January 7, 2011 at 2:01 P.M. "Errors" inserted since my previous review of this work were corrected today, until next time. The continuing disregard for legality in these censorship efforts says much about America today.
September 28, 2010 at 10:15 A.M. "Errors" inserted and corrected since my previous review of this work. ("New Jersey's Politically Connected Lawyers on the Tit.")
May 5, 2010 at 9:45 A.M. "Errors" were inserted, again, in this essay which had been left alone for a while. I have made all corrections. Richard Perez-Pena, "Christie, Shunning Precedent, Drops Justice From Court," in The New York Times, May 4, 2010, at p. A22: " ... the state's back-scratching, free-spending political culture ... [New Jersey Supreme Court legislating] required more state financing of low-income school districts, mandated construction of affordable housing, struck down a state law requiring parental notification for minors seeking abortions and allowed Democrats to make an 11th-hour candidate substitution in a hotly contested race for the Senate." ("Is Senator Bob 'For' Human Rights?")
December 21, 2009 at 6:10 P.M. Numerous "errors" inserted in writings as part of the continuing cyberwars. I hope to correct all of them soon.
November 1, 2009 at 12:48 P.M. "Error" inserted and corrected.
October 24, 2009 at 9:10 A.M. James C. McKinley, Jr., "Vast Drug Case Tries to Disrupt Cultlike Cartel," in The New York Times, October 23, 2009, at p. A1. An international drug cartel -- with a solid center of operations in Los Angeles, Miami, New Jersey/New York -- and with a great deal of political protection from corrupt politicians and their lawyers doing money laundering has suffered a major blow: $38 MILLION in U.S. currency, perhaps an equally large sum in other currencies (not mentioned in U.S. media), large amounts of drugs and "other contraband" (Rolex watches?) as well as weapons have been seized. Are you sweating Senator Bob? There is more to come. ("Is Senator Menendez a Suspect in Mafia-Political Murder in New Jersey?" and "Does Senator Menendez Have Mafia Friends?")
Allegations of a connection between this drug ring, hired attorneys in America, and a teen-porn as well as child-prostitution "service" can neither be confirmed nor denied, at this time. ("We don't know from nothing" and "New Jersey-Based Prostitution Ring Gets Spitzer.")
Just like delivering pizza, right boys? I will spend the rest of my life going after you low lifes in New Jersey. The investigation is on-going, reputedly and allegedly. ("Another Mafia Sweep in New Jersey and Anne Milgram is Clueless" then "new Jersey's child Sex Industry.")
October 23, 2009 at 8:50 A.M. "Errors" inserted and corrected. This is called "public censorship." My security system is semi-functional. I do not know how helpful it is, but it must be better than nothing. A "Live Update Notice" for my security system has appeared on my screen, as an irremovable icon, despite the automatic update feature of my security system. I received a notice that "Blogger cookies" were disabled at my computer. I wonder what that means?
October 18, 2009 at 3:39 P.M. The red notice on my security system cannot be removed at this time. A notice appeared on my security system "ERROR LOADING Run DLL C:WINDOWS/ivguwinvwese.dll" A second such notice also appeared, but I was unable to note the information. As best I can determine, the second notice reads: "ERROR LOADING Run DLL: C:WINDOWS/cfilososes.dll" Miami? Univision? Cuban American National Foundation?
October 18, 2009 at 2:48 P.M. My security system was disabled and is no longer functional. This will allow for insertions of "errors" in all of my writings, together with further defacements of texts in the days and weeks ahead. Restarting my computer has not helped. I will continue to struggle to restore my security system.
October 18, 2009 at 10:38 A.M. Another wave of attacks against this essay, more corrections. $2,500 for a 14 year-old is the rumor on the street, right Bobby? ("Fidel Castro's 'History Will Absolve Me'" and "Is Union City, New Jersey Meyer Lansky's Whore House?")
October 18, 2009 at 9:34 A.M. New "errors" inserted and corrected. Letters have been added to words that appeared, correctly, before last night. I wonder what could have happened? I believe that I have now made all necessary corrections. This is the sort of experience that can give one a migraine headache. Any and all media scrutiny is most welcome. Tell your friends about this interesting situation. ("Is Menendez For sale?" and "Senator Bob, the Babe, and the Big Bucks.")
October 17, 2009 at 9:44 A.M. Only a few "errors" inserted since this essay was first posted last night.
Primary Sources:
Martha C. Nussbaum, "The Passion Fashion," in The New Republic, September 23, 2009, at p. 43.
Cristina Nehring, A Vindication of Love: Reclaiming Romance for the Twenty-First Century (New York: Harper, 2009).
Secondary Sources:
Martha C. Nussbaum, "Plato on Commesurability and Desire," in Love's Knowledge (New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 106-124. (Nussbaum contra Nussbaum.)
Robert C. Solomon, About Love: Reinventing Romance for Our Times (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989), entirety.
Iris Murdoch, especially "The Idea of Perfection" and "On God and Good," in Existentialists and Mystics (London & New York: Penguin, 1997), pp. 297-363, and entirety. (Please see my essay, "Martha Nussbaum and Iris Murdoch on The Philosophy of Love.")
Plato, The Phaedrus and Letters VII and VIII (New York & London: Penguin, 1986).
Plato, The Symposium, any edition.
David Hoy, "Jacques Derrida," in Quentin Skinner, ed., The Return of Grand Theory in the Human Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 41-65.
Karl Jaspers, Plato and Augustine (New York: Harcourt Brace & World, 1962). (Edited by Hannah Arendt.)
Ovid, The Art of Love (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1957).
Allan Bloom, Love and Friendship (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993).
Jean-Luc Marion, The Erotic Phenomenon (Chicago & London: University of Chicago, 2003).
I.
I have been surprised by the number of articles appearing in elite publications -- like The New Republic -- attributed to well-known and respected scholars, such as Professor Nussbaum, containing discussions and blunders that are impossible to attribute to their ostensible authors. This article to which I will now turn my attention and a recent essay dealing with China's politics, said to be by Leon Wieseltier, are good examples of articles that could not have been written, exclusively, by these two authors whose works usually reveal subtle, learned, and profound minds, not the sort of temperament(s) disclosed by alterations of their texts which are, obviously, the work of much lesser intellects and writers. ("Incoherence in 'The New York Times'" and "Incoherence in 'The New Yorker'" then "David Denby is Not Amused.")
Whoever is inserting these screeds in thoughtful articles by respected writers is not doing them (or readers of The New Yorker and The New Republic) any favors. Andres Openheimer? Please do not tamper with the work of people writing serious philosophical essays or analytical attempts at understanding our political situation. We need the thoughts of such people to clarify our own thinking on weighty matters.
Is it possible that the persons vandalizing these articles appearing in U.S. media are also tampering with my writings? If so, then I am highly flattered. ("What is it like to be plagiarized?" and "How Censorship Works in America.")
Nussbaum and Wieseltier are hurt by these insertions in their writings (so am I) whoever is responsible for them.
Mr. Wieseltier would never make the crude charge that we are "superior" to China because we are better morally or when it comes to human rights. We may have a better human rights record than other countries. We may have a worse record in other respects. We may learn from others in any range of matters, including learning from others distant from our achievements in key areas of human endeavor and moral struggle just as they may learn from us. This humility is only common sense. ("Why do they hate us?")
The subtlety and qualifications that one has come to expect from serious thinkers, like Wieseltier and Nussbaum, as well as the learning normally on display in their prose vanishes when this ghostly "politically correct" editor appears with a fortune cookie-like gem to place in their polished sentences like a turd in Christmas wrappings. This altering of texts seems like the "work" of the Cubanazos. ("Manohla Dargis Strikes Again!" and "What is it like to be plagiarized?" then "The Heidegger Controversy.")
I wonder whether Senator Menendez can illuminate this situation with his unrivaled wisdom? Carlos Gutierrez? It is embarrassing for Cuban-Americans to be associated with such "stupid imbecility" (in the words of Mr. Lesniak) and fascist tactics. It is bad enough that you Miami "Batistoides" are members of my ethnic group, but do you have to be illiterates? Take a college course or something, for God's sake, and not at Dade Community College or the University of Miami. Try the "Teaching Company." I find it difficult to believe that anyone can be called "Jean-Paul Rathbone." Some creativity in developing pseudonyms is expected in the future: "Vivien Schweitzer"? "Carlotta Gall"? "Ashley Parker"?
In a review of a new book by Cristina Nehring (a book I intend to read) Professor Nussbaum makes statements that are, to put it politely, in tension with Nussbaum's own previously published celebrations of love and appreciations of the profundity of the Romantic intoxication. There are surprises in this review -- such as the attribution of Plato's theory of love to the Phaedrus, without quotation and further discussion -- when, as a classicist who has written on this very theme -- Nussbaum has discussed and lived the opposed wisdom concerning love expressed by Diotima and found in Plato's Symposium. ("The Allegory of the Cave.")
The famous "charioteer analogy" in the Phaedrus refers to the powers of the body (passions) as against the faculties of the mind (intellect), mental powers that yield access to the forms or "essences." Argument that appeals to the emotions (masses) is contrasted with arguments appealing to the few, philosopher kings in the Republic, i.e., intellectuals.
For the key developments and revisions of these ideas turn to the "Athenian Stranger" in the Laws. Roger Scruton's "Xanthippic" dialogues explore powerful criticisms of the Platonic theory in light of Aristotelean, empirical, phenomenological, and (curiously for Scruton!) feminist scholarship.
This sudden transformation of Martha Nussbaum is most strange. I cannot believe that Ms. Nussbaum would fail to know which of Plato's dialogues contains his theory of love as "eros."
We begin with a genuine sample of Nussbaum's appreciation of eros:
"For love is not just wonderful in itself, it is also a source of energy for the rest of life's activities -- particularly, perhaps, for artistic and intellectual creativity. And it is a source of insight, leading us to see ourselves and others with more generous and accurate eyes. [emphasis added] (Here Nehring draws persuasively on Plato's Phaedrus.) [?] In sum, love makes the entire person come alive -- but only if it is pursued with sufficient openness and daring that it brings with it a constant danger of pain and loss." (p. 43.)
I thought Phaedrus was concerned with rhetoric. In fact, Walter Hamilton of Oxford University and other scholars have CONTRASTED Socrates in the Phaedrus with the view of love attributed to the fictitious poet Diotima in The Symposium: "This serves to diminish our sense of the incongruousness of such a speech in the mouth of Socrates whom we know, just as in the Symposium a similar effect is achieved by ascribing to the fictitious wise woman Diotima the culminating account of the nature and function of love." (Hamilton, Introduction and translation of Phaedrus, pp. 11-12, in the Penguin books edition.)
"[Derrida] finds another important case of undecidability in Plato's attack on writing in the Phaedrus (Derrida 1981a; see Hoy 1982a). However marginal and trivial the example may seem, Derrida's reading implies that since the example occurs at the beginning of the history of philosophy, it is decisive for Western thought." (Hoy, "Derrida," p. 58.)
"Undecidability" [sic.] and the rhetoric of philosophy are questions that focus on Derrida's attempt to replace epistemology with hermeneutics not bearing on any theory of the existence or contents of truth. The Phaedrus is not -- primarily or at all! -- an exposition of Plato's influential philosophy of love, on Derrida's reading, but a discussion of LANGUAGE, knowledge and persuasion. ("What is Enlightenment?" and "Derek Parfit's Ethics.")
To suggest that a respected scholar, like Ms. Nussbaum, would not know the difference between these dialogues is absurd to those who know Professor Nussbaum's work, but not to strangers to her writings who will wonder about the author's competence as a scholar. This error damages Ms. Nussbaum's reputation and the prestige of an important and serious American publication, aside from the violations of First Amendment rights. ("Ought implies can.")
Perhaps Ms. Nussbaum and TNR may be regarded as "collateral damage," like children in Pakistani villages killed by drones? Or children in America's best colleges who are so "easily manipulated"? Nothing to worry about. I am not so sure about this alleged "ease" in manipulating America's brightest young people. (Compare "Whatever!" with "Nihilists in Disneyworld.")
People who know my writings are witnesses to the daily alterations and defacements of these texts. They are, similarly, horrified by what is being done to the Constitution of the United States of America -- with the cooperation of U.S. public officials! -- as men and women are dying for the freedoms guaranteed in that document that New Jersey has seen fit to use as toilet paper. Things will only get weirder as we go down this rabbit hole:
"The smallness of aspiration against which Nietzsche inveighed in his portrait of 'the last man' is not, as he suggested, a recent creation of bourgeois European Christianity. It is a pervasive inclination of ordinary human life." (p. 43.)
How strange that Professor Nussbaum's historical sense should desert her? "Ordinary life," the experience of a dull normality, is itself a product of the modern world (hence, Nietzsche's point) which arrived with the doubtful "success" of the middle classes. Boring, old ordinary life before Modernity meant being a serf or slave, probably getting killed in a religious war, perhaps the experience of being burned alive at the stake as a witch if one displayed a slight interest in medicine, as a woman, or (heaven forbid!) the desire to learn to read. Maybe "ordinary life" ain't so bad, Friedrich, since it may leave us with a little time for passionate love-making. Nussbaum attributes the following theme to Nehring's book:
"Her central thesis is really two distinct arguments, one sensible and wise, the other adolescent and silly. [Would Nussbaum say this about a fellow scholar's work?] The wise thesis is that one should be willing to incur risk for the sake of a deep and valuable love. This advice may not be for everyone, but for those who have the strength to live that way, [what way? "adolescent and silly"?] such a life does, as she says with Plato [,] promise great rewards -- even when, as often happens, the love turns out to involve reversal or some other type of suffering. (There is always death at the end of even the happiest love)." (p. 44.)
The annoying thing about death is that it comes to those who love and also to those who don't have time for love as they have meetings to attend. At least lovers can claim to have experienced a little "nookie-nookie" before the last bugle calls. As Professor Nussbaum would say: "You ain't kidding!"
We live in an age of something called "Torts." People are sued for any harm that they cause, even in some extreme cases for harms suffered by others which they have not caused and for which they are not to blame. This is based on societal decisions concerning the allocation of risks and harms, as with the vast and lucrative (for lawyers) "products liability field." We are cautious. We are careful. We listen to our mothers.
Odysseus would be appalled by our "fallen" condition. We refrain from killing strangers. We avoid torturing Trojans (not Arabs or Iraquis, of course) in our wimpy regard for their so-called "rights." Sparta is weeping for us. We feel less intensely, or not at all, because we "enjoy" these absurdly long "lives" without passion. As Plato would have said: "What the hell is wrong with you people?"
This is not because ancient people lived "passionately" whereas we must live "boringly." There are many romantics among us more than a century after the death of Romantic poets, like Wordsworth and Byron. Can you imagine, say, "Boy George" as an accountant in a government office? I can't. Mick Jagger, Madonna, Little Richard, Norman Mailer, Jean-Paul Sartre, and any number of other persons lived (or live), deliberately, intense and public passionate commitments. ("La Traviata.")
All of these amazing people may be described as romantic individuals. This is not a mere "adolescent's view" of life.
Romanticism is one of the perennial outlooks on life. Other outlooks on life include money or power accumulation; social activism and altruistic modes of existence; study and scholarship, along with many other life-options that are ALWAYS available for your choosing pleasure.
What is today's life-options "special"?
As for the absurd and sexist American obsession with whether women are "thin," it is well established that a slight "overweight" condition is healthier than being slightly underweight. Furthermore, the concern to keep women "skinny" is a symptom of the desire to maintain a condition of powerlessness among sexually desirable women. ("Ex Machina: A Movie Review.")
Strong women still frighten Americans. A beautiful and powerful woman with great curves -- who is not controlled by Madison Avenue or Hollywood images (most of which are bullshit) -- is a fearsome entity because she associates eros with logos in the public square. We can't have that.
The combination of power in non-erotic and erotic terms with femininity is still unacceptable in America, for women.
I urge readers to consider Diotima's comments in The Symposium concerning eros that "always is [now] and neither comes to be nor passes away, neither waxes nor wanes." Plato, "Symposium," quoted in Robert C. Solomon & Kathleen M. Higgins, eds., The Philosophy of Love (Kansas: University of Kansas, 1991), pp. 26-27; then, Robert C. Solomon, Love, Emotion, Myth, & Metaphor (New York: Prometheus, 1990), pp. 16-33 and Walter Pater, Plato and Platonism (New York: Barnes & Noble, 2005), pp. 103-134. (Sappho's lesbian erotic poems express longing for the woman of "ample form" who reflects the will of Venus.)
Shakespeare would have insisted that we twenty-first century persons (or too many of us) do not die for so many years only because we also do not live at all. The death of affect in our dull lives would have horrified the Bard.
Who can say that this is wrong? After all, Senator Bob has explained that: "on the one hand, but then on the other hand." Maybe Senator Bob will also explain these mysteriously inserted "errors"? ("Time to End the Embargo Against Cuba" and "Is Senator Menendez a Suspect in Mafia-Political Murder in New Jersey?")
My objection to the Clinton-Lewisnky scandal had less to do with the allegations of the Starr Report than with the thought that the President of the United States of America was harried into unsatisfying encounters between meetings, encounters lasting all of ten minutes. The Chief Executive should be in a position to fly off to Camp David for a long weekend with, say, Beyonce Knowles -- or some other comparable person of the president's choice -- for serious "discussions and conversations concerning policy." ("Is he serious?")
I am afraid that these gentlemen -- Shakespeare and Plato -- had a point concerning the need for passion in a fully human life even if we agree not to kill strangers and to abide by relative or non-relative moralities.
To "burn with a hard and gem-like flame" (Walter Pater) may allow for the creation of great art by making us lions of emotions as opposed to gerbils of Oprah Winfrey-like "feelings." Hence, Cristina's alleged second thesis is more than understandable:
"The second thesis, which Nehring regularly confuses with the first, is that the quality of a love can be measured by the amount of danger, distance, riskiness, suffering, and so on that it involves." (p. 44.)
Furthermore, we are told:
"The idea that love is improved by suffering and loss is an adolescent view [Shakespeare, Wilde, others] (despite the fact that some great Romantic writers have had it [had what? the measles?] -- but then Romanticism had its elements of immaturity). This argument generates some of the book's silliest parts, in which Nehring recommends to today's women a life spent in unseemly narcissistic reveling in their own tribulations." (p. 44.) (emphasis added)
Wow, you tell 'em girl. I mean, "woman" or "female person." I doubt that Nehring is suggesting that "love is improved by suffering." I surmise that Nehring's point, apparently directed at women and which I would make to MEN, is that passionate love is about commitment.
I do not accept that Martha Nussbaum wrote this paragraph. The stupidity and shallow understanding of what is at issue in this discussion is not possible for a writer of Ms. Nussbaum's gifts and scholarly learning. How is it possible for this prose make its way into the pages of The New Republic?
Tell me again why it is permissible to censor and suppress my writings? Are you my intellectual "superior," Ms. Milgram? Were you, Ms. Milgram, (or were persons in your office) involved in discussions at The Philosophy Cafe at MSN? Kim Guardagno? Were you involved in efforts to destroy that site? to suppress my writings? to alter or steal my copyright-protected texts? ("What is it like to be censored in America?")
Such criminal actions and cover-ups are grounds for disbarment, especially for an "Attorney General." Would you agree, Mr. Rabner? How does any Jewish person become Eichman, Stuart? Each day that the cover-up continues is a renewal of the tortures, Mr. Rabner. Whatta-ya need, Stuart? What's it going to take? How much cash do you require, Stuart? Do your job, Stuart. ("No More Cover-Ups and Lies, Chief Justice Rabner!")
Commitment for heterosexual men should mean a willingness to give one's all for the love of a woman over a lifetime. As I write this comment, I am fifty years-old. On a good day, I don't look a day over 45! I have loved (romantically or erotically) only two women over my adult life, loved them deeply and in a mature way -- over 36 years in one instance, more than 22 in another. I will love those women until the day I die. Nothing material nor any "career goals" or professional status, not possessions or titles, not the threat of torture or death means as much to me as one hair on their heads.
This has nothing to do with whether I am able to see -- or have seen -- either one (or both) of them.
I trust that I am sufficiently clear on this point. Incidentally, despite my best efforts, I have never been unfaithful to a woman in a "relationship." No, there is no contradiction between these statements except in telenovelas.
Computer warfare and psychological torture, suppressions and destructions of my writings will not cause me to deny or alter my feelings for anyone that I care about deeply. Blocking my t.v. signal will have no effect on these values or upon my opinions. Destroying my phone service will not cause me to change my mind nor will I be intimidated by the theft of my watch.
I will not change my view of New Jersey's overstuffed legal toilet (legal system) or back down on any of the positions that I have taken unless I am persuaded by rational arguments that I am mistaken as opposed to threats from nervous mafiosos.
I do not believe that there are too many more slanders that can be pronounced against me, secretly. I do not expect too much more economic or professional harm, censorship, or destruction of creative work. Whatever further "surprises" come my way, however, my feelings and opinions will not change on these matters. ("How Censorship Works in America" and "Censorship and Cruelty in New Jersey.")
