Brocialists

Will "the patriarchy" ever go away? Perhaps that depends on your view of human - and masculine - nature. If men and women are "essentially the same", then there is no reason why it could not go away, given the right circumstances. In fact, some would argue that it already has gone away, more or less, in a great number or countries. And yet, it keeps reappearing all the time - fashionably put, "the power structure keeps reproducing itself", despite social reforms intent on eradicating differences in power and indeed behavior between the sexes. Just as socialism could not eradiacte class inequality (although for a time it seemed to be succeeding), feminism does not seem able to get rid of gender roles, aspiring patriarchs or anti-feminist women.

In this article, Apoorva Sripathi identifies the "Brocialist" as a specimen of man who, outwardly progressive, behaves as a jerk toward women in private. Harvey Weinstein is one example. In a Swedish context, Fredrik Virtanen is another: a self-proclaimed feminist journalist who stands accused of rape and sexual assaults. A third one (also Swedish) would be the comedian Soran Ismail, also accused of rape during the MeToo campaign, since aquitted, but still judged since "everyone knows" that he is guilty. Whatever the case, he has publicly made highly disrespectful ("sexist" in modern parlance) jokes towards women, which in itself is enough to include him in the category. Thus he once commented during a gala on a duo of young female artists (Rebecca & Fiona): "They are favorites of mine, partly because I love their music, and partly because I have a fantasy about a three-way with Rebecca and anyone." Seemingly, the reason why he can say this is because a) he is a feminist, which means that he automatically respects women, and b) since he basically does respect women, and because men and women are supposed to be truly equal now, why could he not make such a joke? After all, a woman could (in theory) make such a joke without being labelled a sexist, couldn't she? Therefore, in the worldview of the Brocialist, men and women are essentially the same, and a joke about a threeway directed at a vulnerable, young woman is merely friendly. We are all just friends now, right? Nevertheless, below this public worldview lies another one, where Ismail and his likes understand deeply that a) there are differences, and b) in this being-different-from-men, they do not respect women in the least. They can (sometimes) respect women as friends, but not as women.

Yet perhaps that is precisely what is needed, regardless of how "reactionary" it will be deemed by some. Men need to respect women as women, as mothers, sisters, daughters and in a sense as goddesses. Let every man who automatically classifies women into "available" and "unavailable" shift his focus from the earthly womanliness of a particular woman to the divine femininity of all.

Judaism: The Chosen Few

With my last post in mind, let me first of all clarify that I am by no means a supporter of Israeli occupation policies - it's just that I am no fervent anti-Zionist either. Israel is a curious phenomenon, with its special relationship to the US particularly in mind. Somehow or other it often appears as the face of the American world order: a place where so many of the world's fears and expectations converge and become visible; a place where the guardians of this order will continue to defend their brand of imperialism with any means necessary. It is easy to condemn a great many things about Israel, but it is perhaps more worthwhile to hold back judgment and observe the unfolding of things before one definitely takes a stand.

A more fruitful attempt to understand the history of the Jews and Judaism than Shahak's is - I believe - the book The Chosen Few by Botticini and Eckstein. For no matter how mysterious Judaism and Jewish success in the modern world appear to some, it can to a great degree be explained through the economic theory of rational choice.

The main argument of the book goes as follows: in ancient times, the Israelite religion had been based on two pillars: first, the temple, which was originally built around 1000 BC, later destroyed by the Babylonians but rebuilt; and second, the Torah, which was in place at least a few hundred years BC although its history is more obscure. In the first century CE, several things happened: Judaism had become splintered into various sects, of which Christianity was ultimately going to be the most successful. The other two most influential sects were the Sadducees, keepers of the temple cult, and the Pharisees, teachers of Torah who, unlike the old-school Sadducees, had started to believe in a life after death. Now, in 64 CE the Pharisee Yehoshua ben Gamla was appointed as high priest of the temple. During his short office, he instituted a rule requiring all Jewish parents to ensure that their boys learn to read the Torah. Shortly therafter, a Jewish uprising against Roman rule took place throughout Judea. The Romans massacred the inhabitants of Jerusalem and destroyed the second temple. With the fall of the temple, the Sadducees disappeared as a faction within Judaism. It remained to the Pharisees to define what a post-templar, post-independence Judaism was going to look like. This they did by - slowly over the centuries - beginning to establish the rule on public education for boys throughout the Jewish community.

