How then to account for the general egalitarianism of the hunter-gatherer tribes which are present in the current day? — javra

Easy: The rest of the world are no longer in those situations. My knowledge of several of those groups is that they are decidedly not egalitarian, even in principle. — AmadeusD

You offer a lot of opinions and thoughts in your post, but I am interested in the potential facts of the matter.

To begin with, can you provide references evidencing that modern hunter-gather societies - or at least some such - are of an authoritarian leadership which so 'oversees' all others in the tribe so as to preserve social cohesion? (this rather than being societies of generally egalitarian governance).

But that subjection of women to their men, rife in pretty much every group on that list. — AmadeusD

Next, can you provide references to how "the subjection of women to their men is rife in pretty much every group on that list"?

I’m assuming these references will be easy for you to provide, given the knowledge you say you have regarding these matters. (I've previously given references to my affirmations. It'd be odd for you not to do likewise.)

I think the idea that a pre-historic society was egalitarian is pretty much a DOA. Nothing to it. The less oversight society has, more abuse happens. — AmadeusD

Is this to say that devoid of some authoritarian oversight humans - and, in particular, men - are naturally abusive?

Issues such as this then signifying that men will naturally rape as many women as they/we can were it not for such oversight (this not being an ethical characteristic by the standards of most) aside:

How then to account for the general egalitarianism of the hunter-gatherer tribes which are present in the current day? There's more than a handful of these.

I believe it comes down, once again, to an unshakable faith in physicalism. — J

By my counts, quite validly expressed!

And, in keeping with this thread's theme: yes, there is a distinct difference between "faith" at large and that particular type of faith which is "unshakable" - this irrespective of the rational or, in this case, experiential evidence to the contrary.

What Dennett means by "illusion" is "something that looks like it's non-physical." — J

Within this context which you mention, the notion of "illusion" almost begins to make sense. (Save for the "looks like" part :razz: , which, again, would logically entail an awareness which so sees.) In earnest, however, I admire your willingness to see things from others' perspectives.

Since I take it you've read Dennett first-hand, did Dennett ever get around to defining what "the physical" actually is in his philosophical writings? This so as to validly distinguish it from that which would then be "the illusion of non-physicality".

The issue brings to mind Thomas Huxley - with the nickname of "Darwin's bulldog", who first coined the term "agnostic", and who was a worthwhile philosopher in his own right - whose works I have read. A quote from him, here with emphasis on the subject of physicalism / materialism:

My fundamental axiom of speculative philosophy is that materialism and spiritualism are opposite poles of the same absurdity - the absurdity of imagining that we know anything about either spirit or matter.

Techne is in some sense the proof of episteme, and what "objectifies" it in the world (in the same way that Hegel says that institutions serve to objectify morality). — Count Timothy von Icarus

While still upholding the primacy of episteme over techne in their importance, I do agree with this. :up:

And in keeping with this, I often enough think that Francis Bacon would have been better off stating "understanding is power" - this rather than "knowledge is power". But then it gets to be contingent on how one understands and translates the term "scientia".

The only eliminativist I've really spent much time on is Daniel Dennett, [...] I believe he would say that consciousness and awareness are user illusions -- as is, indeed, the user him/herself! — J

Though I'm familiar with the argument, I haven't read Dennett's works first hand myself, so I'm not sure how he would argue this illusion might work when replied to thusly:

"Consciousness" is (I think we'd all agree) a very concept-laden term - such that what some might interpret by the term might in fact not be. I grant this. But there can be no notion of consciousness devoid of all awareness.

And, as to "awareness being an illusion", an illusion relative to what if not to awareness itself?

"Illusion" - if its to be at all cogent as term - can only mean "misapprehension, i.e. a mistaken understanding (else: a mistaken seeming)". So, I'd take it that for wrong-apprehension to occur there must then by entailment yet be an ontically occurring apprehension, an understanding, by ...

And here again I ask by what else if not by an ontically actual and hence real awareness (or, as @Count Timothy von Icarus might say, "by the intellect", which is awareness-endowed by the very fact of being that which understands).

Illusion devoid of an ontically real awareness to which the illusion applies is, I argue, at best nonsensical (and at worst, possibly willfully dishonest).

