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
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
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!