Gender in Genre III

[Kalbear]

Contrarius - I'm not going to get into an argument about what you think Bakker said or didn't say, since I think we largely agree on most of the other concepts involved. Let me say this: it is not solely my interpretation that bakker uses absolutes instead of partial facts and uses science that is at best minimally supported as foundations for whole belief systems, and if I'm not quoting his entire set of blog posts to prove it to you it's because I've talked about it before quite a bit. I'd recommend that you read his blog posts and come to your own conclusions. In any event I'm happy to stop talking about it entirely, concede that you're 100 % right and move on.

[Contrarius]

Posts like this irk me. The onus is on you.

Actually, no, it isn't.

In the field of logic, the person who makes a claim is the one who has the responsibility of providing the proof. Kalbear made the claim that evolutionary psychology is bullshit, and therefore Kalbear gets to prove it.

But, of course, he can't. It has become pretty clear that Kalbear doesn't really understand evolutionary psychology in the first place.

[Kalbear]

Kal and everyone else, what books do you think do a good job with depiction as subversion/criticism? Lolita? The Handmaid's Tale?

I already answered this above. 1984 does a fine job. So does brave new world. So does handmaids tale.

[Kalbear]

Stupid dp.

[Sci-2]

I might have missed it when I skipped over the "Is Bakker a lying liar" posts.

[Contrarius]

Contrarius - I'm not going to get into an argument about what you think Bakker said or didn't say

ROFLMAO.

Kalbear, it's obvious what Bakker said. You yourself posted his very words. And it's quite clear that he did NOT actually say what you keep claiming that he did.

If you'd like to now make a new claim that Bakker said something else somewhere else, then we're back to the time-honored precepts of logic: if you make the claim, it's your responsibility to provide the proof.

[Kalbear]

Actually, no, it isn't.

In the field of logic, the person who makes a claim is the one who has the responsibility of providing the proof. Kalbear made the claim that evolutionary psychology is bullshit, and therefore Kalbear gets to prove it.

and in science the onus is on the scientists to show it over and over again that the hypothesis is falsifiable and the experiments are repeatable or it is bad science.

So let's go with that. There exist no experiments or even experimental suggestions that indicate the rape module exists in humans as suggested by the original evopsych paper. The closest is observations of chimp behavior (and other animals), but there is no actual generic study or correlation done from generation to generation. Ie, taking a population of rape monkeys and seeing if their offspring rape more.

If you can find me any actual experiments in evopsych that have been done on humans, repeated and show the same results I'm all ears.

And like I said above Contrarius, you win about Bakker. I clearly misread him and you clearly understand his point better than I do. I entirely concede that point to you.

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

1. I am amazed that we don't seem to have a 2012 evopsych thread to bump. Still, create a new one, bump an old one, just please take it all (and particularly the Bakker) out of this one thread? Datepalm is going to end up with woodgrain marks in her forehead from her desk.

2. Kal, your quote is from Kate Harding, not Kate Elliott. Elliott is indeed a pseudonym, but not for Harding.

[Contrarius]

and in science the onus is on the scientists to show it over and over again that the hypothesis is falsifiable and the experiments are repeatable or it is bad science.

That kinda depends on what kind of "science" you're talking about.

I think everyone can accept that psychology -- ANY kind of psychology, not just of the evolutionary variety -- is a rather "soft" science. It's not the same sort of thing as, say, physics or mathematics. Most of psychology is not trying to "prove" anything so much as trying to UNDERSTAND things. And therefore, often the heuristic value of a hypothesis -- the ability of that hypothesis to help us understand and predict and build models and so forth -- is more important than outright "proof" or "disproof".

And I think that's where you're misunderstanding evolutionary psychology. It isn't TRYING to "prove" things -- it's trying to UNDERSTAND them. It's looking at various non-human species through an evolutionary lens and using them to predict, with varying degrees of success or failure, how those non-human behaviors can be applied to the human species. Those predictions will NEVER be perfect, and nobody should expect them to be.

[Kalbear]

In that case we are in perfect agreement, with the only difference being that I am using the term "bullshit" to mean "soft".

I also have a very big problem with people who happily use evopsych and other soft sciences as a similar weight as real sciences to back their claim, or use them as some kind of absolutist viewpoint because "it's science". Evopsych is a really horrible offender because you can't even run experiments like you can with normal psych to back it up.

Eef, thanks for the sig bit. Oops. I don't know why I thought that.

[Contrarius]

In that case we are in perfect agreement, with the only difference being that I am using the term "bullshit" to mean "soft".

Sigh. "Bullshit" and "soft" are miles and miles apart. "Soft science" can be very very useful, with or without absolute proof of anything. Heck, a significant component of ANY life science is "soft". For one thing, biological systems are just too complex to wholly understand.

I also have a very big problem with people who happily use evopsych and other soft sciences as a similar weight as real sciences to back their claim, or use them as some kind of absolutist viewpoint because "it's science".

Aaaaaand, yet again -- you're back to misrepresenting things. Nobody that I've seen has espoused any kind of "absolutist viewpoints". And, yes indeedy, "soft" science can be just as "real" as "real" sciences.

