Gender Essentialism

[FlashDangerpants]

This argument has been examined and it failed....

So you say. I wonder if anybody, even you, thinks it's true. I don't.

You know perfectly well that it's a bust. You have been avoiding the circularity problem because you realise you have left yourself no way out of it. It's weird to see somebody who gives so many lectures on how his morality is grounded in replicating the behaviour of Jebus behaving in such a manner.

Incidentally, had you actually defended your own argument (obviously not happening now) another pair of mutually exclusive categories that you might want to permit transitions between might be sinner and saved. So it's probably for the best that you fucked the whole thing up so badly.

[Immanuel Can]

Sorry, Flash...I missed the part where you answered the simple question:

What specific "differences"?

[Nick_A]

Nick,



If you do it will make it much easier for me to describe what I believe to be the difference between a normal adaptive cycle of life you described which seems the dominant focus of this thread and the conscious change or evolution of "being" Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 15 in which a lower quality of being (natural body) evolves to a higher quality of being (spiritual body). From this perspective the essence or substance of Man has the potential for change

If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”[f]; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. 48 As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we[g] bear the image of the heavenly man.

Yes, I am familiar with the "The Great Chain of Being" that many of the Elizabethans , including Shakespeare, believed in, during the 14-15th centuries in England (and Western Europe, etc). The idea of a hierarchically- structured reality was actually first cooked up by Aristotle, I think, in his notion of the "scala natura". I think Aristotle was the most brilliant philosopher in the entire history of the West). I am very sympathetic, BTW, to the use of hierarchies of value propositions as a concept to help describe human nature. That is, I do believe that, whether it be differences in mental abilities (affective, cognitive, perceptual, etc;) or capabilities or physiological function or moral ( acts/behaviour) between individuals, that we are talking about, they can all be measured and sorted out and then placed into their appropriate position along appropriate vertical axes of hierarchy. Hierarchy is, think, (generally speaking), clearly one important aspect of Divinely ordained (moral) nautural law. God was not a communist or an egalitarian socialist; he did not intend for reality (in particular human social reality) to be flattened out and levelled, that is why when political rulers tried to do it in the 20th century (Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Zedong, Pol Pot and all the rest) all hell broke loose and 120 million people got murdered !!!

So, as I am familiar with "Great Chain of Being", please tell me about your evolutionary thesis. Remember though, Nick, that biological evolution (Darwinian) takes place very slowly over time, Nick.

Regards

Dachshund (Der Uberweiner).....................................................(Beware the dog)

The “Great Chain of Being” provides a vertical skeleton of the process of existence I am invited to fill in. It connects “No-thing” with “every-thing; wholeness with its parts. No-thing is pure conscious potential beyond time and space within which levels of reality, one level within the other, can emerge.

The universe is a giant Pythgorian octave. The intervals within the eight tone octave indicate the place where levels of reality emerge.

The universe is an expression of the three elemental forces uniting and dividing at lawful places along the vertical skeleton at descending levels of reality.

Each level of reality will have a quality of materiality and vibratory frequency natural its level of reality. Each level of reality can have a scale of quality within it. For example vertebrates are considered higher within a level of reality than invertebrates but both exist as animals as a level of reality along the great vertical scale of being.

The Great Chain of Being connects mechanical and conscious evolution. The place of connection in the universe is called Man. Man is dual natured having a lower animal part but also a higher part as an expression of a higher conscious level of reality.

The fallen human condition has caused an artificial division between these two levels. Where normal Man would consciously connect these levels, our fallen nature has made it impossible. Our lower parts function out of balance. We are the dark horse in Plato’s chariot analogy. The result is that imagination rather than consciousness connects the higher with the lower and the result is the hypocrisy you see in the world where the lower parts rule rather than serve the higher

Mechanical evolution in the world takes place in accordance with the needs of the earth. The attraction Man feels towards conscious evolution is the attraction to universal needs and the support of the Great Chain of Being. The universe isn’t here to serve man but the purpose of Man is to serve universal needs. Man can serve the universe as a mechanical thing, as an animal transforming substances, or as a conscious being serving a universal purpose. But has been proven, the humility necessary to open to the insignificance of the Man animal is too repulsive to consider so human life as a whole is restricted to the cyclical reactions of nature creating our collective existence Plato described as if living within a cave.

The Great Chain of Being provides a glimpse into the meaning and purpose of our universe. The fallen human condition reveals the the purpose of the essence of religion which is to provide the means for connecting above and below in our being by which the higher can nourish the lower and provide objective meaning to living. Of course the world struggles against objective quality and the idea of religion which becomes perverted is no exception.

[Immanuel Can]

Well, now.

Flash says men and women are "different." He says that's "biologically" and "socially." However, he seems to have been unable to say what specific "differences" he meant, so we can't really evaluate his view.

So perhaps someone else can propose something: what specific "differences" define "man" as substantively distinct from "woman"?

Let's also see if we can make some sense of Gender Essentialist Feminism. There would need to be some sort of "contribution" that women could make, but which men were not capable of making, according to that theory. What would it be?

[Nick_A]

IC

So perhaps someone else can propose something: what specific "differences" define "man" as substantively distinct from "woman"?

Gospel of Thomas

(114) Simon Peter said to him, "Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life."
Jesus said, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven."

