Shrewd Speculations

Why Myths Matter

2011-10-19T23:58:00.000-07:00

Jenny and Tommy, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in a baby carriage! That’s not all, that’s not all, then ….
Someone does something rhyming with –all.

I bet you predicted that. If you grew up in public schools in the United States (can’t speak for other places), and no one ever sang this annoying jingle at you or a close personal friend, then you’re extraordinarily lucky.

This post is about the importance of myth or story in the construction of our cultural episteme. This matters because the episteme isn’t just a body of available knowledge, it’s the apparatus by which we judge what ideas are and are not acceptable “Truths” within our particular cultural context. The jingle above is annoying and extremely catchy (two values young children seem to treat as gospel), but it also represents accepted ideas within our cultural episteme in a way that young children can internalize and repeat without even knowing they’re doing it.

Any child exposed to this jingle and others like it will undoubtedly concurrently be forming expectations about the typical format of opposite gender interaction (and unless playgrounds are becoming more friendly places to be, opposite-gender relationships are being reinforced as normative). There’s a reason why sexual education in schools simply cannot keep up with the norms already repeated and enforced on the playground, and I think that reason has everything to do with the method by which those norms are conveyed. A jingle someone heard on the playground in third grade, or better yet, a circulating rumor, has a stronger and longer impact on a child’s mind than some pedantic lecture about their bodies, given in dry, scientific language.

Why is this? I have no true cognitive science background, aside from some investigation into the relationship between cognition and religion, but I think it’s safe to say that images and narratives are easier to process than abstract, subject-specific language. For example, I think one of the reasons so many people find it hard to let go of the Genesis narrative, as the defining “picture” of the origins of the planet, is because the evolutionary model is just that, a scientific model. It isn’t a story. I think it has started to take on some narrative elements in popular discourse, but the danger is that the intentionality that is often ascribed to actors in a story causes misunderstandings about the theory itself, which puts scientists’ teeth on edge (for good reason).

I read a fantastic chapter today by Richard Valantasis on spiritual guides of the 3rd century (in various contexts), in which he proposed that semiotic analyses were required to truly understand the “underlying structures (the mutually understood context) which makes communication possible” in the ancient texts which describe a spiritual teacher from the perspective of the student.(1) He explored ancient semiotic theory, which was a way to search for underlying meanings within a text, utilizing theories of language and interpretation. (2) Aristotle’s poetics “explored ‘the nature of meaning and metaphor and the relation between literal and non-literal discourse.’”(3) For Valantasis’ purposes, a semiotic study “[discovers] … cultural systems that lie behind communication.”(4) These cultural systems are the “keys” which allow us to decode the underlying systems which allow the multilayered literal and non-literal images and “signs” within texts to signify meaning; that is, a particular meaning understood by both writer and reader, because of their shared access to an underlying meaning-system.

What was striking and alluring about Valantasis’ chapters was the fact that the communication of a student about his spiritual teacher was so “encoded,” that cultural and religious (or esoteric, as in the case of Hermeticism) fluency were absolutely necessary for “decoding” the deeper meaning of the text or oration. Those that shared this fluency were “insiders,” who were able to perceive the deeper “truths” the speaker wanted to convey about the signified, the guide, by correctly interpreting the signifiers which constituted that characterization within text, because of their concurrent fluency and engagement with a larger, shared episteme of meaning.

All of this complex jargon helps, in my opinion to explain why stories and myths are extraordinarily effective, efficient, and “capacious” teaching tools. I say “capacious” because stories/myths are able to “hold” an enormous amount of meaning because of the relationships between language and culture which allow for a multiplicity of meanings contained within the “vessel” of a single story. (For a great example of this, The Prologue to Origin’s Commentary on the Song of Songs is helpful)

This evening at our weekly symposium, my fellow graduate students and I discussed the problems of post-modern deconstruction, especially as regards the devaluation and elimination of meaning, value, and truth. My friend So (whose blog you can find listed on the right sidebar, “That Green Stuff”) and I arrived at the notion that post-modernism is a tool like any other, and what can be deconstructed to its most basic elements can also represent or “signify” a plethora of other meanings within a number of contexts. What post-modernism deconstructs, ecological theories of emergence, complexity, and novelty can help to flourish and expand according to its own internal logic, pressing on in a non-linear growth pattern that cannot be predicted by its original conditions.

