Female Genius

[Alex T. Jacob]

Forgive me. I just copied some names with links from a website where some people were discussing genius in women. I only know a little about maybe 4 who appear on that list, mostly the literary ones (heh heh, obviously). The sort of 'genius' that shifts the world, that represent a total shift in awareness, seems to be obviously dominated by men. I guess we'll have to sort of see if, with 'liberation' in the present era, there will arise women with that same sort of offering. I don't think that a woman's genius will function in that specific way myself.

I wouldn't trust the Nobel institute to be the measure of 'genius' anyway since often they are quite politically motivated. Real PC thinking operating there.

[Dan Rowden]

Forgive me. I just copied some names with links from a website where some people were discussing genius in women.

Yeah, I figured that. It was a generic criticism/comment, not one specifically aimed at you.

[Carmel]

Diebert:
Then again, this really varies between the people and the type of plants, but the addicts are often not getting the entheogen properties of cannabis simply because they were already addicts, hardened, before starting out.

Carmel:
It does vary, but most heavy pot smokers I've known smoke it just to feel "normal", for the reasons you stated...They seem to use it as a form of self medication, perhaps(?)...but I usually do get a sense of disconnection when I'm interacting with a person who is under the influence.

Diebert:
By the way, this is just an infomercial trying to fill in the somewhat sheltered, limited exposure you might have, but I don't do or advocate anything of it. It's really hard to predict how people react on it really.

Carmel:
Thanks for the warning, Diebert. I'll be sure to never try it....what? anyway, you may have missed it, but I did once admit to experimenting with the LSD and mushrooms many years ago, and naturally, I've partaken of the lesser drug in question here, so I'll have to presume you're being facetious with the "limited exposure" comments.

[Carmel]

Anders Schlanders:

Teenagers usually aren't well developed in maintaining all the delusions and contradictions in society, which indicates it takes a kind of 'mastering' I guess.

Carmel:

Different age groups have different advantages/disadvantages, in this regard. Some say that only children and some artists are capable of seeing the world as it "is", unfettered by mental constructs and social contrivances. The rationalist would contend that their version of "reality" is mired in magical thinking and delusion and that "reality" can only be known via logical/intellectual processes. There's really no "wrong" or "right" version of "reality", only different perspectives.

[Kunga]

maybe there are female geniuses that are unknown
it only seems logical to me that what is known to man is incomplete data
for instance...we are limited in knowing all the inhabited planets in the universe...
there might be more female geniuses in other solar systems
why do you limit yourselves to only what is known
and exclude any possibilites for the unknown...

is logic only interested in the knowable ?
sounds like a limited perception.
i thought genius was thinking outside the box.

[Animus]

Kunga/Carmel, your defense of this issue wreaks of feminine consciousness, and being that as it is, its nothing but a demonstration of your lack of real genius.

Face it, you aren't interested in whether or not there really are female geniuses, you are interested in defending women (i.e. your ego). And according to definition of genius used here, that is basically the opposite of genius.

[Kunga]

And according to definition of genius used here, that is basically the opposite of genius.

a genius doesn't limit themselves to the herd mentality.

you aren't interested in whether or not there really are female geniuses,

all you seem to be interested in is proving there are no female geniuses.

your defense of this issue wreaks of feminine consciousness,

and the defense of the male superiority over female consciousness wreaks of an obsession to control and manipulate.


how's this for starters :


List of Female Geniuses :

1. GOD

[Kunga]

They can't think for themselves.
All their thoughts come from the thoughts of other men.
They are automatons.....parroting thoughts of others.
No creativity.
No passion for Truth beyond statistics.
No soul.
Programed.
Conditioned by their negative thinking.

The void that defines a feminine consciousness is the field of creativity where man is born...and snatches his genius from...claiming it for himself.

[Carmel]

Animus: Kunga/Carmel, your defense of this issue wreaks of feminine consciousness, and being that as it is, its nothing but a demonstration of your lack of real genius.

Carmel:
I've never claimed to a genius. Are you implying that you are?