Perhaps Kay Li Causi is behind these censorship efforts? Say hello to the wife, Senator. And to Gloria and the twins, "BobbyM." (Once more: "Boss Bob Holds a Grudge!" and "Senator Bob, the Babe, and the Big Bucks.")
"That's not practical!"
Skinny persons dressed in black insist on "practicality."
Whether such Romantic values are "practical" depends on how one defines a fully human life. This passion that is love for a woman (or anyone) is about commitment, devotion, loyalty, against the entire world if necessary.
I think of such feelings for these women -- whatever they may feel for me and, again, even if I am separated from either or both of them -- as the normal loves of an ordinary man in one "insignificant" life.
I am pretty certain that, if necessary, I would die for either of those women or for my child, and for a few other people and things that matter, like the imperiled Constitution of the United States of America. Maybe I have done exactly that -- struggling for such phenomena for many years. ("Richard A. Posner on Voluntary Actions and Criminal Responsibility" and the sadly mutilated "Manifesto for the Unfinished American Revolution.")
I will be happy to repeat these statements "again and again" until the slow learners in Trenton get it, including self-proclaimed "adolescent psychologists." Presumably, this phrase refers to fourteen year-olds with advanced degrees. "Napoleonic Scholars?" Raymond Hernandez, how much is Bob Menendez or Albio Sires paying you?
Amazingly, an attempt to explain and defend America's commitment to freedom of expression was vandalized at this blog before the eyes of the world to the indifference of legal authorities in this country. The same legal authorities are asking young men and women to risk their lives in defense of freedoms that are trashed, publicly and shamelessly, every day, by N.J.'s corrupt politicians. ("Law and Ethics in the Soprano State.")
I was saddened by President Obama's pro-forma visit to the Garden State to support Jon Corzine. Luckily, Mr. Obama avoided photos with Bob Menendez and Dick Codey. Obama's presence is not about Mr. Corzine or New Jersey's embarrassing Democrats, but it is an attempt to bolster the image of the Obama administration. A vote for Mr. Corzine is an endorsement of a $1 BILLION tax increase in 2009-2010. Sadly, the persons in the Garden State's graveyards are mostly registered Democrats who vote in every election, often more than once. ("New Jersey is Lucky Luciano's Havana" and "New Jersey is the Land of the Living Dead.")
Perhaps out of embarrassment, whoever is responsible for these attacks against my writings and (possibly) for the insulting "editing" of Professor Nussbaum's article, has disabled my security system. I will struggle to restore my protections, fully expecting that my essays will be terribly damaged by this latest violation of my rights -- and yours.
Is Norton Security "legitimate" or a front for Bob Menendez? Will I get to meet the computer criminals?
In our "risk-averse" culture, passionate commitment makes me a fool. I am not overly disturbed by this fact because I have plenty of company. This loyalty to the Constitution is true and real even if -- like former Vice President Dick Cheney -- I have "other commitments." Mr. Cheney explained his lack of service in the military in Vietnam as due to his "other commitments." I bet many of those who were killed (or wounded) in Vietnam also had other commitments. Right, John Kerry?
Did Senator Bob serve in Vietnam? I did not serve in Vietnam. This was not because of "other commitments," but due to not being drafted because I was too young. Many of those who were drafted discovered a fascination with life in Canada, probably due to their other commitments.
For another example of a disgraceful trashing of Constitutional rights by New Jersey's hackers, see my essay "What is Law?"
In America, the Constitution guarantees our right to criticize public officials. Let us see how many "errors" are inserted in my essays after this statement and the destruction of my security system. As I revise this essay -- after a second wave of vandalism -- I cannot avoid being struck by the former Vice President's comments concerning Mr. Obama's prudent weighing of factors before deciding on an increase in troop numbers in Afghanistan. Mr. Bush allowed the decision concerning troop numbers in that country to sit on his desk for eight months. Anne Coulter said this morning that Mr. Obama was "living on the Bush achievements." This statement borders on the surreal in a nation facing a $1.4 trillion deficit, stubborn, persistent guerilla warfare in Afghanistan, insurrection in Pakistan, daily bombings in Iraq, sharp decline in education, collapsing infrastructure, underfunded academic research, and in most other areas resulting from Bush/Cheney neglect or incompetence. Katrina? Is Katrina's rescue efforts the Bush achievement?
We are associated by the world with torture and murder at horrifying concentration camps inherited by Mr. Obama. We are rightly seen as hypocritical in professed commitments to human rights and freedom of speech as we torture dissidents (like me) and suppress their works. The deliberate undermining of our once precious and much respected Constitution has made us anything but "admired." 283,000 Americans lost their jobs last month (September, 2009) and did not receive "bail outs" thanks to Bush/Cheney. Tell those people or the millions who are desperate in America today about Mr. Bush's "achievement" and Mr. Cheney's "priorities." Harassing me will not help Right-wingers with those issues. There is no plausible alternative to Obama/Biden/Clinton at this moment in American history. ("Presidential Debates" and "Republicans Unplugged.")
Secretary of State Rodham-Clinton's efforts to persuade Honduras to abide by WORLD opinion by respecting the rule of law, allowing their ousted President to return to office, or to participate in new elections, should not be undermined by far Right-wing fanatics in Miami endorsing a return to "Banana Republic" status for client states of U.S. corporations in Latin America. House arrest for Honduras' duly elected president does not reveal a "commitment to the rule of law," Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. ("Iliana" likes to "shop till she drops!")
When Nussbaum writes that "despite the fact that some great Romantic writers have it" -- meaning that some Romantic writers and those of us who are romantic today "hold the view" -- that love may require sacrifice or involves suffering, that is, a willingness to suffer agonies of separation and concern for the other, we are mistaken.
I cannot agree that, despite our best efforts, human life and relationships will ever be entirely without risk or pain. Furthermore, I am sure that "maximizing self-interest" is lethal to genuine love which has little to do with rational self-interest in material terms or with enhancing one's comfort.
Love is painful because we are involved in (and are part of) the mortality and burdens of another human being, a person whose boundaries overlap with our own. Her pain becomes mine; my pain becomes hers. ("Drawing Room Comedy: A Philosophical Essay in the Form of a Film Script.")
Perhaps the deepest love should not be without pain, according to religious wisdom, because love teaches us how to die, every day, and makes our every moment infinitely precious as an epiphany of meanings. Saying goodbye to an adult child heading off to college will teach you that lesson.
Plato's Phaedrus is about meanings, knowledge, expression and truth. Plato's Symposium is about love. I am not aware of any ancient writer called "Platon." Do you Cunanoids even speak English? ("Manohla Dargis Strikes Again!")
Nussbaum and Wieseltier are Jews. David Denby is fair game? ("David Denby is Not Amused.") There is an element of antisemitism in these censorship actions. Miami's Cubanoid fascists are often antisemites, also racists. Would other writers with Nussbaum's and Wieseltier's levels of experience be subjected to this treatment? Perhaps this explains the alterations of David Denby's writings. Are their Constitutional rights "expendable," like mine?
When you violate one person's Constitutional rights you have potentially violated the rights of all persons in America. We need an INDEPENDENT press in the United States. I will do my best to make this point concerning unfair slanders and antisemitism to New Jersey officials. ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture.")
I have offered criticisms of Israel's policy in the Gaza matter. Many Israelis have made the same criticisms. However, I have also made it clear that I am firmly on the side of the U.S.-Israeli alliance which is compatible with a peace effort and sovereignty for Palestinians. I have no patience for and do not condone ANY form of antisemitism. I also will not hesitate to criticize persons who happen to be Jews when they commit crimes or fail to discharge their public duties. ("Is Humanism Still Possible" and "Martin Buber's Diet Judaism.")
Think of the loss of humanity in a person who cannot feel passionate love -- although she desires it -- and is offended even by descriptions of love because such descriptions are reminders of all that she will never have or be, everything that cannot be bought or obtained through force, which explains her death of affect. That's the sort of individual who disfigures literary texts and clips an angel's wings.
II.
To explain Diotima's wisdom in this matter of passionate eros, as set forth by Plato in The Symposium, I will quote the Martha Nussbaum I have come to know and "love" from her scholarly work as a philosopher:
"It is a startling and powerful vision. Just try to think it seriously: this body of this beloved person is exactly the same in quality as the value of Athenian democracy; of Pythagorean geometry; of Eudoxan astronomy. What would it be like to look at a body and to see it exactly in the same shade and tone of goodness and beauty as in a mathematical proof -- exactly the same, differing only in amount and in location" -- eternally, now -- "so that the choice between making love with that person and contemplating that proof presented itself as having n measures of water and having n + 100? ... We might even imagine the interchangeability of souls, helped by a religious heritage according to which we are all equally, and centrally, children of God." (Love's Knowledge, p. 116 and "Is it rational to believe in God?" then "'Inception': A Movie Review.")
Love is undifferentiated because it is concerned with the eternal essence of the beloved instantiated in her warm physical presence right here and now. It is through this person that I love that I am -- thank you Diotima -- permitted to contemplate the eternal forms of love and beauty. We are kindred spirits. My lover and companion guides me and instructs me, as Diotima taught Socrates, in the mysteries and perfections of "love's knowledge" which must include suffering with and for the beloved. This is what I mean by "wife." ("The Allegory of the Cave.")
The serpent in this garden, allegedly according to Nehring, is feminism.
I do not accept this view of feminism nor can I believe that there is a conflict between passionate eros and feminine equality. On my side in this argument, are women like Mary Wollstonecraft (I love her sexy letters to Godwin!) and Simone de Beauvoir, not to mention the mysticism of Simone Weil which is saturated with suppressed sexual longing. This insight concerning eros and feminism is not gender-specific:
"Feminism is to blame for women's rejection of romantic love because, says Nehring, feminism asks women to be always rational and always in control, rejecting the romantic emotions as sources of low status or even servitude. Moreover, feminism urges us to see love in contractual terms, and that sort of calculation is incompatible with real passion." (p. 44.)
Eros is the height of rationality conceived in terms that do not exclude feelings or emotions from reasoning. ("F.H. Bradley's Concrete Universal" and "F.H. Bradley's Absolute.")
This assumed and false opposition between women being "rational" as opposed to "passionate" is disconnected from our most profound meditations on love as the unity of passion and reason in the beloved. Rejecting love is irrational. ("'The Da Vinci Code': A Book Review.")
The division between rationality and emotions is sexist and subject to criticism by feminists, like Simone de Beauvoir, who insisted on a passionate sexual life with many partners -- male and female -- also on a long-term loving "commitment" to Jean-Paul Sartre as a free woman and philosopher of love. ("Stuart Hampshire and Iris Murdoch On Freedom of mind.")
We experience much more than our trite social thinkers would have us believe in our deepest relationships.
There are erotic-agapic choices for every woman to make for herself. Incidentally, Jean Paul Sartre and Jean-Paul Sartre are equally correct writings of this illustrious name. I will vary my writing of this name to annoy the Cubanoids offering unsolicited incorrect corrections. This would be a good time to insert another "error."
This anti-love critique is more like a description of the shallow versions of feminism popular on daytime television. This is certainly not the view of the great feminist philosophers I admire and respect. ("Is clarity enough?")
Feminism is compatible with an intense and passionate love-life and commitment of the serious kind by and for women, as EQUALS, loving others (whether men or women) who can accept and respect that "equality in freedom" and/or "freedom in equality" because they are willing to give the same level of commitment in return.
There cannot be a self-protective, cautious, reserved entry into "relationships" -- on a commercial analogy -- in true devotion. Sadly, the nature of so-called "amorous relationships" in contemporary America is very different: "We relate relationally relationship-wise, Oprah." (See Kate Winslet's performance in "Iris.")
Poetry comes to the rescue:
"The Definition of Love"
by Andrew Marvell
My Love is of a birth as rare
As 'tis for object strange and high
It was begotten by Despair
Upon impossibility.
Magnanimous despair alone
Could show me so divine a thing,
Where feeble Hope could ne'er have flown
But vainly flapped its tinsel wing.
And yet I quickly might arrive
Where my extended soul is fixed,
But fate does iron wedges drive,
And always crowds itself betwixt.
For Fate with jealous eye does see
Two perfect Loves; nor lets them close:
Their union would her ruin be,
And her tyranic power depose.
And therefore her decrees of steel
Us as the distant poles have placed,
(Though Love's whole world on us doth wheel)
Nor by themselves to be embraced.
Unless the giddy Heaven fall,
And Earth some new convulsion tear;
And, us to join, the World should all
Be cramped into a planisphere.
As lines so Love oblique may well
Themselves in every angle greet:
But ours so truly parallel,
Though infinite, can never meet.
Therefore the Love which us doth bind
But Fate so enviously debars,
Is the conjunction of the Mind,
And opposition of the Stars.
We do not create prenuptial agreements "in fair Verona where we lay our scene," as it were, but enter into an embrace that is life-altering and longstanding. It is only in our prudent and cautious age when "spontaneity has its time and place" that passion is expected to be safe. ("The Sure Thing.")
In the immortal words of Frederick the Great echoing Alexander the Great as he sent his troops to die in a cavalry charge: "Would you live forever?"
"Eros requires speech, and beautiful speech, to communicate to its partner what it feels and wants. Now there is plenty of talk about relationships and how people are intruding on one another, and there is talk akin to discussions on the management of water resources. But the awestruck vision of the thing-in-itself [say what?] has disappeared. It is almost impossible to get students to talk about the meaning of their erotic choices, except for a few artificial [bromides] that square them with contemporary right thinking. [P.C. bullshit.] Out of self-protectiveness, no one wants to risk making arguments, as Plato's characters did, for the dignity of his or her choice and its elevated place within the whole of things. What one cannot talk about, what one does not have words for, hardly exists. Richness of vocabulary is part of the richness of experience. Just as there is a disastrous decline in political rhetoric, rhetoric necessary to explain the cause of justice and form a community around it, so there is an even more disastrous decline in the rhetoric of love. Yet to make love humanly, the partners have to talk to each other." (Bloom, Love and Friendship, p. 25.)
From the point of view of Romantics and romantic Americans today immaturity and childishness is attributed to persons frightened of emotion and of living intensely, opting for tepid existences and adoration of safety, together with ever higher levels of solvency and something called "therapy."
Living is anything but "safe." 9/11 should have taught us that much.
During your final seconds would you wish to put in a call to your broker to check on your investments in a prudently planned portfolio that includes "death planning"? Not me. My planning is to avoid death for as long as possible without avoiding life. I will try to see "As You Like It" at BAM. There is a new exhibit of Bronzino's drawings at the MET. Turandot is being performed at the MET Opera. Tim Burton's "Alice" will be in theaters in March. The arts provide a balm for love's wounds.
People all over the world look at this bizarre place called America and shake their heads. We do not eat meat. We wear helmets when riding motorcycles. We wear condoms even if we are women. We wear sensible shoes.
Is this maturity? Or have we died and failed to notice the fact?
This is not the America of Walt Whitman. Perhaps we have wandered into New Jersey. Hand me the Hemlock. Here is what terrifies us:
"It is the whole idea of becoming vulnerable to an inner life that one cannot see and can NEVER control. It is not qualitative difference, but the sheer separateness of the other person, the idea of an independent source of vision and will, that makes love an adventure in generosity [emphasis added] -- or, if one is like Proust's narrator, a source of mad jealousy and destructive projects of domination and control. And this has nothing at all to do with class difference, or gender difference, or even temperamental difference. It has to do only with the fact of human individuation -- that minds and bodies never merge, that intimacy is never fusion but a CONVERSATION." (p. 45.)
Showing posts with label Feminism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Feminism. Show all posts
Friday, October 16, 2009
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Skinny People Dressed in Black.
January 12, 2010 at 11:43 A.M. After making several additions to this text, the revisions were erased. I will now, once again, make the same additions to the text. ("Debbie Poritz Likes the Ladies!")
December 19, 2009 at 6:25 P.M. Several essays were vandalized, "errors" have been inserted and corrected.
November 10, 2009 at 3:34 P.M. "Errors" inserted and corrected. "Lesbian love-fest," Anne? ("Trenton's Nasty Lesbian Love Fest!" and "Jennifer Velez is a 'Dyke Magnet!'")
August 15, 2009 at 11:10 A.M. The usual harassment and cyberwarfare this week. This essay is controversial with the Femi-Nazi thought police. This is sufficient reason to post it again. Censorship from the Left or Right is equally offensive to me. Not only will publishing opportunities be denied to me -- and people like me -- but an effort will be made to suppress and censor my "controversial" writings. For my defense of feminist views, see "David Stove and the Intellectual Capacity of Women." For a sample of my experiences, see "What is it like to be plagiarized?" ("Barack Obama and 'The New Yorker.'")
June 4, 2008 at 12:29 P.M. I experienced interference with my cable signal as I tried to post this essay. My security system is under attack and cannot be updated. New "errors" inserted, presumably by Femi-Nazis, on November 1, 2008 at 12:16 P.M. ("What is it like to be tortured?")
Hackers have inserted new "errors" in this essay. July 27, 2007 at 9:44 A.M. I am blocking:
http://ad.N2434.doubleclick.net/ad/N2434.msn/B2 (NJ)
http://view.atdmt.com/von/iview/msnnkvos01200 (NJ)
How serious are we about our commitment to the First Amendment and freedom of speech? How much of our professed defense of free expression is a lie? "Doubleclick?"
More censorship and "errors" previously corrected, reinserted in the text. I think this is about exhausting me. I do not believe that it will be effective and it does give me the opportunity to reemphasize my arguments. I think my questions concerning the Constitution have now been answered.
November 22, 2008 at 10:59 A.M. More "errors" inserted and corrected.
January 11, 2009 at 3:51 P.M. Same old, same old. This revised essay was first posted in November, 2008.
I.
One of the strangest aspects of contemporary American politics is the intensity of the divisions in society. I believe that these divisions are primarily cultural and not political. They express themselves in political and legal warfare, as always, in America. The tone of political discussions and intellectual content has declined steadily over the past two decades. The nation is still about evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats.
We are witnessing one of the meanest eras in the politics of personal destruction -- which began with the Clinton impeachment effort and is approaching dangerous levels again -- at the dawn of a new presidential election season. I applaud Senator (now President) Obama's efforts to distance himself from the political attack machines used by both parties. ("President Obama and 'The New Yorker.'")
We feel powerless about the raging controversies and experiences of unfairness as well as oppression in some extreme cases within the American political and legal system. The analogy to rape is useful. The individual often experiences him- or herself as powerless against sinister forces in American society concerned to distract and cover-up the reality of power wielded against people, power used to exploit and abuse them, to steal from them, even to destroy them in pointless military struggles. "Them" means "us." ("Invicta Watch Company" and "The Invicta Watch Compnay Caper.")
We know we are being screwed. We know that it is illegal, unconstitutional, evil that so much of our tax money is stolen before our eyes. However, there is not very much that we can do about it -- our politicians are often sold out, coopted, complicit in the horror. We return to the Constitution for inspiration and struggle. We fight. We persevere. We must never give up. Sadly, it is the weakest of us who are made into instruments of oppression, utilized to provide ass cover for politicians. ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture" and "What is it like to be censored in America?")
I read in The New York Times an account of a political speech focusing on Senator Clinton's "cleavage." Earlier I read an account of Mrs. Thompson's "cleavage." I think those descriptions are inappropriate and offensive. They are one indication of what I have been dealing with -- anything you read in these blogs is mild compared to what has been said about me and others that I care about -- from the sort of people found at the bottom of America's political barrel which is New Jersey.
Constitutional and copyright protection means nothing to some N.J. legal officials. I'd like to provide such persons with a little taste of their own medicine.
When politics plunges to such levels, there is a danger that democratic processes will be contaminated permanently. Alternatively, there are some persons who cannot understand the language of civilized discourse even as they expect to be addressed in polite terms by others. When courts and political institutions fail to enforce order and law, there will be a messy struggle in the public square. It is time for authority to exert itself, ensuring the enforcement of Constitutional and human rights, even in the Garden State.
I still cannot run a necessary security scan of my computer. My computer was eventually destroyed by hackers. ("How censorship works in America.")
President George W. Bush is a polarizing figure, mysteriously, even more than Reagan and Clinton were in their day. People HATE -- even loathe and despise -- good old, mild-mannered George W. Bush, much to his chagrin. And those on the Right -- including many who are less than crazy about G.W. because he is not conservative enough -- abominate the sort of people who attack G.W., even more than they dislike him.
I think each faction has a point. Regrettably, many innocent victims are caught in the crossfire. Among those victims is the U.S. Constitution. Collateral damage? ("Manifesto For the Unfinished American Constitution.")
Allow me to make it very clear to anyone who does not understand this: I do not care what you think of me. I probably think less of you and with good reason for my hatred and disgust after daily harassments and plagiarisms of my writings. (Again: "Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture.")
I wish to examine these hostile feelings in U.S. politics (and they are mostly feelings, over and above carefully thought out positions on issues), very briefly, suggesting where common ground may and should be found. What G.W.'s enemies have yet to figure out is that the best thing that President Bush has going for him is his opposition. The same is true for Christopher Christie in New Jersey. ("Censorship and Cruelty in New Jersey.")
