Solving a Puzzle-- Understanding Some People's Reactions


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> What post are you quoting from? I've searched but I cannot find it. This is very annoying. If you will not use the quote function, you could at least give a post number, especially when posts have been appearing at a rapid rate, as they have tonight on this thread. [GHS, 157]

Sorry. I almost always give a post number, unless it was just above (one of the one or two posts the reader has just read). I forgot this time.

What exactly prevents your from using the simple, clear and informative quote function?

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Note from MSK: Text deleted. It's easier. I'm tired of babysitting this poster and moving his crap to the Garbage Pile.

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> What exactly prevents your from using the simple, clear and informative quote function?

Asked and answered.

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As I understand it, Foucault's basic point was that it is inappropriate to judge Islamic culture -- including its horrendous treatment of women -- by Western standards. Correct?

Yes. Islamic countries are within the Sacred Order not the Order of Production, not a Secular order. You cannot judge them from within ours, tempting as that may be. I presume you are talking about genital cutting among other things. Stoning because of adultery, etc.

They are a culture that has a great fear of women. And women are the cornerstone of their culture /religion. Exchange and property. This is a total belief system. And I think you know about beliefs. You may suppress the behavior but you are not going to get rid of it. You may punish and try them as we do in the US, but thaat still is only going to suppress it, the belief will still be there. Maybe here after a few generations it will not happen. Ousmane Sembene's last film was on genital mutilation. He is a filmmaker, educated in France, from Somalia and has always done films on taboo subjects, exposing hypocrisy. It shows that other women in the village are the most adamant on the cutting, and the young girls want it as a ritual of feminine adulthood, otherwise they will not be marriageable and then what do they have if they cannot marry. It's complicated. Mothers often try to spare their daughters, but other women undermine them, grab their daughters and do it anyway against her wishes. Human rights belong to secular orders not sacred orders.

Janet,

The "Sacred Order" thing you posted prevented you from getting to the root of issue: for it is patriarchalism, not religion, which leads to such horrific practices like genital mutilation. And since many religions were founded in patriarchal times, it is no surprise that they reflect this patriarchalism.

But patriarchalism is primarily not a religious issue, surely you will agree. It is a political issue.

And since you yourself posted that "Human rights belong to secular orders not sacred orders", a violation of human rights like genital mutilation cannot be labeled it as 'inappropriate to be judged' because it belongs to a 'religious culture'.

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Oh no!

I see the rise of the head of the circumcision issue coming back again as genital mutilation!

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As I understand it, Foucault's basic point was that it is inappropriate to judge Islamic culture -- including its horrendous treatment of women -- by Western standards. Correct?
Yes. Islamic countries are within the Sacred Order not the Order of Production, not a Secular order. You cannot judge them from within ours, tempting as that may be. I presume you are talking about genital cutting among other things. Stoning because of adultery, etc. They are a culture that has a great fear of women. And women are the cornerstone of their culture /religion. Exchange and property. This is a total belief system. And I think you know about beliefs. You may suppress the behavior but you are not going to get rid of it. You may punish and try them as we do in the US, but thaat still is only going to suppress it, the belief will still be there. Maybe here after a few generations it will not happen. Ousmane Sembene's last film was on genital mutilation. He is a filmmaker, educated in France, from Somalia and has always done films on taboo subjects, exposing hypocrisy. It shows that other women in the village are the most adamant on the cutting, and the young girls want it as a ritual of feminine adulthood, otherwise they will not be marriageable and then what do they have if they cannot marry. It's complicated. Mothers often try to spare their daughters, but other women undermine them, grab their daughters and do it anyway against her wishes. Human rights belong to secular orders not sacred orders.
Janet, The "Sacred Order" thing you posted prevented you from getting to the root of issue: for it is patriarchalism, not religion, which leads to such horrific practices like genital mutilation. And since many religions were founded in patriarchal times, it is no surprise that they reflect this patriarchalism. But patriarchalism is primarily not a religious issue, surely you will agree. It is a political issue. And since you yourself posted that "Human rights belong to secular orders not sacred orders", a violation of human rights like genital mutilation cannot be labeled it as 'inappropriate to be judged' because it belongs to a 'religious culture'.