This had several consequences. First, many Jews, being farmers and pastoralists, had little use for literacy, and as the cost for remaining inside the Jewish community increased, they increasingly opted out and converted to other faiths: Christianity in many cases, and later also Islam. Over time, this led to a sharp decrease in the number of Jews relative to non-Jews living in the Middle East and elsewhere. At the same time, those who remained within the Jewish fold increasingly began to adopt urban occupations, not least involving trade, but also other kinds of professions that required literacy, numeracy, the ability to communicate by mail, the power to keep and enforce contracts, among other things. Universal male literacy allowed Jews to establish themselves in lucrative, urban niche professions, while also maintaining a network with other Jews abroad. By the Middle Ages, and especially after the rise of urbanisation under Islam, Jews spread widely across the world and started to mark themselves out as educated, affluent and urban.

Thus Judaism had embarked on a great transformation from ancient times; the Pharisees, of course, became the rabbis of Rabbinical Judaism. As for the illiterate Jewish men, trying to stay as part of the Jewish community was usually not an option. They became increasingly marginalized and, since they could not take their bar mitzvah (during which they are supposed to read aloud from the Torah), they could not officially enter Jewish manhood, and so the rabbis advised others against marrying their daughters to such men. Much better then to enter into the fold of the dominant creed, where even the poor and illiterate were welcomed with open arms, and where - at least in Christianity - the ritual demands made on the devotee were much more relaxed than in Judaism.

In line with this pattern, Jews tended to concentrate in urbanized societies: Abbasid Mesopotamia, Iberia under Muslim rule and, later, the Christian polities in Italy and northern Europe. When urbanization took hold of Europe, Jews started to appear in its cities; and when the Mongols wrecked the infrastructure of the Middle East, the Jewish share of the population collapsed drastically, even though they were not targeted by the Mongols, as the Sunni Muslims were. "Can Judaism survive when trade and urban economies collapse?" the authors ask, and the answer is a decisive "No".

By the Early Modern period, a great share of European Jews specialized in money-lending. This was simply the most profitable activity available to them, and one in which they had the comparative advantage of education, so why should they have refused it? Later still, the Jewish tradition of education would pay dividends as new occupational fields opened up from the 19th century onwards.



Botticini and Eckstein overturn many conventional wisdoms regarding Jewish history, perhaps a topic for another time. For now I merely want to say that it is rather frustrating when standard histories of Judaism leave out the decision by Yehoshua ben Gamla about universal education for boys. There is no doubt that this ruling together with the destruction of the temple (only a few years later, oddly enough) constitute a decisive breaking point in the history of the Jewish religion.

Judaism: What I know and what I don't

Judaism is a very interesting religion. Having survived for over 2000 years (depending on how you count) and transformed itself in the process, it often seems to be - or "the Jews" seem to be - at the heart of historical developments. Not so much during the Middle Ages, granted, but increasingly so today. In fact, one could rather easily write an entire Judeocentric history of the world, and I suppose that may already have been done, at least so far as they teach children History in Israel.

As a student of History of Religions, I often lamented the fact that it was difficult to get a first-hand experience of Judaism, simply because one did not usually meet a lot of religious Jews. (There are supposed to exist some 20,000 Jews in Sweden, many of whom are not religious.) At the same time, I was never really attracted to Judaism in the same way that I was attracted to other faiths - it is simply not a religion you are attracted to from the outside when looking for spiritual nourishment. At the same time, I do wish I had a better understanding of it from the outside. At some point, I should read up on it a bit more thoroughly.

Just now, however, I read a piece titled American Pravda: Oddities of the Jewish Religion over at The Unz Review. Ron Unz is an interesting author and intellectual who often has an alternative perspective on things, running a rather fringe website while somehow managing to preserve his respectability public-wise (as far as I can tell from across the Atlantic). It is my impression that many of the articles appearing on his site are not of the finest quality, but his pieces usually stand out as being both thoughtful and well researched. This time I suspect that he has fallen over the cliff though. He cites the book Jewish History, Jewish Religion by Israel Shahak, and he takes it in a rather far-off direction. Having read the book myself, I should like to make a few comments on the article.

