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environmentalethicsinscience · 2 years

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The Biological Stepladder

Charles de Bovelle's "Pyramid of the Living" from The Book of Living (1509).

The field of environmental ethics is home to many diverse voices, speaking to a variety of theories and worldviews, all united by the common purpose of protecting the environment. In more recent years, feminists have made their way into discussions regarding environmental ethics, advancing the idea that the domination of women and nature are fundamentally connected. Supporters of ecological feminist theory argue that the subjugation of women and the environment stems from myriad sources, ranging from philosophical to political and scientific. Ecofeminist philosopher Karen J. Warren in her piece “The Power and the Promise of Ecological Feminism” and historian Carolyn Merchant in “Feminism and the Philosophy of Nature” likewise point to science as a prime mover in the ecofeminist problem. Ecofeminism reveals a history of the perversion of biology and scientific fact to justify the domination of women and nature.

Science fuels sexism insofar as scientific research focuses on examining differences between the two sexes, perpetuating the creation of clear dualisms that support sex hierarchies. Physiological or anatomical differences are used to create value dualisms or “disjunctive pairs in which the disjuncts are seen as oppositional (rather than as complementary) and exclusive (rather than as inclusive), and which place higher value (status, prestige) on one disjunct rather than the other” (Warren 282). Such a practice is evident in recent neuroscience studies, wherein scientists “routinely presume a simplistic gender binary in research design and interpretation; ignore large within-sex variation in favour of emphasizing small differences between the sexes; and privilege determinist biogenetic explanations for brain differences over the equally plausible explanation that plastic brains are shaped by systematically different sociocultural experience” (O’Connor). By portraying the different neurological activities of the sexes as polar opposites, rather than as a more nuanced spectrum or involving multiple variables, scientists set the stage for patriarchal oppression. Where there are two conflicting, exclusive groups, value can be attributed to one group without necessitating respect or appreciation for the other. In this way, the justification for the subjugation of women is set based on the claim that the dominant group (i.e. men) possesses an ability or characteristic (i.e. higher brain power) that the subordinate group (i.e. women) does not (Warren 282). Beings with greater brain power are more intelligent, intelligence is a desirable trait, and therefore men are admired while women are ignored and mistreated. A prime example of the scientific community’s denial of female intelligence lies in the story of cytogeneticist and Nobel Prize winner Barbara McClintock. Barbara McClintock is credited amongst scientists as the geneticist who discovered transposable or “jumping” genes and elements, but only 30-some-odd years after her work did she receive the attention and praise she deserved (Walker). At first, it was difficult for her to conduct her research as many research positions come from academia, and women of McClintock’s time were typically not allowed to become professors (Walker). McClintock was amongst the mere 25% of female graduates from her college, the College of Agriculture at Cornell University (Parr). When she went to publish her first report after doing work under Lowell F. Randolph, a fellow agricultural scientist and former Cornell student, Randolph’s name was at the top of the paper (Parr). McClintock’s efforts and findings were essentially stolen by her male coworker, and there are unfortunately hundreds of more stories like hers from women in science. Moreover, instead of celebrating women’s biology and nature as sources of female power, science pits the female makeup against male physiology, uplifting one while degrading the other. While “a feministic ethic… [aims to] be structurally pluralistic” and inclusive of all women’s voices and experiences, scientific experiment is historically “unitary or reductionistic” (Warren 286). Science groups all women into one big cluster on the basis of their possession of two X sex chromosomes, despite their different backgrounds, stories, and strengths, allowing the entire sex to be boxed into one position on the sociopolitical pyramid.

The subjugation of nature to the desires and needs of humans is due in part to the works of reductionist, rigid science. The tendency towards oversimplification and contradistinction is visible in many scientific discussions. For years scientists have debated the intelligence of plants. Plants have been found to use the same neurotransmitters observed in human neurological pathways, and the chemical and electrical signaling pathways used by plants are scientifically analogous to the nervous systems of animals (Pollan). Yet, on the topic of plant intelligence, the scientific community contends that since plants do not have a central nervous system, or neurons for that matter, plants are not capable of communication, information processing, learning, and memory to the same degree as animals (Pollan). Scientists likewise succeed in categorizing life forms into two varieties: those that possess a central nervous system, and those that do not. Yet again, value dualisms are “used in oppressive conceptual frameworks to establish inferiority and to justify subordination” (Warren 283). Despite the research that has demonstrated the ability of plants to communicate with others via electrical mechanisms, to respond to stimuli such as light, water, gravity, temperature, soil structure, nutrients, toxins, microbes, herbivores, and chemical signals from other plants, plants are continuously belittled and labeled as inferior to animals, and likewise to humans, due to the sole fact that they do not possess a brain. Because plants lack an intelligence comparable to that of humans, they are placed below the entire species on the biological stepladder and have consequently been subjugated to domination and manipulation by humans for centuries. It is for this very reason that Merchant contends that “The new mechanical order [the Scientific Revolution] and its associated values of power and control… mandate the death of nature” (Merchant 298). Science not only justifies the exploitation of the environment, but also creates the technology that makes such destructive behavior possible. The Scientific Revolution thus represents the beginning of a newer, more advanced era in the history of the control of nature. The field of science as a whole plays a central role in the domination of nature.

In light of the information discussed above, it is clear that future scientific research must reject bias based on sex or species. The acceptance of women in the historically male-dominated field of science would require a wider degree of accessibility of education for these roles amongst women. Once women have successfully infiltrated the scientific community, they can begin to correct the wrongs of the male-designed technologies that traditionally neglect their effects on women’s reproductive organs and the ecosystem.

Word count: 1078

Citations:

Merchant, Carolyn. “Feminism and the Philosophy of Nature.” Environmental Ethics: The Big Questions, edited by David R. Keller, Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, 291-300.

O' Connor, Cliodhna. “‘Brain Study Confirms Gender Stereotypes’: How Science Communication Can Fuel Modern Sexism.” Impact of Social Sciences, 2 Mar. 2015, blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2015/02/04/science-communication-gender-stereotypes-sexism/.

Parr, Patrick, et al. “Barbara McClintock (1902-1992): Fighting The Male Establishment.” TheHumanist.com, 21 Mar. 2016, https://thehumanist.com/features/articles/barbara-mcclintock-1902-1992-fighting-male-establishment/.

Pollan, Michael. “The Intelligent Plant.” The New Yorker, 16 Dec. 2013, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/23/the-intelligent-plant?verso=true.

Warren, Karen. “The Power and the Promise of Ecological Feminism” Environmental Ethics: The Big Questions, edited by David R. Keller, Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, 281-291.

Walker, Louise. “Unsung Heroes in Science: Barbara McClintock.” Your Genome, 4 Feb. 2022, https://www.yourgenome.org/stories/unsung-heroes-in-science-barbara-mcclintock/.

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femsolid · 2 years

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Sometimes I think radfems and feminists in general put too much focus on the past in certain instances. One example is the "holy mother goddess" thing. That's fine to speculate about but some women aren't religious and will find it off-putting. It's fine to look into past to study and understand women's achievements and history, but "Mother Goddess" thing feels very religious and Radical feminism is about Material reality. Some radfems underestimate conservative propaganda.

I agree. I lost a few friends over this, believe it or not.

See I had a group of radical feminist friends. We were even discussing serious separatist projects together, we looked into buying land etc. Then some spiritual women joined in, one in particular, let's call her Claire, a philosopher, deep into the woowoo pseudoscience. Like most philosophers, she would ponder for hours about pointless things instead of actually doing anything. Everyone thought she sounded smart enough. Except for me who was rolling my eyes and making sarcastics comments in the background. So Claire started avoiding me and I started avoiding Claire. No problemo. Except that while I was avoiding her she was spreading the woowoo. Before I knew it, the conversations had become entirely focused on the "sacred womb", the "true nature of women", "women think through their uterus" and other crap like that. They were proud to be bioessentialists at this point. I was bewildered. This was so far removed from our initial community.

When I asked for evidence regarding any of their claims they replied that men control science therefore science is irrelevant. They promoted motherhood as the reason for women's existence. I asked if being childfree made me a failed woman and if lesbianism was unnatural. They said I was being mean to the new guru Claire. Any resistance to these spiritual ideas started to be met with utter contempt. They said I was thinking like a man and denying my true nature you see. I just wasn't as enlightened as they were, with my stupid useless radical feminism. Of course the main women promoting holy motherhood were mothers themselves. Claire would say ridiculous unscientific nonsense every day and get praised for it.

And eventually they all became anti-feminists, they said feminism was about denying women's true essence, our real uterus driven instincts. Talks of the holy mother goddess were becoming the norm. Radical feminist thinking was not welcomed anymore, especially not my proclivities for scientific inquiry and materialism. And what a waste of time... All they did was complain about feminists while doing nothing at all themselves. The ambiance was extremely toxic. So when women were coming to us in search of feminism they were receiving agressive pseudoscience and spiritual anti-feminism instead. And that's when I truly became alarmed.

My "true nature" is confrontational it seems. If I have a problem with someone, I'd rather talk it out, so we can solve it you know? So I ended up confronting them all. Especially the one woman who was becoming like a cult leader. I told Claire this was all misogynistic and spiritual nonsense, in more words than that. She said I had dicks in my brain and that I had unresolved issues with my mother that I needed to take care of that was the source of my animosity. Charming. I told them all that they had become a religion and that I was leaving. And so I did. And then three other women who had witnessed the confrontation contacted me afterwards to tell me they were leaving too, for the same reasons. And so they did.

The irony is that I'm actually very interested in women's history, female figures in mythology, women's cultural impact. I've loved learning about ancient religions and their goddesses creating the world (and humans from clay! The bible is just bad plagiarism btw). I'm interested in many things. And even in my aversion for "spirituality" I don't mind the women who are into that, because for the most part it's harmless and it's just women trying to have a common culture and feel powerful. I kinda like it actually, I like the art they make, the sisterhood they feel, good for them, as long as they stay grounded in reality. Men have erased us from history and culture, it's nice to be reminded that we have existed and mattered. I also understand the need to reclaim and celebrate our bodies. It's not the problem at all.

Just beware of the pipeline to actual cults my friends... I've experienced it. No magic crystals and sanctified menstrual blood will elevate you towards liberation... only activism will. You need to fight not to pray.

#ask

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cheesyradfem · 3 years

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History will leave you behind and you TERFS and transphobes will go down as just another hateful group of oppressors. Science, history, and the LGBTQ community stands with trans people. This blog is absolutely disgusting and anti-science.

...do genderists just put buzzwords in a blender and think they've made a point?

I don't even know why I'm gracing this with a longer response, since it's a rather ridiculous case of projection.

My header says I'm a radfem sideblog and most of my content is just reblogs. If you want to claim that my blog is "disgusting", take it up with the original posters.

"Another hateful group of oppressors" an oppressor is someone who holds institutional privilege over the oppressed. TERFs are by definition women, who are oppressed for their biological sex. A group cannot be privileged and oppressed on the same axis. Hence radical feminists do not oppress transpeople, especially not transwomen, who are biologically male and therefore oppress women on the basis of sex.

