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

Art - By Ben Varney

This weeks artist was Ben Varney: http://bonelab.wordpress.com/

The Philosophy Takeaway 'Truth' Issue 42

The Yeti Under the bed - By Lloyd Duddridge

The Yeti Under the bed

I am going to outline in this article the problems that I have with conspiracy theories. Here is why is think that most of them are based around stupid reasoning processes.

I) Most conspiracy theories are unfalsifiable. By this I mean that a conspiracy has no mechanism by which it can be proved wrong. At first glance this may seem like a positive thing. What could be stronger than a theory that cannot be proved wrong? However, is it not the case that every theory should have a mechanism by which we can decide if a theory is incorrect? Conspiracy theories do not conform to this way of reasoning. This is because it doesn’t matter what evidence you place before the conspiracy theory; it can be dismissed. It is dismissed not because the evidence is weak, but because the conspiracy relies on hidden groups or evidence. Consequently, whatever evidence produced against it will not be seen as sufficient. This means whatever evidence one has against the truthfulness of a conspiracy theory is not seen as significant -- the conspiracy will continue. Thus the conspiracy theory is not open to being proved incorrect.

II) The conspiracy theorist, especially the holocaust denier, will often argue like this: Sadie and Bob embellished their testimonies.They exaggerated in all that they said. How can we now take seriously the thousands of other eye witnesses? Now, of course people often exaggerate when retelling a story. Imagine a night out you go on; it is a great evening and a lot of fun was had. Often the story becomes greater than what went on. Or when people are involved a fight it often becomes more violent that it was in reality. Now do these exaggerations mean that the fight or the night out did not take place? The conspiracy theorist is prone to dwell on those testimonies that are exaggerated rather than those that are not.

III) The conspiracy theorist argues in a way that has become known as the God of the gaps argument. Just as people seem to argue that any hole in our understanding can be filled with God, the conspiracy theorist does the same with the validity of an argument. For example, if you can’t tell us what socks Napoleon was wearing during the battle of Waterloo, then the battle cannot really have taken place. The conspiracy theorist is happy to disregard huge swathes of documented evidence because a historian does not yet know the answer to a specific often small question.

IV) The conspiracy theorist seemingly overvalues the human ability to keep a secret. Sometimes the conspiracy theory involves thousands of people involved in them. Does this really seem plausible? It is often argued that ‘the Jews’ set up the holocaust in order to receive the state of Israel. This would mean that millions of people were able to keep their mouths shut. It would also mean that a whole racial group was able to keep what must surely be huge levels of documentation secret. Try keeping a secret within a group of ten, let alone groups of up to millions of people.

V) The conspiracy theorist argues the wrong way round. They start with a conclusion, all banks are evil. They then proceed to find any evidence that supports this conclusion. We see the same line with Biblical archaeology. Their Bible is true, and therefore we will find evidence for it. The evidence should, in clear and rational thought, come prior to the conclusion. That is just the way decent thought is conducted.

This article is not intended to say we as people are never lied to. There are many cases throughout history where a conspiracy has been found. However, these did not rest upon conspiracy lines of thinking. They relied upon positive evidence being presented. Next time you come across a conspiracy theory, see how many of them tick the boxes of the five points I have outlined in this article. If they do, it is probably safe to say the Yeti is not under the bed.  

Lloyd Duddridge

The Philosophy Takeaway 'Truth' Issue 42

The Four Great Dogmas - By Selim 'Selim' Talat

The Four Great Dogmas

        Dogma, with its authority of force and power, with its reliance on tradition and ritual, cannot be used to discover truth. Dogma is often used by manipulators and liars to control people, and has no 'higher' motives of bettering our understanding of the cosmos, and our place within it. This has been understood by a lot of people, since the dawn of civilization. History is full of thinkers who defied the dogma imposed upon them; not only the great philosophers but also religious thinkers, such as the lollards; the levellers, and so forth. There have always been people who understand that the discovery of truth requires freedom of thought and emotion - the first to explore avenues of knowledge free from authority, the second to ensure that one is not attached to truth because of familiarity or manipulation of one’s feelings.

Freedom can overcome dogma, though it is an endless struggle. For new ideas also become set in stone, and it is not long before we lean on them without realising it. And old ideas grow upon us like old friends, and they are very difficult to overcome.