In the book, Shahak (himself a secular Jew), exposes the nature of Judaism as one of intolerance, hatred for non-Jews, magic, occultism and "lack of Monotheism" in case of the teachings of the Kabbalah. Many of the things Shahak describes - such as a Jewish man who refused to help a dying non-Jew on the Sabbath out of piety - are certainly alarming. There is also no doubt that many Orthodox Jews see themselves as set against the world, and among some Jews there are teachings saying that non-Jews do not have souls, highly disturbing of course (yet admittedly a rather fascinating form of piety). My main issues with Unz' article (and thus with Shahak) are the following:

• According to Kabbalistic teachings, God reveals himself through ten successive emanations, one for each level of creation. This is presented by Shahak (and Unz) as if there was a question of fundamentally different gods. Thus Shahak concludes that Judaism is not Monotheistic (unless the same can be said for Hinduism). My problem with this statement is both that it is presented in a sensationalist manner, but more importantly that Shahak does not give any sources for this claim, despite an endless number of sources stressing the inherent Monotheism of Judaism. I have not found any support for his position, either in academic literature or on relevant websites. 

• Orthodox Jews are supposedly taught to worship both God and Satan. But this claim does not make any sense as Jews generally do not believe in an omnimalevolent being. Satan in a Rabbinical Jewish context is God's servant; like the adversary in the Book of Job, he does not act on his own. His role is closer to that of the Quranic Iblis, being permitted by God to tempt mankind (though the latter is of course fallen), than to a Christian devil that tries to struggle against God for supremacy (even though he surely loses). So whatever "worship of Satan" could mean for some Jews (I personally have no clue), it is nothing like a Christian worshipping the devil.

• As for Jewish hostility towards non-Jews, this is of course troubling when it occurs, but let's be honest here: it is hardly a phenomenon unique to Judaism. I personally still have relatives who believe - doctrinally if not at heart - that all who are not Christian in just the right way will suffer eternal damnation in hell. That is a rather worse prospect than simply being killed off or remain as a servant to the Chosen People. Again, I dislike the sensationalist streak that I find with both Shahak and Unz, because it tends to undermine the will to understand something on its own terms in all its complexity in exchange for mere shock value.

Shahak, despite his Jewish background, and whatever his other merits, was not a scholar of Judaism. Neither am I - which is why I try to rely on those who are. Also, anyone knowledgeable about Judaism is very welcome to comment on this post, if you have something to contribute to the issues at hand.

There sometimes seems to be an unspoken choice that people have to make as right-wing intellectuals: either you have a problem with Islam, in which case Israel is an ally; or you are hostile to Judaism in which case you say nothing of Islam. I do not see the need for this. Both Judaism and Islam are highly complex traditions with plenty of diversity, featuring both some good and some truly horrid people, all drawing on their respective traditions for a great variety of ends.

The Ascent of Woman

I just watched the first part of the documentary The Ascent of Woman by Dr. Amanda Foreman (whoever "Morgan" in the description is is not clear, it does not seem to be wholly related). A most interesting documentary, and I would even say an eye-opener in some ways. One must concede that women have been erased from history to an extent - I personally thought I was aware of this already, but I did not know, for instance, that the first named author in world history was Enheduanna, high priestess of Assyria, daughter of Sargon of Akkad.

I was also not aware that Genghis Khan's empire was ruled to a significant degree by his daughters and step-daughters. Apparently the main source of Genghis Khan's life, The Secret History of the Mongols, was edited after the great Khan's death to hide the embarrassing fact that he had appointed many women to chief positions. This book seeks to redress the problem.

Having watched The Ascent of Woman, part 1, two things strike me the most. Firstly, gender hierarchies and social stratification in general seem to go hand in hand. This is perhaps not surprising, but not obvious either. Foreman takes the ancient archeological site of Çatalhöyük as an example of this: a city that existed well before civilization as such, thousands of years before the dawn of Sumer and Egypt, where social equity would supposedly have been the norm.

But what really made me curious was the way she described the ancient Greek culture. While women became, in time, relatively suppressed in many Middle Eastern countries, they were more autonomous among the steppe nomads in Central Asia and north of the Black Sea - but nowhere were they more restricted than in Greece, or at least in democratic Athens. The Greeks had many goddesses in their Pantheon, but no women in public life. They also had mythical enemies to fight off: the centaurs, similar to the horsemen they knew from the east and, significantly, the Amazons (supposedly from the ancient Persian word hamazan, warrior) denoting Scythian or Sarmatian warrior women. It would seem that the Greek men were scandalized by the existence of such women, and that this played a significant role in the shaping of Greek identity. The Greeks would have none of this confusion of social roles: they instituted a gender regime comparable to that of the Taliban (as noted in the documentary by the author of this book) and, with women out of the way, went on to lay the foundation for "civilization" in the grand sense of the word. So once again we see the recurring pattern where men are connected with culture and women with nature - a distinction that Foreman actually promotes, if tacitly so. For civilization has indeed been the story of the grand ambitions of men, and now that we are beginning to doubt its very sustainability, it is perhaps only natural that women should have their revenge. 

