Random notes. Do not mistake them for settled views (or dogmatic ones).
I have been thinking about the role of women in Mormonism in light of recent interest in ordaining them to the priesthood. I definitely think that there needs to be an evolution in Mormon culture that makes women peers to men. I don't think they are at present, and I don't think they can be made such without some serious adjustments to the status quo (adjustments that people will notice and react to, not always with appreciation or unmixed happiness).
That said, I am not sure the best solution to the lack of parity between the sexes in LDS Mormonism (specifically) is female ordination to what has historically been a very male priesthood. I know many people (male and female) are stubbornly against such a move, and it would require a kind of re-orientation in priesthood culture that could be extremely disruptive (not necessarily in a good way, unless your goal is to undo or unmake the LDS church, as mine is not).
I have been thinking it might be possible to make women the peers of men in Mormonism without sending them to priesthood meetings together. What we need is a conscious, sustained, and sincere effort to make the role of women and female leaders as important to the church as male ("priesthood") counterparts. For every dollar the bishopric gets, the Relief Society presidency should get one. For every non-priesthood meeting the bishopric conducts, the Relief Society should conduct another such (trading Sundays?). For every priesthood ritual that involves women, there should be a female ritual that involves men (as the objects of female blessing, female leadership or presidency, etc.).
Historically, the functioning order of the (male) priesthood is fluid. It was not obvious from early Mormon history that the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (Q12) would control the church as it does today--unchecked and pretty much uncheckable by any other priesthood quorum. It would be possible to disrupt the Q12's empire, I think, without thereby demeaning or destroying its priesthood (let alone the church as a whole: I think the church would do better if the Q12 consciously let go of the universal mandate it has held over the church since Brigham Young). What would it require to make the General Relief Society Board (or Presidency, though I am conceiving that as a peer to the First Presidency right now) functionally the peer of the Q12? We would need to give the women independent access to church resources (their own equal say in the church's business, for-profit and non-profit as well as liturgical). The "women's conference" would need to take place as the equivalent of "priesthood meeting" (in General Conference), and we would need to see more women speaking in General Conference. This could all be accomplished with relatively little pain, it seems to me, even when it comes to traditionalists who dislike anything that seems like change.
The hardest thing to deal with would be the maleness of prophets, seers, and revelators in Mormon institutional history. We cannot easily make women prophets. Many of us don't want to. So what to do? From my perspective, we are currently confronting a kind of crisis in traditional Mormon leadership, a crisis in which prophets, seers, and revelators are questioning their role in the church and society at large, and increasingly shying away from the kind of prophecy, seership, and revelation that defined the careers of men like Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. While insisting that the prophet must speak with authority to the world, the Q12 are careful to keep him from making the kind of bold, personal assertions that historically define his role. The old Mormon prophets said whatever they wanted, as the Spirit inspired them, accepting and admitting that the results were occasionally disastrous (a trial from the Lord, a chance to learn humility, etc.). They were not above offering personal apologies from the pulpit (where they also pursued personal vendettas against one another, on occasion). They were colorful and accessible as the modern CEO prophets, with a PR department managing their press releases, cannot be. I wonder whether it might be useful here to create some kind of female executive (a "prophetess" to balance the prophet, though that need not be her title, and her role need not be constructed overtly as priesthood). Could there emerge some kind of Mormon Delphic Oracle, with a Mormon Pythia receiving revelation applicable in some fashion to the entire LDS church? I think so.
Mormon and Christian history together offer all the pieces we would need to create a theological justification for female authority. In the Old and New Testaments, female leadership is rare but there: other Christians have found it when they needed it, and we can too. Mormon history, meanwhile, shows us women performing ordinances (blessing, healing, laying on of hands, speaking in tongues, prophecy) since associated--as a matter of policy more than doctrine, it strikes me--with male priesthood (which increasingly ignores much of its mandate in the Articles of Faith: when was the last time you went to a temple meeting like the dedication of the Kirtland Temple?). Perhaps in expanding the active roles available to women (without simply offering them male priesthood, a gesture I don't see the church making, personally), the church might escape some of the artificial stiltedness that has infected its priesthood (and made modern Mormon rituals so unlike their nineteenth-century counterparts: again, I cannot help thinking of the Kirtland temple, or of Nauvoo, for that matter, where going to the temple to dance all night was not unheard of--what happened to that sacred ordinance? when did we replace it with snacking on jello in carpeted gyms, sitting quietly in front of a movie screen at the temple?). The old endowment was something extemporaneous--a drama that actors performed to be contemporary. If we were old-timey Mormons, it would involve Satan in the guise of a bankster (or perhaps a "liberal" university professor in some Utah towns, a Utah businessman-bishop in the Northeast, etc.), and the dialogue would be updated to reflect current trends and issues. It would incorporate talks from local temple presidencies or presiding authorities (why not include female speakers?) and would evolve from performance to performance (the way a play does). One temple would not be exactly like another. People would not go to the temple to fall asleep listening to yet another iteration of an old script that is increasingly read to justify the very kind of unrighteous dominion (see Doctrine and Covenants 121) that early Mormon leaders decried (even if they also succumbed to its allure on occasion and became unjust tyrants: at least they saw this as something wrong, something to resist with passion rather than the will of God that all must embrace). I cannot help feeling that women might make a really good contribution here, as newcomers and outsiders to the increasingly dull traditions of the male priesthood.
I think the male LDS priesthood has some goods that should be preserved (as unique to manhood). I don't think that leadership is one of those goods: women need leadership; they need to rule as well as be ruled. I wonder whether it might be good to imagine ways of letting women lead that don't involve committing them to the kind of leadership that has come to define LDS priesthood, a kind of leadership that I personally find quite disturbing (not necessarily because of its gender). As a man looking back upon my time as an active Mormon, there are pieces of "priesthood" that I don't want for myself, for my gender, or for anyone really (friend or foe, black or white, male or female). I wonder what opportunities the future will offer us for restructuring our idea(s) of what it means to lead, to have authority, and to submit (to one having authority). I do not think that Deity (whatever one understands that to be) demands male leadership to the exclusion or subordination of female. This thought is not one that I can give over easily, since I have come to it by long pondering and observation (of my own experience and that of others).
Showing posts with label feminism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label feminism. Show all posts
Monday, April 7, 2014
Friday, January 10, 2014
Rape, Chivalry, Sexual Dimorphism
Three related thoughts about the differences between men and women, and the way these become virulently poisonous.
I. Rape is an ugly reality in animal life, including the life of humanity. We have developed many tools to curb and contain it. Unsurprisingly, some tools work better than others, and any tool can be recycled as a weapon (perpetrating abuse instead of containing it). We have not found a final solution for rape that is universal (applicable to everyone always). I do not think we will. The most we can do is educate ourselves (about the dangers in the world and the reality that we cannot control them perfectly, as a species or as individuals).
We must not blame victims. That will not help them (as they seek healing) or us (as we seek means to protect them and others like them, including ourselves). Rape is out there no matter what you wear, no matter what god you pray to (or ignore), no matter what meetings you attend, no matter your education (etc.). Your job as a human being is to make sure primarily (1) that you don't perpetrate it, and only secondarily (2) that you equip yourself to fight or flee it when it finds you--as best you can. It is never your fault that you remain vulnerable. We are all vulnerable. Nobody says that a victim of assault or robbery "should have practised street-fighting more." That is a worthless comment, particularly when it comes from someone who has never been attacked. People are not the same, and neither are their circumstances. Bad things happen to good people all the time (I mean "good" in the broadest sense here, encompassing everything from "innocent" to "morally upright" to "prepared").
Therapy (religion, applied science) worth anything is not about pouring salt in the wounds of the innocent. A really righteous person would not waste time warning young women (or men) to cover their shoulders and then blame any rape on their failing to heed his warning. He would warn them not to be or become tolerant of rapists. If any of them were raped, he would respond with empathy: "I am really sorry that happened to you. Please don't feel that it was in any way your fault. You cannot be held accountable for the fact that some other people are monsters. You are not a monster. I love you." This is what bearing the burden of your fellow men and women looks like. You commiserate with them (rather than looking for a way to make everything awful in their life appear to be somehow their fault, a disaster of their own making).
The real problem we see today in modesty rhetoric, I think, is lack of empathy. People want to help, even conservative religious people, but they fail to notice that blaming the victim really isn't helping (anyone, at all, ever: even if the victim takes the message to heart and begins wearing burkhas and training for combat, that is no guarantee that rape won't happen). I like to imagine that if people could see more clearly into the mind of victims, perhaps if they themselves became victims (not that I wish that for anyone), they would realize their error and stop "helping" (and maybe even apologize for their sins).
I definitely agree that rape is a male issue (a meme I have encountered several times in society). But I think women should talk about it, too (as they do in real life). As one of the really tough, intractable problems in human experience, it is fundamentally a human problem (that we all share, that we all must struggle to solve, even though there is no such thing as a final solution).
The really tough reality I confront here is that we are not all alike. We do not see the same things in the world; even if we do, we do not see them the same way. We experience life differently, as individuals and communities. Our unlikeness means that we cannot approach rape the same way. My approach cannot be yours (or vice versa). My community cannot be yours (or vice versa). The solution I make for myself cannot be the solution the community makes together, and there is no such thing as a single, unified solution that applies to all situations universally.