Descartes came to the well-known phrase ‘I think therefore I am’ by exploring everything there was doubt, being left only with a doubting ‘I’ which can think. The way to truth is found along similar lines: extreme scepticism can remove us of our dogma, like a crab discarding its old shell. Yet like that same crab, being without a shell is not so useful in this sea! And so a new one grows. Our doubting is not a position we hold forever, or else we end up thinking nothing substantial. This is perhaps equally as bad as thinking something purely because we have been told to do so. I will now cover four big categories of dogma I believe to be limiting us. These are the dogmas:

Of the Mind - Constrained by politics which dictate its limits and declares what can and cannot be achieved. By doing so, it creates those same limits. An identity which is shaped and limited by these same politics, and which sees those who disagree with it as enemies who can never be reasoned with. Such obedience is well cultivated, and its basis is rational, grounded in well selected evidence to support its case, whilst ignoring or undermining any evidence against it.

Of the Body - Trained to satiate its desires at a certain pace, ever increasing as the creation of new technology brings about abundance and luxury. Those luxuries, the great wants, evolve into needs and the body is always at a loss to obtain them, endlessly struggling and labouring to satiate itself. Why else are people who live in the most advanced societies imaginable still working so hard; why haven't the advanced machines we construct eradicated the need for pointless drudgery? Why do we confuse simple things with complex, refined bodily desires?

The body is trained long before its commander has matured to the age where it might make choices. The devouring of flesh is a prime example - those who no longer wish to do so must struggle to alter their ways, so engrained are they from a young age, so normalized are they by the culture surrounding them.

Of the Soul - Blackmailed into obedience by religions-of-threat, which condemn people to damnation and then offer them salvation from their own warnings. The more dogmatic strains of religion tend to reign supreme, offering people easy answers and hopeful (highly marketable) solutions to existential problems, all at the price of submitting to a spiritual collective. Such warmth and comfort for the soul is veiled in vague language and historical tradition which make its roots immune to the gardener’s trident.

A morality of after-worlds and divinities can then be created, none of which have any foundation in this world. It prepares people for a life that will never be, like baldly lying to a grandmother on her deathbed about the wonderful existence she will soon be privy to, because it is so convenient to do so.

Of the Heart - Perhaps the most deeply entrenched dogma of them all, flying too low to be detected by our radars of doubt! A heart which loves those immediately around it more than any other. A heart taught to respect sacred bonds of family and marriage. Before it has pounded but once, before it has found its own rhythm, the heart is deemed to love in a certain way, or else risk isolation.

In such an environment as this, how can we tell who is choosing freely, and who is coerced, threatened, prodded, or just going along with the tide? Who has come to their conclusions by searching for the truth, and who has swallowed the four great dogmas whole? We cannot say, and thus we cannot judge people, pointing the finger and declaring them asleep where one is awake. How immodest and evangelical we would be if we did!

However, what we can all do is retreat into total doubt, and see what emerges when we return to face the world anew. This I believe is truth, for from it follows total and terrifying freedom of thought and emotion. Or at worst, it is not truth, but at least it is not falsehood, designed to maintain structures of power and pressure.

Selim 'Selim' Talat

The Philosophy Takeaway 'Truth' Issue 42

Truth, flux and movement - By Alexandra Baybutt

Truth, flux and movement

          Movement is required for life: beyond that we can debate many possible truths. Even in the comparative stillness of lying down or sitting we can feel the heartbeat, sending a pulse throughout the body, and the motion of ribcage and abdomen in breathing. Even if asleep, these motions happen unconsciously, wonderfully. We grew from motions of cells subdividing, compressing, giving space and different densities and qualities to our human form. Even recuperation and recovery involve movement, cells grow and decay. Without movement, regardless of size and scale, there is no growth and renewal. We can but zoom the microscope further in, or telescope further out. The earth spins, the universe expands.

Beyond this necessity of movement for simply being, we can speculate over the various 'truths' of movement. There is an increasing understanding and appreciation of the notion of 'body language'. It is by no means new to acknowledge the huge, inherently communicative capacity of the body moving. What can reduce and oversimplify human movements are observations that do not take into account context. For example, crossed arms being an indication the person is closed-off. Such limited deductions diminish a complex collection of a body’s actions, dynamics and use of personal space to an implausible and perhaps even damaging conclusion (maybe this person is just a bit cold).

