An interested love of Wisdom.

It’s a reasonably well known piece of trivia that the word philosopher means “lover of wisdom”. Less well known is that the word was coined in ancient Greece to recognise one group of public intellectuals who did not make money directly from their arguing skills, as distinct from others who did. Philosophy’s original meaning can, therefore, be read as someone who particularly loves wisdom, above its commercial applications.

The exact nature of those historical other “non-philosophers” who plied their arguing skills for money is hard to determine. They were called “Sophists” and we mostly know about them from their detractors. They have been characterized as people for whom “reasoning” was essentially the art of “rationalizing” and from them we have the modern word “sophistry” - the practice of deceptive argument. In one interesting charge the Sophists were dismissed as rhetoricians – masters of speech but not logic, as if the two were ever so different. The philosopher by contrast was supposedly a man or woman for whom reasoning alone was the way to reach decisions – a sort of proto-scientist in pursuit of the truth – a submissive devotee of wisdom herself.

This definition of philosophy is one I’m suspicious of. It promotes such an obedient “love of wisdom” that the lover is also able to disavow the conclusions of their love. Any results of such a philosophers’ reasoning belong to reason itself, with the philosopher who advocates them merely the messenger. All this springs from a distinction from “non-philosophers” that is merely that no cash pays for their view. I find that a disingenuous claim.

A good illustration of what I mean by this can be found with one of the earliest “philosophers”, Aristotle, pupil of Plato and one of the most influential philosophers to bother Western civilization with their ideas. Aristotle claimed that women could not be philosophers. As a “lover of wisdom” he could claim a protection for his views as the product of that love. Supposedly his misogyny was not personal but simply how Aristotle saw the facts.

However Aristotle was a contemporary of Hipparchia, and even more closely connected to Lasthenea of Mantinea, and Axiothea ofPhlius who were also students of Pluto and members of the academy alongside Aristotle. Their scholarship would have had to have been obvious, to have attained such astonishingly rare recognition. Aristotle’s belief that “women should not leave the female quarters of the house” served his interests by damning these female rivals for Plato’s legacy. He became Plato’s only legitimate successor, part of a very limited pantheon of well known Ancient Greek philosophers to this day. 

I rather suspect the definition of philosophy that Aristotle himself promoted doesn’t accidentally conceal the politics of Aristotle’s male interests. Instead I think the notion that philosophy is a “love of wisdom” untainted by grubby commercialism is itself a rotten act of “sophistry”. It worked in Aristotle’s case because the money exchange became the sole definition of corruption (and the definition of a non-philosopher). People failed to notice the other ways in which power can be stored and shared and advanced, in particular, Aristotle’s patriarchal power.

What is the point in describing all this – other than putting the boot to an iconic philosopher like Aristotle? The point is that it describes a continuing situation. We readily recognize that commercial interests indicate a bias. No-one ought to expect the concept of “Zero Harm” in corporate workplace safety to be much more than corporate hype. When a company like BHP uses Zero Harm (in capitals no less) to promote their corporate mission then hopefully we are not paying too much attention to this as a meaningful direction for environmental philosophy. We tend to be reasonably savvy at following the money trail to discredit paid-for spokespeople and positions.

However, just as when the word philosophy was coined, we still struggle to assert how non-commercial interests also distort the “love of wisdom”. So long as no money changes hands for a specific outcome (ie. no fee for service), we can sometimes believe that statements about obvious matters of power are not self-interested, or that we must assume them to be as such.  For example consider Doug Phillips’ (of the arch-conservative patriarchal Vision Forum) claims that “Daughters aren’t to be independent. They’re not to act outside the scope of their father.” Doug makes this claim regarding even adult unmarried daughters as part of a “commitment to affirming the historic faith of Biblical Christianity.” We might feel obliged to accept that Doug is simply reading and responding to his Bible. We might feel that without the clear evidence of a cash receipt Doug may be reasoning his way to his conclusion rather than rationalizing his interests and must be assumed to be doing so.

To that I think it’s appropriate to call bullshit. I don’t just say that because it seems culturally obvious in this case that Vision Forums’ Doug Phillips is being self-interested; his are not mainstream views even amongst most religious conservatives. Instead I want to make the far more contentious claim that no philosophy can ever disavow its interests and claim to come from an objective position. I believe that all philosophy originates from us taking an interested position rather than an objective one.

The idea that all philosophy proceeds from interests first rather than some objective place of pure reason is best illustrated by what we think about the environment and environmental politics. There is simply no objective way to say that one environment is better than another. There are microbes that live in lava vents that would vote (if they could) for a seismically unstable world. Our disagreement with them indicates we have different interests.

We can only think about our environment and how best to interact with it from a prior assumption of interests. The most obvious of these is to take an individual interest or a special interest (for all humanity). However it is not irrational to take the interests of very different living creatures into account or the ideal of a diverse and colourful planet.

I don’t believe that rationalism can be expected to shift us from a position of complete neutrality in which the concept of any environment’s value is nonsense, to the right interested position in which we can properly conceive environmental concerns. Nor do I think that rationalism can provide us with reasons to shift from one interested position to another alternative. This is why I say that all positions of interest on the environment, even one in which destruction is the goal, are equally rational or irrational.

I think if we want to call some position on the environment right or better than another we have to return to the sort of sophist arguments that philosophy in the greek tradition tried to distance itself from. I don’t mean sophist in the modern sense of dishonest. I think we simply need to use the full range of language and not just logic. In doing this we practice what the classic Greek philosophers and some "moderns" would not call proper philosophy.