"Science" is an objective field of study that seeks to understand our natural world. It cannot stand with anyone (much like history), as it is not a person with feelings or opinions. However, science has consistently proven that mammals (a biological class that includes humans) are sexually dimorphic. There are only two types of mammal gametes, sperm and egg, Y and X. There are some controversies over the idea of brain sex; some creative misinterpretations of data led some to draw the conclusion that men and women have different brains (based on gray matter, brain size); but more studies proved this to be untrue, and the minute differences can be explained by social conditioning. Gender is a social construct, and therefore does not exist in the realm of natural science. So I can't really say scientific research supports your argument.

History is another field that has been subject to some horrifying misinterpretations by genderists to support their arguments. Women such as the warrior Joan of Arc, the doctor Margaret Ann Bulkey, the Mexican Revolutionary colonel Amelia Robles, the artist Hannah Gluck, lesbian author Radcliffe Hall and even lesbian activist Storme deLarverie, have been posthumously transed simply for being gender non conforming (pursuing careers women "shouldn't") in eras even more viciously misogynistic than our own; that about half of these women are lesbians and some of them butch indicates how lesbophobic this interpretation of history is. Women can't achieve great things or love other women without secretly having a "male soul", is the logical conclusion of transing these women. Male historical figures get transed much less often; Malcolm "Marsha P" Johnson is the most common despite having stated 11 days before his death that he was "a man" and "just a transvestite" aka a man that dressed in women's clothes. Ignoring the context and even the very words people in history have said in order to prop up transgenderism is revisionism. Historical analysis doesn't support your arguments either.

It only stands to reason that, with the denial of observable biological sex which has led to the horrific "cotton ceiling" (that lesbians must be open to dating people they cannot be attracted to, males), the appropriation of lesbian historical figures as trans men, the no-platforming to outright physical assault of lesbian feminists on college campuses, the protests of libraries and domestic violence shelters because of "anti trans books" or that they don't allow transwomen to work with vulnerable women, the attempted silencing of detransitioners (many of them butch lesbians)...that lesbians are simply tired. They are tired of having to support people that would throw them under the bus the moment it's convenient. They are tired of having to redefine their homosexuality as "non-men attracted to non-men" or "queer", or their womanhood as "uterus bearers" while men get to keep their language. They are tired of having their foremothers that inspire them called men based on regressive gender stereotypes. They are tired of being silenced when trying to talk about their female bodies and experiences. They feel dismayed when they see the rapidly dwindling number of lesbian-only spaces in the US, from over 200 lesbian bars in the late 1980s to just 15 in 2020, and feel hopeless when those reporting on it claim this is a good thing because it "makes them inclusive." Well, lesbianism is a sexual orientation, and sexual orientations are by definition exclusive. If you don't feel included in the label, then it's because you likely aren't a homosexual female. The homophobia and misogyny of the genderist movement has caused many lesbians to "peak" and become gender-critical feminists because of their personal experience with harassment bordering on conversion therapy in LGBTQ groups simply for being lesbian. Other women have become gender-critical as they fear that their biological sex will no longer be a protected category under the law. Even some gay men, disgusted by the homophobic entitlement of trans men on Twitter/tumblr (called the "jockstrap ceiling"), have peaked and decided to stand with women.

So, keep the TQ community. The LGB will be there to rebuild our community after the mainstream finally realizes the anti-science, anti-history, anti-logic, of the trans movement and apologizes for ever having supported it thinking they were helping gays and lesbians. It has already started. Don't be so certain the radfems, some of whom were fighting for women long before you were an idea in your disappointed mother's mind, will be the ones history leaves behind.

#rants #my discourse #terf discourse #hate mail #fragile genderists

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fierceautie · 3 years

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Simon Baron-Cohen is a cognitive neuroscientist and is a professor at Psychology and Psychiatry departments at the University of Cambridge and Fellow at Trinity College in Cambridge. He is the director of the Autism Research Center (ARC) in Cambridge, UK. Baron-Cohen was born on Autist 15, 1958. He married Bridget Lindley, who was a family right4s lawyer. They met in Oxford in 1987. She had died from breast cancer in 2016. His children names are Sam Baron, Robin Lindley-Baron and Kate Lindley-Baron. He received a BA degree in Human Sciences from New College in Oxford. He also holds a MPhil in Clinical Psychology from the Institute of Psychiatry from King's College in London. He earned his PhD in Psychology from the University College London under the supervision of Uta Frith. Baron-Cohen is the author of Mindblindness, The Essential Difference, Prenatal Testosterone in Mind , Zero Degrees of Empathy, Autism and Asperger Syndrome: The Facts, Mind Reading, and The Transporters. He has edited scholarly papers such as Understanding Other Minds. Baron-Cohen has published over 600 peer reviewed scientific articles. They contributed to gendering autism and synesthesia research. Three influential theories:mind blindness theory of autism (1985)Baron-Cohen presents this as a modem of evolution and development of mind reading. He says that typical people mindread all the time, effortlessly, automatically and mostly unconsciously. It is the natural way humans interpret, predict and participate in social behavior and communication. He states that autistic children "suffer from mindblindless" as a result of selective impairment in mind reading. According to Baron-Cohen, autistic children see the word as devoid of mental things. Baron-Cohen developed a theory that argues that specific neurocognitive mechanisms have evolved that allow people to mindread and make sense of a actions, to interpret gazes and meaningful and to decode "the language of the eyes."This theory has been disproven by this study:https://ift.tt/37CX1aSFor this study, Morton Ann Gernsbacker and Melanie Yergeau review empirical evidence that fails to support the claim that autistic people are uniquely impaired. It also fails to support the theory that all autistic people are universally impaired, on theory of mind tasks. The researchers highlighted that seminal theory of mind findings have failed to replicate. They have documented many instances in which theory of mind tasks fail to predict autistic traits, social interaction and empathy. They summarized a large body of data, collected by researchers working outside the theory of mind rubric, that fail to support assertions made by researchers working inside the theory of mind rubric. They concluded that the claim that autistic people lack a theory of mind is empirically questionable and societally harmful. Prenatal sex steroid theory of autism (1997)The theory states:Autism affects more males than females. One candidate biological mechanism for this is prenatal sex steroid hormones. 4 lines of evidence:Testing if testosterone, measured in the womb, is associated with autistic traitsTesting if elevated prenatal sex steroid levels are associated with autismTesting if proxies of prenatal sex steroid levels in autistic people are also atypicalTesting if post natal sex steroid hormones are elevatedThis is where the theory of link of Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) is linked to autism. One thing he did not consider. PCOS is a common comorbidy among autistics. One feature of PCOS is elevated Testosterone. He took that fact and used it unethically. Another fact that he failed to explore. AFAB autistics often miss being diagnosed as children or often misdiagnosed. Women are no less likely to be autistic, the majority present differently. Not saying all but a good majority do. This is where Baron Cohen wants to develop a prenatal test for autism so the parents can have a choice to abort the autistic baby and therefore eliminating and preventing autism. He takes it one step further. According to Baron-Cohen, men are more likely to major in math based programs in College. Using this statistic, he theorizes because in his mind autism is a male disability, the "autism gene" could help with math skills. If you are lost, it does not make any sense. You either want to eliminate autism or you want to use the autism gene. It cannot be both. Empathizing systemizing theory of typical sex difference (2002)The empathizing-systemizing (E-S) theory of typical sex differences suggest that individuals may be classified based on empathy and systemizing. An extension of the E-S theory, the extreme male brain theory, suggests that autistic people on average have a shift towards a more masculinized brain along the E-S dimensions. Both theories have been investigated in small sample sizes. This does not allow it to generalize. Baron Cohen founded the first adult autism clinic in the UK in 1999. They have seen over 1,000 people. He has addressed the United Nations on Autism Awareness Day in 2017 on Autism and Human rights (ironic isn't it?). http://webtv.un.org/meetings-events/watch/toward-autonomy-and-self-determination-world-autism-awareness-day-2017/5380816054001Baron Cohen is a fellow of the British Psychological Society, the British Academy, the Academy of Medical Sciences, and the American Psychological Association. He is the Vice President of the National Autistic Society and was the president of the International Society for Autism Research (OSAR 2017-19). He was the chair of the NICE guideline development group for autism (adults) ad the chair of the Psychology section of the British Academy. Baron Cohen is the co-editor in chief for Molecular Autism and is a National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Senior Investigator. He is the principal investigator of the Wellcome Trust funded award investigating the genetics of autism in collaboration with the Sanger Centre. Baron Cohen serves as a scientific advisor, trustee or patron for several autism charities including:Autism Research Trustthe Cambridge Autism Centre of ExcellenceAuticonSpectrum 10kBaron Cohen is leading the Spectrum 10k project. Its aim is to collect DNA from 10,000 autistic people to identify genetic and environmental factors that contribute to autism and related conditions. Another blog post on this project will be coming. Sources:https://ift.tt/2WYX5ixhttps://ift.tt/3jL9n6Ohttps://ift.tt/3jJXXjRhttps://ift.tt/3yJSrSChttps://ift.tt/3kNqswghttps://ift.tt/37CX1aShttps://ift.tt/3DNiuvDhttps://ift.tt/3yJUINz

http://www.fierceautie.com/2021/09/problematic-professional-professor-sir.html

#actuallyautistic #stop quackery #autism

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comrade-meow · 3 years

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The Marxist left finds itself confronted by three insidious big lies that threaten the revolutionary and emancipatory foundation of the Marxist project, all related to undermining women’s liberation; they are:

1. Transwomen are women.

2. Sex work is work.

3. Feminism is bourgeois.

Misogyny in its many forms has long been a challenge for the left; not just the misogyny of the reactionary right, but misogyny coming from within the left itself. But it has not been until recently that this leftist misogyny has sought to portray itself as being inherently progressive. By engaging in revisionism of the most blatant kind, reactionary elements within the left have managed to posit themselves as the agents of progress. Much has already been written about the harms caused by these three lies, but no attempt has yet to be made to debunk them from a solidly Marxist standpoint. That is what we are out to accomplish here; to demonstrate definitively that these big lies are not just regressive, but inherently revisionist and anti-Marxist to the core.

The first of these three big lies, “Transwomen are women”, might well be the most damaging, because it directly contradicts the heart of the Marxist method: dialectical materialism. There are two main definitions used by proponents of transgenderism to explain their narrative. The first is that gender is an identity; the state of being a man or a woman (or any one of the other numerous “gender identities”) stems not from biological sex (to the extent that transactivists acknowledge the existence of biological sex), but from an internal identity, i.e. personal feelings, personal consciousness. The second definition says that transpeople are not really the sex they physically are, but the sex they say they are, because they really have “male” or “female” brains. Both of these definitions are rooted in the personal, not the material. One of the patron saints of queer theory, Judith Butler, says:

“It’s one thing to say that gender is performed and that is a little different from saying gender is performative. When we say gender is performed we usually mean that we’ve taken on a role or we’re acting in some way and that our acting or our role-playing is crucial to the gender that we are and the gender that we present to the world. To say that gender is performative is a little different because for something to be performative means that it produces a series of effects. We act and walk and speak and talk in ways that consolidate an impression of being a man or being a woman.”[1]

Though queer theory is a postmodernist philosophy, its roots go far deeper than just postmodernism; rather, this statement of Butler’s is an example of the dialectics of idealism. Marxism, as a philosophy, was formed in reaction to the idealist dialectics of the Young Hegelians. The dialects of idealism posit that reality flows from consciousness. Marx, on the other hand, argued “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.”[2] That is, it is not our thoughts that shape material reality, but material reality that shapes our thoughts. In fact, Marx’s first major work, The German Ideology, is exclusively dedicated to explaining this.