When we say that rape is a female issue, we are lying (it seems to me, and I think decent people agree). I am wary of making it a male issue because that too strikes me as a lie (or at best an incomplete truth: I think rape is fundamentally a human problem that we must all confront individually and together, in dialogue with one another).
The problem with making rape a female issue is that this provides criminals with an easy out (when they blame the victim for their bad behavior). The problem with making rape a male issue is that this leads to behavior that many women experience as benevolent sexism (that criminals can incorporate as a front for their bad behavior: "I held the door for you, so you owe me your life!"). The truth is that there are many different fronts we need to attend in the battle against rape (I think). Victims don't need the same therapy as perpetrators. Potential victims don't need the same therapy as actual victims. Men don't need the same approach as women, I would venture to say, though we definitely need to talk to each other about our mutual experiences and expectations (so that we have a reasonable chance of incorporating the best information into whatever solutions we end up devising to deal with the criminals).
II. I am going to speak for a moment as a man (not a woman), a Westerner (Anglo-Saxon), and a religious person (with a fair amount of experience working in "rough" environments, among human beings whom some modern progressives would occasionally be tempted to execrate as boorish, homophobic, racist, sexist, misogynist trash). Coming from my background, I have to say that I see a real positive utility arising from chivalry. The men among whom I grew up were not a uniform bunch. Some were very educated (like my father); others were not (at all). Some were physical monsters (capable of picking up a small car and/or fighting wild animals in the woods); others were not. Some were decent; others were not. The decent ones, uneducated or not, typically adopted an approach to life that sought to demonstrate respect for others, particularly for those who might feel threatened by them (e.g. when circumstances put them and a weaker person in close proximity: "weaker" need not imply physical inferiority, though that was definitely a recurrent issue; it also indicates inequality in social privilege that recurs in human experience, as in baboon experience). Sometimes, decent people would get the respect signal wrong; they would misjudge the person they wanted to conciliate (e.g. when they opened the door for an angry young woman who didn't want that). Their response would be to take the blowback from that mistake on the chin: "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to offend you. What can I do to make it up? Leave you alone? Offer you something? I am at your service."
Whether rightly or wrongly, these men offered an approach to life that was accessible to me as a young man. I needed a way to relate to others, particularly those I didn't and couldn't really understand (e.g. most women and many men, too). I needed a way to exist without imposing myself (as I have never wanted to do), and they offered it. I think chivalry is historically as good a word as any for their attitude (though I am open to others that might sound less sexist), which I find echoed in old poetry and literature occasionally named (whether with approval or disgust) chivalrous. The worship of woman (which recurs in literature such as I am invoking here) has problems, of course (see my comment above), but the decent men in my life have convinced me that these are more artificial than fundamental (particularly when we notice how they apply also to relationships with "weaker" males). By that I mean that the fundamental attitude of polite deference to others, particularly when circumstances conspire to make one appear powerful, is a good one. The problem with chivalry is that many people (including many stupid men) confuse it with gestures rather than attitude. Instead of seeing the principle of respecting others' autonomy (granting them room to situate themselves comfortably relative to you), they see some arbitrary rule ("a woman's place is to sit around and wait for me to open the door for her").
The decent men I know would never accept shenanigans such as occurred (e.g.) recently in Steubenville. Though very physical, and on occasion even frightening (to me, as a man), they made it clear to me over and over--in quiet conversations in the locker room or at church or some other place where we happened to coincide, and in their interaction with people--that they had a deep sense of their own personal dignity, and the corresponding personal dignity of every individual human being that they interacted with (male, female, big, small, black, white, foreign, domestic, powerful, weak: it did not matter). I saw that other men might talk or make gestures like the really decent ones without being really decent. I noticed that chivalry (respect, whatever one wants to call it) is more than a collection of shallow rules. I also learned that the really decent folk with power (raw physical power or social privilege or whatever) were keenly aware of their own weakness--of the temptation that their position offered for "taking unfair advantage"--and that they took conscious measures to avoid becoming the perpetrators of abuse. They also made a point of noting how their strength inevitably depended on the cooperation of others, how it was not really their own. (Some of them expressed this by attributing it to God, not because they identified God as their own whim, but for the opposite reason: "God" for them meant "not me, the world outside me that I cannot understand but that I choose to confront with dignity.")
As a human, I see that chivalry has limits. I see that it cannot be the solution of every person (or even of every man). But I am not ready to throw it away, myself, as a man. I have found it more useful than not.
III. To me it seems that there is only one distinction between the sexes (male and female) clear enough to be written into law: men cannot give birth, so final decisions regarding reproduction belong exclusively to women.
Everything else (the more or less imaginary gender preferences and aptitudes whose ebb and flow we observe in contentious scientific literature) should be sorted out extralegally (definitely) and without social coercion (e.g. in the form of referenda promoting one group's fantasy of gender roles at the expense of everyone else). If women don't want to be CEOs (as I don't, though I am not a woman), then they shouldn't have to be; but that should be their decision, not an expectation imposed externally. Society should have no definite gender roles enforced by law (certainly) and should resist the idea of softer enforcement (e.g. via the continuation of work requirements that make it unnecessarily difficult for qualified individuals to live as they find opportunity and desire).
I. Rape is an ugly reality in animal life, including the life of humanity. We have developed many tools to curb and contain it. Unsurprisingly, some tools work better than others, and any tool can be recycled as a weapon (perpetrating abuse instead of containing it). We have not found a final solution for rape that is universal (applicable to everyone always). I do not think we will. The most we can do is educate ourselves (about the dangers in the world and the reality that we cannot control them perfectly, as a species or as individuals).
We must not blame victims. That will not help them (as they seek healing) or us (as we seek means to protect them and others like them, including ourselves). Rape is out there no matter what you wear, no matter what god you pray to (or ignore), no matter what meetings you attend, no matter your education (etc.). Your job as a human being is to make sure primarily (1) that you don't perpetrate it, and only secondarily (2) that you equip yourself to fight or flee it when it finds you--as best you can. It is never your fault that you remain vulnerable. We are all vulnerable. Nobody says that a victim of assault or robbery "should have practised street-fighting more." That is a worthless comment, particularly when it comes from someone who has never been attacked. People are not the same, and neither are their circumstances. Bad things happen to good people all the time (I mean "good" in the broadest sense here, encompassing everything from "innocent" to "morally upright" to "prepared").
Therapy (religion, applied science) worth anything is not about pouring salt in the wounds of the innocent. A really righteous person would not waste time warning young women (or men) to cover their shoulders and then blame any rape on their failing to heed his warning. He would warn them not to be or become tolerant of rapists. If any of them were raped, he would respond with empathy: "I am really sorry that happened to you. Please don't feel that it was in any way your fault. You cannot be held accountable for the fact that some other people are monsters. You are not a monster. I love you." This is what bearing the burden of your fellow men and women looks like. You commiserate with them (rather than looking for a way to make everything awful in their life appear to be somehow their fault, a disaster of their own making).
The real problem we see today in modesty rhetoric, I think, is lack of empathy. People want to help, even conservative religious people, but they fail to notice that blaming the victim really isn't helping (anyone, at all, ever: even if the victim takes the message to heart and begins wearing burkhas and training for combat, that is no guarantee that rape won't happen). I like to imagine that if people could see more clearly into the mind of victims, perhaps if they themselves became victims (not that I wish that for anyone), they would realize their error and stop "helping" (and maybe even apologize for their sins).
I definitely agree that rape is a male issue (a meme I have encountered several times in society). But I think women should talk about it, too (as they do in real life). As one of the really tough, intractable problems in human experience, it is fundamentally a human problem (that we all share, that we all must struggle to solve, even though there is no such thing as a final solution).
The really tough reality I confront here is that we are not all alike. We do not see the same things in the world; even if we do, we do not see them the same way. We experience life differently, as individuals and communities. Our unlikeness means that we cannot approach rape the same way. My approach cannot be yours (or vice versa). My community cannot be yours (or vice versa). The solution I make for myself cannot be the solution the community makes together, and there is no such thing as a single, unified solution that applies to all situations universally.
When we say that rape is a female issue, we are lying (it seems to me, and I think decent people agree). I am wary of making it a male issue because that too strikes me as a lie (or at best an incomplete truth: I think rape is fundamentally a human problem that we must all confront individually and together, in dialogue with one another).
The problem with making rape a female issue is that this provides criminals with an easy out (when they blame the victim for their bad behavior). The problem with making rape a male issue is that this leads to behavior that many women experience as benevolent sexism (that criminals can incorporate as a front for their bad behavior: "I held the door for you, so you owe me your life!"). The truth is that there are many different fronts we need to attend in the battle against rape (I think). Victims don't need the same therapy as perpetrators. Potential victims don't need the same therapy as actual victims. Men don't need the same approach as women, I would venture to say, though we definitely need to talk to each other about our mutual experiences and expectations (so that we have a reasonable chance of incorporating the best information into whatever solutions we end up devising to deal with the criminals).
