katie roiphe

[kelley]

carrol asked:
>For my education, rather than argument (now at least), I have some queries.
>Where does "eros" exist? What is the evidence for its existence? To what
>extent is that evidence different from the evidence for Providence? (Marx
>called Providence one of various ways of summarizing or paraphrasing the
>facts (hence masquerading as an explanation). That is I can see countless
>facts of human life, past and present, that can be more or less easily
>*labelled* >manifestations of eros, but I really don't see any evidence
whatsoever for >the actual existence of that entity or for any causative
proposition linking
>it to the effects which it is used to label.

carrol, are you getting all empiricist and positvist on me?

i don't think i could possibly do justice to this topic on a list.  [and
yes, i did try to answer questions about an equally huge topic--feminisms,
so my hesitation here is about something else but i'm not quite sure what
just yet. ;-p ]  

i recognize what you're getting at.  so let me ask, and not to be smart:
where and what is the self?  the individual?  the person?  the mind?
rationality?  irrationality?  doubt?  faith?  what evidence do we have that
these exist?  what about class?  how do we know that one does or does not
have class consciousness?  race?  gender?  what is consciousness?  what is
language?  literature?  history?  ideology?  men?  women?  sexuality?  art?

 property?  

i could have used for eros:  love, loving, nurturing, creative, life
giving; for thanotos:   hate, hating, destructive, death-bringing.  what
evidence do we have that people have those capacities for love/hate,
creativity/destructiveness, for actions that support life/actions that
encourage death?  

my only proposal for answering these questions is a bibliography, possibly
a list reading of a few of those texts.  

kelley