Animus:
Face it, you aren't interested in whether or not there really are female geniuses, you are interested in defending women (i.e. your ego).

Carmel:
There's nothing to defend. Even if it could be unequivocally proven(and it can't) that there were no female geniuses, that has nothing to do with me or my ego. Other women's accomplishments are not mine to gloat over and don't feed my ego as men's achievements shouldn't feed yours. It seems to me you're attacking women to boost your own ego, actually... or as dejavu aptly put it "I'm not sure your heart is in the right place kid".

Animus:
And according to definition of genius used here, that is basically the opposite of genius.

Carmel:
back 'atcha:)

[Alex T. Jacob]

There are women whose attainments are stellar and very, very far above the majority. That puts them in a class that only a very few, men included, ever enter. There are women whose talents and attainments are far superior to most men. Many women, if they choose, can excel the great majority of men.

But if 'genius' means paradigm-shifter or game-changer, and I suppose it does, then genius seems to be weighted to men---and also very, very rare. One calls easily to mind numerous men who have changed the game radically and literally forged new directions. But I can't myself think of women who have done such a thing. The brilliance of women when they are brilliant, functions differently.

Kunga writes: "Maybe there are female geniuses that are unknown [...] there might be more female geniuses in other solar systems".

All the women I met in other solar systems were bimbos! In comparison, Earth women are geniuses. Trust me on this.

But seriously, I don't know if this is an argument that would warm the cockles of hearts of the attendees in a Feminist Studies class. They might turn at you and glare. I don't know if this is what they'd want to hear. I think that women also want to be seen and recognized as 'game-changers' and 'paradigm-shifters' and they want women to enter into all intellectual fields, which they certainly can.

Evolutionary biology points to the 'fact' that, because women gestate they are not inclined to be risk-takers. From the perspective of personal and collective safety it is better to always opt for safer choices.

Does this all reduce to penis envy? (Old Phallus as the ultimate risk-taker, the one who is predisposed to risk it all on a wild and even impossible chance). But some women who were also Freudians, going through Freud's rather blunt theories about the vagina-penis conflict, countered the 'penis-envy' with the rather evident 'womb-envy' that men tend to deny.

[Kunga]

ok...WHY exactly is it that men are superior to women ?
were they born that way or conditioned ?

Being arrogant deters from a convincing argument.
That's why i love the men that can be geniuses and have compassion for women simutaneously (wisdom & compassion)....AND a large dose of HUMOR !
don't leave home without it.

_/\_

[Diebert van Rhijn]

It does vary, but most heavy pot smokers I've known smoke it just to feel "normal", for the reasons you stated...They seem to use it as a form of self medication, perhaps(?)...but I usually do get a sense of disconnection when I'm interacting with a person who is under the influence.

I'm not sure how to qualify your experiences with "long term pot smokers" or "heavy pot smokers". Since I grew up in a place where anyone can legally go out and buy or grow the stuff, and use it, it's relevant to me that most regular users I've encountered so far personally - lets say a hundred - are a bit sharper individuals than average, often involved in arts, thinking about life a bit more, often showing a bit more sensitivity.

The psychology of the stoner type you describe I'm interested in. Is it linked perhaps to some subculture, an identity? Is the disconnection and withdrawnness perhaps linked to other factors, or does the cannabis exaggerate an already prevalent mood? What I gather is that especially teenagers nowadays use the joint as some form of sedative. But of course the use of painkillers, uppers and sedatives in all of society has boomed to such level that one can wonder if cannabis is just not one minor form, for some, especially minors, easier in terms of availability than some subscription route.

Not to mention the levels of self-absorption and narcissism in people, even more so with young people, seems to rise to levels which would qualify many as "stoner", drugs or no drugs, when it comes to this "sense of disconnection".

Anyway, my main point was that your phrase about "a joint and a video game" to deflect "reality" is in my view the opposite of what's going on. People feel, apart from calmed down or relieved by it, in general more alive, more focused (well at least on something), more at ease, which has more to do with any "reality" than the numbing confusion their pre-programmed lives have to offer. The fact people can and will abuse medication doesn't change the working of the medicine, after all.