If Jesus is right, women have the ability to abort their fetus or potential baby while men have the ability to abort the seed of their potential soul through their ignorance. Can there be a bigger difference?

[Immanuel Can]

Gospel of Thomas

I'm not a fan. It was found among other Gnostic texts at Nag Hammadi, in 1945.

Like most of the Christians, and most of the scholars in the world, I don't regard it as authentic. It's heretical in doctrine, non-apostolary in origin, has no references from early Christians or early councils at all, and is most plausibly dated in the second century. So personally, I make nothing from the G of T.

I was thinking of something less esoteric. Just some straightforward observations or some scientific facts to make the case, or to make the case against.

[Dachshund]

The “Great Chain of Being” provides a vertical skeleton of the process of existence I am invited to fill in. It connects “No-thing” with “every-thing; wholeness with its parts. No-thing is pure conscious potential beyond time and space within which levels of reality, one level within the other, can emerge.

The universe is a giant Pythgorian octave. The intervals within the eight tone octave indicate the place where levels of reality emerge.

The universe is an expression of the three elemental forces uniting and dividing at lawful places along the vertical skeleton at descending levels of reality.

Each level of reality will have a quality of materiality and vibratory frequency natural its level of reality. Each level of reality can have a scale of quality within it. For example vertebrates are considered higher within a level of reality than invertebrates but both exist as animals as a level of reality along the great vertical scale of being.

The Great Chain of Being connects mechanical and conscious evolution. The place of connection in the universe is called Man. Man is dual natured having a lower animal part but also a higher part as an expression of a higher conscious level of reality.

The fallen human condition has caused an artificial division between these two levels. Where normal Man would consciously connect these levels, our fallen nature has made it impossible. Our lower parts function out of balance. We are the dark horse in Plato’s chariot analogy. The result is that imagination rather than consciousness connects the higher with the lower and the result is the hypocrisy you see in the world where the lower parts rule rather than serve the higher

Mechanical evolution in the world takes place in accordance with the needs of the earth. The attraction Man feels towards conscious evolution is the attraction to universal needs and the support of the Great Chain of Being. The universe isn’t here to serve man but the purpose of Man is to serve universal needs. Man can serve the universe as a mechanical thing, as an animal transforming substances, or as a conscious being serving a universal purpose. But has been proven, the humility necessary to open to the insignificance of the Man animal is too repulsive to consider so human life as a whole is restricted to the cyclical reactions of nature creating our collective existence Plato described as if living within a cave.

The Great Chain of Being provides a glimpse into the meaning and purpose of our universe. The fallen human condition reveals the the purpose of the essence of religion which is to provide the means for connecting above and below in our being by which the higher can nourish the lower and provide objective meaning to living. Of course the world struggles against objective quality and the idea of religion which becomes perverted is no exception.

Nick


In his role as a biologist, Aristotle came to believe that the soul (psyche) was not, as Plato had argued, something that had been exiled from a better world and ill-housed in a base body. Rather, Aristotle thought that soul's very essence is defined by its relationship to an organic body. Aristotle used the term "soul" philosophically (as opposed to theologically) to refer to the immaterial aspect or "essence" of a human being, that which confers individuality and humanity. The term "soul" is often synonymous with diurnal consciousness, mind, the phenomenal domain and the "self."


Theologically speaking, the soul is that part of the individual which partakes of divinity and is often considered to survive death. I am unable to discuss this connotation of the word "soul" as I have no formal training in theology, however, I would be interested in discussing the soul as it is treated in Aristotle's philosophy. The reason being that I think what Aristotle has to say holds some very important implications for how we might redress many of the social problems that currently afflict Western societies , in particular the United States.


In particular, I would like to focus, initially, on Aristotle's argument that the souls of all organisms (i.e; living beings) are organised (ordered by rank) in a vertical hierarchy. In his Politics Book 1, Aristotle claim that Nature produces a plurality of sorts of people, and that this variation has moral and political importance. He proposes that we, as political scientists, must decipher these differences and conduct a normative inquiry into how to order them hierarchically AND into partnership, so as to form a just state (society) and thus produce the material conditions necessary for eudamonia( maximal human flourishing/well being).


Such a proposal, of course, would be heresy in the modern West today; the Liberal-Progressive establishment would "blow a fuse", so to speak, at the mere suggestion of trying to investigate the existence along any kind of of vertical, hierarchically ranked axis in any dimension of human mental functioning or any other measurable human variable.( Interestingly Aristotle believed that rational deliberation/ foresight were the highest human psychological processes, and it seems he was spot on. In referring to the capacity for foresight, autonomous, practical rational deliberation and competent, autonomous self - regulation/self- guidance towards goals in the temporal future, Aristotle is unwittingly referring - 2500 years before their existence was scientifically confirmed - to what modern neurobiologists, neuropsychologists and sundry other specialist neuro-scientists refer to as the construct of "Executive Functioning" and the "Executive Functions". These are the most recently evolved, advanced and sophisticated cognitive processes in the human mind.