So what is the materialist definition of gender? And how does the embrace of the idealist definition under the guise of Marxism harm the Marxist aim of women’s liberation? The foundational Marxist text dealing with the oppression of women is Engels’ The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State. According to Engels, while there has always existed a sexual division of labor in human society, it is not until the rise of private property that this division becomes hierarchical. Before the rise of private property, society was organized under what was called “mother right”, i.e. a person’s family is traced through their mother, given the difficulty of identifying with certainty the father in primitive communist society. But because private property grew out of male labor, and became concentrated in male hands, mother right gave way to “father right”. In order to bequeath his property to his son, the father needed to know with certainty who his sons were. This meant controlling the reproductive labor of the female sex, and its subordination to male supremacy; thus the advent of patriarchy. In Chapter II of Origin of Family Engels calls the overthrow of mother-right “…the world historical defeat of the female sex. The man took command in the home also; the woman was degraded and reduced to servitude, she became the slave of his lust and a mere instrument for the production of children.”[3] Note that Engels here is dealing with sex, with biology. Women are not oppressed because of some abstract gender identity, but because of their sex. Class society and patriarchy, the two of which exist in a symbiosis, need to control women’s reproductive labor to sustain themselves. To put it more bluntly, they need to control the means of reproduction. Thus, women’s oppression has its origin in material reality.

But we have not yet dealt with the concept of gender. In the current queer theory dominated discourse, sex and gender are increasingly become conflated to the point that they are being used as synonyms for one another. Engels analysis of patriarchy is in many ways incomplete, but it forms the basis of future materialist explorations of sex and gender. The second-wave feminists who developed much of the thought around gender did not revise these fundamentals, but expanded on them, the opposite of what today’s revisionists are doing. Gender, according to the radical feminist Rebecca Reilly-Cooper, is “the value system that prescribes and proscribes forms of behaviour and appearance for members of the different sex classes, and that assigns superior value to one sex class at the expense of the other.”[4] Gender is therefore not the same thing as biological sex, but a kind of parasite grafted on top of biological sex to maintain the current sexual hierarchy, and ensure continued male control over reproductive labor. Gender non-conforming, as well as homosexual, men and women are therefore “exiled” from their gender community not because of some abstract identity, but because they do not fulfill their proscribed functions as members of their sex class; they are essentially class traitors. Intersex people, which form a distinct material category, are also lumped into this community of “exiles” because they too are unable to fulfill the goals of the patriarchal sexual hierarchy. Such communities of exiles have existed throughout history, and continue to exist to this day in all parts of the world, from the hijra in India to the two-spirited people of the Native Americans to the contemporary shunning and violence directed at gender non-conforming individuals. But to reiterate, none of this has to do with identity, but with the material structuring of class society.

While transactivists have started to turn against the biomedical explanation for transgenderism, it is very much alive and well in the medical and psychological community. Victorian-era theories about “brain sex” that would have earned the ire of Marx and Engels are now making a comeback. At best, these theories are chimerical pseudoscience which have not even come close to being conclusively proven in any legitimate scientific study. The standards by which gender dysphoria is diagnosed falls back on the constructed tropes of masculinity and femininity already discussed. Such theories risk misconstruing gender roles as being rooted in nature as opposed to constructions that reinforce ruling class control. Rather than being seen as the disease, dysphoria should be seen as the symptom of the sexual hierarchy. The pressures of gendered socialization are ubiquitous, and begin at birth. Very often we are not aware of the subtle forms socialization exerts upon us. For those who reject this socialization, it follows that they would experience levels of extreme discomfort and anguish. Gendered socialization is not just some abstract phenomena, but is, again, literally grafted onto us. Under this system of socialization, the penis becomes more than just the male sex organ, but the symbol of male aggression and supremacy, in the same way the vagina becomes the symbol of female inferiority and subjugation. Sensitive individuals who struggle against this socialization often hate their bodies, but not because their bodies are somehow “wrong”, but because of what they are drilled into believing their bodies are. What they suffer from is the inability to tear away the curtain that has been placed in front of material reality and to see reality in an objective manner. The fields of medical and psychological science are not immune from the influence of the ruling class. This is especially the case in the world of psychology, where a method of analysis is employed that isolates the individual from the wider society around them, preferring to view internal struggle as the result of some defect as opposed to the result of material and social forces exerted on the individual.

While capitalism has broken down certain elements of patriarchy, and allowed for women to make some gains, it has not dismantled patriarchy completely. Capitalism, being a class system, still needs to retain control of the means of reproduction. For example, laws that restrict access to abortion and contraceptives, while having negative repercussions for all women, have the most negative impact on poor, working-class women. These laws may be cloaked in the terminology of moralism, but have a far more base logic; they ensure the continued production of future proletarians for the benefit of the capitalist machine.

By shifting the definition of “woman” away from a materialist one to an idealistic one, we lose the ability to define and fight the causes of women’s oppression. In its most extreme form it erases women as a class, and makes it impossible to talk about patriarchy as an existing force. Why, then, are Marxists, who are supposed to be dialectical materialists embracing a set of ideas the very opposite of dialectical materialism? To answer this, we need to look at the nature of patriarchy; it is a system that predates capitalism. As already stated above, patriarchy and class exist in a symbiosis with one another. The one cannot be eliminated without the elimination of the other. Overthrowing capitalism is not the same as overthrowing class. As Mao pointed out, class dynamics still exist in the socialist society, and require continuous vigilance and combat on the part of revolutionaries. This is why many socialist states still restricted women’s rights to certain degrees, such as the draconian anti-abortion laws of Ceausescu’s Romania. All males benefit in some way from patriarchy, even males in a socialist society. It therefore follows that socialist males fighting capitalism also benefit from patriarchy. While men and women may be in solidarity with one another as workers, working class men also belong to the male sex class, a class that predates the existence of the modern working class. Class allegiances run deep. This is why so many socialist and “feminist” men are quick to defend and even endorse the violent language and actions perpetrated by some gender non-conforming men against the female sex class, regardless of how these gender non-conforming men identify themselves. This is not to deny that gender non-conforming men are discriminated against, and face harassment and violence themselves, but even as exiles from the male sex-class, they still benefit from some of the privileges awarded to this sex class. Note that I do not use privilege in the manner it’s currently used by the regressive left, i.e. as some abstract notion that needs to be “checked”. Rather, it is an actually existing force that must be combated, just as white revolutionaries must actively combat white supremacy, and first world revolutionaries must actively combat “their” state’s imperialism.

Opportunism and the “fear” of being on the “wrong side of history” are also driving forces behind this embrace of revisionism. The Anglophone left, especially in the United States, given its weakness in the overall political arena, has long sought to be seen as “acceptable” and “polite”, and is often eager to jump on any bandwagon it believes can advance it. This desire to be accepted also drives the fear. It is true that communists have made serious errors in judgment in the past, but that is not an excuse to rebel against core philosophies and hastily embrace ideas and movements without fully analyzing their beliefs and goals. This is not to say that communists should not be on the forefront in defending gender non-conforming individuals. A thoroughgoing socialist revolution requires that these existing oppressive structures be cast aside. But it is possible to defend gender non-conforming people without embracing misogynistic pseudoscience and revisionism.

Women are not just oppressed, but thoroughly exploited. Working class women make up what is possibly the most thoroughly exploited section of human society. By embracing philosophies that not only erase their ability to define and explain their exploitation, but also deny them the agency to organize as a revolutionary class, these “Marxists” have proven that they are in direct contradiction to Marxist philosophy and ideas. They are engaging in revisionism.

In the next part, we will examine the second big lie plaguing the left today, the notion that “sex work is work”.

#Anglo.txt

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the-real-slim-shady · 4 years

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Transgender and Non-Binary People: The Facts and Science Behind Them

I wrote this essay a while ago, after I had an argument with my mom about transgender people, and I figured I'd share it, it’s really long, so feel free to just skim it and find the important parts lol.

In recent years, gender issues have become much more prevalent in our society. People who are transgender and non-binary finally feel comfortable being who they are, but there are still people who think transgender and non-binary people don’t exist. Some believe that they’re just seeking attention, or that all of their problems could be solved with therapy. This is a tricky topic because it is hard to scientifically prove how a person feels in their body.

People usually think of the words “sex” and “gender” as interchangable, but this is in fact incorrect. In general terms, the word “sex” refers to the biological differences between men and women, such as the genitalia and genetic differences. “Gender” is more ambiguous, and harder to define. Gender usually refers to the role of a man and woman in society or an individual’s concept of themselves. To put it simply, sex is in the body, gender is in the mind. Sometimes a person’s genetically assigned sex does not line up with their gender. These individuals usually refer to themselves as transgender, non-binary, or genderfluid.

We all learn in middle school that the last pair of chromosomes we have determines our sex. XX for a woman and XY for a man. Sex, however, is not that simple. The male/female split is often seen as a man-or-woman binary, but this is not entirely true. Some men are born with two or three X chromosomes as well as a Y, and some women are born with a Y chromosome. In some cases, a child is born with a mix between male and female genitalia. This is sometimes deemed intersex, and parents can decide which gender to assign to the child, but sometimes the child feels neither male nor female or disagrees with their parents’ decision. A person can be female if they have an X and Y chromosome but they are insensitive to androgens, so they have a female body. A person can have an X and Y chromosome and have a female body because their Y is missing the SRY gene. A person can have two X chromosomes and have a male body because one of their X’s has a SRY gene. A person can be female because they only have one X chromosome. A person can be male because they have two X chromosomes and one Y. A person can be male because you have two X chromosomes but your heart and brain are male and a person can be female with an X and a Y because their heart and mind feel stuck inside the wrong body.

Most people’s sex and gender line up. The expectation that if you’re assigned a male at birth, you’re a man, and you’re assigned female at birth you’re a woman, lines up for people who are cisgender. But for people who are transgender or non-binary, the sex they’re assigned at birth may not align with the gender they know themselves to be. The concepts of gender and sex are socially constructed. We as a society assign gender and sex based on socially agreed upon characteristics. Dresses, the color pink, makeup, long hair, painted nails, and high heels belong to women, but we have seen in the past that this wasn’t always true, and as time goes on, the gendering of the aforementioned products is fading. This doesn’t mean that body parts and functions are “made up”, it just means that we categorize and define things in ways that could actually be different.

