Thanks so much to everyone who sent email.
Stefanie S. Rixecker wrote:
> Thanks for mentioning Karen Warren's work; do you have some citations
> you could share with us?
Uffda. Hate to be lazy, but I'm going to be. A name search for Karen
should turn up all sorts of stuff. Seems like she's everywhere these
days. Also, to plug a colleague, have a look for Jim Cheney. They
should both show up in the journal Environmental Ethics.
> >From your remark above, I agree that domination is tough enough. I
> still wonder, though, whether using the term "logic" is appropriate.
> It suggests that there's a completely rational formula for the
> domination (in all its complexity).
If I've understood Karen adequately then yes, this is exactly what she
means. Domination has its own built in logic that requires continued
domination, and it uses the necessity attached to logic for its
normative weight.
> If that's the case, then
> shouldn't a "counter" formula (in =logical= points) be avaialable? I
> wonder if the problem here is more to do with our =assumptions= about
> human decisions and actions being "rational" and "logical."
I think you're exactly right. The counter formula would be to put
reason back on its leash, or to find a way to take its presuppositions
into account while you're using it -- which is what dialectic lets you
do. The problem is not that we use reason to understand the world but
that we let it call *all* the shots without taking our assumptions
into account while we're doing it. William Blake's poems about Urizen
and the Fall of Los are another angle on this.
But you've nailed it here: if you look at the more recent stuff in
environmental ethics, the more consistent accounts all make a point of
looking at the assumptions we bring to our analyses -- and our lives.
This is one of the strengths of ecofeminism and social ecology. And
you get a taste of it from the deep ecologists when they talk about
re-examining the nature of a human self. I don't think they go far
enough -- but that's another thread entirely. ;)
> One of
> the important contributions of feminisms (especially regarding the
> environment) is that the Cartesian split between emotion and reason
> (and the numerous other dualisms) is (more than a little)
> problematic.
I should probably note that it was Hegel -- following on Kant's
treatment of the antinomies of pure reason -- who really first
explored the underlying problems with the cascading nightmare of
Cartesian dualism. But feminism brought these replies to Descartes
back into the current discussion. (I've wondered why that's so --
another question -- there's some history here I don't know. Seems to
me a lot of the early feminists had a strong Marxist background and
this accounts for their facility and use of dialectical models for
analyzing cultural paradigms. I think you see the same thing among
feminist social construction theorists. You definitely see it among
feminist philosophers. And of course Marx got it from Hegel....
so...)
> Can you expand =your= definition of "logic"? Thanks!
There's a quote I've always liked to the effect that: a madman loses
everything -- except his logic. I think that the kind of one-track
blinkered logic Warren refers to is the pure Cartesian/Aristotelian/
analytic-wishful-thinking formulation (you know, your standard issue
apriori binary truth-functionality as a vehicle for truth kind of
logical fantasy) -- although to take this purely at face value would
be to ignore the internal problems Kant discovered about the use of
pure reason... and it's that very use of unquestioned reason that, it
seems to me, ecofeminism calls into account.
And this unquestioned kind of reasoning does produce paradoxes and
dichotomies that cannot be overcome using reason by itself. (A good
example of this falls out of Plumwood's treatment of animal rights
arguments. Arguments from rights tend to belong to a Cartesian
mind-set and that's why they fall apart the way they do. But Plumwood
doesn't go far enough. Reason, by itself, surely cannot account for
its own presuppositions -- but if reason is handled *dialectically*,
then it works just fine, without producing all those unteneable
Cartesian dichotomies. My sense -- somebody correct me -- is that
Plumwood is unfamiliar with Hegel's discussion of Kant. Or Marx's.)
[sidebar: -- and again correct me if I'm wrong here -- if I've
understood Plumwood correctly, the basis for calling social ecology
anthropocentric is that Bookchin continues to use a Kantian/Cartesian
flavoured reason to make his analyses. If this is Plumwood's
position, then it is simply wrong. He doesn't. But maybe this
belongs in another thread too.]
This is all so interesting. Thanks again for the wonderful email
replies.
hiho
--
mce peterson, philosophy
university of wisconsin centers yawp!
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thu Feb 16 07:45:16 MST 1995
Date: Thu, 16 Feb 1995 09:53:21 -0500 (EST)
From: "Kameshwari S. Pothukuchi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: ecofeminism and social ecology...
In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
In response to Elizabeth's question at the end of this message:
Childbirth is more than just delivering the baby, even for which every
culture has elaborate prescriptions for how it should be done, where,
with what tools, what people involved, etc. The events surrounding
conception, pre- and post-natal care, the birth itself and the care of
infants are all culturally determined (with different practices in
different cultures) and ridden with meanings and symbolism in all
cultures. For
instance, some Native Ame rican tribes prescribed a squatting position
(for delivery, I mean),
others, a lying down position, yet others, other practices. Concepts
such as pollution, sacredness, etc., are also associated with what one
would consider a "natural" process in our own culture (except ob/gyns
have their own elaborate rituals surrounding childbirth).
"Having children" is also conceptualized differently in different
cultures. For some children are "god's gifts", and conception is not to be
interfered with,
by humans. For others, including some in our culture, children are
considered a burden, while in others, they are considered as necessary
for survival in one's old age. In many cultures child-birth is a woman's
route to social adulthood, a supreme obligation to teh community...
The point I am trying to make is that any activity we consider "natural"
is steeped with our own culture's conception of what "nature" and
"natural" is, and ought to be. Activities such as eating, sleeping,
having sex, giving birth, suffering pain, which we may understand to be
common with the rest of animal world, are culturally determined, and
laden with meaning and value in a particular culture. In one culture
"suffering pain " may be considered virtuous, while in another, as
something bad that must be stopped.
There is nothing "natural" in the human world that is not constructed and
reconstructed in culture.
I hope I have answered your question... Kami.
On Wed, 15 Feb 1995 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> From: "Kameshwari S. Pothukuchi"
>
> >it is only after defining women's *social* and culturally based
> >roles *into* nature (child birth, child care, nurturing,
> >cooking, cleaning, what have you...) and as biologically based
> >instincts, have we in modern times been able to exploit the
> >valuable labor for social purposes. "Exploiting" whether
> >against nature or women ultimately involves violence and
> >coercion.
>
> I am not sure that I understand lumping child birth into a
> category of roles that are socially and culturally based. I am
> interested in hearing your reasoning...
>
> Peace,
>
> Elizabeth
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thu Feb 16 09:29:27 MST 1995
From: "Long, David" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: ecofem <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, femisa <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
matfem <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Gender education
Date: Thu, 16 Feb 95 11:22:00 EST
Encoding: 13 TEXT
content-length: 503
Could anyone please recommend examples of politically correct or at least
gender unbiased text books for primary and secondary school students? Are
there any publishing houses out there that specialize in this? I am looking
for all subjects, but most especially social studies and history... Please
send to me (David Long) or my colleague Jaimie Anne Carboy. Thanks in
advance and I apologize for cross-postings.
David Long
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Jaimie Anne Carboy
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
