File spoon-archives/foucault.archive/foucault_1996/96-07-25.211, message 2


From: "E.M. Durflinger" <bc05319-AT-binghamton.edu>
Date: Sat, 6 Jul 1996 09:09:44 +0000
Subject: Re: Rape


Again, I find it extremely difficult to attempt to discuss your points 
when you persist in engaging in basic fallacies left and right! To 
wit--
> 
> I never said that sexuality was not constructed, you seem to be either
> conflating or equivocating.  Why must I show that if sex is just sex, than
> the construction of males as violent has nothing to do with gender.  Being
> male is being gendered!!!!  What I take your point to be, however, is that
> I must show that haveing a penis and bveing socially constructed to be
> violent are unrelated.  That is a non-sequitur!  As hunter-gatherers, women
> were kept in the "house" because they carried children, etc.  Men went
> hunting, thus engaging in violence.  From this simple
> biological-environemntal matrix, genders arose.  It probably has a lot to
> do with hgow we evolved from apes and became meat eaters which probablyt
> occured beofre homo sapiens appeared on the scence.  

Classical example of the hasty generalization.  From what set of 
observations are you making this inductive leap?  Further, in order 
for your point to work , you have to be able to disprove 
counter-examples.  If I find one culture that doesnt' behave in this 
way, then what?  How is it exactly that we have transcended the 
situation?



> >This is a phenomenological/empirical claim; the question is, *why* do
> >men do this?  If we are talking genealogies of desire here, which is what the
> >construction vs. biologism debate seems to be doing, then one needs
> >to make some observations about where this perspective comes from.  I
> >mean, this really says no more than "Most serial killers find their
> >knives and guns to be their focus of power and women to be their
> >target of choice; it's not surprising that serial killers therefore
> >kill women using knives and guns."
> 
> But the knife and the gun is just an extension of the penis.  I think you
> missed the boat here.
> 

My point here was that your original statement had no explanatory 
value; rather, it was a classic example of circular 
argumentation--your conclusion is contained in your premises.  "Men 
find the penis to be a locus of signification; therefore they use it 
in significant ways" is equivalent to "the team lost the game becuase 
they scored fewer points than the other team."

>I'm sorry but there are no undefined terms.  I am not interested in
>the abnormal buyt the normal.  The seriel killer is abnormal and
>should not be the way he/she is.  How that person repsonds to killing
>someone is a product of bad socialization or faulty wiring.  In any
>case, I am open to {snip}
 
You must be using some strange new use of the word 'normal' that I am 
not accustomed to if rape is seen as normal in your view, since your 
analysis seems to depend quite a lot on using phenomenological 
evidence gleaned from the analysis of rape to discuss the 'normal' 
situation of 'man.'
 
///Connor
_________________________________________________________
E.M. Connor Durflinger              Philosopher for Hire
         "Have Forestructures, Will Travel"
            Reverend, Universal Life Church
bc05319-AT-binghamton.edu              PIC Program at B.U.
_________________________________________________________



   

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