Can virtues change?

Do virtues differ across societies and time-periods, or are they universal? If you want to make yourself into a better person, a better man, how do you know what direction to move in? For instance, is piety a virtue? Is patience, elegance, humility? Magnanimity, gentlemanlyness, wisdom... obedience, filial piety, fear of God? Or are some of these virtues now hopelessly outdated, ill-suited to a world which moves at breakneck pace, too lofty and idealistic in a world that is all about the material? What can we truly learn, for instance, about living in the world when we read a classic work on ethics and manners like the Confucian Analects? How relevant are these ancient discourses today? Why should anyone read about the ideal of how a "noble man" (the superior gentleman, junzi) should behave, when such an ideal would be exceedingly difficult to implement in practice?

On a few occassions at least I have tried to break out of the slacker mentality that characterizes many of my peers - or should I say, characterizes all of us when we get together: a mildly cynical, disinterested group consciousness that scoffs at pretention and high-minded idealism. In these situations I have usually found that it is near-impossible too break out of such social patterns and try to establish something new. Most people do not seem at all interested, and if my attempt has at all been noticed it has on occassion been met with reactions ranging from sniggering to outright laughter. On such occassions I have quickly corrected myself; this is not an idealistic century, and when the reality of Heaven has been denied altogether, it begins to seem ludicrous when somebody tries to reach it.

There is one saying from the Analects that I particularly like:

See a person's means (of getting things). Observe his motives. Examine that in which he rests. How can a person conceal his character?

And the following one:

If a man has no humaneness what can his propriety be like? If a man has no humaneness what can his happiness be like?

 These sayings are so lofty in character - and needless to say, androcentric - that they are "culturally impossible" today, at least in countries like Sweden.

If the first saying seems obscure to you, it is (I believe) essentially the same as Jesus' saying in Matthew 7:20: By their fruits ye shall know them. Just as a bad tree does not bear good fruits, a person's character is known through his actions.

Mikael Kurkiala: Kvalitet och kvantitet

Det återstår att se om den här bloggen kommer att skrivas mestadels på engelska eller svenska. Jag vill skriva på engelska för att kunna nå en bred läsekrets, men samtidigt skriver jag en hel del om specifikt svenska författare och företeelser. Den här gången vill jag referera till en svensk bok och då faller det sig naturligt att också skriva på svenska.

(It remains to be seen how much of the blog will be written in English. This time around I want to discuss a book only available in Swedish.)

Datafiering och digitalisering är nära besläktat med vad den franska traditionalisten René Guenon kallat för The Reign of Quantity - kvantitetens herravälde. Tiden styckas upp i exakta enheter. Moderna, digitala bilder kan reduceras till pixlar i olika färger (färgkoder). Allting ska göras mätbart, standardiserat, objektifierat. Den moderna materialistiska vetenskapen bygger ju på premissen att det går en skarp skiljelinje mellan subjekt och objekt, och att subjektet kan studera objektet utan att påverka det. Empati och intuition får ge vika för en knivskarp, granskande blick som mäter och preciserar. Kommunikation mellan subjekt och objekt är omöjligt, eller åtminstone inte önskvärt. Att närma sig sitt studium som något levande (till exempel en religiös tradition) som kan berätta något för en är inte ett vetenskapligt förhållningssätt.

Bortsett från den materialistiska vetenskapen så är det också marknadens osynliga hand och statens krav på likriktning som kvantifierar, standardiserar och förytligar världen. Pengarna gör att alla ting blir sinsemellan utbytbara. Vi kan om vi vill (och vi gör det ständigt) "byta regnskog mot Coca-Cola", för att citera Alf Hornborg. Eller som Oscar Wilde skulle ha uttryckt det: "We know the price of everything, but the value of nothing."

Jag är ingen kännare av René Guenon, men det finns en svensk (svensk-finsk) tänkare som har skrivit just om skillnaden mellan kvalitet och kvantitet på ett mycket bra och lättillgängligt sätt. Jag talar om Mikael Kurkiala, författare till boken I varje trumslag jordens puls: Om vår tids rädsla för skillnader. Denna bok är idag svår att komma över annat än via bibliotek. Själv hade jag en gång i tiden äran att ha Kurkiala som lärare i kulturantropologi i Uppsala, men det var innan jag hade fått ordning på mitt eget tänkande, och jag läste hans bok först långt senare. Kurkiala har sedan dess slutat som forskare så vitt jag vet och tagit tjänst inom Svenska Kyrkan.