The transgender and non-binary identity has long been associated with poor mental health and trauma that can be “cured” by therapy. Science however, says otherwise. Transgender women tend to have brain structures that resemble cisgender women rather than cisgender men. The bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BSTc) in transgender women is more similar to cisgender women than cisgender men, and the BSTc in transgender men more closely resembles that of a cisgender man. Science tells us that gender is not binary, it may even be a linear spectrum. Like other facets of identity, it can operate on a large range of levels and operate outside of many definitions. Transgender and non binary individuals are not suffering from a mental illness or carefully “choosing” a different identity. The transgender and non-binary identity is multi dimensional, but it deserves no less respect or recognition than any other facet of humankind.

It is essential to understand the difference between transgender people and non binary people. Transgender people feel like their assigned sex is wrong, and therefore change their gender and sometimes undergo surgery. Non-binary and genderqueer people identify themselves with neither an exclusively male or female gender, their gender identity is beyond the gender binary, sometimes fluctuates between genders, or rejects the gender binary. People who are genderqueer or genderfluid alternate between genders. Kind of like a craving for food, one day they will feel like one gender and wish to be addressed as such, and maybe in a day or a week they’ll feel like another gender and some days they will feel like no gender at all. This may seem to some people like they should just make up their minds, but trust me, if they could they would. Non binary people, however, feel like no gender, and will always feel like they belong outside the gender binary. Science has yet to provide an insight into the non-binary identity and whether there’s any scientific basis to them.

Some people say that transgender and non binary individuals are just feeling gender dysphoria, and they can overcome it. Gender dysphoria is actually just a name for how transgender and onbinary people feel before they come out: feeling that your emotional or psychological identiy as male or female to be opposite to your biological sex. Gender dysphoria is a strong desire to be rid of your sex characteristics because you feel like they don’t belong to you. It is a strong desire for the sex characteristics of the other gender, or no sex charecteristics at all. It is a strong desire to be treated as another gender. It is a strong conviction that you are not the gender you were born as.

Some people believe that gender dysphoria for transgender and non-binary people can be solved by therapy. However, researchers analyzed survey responses from more than 27,000 transgender adults accross the US with a roughly even mix of transgender women and transgender men. People who had undergone conversion therapy at some point in their lives were twice as likely to have attempted suicide than someone who had not. About 70% said they had talked to a professional at some point about their gender identity and of those 70%, 20% had undergone conversion therapy. All of the aforementioned people are still transgender.

In addition, many medical associations and academies have spoken out against conversion therapy. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry “finds no evidence to support the application of any “therapeutic intervention” operating under the premise that a specific sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or gender expression is pathological. Furthermore, based on the scientific evidence, the AACAP asserts that such ‘conversion therapies’ lack scientific credibility and clinical utility. Additionally, there is evidence that such interventions are harmful. As a result, ‘conversion therapies’ should not be part of any behavioral health treatment of children and adolescents."

The American Academy of Pediatrics says “"Confusion about sexual orientation is not unusual during adolescence. Counseling may be helpful for young people who are uncertain about their sexual orientation or for those who are uncertain about how to express their sexuality and might profit from an attempt at clarification through a counseling or psychotherapeutic initiative. Therapy directed specifically at changing sexual orientation is contraindicated, since it can provoke guilt and anxiety while having little or no potential for achieving changes in orientation."

Since the beginnning of the non-binary movement, it has gathered skepticism, critisism, derision, and even violence. Many non-binary people (and transgender people too) are accused of being “special snowflakes” or “drama queens” and “attention whores”. However, this criticism ignores the fact that gender identity is largely personal. In addition, something as simple as the way you wish to be identified tends to cause hatred to be sent your way. There is little critisim towards non-binary people that can be directed towards them in a constructive matter. If a non-binary person is in fact “just doing it for attention” the name calling and hatred would just be feeding into their desire for attention and giving them exactly what they want!

Finally, if exploring your gender identity is a “trend” as some have called it, then isn’t it better than the previous trend of feeling isolated and alone and having absolutely no way to be who you are and say what you feel? In light of the current lack of any scientific evidence as to the biological nature of non-binary transsexuality, it is best to act in the same way as any situation where there is a phenomenon yet to be proven by science: doubt, skepticism, and open-mindedness, which accepts the potential for truth, but does not assume it.

Some people are against the idea of calling a transgender or non-binary person their chosen pronouns because they disagree with the way that said person identifies themselves, and they reserve the right to their freedom of speech. Dr. Jordan Peterson is one of these people.

Dr. Peterson is a psychology professor at the University of Toronto. He released a video lecture series taking aim at political correctness. He was frustrated with being asked to use alternative pronouns requested by trans and non-binary students and staff. “I’ve studied authoritarianism for a very long time, for forty years,” Dr Peterson told the BBC. “It starts by people’s attempts to control the ideological and linguistic territory. There’s no chance I’m going to use words made up by people who are doing that, not a chance.” Dr Peterson is concerned proposed federal human rights legislation will elevate his refusal to use alternative pronouns into hate speech. There is currently a bill in Canada that prohibits discrimination under the Canadian Human Rights Act on the basis of gender identity and expression. Under this bill, Dr. Peterson is not guilty of hate speech, but he could face sanction under Ontario’s human rights code which extended protection to trans people in 2012.

Conservatives like Dr. Peterson have conjured up images of good people being dragged off to jail for not calling a person by their chosen pronouns. To the contrary, as legal scholars like Brenda Cossman and Kyle Kirkup have patiently explained, the bill in Canada cannot lead to anything remotely like this. But the milk has been spilled, and rants have been recorded, and the subtext is that there is a segment of society accustomed to others accommodating their freedom but not the other way around.

Some people are confused as to why calling someone by their chosen pronouns constitutes as human rights, but I am confused about something else: In what kind of society does the question of whether we should respect people provoke a major debate? In what kind of society does the sentiment “you can’t make me” constitute a compelling argument?

In conclusion, there’s no reason to discriminate against non-binary people or transgender people because contrary to the popular belief, you’re not being morally or intellectually superior, you’re just being rude. Use their prefered name and pronouns. I promise it won’t kill you.

#transgender #non binary #social issues #transgender essay #non binary essay #LGBTQ rights

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bidean-byedean · 4 years

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Drop the essay 🥺 it sounds so interesting

omg I’m so flattered! ❤️ I’ll put it under the cut here (it’s 3600 words lol), just a few things:

Anon is referring to this post

I wrote this for my Gothic Lit + Film module during my BA - 3ish years ago. This clearly isn’t the final version (uncited works, missing bib, etc.) and there’s a lot I would change now. God, I might rewrite it for Victorian Gothic or just for kicks... I got so close to making some really great points lol so forgive Undergraduate me for being almost smart.

And yes, I looked at Interview with The Vampire so #tw: Anne Rice lol

‘Love Never Dies’ (tagline from Bram Stoker’s Dracula)

Explore the Treatment of Homoerotic Desire in Gothic Fiction and/or Film

The Gothic genre is one of transgressions and transformations. It crosses the boundaries of everyday societal norms to explore and express cultural anxieties by reforming psychological worries as physical monsters. Influxes of immigrants from around the Empire and the publication of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution created a huge social shift, undermining religious beliefs of creation and human’s superiority over the natural world. However, it also gave rise to more ‘scientific’ moral categorisations, being twisted to suit the needs of the white colonialists and justify the prejudices of the time by “grounding them in “truth.”” This new Scientia Sexualis, the bringing of sexuality into the psychoanalytic, political and scientific discourse, created new categorisations for sexuality and encouraged identification with these new categorisations.[1] This, for the first time, linked sexuality and identity and now meant one’s sexual practices and preferences came with a “truth” about the person. Homosexuality, as it was now known, was pathologised and seen as a new “species”[2] entirely, one that was a defective, lesser evolution than that of the traditional heterosexuality. Using the Gothic monster meant that authors could explore the ‘queer’ space in society, which means to blur boundaries of sexuality and gender[3] to explore repressed desires and curiosities raised by cultural anxieties over sexuality and gender. In Victorian Gothic, Le Fanu’s Carmilla and Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde are two of examples of using the genre’s transgressive nature and monstrous metaphors to express veiled desires and vicariously act upon them. Although the Gothic gives a home to all that is abhorrent and unacceptable in everyday society, Rice’s Interview with The Vampire explores how the Gothic can treat something on the edge of acceptability. Writing in a time sexual liberation and progressive thinking, Rice’s treatment of homosexuality and non-conventional relationships could be seen to threaten the traditional allegorical use of the genre.

The vampire has long been a sexual being often representing foreign or ‘monstrous’ sex desires and appetites, and Carmilla’s portrayal of aggressive, homoerotic female desire is one the earliest and most complex of these examples. Although one cannot be certain about how progressive Le Fanu wished his novel to be, it can definitely be used to argue against the misogynistic and repressive Victorian gender roles. By using the Gothic genre, Le Fanu explores the ideas of transgressing boundaries, most prominently between life and death, but also using the boundaries of the domestic space being transgressed by Carmilla as a metaphor for the structure of society. The Victorians saw the woman as the ‘angel in the house’, ethereal and asexual, therefore Carmilla’s demonic invasion of the house and her inherently seductive nature is directly antithetical to the socially acceptable version of femininity. However, Carmilla’s “perfidious and beautiful” appearance is confusing for both the other characters, in particular Laura, and the reader themselves. Le Fanu’s expression of female sexuality and gender identity through vampirism conforms to the fact that the “monstrous is transgressive and unnatural because it blends those categories that should be classified as distinct.”[4] Carmilla represents a blurring of the gender boundaries set for women by Victorian society, with vampires being traditionally fluid characters as they “straddle the borders of the living and the dead,” it is natural for Carmilla’s vampirism to give her a freedom akin to that of masculinity. Carmilla excites and threatens the heterosexual male audience with her aggressive sexuality and choice of female victims. On the one hand, she is full of the voracious libidinal energy that is viewed as desirable in sexual objects, but on the other, because of her sexual power and freedom she can be read as a “potential castrator” by becoming a superior sexual predator. Crossing the boundaries of homosocial to homoerotic, Carmilla provides Laura with a relationship separate from her father, one that allows to grow outside of the parameters of the submissive, obedient and asexual daughter. The relationship between Laura and Carmilla means that they have, as Irigaray describes it, “refused to go to market.”[5] The queerness of Carmilla and Laura means that they no longer have to be commodities in the patriarchal market, passed from man to man, but created their own exchange between each other. By engaging in relationship with another woman Carmilla and Laura have “become masculine,”[6] they no longer need to seek masculine assurance outside of themselves or each other.

The group murder of Carmilla by the dominant men in Laura’s life is seen almost identically in Stoker’s Dracula. Lucy is staked by the three men from which she has had blood transfusions in a heavily sexually violent scene where the rebellious female is ‘penetrated’ and subdued by the heterosexual patriarchy. Once Carmilla has been destroyed, Laura is placed safely back under the dominance of the men around her and relies on them to relay Carmilla’s true identity. The confusion between whether they have killed the vampire or the queer woman becomes blurred by Le Fanu here. Laura is told that vampires stalk their victims with the “passion of love” and the use of “artful courtship,”[7]implying that she is not only being warned against vampires, but monstrous queer women. The men in her life invert her homosexual desire into warning signs of a vampire; that she must listen more carefully to the “abhorrence” she feels and ignore the “pleasure” that is akin to the “ardour of a lover.”[8] The novel seemingly ends with the message that many works in the genre embody:

“The Gothic may kill off the monster in such a way as to effect catharsis for the viewer or reader, who sees his or her unacceptable desires enacted vicariously and then safely ‘repressed’ again.”

