Date: Mon, 1 Jul 1996 02:46:37 -0500 (CDT) From: Nancy Ann Nield <nanield-AT-midway.uchicago.edu> Subject: Re: Cyberpunk & "reality" Don, if you have such a negative view of feminism and worry about its potential for propagating tyrrany (over men? non-feminist women?), like the "creul and awful" Aztecs (does this make the Spanish conquistadores genocide excusable?), *why* are you on this list? Nancy Nield University of Chicago On Sun, 30 Jun 1996, don walter wrote: > Thanks to ddd for well expressing clear views about de(con)struction and > where the present world seems to be writing itself into. I did, however, > get sent back in my mind to an (Anglo) acquaintance from several years ago, > who was reading about the Spanish invasion of Mexico, and marveling how > cruel and awful the Spanish were; I had to remind him that the Aztecs were > at least as cruel and awful to those _they_ conquered, which at least gave > him to think... Relevance is that ddd says: > > Abstract theories are already responsible for > >motivating and justifying some of the most frightening atrocities > >imaginable. Apartheid. Slavery. Rape. Genocide/Genus-cide/Gynocide. > > Well, that's true in some senses. But I question whether other ways of > doing/being/thinking may turn out to be just as able to rationalize cruel > atrocities, when _they_ happen to become Top Dog. Feminists may be just > wonderful people, even assuming that they achieve power; but I believe, on > the basis of human self-deception capabilities, that if some feminists > achieve power, it will not seem a whole lot more benign for very long, to > those who don't fit in with the new way... I can't point to places this has > happened yet, so maybe I should keep my pessimism to myself; and yes, > feminist theory of how it will be, sounds in many ways different from > capitalist Power. But so do the theories of most revolutions. I guess that > feminist theorists also believe that their Way will avoid many of those > (phallic) booby-traps; and maybe they will, even if theory becomes practice... >
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