Only via story, evocative rhetoric and even intuition can we be obliged to value interests other than our own.  I would also credit compassion to developmental factors such as the experience of reliable and honest relationships. I don’t believe it can be based in argument alone. For some people this is potentially paralyzing. If one position of interest cannot be verified as the true or right one with any finality in scientific fashion, and if we must take a position of interest before we engage in any philosophy, then for some people this is the end of the philosophical enterprise all together, as a valid search for truth.

It isn’t, in my opinion; it is merely the end of absolute certainty. The love of Wisdom has been mistakenly believed to be the same thing as the disinterested pursuit of certainty for so long but it's not. It's something that involves much more of ourselves than that - all of our interests. Unlike Aristotle we should be prepared to admit them.

Sermons I would like to hear: On the priesthood of women.

I’ve written a series of posts under the heading “Sermons I would like to hear”. I use this format to give me license to riff with the language sets of religious faith more freely. Under this heading I allow myself to be both a little more poetic and a little more merciless than I might be in a balanced critical essay. This is the most fire and brimstone of the bunch but like the others its definitely a sermon I would love to be surprised by in church.

I always advice reading these pieces in a Desmond Tutu accent.

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Anna, the Prophetess, Luke 2:36-38

Some organisations only permit men to hold leadership positions. Sometimes these organisations claim a mystical religious basis for their discrimination. Churches in particular claim that their organisation represents the truth about the infinite relationship of God to the world. Then some of them claim that this truth insists such representation can only be under mens’ leadership.

I want to preach against this, particularly in regard to Christianity, because there’s a Christian blasphemy occurring here. It’s a declaration that the image of God in woman’s image is not fully there and fully active. That’s the very definition of blasphemy; the disregard and denial of something of God.

In addition there is an idolatry being committed. There is a declaration that men, as clergy and elders, are especially necessary to interpret the truth about God. When we and particularly women are in the shadow of the valleys of our ignorance, we are supposed to accept that men and only men can provide the mirror to bring the light of the infinite to us.

That’s not a pedestal Jesus put men on. It’s something men keep replacing for themselves but it’s a pedestal Jesus kicked over in his teachings:

While all the people were listening, Jesus said to his disciples, "Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.” – Luke 20:45-47

“But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah. The greatest among you will be your servant. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.”

- Mathew 23: 8-15

In case there was any uncertainty;

• (Luke 1:39-55) Mary and her sister Elizabeth are the first two human voices to herald Jesus and the new covenant with Israel. They lead our response to the incarnation.
• (Matt 15:21-28, Mark 7:24-30) A woman is the only person who beats Jesus in an argument. He listens to her and she changes his mind with her words. No man ever obtains this result despite several attempts by scholarly men to debate Jesus.
• (Matt 26: 6-13)  It is a woman who first acknowledges when Jesus is due to die and accepts this. Although the male disciples criticized her, remembering her public worship is to be a mark of the gospel for all time.
• (Math 28: 5-7) Jesus’ resurrection is first revealed to two women. They lead our response to the promise of new life.

It is clear that, for Christianity at least, male only leadership is not the mirror that shines the light of God into dark places. Male only leadership is the mirror we have inserted between God and ourselves to see what we wish to see.

People opposed to women’s leadership in the church are sinning. Some are allowing the seductions of tradition, privilege, a desire for self-importance or fear of their own importance to affect their discernment of God’s gifts, and thus also their discernment of God. More of them are just fitting in to their churches and not rocking the boat. They are participating in blasphemy and idolatry so as not to cause a fuss. That’s normal human behaviour but hey, sin is still sin. It is normal to sin, even in church, maybe especially in church.

There is a feeling that we can’t be sinning when we are making religious rules for all to follow. There is a feeling that sin has to be loutish and born of laxity, rather than of strictness and self-discipline. This feeling says that imposing strictures and erring on the side of “no” to possibility, is only ever a defence against sin. If we make laws that are more than necessary then sin is merely better prevented than it needed to be, says this feeling.

This feeling is deeply incorrect. Some people’s demons are booze and porn but others people’s demons are the book of Deuteronomy and a pulpit. The false belief that severity and austerity equal greater moral safety is the deceit of those demons. It is perfectly possible to sin whilst paying close attention in church with scriptures and highlighter in hand. Jesus saw this when he appealed to the Pharisees to change their ways. You can hold tight to the words of scripture and find ways to sin grievously via those words.

Let us look closely at the parts of the bible that those opposed to women’s ordination cling tightly to. There are no words from Jesus. There are only two direct proof texts from the letters of Paul.

 A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve.And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.
- 1 Timothy 2:11-15 New International Version (NIV)

Paul of Tarsus, how dare you teach that women hold a special responsibility for the fallen nature of the world and carry any greater burden for their redemption than men? How dare you on this matter contradict what you have elsewhere preached, that the grace and grace alone of Christ (Romans 3 :21-31), not childbearing, not gender roles, not acting with propriety is what women will be saved through?

I don’t know what purpose these lies achieved for you. We can’t know. We only know that today these lies serve both idolatry and blasphemy in the church. We thank God that we are required to treat you as human, not a god, in your authority as a preacher. This is bad theology on many levels and it’s childish. Men must stop blaming Eve.

Let’s remember it was a male disciple who betrayed Christ, a male disciple who denied him, and men in authority who crucified him. Do we really want to tally up historical wrongs against God by gender here?

Then there is this passage:

Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says.If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.  
-1 Corinthians 14:34-35 New International Version (NIV)

Paul, what could you have meant here by “disgraceful”? I can only feel sad for you that at this time it seems, you couldn’t hear a women publicly ask about God and delight in her desire to know. I wonder, what did women challenge for you? Did women take God too far for you?