I think you're overestimating the power of the "give me a predictive hypothesis" request, but yes, we do want to be able to say more than "Tradition says so" or "it's empirical too." — J

Wanted to add that focus on “a hypothesis’ ability to predict” is, to my mind unfortunately, too often prioritized over “a hypothesis’ explanatory power” – this especially in philosophy.

The first strictly addresses techne (i.e., the making or doing something (namely, that of a valid prediction)), whereas the second is about episteme (i.e., the understanding of what is) – and to me it seems obvious that there can be no techne in the absence of episteme, such that episteme is of paramount importance, with techne being only secondary..

For example, in this context it can be asked, "Does the phenomenologist or the eliminativist provide more explanatory power as regards the totality of what is?" While I'm sure that argument galore as to this question's answer could ensue, to my best understanding it remains the case that the eliminativist will not be able to explain most anything as regards awareness per se. And without awareness, there cannot be any form of empiricism.

But anywho, what is the philosophical import of this sociological discussion? — Hanover

If most of the human species’ 200,000-year or so existence has been of a largely egalitarian nature at least within ingroups, this might illustrate that human males are not genetically hardwired to be misogynists as far as the human species (as it's biologically defined to this day) goes. It might also support the credence that men being innately superior relative to women - i.e. male chauvinism - is not supportable in strictly biological terms (but gains its support strictly form culture, e.g. “God said so, therefore so it is”; Edit: else via cultural understandings of 'evolution via natural selection" as conceptualized by those who do not know and don't give a hoot about what evolutionists of biological science actually say - the history of our human species being just one such example).

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Tim wood thinks perhaps 100% of women can tell a story of sexual assault. I think he's right. All the women I know have horror stories about men. — RogueAI

As in, the evolution of human societies takes a path, and along the route women fare better and worse depending upon the moment. From my vantage point today, it does seem at this moment substantial efforts at female protection and enforcing equality are being made. — Hanover

I see an incongruity in the propositional content of these two quotes.

These are just two of many possible ways of understanding the superordinate concept. — Joshs

OK, but - as per all that I have written in this thread - I reject both these "superordiante concepts" (in sum: that of biology and of culture) as being foundational to the masculinity / femininity dichotomy. Instead adopting the more metaphysical notions of yin and yang. For which, I personally cannot so far think of any possible "superordinate concept".

Suppose there's a parallel universe where everything else is the same, but men are weaker than women. Would we see the same rates of rape and abuse? — RogueAI

I'm here presuming you mean to say "men are weaker than women" in this parallel world physically and politically, rather than psychologically. It's been my experience (in the military) that most men are anxious if not fearful of injections, whereas most women are not - to not bring in the psychological strength required for human childbirth.

Granting similar inequity of physical and political power and a similar general want of respect for the other - this in an "us vs. them" state of mind as regards the sexes (e.g., what man likes being called "a pussy", as just one common enough example in the world we inhabit) - I can easily fathom the same general rates of abuse of the weaker sex (here, men) by the stronger (here, women). But not the same general rates of rape: this because a) men are the ones biologically endowed with penises by definition (right?) and b) - either via forms of love (minimally, consensuality, even if it occurs via S&M in which physical pain might be wanted and given) or, else, via willful cruelties (unconsensual almost by definition: this being "the willful causing of suffering in another") - it is only men who thereby gain sexual, physical pleasure via use of their penises to penetrate others (here taking into account homosexuality as well).

That said, I don't find women any more "innately benevolent" than I do men. It's just that (when addressed as a whole) each sex has its own biological and hence physical equipment and, maybe, its own general talents and other psychical abilities (though how much of the latter is strictly genetic vs. cultural I don't presume to know) - which, in either sex, could be used either constructively to promote harmony or not.

I doubt that I can provide references to this (other than the biological aspects of being a man :smile: ), but it is what I generally uphold.

BTW, if you're talking about awareness per se, though it can become a concept we as aware-beings become aware of and thereby think about, awareness of itself is nevertheless not a concept. This likely deviates from the thread's topic significantly, though

... unless one gets into the issue of whether awareness is of itself masculine or feminine ... to which I'd maintain something along the lines of it being neither but instead a perpetual hybrid of both: You can't have spatiotemporal awareness without any agency (yang), and spatiotemporal awareness is perpetually penetrated by information (yin) - both simultaneously. (I here specify "spatiotemproal" to allow for the metaphysical possibility of things such as the notion of Nirvana when construed as a non-spatiotermpral and nondualistic awareness - hence one which no longer wants/wills/etc. and no longer is penetrated by information.) But again, all this is awfully distant from the thread's intents.

