Gould's original Preface (Was Re: Were the Nazis

Carrol Cox cbcox at rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu
Mon May 11 15:26:39 PDT 1998


Todd Freeberg writes:
>
> >I think this is all rather silly. Try as we might to use sex-neutral
> >language, there are times when generic terms like "man" are unavoidable.
> >Would you slam Gould for using a title like "The Mismeasure of Man" for the
> >same reason?
>
>
> Gould used "Man" in the title to make a point. He did not use "Man"
> as a catch-all word for "People" or as a word for "Humankind":

As soon as I saw from the first line that what's his name was not apologizing, I deleted, so I did not get to see this truly amazing ignorance of history and of what he is talking about. Any literate progressive or even luke-warm liberal in the English-speaking world should (1) have read Gould's book and (2) even if he/she had not read it, should have heard by the grapevine the significance of Gould's title. I didn't know that anyone since 1971 had actually used such a bizarre "defense" of sexist language (I last saw this fatuity in a quote from the embarassed mumblings of a high school principal at an education conference in 1971 or 1972).

Todd quotes from the new edition. Here is the paragraph from the Acknowledgments at the front of the 1981 first edition:

A note on title: I hope that an apparently sexist title will be

taken in the intended spirit--not only as a ply on Protagoras's famous

aphorism, but also as a commentary on the procedures of biological

determinists discussed in the book. They did, indeed, study "man" (that

is, white European males), regarding this group as a standard and

everybody else as somthing to be measured unfavorably against it.

That they mismeasured "man" underscoresd the double fallacy.

*The Mismeasure of Man* (1981), p. 16.

Someone of such limited literacy as actually believe that Gould would have "seriously" used such a title can't have much to say that I will miss by deleting him.

Carrol Cox

P.S. If he wishes to tale steps to educate himself in modern leftist thought, I suggest he begin with Gary MacLennan, "Political Correctness (and Courtesy) in Australia," MR (March 1997), pp. 33-43.



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