Myths and stories matter because they can function as cultural “short hands” for accepted notions of morality, social cohesion, virtue and self-development, the purpose of knowledge, cosmogony and anthropology. But because these myths can also help reinforce particular “norms,” great care must be taken when it is recognized that they no longer adequately function as descriptors of the human experience and self-understanding in a given context, or if they are exposed as promoting an unhealthy vision of self and society. If these occur, the myths must change.

What myths do we assume as “normative” for our Western, hetero-normative, primarily Christian context? What myths have fallen from their meta-regulatory status because they no longer suit the self-understanding of people in a post-Christian world? These are questions to ponder.

I was going to cite more examples of how stories engage in the kind of signifying described by Valantasis above (Spencer’s Faerie Queene came to mind), but any story that has achieved the status of “national literature” would work just as well. Milton, Shakespeare, and Dickens do more to explain what it means to be English than any cultural study on English norms and customs, but only to “insiders” who share the cultural “reference-text” that allows them to recognize the signifiers of meaning in the texts and decode them. This is why I think academics really need to start writing more stories. So much of academic research is lost on those who would truly benefit from the findings because the information is caught up within language that does not signify to casual readers because they do not share the experience of academic “training” which gives them access to the vocabulary limited to those who have experienced the same paraskeuhv (practice, preparation, arrangement, training, etc.). I’m not talking about boiling down Foucault into a children’s book (readers age 17 and older only, please), but rather about recognizing that (important point!) the multiplicity of meanings that can be “carried” within the vessel of a story or myth allow for an implicit portrayal of the problem of multiple meanings explored by post-modern theory. In a text read in light of its possible underlying, symbolic associations, multiple meanings are free to coexist alongside one another, regardless of their compatibility. The form of the myth (or poem, for that matter) contains all of the essences that can be possibly signified by the particular signifiers within the text.

This is an extraordinarily difficult thing to accomplish once you’re thinking about it and concerned about all of the processes and details. Since semiotics is descriptive rather than prescriptive, I’m hoping much of this comes naturally to us, as we are myth-making creatures. I will be keeping this in mind as I attempt to start crafting my own myths, in order to signify truths of my own experience in a way that is truly multivalent and “makes room.” If we apply emergence and complexity theories to literature and the processes of conveying meaning, then construct myths that are accessible to a wide and imaginative audience, how much more competent (and comfortable) will we become in our navigation of a world in which multiple meanings coexist side by side?

(1) Richard Valantasis, Spiritual Guides of the Third Century: A semiotic study of the Guide-Disciple Relationship in Christianity, Neoplatonism, Hermetism, and Gnosticism (Harvard College, 1991) 6.
(2) Ibid. 7
(3) Ibid.
(4) Ibid., 9

A New Story

2011-10-17T11:56:00.001-07:00

I'm moved by the need to tell a new story. Or maybe just tell our current story differently. The conflict of worldviews (or perceived conflict) seems to be my constant ideological companion as I traverse the realm of graduate literature. Even in my Inter-Religious dialogue class, our studies of conflict resolution and overcoming cultural differences seems to take on that old, familiar, stomach-sickening binary cast; individualist vs. communitarian, diffuse vs. specific, high-context vs. low-context. Individualists aren’t prone to service and are not concerned about their communities. The trend toward the specific is scientific and objective, while those who engage in a diffuse communication style are more holistic, more organic, and more in touch with spirituality.

These are generalizations, and to be fair, the author of this particular text continually reinforces the notion “that all individuals are multicultural, sharing identities and meanings with people from a range of other groups, and that cultural generalizations are not manifested evenly within groups or across times but change with specific context…”(1) Still, it is easy to see how this conceptual binary has infiltrated our shared cultural imagination. I take issue not only with the fact that these categories are never completely appropriate or applicable, but also with the underlying assumption that an individualist perspective is theoretically inseparable from its “origin,” the Newtonian scientific worldview, and that the underlying framework for all individualism is an atomistic, determined, objective reality.
I take issue with these binaries (individualism vs. collectivism, science vs. spirituality, specificity vs. diffuseness, mechanical efficiency vs. aesthetic quality), which are in my opinion simply symptoms of one all-encompassing, flawed super-binary, because I do not think that the problem lies in the fact that we see reality in many different ways, but in the fact that we think these views are incompatible, or even that they are two different ways to see the world.