Due to the constraints of space and time, the media's use of ideas stemming from 'body language' research can reduce and label some aspect of movement or posture, which becomes, perhaps unintentionally, insulting. The next stage of appreciating and exploring 'body language' is to look at changes in a person's movement over a period of time. Like a classic novel, we can look for a sense of the beginning, the middle and the end. Maybe there isn't an obvious 'resolution' to a particular movement, maybe it comes out of nowhere with no preparation at all. As we already found, relative stillness has motion in it, and either side of it, giving more nuanced detail as to how it emerged, rather than simply the snapshot of a single posture.

Responding truthfully within a given set of circumstances can be a definition of acting. For attempting a degree of consistency and creating a convincing character, this is a useful rule. Movement is change, the very nature of being is its inconsistency, or impermanence; that cells decay, and each breath changes the air and gasses in the body. She was standing by the table, now by the clock. This rather flippant opening statement leads, of course, to increasing complexity, then recognising these notions as being by degrees is vital. How we perceive is also subject to change.

We learn through touching the environment around us, and our other senses are constantly in communication with this sensing of touch. From this corporeal experience of one's own body, the environment and others in it, comes the brilliant faculty of language; an abstraction of experience. It is in our language, this echo of movement: I'm stuck, she's an immovable force, I remember (literally re-organising through the body, the members).

For health and greater access to more movement choices, experiencing body parts in conversation with other parts is useful. Where there is less movement, it can be said there is less sensation there, for example in parts of the back, vertebrae could be less mobile due to muscular tension. Feeling the whole of me, the mass and vibrancy of my body gives the sense of being at-home, present to the resilience and endurance of my body, and a recollection of how movement, and change, are necessary. Less movement somewhere can be protective, and the result of the valuable protective mechanisms to contain injury, for example, but after an injury is healed, the holding around the area is no longer necessary. The process of re-finding mobility in the body after such increased stability can be neglected. It requires practice to distinguish the difference between protection, stability and passivity.

In remembrance of Colombian singer Shakira, and her catchy message that the “Hips Don't Lie”, seeing a walk where there is very little weight shift across someone's pelvis with each step, I am reminded of what Irmgard Bartenieff referred to as the “dead seven inches.” The intention of her work as a physiotherapist was an attempt to mobilise and alter patterns of where movement comes from and how it travels. She did this in order to help her patients recover from Polio to gain independence. Ideally,  this would transpire with her eventually drawing herself out of the picture.

Mobilising the conversation of each leg to where it meets each side of the pelvis means shifting weight. This activity, so acutely obvious in infants, can diminish with age due to many factors (expectations, culture, work, sense of self, perceptions of gender to name a few). Weight shift means sitting, standing, walking, and running. I urge putting observations in a greater context so: sitting up to reach for a glass of water, standing to see over a fence, walking in the park, running to greet a loved one.

So, we find no concrete truths in movement, but perhaps an exploration of what is appropriate in that moment. The body is in direct relationship with its environment, others in it, and itself. We are not sealed units, isolated or above contexts. These relationships inform and are informing at every level. We think and learn through moving - tasting, retracing, consolidating, testing, asking, retreating, advancing, expressing needs, wants, and inner attitudes. How and where we move is highly complex, but whether one discrete part could be considered the truth or a lie is impossible in a system that is always changing. This flux is reflected in a day: what is the centre of attention and what is on the edge changes at different times and places. Rocks erode into sand. Tectonic plates push up mountains.

More access to more choices in how and where we can move increases the ability to see different perspectives, both literally, and conceptually. Noticing how we see, having the skills to get up when we fall, using gravity and a solid base of support, and what is necessary in the moment takes us beyond mere coping but to mastery in a huge range of contexts. The admiration of athletes does not mean relinquishing one's own sense of personal mastery; simply the context is different, and the competition isn't necessarily quite so obvious. Your life and work may not call for an extremely refined level of fitness or risk, but nevertheless there is considerable reward in the increased well-being and presence through being at home in your body.

Alexandra Baybutt    

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

The Truth According To Martin Prior - By Martin Prior

The Truth According To Martin Prior

        I have often understood that truth is that which corresponds to the facts, though then we must address what we mean by facts and most importantly, what we mean by ‘corresponds (to)’.  According to Wikipedia, “Truth is most often used to mean in accord with fact or reality, or fidelity to an original or to a standard or ideal.” In effect, ‘correspond’ suggests some kind of semantic or semiotic analysis.