Why do I say that? Well, for one thing the source of those comments concerning "cleavage" is not, in my opinion, Republicans, but an extreme sector of the liberal wing of the Democratic party. The condescension and insulting patronizing to which minority intellectuals -- male or female -- are subjected in this society is beyond description. Such treatment must be experienced to be fully understood.
We are often silenced and marginalized. The same may be said for "disconnection" from reality on the part of people hurting you, denying you basic rights, while asking for your understanding and cooperation with their so-called "improvement" efforts. To commit crimes against me is to abandon any right to judge my ethics. Ethics? ("What is it like to be tortured?" then "New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System" and "The Office of Attorney Ethics in New Jersey" as well as "New Jersey is the Home of the Living Dead.")
Low-life scum buckets in New Jersey are hardly in a position to judge anybody's ethics. OAE? ("Have you no shame, Mr. Rabner?" and "Law and Ethics in the Soprano State.")
I live in Manhattan. I am a democratic socialist, agnostic, graduate degree, Latino -- and just about everything else that a Democrat is usually thought to be. However, the organized crime group governing New Jersey, ruthlessly and with unbelievable greed as well as stupidity -- while calling themselves Democrats -- together with the skinny-dressed-in-black, "we-know-better-than-you" fashionista-kiwi-munchers (of all ethnicities and sexual persuasions) have made the word "Democrat" affect me the way garlic affects Dracula. Many America feels the same way.
The trouble with stereotypes and cartoon-like reductions of others to sleazy jokes is that the tactic may be turned against its proponents. ("What a man's gotta do.")
I have been insulted and dismissed, denied opportunities to make use of free speech rights and to publish my work by liberal morons. I experience daily cyberviolations of my rights intended to produce violence through frustrations and continuing psychological harm. ("More Censorship and Cybercrime" and, again, "Censorship and Cruelty in New Jersey" then "How censorship works in America.")
People diagnosing the disease at the heart of Senator Clinton's 2008 campaign -- a campaign which I favored in many ways, as I also eventually supported Mr. Obama's efforts -- should look at this issue with care. It will not go away. For instance, New Jersey's caudillo controls judges and law enforcement. Hence, crimes may be committed against people opposed to the regime and their family members (including children and old people) with impunity.
Meanwhile, theft of public funds is a daily reality in the Garden State, all of which is covered up and regarded as "business as usual." Some crimes committed by "our" people in Trenton are O.K. The crimes of inner city kids -- especially African-Americans, Latinos, or working class whites -- are not O.K. ("New Jersey's Feces-Covered Supreme Court" and "Abuse and Exploitation of Women in New Jersey" and "So Black and So Blue in Prison.")
Let us hope that Mr. Christie will improve things. Thus far, little has changed in New Jersey. "Insensitivity to women's issues" seems more troublesome to Anne Milgram than Democrats stealing under her nose in Trenton. ("Anne Milgram Does it Again!")
The reason why many Democrats secretly supported Mr. Obama during the primaries, while claiming to support Ms. Clinton, is that the much-hated liberal attack machine (which is probably responsible for the smears aimed at Senator Harry Reid, who is not any kind of racist and who deserves a lot of credit for the health care bill despite his fondness for Bob Menendez) is, rightly or wrongly, associated with the Clintons.
Incidentally, I generally support the Clintons and have voted for Hillary. A plague on both your houses, Democrats and Republicans.
What more do you need to know before you take some action, Anne Milgram, Esq.? Mr. Chiesa? Ever heard of cybercrime, Anne? Conspiracies to violate civil rights? Attorney General? Why not comply with the Constitution, Anne Milgram? Do the right thing for once. You'll feel better about your karma, Anne. Therapy? Ms. Letitia James? (Again: "New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System.")
I recall sitting in a New Jersey Superior Court criminal session and noticing that every defendant was an African-American or Latino male. I also remember thinking that several lawyers and judges were much worse criminals than any of those defendants. ("Neil M. Cohen, Esq. and Conduct Unbecoming to the Legislature in New Jersey" and "Is Paul Bergrin, Esq. an Ethical New Jersey Lawyer?" then "Have you no shame, Mr. Rabner?")
It is not simply that many New Jersey Democrats are corrupt and arrogant, ignorant and pompous, but that they presume to "instruct" the rest of us concerning the state of a "real world" that they do not understand at all. How could they? They do not live in the real world. Judges? These are the same people who, much too often, are in control of media and publishing.
Which distinguished New Jersey official or judge is having a difficult time accepting the loss of an argument with me? Stuart? Sybil? Time to "adjust and move on." Philosophically, you didn't know what you were talking about, Anne. If it is any consolation, Anne, Senator Menendez knows even less than you do about ethics or politics, to say nothing of philosophy. "Jennifer Shuessler"? "Michiko Kakutani"? Jim Holt? Manohla Dargis? Who comes up with these names? ("John Finnis and Ethical Cognitivism" and "Why I am not an ethical relativist.")
Yes, America, there is a liberal death-grip on media! New York media reads like the newsletter of a country club where everyone graduated from Yale and supports "progressive causes." Everybody has read the same six or seven books, holds pretty much the same opinions, and shares the same house in Long Island during the summers.
Did you like The Da Vinci Code? There is something about "Bee Keeping" and "Kite Flying" that is very popular with well-dressed imbeciles on the Upper East side who are each issued something called a "yoga mat." Whatever. ("Incoherence in 'The New York Times'" and "Incoherence in 'The New Yorker.'")
One's politics will always be less important than genuflecting to so-called "media elites" which I refuse to do. I debated people concerning philosophical issues and discovered shocking levels of ignorance among graduates of "elite" American universities and members of "learned professions" who see themselves as my intellectual and moral "superiors."
The realization that I was -- I still am -- more intelligent and better educated than most of these alleged assholes, even as an average guy, was grounds for my personal destruction by these politically-connected drinkers of designer water. Perrier? I am sure that these people also approve of America's drone weapons and starvation tactics as "soft power." I refuse to purchase (or wear) "biodegradable underwear." This is not a sign of "insensitivity to women's issues." Must we endure an hour-long program by Rachel Maddow? Melissa Harris-Perry? ("Genius and Lust.")
Care for some "organic" grapes? At Whole Foods in Manhattan a section of the store is reserved for fruits that are especially grown to be eaten exclusively by gay persons. Many of these fruits are said to be of the Buddhist persuasion. Try some Papaya, Anne? ("Oh, to be in India!")
There comes a point in one's life when insults and threats become intolerable, especially coming from people who are hardly in a position to feel "superior" on the basis of their own learning or scholarship, much less on the basis of their self-admired "ethics" -- like Jaynee LaVecchia or Stuart Rabner. ("Jaynee LaVecchia and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey. "Stuart Rabner and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey.")
One day you wake up and know that you won't take the bullshit anymore. ("Sybil R. Moses and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey" and "Jay Romano and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey.")
What really pisses off some people about G.W. (or John McCain and, possibly, Mr. Romney) is that he is not into the trendy P.C. nonsense. Neither am I. Lots of intelligent Americans have just about had it with the cultural language police and bien pensant battalions who have appointed themselves as the guardians of our political virtue. These are the people who have made themselves the guardians of our intellectual lives: If you speak of God, then you are a Christian fundamentalist barbarian; if you compliment a woman on her appearance, then you are a sexist pig. Actually pigs have now organized and insist on being referred to as "swine beings." (Yes, "referred" can be written with one or two "r's," especially "down da shore" in New Jersey.)
Worse, if you dare to speak of right and wrong, good and evil, then you are a primitive, "unscientific" and uneducated person because there is no such thing as right and wrong, since everything is totally relative -- except for this one transcendent truth and all the P.C. stuff, which is objectively correct, and don't you forget it.
Philosophical ignorance of these concepts is an epidemic among the so-called educated "class" in America. The response when one points out the logical incoherence of such views is disdain, condescension, and censorship. ("Nihilists in Disneyworld" and "Whatever!")
This would be a good time for more inserted "errors," Ms. Milgram. More Jersey "Chics?" ("Diana's Friend Goes to Prison!" and "Wedding Bells Ring For Menendez!")
A recent article in the Times concerning the Heidegger controversy is an embarrassing example of philosophical illiteracy which should be unacceptable in America's premier newspaper. Was it written by Anne Milgram? "Patricia Cohen," Anne? Mary Anne Kriko? Has Ms. Kriko, finally, been disbarred? Gilberto Garcia? Nydia Hernandez? Lillian Munoz? Estela De La Cruz? (See my forthcoming essay, "The Heidegger Controversy.")
You will not make yourself more clever -- or obscure your areas of unforgivable ignorance -- by deleting a word from my essay, Anne Milgram. Cybercrime should not be a feature of any New Jersey Attorney General's standard operating procedure. Does the Cubanaza work in your office, Anne? Is it Nydia Hernandez? Estela? Do you find it difficult to get rid of this person because she has a "hook" in Senator Bob? Vice versa, as it were? Manohla? ("Manohla Dargis Strikes Again!")
Manohla (Nydia?), who is often "in the thick of things," is aptly called: "Manhola Dargis." How many people use that name at the Times? Who do these "journalists" belong to, Mr. Menendez? Iliana Ros-Leghtinen? Lizette Alvarez? Lourdes Santiago?
II.
Let me be clear about this: I am sure that there are good and evil, right and wrong. I want a political candidate who can tell the difference between these options and who is concerned to "do the right thing." I am not tempted to vote for a nihilist for high political office. I am sure that most Americans feel the same way. The only way that either Clinton or Obama will be elected to the presidency is by not being identified with the liberal wing of the Democratic party. Ask yourself why that is true. All of this hostility from the far Left makes John Edwards (or John McCain) look better every day. Rand Paul? ("Nihilism Against Memory" and "Nihilists in Disneyworld.")
Pictured above is the controversial cover of the New Yorker magazine featuring a drawing of Senator Obama, which may be blocked by N.J. hackers at any time. My access to my own blogs or MSN account may be obstructed or blocked dozens of times per day for harassment purposes or in order to maximize harmful frustrations. The number of intrusions, illegal spyware, hacks and blocking of images on my computer is a matter for daily speculation. My multiple scans reveal dozens of viruses attacking my system every day. Much of this cyberwarfare is only made possible by government technology and is part of much worse that has been done against me by New Jersey's corrupt politicians.
You are witnessing content-based, governmental censorship and violations of civil rights in America that are taking place PUBLICLY. ("Does Senator Menendez Have Mafia Friends?" and "Another Mafia Sweep in New Jersey and Anne Milgram is Clueless" and "Have you no shame, Mr. Rabner?")
I am "for" full equality. I never offend against political correctness unless I know that it will bother one of my self-styled social "superiors" for me to do so. Payback. (Diana Lisa Riccioli, this bud's for you.)
America wants the chi-chi political fashionistas to know: "We will make up our own minds about the issues and candidates, what we wear or eat, cultural options and loving relations as well as Doctor Phil-like 'relationship-issues,' including -- for those born with this bizarre sexual-orientation -- heterosexual relationships and their discontents."
Don't tell us with whom we can have sex or what persons we may love. Mind your own business if you are a politician or judge.
Who wrote the political advertisement for Senator Clinton that said: "We are America's women"? What gives you the right to speak for ALL of America's women, excluding supporters of other candidates who happen to be females as "lesser" or non-women? Is part of the definition of a woman in America a person who is a "liberal and pro-choice" and supports Ms. Clinton's political ambitions? Must a woman stare at MSNBC all day? I ask this question as a pro-choice Leftist, also as a pluralist and democrat (with a small "d"), not as someone who presumes to speak for women.
I happen to have voted for Ms. Clinton in several elections. I will probably do so again, someday, I hope, assuming that, outside of New York, men and non-lesbians are permitted to support Ms. Clinton. ("A Commencement Address by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.")
The problem is your arrogance and presumption, "female persons" (Ms. Wolf? Ms. Faludi? Ms. Klein?), in speaking for so-called "lesser" others, or presuming to govern the lives of others who are not interested in what you have to say, much less in being told by someone who attended Yale University and now has earned a driver's license, what we are permitted to think or say as male individuals of a certain age.
Is Christina Hoff-Sommers still a woman even if she rejects some items on the so-called "feminist agenda" and supports John McCain? I think so. I understand that women's political views may differ. I cannot understand a woman who facilitates rape, abuse, and theft of other women's dignity. Ms. Riccioli, are you sensitive to women's issues? ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture" and "Neil M. Cohen, Esq. and Conduct Unbecoming to the Legislature in New Jersey" as well as "We don't know from nothing!" and "Diana's Friend Goes to Prison!")
How can you be an apologist for the state of New Jersey's notorious criminality that victimizes so many women, children, and others and call yourself any kind of feminist? ("New Jersey Superior Court Judge is a Child Molester" and "Judges Protect Child Molesters in Bayonne, New Jersey.")
I can't imagine how anyone can take a good look at New Jersey and avoid puking. "Ethics?" You are judging my ethics? 1988-today? You will first need to get some ethics yourselves in New Jersey before you will be in a position to comment on my character or morals. Maybe you should borrow some ethics from New York, or other states. ("New Jersey's Judges Disgrace America" and "New Jersey's Failed Judiciary.")
This would probably be a good time to delete a letter from one of my words. Thank God, they finally replaced Codey and Roberts in their positions, not to mention Corzine. Americans need Christopher Christie to be sworn-in soon as governor of the Garden State in order to rescue the endangered Constitution. Let's hope the good stuff is happening, finally, in Trenton. Lock 'em up, Mr. Christie -- after your stomach surgery, that is. Assuming that Christie manages to avoid prison himself the alternatives to his administration in New Jersey may be even worse than Mr. Christie. ("Christie Attacks New Jersey's Corrupt Judges!")
On the other side of this cultural divide are those good folks residing somewhere near the buckle of the Bible belt, who insist that New York is home only to homosexuals and sexual perverts, women of easy virtue and atheism. These were certainly the things that I was looking for when I moved here. To these good folks ("rock-solid-God-fearing-tax-paying" Americans), these sinful qualities of Manhattanites explain many of our troubles with terrorism and disease.
God is displeased with our sinfulness. We must repent before it is too late!
I would be happy to cooperate, after I have met some of those women of easy virtue. Sadly, there are none in my building. I am only interested in women my age, incidentally. I have only been involved with women exactly my age during my entire lifetime and very few of those, unfortunately -- or maybe fortunately.
The "Femi-Nazi" insistence on forcing everyone into stereotypical categories, whether they -- or we -- fit into those categories is irrelevant and offensive. ("Is he joking?")
This sort of "fire and brimstone" reasoning has an ancient pedigree, as Gore Vidal points out. For example, under the Code of Justinian, homosexuality was outlawed throughout the empire since it was generally recognized that gay sex causes earthquakes. Apparently, in the ancient world when people spoke of the earth moving, they weren't kidding. My guess is that when told this, our gay or straight friends today may respond that good sex still causes earthquakes, if you're very lucky. This is especially true in parts of Long Island, I am told.
These two sides of America are not going to "come together" (no pun intended!) any time soon. Most people are in the middle, as it were, since dad is a "gun-toting" Republican, and his much-loved daughter, Katherine -- who goes to Barnard and reads Sylvia Plath ("who is, like, the greatest writer ever!") -- is a liberal. Katherine and her friends insist on a spiritual politics without violence, except against Republicans like her dad, of course.
Again: I am a socialist and an independent. As a friend in Union City used to say, "I don't owe nobody nothing."
There is simply not enough room for compromise between such polarized positions. All of this makes for fun weekend get-togethers with the family, except that the United States can now count on the hatred of much of the rest of the world -- thanks to our adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan -- but, equally, because of such things as American cultural "hegemony" (we make movies that everybody wants to see) and our economic imperialism (everybody likes our fast food, music and fashions, it's our cars they can live without).
We are "greedy and insensitive" according to nations hoping to be even greedier and more insensitive than we are in the twenty-first century. We are "evil" say the millions who hope to get a visa so they can visit New York or L.A., several hundred thousand of whom have written a script that they hope someone in Hollywood will read. ("It is perfect for Sylvester Stalone ...")
A woman approached me one night when I was lucky enough to be smoking a good cigar, aiming a piercing glance in my direction and noticing that my attention was drawn to the posterior of a young woman walking directly ahead of me, she said: "Don't look at that woman's ass!"
I ask you -- the civilized reader of these words -- whether one may reasonably be expected not to look at an attractive (adult!) woman's ass?
I suggest that whether I look at and/or admire, aesthetically, any woman's ass is my business.
The cleavage issue is not a suitable or relevant matter in political debates. However, I guarantee you that men will notice cleavage "issues" and "asses." (Notice the quotation marks.)
Women know this about men, making fashion choices that are deliberately based on this forbidden knowledge. No one will live P.C. bullshit in their daily lives beyond the necessity to be polite for expedient reasons. Yes, you are welcome to call me an "ass" for pointing out the obvious. ("On Bullshit.")
We must find a way to oppose real terrorism without becoming terrorists or living in dictatorship.
Paradoxically, there are also some in the most affluent societies who believe, with equal irrationality, that because science yields accurate knowledge of the workings of empirical reality, it can somehow resolve moral or political controversies, or "explain" such cultural mysteries as romantic love in evolutionary terms (it can't); or tell us what is the meaning of life, or even define the role of science in society (it can't).
These questions of meaning and values must be decided dialogically, not through some experiment or imposed solution. You certainly will not condition me into accepting slavery.
Values questions are not scientifically resolvable or they would not remain "open" questions. We will not find our moral meanings "out there," in nature, existing independently of us in the empirical world; values will not be seen under a microscope; rather, moral truth and beauty may be achieved only by us, through reasoning and dialectics, neither of which are ever entirely dispassionate. (Kant, Hegel, Blanshard. )
This does not make such things unreal or unobjective, much less pointless or untrue. By the same token, no matter how much we learn about the brain, we will not discover the mind "in" the brain, even after we figure out how it is that consciousness arises from cerebral processes, if we ever do.
Vandalism and censorship do not help you to prevail in an argument nor can such tactics prove that you are right about something. When you resort to such tactics, you are admitting defeat on a substantive issue, then seeking to compensate for this inability to respond, effectively, to an adversary by silencing or hurting him. This was traditionally the reaction to WOMEN'S creative and intellectual efforts -- suppression, censorship, trivializing. I will continue to write, focusing on more New Jersey judges and municipalities, seeking the truth in my life. ("New Jersey's Feces-Covered Supreme Court" and "New Jersey's Political and Supreme Court Whores.")
An "error" was inserted by New Jersey's hackers in this essay to start the new year. I will focus on former Chief Justice Poritz's "allegedly" corrupt lesbian relationship. Was Ms. Poritz given sexual introductions to young women by Diana Lisa Riccioli in exchange for "favors"? What contacts (if any) did Ms. Poritz have with Marilyn Straus when Diana Lisa Riccioli was simultaneously involved with Ms. Straus and/or "other women, including Ms. Poritz? ("Deborah T. Poritz and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey.")
I wonder why the number of visitors to my blogs has not changed despite thousands of "hits" that have come to my attention? Coincidence? "Approximate?" The number of hits at this blog are not counted in increments of one hundred. Mysteriously, the number listed at my profile has suddenly changed in weird ways. How curious? I wonder whether MSN groups is still "closed" and why my book is suppressed? ("How censorship works in America.")
The mind is an abstract concept, whereas the brain is an organ in the physical body of an individual. You need a brain to develop a mind. However, a brain will not be sufficient without language and social setting. Mental development will be warped or stunted and deformed in any person growing up alone in a deserted island.
We are social animals, whose mental health -- even flourishing "minds" -- depend on the presence of others, especially others who are loved by us and who love us in return. Hence, the irreversible injury that is done to a victim whose closest relationships and professional identity are shattered, together with damage to self-esteem, as part of an involuntary "program of testing, secretly, our latest psychological warfare techniques." ("An Open Letter to My Torturers in New Jersey, Terry Tuchin and Diana Lisa Riccioli.")
The very sight of persons cooperating with such efforts directed against a "targeted" professional makes me physically sick. When those who cooperate claim to be friends or relatives, the disgust and anger I feel is much greater. If there is anyone more loathsome than the individual willing to spy upon and inform against family members for a small fee, I cannot imagine who it might be. Ridgewood, New Jersey? Do you really believe that forced association will be helpful, Terry? Think again. ("Jennifer Velez is a Dyke Magnet!")
We live as subjects, also in objective categories that are only meaningful socially -- like the categories of "male, American, father, middle-aged," etc. I need other people. So do you. This is not some shameful weakness. Despite the truly moronic opinions of Dr. Phil, Barbara Streisand had it right: "People who need people are the luckiest people in the world." No wonder Barbara's picture is found in many bodegas in Manhattan. Poisoning or destroying those needed relationships is evil. ("God is Texting Me!")
We are in this situation together folks, as Americans or just as human beings. We need one another. If we are at one another's throats then none of us will make it. The United States, with all of its faults, is a great and good nation -- with the exception of the corrupt power-structure in New Jersey -- and it occasionally needs to be defended from the enemies of freedom in the world. This is not to deny our right to criticize any U.S. government for its policy failures or crimes. ("NSA Spying is Illegal.")