I am not saying it can be judged. Perhaps strong disapproval is a better word. Yes it is a patriarchal society, but there are patriarchal societies that don't do that, so your logic is in error. Women are cut to Inscribe their bodies and their minds. it is torture. for more on this see Nietzsche's genealogy of morals and the genealogy of human consciousness. See Cosmopolis when Packer consistently notices signs of torture in the people he meets this las day of his life. Ask anyone with a tattoo when they had it, why they chose this or that design and they will tell you a story. The tattoo is to inscribe their body and mind for whatever reason.

Women are inscribed - tortured - by this practice for particular purposes.

1. It will make sexual penetration painful to them for the rest of their lives.

2. It will go a long way to ensure that women will not seek sex in or out of marriage.

3. It will ensure a young woman is chaste before marriage.

4. Her virginity is important when she is exchanged in marriage.

5. The men gather together to decide who their sisters, widowed mothers, cousins etc are to marry. In other words the men gather to determine who is going to fuck their female relatives. Our practice in college locker rooms is not too dissimilar as jocks get together to talk about their mutual fucks. This is a sublimated homoerotic practice in both cultures.

6. Women who have children are sewn up after childbirth to make them "tight" again. Often when they have their menstual periods the blood backs up as it can't flow freely and it very painful.

Yes it is a terrible practice. But it is so ingrained in the religious/cultural order - the sacred order - of the culture that human rights from our secular culture is just pissing in the wind when used to confront this practice. Their entire religious/cultural order would collapse if this were forbidden. This means it is not going to go away soon. Generations will have to die, women will have to live different lives for any change to occur. Rather than scream and yell and type away about it, better to work at ways to change their lives.

If you watch Ousmane Sembene film Moolade on this topic, you will see that a few are trying to change, but within their cultural order they are "abnormal" if they don't deliver their daughters to have it done, if they seclude their daughters to avoid it, if they speak out against it, etc.

They are going to have to do it themselves. And it cannot be forced by western or asian powers whose women dance in strip clubs, prostitute themselves, walk naked on beaches, etc as all these practices fill the middle eastern male and female with horror. To get liberated so they can live that kind of life!

It's a very complicated practice and for you to run your mouth off about it when it is obvious you don't really care about these women, but it is fashionable and trendy to say negative things about their practices. If you really cared you might be over there building schools, teaching them, doing something to improve their lives.

Sacred Orders and Secular Orders are different categories. They don't mix until their boundaries become permeable, and that doesn't happen until their orthodox attributes weaken. And now we can talk about objectivism and where that fits in. Is it a closed system or is it open? If it is open, does it survive?

I have answered you at length, seriously. I do not expect smart answers in return. I cannot give you a happy solution because there isn't one. I do not now or ever intend to take an unequivocal stand on this without saying that Islam is the stupidest of religions, which I think it is. And Houellebecq was run out of France for saying the same thing I just said. only publicly in a book. And yet, some of the most beautiful and considerate people I have met traveling were muslims. And some of the most rabid crazies too. Same with christians I guess. Who can say.

I full well know that saying this here will not settle anything. It will just feed the fire and there will be different interpretation, counter interpretations, counter interpretations of the counter interpretations. This is what is wrong with my above Discourse. It will never resolve a goddamn thing. But Michael and all you aggressive ones wanted a serious ansewer instead of my caustic zaps. Well, you just got one.

Let's see what you do with it. I do hope you are satisfied and can take your nit picking somewhere else to someone else.

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As I understand it, Foucault's basic point was that it is inappropriate to judge Islamic culture -- including its horrendous treatment of women -- by Western standards. Correct?

Yes. Islamic countries are within the Sacred Order not the Order of Production, not a Secular order. You cannot judge them from within ours, tempting as that may be. I presume you are talking about genital cutting among other things. Stoning because of adultery, etc.

