On Thu, 02 Nov 2000 09:10:29 -0600 Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
> kenneth.mackendrick at utoronto.ca wrote:
> > Of course, this typically masculinist criticism, which is nothing less
than compuslive and obsessive, is surely a displacement and a projection, isn't
it?
> Not at all. The difficulty is that even if this is true it does not explain
anything. For if we find that X is a displacement (whatever that might be) of Y
we have only raised the question of why X should displace Y instead of Z. All
psychological explanations set in motion and infinite regress.
Hold your horses. First, I only raised the question of why X (the masculinist ego) displaces Y (its own insecurities onto the feminine) - which isn't to say that there is no explanation nor is it to say that psychobabble can or cannot provide an explanation. The first thing we need to do is figure out if, in fact, the masculnist critique of the feminine cuts boths ways. I simply suggested that regardless of what a woman does, there is a double edged masculinist critique. I didn't for a second actually think I was providing an explanation or even details evidence that this was the case. It was a suggestion and casual observation, not a causal determination. Second, if this is the case, and I was only speculating that it was, then it does, as you point out, stand to be addressed why X displaces Y instead of Z. My intention was only to speculate a possible explanation - projection and displacement.
Unfortunately, you jump to the conclusion that because I asked a question, it is impossible for psychobabble to provide an answer (and I didn't say that it could). In effect, you just accomplished what you are accusing me of. To say that psychological explanations are not authentic explanations, itself forms an infinite regress. It is not an explanation of why this is the case. The aim of psychobabble is, indeed, what you raise here: to outline the sin qua non of the double edged sword. Tragically, you continued by saying:
>Hence it doesn't matter to anyone or anything whether such explanations are
true because they aren't explanations. And how can that which is not an
explanation be an explanation of something? It is like asking if a hammer
makes a good ice cream cone.
Without a doubt, I think an explanation of the double edged sword can be made. I'm also convinced that this explanation *cannot* be reduced to a question of true or false. Psychobabble relies on interpretation and critique, neither of which can be empirically tested. In order to "test" an interpretation you would need to employ a universal standard. But when it comes to sexuation - what standard is there? Typically it has been masculinist (unless one wants to deny the reality of sexism). Is sexism wrong? Not according to sexists! The point, then, is a political one - to facilitate understanding of an apparent paradox which, without a doubt, has a violent impact on women. The explanation you are looking for is a banal and politically neutral interpretation, simple (which is why positivism is politically impotent). The analytic point to be made here is progressive: to change this reality - the 'truth' (in the emphatic sense of the term) of the explanation is not so much to be found in its non-contingent validity as it is its political affect (which can only be determined retrospectively... again, which does not admit of a strict truth or falsehood).
ken