Iraq is a colossal catastrophe for America, not just one party. No one should be thrilled about a catastrophe afflicting all of us in America, for decades, even if it gets your guys and gals elected to office. The nightmare has spread to Afghanistan and Pakistan, India may go up in flames. Syria? Some Americans believe that a confrontation with China, Korea, or Cuba would add spice to our lives. I am "for" peace and an end to these costly and increasingly pointless military adventures that are destroying America's economy.
"Victory is within reach" will always be said by politicians, even as helicopters remove the last Americans from a burning city and enemy troops swarm the airport. You already know this about freedom in the U.S. You prove it by protesting against the government that guarantees your right to do just that. Yes, there are terrorists in the world. The very people who would instantly wipe out all of those who are "different" -- gays and racial minorities, religious and cultural eccentrics. Those who are different and who do not fare well in lots of other places in the world seem to like it here just fine.
Mr. Obama, sending more troops to Afghanistan and Iraq may be likened to jumping into quicksand to join a drowing person. Why not extend a tree branch and "pull out" the victim? I am old enough to remember daily assurances that more troops would bring victory in Vietnam. 50,000 American deaths later, there was no victory in Vietnam. How many deaths will convince us in Afghanistan? Iraq? Pakistan? America's "secret war" in Pakistan is no secret. Anybody remember Cambodia? Yemen? Syria?
Part of what is at the core of the United States is tolerance of diversity, a desire to make the world safe for "weirdos" (like me, you say!), that is, for persons who wish to think differently, originally and creatively ... or just to think at all. Censorship, destruction of written work, secret proceedings, experimenting on people and then lying or stone-walling about it are all criminal actions, so is stealing a good watch -- even when New Jersey Democrats do it. Terry? Diana? Debbie Poritz? When do I get those reports, Anne? ("No More Cover-Ups and Lies, Chief Justice Rabner!" then "Mafia Influence in New Jersey Courts and Politics.")
The deepest truth at the heart of the American experiment is a confidence in human goodness and in the hope for a better world. The American Constitution was a fragile paper boat cast adrift on the stormy seas of history -- a paper boat which is still sailing along very nicely even as the great steel battleships of Fascism and Communist totalitarianism (Stalin) have (deservedly!) sunk to the bottom of the sea.
Do not underestimate this fragile hope for humanity or the power of love. ("Manifesto For the Unfinished American Constitution.")
We have to learn to live between subjective and objective, particular and universal -- because we are both -- which is another way of saying that we live in languages, not only verbal languages. Maybe a way for me to explain what it "feels" like to be reduced to a category of vilification, again, is to give others a taste of the experience. It seems to be working.
See the essays in the General section at my MSN group, Critique -- if it still exists -- and my forthcoming essay concerning Judge Tolentino (possibly the most stupid person I ever encountered in the legal profession) that will serve as my response to these continuing censorship efforts. Many N.J. lawyers shared this view concerning Judge Tolentino. I will be delighted to name them, publicly. Did you join the "lesbian love-fest," Luisa? Is it "Luisa Gutierrez, Esq."? Why were you, Luisa, involved in trying to harm me behind my back? Gilberto Garcia? Mary Anne Kriko? Do you enjoy being called a "skinny-person-dressed-in-black-kiwi-munching-fashionista," Ms. De La Cruz? I know that I would. (What exactly did you say about me behind my back, Estela? And what name did you give to Marilyn Straus when you raped her, Estela de La Cruz?)
Do not suppress or destroy speech by anyone, especially not the expressions of persons who are compelled to speak out, to write and publish their ideas. Don't destroy people's creative work appearing on the Internet. Feel free to respond to it -- if you don't agree or dislike it -- be open to their responses. There is much that we should agree on, as Americans, like our right to disagree. Let us build on that foundational agreement and cooperate. We need each other, as I say, now more than ever. The problems that we face are very great.
Being subjected to behind-the-back slanders for years has caused me to seek public confrontations with my enemies and discussion of their insults as well as being very explicit in my responses in kind.
Do not oppose everything that a U.S. president proposes merely because the idea comes from the White House. Examine suggestions and proposals on the merits. Think of ways in which someone different from you is like you. That person is your fellow citizen, brother or sister, and he or she will share many of your flaws and experiences in life, including the ultimate and unavoidable ones: love and death. Think of how that person sees you. I will do my best to make it clear to New Jersey officials how I see them. ("New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System.")
Any more inserted "errors" today? "Ladies"? No.
What would you wish to explain to those who have never spoken to you, but who have made up their minds about you on the basis of your nationality, ethnicity, religion, economic category or music and fashion choices, based on what they're told by others, especially when you're not around to respond?
I was told, I believe, by a New Jersey lawyer and official: "Latinos are not smart enough to be philosophers."
I have enjoyed a twenty-nine year version of this experience of insults and denigration. Take another look at the photos accompanying this essay -- that is, if any have not been been blocked! -- then ask yourself whether being reduced to a stereotype will help a person understand how I feel, every day.
December 19, 2009 at 6:25 P.M. Several essays were vandalized, "errors" have been inserted and corrected.
November 10, 2009 at 3:34 P.M. "Errors" inserted and corrected. "Lesbian love-fest," Anne? ("Trenton's Nasty Lesbian Love Fest!" and "Jennifer Velez is a 'Dyke Magnet!'")
August 15, 2009 at 11:10 A.M. The usual harassment and cyberwarfare this week. This essay is controversial with the Femi-Nazi thought police. This is sufficient reason to post it again. Censorship from the Left or Right is equally offensive to me. Not only will publishing opportunities be denied to me -- and people like me -- but an effort will be made to suppress and censor my "controversial" writings. For my defense of feminist views, see "David Stove and the Intellectual Capacity of Women." For a sample of my experiences, see "What is it like to be plagiarized?" ("Barack Obama and 'The New Yorker.'")
June 4, 2008 at 12:29 P.M. I experienced interference with my cable signal as I tried to post this essay. My security system is under attack and cannot be updated. New "errors" inserted, presumably by Femi-Nazis, on November 1, 2008 at 12:16 P.M. ("What is it like to be tortured?")
Hackers have inserted new "errors" in this essay. July 27, 2007 at 9:44 A.M. I am blocking:
http://ad.N2434.doubleclick.net/ad/N2434.msn/B2 (NJ)
http://view.atdmt.com/von/iview/msnnkvos01200 (NJ)
How serious are we about our commitment to the First Amendment and freedom of speech? How much of our professed defense of free expression is a lie? "Doubleclick?"
More censorship and "errors" previously corrected, reinserted in the text. I think this is about exhausting me. I do not believe that it will be effective and it does give me the opportunity to reemphasize my arguments. I think my questions concerning the Constitution have now been answered.
November 22, 2008 at 10:59 A.M. More "errors" inserted and corrected.
January 11, 2009 at 3:51 P.M. Same old, same old. This revised essay was first posted in November, 2008.
I.
One of the strangest aspects of contemporary American politics is the intensity of the divisions in society. I believe that these divisions are primarily cultural and not political. They express themselves in political and legal warfare, as always, in America. The tone of political discussions and intellectual content has declined steadily over the past two decades. The nation is still about evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats.
We are witnessing one of the meanest eras in the politics of personal destruction -- which began with the Clinton impeachment effort and is approaching dangerous levels again -- at the dawn of a new presidential election season. I applaud Senator (now President) Obama's efforts to distance himself from the political attack machines used by both parties. ("President Obama and 'The New Yorker.'")
We feel powerless about the raging controversies and experiences of unfairness as well as oppression in some extreme cases within the American political and legal system. The analogy to rape is useful. The individual often experiences him- or herself as powerless against sinister forces in American society concerned to distract and cover-up the reality of power wielded against people, power used to exploit and abuse them, to steal from them, even to destroy them in pointless military struggles. "Them" means "us." ("Invicta Watch Company" and "The Invicta Watch Compnay Caper.")
We know we are being screwed. We know that it is illegal, unconstitutional, evil that so much of our tax money is stolen before our eyes. However, there is not very much that we can do about it -- our politicians are often sold out, coopted, complicit in the horror. We return to the Constitution for inspiration and struggle. We fight. We persevere. We must never give up. Sadly, it is the weakest of us who are made into instruments of oppression, utilized to provide ass cover for politicians. ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture" and "What is it like to be censored in America?")
I read in The New York Times an account of a political speech focusing on Senator Clinton's "cleavage." Earlier I read an account of Mrs. Thompson's "cleavage." I think those descriptions are inappropriate and offensive. They are one indication of what I have been dealing with -- anything you read in these blogs is mild compared to what has been said about me and others that I care about -- from the sort of people found at the bottom of America's political barrel which is New Jersey.
Constitutional and copyright protection means nothing to some N.J. legal officials. I'd like to provide such persons with a little taste of their own medicine.
When politics plunges to such levels, there is a danger that democratic processes will be contaminated permanently. Alternatively, there are some persons who cannot understand the language of civilized discourse even as they expect to be addressed in polite terms by others. When courts and political institutions fail to enforce order and law, there will be a messy struggle in the public square. It is time for authority to exert itself, ensuring the enforcement of Constitutional and human rights, even in the Garden State.
I still cannot run a necessary security scan of my computer. My computer was eventually destroyed by hackers. ("How censorship works in America.")
President George W. Bush is a polarizing figure, mysteriously, even more than Reagan and Clinton were in their day. People HATE -- even loathe and despise -- good old, mild-mannered George W. Bush, much to his chagrin. And those on the Right -- including many who are less than crazy about G.W. because he is not conservative enough -- abominate the sort of people who attack G.W., even more than they dislike him.
I think each faction has a point. Regrettably, many innocent victims are caught in the crossfire. Among those victims is the U.S. Constitution. Collateral damage? ("Manifesto For the Unfinished American Constitution.")
Allow me to make it very clear to anyone who does not understand this: I do not care what you think of me. I probably think less of you and with good reason for my hatred and disgust after daily harassments and plagiarisms of my writings. (Again: "Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture.")
I wish to examine these hostile feelings in U.S. politics (and they are mostly feelings, over and above carefully thought out positions on issues), very briefly, suggesting where common ground may and should be found. What G.W.'s enemies have yet to figure out is that the best thing that President Bush has going for him is his opposition. The same is true for Christopher Christie in New Jersey. ("Censorship and Cruelty in New Jersey.")
Why do I say that? Well, for one thing the source of those comments concerning "cleavage" is not, in my opinion, Republicans, but an extreme sector of the liberal wing of the Democratic party. The condescension and insulting patronizing to which minority intellectuals -- male or female -- are subjected in this society is beyond description. Such treatment must be experienced to be fully understood.
We are often silenced and marginalized. The same may be said for "disconnection" from reality on the part of people hurting you, denying you basic rights, while asking for your understanding and cooperation with their so-called "improvement" efforts. To commit crimes against me is to abandon any right to judge my ethics. Ethics? ("What is it like to be tortured?" then "New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System" and "The Office of Attorney Ethics in New Jersey" as well as "New Jersey is the Home of the Living Dead.")
Low-life scum buckets in New Jersey are hardly in a position to judge anybody's ethics. OAE? ("Have you no shame, Mr. Rabner?" and "Law and Ethics in the Soprano State.")
I live in Manhattan. I am a democratic socialist, agnostic, graduate degree, Latino -- and just about everything else that a Democrat is usually thought to be. However, the organized crime group governing New Jersey, ruthlessly and with unbelievable greed as well as stupidity -- while calling themselves Democrats -- together with the skinny-dressed-in-black, "we-know-better-than-you" fashionista-kiwi-munchers (of all ethnicities and sexual persuasions) have made the word "Democrat" affect me the way garlic affects Dracula. Many America feels the same way.
The trouble with stereotypes and cartoon-like reductions of others to sleazy jokes is that the tactic may be turned against its proponents. ("What a man's gotta do.")
I have been insulted and dismissed, denied opportunities to make use of free speech rights and to publish my work by liberal morons. I experience daily cyberviolations of my rights intended to produce violence through frustrations and continuing psychological harm. ("More Censorship and Cybercrime" and, again, "Censorship and Cruelty in New Jersey" then "How censorship works in America.")
People diagnosing the disease at the heart of Senator Clinton's 2008 campaign -- a campaign which I favored in many ways, as I also eventually supported Mr. Obama's efforts -- should look at this issue with care. It will not go away. For instance, New Jersey's caudillo controls judges and law enforcement. Hence, crimes may be committed against people opposed to the regime and their family members (including children and old people) with impunity.
Meanwhile, theft of public funds is a daily reality in the Garden State, all of which is covered up and regarded as "business as usual." Some crimes committed by "our" people in Trenton are O.K. The crimes of inner city kids -- especially African-Americans, Latinos, or working class whites -- are not O.K. ("New Jersey's Feces-Covered Supreme Court" and "Abuse and Exploitation of Women in New Jersey" and "So Black and So Blue in Prison.")
Let us hope that Mr. Christie will improve things. Thus far, little has changed in New Jersey. "Insensitivity to women's issues" seems more troublesome to Anne Milgram than Democrats stealing under her nose in Trenton. ("Anne Milgram Does it Again!")
The reason why many Democrats secretly supported Mr. Obama during the primaries, while claiming to support Ms. Clinton, is that the much-hated liberal attack machine (which is probably responsible for the smears aimed at Senator Harry Reid, who is not any kind of racist and who deserves a lot of credit for the health care bill despite his fondness for Bob Menendez) is, rightly or wrongly, associated with the Clintons.
Whether this attack machine was developed after the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal when the Republican storm troopers went after the Clintons -- developed for defensive reasons, that is -- does not obviate the reality of shared blame for this viciousness in contemporary politics.
Incidentally, I generally support the Clintons and have voted for Hillary. A plague on both your houses, Democrats and Republicans.
What more do you need to know before you take some action, Anne Milgram, Esq.? Mr. Chiesa? Ever heard of cybercrime, Anne? Conspiracies to violate civil rights? Attorney General? Why not comply with the Constitution, Anne Milgram? Do the right thing for once. You'll feel better about your karma, Anne. Therapy? Ms. Letitia James? (Again: "New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System.")
I recall sitting in a New Jersey Superior Court criminal session and noticing that every defendant was an African-American or Latino male. I also remember thinking that several lawyers and judges were much worse criminals than any of those defendants. ("Neil M. Cohen, Esq. and Conduct Unbecoming to the Legislature in New Jersey" and "Is Paul Bergrin, Esq. an Ethical New Jersey Lawyer?" then "Have you no shame, Mr. Rabner?")
It is not simply that many New Jersey Democrats are corrupt and arrogant, ignorant and pompous, but that they presume to "instruct" the rest of us concerning the state of a "real world" that they do not understand at all. How could they? They do not live in the real world. Judges? These are the same people who, much too often, are in control of media and publishing.
Which distinguished New Jersey official or judge is having a difficult time accepting the loss of an argument with me? Stuart? Sybil? Time to "adjust and move on." Philosophically, you didn't know what you were talking about, Anne. If it is any consolation, Anne, Senator Menendez knows even less than you do about ethics or politics, to say nothing of philosophy. "Jennifer Shuessler"? "Michiko Kakutani"? Jim Holt? Manohla Dargis? Who comes up with these names? ("John Finnis and Ethical Cognitivism" and "Why I am not an ethical relativist.")
Yes, America, there is a liberal death-grip on media! New York media reads like the newsletter of a country club where everyone graduated from Yale and supports "progressive causes." Everybody has read the same six or seven books, holds pretty much the same opinions, and shares the same house in Long Island during the summers.
Did you like The Da Vinci Code? There is something about "Bee Keeping" and "Kite Flying" that is very popular with well-dressed imbeciles on the Upper East side who are each issued something called a "yoga mat." Whatever. ("Incoherence in 'The New York Times'" and "Incoherence in 'The New Yorker.'")
One's politics will always be less important than genuflecting to so-called "media elites" which I refuse to do. I debated people concerning philosophical issues and discovered shocking levels of ignorance among graduates of "elite" American universities and members of "learned professions" who see themselves as my intellectual and moral "superiors."
The realization that I was -- I still am -- more intelligent and better educated than most of these alleged assholes, even as an average guy, was grounds for my personal destruction by these politically-connected drinkers of designer water. Perrier? I am sure that these people also approve of America's drone weapons and starvation tactics as "soft power." I refuse to purchase (or wear) "biodegradable underwear." This is not a sign of "insensitivity to women's issues." Must we endure an hour-long program by Rachel Maddow? Melissa Harris-Perry? ("Genius and Lust.")
Care for some "organic" grapes? At Whole Foods in Manhattan a section of the store is reserved for fruits that are especially grown to be eaten exclusively by gay persons. Many of these fruits are said to be of the Buddhist persuasion. Try some Papaya, Anne? ("Oh, to be in India!")
There comes a point in one's life when insults and threats become intolerable, especially coming from people who are hardly in a position to feel "superior" on the basis of their own learning or scholarship, much less on the basis of their self-admired "ethics" -- like Jaynee LaVecchia or Stuart Rabner. ("Jaynee LaVecchia and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey. "Stuart Rabner and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey.")
One day you wake up and know that you won't take the bullshit anymore. ("Sybil R. Moses and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey" and "Jay Romano and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey.")
Jay writes for The New York Times, ostensibly in the English language, while acting as a Municipal Court Judge in North Bergen, New Jersey. I have no idea what Jay Romano or Kelly Anne Michaels may be up to these days. ("What is it like to be plagiarized?" and "'Brideshead Revisited': A Movie Review.")
What really pisses off some people about G.W. (or John McCain and, possibly, Mr. Romney) is that he is not into the trendy P.C. nonsense. Neither am I. Lots of intelligent Americans have just about had it with the cultural language police and bien pensant battalions who have appointed themselves as the guardians of our political virtue. These are the people who have made themselves the guardians of our intellectual lives: If you speak of God, then you are a Christian fundamentalist barbarian; if you compliment a woman on her appearance, then you are a sexist pig. Actually pigs have now organized and insist on being referred to as "swine beings." (Yes, "referred" can be written with one or two "r's," especially "down da shore" in New Jersey.)
Worse, if you dare to speak of right and wrong, good and evil, then you are a primitive, "unscientific" and uneducated person because there is no such thing as right and wrong, since everything is totally relative -- except for this one transcendent truth and all the P.C. stuff, which is objectively correct, and don't you forget it.
Philosophical ignorance of these concepts is an epidemic among the so-called educated "class" in America. The response when one points out the logical incoherence of such views is disdain, condescension, and censorship. ("Nihilists in Disneyworld" and "Whatever!")
This would be a good time for more inserted "errors," Ms. Milgram. More Jersey "Chics?" ("Diana's Friend Goes to Prison!" and "Wedding Bells Ring For Menendez!")
A recent article in the Times concerning the Heidegger controversy is an embarrassing example of philosophical illiteracy which should be unacceptable in America's premier newspaper. Was it written by Anne Milgram? "Patricia Cohen," Anne? Mary Anne Kriko? Has Ms. Kriko, finally, been disbarred? Gilberto Garcia? Nydia Hernandez? Lillian Munoz? Estela De La Cruz? (See my forthcoming essay, "The Heidegger Controversy.")
You will not make yourself more clever -- or obscure your areas of unforgivable ignorance -- by deleting a word from my essay, Anne Milgram. Cybercrime should not be a feature of any New Jersey Attorney General's standard operating procedure. Does the Cubanaza work in your office, Anne? Is it Nydia Hernandez? Estela? Do you find it difficult to get rid of this person because she has a "hook" in Senator Bob? Vice versa, as it were? Manohla? ("Manohla Dargis Strikes Again!")
Manohla (Nydia?), who is often "in the thick of things," is aptly called: "Manhola Dargis." How many people use that name at the Times? Who do these "journalists" belong to, Mr. Menendez? Iliana Ros-Leghtinen? Lizette Alvarez? Lourdes Santiago?
II.
Let me be clear about this: I am sure that there are good and evil, right and wrong. I want a political candidate who can tell the difference between these options and who is concerned to "do the right thing." I am not tempted to vote for a nihilist for high political office. I am sure that most Americans feel the same way. The only way that either Clinton or Obama will be elected to the presidency is by not being identified with the liberal wing of the Democratic party. Ask yourself why that is true. All of this hostility from the far Left makes John Edwards (or John McCain) look better every day. Rand Paul? ("Nihilism Against Memory" and "Nihilists in Disneyworld.")
Pictured above is the controversial cover of the New Yorker magazine featuring a drawing of Senator Obama, which may be blocked by N.J. hackers at any time. My access to my own blogs or MSN account may be obstructed or blocked dozens of times per day for harassment purposes or in order to maximize harmful frustrations. The number of intrusions, illegal spyware, hacks and blocking of images on my computer is a matter for daily speculation. My multiple scans reveal dozens of viruses attacking my system every day. Much of this cyberwarfare is only made possible by government technology and is part of much worse that has been done against me by New Jersey's corrupt politicians.
