Rachel’s Musings

Every year during the year change phase, I get reminded of how arbitrary this whole time thing is. I called my parents at 3 PM today to wish them a happy new year. They were already living in 2010. Or were they living in 2009 since I was calling them? Or were we both living somewhere in between, in a year-neverland akin to the areas that used to be between the two Germanys? We are all living now. But when is this now? Is it at the time I write this, the time in my timezone? But now is also 9 hours ahead, or 3 hours past depending on what timezone you’re in. See! It is mind-boggling to think about this! Is it 10 PM now or 1 AM? Well, it depends on your timezone – but why? Aren’t we all living now? Shouldn’t that now be now and not at some arbitrary time? Maybe now is now and not 10 PM or 7 AM. We’re imposing a time arbitrarily onto now, which creates a separation between all of us. We are really just living now.

In any rate: Happy New Year!!!

For one of my classes, I had to put together a creative project. Since writing is my creative outlet, I chose to write a poem. After reading Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, I wrote the following poem inspired by the liberating energy I felt in the Allegory. After re-reading a piece from Iris Murdoch, I decided to post it here. Maybe the sun of the Good will shine through to reach some of us to go beyond ourselves to develop morally as Murdoch suggested great art can do (note: I think Plato’s work is the great art here!).

Deep down in the appetitive cave of my soul
I dwell amongst the shadows which I belief to be real.
Drawn by the bright rays of the form of the good
I start my accent up the divided line.
First I see only images but then I make out things,
Of which I am quick to opine.
Allying my spirited part to help train my rational part,
I harness my appetitive part to jump across the line
So that I can start thinking about math and science.
Not quite satisfied yet, I seek to understand the forms themselves
Floating around in the realm of being.
Finally reaching knowledge and the light of the form of the good
My soul is happy, well aligned as it is, and justice is served.

This poem touches on a lot of Plato’s teaching, including the divided line and his tri-partied soul. In part, I used these pieces because they also sound great (like “appetitive”…) but also to give a little idea of Plato’s work. I was trying to make the terms obvious in the poem but I might not have succeeded, so please use the comments to ask for more details if you’re interested…

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave (Republic, 514a-520a) summarizes his metaphysical as well as his educational theories. In the cave are prisoners who see nothing but shadows projected onto a wall by puppeteers who are behind another wall that blocks direct sunlight (514a-b). The prisoners believe that the shadows are images of the real world (515c). One prisoner is forced up a path out of the cave into the sun (515e). As his eyes adjust to the bright light of the sun, he begins to see first the images of objects and then the objects themselves (516a). Finally, he can see the sun and study it (516b). As Plato unravels his Allegory, he explains that the journey of the prisoner out of the cave reflects the journey of the soul from the depths of the realm of becoming – perceiving only images via the faculty of imagining, then noticing the concrete objects and forming beliefs about them – to the height of the realm of being, where he first uses his faculty of thought to think about the sun. Then finally using the faculty of understanding, he achieves knowledge of the sun (517b). Education, as Plato sees it, helps a soul accent up the divided line (518d).

I’ve been spending way too much time since the beginning of December reading, rereading, and rerereading Kant’s Prolegomena, a work that attempts to summarize his Critique of Reason, Kant’s important contribution to philosophy in general and metaphysics in particular. It is impossible to understand his writing without total immersion, which means reading the same thing over and over again. I am beginning to understand what he is saying but that’s not what this post will be about. This post will be about a fact from Kant’s life: Kant died a virgin. This fact seems to conjure up all the prejudices we like to impose on single people, all of them boiling down to: There is something wrong with us. There are certainly things wrong in Kant’s philosophy (or lets put it less harshly, there are some things that we certainly need to question). But dying a virgin isn’t one of them. Kant imposes his puritanical view of sex onto us by claiming that marriage is necessary because only then can we have morally right sex (see an excellent article by Elizabeth Brake who refutes this position using Kant’s own ethical position). But this has nothing to do with his choice of remaining a virgin. Sure, maybe he was disgusted by sex. Maybe he thought it was morally wrong (interestingly, his view on the morality of sex might have been similar to some feminists, as Brake points out). But maybe he just chose to remain single because his life’s work was not to produce umpteen children. He would rather spend his time developing his own philosophy than mating and recreating as society demanded from him.

It is interesting – and rather sad – how the focus on Kant’s virginity and the associated pathologizing of his decision reflects our couplemanical stance. Unless you are coupled – or at least have had sex – there must be something wrong with you. It is time to question this conclusion! There are many reasons that a person might not be couple, or might not have sex, that are entirely valid and far from pathological. These reason include simply choosing to do so or is just simply not sexually attracted to anybody. Choice and biology can underlie not being on the beaten path. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

I was already saddened when Gloria Steinem bend over backwards to try to justify getting married. In my eyes, she was forgetting all the feminist analysis that had critiqued marriage. As D. A. Clarke has pointed out “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” Just because feminists marry doesn’t change marriage, the patriarchal and privileged institution that still traps so many women (and men) in unhappy lives.

I was pretty disturbed when Steinem listed this in her list of wishes in celebration of her 75th birthday. It is one thing she’d like to see in the next 25 years.

I want any two adults to be able to marry-as long as they don’t hit each other.

There are so many things wrong with this sentence!

Here are a few that came to my mind – feel free to add more in the comments:

• It ignores the reality of non-physical abuse, which can be just as devastating, sometimes more so, as physical abuse.
• Why two adults? Yes, I know, polyarmory is a dirty word now but when did that ever stop feminists?!?
• She is ignoring and devaluing any other relationship. How about wishing that our society equally values every relationship that we as human beings value?

I am deeply disturbed that the poster-woman of American feminism is forgetting so many of us in her quest to be normal, which apparently is a rather strong influence in the feminist movement as well, just like it has turned the queer movement into the marriage-equality movement.