Metaphysics of Gender.

[John D. Brey]

My own study of dreams and symbolism that the psyche produces and which underlies our cognition and language is that our sense of self is developed in two modes: the separative and the cooperative.

The separative mode of self or ego development attempts to concentrate control and power into a single conscious center. All other things are to be subservient to this central authority.

The cooperative mode of ego development seeks to maintain a mode in an integrated network of modes where power is distributed but collaboration is key. All things are given their share so that no one node becomes dominant.

These two modes are operative in the psyches of men and women but many may perceive the intuitive association of the separative with the masculine and the cooperative with the feminine. This distinction goes deep into the psyches of the individual and the myths they adhere to.

Having said that I am not clear on how you see the metaphysics of gender as differentiating Judaism and Christianity.

. . . I think you're right on the mark. Nevertheless the counter-intuitive metaphysical element to what you've said comes about when we note that the female, who is the cooperative, the unifier, is, in biological truth, the singular, since every ovum begins as a female, and only becomes a male if hormonal imbalance causes the deformity of the natural female genitalia and mind which we know as the male.

The male knows the female better than the female can possibly know the male, since at some level of his existence, every male was pure female, while everyone born female, has never existed as, nor truly experienced being a male.

This points out the strange and disjointed metaphysics whereby the female represents community, unity, and family, while the male represents singularity, oneness, and privilege. In the metaphysics of biology, i.e., material reality, the female is singular, while the male is communal (male and female).



John

 

[John D. Brey]

Unfortunately the RC idea of celibacy was created as an expedient.

. . . That's at best a theory. And a theory which, imo, a clear understanding of the metaphysics of gender refutes.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

I think you're confusing/conflating culture with theology, and admittedly, they have been almost inextricably intertwined, until recently. However, I think that leaving them that way only serves the cause of confusion, especially to people living in a modern and at least somewhat less patriarchal world. And especially in terms of modern theology, which no longer significantly rests on such cultural gender biases. Who among us, these days, really cares about genealogy in terms of spiritual authority? Or even gender for that matter? And what are those that do care protecting, except the biases of the past?

It's taken two millennium, and it may take another millennium, yet, but I do see humanity as finally acceding to the spiritual revelation of Christ, as opposed to the religious authoritarianism that killed the messenger, and has been trying to kill that spiritual message and promise of Christ ever since.

. . . Again, I agree with most of what you're saying. I'm implying that the religious and cultural patriarchal prejudice hides the truth so far as material, factual, reality is concerned. As I said earlier in the thread, Judaism and Christianity are ontologically matriarchal, since Jewish identity comes through a Jewish mother, and not a Jewish father, and since Jesus came through a Jewish mother, but not a Jewish father.

Ergo, where truth is assymetrical, i.e., what is first is authoritatively superior, there's a real disconnect between material reality and cultural/religious patriarchal authority. Furthermore, as noted already in the thread, every one of us began as a female, and only became a male, through a deformity caused by a flood of hormones which literally distorts our original gender to become a deformity which ironically is privileged culturally, and religiously, as though it were ontologically first, and thus superior, which, again, ironically, is not the case in truth.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

Genesis is 100 % metaphorical.

. . . The written version. Yes. That's the written word's original sin: its pure metphoricity. That's what a written word is, in every case, a metaphor. Which is jumping way ahead in the examination since if every written word is a metaphor, and it is, then as Heidegger points out too many times to count, every word needs one Word that isn't a metaphor or else all metaphors float, and give meaning, in a gravity-less space where anything can mean whatever anyone wants it to mean.

One non-metaphorical Word can be used to align all metaphors in proper relationship to the anchor of all communication and thought. -------So long as there's one non-metaphorical Word, all other words could tentatively be brought under the authority of that Word.



John

 

[sealchan]

. . . I think you're right on the mark. Nevertheless the counter-intuitive metaphysical element to what you've said comes about when we note that the female, who is the cooperative, the unifier, is, in biological truth, the singular, since every ovum begins as a female, and only becomes a male if hormonal imbalance causes the deformity of the natural female genitalia and mind which we know as the male.

