Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 15:58:55 -0500 From: Yoshie Furuhashi <Furuhashi.1-AT-osu.edu> Subject: Re: M-TH: Easy Virtue or Hard Choices (was ethics and intentions Dear Rob, >Here comes some of my bourgeois innocence again. Apologies in advance. > >>>I agree with Yoshie that there is no necessity for such "hard choices" to >>>exist in a minimally decent society, or at most to be marginal. I do not >>>think it even remotely utopian to believe such, since in fact humanity got >>>along very well without bourgeois morality (i.e. a morality of "hard >>>choices") for about 100,000 years. > >I wasn't aware we went without hard choices for 100 000 years! This may >well have been so, but I'd love Carrol or Yoshie to tell us why it might >have been. Hard moral choices explicitly appear in folk stories going back >to the first written records of extant folk tales (eg the *Epic of >Gilgamesh*). Are you merely saying that instrumental necessity in hard >lives effectively gave the sorts of choices we call 'hard' much 'easier' >(ie, 'We must leave our children to die, else we all die'' or 'We must take >those women from their tribe by force, else we will die out')? Obviously >the conditions of 'primitive communism' - an externally imposed necessity - >don't apply now - where communism would be the product of voluntary action >in conditions of plenty and relative security. I guess I just don't have >the imagination to see what you're arguing. Carrol did not speak of the existence or non-existence of "hard moral choices." What he said is that "bourgeois morality (i.e. a morality of 'hard choices')" did not exist before the advent of capitalism. A big difference. >>>My prime example of what seems to me an absolute LUST FOR HARD CHOICES is >>>the insistence of so many people that though they are fully for freedom of >>>choice on the issue of abortion, they want that choice to be a HARD CHOICE >>>for the woman. So I would further suggest that the LUST FOR HARD CHOICES >>>is most often at least a remnant of patriarchy, more often positive >>>misogyny. It was in opposition to this lust that I insisted in an earlier >>>debate that we had no right to question a woman's reasons for abortion, >>>and that if she wanted one on a whim, there was no reason to condemn or >>>even frown on that choice. > >Seeing a hard choice is necessarily reflective of a 'lust for hard >choices'? How do you justify that leap? Seeing a hard choice *where there is none* is reflective of a lust for hard choices. >>Damn right, Carrol. Moralism is always pornographic. It is almost true that >>the "LUST FOR HARD CHOICES is most often at least a remnant of patriarchy, >>more often positive misogyny." But I want to make a qualification. It is >>not a "remnant" of patriarchy. It is a defining feature of the marriage of >>capitalism and patriarchy, which was not widespread before its emergence. >>Cultural forms that emerged with capitalism (such as the bourgeois novel >>and melodrama) thrive on the *sadistic gaze* cast upon *female agony* as >>well as *masochistic identification* with it; visions of women racked by >>HARD CHOICES are materials out of which both generic and gendered >>discourses of bourgeois individualism have been staged. > >Certainly such discourses have been staged on the angst of women's hard >choices. And plenty on men's too. So? And, anyway, the agony of others >is not necessarily engaged with sadistically (although I'm personally aware >of an indentification tendency, which might _very broadly_ be deemed >masochistic) - do you imagine Madam Bouverie's agonies sexually arouse us, >Yoshie? They don't. Just as Hamlet's don't. Just because a widely shared >view effectively causes suffering for many women, does not mean that view >represents misogyny. Just as the traditional view that men should do the >dangerous work (eg soldiering) does not reflect a loathing for men (or, if >it does, 'tis a self-loathing). You can not so easily read intention or >inclination from consequence. You may be seeing the consequence of a >complex of relations - and most of us are agreed those amount to >patriarchal capitalism - but I think the word 'misogyny' is far too often >thrown at people. I did not speak of "intention or inclination." I spoke of ideology and its staging. A big difference. Yoshie --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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