Then, of course, there are some crazy, embarrasing and ridiculous 21st-century ideas about gender, such as: Women find their greatest fulfilment in imitating men; and, Gender is only a social construct; and, Gender is not a biological reality but can be medically altered.
This example clearly does raise the more general issue of "decoupling" odious opinions or actions of thinkers, artists, etc. from their work (or the rest of their work). It is hard to see how we can have any philosophical, scientific or aesthetic conversations if we don't do this, but it isn't getting easier. To be fair, doing this is in tension with the basic dynamic of political solidarity, which of course the left has to be in favour of. Marx was clearly capable of having intellectual or aesthetic heroes who he knew would be at odds with him politically, but he and the tradition he initiated hasn't always been good at decoupling. It should be simpler with historical figures
Someone made an interesting and substantive response to my first comment but it came as an email and was not visible here. I sent a response by email but it disappeared.
Spinoza’s unfinished Political Treatise ends with “Women should not be involved in politics because if they should, they would have had already, and this up to now has not been the case”. He says that while in other parts of his work he rejects this kind of argumentation based on past experience. Is it a bit surprising? I guess so. But, well, nobody’s perfect. The human being does work in all sorts of bizarre ways. I find slightly more problematic the fetishisation you somewhat reproduce in the end (and you are not alone there, of course) about the importance of those thinkers. Sure, they were thinkers and in many respects did discover or wrote things which have been important. But they were still humans.
It's almost as if gendering labor has economic utility within class society.
Then, of course, there are some crazy, embarrasing and ridiculous 21st-century ideas about gender, such as: Women find their greatest fulfilment in imitating men; and, Gender is only a social construct; and, Gender is not a biological reality but can be medically altered.
This example clearly does raise the more general issue of "decoupling" odious opinions or actions of thinkers, artists, etc. from their work (or the rest of their work). It is hard to see how we can have any philosophical, scientific or aesthetic conversations if we don't do this, but it isn't getting easier. To be fair, doing this is in tension with the basic dynamic of political solidarity, which of course the left has to be in favour of. Marx was clearly capable of having intellectual or aesthetic heroes who he knew would be at odds with him politically, but he and the tradition he initiated hasn't always been good at decoupling. It should be simpler with historical figures
Someone made an interesting and substantive response to my first comment but it came as an email and was not visible here. I sent a response by email but it disappeared.
Spinoza’s unfinished Political Treatise ends with “Women should not be involved in politics because if they should, they would have had already, and this up to now has not been the case”. He says that while in other parts of his work he rejects this kind of argumentation based on past experience. Is it a bit surprising? I guess so. But, well, nobody’s perfect. The human being does work in all sorts of bizarre ways. I find slightly more problematic the fetishisation you somewhat reproduce in the end (and you are not alone there, of course) about the importance of those thinkers. Sure, they were thinkers and in many respects did discover or wrote things which have been important. But they were still humans.