Finally, with respect to the matter of hierarchy in human societies, I have serious problems with natural rights theory and the philosophical abstraction "natural rights of man" ( as promulgated by Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke, Voltaire, Helvetius and Tom Paine) and I believe that the notion of the "natural equality of all) is clearly empirically falsifiable. As for the American Declaration of Independence" in which Thomas Jefferson's phrase, "all men are born free and equal" in enshrined, I have, after reading Aristotle, been left with grave misgivings regarding the sagacity of that claim. Although, as I say, I have no expertise in theology, I must confess that I find the premise: "The hierarchically ordered inequalities of every kind that are obviously rooted in Nature were ordained by God", very plausible. One need only look at the past 6000 years of history. It clearly reveals the fact that all human civilizations have required the establishment of vertical human social hierarchies in order to exist (?)



Regards Dachshund (Der Uberweiner)

[Immanuel Can]

I have serious problems with natural rights theory and the philosophical abstraction "natural rights of man" ( as promulgated by Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke, Voltaire, Helvetius and Tom Paine) and I believe that the notion of the "natural equality of all) is clearly empirically falsifiable. As for the American Declaration of Independence" in which Thomas Jefferson's phrase, "all men are born free and equal" in enshrined, I have, after reading Aristotle, been left with grave misgivings regarding the sagacity of that claim. Although, as I say, I have no expertise in theology, I must confess that I find the premise: "The hierarchically ordered inequalities of every kind that are obviously rooted in Nature were ordained by God", very plausible. One need only look at the past 6000 years of history. It clearly reveals the fact that all human civilizations have required the establishment of vertical human social hierarchies in order to exist (?)

Well, as Jordan Peterson has pointed out, hierarchies are not just arrangements of power -- they're arrangements by competence. A society with no hierarchies is a society that does not have excellence, by definition; it has equal mediocrity only. However, because equal mediocrity is actually impossible to achieve in real life, even by suppressing all mention of differences, no non-hierarchical society has ever existed or will ever exist anyway. The danger is of the pseudo-hierarchy-free society, such as Communism aspires to create. That's the real issue.

But to your point about natural equality. Have you read Locke on this? If you read him carefully, you'll see exactly what kind of "equality" exists, and why.

In An Essay Concerning Toleration (1667), he famously argued that all humans are entitled to “life, liberty and property,” a triad that was converted by the American Declaration of Independence into “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

“But if God …would have men forced to heaven, it must not be by the outward violence of the magistrate on men’s bodies, but the inward constraints of his own spirit on their minds, which are not to be wrought on by any human compulsion. The way to salvation not being any forced exterior performance, but the voluntary and secret choice of the mind, and it cannot be supposed that God would make use of any means which could not reach but would rather cross the attainment of the end. Nor can it be thought that men should give the magistrate a power to choose for them their way to salvation, which is too great to give away, if not impossible to part with.”

Do you get it? He's referring to what he calls, "The Great Day," i.e. the Day of Judgment. He's saying that the sense in which people are equal is only a sense derived from their equal right to follow conscience, that is derived from the fact of their personal accountability before God. And, to make a very much longer story concise, it is from this that he derives his triad of rights of "life, liberty and property": "life," because God gives life to everyone; "liberty," because God holds everyone individually accountable; and "property," because without the possession of something, nobody can show good faith and perform actions of stewardship for which a person can be accountable on "The Great Day."

So the liberty to believe and act on one's conscience is the primary, unalienable right mankind all has. In that one regard, and that alone, we are all "equal."

In every other observable way, people are manifestly unequal. And any political or scientific view all all that values anything -- that makes, say, age more important than youth, or strength more important than weakness, intelligence more important than imbecility, or wealth better than poverty, males better than females (and vise versa), skillful workers better than dolts, health better than sickness, or any other thing better than anything else -- does exactly what you say...empirically, it makes one group more important, privileged or better than the others, and instantly produces hierarchy.

So in a purely "empirical" world, a world with no transcendent God in it, you would be quite right. There would be no avoiding hierarchies of evaluation of human beings, and there would be no sense in which we could possibly imagine people are actually "equal." Egalitarianism would simply not be rationally defensible anymore, then.

[Nick_A]

D

Finally, with respect to the matter of hierarchy in human societies, I have serious problems with natural rights theory and the philosophical abstraction "natural rights of man" ( as promulgated by Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke, Voltaire, Helvetius and Tom Paine) and I believe that the notion of the "natural equality of all) is clearly empirically falsifiable. As for the American Declaration of Independence" in which Thomas Jefferson's phrase, "all men are born free and equal" in enshrined, I have, after reading Aristotle, been left with grave misgivings regarding the sagacity of that claim. Although, as I say, I have no expertise in theology, I must confess that I find the premise: "The hierarchically ordered inequalities of every kind that are obviously rooted in Nature were ordained by God", very plausible. One need only look at the past 6000 years of history. It clearly reveals the fact that all human civilizations have required the establishment of vertical human social hierarchies in order to exist (?)

Once again my favorite lady adds some common sense. What if "natural rights of man" were replaced with "natural obligations of man? She wrote

The notion of obligations comes before that of rights, which is subordinate and relative to the former. A right is not effectual by itself, but only in relation to the obligation to which it corresponds, the effective exercise of a right springing not from the individual who possesses it, but from other men who consider themselves as being under a certain obligation towards him. Recognition of an obligation makes it effectual. An obligation which goes unrecognized by anybody loses none of the full force of its existence. A right which goes unrecognized by anybody is not worth very much.