You are witnessing content-based, governmental censorship and violations of civil rights in America that are taking place PUBLICLY. ("Does Senator Menendez Have Mafia Friends?" and "Another Mafia Sweep in New Jersey and Anne Milgram is Clueless" and "Have you no shame, Mr. Rabner?")
I am "for" full equality. I never offend against political correctness unless I know that it will bother one of my self-styled social "superiors" for me to do so. Payback. (Diana Lisa Riccioli, this bud's for you.)
America wants the chi-chi political fashionistas to know: "We will make up our own minds about the issues and candidates, what we wear or eat, cultural options and loving relations as well as Doctor Phil-like 'relationship-issues,' including -- for those born with this bizarre sexual-orientation -- heterosexual relationships and their discontents."
Don't tell us with whom we can have sex or what persons we may love. Mind your own business if you are a politician or judge.
Who wrote the political advertisement for Senator Clinton that said: "We are America's women"? What gives you the right to speak for ALL of America's women, excluding supporters of other candidates who happen to be females as "lesser" or non-women? Is part of the definition of a woman in America a person who is a "liberal and pro-choice" and supports Ms. Clinton's political ambitions? Must a woman stare at MSNBC all day? I ask this question as a pro-choice Leftist, also as a pluralist and democrat (with a small "d"), not as someone who presumes to speak for women.
I happen to have voted for Ms. Clinton in several elections. I will probably do so again, someday, I hope, assuming that, outside of New York, men and non-lesbians are permitted to support Ms. Clinton. ("A Commencement Address by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.")
The problem is your arrogance and presumption, "female persons" (Ms. Wolf? Ms. Faludi? Ms. Klein?), in speaking for so-called "lesser" others, or presuming to govern the lives of others who are not interested in what you have to say, much less in being told by someone who attended Yale University and now has earned a driver's license, what we are permitted to think or say as male individuals of a certain age.
Is Christina Hoff-Sommers still a woman even if she rejects some items on the so-called "feminist agenda" and supports John McCain? I think so. I understand that women's political views may differ. I cannot understand a woman who facilitates rape, abuse, and theft of other women's dignity. Ms. Riccioli, are you sensitive to women's issues? ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture" and "Neil M. Cohen, Esq. and Conduct Unbecoming to the Legislature in New Jersey" as well as "We don't know from nothing!" and "Diana's Friend Goes to Prison!")
How can you be an apologist for the state of New Jersey's notorious criminality that victimizes so many women, children, and others and call yourself any kind of feminist? ("New Jersey Superior Court Judge is a Child Molester" and "Judges Protect Child Molesters in Bayonne, New Jersey.")
I can't imagine how anyone can take a good look at New Jersey and avoid puking. "Ethics?" You are judging my ethics? 1988-today? You will first need to get some ethics yourselves in New Jersey before you will be in a position to comment on my character or morals. Maybe you should borrow some ethics from New York, or other states. ("New Jersey's Judges Disgrace America" and "New Jersey's Failed Judiciary.")
This would probably be a good time to delete a letter from one of my words. Thank God, they finally replaced Codey and Roberts in their positions, not to mention Corzine. Americans need Christopher Christie to be sworn-in soon as governor of the Garden State in order to rescue the endangered Constitution. Let's hope the good stuff is happening, finally, in Trenton. Lock 'em up, Mr. Christie -- after your stomach surgery, that is. Assuming that Christie manages to avoid prison himself the alternatives to his administration in New Jersey may be even worse than Mr. Christie. ("Christie Attacks New Jersey's Corrupt Judges!")
On the other side of this cultural divide are those good folks residing somewhere near the buckle of the Bible belt, who insist that New York is home only to homosexuals and sexual perverts, women of easy virtue and atheism. These were certainly the things that I was looking for when I moved here. To these good folks ("rock-solid-God-fearing-tax-paying" Americans), these sinful qualities of Manhattanites explain many of our troubles with terrorism and disease.
God is displeased with our sinfulness. We must repent before it is too late!
I would be happy to cooperate, after I have met some of those women of easy virtue. Sadly, there are none in my building. I am only interested in women my age, incidentally. I have only been involved with women exactly my age during my entire lifetime and very few of those, unfortunately -- or maybe fortunately.
The "Femi-Nazi" insistence on forcing everyone into stereotypical categories, whether they -- or we -- fit into those categories is irrelevant and offensive. ("Is he joking?")
This sort of "fire and brimstone" reasoning has an ancient pedigree, as Gore Vidal points out. For example, under the Code of Justinian, homosexuality was outlawed throughout the empire since it was generally recognized that gay sex causes earthquakes. Apparently, in the ancient world when people spoke of the earth moving, they weren't kidding. My guess is that when told this, our gay or straight friends today may respond that good sex still causes earthquakes, if you're very lucky. This is especially true in parts of Long Island, I am told.
These two sides of America are not going to "come together" (no pun intended!) any time soon. Most people are in the middle, as it were, since dad is a "gun-toting" Republican, and his much-loved daughter, Katherine -- who goes to Barnard and reads Sylvia Plath ("who is, like, the greatest writer ever!") -- is a liberal. Katherine and her friends insist on a spiritual politics without violence, except against Republicans like her dad, of course.
Again: I am a socialist and an independent. As a friend in Union City used to say, "I don't owe nobody nothing."
There is simply not enough room for compromise between such polarized positions. All of this makes for fun weekend get-togethers with the family, except that the United States can now count on the hatred of much of the rest of the world -- thanks to our adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan -- but, equally, because of such things as American cultural "hegemony" (we make movies that everybody wants to see) and our economic imperialism (everybody likes our fast food, music and fashions, it's our cars they can live without).
We are "greedy and insensitive" according to nations hoping to be even greedier and more insensitive than we are in the twenty-first century. We are "evil" say the millions who hope to get a visa so they can visit New York or L.A., several hundred thousand of whom have written a script that they hope someone in Hollywood will read. ("It is perfect for Sylvester Stalone ...")
A woman approached me one night when I was lucky enough to be smoking a good cigar, aiming a piercing glance in my direction and noticing that my attention was drawn to the posterior of a young woman walking directly ahead of me, she said: "Don't look at that woman's ass!"
I ask you -- the civilized reader of these words -- whether one may reasonably be expected not to look at an attractive (adult!) woman's ass?
I suggest that whether I look at and/or admire, aesthetically, any woman's ass is my business.
The cleavage issue is not a suitable or relevant matter in political debates. However, I guarantee you that men will notice cleavage "issues" and "asses." (Notice the quotation marks.)
Women know this about men, making fashion choices that are deliberately based on this forbidden knowledge. No one will live P.C. bullshit in their daily lives beyond the necessity to be polite for expedient reasons. Yes, you are welcome to call me an "ass" for pointing out the obvious. ("On Bullshit.")
In a free society, we should not censor or seek to alter the conduct of others by force. We argue and try to persuade one another concerning these matters. P.C. rules produce not a "kinder and gentler" society only a more hypocritical one. I urge you to read Philip Roth's The Human Stain.
Meanwhile, there really are evil people out there who wish to kill you and those you love merely because of your nationality or because you are wealthier than they are. There are people who wish to obstruct the progress of science in curing diseases and feeding billions because a "holy book" says we must not trust in anything but prayer.
We must find a way to oppose real terrorism without becoming terrorists or living in dictatorship.
Paradoxically, there are also some in the most affluent societies who believe, with equal irrationality, that because science yields accurate knowledge of the workings of empirical reality, it can somehow resolve moral or political controversies, or "explain" such cultural mysteries as romantic love in evolutionary terms (it can't); or tell us what is the meaning of life, or even define the role of science in society (it can't).
These questions of meaning and values must be decided dialogically, not through some experiment or imposed solution. You certainly will not condition me into accepting slavery.
Values questions are not scientifically resolvable or they would not remain "open" questions. We will not find our moral meanings "out there," in nature, existing independently of us in the empirical world; values will not be seen under a microscope; rather, moral truth and beauty may be achieved only by us, through reasoning and dialectics, neither of which are ever entirely dispassionate. (Kant, Hegel, Blanshard. )
This does not make such things unreal or unobjective, much less pointless or untrue. By the same token, no matter how much we learn about the brain, we will not discover the mind "in" the brain, even after we figure out how it is that consciousness arises from cerebral processes, if we ever do.
Vandalism and censorship do not help you to prevail in an argument nor can such tactics prove that you are right about something. When you resort to such tactics, you are admitting defeat on a substantive issue, then seeking to compensate for this inability to respond, effectively, to an adversary by silencing or hurting him. This was traditionally the reaction to WOMEN'S creative and intellectual efforts -- suppression, censorship, trivializing. I will continue to write, focusing on more New Jersey judges and municipalities, seeking the truth in my life. ("New Jersey's Feces-Covered Supreme Court" and "New Jersey's Political and Supreme Court Whores.")
An "error" was inserted by New Jersey's hackers in this essay to start the new year. I will focus on former Chief Justice Poritz's "allegedly" corrupt lesbian relationship. Was Ms. Poritz given sexual introductions to young women by Diana Lisa Riccioli in exchange for "favors"? What contacts (if any) did Ms. Poritz have with Marilyn Straus when Diana Lisa Riccioli was simultaneously involved with Ms. Straus and/or "other women, including Ms. Poritz? ("Deborah T. Poritz and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey.")
This is my response to New Jersey's continuing defacements of this essay as well as on-going efforts to censor and suppress my work. Struggle. I am not the sort of person who is easily intimidated.
I wonder why the number of visitors to my blogs has not changed despite thousands of "hits" that have come to my attention? Coincidence? "Approximate?" The number of hits at this blog are not counted in increments of one hundred. Mysteriously, the number listed at my profile has suddenly changed in weird ways. How curious? I wonder whether MSN groups is still "closed" and why my book is suppressed? ("How censorship works in America.")
The mind is an abstract concept, whereas the brain is an organ in the physical body of an individual. You need a brain to develop a mind. However, a brain will not be sufficient without language and social setting. Mental development will be warped or stunted and deformed in any person growing up alone in a deserted island.
We are social animals, whose mental health -- even flourishing "minds" -- depend on the presence of others, especially others who are loved by us and who love us in return. Hence, the irreversible injury that is done to a victim whose closest relationships and professional identity are shattered, together with damage to self-esteem, as part of an involuntary "program of testing, secretly, our latest psychological warfare techniques." ("An Open Letter to My Torturers in New Jersey, Terry Tuchin and Diana Lisa Riccioli.")
The very sight of persons cooperating with such efforts directed against a "targeted" professional makes me physically sick. When those who cooperate claim to be friends or relatives, the disgust and anger I feel is much greater. If there is anyone more loathsome than the individual willing to spy upon and inform against family members for a small fee, I cannot imagine who it might be. Ridgewood, New Jersey? Do you really believe that forced association will be helpful, Terry? Think again. ("Jennifer Velez is a Dyke Magnet!")
We live as subjects, also in objective categories that are only meaningful socially -- like the categories of "male, American, father, middle-aged," etc. I need other people. So do you. This is not some shameful weakness. Despite the truly moronic opinions of Dr. Phil, Barbara Streisand had it right: "People who need people are the luckiest people in the world." No wonder Barbara's picture is found in many bodegas in Manhattan. Poisoning or destroying those needed relationships is evil. ("God is Texting Me!")
We are in this situation together folks, as Americans or just as human beings. We need one another. If we are at one another's throats then none of us will make it. The United States, with all of its faults, is a great and good nation -- with the exception of the corrupt power-structure in New Jersey -- and it occasionally needs to be defended from the enemies of freedom in the world. This is not to deny our right to criticize any U.S. government for its policy failures or crimes. ("NSA Spying is Illegal.")
Iraq is a colossal catastrophe for America, not just one party. No one should be thrilled about a catastrophe afflicting all of us in America, for decades, even if it gets your guys and gals elected to office. The nightmare has spread to Afghanistan and Pakistan, India may go up in flames. Syria? Some Americans believe that a confrontation with China, Korea, or Cuba would add spice to our lives. I am "for" peace and an end to these costly and increasingly pointless military adventures that are destroying America's economy.
"Victory is within reach" will always be said by politicians, even as helicopters remove the last Americans from a burning city and enemy troops swarm the airport. You already know this about freedom in the U.S. You prove it by protesting against the government that guarantees your right to do just that. Yes, there are terrorists in the world. The very people who would instantly wipe out all of those who are "different" -- gays and racial minorities, religious and cultural eccentrics. Those who are different and who do not fare well in lots of other places in the world seem to like it here just fine.
Mr. Obama, sending more troops to Afghanistan and Iraq may be likened to jumping into quicksand to join a drowing person. Why not extend a tree branch and "pull out" the victim? I am old enough to remember daily assurances that more troops would bring victory in Vietnam. 50,000 American deaths later, there was no victory in Vietnam. How many deaths will convince us in Afghanistan? Iraq? Pakistan? America's "secret war" in Pakistan is no secret. Anybody remember Cambodia? Yemen? Syria?
Part of what is at the core of the United States is tolerance of diversity, a desire to make the world safe for "weirdos" (like me, you say!), that is, for persons who wish to think differently, originally and creatively ... or just to think at all. Censorship, destruction of written work, secret proceedings, experimenting on people and then lying or stone-walling about it are all criminal actions, so is stealing a good watch -- even when New Jersey Democrats do it. Terry? Diana? Debbie Poritz? When do I get those reports, Anne? ("No More Cover-Ups and Lies, Chief Justice Rabner!" then "Mafia Influence in New Jersey Courts and Politics.")
The deepest truth at the heart of the American experiment is a confidence in human goodness and in the hope for a better world. The American Constitution was a fragile paper boat cast adrift on the stormy seas of history -- a paper boat which is still sailing along very nicely even as the great steel battleships of Fascism and Communist totalitarianism (Stalin) have (deservedly!) sunk to the bottom of the sea.
Do not underestimate this fragile hope for humanity or the power of love. ("Manifesto For the Unfinished American Constitution.")
We have to learn to live between subjective and objective, particular and universal -- because we are both -- which is another way of saying that we live in languages, not only verbal languages. Maybe a way for me to explain what it "feels" like to be reduced to a category of vilification, again, is to give others a taste of the experience. It seems to be working.
See the essays in the General section at my MSN group, Critique -- if it still exists -- and my forthcoming essay concerning Judge Tolentino (possibly the most stupid person I ever encountered in the legal profession) that will serve as my response to these continuing censorship efforts. Many N.J. lawyers shared this view concerning Judge Tolentino. I will be delighted to name them, publicly. Did you join the "lesbian love-fest," Luisa? Is it "Luisa Gutierrez, Esq."? Why were you, Luisa, involved in trying to harm me behind my back? Gilberto Garcia? Mary Anne Kriko? Do you enjoy being called a "skinny-person-dressed-in-black-kiwi-munching-fashionista," Ms. De La Cruz? I know that I would. (What exactly did you say about me behind my back, Estela? And what name did you give to Marilyn Straus when you raped her, Estela de La Cruz?)
Do not suppress or destroy speech by anyone, especially not the expressions of persons who are compelled to speak out, to write and publish their ideas. Don't destroy people's creative work appearing on the Internet. Feel free to respond to it -- if you don't agree or dislike it -- be open to their responses. There is much that we should agree on, as Americans, like our right to disagree. Let us build on that foundational agreement and cooperate. We need each other, as I say, now more than ever. The problems that we face are very great.
Being subjected to behind-the-back slanders for years has caused me to seek public confrontations with my enemies and discussion of their insults as well as being very explicit in my responses in kind.
Do not oppose everything that a U.S. president proposes merely because the idea comes from the White House. Examine suggestions and proposals on the merits. Think of ways in which someone different from you is like you. That person is your fellow citizen, brother or sister, and he or she will share many of your flaws and experiences in life, including the ultimate and unavoidable ones: love and death. Think of how that person sees you. I will do my best to make it clear to New Jersey officials how I see them. ("New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System.")
Any more inserted "errors" today? "Ladies"? No.
What would you wish to explain to those who have never spoken to you, but who have made up their minds about you on the basis of your nationality, ethnicity, religion, economic category or music and fashion choices, based on what they're told by others, especially when you're not around to respond?
I was told, I believe, by a New Jersey lawyer and official: "Latinos are not smart enough to be philosophers."
I have enjoyed a twenty-nine year version of this experience of insults and denigration. Take another look at the photos accompanying this essay -- that is, if any have not been been blocked! -- then ask yourself whether being reduced to a stereotype will help a person understand how I feel, every day.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
David Stove and the Intellectual Capacity of Women.
Primary Sources:
David Stove, "The Intellectual Capacity of Women," Ch. 5 of Cricket Versus Republicanism (Quakers Hill Press, 1995), originally published in Proceedings of the Russellian Society, Vol. 15, 1990 and http://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/women.html (Unless otherwise indicated all quotations attributed to Stove are from this essay.)
J. Teichman, "The Intellectual Capacity of David Stove," Philosophy 76 (2001): 149-57.
David Stove, "What is Wrong With Our Thoughts? A Neo-Positivist Credo," The Plato Cult and Other Philosophical Follies (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991), pp. 179-200.
Supplemental Sources:
Carl Bernstein, A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton (New York: Vintage, 2008). (You must whisper her name.)
Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindications of the Rights of Woman (London: Penguin, 1982), first published 1792.
Janet Todd, Mary Wollstonecraft: A Revolutionary Life (London: Phoenix, 2000).
William Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (London: Penguin, 1985), First Published 1793.
Richard Holmes, "A Philosophical Love Story," Sidetracks (New York: Vintage, 2000), pp. 195-267.
Phil Gasper, "IQ, Genetics, and Racism," International Socialist Review, Jan-Feb., 2008, at p. 17.
This essay is for I.G.M. and S.G.M. (Happy Birthday Pisces!) and M.S. (Happy Birthday Gemini!).
I.
David Stove is a philosopher whose writings are controversial and whose work must be read and refuted by those of us opposed to his philosophical and political views.
In an earlier essay I set forth a critique of Professor Stove's epistemological and metaphysical positions. I also provided a defense of idealism on the grounds that philosophical idealism is both more complex and attractive to contemporary theorists than Stove realized.
I will continue to defend those essays -- and this article -- from hackers and vandalism because I believe that they can help to dramatize the flawed thinking that leads, even intellectuals, to denigrate the intelligence of women (still today) and of others who are deemed "marginal," or "like women."
In other words, persons -- like me -- are routinely given unsolicited assistance in thinking about political or spiritual issues by others who seem (to themselves) "superior" to the unwashed masses of students and writers or "subpersons," again, like me. ("Master and Commander" and "The Taming of Somebody I Don't Know Who.")
I am a phenomenologist who is drawn to the hermeneutic tradition and who finds much in recent versions of idealism valuable and useful.
My pragmatist sympathies also lead me to borrow from rival philosophical schools, when necessary, in developing my own theoretical arguments. As long as my finished arguments and conclusions are internally consistent, while remaining externally significant and yielding explanatory power, divergent elements are fine.
It is for fair-minded readers to decide whether what I say coincides with their intuitions.
I am also a feminist because: 1) I see men and women as natural equals, except that women have been denied opportunities and rights for centuries and this has produced unjust and artificial differences in the respect accorded to women's achievements and capacities as compared with men's achievements. This is cruel and unjust to women. 2) I believe that traditionally sexist societies (like ours) must take "affirmative action" to provide opportunities for women to wield political power, enter the academy, enjoy outlets for creative work that enriches everyone.
Professor Stove has declared his commitment to positivism and materialism. This makes Stove's self-contradictions and unknowing abandonment of his own philosophical foundations even more striking in this essay.
Professor Stove is also a self-declared opponent of feminism and far from an adherent of analytical philosophy, despite his claims to the contrary, since Professor Stove's grasp of logic is shaky at best.
Stove contradicts his self-professed "foundational stance" by offering a deeply flawed a priori argument based on probability theory -- after insisting that a priori arguments (ideas) cannot affect reality -- in order to establish a claim about human social reality, namely, that women "on the whole" lack "intellectual capacity" by comparison with men.
Stove's contentions are incoherent on his own terms. His argument is invalid descriptively and logically. Stove's argument is based on an inadequate or non-existent understanding of history. Stove's argument is filled with unexamined and invalid assumptions of fact, also false or illogical doctrines. Stove's argument is unsupported empirically; lacking scholarly foundations; riddled with philosophical errors; it is false and pernicious.
I am rarely this forceful or passionate in my criticisms of a philosopher's ideas. This intensity is justified since Professor Stove's contentions are not simply false, but harmful to young people, in particular, who will not recognize his errors and may even believe his false claims. ("Richard Rorty's Ethical Skepticism.")
I will not rely upon or quote other criticisms of Stove's essay. I will simply read it, pointing out errors and difficulties, offering some rejoinders by way of conclusion.
I am certain that Stove's essay is not only mistaken and poorly argued, but that it is a paradigm of fallacious reasoning from flawed premises to incoherent conclusions. For example, Stove's first paragraph is puzzling:
"I believe that the intellectual capacity of women is on the whole inferior to that of men. By 'on the whole,' I do not mean just 'on the average'; though I do mean that much. My belief is, if you take any degree of intellectual capacity which is above average for the human race, as a whole, then a possessor of that degree of intellectual capacity is a good deal more likely to be a man than a woman."
