Post by david on Nov 7, 2020 18:13:54 GMT
Dear friends,
The belief that women reflect the Divine Image is likely to be objected to by political feminists. They say that to have an exalted image of women is to put them on a pedestal, which prevents them having the realistic qualities of action.
A lot of this attitude comes from the Marxist feminist Simone de Beauvoir, whose book The Second Sex is held to be a classic of Feminism, and she refers to this attitude as the Eternal Feminine. The solution, I suppose, is the Temporary Feminine.
She held that to see God as feminine is the Other, by which she meant man's perception of woman as different from men. She goes on to argue that everything men do is to oppress women. This is to assume that matriarchy was created by men, which assumes that women are not capable of anything so difficult, an odd attitude for a feminist. All I can say to this is that, if I wanted women to keep in their places and do everything I tell them, the last thing I would do is tell them anything that makes them feel superhuman.
She goes on to argue from the example of Apartheid that the principle of people having differences was used as a reason from oppressing the Blacks. This is arguing a universal rule from a single example, which is a bad practice for someone reputed to be a philosopher. Against it, there is the effect of immigration into Britain from Pakistan. We cannot treat this problem as if all people are the same. It worked with the Blacks, because they are the descendants of slaves who have lost their culture. They have nothing they want to hold onto. It cannot work with anyone else.
To illustrate the principle of the Other, she gives the example of five authors, four of whom she says treat women as the Other, and the fifth, Stendhal, who does not. she says
"This tender friend of women - and precisely because he loves them in their truth - does not believe in feminine mystery; there is no essence that defines woman once and for all; the idea of an eternal feminine seems pedantic and ridiculous to him."
This sounds persuasive, but when we come to the other four authors, Montherlant, D. H. Lawrence, Claudel, and Breton, we find nothing that supports this contention. Lady Chatterly is as real full a human character as anything in Stendhals work (only a very small part of this book is pornographic, the rest tells a genuine story).
Claudel is a Roman Catholic who wrote devotional verse to the Virgin Mary, and she uses him to prove that men who believe in the spiritual superiority of women actually believe in their inferiority - but the Virgin Mary is not God! Surely de Beauvoir knew this! Claudel also wrote devotional verse to Jesus.
Breton is a Surrealist writer and his object was to break down the difference between dreaming consciousness and waking consciousness, so we can expect a lot of inconsistency from him. The female character of Nadja he created had a lot of ability. She ended up in a lunatic asylum because it is a belief of Surrealists that rationalists belief people are mad when they are inspired. The illustration included of a grim looking psychiatrist conveys the impression that Nadja was kept their unjustly.
Montherlant is the only one who is really a misogynist, and he did not have a romantic, exalted ideal of femininity, but depicted his female characters as stupid and selfish, which is really what you would expect a chauvinist to do.
The evidence that de Beauvoir presents just does not relate to the contention she aimed at proving, to an extent which creates doubts about the working of her mind. At University, she graduated one point behind Sartre who was top of the class, so, if you're studying for a degree to influence the world, you know how to get it.
She must have expected her readers to read the novelists she revued. I can only conclude that she had spent so much of her life in the rhetoric and debates of political activity that she lost her sense of reality, and thought she could say anything that won an argument. Her main fault is that she worked from the assumption that materialism is the truth, which holds that anything spiritual is unreal. From this perspective, to say that anything that assigns to women a spiritual quality is unreal. It is the same perspective that makes them say that rituals, ceremonies and sacraments are unreal, as well as the habit of praying and meditation. The whole argument of the political feminists, that romanticising women puts them on a pedestal comes from this perspective, and on this basis they go so far as to attack the attitude of courtesy and respect to women. It is a perspective which denies to women any quality which is not mundane, and any aspiration to rise to the level of exalted attainment, or be inspired in action. It denies women the dream.
De Beauvoir was not just a Marxist, but also an Existentialist who oppose all abstract thought and believe that all thought should be concrete. Romanticism is abstract.