It makes nonsense to say that men have, on the one hand, rights, and on the other hand, obligations. Such words only express differences in point of view. The actual relationship between the two is as between object and subject. A man, considered in isolation, only has duties, amongst which are certain duties towards himself. Other men, seen from his point of view, only have rights. He, in his turn, has rights, when seen from the point of view of other men, who recognize that they have obligations towards him. A man left alone in the universe would have no rights whatever, but he would have obligations.

Rather than the universe serving man and providing rights, man serves the universe in which our being has obligations. The quality of our obligations depends upon the quality of our being. Animal man has animal obligations serving one level of reality while conscious man has a higher quality of obligations which connects levels of reality bringing meaning to "as above so below."

Notice how society is caught up with arguing rights of collectives. Have you ever read anything about the universal obligations of an earthly collective? Doing so would be a direct insult to the Great Beast and the supremacy of society itself as the ultimate in conscious expression.

The natural hierarchy of man connects animal man with conscious man. Modern society cannot appreciate this distinction so is incapable or realizing that the only form of equality it has is the equality in being oblivious of its objective meaning and purpose in service to universal needs.

[Nick_A]

D

In particular, I would like to focus, initially, on Aristotle's argument that the souls of all organisms (i.e; living beings) are organised (ordered by rank) in a vertical hierarchy. In his Politics Book 1, Aristotle claim that Nature produces a plurality of sorts of people, and that this variation has moral and political importance. He proposes that we, as political scientists, must decipher these differences and conduct a normative inquiry into how to order them hierarchically AND into partnership, so as to form a just state (society) and thus produce the material conditions necessary for eudamonia( maximal human flourishing/well being).

In all fairness, this requires a separate thread rather than destroying this one. I'll be away from the 17th to the 25th so won't be posting. But after that if a new thread hasn't started, we will start one. If it is in progress, I'll join in.

[Dachshund]

D


The notion of obligations comes before that of rights, which is subordinate and relative to the former. A right is not effectual by itself, but only in relation to the obligation to which it corresponds, the effective exercise of a right springing not from the individual who possesses it, but from other men who consider themselves as being under a certain obligation towards him. Recognition of an obligation makes it effectual. An obligation which goes unrecognized by anybody loses none of the full force of its existence. A right which goes unrecognized by anybody is not worth very much.

It makes nonsense to say that men have, on the one hand, rights, and on the other hand, obligations. Such words only express differences in point of view. The actual relationship between the two is as between object and subject. A man, considered in isolation, only has duties, amongst which are certain duties towards himself. Other men, seen from his point of view, only have rights. He, in his turn, has rights, when seen from the point of view of other men, who recognize that they have obligations towards him. A man left alone in the universe would have no rights whatever, but he would have obligations.

Nick,



Yes, I agree with Simone. As far as her mature political philosophy is concerned, (and viewed overall), she was very much a Conservative. I presume you know this,already , Nick ? In fact, IMO, SW was, politically speaking, quite "hard right" in the same sense that, say, Margaret Thatcher was on social policy (I know that in her youth SW was a "red", who read Marxist literature on a daily basis (one of her nick names at the Ecole Normale Superiere (ENS) was the "Red Virgin") and was affiliated with hard left labour organizations in Paris ( for example, she took part in a number of workers' street demonstrations organised by communist groups in Paris. The paragraphs, you have posted above, could well have been written by the founding father of Conservatism Edmund Burke himself! (And) just as rights and obligations/duties are innately linked to each other in the way SM points out, so too are liberty and limitation. For instance, we can only be truly free as citizens in a society wherein the "rule of law" is effectively operative; more broadly, we are, paradoxically, only ever free when we are bound - where judicious limitations are imposed on our conduct; otherwise freedom tends to degenerate into licentiousness; and licentious behaviour is very restrictive. It inherently suppresses human potential and well being.




On a different note altogether, did you know that SW was autistic ? I have read a quite a lot about Simone Weil's day-to-day life, I mean, recollections from people who knew her regarding what she was like as a person; what she actually did and how she behaved and dressed and spoke at school, university, work. I am a pharmacist by profession, but I have some formal training in psychology and I think you will agree that Simone Weil was not psychologically normal. By "normal", I mean she was certainly not your "common or garden" young French girl/woman; or as a psychiatrist would say, she was certainly not "neurotypical". She was brilliant, of course, and would have scored very highly on any IQ test, but she had pronounced difficulties getting on with other people in general; she was obviously socially dysfunctional. Her student peers at the ENS and, for example, work colleagues at the Pergeot car factory recall that she was not the kind of young woman you could ever just sit down with and have a relaxed chat at lunch; I mean, she would not "chew the fat" with her colleagues or peers at university or a work common room about trivia like the weather or what was showing at the cinema, or what the local gossip was, etc. When she did converse /( or communicate by letter) with others the discussions were always very focused, intense and typically dealt with heavy (intellectually demanding) philosophical, political, or spiritual themes.





In my opinion Simone Weil was afflicted with what used to be called Asperger Syndrome, but (in the case of individual like her) is now officially called High Functioning Autism (HFA). The "High Functioning" simply means "intelligent" or, if you like, possessing the capacity for high- level rational cognition. There are lots of people who are very (or extremely) bright of course who do not have HFA. But children and adults with HFA are relatively easy to identify if you know what you are looking for. Firstly, they are conspicuously odd, quirky, eccentric - they stand out as being unusual in their behaviours, speech, dress, etc.. If you were to meet a guy with HFA and spend 30 mins chatting with him at a dinner party, when you got home you would think to yourself, "MMmmm, there was definately something weird about that guy - something "funny"; he made clever conversation, but something (?) about him wasn't "right".