A metaphor from LeBaron’s book might help. Akio Morita, a founder of Sony, provides an illustration of the difference between specificity and diffuseness (categories LeBaron is using to help explain sources of conflict in cross-cultural communication). He likens the specificity view to a bricklayer, and the diffuse to a stonemason. The bricklayer has a closed set of specific tools and materials, which he arranges according to a predetermined plan. The creation of the bricklayer emerges in a predictable, orderly way. The Stonemason, on the other hand, “chooses stones that approximate the general size and appearance desired and then chisels them until they fit together perfectly.”(2)

What are the two products of these approaches? A brick wall, or some other rigid, linear structure, and a beautiful cathedral, monument, or other more aesthetically pleasing construction.

The Bricklayer is mechanistic, determined, specific, and follows an orderly and predictable plan. What comes out of this? Nothing exciting, but at least something dependable.

The Stonemason is diffuse, artistic, visionary, non-linear, and aesthetically driven. What emerges? Something beautiful, awe-inspiring, and atypical, though usually through an inefficient and fairly unpredictable process.

It’s a great setup, but it’s ultimately misleading. Stonemasons are just as mathematically and scientifically informed, driven, and restricted as bricklayers. What differs in these two stories is the material, not the process. Bricks have predetermined shape, stones don’t. Realistically, the Stonemason and the Bricklayer follow very similar sets of physical and mathematical rules.

Here’s where the fun, symbolic stuff starts. And this is why I love Freemasonry.
The Stonemason’s craft can function as a symbol of the unity of physical/mathematical rules and the aesthetic drive to create something beautiful, unpredictable, and undetermined.

Here’s the kicker: following a set of rules and guidelines (“laws” if you will), whether physical, mathematical, or moral, does not produce a deterministic set of results.

Look at the physical laws of the universe (and forgive me, for my scientific literacy and fluency nominal at best), and then look at the universe. Does the product shaped by these “determined” forces look mechanical, at all? No, I don’t think so either. The universe is a beautiful, dangerous, chaotic, illogical, diverse, constantly changing place.

The Stonemason is bound by the determining rules of geometry and physics, and yet creates breathtakingly beautiful buildings. Even more importantly, the awe and power of these constructions, especially in their aesthetic appeal, would have been impossible to achieve without those rigid, determining rules.
Thesis: deterministic “laws” do not prevent the emergence of variety.
Back to the binaries. I stated above that the problem with the binaries was “the fact that we think these views are incompatible, or even that they are two different ways to see the world.” The premise that the Stonemason and the Bricklayer follow fundamentally different processes was flawed. Stonemasons are just as rigidly constrained by the same mathematical and physical rules as the bricklayer. The difference is in scale.

Building a wall is not that complicated. A brick house is higher up the scale, but there’s not much you can screw up there. Building a cathedral is enormously complex. There are multiple kinds of labor, materials, spaces, etc. to consider, but one still has to follow the same basic rules as the bricklayer. Proportion of height and weight, gravitational forces, wind resistance, stress factors – all of the mathematics are the same. Kicker #2: the farther up the scale of complexity you go, even operating with the same rules, the more variety, difference, and (dare I say it?) freedom you have.

The freedom of aesthetic expression is a high-level function of the determining laws that provide order, stability, balance, and a certain amount of predictability. Therefore, both “fundamental views” of reality, interpersonal/communal relationships are two sides of the same coin. You cannot understand one without the other, nor is one superior to the other. Both must be recognized and allowed to operate. Aesthetics and diffusion are not antithetical to determinism and specificity.
Here’s where the “new story” comes in.

I keep running into these two different ways of weaving the story of reality and it’s starting to bother me. I’m getting tired of it. So in a time honored Existentialist tradition, I’m going to re-tell the story. I’m going to weave the tapestry of reality as I see it and cast it like a net into the world. These aren’t just the mad ramblings of my own brain, of an isolated individual; all of my own thoughts are shaped by my interaction with other minds. Relationality is hugely important to me. I hardly know what I think until I have shared a few whispers of thought over a glass of wine or coffee and watched those whispers slowly gain form in the matrix of conversation.

The story is already taking shape and will likely take mythic form, as I feel that’s the best way to convey meaning in a non-linear, non-imposing way without making ultimate truth claims. This (I think) is the same principle behind the Freemasonic use of drama and ritual in their instructional ceremonies and degrees.

Stay tuned for the next installment!

1 Michelle LeBaron, “Bridging Cultural Conflicts,” p. 54.
2 Ibid. 67

The Rod of Asklepios

2011-10-09T21:50:00.000-07:00

The great thing about this blog is that it gives me a forum to post some original poetry, without the added frustration of critiques/platitudes offered by my entire Facebook friends list. This poem was an inspired response to one of Faun's posts over at That Green Stuff.