[Alex T. Jacob]

Kunga,

• It is absurd to speak in terms of superiority and inferiority.
• Shouldn't it be about 'function' and 'efficiency'?
• Male and female, in evolutionary history, function as a unit.
• To begin to understand male and female, they have to be looked at 'holistically'.
• The 'nurture vs nature' argument is still contested.
• We mind-fuck ourselves when we get into intelligence/genius matches.
• The awareness and consciousness of women and men function in slightly different fields.
• Slight differences often make a great deal of difference.
• One of the flaws of the GF view of 'woman' is that it can define no relatedness to women.
• The GF 'man' is 'tragically separated'.
• Tragical separation is a psychological condition, a pathology.
• Despite the fact that GFers recognize and admire and privelage a rare male genius, they do not themselves have such genius. In this sense they are 'female'.
• Which of course places the 'conversation' in absurd terms.
• Who really has 'genius'? Well, we all know who...

[Pye]

Define 'genius' all you care to: it will always make its appearance counter to any normative you construct.

Carmel: It seems to me you're attacking women to boost your own ego, actually...

Carmel, many of the men here will tell you that it is a protective ego that sees these 'observations' (I use this loosely) of women as 'attacks.'

Carmel: Other women's accomplishments are not mine to gloat over and don't feed my ego as men's achievements shouldn't feed yours.

This has always been the poison in this well . . . .

Alex: But some women who were also Freudians, going through Freud's rather blunt theories about the vagina-penis conflict, countered the 'penis-envy' with the rather evident 'womb-envy' that men tend to deny

One does not need to be 'freudian' to make this observation, just as one doesn't need to be 'feminist' to see it. The human animal is simpler than you think. The history of the world has been driven by this original disparity: she gestates human beings and he does not. She knows the offspring is hers; he does not.

The history of the world is the history of breeding management - the one thing his superior upper body strength begins by force; and has perpetuated by force of more and law. To compensate for the 'crudely' physical notion of creation - really the only kind of creation there is (life) - he now makes products from his mind. And these products (ideas) shall become, must become, more important than the protoplasms who live, flourish, suffer, and die from them. Otherwise, he will find himself once again 'out of control.' With his ideas, he can allow who may live and who ought to die, up to and including his fellow breeding competitors, whom he can raise in honor and idea enough to participate in their own suicides (war). This is his limited role in human creation: destruction. He is the one who says "no" to life, standing next to her birthing after birthing that says "yes."

All thought springs from and belongs to the physical. Thought is physical. Like lungs, like hearts, like digestion, it can malfunction; become 'sick.' It is NOT a foolproof organ of the human being, even if it is the only organ that can function as the sense-making one. It is, as Nietzsche observed, "the last and latest development of the organic and hence also what is the most unfinished and unstrong." He goes on:

Thus consciousness is tyrannized - not the least by our pride in it. One thinks that it constitutes the kernel of man; what is abiding, eternal, ultimate and most original in him. One takes consciousness for a determinate magnitude. One denies its growth and intermittences. One takes it for the "unity of the organism."

He goes on to declare this a "ridiculous overestimation and misunderstanding" of consciousness and I'm inclined to agree. The love of reason must include this understanding, if one is at all inclined to acquire it: Consciousness does not constitute the "kernel of man." As the appendix fades in use and necessity and the mind rises - all by virtue of the exegencies of concrete physical realities - there is much extraneousness and malfunction. Unless one wishes to deny species evolution altogether, then one must come to understand that we do not start with an unbirthed perfection in thought that one merely must work inwardly toward. It's not there to begin with: it is brought about from and through interaction with the concrete phenomenal world. This is true in the evolutionary macrocosm, just as it is true in the individual microcosm of individual lives. What one has personally experienced is what leads the mindbody along. This hardly guarantees 'objective' accuracy.

Here is the definition of the spiritual: one's relationship to (and as) the physical. How one moves through the world, how they treat, consider things; what sort of life praxis they adopt; what they value, what they do not. It is not the absence of physicality in favor of some notion of mind-life. It is the very way (the tao) of their actual, concrete interaction (or lack thereof) with concrete phenomenal reality. To love or disregard. This requires the all-else around which one forms this love or disregard.

