Thank you. I've read 2 books by Gray: 7 Atheisms and Feline Philosophy. Which of his other books would you recommend? Also, best wishes for the success of this venture and any others you have up your sleeve.
Mar 2, 2022·edited Mar 3, 2022Liked by Kathleen Stock
Only as another interested reader, I would recommend Gray’s short biography of Isaiah Berlin (1980s?) , and a collection of long essays ‘Enlightenment’s Wake’ (1995?). There is also a 1970s paper online somewhere (a critique of a claim of an academic Marxist sociologist re revolution as ‘science practice’) called ‘The Liberalism of Karl Popper’..
Thank you. This is great. I've read Gray's Seven Atheisms too and some of his writing in the New Statesman. I can see we (many of us) have been dedicated to the idea that there is a "long arc towards freedom and justice". Indeed as a child in the 1960's I can see that the post-war recovery and blossoming of social democracy and public ownership in the UK and putting this in context of continuous improvement was a big part of our education And giving that up is hard. But Gray does hit the nail on the head with sacred cow after sacred cow. And as you write so clearly it has exactly those consequences for the third wave's fond belief in the improvability of men and the dissolving of sex difference.
As a result of my thinking about this I think that a kind of secular Buddhism (quietism - with a framework but not one of improvability except towards personal wisdom and material reality) is a better guide than post-modernism's standpoint theory to counter the dilemma of the lack of comforting ultimate truths. (There is an apparent contradiction in saying this but not - on inspection - as bad as it might appear.)
Yes! Yes! Surely few better resources than Gray’s writing to deflate current hubristic strands of Feminism (def, IMO, in same vein - and manifesting with similar rigidity and narrowness - as ‘new atheism’, which Gray repeatedly critiqued, even till recently).
"If there were no values or meaning in the world, there would be no point to any sustained politics, except perhaps one based on naked self-interest and the survival of offspring."
But there is inherent value in the world, in the sense that I do actually value things. For example, I have subscribed to this and some other substacks by gender critical feminists, because I get enjoyment out do doing so. My enjoyment comes from three sources:
1. I enjoy satisfying my intellectual curiosity
2. I enjoy feeling like I am the kind of person who is on the side of Truth and Justice (is this an "immersive fiction?")
3. I enjoy having a sense that in doing so, I am somehow annoying the sort of people who I find annoying, such as Juno Dawson and Laurie Penny (is there a word for this? Tribalism?)
I can intellectually grasp the fact that I am just a collection of atoms following the laws of physics, chemistry and biology, or perhaps a collection of bits following an algorithm in a supercomputer (if we live in a computer simulation), but regardless of what theories I believe about the nature of the universe, it's a fact that I do enjoy (and therefore, value) some things, and I'm fine with that (does that make me a hedonist?).
"The aridity of the progress narrative becomes especially obvious when wheeled in to prop up so-called “sex-positivity” for women. This trend within feminism decrees that getting choked, hit, spat on, pegged, urinated on [etc. etc.] during sex are all highly enjoyable activities for many women, and should be normalised not stigmatised - but also, if you don’t want to do these things, don’t do them!"
Sorry to be pedantic, but is it really the case that sex-positive feminists think that these are "highly enjoyable activities" for "many" women?
I regard myself as being both a feminist (in that I believe that the position of women and girls in society can and should be improved, relative to that of men), and "sex-positive" in the sense that I believe the world would be a better place if our culture placed a higher value on sexual pleasure, and was more open about sexual matters (up to a point). And I'm willing to be corrected, not being any kind of expert, but I believe only a small number of women find these activities "highly enjoyable" and (although I'm not familiar with "sex-positive feminism") I would expect most self-described "sex-positive feminists" to concur with that (while I guess saying that the desires of weirdos and fetishists shouldn't be stigmatised even if they are small in number).
Mar 22, 2022·edited Mar 22, 2022Liked by Kathleen Stock
And this is a separate point, but while I'm open to the idea that we should discourage sexual activities that appear demeaning to women, I'm instinctively a libertarian, and I also know that many people in the past have tried to stigmatise many things that turned out to be absolutely fine, claiming that they were harmful for various reasons (women playing sport, homosexuality, rock & roll etc. etc.), so I'm not convinced that "consent" shouldn't be the solution here. I think there's a saying in BDSM circles "Safe, Sane and Consensual" (although if you want to argue that certain specific activities - like choking - aren't safe or sane I won't disagree).