Faun's post inspired some of my own reflection on the desire for transformation, both physical and spiritual. Unfortunately, our outsides don't always reflect our internal states and this experience of internal/external dissonance can be extremely disheartening and make one feel profoundly at odds with oneself, dissonant, and misplaced. The human endeavor towards creation, which I define as the crafting externally discernible expressions of the internal imagination, allows us to shape something outside of ourselves, whether that is artistic work or a whole worldview, in ways that mirror or resonate the deepest yearnings of our inner selves.

There are two (three?) symbols referenced in this poem. I've kind of collapsed them into one, as I feel that they can come to represent the same basic yearning for a transformation of self that leads to wholeness that comes from the full expression or disclosure of the yearnings of the imagination. The Rod of Asklepios was an ancient Mediterranean symbol of healing. The single snake wrapped around the staff alluded to the snake's supposed regenerative power (symbolized by the shedding of its skin) and its potent venomous properties. The staff is also a symbol of the traveling healer. Its other name in the poem, "Nehushtan" refers to the bronze serpent which healed the Hebrews during the Exodus. (Parsing out the connections between the Greek Rod of Asklepios and the Hebrew Neushtan is beyond the scope of this post and my own meager Hebrew skills).

The winged Caduceus, a symbol inappropriately applied to the medical profession, was the staff of Hermes, a trickster and messenger god. It is also connected to Tiresias, the blind hermaphroditic prophet who counseled Oedipus, Odysseus, and others. The Caduceus symbolizes the attributes of Mercury (Hermes), which in alchemical lore signifies dual stability and fluidity, two properties held at once in the same substance, and the process of transformation.

The Rod of Asklepios
Death evading serpent,
You slide among the rocks,
And leave your troubles behind,
Along with your cast-off skin.

Envy strikes like fangs at my heel.
I’m doomed to walk, encased
In this unbending skin
That never seems to fit quite right.
My mind stretches and the soul groans
To escape this limited shell,
But I cannot slough it off so easily.

Oh liberated rival,
Nehushtan, Askelpios,
I’ll set your bronze body
On a pole to carry aloft
And harness your transformation
A magic wand, a prism for imagination,
To vivify impotent words with the
Panacea of meaning,
To craft such signs as will carry
The blossoming of my inner life
out past the walls of this fickle shell
And press upon the wax of the world
The seal of my inner transformation.

Rebirth!

2011-10-09T21:23:00.000-07:00

Big changes (and new posts!) are on the horizon! Teaser: sustained reflections upon the discussions of a gaggle of religious studies grad students sandwiched into a back corner of a little pub....

The Poets

2009-07-21T11:28:00.000-07:00

What miraculous breath of spirit must inspire the great poets. I, for all my effort, could never wrangle experience, truth, sound, and sense, the experiences of my life and the lives of others, and capture them all within the vessel of a poem. Such a vessel would contain the very potency of life's elusive vapors, distilled down to the most basic elements, neither too much nor too little, sweetened like a decanted wine in the most elegant of rose hued glass. Pull the stopper, and it pours out forever.

Fifth Century Sustainability

2009-04-20T22:09:00.000-07:00

A short post for today. No time for a reflection; I'll post the material and someone else can reply with a reflection on it (which would be both interesting and convenient!):

"And all this [the things with which God has provided us] is granted under the most equitable condition: that every mortal who uses aright such goods, goods designed to serve the peace of mortal men, shall receive goods greater in degree and superior in kind, namely, the peace of immortality, and the glory and honor appropriate to it in a life which is eternal for the enjoyment of God and of one's neighbor in God, whereas he who wrongly uses those mortal goods shall lose them, and shall not receive the blessings of eternal life."
Augustine of Hippo, City of God: Book XIX, Chapter 13.

The Crowd's Lauded Hero - A social commentary in Iambic Pentameter

2009-04-16T11:04:00.001-07:00

Is this the man that launched that bold campaign?
To fight for loyalty, honor, justice plain?
Like Tully glib, like Cato firm and wise,
A saintly man, his eyes ‘ere on the skies.
As Paris pined for Helen, Senator, pure,
Beatific visions will our yearnings cure.
O Prophet Hero, show yourself and lead,
This guideless mob is witless, lost, in need.
Why did our founders give us rights to choose?
However dear, Freedom is easily abused.
The choices of the wicked now in mass,
Are disapproved within His righteous class.
Each choice, each risk, receives the just black ball,
Of those who know the “needs of all.”
The good of all informs how policy shapes,
So they might curb all those ambitious jack-a-napes.
If any group should suffer, they’re up in arms,
With acceptable cost, the one is prone to harm.