They are a culture that has a great fear of women. And women are the cornerstone of their culture /religion. Exchange and property. This is a total belief system. And I think you know about beliefs. You may suppress the behavior but you are not going to get rid of it. You may punish and try them as we do in the US, but thaat still is only going to suppress it, the belief will still be there. Maybe here after a few generations it will not happen. Ousmane Sembene's last film was on genital mutilation. He is a filmmaker, educated in France, from Somalia and has always done films on taboo subjects, exposing hypocrisy. It shows that other women in the village are the most adamant on the cutting, and the young girls want it as a ritual of feminine adulthood, otherwise they will not be marriageable and then what do they have if they cannot marry. It's complicated. Mothers often try to spare their daughters, but other women undermine them, grab their daughters and do it anyway against her wishes. Human rights belong to secular orders not sacred orders.

Janet,

The "Sacred Order" thing you posted prevented you from getting to the root of issue: for it is patriarchalism, not religion, which leads to such horrific practices like genital mutilation. And since many religions were founded in patriarchal times, it is no surprise that they reflect this patriarchalism.

But patriarchalism is primarily not a religious issue, surely you will agree. It is a political issue.

And since you yourself posted that "Human rights belong to secular orders not sacred orders", a violation of human rights like genital mutilation cannot be labeled it as 'inappropriate to be judged' because it belongs to a 'religious culture'.

Sorry I just gave you a serious 30 minute essay on this and this fuggin software ate it. I am not redoing it.

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Are you aware of your participation in this charade? This bunch knows how to suck you in to make you do the dirty work. They are clever,eh. I didn't push her out. Michael did. You are willing to do this because I didn't suck up to you. Is that really what you want here?

Heh.

You've got some things to learn about how OL works. You have no idea how I have handled the many trolls and crazies and bullies and preacher types, including a few nasty people purposely out to destroy this forum, who have appeared in the past. (And other problems, of course.)

Yet look around. We have a pretty good thing going with a very high-quality audience. Before telling the owner why that is, I suggest you do some observing first. To put it politely, it ain't the way you speculate. I know what I'm doing. I learned it the hard way at the college of hard knocks, Screw U.

That's why I'm glad you say you are opting for quality. (Let's see if you do what you say, but only time will tell.) And yes, that will save me a headache. But if not, no worries. I've dealt with people who have tried to hog the forum before so I assure you I can handle it without a whole bunch of "howling."

Look at how you were received. I can almost guarantee that you have not had the treatment elsewhere that you have had so far here. There are reasons--and some of them are the reasons you want to post here. But I'm not going to teach them to you. All you have to do is observe and you will find them out for yourself.

Actually I thought Michael was being tongue-in-cheek, echoing Phil's eloquent pleas for "balance".

Carol,

I've had to deal with several machine-gun posters in the past (including one serial plagiarist). They actually do make the audience leave. The first day or three there's a surge in interest since people like to gather to see the train wreck, but as the show gets monotonous, people move on. That's what the stats backstage have always told me (in addition to my own eyes, of course).

Nowadays I try to nip things in the bud instead of waiting for the audience to leave.

And it's always a treat when someone like that finally "gets" the spirit of the forum. (I'm thinking specifically about one who knows who she is and she ain't you or the current newcomer.)

I keep an eye on these things because I like to make a comfortable, but challenging, environment for highly intelligent people to explore ideas--using our shared interest in Objectivism as a starting point, not an end. If you build it they will come. That's what's happened so far.

Like I said above, I think we've got a pretty good thing going here. And there's something else. Over the years, I've noticed that many things posted here end up being raised and discussed at other intelligent places soon after.

Come to think of it...

Yo!

You lurkers!

Yo!

Give yourself a hand! I mean it...

You guys rock.

Stupid people don't read OL too much. Intelligent people do.

So guess what that makes you?

:smile:

Rock on...

Michael

Thanks Michael for explaining this. I am surprised that one-liners diminish audience, but I can see that dominant sniping by a very few would soon bore an interested reader. I have to say that it was in part the quality one-liners of regulars like Ghs. PDS, Brant and yes, you Adam, which lured me into joining OL. For which joining, I am STILL waiting for my T Shirt as thousandth member. I don't care what is printed on it, John Galt or the Blackhawks, size XXL please, I might invite a friend to join me in it,

In the case of Seymour though I think you are wise to ask her to practise self-restraint in rejoinder. Her "caustic zaps" so far are just ill-tempered, mean-spirited, small-minded, childish reactions which zap no one but herself, not with caustic but with emollient, soothing her own feelings --which, I suppose, is the point, after all.

