Houellebecq
You do not do the position I’ve outlined justice with your dismissive few lines of misrepresentative but predictable effrontery!
< I see far too much navel gazing going on, when the bogan who looks out at his back yard or tinkers with his V8 has much more profound insights and a more pragmatic way of acting on them than your average 'intellectual'.>
But I wasn’t defending (or attacking) individual naval gazers, bogan or intellectual, but the Humanities and more specifically Criticism, which has a proud tradition, overwhelmingly conservative, going back hundreds of years. There’s no doubt individuals can nurse a guilty conscience (though generally without acting on it) but as I said, the “GENDERED IDENTITIES, CORPORATIONS, GOVERNMENTS [“THE PEOPLE”] AND INSTITUTIONS” cannot and certainly do not!
So do any of these categorical forces reflect on their influence in the world, or act on it?

<Just because people don't come to the same conclusions as yourself they are 'profoundly incapable'. How pompous!>
I haven’t made any such claim about “people”, but “peoples”! Indeed I would argue that in the context of the modern capitalist juggernaut, many “people” despair at not being able to opt out.

<'The truth is just to hard to bare, and breaking the addiction is unthinkable.
As addicts, we even have ready-made defences to throw at the critics of our degraded humanity: Leftists! Greenies! Academics! etc.'

Well, that;'s your truth. You keep self-flagellating while I get on and enjoy life in the most privileged of manors man has ever been
able.

Just how is humanity 'degraded' any more than it has ever been? Off you go and romanticise about times you never lived in where everyone dies by 40.>
I have no such romantic illusions—you’re the dreamer!
You in fact bare me out beautifully as an instance of individual denialism; you’re incapable of “self-reflexively or self-critically” viewing your “privileged position” in a broader ethical context , or in terms of sustainability or equity. And the selfish “life” you defend is about as spontaneous, meaningful and fulfilling as that “enjoyed” by a well fed meat chicken!
Squaw

Houellebecq, your observation on the pertinence of the toilet seat to feminism today is quite wonderful.

I would like to use it, and I will give you full credit.

As I remarked in another place where the toilet seat debate was raging, 40 years after the second wave of feminism and the benchmark for equality is still the toilet seat.

Now I say, of course it is! What else could it be?

Briar Rose,
clearly piss (colloquially speaking) and toilet seats is as deep as you like to go in these matters--nevertheless I trumped you on that!

Thanks, Poirot, for being the only female (presumably) to engage with me in this thread, and for being prepared to think outside the bowl.

Houellie,

I think you're arguing with the wrong person here. You see, I don't consider women in Western society to be hard done by in a material sense. I think they've had their human experience warped to a great extent - as have men.

In fact, I'm mightily weary pf hearing disaffected westerners - who are the "royalty" of the world - whingeing about how difficult it is to manage.

We are actively encouraged to indenture ourselves by going into debt. A very small minority resist this because they value autonomy more.
But when all is said and done, we are sheep - most people go with the flow.

Squeers,

You are welcome....nice to engage with someone else who thinks outside the square.

Squeers, its always refreshing to watch a David Attenborough
documentary, which focuses on the realities of nature, after
reading your idealistic posts. Attenborough is very much in
touch with reality, whilst you are off dreaming once again.

As he pointed out this weekend, when resources become scarce,
violence inevitably follows. Nope, we humans are not above nature,
keep dreaming.

Somebody whose name I can't recall, made an interesting comment
on the radio recently. To use an analogy, the human operating
system is not like a Windows 7, with previous systems removed.
The human operating system is still loaded with the flaws and
bugs of Windows 1-6 and they will remain imbedded in human nature, like
it or not.

So your Kumbaya solution, with men as a bunch of placid metrosexuals,
is bound to fail. The veneer of our cushy society is pretty thin
and the moment it crashes, its back to laws of the jungle.

Its even imbedded genetically in our females. Note how many females
will draw up a long list of qualities that they seek in a man,
then they run off and land up pregnant to some highly testosterone
loaded he man, as they followed their feelings and instincts.
What they land up producing is another he man. Why? Because its
one of the most effective strategies in nature. Peahens don't tend
to mate with peacocks with nerdy looking tails.

Evolutionary psychology deals with all this, rather well.

So perhaps your arts dept people should wander down the corridor
and study a bit of biology and evolutionary psychology, to bring them
back to the real world in which we live.

Yabby,
you're so wrong, indeed cynical and regressive.
I'm not the idealist you want to portray as ridiculous, I just don't retreat into primordialism (rationalisation). I don't say it's easy to stand up against individual and institutional capitulation, but nevertheless I'm trying to fathom a materialism that doesn't doesn't back-slide to defeatism ("it's human nature; there's no cure for it") or God (supernatural salvationism), which amount to the same thing.

Of course you know that every achievement David Attenborough (God bless him) represents, with passionate derring-do, photographic technology, philosophical eclat (masked as objectivity) and an almost religious reverence and compassion for the miracle of life (in general), stems from the Enlightenment, from a can-do mentality, when Man elided his distaff (woman's work) and dared to contemplate the problem of our existence: in the spirit of neo-classicism that prevailed, to address the perennial question, "how should we live?"
That is what Humanism and the Humanities were all about: "The unexamined life is not worth living!" said Socrates thousands of years ago.
I don't care if I'm the last person on Earth to believe that the human race could be responsible and respectable, even dignified!

I'm offended by the Western conceit that this state of disgusting excess "is as good as it gets".
If that cynical consensus is carried, then the human race (both sexes) is indeed a comprehensive failure.
But it's rubbish--the flabby non-thinking of the well-healed!
Which side do you think David Attenborough would take?
I reckon I'm in good company!