In formal logic, with our system of axioms, we understand that each statement or line is true, so it is embedded within our formal logical analysis. In attempts to capture language as forms of mathematics, some philosophers feel that such analyses must include a definition of truth.  This was the view of Richard Montague, but not I understand of Arthur Prior. In a tentative analysis long ago, I was considering a semantic model.  It was not my intention to provide a definition of truth, but it emerged.  It accorded an approach, but did not really accord with either Montague or Prior:

truth'{a} ≡ a

The expression truth'{ a } treats ‘truth’ as a niladic operator: an operator with the output or result a, but lacking an input or what are often called parameters.  In fact the expression represents a statement defining that output a. We might define 5 as follows:

5'{a} ≡ ( a=5)

On some other occasion I might use this format to outline truth-conditional semantics, devised by Donald Davidson on the basis of work by Alfred Tarski. But in the above expression, truth'{a} ≡ a, the definition of that output a is a itself.

And this approach only works if you can produce expressions that include (a ≡ a ), i.e.  a is equivalent to itself.  Where in fact you need say nothing about a, but just as with correspondence you need to say something about equivalence.

Martin Prior

The Philosophy Takeaway 'Truth' Issue 42

Let’s engender a debate about gender - By 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

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 'Democracy' Issue 41

Truth is a lie

“Truth is truth, to the end of reckoning.”  Measure for Measure -- Act V, Scene I

Whenever a philosopher hears the word “truth” used in a conversation, their ears prick up like a meerkat. It is, after all, such a loaded term. It is the ultimate authority, and it is usually wielded in debate so that the arguers point cannot be denied:  it is as if the truth wielder is a Nazgûl ; never come between a Nazgûl and its prey. However, truth can be used in different contexts, and not all truths are equally valuable. Yet, my friends, I should define the word! Truth can be defined as:

1)    The true or actual state of a matter: he tried to find out the truth.

2)    Conformity with fact or reality; verity: the truth of a statement.

3) A verified or indisputable fact, proposition, principle, or the like: mathematical truths.

4)    The state or character of being true.

5)    Actuality or actual existence.

What is disappointing with these definitions is that it doesn’t differentiate between objective and subjective truths.  Nevertheless, the definitions do suggest a context: context, as we all know, is vital. The mathematical definition inspires my synapses to fire! Stirred into reflection whilst sitting in my middle class pyjamas, drinking my middle class tea, even a squire of pride such as myself has to concede that the mathematical truth 2+2 = 4 is more important than the truth that I have greeny-blue eyes.

            
However beautiful my eyes may be, those windows to my soul will never be as important as that simple mathematical truth. Children all the world over will know the truth of that mathematical statement; in comparison, very few humans will know of my existence – even fewer, quite sadly, will observe the quaint beauty of my eyes.

             
I started the article with the title truth is a lie. Why? Well, it wasn’t just to be provocative.  I always think of religious fundamentalists when confronted with the question of truth, as I am inclined to think their truth is very subjective.  An ardent Christian will believe the Bible is true. They are, for the most part, sincere. They live their lives according to what they deem to be the truth.

             
Yet, to an atheist, their truth is a lie. And, of course, this applies when we invert the accusation.  To a Christian, an atheist’s truth is a lie, too.  When we mull over the most potent truths there are, such as the trite ‘Is there a God?’ debate, it seems that truth is hard to come by.

           

Please let me get to the daddy of the truths: absolute truths.  The term is a philosophical nightmare, as it creates a liar paradox if it doesn’t exist. An absolute truth can be defined as an universal truth which is true in all possible contexts without creating a contradiction. Here is an example of a potential absolute truth: God exists, has always existed, and will always exist. However, let’s invert this argument: God doesn’t exist, has never existed, and will always never exist. If you’re intelligent, you will notice that even though the first outcome is directly opposed to the second, it’s just as absolute. Now, look what happens when we deny the accuracy of absolute truths: There are no absolute truths. If this statement is true, then it is true absolutely, in all contexts.  Yet it creates a liar paradox, as the words carry a classic binary truth, creating a contradiction. Thus my friends, you can see the truth is true, or the truth is a lie – or both, simultaneously.

            
I don’t know if I can come to a conclusion, as King David stated in Psalm 116:11, “All men are liars.” But was he lying?

