On Reason and Other Forms of Knowledge Production

The following was sent to a class because I may have inadvertently insulted students with my delivery (Thanks, Deanna). I believe the context will become clear as you read:

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Hello students,
I'm afraid that, despite my best intentions, I might have been unclear in our conversation yesterday regarding reason and faith. I said that any belief in a supernatural creative act for humanity (those described in our reading for yesterday) was an unreasonable belief. I think that might have sounded like I was insulting those of you who believe that the Earth was created 6,000 years ago and that some divine figure molded humans out of clay and breathed life into them. However, my use of the word "reason" was not meant to be insulting here.

As you recall, philosophers place means of knowledge production in various categories (see ch. 3.1*). One of those categories is Reason (pg. 165) -- this category of knowledge can only be applied to known facts. In relation to the age of the world, for instance, the known facts are that (as close as we can determine), the earth is billions of years old. Humans have been walking the planet for millions of years. Homo Sapiens have been here for tens of thousands. Art, textiles, and communities have been found which existed more than 6,000 years ago. All of these are "known facts," and thereby present a "reasonable" approach to understanding the creation of human life on the planet.

However, chapter 3 points out that reason is only one mode of knowing. Those who doubt the reasonable approach are using other types of knowing (and philosophically, all types are valid). For instance, [one student] mentioned a belief in the King James Version of the Bible as a literal description of the creation of humans. That means that she is using "Knowledge from Others" (pg. 164) rather than reason as the basis for her beliefs. And although she wasn't present for yesterday's discussion, [another student] has previous spoken about the power of "Intuition" (pg. 166) which means believing in something because it feels right deep inside you.

In our society we ignore the simple truth that these different approaches to knowledge are often incompatible. We, as individuals, must privilege certain forms of knowledge at the expense of others. At different times, we are likely to privilege what we've heard from others more than what we've seen as factual evidence. And, almost all the time, we are likely to privilege our own depths more than any other type of knowledge. The key is that to say something like Creationism is "unreasonable" in a philosophical discussion is not to say it is "stupid" (although the two words are often interchangeable in the "real" world). To say something lacks "reason" philosophically merely means that it can only be supported by other kinds of knowledge (like a biblical-type text or personal intuition).

On that note, I am actually sorry if my delivery seemed insulting. I was genuinely interested in talking more about the way we as humans mythologize our creation (and often deify it). I wonder if reason doesn't harm the mind when it seeks to remove the power of mythology from the human psyche (see Joseph Campbell, pg. 580).

*all page numbers are from James Christian's Philosophy: An Introduction to the Art of Wondering, 10th edition -- a book I highly recommend for everyone's enjoyment.

On Being a “Dude”

Twice in two days I’ve now been grouped with the stereotypical male population by people who don’t know me. The first was a suggestion – let me get the quotation right – that I “think most things girls say are dumb.” That one was a bit humorous, if flagrantly incorrect. The second was the suggestion that I must find it impossible to be platonic friends with a woman because I am a “dude.” These comments (and some others – notably a teacher in Florida who met me and thought I must be a player because I was dressed in a nice shirt and had stylish glasses) have given me pause.

The implication is that my penis defines me. Hmmmm.

Well, I am a dude. I certainly enjoy seeing scantily clad beautiful women. I like to fantasize about the kinds of women that Hollywood and Madison Avenue have taught me to fantasize about. I drank the Kool-Aid when it comes to sexual desire. I prefer women who have smarts, but as a young woman told me the other night, smarts look really good in a school girl skirt. Still, liking smarts doesn’t make me special; most dudes like smart women, especially smart, sexy women in school girl skirts (or sexy shoes or nice lingerie or whatever). In fact, I would say that I like women just as much as the next guy.

Actually, I would say that I appreciate women as people more than the next guy (at least the stereotypical next guy). Still, I don’t mean to imply that these other guys are lacking. In fact, I don’t think it is at all normal for me to think the way I think about gender. It’s difficult, and often it isn’t very rewarding.

Let me explain:

At a certain point in my life, for what I thought at the time were very good reasons, I sacrificed being a sexual being so that I could become the best empathetic support a certain someone could possibly have. This is the same move that nuns make when they swear themselves to the church. The difference is that I made this move so that I could support the person in this world I most desired at the time. To be clear: I did not simply stop having sex – many of us do that regularly (and find it quite irritating, to be sure). I eliminated my sexual desire. It had to cease to be.

By the time it was safe to become a sexual being again (which is a conversation for a different time), I had become a real feminist, a supporter of BUFFY and the Call to Men foundation, a gender-studies-kinda-person. I learned how to be the person I wanted to be. I spent years – basically the same amount of time it takes to get an MD – studying and experiencing and learning and growing in my approach to gender. I now see women as people, primarily, even when they (and most men) still see me primarily as a person with a penis.

But what does it mean to see women as people, primarily?