In these case of Simone Weil, you could tell that she was odd or eccentric just when she walked into a room. When she was a student at the ENS she dressed in men's clothing, and not merely men's clothing but rugged male garments like heavy, military trench coats and even calico monk's robes. While most girl love footwear, SW restricted herself to pairs of banal flat-soled shoes. She eschewed the use of any make-up, which was unusual as she was an attractive girl. She had a kind of fragile (I call it that because I believe she was ill) beauty that is only properly captured in 3 or 4 of the photographs that we have of her today. She clearly had no interest in "girly" things like fashion and cosmetics, and we know that she decided early in her life she would not pursue any romantic/love affairs. This has some connection, no doubt, to the fact that she was particularly averse to being physically touched by anyone, and to the fact that her fellow students at the ENS nick-named her the "Red Virgin" ("Red" for Marxist, "Virgin" respecting her complete lack of interest in romantic relationships with the opposite sex). Another nick-name she was given at the ENS was "The Martian", a reference to creature from Mars in a popular science fiction film of the time with that had uncommonly large head. The creature from Mars has a sinister intelligence and was presumed to have a very large brain inside its very large head. As SW was well known by her fellow students to be extremely "brainy", the nick-name stuck. Also, one could say, that SW, often seemed, in her behaviours, as though she might well be "from another planet" SW was observed to be clumsy throughout her life, this is sometimes attributed to her poor vision, however she had prescription spectacles to correct her eyesight, so I would say that it is very possible that her clumsiness was due to HFA. (Clumsiness is a well documented "soft" neurological sign of Asperger Syndrome/HFA).




All of the unusual characteristics above are consistent with HFA, but one of the cardinal diagnostic symptom of the disorder is this: a desire to intensively and deeply probe some particular topic, or some very narrow range of topics, with a tremendous, intellectual passion. HFA in children used to be referred to by some therapists treating the condition, as the "Little Professor" syndrome. One example I recall reading about was of an 8 year old boy in the US who had acquired an encyclopaedic knowledge of Soviet MiG fighter aircraft. He could, when invited, lecture in a monotone voice for up to an hour on technical minutiae of MiG-17 or MiG- 27 fighter jets (or any other MiG model that was ever produced). But that was all he was interested in - Soviet MiGs (!!)




Simone Weil also experienced this symptom: a life-long habit of focusing and sustaining her attention on the task of deeply, deeply investigating a narrow range of subject matters. She demonstrated an extraordinary ability for perseverance in intensive intellectual enquiries into a handful of subject matters. (Her published written work is a good example of this - the content is high-level (cognitively), very deep and clearly driven by a an unyeilding passion) The result - when SW is "on song" - is an extraordinary, and untouchably beautiful prose style.



We know that focusing attention was extremely important to SW, because she tells us herself...




...any human being, even though devoid of natural faculties, can penetrate to the Kingdom of Truth reserved for geniuses, if only he longs for truth and concentrates all his attention upon it attainment."
"

and


"... the same conviction led me to persevere for 10 years in an effort of concentrated attention that was practically unsupported by any hopes."




Regards


Dachshund

[Dachshund]

Do you get it? He's referring to what he calls, "The Great Day," i.e. the Day of Judgment. He's saying that the sense in which people are equal is only a sense derived from their equal right to follow conscience, that is derived from the fact of their personal accountability before God. And, to make a

Dear IC,


In the medical literature, IC, there is a long history, and no shortage of, documents published affirming existence of a psychiatric disorder that we call "psychopathy" today. The Victorians called it "Moral Insanity" and it has had other diagnostic labels as well, but they all refer to the one species of mental affliction, which, as I say, we call psychopathy or "classic" psychopathy in 2019. Two of the clinical features/symptoms of psychopathy are (1) a lack of empathy/compassion and (2) an apparent partial or complete absence of conscience (in the sense you are referring to the term in your post above). Neurobiologists argue that the condition is characterised by certain deficits and deficiencies in the structure and function of the human brain's prefrontal cortex and other anatomical regions. Some psychiatric theorists ( typically psychoanalysts) attribute the condition to adverse/traumatic childhood experiences, such as the experience parental neglect or abuse and such like. The bottom line is that, as always, a psychiatric disorder like psychopathy is the result of gene X environment interactions (i.e; "nature" AND "nurture").


You might say to me, is there any evidence that a psychiatric affliction involving a partial or complete deficit of what we call "conscience" exists? I would reply, "Well no, IC, there is no absolutely, incontrovertible, indubitable, absolute, hard , objective biomarker, for example, for psychopathy in a case like Ted Bundy such that during the autopsy that was conducted on him a neurologist could identify a certain part/s of Bundy's brain that were abnormal and known to be so in every case of adult psychopathy. Nor - even if it were possible - would dredging through the minutiae of Bundy's childhood experiential history to try and find events and circumstances, etc that were common to all other convicted criminal psychopaths be a realistic option.


NONETHELESS, IC, if you were to ask me..." Do you, Dachshund, truly believe that there are individuals in this world, (a large number in fact), who lack any material (moral) conscience; who have no accurate internal sense of right and wrong, who would happily commit what you (and the "Average Joe" band of the bell curve would regard to be heinous, extremely wicked acts ? My answer would be,"ABSOLUTELY, my dear fellow, and I have indeed seen such behaviour with my very own eyes!"


