From: gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism,soc.men
Subject: Re: Philosophy for Gordon (Was Re: Choice for men)
Date: 28 Sep 92 00:22:19 GMT
Organization: mydog in exile

In spite of the title, this was about draft registration
most recently.  I suggested draft registration is part of a
larger problem which I call the "culture of violence."

gf:
| >| >      ...  Instead of attacking feminism, men could be 
| >| >using feminist analyses to decode their own problems.  

hg:
| Is the following feminist analyses?
| #War provides men with the perfect psychological backdrop to give vent
| #to their contempt for women.  The very maleness of the military -
| #the brute power of weaponry exclusive to their hands, the spiritual
| #bonding of men at arms, the manly discipline of orders given and
| #orders obeyed, the simple logic of the hierarchical command - confirms
| #for men what they long suspect, that women are peripheral, irrelevant
| #to the world that counts, passive spectators to the action in the
| #center ring.
|                 -- ("Against Our Will", Susan Brownmiller)
| 
| What should I make with such "analyses" that contradicts so much
| the way I felt in the army?  

It depends what you're trying to do.  If you're looking for
a stick to beat feminism with, you can focus on the apparent
blanket condemnation of men in the first sentence.  If
you're looking for usable ideas, you'll probably find the
passage superficial and look for something else.  Which do
you want to do?

hg:
| >| The feminists I agree with tend to be pro-freedom and not so much
| >| anti-violence.  ...

gf:
| >Freedom and violence are antithetical, millennia of
| >propaganda to the contrary notwithstanding. 

hg:
| Sometimes one has to use violence to defend his freedom.

This is a restatement of the problem.  However, it contains
the seed of violence-worship, which is, as I said, anti-
thetical to freedom.  It's very interesting that the
opposite is what is culturally accepted, and maybe we can
get into that.

hg:
| >| 1) In the early 70's your generation tried to do just that, 
| >|    and your influence was greatly reduced.

gf:
| >Here's "generation" again.  What's "my generation"?  

hg:
| The generation of people who were young in the 60's, had the big
| dreams about changing the world, had the big opportunity to do 
| that and *missed* it.   

I've got news for you.  I'm not dead yet; in fact, I'll
probably be around for quite awhile.  And as long as I'm
around, I'm going to be trying to change the world, like
everyone else.  In the 1960s I was in my 20s, and had very
little power to change anything.  Now, can we can this silly
business about "generations"?  There's no such thing as a
"generation" except for people who want to erect artificial
barriers between people.

[ generation this and that, etc. etc. etc. ]

hg:
| What is more important, being around and being powerful or changing
| society in the way you want?  NOW is around, but what influence
| does it have on society (I said "society" not "the political system")?  
| What are its big successes in the 80's?

Defense of abortion rights.  Mostly, though, the 80s were a
matter of hanging tough while the electorate went through a
tantrum about the problems of the contemporary world.  The
80s seem to be over now; the next election will tell.

[ soc.feminism articles ]

hg: 
| I took a look and I have the following comments:
| Tannen's "analyses" is the kind of "analyses" that 
| feminism produces today.  It is a regression compared 
| to "The Feminine Mystique" for example.

It is the kind of analysis produced by the desire to sell
books, in my opinion.  However, I haven't read it closely
because I can't stand the style.  I think, though, that it's
irrelevant to this discussion.

gf (quoted from s.f article):
| >Clearly, property is inspiring, because, I
| >believe, it encapsulates violence.

hg:
| The kibbutz system in Israel is pretty much violence free (murder
| cases are *rare*), but people still want property.  The more time
| pass, the more property they want; especially the kids who grew
| up in the kibbutz and are not there because of ideology.
| 
| I wonder how this data fit to what you believe...

Generally, I think we're going to be stuck with a
fascination with property until further cultural and
technological development takes place.  I don't think little
islands of "enlightenment" can do much about it.  But we
might be able to do something about violence by dragging its
sources out in the open and examining them.

gf (quoted from s.f article):
| >I think we need to do more thinking about violence, and I
| >think it is good to start from a female perspective, since
| >women, having less musculature and different myths, may see
| >it more clearly than men, in general.  

hg:
| Think for a minute about high school years, who were the popular
| boys between the girls?  The anti-violence boys or the Macho boys?
| 
| One Golda gave me more than enough female perspective ....

You're beginning your thought about this by erecting a
barricade and saying, "See?  The girls are as bad as the
boys!"  I've even seen the contention that violence is
perpetuated among males entirely by the sort of sexual 
preference you mention, as well as values given to male 
children by their mothers.   Once you get the barricades 
up, you can start slinging insults, which some seem to 
think is lots of fun.

However, if you had read my article and its predecessors
carefully, you would have noticed that I said that the
culture of violence affected both sexes.  In fact, one of
the things I criticized in the first article in the thread
was its blindness toward female participation in the culture
of violence, although I didn't get into bad girls egging bad
boys on.  I'm more interested in what happens when we take
the barricades down and see what we have in common, because
I think the way in which our culture -- maybe all modern
cultures -- enshrine violence is a serious problem and not 
appropriate as an ideological tennis ball.
-- 
 )*(    Gordon Fitch    )*(    gcf@panix.com    )*(
( 1238 Blg. Grn. Sta.,  NY NY 10274 * 718.273.5556 )
Newsgroups: alt.feminism