tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3931921496989071942.post8849281597703045099..comments2023-06-08T07:32:39.725-05:00Comments on Aristotle's Feminist Subject: All Men Are Created Equal (with no regard to gender and race)J. K. Gaylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07600312868663460988noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3931921496989071942.post-34481589367025427082009-06-04T00:24:09.785-05:002009-06-04T00:24:09.785-05:00History is also full of examples of British (and o...History is also full of examples of British (and other) organizations which prevented the evangelisation of the native races of India and the Americas just so that these people would not have to be treated as "brothers" but could be properly kept in a subordinate economic position as "others."Suzanne McCarthyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07033350578895908993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3931921496989071942.post-60909914383996926712009-06-03T22:37:34.821-05:002009-06-03T22:37:34.821-05:00“To wonder at this fact is not a proper philosophi...“To wonder at this fact is not a proper philosophical attitude. That is to say, what if that which appears as an inconsistency, as the failure to draw all the consequences from one’s ethical attitude, is, on the contrary, its positive condition of possibility? What if such an exclusion of some form of otherness from the scope of our ethical concerns is consubstantial with the very founding gesture of ethical universality, so that the more universal our explicit ethics is, the more brutal the underlying exclusion is? <br /><br />What the Christian all-inclusive attitude (recall St Paul’s famous ‘there are no men or women, no Jews and Greeks’) involves is a thorough exclusion of those who do not accept inclusion into the Christian community. In other ‘particularistic’ religions (and even in Islam, in spite of its global expansionism), there is a place for others: they are tolerated, even if they are looked upon with condescension. The Christian motto ‘all men are brothers’, however, also means that those who do not accept brotherhood are not men. In the early years of the Iranian revolution, Khomeini played on the same paradox when he claimed, in an interview for the Western press, that the Iranian revolution was the most humane in all of history: not a single person was killed by the revolutionaries. When the surprised journalist asked about the death penalties publicised in the media, Khomeini calmly replied: ‘Those that we killed were not men, but criminal dogs!’ <br /><br />Christians usually praise themselves for overcoming the Jewish exclusivist notion of the Chosen People and encompassing the entirety of humanity. The catch is that, in their very insistence that they are the Chosen People with a privileged direct link to God, Jews accept the humanity of the other people who celebrate their false gods, while Christian universalism tendentiously excludes non-believers from the very universality of humankind.” (Slavoj Žižek, Violence (2008), pp. 46-47)N T Wronghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13128282430404746717noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3931921496989071942.post-49197364311742378222009-06-01T19:14:07.835-05:002009-06-01T19:14:07.835-05:00"We do need a gender accurate translation, bu..."We do need a gender accurate translation, but as long as this kind of translation is labeled feminist out of complete ignorance, no progress will be made."<br />Great point, Suzanne!<br /><br />Julia M. O'Brien, while posting on "<a href="http://juliamobrien.net/index.php/blog/The-F-word-the-P-word-and-bell-hooks-37.html" rel="nofollow">The F-word</a>, the P-word, and bell hooks," says something similar in her comment to a reader named Mark:<br /><br />"...thinking about my approach to the label 'feminist.' My approach has been to take back the word from those who demonize it, to explain what it 'really' means, to make it an OK thing to call yourself and others. Maybe the better route is to work on the concepts and quit fighting over the word. I've experienced that myself in working with some church groups. Simply asking the right questions about the text produces amazing result, as apparently your ['Women as Pawns' college writing] assignment does." <br /><br />The preacher at my church that Sunday said, "One of the great threats to America is feminism."<br /><br />Sigh. Labels, essentializing labels, the very thing good feminisms work against.<br /><br />Another case in point: one of my daughters has noticed that by amazon.com reader-reviewers, Ann Nyland's "The Source New Testament With Extensive Notes On Greek Word Meaning" gets so many more positive reviews than her "Study New Testament for Lesbians, Gays, Bi, and Transgender: With Extensive Notes on Greek Word Meaning and Context" (essentially the same book with a different title and cover). In an interview about the latter, Nyland says the following in response to the question "<a href="http://gayandlesbianbible.com/index.php?pr=Interview" rel="nofollow">Are you expecting controversy?</a>": "A scholarly article I wrote in a peer-reviewed academic journal led to me be being described as 'a shrill <b>feminist</b> author from Australia', rather than a Greek scholar commenting on the blatant mistranslation of a common Greek word by a group of lobbyists."<br /><br />Seems the label is a hand-grenade lobbed to explode the possibility of scholarship on the gender issues of NT Greek and its translation.J. K. Gaylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07600312868663460988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3931921496989071942.post-17509570692672524892009-06-01T18:02:05.268-05:002009-06-01T18:02:05.268-05:00This reminds me of the sermon I heard yesterday wh...This reminds me of the sermon I heard yesterday where the minister, a young man of excellent intentions, read 1 Tim. 5:8 in the NIV and added apologetically that it was a cultural aspect of the NT times that a man was expected to be the provider. However, he said, one could also now apply this verse to women. <br /><br />While he came with the expected credentials he demonstrated no awareness that there is no Greek underlying the pronouns "he" and "his" in English. He implied instead that the Greek does contain a word for "he" but that he disagrees with this in theory. <br /><br />Is there any use at all in mentioning that there is no masculine marker of any kind in the passage? In fact, Erasmus, who can hardly be classified as a feminist, translated 1 Tim. 5:8 with "woman." Here is what Calvin wrote, <br /><br /><I>8 "And if any person do not provide for his own" Erasmus has translated it, “If any woman do not provide for her own,” making it apply exclusively to females. But I prefer to view it as a general statement; for it is customary with Paul, even when he is treating of some particular subject, to deduce arguments from general principles, and, on the other hand, to draw from particular statements a universal doctrine. And certainly it will have greater weight, if it apply both to men and to women.</I>But now there are some who know Greek well enough, but only as a gloss for their preconceived doctrinally convenient preferred English translation, who believe that this verse <A HREF="http://www.boundlessline.org/2008/10/mark-driscoll-o.html" REL="nofollow">teaches that the male is the provider</A> on the basis of a pronoun which does not exist in Greek. <br /><br />I hardly think one needs a feminist translation. We do need a gender accurate translation, but as long as this kind of translation is labeled feminist out of complete ignorance, no progress will be made. <br /><br />Its too bad that more of those who read the original languages can't put in a word for gender accuracy. I don't like to see Cleopatra and Elektra labeled as "brothers" in English just because they were called <I>adelphoi</I> in Greek. Women are frequently transgendered by Bible translators.Suzanne McCarthyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07033350578895908993noreply@blogger.com