Kurkiala skriver så bra om kvalitet och kvantitet att det bästa jag kan göra är att citera honom rakt av:

Pengar och andra former av abstraktioner skapar "översättbarhet" mellan olika typer av värden och fenomen. De reducerar kvalitativa skillnader till kvantitativa. Kvalitativa skillnader är skillnader på djupet medan kvantitativa skillnader är skillnader på ytan. De förra skillnaderna handlar om art, de senare om omfång eller antal. Moderniteten som helhet förytligar världen genom att beröva den dess kvalitet. (s. 70)

Detta är bara ett litet utdrag, och det är svårt att på något mer djupgående sätt göra boken rättvisa utan att citera hela kapitel. Här ryms också mer specifika berättelser om hedersmordet på Fadime Sahindal och inte minst författarens egna upplevelser som antropolog hos lakotaindianer i Nordamerika. Jag låter boken tala för sig själv med några andra valda citat, ifall någon skulle få för sig att läsa den. Här finns också en gammal recension av boken.

Varför bejakar vi skillnader på ytan, på teckennivån, men inte på djupet, på den nivå som teckenvärlden skulle kunna peka mot? (s. 24)

 Jag efterlyser ett seende där vi tillåter oss att växla mellan analysens absoluta behov av att kategorisera och dra skiljelinjer mellan människor och ett moraliskt behov av att se likheter ytskillnaderna till trots. Denna dubbla hållning är inte ett tecken på schizofreni utan på en förmåga att växla mellan analys och empati, mellan ett jag-du-förhållande och ett jag-det-förhållande till världen. (s. 29)

 Den enda sociala enhet vars livslängd idag ökar är den enskilda individen. Evigheten har förpassats till vår tanketraditions arkiv, nationer framstår idag som alltmer konstruerade och instabila, företagen är kortlivade, och partierna och folkrörelserna förlorar sin attraktionskraft. Livets mening kan allt mindre knytas till något utanför individen själv. Det är här, under den korta tid som blivit mig utmätt, som all mening ska förverkligas. (s. 53)

 Liksom människan under hela den moderna eran funnit det oacceptabelt att sakna kontroll eller att överlåta kontrollen till en instans utanför den mänskliga sfären, till exempel Gud eller natur, så finner vi det idag i det närmaste oacceptabelt att vi själva inte skulle ha kontroll över vilka vi är och kan bli. I det offentliga samtalet är åberopandet av något prediskursivt eller förkulturellt – som kropp eller natur – som i åtminstone i viss bemärkelse formande vilka vi är, i det närmaste skandalöst. Denna motvilja mot att förankra människans identitet utanför det sociala och kulturella ses allmänt som emanciperande och progressivt. Detta tänkande är en logisk förlängning av den nu månghundraåriga ambitionen att förjaga eller härska över det som vi känner oss hotade av. Det må sedan vara ”vilden”, naturen, kroppen eller könet. I grunden är alltså detta tänkande besläktat med det koloniala. (s. 60-61)

 Pengar avspeglar alltså inte en varas värde. Varan föregår inte prissättningen, snarare är det tvärtom: prissättningen skapar tingen och fenomenen som just varor. (s. 63) 

 Den kvantitativa tiden skär sig kontinuerligt mot människors subjektiva erfarenhet av tiden. Vi ”vet” alla att vissa dagar är längre än andra och att tiden ibland bara rusar iväg. Men denna erfarenhet, liksom allt fler av våra erfarenheter, underordnas och underkuvas de mätinstrument och experter som vi överlåtit kontrollen åt. Att vara modern är inte bara att lita till expertsystem, det är också att upphöra att lita till sig själv, till sin egen erfarenhet. (s. 69)

Sommarprat: framtiden är ljus

För den reaktionäre pessimisten (såsom delvis jag själv) vill jag rekommendera följande sommarprat med Mouna Ezmaeilzadeh. Ta in vad hon säger och låt dig översköljas av hennes perspektiv. Om du noterar en instinkt att kritisera eller säga emot henne vid någon punkt, fråga dig varifrån du vill kritisera henne. Är det från en position av cynism, bitterhet, missunnsamhet eller moralism? Isåfall, kära läsare, har du redan förlorat.