Christian Economics

2009-04-11T16:42:00.001-07:00

BEFORE I start: I am not trying to espouse any particular economic or political view. This is simply an analysis, informed by some current heavy reading in Augustine's "City of God."

It seems to me that people (bloggers, Twitterites, etc.) are tending to either justify increased social benefits or, on the other hand, limitless economic freedom, from a Christian standpoint.

While I think applying one's personal beliefs and faith to social action, especially with concern for one's fellow human beings, is commendable, I think some people need to take a step back.

While it is a Christian duty to work within one's civic situation (or outside of it, depending upon the restrictions and limitations of one's state - see Dietrich Bonhoeffer), these kinds of actions can lead to the mistaken beliefs that human institutions (communism, socialism, free-trade economies, lassez fair) can ultimately bring about the "Kingdom of God."

There are two reasons people come to this mistaken conclusion:

First, our own arrogance and hubris (ultimately the reality of human sinfulness) tempts us to believe that our own efforts are enough to accomplish tasks of Biblical proportions. While human accomplishments thus far are nothing short of astounding, our equal capability for destruction and our tendency to bungle even the simplest things (like welfare), even with the best of intentions, shows how ultimately flawed we are.

Secondly, inattention to the message of Jesus, as he conveyed it, leads people to believe that the Kingdom of God is something that we must work to bring about. "The kingdom of God is NOW" asserts quite the opposite. God comes to us through the person of Jesus Christ (or, if you are Jewish, Muslim, or a non-trinitarian Christian), through the words of inspired scripture, which assert God's presence among us. This guiding force is, in my opinion, less a conquering spirit, sent by God to "reclaim" our "lost Earth" for holy people, but rather a spirit of revolution, come to radically change people's perspectives and lead us to more whole, loving relationships with one another.

Ultimately, the Kingdom of God manifests itself in individual works of love, compassion, and charity between individuals. The hope that this new, revolutionary spirit will ultimately change the "regulator" of individual relationships, that is, the government, is just that - a hope. If this change does happen, it will not be because governmental bodies accept the beliefs of one particular faith tradition but because the individuals who comprise that government will be themselves transformed.

This, however, has not happened in the 2,000 (give or take a few) years since the beginning of Jesus' mission, and I think it would be somewhat over-optimistic to look for it anytime soon, or to believe that one particular form of government (socialism, communism, democratic-republic) is more likely to bring it about.

Ultimately, the perfect Kingdom of God on Earth (if it does come at all) will be securely established not by human labors or well-intentioned political finagling, but rather by the providence of an omnipotent, eternally gracious God.

P.S. Don't get me started on Revelation - I'll save that for another blog post, tied into a discussion of the horrors of Biblical Literalism.

The Grammar of Morality?

2009-04-11T00:05:00.001-07:00

I'm not exactly an ethicist, but I've been wondering about grammar as a metaphor for morality. I look at horrendous grammar almost every day, working as a writing tutor at my university. Most people don't think of grammar as important or even necessary, but I do.

Isn't it important to be able to coherently express yourself to others? And that's on the most basic level. (Usually, I wouldn't suggest beginning a sentence with "and" to students, but I find it appropriate to punctuate my point with a colloquial sentence fragment).

On a more intellectual level, being able to cogently express one's thoughts, especially on the university level, is extremely important and necessary for the communication of the ideas that power our constantly changing and developing world.

Grammar isn't just a list of rules to follow, a set of hoops one must jump through in the writing process because "that's the way it works;" grammar is the only way one can ensure coherency of expression. Communication would be impossible without regulatory rules.

Now, as to the question of whether grammar is an adequate metaphor for morality, in relation to a recent article by David Brooks in the New York Times, I think it's perfectly appropriate. Brooks discusses morality's connection to successful evolutionary traits, positing our emotions as the major actors in our moral decision making process: 'Or as Jonathan Haidt of the University of Virginia memorably wrote, “The emotions are, in fact, in charge of the temple of morality, and ... moral reasoning is really just a servant masquerading as a high priest.'"

In opposition to Socratic thought, which advocates emotionless, independent "deliberation" on moral questions, Brooks and other researchers believe that our moral "instincts" (the word stands in stark contrast to "deliberation") come from an evolutionary trait: our inheritance from generations of successful cooperators.

