The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius is limited.
Gee, a feminist, postmodern, psychoanalytical theorist also happens to be an idiot.
I am so surprised (not).
Next week Imam al Sharpton will declare the equation rasus
the difference between academic brilliance, so-called, and insanity is that the latter does not have tenure
She should go bake me a cake.
It is notoriously difficult for Anglo-Saxons to understand the French, as their way of talking is oblique and not literal. In this way, the whole of French philosophy is opaque to literalists, who can pontificate and object until their bovines greet them at the dusk, but will not make any progress. For the unsophisticates: she is playing with an idea. “Perhaps…” and “Let us suppose…” introduces a playful modality. Already, you need to assume she isn’t making an analytical statement of the sort that are most common in America, when you are trying to advance an argument. So, if we keep in mind that she is not American, or British, what is the argument that she is really trying to advance? Well, the speed of light stands for something else. It is in fact related to Western notion that male sexuality is primarily visual. To decode the puzzle: the primacy of male sexuality is a sexed equation. Are we aware that Irigary is concerned with sexuality as it relates to gender? She is not your typical, puritanical USA feminist, in that she is totally concerned with sex. So, if she is concerned with discussing sexuality, rather than criticizing science, which is in fact what she is doing, what might she be obliquely suggesting? To recap: she doesn’t think that sexuality should be given over to the primacy of the viewer who is nominally male.
So the statement itself is meaningless. Its just yet another way to say that sexuality should not be viewed from a male perspective. Uh, ok. Next . . . . . .
This is quite old - the crazy lady has been around for a long time.
This was part of the background of the “Sokal Hoax” of the 1990’s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
Of course it is a sexed formula. It is male - it has a stick shift and ball bearings, it is what makes it go so fast...
So the universe itself is sexist? This is a joke, right?
what?
Upon hearing such a description, my dear departed Yiddische grandma would have asked her: "And from dis you make a livink?"
Wait a second: Isn’t she just saying the simple truth that sex is natural? She can attribute traits more characteristic of one gender than another to virtually anything. She isn’t quoted as saying “E!=mc^2, but people only believe the false claim that E=mc^2 because of our male-dominated society,” but rather claims to be stating that the laws of physics are masculine... which corresponds to the notion of God the Father as masculine.
Her book is entitled, “Parler n’est jamais neutre.” That means “Talk is never neutral.” And in French, it isn’t! Every noun, verb and adjective has a gender.
...it privileges the speed of light over other speeds that are vitally necessary to us.
It doesn't. Equations equate. Left term, right term, and two little lines. That one speed is faster than another is not an issue of privilege, but of simple description.
This may, as the author suggests, be a case of analytical thinking running into a brick wall of whimsy, but in fact, whimsy loses when they collide, every time. It's nice to imagine that dropping a boulder on your bare foot is going to feel like a gentle massage, but try it for real and explain to your doctor that from a sufficiently advanced philosophical perspective the pain, broken bones, and the blood are all simply arbitrary social constructs. What is likely to ensue is covered under the philosophical term "involuntary commitment for the patient's own safety."
“Irigaray, who describes herself as a ‘Feminist Philosopher,’ “
I’m suddenly reminded of Bea Arthur’s scene in History of the World, Part 1...