EDIT: To put it another way, I believe that the media (which includes pornography) can influence people's thoughts and actions for the worse, but I also believe that the desire to censor and stigmatise things can be dangerous too, partly because I believe people's opinions (including my opinions) about this are largely based on their personal tastes and prejudices rather than on irrefutable facts. So I don't have any sense of certainty about where lines should be drawn - but I get the feeling you do - which is what prompted me to comment.
EDIT 2: I wonder if part of the problem here is that various activities that might be harmful, physically or psychologically, have made their way into the mainstream via online porn, without any sort of "code of etiquette" accompanying them? Maybe our pornified, atomised society needs to work out a programme of sex and relationships education for adults (including that women need to be cautious and that they have a right to expect their sexual partners to be considerate) *and* figure out how to get people to pay attention to it. I mean, back in the olden days being a "lady" or a "gentleman" came with certain expectations. We're living in a different world now, but we don't seem to have *any* expectations of anyone, it's just "you're an adult, do what you like".
EDIT 3: I'm quite loquacious and argumentative (online, at any rate). . . please tell me if I'm being annoying!
Sorry to have been slow to answer this. You cover a lot of points and I don't have answers to all of them. I think what sex-pos feminists would admit face to face and what they will say (or keep quiet about) in public are two different things. I am convinced there is a big stigma for many in saying in public that violent sex is bad for women, and probably bad for men though not in the same way. In fact there's a stigma in calling it violent at all, because it's consensual. On the point about censoring, I think you are right, there is a trend towards censoring but weirdly it seems to come from the very same people who refuse to show any kind of censoriousness towards sex. I agree society is often wrong about what to censor. I'm not actually calling for censoring of dangerous sexual practices directly as it happens - I'm calling for social disapproval of them, which isn't automatically the same thing.
This was quite enlightening, thank you. My thoughts after reading this post have stuck with me and I'll surely read it again some time. I've just bought a copy of Straw Dogs on eBay to add to my To Read Pile.
Thank you. I've read 2 books by Gray: 7 Atheisms and Feline Philosophy. Which of his other books would you recommend? Also, best wishes for the success of this venture and any others you have up your sleeve.
Only as another interested reader, I would recommend Gray’s short biography of Isaiah Berlin (1980s?) , and a collection of long essays ‘Enlightenment’s Wake’ (1995?). There is also a 1970s paper online somewhere (a critique of a claim of an academic Marxist sociologist re revolution as ‘science practice’) called ‘The Liberalism of Karl Popper’..
Seconded Enlightenment's Wake. I don't know the Berlin biography; I should read it.
I first read him in the New Statesman where he contributes a lot.
Thank you. This is great. I've read Gray's Seven Atheisms too and some of his writing in the New Statesman. I can see we (many of us) have been dedicated to the idea that there is a "long arc towards freedom and justice". Indeed as a child in the 1960's I can see that the post-war recovery and blossoming of social democracy and public ownership in the UK and putting this in context of continuous improvement was a big part of our education And giving that up is hard. But Gray does hit the nail on the head with sacred cow after sacred cow. And as you write so clearly it has exactly those consequences for the third wave's fond belief in the improvability of men and the dissolving of sex difference.
As a result of my thinking about this I think that a kind of secular Buddhism (quietism - with a framework but not one of improvability except towards personal wisdom and material reality) is a better guide than post-modernism's standpoint theory to counter the dilemma of the lack of comforting ultimate truths. (There is an apparent contradiction in saying this but not - on inspection - as bad as it might appear.)
Yes! Yes! Surely few better resources than Gray’s writing to deflate current hubristic strands of Feminism (def, IMO, in same vein - and manifesting with similar rigidity and narrowness - as ‘new atheism’, which Gray repeatedly critiqued, even till recently).
"If there were no values or meaning in the world, there would be no point to any sustained politics, except perhaps one based on naked self-interest and the survival of offspring."
But there is inherent value in the world, in the sense that I do actually value things. For example, I have subscribed to this and some other substacks by gender critical feminists, because I get enjoyment out do doing so. My enjoyment comes from three sources:
1. I enjoy satisfying my intellectual curiosity
2. I enjoy feeling like I am the kind of person who is on the side of Truth and Justice (is this an "immersive fiction?")
