>On Feb 9, 2007, at 3:27 PM, bitch at pulpculture.org wrote:
>
> > I think I told the story from last year. There was an author on
> > WMNF. He'd
> > once been an evangelical christian, broke away and then went on to
> > write a
> > book critical of evangelicism. A woman phoned in and told him that
> > everything he said about Christianity was worthless to her b/c he
> > was just
> > talking from his head. it was all book learning. To be real and
> > worthy, he
> > had to be talking from his heart. If it was mediated by rationality,
> > thinking, thought -- no good. It had to be "in the gut". In fact,
> > all his
> > actual study of religion pretty much negated even his own
> > experience of
> > being a Christian at one time.
>
>The caller sounds like something almost word for word out of
>Hofstadter's anti-intellectualism book - describing the late 18th/
>early 19th century!
>
>Doug
Well, it's what happens in Feminist Bloglandia, too. The antipathy to intellectuality, to theory, to ideas, to debate and discussion is overwhelming sometimes. Whenever any feminist says something unpalatable -- e.g., racist, transbigoted, etc., -- it all ends up attributed to the person's overweening concern with hewing to a feminist theory. The good feminist doesn't hew to any theory, but is rather empathetic.
The real differences between feminist, one of them said once, is that some of us have empathy and others don't.
Well, that's a nice sentiment -- but it's a godamned flame ensconced in pretty language. It's a suggestion that disagreement can be chalked up to the lack of human compassion or ability to identify with the fate/plight/position of someone else. And most people don't lack that, though they may have trouble expressing it.
And the fact is, there are serious differences about people's conceptions of the world, their understanding of how society works (or doesn't), their criticisms of what is wrong with society, etc. But few people actually want to get that stuff straight -- think it through, ask hard questions, trace the differences and commonalities.
Instead, we chalk it up to something ineffable like: we're all the same and it's coz we have heart as feminists.
I slagged on that whole thing because it really irritated me. And what really irritated me in my follow up post is that all these people who think they aren't using theories, aren't hewing to a theoretical position ARE hewing to one. It's pretty commonplace on THIS list to understand that. But in the general, even well-read, and political active and involved left? Apparently not.
Not to mention the brouhaha over Max's commentary -- and Max is hardly a big theory guy. He just thinks it's important to step back once and awhile and have a clue about what actually motivates one's criticisms -- what's beyond the "Republicans out of office NOW!" sentiment?
Blah. Blah. Bleeeeeeeeee. Wheeee.
Bitch | Lab http://blog.pulpculture.org