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From: turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: theory and action
Summary: Changing people, changing society ...
Message-ID: <7081@cs.utexas.edu>
Date: 25 Oct 89 03:35:10 GMT
References: <8910130354.AA03023@mimsy.UMD.EDU> <8910140446.AA08021@mimsy.UMD.EDU> <47221@bbn.COM>
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Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
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Approved: nadel@aerospace.aero.org
Status: R


In article <47221@bbn.COM>, rshapiro@BBN.COM (Richard Shapiro) 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. 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). I believe that both of these
> assumptons are wrong and that the strategy of eliminating sexism
> through (voluntaristic) efforts of will by individuals can never
> succeed. ...
>
> When I refer to "the unconscious", the notion I have is basically
> Freud's. ... In this theory, the will is an artifact of the
> formation of the ego -- an effort of will can NEVER affect the
> unconscious. To claim otherwise is what I'm calling "voluntarism" --
> the fallacy that the conscious subject is fully autonomous. ...
> 
> 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. Thus, the many factors which
> make up what we call "feminine" and "masculine" reside (mostly) in the
> unconscious, and are shared by everyone (in a given group at a given
> time). The individual variations are quite minor compared to the
> shared basis. We acquire these concepts through a variety of means,
> most of which are implicit (i.e. not because someone sits you down and
> says "Here are the differences between men and women"). The crucial
> point is that these shared attitudes are so basic to the formation of
> the individual that they are not generally visible as such. ...

It seems to me that you have posed two extreme positions, and
then denounced the flaws of one while ignoring the equally large
flaws of the other, which you proceed to support.  I will try to
show the middle ground, which I prefer not because it falls
between the two extremes, but because I think it more accurate.
First, allow me to note the points where we agree.  (1) There is
a subconcious which impels our behavior and emotions.  (2) The
contents of one's subconcious are largely formed tacitly, through
one's early interactions with family, friends, and others in the
social groups to which one belongs.  (3) This interaction between
individuals gives rise to a very real cultural (group) dynamic. 

Our first disagreement concerns whether one can change one's
subconcious.  You are correct in criticizing the idea that an
undesired attitude can be changed simply by recognizing it and
wishing it away.  On the other hand, the subconcious is not
totally impervious to outside influence, nor is the dividing line
between concious and subcious absolutely fixed.  Changing one's
subconcious and moving some parts of it into the concious realm
are precisely what activities such as psychoanalysis, behavior
modification, and hypnotic regression are all about, and even
simple measures such as introspection and dialogue may have some
effects on the subconcious if the effort is honest.  The proof of
this is that people do change in significant ways.  A male
chauvinist pig at twenty may not be so at thirty (though he will
almost certainly be so at twenty one.)  To what extent these
different methods work and how much one can change are issues
which the different schools of psychology hotly contest.  But it
is foolish to deny that life changes one, including one's
subconcious.  And how and what one thinks conciously can
drastically alter the course of one's life, and hence, one's
subconcious. 

Having done with voluntarism, our next disagreement is
individualism.  Consider, if one could change all sexist
individuals sufficiently, if one were a god or Liebniz's demon
and could rewrite not just people's concious beliefs but also the
subconcious things that dwell within them, what then?  Would this
not erase sexism?  Of course.  In this metaphysical sense,
individuals are primary.  There is no miasmic force that lies
outside the psyches of individuals and which creates Jungian
archetypes or other metaphysical attributes associated with
groups.  What creates groups is not ontology, but history,
origins, economics, and other social interactions. 

Of course, none of us is Liebniz's demon.  We cannot reshape
everyone's psyche to our desires, nor even each mold one's own in
perfect freedom.  It resists, and there is also a delicious
paradox about thinking that one can achieve such a goal when the
path to it necessarily changes the goal one desires, and even the
way one thinks about goals.  So how does one ever reach a goal
such as the eradication of sexism?  You write:

> ... therefore the job of feminism is NOT to convert bad
> guys into good guys. Rather it is to expose this framework for
> what it is (the theory) and to change the social structures so 
> that future generations will have different, non-sexist conceptions 
> of gender (the practice).

But who is going to expose the sexist framework if not the "good
guys"?  (Given Beauvoir, Stein, French, etc, "good women" is more
appropriate.)  Those who expose a framework must first become
concious of some things that most of us have only in our
subconciouses.  Who is to change the social structures if not
those who are convinced by the good women?  And how can we
possible raise our children with less sexist conceptions of
gender unless we first make the effort to bring about some small
change in our own understanding of gender? 

In short, the job of feminism is to convert bad guys into better
guys, help bad guys raise better children, and persuade bad guys
to change the ways we deal with each other.  How else do you
propose to change the way society is structured tomorrow?

Russell