You have forgotten or perhaps you never knew what Jesus had to say to Mary and Martha. ("Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10: 38- 42) But how have you forgotten something so central to your own gospel; It is better to be disgraced for God than concerned about the law? (Galatians 2:15) I hope God forgives you, Paul, and anyone else who makes your sin their own.

Let us pray for the forgiveness of those who argue for male only leadership in the church. Let us pray that God takes from them their appetite for sin, that we humbly recognize takes different forms in us all.

Dear God, help all to see the image of God in our daughters and nothing more than the image of God in our sons.

Pillow Talk

I love old movies. On the one hand old movies unselfconsciously mirror their world. Stuff gets on film without the directors intent. We can watch an old movie and be astonished by how heavily every character smokes for example. From the here and now we can spot such curiosities as how a young female smoker never carries her own lighter. An old movie may be full of such entirely accidental comments on the smoking culture of it’s time. The director probably didn’t set out to make a film about smoking but then has in a way.

On the other hand there’s deliberation behind everything that ends up on screen. This is especially true of old movies when even outside scenes are shot in controlled indoor sets. Whatever is on set and in shot and survives editing has been carefully decided upon. If two characters in a scene do smoke they will have smoked the same four puffs in each take of the shoot. A new cigarette will replace the old one and be re-lit if necessary. Nobody is accidentally, or even incidentally, smoking in a well directed film. These are deliberate accidents.

This makes old movies a great way to view cultural attitudes about gender, race and class as well. The woman with no lighter is not only a smoking reference but a gender one. In my favourite example, Humphrey Bogart was considered too short to play alongside Lauren Bacal so they filmed him standing on a box. That wasn’t the point of Casablanca however it certainly wasn’t an accident either. The boxes height was carefully considered. This tells us something quite specific about the ideal male-female couple in this time.

Unfortunately audiences in Humphrey Bogart’s time didn’t know about the box. That’s the trouble with the movies of any time – the tricks are hidden in order to fulfill the fantasies of the paying audience. Usually it’s the casting couch rather than a box that ensures the stars look “right.” However old movies make strangely outdated choices about what looks normal so we notice them more readily. That’s why they can be much more fun to watch. The deliberate accidents of previous era’s films are far more visible to us than those of our own time.

I just re-watched Pillow Talk with my partner. This 1959 comedy features Doris Day and Rock Hudson (love the stage names) alongside Tony Randall and Thelma Ritter. It’s theme is the battle of the sexes which is itself a cultural phenomenon with a lot less conceptual currency today. In the classic battle of the sexes a woman must snare a man as a husband while he must avoid marriage and snare the woman in turn, in bed. In Pillow Talk appropriately there is no genuine friendship between man and woman. Although Tony Randall and Doris Day’s characters come close he still wants to “get” her (albeit differently to Hudson).

The man loses the battle but wins the war when he realizes that he wants to be gotten as a husband– he falls in love and wants sexual exclusivity with one woman as his wife. The woman also wins when she realizes that she wants to be bedded but that is less openly admitted in Pillow Talk. That’s the happy ending, pending matrimony between the main characters Jan Marrow (Doris Day) and Brad Allen (Rock Hudson) and it sounds quite sweet. In fact it may have been received in that way at the time.

What’s fascinating and disturbing is how open allusions to rape feature in this supposedly sweet film. This is the film the director perhaps didn’t intend and the audience in it’s time may not have noticed. For one thing Jan Marrow is physically assaulted by a character who the film portrays as just a foolish boy. She fights him off in his car but she is only able to stop him by threatening to tell his mother. Afterwards his continual refusal to take her home until he can get her drunk enough to molest her is never something she can bring a close to. She just has to wait until he passes out. Then she is “rescued” by Brad Allen whose intent is exactly the same but whose cleverness is far greater. His trick is to pretend to be a gentleman. 

Any doubt that Brad is just another rapist is dispelled when Jan flips a switch in his love nest. We already know that this simultaneously puts on a seductive record, dims the lights and locks the door. Yes that’s right, it locks the door so that it can’t even be opened from the inside (this is even tested in the film). Any woman trying to leave is forcibly prevented at the flick of a switch. What exactly is Brad up to that she might want to escape? Perhaps the record is to cover the screams for help?

The reality is that those screams probably wouldn’t be answered anyway. The reason why Jan never calls the police on the boy trying to rape her is revealed when Brad carries Jan against her will in her pyjamas past a police man. Jan asks the officer to arrest Brad but the officer merely acknowledges Brad by name and makes a joke.

So just to reiterate this. The film climaxes when our heroine ignores our hero’s rapist past, kissing his big rapist lips in his rapist arms. Because all that raping is to the director and the audience and thus to the hero and heroine just what? Dating? Normal masculinity? Something to put up with? As an accidental film about rape in the fifties and sixties, Pillow Talk is quite exceptional.

There are many other observations about gender that could be made out of this film. One female alcoholic (Jan’s maid) is told “that she needs to find a man to look after” so she doesn’t have time to get so drunk. Helped to her feet by her advisor she replies “How strong you are!” hinting at another rescuing relationship.

The maid, Alva, played by Thelma Ritter is the one who defines Jan Marrows situation as a live-alone career woman as broken. (“If there's anything worse than a woman living alone, it's a woman saying she likes it.”) Alva establishes that Jan Marrow is essentially being rescued from what she doesn’t even know she’s missing. Cheekily I don’t think the film means feminity and homemaking here at all. I think it means sex. Jan needs to be rescued from her “bedroom problems” as Brad puts it. Brad replies faux sympathetically with “too bad” when Jan defends herself with “Nothing is bothering me in my bedroom.”