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Yes it is a patriarchal society, but there are patriarchal societies that don't do that, so your logic is in error.

My logic is not in error. For the fact that not all patriarchal societies have such practices, does not alter the fact that if such practices occur, they are always patriarchal. Without exception.

What you wrote in the quote below perfectly illustrates my point:

Women are inscribed - tortured - by this practice for particular purposes.

1. It will make sexual penetration painful to them for the rest of their lives.

2. It will go a long way to ensure that women will not seek sex in or out of marriage.

3. It will ensure a young woman is chaste before marriage.

4. Her virginity is important when she is exchanged in marriage.

5. The men gather together to decide who their sisters, widowed mothers, cousins etc are to marry. In other words the men gather to determine who is going to fuck their female relatives.

6. Women who have children are sewn up after childbirth to make them "tight" again. Often when they have their menstual periods the blood backs up as it can't flow freely and it very painful.

Every single of the above points has patriarchalism at the root of it.

Therefore without patriarchalism, no genital mutilation would exist.

Generations will have to die, women will have to live different lives for any change to occur. Rather than scream and yell and type away about it, better to work at ways to change their lives.

There do exist humanitarian organizations dealing with this problem, to which one can donate money. And they have achieved successes. Progress is yet small, but even a small progress is a progress.

Also, the victims are beginning to speak up in public about their ordeal (as e. g. Waris Dire did in Desert Flower). This has raised a global awareness that just wasn't there few decades ago. And that global awareness will keep growing even more.

It's a very complicated practice and for you to run your mouth off about it when it is obvious you don't really care about these women, but it is fashionable and trendy to say negative things about their practices. If you really cared you might be over there building schools, teaching them, doing something to improve their lives.

First of all: you cannot know what I'm doing (or not doing) with regard to this problem. You cannot know if I care about it or not.

Such basic epistemological blunders come across as pretty odd in a philosophy forum.

For example, I might be regularly donating to human rights organizations that also deal with the problem. You cannot know any of this. Get my point?

So please get your epistemological ducks in a row next time and don't present mere assumptions on your part as if they were statements of objective fact.

I have answered you at length, seriously. I do not expect smart answers in return.

I'm not interested in giving you any 'smart' answers. I'm interested in gettting - in the course of a mutual exchange - to the root of an issue

Let's see what you do with it. I do hope you are satisfied and can take your nit picking somewhere else to someone else.

AlI I'm asking for is preciseness. Also, I don't expect of you to 'resolve' anything. Discourses on philosophy forums are mostly process-oriented. Still they can be quite powerful because light is shed on certain issues, errors are uncovered, etc. - all of which can induce change in the participants' worldview. For example, It was a discourse (a debate actually) I was having with an atheist which got me to rethink my premises regarding religion.

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Sorry I just gave you a serious 30 minute essay on this and this fuggin software ate it. I am not redoing it.

If it has anything to do with Google stop using it. Using the Google spell checker on this forum will sometimes do it. I've not noticed it elsewhere. I'd guess the software that runs this joint and the Google software have some compatibility issues.

--Brant

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Sorry I just gave you a serious 30 minute essay on this and this fuggin software ate it. I am not redoing it.

If it has anything to do with Google stop using it. Using the Google spell checker on this forum will sometimes do it. I've not noticed it elsewhere. I'd guess the software that runs this joint and the Google software have some compatibility issues.

--Brant

That helps. sometimes it saves them and then I get self-confident only to get punked.

I saved it on word while I was doing something else. Now it's in the wrong place but you get the idea.

I’m not going to reply in the software any more. I lose comments too often.

Questions are interrogations. Since I went through Foucault’s genealogy on Confession and the cuts in it that interfaced with questioning that turned it into interrogation, I fall into the trap of responding to content with full knowledge that I am being stupid to do so. I can’t help it a lot as you will see from here and my chastisements.

Sex change is an interface with the body and technology. This is an important issue. I don’t think LP has been seeing films about it: eXistenZ, one of Tarkovsky’s (name?) and Houellebecq’s The Possibility of an Island. Sex change is one of the beginnings of cloning and complete cloning is less than 2 decades away now.

And it will be done.