I leave you with this query..." How, IC, can you claim that all men are equal in the sense that they are equally free to follow the dictates of their conscience when some men CLEARLY do not HAVE what you would call a conscience, or the conscience that they do actually have - "the "moral" law that is inscribed on their hearts" is twisted and perverted due to a psychiatric condition like psychopathy or some other cause? "


Regards


Dachshund (Der Uberweiner) WOOF!! WOOF !!...................................(Beware the dog)

[Immanuel Can]

I leave you with this query..." How, IC, can you claim that all men are equal in the sense that they are equally free to follow the dictates of their conscience when some men CLEARLY do not HAVE what you would call a conscience, or the conscience that they do actually have - "the "moral" law that is inscribed on their hearts" is twisted and perverted due to a psychiatric condition like psychopathy or some other cause? "

Well, D, I'm just telling you what John Locke said.

The reason that that is important is that nobody before or since him was able to articulate the grounds for the "equal rights as humans" argument. In fact, all the major human rights codes, including that of America and of the UN, have paraphrased Locke in their wording, claiming that some combination of life, liberty and various other things were universally obligatory in light of one's just being human.

However, none of these codes include the explanation of why, according to Locke, these things are obligatory. The Declaration of Independence just says, "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that man...is endowed by his Creator..." with that package of rights. But how a person is so "endowed," and on what basis this is supposed to be "evident" to all, are not spelled out. Consequently, this claim that human beings have rights, in these codes, simply floats on a colossal bluff -- hearers are not supposed to inquire too closely as to the reason for this belief in equality of basic rights. The sheer majesty of the language used is supposed to baffle them into silence.

Nonsense on stilts: tall-talking, but empty...unless there is more behind those rights than the human rights codes themselves give us the means of knowing. Locke had a sense that he knew. But Locke's suppositions were that a) there is a Creator, and b) there will be a "Great Day" on which the Creator will make men individually, personally responsible for what they have done. It is from this that he deduces that life, liberty and property are logically entailed, for the reasons I suggested.

Now, one thing Locke never said. He never said all men would respond equally to the moral obligation to please God. In fact, the idea of a Judgment carries within it the supposition that they will not; for why judge all men individually, and make them give personal account, if all men have done the same things? So inequality of outcome is built right into that. Some will follow conscience better, and some not so well. Some may have a more developed sense of guilt, and some less. Equality in this realm is not promised. Rather, the premise is freedom: that some men will act contrary to their consciences, and some will act in accord with them.

Romans 2, which Locke would have known well, says this: "...they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them, on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus." Whatever differentials of conscience exist, this will be no difficulty to the ultimate Judge.

Men are held responsible for what they know. They are not responsible for what they did not know. Some know less. But they often know a great deal more about right and wrong than they will admit. They have "secrets," in this regard, and often plead ignorance where they have knowledge, and innocence where they have secret guilt. This, says Paul in Romans, will not persist and will not stand in the face of God's knowledge of the innermost thoughts of mankind.

I do not know precisely how God will weigh the moral state of each person. But He will, and He will be right. Because as the Bible also says, "Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart." There may be people who did deeds that were superficially "worse" than what I have done, and yet I may find myself under greater condemnation, for having known more and done less. I do not know. But I do believe it will be fair. So it's not my job to judge others...they have to judge their own hearts. My job is to make sure I live up to what i know, and follow that conscience God has given me to remind me of my moral duties.

But in regards to equality among mankind, Locke established it on this basis. That all are made in the image of God. They were made by God. And they were made for God. To God alone is their real worth known. So human beings must stop presuming to judge the worth of each other before God has pronounced His judgment...because they're certain to be wrong. The attribution of equal rights, then, is a confession by all of us that we are not the judges, and we are not the right ones to say who deserves what. And it's a giving to God of the respect due to creatures who are His by right. And judging one another, and passing our human evaluation on their worth, is a consummately hubristic exercise...we make ourselves the judges, and usurp the right of God.

Locke saw this.

But do I expect Locke's rationale for equal human rights to survive the rejection of God in the present world? No. Of course not.

In this present age, there is no grounded rationale for equal human rights that secular mankind knows. The destruction of unborn children, the brutality of the modern age, unprincipled medical experimentation, genocide, the denial of basic rights to many, the persistence and worsening of slavery, racism, contempt for the handicapped and elderly, sexual libertinism and depravity, warfare, marginalization, hoarding, lack of charity...all these things are symptoms of the decay of conviction that equal human value exists. But this does not mean Locke was not right...only that people in our day do not wish to believe in the things he believed. Who was right, we will one day know. The Judge will judge. The question is, on which side of that judgment will each of us stand?

[Nick_A]

D


The notion of obligations comes before that of rights, which is subordinate and relative to the former. A right is not effectual by itself, but only in relation to the obligation to which it corresponds, the effective exercise of a right springing not from the individual who possesses it, but from other men who consider themselves as being under a certain obligation towards him. Recognition of an obligation makes it effectual. An obligation which goes unrecognized by anybody loses none of the full force of its existence. A right which goes unrecognized by anybody is not worth very much.

