“The ideal has many names, and beauty is but one of them.” Ninon de Lenclos And she wasn't referring to the physical. In all seriousness Sam you are truly a bore. Humorless, witless and dour.
Whatever makes you happy. I for one could not respect a man like that, no matter how intelligent. His predatory nature would make my skin crawl and I would probably puke all over him. Sharing my young female students with him as pawns in some sexual mind games is far far away from my idea of a good time.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I'm self contained. I don't need anyone else to shore up my identity. Quite possibly. However I entertain myself so its irrelevant/
No Sam my happiness is detached from all this which is more than I can say of you with your 60, 264 posts and considering I have been here much longer than you it says much of your real life disposition. Yes you are self-contained, all bunched up in pixels on a screen. And an avatar of somewhat childlike figure siting alone on a couch with a book. Very telling indeed. Man what man? Henry Miller was a man yes the rest were all the best of women. Yes of course you entertain yourself. They're called vibrators.
No. One, the US is a country, not a state, and two, the US is considered a substantial 'melting pot' of culture in our world, though many argue that 'melting pot' is just a nice way of saying 'assimilation' to a culture that is considered the norm. I'm not a WASP and I live in the US, so I would have to say that your assumption that everyone in the US is a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant is incorrect, especially since the Native Americans were here before everybody else and Latin and/or Hispanic peoples make up a genrous portion of society as well as Blacks and/or African Americans. There is this assumption by many that to be American you have to be White and Christian, but that is completely incorrect and biased. I'm technically considered 'White', but I am Irish and Norwegian actually and I'm Pagan, but in the US I just get lumped in with all the rest of the European immigrants who have the same color skin as I do. Still, when I think of what it means to be an American I certainly don't equate it with being 'White' and Christian. Also, like many, my family immigrated to America and I am only 3rd generation. While America is dominated by 'White' people at 79.8% as of 2008, 65% of those people claim themselves as White non-hispanics, which is a completely different 'racial box', so to speak. It certainly isn't a WASP 'state'. It's a diverse country, while dominated by certain societal and racial 'norms', but then again, what country isn't???
Yes indeed. I like the medium, what can I say?:shrug: Maybe. But you have strange ideas of what an ideal woman is. Of all the people in the world, I would least consider de Beauvoir as a model for any woman. Even Ayn Rand is better than her. At least she wasn't pretending one thing while feeling something different. At least she drove her husband to alcoholism by flaunting her affiars with younger men under his nose, rather than weep secretly and write memoirs about her pathetic life. If you have to wear a mask in public, you're living a lie.
If you are going to take that very narrow view of the matter (he didn't invent the term, actually) then the good comes with the bad. They did not establish or defend plantation slavery, nor did they make and enforce the Jim Crow laws. They educated women, educated the poor, and undertook careers of useful work or military service regardless of wealth. The current US support for Israel is not in the WASP tradition, neither is the stationing of military force in distant lands to coerce the locals,neither is the selling of weaponry and dealing of power to satraps and petty tyrants all over the place. The unusual nature of the American elite caste was noted by several writers and such from Europe - maybe an accessible reaction might be Kipling's "Captain's Courageous". And that narrow caste had less overriding influence on the country than is ascribed - if you leave the poor of that tribe out of the classification, you omit the pioneers, the founders of major cities and industries, the political establishers of most of the country, and much power or influence.
So the wasps are not part of the military industrial complex or the colonial legacy r the Jim Crow laws that kept blacks out of schools and universities? What was their contribution to the American society? And how did they get organised as WASPs?
Most people wear a mask at some point in their lives and women especially have always had to wear 'masks' because their true natures were not accepted at the time and/or even now. What person, not to mention what woman, has not had to wear a mask in order to protect himself or herself from the persecution of weak and close-minded people? Who hasn't lived a lie? I hope this isn't something your strictly attributing to the USA, because that would be biased and completely untrue.
Not at all, Simone de Beauvoir is not American. But if I had to choose a woman to look up to, I would not choose an enabler of a sexual predator, no matter how romantic their love story. I shudder to think of all those young women disposed of like toilet paper and their "charms" dissected over tea.
This I know, but you seem to be identifying her strictly through one aspect of her life; the 'enabler' of Jean-Paul Sartre, which really shouldn't be the basis for her work as a woman who was very influential in existential feminism. While Beauvoir and Sartre's relationship might have been unusual to most, that really isn't what is important. Despite whatever faults she had when it came to Sartre, she was still a brilliant woman who paved the way for other women scholars of her time. Many brilliant men who, to this day, have been revered for their scholarly and philosophical works were predators of women and men alike, but when a woman who is powerful and intelligent becomes involved with such a man, suddenly she is to blame and becomes the scape-goat for the man's actions and her work as a scholar, an intellectual, and a woman is ignored.
Sure, I can respect her work as a philosopher. But I would not consider her an ideal woman anymore than I would consider Sartre an ideal man [and his contribution to existentialism surpasses hers]. I'm not absolving him of blame, but I don't see how he can be held responsible for her procuring her young students for him. Her ability to set aside any moral qualms for her lover would be nothing new in the history of the world, but her philosophy of feminism definitely makes it hard [for me, at any rate] to reconcile her lifestyle with her stated views:
When I think WASP, I can't help but to think of the bougie boarding/prep school-types I loathe and deteste with a passion. And those types, fortunately, are quite unwelcome in many parts of America. So, no, America is not a WASP state.
No, but when the underprivileged classes are a vast majorty and are not so underprivileged as to be wholly powerless, I don't think the privileged classes are necessarily afforded that position either.
It is interesting in that aspect, how it seems that many women (and men) can be intellectual contributions to the advancement of society, while, at the same time, living a life-style that completely negates the views they are spouting within the scholarly arena. I would say that, while expressing an intelligence that surpasses many, it just shows that people like Beauvoir and Sartre were only too human; the fault of us all. In a sense I agree with you; how does one appreciate the work of an influential scholar or philosopher when they seem to live against the principles they advocate? :shrug: Not to make excuses for Beauvoir or Sartre, but in a partnership like theirs it seems that one is always the submissive while the other is the dominant and not necessarily in a sexual way. When what we identify as 'love' or a 'romantic, scandolous affair' becomes an obsession to which one must always obey, follow, or adhere too, it seems within a partnership such as Beauvoir and Sartre that what starts as an understanding between two people can sometimes become masochistic. Then again, who knows the truth of what really conspired between the two? Certainly, despite any scandolous rumors of deviancy, their work was important and influential.
Can one really divorce the work from the life? Scholars have spent decades trying to remove Heidegger's Nazism from his thought, but in the end, anyone with their head on straight can see Heidegger's philosophy for what it is: nationalistic bullshit.
I have no problem appreciating the work, it stands on its own merit. The fact that Socrates was bonking little boys in brothels does not in any way take away from the fact that the Socratic method is an excellent and lively way to brainstrom for ideas. Thats an important point and yes certainly I haven't looked to corroborate their stories with those of the young women. Agreed.
Neither was bonking little boys necessarily incompatible with the socratic method; perhaps not especially relevant, but not incompatible. Edit: I guess my point is that when something sinister lurks in the life, it will inevitably come through in the work.