How does this relate to grammar? Grammar is by nature descriptive. It doesn't determine how language works, it looks at how our language operates and creates "rules" (more accurately, descriptions of a language's predictable behaviors). In reality, when one says that language follows rules, one really means that language operates in predictable ways, which can be described by "rules."

At the most basic level, language developed to enable us to communicate, to solve problems, and to express ourselves. Grammar simply describes the ways in which our language adapted to the problems of self-expression. Take verbal conjugation, for example:

A cave-woman is attempting to convey to her small social network an anecdote, in hopes that her experience may be useful to others and subsequent generations. She describes a day in which she and two other women go out to forage. She and the two other women discover a new technique for retrieving nuts from a tree. In describing the actions they took to her gathered audience, the woman must convey the fact that two of the women stood on the ground, holding baskets, while another woman climbed the tree to shake the branches.

We hold.
She shakes.

The way the verbs are conjugated reveals that more than one woman held the baskets, while only one shook the branches.

This may be a confusing example, and I am sure English verbs are far too irregular for this purpose (and I'm sure ancient cave-women, northern European or otherwise, did not speak English), but I think it illustrates my point.

Grammar is a tool used to describe how language customarily works, for optimum ease and coherence of communication. "Morality" or "ethics" is a system used to describe the customary actions and beliefs which have allowed our ancestors to cooperate successfully within various social systems, throughout a long expanse of time.

The article by Brooks is well worth a read. My own little comparison might not do this new view of moral studies justice. If you aren't considering reading whole article, here are the last two paragraphs to give you a taste of the significance:

"The rise and now dominance of this emotional approach to morality is an epochal change. It challenges all sorts of traditions. It challenges the bookish way philosophy is conceived by most people. It challenges the Talmudic tradition, with its hyper-rational scrutiny of texts. It challenges the new atheists, who see themselves involved in a war of reason against faith and who have an unwarranted faith in the power of pure reason and in the purity of their own reasoning.

Finally, it should also challenge the very scientists who study morality. They’re good at explaining how people make judgments about harm and fairness, but they still struggle to explain the feelings of awe, transcendence, patriotism, joy and self-sacrifice, which are not ancillary to most people’s moral experiences, but central. The evolutionary approach also leads many scientists to neglect the concept of individual responsibility and makes it hard for them to appreciate that most people struggle toward goodness, not as a means, but as an end in itself."

A "Mock" Argument for Women's Education: Victorian Style

2009-04-10T23:47:00.000-07:00

23 March, 1820

To the members of the petition committee:

Dear Sirs (for you are all undoubtedly sirs),

The recent proposal to open a school for girls within this community has raised the concerns of many, and some, yourselves included, have taken upon themselves the task of opposing this experiment vocally. You and the members of your faction object to this school on the grounds that girls need not be educated, that they should concern themselves only with those skills which will of practical use later on in life, and that as girls are incapable of neither understanding abstract concepts nor applying them to any good use, a school for girls should not be paid for at the public expense. If any of these positions reflected any modicum of truth, I would be the first to object to the wasting of public funds on a useless venture; however, the arguments you pose are not so solid as you believe, and the prejudices and misconceptions which our society, nay, our very culture, has promulgated about women color your judgment and blind you to women’s true capabilities and the possible benefit their education may have for society. This opposition to the education of girls comes, I think, from three factors: the gross arrogance on the part of men, the view of women as sub-human, and the inability of women to (until recently) express their true intellectual potential.

The arrogance of men blinds them to their own faults while directing them to describe, in detail, the faults of the creatures they consider themselves to dominion over. Beasts are dumb and vicious, slaves are unintelligent and submissive, women are simple, fickle, and in need of "guidance." I can find no better examples of this arrogance than in the literature of the past century, old enough that it has been widely read, current enough that its themes and arguments are still agreed with. In particular, the great Alexander Pope is a worthy example. The bevy characters in his "Epistle 2. To a Lady," Calista, Papillia, Calypso, Narcissa, etc., are intended as examples which support the poet's view of women. These are, however, female characters who embody faults common to both Pope paints pictures of wicked, fickle, idiotic women, and expects that the "skill" of his satire will point out his criticisms of women in such a way that the reader will be subtly convinced, or, if a witty man of opposite opinion, "tickled when he is hurt in this manner," as Dryden claims. This is utterly ridiculous. Pope's intended wit neither "tickles" nor wittily instructs; he could hardly be more blunt, despite his attempt at using such devices as these obviously constructed characters. His so called "honest" painting of the characters he discovers in women does not require female subjects; the vices and follies he sees expressed in the so called "weaker" sex are present among his own gender, if he would care to look. If he followed the example of his good friend Mr. Swift, he might be able to style himself an "equal opportunity critic," and correct his oversight of men's faults. sexes.

