Radical Centrism and Feminism One issue that my short book about Saint-Simon and America did not deal with is the place of women in society. What is really needed, to be sure, is a detailed examination of Saint-Simon's ideas overall, that is, to the extent it is possible, something that outlines the system we can abstract from his body of writings. A paper focused on America was not a good platform for that because it would have led to major excursions into Europe, which, of course, was Saint-Simon's primary interest as a Frenchman seeking to lead a French / European social movement. The system of S-S is multi-dimensional -and complicated by the fact that although there is much consistency, about some issues he changed his mind over the course of years. So, for now, all I can say is that when time permits I will try to get to these other questions. As a note, Emile Durkheim wrote an entire book on the subject, Socialism / aka Socialism and Saint-Simon. And besides the texts my short book cited there are several others like a book by Dondo which has real merits even if it isn't all that relevant for America. It is customary to classify Saint-Simon as a Socialist but he really was a socialist-capitalist, or even a socialist-capitalist-"other." Unlike Right-wingers, I don't regard the word "socialism" as some kind of synonym for "evil." Quite the opposite, at least if a clear distinction is made between Saint-Simon's version of socialism and all those schools that are based on Marx. There is also Christian Socialism and some people have classified S-S as a Christian Socialist, which seems valid enough -again, with some qualifiers. Anyway, I much prefer to categorize him as a forerunner of Radical Centrism rather than anything else. He simply does not fit any other category nearly as well. What should be pointed out is that the first feminists anywhere were either the Saint-Simonians or the Fourierists. This is somewhat murky since after about 1833 or 1834 there was a lot of back-and-forth between the groups and, as noted, the "left Saint-Simonians" borrowed a variety of ideas from Fourier. But not everyone distinguishes between
'normative' Saint-Simonians and left Saint-Simonians. Also worth mentioning is the fact that one of the features of Saint-Simonianism that attracted John Stuart Mill to the group and to the ideas of Saint-Simon was the (proto-) feminism in Saint-Simonian philosophy. FYI, the main lines of differentiation are between Saint-Simon himself, his unified "school" which lasted until 1831 and into 1832, then the split in 1832 between Enfantin, who was "left," and Bazard, who was what I consider to have been normative. Bazard died within a year after the split, at which Olinde Rodrigues became the leader of those Saint-Simonians who tried to remain most true to S-S. Which is how I self identify in all of this. Enfantin was certainly a colorful and creative character but, as I see it, he went far off the deep end even if some (some) of his ideas were very worthwhile. Saint-Simon himself never said anything that can be construed as seriously feminist even if he regarded women as much as equals as anyone then alive. However, in the late 1820s and early 1830s a full blown Saint-Simonian feminism came into being, mostly a result of the Enfantin group although there also was an independent women-led group as well that even published a periodical for a while, La Femme Libre. For a good discussion of such matters see Leslie Goldstein's article, "Early Feminist Themes in French Utopian Socialism: The St. Simonians and Fourier," in the January/March, 1982 issue of the Journal of the History of Ideas. But what about contemporary feminism? There also are necessary distinctions in this area. In the late 19th century there was what may be called "Christian+family feminism" and then there was the more militant wing of the Suffragette movement, each of which are referred to as Suffragettes. The "Women's movement," mark II, dates to some time around the publication of The Feminine Mystique. It was not exclusively a product of Betty Friedan's book but that volume quickly became the de facto manifesto of the whole movement. Here we have a serious problem: Betty Friedan had been an active member of the Communist Party. For details of this see the extended remarks in my incomplete book of 2015, When the Truth is Found to be Lies. The point being that a lot of what is in The Feminist Mystique is pure CP boilerplate that dates to the late 1940s and the 1950s. And that stuff is -never identified as Communist- what most of today's feminists regard as what may be called 'standard issue feminism.' Which, you don't need to guess, I regard as unmitigated crap. For me the most important book about modern-era feminism is Christina Hoff Sommers 1995 Who Stole Feminism? She made it clear that we need to differentiate between classic feminism (related to Christian+family suffragism) and what she calls "gender feminism," viz, the Friedan / Communist-inspired stuff. I regard this distinction as crucial: Because the gender feminist outlook is based on systematic lying, is divisive, seeks to create animosity between men and women, seeks to subordinate all questions of male/female human relationships to those of power and money and status, and, in general, is full of sh*t. One example: How many times do we need to hear the claptrap that 25% or more of women are raped in their lifetimes or that one out of five college coeds are rape victims? Sommers totally debunks this false claim that is repeatedly debunked by others. Meanwhile the gender feminists habitually ignore the evidence and carry on as if no-one had debunked any of their lies. For the record, the real statistic for college rape is somewhere around 1%. If you allow for under-reporting maybe the tally is more like 2% or 3 %, but that is the realistic maximum. There is much, much more that could be discussed but this should give you the idea; the whole gender feminist schtick is basically garbage. I should add, though, that what especially annoys me is the anti-science outlook of gender feminists. They detest sociobiology despite its unarguable premises and the mountains of evidence that sociobiologists have published since the early 1970s when this new science began. There still are unresolved questions, but it seems established beyond all possibility of doubt to me that we are primates and share many characteristics with our primate ancestors who once lived in, say, 5 million BC. Where things are unclear is with respect to exactly what lessons to learn given sometimes contrary evidence by way of analogy to current primate species. Is "natural" human morality better thought of in terms of gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees, or some other species, AND, given our evolution since homo sapiens separated from a common ancestor long ago, just how far can we go in claiming unique human moral standards? But what is totally clear is that -in complete opposition to the views of gender feminists- we can only go so far, and no further. We are not infinitely elastic. Some things don't work and if you try them you will pay a tragic price. Or we all will pay a terrible price. We need to know -not just guess, and not because an ideology says so- exactly what is gender appropriate behavior and what is not, and stay within those boundaries. And accept the responsibilities that are the necessary consequences. It seems to me -and isn't it ironic?- that when all of said, what is best for us as a species and as individuals is something very much like Biblical morality, or, s'il vous plait, Buddhist morality or Zoroastrian morality, and so forth. Yet many Christians and many Orthodox Jews deny evolution and also regard sociobiology as an anathema. At any rate, I have lived through experiences that tell me, with no room to doubt, that anyone who follows the path of gender feminism will find themselves miserable, unhappy, and probably end up in tragedy. Which is anything but my opinion alone, about which more should be said at some other time. I once knew an early president of NOW named Wilma Scott Heidi. She was basically kicked aside when female homosexuals began to assume dominant roles in the organization. Wilma Scott, however, had an idea that seems good and true and valid to me, regardless of the history of NOW, namely, that what really needs to happen in the creation of a "human liberation movement" in which men and women are partners, each with distinctive roles to play, each with their own valid needs and each of which should assume certain responsibilities in relationships with the opposite sex. I don't recall that Wilma Scott had a name for this, but the terminology I have used since those years has been that of "gender partnership," where men and women clearly recognize how essential each sex is to the other and how important it is that we get this right. Because our future depends on it. "Human liberation" in this sense should be one of the prime tasks of Radical Centrism. Billy R. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