There is a critical moment when Jan scoffs at the idea that a woman could properly inspect Brad for sexual deviancy.  She refers to the idea as “like sending a marshmallow to put out a bonfire.” In this way Jan actually distinguishes herself from the category woman. She’s not a woman because she can resist Brad’s charms. She’s not wanting to be raped by an attractive and sophisticated man so she must be something else.

Brad however is feminised by his character shift to the extent that at the end of the film he is comically dragged off after being mistaken as a pregnant man. This is touted as an advancement of modern science. It’s a fitting conclusion to a film that might have seemed edgy in its time but now reads as deeply stereotypical and traditional.

There are other comments about race, class and sexuality in the film. I’ll leave them to your own discovery though. I think it adds to the film that we know now that Rock Hudson was gay. I urge you to look out for the scene with Perri Lee Blackwell on piano singing “You Lied.”

Honestly although it’s a massive treatise in favour of rape I want to encourage people to watch Pillow Talk. It shows us something about relatively recent assumptions about women’s right to safety and women’s desire. It certainly helps to de-romanticise the 1950’s ideal and produces in me a gratitude for the changes since. All that and it is tightly written, well paced and expertly acted throughout with the gorgeous colour of the era. Hopefully it doesn’t trivialize the gender politics to say so but the costuming alone is enough to commend this film. Amazing work.

Lastly let’s not fool ourselves that we live in the culmination of history. Today’s films will be old films one day too. The more we can try and see the deliberate accidents of our own times’ films the more we can notice our own immediate cultures as they are produced. The hope after all is to get ahead of the game a bit – maybe even to make culture rather than be made by it.

Complementa-whatsit-ism. Just patriarchy or not?

A recent brouhaha lit up a conservative yet still mainstream American Christian web site, The Gospel Coalition. A post titled “The Polluted Waters of 50 shades of Grey” made a connection between the increasing popularity of bondage games in the bedroom and the sublimation of a hardwired inequality between men and women. Basically the post by Jared Wilson claimed that if we deny the natural hierarchy of man over woman in sexual relationships and fail to contain that in an appropriate biblical way (often called complementarianism) then we will turn to other ways of meeting our real needs – i.e. role playing a master and slave dynamic. Before you all rush into your Princess Leah on Tattooine costumes, this is supposed to be a bad thing too.

I can’t link you to the original article because although “The Polluted Waters of 50 shades of Grey” is at the top of their recently popular list (at time of writing) a click on the link says “Not Found”. This post gives some explanation from the author.

It’s a shame the original article was taken down because I would love to refer to some of the one hundred and twenty five comments which can no longer be read. Fortunately the internet has many faces. This site has a pretty good general critique of the original article and its author’s attempt to defend it. This site I think really nails what the original post didn’t say and which the author still hasn’t addressed. What exactly is complementarian sex anyway? 

Firstly complementarianism is a bit of buzz word in conservative Christian circles. Essentially it means the value of different roles in relationships. Sounds nice right? One person complements the other - what could be better?

Except complementarianism is not just one person complementing the other. It’s in fact a word for something less palatable. It’s a bit like when someone looks at a room of white male faces and says “We could do with some diversity in here.”

No, actually its not diversity you want in a room full of white men. Diversity could mean anything. It could mean another white male with a moustache. It’s actually non-white and female representation that’s lacking. When a black women enters the room she doesn’t think to herself “I’m diversity”, she thinks “Wow, I’m the only non-white woman.” (She doesn’t expect to meet up with moustache man later at the diversity table.)

So why, when the organizing committee reviews the event do they talk in terms of “diversity” of attendants? Because it’s softer, it obscures the real gender and race issues and it actually slows down any change by preventing targeted action. It certainly is less offensive to all the white men on the organizing committee too.

Complementarianism as a word achieves a similar thing. It blunts any critique of what is being discussed, it softens it, and it does this by hiding crucial details about what is and isn’t complementarianism. I can’t think of any relationship where there aren’t different roles actually. A lot of relationships have one person who’s a bit more the social ambassador than the other for example. However these situations are not what is meant by complementarianism. The real definition in conservative Christian circles is more specific.

What complimentarianism really means is a prescribed role for men (shared by all men) and a prescribed role for women (shared by all women) and that these roles complement each other. The primary way in which these roles compliment each other is hierarchically. To be absolutely specific men lead and women submit. Remember those old fashioned marriage vows where he loves and cherishes and she honours and obeys? That’s complimentarianism.

Secondly complimentarianists believe that theirs is the right way to have relationships for everyone. Sons in complimentarian families are deliberately raised to lead their future wives, daughters are deliberately raised to submit to their husbands. Complementarian parents are not just parents where Dad is more assertive than Mum but who don’t value that difference particularly and raise kids who may have acceptably different styles of relationships. This is crucial – complimentarianism is not a statement of personal preference but a prescriptive opinion for all sexuality.

Remember it is not merely that people are raised to develop complementary roles with their future partners i.e. In complementarianism, daughters who are inclined to lead shouldn’t look forward to a partner who is inclined to support their leadership but should curb their inclinations and learn to submit. Likewise “submissive” is not a quality that can be as positive in boys as it is in girls in complimentarianism. Yes, at this point complementarianism is really looking just like another word might say it better – Holy Patriarchy Batman, the women are obliged to submit to the men.