Carmilla is no exception when it comes to reinstating the status quo after destroying the monstrous queer body it used to be able to safely blur and cross boundaries of societal norms.[9] However, this can also be argued. The novella ends with Laura reminiscing on the time since Carmilla’s destruction, and while she says: “it was long before the terror … subsided”, she also admits there is an “ambiguous” nature to her memories. The male authorities in Laura’s life could see Carmilla’s vampiric nature long before Laura could and despite insisting to Laura that Carmilla was nothing but a “demon”, making it clear that Carmilla’s desire was solely to kill Laura, she still feels affection for her lost friend. The very last sentence of the novella clearly shows her conflicting, but continued desire for Carmilla:

“sometimes the playful, languid, beautiful girl; sometimes the writhing fiend I saw in the ruined church; and often from a reverie I have started, fancying I heard the light step of Carmilla.”

Though the novella is, on the surface, wrapped up neatly with the white, patriarchy dominating over the queer female body, Fanu’s parting sentence emphasises the idea that it might not be a happy ending. Although Carmilla was literallya monster and would have killed Laura had she not been caught, she has clearly had a profound and positive emotional effect on Laura, who was briefly allowed to experience both same-sex support and desire.

Much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were “shadowed by the growing focus on the dangers of … close male friendships and signifiers of homosexuality,”[10] causing a repressed and paranoid time of ‘homosexual panic’. Men of the upper classes moved in almost exclusively male circles; all of their significant relationships outside of marriage would have been homosocial and therefore, plagued with worries about being seen as taking these relationships too far.[11] This paranoia manifested itself in the Gothic literature of the time as frantic and often contradictory.[12] Socially acceptable misogyny allowed male writers to praise homosocial relationships above those with women, who were seen as weak and hysterical, as seen in Stoker’s Dracula when Mina Harker is described as remarkable because she has “the brain of a man.”[13] However, the more insistent and heated misogyny only serves to emphasis what the writers are trying to avoid: being read as homosexual. Stevenson’s novella The Strange Case of Jekyll and Hyde exemplifies the idea ‘homosexual panic’ manifesting closer to homosexual repression. The invisibility of women, apart from being placed near or as victims of Hyde’s violence, not only speaks to Stevenson’s feelings about women, but also his feelings about men. Hyde’s aggression is often triggered by being faced with female sexuality: he is angered by the prostitute that offers her “venereal box”[14] and the saleswomen that exude “lurid charms” and “coquetry.”[15] While this could be a product of his evilness or lack of moral development, Jekyll retells the former story as the woman offerings a “box of lights,” even though it is clear to both the characters and the readers what really happened. This reluctance to admit to Hyde’s anger towards female sexuality implies an awareness and an anxiety around profound misogyny, particularly if it is female sexuality that repulses Hyde, which leads the reader immediately to ideas of homosexual desire. Through the Gothic genre, Stevenson is able to explore man as “truly two” by creating a physical outlet for this anxiety and repression felt around homosocial relationships that dominated men’s lives. Gothic literature is often full of mystery and secrecy, and like the vampire, which has been linked to the plight of homosexuality because they are forced to live in the shadows, hiding their abhorrent desires and constantly plagued with the fear of being caught and destroyed - Jekyll goes through the same fears with Hyde. Although homosexuality was no long a capital crime (the last men executed for it in the UK being in 1835, the law was changed in 1861, before the publication of both Carmilla (1872) and Jekyll and Hyde (1886)), it was still punishable by law. Jekyll creates Hyde as a criminal outlet for his “concealed pleasures” that he saw as incompatible with his high social status and unworthy of a man respected so greatly by his peers.

Like with the vampire, the Gothic allows for Hyde to be an example of the “monstrous queer” with his “evil” actions reflected in his “deformed” “ape-like” body. In the eighteenth century, ‘monstrous’ was synonymous with queer, linking same-sex desire with the demonic.[16] Similarly, Stevenson’s use of language to describe Hyde is full of natural and evolutionary imagery. He constantly emphasises the fact that Hyde is animalistic, beast-like or, specifically, ape-like to distance Hyde from the respectable and civilised Dr. Jekyll. Hyde is presented as a step down on the evolutionary chain, he is a lesser creature and incapable of higher reasoning and moral thinking. Due to this lack of moral and reasoning capabilities, homosexuals were also seen as inherently selfish and indulgent. The purpose of their sexuality was solely to satisfy personal pleasure rather than transcendental values and contribute to the wider society.[17] This is linked to thinking that Edelman coined as “reproductive futurism,”[18] which is the idea that capitalism’s hold on cultural thinking pervades even to police sexual practices that it deems “unproductive” and therefore, “unnatural.” However, through the Gothic monstrous body, Stevenson can apply natural imagery to Hyde’s impulses and desires while still concealing them under the guise of a “deformity” or a lesser developed being. Through the paradox of his closeness to nature making him ‘abnormal’, Stevenson can tap into the language of the culture and exploit the reader’s psychological justifications for how they view these ‘social disgraces’ (homosexuals), but he can also challenge them.[19] By presenting Hyde as a grotesque Gothic monster the contradictions in viewing homosexuality as both closer to nature and a “deformity” are subtly, but clearly, there for the reader to understand, should they look into the coded meanings of the text.

Anne Rice’s Interview with The Vampire (1976) signalled a new kind a Gothic queer, one living in the age where to identify with homosexuality, personally and socially, was becoming more and more acceptable. One review by Jerry Douglas states that Rice’s series “constitutes as one of the most extended metaphors in modern literature”[20]because it made clear to the mainstream audience the deeply embedded parallel between queerness and the vampire. However, Douglas seems to have missed that almost a century has passed from the first uses of Gothic as an ‘extended metaphor’ for being queer, and it is not the homosexuality that is now hidden in subtext. The homoerotic content of Rice’s novels was so explicitly clear that despite buying the film rights in 1976, impressively the same year as publication, Paramount Pictures did not manage to successfully market the film for production for another twenty years and it was finally released in 1994. Although this proves that society’s view on homosexuality was still decidedly cold and the mainstream audience lacked a palate for viewing homoerotic desire in the cinemas, it also emphasises the leap that Rice was making through her Gothic novels. While homosexuality no longer needed to be coded and staked in a scene reminiscent of gang-rape by white men, the presentation of homoerotic desire and non-conventional relationships still needed the Gothic monstrous body to encourage the audience into a world of blurred boundaries concerning sexuality and gender. One of the revisions for the potential film was to make Louis female, apparently Rice herself offered up this change because she saw it as “consistent with his passivity.”[21] This compromise flags as one of the first indications that Rice’s works may not be the epitome of queer representation in modern Gothic literature, but in fact, she consistently seems afraid to truly obscure and distort societal boundaries of sexuality and gender because of internalised misogyny and homophobia. The film adaptation of Interview with The Vampire, although also written by Rice, downplays the homoerotic content to playful subtext and tension, refusing to risk alienating the mainstream, heterosexual audience by being too transgressive of norms. Coupled with the casting of blockbuster favourites Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, and Antonio Banderas, whose appeal was deeply entwined with their heterosexuality and masculinity,[22] the novel that was too explicitly queer for the 70s became a cautiously heterosexual-aligned film in the 90s. Perhaps one of the most significant dampeners on the Gothic novel’s queerness and transgression of boundaries was the AIDs crisis, which took hold of western media and created general panic in the 80s. This made the triad of homosexuality, blood, and multiplicity of victims, which appears in the novel, a direct and unavoidable link to the negative misconceptions about and unsympathetic feelings towards AIDs and its victims.

One of the ways in which Rice succeeds with transgressing boundaries is in her portrayal of the vampire and the way in which the reader is encouraged to relate to and sympathise with the monster. Carmilla and Hyde, though metaphorically complex, are essentially blood-thirsty killers, lacking in capabilities of higher moral thinking and reasoning compared to Louis’ very human existential suffering. The vampiric predecessors subscribe to an explicit separation between vampires and humans, but this opposition between fiend and man has ceased to exist within Rice’s Gothic world. Louis and Lestat, though monstrous and, at times, deeply unlikeable, are never presented as inherently evil. By making the previously monstrous relatable and understandable, Rice inadvertently played a progressive role in attitudes towards those with AIDs, by blurring the lines between the monstrous “them” and the moral “us.” The vampires, particularly Lestat and Claudia, do not try to be ‘good’ victims, they are ruthless and constantly hungry for their next hunt, which they deeply enjoy. Lestat describes his ability to transform others into vampires as a “gift,” encouraging Louis to ingest his contaminated blood and make the transformation from human to out-casted other. The AIDs allegory fits neatly into the traditionally sexualised moments of feeding and initiation, which are also the moments in which the physical boundaries between the vampiric-other and the human-us is most blurred. Much like Jekyll towards the end of Jekyll and Hyde when he loses control over which physicality manifests, the sharing of blood fuses the Gothic monstrous body and the normal, human body, rendering explicit physical boundaries ineffective. Along with Louis deep suffering with guilt and self-loathing, the ‘us’ reader is drawn into a sympathetic corner in this metaphor, even if they do not hold one for the real-life counterpart. The monstrous ‘other’ manifests only in the literal sense of being a vampire, he is no longer a physical embodiment of immoral desire, less evolutionarily developed and repulsive, but deeply emotional and craving acceptance and familial support. The unorthodox family unit of Louis, Lestat and Claudia is in many ways a comical parody of the bourgeois family, with estranged, asexual parents and a spoilt child, created in hopes of strengthening the marriage bond.[23] Unfortunately, Rice perpetuates the harmful ideas that homosexual units mirror heterosexual ones, therefore prioritising heteronormativity by remaining within its boundaries. Rather than choosing to portray a positive queer family unit or completely distort the norms of the family unit, the trio are a demonic, abhorrent “deformed” version of the conventional heterosexual family. This links to Rice’s suggestion of Louis’ gender transformation: she, whether consciously or unconsciously, projects the idea that even in a homosexual couple there must be a submissive ‘female’ and an aggressive ‘male’. The creation of this dysfunctional family also serves to later emphasis beliefs that were explored in Jekyll and Hyde, that homosexuality is inherently selfish and purely to satisfy personal pleasure. When Louis meets Armand, he is infatuated with a “longing … so strong it took all of [his] strength to control it,”[24] and Claudia is immediately jealous, she knows he is attracted to him and is threatened by Louis’ homoerotic desire. Claudia cannot fulfil her role as a child or a lover to Louis, and her death by the hands of his new lover is indicative of the conservative fears that sexually immoral people, like homosexuals, cannot be trusted to have a family for they are not bound to the reproductive process or inclined to sexual monogamy.

