Friday, May 17, 2019

The god of the Loins

A recent Tweet from Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez reads as follows: "Abortion bans aren't just about controlling women's bodies. They're about controlling women's sexuality. Owning women. From limiting birth control to banning comprehensive sex ed, US religious fundamentalists are working hard to outlaw sex that falls outside their theology. Ultimately, this is about women's power. When women are in control of their sexuality, it threatens a core element underpinning right-wing ideology: patriarchy. It's a brutal form of oppression to seize control of the 1 essential thing a person should command: their own body." Oddly enough, as I read this, I was reminded of Plato's Republic. In Book 9 of that work, Plato reminds us of the tyrannical soul and how it becomes so. Earlier, in Book 4, Plato had divided the human soul into three parts, the desiring, the spirited, and the rational. The desiring element is that element that, without the rule of reason, would seek to satisfy any and all pleasures, including the grotesque (Plato uses the example of the desiring element, in dreams while reason slumbers, wanting relations with one's own mother.) Plato lays out how the tyrant is someone who, from youth, always has all pleasures satisfied so that no pleasures end up out of bounds. The tyrannical soul will not stop at any crime to satisfy its desires because it cannot control itself. The lack of control gets to a point where it is out of control; he uses the example of the tyrannical soul killing their own parents to satisfy the desire for the latest call girl. In responses to Ms. Cortez's Tweet, I noticed the typical rhetorical responses that are mere labels, but nothing rationally substantive. One of the most commonly used terms was "tyranny." The basic premise was that banning abortion meant imposing tyranny. The question I posed to myself upon reading the responses was, "What is tyranny?" Plato gives us the answer. It is the soul that cannot control itself to the point of making all crimes possible to satisfy the desiring element in us. At the state level, it is when the masses cannot control their lusts, so they choose to be ruled by someone who panders to their lusts, as well as satisfying his or her own lusts. The bottom line is, self-government at the level of republic requires self-government at the level of the individual. If we parse AOC's comment above, we can unmask where the real tyranny lies. First, she appeals to "power," in the sense of identity politics. Pitch it as the world against women, and you've got the Marxist identity political division of bourgeoisie and proletariat (have's and have nots). Incidentally, in identity politics there is no room for true justice because Marxists will ignore history as the relativistic creation of those who had power in the former epoch. Thus, for the identity Marxist, any contemporary injustice is rendered just because it is in response to historical injustices of the randomly selected power classes of yesteryear. (Just look how the definition of the kulaks in Soviet Russia shifted with the "thieving" needs of the tyrants in charge.) So, there is no crime the underprivileged (however they are relativistically selected) can commit that is unjust. In short, there is no truth but power, and power is to be had by the biggest gun. So AOC says abortion bans are about controlling women's bodies and sexuality, indeed, she calls it "owning women." Can you see Plato's tyrant? Dangle the red meat of lust and power out in front of those who cannot self rule. The first avenue to control for the tyrant. She then says that when women are in control of their sexuality, that it threatens the so called "patriarchy." Abortion does the opposite of putting women in control of their sexuality, it takes control away. Pregnancy is a natural control on uninhibited desires. It forces one to practice temperance and to control the tyrant within. Indeed, it's not an easy battle, but virtue is not easily won. Her appeal is to the lower desires, just as Plato said the tyrant always does. When she talks about "patriarchy," I assume what she means is systemic juridical structures that favor men over women in all spheres of life? If that is what she means, then she is an advocate of that very patriarchy by protecting the oppressors of women through abortion. The majority of women say they had an abortion because of pressure from their boyfriend/spouse; abortion is documented as being used for rape cover up; it puts cultural pressure on women to do the unwomanly and kill her offspring; it affords predatory men the license to use women, and ends up emotionally traumatizing many women who go through abortion. If the patriarchy exists as she believes, she is advocating for it! Finally, it need not be exhausted here, but the idea that a baby inside a woman is "the woman's body" is scientifically inaccurate. When Stalin was asked how to conquer America, he responded that one must destroy her morality. AOC's latest Tweet, as Plato shows us, is dangling the meat of lust out there, so the state can step in and take control of your life. Anyone selling "free sex," is seeking to control you through your lower desires. Tyranny lies within before it lies without. Tyranny is in the god of the loins...

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