There are however two distinctions between complementarianism and patriarchy.  The first is in what relationships women are required to submit to men. I’ve never read or heard a self-identifying complimentarian suggest that sisters should submit to their brothers or that a female boss in the workplace shouldn’t be respected by male employees or that a woman shouldn’t be prime minister. Supporters of what gets called Biblical Patriarchy (as can be seen here) have no such definite limits. It’s impossible to make absolute statements about changing social movements but as far as I can tell complimentarianism consistently only applies patriarchy to sexual relationships (which are only allowed in heterosexual marriages) and church matters (i.e. ministers and celebrants).

Secondly and very importantly complimentarianism prescribes emotional roles for men in a way that patriarchy doesn’t require. Men must be loving and kind leaders. In fact most complementarian descriptions of male leadership emphasize personal sacrifice, self-lessness and attentiveness to their wives. If a man is a self-serving leader then their marriage is not complementarian but just patriarchal. I’ve had conversations with complementarian men who offer as examples of male leadership doing the lion’s share of the housework or attending to their wives’ sexual needs before their own. All of this is consistent with a biblical picture of Christ-like leadership (well maybe not the sex bit). He washes his disciple’s feet for example. In fact the only person who ever beat Jesus in an argument was a woman (Mark 7:24-30) which gives us a biblical model for complementarian men (who are only trying to be Christ) to heed their wives’ opinions.

This raises a difficult question however. If Tasha is married to Bob, a selfish bloke, is she expected to still submit to him so that at least she is being complementarian even if he is not? Or is it impossible for her to be complementarian if he isn’t living up to his part? If so is she freed from any responsibility to submit to him except when he is self-sacrificing? I think people who use complementarianism as a self-description would go with the latter conclusion in cases of abuse but be less sure in cases of less serious failures on Bob’s part; Tasha just can’t be a complementarian (and submissive for her) with Bob if he is hitting her but she can be if he is just a poor listener.

The opposite of complementarianism is supposed to be egalitarianism. Egalitarianism means that the opinion of women and men in relationships should be treated equally with no person having “the last word” or ultimate decision making power. Nobody leads and nobody follows in egalitarianism. In effect this means that people compromise, strive for consensus or take turns getting their way. However to the extent that complementarianism says that women only need to submit to men who are practicing a high standard of self-sacrifice then it’s hard to see how in practice this opposes mutual submission and egalitarianism. It seems like they both get to the same place with complementarianism just softening the rhetorical blow for men who want to feel like they are in charge.

This is why I get a little suspicious when complementarians make a huge deal out of how awesomely benevolent the proposed rule of the husband is in marriage while also claiming its hugely important to distinguish themselves from egalitarians. In the Gospel Coalition post that I referred to in my first paragraph there is only criticism leveled at egalitarianism. This seems ridiculous if their model of male leadership essentially produces egalitarianism anyway. Perhaps it really doesn’t? Or have they misunderstood egalitarianism?

We also shouldn’t commit the same error in reverse. Supporters of egalitarianism shouldn’t devote their energy to critiquing complementarianism if it’s the same outcome wrapped in a different rhetoric. I know I don’t want to. It just doesn’t seem important. There is still scope for objecting to complementarianism on the basis of its gendered universalism; it treats male and female as meaningful categories in a way I’d dispute. But then even that problem dissipates if the ultimate content of those categories aren’t meaningfully different. If real men sacrifice and real women serve who really is different in a big enough way to care.

One way to clear up the confusion in my mind is to talk about performed inequality versus fundamental inequality. If you want to say you’re the man of the house, whether you are physically the man or the woman (or with a man or a woman) I really don’t care. If you would rather present all decisions as mutual and shared I don’t care either. Underneath these performances of roles is a fundamental reality of two humans traveling alongside each other or of one human ruling the other. If one partner is being consistently ripped off or if both are happy and getting fulfilled is the crucial question regardless of what rhetoric is achieving that end.

This is where criticism of “The Polluted Waters of 50 shades of Grey” gets it wrong in my opinion. Jared Wilson would have us believe that we have created a need for sadomasochistic role plays and fantasies by failing to honour a commitment to real and substantial hierarchical power relationships between men and women. This includes what the post describes as a fundamental reality of the bedroom: “A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts.” It seems like most critiques object to this description of the world. Meh, I’m not that bothered. Maybe Jared Wilson is right up to this point though it feels like a gross generalization. Maybe his sex-life is really that one-sided. It’s still just descriptive not prescriptive however.

What really makes Jared Wilson’s opinion disturbing is when he treats honouring a commitment to these unequal roles in a deep way as preferable to just playing them out or fantasizing about them superficially. Jared seems to want our revulsion at performed inequality (like where one partner ties up another with silk scarves and gets called master) to push us towards adopting fundamental inequality. In fundamental inequality there will probably be no silk scarves allowed but real spiritual bondage of women instead.

Personally I don’t get repulsed by the silk scarves scenario so Jared’s trick doesn’t work on me. Really who cares how your relationship and especially your bedroom antics look to other people? Why care what other people’s relationships merely look like? I say perform the roles that help you and your partner reach your greatest potential, the most intimacy and the loudest orgasms. Feel free to put that Princess Leiah costume on, even if you’re a bloke. So long as in the real world you’ve talked about it with your partner on the basis that your opinions matter equally.

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Disclaimer: I haven't actually read 50 Shades of Grey. This was a fun review to read about it though. 

I would think Secretary  the 2002 film would be a much more enjoyable way to learn about performed inequality in BDSM.

Aint Feminism a Philosophy?