It's in this context that I have often considered the sage-who-removes-itself from the 'worldly', the physical, the sensual (even when this is categorically impossible) - to be more seriously suffering, and suffering most likely from deep misanthropy of others and self. To be in the world and not be able to live in it - to not be able to stand everything that is, including oneself - to see it all as "wrong," deficient - well, this hardly strikes me as an enlightening path. No wonder it takes him years and years longer to reach detente with his own circumstances. He is a hothouse flower who can only sustain and bear-up in limited circumstances. He's precious. And it is his concrete circumstances and experiences that have formed this very fragility.

Blood, baby diapers, vomit, birth itself and attendance to bodies in death - man's experiences as non-birthing and less-connected to the physical-sensual cycles of life have rendered him squeamish in these areas. He addresses this squeamishness by denigrating the sensual, the physical, and elevating (retreating) into his own products of mind - products that have come about by his original sense of exclusion - products that history has shown are subject to error - products that are so intimately and simplistically tied to his original concrete circumstances as to have been forgotten.

In this sense, "man" is a fearful being: fearful of exclusion; fearful of the draw of the sensual; fearful that the sensual somehow 'competes' with his own products of mind. He forgets that his mind itself is a concrete and sensual matter.

The spiritual is the physical.

Pye, in rhetorical, materialist mode

[Kunga]

Kunga,

• It is absurd to speak in terms of superiority and inferiority.
• Shouldn't it be about 'function' and 'efficiency'?
• Male and female, in evolutionary history, function as a unit.
• To begin to understand male and female, they have to be looked at 'holistically'.
• The 'nurture vs nature' argument is still contested.
• We mind-fuck ourselves when we get into intelligence/genius matches.
• The awareness and consciousness of women and men function in slightly different fields.
• Slight differences often make a great deal of difference.
• One of the flaws of the GF view of 'woman' is that it can define no relatedness to women.
• The GF 'man' is 'tragically separated'.
• Tragical separation is a psychological condition, a pathology.
• Despite the fact that GFers recognize and admire and privelage a rare male genius, they do not themselves have such genius. In this sense they are 'female'.
• Which of course places the 'conversation' in absurd terms.
• Who really has 'genius'? Well, we all know who...

Very well put Alex...thankyou _/\_

Maybe a genius is both conditioned and genetically predestined OR altered .
Maybe more women would be geniuses if they were considered equal from birth.

[Kunga]

Only a genius could come up with what Pye wrote.
As a matter of fact...there are many Geniuses here.

The whole problem in a nut shell is...we don't realize who/what we really are.
We think we are this physical manifestation.
We are brainwashed .

We are spiritual beings in a material body.
Sexless.

[Anders Schlander]

Okay, here goes; are we going to discuss female geniuses, slim geniuses, black-haired geniuses, white geniuses, asian geniuses, male geniuses.....to no end?

or are we gonna make a distinction; Does genius have a lack of ego? do they understand ultimate reality? do their actions to the degree they don't have an ego avoid evil because they have shed their delusions that cause evil to happen? Does female genius? Genius for me, means standing up for truth, in being an individual, even if everybody around you is wrong then not compromising, if it means being conscious again without compromise to see truth, and letting it be known to others, if one is conscious about ones faults and error, seeing ones faults and errors as damaging to others.

It would seem that if one had the character of genius, then it would matter very little if one was female, male, tall or short. If a genius was female, then great.

So if we are really discussing genius, can we do it without ascribing special attention to the word female? or are you gonna admit you're talking about another kind of genius?

[Animus]

This "kid", normally doesn't get much involved in these discussions about female genius, there have been dozens of them and this kid has only commented on a few of them. However, this kid has observed that these threads are created by women and are usually of a highly defensive nature. They usually come about after reading Quinn's Woman or similar writings on this site.