What is an "intellectual capacity"? What is "intelligence"? Professor Stove does not say.
Suppose that a person displays an unusual fondness and talent for crime. Is that an "intellectual capacity"? If so, then Professor Stove is correct. Empirical evidence (which Stove claims to admire) suggests that men are more likely to commit crimes than women, more likely to be violent and more likely to be stupid about it so as to get caught. Men are "on the whole" and "on average" more likely to be anti-social morons. This can be demonstrated empirically. Indeed, Professor Stove may illustrate the point.
I suspect that this is not the sort of "intellectual capacity" that Stove has in mind.
Intelligence is a vague and context-sensitive quality or virtue that is not easily defined: "[Intelligence] has never been given an agreed-upon precise scientific definition." (ISR, p. 18.)
It has been suggested that: "intelligence is whatever IQ tests measure, but without some further justification this definition is purely arbitrary. In fact the two ideas most commonly associated with intelligence by experts are the ability to adapt to one's environment and ability to learn, but traditional IQ tests are not designed to measure either of these capacities." (ISR, p. 18.)
What do IQ tests measure? Intelligence. What is "intelligence"? Whatever IQ tests measure.
Needless to say people designing IQ tests tend to define intelligence in terms of measuring qualities associated with themselves and others like themselves. Traditionally, most of the persons creating such tests have been affluent white men. Hence, it should not surprise us if traditional testing indicated that women and non-whites residing in places other than suburbia are less intelligent than the mostly suburban and middle class white men who make IQ tests.
There is no objective basis for concluding that women are less intelligent than men. This is true even in terms of IQ tests biased in favor of men and boys assuming that a distinction exists between men and boys.
When cultural factors are accounted for African-Americans are demonstrably as intelligent, or more intelligent, than others. Persons taking the so-called "Black IQ Test," discovered that they were semi-vegetable-like morons as a result only of changes in the language in which traditional IQ questions were asked.
I have serious doubts that intelligence can be measured or quantified in a non-biased manner.
Stove does not tell us at any point in this essay what he means by an "intellectual capacity." Hence, throughout Stove's subsequent discussion, he simply assumes that we all agree with him about what is an intellectual capacity.
Furthermore, Professor Stove also takes it for granted that everyone in history for thousands of years knew exactly what Stove means today by an intellectual capacity (which he does not tell us), while agreeing with Stove that women have less of it than men especially much less than Professor Stove himself.
Stove sees himself as very well "endowed" -- as it were -- with this mysterious "intellectual capacity."
We will be the judges of that claim, Professor Stove. From these astonishing beginnings Stove descends even further into the pit of incoherence:
"In the past almost everyone, whether man or woman, learned or unlearned, believed the intellectual capacity of women to be inferior to that of men. Even now this is, I think, the belief of most people in most parts of the world. In this article my main objective is simply to remind the reader of what the evidence is, and always was, for this old belief, and of how strong that evidence is."
For most of recorded history people believed that the earth is flat. Many still do. This does not make such a belief true.
Professor Stove is telling us that most people have always believed "X" (which he does not define), therefore, we should continue to believe "X." This is not a compelling argument.
I allude to the majority's belief in religion in my critique of Richard Dawkins's recent book. However, I do not infer from that majority belief that religion is "true" or that there is a God. I argue that the burden of proof rests with critics to establish the irrationality of belief. Also, I argue that belief and non-belief are equally rational given inevitable human ignorance concerning such matters. These claims are very different from Stove's contentions concerning women's intelligence or lack thereof.
I eagerly sought to examine Professor Stove's evidence for this historical belief hoping that I might be intellectually superior to women only to discover that there is not a single footnote accompanying his text. Worse, it appears that -- as I suspected -- I am intellectually inferior to most of the women I have known and all of those that I have loved.
There is not one citation or quotation, in other words, from a single empirical study or historical work of any kind to support Stove's abstract generalizations.
What does "almost everyone" mean? 75% of persons who have written books in the past have expressed such an opinion? 4 out of 5 dentists agree? We do not know. Stove does not know.
Professor Stove has contemplated his navel, looked up at the ceiling, scratched his "nether regions" and pulled these conclusions out of it.
I will now indulge in a Stove-like display of unsupported philosophical generalization: "throughout history left-handed persons of Asian ancestry have always been gay, but only when they are Jewish, of course, and not if they are atheists or if they play chess, except if they play chess on Tuesdays."
There is just as much "evidence" for this claim as Stove provides for his contention about women's "intellectual capacity" -- none. The lack of evidence is not altered if I say: "Everyone has always believed this."
Notice that Stove's flawed reasoning has nothing to do with the validity of a priori arguments or classical rationalism.
Stove is offering unsupported empirical generalizations, but giving them an a priori form.
A mathematical proposition is an a priori assertion and may be valid, even necessarily so, without referring to the empirical world. Think of calculus or probabilities -- which will feature in Stove's argument -- that refer to likely future states of the world.
A generalization or interpretation concerning empirical reality, however, should point to some evidence supporting it in what is laughingly known as the "real world."
Stove confuses "prescriptive" (recommending something), "descriptive" (telling you what is the case) and "predictive" (estimating a likely future eventuality) claims, often making all three in a single paragraph on the basis of a flawed premise.
There is absolutely no basis or support offered for Stove's "conclusory" generalizations.
In fact, throughout history, women have wielded political power while managing to be recognized as learned and brilliant thinkers, despite overwhelming social obstacles and pressures against intellectual accomplishment by women. Below are some specific examples.
Professor Harold Bloom of Yale University suggests that the earliest books in what is arguably Western literature's first text, the Hebrew Bible, may well be the work of a woman. Bloom contends, persuasively, that the writer of the earliest Old Testament books, known to us only as "J," must have been a woman of noble birth. If Bloom is correct then Western literature and philosophy -- our religions -- may begin as a woman's invention (or discovery) which would not surprise me.
Many literary and philosophical "superstars" happen to be women, both in the past and in our own time. They are not merely exceptions. Their achievements are even more impressive than those of their male counterparts in light of the social obstacles which women overcame (and still overcome) in order to do intellectual work.
I am not surprised that N.J. people find it necessary to continue to insert "errors" in this essay. I am making it difficult for you to claim that I am "insensitive to women's issues."
I suppose that I will have to read "J-Val." I believe that I am now, as they say, "feministing."
An excellent example of a woman with a far better philosophical mind than Stove's (or mine), who overcame what seem to us like unimaginable obstacles is Mary Wollstonecraft. Another example of philosophical brilliance today is found in a woman overcoming more than sexism, also racism -- Angela Davis. Cleopatra and Nefertiti -- both Africans -- along with many other women, governed empires in antiquity (often through their husbands in sexist societies, i.e., Theodosia, who began life as a prostitute in the Circus Maximus), founded religions, made art and did what human beings (male and female), always and everywhere manage to do. Isabel "la Catolica," Elizabeth I, Maria Theresa, Catherine the Great, Queen Victoria and any number of other political leaders -- who happen to have been women -- have ruled nations, often very well. None of these women could attend universities in their societies. Women have been philosophers, poets, painters, scientists, overcoming sexist and other barriers to create lasting work in every historical epoch. At the risk of infuriating my would-be censors and fascists everywhere, I hope that we will someday be fortunate enough to elect a woman to the U.S. Presidency. For one likely candidate, see Carl Bernstein, A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham-Clinton (New York: Vintage, 2008). ("'This is totally amazing!' -- Donald J. Trump.")
Women have led armies and governed nations in our time -- Golda Meir, Indira Ghandi, Margaret Thatcher -- and women have fought battles as revolutionaries and intellectuals, Rosa Luxembourg, Assata Shakur, "Tanya."
Professor Stove is simply wrong in his unqualified generalization which explains why he offers no support whatsoever for it in scholarship or empirical evidence.
There is no support to offer for Stove's contention that women are intellectually inferior to men because it is not true.
Even if there were fewer women than men of genius in recorded history -- a debatable point which I do not accept -- this can be explained by the difference in social opportunity and cultural approval for men as compared with women intellectuals and artists, even today, and has nothing to do with differences in "intellectual capacity."
From this false premise Stove argues that those who oppose his view and argue for gender equality base their position on "prejudice and passion." However, Stove does not examine that feminist or egalitarian position or the evidence for it. This is an indication that it is actually Professor Stove's views that are the result of "prejudice and passion."
I will help him to examine the counter-argument by quoting John Stuart Mill (not an idealist, but an empiricist and materialist), whose explanation for any alleged differential achievement by women as compared with men in art, science, politics or law is much more persuasive than what Stove has to say.
It is important to remember that, for most of Western history, women could not own land, could not attend universities, could not hold wealth or properties in their own name, could not establish independent lives. Women were -- they often still are -- overworked, living in crowded settings and surrounded by children, for whom they alone were responsible. Virginia Woolf is eloquent on the crowded rooms in which women -- like Jane Austen -- wrote their brilliant novels. Ms. Woolf has convinced me of the impossibility of a female Tolstoy writing War and Peace in the absence of the experiences and opportunities that made that masterpiece possible for its author. Everyone should read Virginia Woolf's A Room of Her Own and Orlando.
Ms. Woolf tells us that there are "real women," but that "femininity" had to be invented by societies as a "role" for one gender rather than the other(s). ("Ex Machina: A Movie Review" and "Judith Butler and Gender Theory.")
Women could not go to war. Women could not have adventures and be admitted to society. Women could not really live their own lives but were required to abide by the dictates of society. Many chose to violate those social dictates and paid a great price for it. (See my much-damaged essay: "Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin" also "Master and Commander.") According to Mill:
"Men do not want solely the obedience of women, they want their sentiments. ... They [men] have therefore put everything in practice to enslave their [women's] minds. The masters of all other slaves rely, for maintaining obedience, on fear; either fear of themselves, or religious fears. The masters of women wanted more than simple obedience, and they turned the whole force of education to effect their purpose. All women are brought up from the earliest years in the belief that their ideal of character is the very opposite to that of men; not self-will, and government by self-control, but submission, and yielding to the control of others. ... Can it be doubted that any of the other yokes which mankind have succeeded in breaking would have subsisted till now if the same means had existed, and had been as sedulously used, to bow down their minds to it? ... would not serfs and seigneurs, plebeians and patricians, have been as broadly distinguished at this day as men and women are? and would not all but a thinker here and there believe the distinction to be a fundamental and unalterable fact in human nature?"
The Subjection of Women, p. 443. (An obvious analogy to racism is available.)
Rational considerations do not enter Stove's mind. He says that we simply "know" (how?) that women have less intellectual capacity than men (whatever intellectual capacity may be) because the "intellectual performance of women is inferior to that of men."
Whose performance? What specific women philosophers are "inferior" (his word) to men writing today?
In the history of Western thought, from antiquity, women have participated in philosophical dialogues and contributed to the intellectual tradition, at the highest levels, despite nearly overwhelming obstacles against them.
Footnote please, Professor Stove. There is none. No historical or other evidence establishes this assertion. No logical argument is offered in support of this contention. As Gore Vidal once remarked: "in debate the unsupported remark is not worth making."
Stove reasons from ALLEGED inferior performance to ALLEGED inferior capacity, but provides: 1) neither a definition of "inferior capacity," nor 2) a list of specific examples of inferior performances by women. However, he does contradict himself.
Is this self-contradiction an indication of Stove's (or men's!) "lack of intellectual capacity"? Stove says:
"... This, then, is one commonplace truth which needs to be borne in mind when we think about the intellectual capacity of women: that capacity does not require performance."
This is an example of an unsupported statement, by Professor Stove, that is not worth making.
So which is it? Do we infer "the inferior capacity of women from alleged inferior performance"? Or is it true that "capacity does not require performance"?
Stove has articulated an incoherent position. He is saying both A and not-A. To speak of evidence of intellectual capacity requiring performance to exist does not get him off the hook since a capacity may exist and yet not be known due to a lack of evidence.
Stove consistently confuses the ontological and epistemological issues to which he refers. This is a common error which is not excusable for a philosopher. It is too much to expect that Stove has been converted to a form of Hegelian dialectical idealism. He does not suggest a relationship between "capacity" and "performance" but a direct correlation. Stove then says that there is no such correlation, only a correlation between "evidence" of capacity and actual capacity, except that there is sometimes no such evidence. This is not subtle argumentation. It is incoherence.
II.
How many women might have painted as well as -- though differently from -- Leonardo Da Vinci we will never know. (Since people are in the habit of making incorrect corrections when I write essays let me make it clear that "Da Vinci" and "da Vinci" are both acceptable spellings of this Renaissance painter's name.)
Shakespeare's sister is not a good example, I think, but Virginia Woolf's general point is valid that any number of women might have written as well as the men whose works we rightly celebrate, yet without education (or opportunity) their talents were never developed or known even to themselves.
This is not to diminish the importance of achievements by men (mostly) whose works are now canonical in a liberal arts curriculum.
I am merely explaining why there are not many more women on the usual list of great thinkers of past ages even if all such lists are changing quickly to include more women and will (probably) provide for equal representation of men and women in the future.
My talent for dancing the mambo is unsuspected by others since I have never attempted such a dance publicly. This is hardly to establish that such a talent -- in addition to my obvious and astonishing sexual skills -- does not exist in me. These skills and talents may indeed exist in me and not be known, at this time, except by a fortunate few. ("An Evening With Gore Vidal" and "Abrazo: Saying Goodbye to Christopher Hitchens.")
Stove simply knows that women are not his equals. I agree, if not for Stove's reasons. Most of the women I know have far more "intellectual capacity" than Professor Stove. Many of them can also "mambo" as it were. The difference between humor and stupidity is also obvious to those who can read the English language. You (and only you), as a reader, decide what to think of an author. ("Skinny People Dressed in Black" and "La Traviata.")
Stove is willing to assume that the intellectual capacity of every woman that he meets is probably inferior to his own vastly superior capacity.
This assumption is made on the basis of overwhelming evidence from all of recorded human experience of the inferior intellectual capacity of women because (we are told) women's intellectual performance is usually inferior to that of men, especially when it comes to himself, as a male, according to Stove. ("Is truth dead?")
Female inferiority is taken for granted by Stove in the absence of any examples at all from history (or philosophy) by a man who has just published a self-contradictory argument. ("Stuart Hampshire and Iris Murdoch on Freedom of Mind.")
Stove has only managed to provide readers with irrefutable evidence of his own inadequacies, logical and otherwise.
What Stove relies on to establish his non-existent case is an a priori argument based on probability theory in logic, an argument which is also incoherent and false, as I shall now demonstrate.
Professor Stove abandons his positivism and materialism to engage in a form of a priori idealist or rationalist argumentation which he has railed against in the past. This has nothing to do with scientific method or the validity of rationalist methods in the hands of others. Stove contends, on analogy to coins and dice and such things, that:
"Probabilities are a sort of graduated capacities, and the question about the comparative intellectual capacity of men and women is, like the question whether a certain coin is fair, a question of probabilities." (''Self/Less': A Movie Review.")
This is absurd. Women -- perhaps regrettably in Stove's mind -- are not inanimate objects. Women are not coins or dice lying on a coffee table (an interesting image!) to be picked up and tossed about by Professor Stove, so as to calculate the number of times when a particular female person will come up "heads" or (this is indeed interesting!) "tails."
Persons -- Professor Stove is shocked to discover that women are "persons" -- are social beings, defined by their relationships and contexts, languages, religious and cultural affiliations, social roles, economic status, education. It is not possible to abstract and isolate women (or men) from all social contexts in order to regard them as "widgets" or numbers subject to the mathematical laws of probability in terms of an undefined "intellectual capacity." ("'The Mountain Between Us': A Movie Review.")
Unlike Professor Stove John Rawls takes great care to set very careful limits on his thought experiment called the "original position" and to suggest that it is an analogy to the postulated "pre-political situation of humanity." ("John Rawls and Justice.")
Stove abstracts women from the empirical world, performs dubious mathematical calculations, then concludes that this establishes that -- in the empirical world -- women must lack the intellectual capacity of men whatever intellectual capacity may mean.
This claim is what philosophers describe as a "non-sequitur." In more prosaic terms this is bullshit.
Why are Stove's mathematical calculations dubious?
"The mathematical theory of probability enables us to calculate the probability of some kind of event given the probability of others. ... The arithmetic of such combinations, investigated in the seventeenth century by Pascal and Fermat, has developed into a general theory of measures on sets, which correspond to possible values of a random variable. Its most familiar axiomatic treatment is due to the Russian mathematician Kolgomorov."
Dictionary of Philosophy, p. 288. ("'Inception': A Movie Review.")
Stove is proposing what mathematicians describe as a "contingent probability series." The proposed form being both syllogistic and geometrical:
"If A and B are given occurrences in the past, where situation C obtains; then it is possible to calculate the likely occurrence of A and B, in identical future settings, where situation C is repeated."
This method is excellent for calculating eventualities with regard to the toss of dice or flipping of a coin. Insurance companies hope to estimate frequency of accidents in such ways.
With regard to persons and human relationships in ALL of human history the number of "contingent variables" for which one must account -- such as social factors, religious influence, how one defines "intellectual achievement," cultural reinforcement, economic factors, etc. -- is potentially infinite or beyond the capacity of anyone to identify or factor into a feasible equation.
Men and women are simply not reducible to the abstractions "A" and "B." This is something for lawyers and psychologists to remember. ("Innumerate Ethics.")
You cannot predict or control what people will do. Furthermore, there are moral constraints on what and how you may predict or try to "determine" human behavior. You cannot "condition" persons into behavior of which you happen to approve with any degree of certainty since their responses to ever-changing circumstances will not, and should not be, exactly predictable or alike. This is because persons are not exactly alike. ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture" and "'The Stepford Wives': A Movie Review.")
You also cannot calculate probability when you have failed to define the given "X-Factor" -- the "X-Factor" whose probability is at issue in the first place -- or the method to be followed in your inquiries. ("Nice Babies and Bad Psychologists.")
Stove provides no control group, no attempt to eliminate extraneous factors other than this mysterious "capacity." A person is not a thing or a laboratory animal. Human social realities and personal identities are dynamic and participatory never static or strictly "externally" malleable. Professor Stove has run into "Ulam's Dilemma":
"If the number of theorems is larger than one can possibly survey, [no one] can be trusted to judge what is important."
Philip J. Davis & Reuben Hersh, The Mathematical Experience (Boston: Houghton & Mifflin, 1981), pp. 20-21. ("Is the universe only a numbers game?")
David J. Bartholomew, a Professor of Statistics at the London School of Economics and a religious person has offered a highly sophisticated argument -- based on mathematical probabilities -- for the logical plausibility of belief in God. Professor Bartholomew's book is far more sophisticated than anything Professor Stove can produce. However, Professor Bartholomew is careful to indicate that:
"A final point to make about probabilities is that they are almost always conditional. Their value depends on what we choose to regard as 'given.' ..."
Uncertain Belief: Is it Rational to be a Christian? (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), p. 27.
Stove assumes what he hopes to prove.
Stove takes for granted that, in the past, women's intellectual capacity (whatever that may be) has been "established" to be less than that of men. He can then say that it is more likely to continue to be less impressive than that of men in the future.
This is the absurd form of "argumentation" that gives philosophy a bad name. Stove was entirely serious in putting forward this argument. There are persons who will not see the logical difficulties in Stove's essay and believe what he says.
Do not believe sexist claims. Sexism is false and immoral. The potential for social harm is very high indeed when this sort of "quasi" philosophy or scientific pretension goes unchallenged.
Does this begin to seem familiar? It should.
There are previous efforts to demonstrate, scientifically or logically, the inferiority of persons of African ancestry, or the criminal minds "produced" by brain chemistry or genes, and the probability of such "determining" factors resulting in further criminality usually based on a totally inadequate attempt to cope with all of the messy factors that make people choose to be what they are -- sometimes within insurmountable constraints -- so as to explain what they do.
I suggest a careful study of the works of Stephen Jay Gould and a biologist, whose books I will read and review at this blog, Richard Lewontin:
"In short, the BIOLOGICAL basis of human uniqueness leads us to reject biological determinism. Our large brain is the biological foundation of intelligence; intelligence is the ground of culture; and cultural transmission builds a new mode of evolution more effective than Darwinian processes in its limited realm -- the inheritance and modification of learned behavior. [Intelligence?] As philosopher Steven Toulmin stated: 'Culture has the power to impose itself on nature from within.'"
Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man (New York: W.W. Norton, 1981), p. 325. ("Judith Butler and Gender Theory" and "Fascinating Fascism.")
I have deliberately quoted from this wonderful book to indicate that it is many persons -- especially women -- who have been "mismeasured."
A teacher reviewed an IQ test with one of her immigrant students who did poorly on the test. She asked why he failed to associate "cup" with "saucer" as opposed to "glass" or "spoon."
The student explained that he had never seen a cup on a saucer at home.
Why should that immigrant student associate "cup" with one of these words more than the others? No reason.