I think this is going to have to be the first of many posts exploring Feminist philosophy and theology. It’s a topic that has fascinated me for most of my life really, as a boy encouraged to take on strongly gendered roles (thanks Catholic Boys school) but never finding much joy in them.

The genesis of my return to this topic was talking to a friend of mine. They stated that they are attracted to right-wing and conservative writers because such writers seem to be more capable of connecting broader social questions to matters of personal morality. I appreciated where they were coming from because as this blog shows I am fascinated by how we can ground our moral statements and make our moral choices. I then tend to see our broader social and political challenges as built from our moralities. At the time in response to my friend I thought of G.K. Chesterton who I wouldn’t call right wing although he is fairly traditional in his Catholicism. With that as my only example I was hardly broadening his view.

To my embarrassment I had forgotten to mention environmentalism with its strong ethos of “think global but act local”. That’s a whole world of philosophy that connects the faults and strengths of human society to our core moral attitudes. However what really struck me was how I didn’t remember where the very phrase “the personal is political” originated from; Feminism. You couldn’t get a better example of something that ties together personal relationships and social problems.

Feminism routinely gets ignored in philosophy. Partly that’s because a lot of philosophers are men (such as me and my friend). Further the stereotype of the philosopher as arrogant and pompous (me and my friend again perhaps) has some reality. Any philosophy usually aimed squarely at male arrogance will therefore face a tough room.

Bertrand Russell - analytical philospher.

In addition philosophy of a particular kind - analytical philosophy is its title- dismisses feminism for the same reason as it dismisses marxism or much of the anti-racist, post colonial writers. They are viewed as nihilisitic in how they empty truth, knowledge and beauty of permanent qualities. Feminism, anti-racism and post-colonialism often view these sacred philosophical ideals as tools in the service of power (ie. The Beauty Myth) The classical and analytical philosopher has instead prepared pedestals for truth, knowledge, and beauty. When Feminism disputes the aloofness of these concepts from everyday politicking it can be seen as an attack on philosophy itself.

Lastly anti-racist, post-colonial and feminist philosophies aren’t clamouring to apply for analytical philosophies approval anyway. They want to represent peoples, to serve their subjects agendas of liberation. Philosophy proper (as analytical philosophy can see itself) wants to make universal and eternal statements about reality rather than stay close to immediate realities. This would be like saying that rather than talking about how male dominance shapes knowledge we should just talk about how any stratification of authority shapes knowledge including a hypothetical one where women dominate. Many feminists see this as a watering down of the libratory truth-telling in their philosophy; it’s not after all how things are.

Western philosophy however is not all analytical. One other grouping is called Continental because it has more currency outside of England (on the continent of Europe). In fact analytical philosophy is a bit of a bizarre phenomenon in its privelaged almost in isolation, history in England. Perhaps its latest most famous champion was Bertrand Russell. If you think of philosophy as a type of science generating logical proofs (ie. of Gods existence or non-existence) then you’re thinking only of analytical philosophy.

Continental philosophy on the other hand is usually critical of scientism. Continental philosophy often embraces a storytelling and myth making component as a way of portraying our thinking including that of science. Continental philosophy is also existential – that is it is more concerned with describing the conditions of existence rather than the conditions of reality. The difference there is that Continental philosophers will talk about how we experience the truth subjectively (ie. as competing claims) rather than objective facts. This contributes to a willingness to talk about logical systems such as mathematics or gender as a language. Languages evolve, they meet needs, they keep secrets, they entertain, they are not just copies of reality.

Feminists particularly French feminism has played a large part in continental philosophy. Certainly continental philosophy doesn’t require Feminists to choose between changing the world and philosophizing about it. The point of continental philosophy is to change our lives. Nor does it treat beauty, truth and knowledge as fixed concepts. A hallmark of continental philosophy is its rejecting of ahistorical knowledge and its acceptance that we think from within our culture, time, economy and family. Hence Feminists return to contemporary social circumstances rather than eternal principles is seen as an asset rather than anti-philosophical.

One reason any philosopher, analytical or continental, can’t give for ignoring feminism is that it teaches us nothing new because we all accept that women and men are equal now. All philosophy of any worth follows the trajectory of absurdity to ubiquity; that is, it is originally preposterous because its outside the dominant way of thinking and it ends up being difficult to even mention because everyone assumes it so completely. Even if feminism had completely persuaded everyone of its philosophy then it would be no different to a lot of philosophical ideas - such as that absolute knowledge is unattainable. It is still very much a philosophical project to uncover these assumptions.

Regardless gender and particularly the presumptions of patriarchy remain a topical battleground. These are not resolved questions at all. Gendered difference has slowly been removed from the law in Australia. Women can vote, violence against women in marriage is illegal and more effectively enforced, custody of children does not automatically go to fathers upon separation of parents, however these are surprisingly recent changes and the cultural legacy of legal patriarchy remains strong. We barely notice womens sport in a culture that makes male players into national heroes. We have only just had our first female prime minister who is copping a far worse time of it for being a woman. Most men know of the subtle, unspoken pissing contest they have to get past in order to make a new male friend in which context women are prizes rather than contestants themselves.

Then there are voices calling for a return to more explicit patriarchy – who claim that we’ve gone too far in denying mens natural leadership of their women and children. For the most part these voices want to change society through evangelism, separatism for their communities, how they raise their kids and economic decision making rather than imposing change through the law but not entirely. These voices are not timid about declaring that what they believe about men’s duty to lead (and women’s obligation to shut up) is right for all.

