#systems of thought

[j-august]

It is a feature of many systems of thought, and not only primitive ones, that they possess a self-confirming character. Once their initial premisses are accepted, no subsequent discovery will shake the believer's faith, for he can explain it away in terms of the existing system.

Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic

[maeglin-amandil]

You know, this world is amazing. There is so much brilliance, diversity and happiness in it. This plurality lies at the heart of the human spirit and it’s something of astounding, staggering beauty. Yet I fear that too many people are unable to recognise how extraordinary this world truly is because they feel the need to impose dogmatic, rigid structures onto things. They want, more than anything to be right, to say they have the answer, when truly all we have are questions. Stagnant thoughts are our undoing. 

[adifferentmyth]

Capote's Fragments

Here I'll outline some of the places I'll be looking when I'm considering the form of Capote's place-portraits - and their use of the form of the written fragment.

Every one of these portraits contains some kind of implicit or explicit engagement with written fragments. From the dating of entries, as though lifted from a diary - for example, in "New Orleans," Capote opens a section in which he reminisces about a particular friend of his with "July 3: An "at home" card last week from Miss Y., so I made a call this afternoon..." (Capote, 5). He goes on from this rather factual account to a general, musing reflection on her and her place in the city. The dating here seperates this section from the preceding section: general literary musing on signs in the city.

In "Haiti," the entire middle section of the piece consists of numbered fragments; not necessarily leading to the next with reason, their assemblage more closely resembling a Deleuze & Guattarian rhizomatic thought and writing pattern. Yet, the sections are "organized" by the numbers - but this "organizing" might be more similarly comparable to the whimisical-sounding entry from a Chinese encyclopedia evoked by Michel Foucault in the Preface to his book The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences: "In the wonderment of this taxonomy, the thing we apprehend in one great leap, the thing that, by means of the fable, is demonstrated as the exotic charm of another system of thought, is the limitation of our own, the stark impossibility of thinking that." (Foucault, XV). Here, the system of thought imbued with exotic charm is that of another culture's way of scholarship, distinct from Foucault's Western methods; the numbered entries in Capote's "Haiti," encompass a type of writing distinct from those we scholars of literature are not immediately accustomed to; with place painted through fragments rather than through a more cohesive narrative.

"Ischia" presents the most explicit moments of Capote's engagement with the form of the fragment:

When one rereads a journal, it is usually the less ambitious jottings, the haphazard, accidental notations that, seen again, plow a furrow through your memory. For example: 'Today Gioconda left in the room an assortment of colored paper. Are they presents? Because I gave her the bottle of cologne? They will make delightful bookmarks." This reverberates..." (Capote, 46).

The piece proceeds with his recording of these "less ambitious jottings," and his later reflections on them.

Capote, Truman. Portraits and Observations: The Essays of Truman Capote. New York: Random House, 2007.

Foucault, Michel. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. New York: Vintage, 1994.

[theradicalidea]

Types of Feminism: Reblogged

justbitchitout:

“As Chafetz (1988) points out, one of the most fundamental areas of difference among feminists lies with the questions of what cause gender inequality and what mechanisms operate to maintain unequal sex/gender systems.  Jaggar and Rothenberg (1984) have identified at least four feminist approaches to these questions, although Chafetz (1988) argues that there are even more. “Liberal Feminism:equates gender equality with equality of opportunity.  Liberal feminists maintain that gender oppression is caused by unequal access to civil rights and the resources and rewards of social institutions, such as education and work.  Interestingly, however, they offer no analysis of why such opportunities became blocked in the first place (Jaggar and Rothenberg 1984).  Their concern is providing all individuals with a chance to succeed regardless of their sex (or other social characteristics).  If each person is given the same chance to try to accomplish his or her objectives, then failure will be caused by personal inadequacy, not socially imposed ones. “Marxist Feminists: For example, see gender inequality as rooted in social class inequality.   it is the capitalist system of production that generates social class inequality as well as women’s economic dependence on men.  From this perspective, gender inequality can only be eliminated by replacing capitalism with socialism; then, social classes will be abolished and women along with men will be fully integrated in to the economy.  Once women are equal economic contributors, equality in other areas will follow, although some resocialization may be necessary to change entrenched sexist attitudes (Jaggar and Rothenberg 1984). Marxist feminism, however, has been criticized for downplaying the importance of sex and gender as well as race in the analysis of capitalism. “Socialist Feminists: Take the issue with the notion of the primacy of social class inequality and point out that some forms of gender oppression cut across class boundaries. Socialist feminists maintain that capitalism and patriarchy are interdependent systems; consequently, both must be overthrown if gender inequality is to be eliminated (Hartmann 1984). ‘The essence of socialist feminism is seen in two major points. First, the mode and relations of production and reproduction are interconnected, indeed, inseparable. And second, gender, class, and race intersect in ways that result in important differences in life experiences in both the productive and reproductive realms of persons’ (Danner 1984:4). “Radical Feminism: Sees women’s oppression as primary relative to all other oppressions and maintains that gender inequality is rooted in the nature of traditional heterosexual interpersonal relationships as well as in the structure of social institutions. Sexism, then, must be addressed not only in the public sphere, but also in the private sphere; both are seen as arenas of political struggle (Jaggar and Rothenberg 1984)…Radical feminism, though, has been criticized for ignoring the significant differences in power and privilege among various groups of women, such as those between white women and women of color (Danner 1989; King 1988).”

(Renzetti, Claire M., and Daniel J. Curran. Women, Men, and Society. 2nd ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1999. Print)

And these actually aren't even all of them!