Simply because it was the catalyst for this idea in my mind, I will address a portion of last night's feminism discussion, and abortion in particular. I am not attempting to convince anyone, or shift anyone's position. I am simply laying out my position in order to show what I think was an interesting application of the theories we've been studied to each other, and to our own epistemologies and the very ability to know.
Modern science/thought/philosophy has systematically used the western rational perspective to disassemble the constructs on which western thought has been built. Beginning with the rejection of religion in the secular rational world view as at best unknowable, and at worst a delusion (witness Richard Dawkins, recently labeled Darwin's Rottweiler in parody of the current Pope [nicknamed God's Rottweiler as a cardinal] for his aggressive proselytizing of the atheist position). This of course begins with the movement to empiricism in the enlightenment and is nothing new, although several hundred years further developed. It follows with attacks on other western epistemologies until with deconstructionism we use rationality to discredit language and rationality itself. The current cultural condition then is that described by deconstructionists and post-modernists: the center is not the center, there is in fact no center for the culture to base itself around (unless paradoxically the fact that the center is not the center is the center...it makes my head hurt) and we find ourselves, as it were, in a huge train station, each individual on their own train with some or all trains constantly in motion and no agreed upon fixed point of reference from which to determine anything. Therefore, nothing is, or can be certain.
It is the portion of the condition of being each on our own train that I wish to discuss further and tie to last night's discussion. The structuralists and poststrutcuralists along with other modern thinkers/philosophers have posited that our minds, indeed our very language, is the - or at least A - causal agent behind our perceived realities. (I will be referring to Reality, capital R, as signifying whatever actually exists out there in its totality; reality, lower case r, can be assumed to refer from here on to Reality as it is perceived by, or as it exists for, a given individual or group.) Therefore, cut off as we are from Reality, with only language, (a fallible medium) or perhaps logic (logically an even more fallible medium[I love the paradox and irony in that statement]) to allow us any connection with others, we literally exist in individual realities. And, in the strictest sense, no one's reality corresponds exactly to anyone else's. Now there are degrees of overlap within individual realities to the extent which two given individuals overlap in their thinking. Where ever their thinking diverges, their realities will diverge. As systems of thought that share this shaping power constitutive of individual realities I include religions under the broader banner of theories. Thus stretching theory slightly to be any system of thought that constitutes a shaping world view that attempts to explain/account for the world (not the physical earth, but the human created world).
The power of theory as we are studying it in this course, in which, each of the theories is essentially constitutive of a world view or paradigm, is this: Our thoughts create our individual realities by ordering our perceptions. Because these paradigms have the power (because new knowledge has the power) to shape and even transform our thoughts they literally create/re-create our realities to the extent that we embrace new ones.
Think for example of some powerful new piece of knowledge. In Reality, (if Reality exists; I am positing that it does, it is one of the givens required for my particular theory here to exist) that piece of knowledge was always there, just waiting for you to discover it. However, as far as your own reality is concerned, that knowledge did not exist until you learned it and when you did learn it, the reality in which you live was changed. For example: you meet someone new on campus. You do not recall having ever seen them before. For you, that person did not exist before this moment as you had no knowledge of them. They were not a part of reality as it exists for you. However, once you meet them, know who they are and become aware of their presence on campus you tend to see them every where, right? (not always, but often true in my experience...it that can be projected at all to your reality dear reader) Now, where as before they did not exist, they may seem to be everywhere. Was not that person, in Reality, there all the time? However, in your reality, in Reality as created and perceived by your mind, they did not exist. Thus the interaction of our perceptions, our thoughts, and our knowledge create the reality we live in, and theories by giving shape to our perceptions, thoughts and knowledge, by framing or re-framing them create our realities in the manner described above.
With the modern/post-modern destruction of epistemologies, the removal of all centers in favor of truths and relativity, there is no way to know anything for certain without first choosing a center around which to order your thought. That decision by its very nature requires making fundamental assumptions about the world. They may be based on supposed "empirical" information or other evidence, but remember, once we enter the modern theoretical perspectives all knowledge and all methods of knowledge are suspect. Different theories accept different givens because accepting some givens is necessary to maintain any knowledge or agree with anyone about anything.