Samuel Mack-Poole

The Philosophy Takeaway 'Democracy' Issue 41

The limits of democracy - By Selim 'Selim' Talat

Everyone can have some say in how their society is run. Why? Not because of some idealistic natural right which we can never demonstrate to be absolutely true. Not because of divine commands from supernatural forces. No, I believe people can have a say because they have earned that say by living and experiencing their society. From this basic starting point, the more power that then flows into the hands of people, the more they need to have access to knowledge, and the stronger they must become to keep up with the increasing demands of power. This is the only fair way to ensure that a society works in the interests of those who make it up.

             
For instance, When a community is considering the placement of an aqueduct, the people whose lives it is effecting must be consulted. Even if they do not have the expertise to build one, it is going to effect their lives in a way that is essential, providing them with enough water to survive. Who could possibly know ones needs more than oneself?

            
In matters of art, on the other hand, no one has a say in how I create. No one is *I*. There is no possible way in which anyone can earn a say in my creativity. Art has no such essential function. If the people wish to be entertained (which you could say is of equal importance to food, water, shelter and so on) then there will always be mediocre entertainment available to allow them to function. Michael Franti once said television is the place: 'Where imagination is sucked out of children, through a cathode-ray nipple. TV, is the only wet nurse, that would create a cripple.' There is a clear distinction between art made for its own sake, and entertainment made to placate a warped image of the 'masses'. This I believe to be the difference between art made by 'vote', and art made by some deeper principle.

             
It is certainly not for the artist to alter themselves by consulting such a democracy, nor creating things for the purpose of satiating peoples basic needs, as opposed to exploring themselves and the universe in their 'transcendent and/or spiritual' quest. Not only should the artist be ignorant of what people want when creating something, they should also be ignorant of the audiences reaction to their creation.

             
Democratic organisation of societies, which provides essential needs, cannot be guided by a tyrant. Art, as a voluntary activity, can be guided by a tyrant. Indeed, every hollywood film ever made was an anti-democratic process in its creation. Or at least, it should have been. What is created in the mainstream world of 'art', however, is often determined by the audience, not by the artist. When the audience decides what is being created you have an utterly absurd situation: 'I wish to see a theatre play with at least three assassination attempts, two acts of infidelity and one major battle scene'. The artists then give people what they want, based on what the majority of people will go for. If you want to see such a (mediocre!) play, why not create it in your head? Surely the whole point of art is that it is someone else's creation, and it is something surprising, which will broaden ones mind. You have had no say in its creation and that is the joy of it.      

Likewise with philosophy. Just as the artist is creating things from a 'spiritual' domain within themselves, that can only be accessed by themselves, the philosopher is looking to find reasons for their thoughts that go beyond tradition, ritual or mass beliefs. If fifty-one percent of people say two and two makes five, do we then agree that it does? If fifty-one percent of people say that every third child must be sacrificed to the hungry gods of the sea, do we then obey such a barbaric practice?

            
The eternal search for questions and answers posed by philosophers are not determined by crowds, only shared with them, checked by them. Even if we are trying to build a system of morality out of love for the greater masses, it must ultimately be grounded in reasons and experiences which 'transcend' a show of hands - for if we base our decisions on popularity alone, what would happen if one day a majority turned upon a minority; who could say it was an unfair decision?

Now some might accuse this author of being elitist: 'If art and philosophy are beyond democracy, then why not leave power and organisation up to experts - why not get rid of democracy altogether?' There is no equivalent in the world of politics to the artist or the philosopher. There is no one in the world of politics pushing the boundaries of human endeavour with their unique and personal brilliance. The only goal of democracy should be to provide the framework within which all people can meet their basic needs and then pursue their own goals after this. Democracy must have its limits if this is the case.

Here are some questions raised by this article:

i) Is there is really such a big difference between art and entertainment? Can one really be placed so highly over the other and is there no middle ground between the two?

ii) Is art really the result of an internal process or is the best art produced in a more communal way? Is this emphasis on the individual creating art removing them from the world (and the opinions of other people) too much, giving them supernatural status?

iii) If the only goal of political power is to provide the basics of living, with every other project left for individuals to pursue on their own merits, will society cease to exist as we know it? And what are these basic needs we all have, how can we come to define them in a universal way?

Selim 'Selim' Talat

  The Philosophy Takeaway 'Democracy' Issue 41

     

Democracy and patterns of exploitation

One of my hobby-horses is that many forms of voting give voters a choices, but in the main, only preferential systems enable one to choose the choices. But more of that later. My view is that democracy and capitalism cannot work anyway, unless voters who exploited by the capitalists, or more generally - exploited, get a share of the swag from exploiting external groups, e.g. the Third World.