II. I am going to speak for a moment as a man (not a woman), a Westerner (Anglo-Saxon), and a religious person (with a fair amount of experience working in "rough" environments, among human beings whom some modern progressives would occasionally be tempted to execrate as boorish, homophobic, racist, sexist, misogynist trash). Coming from my background, I have to say that I see a real positive utility arising from chivalry. The men among whom I grew up were not a uniform bunch. Some were very educated (like my father); others were not (at all). Some were physical monsters (capable of picking up a small car and/or fighting wild animals in the woods); others were not. Some were decent; others were not. The decent ones, uneducated or not, typically adopted an approach to life that sought to demonstrate respect for others, particularly for those who might feel threatened by them (e.g. when circumstances put them and a weaker person in close proximity: "weaker" need not imply physical inferiority, though that was definitely a recurrent issue; it also indicates inequality in social privilege that recurs in human experience, as in baboon experience). Sometimes, decent people would get the respect signal wrong; they would misjudge the person they wanted to conciliate (e.g. when they opened the door for an angry young woman who didn't want that). Their response would be to take the blowback from that mistake on the chin: "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to offend you. What can I do to make it up? Leave you alone? Offer you something? I am at your service."
Whether rightly or wrongly, these men offered an approach to life that was accessible to me as a young man. I needed a way to relate to others, particularly those I didn't and couldn't really understand (e.g. most women and many men, too). I needed a way to exist without imposing myself (as I have never wanted to do), and they offered it. I think chivalry is historically as good a word as any for their attitude (though I am open to others that might sound less sexist), which I find echoed in old poetry and literature occasionally named (whether with approval or disgust) chivalrous. The worship of woman (which recurs in literature such as I am invoking here) has problems, of course (see my comment above), but the decent men in my life have convinced me that these are more artificial than fundamental (particularly when we notice how they apply also to relationships with "weaker" males). By that I mean that the fundamental attitude of polite deference to others, particularly when circumstances conspire to make one appear powerful, is a good one. The problem with chivalry is that many people (including many stupid men) confuse it with gestures rather than attitude. Instead of seeing the principle of respecting others' autonomy (granting them room to situate themselves comfortably relative to you), they see some arbitrary rule ("a woman's place is to sit around and wait for me to open the door for her").
The decent men I know would never accept shenanigans such as occurred (e.g.) recently in Steubenville. Though very physical, and on occasion even frightening (to me, as a man), they made it clear to me over and over--in quiet conversations in the locker room or at church or some other place where we happened to coincide, and in their interaction with people--that they had a deep sense of their own personal dignity, and the corresponding personal dignity of every individual human being that they interacted with (male, female, big, small, black, white, foreign, domestic, powerful, weak: it did not matter). I saw that other men might talk or make gestures like the really decent ones without being really decent. I noticed that chivalry (respect, whatever one wants to call it) is more than a collection of shallow rules. I also learned that the really decent folk with power (raw physical power or social privilege or whatever) were keenly aware of their own weakness--of the temptation that their position offered for "taking unfair advantage"--and that they took conscious measures to avoid becoming the perpetrators of abuse. They also made a point of noting how their strength inevitably depended on the cooperation of others, how it was not really their own. (Some of them expressed this by attributing it to God, not because they identified God as their own whim, but for the opposite reason: "God" for them meant "not me, the world outside me that I cannot understand but that I choose to confront with dignity.")
As a human, I see that chivalry has limits. I see that it cannot be the solution of every person (or even of every man). But I am not ready to throw it away, myself, as a man. I have found it more useful than not.
III. To me it seems that there is only one distinction between the sexes (male and female) clear enough to be written into law: men cannot give birth, so final decisions regarding reproduction belong exclusively to women.
Everything else (the more or less imaginary gender preferences and aptitudes whose ebb and flow we observe in contentious scientific literature) should be sorted out extralegally (definitely) and without social coercion (e.g. in the form of referenda promoting one group's fantasy of gender roles at the expense of everyone else). If women don't want to be CEOs (as I don't, though I am not a woman), then they shouldn't have to be; but that should be their decision, not an expectation imposed externally. Society should have no definite gender roles enforced by law (certainly) and should resist the idea of softer enforcement (e.g. via the continuation of work requirements that make it unnecessarily difficult for qualified individuals to live as they find opportunity and desire).
Friday, August 9, 2013
Taking Offense
Some more random thoughts about how to construe hatred (hot and cold, small and grand) from other people in a way that minimizes harm and maximizes benefit.
I. Offense must needs come, it seems to me. If I must be offended in order that somebody else may live freer and at greater ease (with herself and the world), then I am willing to be offended (especially when the offense comes through words). I embrace the reality that my psyche is blind and weak, and I seek to temper it, hardening it through manageable adversity to the point where it can encounter hatred and misunderstanding in the world without falling apart.
Serving a foreign LDS mission was eye-opening in this regard, in a very useful way (as was growing up in the Deep South, where my Mormonism made me an automatic outsider among the evangelical Christians who constituted the majority of my neighbors). People hated me--as a foreigner, as an American, as a Mormon. There was nothing I could do. I might smile or snarl, and the result would be the same (with this one difference, that snarling was likely to cause physical confrontations that might easily end much worse than the endless flytings). I learned to grin and bear it. It was hard sometimes, but very worthwhile. If I could listen to the hatred of the Spanish people for me patiently, then I can listen patiently to feedback from people to whom I appear, to my consternation, as an advocate for chauvinism or slavery or some other kind of thuggish behavior.
Nietzsche goes hard on contemporary Christianity for being decadently soft (if I get him right). I think this is what he means, that too many of us project our own weakness onto other people (demanding that they be strong where we are weak) instead of looking inward and steeling ourselves to face our demons however we must (mustering the courage to let others be honest about how threatening and insensitive they find us, even when we come with what we see as peaceful intentions).
II. It seems to me that almost all attempts to define just hierarchy are doomed (historically, when we judge them by their fruits over some arbitrary time period). I don't believe in just hierarchy, personally (except as a fiction in the minds of philosophers like Plato or Hegel). The most we can hope for is more non-fatal volatility in whatever hierarchy (feminist patriarchy) we have got going at the moment. Shift the burden of leadership around more. Let someone else screw the world (and take the blame for that) or save it (and take the credit). Maximize opportunities for the oppressed du jour to recover from their bad luck without being destroyed.
Sometimes, that means that we have to hear things we don't like (no matter who we are). We need to be OK with that. And at some point it is always good to "shut up and listen" (no matter who we are) and even "take our toys and leave" (no matter who we are, again: nobody should hang about somewhere they feel threatened, even if the threat is entirely harmless to somebody else). My sister has Celiac disease. If she eats our mom's whole wheat bread, she starts dying (literally). I don't. My sister shouldn't have to eat bread because I can. Hierarchy (feminist patriarchy) is like food, I think, a necessary poison that all of us must come to grips with individually, subjectively, as we can (not as someone else tells us to).
There is not one -archy to rule them all. There shouldn't be. To the extent that there is, it inevitably becomes hell on earth (no matter who runs it).
III. Any actionable opinion carries inherent the potential to become painfully, dangerously personal. It becomes personal ("about me") when people judge me for looking or speaking a certain way--as though my superficial physical resemblance to rapists made me a rapist, as though my hesitation to lynch every accused rapist meant that I endorse rape.
People should do whatever they feel a need to do in order to feel safe. If that means they take me for a rapist, I am open to that--provided I have the option of then avoiding (or ending) any relationship with those who have no use for me (for reasons that I absolutely do not invalidate: if my appearance or expression scares people, then I need to know it, preferably before I am lynched).
Some of your relationships will always be unsalvageable, historically speaking. Nobody should have to live with constant fear (or domination or whatever anyone wants to call it). Sometimes, divorce is necessary (by which I mean separation physical and psychological, separation that might be permanent). If my wife ever reaches a place where her relationship with me is unbearable, where I am the proverbial ball-and-chain, then I will encourage her to dump me (and not feel any remorse about it, at least not any that she doesn't want to feel).
Nobody owes me a life free from challenge, a life of "privilege" (however anyone wants to define that). And I don't want to be caste in the role of "leader" (which I have never sought, not even when I come to places like this and write advice that some readers might construe as authoritative: my opinion on anything is worth to you precisely what you make of it, which might be nothing or a great deal--your decision, not mine).
For those with kids, I think the best we can do is emphasize the importance of respecting other people as individuals (giving them maximal freedom to be honest and autonomous without regard for their genitalia)--and then let the cards fall. If that means that my kids crash and burn (failing in every way society measures success, e.g. in terms of establishing themselves in stable long-term relationships and living above grinding poverty), then I will still be happy--provided my kids are polite. I care more about how my kids react than what happens to them. As long as they retain the ability to love (themselves and others) authentically, I don't care much about anything else (though of course I won't go out of my way to set them up for failure!).
IV. We all give offense, but only the really good people take it well. I cannot make myself utterly inoffensive, but I can learn to attune myself those around me, trying to see how they perceive me and adjust my persona accordingly (so that I don't hurt them unnecessarily). I can make the offenses I receive opportunities for growth rather than threats to an imaginary personal security (that I must renounce as a dangerous lie: I am never utterly safe--from other people or to them).