One of the best things about children is that you get to reexperience the magic of the world through their eyes. — DifferentiatingEgg

As the song goes, it's good to be young at heart.

And what can we say about the superordinate concept imparting to ‘masculine’ and feminine’ their intelligibility? — Joshs

I don't understand what "the superordiante concept" might be. This in relation to the yin-yang. Here addressed as though it in fact occurs.

In the quote you gave, quite logically, everything that is is magic bar none. So then there is no such thing as a non-magical event or thing.

As to this:

I mean, when my will is moving my hand, I can call it "magic" according to Crowley's definition. I can also call it non-magic as I have a scientific explanation for it. — Quk

Is why one of Corwley's aphorisms is that "blowing your nose is magical".

The empirical sciences too, bar none, in this more formal definition of magic are nothing but .... magic: the causing of change in conformity to will - here, namely, or at least ideally, the will to gain better understanding of being at large and its specifics.

In the end everything can be called "magic" and "non-magic" as well. — Quk

What part of what I said would be "non-magic"? On a related topic, one can call a rose a "buffalo" but it's still going to be a rose.

I’ll do my best to stoke this fire.

There’s your definition of magic – that which is unexplainable – and then there's the more formal definition of magic, namely:

Aleister Crowley (1875–1947), a British occultist, defined "magick" as "the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will",[9] adding a 'k' to distinguish ceremonial or ritual magic from stage magic.[1] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_(supernatural)

As to magic being the unexplainable, the very occurrence of being per se is devoid of explanation. Ergo, the whole of existence is then, in and of itself, pure magic. Ergo, magic occurs.

As to the referenced more formal definition of magic, it would only not occur were it to be metaphysically impossible that such a thing as “causing change to occur in conformity to the will” can occur. This being a bit of a catch-22: If you provide proof to evidence magic's impossibility, you will in effect be “causing change such that the results end up being in conformity to your will”, thereby validating the occurrence of magic thus defined.

Ta-da … :razz:

Men have been abusing women from the dawn of recorded history. I'm sure the abuse happend way before that. If you get a bunch of men and women together human nature is such that a non-trivial amount of men are going to violate the women. Tim wood thinks perhaps 100% of women can tell a story of sexual assault. I think he's right. All the women I know have horror stories about men. — RogueAI

While yet upholding my previous views as pertain to the very distant prehistory of our human species, I can’t find anything to disagree with in what you’ve written (humanity hasn't been purely hunter-gatherer long before recorded, or at least written, history began). To me it all pivots on the occurrence, else issue, of the inequity of power and the respect for other, or else the lack of these (in no particular order or correspondence). With these two aspects of value being, for better or worse, a mostly cultural aspect of our human species (hence, of its many races and individual ethnicities).

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:up: Agreed. But to emphasize this:

What’s striking about the Homo sapiens species of animal is that - unlike, for example, the often authoritarian hierarchies of chimpanzee tribe-cultures (they too pass on cohort-relative knowledge from generation to generation, with tool use and specific variations in facial expression as two examples of such cultural transmission) - Homo sapiens hunter-gatherer tribes tend to be of a largely egalitarian ethos (such that the general tendency is for every adult individual having a voice of roughly equal value as pertains to the governance of the tribe in total). With this quick reference speaking much to this effect:

The egalitarianism typical of human hunters and gatherers is never total but is striking when viewed in an evolutionary context. One of humanity's two closest primate relatives, chimpanzees, are anything but egalitarian, forming themselves into hierarchies that are often dominated by an alpha male. So great is the contrast with human hunter-gatherers that it is widely argued by paleoanthropologists that resistance to being dominated was a key factor driving the evolutionary emergence of human consciousness, language, kinship and social organization.[33][34][35][36]

Most anthropologists believe that hunter-gatherers do not have permanent leaders; instead, the person taking the initiative at any one time depends on the task being performed.[37][38][39] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer#Social_and_economic_structure

What I'm making is the more modest claim, that the feminine parts are strictly feminine and the masculine parts are strictly masculine. — fdrake

Since this is easy to reply to, I will: As you’ve expressed it, I myself don’t find anything to disagree with in what you’ve written.