E.g. "Does anyone else laugh at the obvious logic fallacies contained within Otto Weininger, Rousseau, Ambrose Bierce's quotes on this topic? (If you did not figure it out yet, Camille Paglia's quote was taken out of context.)" -JenJen (This Thread)

I've fought against Quinn on this expose as well, I just haven't done so in simplified ego-speak. My issue was whether and to what degree the female brain/mind is homologous and capable of similar function. That in itself says nothing of the incidence of female genius, it only relates to the possibility.

At any rate, if genius is the ability to see in oneself their whole self and others. That is to be genuinely compassionate and understanding (agape). Then it is my own personal experience that few women have attained to it. I obviously don't know every woman that ever lived or ever will live, but out of those that I know, the closest to genius are/were Betty Friedan, and Mary Anne Evans and neither one of them came close to genius, IMO.

The truly masculine ego wishes to overcome itself, but the feminine ego wishes to annihilate itself - or rather, wishes to be annihilated. Man wishes to go forth and conquer death, but Woman will never even enter into the world. - K.S

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Here is the definition of the spiritual: one's relationship to (and as) the physical. How one moves through the world, how they treat, consider things; what sort of life praxis they adopt; what they value, what they do not. It is not the absence of physicality in favor of some notion of mind-life.

It's perhaps not the definition but more like the start of spirituality, to explore that relationship as direct and nearby as possible.

It's in this context that I have often considered the sage-who-removes-itself from the 'worldly', the physical, the sensual (even when this is categorically impossible) - to be more seriously suffering, and suffering most likely from deep misanthropy of others and self. To be in the world and not be able to live in it - to not be able to stand everything that is, including oneself - to see it all as "wrong," deficient - well, this hardly strikes me as an enlightening path.

How does one imagine removing oneself from the physical? One cannot of course, just one illusion to replace another. One can only deviate from what's possible to deviate from and that's from the principle of truth, which is the only life because it's also how we know death.

It's not entirely clear to me how much you would be able to stand. The bravado does suit the forum though.

[Jeannie]

Perhaps there is a scarcity of female geniuses because females, in general, in my experience, do not want to strip themselves of emotions.

The men you call geniuses is really an opinion, nothing more.

You think you have it figured out? Think again.

[Pye]

Diebert: It's not entirely clear to me how much you would be able to stand.

Luckily, demonstrating this to you in here is neither possible, needful, or desirable.

Kunga: Only a genius could come up with what Pye wrote.

Kunga again: The whole problem in a nut shell is...we don't realize who/what we really are.
We think we are this physical manifestation.
We are brainwashed .

We are spiritual beings in a material body.
Sexless.

Kunga, I would think you would find nothing of genius in what I wrote, given that your beliefs above are distinctly not mine.

We are this physical being and nothing more, and "spirit," again, is simply our sense of self in relation to the whole - the very ground of our engagement in and with the world. The body, mind, spirit are not separate entities. And we are not "sexless," or no life force runs through us at all, male or female. I'm no Buddhist. I do not find rational the notion of egolessness and the tasks attached to that, because it is not possible to rid oneself of their sense of self. Death takes care of that, when that self, and its ego, are no more. This notion of No Self is simply another cry down through the ages toward escaping the rigors and sufferings of raising up consciousness; the pains of being a sentient being. It is the evolutionary weight we bear as actual and thinking beings. The direction would be toward a larger sense of consciousness and self; not a reduced or "eliminated" one.

Paradoxically, the laser-focus around the ego - this holding tight to it as a task of "elimination," this pressing inward to squash and squelch, I believe, produces a more firmly entrenched monocular focus on the self-same thing. What is needed is an expansion of the ego that takes more and more of the world into its consciousness - and by default, stops stinking so much with its nose constantly in its own wedged underwear. With this expansion - with the increased taking on of the things in the world to the self, the issues connected with ego disperse, as one becomes larger in the grand scheme; as one's concerns and actions become more encompassing. One's sense of self cannot help but be adjusted, as it were, when it takes on more of the world - becomes more conscious of it.