One common cause for offense is the natural desire we have to protect ourselves and those close to us from what we perceive as harm. If I see my wife or my kids (or my friend or my sibling) in a social circumstance where they appear overwhelmed, I step in and try to help them (by talking other people down, shouting them down if necessary, and even "taking charge" momentarily to defuse the situation: physical confrontation is not off the table as an appropriate response, though it is one that I have been fortunate to avoid most of my adult life, probably because of my lucky childhood, which involved lots of time practicing and thinking about fighting). This is not done because I am a man (or a Mormon or a white supremacist or an American or a liberal or a hero or a scumbag), but because I don't like to see people I love suffering uselessly (some suffering is necessary, useful for growth, helpful--a fact I respect).
I think this "urge to protect" is something that transcends gender (my wife can be very protective of our kids and me in this same way, for example)--but it sometimes becomes gendered (when certain people, for historical reasons, assume that having male anatomy means "being the default protector"). The problem with this "default" position is that it inevitably infantilizes and weakens (psychologically at the very least) the "protected" by placing them in a place of default dependency ("help! save me! I need protection!"). Stepping out of a dependent relationship is always hard (like learning to walk after spending one's entire life crippled--a nice/awful gendered example that comes to mind is the practice of female foot-binding in ancient China). For those who have experience with the Mormon "faith crisis" (or whatever anyone wants to call it), it is very much like "leaving the church"--an experience involving shock and awe, anger, defensiveness, aggression, PTSD, and eventually a new stasis (we hope! I like to think I have found one, anyway).
As you move forward from a personal crisis of identity that involves confronting and removing unhelpful dependency, it is not always possible to salvage relationships whose existence dates to "before the crisis" (certainly not in the same form they had then). Ceasing to be a dependent is not a painless process. It produces a lot of "bad results" (no matter whose perspective one takes: I see bad results of my own faith crisis every day), but that does not mean that it is a fundamentally evil process (one that should be avoided or squelched). The only thing worse than dying free is living an entire life enslaved to some empty shadow of yourself that you loathe. This is true whether one is male or female (Mormon or evangelical, black or white, American or not). If women (or Mormons or Americans or black people or white people) want to rebel or hate men (or Mormons or Americans or black people or white people or me personally) as part of their quest for freedom, I am open to that. I embrace it. Be impotent and angry (from somebody's perspective). Waste your life (from somebody's perspective). At least it will be yours, and for that I personally will respect you (even if we disagree about something important and/or you hate my guts).
I. Offense must needs come, it seems to me. If I must be offended in order that somebody else may live freer and at greater ease (with herself and the world), then I am willing to be offended (especially when the offense comes through words). I embrace the reality that my psyche is blind and weak, and I seek to temper it, hardening it through manageable adversity to the point where it can encounter hatred and misunderstanding in the world without falling apart.
Serving a foreign LDS mission was eye-opening in this regard, in a very useful way (as was growing up in the Deep South, where my Mormonism made me an automatic outsider among the evangelical Christians who constituted the majority of my neighbors). People hated me--as a foreigner, as an American, as a Mormon. There was nothing I could do. I might smile or snarl, and the result would be the same (with this one difference, that snarling was likely to cause physical confrontations that might easily end much worse than the endless flytings). I learned to grin and bear it. It was hard sometimes, but very worthwhile. If I could listen to the hatred of the Spanish people for me patiently, then I can listen patiently to feedback from people to whom I appear, to my consternation, as an advocate for chauvinism or slavery or some other kind of thuggish behavior.
Nietzsche goes hard on contemporary Christianity for being decadently soft (if I get him right). I think this is what he means, that too many of us project our own weakness onto other people (demanding that they be strong where we are weak) instead of looking inward and steeling ourselves to face our demons however we must (mustering the courage to let others be honest about how threatening and insensitive they find us, even when we come with what we see as peaceful intentions).
II. It seems to me that almost all attempts to define just hierarchy are doomed (historically, when we judge them by their fruits over some arbitrary time period). I don't believe in just hierarchy, personally (except as a fiction in the minds of philosophers like Plato or Hegel). The most we can hope for is more non-fatal volatility in whatever hierarchy (feminist patriarchy) we have got going at the moment. Shift the burden of leadership around more. Let someone else screw the world (and take the blame for that) or save it (and take the credit). Maximize opportunities for the oppressed du jour to recover from their bad luck without being destroyed.
Sometimes, that means that we have to hear things we don't like (no matter who we are). We need to be OK with that. And at some point it is always good to "shut up and listen" (no matter who we are) and even "take our toys and leave" (no matter who we are, again: nobody should hang about somewhere they feel threatened, even if the threat is entirely harmless to somebody else). My sister has Celiac disease. If she eats our mom's whole wheat bread, she starts dying (literally). I don't. My sister shouldn't have to eat bread because I can. Hierarchy (feminist patriarchy) is like food, I think, a necessary poison that all of us must come to grips with individually, subjectively, as we can (not as someone else tells us to).
There is not one -archy to rule them all. There shouldn't be. To the extent that there is, it inevitably becomes hell on earth (no matter who runs it).
III. Any actionable opinion carries inherent the potential to become painfully, dangerously personal. It becomes personal ("about me") when people judge me for looking or speaking a certain way--as though my superficial physical resemblance to rapists made me a rapist, as though my hesitation to lynch every accused rapist meant that I endorse rape.
People should do whatever they feel a need to do in order to feel safe. If that means they take me for a rapist, I am open to that--provided I have the option of then avoiding (or ending) any relationship with those who have no use for me (for reasons that I absolutely do not invalidate: if my appearance or expression scares people, then I need to know it, preferably before I am lynched).
Some of your relationships will always be unsalvageable, historically speaking. Nobody should have to live with constant fear (or domination or whatever anyone wants to call it). Sometimes, divorce is necessary (by which I mean separation physical and psychological, separation that might be permanent). If my wife ever reaches a place where her relationship with me is unbearable, where I am the proverbial ball-and-chain, then I will encourage her to dump me (and not feel any remorse about it, at least not any that she doesn't want to feel).
Nobody owes me a life free from challenge, a life of "privilege" (however anyone wants to define that). And I don't want to be caste in the role of "leader" (which I have never sought, not even when I come to places like this and write advice that some readers might construe as authoritative: my opinion on anything is worth to you precisely what you make of it, which might be nothing or a great deal--your decision, not mine).
For those with kids, I think the best we can do is emphasize the importance of respecting other people as individuals (giving them maximal freedom to be honest and autonomous without regard for their genitalia)--and then let the cards fall. If that means that my kids crash and burn (failing in every way society measures success, e.g. in terms of establishing themselves in stable long-term relationships and living above grinding poverty), then I will still be happy--provided my kids are polite. I care more about how my kids react than what happens to them. As long as they retain the ability to love (themselves and others) authentically, I don't care much about anything else (though of course I won't go out of my way to set them up for failure!).
IV. We all give offense, but only the really good people take it well. I cannot make myself utterly inoffensive, but I can learn to attune myself those around me, trying to see how they perceive me and adjust my persona accordingly (so that I don't hurt them unnecessarily). I can make the offenses I receive opportunities for growth rather than threats to an imaginary personal security (that I must renounce as a dangerous lie: I am never utterly safe--from other people or to them).
One common cause for offense is the natural desire we have to protect ourselves and those close to us from what we perceive as harm. If I see my wife or my kids (or my friend or my sibling) in a social circumstance where they appear overwhelmed, I step in and try to help them (by talking other people down, shouting them down if necessary, and even "taking charge" momentarily to defuse the situation: physical confrontation is not off the table as an appropriate response, though it is one that I have been fortunate to avoid most of my adult life, probably because of my lucky childhood, which involved lots of time practicing and thinking about fighting). This is not done because I am a man (or a Mormon or a white supremacist or an American or a liberal or a hero or a scumbag), but because I don't like to see people I love suffering uselessly (some suffering is necessary, useful for growth, helpful--a fact I respect).
I think this "urge to protect" is something that transcends gender (my wife can be very protective of our kids and me in this same way, for example)--but it sometimes becomes gendered (when certain people, for historical reasons, assume that having male anatomy means "being the default protector"). The problem with this "default" position is that it inevitably infantilizes and weakens (psychologically at the very least) the "protected" by placing them in a place of default dependency ("help! save me! I need protection!"). Stepping out of a dependent relationship is always hard (like learning to walk after spending one's entire life crippled--a nice/awful gendered example that comes to mind is the practice of female foot-binding in ancient China). For those who have experience with the Mormon "faith crisis" (or whatever anyone wants to call it), it is very much like "leaving the church"--an experience involving shock and awe, anger, defensiveness, aggression, PTSD, and eventually a new stasis (we hope! I like to think I have found one, anyway).
As you move forward from a personal crisis of identity that involves confronting and removing unhelpful dependency, it is not always possible to salvage relationships whose existence dates to "before the crisis" (certainly not in the same form they had then). Ceasing to be a dependent is not a painless process. It produces a lot of "bad results" (no matter whose perspective one takes: I see bad results of my own faith crisis every day), but that does not mean that it is a fundamentally evil process (one that should be avoided or squelched). The only thing worse than dying free is living an entire life enslaved to some empty shadow of yourself that you loathe. This is true whether one is male or female (Mormon or evangelical, black or white, American or not). If women (or Mormons or Americans or black people or white people) want to rebel or hate men (or Mormons or Americans or black people or white people or me personally) as part of their quest for freedom, I am open to that. I embrace it. Be impotent and angry (from somebody's perspective). Waste your life (from somebody's perspective). At least it will be yours, and for that I personally will respect you (even if we disagree about something important and/or you hate my guts).
