more postmodernism, more Ethan
Feb. 12th, 2006 10:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI'm reading the 'sex and gender' chapter in the sociology textbook. I am rediscovering that reading too much of any one ism at once leads to *facepalm* and *headdesk* and wishing to throw the book across the room. So I am skipping around the book a bit.
ANYways,
found another bit that made me think Ethan-y thoughts.
Talking about postmodern feminist approaches to, er, fixing the world:
Such approaches see their principal aim as deconstructing male language and a masculine view of the world. According to them, males see the world in terms of pairs of opposites (for example, male/female, good/evil, true/false, beautiful/ugly). They take the male as normal and the female as a deviation from the norm. [...] Deconstruction involves attacking linguistic concepts typically regarded in a positive way and reinterpreting their opposites in a positive light. Deconstructionists thus turn conventional thinking on its head. For example, they might regard femininity, evil, falsehood and ugliness as desireable characteristics.
In fact, postmodern feminists go further than this, questioning the whole idea of truth by claiming that language cannot represent some external reality. Not only should the binary opposition projected by male though be rejected, but also language itself fails to represent a feminine understanding of the world. Language is the ally of male rationality. It is used to impose an artificial order on the world, and to express the masculine desire to manipulate and control, to plan and achieve objectives. Languages that have been developed primarily by men are less useful for understanding the ways in which women understand and experience the world.
There's more. Lots and lots of it.
There are bits of this that baffle me. Like, how come rationality is a gendered concept? I'm generally fairly baffled by any time things get described as masculine or feminine if they aren't people.
But.
The parts that made me think Ethan were in particular 'turn conventional thinking on its head' and that binary opposition should be rejected, and also the bits about language not being enough, not describing experience.
See one thing as needs explaining about Ethan if what he's trying to do is get some kind of message across is why he doesn't need words. If language is inherently biased to 'rational' binary thinking, if it is impossible to describe the kind of chaotic and fluid world he perceives properly with language, show not tell makes more sense.
Giles and others would perceive Ethan in terms of "desire to manipulate and control, to plan and achieve objectives"
So Ethan is manipulating their world with the objective of making things go boom.
Which, okay, he probably is, and probably enjoying it too.
But he could have a more complicated thing going on that would basically be saying how that kind of planned 'progress' is... a matter of perception. Real only if they are blind to all the other ways of looking at things.
Now I've typed it all down it looks less interesting.
and possibly crazy.
woe.
I think I'll put the textbook away for the night.
I seem to have gone from seeing a two inch thick textbook as impossible and intimidating, and seeing it more the way I usually do a well stocked library shelf, with something approaching lust or hunger. Need input!
Its because I feel like I've got the hang of the vocabulary enough to understand what I'm reading without having to refer to the A-Z every few lines. Makes things much easier.
ANYways,
found another bit that made me think Ethan-y thoughts.
Talking about postmodern feminist approaches to, er, fixing the world:
Such approaches see their principal aim as deconstructing male language and a masculine view of the world. According to them, males see the world in terms of pairs of opposites (for example, male/female, good/evil, true/false, beautiful/ugly). They take the male as normal and the female as a deviation from the norm. [...] Deconstruction involves attacking linguistic concepts typically regarded in a positive way and reinterpreting their opposites in a positive light. Deconstructionists thus turn conventional thinking on its head. For example, they might regard femininity, evil, falsehood and ugliness as desireable characteristics.
In fact, postmodern feminists go further than this, questioning the whole idea of truth by claiming that language cannot represent some external reality. Not only should the binary opposition projected by male though be rejected, but also language itself fails to represent a feminine understanding of the world. Language is the ally of male rationality. It is used to impose an artificial order on the world, and to express the masculine desire to manipulate and control, to plan and achieve objectives. Languages that have been developed primarily by men are less useful for understanding the ways in which women understand and experience the world.
There's more. Lots and lots of it.
There are bits of this that baffle me. Like, how come rationality is a gendered concept? I'm generally fairly baffled by any time things get described as masculine or feminine if they aren't people.
But.
The parts that made me think Ethan were in particular 'turn conventional thinking on its head' and that binary opposition should be rejected, and also the bits about language not being enough, not describing experience.
See one thing as needs explaining about Ethan if what he's trying to do is get some kind of message across is why he doesn't need words. If language is inherently biased to 'rational' binary thinking, if it is impossible to describe the kind of chaotic and fluid world he perceives properly with language, show not tell makes more sense.
Giles and others would perceive Ethan in terms of "desire to manipulate and control, to plan and achieve objectives"
So Ethan is manipulating their world with the objective of making things go boom.
Which, okay, he probably is, and probably enjoying it too.
But he could have a more complicated thing going on that would basically be saying how that kind of planned 'progress' is... a matter of perception. Real only if they are blind to all the other ways of looking at things.
Now I've typed it all down it looks less interesting.
and possibly crazy.
woe.
I think I'll put the textbook away for the night.
I seem to have gone from seeing a two inch thick textbook as impossible and intimidating, and seeing it more the way I usually do a well stocked library shelf, with something approaching lust or hunger. Need input!
Its because I feel like I've got the hang of the vocabulary enough to understand what I'm reading without having to refer to the A-Z every few lines. Makes things much easier.
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no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 04:06 am (UTC)Thing about Ethan.. I think... is twisting the existing power/reality to see how people deal with that, a little more than wiping it completely and starting anew. He likes to play with what he has - people's pasts (candy) or what is already in their hearts (careful what you wish for) etc.
Not saying that he wouldn't love deconstructionism, because he very much would.