It makes nonsense to say that men have, on the one hand, rights, and on the other hand, obligations. Such words only express differences in point of view. The actual relationship between the two is as between object and subject. A man, considered in isolation, only has duties, amongst which are certain duties towards himself. Other men, seen from his point of view, only have rights. He, in his turn, has rights, when seen from the point of view of other men, who recognize that they have obligations towards him. A man left alone in the universe would have no rights whatever, but he would have obligations.

Nick,



Yes, I agree with Simone. As far as her mature political philosophy is concerned, (and viewed overall), she was very much a Conservative. I presume you know this,already , Nick ? In fact, IMO, SW was, politically speaking, quite "hard right" in the same sense that, say, Margaret Thatcher was on social policy (I know that in her youth SW was a "red", who read Marxist literature on a daily basis (one of her nick names at the Ecole Normale Superiere (ENS) was the "Red Virgin") and was affiliated with hard left labour organizations in Paris ( for example, she took part in a number of workers' street demonstrations organised by communist groups in Paris. The paragraphs, you have posted above, could well have been written by the founding father of Conservatism Edmund Burke himself! (And) just as rights and obligations/duties are innately linked to each other in the way SM points out, so too are liberty and limitation. For instance, we can only be truly free as citizens in a society wherein the "rule of law" is effectively operative; more broadly, we are, paradoxically, only ever free when we are bound - where judicious limitations are imposed on our conduct; otherwise freedom tends to degenerate into licentiousness; and licentious behaviour is very restrictive. It inherently suppresses human potential and well being.




On a different note altogether, did you know that SW was autistic ? I have read a quite a lot about Simone Weil's day-to-day life, I mean, recollections from people who knew her regarding what she was like as a person; what she actually did and how she behaved and dressed and spoke at school, university, work. I am a pharmacist by profession, but I have some formal training in psychology and I think you will agree that Simone Weil was not psychologically normal. By "normal", I mean she was certainly not your "common or garden" young French girl/woman; or as a psychiatrist would say, she was certainly not "neurotypical". She was brilliant, of course, and would have scored very highly on any IQ test, but she had pronounced difficulties getting on with other people in general; she was obviously socially dysfunctional. Her student peers at the ENS and, for example, work colleagues at the Pergeot car factory recall that she was not the kind of young woman you could ever just sit down with and have a relaxed chat at lunch; I mean, she would not "chew the fat" with her colleagues or peers at university or a work common room about trivia like the weather or what was showing at the cinema, or what the local gossip was, etc. When she did converse /( or communicate by letter) with others the discussions were always very focused, intense and typically dealt with heavy (intellectually demanding) philosophical, political, or spiritual themes.





In my opinion Simone Weil was afflicted with what used to be called Asperger Syndrome, but (in the case of individual like her) is now officially called High Functioning Autism (HFA). The "High Functioning" simply means "intelligent" or, if you like, possessing the capacity for high- level rational cognition. There are lots of people who are very (or extremely) bright of course who do not have HFA. But children and adults with HFA are relatively easy to identify if you know what you are looking for. Firstly, they are conspicuously odd, quirky, eccentric - they stand out as being unusual in their behaviours, speech, dress, etc.. If you were to meet a guy with HFA and spend 30 mins chatting with him at a dinner party, when you got home you would think to yourself, "MMmmm, there was definately something weird about that guy - something "funny"; he made clever conversation, but something (?) about him wasn't "right".




In these case of Simone Weil, you could tell that she was odd or eccentric just when she walked into a room. When she was a student at the ENS she dressed in men's clothing, and not merely men's clothing but rugged male garments like heavy, military trench coats and even calico monk's robes. While most girl love footwear, SW restricted herself to pairs of banal flat-soled shoes. She eschewed the use of any make-up, which was unusual as she was an attractive girl. She had a kind of fragile (I call it that because I believe she was ill) beauty that is only properly captured in 3 or 4 of the photographs that we have of her today. She clearly had no interest in "girly" things like fashion and cosmetics, and we know that she decided early in her life she would not pursue any romantic/love affairs. This has some connection, no doubt, to the fact that she was particularly averse to being physically touched by anyone, and to the fact that her fellow students at the ENS nick-named her the "Red Virgin" ("Red" for Marxist, "Virgin" respecting her complete lack of interest in romantic relationships with the opposite sex). Another nick-name she was given at the ENS was "The Martian", a reference to creature from Mars in a popular science fiction film of the time with that had uncommonly large head. The creature from Mars has a sinister intelligence and was presumed to have a very large brain inside its very large head. As SW was well known by her fellow students to be extremely "brainy", the nick-name stuck. Also, one could say, that SW, often seemed, in her behaviours, as though she might well be "from another planet" SW was observed to be clumsy throughout her life, this is sometimes attributed to her poor vision, however she had prescription spectacles to correct her eyesight, so I would say that it is very possible that her clumsiness was due to HFA. (Clumsiness is a well documented "soft" neurological sign of Asperger Syndrome/HFA).




All of the unusual characteristics above are consistent with HFA, but one of the cardinal diagnostic symptom of the disorder is this: a desire to intensively and deeply probe some particular topic, or some very narrow range of topics, with a tremendous, intellectual passion. HFA in children used to be referred to by some therapists treating the condition, as the "Little Professor" syndrome. One example I recall reading about was of an 8 year old boy in the US who had acquired an encyclopaedic knowledge of Soviet MiG fighter aircraft. He could, when invited, lecture in a monotone voice for up to an hour on technical minutiae of MiG-17 or MiG- 27 fighter jets (or any other MiG model that was ever produced). But that was all he was interested in - Soviet MiGs (!!)