Heck, a large part of human medicine is "soft" science. Are you going to call a surgical procedure bullshit just because nobody can objectively prove that it's "better" than somebody else's surgical procedure? Are you going to discount the value of placebos in some situations, just because nobody can prove with absolute certainty the mechanisms by which they are successful? Such things are very often debated in medicine, and very often remain unproven. That doesn't make them bullshit, however.

[Kalbear]

Going back to the subject sci wanted to talk about - the examples of good subversive literature - I keep thinking on a few things they all do.

1. the subject is about the subversion. The Handmaid's Tale isn't a gripping yarn about how the plucky resistance kept fighting and beat the evil empire; the issue is the primary plot. Lolita isn't about Humbert Humbert's going to wizard college and oh, by the way he is really into a 13 year old. 1984 isn't about the war between Oceania and Eurasia. Brave New World isn't about an asteroid hitting the planet. The Color Purple or Roots aren't about rape aliens (or...are they?).

2. They're not subtle. In every version of Lolita I can find Nabokov has an essay on what Lolita is and what it isn't. 1984 is never shown as a fairly awesome place to be, and the protagonist is fighting from the onset. The Handmaid's Tale romanticises the past and mocks the current, and is clearly unhappy. Night doesn't have a song and dance number in the middle of the camps.

3. There are clear parts where the author is interjecting their opinion on the badness. Handmaid's Tale has the epilogue. 1984 and animal farm both have earlier synopses and end 'badly' for the protags. Lolita has the unreliable narrator and the fairly dismal ending. Point of fact, none of these books end all that happily for anyone.

And the worst part of it is, even with these completely obvious signs people still fuck it up. I forget the name of the book that so vehemently slammed the nazi regime which got picked up as a favored book amongst neonazis. Previously someone tried to use the Handmaid's Tale to show how Shae totally deserved what she got and signed up for being abused willingly, so it was okay. Many people look at 1984 and think about how awesome something like Big Brother would be. The ALEC law producing company apparently treats the Handmaid's Tale as a manual for how to get things done. Etc,etc.

[Xray the Enforcer]

[mod] Let us please get back to a discussion of books. This thread is not about the relative merits of different branches of science. Further discussion in that vein will be deleted. Thank you. [/mod]

[Kalbear]

Contrarius, if you'd like to continue the talk about evopsych please do so over here.

[Xray the Enforcer]

Thanks, Kal. :)

[Contrarius]

Random OnT thoughts:

We've seen various people complain about literature that takes place in a patriarchal society -- that includes women characters who are forced to conform to that society -- that includes whores -- that includes protagonists who rape -- that includes depictions of gender inequality in general.

Now, many people here have by now realized that I'm pretty much a rabid fangirl when it comes to the Vorkosigan series. But wait --

Barrayar is a strongly patriarchal society.

Major women characters, including Cordelia herself, conform to the pressures of that patriarchal society. Heck, Cordelia gave up her place in an egalitarian society in order to JOIN this patriarchal society.

Major characters visit a whorehouse at more than one point during the series.

A major secondary protagonist is known to be a rapist; the offspring of that rape becomes a major secondary character once she grows up.

Lots of gender inequality is depicted, including the novella Mountains of Mourning in which women are expected to kill their own children if they are born less than perfect. And in a later book, a woman goes so far as to have a sex change operation in order to work around her society's restrictions.

So -- why don't people complain about misogyny in these books??

I have always believed that the traits of the characters themselves, rather than the roles they are forced to play, are more important when reading f and sf. Yet other people seem to want to focus on the roles themselves. So what's actually going on here?

[Contrarius]

double post, sorry!

[Sci-2]

@Contrarius:

I think it's because Bakker challenges the bad press he receives. Personally, I like that he brings up various points, even if I don't 100% agree with them. He also ends up using some pretty incendiary language.

[Cleofis Patriarch]

Both sides used that type of language.

[Kynokephalos]

Just snipped a longer rambling post about Bakker. What I take from that is this: Bakker fails to make his position on how humans in general behave in his books explicit via an authorial comment. While some characters (like Akka and Cnaiur) attempt to provide some comment it focuses on his Blind Brain hypothesis and that we are seldom aware of why we do the things we do.

Even his metaphysics show Earwa as "as is", entirely immutable. The roles of men and women are both lacking agency and are seldom happy in Bakker's writing, but there does not even seem to be an attempt by those that see and understand that to change it. I'm not sure if that is the quintessence of an Bakkerian anthropology: Humans are not nice. Humans are irrational, selfserving and unaware of what they actually do. And there is bugger all that we can do about that.

I think that is one thing where Bakker and feminism clash: Can things be changed to provide more equality?

I know it is entirely anecdotal and subjective, but I have a hard time seeing the rape scenes as anything other than an illustration how horrid those events are. But I admit that they are quite visceral and explicit. The question I mull about that is this: are they somehow tiltilating? They make my gut lurch, but at the same time they get my attention.