Peikoff, one of the founders of Objectivism, is heartily criticized here, while others are not allowed a whisper of a hint that appears negative about them. I guess some are more equal than others. Peikoff has done something very impressive with Objectivism. He has kept it a closed system as much as he was humanly able to do so. Had he allowed it to open up, it would have been a disaster. It is a hodge-podge of philosophical constructs pasted together that would have been shattered into bits and laughed at long ago.

Rand follows Nietzsche in relating everything to everything else, and as Sciabarra has shown, Peikoff preserved this relational aspect. This is what allows Rand to weave sex, economics, aesthetics into the pattern she named Objectivism. This is what allowed her to attack inroads that would have ruined what she was trying to do. Sciabarra is very clear on this.

A question about sex change is not a question but an interrogation as to the Objectivist moral position on it.

What is the moral issue in changing your reality surgically, permanently? A difficult question that requires a thoughtful answer, not a ready-made. He did not have it because he had not been thinking about it.

We can imagine what Rand would have said. But if she were here now, her reply might have been different from what it might have been then.

That’s hard to say and we will never know. But Peikoff intends to keep Objectivism a closed system and although I have criticized him in the past for this when I thought psychologically, I can only now admire him for standing firm on this. Absolutely no one else in the movement could have done this. No one. And I applaud him for it. I am not saying I agree with him, only that his strategy is correct in preserving Rand’s work and the way she will be perceived as much as possible, in his lifetime. Afterwards I expect it to pretty much disintegrate.

There will be no opposition. It will deteriorate into ping-pong the way it has here and on solo.

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An object does not exist until and unless it is observed. - William Burroughs

Janet,

What do you think Ayn Rand would have replied to that?

Joan Baez handled that kind of comment perfectly in her early memoir Daybreak. Go read it and get your answer.

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Yes it is a patriarchal society, but there are patriarchal societies that don't do that, so your logic is in error.

My logic is not in error. For the fact that not all patriarchal societies have such practices, does not alter the fact that if such practices occur, they are always patriarchal. Without exception.

What you wrote in the quote below perfectly illustrates my point:

Women are inscribed - tortured - by this practice for particular purposes.

1. It will make sexual penetration painful to them for the rest of their lives.

2. It will go a long way to ensure that women will not seek sex in or out of marriage.

3. It will ensure a young woman is chaste before marriage.

4. Her virginity is important when she is exchanged in marriage.

5. The men gather together to decide who their sisters, widowed mothers, cousins etc are to marry. In other words the men gather to determine who is going to fuck their female relatives.

6. Women who have children are sewn up after childbirth to make them "tight" again. Often when they have their menstual periods the blood backs up as it can't flow freely and it very painful.

Every single of the above points has patriarchalism at the root of it.

Therefore without patriarchalism, no genital mutilation would exist.

Generations will have to die, women will have to live different lives for any change to occur. Rather than scream and yell and type away about it, better to work at ways to change their lives.

There do exist humanitarian organizations dealing with this problem, to which one can donate money. And they have achieved successes. Progress is yet small, but even a small progress is a progress.

Also, the victims are beginning to speak up in public about their ordeal (as e. g. Waris Dire did in Desert Flower). This has raised a global awareness that just wasn't there few decades ago. And that global awareness will keep growing even more.

It's a very complicated practice and for you to run your mouth off about it when it is obvious you don't really care about these women, but it is fashionable and trendy to say negative things about their practices. If you really cared you might be over there building schools, teaching them, doing something to improve their lives.

First of all: you cannot know what I'm doing (or not doing) with regard to this problem. You cannot know if I care about it or not.

Such basic epistemological blunders come across as pretty odd in a philosophy forum.

For example, I might be regularly donating to human rights organizations that also deal with the problem. You cannot know any of this. Get my point?

So please get your epistemological ducks in a row next time and don't present mere assumptions on your part as if they were statements of objective fact.

I have answered you at length, seriously. I do not expect smart answers in return.

I'm not interested in giving you any 'smart' answers. I'm interested in gettting - in the course of a mutual exchange - to the root of an issue

Let's see what you do with it. I do hope you are satisfied and can take your nit picking somewhere else to someone else.