(I was previously under the impression that you had found the publishing of an article, as single event, to be both masculine and feminine in total, this in a way that would result in a kind of logical contradiction, its gender thereby being dependent on the arbitrariness of the event’s description - this rather than being dependent on a conformity to either masculinity or femininity as a staple aspect of the addressed event in its given context of analysis.)

In which case, we then seem to be on the same page in terms of the publishing of an article, as a single event, being both feminine and masculine at the same time but in different respects, or else within different contexts of analysis - and this not founded on the arbitrariness of one’s descriptions but, instead, on the addressed event’s accordance (again, within a specific context of analysis) to the definition of masculinity or else of femininity.

But let me know if this apparent agreement is in fact a mistaken impression. And, if so, please do clarify where the disagreements reside.

I might add that rational problems emerge when eastern, and far more commonly western, interpretations of the yin and yang portray one as “good” and the other as “bad (or even evil)”. This can, for one primary example, occur in an improper juxtaposition of two otherwise unrelated system of symbolism regarding “light” and “dark”.

In a yin-yang context, “bad” can only be an (typically extreme) imbalance between the yin and the yang. Whereas “good” is an optimal balance between the feminine/yin and the masculine/yang. In respect to “light and dark”, here, sight is interpreted as allowing one the ability to discern obstacles and potential dangers, etc. – and functional sight, in this context, can neither occur in a world completely composed of light/yang in the complete absence of dark/yin nor, conversely, in a world fully composed of dark/yin in the complete absence of any light/yang. Optimally, functional sight requires a balance between the two.

This then will be an utterly different system of symbolism from the typical western symbolism wherein “light” translates into “wisdom - and hence both understanding and knowledge (to include regarding what is right / good)” and “dark” translates into “ignorance – hence the absence of understanding and knowledge (to again include regarding what is right / good)”. Here, in the western symbolism system, it is desirable for “light to conquer all darkness” – this then being good. (In parallel to the theme that only love can conquer hate.)

And in this interplay of symbolic systems, there then can on occasion result various associations wherein “masculinity / light / yang” is deemed “good” and “femininity / dark / yin” is deemed “bad”.

All that mentioned, I just want to draw attention to this sort of association (wherein yang is deemed good and yin bad) being – rationally speaking – in direct contradiction to what the yin-yang of itself symbolizes (even if one can find references of this from Eastern cultures). In this Eastern system of metaphysical understanding via symbolism, one then commonly obtains themes such as that of “the middle path or way (with pure yang and pure yin as the extremes between which the middle path obtains)” is optimally good and hence optimal goodness. But I’ll stop this short.

All this being a different issue to what “masculinity per se is”, but it does address potential takes on the value of masculinity (just as much as that of femininity).

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I'll be away for a while, btw.

Isn't it unavoidable. — fdrake

I haven’t pondered every nook and cranny of the concept, but in general:

I take the yin and yang to of themselves be a strict dyad, this just as much as one can’t have an up-direction without a down-direction and vice versa. In this (what we westerners term "metaphysical") sense, the yin and yang present a strict dichotomy, which is unavoidable. As the notion applies to things in the world, however, there appears to always be yang-in-yin and yin-in-yang when one looks closer into the issue – such that it becomes difficult if not impossible to give an example of something in the world that is completely yang or else completely yin.

I’ll use the examples of speech being masculine (on account of occurring due to active agency and of being penetrating) and of listening being feminine (on account of being generally passive and of it consisting of penetration).

The masculinity of speech will itself be contingent on feminine aspects of reality, such that it could not be without being endowed with these feminine aspects. Examples of this could include the requirement that the words spoken are passively allowed by the conscious speaker to be produced by the unconscious mind in accordance with the conscious speaker’s will (else one would be actively deliberating on every word, every intonation, and every volume of the speech, resulting in no speech being given). This just mentioned passivity required for speech to occur will then be an intrinsic aspect of the speech which is actively given. Here, then, there will be yin within the yang addressed.

As to the activity of listening, there can’t be any passive listening devoid of an active agency via which that heard becomes interpreted, an interpretation of that heard which could itself be, in at least some ways, rather penetrating; here, for example, maybe such that one’s interpretive faculties utilize one’s preexisting understandings to in some way penetrate that understanding received, this so as to assimilate this received understanding into one’s own total body of understanding. So understood, here, then, there will be yang within the yin addressed.