These cultural considerations were, literally, beyond imagination for the nice "experts" designing this "intelligence test" before returning to their homes in suburban Connecticut.
Naturally, it was explained to the immigrant student that he was probably an imbecile and should consider a career in politics. Senator Bob? ("Does Senator Menendez Have Mafia Friends?" and "Senator Bob, the Babe, and the Big Bucks.")
Stove's assumptions concerning nature's "requirement" that only women raise children because they are "better equipped" for this task than men is simply laughable:
"In plain English: a woman does not need to use her brains to have a baby, and doesn't even need to use them much in order to see an infant through the period of its most extreme helplessness."
Child-rearing is some of the most difficult work that any person can do. I can attest to this from "experience." There are difficult choices to make with time-allocation, juggling professional and familial responsibilities, home and family care, cooking, cleaning, while reading Kant and writing books, lecturing, sharing sports or playing with one's child are exceedingly difficult human activities, also among the most rewarding things that a person can do.
A brain is definitely helpful in being a parent. I am not ashamed about doing such "lowly" tasks in my home. It is not insulting me to comment on the fact that I scrub toilets or wash dishes. My "manhood," as I define it, is not threatened by these dire accusations of "unmasculine" behavior.
Despite my ethnicity I am not "Ricky Ricardo." No one is or should be "Ricky Ricardo" -- no woman should be so absurd! -- since that t.v. character has now been left behind by American culture (I hope!) as anything other than an entertaining t.v. personality.
My use of this character to identify some regressive tendencies in the Cuban-American community is deliberate. Sadly, persons in New Jersey may have assumed (because of prejudice) that I am exactly like such a stereotype of the Latino male. Nothing can be farther from the truth.
Subtle psychological insight ("intellectual capacity?") is necessary to say exactly the right thing to a teenage daughter whose feelings are fragile and for whom self-esteem is crucial.
Professor Stove is incapable of realizing this since, no doubt, Mrs. Stove takes care of such matters. Stove's home is probably tidy. Meals are ready on time. His newspaper awaits him when he gets home in the evening.
Nothing seems easier -- for Stove or men like him -- than daily home maintenance.
Professor Stove's children are mysteriously neat and well-behaved, well-taught and healthy. This allows Stove to think "deep thoughts" such as those found in this remarkable essay.
Among the most difficult challenges associated with fatherhood (or parenthood) is knowing how to prepare a child for the pains of injustice, cruelty, stupidity among the powerful and many other horrors that, inevitably, will be a part of her life in a world filled with irrational hatreds and bizarre misunderstandings of our complex natures and ethical life.
There are even fascistic morons who insert "errors" in the writings of envied others.
Child-rearing is a human responsibility. It is a responsibility which nature leaves for persons to discharge, as they think best. Gay couples, extended families, grandparents -- all may discharge this responsibility well or poorly depending on the individual circumstances of their lives and other factors.
There is no more important human responsibility than caring for others. This is especially true when it comes to children. Scrubbing toilets and washing dishes -- things that I will do today after I complete this essay -- are exalted by being offered to those we love as a gift of ourselves to and for them.
I will always be happy to do such things for any person that I love. This includes Marilyn Straus.
During the Catholic mass there is an "offertorial procession." Personal gifts are offered to God -- not because God can use a new toaster -- because they are things shared or given from (or by) ourselves. This is the point in "giving" to those we love. Giving is sharing ourselves symbolically.
China has a very elaborate and beautiful language of giving that expresses the same principle.
Since the subject of religion has been discussed it may clarify matters to share an anecdote that I learned from one of my aunts. Rita Hayworth, at the height of her movie fame, visited a leper colony run by Sisters of Charity. The film star said to one of the nuns, "I wouldn't do this work for a million dollars."
The nun laughed and said: "I wouldn't do it for a million dollars either."
The Catholic nun did that "lowly" work only for love and service to God.
Does that help people to understand what is "religion"? ("Is Daniel Dennett an Unhelpful Samaritan"? and "Daniel Dennett and the Theology of Science.")
Physicians -- many monks and priests as well as nuns -- caring for the ill in this community of sick people, lepers, also chose to work for something other than money.
Were these physicians "determined" by nature to do this work? I think they chose, freely, to be guided by love.
Intellectual capacity? Moral sensitivity? Do these terms refer to the same faculty? Why is it mostly men, like Stove -- including quite a few in the legal profession -- who cannot understand this?
The absence of love in our social lives can be not only stupid but lethal for everyone.
Does Obamacare worry people more than the absence of all medical insurance for 50 million Americans?
According to Stove women are like "[m]onkeys treading at random on typewriter keys [who] will never reproduce the works of Shakespeare."
Imagine this statement being directed at (or concerning) African-Americans today.
Professor Stove will not reproduce the works of Shakespeare; nor those of Jane Austen. Stove will never be half the philosopher or person that Edith Stein, Elizabeth Seton, or Mary Wollstonecraft was, is, and will be for future generations. Nor will Professor Stove equal the achievements of his contemporary, Iris Murdoch, as a philosopher and writer:
"In fact, it is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of its own reason." Mary Wollstonecraft says: "This was Rousseau's opinion respecting men. I extend it to women. ... Still the regal homage they receive is so intoxicating, that till the manners of the times are changed, and formed on more reasonable principles, it may be impossible to convince them that the illegitimate power, which they obtain, by degrading themselves, is a curse, and that they must return to nature and equality, if they wish to secure the placid satisfaction that unsophisticated affections impart. But for this epoch we must wait -- wait, perhaps, till kings and nobles, enlightened by reason, and, preferring the real dignity of man [and woman] to a childish state, throw off their gaudy hereditary trappings: and if then women do not throw off the arbitrary power of beauty -- they will prove they have less mind than man."
Vindications of the Rights of Woman, p. 103.
It is an insult and dehumanization of any rational person to presume to decide what is for that person's "own good."
Too many women have been damaged by sexism into regarding their roles as necessarily limited to physical attractiveness or "menial" domestic responsibilities.
This self-imposed or accepted limitation hurts women, all women, and (therefore) men as well.
I believe that we are all mutually dependent. Sexism hurts all of us -- especially those of us who love women who have been brutalized by sexism and objectification -- women made into "objects" that Professor Stove wishes to manipulate with mathematical formulas.
You will always be beautiful to me. ("Thoughts of a Domestic Revolutionary" and "Let's Hear it for the Boys.")
The sexism in this essay by Stove -- which contains not one valid argument -- is not simply mistaken, it is evil. This set of ideas leads to dehumanization of persons and brutality which is why it is evil. Worse, such false reasoning destroys the hopes and even lives of many young women usually when they are unprepared to recognize Stove's nonsense for what it is: a rationalization of an assumed "superiority" (mastery) by one who sees a large segment of the human population as his "natural" "inferiors" in need of his guidance and protection so as to be made into slaves. (''Westworld': A Review of the T.V. Series" then "Master and Commander" and "Not One More Victim.")
We must not allow such claims to go unchallenged. Stove should not be censored; he should be refuted. I think that he now has been refuted. Stove's shameful essay may be dismissed.
We are all, always, in need of mutual protection. We are all silly, absurd, comical, sexual creatures, self-conscious and self-doubting as well as imperfect. ("Shakespeare's Black Prince.")
The burden of being attractive to the opposite sex, or those we desire, and of caring for others -- especially children -- must not fall unfairly on one sex more than the other. ("A Doll's Aria.")
Men and women are intellectual and moral equals as history demonstrates.
Persons of either or any gender, regardless of sexual-orientation, are equally disposed to excel in science, law, philosophy, ballet, Opera, baseball, or any other area of human endeavor, including child-rearing.
None of us in society should be "conditioned into" (forced to accept) values or behaviors determined by "experts" to be for our own good much less manipulated secretly and without our consent to do so. Explaining her decision to write an autobiography at an early age, Angela Davis said:
"There was the possibility that having read it, more people would understand why so many of us have no alternative but to offer our lives -- our bodies, our knowledge, our will -- to the cause of our oppressed people. In this period, when the covers camouflaging the corruption and racism" -- as well as sexism -- "of the highest political offices are rapidly falling away, when the bankruptcy of the global system of capitalism is becoming apparent, there was the possibility that more people -- Black, Brown, Red, Yellow and White [male and female] -- might be inspired to join our growing community of struggle. Only if this happens will I consider this project to have been worthwhile." (emphasis added!)
David Stove, "The Intellectual Capacity of Women," Ch. 5 of Cricket Versus Republicanism (Quakers Hill Press, 1995), originally published in Proceedings of the Russellian Society, Vol. 15, 1990 and http://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/women.html (Unless otherwise indicated all quotations attributed to Stove are from this essay.)
J. Teichman, "The Intellectual Capacity of David Stove," Philosophy 76 (2001): 149-57.
David Stove, "What is Wrong With Our Thoughts? A Neo-Positivist Credo," The Plato Cult and Other Philosophical Follies (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991), pp. 179-200.
Supplemental Sources:
Carl Bernstein, A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton (New York: Vintage, 2008). (You must whisper her name.)
Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindications of the Rights of Woman (London: Penguin, 1982), first published 1792.
Janet Todd, Mary Wollstonecraft: A Revolutionary Life (London: Phoenix, 2000).
William Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (London: Penguin, 1985), First Published 1793.
Richard Holmes, "A Philosophical Love Story," Sidetracks (New York: Vintage, 2000), pp. 195-267.
Phil Gasper, "IQ, Genetics, and Racism," International Socialist Review, Jan-Feb., 2008, at p. 17.
This essay is for I.G.M. and S.G.M. (Happy Birthday Pisces!) and M.S. (Happy Birthday Gemini!).
I.
David Stove is a philosopher whose writings are controversial and whose work must be read and refuted by those of us opposed to his philosophical and political views.
In an earlier essay I set forth a critique of Professor Stove's epistemological and metaphysical positions. I also provided a defense of idealism on the grounds that philosophical idealism is both more complex and attractive to contemporary theorists than Stove realized.
I will continue to defend those essays -- and this article -- from hackers and vandalism because I believe that they can help to dramatize the flawed thinking that leads, even intellectuals, to denigrate the intelligence of women (still today) and of others who are deemed "marginal," or "like women."
In other words, persons -- like me -- are routinely given unsolicited assistance in thinking about political or spiritual issues by others who seem (to themselves) "superior" to the unwashed masses of students and writers or "subpersons," again, like me. ("Master and Commander" and "The Taming of Somebody I Don't Know Who.")
I am a phenomenologist who is drawn to the hermeneutic tradition and who finds much in recent versions of idealism valuable and useful.
My pragmatist sympathies also lead me to borrow from rival philosophical schools, when necessary, in developing my own theoretical arguments. As long as my finished arguments and conclusions are internally consistent, while remaining externally significant and yielding explanatory power, divergent elements are fine.
It is for fair-minded readers to decide whether what I say coincides with their intuitions.
I am also a feminist because: 1) I see men and women as natural equals, except that women have been denied opportunities and rights for centuries and this has produced unjust and artificial differences in the respect accorded to women's achievements and capacities as compared with men's achievements. This is cruel and unjust to women. 2) I believe that traditionally sexist societies (like ours) must take "affirmative action" to provide opportunities for women to wield political power, enter the academy, enjoy outlets for creative work that enriches everyone.
Professor Stove has declared his commitment to positivism and materialism. This makes Stove's self-contradictions and unknowing abandonment of his own philosophical foundations even more striking in this essay.
Professor Stove is also a self-declared opponent of feminism and far from an adherent of analytical philosophy, despite his claims to the contrary, since Professor Stove's grasp of logic is shaky at best.
Stove contradicts his self-professed "foundational stance" by offering a deeply flawed a priori argument based on probability theory -- after insisting that a priori arguments (ideas) cannot affect reality -- in order to establish a claim about human social reality, namely, that women "on the whole" lack "intellectual capacity" by comparison with men.
Stove's contentions are incoherent on his own terms. His argument is invalid descriptively and logically. Stove's argument is based on an inadequate or non-existent understanding of history. Stove's argument is filled with unexamined and invalid assumptions of fact, also false or illogical doctrines. Stove's argument is unsupported empirically; lacking scholarly foundations; riddled with philosophical errors; it is false and pernicious.
I am rarely this forceful or passionate in my criticisms of a philosopher's ideas. This intensity is justified since Professor Stove's contentions are not simply false, but harmful to young people, in particular, who will not recognize his errors and may even believe his false claims. ("Richard Rorty's Ethical Skepticism.")
I will not rely upon or quote other criticisms of Stove's essay. I will simply read it, pointing out errors and difficulties, offering some rejoinders by way of conclusion.
I am certain that Stove's essay is not only mistaken and poorly argued, but that it is a paradigm of fallacious reasoning from flawed premises to incoherent conclusions. For example, Stove's first paragraph is puzzling:
"I believe that the intellectual capacity of women is on the whole inferior to that of men. By 'on the whole,' I do not mean just 'on the average'; though I do mean that much. My belief is, if you take any degree of intellectual capacity which is above average for the human race, as a whole, then a possessor of that degree of intellectual capacity is a good deal more likely to be a man than a woman."
What is an "intellectual capacity"? What is "intelligence"? Professor Stove does not say.
Suppose that a person displays an unusual fondness and talent for crime. Is that an "intellectual capacity"? If so, then Professor Stove is correct. Empirical evidence (which Stove claims to admire) suggests that men are more likely to commit crimes than women, more likely to be violent and more likely to be stupid about it so as to get caught. Men are "on the whole" and "on average" more likely to be anti-social morons. This can be demonstrated empirically. Indeed, Professor Stove may illustrate the point.
I suspect that this is not the sort of "intellectual capacity" that Stove has in mind.
Intelligence is a vague and context-sensitive quality or virtue that is not easily defined: "[Intelligence] has never been given an agreed-upon precise scientific definition." (ISR, p. 18.)
It has been suggested that: "intelligence is whatever IQ tests measure, but without some further justification this definition is purely arbitrary. In fact the two ideas most commonly associated with intelligence by experts are the ability to adapt to one's environment and ability to learn, but traditional IQ tests are not designed to measure either of these capacities." (ISR, p. 18.)
What do IQ tests measure? Intelligence. What is "intelligence"? Whatever IQ tests measure.
Needless to say people designing IQ tests tend to define intelligence in terms of measuring qualities associated with themselves and others like themselves. Traditionally, most of the persons creating such tests have been affluent white men. Hence, it should not surprise us if traditional testing indicated that women and non-whites residing in places other than suburbia are less intelligent than the mostly suburban and middle class white men who make IQ tests.
There is no objective basis for concluding that women are less intelligent than men. This is true even in terms of IQ tests biased in favor of men and boys assuming that a distinction exists between men and boys.
When cultural factors are accounted for African-Americans are demonstrably as intelligent, or more intelligent, than others. Persons taking the so-called "Black IQ Test," discovered that they were semi-vegetable-like morons as a result only of changes in the language in which traditional IQ questions were asked.
I have serious doubts that intelligence can be measured or quantified in a non-biased manner.
Stove does not tell us at any point in this essay what he means by an "intellectual capacity." Hence, throughout Stove's subsequent discussion, he simply assumes that we all agree with him about what is an intellectual capacity.
Furthermore, Professor Stove also takes it for granted that everyone in history for thousands of years knew exactly what Stove means today by an intellectual capacity (which he does not tell us), while agreeing with Stove that women have less of it than men especially much less than Professor Stove himself.
Stove sees himself as very well "endowed" -- as it were -- with this mysterious "intellectual capacity."
We will be the judges of that claim, Professor Stove. From these astonishing beginnings Stove descends even further into the pit of incoherence:
"In the past almost everyone, whether man or woman, learned or unlearned, believed the intellectual capacity of women to be inferior to that of men. Even now this is, I think, the belief of most people in most parts of the world. In this article my main objective is simply to remind the reader of what the evidence is, and always was, for this old belief, and of how strong that evidence is."
For most of recorded history people believed that the earth is flat. Many still do. This does not make such a belief true.
Professor Stove is telling us that most people have always believed "X" (which he does not define), therefore, we should continue to believe "X." This is not a compelling argument.
I allude to the majority's belief in religion in my critique of Richard Dawkins's recent book. However, I do not infer from that majority belief that religion is "true" or that there is a God. I argue that the burden of proof rests with critics to establish the irrationality of belief. Also, I argue that belief and non-belief are equally rational given inevitable human ignorance concerning such matters. These claims are very different from Stove's contentions concerning women's intelligence or lack thereof.
I eagerly sought to examine Professor Stove's evidence for this historical belief hoping that I might be intellectually superior to women only to discover that there is not a single footnote accompanying his text. Worse, it appears that -- as I suspected -- I am intellectually inferior to most of the women I have known and all of those that I have loved.
There is not one citation or quotation, in other words, from a single empirical study or historical work of any kind to support Stove's abstract generalizations.
What does "almost everyone" mean? 75% of persons who have written books in the past have expressed such an opinion? 4 out of 5 dentists agree? We do not know. Stove does not know.
Professor Stove has contemplated his navel, looked up at the ceiling, scratched his "nether regions" and pulled these conclusions out of it.
I will now indulge in a Stove-like display of unsupported philosophical generalization: "throughout history left-handed persons of Asian ancestry have always been gay, but only when they are Jewish, of course, and not if they are atheists or if they play chess, except if they play chess on Tuesdays."
There is just as much "evidence" for this claim as Stove provides for his contention about women's "intellectual capacity" -- none. The lack of evidence is not altered if I say: "Everyone has always believed this."
Notice that Stove's flawed reasoning has nothing to do with the validity of a priori arguments or classical rationalism.
Stove is offering unsupported empirical generalizations, but giving them an a priori form.
A mathematical proposition is an a priori assertion and may be valid, even necessarily so, without referring to the empirical world. Think of calculus or probabilities -- which will feature in Stove's argument -- that refer to likely future states of the world.
A generalization or interpretation concerning empirical reality, however, should point to some evidence supporting it in what is laughingly known as the "real world."
Stove confuses "prescriptive" (recommending something), "descriptive" (telling you what is the case) and "predictive" (estimating a likely future eventuality) claims, often making all three in a single paragraph on the basis of a flawed premise.
There is absolutely no basis or support offered for Stove's "conclusory" generalizations.
In fact, throughout history, women have wielded political power while managing to be recognized as learned and brilliant thinkers, despite overwhelming social obstacles and pressures against intellectual accomplishment by women. Below are some specific examples.
Professor Harold Bloom of Yale University suggests that the earliest books in what is arguably Western literature's first text, the Hebrew Bible, may well be the work of a woman. Bloom contends, persuasively, that the writer of the earliest Old Testament books, known to us only as "J," must have been a woman of noble birth. If Bloom is correct then Western literature and philosophy -- our religions -- may begin as a woman's invention (or discovery) which would not surprise me.
Many literary and philosophical "superstars" happen to be women, both in the past and in our own time. They are not merely exceptions. Their achievements are even more impressive than those of their male counterparts in light of the social obstacles which women overcame (and still overcome) in order to do intellectual work.
I am not surprised that N.J. people find it necessary to continue to insert "errors" in this essay. I am making it difficult for you to claim that I am "insensitive to women's issues."
I suppose that I will have to read "J-Val." I believe that I am now, as they say, "feministing."
An excellent example of a woman with a far better philosophical mind than Stove's (or mine), who overcame what seem to us like unimaginable obstacles is Mary Wollstonecraft. Another example of philosophical brilliance today is found in a woman overcoming more than sexism, also racism -- Angela Davis. Cleopatra and Nefertiti -- both Africans -- along with many other women, governed empires in antiquity (often through their husbands in sexist societies, i.e., Theodosia, who began life as a prostitute in the Circus Maximus), founded religions, made art and did what human beings (male and female), always and everywhere manage to do. Isabel "la Catolica," Elizabeth I, Maria Theresa, Catherine the Great, Queen Victoria and any number of other political leaders -- who happen to have been women -- have ruled nations, often very well. None of these women could attend universities in their societies. Women have been philosophers, poets, painters, scientists, overcoming sexist and other barriers to create lasting work in every historical epoch. At the risk of infuriating my would-be censors and fascists everywhere, I hope that we will someday be fortunate enough to elect a woman to the U.S. Presidency. For one likely candidate, see Carl Bernstein, A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham-Clinton (New York: Vintage, 2008). ("'This is totally amazing!' -- Donald J. Trump.")
Women have led armies and governed nations in our time -- Golda Meir, Indira Ghandi, Margaret Thatcher -- and women have fought battles as revolutionaries and intellectuals, Rosa Luxembourg, Assata Shakur, "Tanya."
Professor Stove is simply wrong in his unqualified generalization which explains why he offers no support whatsoever for it in scholarship or empirical evidence.
There is no support to offer for Stove's contention that women are intellectually inferior to men because it is not true.
Even if there were fewer women than men of genius in recorded history -- a debatable point which I do not accept -- this can be explained by the difference in social opportunity and cultural approval for men as compared with women intellectuals and artists, even today, and has nothing to do with differences in "intellectual capacity."
