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From: mangoe@cs.UMD.EDU (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: theory and action
Message-ID: <8910272037.AA29730@mimsy.UMD.EDU>
Date: 27 Oct 89 20:51:07 GMT
Sender: tittle@ics.uci.edu (Cindy Tittle)
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
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Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu

It is clear to me that Richard Shapiro doesn't understand my position,
because he keeps arguing against a position I don't hold.  In reply to
Russell Turpin, he writes:

>The claim is consistently being made that sexism consists EXCLUSIVELY of
>specific acts by one individual against another (in one person's charmingly
>naive formulation "Only individuals are real").  And that therefore the
>appropriate remedy is for the offending individuals to change their
>(conscious) behavior.  Change every sexist individual and you've eliminated
>sexism.

Ignoring the exagerration here, I have an observation and a correction.  First,
the use of the passive voice.  The claim was made *by specific people* (me,
I suppose, for one).  This avoidance of individuals seems to run rather deep
here.

Second, the word "conscious", which Mr. Shapiro has parenthetically injected
into the supposed argument.  Now, "conscious" is his contribution, not mine.
In my opinion, it is a straw man.  Whether or not behavior is conscious or
unconscious, it remains individual.  Reaction to social manipulation
likewise remains individual.  The point I've been trying make here has
nothing to do with unconscious or conscious at all; it has to do with
modelling reality.

As regards to this modelling, Mr. Shapiro claims:

>The assumptions here are clear: individuals form groups rather than vice
>versa (individualism); and attitudes are purely a matter of individual
>will and conscious choice (voluntarism).

Well, if you can explain to me how groups form individuals, I might believe
such a proposition.  The second statement is, as I already indicated, Mr.
Shapiro's projection, and is wrong.

We then move on to a foundation in the far from universally accepted
freudian hypothesis on the unconscious.  After a few more straw men, we get
to the following:

>If sexism works via the unconscious (as you apparently agree it does), any
>remedy which relies on changing the behaviors of specific offending
>individuals can never be anything more than superficial and temporary --
>precisely the effect we're see today.

I do not think that this follows from anything at all.  First of all, in
*freudian* theory the unconscious IS individual; hence, insofar as it is the
cause of our problems here, it is individual unconsciouses which need be
altered.  Hence, there is at least a potential need for individual action,
unless you can guarantee that all the unconsciouses are going to react in
the same way.  You can't, and evidewnce suggests that they won't.

In the second place, if the root cause of the change is IN the unconscious,
then to change the behavior IS to change the unconscious.

In any case, this is not an argument against how action is to be organized;
it is an argument against kinds of actions.  In point of fact, it is an
argument against AA.  AA's entire immediate effect is to force some people
to change their behavior-- indeed, the success of the treatment is measured
entirely in that behavior.  This argument makes a case against *any* sort of
coercive political action.

Having just shot down coercion, Mr. Shapiro goes on to another dubious claim:

>Further: while there are of course variations from individual to
>individual, much (perhaps most) of what forms the unconscious of any
>given person is social in nature. It's shared by all the members of
>whatever group you choose to consider.

I would agree with the first statement, but here social simply means
"acquired through interaction with other people."  And even in similar
situations, the outcome seems to be highly variable.  The situations
themselves are *extremely* variable.  Again, I think that reality argues
against actions over groups; the reaction to these actions is, in practice,
extremely variable.  It's often quite unreliable precisely because the
socialization of the suggestor and that of the target are quite different.

>"Common sense", on the other hand, refers to a refusal or an inability
>to question the framework or even to recognize that there is one at
>work.

It seems here that "common sense" is a convenient tag against anyone who
refuses to lie down in defeat before the errors of the freudian framework.
Common sense here is being criticized for observing that reality simply is
not like what Mr. Shapiro would have it be.  The fact is variation, not
similarity.

>It's obvious (I hope) that common sense is a very conservative perspective --
>its whole purpose is to naturalize a set of interpretations (about gender,
>for instance) into universal and eternal facts.

Actually, common sense *in this realm* is not conservative at all.  Mr.
Shapiro represents orthodoxy; common sense challenges that orthodoxy.

In light of all this argument, the claim that

>Now my contention is that it is our shared conceptions of masculine
>and feminine, men and women, that are the source of sexism.

... is quite ludicrous to me.  It should be obvious that Mr. Shapiro and I
have *wildly* divergent conceptions of what is going on here.  Certainly Mr.
Shapiro and the legendary sexist male have different conceptions.  This
statement is strong evidence that things are not as he says they are, that
individual variation is far from negligible.

Mr. Shapiro ends with an insult about the education of his opponents.  I
have read enough of this literature to evaluate it.  The problem with the
orthodoxy he espouses is that it simply isn't true.  Group action has been
tried on MANY social problems, and has a long history of failure.
-- 
C. Wingate          + "Taste and touch and vision to discern thee fail;
                    +  faith, that comes by hearing, pierces through the veil.
mangoe@cs.umd.edu   +  I believe whate'er the Son of God hath told;
mimsy!mangoe        +  what the Truth hath spoken, that for truth I Hold."