3. I enjoy having a sense that in doing so, I am somehow annoying the sort of people who I find annoying, such as Juno Dawson and Laurie Penny (is there a word for this? Tribalism?)
I can intellectually grasp the fact that I am just a collection of atoms following the laws of physics, chemistry and biology, or perhaps a collection of bits following an algorithm in a supercomputer (if we live in a computer simulation), but regardless of what theories I believe about the nature of the universe, it's a fact that I do enjoy (and therefore, value) some things, and I'm fine with that (does that make me a hedonist?).
"The aridity of the progress narrative becomes especially obvious when wheeled in to prop up so-called “sex-positivity” for women. This trend within feminism decrees that getting choked, hit, spat on, pegged, urinated on [etc. etc.] during sex are all highly enjoyable activities for many women, and should be normalised not stigmatised - but also, if you don’t want to do these things, don’t do them!"
Sorry to be pedantic, but is it really the case that sex-positive feminists think that these are "highly enjoyable activities" for "many" women?
I regard myself as being both a feminist (in that I believe that the position of women and girls in society can and should be improved, relative to that of men), and "sex-positive" in the sense that I believe the world would be a better place if our culture placed a higher value on sexual pleasure, and was more open about sexual matters (up to a point). And I'm willing to be corrected, not being any kind of expert, but I believe only a small number of women find these activities "highly enjoyable" and (although I'm not familiar with "sex-positive feminism") I would expect most self-described "sex-positive feminists" to concur with that (while I guess saying that the desires of weirdos and fetishists shouldn't be stigmatised even if they are small in number).
And this is a separate point, but while I'm open to the idea that we should discourage sexual activities that appear demeaning to women, I'm instinctively a libertarian, and I also know that many people in the past have tried to stigmatise many things that turned out to be absolutely fine, claiming that they were harmful for various reasons (women playing sport, homosexuality, rock & roll etc. etc.), so I'm not convinced that "consent" shouldn't be the solution here. I think there's a saying in BDSM circles "Safe, Sane and Consensual" (although if you want to argue that certain specific activities - like choking - aren't safe or sane I won't disagree).
EDIT: To put it another way, I believe that the media (which includes pornography) can influence people's thoughts and actions for the worse, but I also believe that the desire to censor and stigmatise things can be dangerous too, partly because I believe people's opinions (including my opinions) about this are largely based on their personal tastes and prejudices rather than on irrefutable facts. So I don't have any sense of certainty about where lines should be drawn - but I get the feeling you do - which is what prompted me to comment.
EDIT 2: I wonder if part of the problem here is that various activities that might be harmful, physically or psychologically, have made their way into the mainstream via online porn, without any sort of "code of etiquette" accompanying them? Maybe our pornified, atomised society needs to work out a programme of sex and relationships education for adults (including that women need to be cautious and that they have a right to expect their sexual partners to be considerate) *and* figure out how to get people to pay attention to it. I mean, back in the olden days being a "lady" or a "gentleman" came with certain expectations. We're living in a different world now, but we don't seem to have *any* expectations of anyone, it's just "you're an adult, do what you like".
EDIT 3: I'm quite loquacious and argumentative (online, at any rate). . . please tell me if I'm being annoying!
Sorry to have been slow to answer this. You cover a lot of points and I don't have answers to all of them. I think what sex-pos feminists would admit face to face and what they will say (or keep quiet about) in public are two different things. I am convinced there is a big stigma for many in saying in public that violent sex is bad for women, and probably bad for men though not in the same way. In fact there's a stigma in calling it violent at all, because it's consensual. On the point about censoring, I think you are right, there is a trend towards censoring but weirdly it seems to come from the very same people who refuse to show any kind of censoriousness towards sex. I agree society is often wrong about what to censor. I'm not actually calling for censoring of dangerous sexual practices directly as it happens - I'm calling for social disapproval of them, which isn't automatically the same thing.
This was quite enlightening, thank you. My thoughts after reading this post have stuck with me and I'll surely read it again some time. I've just bought a copy of Straw Dogs on eBay to add to my To Read Pile.