical man) and the subsequent reduction in the provision of emotional security to the infant through these activities - the masculine presence is through neglect and social alleviation of paternal responsibilities, rendering itself obsolete. The deconstruction of the family unit and reduction of the male presence in the child rearing process is reducing the role of man to a commercial enterprise in reproductive processes or a source of financial income only - where in some traditional roles the father may adapt the belief that to provide financial support and ‘putting food on the table’ is the full extent of his role- distancing himself from the active engagement in the role of child rearing inclusive of communication, discipline and moral implementation of the cultural code within the traditions of the family unit has led to further social inequalities than is measurable. The equality of partnership sought by early campaigners for female rights has been undermined by the mistake that the woman who can do it all, must, with the must being reduced from exemption to normality and those women who demand the equal and fair distribution of the labour of child rearing derided as ‘struggling mothers’.

Yet the loss of the traditional male role is not so easily solved simply by the laying of blame of modern man. The attitude of some men who feel minimal social pressure to provide greater input in the raising of their young, appears also to be fuelled by some women who resist the masculine presence within the child rearing process, having adapted the ‘i can, i will, i must’ attitude that to allow the father figure within the lives of their children is a slight on their mothering skills or in the same way some men may take the failure of their relationship with their spouse as a failure in their chance to raise their children, some women may also confuse the failure of their relationship with their spouse with the ability for their partner to adequately and successfully contribute to the raising of the child.

Whilst the template of masculinity has undergone a seismic shift in a remarkably short period of time, leaving many men and women in a state of bemusement of the validity of roles which until 40 years ago were common place, the family unit must come to a place of understanding that the provision of material goods are of secondary importance to the provision of protection, emotional stability and guidance from both parents. The need for warmth and bonding between child and parent remains a static need in a culture of fluid parenting rights and responsibilities.

Johannon Davis

The Philosophy Takeaway 'Gender' Issue 38

Let’s engender a debate about gender - Samuel Mack-Poole

Let’s engender a debate about gender

“Frailty, thy name is woman!” – Hamlet, Act one Scene Two, by William Shakespeare.

“In a patriarchal society, all heterosexual intercourse is rape because women, as a group, are not strong enough to give meaningful consent.” — Catherine MacKinnon.

"Nobody will ever win the Battle of the Sexes. There's just too much fraternizing with the enemy." - Henry Kissinger.

I want to waste no time, as I have no time to waste – I shall define my terms immediately:

Sex: either the male or female division of a species, especially as differentiated with reference to the reproductive functions.

Gender: Gender is a range of characteristics of femininity and masculinity. Depending on the context, the term may refer to the sex (i.e. the state of being male or female), social roles (as in gender roles) or gender identity.

At long last, we at the The Philosophy Takeaway are going to converse about the mundane, in the true sense of the word – the worldy, the earthly.  If one approached a humble plebeian on the street, and asked them to define truth, reality, or what a thought is, one may find them a little reserved.  However, if one asks a woman or a man about gender, one might, I dare say, get a stronger reaction from said humble plebeian.This is due to the fact that many people think about this topic, regardless of intellectual ability, gender, race, or class. The interaction between men and women, male and female, those who are masculine or feminine, is crucial to the survival of the species that is Homo Sapien Sapien. 

Consequently, we have been bombarded with social constructs as to how to interact with those who have a penis, and those who have a vagina. The facts are a simple as such: women and men have different genitalia. Women have the ability to gestate the humans of the future, and men have the ability to supply the ingredients to impregnate women.  All this is by the by; the point is to note that there are physical differences. What isn’t by the by, however, is the fact we – that is to say our species – have created constructs which determines how we should act with regard to social etiquette. Please forgive the anthropological slant, but if one examines humanity in a holistic sense (I.e, a sense of the whole and how its parts are related and dependent), it is more than easy to state that there are an abundance of different cultures across the world. And these cultures have different sets of rules as to how a man or woman should act.

That last word really interests me, because I think we do act in ways which are deemed to be positive or negative, when it comes to gender. A man may pay attention to football, not because he really enjoys it, but due to the fact it is deemed masculine. Conversely, a woman may wear pink, not because she wants to, but because she wants to have a socially acceptable identity; in short, because it is deemed feminine.

Should we be such slaves to constructs? I have stated it many times before, but our minds – and I use that word in a purely metaphorical, rather than metaphysical sense – imprison us. As Yoda said, “You must unlearn what you have learned.” But why must we? It is because the past is based, most tragically, upon false dogma.