On the topic of Mr. Swift, the clergyman of renowned insight into the contradictions within our human condition, I am not so swift to see his critique of women as the result of a particular prejudice, but rather as an extension of his rather despondent view of our whole human race. That being said, the views expressed in his sordid "Lady's Dressing Room" continue to support the supposition that women are somehow self-destructive, confused, wretched animals, whose God-given nature has been replaced by a well constructed, deceptive mask. If he is surprised to see in women "Such order from confusion sprung\ Such gaudy tulips raised from dung," then he must also wonder at seeing the same in men, not in the artificial mask of cosmetics, "ointments, daubs, and paints, and creams" but in the carefully constructed, sanctimonious badges of glory and mastery with which men justify their constant iniquitous actions, their wars, theft, lies, and oppression. I would argue with Mr. Swift that we all wear masks; it is only that women's masks are more noticeably artificial and pitiful because of their pitiful state and the artificial "honors" bestowed upon them by men to justify their dejected state within society. The derision with which these writers view these female trappings is due to the “short –lived tyranny” which these “artificial graces,” as Mary Wollstonecraft writes, over men. This “tyranny” is illusory, and allows women just enough control over men that they do not bother to realize that they lack control over themselves.

Among those reasons published which argue against the education of girls, the one that seems the most prevalent (and popular amongst men) is the presupposition that women are created changeable, emotional, irrational, self loving, and simple, and are thus incapable of strenuous study past the simple "accomplishments" they are obliged to learn for their "development" as amiable companions to men. This theory has long been held by men as far back as the Patristics. The theory that woman is inferior in nature to men arises out of Aristotle's "scientific" understanding of women's passivity in the process of procreation. The Church Fathers, especially within the period we have begun to call "Medieval," being ready at every moment to see the natural world emblematically, that is, as reflecting spiritual truths through the organization of natural principles, were quick to see woman's passivity in the act of creation as a sign of woman's intended passivity in every other area of life. I dare say contemporary theologians would not be so quick to apply this theory. Modern science has shed some light on the inner workings of natural processes, and though modern clergy would say that all things are designed by God, they would not necessarily insist that the migration of geese had any deep theological significance.

This view has been reflected in men's writings, either implicitly or explicitly, the latter being the case more often in our current century. In the past, this view of women has been worked into the female characters written by men, in prose, poetry, and on the stage. Whether she be otherworldly and angelic, the angel of the hearth, or flighty, fickle, and self-interested, men's depictions of women in their writing have always been either horribly idealistic or unrealistic. They hold the female creature to an idealistic standard that they have created, and force her to conform to a mold that serves them, rather than seeing her as an individual being, with her own characteristics, aspirations, and potential. This unrealistic categorization of women has contributed to the common view that women are to fulfill only the roles men assign to them, and that they are indeed designed by God with one purpose only. Their education, then, is superfluous; if a woman is put on this earth to be the companion of a man and to bear children only, what need has she to understand natural philosophy, to read Cato, or to plumb the depths of theological inquiry with her male counterparts? Recently (that is, within the last half-century), women in literature have seemed more like caricatures than characters. W. Congreve's Lady Wishfort in "The Way of the World" is a sad mockery of a woman in her later years. Her whole purpose is to find and catch men. I wonder why men find such a character so funny, and why she earns more derision than a younger woman engaged in the same frantic search for love. Is it woman's purpose to live with male companionship as their only desire? If so, why is an older woman blamed for continuing in this enterprise? In her younger days, she was no doubt taught that her existence mattered only in relation to the husband she could catch and the children she could bear. Once past the age for either of these, what is left for her but the haunting, all-consuming memory of the things she could not accomplish? Women such as this are “made ridiculous and useless when the short-lived bloom of beauty is over.” If widowed and childless, what other fodder can a woman have to fuel life's fire if she has been taught that she has no other purpose beyond marriage and childbearing, and has been taught nothing else about the world but that she has only one place in it? When this is considered, it is no wonder there are so many poor widows relying upon public charity. If education was more readily available to women, who would doubt single women, both spinsters and widows, would benefit? There is no doubt that “a well stored mind would enable a woman to support a single life with dignity.”

