From: robinson@ac.dal.ca
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals
Subject: Re: Culture Against Nature, some female comments
Date: 7 Apr 92 15:27:48 GMT
Organization: Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

In article <altar.702372506@sfu.ca>, altar@beaufort.sfu.ca (Ted Wayn Altar) writes:
> robinson@ac.dal.ca writes:
> 
>>Please note that while she enjoys fishing tremendously, she doesn't like 
>>hunting that much and has gone so far as to tell me that if I bring a deer 
>>home and I value domestic tranquility, it should be butchered and boxed so 
>>she can pretend it came from the grocery store. :-)
> 
>>--- Comments begin here ---
> 
>>If I picked up a book in a bookstore and read those three pages, I'd put it 
>>back down.  I wouldn't buy it.
> 
>>Too general.  Too extreemist.
> 
>>I think it is ridiculous to equate rape with hunting and fishing.
> 
>>I think that people as a whole tend to take what they want from nature.  I 
>>don't think it is just men.
> 
>>--- Comments end here ---
> 
>>So you see Ted, it isn't that men and women each have diametrically 
>>opposing views.  It is that each individual views and interprets the world 
>>in a unique way.
> 
> Thanks for the empical testing on a N=1.  :-)

You're welcome.  That is all it was intended to be.

> 
> Now, I didn't say that the sexes would be that
> different and certainly not so unaminously
> in diametic opposition.  I merely wanted to  
> hint that over-all there is probably a
> group difference, but of course with plenty
> of overlap on either side.  Anyway, at least
> you are safe from marital discord on this issue,
> provided you don't bring home intact the complete
> carcass.  :-(  

You suggested that they might be in agreement with these statements, and 
recognizing that I *am* male afterall I thought it might be useful to get 
her viewpoint.  I wasn't surprised at the response.

> 
> Now, I must admit that you made a good case for
> discounting what seems like an extreme over-
> generalization based upon a N=1 (have you done
> the same?).  If this indeed is what we have,

Yes, I have.  I am not claiming that this is anything but a single datum.

> then I am compelled to agree with your evaluation.
> But I think that what is being attempted is
> something different.  Instead of a single
> data point, what is being presented is
> rather an "illustration" to concretize for
> the reader the life-long sedimented thoughts,
> feelings, and impressions of one woman who is
> attempting to understand certain oppressions that
> women suffer in a society that is "predatory".
> By "predatory", I think she simply means the
> sanctioned and rewarded exploitations of the
> more powerful or status-laden over those 
> who may be weaker or of less status.  

She may even have made up her example, I don't know.  In any event I think 
you are correct in saying that she is trying to bring her perceptions of 
the situation down to a personal level that more women can associate with.  
I still think her perception of the situation is deeply flawed.

> 
> Of course, such non-empirical insights of such wide
> scope are speculative and depend upon the acumen 
> and hermenutic skills of the person proposing 
> such grand understandings.  Now, I agree with
> you that this is to be verified by our own shared agreement
> that indeed our authoress is insightful rather than
> simply foolish.  It must "ring true" to the 
> discerning reader, it must somehow serve to 
> illuminate what before was obscure (i.e., explanatory
> power), and maybe we should also add that it
> serve to advance future insights (i.e., heuristic
> power). 

It should, but I don't see that it does.  Her thoughts and ideas on the 
subject seem awfully close to the stereotypical 'slob' hunter, who by the 
way is more reviled probably within the hunting community that without.  
Thus I don't see that the author has any particular insight. :-)

> 
> I know that all this sounds pretty odd coming from a
> non-reductive materialist who insists upon empirical
> rigor for empirical questions and discursive rigor for
> philosophical questions.  But these are not the only
> questions or types of discourse.  There is also literary
> and artistic questions answered best by the standards of
> discourse and validity appropriate to such different
> questions.  There is no one method to answer all our
> interesting questions.  Epistemological pluralism seems
> to me to be an common everyday strategy that we all employ.
> Of couse, much confusion and muddle-heading thinking 
> occurs when we mix up the various standards of discourse
> with each other.  We should not assess empirical questions
> according to literary standards like "good taste", "narrative
> interest and coherence", "language charged with meaning to
> the upmost degree", etc.

It is my opinion that works which propose to impart a particular point of 
view would do well to be more rigorous and factual.  Artistic and literary 
standards are more for fiction in my book than works which purport to 
communicate a new viewpoint on the status quo.

> 
> Now, I'm not suggesting that what we have is a literay
> work.  Andree Collard's work, RAPE OF THE WILD: MAN'S
> VIOLENCE AGAINST ANIMALS AND THE EARTH, was her last
> book after an respectable career serving as a professor
> of Romance and Comparative Literature at Brandeis 
> University until 1986.  She had also taught Woman's
> Studies, having helped to establish the program in
> 1971-73, and she was an active campaigner around woman's
> issues.  Now, we are not dealing with a complete
> dimwitted and incompetent thinker, as you seem to
> have suggested.  Still, the 3 paragraphs I choose
> may well not be most representative of her work and
> they may well, as you have cogently argued, be wrongheaded.

Now I'm confused.  If it isn't to be viewed by literary or artistic 
criterea, then I think we must expect it to be more rigorous...maybe I'm 
missing something here?

>  
> Permit me to simply point out again that what we 
> have is simply a work of cultural criticism.  Of course,
> you may well be right that our authoress's insights don't
> amount to much, that she is simply off the mark and
> has failed to provide any interesting understanding
> of the culture at large as reflected in the sub-
> culture of hunting.  I only ask that you at least
> give those passages some thought, which you have done.
> My only other request was that we exert a little modesty
> with respect to whether or not we are in the best
> position to be a fair and impartial reader of this
> kind of material. Maybe on this last request I'm'
> out of line.  I simply don't know.

Actually, you are out of line with your last remark I think.  I distrust 
anyone who claims to be 'fair and impartial'.  No one truly is, we all come 
complete with our own cultural stereotypes and impressions.  The trick is 
to know one's own bias and know it well.  I would much rather trust someone 
who rips something to shreds and then says something 'but I'm biased 
because I believe X' that someone who claims to be fair and impartial.  A 
supposedly fair and impartial person will admit *no* bias (to do so would 
be contradictory) and hence such a person simply hides their true bias.
> 
>                             ted
> .
> .
-- 
John Robinson                  Only criminals, tyrants, and cowards have
robinson@ac.dal.ca                 reason to fear the armed, honest citizen.
DOD #0069