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Thursday, April 08, 2004
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DARK SATANIC JOHN STUART MILLS
Pursuant (ahem!) to my posts about the depressive aura of academia (see for example UD, Jan. 30), this is from Brian Weatherson at Crooked Timber: "Here’s a long quote from Martha Nussbaum’s entry in Singing in the Fire: Stories of Women in Philosophy (edited by Linda Martin Alcoff). Men’s ways of being infantile vary. Some are flirtatious and silly in a relatively harmless way. Some fear old age dreadfully, and believe that continual exercises in seduction will produce something like erotic immortality. Some long to tell you in no uncertain terms that you are a whore, because it makes them feel power. Some hate themselves and have contempt for any woman who is nice to them. Some — and these are the worst, I think — are satanic, by which I mean that they have an emptiness at their core that they fill with exercises in domination, which they market with a frequently dazzling charm. ... The main problem of feminism in philosophy is the infantile level of human development of many of the men who are in it. Naturally, I’d like to think that my generation is better than this, though I guess I suspect that if they (we) weren’t (aren’t) I wouldn’t be able to tell. I do think ‘satantic’ is a wee bit over the top though. I thought demonic possession went out of fashion with witch-burnings. To my eye the common thread behind Nussbaum’s tropes isn’t misogyny as much as pretty severe depression. That might be disheartening, or it may suggest that there’s a way around the worst of the problems. At least to the extent that we regard depression as effectively treatable. Of course if depression is that big a thread running through philosophy, that’s a story, and one we should be doing something about." There are some problems with Weatherson's response to Nussbaum's remarkable statement, I think. First, he's not picking up on the Miss Grundy/Nurse Ratchet tone of her dressing down, although that seems to me its most noteworthy feature. Has Nussbaum always been a pill, or did philosopher satanists use their mojo on her and make her one? Do years contemplating philosophical truths eventuate in this brand of naked public vengeance as a mode of discourse and moral action? Has this woman had any even remotely normal interactions with male colleagues in her long high-profile career in philosophy? How did she determine which men sitting across from her at conferences and on committees were bursting with the desire to call her a whore? ...(Which reminds me of one of Jackie Mason's best bits...he's distinguishing Jewish women from Christian: "Tell a Christian woman she looks like a whore and she slaps your face. Tell a Jewish woman she looks like a whore and she smiles and primps and says, 'Really? What'd I do? Is it my hair? My skirt?'") Anyway -- men hate themselves; men fear old age; men are empty at the core...and women? What are they? Suffering mature handmaidens to these infantile leering devils...We are invited to imagine years of professional life during which this woman was on the receiving end of unrelenting waves of suppressed erotic and murderous passion... Well, franchement, when I read descriptions of Nussbaum's sort (a certain self-congratulatory academic feminism is full of 'em) my main thought is that all this libidinal drama revolving around this woman certainly has the effect of making her look quite the stunner, don't it? Nussbaum describes a world of men obsessed with her - absolutely obsessed. Some are just flirting (damn them to hell); others are busily disclosing the most embarrassing aspects of themselves to her as they perenially attempt to seduce or convey their self-hatred or dominate or whorify... Most of the men in philosophy are well-meaning nerds. I don't recognize any of the philosophers I know in Nussbaum's bestiary. I'm sure she's had dealings with a few ogres, as have we all. Why does she think she needs to slay them? As for Weatherson's comment about how this description of men in philosophy speaks more to depression than misogyny... Well, I've already said quite a lot in UD about the highly existentially desirable demeanor of depression among humanities and social sciences academics generally, and philosophers are part of this. Weatherson thinks psychotropics are the answer, but until America's elites stop believing, as David Brooks said recently, that only stupid people are happy, philosophers are going to keep scowling. In any case, the only depressive emerging from Nussbaum's astounding ill will is Nussbaum. |