From another direction we have other kinds of infantilizing of women. The prepubescent shaved look is the porn star norm. Magazines in every petrol station encourage a bimbo mentality to go with a rapacious sexuality. Even if you want to believe it’s a liberation you have to choke on the “joke” that if “women didn’t have vaginas they’d be mile deep at the tip” (from People Magazine I kid you not).

The language of our gender, our sexuality and our bodies is being contested around us in ways we should want to be philosophically resilient to. We don’t however have to look only to conservative and right-wing philosophy to find people engaging in that conversation. We can begin in the most obvious place of all ; Feminism.

Some personal favourite feminist reads of mine include;

The Straight Mind and other Essays by Monique Whittig

Look Me In Ihe Eye by Barbara McDonald & Cynthia Rich

Gender Outlaw by Kate Bornstein

Teaching to Transgress – Education as the Practice of Freedom by bell hooks

Currently reading The Will To Change; Men, Masculinity, and Love by bell hooks.

Marriage discrimination: Not in our name.

To the extent that opposite sex couples are stakeholders in the same sex marriage debate we just arent being well represented.

The official Christian lobby groups would have the government believe the majority of opposite sex couples see their relationships as radically different from loving same-sex relationships and under threat from marriage equality. I see my relationship as fundamentally the same as a loving same sex relationship (as do many Christians in fact).

Please add your name to the comments section below if you are a) in a heterosexual relationship b) married or contemplating marriage and c) in agreeance with the statement (obviously).
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Our marriage happens to be (or will be) heterosexual but that's not the point of our marriage.
What really defines (or will define) our marriage is love and committment not being man and woman.
You won't be defending our marriages definition by excluding same sex couples from marriage.
In fact marriage equality allows our definition of marriage to be finally fully recognized alongside others. In a multicultural society that should be our right and the right of same sex couples.

The Apostle Paul and the Sisters of Christ

Writing down my thoughts about the theology outlined in Paul Romans 1-8 I encountered a problem. Paul’s central thesis is that the Jew and gentile alike, by putting their faith in redemption through Christ rather than through completion of the law or status of their birth, can die to sin and become a Son of God. This “Christian” is by virtue of their status as a Son of God, co-heirs with Christ, even in one passage Christs younger brothers. My problem is should I repeat Pauls masculinist language of brothers and sons? Could I assume that he was simply using masculine gendered defaults to stand for all genders? Or would I in fact be obliterating something of Pauls theology if I “fixed” his gendered terms in my discussion?

The issue is important because I am not concerned with what Paul suggests as practical solutions for his time. These can be arguably left behind. Instead I am concerned with whether Paul is preaching a gendered hierachy that extends to the organisation of eternal splendour. Does Paul believe that women and men occupy the same place in paradise?

The issue is complex because Paul is establishing our human relationship to both Jesus and to God. Sometimes these two relationships are described in hierarchy to each other (1Cor 15:28) while at other times they are almost interchangeable (Rom 8:9-11). Paul also has something to say about a metaphysical and pre-cultural hierachy between men and women. At other times he addresses all humanity without distinction. It is possible to identify six different “places” in the text –Christ, God, human, Christian, male and female. Often they are conflated – Christ with God, Christ with Christian, human with Christian, male with female.

As Paul moves through describing these relationships in different ways this reader faces a problem. Faith-based scriptural criticism assumes a unitary message of scripture. Therefore if Paul says something in one place it is to be “faithfully” interpreted by his other comments on the topic – and by the rest of the bible. Even without the presumptions of faith the reader is inclined to synthesise what they read of Paul into one coherent philosophy. This is despite the fact that this particular reader, myself, would be betrayed by one of my own letters held against another. Sometimes I don’t even notice my own inconsistencies. So how much is Paul’s consistency a false reality? Analysing Paul myself I feel like I’m re-producing an orthodoxy rather than being knocked over by one singular possible reading[1].

Additionally if we strive for consistency we still have to decide which texts inform and which are informed. And this decision can radically change our end product. Consider 1 Cor 11:2-16 where man vis a vis woman is paralleled with Christs relationship to God this can be interpreted in the light of Collossians 1:13-20 which by describing Jesus and God in equitable terms means that Paul is suggesting a similar different-but-equal relationship between men and women. Alternatively we can inform the passage in light of 1 Cor 15:28 where Christ is clearly subordinated to God (at least in my translation). It’s not long before this process leads into a treasure hunt for passages which support one thesis or another. In Tim 1:17 Christ is again given a description possibly equal to God while in Tim6:14-16 God is unapproachable and alone possesses immortality; Lord of Lords while Christ is Lord. In Ephesians 1: 15-16  Jesus is elevated but clearly by God who is above him (even “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ”). And on it goes with axe to grind in hand. Who reads like this? Who wants to? And what of 1 Cor 8: 4-6 where “God, the Father”is “from whom all being comes” while the Lord, Jesus Christ is “through whom all things came to be” – could this be  the real template of male and female in Pauls eyes? And what does it mean for our question?

Then there are our attempts to infer from Paul’s bigger picture what he means in the particular. How fanciful are these? For example Paul is vigorously opposed to symbolic distinctions between Jew and Gentile amongst Christians while he proscribes distinctions for men and women in the church. This can be given great meaning given that Paul talks of Christian life as being a substantially different one to that which preceded conversion, suggesting that the life post-baptism is already or at least foreshadows the life after death. Christians are renewed internally and Christian life is a life of the spirit rather than the body which perishes. Paul is adamant that distinctions relevant to the life of flesh are irrelevant to Christians – (though he is no breatharian of course). Paul even creates a people of Abraham who are based in faith rather than natural lineage. This redefines Gods people in a way that divides the spiritual from the physical even before Christs incarnation. Gender however remains intact as a real division from the very beginning of humanity through to the present spiritual life of Christians.  So from all this we could infer that for Paul the differences between men and women unlike the differences between Jew and gentile are a) spiritual not just physical and b) will endure after death and resurrection as they do after baptism.