We think within a paradigm of an angry, simplistic theology. Our very culture is rich with the past; we are, unfortunately, fettered to it.  Yet, quite absurdly, the rules of the past are broken with hypocrisy. Let me give a very current example, that of Page 3. As a young father, trying to understand the absurdity of this world, I am faced with living in a post-Enlightenment culture which promotes sexual objectification. Although the most edifying philosophical quote is found on this page, this does little to mitigate the messages which will be bombarded at my daughter: success is gained through “sexual beauty”; thinking is not important for women.

I am not as dishonest to pretend that I am not sexually excited by these photos. Nevertheless, I am sincerely worried as to the harmful affect they will have my upon daughter’s thinking.  Another generation will witness a culture which disproportionately objectifies women, no matter how prevalent Diet Coke adverts may be.

We live in an age of reason, where philosophical investigation and scientific endeavour should dominate intellectual thought. Nietzsche stated, “Great things are for the great, abysses for the profound, shudders and delicacies for the refined, and, in sum, all rare things for the rare.”

Although he was an habitual misogynist – although some philosophers would argue he was mocking his ridiculousness – Nietzsche was so close to the truth of the matter. A very select class of intellectuals, the true philosophers and scientists, are able to take a step back from the barbaric past, and view the world with a truly modern philosophical zeitgeist.

And, to quote Lloyd Duddridge, we shouldn’t reject the past per se, that would be foolish. However, to take a pack of illiterate fairy tales seriously is a crime. Furthermore, to accept the status quo with regard to gender in the United Kingdom would be a moral crime. We owe it to ourselves, and wider society, to release ourselves from those shackles and redefine what masculinity and femininity are.

We have lost out on some truly brilliant female minds due to our historical idiocy. Think how many great thinkers were castigated and repressed. The female equivalents of Mozart, Shakespeare, Washington, Descartes, and Da Vinci existed; quite cruelly, however, they just weren’t given the opportunity to self-actualise.

In conclusion, I must state that it is the duty of all humans to embrace the excitement of the present! Let’s be lovers of wisdom, too. For wisdom never resided within the confines of a male paradigm.

Samuel Mack-Poole

The Philosophy Takeaway 'Gender' Issue 38

Sexism, Logic and Intuition II - By Martin Prior

Sexism, Logic and Intuition II

I was originally intending to write on ‘Socialism and the ethics of gender rôles’, but I got bogged down.  Anyway, this article is of course going out on the Valentine’s Day Issue, when very recently Rupert Murdoch was thinking aloud that perhaps Page Three might well be scrapped.

So I am now adding a Part II to the paper I wrote last year, where I argued:

“Let us know get to the substance of the issue: certain activities are regarded as ‘treating women as objects’.  Well firstly, an argument condemning activity between consenting adults on the basis of a simile is a very questionable ethical argument.  Many things have a resemblance to something else: if I lift somebody up from the floor, in a sense I am treating somebody as an object, so one must go directly to the basis of the similarity that causes concern.

“But even if we accept this description of the activity: treating some adults as objects with their consent does not imply we should treat all such adults as objects regardless of their consent.

“So we cannot condemn say beauty contests for treating people as objects, but I believe we can go back to intuition: if our intuition is that the people present at such activities ‘treat blondes as stupid’ and the like, then we may feel that even if the event is not intrinsically sexist, in practice that is precisely what it is.  But we must also avoid making generalisations.”

I think that Mr Murdoch’s reasons for having (and perhaps not having) Page Three are entirely cynical: he wants to boost his circulation.  Indeed it is a perversion of democracy that opinion-formers can attract a readership by such cynical methods – not least those who push their views by scare-mongering against Trades Unions, and thereby induce working people to act against their own interests.

I don’t believe in banning Page Three: if in our idealistic monogamous society the numbers don’t match, let the remainder of dividing by two pursue their needs privately and unobtrusively, perhaps towards the end of the paper.

But Mr Murdoch is to my mind a sexist since he has so little respect for women that he can use them in this way.  I think that if he wants to drop Page Three, this will also be cynical and disrespectful to women – particularly the moral self-congratulation - and he should be compelled to run it, and endure the loss of circulation he fears would happen.

Note on the ethics of gender rôles: in previous articles I have discussed

(i)             the importance of rôle combination in gender rôles, probably any rôles – permitting the learning of skills at a young age,

(ii)           the need for socialism to relate society and/or customs through skills to the environment.

Skills and technology are to my mind pivotal to the egalitarian goals of socialism, and I believe that whatever customs are evolved for effective combination of rôles, there should not be the stereotyping between the genders at the level of skills and technology.

But then, if there is no aptitude stereotyping, so that each subject attracts equal numbers of men and women, will the sciences attract more women.  Or the humanities attract more men?

Martin Prior

The Philosophy Takeaway 'Gender' Issue 38