             
In effect, workers in Britain will support a Loyal Opposition (or Government) as long as they exploit the Third World more than they are exploited by their own bosses. We might call people in such a position net exploiters. Now democracy is relevant to philosophy, partly because of ethical issues, and partly because any hypotheses concerning its viability should be able to be tested scientifically. In ethical terms, we might say that democracy is the collective counterpart of the freedom to do as one wishes provided others do not suffer. In practice the proviso is not embedded in any democratic procedure, and checks and balances such as international law have very imperfect procedures to enforce them
 
In terms of hypotheses, can we test it, and if not, how do we respond? I am going to take the view that we cannot test it: alongside developed countries that in some way directly exploit the Third World, such as the United States, and many EU countries, probably not Greece, we have countries such as those of Scandinavia and New Zealand which for the sake of argument achieve their prosperity by favourable trade terms with the exploiting countries. We might call these countries secondary exploiters.

 

So unless we have shining examples of democratic capitalist countries that are not prosperous through trade with the exploiting countries - primary or secondary - we cannot refute this hypothesis. I think the hypothesis is a very reasonable one, and as a result we cannot condemn say communist countries for human rights violations from a position of moral superiority. My view is that left-wingers can rightly say "ah but this is all a hypothesis", but they must also show they are trying to make it wrong. They can address the problem without saying their voters are net exploiters!

And I think that secondary exploiters exist within society as well as in international trade. People like me who have provided professional services to capitalists in their working lives, whom the capitalists wish to take their side in industrial disputes. And when it comes to the crunch, they will side with the capitalists rather than the workers, both industrially and politically. Probably they form the backbone of the LibDems, though perhaps LibDem candidates are unlikely to suggest this. And this comes back to my original hobby-horse: with preferential voting I choose as my highest preference candidates who are the least exploitative, but still indicate I prefer Labour to Tory. Tories might say they prefer they too wish to prefer the 'least exploitative candidates', those who stand up to trade unionists and/or scroungers, but in the final analysis they prefer Tory to Labour.

Martin Prior

The Philosophy Takeaway 'Democracy' Issue 41

Why Democracy never existed

The definition of Democracy by Pericles is as follows: "Democracy is the government of the people, by the people and for the people". In our societies, Democracy is waved into people's faces as a warrant of a just government, the ideal form of government. But the fantasy of a real Democracy unfortunately fades away in the real world. 

I will expose a brief introduction to Athenian Democracy, and in a second part, two examples of today's use of the word Democracy. Since the rediscovery of the Ancient World during the Renaissance, a cult glorifying anything done in classical times has pervaded our occidental (western) societies. After all the Ancients invented everything didn't they? Mathematics, Philosophy, Democracy...                        

But what was the Democracy created in Athens? The sovereignty (kratos) of the people (dêmos); these people being the Athenians citizens, and that of course implies that not everybody had the right to participate in this first Democracy (women being excluded in the first place). To be Athenian, you had to be born of two Athenians parents, so the access to citizenship was more than limited, and the delegates of the Athenian citizens were chosen through drawing lots. Then we have to remember that Athens was a city-state that governed over a rural territory as well. So apart from the Athenians citizens there were farmers, slaves and foreigners (here I mean any other non-Athenian), and that meant quite a lot of "people" lived under the rules of Democracy but were excluded from it. That doesn't seem like a very just government to me but nevertheless it is the role model for us.                          

Yet alone the concept of a Democratic Republic seems an aberration, for here two different ways of choosing the delegates are apposed. For in the Roman Res Publicae (the affairs of the people) the delegates were elected. And even without considering these discrepancies, taking the example of the French Democratic Republic, the ideal of a government of, for and by the people remains a mere illusion. We vote for a couple of persons that then govern the country as they like, and that send the police and army against us if we dare show too much opposition. And again, the misuse of the word democratic is close to schizophrenia when seen in the context of Constitutional Monarchy, where the monarch is considered the guardian of the Constitution and of Democracy. Was he by any chance chosen through drawing lots for a specified amount of time? 

In any case, the word Democracy, apart from losing its primal meaning, has never been more than an ideal, a wonderful ideal that unfortunately only served on innumerable occasions all sorts of governments to legitimate their oligarchies, monarchies or dictatorships.

Alice S.Dransfield

The Philosophy Takeaway 'Democracy' Issue 41