AlI I'm asking for is preciseness. Also, I don't expect of you to 'resolve' anything. Discourses on philosophy forums are mostly process-oriented. Still they can be quite powerful because light is shed on certain issues, errors are unvcovered, etc. - all of which can induce change in the participants' worldview. For example, It was a discourse (a debate actually) I was having with an atheist which got me to rethink my premises regarding religion.

Here's the ROOT of the problem between you and me.

I'm not interested in giving you any 'smart' answers. I'm interested in gettting - in the course of a mutual exchange - to the root of an issue

I am not in your Discourse. There is no origin of a problem and no idealistic horizon we are aspiring to get to. That is your Hegelian Dialectical Dominating Discourse. I am not in it. There is NO ROOT to this problem. There is only a genealogy of it. I am not going to spend the next couple of years doing that for you. Just accept the fact that I am not in your Discourse. The end of hermeneutics was accomplished by Foucault. And Susan Sontag in her 1966 Against Interpretation, which Foucault never acknowledged her for. Shit on you Foucault! She was first!

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An object does not exist until and unless it is observed. - William Burroughs

Janet,

What do you think Ayn Rand would have replied to that?

Joan Baez handled that kind of comment perfectly in her early memoir Daybreak. Go read it and get your answer.

Ms. Abbey:

Rather than play the go find out yourself bitch game, perhaps you could paraphrase how Joan "handled" that order of question/interrogation.

Adam

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Sorry I just gave you a serious 30 minute essay on this and this fuggin software ate it. I am not redoing it.

If it has anything to do with Google stop using it. Using the Google spell checker on this forum will sometimes do it. I've not noticed it elsewhere. I'd guess the software that runs this joint and the Google software have some compatibility issues.

--Brant

I think I got it, I think I got it. What happens is I swish over something and it posts and then disappears for me. I just found it posted when I was looking for something else. I figured how to edit.

I will say this Toshie baby is fast fast fast.

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An object does not exist until and unless it is observed. - William Burroughs
Janet, What do you think Ayn Rand would have replied to that?
Joan Baez handled that kind of comment perfectly in her early memoir Daybreak. Go read it and get your answer.

I had no idea that Joan Baez wrote something about Ayn Rand's opinion of Berkeley's subjective idealism. Wow!

Ghs

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As I understand it, Foucault's basic point was that it is inappropriate to judge Islamic culture -- including its horrendous treatment of women -- by Western standards. Correct?
Yes. Islamic countries are within the Sacred Order not the Order of Production, not a Secular order. You cannot judge them from within ours, tempting as that may be. I presume you are talking about genital cutting among other things. Stoning because of adultery, etc. They are a culture that has a great fear of women. And women are the cornerstone of their culture /religion. Exchange and property. This is a total belief system. And I think you know about beliefs. You may suppress the behavior but you are not going to get rid of it. You may punish and try them as we do in the US, but thaat still is only going to suppress it, the belief will still be there. Maybe here after a few generations it will not happen. Ousmane Sembene's last film was on genital mutilation. He is a filmmaker, educated in France, from Somalia and has always done films on taboo subjects, exposing hypocrisy. It shows that other women in the village are the most adamant on the cutting, and the young girls want it as a ritual of feminine adulthood, otherwise they will not be marriageable and then what do they have if they cannot marry. It's complicated. Mothers often try to spare their daughters, but other women undermine them, grab their daughters and do it anyway against her wishes. Human rights belong to secular orders not sacred orders.
Janet, The "Sacred Order" thing you posted prevented you from getting to the root of issue: for it is patriarchalism, not religion, which leads to such horrific practices like genital mutilation. And since many religions were founded in patriarchal times, it is no surprise that they reflect this patriarchalism. But patriarchalism is primarily not a religious issue, surely you will agree. It is a political issue. And since you yourself posted that "Human rights belong to secular orders not sacred orders", a violation of human rights like genital mutilation cannot be labeled it as 'inappropriate to be judged' because it belongs to a 'religious culture'.
As I understand it, Foucault's basic point was that it is inappropriate to judge Islamic culture -- including its horrendous treatment of women -- by Western standards. Correct?
Yes. Islamic countries are within the Sacred Order not the Order of Production, not a Secular order. You cannot judge them from within ours, tempting as that may be. I presume you are talking about genital cutting among other things. Stoning because of adultery, etc. They are a culture that has a great fear of women. And women are the cornerstone of their culture /religion. Exchange and property. This is a total belief system. And I think you know about beliefs. You may suppress the behavior but you are not going to get rid of it. You may punish and try them as we do in the US, but thaat still is only going to suppress it, the belief will still be there. Maybe here after a few generations it will not happen. Ousmane Sembene's last film was on genital mutilation. He is a filmmaker, educated in France, from Somalia and has always done films on taboo subjects, exposing hypocrisy. It shows that other women in the village are the most adamant on the cutting, and the young girls want it as a ritual of feminine adulthood, otherwise they will not be marriageable and then what do they have if they cannot marry. It's complicated. Mothers often try to spare their daughters, but other women undermine them, grab their daughters and do it anyway against her wishes. Human rights belong to secular orders not sacred orders.
Janet, The "Sacred Order" thing you posted prevented you from getting to the root of issue: for it is patriarchalism, not religion, which leads to such horrific practices like genital mutilation. And since many religions were founded in patriarchal times, it is no surprise that they reflect this patriarchalism. But patriarchalism is primarily not a religious issue, surely you will agree. It is a political issue. And since you yourself posted that "Human rights belong to secular orders not sacred orders", a violation of human rights like genital mutilation cannot be labeled it as 'inappropriate to be judged' because it belongs to a 'religious culture'.

