THE NEW SUBJECTIVITY

KEVIN: Feminists have a habit of saying that women are socially rather than biologically conditioned, that their traditional responsibilities were not so much biologically inevitable as forced upon them by men, and that men only progressed and prospered at the expense of women. This, at any rate, is how that estimable feminist Simone de Beauvoir speaks, and she does so with general feminist approval. Yet while she may be justified from a feminist standpoint to speak in such fashion, she is quite wrong from an objectively philosophical standpoint.

DAVID: Oh, in what way?

KEVIN: In the same way that a scientist would be wrong to speak of curved space as the causal explanation of the planets' rotation about the sun when, in reality, the Newtonian factors of force and mass are the only ones literally applicable to the conduct of planets and stars, particularly the latter, which correspond to the diabolic roots of evolution and behave in an appropriately forceful fashion. But the modern physicist doesn't explain the workings of the Cosmos in literal terms, but in terms corresponding to Western man's growing predilection for the superconscious, which reflects, in its omega orientation, his mystical bias. To speak literally of such workings, as did Newton, would show the Cosmos to be a less agreeable place than modern man evidently wishes to see it. Even if his transcendental bias, largely conditioned by countries like America and Germany, has a long way to go before it becomes radically transcendent, nevertheless a quasi-mystical interpretation of how the Cosmos works remains necessary. Largely through environmental progress from nature to the contemporary city Western man has acquired a higher consciousness and must project this consciousness onto the Cosmos, deeming the conduct of both stars and planets to proceed along gentler lines than would have been envisaged by Newton. His self-deception in this matter is essential to his spiritual self-esteem. For modern consciousness is not, as formerly, connected with appearance in the external environment, whether cosmic or worldly, but appertains to the internal realm of superconscious mind, and consequently science must take its cue from essence and so become subjective. This is especially true of transitional, or bourgeois/proletarian, countries like America and Germany. But the more traditional dualistic countries have also been affected by it, and thus dragged into the transcendental perspective.

DAVID: Although most countries of the communist or former-communist East have seemingly refused to countenance this subjectivity, and instead remained aligned with Newtonian objectivity.

KEVIN: Yes, to some extent they have, since transcendental criteria were officially taboo under Marxism-Leninism, although there could be nothing more communist, from a scientific point-of-view, than the curved space theory of the Universe, with its quasi-electron transcendentalism. However that may be, communist societies also remained partial to traditional and, hence, objectively correct valuations of women, which is why feminism was largely a dead letter with them.

DAVID: You mean women really are biologically conditioned, contrary to what Western feminists insist?

KEVIN: Of course! Although they were never wholly so, not even in the past, long before the Women's Liberation Movement was ever dreamed up. What curved space is to the modern physicist, social conditioning is to the feminist - a convenient illusion for masking the sad truth of biological conditioning, since such an illusion is flattering to the liberated woman's social vanity and enables her to have a better opinion of herself than would otherwise be the case, were she to regard herself literally, which is to say, as a creature striving to overcome biological hurdles.

DAVID: So although one would not be objectively correct to define women as victims of social conditioning, one is subjectively correct to do so, and for similar reasons as pertain to science.

KEVIN: Absolutely! The higher reality of the superconscious imposes a spiritual bias upon one's assessment of women which contradicts the external reality of the flesh. Rather than give the lower reality of the flesh its objective dues, one submits to the higher reality of the superconscious, projecting that reality onto women. Feminist subjectivity is no less necessary in a society with a transcendental bias than scientific subjectivity. You can't really have the one without the other.

DAVID: And yet, if people are able to see through the illusions of contemporary Western society, as you apparently can, surely those illusions will be less efficacious in achieving their desired ends?

KEVIN: It depends what those ends happen to be. Though if you are querying whether or not one ought to crack such illusions, then I can only say that, so long as there are philosophers in existence, illusions will be cracked, whatever their status or nature! However, not everyone is inclined to read philosophy and, by a similar token, not everyone is inclined to crack illusions, particularly when they are absolutely pertinent to the age or civilization. But a philosopher - who is, par excellence, a man of truth - will be morally entitled to do so, since only by cracking illusions is he enabled to extend the realm of truth. On the other hand, a theologian, using that term in a loosely Schopenhauerian sense, must uphold such illusions as are deemed suitable to the age. For he/she relates to the generality, and must accordingly put expedience above objectivity.

DAVID: Are you therefore implying that Simone de Beauvoir, for example, was essentially a theologian in this respect?

KEVIN: Yes, unlike Sartre, who was a philosopher. A feminist is always a theologian, as is a Marxist, who of course puts expedience above objectivity in his assessment of the proletariat. But whereas Marxist subjectivity is derived from the objectivity of the external world, with particular reference to the economic relations of the employer/employee classes, feminist subjectivity derives from the subjectivity of the internal world, or superconscious. The one speaks truthfully of the external world but untruthfully of the proletariat. The other speaks truthfully of the internal world but untruthfully of women. Both untruths, however, are equally necessary and inescapable. They may be despised by the philosopher, but they cannot be discarded as untenable.

DAVID: Although philosophers are apparently unnecessary in societies based on theological expedience?

KEVIN: Yes, because philosophers pertain to the pursuit of truth and are therefore essential to civilization, where religion is officially upheld. A barbarous state, on the other hand, can manage without them, since, as you correctly observed, it is expedience and not objectivity that matters there.

DAVID: Do you, as a philosopher, pertain to civilization then?

KEVIN: Most assuredly! Although within the context of both the dualistic and transitional civilizations of the contemporary West ... I am something of an outsider. Rather, I presage a future post-dualistic civilization which will, I believe, take root in countries that, like Eire, have achieved Social Democracy in one form or another, and spread abroad when the time is ripe. Thus I am currently a stateless philosopher who projects his work into the future and thereby hopes to contribute towards the creation of a post-dualistic civilization.

DAVID: They say all great philosophers are ahead of their time, so you must be in the tradition in that respect.

KEVIN: Yes, I guess so!

LONDON 1982 (Revised 2011)

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