• It means developing the ability to empathize deeply with experiences that I cannot physically share with women.
• It means to be “in touch” with myself in ways Hollywood denies for men (and therefore to have the ability to be “in touch” with the feelings of others).
• It means to ask what a woman needs and actually listen to her tell you – something men are almost never taught to do.
• It also means I get very frustrated when I hear otherwise intelligent women reading from a cliché script which is meant to please stereotypical men (and the fans of Kim Kardashian) – if you watched the interviews with the Victoria Secret Angels, you know exactly what I mean.
• And it means I get very frustrated when I hear women intentionally place women below men (as in the argument that no woman could make a good President).
• It means that a woman is just as safe from prying eyes or wandering hands changing in the room with me as she would be changing with any of her “girl-friends” – but it also means that I understand why she might not feel comfortable changing in the room with a big hairy ball of testosterone standing nearby.
• And it means I get sad when I am only seen as a big hairy ball of testosterone.
• And I get mad when other men make me look bad because I do pack a penis. (Guys, stop being octopi unless a woman asks for all eight of your arms to grab her, and stop seeing women as objects to “hit” rather than as fellow journeyers in this life.)

I could go on, but you get the idea.

And I hope that the above-mentioned people will get to know me, because I’m fabulous (and I’m sure they are fabulous as well).

On Being Feminist

I discussed recently with a new friend how certain words can be off-putting if you don’t know what they mean. It is easy, for instance, to get college students to sign protests against women’s “suffrage” — most don’t understand what they are protesting. “Feminism” is another such word. Because of it’s root, many believe that it is a movement which promotes women above men (that would be “matriarchy,” btw). Instead, feminism is, as bell hooks tells us, for everyone. It is the only movement arguing for equality among all sexes, genders, sexualities, races, creeds, etc. It is adamantly opposed to oppression (and therefore equally opposed to patriarchy and matriarchy). 

I’m a straight, white, historically-Christian, over-educated male. And I’m very, very proud to be feminist because I believe that we should all be granted equal opportunities and that no one should be shunned because of sexism or racism (and that includes those who shun homosexuality). Although I am still in the minority, I believe that we can get better as a society — once we embrace the idea that, like universal suffrage, feminism is for everyone.

Who's Afraid to be Gay?

This week I taught ninth grade boys about gender stereotypes as a volunteer for Communities in Schools. Going into the room, I thought the boys would be most bothered by being thought too feminine (and many of them had clearly not blossomed into manhood, to say the least). However, I was surprised to learn that they were much more worried about being thought gay. Frightened of it. Terrified, even.

But one of them didn’t even know what “fag” meant (back to that later).

Why are these boys so afraid of being gay that they don’t want to even stand near a gay man? What is it our society has now connected with being gay that fourteen-year-old boys have internalized? Just at the moment when it seems the majority of society is at least willing to relinquish its ridiculous anti-gay assault (which perhaps peaked near the beginning of the AIDS scare), I’m disturbed to simply not know the why these boys are so afraid.

Personally, I was never afraid of being thought gay. At times I have wished I were gay (Twenty years ago I even wrote about wanting to be a gay black woman). My desire to be gay had nothing to do with desiring homosexual experiences – rather I wanted a reason to be as angry as I always was (and, thanks to the right confluence of events six years ago, no longer am). Yet gay men are not portrayed as angry men in the media. They are portrayed as victims. Is that what these boys are afraid of? Being victims – or, better yet, victimized? That makes sense. After all, no one in our society is so often shown to be victimized (though the poor single Latina mother is much more likely to be a victim of U. S. society).

Still, these boys were taught to be tough – never victims. They can’t admit to their inner emotional turmoil. They can’t admit to be sexually confused. They can’t suggest to friends or family how difficult life might be. And they surely can’t be seen to lust after the guy in the next shower stall.

These weaknesses are caused by society as a whole (not just parents or peers or churches or media, but all of these things). And these weaknesses hurt society as a whole (just like patriarchy). Feminism can be the saving grace here again – and men talking to men the way Tony Porter and A Call To Men talk to men can make significant differences. And we should – this anti-gay backlash among our youth simply cannot be tolerated.

Now back to the missing link: what does “fag” mean? The boy who admitted to simply not knowing the meaning of the word was certain that it was terrible. He admitted to having used it as a pejorative term on several occasions. But he was surprised that it simply meant “gay man.” It somehow had to be something worse. Knowing a tad about rhetorical moves in language shifts, I immediately began trying to find a similar example of a word that would become too terrible to be used by certain groups while being celebrated (reclaimed?) by other groups. The obvious example is “nigger” – a word used to great sarcastic effect by Dave Chappelle but a word that makes me uncomfortable to use even in an academic analysis like this one.

Just at the moment when “gay” is scaring fourteen-year-old boys (a few of whom must have been homosexual),“Fag” has become like “nigger”: a word one should never use. Do these rhetorical and psychological shifts have anything to do with one another? I don’t know. But I’m curious.