No. Not a political issue - that's not even skimming the surface - it is a philosophical/moral issue.

Your argument is dependent on the force of mystical-collectivism being overcome by the force of secular-collectivism.

Where is the difference?

Politics, patriarchicalism, religion, tribalism - all collectivist coercion.

Without rational egoism, individual rights would struggle to exist. Without such rights, we have the State 'permitting' "human rights" to whichever new 'special interest' group come along. This one is genitally-abused women.

It is not ehough to say this practice is horrific and wrong; I know that. Tell me your objectively MORAL and RATIONAL opposition - because that's what we need to fight it among its practitioners. Without reverting to another religion (Christianity) to contrast with the vile practices of this religion, I don't believe you can raise a moral argument.

That exposes the moral bankruptcy of the secular West: that it has only compassion and 'human' rights - emotion and force -

to combat a primitive, tribalist custom.

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An object does not exist until and unless it is observed. - William Burroughs

Janet,

What do you think Ayn Rand would have replied to that?

Joan Baez handled that kind of comment perfectly in her early memoir Daybreak. Go read it and get your answer.

Ms. Abbey:

Rather than play the go find out yourself bitch game, perhaps you could paraphrase how Joan "handled" that order of question/interrogation.

Adam

Only since it's you:

she was being interrogated on her pacifism. If she were driving down the road and a car was coming at her and there was someone in the way that she would hit if she swerved. So she responded that she would try to avoid the oncoming car and avoid hitting the person when she swerved. So then the question ante was upped. Well suppose you were on a two way road and there was a cliff on the side where you would go off if you swerved to avoid the car and the woman.

Then she said I would probably go off the cliff and land on a farmhouse and kill all the people inside.

I am paraphrasing but she upped the ante on the response to shut the questioner up. And this was exactly what was going to happen in the above example and I was going to have to spend all the rest of the day answering reasonably and logically, while the ante was upped. And then I would start my caustic one-liners and daunce would have another nail to pound in my coffin and the rest of them would jump in and and and.......

Nope. Joanie had it covered.

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Are you aware of your participation in this charade? This bunch knows how to suck you in to make you do the dirty work. They are clever,eh. I didn't push her out. Michael did. You are willing to do this because I didn't suck up to you. Is that really what you want here?

Heh.

You've got some things to learn about how OL works. You have no idea how I have handled the many trolls and crazies and bullies and preacher types, including a few nasty people purposely out to destroy this forum, who have appeared in the past. (And other problems, of course.)

Yet look around. We have a pretty good thing going with a very high-quality audience. Before telling the owner why that is, I suggest you do some observing first. To put it politely, it ain't the way you speculate. I know what I'm doing. I learned it the hard way at the college of hard knocks, Screw U.

