You may have noticed modern ‘-Ist’ movements focus upon the material and rational, often to then move further into the nihilist and irrational, towards an utopian ideal. Market comparisons are leveraged to prove a woman’s worth, usually against some previous constraint or tradition. Housework=x. By itemizing and assigning a dollar value to every household task a woman performs, the goal is likely to liberate and bring her closer to the males free to compete in the marketplace. Freedom is next!
Since women have been oppressed and left historically with fewer choices (certainly true in many respects and many places), this individual woman will be liberated from the previous oppression, using the market as her yardstick. Think of a dollar sign behind every daily chore she does, regardless of all the other deeper reasons she/we/any of us might be doing such chores. At a minimum (the fallback defense), such a move will grant more individuals the freedom to choose (free to choose a job or stay at home with the kids), harnessing all the intelligence, drive and ability which had previously been constrained through narrower religious and traditional channels.
I first came across the argument through Laura Kipnis (a feminist), and I support her in pointing out the absurdity of campus sexual identity politics and the encroachments upon reason:
Within the postmodern soup, however, the union of a visual artist, feminist theorist, and dry contrarian academic bureaucrat [is] probably a sign of the times.
What I think is true: Ignorance is usually the rule in human affairs, not the exception. Many women make bad choices, and must live with them (the rest of us, too, just like the men making bad choices). Some women are not particularly bright and are of pretty limited scope. Women aren’t inherently better nor worse than men. The feminist position staked out through the the humanities (Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, the Bronte Sisters, Virginia Woolfe) certainly showcases what creative ability and brilliance can do. Yet, it, too must also help us confront the nature of human evil, the poor judgment which comes with the passions, and the pursuit of truth.
So, perhaps the previous traditions and grooved channels were a reflection of much of what we are, for good or ill. Their ruins are those through which we still walk.
Human nature probably hasn’t changed all that much during the last few centuries, either. Raising good people, good students, and good citizens is probably one of our highest callings, both men and women alike. Any one of us, throughout our lives, can allow worse passions enough leverage to cause tremendous misery and suffering to ourselves and others. Such truths are absolutely vital in maintaining the institutions which maintain a Republic.
I think the materialist and rationalist position fails to really account for what really motivates most of us, most of the time. I also think it represents an ultimate move towards the postmodern (S)elf left to resolve such questions alone, or through the increasingly strident modern ‘moral cause’ and politico-identity movements which don’t necessarily bring ‘peace’ nor consensus.
–On that note:
I think some Catholics are saying true things about modernity and secular humanism. It’s refreshing because liberal idealism and secular humanism have generally come to dominate, with all of their triumphs and problems.
Let’s not forget all the problems of truth, corruption, authority and knowledge which come with the Catholic church, while supporting the critique of the ‘-Ists’ and ‘-Isms’ in both fashion and considerable power.
See Protein Wisdom for a discussion about language and intentionalism, and how it gets deployed.
-Daniel Dennett: ‘Postmodernism And Truth’
The nihilist claims are deeper than you may think, and the Nietzschean, and Will–>Will to Power German influence is also deeper than most people think; offering profound criticisms of the scientific project, liberalism, liberal institutions, and a secular humanism which is the air many folks breathe these days.
Here’s a somewhat similar vein of thought. From friesian.com:
Although Anglo-American philosophy tended to worship at the feet of science, the drift of academia to the left has led to characteristically totalitarian political attacks on science itself — this despite the leftist program to use “climate science” to impose a Sovietized command economy on energy and the tactic to smear climate skeptics, i.e. “Deniers,” through associaton with Creationism or Neo-Nazi Holocaust denial. None of that has stopped the “post-modern” move…’