The being “too dichotomous” part – as far I so far interpret it – comes into play when one insists that, because the yin and yang are a strict dyad metaphysically, speaking then must be fully yang, fully masculine, such that femininity plays no part in it. Or else that listening is fully feminine, fully yin, such that masculinity, yang, plays no part in it.

So going back to this:

You can parse each of these transitions as inseminations or births, and flip the gender they count as. If your word spills on the page, you birth it from within you, blah blah. — fdrake

This would be so - a fully arbitrary call based on description rather then on definition - were there to be a strict dichotomy in the physical world (rather than only in the metaphysical) between givens that are full yang (hence, fully devoid of yin) and things that are fully yin (hence, fully devoid of yang). If one so dichotomizes the physical world's transitions in strict ways, then, whether a transition X is (fully) masculine or else feminine becomes arbitrary based on how one views or else describes it.

But, then, this would be overly dichotomous in relation to the givens that occur in the physical world, wherein yin-in-yang and yang-in-yin occurs. There is both yang and yin in both speech and listening. Nevertheless, because speech of itself as an overall actively penetrates the minds of those spoken to, it will be, on the plane of awareness or thought here specified, a masculine activity, an aspect of yang - this as per the definition of yang. Same, then, with listening: it will be feminine, an aspect of yin.

And as to transitions such as that of publishing an article, as previously addressed, they can be both masculine and feminine simultaneously but in different respects. Here nevertheless yet preserving the yin-in-yang and yang-in-yin principle.

The only thing we have at hand as listeners and readers is ink and sound. So how can anything be transmitted? — JuanZu

By one agent interpreting the ink and sounds' forms in addition to discerning whence they originated and thereby understanding the intentions of the agent(s) from which these inks and sounds were resultant. Most of which we're so accustomed to that it occurs pretty much in fully unconscious manners on what some term "autopilot mode".

Also by not espousing the particular species of materialism you seem to currently endorse - which seems to preclude the very possibility of this.

I have no problem with an intention being the cause of the characteristics of something written in ink. But it is one thing to be the cause and another to be the ghost in the ink or in the sound. Since the sound comes out of our mouth the intention is left behind. — JuanZu

For my part, I don't think its as easy as "leaving the intention behind" - this since it's the intention which is transmitted to another via the sound or ink or braille - but OK. We seem to at least agree in terms of the sounds, written letters, or braille patterns being intentionally caused by an agent, and this so as to transmit meaning from one agent to another.

Meaning and purpose to be exact. — Darkneos

OK. Got it. But it leaves me curious: how then is the following proposition in the OP to be interpreted in the context of "meaning and purpose are not different in any respect"?

With making meaning I don’t think you need purpose to do so. — Darkneos

(It might have been a slip of the tongue, in which case I could easily understand.)

If intentions and purposes were somehow in the ink (for me that is pure fantasy) there would be no possibility of misunderstanding. — JuanZu

One: Its not a physical attribute of the ink. The intentions are what caused the ink to have the shapes that it does. And so it is inferred from the ink's shapes. It is as much in the ink as might be a spark in an exploding dynamite.

Secondly: How do you reason there would be no possibility of misunderstanding were this to be so (again, as just described)?

Just in case I might be correct in my presuppositions, here is a more concise example to the contrary:

Instances such as slips of the tongue do occur. In instances such as this, one intends/means to communicate concept A but, because one’s unconscious impinges word Z instead of what would have appropriately been word X, the meaning which one in fact wants to express does not obtain. So, here, the use of the term does entail an intent, in this case the intent of one’s unconscious mind rather than of oneself as conscious mind, but the intention/meaning which one as a consciousness holds in mind nevertheless does not manifest.

This, again, being in line with “use presupposes intentioning, but intentioning can occur without use (in this case, use of terms)”

This to me being one example to illustrate that meaning and use – although most often unified – are in fact not one and the same thing. Again, such that use is dependent upon meaning, with the latter being intentioning.

It gets more complex when addressing language as constituted of commonly understood words, but the same point, I believe, would still remain. Although, again, in vastly more complex ways.

But I'll just stick to this one example of slips of the tongue to evidence my claim.

Effectively it is to me, especially since we are talking about language where use does determine use. We aren't talking about objects or anything else so your argument doesn't apply. — Darkneos

Let me clarify: the question in my previous post was strictly addressing the context of language.

Still doesn't change what I mean about two sides. — Darkneos

I was working on the presumption that you do not interpret meaning and use to be different in any respect. Is this correct?