While homosexuality and homoerotic desire remain politically and socially contested, there has always been a space for the manifestations of non-conventional sexual practices and relationships in Gothic. The monstrous body is deeply metaphorical and without that sense of transgression, it lacks the conviction of otherness, which is used to frighten or morally awaken the reader. Although in all three novels explored homosexual desire is treated as a social taboo and something to be morally condemned, by using the Gothic genre the authors can sub-textually create an argument against the status quo. In both Carmilla and Jekyll and Hyde, the destruction of the monster does not mean that the text has a ‘happy ending’. Laura is left feeling melancholia and lonely without Carmilla, often dreaming that she has come back to her as the “beautiful” friend that challenged her male dominated life. Similarly, while Dr. Jekyll may be overpowered by his monster, Hyde ultimately chooses to take his own life, implying that he feels a sense of shame and comprehends the moral consequences for the indulgences in his desires. On the surface Stevenson is saying that allowing the darker side of oneself to surface can only end in losing one’s civilised self, but underneath that he does not seem to condone repression either. The last sentence of Dr. Jekyll’s final note is: “I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end.”[25] Stevenson employing the same literary tactic as Le Fanu, by ending the novel on an ambiguous note that queer readers could understand differently to heterosexual. Even in Rice’s novel, the source of much of Louis’ pain is his lack of self-acceptance and desperation to find a family in which he can belong to. The monster that haunts all of the characters in these novels is conformity and the expectation of repression of self to suit societal conventions. Through the monstrous body authors are given a channel through which to transgress boundaries and vicariously act out repressed desires, providing two moral lessons: confirmation for those wishes to conform, and reassurance of kinship for those who have found they cannot.

[1] Michael Foucault, History of Sexuality, trans. Robert Hurley, (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978), p. 54

[2] ibid, p. 43

[3] Max Fincher, Queering Gothic in the Romantic Age: The Penetrating Eye, (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), p. 69

[4] Fincher, Queering Gothic, p. 68

[5] Lucy Irigaray, ‘Commodities Among Themselves’ in This Sex Which is Not One, trans. By Catherine Porter, (New York: Cornell University Press, 1985), p. 196

[6] ibid, p. 194

[7] Sheridan Le Fanu, Carmilla, (iBook Ed.: Public domain, 1872), p. 102

[8] ibid, p. 34-35

[9] Eric Savoy, ‘The Rise of American Gothic’ in The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 198

[10] Jarlath Killeen, History of the Gothic: Gothic Literature 1825-1914, (Online: University of Wales Press, 2009), [accessed: 11 Jan 17]

[11] Savoy, Rise of American Gothic, p. 199

[12] Killeen, History of Gothic

[13] Bram Stoker, Dracula

[14] William Veeder, Children of The Night, p. 141

[15] Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, (1886), ed. by Martin Danahay, (Claremont: Broadview Press, 2015), p. 34

[16] Fincher, Queering Gothic, p. 69

[17] Carolyn Laubender, "The Baser Urge: Homosexual Desire In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", 17, (2009), Paper 12, <h p://preserve.lehigh.edu/cas-lehighreview-vol-17/12> [accessed: 11 Jan 17], p. 25

[18] Lee Edelman, No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), p. 2

[19] Laubender,”The Base Urge”, p. 23

[20] James R. Keller, Anne Rice and Sexual Politics: The Early Novels, (Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 2000), p. 13

[21] Ramsland Prism pp. 268-69

[22] Tony Magistrale, Abject Terrors: Surveying the Modern and Postmodern Horror Film, (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc. 2005), p. 44

[23] Keller, Anne Rice and Sexual Politics, p. 15-16

[24] Anne Rice, Interview with The Vampire, (London: Random House Publishing, 2010), p. 256

[25] Stevenson, Jekyll and Hyde, p. 83

#let's talk gay monsters #im buzzzzzing #anon asks #personal #my asks #a literal essay #queer lit #gothic lit #lottie does a masters

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kierkehaard · 5 years

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Do Facts Care About Your Feelings?

Facts Don’t Care About Your Feelings (or, for short, FDCAYF).

We’ve all heard this sentiment echoed before. In Ben Shapiro’s PragerU episode of the same name, on his Twitter feed, from the mouths of the millions of conservatives and alt-righters who tune in to his podcasts - the right wing has essentially heralded it as the be all and end all of one-liners to ‘destroy libtard SJWs’. At first glance, it seems like an impenetrable argument: after all, if facts did care about one’s feelings, then they’d cease to be objective.

One thing I’ll credit Shapiro with is how effective this phrase is at conveying what he’s trying to say. It accomplishes multiple things at the same time.

It:

1. Labels his opposition as ‘emotional’,

2. Makes a statement about the nature of facts,

3. Establishes the possession of facts as incompatible with his opposition, and

4. Therefore implies that his opposition is blinded from the truth by feelings.

Hold up. Let’s take a look at Point 2 for a moment. It almost seems like FDCAYF is an epistemic claim; he’s discussing how facts work, and how we can get to know them. I thought it might be interesting to see just how much this one-liner holds up to philosophical inspection.

Spoiler: eh, not much.

How The Argument Works

First, let’s talk about what exactly Ben is saying here. He’s making an analysis of what facts are, and proposing a certain feature that all facts share (that feelings do not affect them). In order to figure out whether this is correct, we of course need to understand what a fact is.

Many people, including some academic philosophers, would roughly define a fact as ‘a proposition that is true’. What this means is that, for something to be a fact, it must be truth-apt (be a statement that can be true or false), and it must be true. The reason why the first criterion is important is because it discounts statements that simply cannot possibly be true or false, like instructions or exclamations. ‘Go do your homework’ cannot be a fact because it doesn’t propose anything; likewise with something like ‘oh my god’ or ‘blimey’. On the other hand, a statement that does propose something that can be true or false like ‘tigers have four legs’ can be facts, as long as they’re true. That last bit is why ‘tigers have four legs’ is a fact, but ‘the grand canyon is a species of tiger’ is not; the former is a true proposition, while the latter is a false one.

I would think that most supporters of Ben would agree with this idea of what facts are; I imagine most people would. But this poses a problem for FDCAYF. After all, there are some true propositions where feelings and perspectives do matter. The statement ‘Billy loves basketball’ proposes something that could either be true or false. Let’s also assume that Billy does, in fact, love basketball. The truth of this claim does depend on feelings - in this case, Billy’s. Going by this idea of what facts are, we have to accept that ‘subjective facts’ do exist, and that therefore there exist some facts that do ‘care about your feelings’. Many philosophers are comfortable with accepting this, but obviously a hardcore Ben Shapiro fan would want to defend the FDCAYF. Admittedly, this idea of ‘subjective facts’ is quite nitpicky when looking at the facts Ben Shapiro usually refers to when he raises FDCAYF; stats, scientific studies - objective facts. So for the sake of good faith, maybe we can raise a definition of facts that’s more charitable to Ben Shapiro: ‘facts are propositions that are objectively true.’ What we mean by objective here is mind-independent, with the truth of the statement not depending on any feelings. This way, the only ‘facts’ that we have to deal with are the ones that Ben Shapiro actually approaches. It also means that he by definition cannot be wrong about facts not caring about your feelings, which is basically shooting this entire analysis in the foot, but bear with me. In the next few sections, we’ll discuss how even this charitable idea of what Ben Shapiro means by ‘facts’ doesn’t really give us the full picture of how facts work.

(PS: it’s worth noting that someone who sees the world as something leaning towards Idealism would reject this new definition as incoherent altogether, since under Idealism there would technically be no such thing as a mind-independent, wholly objective fact. But that’s besides the point, so we’ll save Idealism for another future post.)

Fact Versus Ideology

So. Let’s pretend everything we said earlier didn’t matter. We assume that facts by definition don’t care about your feelings, and so accommodate what Ben Shapiro uses as ‘facts’. Here’s the irony, though: it’s precisely by accommodating what Ben Shapiro says in context that we see this idea of facts fall apart too. Let me explain why.

The running trend with Ben Shapiro is that he’d claim some fact, then he’d promote it as an objective reason to support some conservative stance. For the sake of example, we’re gonna talk about the topic he arguably most famously does this with: transgender rights. More specifically, when he talks about trans people, he would point to the fact that they’re ‘biologically male/female’ to justify not referring to them by their preferred pronouns. (case in point here and here). He would use some biological fact, like how a male-to-female trans person would still possess XY chromosomes, to say that the conservative stance towards trans people is factual, and therefore conclude that those who disagree are simply ‘being offended by facts’ and ‘factually wrong’.

Going back to our Shapiro-approved definition of facts, we can see that his claim on male-to-female trans people possessing XY chromosomes is indeed a fact. However, Ben is trying to push for something deeper than just stating a fact; he’s also making a call to action. The argument he’s forming here is that ‘trans women are biologically male’, ‘therefore trans women are men’, ‘therefore we ought not to call them women’. This is the part where it becomes real messy, because we realise we aren’t just dealing with facts in and of themselves, but rather their political relevance. And while the facts themselves could be independent of how one feels, the political values that one infers from them - as we will see - are not.

What makes the fact ‘male-to-female trans people possess XY chromosomes’ more politically relevant than, say, the fact ‘koalas have smooth brains’? It’s the context under which we perceive the political. In other words, It is what we deem as politically problematic or politically relevant that leads us to decide which facts matter. The fact that trans men possess XY chromosomes might be a matter of huge importance to a neoconservative like Ben Shapiro, who thinks that one’s identity is defined biologically, but that fact would be less politically relevant to a more progressive-minded person - at least in determining a trans person’s identity - because they think that identity is primarily defined socially. It simply goes back to one’s ideology, and one’s general worldview of how society operates. Another example would be how the fact that ‘there are 6 times more empty homes than homeless people’ would be a matter of huge relevance to a communist, or a left leaning liberal, but would at the very most be a matter of curious interest to a conservative, simply because their ideology already inherently constructs an ‘if you didn't earn it, you don’t deserve it’ mentality. A fascist would find the fact that ‘African Americans, despite forming 13% of the population, constitute 50% of the prison demographic’ to be extremely politically relevant, while a socialist democrat would not, seeing that as explained ideologically through systemic oppression and injustice in the judicial system. There are countless examples we can choose from, because there are countless ideologies that each enable and are enabled by the facts that they find important. This isn’t to say that all ideologies are the same and that the one we choose to lean towards is a matter of subjective taste; it simply means that we shouldn’t deceive ourselves into thinking there is a fact-based reason to subscribe to one, and that people of other ideologies are not beholden to facts. In actuality, political discourse isn’t about what the facts are, it’s about which facts are important and give motivation to act. Ben Shapiro may be right in claiming that ‘[certain] facts don’t care about your feelings’, but how we use these facts does care about our values and worldview.

Reason Versus Feeling

Our earlier paragraph discusses how he conflates possessing facts with possessing rational beliefs about what these facts mean, and we have gone through why this is problematic. But in making this assumption Ben actually commits to a more fundamental claim about rationality, and that is the drawing of a dichotomy between rational action and emotion. That is, he’s saying that one cannot be both emotional and rational. To be fair to him, this is not a very uncommon idea; think of the many times we’ve seen people say ‘stop being so emotional and use your head’. But that way of thinking, of ‘Reason versus Feeling’, might not be as clear and obvious as we think.

