https://iai.tv/articles/does-consciousne...-auid-2033
EXCERPTS: “What is it like,” a man might ask, “to be a woman?”
“Well, what is it like,” a woman might retort, “to be a man?”
[...] One well-known source for what-it-is-like questions is Thomas Nagel’s classic paper "What is it like to be a bat?". Nagel thinks that it is obviously true that there is something it is like to be a bat; there are facts about what it is like to be a bat; bats have consciousness, just as we do. But bats and humans have very different kinds of consciousness...
[...] Sex is distinct from gender; I’ll explain how in a moment. So this question also can be divided in two. We can ask whether there is anything it is distinctively like to be female or male (a question about sex). And we can ask whether there is anything it is distinctively like to be feminine or masculine (a question about gender).
I think the answer to both these questions is “Obviously yes”. Why yes? And why obviously?
There is something it is distinctively like to be male or female, because a crucial-and overwhelmingly obvious-aspect of what it is like to be human is bodiliness. [...] But male and female bodies differ, and in distinctive ways.
As male and female they are typically differently shaped, e.g. in genitalia, in having or lacking breasts, in distribution of body-fat and body-hair, in size, and in musculature. They are subject to different sensibilities: females feel the cold more, males are less good at coping with sleep-deprivation. They are affected by different hormonal secretions, and on different timescales, and these different hormones have different effects on their moods and their inclinations. Very crudely, females (or most of them within a certain age-range) experience the menstrual cycle, while males (same caveat) experience… testosterone. Male and female bodies even smell different (I gather this is related to the hormonal differences).
In the case of the sex distinction, male/female, what matters is the physical; in the case of the gender distinction, masculine/feminine, what matters is the political. Male and female consciousnesses differ because male and female bodies differ; but masculine and feminine consciousnesses differ because male and female political roles have differed. So there is something it is distinctively like to be masculine or feminine, because a crucial-and overwhelmingly obvious-aspect of what it is like to be human is political life.
I mean this in a broad sense of “political”. Wherever there are humans, there are power-relations. One foundation of these power-relations is the management of expectation. The task of predicting the behaviour of other humans (whether groups or individuals) is intractably huge. We reduce this task to manageable proportions via conventions and taboos, expectations and reliances, contracts and understandings, traditions and rules: from this fact, over time, grows ideology.
[...] Our concepts of “masculine” and “feminine” are, precisely, stories of this kind. That such stories can and do encode not only power-relations but also oppression, and that this has been their function throughout history, is obvious from the beginning of our culture.
“But hang on,” some people might object at this point, “consciousness is just subjective awareness of the world! What does politics have to do with whether consciousness is gendered?” The answer is that this objection attributes a false-and ideologically-driven-unworldly purity to consciousness.
The philosophy of mind is not, pace so many of its contemporary exponents, an ethically neutral or ideologically innocent study. The philosophy of mind is a part of “human science”; politics has everything to do with it. So when Karl Marx coined the phrase “class consciousness” (Klassenbewusstsein), this use of “consciousness” was not a mere homophony. We humans are both physical and political beings: our political condition shapes our awareness of the world as surely as our physical condition.
[...] Consciousness is not a bloodless abstraction: it is, among other things, politically charged. Neither is oppression a mere abstraction: for the oppressed, it shapes every aspect of how they see their environment, the obstacles and the affordances, the threats and the opportunities, in their way. To transpose a remark of Wittgenstein’s (Tractatus 6.43), the world of the oppressed person is a different world from the world of the free person.
In sum, then: consciousness is gendered, and obviously gendered, because the political realities of what it is like to be masculine, and what it is like to be feminine, are distinctively different. Moreover, consciousness is sexed too, and obviously sexed, because the physical realities of what it is like to be male, and what it is like to be female, are distinctively different. And that is why the answer to our two questions is not just “Yes”, but “Obviously yes.”
At this point I predict that I will face two objections: one (so to speak) from the right, and the other from the left.
The right-wing objection will be about what I have just said about masculine/ feminine and political oppression. It will be: “You can’t argue that gender is oppressive now by pointing out that it was oppressive then!”
The left-wing objection, by contrast, will be about what I said earlier about male/ female and physical difference, and it will be: “Wow, innate differences between males and females on the basis of their bodies? What a sexist you are.” ... (MORE - missing details)
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Hadassah Feuerstein: "Karl Marx is the scholarly father of past and contemporary social justice activity. Any grateful, candid opponent of oppression and privilege will highlight this in their historical accounts and influence attributions. Perhaps it is possible, at least in theory, to have a different rootstock than the conspirative preconceptions and interpretive apparatus of a collectivist, socioeconomic struggle of population-groups, school of thought. But as of yet this is an unrealized potentiality."