Until recently, men have had no reason to expect more from women than they had thought them capable of (i.e. very little). Until recent centuries, literature that attested to women's capabilities to raise their minds out of the domestic sphere to ascend the heights of knowledge was limited to religious mystics like Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe, whose "divinely inspired" status may have done more harm for women's status than good. If the only women whose writing was accepted were those who claimed to have divine sanction, then the writing of other women who did not claim such backing would have been ignored; Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich were accepted in spite of the fact that they were women, because of their mystical experiences. Common women writing from their own common experiences could not claim any legitimacy from their kinship with these two uncommon women. Because of their inability to express themselves or the legitimacy to be taken seriously, how could women have possibly argued for their rights as human beings? Of course men would see them as petulant, child-like, and irrational when women became angry and frustrated after pleading with men schooled in the art of rhetoric and argument. Any person would become flustered trying to catch a yippy little terrier that darted around them in circles, no matter how justified or important the need to catch the little terror. That a woman may fall into a heap and sob upon loosing an argument is not a result of her overly-emotional, irrational nature, but rather the combined effect of being denied the chance to learn how to express herself convincingly and of being out-paced in wit by the one denying her that chance. Women must resort to cunning and under-hand dealing to accomplish anything because their uncultivated minds are incapable of openly opposing the objects of their vexation.

In our present day, certain women have stood forward to assert themselves among their intellectual peers. Whether granted an education along with their brothers by an indulgent parent or self-taught, women have been publishing poetry and prose (both quality and dross, much like their male counterparts) for at least the last one-hundred and fifty years. Some may call these bold women "Sapphos" as Mr. Pope does, but their testimony gives a unique insight into the lives of women, heretofore a mysterious realm, untried by even those men whose ambition drives them to assault the heights of heaven. Is society harmed by such revelations? Mr.'s Pope and Swift were quick to respond to women's self-disclosure, but I have already dealt with them. My short censure of these two satirists pales in comparison to the short work Lady Montagu, Countess Winchilsea, Viscountess Irwin, and the poor Mary Leapor made of them in their poetic responses. My opinion of men's underestimation of women is most in common with Viscountess Irwin's "Epistle to Mr. Pope." My own thoughts and feelings could not be more eloquently summarized. Men must realize that they share common vices with women, and that women are their equals. This century’s surge of female poets has shown how quickly women have, through more access to education, attained the same level of poetic skill as men. Anna Letitia Barbauld’s poems reflect her cogent use of the long, meditative form, and yet, her subjects are varied; she is capable of attention to politics, sympathy for M. Wollstonecraft’s struggle for women’s sake, and meditative insight into aspects of women’s experience that men cannot even begin to sketch like childbirth and clothes washing. And who could deny the veritable genius of M. Wollstonecraft’s “A Vindication of the Rights of Women”? If women were ever considered incapable of complex philosophical speculation and social commentary, let M. Wollstonecraft set the record straight; I have never read a more cogent or convincing treatise that agreed more with my sensibilities or opened my eyes to truths I had not had the courage to consider.

Mary W. Shelley, M. Wollstonecraft’s daughter, has composed perhaps the most important novel of our time. Her Frankenstein reflects the anxieties of our day and offers in the character of Frankenstein a vision of the dangers of ambition and the value and purpose of human limitations. Her story also supports a point I believe fully, and refines her mother’s position that “without knowledge there can be no morality”; the purpose of education is not to make people happy or moral; rather, it exists to ensure the freedom of the individual, and the cultivation of God-given gifts. To pretend that women are given only the gifts of child-bearing and nurturing places limitations on the unknowable design and purpose of God. Are men placed only on this earth to dominate and conquer? Not all men are soldiers and statesmen, though men are the physically stronger sex. Frankenstein’s monster became convinced that he could act no other way than monstrously because that was all people assumed of him, as if his choices were determined by his outward appearance. If women are denied the opportunity to cultivate their minds, the norm will continue to consist of simple women whose machinations annoy men and bring scorn upon themselves. M. Wollstonecraft writes, “It is contrary to reason to expect virtue from those who are not free.” Men must allow for the cultivation of girls’ minds, so that the inner monstrosity of ignorant, needy women caused by the low expectation of men will become a shadow of the past and women will be able to be men’s true partners in life, rather than their dependants. The ignorance of women is a thorn in the side of this country that tribulation could easily twist; women must share responsibility with men if the whole of the English population is to work together to defend and cultivate our nation.

Respectfully submitted for your review,

Amelia H. Wayne