Man as More Than Animals, Even Feminists

When the news bores me, and I'm feeling a bit like ramming my head straight into a wall, metaphorically speaking of course, I visit Amanda over at Pandagon.

She's taking on creationists again. There are two truly interesting things about her post.

First, just because idiot fundamentalists believe the Grand Canyon is only 6000 years old doesn't mean that either creationism itself or Genesis in particular is pure bunk. I am not a scientist, but scientists tell me that the earth is about 4.5 billion years old. I am wont to believe them. The obvious corollary is that the Creation story must not be read literally. It is preposterous to conclude that a whole book is nonsensical simply because a few wayward cretins read it incorrectly. Thus, when she notes:

We are just another species of animal.

She couldn't be more incorrect. Strictly speaking, of course we are another species of animal; I know of no creationist, however infantile, who would be so bold as to suggest that we another species of plants. But the stark reality is that humans are unique; if we are not made in the image of God, then we are, at the very least, an extraordinary accident of evolution. And the most obvious proof of this is Amanda's own writing. Quite simply: apes do not blog. Art, even bad art, is the mark of but one species: man.

When she writes:

For millenia, religious and philosophical thinkers have tried to demonstrate that we are significantly different from animals in such a way that it proves that god made us in his image, and they’ve not done the best job of it, because people keep, in ways big and small, accepting the truth of their own eyes, which is that animals are not different from us in any major way.

I can only conclude that her art is bad art because her prose is poor and her thought is marred with fallacy. But it is art. And even the brightest monkey cannot concoct a sentence as she just did. Genesis is not necessary to conclude that man is different from the beasts. One's eyes or ears, coupled with something approaching rational thought should suffice spendidly.

Second, she seems to forget completely what she wrote above. Alternatively, she is wholly unable to flesh out the fullness of her thoughts. If we consider her previous point, and accept that man is just like the animals, man, like the animals, hasn't any free will. If humans have free will, we have found a detectable difference, and man is no longer just like the animals. But once we have dismissed free will we can no longer hold man responsible for his actions. A rapist, like a cow, is only doing what his instincts tell him to do. And, as this conclusion is unacceptable to an enlightened feminist, as Amanda undoubtedly is, she never discusses it. Instead she proceeds to the opposite conclusion, and, in typical feminist fashion, brings up her little pet peeve, the damnable patriarchy, even though it doesn't have a thing to do with the topic at hand:

As a feminist, the big implication that jumps out at me is that the story of Genesis that justifies the gender hierarchy is out the door. Because men have traditionally had power over women only matters if you think that change is not possible. But we grew big brains, we started walking upright, we invented agriculture—surely we can make women’s equality possible. If you think about it, it’s no coincidence at all that creationists also tend to be socially conservative, which means of course that they are pro-patriarchy. It all fits together.

There are several points to be made. First, creationists, being Christian for the most part, recognize the equality of women because they recognize the equality of all mankind. Christ came to die for the sins of all "gentile or Jew, servant of free, woman or man"; so much for the notion that Paul was a chauvinist. Further, this equality is intrinsic. Whether or not women can vote or abort their babies doesn't make a lick of difference in terms of real equality. Certainly political equality and social equality matter to some extent, in that a lack of them can be unpleasant, but if one infers that without the right to vote women are unequal would cause one to believe that all who haven't got democracy are unequal to us. I'm not proud enough for such folly.

As for the notion of improvement, I will let Chesterton handle the rebuttal:

Without the doctrine of the Fall all idea of progress is unmeaning. Mr. Blatchford [an atheist with whom Chesterton engaged frequently] says that there was not a Fall but a gradual rise. But the very word "rise" implies that you know toward what you are rising. Unless there is a standard you cannot tell whether you are rising or falling. But the main point is that the Fall like every other large path of Christianity is embodied in the common language talked on the top of an omnibus. Anybody might say, "Very few men are really Manly." Nobody would say, "Very few whales are really whaley." If you wanted to dissuade a man from drinking his tenth whisky you would slap him on the back and say, "Be a man." No one who wished to dissuade a crocodile from eating his tenth explorer would slap it on the back and say, "Be a crocodile." For we have no notion of a perfect crocodile; no allegory of a whale expelled from his whaley Eden.

Anyway, I take particular note of her second to last sentence because it is so bizarre. The reason creationists are socially conservative is not because they are pro-patriarchy, which is, I believe, what she suggests. It is hard to tell what she suggests actually, but I think I have inferred correctly. The reason creationists are socially conservative is that they are Christians, which means, interestingly enough, that they draw from the Bible for intellectual and spiritual support. What all this has to do with the patriarchy I haven't the slightest clue.

In a strange sense, feminists are their own worst enemies. Morally speaking, I have no qualms with women voting. Personally, I think the whole affair of voting a terrible sham, and thinking men and women would be wise to forget the whole charade; but that they have a right to participate I will not deny.

Yet practically speaking, if a fraction of women are like Amanda, I can see why Adams wanted to avoid the "tyranny of the petticoat". Amanda uses big enough words that I know she must be nominally educated, but one should never suppose that education implies intelligence. For, simply put, she cannot think. Everything boils down to the patriarchy, which is simply a substitution for whatver she currently dislikes in society. Fundamentalists Christians are frequently foolish. But so are the feminists.