You're intending to make use of something — Darkneos

That's what I mean, if we analyze this proposition: "Intending to make use" of something is not the same as "making use of something".

Here, "making use of something" is the intent, the goal, of the intending which has been addressed. Which, as an intending, might well not come to fruition, in which case one would not have succeeded in "making use of something" - even though one intended to do so.

Use of X presupposes intentioning, but intentioning "that one use X" can occur without X ending up being used.

I repeat, this is because if it were not absent we would be talking about something similar to the ghost in the machine, in this case the ghost in the ink. — JuanZu

Wouldn't this "ghost in the ink" then be the intentioning of the agent which produced the ink forms on the paper? In which case the purpose is not absent in the note ... but only open to interpretation by the agent which reads the note, thereby allowing for misinterpretation.

With making meaning I don’t think you need purpose to do so. — Darkneos

Use determines use, paradoxical it may seem. — Darkneos

Can you give any example of use that is devoid of any purpose and hence of any usefulness or benefit?

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Here’s a language use: When one is asked, “what did you mean by ‘dream house’,” one can well reply, “I intended such and such by the term”. I have however yet to hear the reply of, “I used the term as such and such (or else, in this or that way [correction: with the possible exception of, "in this or that sense" ... but this exception would be raising the question of meaning all over again, which again seems to reduce to intent]).”

Use entails intentioning which entails intent (with purpose equating to either intentioning or intent). They’re not the same thing though. Intentioning X is not the same as making use of X. The latter presupposes the former, but the former can occur without the latter.

I get that. Maybe I should clarify my previous post as well: the presumed good as being evil part came into play with bullshit like God - the omni-creator deity - is all loving and that’s why so many innocent children die at adults’ misconduct (they’re instantly delivered into Heaven, dontcha know), or God loves you and that’s why you kissing before marriage ends you up in eternal Hell (being a form of adultery in the term's loose biblical sense), and I suppose other such things that currently don’t come to mind. In one such conversation, I haphazardly came upon (by reading beyond what was shown to me) the biblical Book of Hebrews, Chapter 8, Verse 11, in which Christ says, “And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.” Kind of like a synchronicity of sorts. Which I, since learning of this verse, used to argue that evangelizing is directly contradictory to Christ's will. I still believe this interpretation of mine is not that far off the mark. He was pretty much anti-establishment and so, I can only imagine, anti-churches and popes (had they been around in his day).

Damned thing is, I do believe that God (not being a/the omni-creator deity, but to me something more in line with the Platonic notion of the Good) actually is Love - but here, wherever love is lacking (such as in lack of empathy for abused children and the lack of drive to do anything about it whenever one can), so too is there an absence of God in due proportions. (And who the hell can claim to be perfect love?)

Anyways …

I will respond to your longer post, just when I've got more brainpower. — fdrake

Sounds good. Finding faults in my own reasoning, here as pertains to this discussion of masculine/feminine, is something I deem a good thing.

I tend to walk up to those people when I see them in the street. They get sick of me. — fdrake

:grin: In my youth, I'd sometimes debate with them so as to convince them their ideas are evil. On one occasion or two, I'm fairly confident given their looks they walked away thinking I was the devil incarnate. No curses or the like, just nifty reasoning utilized to turn their views upside down. ... But that was then. Haven't been hassled by such for some time.

And hey, while I’m not certain where you find yourself residing on the “spirituality” spectrum, irrespective of this, having some bloke walk up to you while your reading a book in the park so as to inform you of some true savior or such, this when you tell them you’re not interested in conversing with them, would – in keeping to my previous posts – then be a bit toxic of them if they don’t relent.

I’m thinking most would be in general agreement with this.

No worries.

There is another aspect of my disagreement, which I've focussed on up until this point - a methodological one. But let's focus on this object level one for now, since the methodological discussion should probably come after this one. — fdrake

OK. And btw, thanks for this post. It's more thoughtful than that of name calling, as per "mystical" and "stereotype".

To begin, and correct me if I"m wrong, this pretty much sums up your argument contra:

They then publish your article, which puts it into the world, which is male... or is it giving birth? — fdrake

It is, or at least can be, both simultaneously but in different respects:

The article penetrates others, which is male masculine. This while at the same time - to make use of your own terminology - it is the giving birth to a concept which the author had heretofore been pregnant with and thereby conceiving.