However, with no center that is agreed upon, and even individual understandings of a shared center across realities causing divergence in those most similar to one another, accepting any of these givens requires an act of faith. Or, to re-state, the acceptance of any world view requires the acceptance of fundamental principles that underlie it (Marxism - economic determinism [to varying degrees granted], Feminism - patriarchy and, apparently in the version discussed in class last night, being pro-choice, Religions - the existence of a deity/deities or some divine force,), fundamental principles without which you cannot be considered to have embraced said theory completely, or perhaps at all. That acceptance, given the destruction of all epistemologies, or at least their reduction to truths/relativity under modern theory/thought, requires an act of faith. By act of faith I mean that the acceptance of any given cannot be justified beforehand except by givens already accepted in an endless recursive cycle, so that the initial acceptance of a given by an individual is a figurative leap into the unknown.
Now after all of this discussion and theoretical argument to establish the existence of each of us within our own figurative trains in the endless train station from Barry's metaphor of post-modernsim, or rather to establish the existence of each of us literally within our own, individual realities, what's the point? What the heck does this have to do with intransigence? Much less last night's discussion? Well, the fact that we live in our own realities, realities devoid centers that can be accepted with anything less than an arbitrary decision/act of faith (remember we can't see the givens of a theory as justified until after we accept them as givens because all knowledge is suspect), is the reason we are so fragmented as a nation, a society, a culture, and a world. Issues that are important enough to touch directly on the givens that constitute our realities, or have very little separation from those givens, like abortion, for example, are things we are incapable of discussing "rationally" with someone whose reality doesn't overlap sufficiently with our own because what is logic to them will literally be absurdity (re: out of tune, contrary to the nature of reality) for us. Thus two entirely intelligent people of integrity, being entirely open with each other can fail to agree on the most fundamental questions, or even which given has primacy in determining one's decision.
I thought of all of this after our discussion of feminism, and abortion last night, when I discovered that what I thought was my nuanced, fair, and "obvious once you think about it" based neither on the given of freedom being a higher absolute good than life in all instances (a reductive statement I know, but an attempt to carry express the idea that freedom is worth dieing, for living for, and killing for, even removing life/potential life if necessary), nor the belief that life is an absolute good that trumps freedom in this instance (another reductive statement, but an attempt to convey the idea that in the instance of the existence of innocent life/the potential of innocent life choice [re: freedom] is trumped). Instead I had what, in my reality constitutes a logical alternative - limited legal abortion. The position that safe, legal abortion should be available in cases in which the choice of the mother was abrogated (rape/incest) or when her life is endangered by the pregnancy, but should in other cases be illegal. To my mind this logically balances the competing values of choice and life. However, assuming that what was logical in my reality would transfer to the reality of anyone operating from a different reality as logic rather than absurdity was fallacious and reflected a misidentification of the givens of my reality that are reflected in the decision.
Underlying my "logical" balancing act was a third given that won't transfer to a reality shaped by a feminism that includes the right to safe, legal abortion with no limits as a given. That given is a very old fashioned one, a belief in the sacred nature of the sex act, which to my mind justifies restrictions on when/with whom it can rightly be engaged in, and the validity of nature taking its course as a natural consequence of the decision to engage in intercourse. Now please, while this may sound quaint, or even be a source of irritation/anger to some, I don't expect you to agree with me, I'm just illustrating why it's so hard to come to agreement and theory's role in making it more difficult.
The disagreement over this issue in this particular discussion and the continuing large scale disagreement over this and many other seeming basic issues is due to the separate realities from which we are forced to argue by modern theory. The intransigence isn't due to the stupidity, ignorance, or evil nature of those arguing against us (whatever our side on any given issue) it is due to the absurdity of trying to discuss these issues across the gaps between realities.
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