Let’s start with understanding what it means to be rational. I think it’s fairly uncontroversial to say that to be rational is to act in accordance with reason; that is, to do what one has more reason to do. The prospect of getting a free chocolate bar could give me a reason to steal from the convenience store, but the stronger motivations of not wanting to be arrested for theft and not wanting to do something morally wrong would give me more reason not to steal, making not stealing the rational decision for me (well, assuming a perfectly normal circumstance). So what exactly is a reason? Such an abstract concept might be hard to define. But looking at the previous three reasons we’ve raised, we can try to come up with some necessary features of a reason. For example, we know that a reason can’t exist in and of itself. There’s no such thing as simply ‘a reason’. It’s always ‘a reason to do x’, or ‘a reason to believe x’. Reasons are always predicated on some other action or thought. This brings us to our second, and more important, feature of reasons: they always exist to justify or motivate a certain action or thought. They inform us about our motivations in acting on/believing something, and it’s through weighing our many reasons for and against this that we decide what is reasonable and rational. This obviously means that reasons are extremely diverse, and is the reason why philosophers like to make different categories of reasons when analysing them: we’ve got object given reasons (reasons derived from certain features of the object in question), state given reasons (reasons derived from the current state we’re in), hedonic reasons (reasons that involve our own personal pleasure and happiness)… but the category of reasons we’re gonna talk about today is much, much simpler than all of that: what about emotional reasons?

When we get ‘emotional’, it usually doesn’t just happen randomly out of the blue. Something happens, or we’re in a certain state of mind that makes us react emotionally. Certain states of affairs gives us reasons to act emotionally, and then we evaluate whether or not said emotional reaction is a justified response. Granted, many times we end up acting emotionally and irrationally. But that doesn’t mean that every emotional reaction is not reasonable or rational. If Steve steals my lunch, it is reasonable for me to be annoyed and tell Steve off. It’s not reasonable for me to murder him in a ravenous fit of wrath, but that’s because I can evaluate that this emotional response in particular is not warranted. In fact, think about every time someone got mad and asked one of his friends ‘was I being unreasonable for acting that way?’, or every time a parent had to ask themselves whether they were too harsh in their reprimanding of their child. If emotional reasons didn’t exist, then these questions would be useless and meaningless, since every emotional reaction would be irrational. Arguably, the whole subreddit r/AmITheAsshole deals with the problems of sorting out emotional reasons and deciding whether or not the emotional reaction these reasons led to was reasonable. The assumption about the distinction between rationality and emotion that Ben Shapiro makes when he says ‘Facts Don’t Care About Your Feelings’, then, while not one that is altogether uncommon, is not really all that sustainable, since our feelings and the way we act from them can be evaluated from a rational lens.

As a matter of fact, even our favourite neoconservative himself does this evaluation all the time. Every time Ben decides that a condescending retort is in order, every time he reacts with incredulity at another ‘outlandish leftist headline’, he is deeming this specific emotion as an appropriate reaction. But we usually don’t think of these things as acting emotionally. The point I’m trying to get at here is more than just Ben’s inconsistencies with his own dogma; it’s driving more towards how we treat emotion as a whole. We don’t usually think to call contempt and condescension emotional, despite the fact that they technically are. In fact, we’d celebrate them as ‘savage’ or ‘absolutely destroying’ someone (think ‘Ben Shapiro versus SJW cringe compilations’). On the other hand, we’re quick to see those who express outrage and anger and compassion as being emotional (and, to some, therefore irrational). Our discussions and analyses about what exactly constitutes reason and how emotion fits in are all well and good, but the discussion simply wouldn’t be complete unless we also talk about how we as a society approach this issue. And judging by the looks of it, we evaluate what is ‘emotionally irrational’ based not on what actually is emotional, but rather based on what emotions are socially approved. Delivering a ‘sick burn’ is perfectly reasonable and great, but getting ‘triggered’ is uncool and going off-the-hook. Worryingly, what we judge as being an irrational emotional response isn’t just about the scale and extent of the response, but the type of emotional response itself, and it’s not altogether clear why we should believe that some emotions are simply inherently more irrational than others. Natalie Wynn, better known as Contrapoints, puts it better than I think I ever could

Perhaps a more accurate, albeit less catchy, phrase that describes what Ben Shapiro means in FDCAYF is that ‘Rationality Doesn’t Care About Your Feelings’. But the line he draws between the rational and the emotional, as we’ve seen, doesn’t really work all too well. Practically speaking, when we’re dealing with issues as sensitive and important as politics, sometimes being emotional is precisely the reasonable thing to do.

Conclusion

Writing what’s essentially an entire essay on one single statement, on hindsight, might have been a bit of an overkill. But I do think there’s a lot to be said about FDCAYF and how it’s used. I absolutely agree that we should be looking at hard truths instead of what our ‘feelings’ would want us to believe, and I absolutely agree that people can sometimes get unreasonably emotional. But the truth isn’t as simple as that. Emotions aren’t something to be reviled and altogether avoided in politics, and we can’t separate facts from the ideological context that enables them to be political. And while Ben Shapiro and his followers aren’t particularly known for their attention to nuance, I think it is at least important that this nuance be known.

#ben shapiro #liberal #ethics #shapiro #america #usa #conservative #ben #sjw #progressive #left wing

