It seems to me, it seems clear, that the foundation of the freedom to pursue spirituality or 'enlightenment' that is treasured by the founders of this forum, is the most crucial aspect of their philosophical position. It also seems to me that it is the most 'problematic' since, in a very basic sense, to desire freedom from the female, the unconscious, and from the fact of causation that determines us, is a sort of male fantasy. The fantasy is not non-useful and non-productive, however, since men in the pursuit of it have created so many important and durable things. Indeed, in a certain sense at least, male longing for freedom from biological and causal determinism, a stark resistance to 'the way things are' ('The Facts") is the cause of all material culture.
I have often thought that there is in reality no freedom from the female in truth. The longing for such a freedom is constructed within a false dichotomy: matter vs spirit. The longing to be free of 'woman' is related as a conscious desire but also an unconscious desire (longing) to be free of the terrible constraints of a flesh existence. It is pretty easy to identify 'woman' as the anchor by which men are bound. Or, put another way, women and the feminine are never seen as a means to transcendence.
(I leave it to you to translate the Spanish).“The characteristic note of our time is the dire truth that, the mediocre soul, the commonplace mind, knowing itself to be mediocre, has the gall to assert its right to mediocrity, and goes on to impose itself where it can.”
"La mujer parece resuelta a mantener la especie dentro de limites mediocres, a procurar que el hombre no llegue nunca a ser semidios."
'Tal vez el papel de la mujer en la mecanica de la historia es ser una fuerza retardaria frente a la turbulenta inquietud del hombre."
― José Ortega y Gasset
So, I hope that in this thread we might revisit the topic.
Along these lines I heard a strange story recently that intrigued me. I may use it as the basis of a story (indeed I have sort of novelized it here!) In skeleton form it went like this:
- A man who had been going out with a woman for a couple of years happened to go to her house unexpectedly and overheard her and her lawyer talking on the back porch. He learned that she'd deliberately stopped taking birth control when the two of them had formally agreed always to use birth control. The man had explained clearly that he did not want to have children. But the woman, it turned out, very much wanted children and was also hung up on the man in a rather obsessive way (I think he had explained that he 'wanted his space' or something to that effect but was still fucking her regularly). And the man in question, as it turned out, had a certain amount of money too. The conversation he overheard had to do with the woman speaking about her surreptitious choice to get pregnant and also a rather direct and Machiavellian conversation with her lawyer about her 'options': what she could get out of him and how best to plan it.
Obviously, if she had the child (she was 4 weeks pregnant or so), she would be able to make a case for child support and alimony and also---a long shot perhaps---some part of the man's wealth. He heard all this and was shocked, naturally. But he did not let on. He had to leave town for a few days and used that time to think it over. He came up with a rather dastardly counter-plan: He invited her to take a trip to Mexico where he had arranged to get hold of the abortive RU-486 (Mifepristone) and while on the trip secretly administered the abortive to her. She aborted with no problems. And it was at this point that he factually told her all he knew, all he had overheard. In short, he 'busted' her.
The other part of the story, almost necessary to understand why he did it all this way, and of course why he bothered to tell her after he'd done it, was that he had transferred his assets out of the US, and with his decision to abort his child in the womb of a 'malicious' woman who was scheming on his wealth, he also decided to leave the US altogether. I seem to remember he went to live in Singapore.
My position is that women, speaking generally, are very much indeed a mediocrity, but certainly no more and often quite a bit less than the vast multitudes of men. But with that in mind (as operative knowledge) it *should* be a man's decision to in some way or other break out of mediocrity. Not to conform to women's desires for him, not to become merely her 'biological servant'. In the best case, if indeed a man had such characteristics, he would could still have relations with women, but what complicates the whole issue is that, certainly in the First World, a woman represents a very real trap. Again, harkening to the Greek concept of 'metis': the clever designs employed by nature to disguise predation and the predator, and pushing the metaphor further: to 'guild the cage' or to scent it with lovely scent, but it is still a trap. Marriage and paternity can be and often is a Life Sentence for a man: once in you never get out.
My personal view is that a woman is something that one should consciously decide to 'control'. One must secure one's own position and make it unassailable (no way to get at what you have), and from that position one chooses the exact level of involvement one wants. For example, I have a GF (here in Latin America) who is really a sweet and respectful person and who is also getting help to finish school (she has a five years-old son, not mine). In truth she is a beautiful soul and did not have designs on me, as many Latinas do of foreigners, and this is why it became easy to desire to help her. She lives now with her mother and I definitely have no intention of inviting her to live with me. So, it turns into almost the 'perfect situation', but it is all predicated on male power: I have my own sources of income which are unassailable. Isn't this, I ask, what any one of us should seek? Our own sovereignty?
Looking forward to hearing what you-all have to say...
