Comments on: Food for thought.

By: Justthisguy

Justthisguy — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 01:53:31 +0000

Dang, why did I write “Wittgenstein” when I shoulda wrote “Schopenhauer”?

Have I drunk too much, tonight? Yes.

Sorry, Ma’am.

By: Justthisguy

Justthisguy — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 01:46:18 +0000

I dunno. NT wimmin scare me. I can get along with weird wimmin, sometimes. I think Mr. Wittgenstein was mad at all the other humans, not just the wimmin. A grumpy person, y’know?

I’m a kind of grumpy old bachelor, m’self. I’ll not willingly insult or hurt anybody, but I do have a low opinion of my fellow humans, and am right wary when they are near by.

I will say this; I distrust all strangers equally, be they male or female.

Dang humans!

By: kishnevi

kishnevi — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 22:08:13 +0000

Schopenhauer had a wretched relationship with his mother that probably had a good deal to do with his misogyny. If you have access to Durant’s Story of Philosophy, read the chapter on S. to get some details.

But ableists don’t usually have that sort of motivation to guide their biases.

By: Ettina

Ettina — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 15:43:51 +0000

“With girls, Nature has had in view what is called in a dramatic sense a “striking effect,” for she endows them for a few years with a richness of beauty and a, fulness of charm at the expense of the rest of their lives; so that they may during these years ensnare the fantasy of a man to such a degree as to make him rush into taking the honourable care of them, in some kind of form, for a lifetime—a step which would not seem sufficiently justified if he only considered the matter. Accordingly, Nature has furnished woman, as she has the rest of her creatures, with the weapons and implements necessary for the protection of her existence and for just the length of time that they will be of service to her; so that Nature has proceeded here with her usual economy. Just as the female ant after coition loses her wings, which then become superfluous, nay, dangerous for breeding purposes, so for the most part does a woman lose her beauty after giving birth to one or two children; and probably for the same reasons.”

Reminds me of the argument used to explain the behavioral traits of Angelman Syndrome in http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0306987704003469 “Just how happy is the happy puppet?” They claim the behavior in Angelman Sndrome is optimized to get nurturance from parents.

By: Jennifer Mazer

Jennifer Mazer — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 12:41:15 +0000

Hi Amanda!
Your blog is one of the best blogs I have ever seen.
May I link it to mine? ( I have an autism section).
I am a “high functioning” autistic whatever that means
I once worked as staff at a summer camp where the staff was
abusing rights of autistics without knowing it. At that
summer camp I felt more at home hanging out with the campers
than the staff.
I am nearly fourty and still dependent on my parents.
They put me on social security disability and lied to me.
I thought I would still be able to work full time but alas no.
At this point I just need to get away from them and their
smothering.
Any comments would be welcome. Thanks much.
Jen Mazer

By: Ruth

Ruth — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 12:19:47 +0000

George Eliot’s reply to such men is still relevant:

“Some have felt that these blundering lives are due to the
inconvenient indefiniteness with which the Supreme Power has
fashioned the natures of women: if there were one level of feminine
incompetence as strict as the ability to count three and no more,
the social lot of women might be treated with scientific certitude.
Meanwhile the indefiniteness remains, and the limits of variation
are really much wider than any one would imagine from the sameness
of women’s coiffure and the favorite love-stories in prose and verse.
Here and there a cygnet is reared uneasily among the ducklings
in the brown pond, and never finds the living stream in fellowship
with its own oary-footed kind. Here and there is born a Saint Theresa,
foundress of nothing, whose loving heartbeats and sobs after an
unattained goodness tremble off and are dispersed among hindrances,
instead of centring in some long-recognizable deed.”

Introduction to Middlemarch

How many people have wondered why they had trouble fitting in society as it is configured today? Would their lives have been more focused if they knew they had neurological differences and started early to use their talent and not fight their differences?

By: ballastexistenz

ballastexistenz — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 12:01:23 +0000

Yeah.

What I’ve noticed in some things that try to combat sexism, though, is that the ableism remains in the argument.

It becomes an argument to prove that women are not deficient in ___________ (which surely a good number of women aren’t), but then doesn’t question the actual meaning of whether “being deficient in ___________” should merit the consequences that it usually does, in terms of how the person is viewed and treated in society.

Some people who call themselves disability rights activists also stop at proving that they are not, say, cognitively disabled (even if, in some cases, they are), but don’t take anything a step further into what cognitive ableism looks like.

By: The Goldfish

The Goldfish — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 10:26:15 +0000

Poor Schopenhauer. His philosophy wasn’t described as Pessimism for nothing; “since a worse world could not continue to exist, it is absolutely impossible; and so this world itself is the worst of all possible worlds.”

Dismissing half the human race thus would be quite a step towards that point of view…

The mechanisms of sexism and disablism are almost identical. They are both a matter of confusing a physiological fact with a sociological construct.