In relation to the author's own internal attributes of mind, "birthing the article into the word" will be a feminine characteristic.

The article penetrating others' minds, however, will occur if and only when other minds both a) read the article and b) do not abort the concepts therein contained but, instead, end up with new conceptions of their own resulting from being inseminated by the concepts the article contains. And, were this to in fact occur, this would then be a masculine characteristic.

This, again, addressing the yin-in-yang and the yang-in-yin principle.

The feminine aspect of birthing the article into the world is an entailed aspect of publishing. The masculine aspect of the article inseminating other minds is however a contingent aspect of so publishing.

You can parse each of these transitions as inseminations or births, and flip the gender they count as. If your word spills on the page, you birth it from within you, blah blah. — fdrake

I believe that was warning against just this kind of thing when he said one should steer away from too dichotomous an interpretation of the yang (masculine) and yin (feminine).

The point there is that whether something is masculine or feminine will depend upon how it's described. Which it shouldn't, because the act should be intrinsically masculine or feminine, no? A manifestation of all permeating principle? It should not turn on the whims of our description. — fdrake

No, not "on how its described" but on whether it fits the definition of masculine / yang (with "active penetrating" being one entailed aspect of this definition) or else the definition of feminine / yin (with "passively penetrated" being one entailed aspect of this definition).

Things do penetrate other things all the time in rather objective terms, with penises penetrating vaginas, mouths, and anuses as just one blatant example of this. But when addressing things at large and not the male and female sex (rather than the culturally endorsed gender of each sex - with this post giving examples of such), there will always be found some yang-within-yin and some yin-within-yang.

Thanks for clarification. If I can ask for a bit more, how do you think I have been disagreeing with it? While I know what you've written, I don't know how you've read what I've written. — fdrake

This is getting tiresome for me.

My definition of masculinity you declare a mysticism (hence to consist of "obscure thoughts and speculations") and instead argue that the gender is fully culturally relative and so cannot be defined away.

My use of "toxic masculinity" you idiosyncratically declare a stereotype (apparently of the masculine archetype) that lacks any cogency in that which it specifies.

(I'll skip on providing quotes from your posts.)

Okay. Can you please recap your position for me, what you believe we're disagreeing about, so that I can better engage with you? — fdrake

Awkward for you to ask, this since I've explained my own position in plenty of posts. The issue addressed is "what constitutes masculinity". As to a recap of my position on this issue, this, again, sums it up in two sentences:

-- The masculine is interpreted, be it psychologically or physically, as being “that which penetrates (alternatively expressed, as that which inseminates via information)”.

-- Whereas the feminine is interpreted, again either psychologically or physically, as “that which is penetrated (alternatively, as that which is inseminated by information)”. — javra

... and, as to the more recent issue of toxic masculinity, in sum of what I previously wrote, masculintiy becomes toxic (but does not of itself equate to toxicity in total) when it is imposed upon other humans - male, female, or any other - unconsensually. Do understand that arguments such as in this debate or, far more extremely, soldiers fighting in wars that kill each other, will engage in masculine behaviors that are consensually accepted by all parties involved ... even if these behaviors' resulting outcomes might be unwanted.

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You so far have been disagreeing with all of it.

I see you as talking about masculine archetypes, — fdrake

Where, ever, have I addressed a/the masculine "archetype(s)". You might be projecting your or someone else's views on my own. And rather improperly at that.

quite strongly criticised in eg Boise (2019)'s "Editorial: is masculinity toxic?". — fdrake

BTW, the very title is a toxic stereotype. So I've gots not damn interest in reading ti. "Toxic masculinity" does not equate to "masculinity is toxic". This needs to be pointed out on a philosophy forum?

I've explained my reasons for this. — fdrake

Bull

Obviously murder and rape are evil. — fdrake

Not so obvious to many. And this in no way answers the question in regard to toxic masculinity.

Toxic masculinity, interpreted in the sense of an essential collective archetype, is exactly the kind of mythopoetic move that feminism which deals with masculinity tends to reject. Though obviously not all feminists reject every essentialism. — fdrake

Who the fuddle is doing this? You're gonna search for quotes from extremists to define a populace in whole? That would be a bit of a fallacy. Dude, are murder and rape masculine behaviors or are they not? Here presuming you won't claim these to be feminine traits, are these behaviors toxic or not?