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Against the Factions
I
like this article (and agree with most of it), but there are two things
that trouble me (in it and in much of public discourse about -ists
practicing -isms, including feminists practicing feminism).
(1) The business of leadership. Much -ist rhetoric falls into the trap (as I see it) of asking the Platonic question, "Who will rule?" (Men or women? Republicans or Democrats? Liberals or conservatives? Mormons or evangelicals? Company men or free spirits? and so on and on). The answer to this question, historically speaking, is always, "An asshole." No matter what regime we set up, some asshole will always be in charge of it eventually. The fact that someone takes issue with a leader (male or female, -ist or non-ist) is not necessarily an indication that that someone wants to oust or replace the leader (with himself). I have no interest in telling people (men, women, or children) what to do with their lives, what they must do, how they must think, etc. But that does not mean that I am following someone else's lead (i.e. that I endorse any leader in society or any "social order," explicit or implicit, that may exist and cause damage).
(2) The business of class. While I get the idea of "passing" in society (and have been on the business end of "not passing"--a valuable learning experience), I don't like to accept passively my existence as part of a class (or faction). Following Karl Popper (especially his idea of "the open society"), I think class (i.e. faction, no matter how it is defined--i.e. by race or gender or wealth or politico-religious affiliation) is an artificial construct that is in fact unreal. (At the very least, if class seeks to make itself real, it should be resisted and thwarted at every turn. People of conscience should always attack it, looking to destroy its claim to offer valuable noumenal insight into reality. This destruction should not occur as part of a reactive campaign to keep the status quo at all costs. Instead, it should be part of a deliberate effort to avoid sanctioning the recognition of implicit factions that individuals must belong to because they bear some characteristic that another person has marked as being significant. "You bear the mark of our tribe's totem in your face, and so you must be one of us!" No. Not until I do your deeds can anyone make me justly yours. And even if I do appear to think as you do, I can always repent. My allegiance is never unconditional or eternal, and I must resist every attempt to make it so.)
I reject my membership in "the male faction" (the same way I reject my membership in "the Mormon faction" and "the conservative faction" and "the white faction" and any other faction that cares to enlist me without my consent and then invoke me as its agent, complicit in all its crimes). I don't think there is inherent sympathy between males (or Mormons, or conservatives, or white people) that is more significant than its concomitant antipathy.
I find a lot of "male things" (conservative things, Mormon things, white things) utterly worthless, and I work actively to dissociate myself from these things (including the persistent classist, racist, factionist idea that I must be a member of some faction, following some leader or set of guiding lights readily available to public discourse, which pretends to know me by collecting statistics about my demographic and then calling the result "social science"). (A man I met in passing in the Book of Faces quoted his wife, a physicist, thus: "Economics is a social science, like astrology." I agree, not because astrology is utterly worthless, but because it becomes dangerous when we take it for simple, generic, objective truth.)
Nothing in this position of mine should be taken by anyone as an endorsement of "the status quo" (that has hurt them). I am not saying one should not resist the enemy. I am not saying what happened to you (or anyone) is right. If I become aware of people giving me undue "privilege" (treating me better than someone else because of perceived class affiliations), then I do my part to fix that. I do not ride the bus that I see refusing a seat to Rosa Parks. I do not send pictures of my disgusting genitalia to other people. I don't like you or anyone more than somebody else because your ugly genitalia look like mine. Melanin count is nowhere on my list of criteria for picking good friends (or culture: my personal disgust for Eminem's music is not at all mitigated by his melanin count). I hate American football. I didn't play with "the guys" in school, and to this day I never presume my perspective is welcome anywhere. I only offer it to people I care about (people I respect enough to engage in civil discourse, be they male or female, black or white, bond or free).
I think the social pressure to "make good kids" who fulfil some external ideal that they have never internalized is fundamentally evil. If you don't want to do something (be a parent, get a job, have long hair, live another day, etc.), then you shouldn't do it--no matter what anyone else says. Even if not doing whatever it is you don't want to do leads to "bad results" (in your own or some external judge's eyes), it is always better to refrain from acting on external values than to embrace them against your will.
Little boys are as impressionable as little girls. Little Mormons are as impressionable as little atheists. They often wind up acting on values whose goodness they mistrust because, "Mommy (or Daddy or Jesus or Science) said so!" This is evil.
I am willing to be misunderstood. I am open to being hated, too--even by people I respect and aspire to love. But for those who feel as I do (but perhaps lack the tools to express themselves clearly or consistently), I feel obligated to speak out.
[Counterpoint]: Don't say to women [or other oppressed minorities], "Just don't follow that conditioning!" because that is fundamentally blaming the victim, being oblivious to the very real ways that society will punish her [or them] for lacking the privilege that comes with being you [someone whom the totems mark as faction-master]. Don't make it all about you, bringing your faction-master perspective to an issue where history disqualifies you from having an opinion worth sharing.
I don't say, "Just don't follow the conditioning." We cannot help following it. We are primates. Social hierarchy works for us much as for baboons, at least in the beginning (when we are little kids aping Mom, Dad, and the other "big kids"). But we do grow up, eventually, and if we are really lucky (privileged), we get the chance to "check our luck (i.e. privilege)" and realize that it has much less to do with us (as individuals) than we might want. I didn't choose to be what I am today (in every detail). I didn't make all my decisions with full knowledge. I haven't always done the right thing. As a lucky fool, I function by taking in discrete data from my environment and spinning it into narratives (lies) explaining why I am not dead yet, why my food tastes good, why I am talking here instead of writing my syllabus, and so on.
What I seek from human interaction is honest conversation from people who see my environment (the human condition) from an angle different from mine. We are all limited. We are all broken. We all hurt ourselves and other people. I don't think we can reach back into the past and erase that, or even into the future to make sure nothing like the past ever happens again. But I do believe we can exist more pleasantly, compassionately, honestly, and openly in the present. I value the women in my life. I value the men there, too. I value my friends. I value my enemies (differently, sometimes, but they are still valuable). I seek to love everyone, even the greatest criminal I know--myself. My discourse is about me, not because I don't value other people, but because I do value them. I value them too much to pretend that I understand them.
[Counterpoint]: How do we deal with inequality? Is it fundamentally intractable? How are you anything but a hopeless fatalist?
When dealing with equality, I like to focus on process (how do I treat people, how are people treated in a particular environment) rather than results (particular success or failure in terms of getting a job, marriage, making a friend, acquiring goods and services). Life is inherently unequal in terms of results. Lucky people win and win more. Unlucky people lose. But we can do things to mitigate the process, constructing it so that losing doesn't mean being destroyed (so that it is as easy as possible for the loser to pick him-/herself up and try again). I don't want to win all the time, or for everyone always to have the same rewards from life (an impossibility). But I do want to be able to survive my inevitable failure. I do want to avoid being kicked while down, and I want to avoid kicking others who are down.
(1) The business of leadership. Much -ist rhetoric falls into the trap (as I see it) of asking the Platonic question, "Who will rule?" (Men or women? Republicans or Democrats? Liberals or conservatives? Mormons or evangelicals? Company men or free spirits? and so on and on). The answer to this question, historically speaking, is always, "An asshole." No matter what regime we set up, some asshole will always be in charge of it eventually. The fact that someone takes issue with a leader (male or female, -ist or non-ist) is not necessarily an indication that that someone wants to oust or replace the leader (with himself). I have no interest in telling people (men, women, or children) what to do with their lives, what they must do, how they must think, etc. But that does not mean that I am following someone else's lead (i.e. that I endorse any leader in society or any "social order," explicit or implicit, that may exist and cause damage).
(2) The business of class. While I get the idea of "passing" in society (and have been on the business end of "not passing"--a valuable learning experience), I don't like to accept passively my existence as part of a class (or faction). Following Karl Popper (especially his idea of "the open society"), I think class (i.e. faction, no matter how it is defined--i.e. by race or gender or wealth or politico-religious affiliation) is an artificial construct that is in fact unreal. (At the very least, if class seeks to make itself real, it should be resisted and thwarted at every turn. People of conscience should always attack it, looking to destroy its claim to offer valuable noumenal insight into reality. This destruction should not occur as part of a reactive campaign to keep the status quo at all costs. Instead, it should be part of a deliberate effort to avoid sanctioning the recognition of implicit factions that individuals must belong to because they bear some characteristic that another person has marked as being significant. "You bear the mark of our tribe's totem in your face, and so you must be one of us!" No. Not until I do your deeds can anyone make me justly yours. And even if I do appear to think as you do, I can always repent. My allegiance is never unconditional or eternal, and I must resist every attempt to make it so.)
I reject my membership in "the male faction" (the same way I reject my membership in "the Mormon faction" and "the conservative faction" and "the white faction" and any other faction that cares to enlist me without my consent and then invoke me as its agent, complicit in all its crimes). I don't think there is inherent sympathy between males (or Mormons, or conservatives, or white people) that is more significant than its concomitant antipathy.