That's why I'm glad you say you are opting for quality. (Let's see if you do what you say, but only time will tell.) And yes, that will save me a headache. But if not, no worries. I've dealt with people who have tried to hog the forum before so I assure you I can handle it without a whole bunch of "howling."

Look at how you were received. I can almost guarantee that you have not had the treatment elsewhere that you have had so far here. There are reasons--and some of them are the reasons you want to post here. But I'm not going to teach them to you. All you have to do is observe and you will find them out for yourself.

Actually I thought Michael was being tongue-in-cheek, echoing Phil's eloquent pleas for "balance".

Carol,

I've had to deal with several machine-gun posters in the past (including one serial plagiarist). They actually do make the audience leave. The first day or three there's a surge in interest since people like to gather to see the train wreck, but as the show gets monotonous, people move on. That's what the stats backstage have always told me (in addition to my own eyes, of course).

Nowadays I try to nip things in the bud instead of waiting for the audience to leave.

And it's always a treat when someone like that finally "gets" the spirit of the forum. (I'm thinking specifically about one who knows who she is and she ain't you or the current newcomer.)

I keep an eye on these things because I like to make a comfortable, but challenging, environment for highly intelligent people to explore ideas--using our shared interest in Objectivism as a starting point, not an end. If you build it they will come. That's what's happened so far.

Like I said above, I think we've got a pretty good thing going here. And there's something else. Over the years, I've noticed that many things posted here end up being raised and discussed at other intelligent places soon after.

Come to think of it...

Yo!

You lurkers!

Yo!

Give yourself a hand! I mean it...

You guys rock.

Stupid people don't read OL too much. Intelligent people do.

So guess what that makes you?

:smile:

Rock on...

Michael

Thanks Michael for explaining this. I am surprised that one-liners diminish audience, but I can see that dominant sniping by a very few would soon bore an interested reader. I have to say that it was in part the quality one-liners of regulars like Ghs. PDS, Brant and yes, you Adam, which lured me into joining OL. For which joining, I am STILL waiting for my T Shirt as thousandth member. I don't care what is printed on it, John Galt or the Blackhawks, size XXL please, I might invite a friend to join me in it,

In the case of Seymour though I think you are wise to ask her to practise self-restraint in rejoinder. Her "caustic zaps" so far are just ill-tempered, mean-spirited, small-minded, childish reactions which zap no one but herself, not with caustic but with emollient, soothing her own feelings --which, I suppose, is the point, after all.

If you like my being chastised for my caustic one-liners, then why do you keep baiting me? Does that mean you want more? Or is your thank you to Michael act as a "floating sign" saying you are glad he told me to stop but denying what you said and meaning the opposite, that you want more? Jes sayin'.

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An object does not exist until and unless it is observed. - William Burroughs
Janet, What do you think Ayn Rand would have replied to that?
Joan Baez handled that kind of comment perfectly in her early memoir Daybreak. Go read it and get your answer.
Ms. Abbey: Rather than play the go find out yourself bitch game, perhaps you could paraphrase how Joan "handled" that order of question/interrogation. Adam
Only since it's you: she was being interrogated on her pacifism. If she were driving down the road and a car was coming at her and there was someone in the way that she would hit if she swerved. So she responded that she would try to avoid the oncoming car and avoid hitting the person when she swerved. So then the question ante was upped. Well suppose you were on a two way road and there was a cliff on the side where you would go off if you swerved to avoid the car and the woman. Then she said I would probably go off the cliff and land on a farmhouse and kill all the people inside. I am paraphrasing but she upped the ante on the response to shut the questioner up. And this was exactly what was going to happen in the above example and I was going to have to spend all the rest of the day answering reasonably and logically, while the ante was upped. And then I would start my caustic one-liners and daunce would have another nail to pound in my coffin and the rest of them would jump in and and and....... Nope. Joanie had it covered.

In other words, you can completely distort and/or lie about the ideas of Ayn Rand -- as you did when linking Rand to the comment by Burroughs -- and then when asked to explain your position. you will refuse on the grounds that people might "up the ante" by demanding additional explanations.

Well, I have news for you, hon: Arguments are the lifeblood of OL. We don't need authoritative pronouncements by a woman who uses incomprehensible jargon and drops the names of philosophers she doesn't even understand.

Ghs

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