JUST A THOUGHT THAT POPPED

'I think therefore I am' this is Descartes's famous maxim. It implies that the consciousness or rational part of our being is what leads to our awareness. The rational part is the basis of our existence and leads us to the truth and knowledge. We should trust our rationality. This leads to the idea that mind and body is separate as the rational self can not be expressed in terms of the corporeal body. The body which includes the brain is transitory and not part of ourselves but part of the external nature while we are just our minds. This is where the Cartesian dualism comes i.e. the idea that the mind is our basis of existence (I think therefore I am) while the body is something separate and it is infact implied as being inferior.

Why am I mentioning this? well because this mind/body dualism is very concomitant to the androcentric, heterosexual dominant culture. Reason is identified with morality and the ideal state of being, while the body is identified as constraining freedom. Feelings and emotions are looked down at and are considered as things which take us apart from pure reason. Here comes the important part: reason and rationality are regarded as the source of the taken-for-granted masculine superiority, for women are believed to be uncontrollably carrying the much-disdained and denied aspects of nature i.e. body, sexuality, emotions and impulses. Kant holds that 'women are morally encumbered by being the specific agents of nature's purposes...as creatures led by their emotions and incapable of grasping principles.'

My problem with this is first the assumption that women are irrational and second the idea that feelings and emotions are inferior or lead us away from grasping the truth. I happen to think that feelings and emotions are exceptional tools for experiencing and grasping the world. Why should characteristics which are traditionally associated with women be looked down at like feelings, emotions, communication etc? And it bothers me that the feminists do not challenge the inferior status of these characteristics but instead uphold the inferior status of these things by trying hard to gain and follow masculine ethics and ideas. They become masculine because being masculine is good while all that associated with feminity is bad and feminists just perpetuate the basic idea of patriarchy.

I just want a world which is balanced: the ying and yang are equally respected. This modern feminist world is overly-tilted to the masculine with women proving that they are not emotional, that they are just like men etc. I mean just running away from feminity instead of embracing it and asserting that it is not inferior.

This relates to homosexuality as society's acceptance and conception of queer people can not be changed until we get rid of the androcentric titled view of the world.

Furthermore the mind as in the rationality and thought is incomplete without the body i.e. the senses. The sensuality of experience. I don't want to think; I want to feel! Maybe the maxim should be changed to:

'I perceive, therefore I am'