I find a lot of "male things" (conservative things, Mormon things, white things) utterly worthless, and I work actively to dissociate myself from these things (including the persistent classist, racist, factionist idea that I must be a member of some faction, following some leader or set of guiding lights readily available to public discourse, which pretends to know me by collecting statistics about my demographic and then calling the result "social science"). (A man I met in passing in the Book of Faces quoted his wife, a physicist, thus: "Economics is a social science, like astrology." I agree, not because astrology is utterly worthless, but because it becomes dangerous when we take it for simple, generic, objective truth.)
Nothing in this position of mine should be taken by anyone as an endorsement of "the status quo" (that has hurt them). I am not saying one should not resist the enemy. I am not saying what happened to you (or anyone) is right. If I become aware of people giving me undue "privilege" (treating me better than someone else because of perceived class affiliations), then I do my part to fix that. I do not ride the bus that I see refusing a seat to Rosa Parks. I do not send pictures of my disgusting genitalia to other people. I don't like you or anyone more than somebody else because your ugly genitalia look like mine. Melanin count is nowhere on my list of criteria for picking good friends (or culture: my personal disgust for Eminem's music is not at all mitigated by his melanin count). I hate American football. I didn't play with "the guys" in school, and to this day I never presume my perspective is welcome anywhere. I only offer it to people I care about (people I respect enough to engage in civil discourse, be they male or female, black or white, bond or free).
I think the social pressure to "make good kids" who fulfil some external ideal that they have never internalized is fundamentally evil. If you don't want to do something (be a parent, get a job, have long hair, live another day, etc.), then you shouldn't do it--no matter what anyone else says. Even if not doing whatever it is you don't want to do leads to "bad results" (in your own or some external judge's eyes), it is always better to refrain from acting on external values than to embrace them against your will.
Little boys are as impressionable as little girls. Little Mormons are as impressionable as little atheists. They often wind up acting on values whose goodness they mistrust because, "Mommy (or Daddy or Jesus or Science) said so!" This is evil.
I am willing to be misunderstood. I am open to being hated, too--even by people I respect and aspire to love. But for those who feel as I do (but perhaps lack the tools to express themselves clearly or consistently), I feel obligated to speak out.
[Counterpoint]: Don't say to women [or other oppressed minorities], "Just don't follow that conditioning!" because that is fundamentally blaming the victim, being oblivious to the very real ways that society will punish her [or them] for lacking the privilege that comes with being you [someone whom the totems mark as faction-master]. Don't make it all about you, bringing your faction-master perspective to an issue where history disqualifies you from having an opinion worth sharing.
I don't say, "Just don't follow the conditioning." We cannot help following it. We are primates. Social hierarchy works for us much as for baboons, at least in the beginning (when we are little kids aping Mom, Dad, and the other "big kids"). But we do grow up, eventually, and if we are really lucky (privileged), we get the chance to "check our luck (i.e. privilege)" and realize that it has much less to do with us (as individuals) than we might want. I didn't choose to be what I am today (in every detail). I didn't make all my decisions with full knowledge. I haven't always done the right thing. As a lucky fool, I function by taking in discrete data from my environment and spinning it into narratives (lies) explaining why I am not dead yet, why my food tastes good, why I am talking here instead of writing my syllabus, and so on.
What I seek from human interaction is honest conversation from people who see my environment (the human condition) from an angle different from mine. We are all limited. We are all broken. We all hurt ourselves and other people. I don't think we can reach back into the past and erase that, or even into the future to make sure nothing like the past ever happens again. But I do believe we can exist more pleasantly, compassionately, honestly, and openly in the present. I value the women in my life. I value the men there, too. I value my friends. I value my enemies (differently, sometimes, but they are still valuable). I seek to love everyone, even the greatest criminal I know--myself. My discourse is about me, not because I don't value other people, but because I do value them. I value them too much to pretend that I understand them.
[Counterpoint]: How do we deal with inequality? Is it fundamentally intractable? How are you anything but a hopeless fatalist?
When dealing with equality, I like to focus on process (how do I treat people, how are people treated in a particular environment) rather than results (particular success or failure in terms of getting a job, marriage, making a friend, acquiring goods and services). Life is inherently unequal in terms of results. Lucky people win and win more. Unlucky people lose. But we can do things to mitigate the process, constructing it so that losing doesn't mean being destroyed (so that it is as easy as possible for the loser to pick him-/herself up and try again). I don't want to win all the time, or for everyone always to have the same rewards from life (an impossibility). But I do want to be able to survive my inevitable failure. I do want to avoid being kicked while down, and I want to avoid kicking others who are down.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Dealing with Authority
I become involved recently in a conversation about "the patriarchy" (something people who self-identify as feminists often bring up as a persistent source of multiple evils in civil society). Here are some thoughts I had that seemed worth preserving (as something for me to think about more).
In my view, the root problem here is not this or that ἀρχή (Greek for authority among other things), but ἀρχή (-archy) in general. Humans, like other social primates, exist in groups where individuals (disproportionately males) arrogate authority.
In primitive societies, this tendency is arrested by the lack of independence that primitive life carries built-in (as strong as I might be, I can still get injured really badly really easily and/or have a bad day hunting: I need the cooperation of weaker folk to survive). The pill in this egalitarian jam is (1) living conditions are rough and (2) low-level violence is actually rather high (as individuals see opportunities to rise in the fluctuating informal hierarchy and take them: kick an alpha when he's down).
In more modern societies (agricultural instead of hunter-gatherer), hierarchies necessarily become more rigid (less egalitarian). I cannot know all the police personally (the way primitive people know everyone in the tribe by name). Leadership is institutional rather than charismatic and tends to move around less (the chieftain or king or prime minister remains in power on a schedule that is predetermined, often such that one individual holds power his entire life). People become stuck in their social place more firmly (entrenching themselves in inequality as primitives don't). The jam with this pill is (1) living conditions are nicer and (2) low-level violence drops (witness Steven Pinker, though it is not right to read him as saying that civilization is necessarily safer than lack of it in terms of outcomes: the elimination of low-level violence creates high-level violence that is much more lethal in smaller doses).
Education should help us understand (1) where human social order is flexible, so that we can avoid making it hurt us unnecessarily; and (2) where human social order is inflexible, so that we can fight back effectively when we are screwed without destroying the order that we require in order to survive. All human social order kills people. The aim is to die as beautifully as possible, recognizing that we will not all die the same way (or have the same idea of what constitutes a truly beautiful death).
I try not to be a misogynist (and this does not really seem hard to me in practical terms, since I have healthy relationships with good women--relationships in which all parties associate voluntarily because we like what happens when we collaborate).
I don't personally mind if people want to be misandrist: hate men all you like, as long as you don't insist on being my friend (and/or demanding that I join your club and hate myself: I promise I already do, and I don't need any help from people who think the solution to self-hatred is making oneself vulnerable to people who reinforce it).
If people like me and want to work with me, then I want to be there for them as much as I can. If people hate me and wish I would drop off the face of the planet and die, then I want to be there for them as little as possible (as they wish).
In my view, the root problem here is not this or that ἀρχή (Greek for authority among other things), but ἀρχή (-archy) in general. Humans, like other social primates, exist in groups where individuals (disproportionately males) arrogate authority.
In primitive societies, this tendency is arrested by the lack of independence that primitive life carries built-in (as strong as I might be, I can still get injured really badly really easily and/or have a bad day hunting: I need the cooperation of weaker folk to survive). The pill in this egalitarian jam is (1) living conditions are rough and (2) low-level violence is actually rather high (as individuals see opportunities to rise in the fluctuating informal hierarchy and take them: kick an alpha when he's down).
In more modern societies (agricultural instead of hunter-gatherer), hierarchies necessarily become more rigid (less egalitarian). I cannot know all the police personally (the way primitive people know everyone in the tribe by name). Leadership is institutional rather than charismatic and tends to move around less (the chieftain or king or prime minister remains in power on a schedule that is predetermined, often such that one individual holds power his entire life). People become stuck in their social place more firmly (entrenching themselves in inequality as primitives don't). The jam with this pill is (1) living conditions are nicer and (2) low-level violence drops (witness Steven Pinker, though it is not right to read him as saying that civilization is necessarily safer than lack of it in terms of outcomes: the elimination of low-level violence creates high-level violence that is much more lethal in smaller doses).
Education should help us understand (1) where human social order is flexible, so that we can avoid making it hurt us unnecessarily; and (2) where human social order is inflexible, so that we can fight back effectively when we are screwed without destroying the order that we require in order to survive. All human social order kills people. The aim is to die as beautifully as possible, recognizing that we will not all die the same way (or have the same idea of what constitutes a truly beautiful death).
I try not to be a misogynist (and this does not really seem hard to me in practical terms, since I have healthy relationships with good women--relationships in which all parties associate voluntarily because we like what happens when we collaborate).
I don't personally mind if people want to be misandrist: hate men all you like, as long as you don't insist on being my friend (and/or demanding that I join your club and hate myself: I promise I already do, and I don't need any help from people who think the solution to self-hatred is making oneself vulnerable to people who reinforce it).