Simone Weil also experienced this symptom: a life-long habit of focusing and sustaining her attention on the task of deeply, deeply investigating a narrow range of subject matters. She demonstrated an extraordinary ability for perseverance in intensive intellectual enquiries into a handful of subject matters. (Her published written work is a good example of this - the content is high-level (cognitively), very deep and clearly driven by a an unyeilding passion) The result - when SW is "on song" - is an extraordinary, and untouchably beautiful prose style.



We know that focusing attention was extremely important to SW, because she tells us herself...




...any human being, even though devoid of natural faculties, can penetrate to the Kingdom of Truth reserved for geniuses, if only he longs for truth and concentrates all his attention upon it attainment."
"

and


"... the same conviction led me to persevere for 10 years in an effort of concentrated attention that was practically unsupported by any hopes."




Regards


Dachshund

Dachshund

"Pity them my children, they are far from home and no one knows them. Let those in quest of God be careful lest appearances deceive them in these people who are peculiar and hard to place; no one rightly knows them but those in whom the same light shines" Meister Eckhart

You don’t seem to recognize the value of these rare people. You assert that Simone was a diseased individual while I know she was capable of a quality of conscious attention which could see the world as well as herself for what they are rather than content to live in imagination.

In my opinion Simone Weil was afflicted with what used to be called Asperger Syndrome, but (in the case of individual like her) is now officially called High Functioning Autism (HFA). The "High Functioning" simply means "intelligent" or, if you like, possessing the capacity for high- level rational cognition. There are lots of people who are very (or extremely) bright of course who do not have HFA. But children and adults with HFA are relatively easy to identify if you know what you are looking for. Firstly, they are conspicuously odd, quirky, eccentric - they stand out as being unusual in their behaviours, speech, dress, etc.. If you were to meet a guy with HFA and spend 30 mins chatting with him at a dinner party, when you got home you would think to yourself, "MMmmm, there was definately something weird about that guy - something "funny"; he made clever conversation, but something (?) about him wasn't "right".

By this logic both Jesus and Socrates suffered from HFA. These would be the conclusions of normal people. I don’t learn anything concerning philosophy or the essence of religion from normal people. I learn from the rare ones needing to get out of the cave in pursuit of human individuality.

I can pay money for the company of an attractive woman for sex. But to spend an evening with someone like Simone learning why she is as she is would be priceless.

Thomas Merton records being asked to review a biography of Weil (Simone Weil: A Fellowship in Love, Jacques Chabaud, 1964) and was challenged and inspired by her writing. “Her non-conformism and mysticism are essential elements in our time and without her contribution we remain not human.”

I read this and it reminds me how far I am from being human. But is she really abnormal suffering a sickness? Perhaps her reaction to the fallen human condition is normal and I am abnormal for still being ignorant of the human condition for what it is.

I had the impression of being in the presence of an absolutely transparent soul which was ready to be reabsorbed into original light. I can still hear Simone Weil’s voice in the deserted streets of Marseilles as she took me back to my hotel in the early hours of the morning; she was speaking of the Gospel; her mouth uttered thoughts as a tree gives its fruit, her words did not express reality, they poured it into me in its naked totality; I felt myself to be transported beyond space and time and literally fed with light.
Gustav Thibon

She could communicate with such purity while being near death because she was speaking from the depth of her being rather than just mouthing words and habitual thoughts?

It is easier for me to keep an open mind for those like Simone. One of my ancestors was an artist with few peers in the ability to depict the interaction of elemental forces in the flow of water. Another was an archbishop in the Armenian Church and as I’ve learned was also friendly with Helena Blavatskia, the founder of Theosophy. These people were unusual and could be considered abnormal in these times. So between my heredity and Simone I have several influences helping me to become truly abnormal so as to contribute to supporting the awakening influence that remains in the World.

“Simone Weil, I maintain this now, is the only great spirit of our times and I hope that those who realize this have enough modesty to not try to appropriate her overwhelming witnessing.
For my part, I would be satisfied if one could say that in my place, with the humble means at my disposal, I served to make known and disseminate her work whose full impact we have yet to measure.” Albert Camus

If Simone had a diseased mind which allowed her to receive the world as it is for the purpose of leaving the cave, let me be so fortunate.

[Nick_A]

Gospel of Thomas

I'm not a fan. It was found among other Gnostic texts at Nag Hammadi, in 1945.

Like most of the Christians, and most of the scholars in the world, I don't regard it as authentic. It's heretical in doctrine, non-apostolary in origin, has no references from early Christians or early councils at all, and is most plausibly dated in the second century. So personally, I make nothing from the G of T.

I was thinking of something less esoteric. Just some straightforward observations or some scientific facts to make the case, or to make the case against.

OK, you accept the devolution of Christianity into Christendom while I support what allows us to remember what is lost during devolution.

But in regards to gender essentialism, it cannot be seriously discussed without including why mitosis magically transformed into sexual reproduction inviting death. If you cannot provide a good reason for sexual reproduction to appear you can't really appreciate why the genders of male and female must be different. Without this understanding mitosis seems far superior because it avoids death.