The above argument is compelling to me but it’s worth realising that now we have wandered some distance from the direct text. With a cause and a similar approach its possible Paul could espouse almost anything. If you combine wild inferences with interpreting passages in the light of each other and especially if like myself you have little other data to work with then at some point you know it’s you not Paul making the “Ouija board” of scripture speak. Paul is writing letters and this means he is in a conversation where he addresses particular points. Generalising from his comments to one audience regarding one point to produce a theology for all time is unlikely to be fair. This is borne out by the inconsistencies which must be silenced to create such consensus.

Just to make a call though I think Paul does include women in an equal way with men in salvation. My basis for this view is Galatians 3:26-24.  This is the singularly clearest definition of Pauls term the Son of God that I can find. Here he almost seems to be specifically writing to answer my question, “Are women Sons of God?”.
“For through faith you are all sons of God in union with Christ Jesus. Baptized into union with him, you have all put on Christ as a garment. There is no such thing as Jew and Greek, slave and freeman, male and female; for you are all one person in Christ Jesus. But if you thus belong to Christ, you are the “issue” of Abraham, and so heirs by promise. “

However to accept this as Pauls only belief in the matter I have to disregard the following;
·         Paul sees a gendered hierarchy as springing from the created order before the fall.  Gender is thus  ascribed to a spiritual order rather than a natural one. Further a gender hierarchy of man above women is described as being exactly about men and women’s relationship to God with men as the image of God and women as the image of men. (1 Cor 11:2-16)
·         Paul also sees gender as analogous to the relationship between Christ and the Church (Ephesians 5) as well as God and Christ (1Cor11 12-16) – and both are enduring post-death distinctions.
·         Paul thinks angels recognise gender and find the bare tops of women’s heads offensive. (1 Cor 10:10)

One thing to say in Pauls defence (sort of) is that he seems to have a very limited ability to see the multiple experiences of his statements. Pauls thinking seems much more analytic than empathic. My heart aches for those women who hear that they mustn’t address their congregation (1 Cor 14:34-35). Think of the life of a small faith community. By such decrees hearts are broken – and what a loud silence Paul’s sympathy makes.

Consider also 1 Timothy 5 where Paul effectively winds back welfare for widows (and then immediately after argues for a double stipend for preachers). Paul may well have the correct interpretation of scripture on his side (he certainly cites a fair bit of it) but where is his understanding of the effects of making women dependant on their brother-in-laws instead of entitled to community support. Paul makes no mention of the lost autonomy the women will experience.

Here is a man who held the clothes of people involved in stoning a Christian – and he seems to only recant the anti-christian part of it not stoning ones dissidents generally. Reflect seriously on the thud of stone on flesh and you might wonder if Paul has something missing in his makeup by today’s standards at least. Subsequently even if we would intuit from Paul’s statements that women are lesser in the eyes of God, Paul might be blithely unaware of such a conclusion. He can seem like he has the common sense of a boffin – quoting scripture to make one point without awareness of all its emotional impacts.

This brings me to the final problem regarding Paul’s opinion of his sisters in Christ – the weight of scripture. This problem is one which we are inside as Paul both comments on and is scripture. For me it is a given even if scripture was to say otherwise, that men and women are spiritual equals. By which I mean; if there was a God they wouldn’t be much chop if they didn’t value women and men equally. My authority for this is my relationships with women – possibly Pauls missing ingredient. Yet if I was to say that scripture holds men to be greater than women some people would read that as if I had said that such a hierarchy was right and true. And for many Christians Paul is scripture. As I have more interest in promoting feminism than accurate biblical understanding the whole merit of this essay is questionable. Why write it? Why give it to you to read it?

The answer is probably pride. Possibly also loneliness. Why do we reach out to others in writing anyway? Why did Paul? His letters come to us through centuries from the road, a boat, a prison cell.  He misses his friends, he burns with purpose, and he bristles with hurt. While I’ve mentioned his insensitivity Pauls’ writings also include perhaps history’s finest clarifications of and call to love (1 Cor 13) and he teaches a tender mindfulness towards others (1 Cor 10:30-33). From these fragments can I ever really define him? Can I fairly prosecute him? Can I forgive him? This may seem a strange place to end up but I find to decide Paul excludes women from an equal salvation would be to condemn Paul and to condemn Paul is to somehow miss the whole point. Paul is in a way a conundrum of compassion for the world awoken in someone who seems terribly bad at it. Paul’s great message is that the spirit of Christ rather than the law is our justification before God. Yet this runs contrary to the busy bodying instructions he makes to communities about women’s hats, widow’s incomes and even aids for digestion (1 Tim 5:23). Just like Peter who is the cowardly Rock, Paul is a work in progress. Just like me. So please don’t hang me for this writing in 2000 years. And in turn I won’t hang Paul.

[1] This sentence is true with an important qualification. I’m talking about inconsistencies in Paul in response to the questions asked by this essay. Any fault lines drawn through Paul are created by our own purposes. It’s a very different claim to say that Paul is contradictory in and of himself.   In fact to wax philosophical, read entirely in isolation it may be impossible for Paul to contradict himself. But that’s a question beyond this essay.

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