If people like me and want to work with me, then I want to be there for them as much as I can. If people hate me and wish I would drop off the face of the planet and die, then I want to be there for them as little as possible (as they wish).
Friday, March 22, 2013
The Demise of Masculinity?
People nowadays occasionally talk about the demise of masculinity. While I don't really believe in this (or disbelieve in it), I do have some thoughts to offer (piles of poop that might contain a few pearls on closer inspection).
Males are disproportionately represented at the poles of human experience (e.g. as alpha leaders and omega losers): testosterone is all about taking huge risks, which yield crud at least as often as gold. Males are thus always losing (to each other and females), from prehistoric times until now. We are the expendable gender, the one Nature can play wild games with without killing the species in one generation.
The most problematic things about modern society that I see hurting males can be summed up as "education." The modern educational establishment often crushes humanity--not just masculinity, but masculinity suffers more in proportion as the particular enemy that the modern educational establishment wants to destroy is randomness (luck, gambling, inequality--in a word, masculinity).
What happens when your kid (more likely your little boy) doesn't want to sit quiet for hours doing stupid "work" at a desk? You drug him into submission. What happens when your little kid (more likely your little boy) wants to try jumping off a high rock in the park or play-fight with his friends? You drug him into submission. What happens when your little kid (more likely your little boy) wants to run and shout and throw things? You drug him into submission. What happens when he resents the drugs and the socialization and the submission and cannot find any outlet for the randomness that Nature plants inside him? What happens when your school chains him to the desk, cancels the wrestling program (because it isn't as cool as stupid football), and expects him to kiss other people's butts for reasons that he doesn't understand or respect? What happens when you demand that he believe in transparent fallacies as though they were absolute realities--neglecting to gamble with his own life and turning that responsibility over to somebody else, indefinitely (perhaps forever)?
Well, all kinds of s*** happens. Some boys become derelicts (angry rebels resenting society's denial and suppression of their humanity). Some become doormats (depressed and defeated cubicle-dwellers bowing and scraping and begging their masters to give more treats than beatings). Some learn how to game the system (findng ways to remain masculine by luck and skill). Some become homicidal maniacs (and you hear about them on the news when they storm into a local school or theater spraying bullets). All these options are not new: we see them recurring throughout history (in every society). Modernization is not novel, in this respect: we just do everything our forefathers did on a grander scale (such that we make more dangerous males whose capacity for destruction is greater).
The solution, as I see it, is to find some way of dealing with randomness (masculinity, testosterone) that doesn't involve trying to suppress it utterly (as many social institutions, particularly educational ones, have a tendency to do). If your kid doesn't like the desks, take him somewhere else. Don't make us all play or watch football. Don't send the homicidal maniacs to school by law: give them and their families options outside the current system. Don't be a soccer mom (or dad). If your kid likes fighting, put him in a ring somewhere and let him get beaten up. If he likes dirty work, give him jobs doing it. Don't make him go to school. Don't make him be something he isn't. Don't resent him for failing to be the all-American hero that people want their boys to be. Not everyone is a hero the same way, remember. We have to find a way to let people (mostly males) lose without destroying themselves and society in the process.
In short, we men are losers. We need the freedom to learn and practice losing, so that we can do it well. Society as it exists currently does not provide a safe environment for this. It punishes losing so viciously and reactively that people who fail (mostly boys) tend to fail really catastrophically (more than they would without intervention) and (the crucial point) miss opportunities to learn from failure (which is what people with lots of testosterone are built to do).
Feminism is a red herring here, in my opinion. Of course women are people too, and should be treated with human dignity (i.e. allowed to wear pants, learn trades, run companies, command armies, and take responsibility for their own wagers with Nature). Treating women like human beings in no way disenfranchises men.
The real enemy is not either gender, but the people of both who want to kill randomness (making life regular such that there are no winners or losers, and we "learn" from failure by pretending we can engineer a world in which it doesn't exist). The enemies of masculinity include many men--among them many chauvinists who would scorn to be called feminists. (Myself, I don't mind being labelled a feminist, though I prefer the term humanist, with the stipulation that women are human, too--just as human as men, and just as entitled to human autonomy.)
Friday, June 22, 2012
No One Ever Has It All
Anne-Marie Slaughter. "Why Women Still Can't Have It All." Atlantic (July/August 2012).
From my perspective (which others are free to disagree with), the issues Slaughter raises are more human than feminist. I would not want the kind of job Slaughter takes (a distant one requiring all-day commitments, no leisure at all). People who take those jobs, men or women, give up things (things I am not willing to give up).
What I see coming out of this is an honest reassessment of what it takes to work at high levels of an overgrown bureaucracy. The pressure may simply be more than humanity can bear. Maybe the lesson we learn from this is that no one can have it all, that more government is not always going to be better, that we need to find better ways of living (requiring less centralization, less bureaucracy, less self-sacrificing ascetics willing and able to give themselves wholly and utterly to the Machine).
In antiquity, people knew that bureaucrats didn't have lives: they were often monks, eunuchs, cripples, etc. Somewhere along the American journey, we picked up this idea that we can do anything if we just engineer things right. Maybe this is true. Or maybe not.
From my perspective (which others are free to disagree with), the issues Slaughter raises are more human than feminist. I would not want the kind of job Slaughter takes (a distant one requiring all-day commitments, no leisure at all). People who take those jobs, men or women, give up things (things I am not willing to give up).
What I see coming out of this is an honest reassessment of what it takes to work at high levels of an overgrown bureaucracy. The pressure may simply be more than humanity can bear. Maybe the lesson we learn from this is that no one can have it all, that more government is not always going to be better, that we need to find better ways of living (requiring less centralization, less bureaucracy, less self-sacrificing ascetics willing and able to give themselves wholly and utterly to the Machine).
In antiquity, people knew that bureaucrats didn't have lives: they were often monks, eunuchs, cripples, etc. Somewhere along the American journey, we picked up this idea that we can do anything if we just engineer things right. Maybe this is true. Or maybe not.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Sex in the City of God
Todd Compton. In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith. Salt Lake City: Signature, 1997. ISBN 156085085X.
My first encounter with LDS scholar Todd Compton occurred when I ran across his fascinating book on the persona of the poet in ancient Indo-European societies (Victim of the Muses: maybe I will review it here some other time!). I was impressed with his creativity, as well as the careful attention to precise detail which is very evident in all his work. As time went by, I became aware (through his website and various other sources) of his other magnum opus, which is the inspiration for this essay.
In Sacred Loneliness is without doubt the most honest, even-handed treatment of Mormon polygamy that I have ever encountered. It is not an expose: there are no lurid details. It is not an apology: there is no attempt to "put to rest" or trivialize the fact that polygamy was a fundamentally important part of nineteenth-century Mormonism. Rather than delve into the morass of questions often raised about polygamous morals (then and now), Compton merely tells the life stories of 33 women who were married to the Prophet Joseph Smith. For him, as for them, polygamy is interpreted as a revelation from God through his prophet: some embrace it willingly; others are more reluctant. All are given ample time to express, through their deeds and their own words wherever possible, how they thought and felt about "the principle" and other, more mundane things: this aims to be as complete a record of their lives as Compton's sources allow. I was impressed with the fortitude some of these women displayed: it is hard to be married to two men at once (as some of them were) when you have been raised to regard monogamy as the rule (like most early converts to Mormonism). I was impressed at the highly developed spirituality they showed, joining together in close-knit groups of sister-wives whose community of friendship and faith did much to cover for the continual absence of their shared husbands. They even performed priesthood ordinances, healing the sick by the laying on of hands and speaking in tongues on numerous occasions. Compton has done a wonderful job of rescuing these and other precious details from the dustbin of history, where modern LDS Mormonism's dislike of its feminist and sexually "deviant" roots has consigned them to lie forgotten too long.
Reading In Sacred Loneliness forced me to take a hard look at the doctrine of the family as taught by Mormons. Our current position, adopted in the wake of a century-long effort to make up with Protestant America, is that family = 1 man + 1 woman + offspring. This is a hard-won reversal of Joseph Smith's teaching (still with us after a fashion in Doctrine and Covenants 132) that family = 1 man (in practice maybe 2: one for time and another for time and eternity) + x women + offspring. I grew up with the dissonance of this position echoing in my head: on the one hand, thanks to Hugh Nibley I became acquainted with sermons by the early brethren arguing passionately for the morality of polygamy; on the other, I listened to LDS prophet Gordon B. Hinckley sternly denounce it from the pulpit in General Conference. The more I learn about polygamy, the more conflicted I am about the LDS church's position (as articulated by Hinckley in the link above) that we LDS have nothing to do with it and are perfectly willing to sit by and let the government break up the families of those who practice it. "God wanted it then (in the nineteenth century), for some reason," we acknowledge, "but he has no use for it now, and people who practice it should repent or be punished." Hinckley (again in the link above) declares that Mormon fundamentalists do not even exist, denying the historical fact that there are non-LDS practitioners of Mormonism, and some of them choose to live principles of Mormonism that the Brighamite LDS have relinquished. How is that position any more charitable toward modern Mormon polygamists ("you aren't really Mormons: you're just a bunch of sick weirdos") than the default Christian position toward modern Mormons ("you aren't really Christians: you're just a bunch of sick weirdos")? We take fellow Christians to task when some of them deny our claim to belong to the Christian club because of a few historical differences, then turn and pull the same trick on our "fundamentalist" Mormon brethren when they claim membership in the Mormon club. Jesus has something to say about this: "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" (Matt. 7:3).