A materialist philosophy cannot support Feminism. It is bound by the principle of animalism, in which the male is the stronger animal, and this cannot be altered. The only way is a principle above the material level, that is, the Eternal Feminine. Bachofen argued that matriarchy was introduced by the Amazons, but I doubt that many people can believe that an army of women can defeat armies of men. That will make people more inclined to believe Engels' theory of promiscuity, which at least seems probable for its origin, but not for it working when the country depended on unmarried mothers finding time for governing. It's also historically contentious. Herodotus records a number of societies which practiced promiscuity, but did not mention that any of them were matriarchal. There is one that was of equal authority, but, considering the inclination of chauvinists to exaggerate wildly when complaining of feminine domination, it could be accounted for by exaggeration. There is also the Lycians, who Herodotus records as having matrilinearity, but does not mention any promiscuous practice by them. This cannot be accounted for by exaggeration, because people who exaggerate are generally imprecise, and Herodotus' record is precise. Matriarchy and promiscuity just do not come together.
In my earlier posting commenting on Engels' description of loose sexual behaviour by the Spartans, it did occur to me at the time to mention that the Spartans had an aristocratic government. Aristocracy depends on primogeniture, which is undermined by promiscuity. An aristocratic society would not tolerate it. Engels was creative with the facts.
Is there another way? The solution was inadvertently pointed to by Engels himself when he dismissed Bachofen's theory as mystical. That is the explanation! Matriarchy was mystical! Bachofen's difficulty was in persuading people that the Amazons could defeat men, but is there a principle which over rides all material factors and which works better for women than for men? Such a principle is not known to any patriarchal religion, which I suppose is not surprising. Some people may argue that the practices of the Shao Lin monks, but that has not created an invincible army of women.
The extent of the records of Amazons in mythology is very great, and there must be something in them. There was a time when women could defeat men, The only possible explanation for this is the Madrian method of contemplative action, of which I've already posted messages, that is making a physical action a symbolic reflection of a spiritual principle.
May She be with you,
David.
The belief that women reflect the Divine Image is likely to be objected to by political feminists. They say that to have an exalted image of women is to put them on a pedestal, which prevents them having the realistic qualities of action.
A lot of this attitude comes from the Marxist feminist Simone de Beauvoir, whose book The Second Sex is held to be a classic of Feminism, and she refers to this attitude as the Eternal Feminine. The solution, I suppose, is the Temporary Feminine.
She held that to see God as feminine is the Other, by which she meant man's perception of woman as different from men. She goes on to argue that everything men do is to oppress women. This is to assume that matriarchy was created by men, which assumes that women are not capable of anything so difficult, an odd attitude for a feminist. All I can say to this is that, if I wanted women to keep in their places and do everything I tell them, the last thing I would do is tell them anything that makes them feel superhuman.
She goes on to argue from the example of Apartheid that the principle of people having differences was used as a reason from oppressing the Blacks. This is arguing a universal rule from a single example, which is a bad practice for someone reputed to be a philosopher. Against it, there is the effect of immigration into Britain from Pakistan. We cannot treat this problem as if all people are the same. It worked with the Blacks, because they are the descendants of slaves who have lost their culture. They have nothing they want to hold onto. It cannot work with anyone else.
To illustrate the principle of the Other, she gives the example of five authors, four of whom she says treat women as the Other, and the fifth, Stendhal, who does not. she says
"This tender friend of women - and precisely because he loves them in their truth - does not believe in feminine mystery; there is no essence that defines woman once and for all; the idea of an eternal feminine seems pedantic and ridiculous to him."
This sounds persuasive, but when we come to the other four authors, Montherlant, D. H. Lawrence, Claudel, and Breton, we find nothing that supports this contention. Lady Chatterly is as real full a human character as anything in Stendhals work (only a very small part of this book is pornographic, the rest tells a genuine story).