From this false premise Stove argues that those who oppose his view and argue for gender equality base their position on "prejudice and passion." However, Stove does not examine that feminist or egalitarian position or the evidence for it. This is an indication that it is actually Professor Stove's views that are the result of "prejudice and passion."
I will help him to examine the counter-argument by quoting John Stuart Mill (not an idealist, but an empiricist and materialist), whose explanation for any alleged differential achievement by women as compared with men in art, science, politics or law is much more persuasive than what Stove has to say.
It is important to remember that, for most of Western history, women could not own land, could not attend universities, could not hold wealth or properties in their own name, could not establish independent lives. Women were -- they often still are -- overworked, living in crowded settings and surrounded by children, for whom they alone were responsible. Virginia Woolf is eloquent on the crowded rooms in which women -- like Jane Austen -- wrote their brilliant novels. Ms. Woolf has convinced me of the impossibility of a female Tolstoy writing War and Peace in the absence of the experiences and opportunities that made that masterpiece possible for its author. Everyone should read Virginia Woolf's A Room of Her Own and Orlando.
Ms. Woolf tells us that there are "real women," but that "femininity" had to be invented by societies as a "role" for one gender rather than the other(s). ("Ex Machina: A Movie Review" and "Judith Butler and Gender Theory.")
Women could not go to war. Women could not have adventures and be admitted to society. Women could not really live their own lives but were required to abide by the dictates of society. Many chose to violate those social dictates and paid a great price for it. (See my much-damaged essay: "Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin" also "Master and Commander.") According to Mill:
"Men do not want solely the obedience of women, they want their sentiments. ... They [men] have therefore put everything in practice to enslave their [women's] minds. The masters of all other slaves rely, for maintaining obedience, on fear; either fear of themselves, or religious fears. The masters of women wanted more than simple obedience, and they turned the whole force of education to effect their purpose. All women are brought up from the earliest years in the belief that their ideal of character is the very opposite to that of men; not self-will, and government by self-control, but submission, and yielding to the control of others. ... Can it be doubted that any of the other yokes which mankind have succeeded in breaking would have subsisted till now if the same means had existed, and had been as sedulously used, to bow down their minds to it? ... would not serfs and seigneurs, plebeians and patricians, have been as broadly distinguished at this day as men and women are? and would not all but a thinker here and there believe the distinction to be a fundamental and unalterable fact in human nature?"
The Subjection of Women, p. 443. (An obvious analogy to racism is available.)
Rational considerations do not enter Stove's mind. He says that we simply "know" (how?) that women have less intellectual capacity than men (whatever intellectual capacity may be) because the "intellectual performance of women is inferior to that of men."
Whose performance? What specific women philosophers are "inferior" (his word) to men writing today?
In the history of Western thought, from antiquity, women have participated in philosophical dialogues and contributed to the intellectual tradition, at the highest levels, despite nearly overwhelming obstacles against them.
Footnote please, Professor Stove. There is none. No historical or other evidence establishes this assertion. No logical argument is offered in support of this contention. As Gore Vidal once remarked: "in debate the unsupported remark is not worth making."
Stove reasons from ALLEGED inferior performance to ALLEGED inferior capacity, but provides: 1) neither a definition of "inferior capacity," nor 2) a list of specific examples of inferior performances by women. However, he does contradict himself.
Is this self-contradiction an indication of Stove's (or men's!) "lack of intellectual capacity"? Stove says:
"... This, then, is one commonplace truth which needs to be borne in mind when we think about the intellectual capacity of women: that capacity does not require performance."
This is an example of an unsupported statement, by Professor Stove, that is not worth making.
So which is it? Do we infer "the inferior capacity of women from alleged inferior performance"? Or is it true that "capacity does not require performance"?
Stove has articulated an incoherent position. He is saying both A and not-A. To speak of evidence of intellectual capacity requiring performance to exist does not get him off the hook since a capacity may exist and yet not be known due to a lack of evidence.
Stove consistently confuses the ontological and epistemological issues to which he refers. This is a common error which is not excusable for a philosopher. It is too much to expect that Stove has been converted to a form of Hegelian dialectical idealism. He does not suggest a relationship between "capacity" and "performance" but a direct correlation. Stove then says that there is no such correlation, only a correlation between "evidence" of capacity and actual capacity, except that there is sometimes no such evidence. This is not subtle argumentation. It is incoherence.
II.
How many women might have painted as well as -- though differently from -- Leonardo Da Vinci we will never know. (Since people are in the habit of making incorrect corrections when I write essays let me make it clear that "Da Vinci" and "da Vinci" are both acceptable spellings of this Renaissance painter's name.)
Shakespeare's sister is not a good example, I think, but Virginia Woolf's general point is valid that any number of women might have written as well as the men whose works we rightly celebrate, yet without education (or opportunity) their talents were never developed or known even to themselves.
This is not to diminish the importance of achievements by men (mostly) whose works are now canonical in a liberal arts curriculum.
I am merely explaining why there are not many more women on the usual list of great thinkers of past ages even if all such lists are changing quickly to include more women and will (probably) provide for equal representation of men and women in the future.
My talent for dancing the mambo is unsuspected by others since I have never attempted such a dance publicly. This is hardly to establish that such a talent -- in addition to my obvious and astonishing sexual skills -- does not exist in me. These skills and talents may indeed exist in me and not be known, at this time, except by a fortunate few. ("An Evening With Gore Vidal" and "Abrazo: Saying Goodbye to Christopher Hitchens.")
Stove simply knows that women are not his equals. I agree, if not for Stove's reasons. Most of the women I know have far more "intellectual capacity" than Professor Stove. Many of them can also "mambo" as it were. The difference between humor and stupidity is also obvious to those who can read the English language. You (and only you), as a reader, decide what to think of an author. ("Skinny People Dressed in Black" and "La Traviata.")
Stove is willing to assume that the intellectual capacity of every woman that he meets is probably inferior to his own vastly superior capacity.
This assumption is made on the basis of overwhelming evidence from all of recorded human experience of the inferior intellectual capacity of women because (we are told) women's intellectual performance is usually inferior to that of men, especially when it comes to himself, as a male, according to Stove. ("Is truth dead?")
Female inferiority is taken for granted by Stove in the absence of any examples at all from history (or philosophy) by a man who has just published a self-contradictory argument. ("Stuart Hampshire and Iris Murdoch on Freedom of Mind.")
Stove has only managed to provide readers with irrefutable evidence of his own inadequacies, logical and otherwise.
What Stove relies on to establish his non-existent case is an a priori argument based on probability theory in logic, an argument which is also incoherent and false, as I shall now demonstrate.
Professor Stove abandons his positivism and materialism to engage in a form of a priori idealist or rationalist argumentation which he has railed against in the past. This has nothing to do with scientific method or the validity of rationalist methods in the hands of others. Stove contends, on analogy to coins and dice and such things, that:
"Probabilities are a sort of graduated capacities, and the question about the comparative intellectual capacity of men and women is, like the question whether a certain coin is fair, a question of probabilities." (''Self/Less': A Movie Review.")
This is absurd. Women -- perhaps regrettably in Stove's mind -- are not inanimate objects. Women are not coins or dice lying on a coffee table (an interesting image!) to be picked up and tossed about by Professor Stove, so as to calculate the number of times when a particular female person will come up "heads" or (this is indeed interesting!) "tails."
Persons -- Professor Stove is shocked to discover that women are "persons" -- are social beings, defined by their relationships and contexts, languages, religious and cultural affiliations, social roles, economic status, education. It is not possible to abstract and isolate women (or men) from all social contexts in order to regard them as "widgets" or numbers subject to the mathematical laws of probability in terms of an undefined "intellectual capacity." ("'The Mountain Between Us': A Movie Review.")
Unlike Professor Stove John Rawls takes great care to set very careful limits on his thought experiment called the "original position" and to suggest that it is an analogy to the postulated "pre-political situation of humanity." ("John Rawls and Justice.")
Stove abstracts women from the empirical world, performs dubious mathematical calculations, then concludes that this establishes that -- in the empirical world -- women must lack the intellectual capacity of men whatever intellectual capacity may mean.
This claim is what philosophers describe as a "non-sequitur." In more prosaic terms this is bullshit.
Why are Stove's mathematical calculations dubious?
"The mathematical theory of probability enables us to calculate the probability of some kind of event given the probability of others. ... The arithmetic of such combinations, investigated in the seventeenth century by Pascal and Fermat, has developed into a general theory of measures on sets, which correspond to possible values of a random variable. Its most familiar axiomatic treatment is due to the Russian mathematician Kolgomorov."
Dictionary of Philosophy, p. 288. ("'Inception': A Movie Review.")
Stove is proposing what mathematicians describe as a "contingent probability series." The proposed form being both syllogistic and geometrical:
"If A and B are given occurrences in the past, where situation C obtains; then it is possible to calculate the likely occurrence of A and B, in identical future settings, where situation C is repeated."
This method is excellent for calculating eventualities with regard to the toss of dice or flipping of a coin. Insurance companies hope to estimate frequency of accidents in such ways.
With regard to persons and human relationships in ALL of human history the number of "contingent variables" for which one must account -- such as social factors, religious influence, how one defines "intellectual achievement," cultural reinforcement, economic factors, etc. -- is potentially infinite or beyond the capacity of anyone to identify or factor into a feasible equation.
Men and women are simply not reducible to the abstractions "A" and "B." This is something for lawyers and psychologists to remember. ("Innumerate Ethics.")
You cannot predict or control what people will do. Furthermore, there are moral constraints on what and how you may predict or try to "determine" human behavior. You cannot "condition" persons into behavior of which you happen to approve with any degree of certainty since their responses to ever-changing circumstances will not, and should not be, exactly predictable or alike. This is because persons are not exactly alike. ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture" and "'The Stepford Wives': A Movie Review.")
You also cannot calculate probability when you have failed to define the given "X-Factor" -- the "X-Factor" whose probability is at issue in the first place -- or the method to be followed in your inquiries. ("Nice Babies and Bad Psychologists.")
Stove provides no control group, no attempt to eliminate extraneous factors other than this mysterious "capacity." A person is not a thing or a laboratory animal. Human social realities and personal identities are dynamic and participatory never static or strictly "externally" malleable. Professor Stove has run into "Ulam's Dilemma":
"If the number of theorems is larger than one can possibly survey, [no one] can be trusted to judge what is important."
Philip J. Davis & Reuben Hersh, The Mathematical Experience (Boston: Houghton & Mifflin, 1981), pp. 20-21. ("Is the universe only a numbers game?")
David J. Bartholomew, a Professor of Statistics at the London School of Economics and a religious person has offered a highly sophisticated argument -- based on mathematical probabilities -- for the logical plausibility of belief in God. Professor Bartholomew's book is far more sophisticated than anything Professor Stove can produce. However, Professor Bartholomew is careful to indicate that:
"A final point to make about probabilities is that they are almost always conditional. Their value depends on what we choose to regard as 'given.' ..."
Uncertain Belief: Is it Rational to be a Christian? (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), p. 27.
Stove assumes what he hopes to prove.
Stove takes for granted that, in the past, women's intellectual capacity (whatever that may be) has been "established" to be less than that of men. He can then say that it is more likely to continue to be less impressive than that of men in the future.
This is the absurd form of "argumentation" that gives philosophy a bad name. Stove was entirely serious in putting forward this argument. There are persons who will not see the logical difficulties in Stove's essay and believe what he says.
Do not believe sexist claims. Sexism is false and immoral. The potential for social harm is very high indeed when this sort of "quasi" philosophy or scientific pretension goes unchallenged.
Does this begin to seem familiar? It should.
There are previous efforts to demonstrate, scientifically or logically, the inferiority of persons of African ancestry, or the criminal minds "produced" by brain chemistry or genes, and the probability of such "determining" factors resulting in further criminality usually based on a totally inadequate attempt to cope with all of the messy factors that make people choose to be what they are -- sometimes within insurmountable constraints -- so as to explain what they do.
I suggest a careful study of the works of Stephen Jay Gould and a biologist, whose books I will read and review at this blog, Richard Lewontin:
"In short, the BIOLOGICAL basis of human uniqueness leads us to reject biological determinism. Our large brain is the biological foundation of intelligence; intelligence is the ground of culture; and cultural transmission builds a new mode of evolution more effective than Darwinian processes in its limited realm -- the inheritance and modification of learned behavior. [Intelligence?] As philosopher Steven Toulmin stated: 'Culture has the power to impose itself on nature from within.'"
Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man (New York: W.W. Norton, 1981), p. 325. ("Judith Butler and Gender Theory" and "Fascinating Fascism.")
I have deliberately quoted from this wonderful book to indicate that it is many persons -- especially women -- who have been "mismeasured."
A teacher reviewed an IQ test with one of her immigrant students who did poorly on the test. She asked why he failed to associate "cup" with "saucer" as opposed to "glass" or "spoon."
The student explained that he had never seen a cup on a saucer at home.
Why should that immigrant student associate "cup" with one of these words more than the others? No reason.
These cultural considerations were, literally, beyond imagination for the nice "experts" designing this "intelligence test" before returning to their homes in suburban Connecticut.
Naturally, it was explained to the immigrant student that he was probably an imbecile and should consider a career in politics. Senator Bob? ("Does Senator Menendez Have Mafia Friends?" and "Senator Bob, the Babe, and the Big Bucks.")
Stove's assumptions concerning nature's "requirement" that only women raise children because they are "better equipped" for this task than men is simply laughable:
"In plain English: a woman does not need to use her brains to have a baby, and doesn't even need to use them much in order to see an infant through the period of its most extreme helplessness."
Child-rearing is some of the most difficult work that any person can do. I can attest to this from "experience." There are difficult choices to make with time-allocation, juggling professional and familial responsibilities, home and family care, cooking, cleaning, while reading Kant and writing books, lecturing, sharing sports or playing with one's child are exceedingly difficult human activities, also among the most rewarding things that a person can do.
A brain is definitely helpful in being a parent. I am not ashamed about doing such "lowly" tasks in my home. It is not insulting me to comment on the fact that I scrub toilets or wash dishes. My "manhood," as I define it, is not threatened by these dire accusations of "unmasculine" behavior.
Despite my ethnicity I am not "Ricky Ricardo." No one is or should be "Ricky Ricardo" -- no woman should be so absurd! -- since that t.v. character has now been left behind by American culture (I hope!) as anything other than an entertaining t.v. personality.
My use of this character to identify some regressive tendencies in the Cuban-American community is deliberate. Sadly, persons in New Jersey may have assumed (because of prejudice) that I am exactly like such a stereotype of the Latino male. Nothing can be farther from the truth.
Subtle psychological insight ("intellectual capacity?") is necessary to say exactly the right thing to a teenage daughter whose feelings are fragile and for whom self-esteem is crucial.
Professor Stove is incapable of realizing this since, no doubt, Mrs. Stove takes care of such matters. Stove's home is probably tidy. Meals are ready on time. His newspaper awaits him when he gets home in the evening.
Nothing seems easier -- for Stove or men like him -- than daily home maintenance.
Professor Stove's children are mysteriously neat and well-behaved, well-taught and healthy. This allows Stove to think "deep thoughts" such as those found in this remarkable essay.
Among the most difficult challenges associated with fatherhood (or parenthood) is knowing how to prepare a child for the pains of injustice, cruelty, stupidity among the powerful and many other horrors that, inevitably, will be a part of her life in a world filled with irrational hatreds and bizarre misunderstandings of our complex natures and ethical life.
There are even fascistic morons who insert "errors" in the writings of envied others.
Child-rearing is a human responsibility. It is a responsibility which nature leaves for persons to discharge, as they think best. Gay couples, extended families, grandparents -- all may discharge this responsibility well or poorly depending on the individual circumstances of their lives and other factors.
There is no more important human responsibility than caring for others. This is especially true when it comes to children. Scrubbing toilets and washing dishes -- things that I will do today after I complete this essay -- are exalted by being offered to those we love as a gift of ourselves to and for them.
I will always be happy to do such things for any person that I love. This includes Marilyn Straus.
During the Catholic mass there is an "offertorial procession." Personal gifts are offered to God -- not because God can use a new toaster -- because they are things shared or given from (or by) ourselves. This is the point in "giving" to those we love. Giving is sharing ourselves symbolically.
China has a very elaborate and beautiful language of giving that expresses the same principle.
Since the subject of religion has been discussed it may clarify matters to share an anecdote that I learned from one of my aunts. Rita Hayworth, at the height of her movie fame, visited a leper colony run by Sisters of Charity. The film star said to one of the nuns, "I wouldn't do this work for a million dollars."
The nun laughed and said: "I wouldn't do it for a million dollars either."
The Catholic nun did that "lowly" work only for love and service to God.
Does that help people to understand what is "religion"? ("Is Daniel Dennett an Unhelpful Samaritan"? and "Daniel Dennett and the Theology of Science.")
Physicians -- many monks and priests as well as nuns -- caring for the ill in this community of sick people, lepers, also chose to work for something other than money.
Were these physicians "determined" by nature to do this work? I think they chose, freely, to be guided by love.
Intellectual capacity? Moral sensitivity? Do these terms refer to the same faculty? Why is it mostly men, like Stove -- including quite a few in the legal profession -- who cannot understand this?
The absence of love in our social lives can be not only stupid but lethal for everyone.
Does Obamacare worry people more than the absence of all medical insurance for 50 million Americans?
According to Stove women are like "[m]onkeys treading at random on typewriter keys [who] will never reproduce the works of Shakespeare."
Imagine this statement being directed at (or concerning) African-Americans today.
Professor Stove will not reproduce the works of Shakespeare; nor those of Jane Austen. Stove will never be half the philosopher or person that Edith Stein, Elizabeth Seton, or Mary Wollstonecraft was, is, and will be for future generations. Nor will Professor Stove equal the achievements of his contemporary, Iris Murdoch, as a philosopher and writer:
"In fact, it is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of its own reason." Mary Wollstonecraft says: "This was Rousseau's opinion respecting men. I extend it to women. ... Still the regal homage they receive is so intoxicating, that till the manners of the times are changed, and formed on more reasonable principles, it may be impossible to convince them that the illegitimate power, which they obtain, by degrading themselves, is a curse, and that they must return to nature and equality, if they wish to secure the placid satisfaction that unsophisticated affections impart. But for this epoch we must wait -- wait, perhaps, till kings and nobles, enlightened by reason, and, preferring the real dignity of man [and woman] to a childish state, throw off their gaudy hereditary trappings: and if then women do not throw off the arbitrary power of beauty -- they will prove they have less mind than man."
Vindications of the Rights of Woman, p. 103.
It is an insult and dehumanization of any rational person to presume to decide what is for that person's "own good."
Too many women have been damaged by sexism into regarding their roles as necessarily limited to physical attractiveness or "menial" domestic responsibilities.
This self-imposed or accepted limitation hurts women, all women, and (therefore) men as well.
I believe that we are all mutually dependent. Sexism hurts all of us -- especially those of us who love women who have been brutalized by sexism and objectification -- women made into "objects" that Professor Stove wishes to manipulate with mathematical formulas.
You will always be beautiful to me. ("Thoughts of a Domestic Revolutionary" and "Let's Hear it for the Boys.")
The sexism in this essay by Stove -- which contains not one valid argument -- is not simply mistaken, it is evil. This set of ideas leads to dehumanization of persons and brutality which is why it is evil. Worse, such false reasoning destroys the hopes and even lives of many young women usually when they are unprepared to recognize Stove's nonsense for what it is: a rationalization of an assumed "superiority" (mastery) by one who sees a large segment of the human population as his "natural" "inferiors" in need of his guidance and protection so as to be made into slaves. (''Westworld': A Review of the T.V. Series" then "Master and Commander" and "Not One More Victim.")
We must not allow such claims to go unchallenged. Stove should not be censored; he should be refuted. I think that he now has been refuted. Stove's shameful essay may be dismissed.
We are all, always, in need of mutual protection. We are all silly, absurd, comical, sexual creatures, self-conscious and self-doubting as well as imperfect. ("Shakespeare's Black Prince.")
The burden of being attractive to the opposite sex, or those we desire, and of caring for others -- especially children -- must not fall unfairly on one sex more than the other. ("A Doll's Aria.")
Men and women are intellectual and moral equals as history demonstrates.
Persons of either or any gender, regardless of sexual-orientation, are equally disposed to excel in science, law, philosophy, ballet, Opera, baseball, or any other area of human endeavor, including child-rearing.
None of us in society should be "conditioned into" (forced to accept) values or behaviors determined by "experts" to be for our own good much less manipulated secretly and without our consent to do so. Explaining her decision to write an autobiography at an early age, Angela Davis said:
"There was the possibility that having read it, more people would understand why so many of us have no alternative but to offer our lives -- our bodies, our knowledge, our will -- to the cause of our oppressed people. In this period, when the covers camouflaging the corruption and racism" -- as well as sexism -- "of the highest political offices are rapidly falling away, when the bankruptcy of the global system of capitalism is becoming apparent, there was the possibility that more people -- Black, Brown, Red, Yellow and White [male and female] -- might be inspired to join our growing community of struggle. Only if this happens will I consider this project to have been worthwhile." (emphasis added!)
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