Compton's book ultimately became one piece in the puzzle of evidence that led me to rethink my (LDS Mormon) attitude to sexuality completely. While I cannot share all the details here (though I will probably explore them elsewhere), I can provide a basic outline of my new understanding of sexual morality.
(1) The ethical appropriateness of a sexual relationship is not defined by number. There are polyamorists (including polygamists) whose standard of ethical behavior rises as high as that of the most virtuous monogamist (or celibate).
(2) The ethical appropriateness of a sexual relationship is not defined by gender. There are homosexuals (practicing and not) whose standard of ethical behavior rises as high as that of the most virtuous monogamist (or celibate). The argument that homosexuality goes against nature falters on the fact that nature is not necessarily interested in creating as many copies of a species as a given ecosystem can possibly hold (or a given heterosexual couple produce) before all resources are used up and everything dies. Furthermore, homosexual behavior occurs in nature. Maybe we should put a new initiative on the ballot in California, warning the owners of all those randy farm animals (not to mention lewd pet dogs) to look out for falling brimstone?
(3) The ethical appropriateness of a sexual relationship is defined by fidelity. The thing that holds all healthy relationships (of any kind) together is mutual trust and transparency. Instead of lying to one's partner about the others (as Joseph Smith repeatedly did), the responsible thing to do is discuss desires honestly with the other party and move forward from there, taking full responsibility for one's actions and making every effort to accommodate one another. Before my LDS relatives go haywire, let me hasten to assure them that, like Joseph Smith, I am a very heterosexual man (close to "0" on the Kinsey scale) married to a woman who is jealous of her husband's love. Unlike Joseph Smith, I do not intend to break her heart. I am also leery of the emotional alienation between partners that seems to accompany some forays (including the Mormon one Compton chronicles) into polyamory. Therefore, I remain a happy, heterosexual monogamist.
(4) Irrational shame and guilt do not build healthy relationships. This is particularly true when we insist that our neighbors' sexual status is causing (1) natural disasters or (2) human conflict. The first is simply not true (though promiscuous sexual behavior of any kind can pose significant health risks to the promiscuous and those who come in contact with their vital fluids), and the second can become a dangerous, self-fulfilling prophecy (when people decide to cleanse the world by doing God's work for him at the ballot-box or on the battlefield). As long as people are not sexually abusing one another (rape is always rape, and no child should be sexually active with an older person), what they do in the bedroom is none of my business and should not keep me from sleeping at night. The more concerned and obsessed I become with the perceived immorality of my neighbors who do not happen to resemble me in every detail, the more I run the risk of becoming another Joseph Smith, Ted Haggard, or George Rekers. All these men were obsessed with forbidden sex and became involved with it as a result. There is a definite lesson to be learned from their experiences, and it is not one any of them taught from the pulpit.
My first encounter with LDS scholar Todd Compton occurred when I ran across his fascinating book on the persona of the poet in ancient Indo-European societies (Victim of the Muses: maybe I will review it here some other time!). I was impressed with his creativity, as well as the careful attention to precise detail which is very evident in all his work. As time went by, I became aware (through his website and various other sources) of his other magnum opus, which is the inspiration for this essay.
In Sacred Loneliness is without doubt the most honest, even-handed treatment of Mormon polygamy that I have ever encountered. It is not an expose: there are no lurid details. It is not an apology: there is no attempt to "put to rest" or trivialize the fact that polygamy was a fundamentally important part of nineteenth-century Mormonism. Rather than delve into the morass of questions often raised about polygamous morals (then and now), Compton merely tells the life stories of 33 women who were married to the Prophet Joseph Smith. For him, as for them, polygamy is interpreted as a revelation from God through his prophet: some embrace it willingly; others are more reluctant. All are given ample time to express, through their deeds and their own words wherever possible, how they thought and felt about "the principle" and other, more mundane things: this aims to be as complete a record of their lives as Compton's sources allow. I was impressed with the fortitude some of these women displayed: it is hard to be married to two men at once (as some of them were) when you have been raised to regard monogamy as the rule (like most early converts to Mormonism). I was impressed at the highly developed spirituality they showed, joining together in close-knit groups of sister-wives whose community of friendship and faith did much to cover for the continual absence of their shared husbands. They even performed priesthood ordinances, healing the sick by the laying on of hands and speaking in tongues on numerous occasions. Compton has done a wonderful job of rescuing these and other precious details from the dustbin of history, where modern LDS Mormonism's dislike of its feminist and sexually "deviant" roots has consigned them to lie forgotten too long.
Reading In Sacred Loneliness forced me to take a hard look at the doctrine of the family as taught by Mormons. Our current position, adopted in the wake of a century-long effort to make up with Protestant America, is that family = 1 man + 1 woman + offspring. This is a hard-won reversal of Joseph Smith's teaching (still with us after a fashion in Doctrine and Covenants 132) that family = 1 man (in practice maybe 2: one for time and another for time and eternity) + x women + offspring. I grew up with the dissonance of this position echoing in my head: on the one hand, thanks to Hugh Nibley I became acquainted with sermons by the early brethren arguing passionately for the morality of polygamy; on the other, I listened to LDS prophet Gordon B. Hinckley sternly denounce it from the pulpit in General Conference. The more I learn about polygamy, the more conflicted I am about the LDS church's position (as articulated by Hinckley in the link above) that we LDS have nothing to do with it and are perfectly willing to sit by and let the government break up the families of those who practice it. "God wanted it then (in the nineteenth century), for some reason," we acknowledge, "but he has no use for it now, and people who practice it should repent or be punished." Hinckley (again in the link above) declares that Mormon fundamentalists do not even exist, denying the historical fact that there are non-LDS practitioners of Mormonism, and some of them choose to live principles of Mormonism that the Brighamite LDS have relinquished. How is that position any more charitable toward modern Mormon polygamists ("you aren't really Mormons: you're just a bunch of sick weirdos") than the default Christian position toward modern Mormons ("you aren't really Christians: you're just a bunch of sick weirdos")? We take fellow Christians to task when some of them deny our claim to belong to the Christian club because of a few historical differences, then turn and pull the same trick on our "fundamentalist" Mormon brethren when they claim membership in the Mormon club. Jesus has something to say about this: "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" (Matt. 7:3).
Compton's book ultimately became one piece in the puzzle of evidence that led me to rethink my (LDS Mormon) attitude to sexuality completely. While I cannot share all the details here (though I will probably explore them elsewhere), I can provide a basic outline of my new understanding of sexual morality.
(1) The ethical appropriateness of a sexual relationship is not defined by number. There are polyamorists (including polygamists) whose standard of ethical behavior rises as high as that of the most virtuous monogamist (or celibate).
(2) The ethical appropriateness of a sexual relationship is not defined by gender. There are homosexuals (practicing and not) whose standard of ethical behavior rises as high as that of the most virtuous monogamist (or celibate). The argument that homosexuality goes against nature falters on the fact that nature is not necessarily interested in creating as many copies of a species as a given ecosystem can possibly hold (or a given heterosexual couple produce) before all resources are used up and everything dies. Furthermore, homosexual behavior occurs in nature. Maybe we should put a new initiative on the ballot in California, warning the owners of all those randy farm animals (not to mention lewd pet dogs) to look out for falling brimstone?
(3) The ethical appropriateness of a sexual relationship is defined by fidelity. The thing that holds all healthy relationships (of any kind) together is mutual trust and transparency. Instead of lying to one's partner about the others (as Joseph Smith repeatedly did), the responsible thing to do is discuss desires honestly with the other party and move forward from there, taking full responsibility for one's actions and making every effort to accommodate one another. Before my LDS relatives go haywire, let me hasten to assure them that, like Joseph Smith, I am a very heterosexual man (close to "0" on the Kinsey scale) married to a woman who is jealous of her husband's love. Unlike Joseph Smith, I do not intend to break her heart. I am also leery of the emotional alienation between partners that seems to accompany some forays (including the Mormon one Compton chronicles) into polyamory. Therefore, I remain a happy, heterosexual monogamist.
(4) Irrational shame and guilt do not build healthy relationships. This is particularly true when we insist that our neighbors' sexual status is causing (1) natural disasters or (2) human conflict. The first is simply not true (though promiscuous sexual behavior of any kind can pose significant health risks to the promiscuous and those who come in contact with their vital fluids), and the second can become a dangerous, self-fulfilling prophecy (when people decide to cleanse the world by doing God's work for him at the ballot-box or on the battlefield). As long as people are not sexually abusing one another (rape is always rape, and no child should be sexually active with an older person), what they do in the bedroom is none of my business and should not keep me from sleeping at night. The more concerned and obsessed I become with the perceived immorality of my neighbors who do not happen to resemble me in every detail, the more I run the risk of becoming another Joseph Smith, Ted Haggard, or George Rekers. All these men were obsessed with forbidden sex and became involved with it as a result. There is a definite lesson to be learned from their experiences, and it is not one any of them taught from the pulpit.
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