EXCERPTS: “What is it like,” a man might ask, “to be a woman?”
“Well, what is it like,” a woman might retort, “to be a man?”
[...] One well-known source for what-it-is-like questions is Thomas Nagel’s classic paper "What is it like to be a bat?". Nagel thinks that it is obviously true that there is something it is like to be a bat; there are facts about what it is like to be a bat; bats have consciousness, just as we do. But bats and humans have very different kinds of consciousness...
[...] Sex is distinct from gender; I’ll explain how in a moment. So this question also can be divided in two. We can ask whether there is anything it is distinctively like to be female or male (a question about sex). And we can ask whether there is anything it is distinctively like to be feminine or masculine (a question about gender).
I think the answer to both these questions is “Obviously yes”. Why yes? And why obviously?
There is something it is distinctively like to be male or female, because a crucial-and overwhelmingly obvious-aspect of what it is like to be human is bodiliness. [...] But male and female bodies differ, and in distinctive ways.
As male and female they are typically differently shaped, e.g. in genitalia, in having or lacking breasts, in distribution of body-fat and body-hair, in size, and in musculature. They are subject to different sensibilities: females feel the cold more, males are less good at coping with sleep-deprivation. They are affected by different hormonal secretions, and on different timescales, and these different hormones have different effects on their moods and their inclinations. Very crudely, females (or most of them within a certain age-range) experience the menstrual cycle, while males (same caveat) experience… testosterone. Male and female bodies even smell different (I gather this is related to the hormonal differences).
In the case of the sex distinction, male/female, what matters is the physical; in the case of the gender distinction, masculine/feminine, what matters is the political. Male and female consciousnesses differ because male and female bodies differ; but masculine and feminine consciousnesses differ because male and female political roles have differed. So there is something it is distinctively like to be masculine or feminine, because a crucial-and overwhelmingly obvious-aspect of what it is like to be human is political life.
I mean this in a broad sense of “political”. Wherever there are humans, there are power-relations. One foundation of these power-relations is the management of expectation. The task of predicting the behaviour of other humans (whether groups or individuals) is intractably huge. We reduce this task to manageable proportions via conventions and taboos, expectations and reliances, contracts and understandings, traditions and rules: from this fact, over time, grows ideology.
[...] Our concepts of “masculine” and “feminine” are, precisely, stories of this kind. That such stories can and do encode not only power-relations but also oppression, and that this has been their function throughout history, is obvious from the beginning of our culture.
“But hang on,” some people might object at this point, “consciousness is just subjective awareness of the world! What does politics have to do with whether consciousness is gendered?” The answer is that this objection attributes a false-and ideologically-driven-unworldly purity to consciousness.
The philosophy of mind is not, pace so many of its contemporary exponents, an ethically neutral or ideologically innocent study. The philosophy of mind is a part of “human science”; politics has everything to do with it. So when Karl Marx coined the phrase “class consciousness” (Klassenbewusstsein), this use of “consciousness” was not a mere homophony. We humans are both physical and political beings: our political condition shapes our awareness of the world as surely as our physical condition.
[...] Consciousness is not a bloodless abstraction: it is, among other things, politically charged. Neither is oppression a mere abstraction: for the oppressed, it shapes every aspect of how they see their environment, the obstacles and the affordances, the threats and the opportunities, in their way. To transpose a remark of Wittgenstein’s (Tractatus 6.43), the world of the oppressed person is a different world from the world of the free person.
In sum, then: consciousness is gendered, and obviously gendered, because the political realities of what it is like to be masculine, and what it is like to be feminine, are distinctively different. Moreover, consciousness is sexed too, and obviously sexed, because the physical realities of what it is like to be male, and what it is like to be female, are distinctively different. And that is why the answer to our two questions is not just “Yes”, but “Obviously yes.”
At this point I predict that I will face two objections: one (so to speak) from the right, and the other from the left.
The right-wing objection will be about what I have just said about masculine/ feminine and political oppression. It will be: “You can’t argue that gender is oppressive now by pointing out that it was oppressive then!”
The left-wing objection, by contrast, will be about what I said earlier about male/ female and physical difference, and it will be: “Wow, innate differences between males and females on the basis of their bodies? What a sexist you are.” ... (MORE - missing details)
- - - - - -
Hadassah Feuerstein: "Karl Marx is the scholarly father of past and contemporary social justice activity. Any grateful, candid opponent of oppression and privilege will highlight this in their historical accounts and influence attributions. Perhaps it is possible, at least in theory, to have a different rootstock than the conspirative preconceptions and interpretive apparatus of a collectivist, socioeconomic struggle of population-groups, school of thought. But as of yet this is an unrealized potentiality."