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jayraephoenix · 6 years

Text

Seeing as Blizzard hasn't given exact dates for everything, I've tried my best with all of the dates below. For Alchemist, I am assuming that the current game takes place in 2076. For references to where I've gotten my dates, just ask. Also, feel free to message me asking general questions on Willow, or if you'd like to roleplay with her.

~~~

Fandom: Overwatch.

Name: Willow "Alchemist" Moore.

Species: Human.

Gender: Female.

Age: 34, Born in the year 2042

Sexuality: Bisexual. Prefers men over women, but won't turn down a female's advances.

Team: Talon.

Class: Offense.

Personality: The Alchemist is incredibly motivated, and once she has her mind set on something, she will work tirelessly towards. Sometimes that something is a new formula for her chemicals, sometimes it's a conundrum created by Talon for her to solve, but more often than not, it's an objective placed before her in the form of a mission.

One of her strengths is her intelligence, but at the same time, it's a weakness; she has a quick tongue, and her obsessive nature combined with her IQ has meant that she can get into situations which are hard to escape from without getting injured. It's not uncommon for her to attempt something on the field without telling her teammates, so those working with her need to be prepared for a sudden push, or to defend her back if she miscalculated.

Surprisingly, seeing as she's on Talon's side, Willow wants to help the world become a better place in the long run. Much like Widowmaker, her mind has slowly warped the longer she stayed with Talon, however unlike the spider, it wasn't a typical brain-washing. She still has emotions, and though she lacks in empathy for her enemies, she can be reasoned with, so trying to connect with a common interest is the best way to avoid getting scorched.

Appearance: Standing at 5" 8, she's just above the average for a woman. Her natural hair colour is a light blonde, on the edge of being platinum, but it's usual to see multi-coloured streaks decorating it (the same colours as the different toxins she uses; more on those later). She has pale skin, which isn't surprising considering she's from England. Her eyes are brown, dark enough that in certain lights they look black. There are no scars marking her face, but she has a very noticeable feature (if her hair wasn't memorable enough). Her entire right arm is bionic, thanks to an accident with her work.

Usual outfit: Her normal outfit consists of a dark boiler suit, with flame-retardant gloves and pipes snaking around her right wrist, up into her bionic arm, which then attaches to the tank on her back. This holds three different chemical creations. Each has a specific colour and ability. The pipes are connected to a gun, similar to a flamethrower. She wears a double filter gas mask and goggles, to protect herself from the noxious gases she uses.

Weapons: The three different chemical mixes in the tank are purple, blue and green. Respectively, purple is a blend of oils, that will light an enemy on fire if the flame on the front is lit. It is her main attack.

Blue is an hallucinogenic, causing whoever inhales it to begin attacking their teammates, as their vision becomes warped. This is her second attack. It isn't effective against those with a face mask or filter. This includes characters like Soldier 76, but it all depends on the skin/outfit they are wearing. For example, if D.Va is in her mech, it doesn't affect her, and if Tracer is in her T.Racer skin, the gas is blocked.

Green is an acid, and can melt armour and plating. This is her ultimate, and can only target those close to her.

As well as having the hallucinogenic as a secondary attack, she can sprint like Soldier 76 can.

Specifics: All of her chemicals are completely safe to handle, even with bare skin; they only become reactive upon hitting a flame. This means that against Mei, Willow will become ineffective, and have to run away to reignite the flame on the front of her weapon.

Her arm is one of the improvements that she has gotten whilst working in Talon. She gained it via an accident with her green, acidic chemical; it didn't react in the way she'd expected during the early stages, and exploded while she was holding it. It caught her right arm, eating away the muscle there, and effectively crippling the entire limb. She wanted to be on the field, but with such a disability, doing so would be dangerous, therefore she had it replaced. Not only did it make her more effective in the long run, but it also meant that Moira had another guinea pig for a short period of time.

Background: Hailing from Britain, Willow used to work as a chemist, creating different medicines to treat the sick. After the attack at King's Row, when the Null Sector bots came and destroyed her business (Willow was aged 27 at the time, 2069), she promptly decided that she could do more than just heal the wounded caused by such fights. Instead, she could prevent the illness before it even started to spread.

With these goals in mind, she began to train, using her knowledge to create chemical weapons with the ability to burn her enemies. She started from scratch, but her persistence and perseverance meant that she put on muscle mass quickly, and learnt endurance and developed stamina. However, instead of going to Overwatch, she strayed to the side of Talon; she was no hero, and had always leaned towards the darker parts of life in her past. Not only that, but with Overwatch being illegal through the Petras Act, there was no way she could have joined them anyway.

For the first few missions she was a part of, they weren't interupted in any way; that was good, considering she was still getting used to everything. However, the first agent who tried to intercept her had no idea of what he was getting into. Soldier 76 had stopped their delivery in Dorado, and Alchemist had become obsessed from the moment she saw him. This was the start of a long journey between them, one involving both successful and failed attempts to woo/kidnap the older man.

Relationships: As previously stated, Willow wants a relationship with Overwatch's Soldier 76. However, any interaction must be left on the field, or if she were to kidnap him, because a Talon soldier in the clutches of Overwatch would be a recipe for disaster. The older man always tries to shut down her advances, but she isn't easily deterred.

The person she's closest to on her own team is probably the Reaper, because they share a lot of traits and morals which the others don't have. Not only that, but he was the first person she met in Talon, as he was technically the one who recruited her. Plus, she can pick his brains about the infamous Jack Morrison, the Golden Boy of the old Overwatch.

Apart from him, she gets on fairly well with Moira, only because of their smarts and common interest in science.

Extras: She has a tattoo on the lower half of her back, one which, if you were to ask, she'd explain was a complex alchemy table, based more on the philosophical, rather than scientific, side of alchemy. She got it when she was younger, around her mid-twenties.

Ever since her attention got directed towards the Soldier, Alchemist has been working on a new formula to try and mimic that of the super soldier serum. It's pink in colour, and while it certainly improves stamina for a short period of time, it isn't long-term like what she is hoping for. Not only that, but it has an unwanted affect of increased libido. Further tests are required on that one before it's used on the field, or that'd be a nightmare. She's also working on a way to adapt her suit so that if she's lagging or injured in any way, it'll administer a shot of Moira's healing juice; again, this is still a work in progress.

#overwatch #alchemist oc #my oc #willow/alchemist #feel free to message me

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realityebooks · 3 years

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You Are Not One But In Layers

That’s Why Your Purposes Are Multidimensional;

Hence The Conflicts…

By Santosh Jha

There is this singular and objective hypothesis, which if accepted, paves way for objective understanding of how we humans are what we are. This hypothesis is a result of the scientifically singular understanding of brain functioning, which engenders very powerful insight into how our consciousness works. As this hypothesis about consciousness is accepted, it shall be easy to understand and accept the realism about how we have loads of obsolete and obstructive notions about cognition and causality, which we have uselessly carried forward since ages. This is time to shift to the new cognition and causalities.

It is now to be accepted that we humans are not a logical and intelligent creature, if we do not have a specialized, education, training and sustained practice of good things we have learned. Humans are not born intelligent and logical; rather we are totally reactive, instinctive and intuitive creature. Our behaviours are determined entirely by a multidimensional process of interaction between our various instincts. These instincts are genetically determined neural mechanisms, provided by evolution for action and behaviour. There is no mechanism for intelligence or memory which is separate from sensory, motor and instinct mechanisms.

The untrained and uneducated human is totally instinctive and not capable of objective reasoning or proper cultural behaviour under complex modern social environments. The human has been provided by evolution with instincts, which causes him to seek both training and education, as he or she is a competitive social animal. He is quite capable of logic, reason, and intelligence when he chooses to be so, provided that he learns and follows the necessary discipline and rigid methodology. Even then, he is instinctive in his goals. His instincts provide the direction, drive and power behind his every action.

Moreover, a section of scientists argue that nothing has remained instinctive in humans anymore as we all have been into this society and human made cultures since long. They believe, all instinctive drives of humans are not purely instinctive but coloured, shaped and conditioned by cultural benchmarks of action and behaviour.

However, there is no conflict in the two observations. No doubt, humanity has been impacted by two very powerful forces – nature and nurture; that is their pure instincts and cultural sense of appropriate and righteousness. This is evident from the fact that most humans are split between what their instincts drive them to and what their cultural upbringing leads them to. That is why often, a person would say – I am confused as whether I should listen to the call of my heart or that of my mind. An average person believes that there always are two calls on decision-making about an issue. One is from heart, which he or she believes is his or her gut feeling, which most people call visceral. Second voice comes from the mind, which most believe is the call of a culture within a person.

There is this preference of heart or visceral choice over the mind call as most believe, heart is where righteousness is, as average person believes, mind is devilish and it usually orchestrates complications, whereas heart is simple, pure and mostly right. This is populist psychology playing its part in everyone’s life and life-living choices. People love to listen to their hearts; that means most prefer to have the way their instincts lead them to. There is no doubt about the preference as, we already discussed how evolution has installed in us very powerful drives, which are so wired to the idea of survival that most of us lead ourselves the way our instinctive drive takes us to. Scientists say, even the culturally learnt behaviour finally becomes part of the instincts and that is why, it is accepted that humans are largely instinctive.

This works out as double trouble for humanity. Human mind mechanism has this wired facility to make most actions and behaviour as auto-mode, action-reaction causality. This is the reason most of us are in a perpetual state of drift and flux, which makes us auto-generate series of action-behaviour, the utility and worth of which we seldom think in a receptive-mode and retrospective thinking. That is why loneliness is some facility for us, which makes us sit focused over our auto-mode decision-making instincts, to assess about their true and right utility and worth.

Scientists maintain that modern human developed intellect in parallel with other physical and neural traits. Modern humans have risen well over evolutionary instincts and they have this intellectual duty to create and prolong a good culture, where there is intellectual control over instinctive drives, for larger wellness of the society. Only through the application of the intellect, utilizing experience, education and training, as control mechanisms over the raw instincts, appropriate cultural behaviour can be obtained.

Scientists say that most human drives are without conscience. They do not care about long-range effects. It seeks only immediate gratification. Modern knowledge of brain realism also accepts that consciousness is very localized. It instinctively being a reactive mode facility cares for only short term utility and worth.

If conscience exists, it exists in the intellect of the human. To be human is to allow the intellect to preside over the utility and worth of every important action-behaviour over the dimensions of time, space, people and processes. It is this necessary intellectual control of the instincts which makes a culture successful. We see contemporary cultures in drift and flux because majority of people are behaving true to their instincts, without much intellectual control and conscience. And, this intellectual control is a learned function and is called self-discipline, to over-ride less desirable instinctive behaviour.

That is why in most advanced contemporary cultures, where liberalism has unleashed uncontrolled instinctive drives of humanity, sans any intellectual self-control, the governments of the day have to spend huge moneys on police, jails and other emergency measures. Most modern cultures are failed cultures as the level of self-control in people in personal and societal spheres are very little and diminishing fast.

One such powerful instinctive drive of humanity, which has shattered most modern liberal cultures, because of ever reducing intellectual self-control is sex. This over-encompassing sex drive has lost its evolutionary role way back and it surely looks like an obstructive vestige of the obsolete evolution. Still, it dominates the human thinking and worldview in biggest possible way, overriding even survival sanity.

Evolution, at one point of time, many millions years back, switched from non-sexual reproductive procedures to sexual one as it had definitive benefits for species survival and genetic excellence. Evolution embedded sexual drive in neural wirings to ensure that human excelled over other species. This evolution then created gender roles and suitable physiological as well as neural differences were created in males and females. This scheme of things required that men always looked for sex and women used sex as selection tool for best mating option.

Things have changed in modern cultures. Evolution’s game plan is no more valid and no more required as traditional gender roles have changed and in liberal cultural scenario, sex has lost its old and tested evolutionary purpose. Moreover, in modern living, humanity does not have the old challenges of survival and species proliferation, as we are many times more in numbers on this planet and have managed to live quite long. We do not need to go into details as everyone knows, how modern cultures have placed sex in a rather demeaning and diminutive imagery as fun thing, thrill-tool and time-pass activity, rather than a reproductive tool.

In modern civilization, where success of cultures depends on how intellectual self-control is exercised over instinctive drives, just the inverse is happening. Sex was once an instinctive drive, designed for species needs millions of years back. Now that modern human life-living situation and overall cultural advancement has made those needs obsolete, what we need is intellectual self-control over this powerful sex drive, which has lost its primitive usage. We need to accept sex in a totally different light and perspective.

Though, it is a long and complicated scientific explanation as how our brains have been designed in long years of evolution; we just have to know and accept that unlike other human organs, human brain is not a single organ. It is rather a cooperative of many parts, evolved during different times of evolution, with each part being an addition to the old one, not a replacement. Therefore, what we need to accept is that our brain is not doing this favour of intellectual discretion to us. It still has the primitive brain, over which the new parts have piled up. That is why our brain still has the primitive instincts and drives. It also has modern logical parts but brain is not doing any automatic pruning for us. We have to exercise learnt and nurtured intellectual control over our instincts. Both instincts and intellect are part of our brain mechanism but this self-control thing works well only when we have evolved a higher consciousness. Instinctive behaviours are auto-mode, intellectual initiatives are not. Therefore, the intellectual self-control needs to be inculcated and persevered through conscious practice. This presupposes quality lonely time with self.

No doubt, human inventiveness and human intellectual prowess are potent mechanism, which can engender so much novelty out of even a waste. Sex however is such a beautiful human experience. With applied human intellect, modern humanity and cultures surely can turn this obsolete sex drive into a highly beautiful, artistic and worthy entity.

There is this very subtle difference in cognitionregarding so many life-living realisms, which produce two extreme causalities – extremely beneficial or extremely calamitous. This difference in cognition is about how we hit a poise of higher purpose between tangible as well as intangible elements of some realism. This needs to be applied in the domain of sex. The tangibles of sex and physical intimacies have a very limited purpose, which are now evolutionary vestiges. We surely do not need sex in its primeval tangible form. However, the intangibles of sex are unlimited and they offer us so many sunny shades. The intangible elements of nurturance, mutuality, intimacy, cooperation, compassion, commitment, trust, etc are all very beneficial requirements for overall wellness of we all and all these elements must be made to ride on the tangibility of sex. Evolution has given us a vehicle, a medium, but what we carry on this vehicle is now the role of our intellect and higher consciousness.

This requires change in the age-old cognition about sex. We need to unlearn the populist perspectives about tangibility of sex and learn the intangibilities of sex, in the light of new wellness needs in modern times. The artistry of intellect to attain this change needs two key ingredients –

1. Intellectual self-control over our instincts, the primeval neural wiring...

Higher consciousness to evolve a new cognition for novel sex causalities...

As we said earlier, with applied human intellect, modern humanity and cultures surely can turn this obsolete sex drive into a highly beautiful, artistic and worthy entity.

It is a similar situation with loneliness. We have to unlearn its tangible aspects to change the old cognition about it as a bad and debilitating thing. Then, we need to apply our intellect to redesign a new cognition, which sees and accepts the beautiful and beneficial intangible elements of loneliness.

We all just need to accept that there are things, which need to change. We are no more what we used to be millions of years back, when the evolution wired in us so many of our current drives. As these drives are still there and we surely cannot delete them from our genetic makeup, we have to fast unlearn the obsolete roles and worth of these drives and design new intellectual meaning and utility of these drives.

Similarly, loneliness was once a very meaningful tool evolution wired in us so that we all could drop our individualistic streak and fall back to society, culture and other collectivity as our survival chances were good only when we lived in groups and interacted in mutuality mode. However, modern living and contemporary cultures have outlived the utility of loneliness. This collectivity, over-connect with cultures and being part of the crowded mainstream worldview itself has become a huge burden on individual as together, they are triggering more chaos, conflict and confusion, because of the constant drift and flux, they keep us into. It is time we unlearn the obsolete instinctive perception, role and utility of loneliness.

We need loads of self-control, self-discipline and self-awareness of high order to intellectually re-design the rules of individuality as well as our social needs. Times have changed, the world we live in has changed, life-living realism has changed. That is why we also have to intellectually design such changes in ourselves and in our mainstream cultures, which make both individuals as well as cultures become successful.

Scientists say, evolution is a stupid engineering. Things in distant past happened as accidents, and in time, many of such accidents, which evolution opted for as bare survival input, were labelled as successes. Scientists say, we have come to a stage, where we are no more a puppet in the hands of accidental evolution. Scientists say, future of humanity is in designing excellence, not survival. All future evolutions shall no more be accidental, but planned after very mindful and conscious intellectual rumination.

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#Consciousness #personality #life-living #thoughtfulness #new thinking

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