Internet Site Activity

CRTW 201

Dr. Fike

 

In Our Posthuman Future, Fukuyama writes about human nature as the basis for human rights, and he insists that altering human nature will have a deleterious effect on human rights.  Yet certain things about human nature are antagonistic to human rights.  Gender relationships are an area where this may be the case, and I have selected several websites that get at the following topics:  misandry (pronounced MIS an dree, women's hatred of men) and misogyny (pronounced mi-SOJ-uh-nee, men's hatred of women).

Note:  We must at all costs avoid making sexist remarks about each other's genders.  That is clearly not the goal here.  The nature of the assignment does not imply an occasion to make jokes at others' expense, and you should say so in your introductory remarks.  Rather this assignment provides an opportunity to think about aspects of human nature that ought to make us uncomfortable:  these sites suggest that it is in our human nature to hate each other and to project our own negativity onto other persons.  That perspective should enable a fruitful approach to the sites and an opportunity for useful reflection on Fukuyama's arguments about human nature.

Here are the websites:

Question at Issue:  What do these websites reveal about human nature? 

The context for our inquiry is our reading of PHF as well as the millennia-long conflict between men and women.  Psychological and criminal issues are probably part of the context as well. 

Your purpose is to examine these sites and the associated links as a way of beginning to critique what Fukuyama says about human nature.

The conclusion (the answer to the question at issue) comes in the form of two concepts:  misandry and misogyny.  These conclusions may relate to the more general human tendency to hate others who are different from ourselves.  In other words, hatred of the "Other" may be the umbrella concept.  Doing an SEEI on these concepts would be helpful.

Obviously the point of view is twofold:  man haters and woman haters.  If you examine the websites, however, you will see that they reflect various points of view:  psychological, criminal, sociological, sympathetic, critical, etc. 

Here is a question that requires some information from PHF:  Can you find any connections (or contrasts) to what Fukuyama says about human nature?  Here is F's definition from page 130:  Human nature "is the sum of the behavior and characteristics that are typical of the human species, arising from genetic rather than environmental factors."

Also re. PHF, can you make any connections to what Larry Arnhart says in Darwinian Natural Right?  Here is the quotation from an earlier handout:  “There are at least twenty natural desires that are manifested in diverse ways in all human societies throughout history:  a complete life, parental care, sexual identity, sexual mating, familial bonding, friendship, social ranking, justice as reciprocity, political rule, war, health, beauty, wealth, speech, practical habituation, practical reasoning, practical arts, aesthetic pleasure, religious understanding, and intellectual understanding.” 

Compare the second complete sentence on page 143:  "We see colors, react to smells, recognize facial expressions, parse language for evidence of deceit, avoid certain dangers, engage in reciprocity, pursue revenge, feel embarrassment, care for our children and parents, feel repulsion for incest and cannibalism, attribute causality to events, and many other things as well, because evolution has programmed the human mind to behave in these species-typical ways."

Wwhich things in the two quotations are positive and which are negative.  I think that you'll find that they are overwhelmingly positive.  Someone is likely to point out that war is negative, and you will want to get them to think about people's motivation to go to war.

Do any of the things that Arnhart and Fukuyama mention relate to the websites?  Sexual mating, familial bonding, friendship, and war probably all relate in some way.  But why is it that things that are positive can also be decidedly negative?  Is there something about human nature that makes us corrupt what is potentially very good?

What assumptions about gender and gender roles do the sites reveal?  In particular, are there inherited/genetic gender-specific characteristics that cause trouble in contra-sexual relationships (i.e., relationships between men and women, between women and women, or between men and men)?  If we follow Fukuyama, then there must be such an inheritance.

How do the sites activate, reflect, violate, etc. our own assumptions, biases, and impediments as regards thinking about the opposite gender?  In other words, how are these sites not just a manifestation of some dysfunctional Other but also a reflection of our own inborn human nature, which we must resist if we are to become well-integrated persons?

Here are some useful concepts.  The psychologist C. G. Jung talks about anima (the feminine in men) and the animus (the masculine in women).  He says that men project their anima onto women and that women project their anima onto men.  This explains why we fall in love--we find a person of the opposite sex who matches our anima or animus.  The result is a sense of this-is-itness.  But projection also accounts for the dysfunction we locate in the opposite sex (or in other persons regardless of gender):  we tend to see in others a reflection of our own unintegrated masculine or feminine principle.  So one possible view of these websites is that misandry and misogyny are not so much legitimate condemnations of the opposite sex but evidence of their creators' potential for hatred and the tendency to shift responsibility onto others, that is, evidence of a dark side of their human nature.  Jung calls this unacknowledged negativity the shadow. 

Jesus:  "How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,' when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye'" (Luke 6:42).

If we follow a religious line of reasoning, what interpretation of dysfunction in relationships emerges?

Various interpretations should by this point be possible, and they have to do with Fukuyama's take on human nature.  What the websites help us develop is a sense that various kinds of negativity are as much a part of human nature as the more positive things that Fukuyama stresses on page 143.  If that is the case, then the following question emerges:  If we could use biotechnology and/or genetic engineering to delete misandry and misogyny from human behavior, wouldn't that augment rather than compromise human rights?  Isn't it a step forward to edit out aspects of human nature that detract from human dignity/rights?  If a pill could keep men from beating women, wouldn't that be a good development?  What is the value of keeping human nature as it is--the value of not tinkering with it--when there are negatives that might be alleviated?  What is the purpose of human life, given that so much is so negative?  Do misandry and misogyny actually have a legitimate place in the human experience?

Finally, what did you and your classmates discover about evaluating a website?  Did you learn anything about authorial bias?  Do you consider the websites reliable?  These questions might also provide a way to begin your presentation.