A good article.
It appears clear that Mr Toutounji is familiar with the current discourses in the academe that have seeped down into almost every nook and cranny of society: Equality and power relations. These two topics dominate academia, particularly the social sciences and Humanities departments. They are taken a priori as the holy grail of societal achievement.

What is equality anyway? Equal is regards to what? What is the measure of judgement that makes us equal? This is rarely answered. Academics and "progressives" resort to metaphysical presuppositions that have no basis in empirical analysis. Empirical data reveals that people are not equal, not between the genders, not even between individuals. Everyone has their own unique talents, gifts, attributes, attitudes, impetus, and temperament.

And what of power relations? The reduction of phenomena to "power relations" tells us nothing of the phenomena itself. Power is everywhere; it pervades every aspect of our existence. This is no secret. But what has occurred in the academia and amongst "progressives" is that all relations are analysed through the lens of a power imbalance. The "argument" goes like this: You have more power than me, therefore you are bad; if we make the power balance equal a happy and harmonious existence follows.

This is flawed reasoning because there are reasons why a power imbalance is in place to begins with. And it goes back to the point about people having different talents, skill, attributes etc. It would be ludicrous to have a hospital run by people who have no skills in nursing, medicine, or administration. It is the same with every aspect of society, from employment to sports. People are in the position they are in because they possess the skills for that position.

Of course the sexes are different, almost every child can tell this by about age 3.

Men think, women feel. Obviously this is not 100% true, only 99.9%, or there would never have been a Margaret Thatcher. We also have also hit the jackpot. When Abbott was selecting his cabinet he went for one of the 0.01% in Julie Bishop, a very smart thinking lady. Compare her to Gillard, who used to get her knickers in a knot over the most ridicules things.

Women are more nefarious too. This was highlighted by a recent report from a genetics laboratory. They reported that in just under 10% of their tests they found men were supporting children who unknown to them, were not a product of their genetic material.

10% folks, & I have not heard of a single case of a woman supporting a child unaware it was not genetically hers.

I rest my case.

Every aspect of human culture and all moment to moment face-to-face human relations are patterned and circumscribed by power relations most of which are completely unconscious - sometimes justified as the "natural order" of things.
What do you think politics is all about - the stuggle to both resist power, and to gain power - nothing more. Seems like an essential research topic to me.

We are all quite literally involved in a deadly war/drama of all-against-all-and-everything.
This essay describes the situation
http://www.dabase.org/p5egoicsociety.htm
Unfortunately, and inevitably this deadly drama is no longer tenable, indeed it has brought the entire world to the brink of an horrific catastrophe - which is why the Not Two Is Peace book was published.

It is time to grow up.

Meanwhile, as with everything else the above "Philosopher" thoroughly investigated the Shakti dimensions of our existence-being. This reference dscribes His adventures, investigations, and the summary findings of His investigations.
http://www.beezone.com/shakti/TheShaktiHerPlaywithAdiDa.html

Daffy, how would this new way of life be implemented? Wouldn't it take coercion of some description, thus setting up a power relation of the "enlightened" over the "non-enlightened"?

As I said, power relations are everywhere, and reducing all phenomena to it is self-defeating.

Hi Bernard

If one reads your biography on your website http://foolishwisdom.com/who-is-bernard-toutounji/ one notices that you are steeped in Catholic (and a bit of Greek Orthodox) theology.

In both Churches women are not so much different but held to be inferior.

For example that are barred from becoming priests let alone Bishops.

Is that because, as the Bible teaches woman are symbols of sin?

Adam and Eve, snakes, apples and Eden onwards?

I don't believe in your Bible :)

Cheers

Pete

I liked the article and feel that some of you posters are being a bit mean.
While many people have bemoaned the lack of woman ministers in the Abbot government, I haven't heard any anyone point out which liberal woman MP's should have been included. Perhaps that’s because there were no appropriate ones.
I suspect that most women who wish to make a career out of politics would more likely be attracted to the left wing parties such as Labour and Greens. The Greens in particular appear to be quite dominated by women and gay men. I would hate to think that Abbot would choose a woman minister over a man simply to increase female numbers.
In any case, the author is correct in pointing out that women and men are different, and are attracted to different things.
No-one complains of the lack of female truck drivers or plumbers, even though women are just as capable as men of doing those jobs. Likewise no-one complains about the lack of female prisoners. Should the police be targeting women criminals to get the numbers up?
Of course it would be nice to see more women in positions of power, but only if they are equally as competent as the men and want to be there. Likewise it would be nice to see more men staying home to raise the kids. Unfortunately, no so many men appear to be attracted to this role, just as not so many women are attracted to being Liberal Party MP's or to being CEO's of major corporations.