It has always been a type of ego that some people here, in buddhistic tradition, have focused upon. And in another brilliant paradox, those of effortful 'egolessness' spend the most time hunting down and charging others with egoic-offense. Both are there remaining within that which they claim to escape.

There is no escaping one's sense of self. It and the world rise together.

Jeannie: Perhaps there is a scarcity of female geniuses because females, in general, in my experience, do not want to strip themselves of emotions.

I doubt that "stripped of emotions" will accurately describe any one of the past thinkers cited and respected by this forum. Anders has the right spirit here in seeking to define genius at all before we say who can and cannot be one.

I am still of the belief that its appearance will run counter to anything pre-scribed; such is its very nature.

[Alex T. Jacob]

[Partial analysis]

• Pye's ideas about 'spirituality', and men vs women, just like any organization of ideas, are opinions. Thrown into the mix, they can be considered: "Here is the definition of the spiritual: one's relationship to (and as) the physical. How one moves through the world, how they treat, consider things; what sort of life praxis they adopt; what they value, what they do not. It is not the absence of physicality in favor of some notion of mind-life." With this, I am reminded of Ludvig Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity that Animus brought up through his reference to George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans), who translated The Essence of Christianity into English.
• No doubt, the above is true. But Pye recognizes (I think) that this is perhaps just one part of the equation when, at the end, she signs: Pye, in materialist (rhetorical) mode.
• Starting at the beginning (once again): What the men here are up to with their whole project of definitions about women, is anyone's guess. Why the need to guess? Simple: a great number of men who post here---the TBs of the GF position---are fundamentally dishonest. As I have said again and again and again, they are like little snotty boys in a pissing contest. They have a read a few books somewhat closely and, as a result, think they understand Life at the most fundamental level. A person with even minor sense and experience in the world recognizes the utter lack of depth of their position. They are vastly ignorant about whole parts of themselves and never reveal who they 'really are', for fear if not terror. The game they want to play is a highly managed game of Image-Management where they play Intellectual/Genius/Buddhist sage (or what-have-you). It is in this context, one must see this clearly, that a sort of mind-war is conducted against 'Woman'.
• In response to Carmel's saying she does not gloat over the accomplishments of women as men seem to about male geniuses: "This has always been the poison in this well..." One must note that, for reasons each one will have to ferret-out, there is 'poison' in the well. Because the boys are fundamentally dishonest you cannot rely on them for help in discovering what it is. You are left with a project of psychological analysis or the use of intuitive skills.
• But, I think it must be said that what men are doing, and in my opinion what men should do; that is, to truly take stock of themselves, to examine 'genius' and the accomplishment of men (a vastly different level of accomplishment than that of women, as a category), is a necessary, good and 'noble' task. We have to do this; we have to undertake it and complete it (this analysis). Carmel wrote: "Other women's accomplishments are not mine to gloat over and don't feed my ego as men's achievements shouldn't feed yours." There are a few problems with this, one being that women (in Women's Studies for one example) always bring up examples of women to demonstrate that women are, in many ways, just as capable as men. You have to bring up the example to create something you can emulate. The project of women-defining-women is both a defensive and an offensive game. I would like to suggest that just because of certain 'faults' here that produce 'poison' (which is to say stupidity, ignorance and 'bad faith') the project of men defining men is absolutely necessary. It almost has to be done independantly of women and women's discourse about men.
• This paragraph is pretty complex and requires anaylis---'breakdown': Pye wrote: "The history of the world is the history of breeding management - the one thing his superior upper body strength begins by force; and has perpetuated by force of more and law. To compensate for the 'crudely' physical notion of creation - really the only kind of creation there is (life) - he now makes products from his mind. And these products (ideas) shall become, must become, more important than the protoplasms who live, flourish, suffer, and die from them. Otherwise, he will find himself once again 'out of control.' With his ideas, he can allow who may live and who ought to die, up to and including his fellow breeding competitors, whom he can raise in honor and idea enough to participate in their own suicides (war). This is his limited role in human creation: destruction. He is the one who says "no" to life, standing next to her birthing after birthing that says "yes."
• The view expressed here, I think, would lead---does lead---directly to the view-structure of a thinker like Andrea Dworkin that characterizes men (and man) as almost an evil entity that preys on the women they manage as part of their breeding project. The intrusion of the penis into the vagina of a woman is perceived as an 'evil' committed against women, a rape under any circumstances, an act of violence, something rather horrible.
• Resulting from my own (admittedly partial) reading of Andrea Dworkin I came to realize that the true enemy of woman is not man but Nature who invented this physical plane of existence and 'placed' us in it. Nature---that glorious Goddess!---has utterly fucked women, pun intended.
• If I say: Structures that men have created have allowed women a very different position and has ameliorated their essential condition of being 'fucked by nature', what would you say? Men have most certainly participated in the last couple of hundred years in re-envisioning women's position in the world. It is only fair to say it.
• To say that men can 'go crazy' in their thinking is simply a truism. When the human monkey gets his hands on weapons of mass destruction but is still essentially a monkey (upright killer-ape), we indeed have a problem on our hands.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Diebert: It's not entirely clear to me how much you would be able to stand.