Claudel is a Roman Catholic who wrote devotional verse to the Virgin Mary, and she uses him to prove that men who believe in the spiritual superiority of women actually believe in their inferiority - but the Virgin Mary is not God! Surely de Beauvoir knew this! Claudel also wrote devotional verse to Jesus.
Breton is a Surrealist writer and his object was to break down the difference between dreaming consciousness and waking consciousness, so we can expect a lot of inconsistency from him. The female character of Nadja he created had a lot of ability. She ended up in a lunatic asylum because it is a belief of Surrealists that rationalists belief people are mad when they are inspired. The illustration included of a grim looking psychiatrist conveys the impression that Nadja was kept their unjustly.
Montherlant is the only one who is really a misogynist, and he did not have a romantic, exalted ideal of femininity, but depicted his female characters as stupid and selfish, which is really what you would expect a chauvinist to do.
The evidence that de Beauvoir presents just does not relate to the contention she aimed at proving, to an extent which creates doubts about the working of her mind. At University, she graduated one point behind Sartre who was top of the class, so, if you're studying for a degree to influence the world, you know how to get it.
She must have expected her readers to read the novelists she revued. I can only conclude that she had spent so much of her life in the rhetoric and debates of political activity that she lost her sense of reality, and thought she could say anything that won an argument. Her main fault is that she worked from the assumption that materialism is the truth, which holds that anything spiritual is unreal. From this perspective, to say that anything that assigns to women a spiritual quality is unreal. It is the same perspective that makes them say that rituals, ceremonies and sacraments are unreal, as well as the habit of praying and meditation. The whole argument of the political feminists, that romanticising women puts them on a pedestal comes from this perspective, and on this basis they go so far as to attack the attitude of courtesy and respect to women. It is a perspective which denies to women any quality which is not mundane, and any aspiration to rise to the level of exalted attainment, or be inspired in action. It denies women the dream.
De Beauvoir was not just a Marxist, but also an Existentialist who oppose all abstract thought and believe that all thought should be concrete. Romanticism is abstract.
A materialist philosophy cannot support Feminism. It is bound by the principle of animalism, in which the male is the stronger animal, and this cannot be altered. The only way is a principle above the material level, that is, the Eternal Feminine. Bachofen argued that matriarchy was introduced by the Amazons, but I doubt that many people can believe that an army of women can defeat armies of men. That will make people more inclined to believe Engels' theory of promiscuity, which at least seems probable for its origin, but not for it working when the country depended on unmarried mothers finding time for governing. It's also historically contentious. Herodotus records a number of societies which practiced promiscuity, but did not mention that any of them were matriarchal. There is one that was of equal authority, but, considering the inclination of chauvinists to exaggerate wildly when complaining of feminine domination, it could be accounted for by exaggeration. There is also the Lycians, who Herodotus records as having matrilinearity, but does not mention any promiscuous practice by them. This cannot be accounted for by exaggeration, because people who exaggerate are generally imprecise, and Herodotus' record is precise. Matriarchy and promiscuity just do not come together.
In my earlier posting commenting on Engels' description of loose sexual behaviour by the Spartans, it did occur to me at the time to mention that the Spartans had an aristocratic government. Aristocracy depends on primogeniture, which is undermined by promiscuity. An aristocratic society would not tolerate it. Engels was creative with the facts.
Is there another way? The solution was inadvertently pointed to by Engels himself when he dismissed Bachofen's theory as mystical. That is the explanation! Matriarchy was mystical! Bachofen's difficulty was in persuading people that the Amazons could defeat men, but is there a principle which over rides all material factors and which works better for women than for men? Such a principle is not known to any patriarchal religion, which I suppose is not surprising. Some people may argue that the practices of the Shao Lin monks, but that has not created an invincible army of women.
The extent of the records of Amazons in mythology is very great, and there must be something in them. There was a time when women could defeat men, The only possible explanation for this is the Madrian method of contemplative action, of which I've already posted messages, that is making a physical action a symbolic reflection of a spiritual principle.
May She be with you,
David.