Luckily, demonstrating this to you in here is neither possible, needful, or desirable.

Unfortunately, one cannot really detach from this ability in ones writing, ones reasoning and ones dedication to truth, especially here.

[Pye]

Alex: A person with even minor sense and experience in the world recognizes the utter lack of depth of their [GF/QRS?] position.

As a person of sense and experience, I don't recognize an utter lack of depth here, or with "them." I would not be here, if that were the case. The difference between yourself and myself vis-a-vis this forum, Alex, is that I'm focusing on what's being written here and you're focusing on why [you think] it's being said. This reminds me of the eternally recurring young student who will find out a few things about, say, Nietzsche's life, and then come tell me he wrote what he wrote because he was raised by religious women, or he wrote what he wrote in Oedipal conflict with his [absent] pastor-dad; or he wrote what he wrote because he could not get a woman to love him; or he wrote what he wrote because he was going mad . . . . I help them out, tell them we can look into his potty training experiences if they like, but not one whit of this will help us understand what he's saying, thinking. Why is indeed an interesting question. What is a better one. Prevents: the smug dismissal of think-work in favor of psyched-out conclusionism.

Alex: The view expressed here, I think, would lead---does lead---directly to the view-structure of a thinker like Andrea Dworkinthat characterizes men (and man) as almost an evil entity that preys on the women they manage as part of their breeding project.

Myself, I don't do 'evil.'
You have it better later on with both sexes being 'screwed' by nature, if it has to be put this way. Man feels his circumstances just as keenly. He is also behind a certain 8-ball and doing his own compensating.

Diebert: Unfortunately, one cannot really detach from this ability in ones writing, ones reasoning and ones dedication to truth, especially here.

:) well, okay then. You have plenty of writing, reasoning and words from me here, coursed over some years. But still we will never be "entirely clear" to one another in this.
Diebert as the Bible and Pye as Faust:

Bible: In the beginning was the Word . . . .
Faust: Ah, no - In the beginning was the Deed . . . . :

dejavu: Why do women know everything there is to know about comfort, and also how to make it seem the most appealing thing to our senses?

Perhaps this only happens on Planet Peanut? In my world, women also know a helluva lot about pain. Nature has "screwed" them that way as well.

[Pye]

.

. . . awhile back when I was trying to keep up on reading here when I had no time to write, I recall David's mention of the care of his mother through her illness and death. I cannot tell you what this deed did for my estimation of David in the category of courage: not for reasons of maternal sentimentality or social protocol or the care of a [mere] woman, but for facing down a male squeamishness I seldom get to see from most of the males I've known. We have this in common. I nursed my mother in her home for the last 2 years of her life while she was dying a very ugly cancer death. And I did it for the same reasons I recall David mentioning: this woman's contribution of wit and intellect to my own. Not a matter of owing . . . but a matter of reciprocity. So few are the males who can or care to face-down the prosaicness of pus, so to speak; be near the naked immanence of death.

The sage washes his own robes, fills his own ricebowl, wipes his own ass. The wuss leaves it to a woman.


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