The male knows the female better than the female can possibly know the male, since at some level of his existence, every male was pure female, while everyone born female, has never existed as, nor truly experienced being a male.

This points out the strange and disjointed metaphysics whereby the female represents community, unity, and family, while the male represents singularity, oneness, and privilege. In the metaphysics of biology, i.e., material reality, the female is singular, while the male is communal (male and female).



John

I think one can arrive at a different formulation if one takes care not to confuse the layers of cell biology with psychology and even sociology.

The fact that the male emerges as a disruption of the female organism's balance certainly plays into the intuitive idea of separative/cooperative, but the great separation between the biological reality and the psychological one should give one pause to make the connection between the two.

I dont see women as only feminine but they are potentially masculine. We may all be aware of the exceptions to the rule and even be able to perceive the exception in every individual known well to ourselves.

In fact, I see the association to be a real bias in perception but it is also illusory when one looks deeper. Human psychology is very quick to pick up on small differences and make them important to the point that those differences come to define a thing as wholly different when, in fact, they are really two slight variants of what is more demonstrably interchaangable.

 

[PureX]

. . . Again, I agree with most of what you're saying. I'm implying that the religious and cultural patriarchal prejudice hides the truth so far as material, factual, reality is concerned. As I said earlier in the thread, Judaism and Christianity are ontologically matriarchal, since Jewish identity comes through a Jewish mother, and not a Jewish father, and since Jesus came through a Jewish mother, but not a Jewish father.

Ergo, where truth is assymetrical, i.e., what is first is authoritatively superior, there's a real disconnect between material reality and cultural/religious patriarchal authority. Furthermore, as noted already in the thread, every one of us began as a female, and only became a male, through a deformity caused by a flood of hormones which literally distorts our original gender to become a deformity which ironically is privileged culturally, and religiously, as though it were ontologically first, and thus superior, which, again, ironically, is not the case in truth.

John

It is a great puzzle why older, feminine conceptions of 'God through nature' became usurped by later masculine conceptions of 'God through nature'. The former being based on divine nurturing, and the later being based on divine vengeance. But clearly the latter won out, and has ruled us for a long time. Hopefully, now, the tide it turning again, to a kind of collectivized, internalized spirituality, wherein we see and seek communion with the Divine within each other, and in the world; where male and female become one, and we seek nurture through mutual cooperation (feminine intent), rather than self-aggrandizement through competition (masculine intent).

The Feminine Divine still whispers to us ... "Mary", - by Patty Griffin

 

[John D. Brey]

I think one can arrive at a different formulation if one takes care not to confuse the layers of cell biology with psychology and even sociology.

The fact that the male emerges as a disruption of the female organism's balance certainly plays into the intuitive idea of separative/cooperative, but the great separation between the biological reality and the psychological one should give one pause to make the connection between the two.

I dont see women as only feminine but they are potentially masculine. We may all be aware of the exceptions to the rule and even be able to perceive the exception in every individual known well to ourselves.

In fact, I see the association to be a real bias in perception but it is also illusory when one looks deeper. Human psychology is very quick to pick up on small differences and make them important to the point that those differences come to define a thing as wholly different when, in fact, they are really two slight variants of what is more demonstrably interchaangable.

. . . All good points.

The framework I'm approaching this from comes from the realization that in sound Biblical interpretation, based on foundational Jewish and Christian biases (which accept the inerrancy of scripture . . . though no "interpretation" of scripture is inerrant), the actual, literal, text, is the truth of the matter such that all "interpretation" (and there is no meaning without interpretation) must find its power and legitimacy in its ability to makes the most sense of the literal meaning of the text.

In this sense, biology is the literal text of our material existence. Our bodies, and our genetic genesis are of a kind with the text of Genesis.

Our thoughts have a freedom, as all interpretation does, to feel, and see, and believe, in subjective ways, that free themselves from the literal biology, and the literal genetics, where our thoughts arise. But as in Biblical interpretation (where the interpretation that can justify itself, no matter how unorthodox, with the literal text most closely, without metaphorizing or allegorizing the literal, is the most true and powerful), so too in metaphysics, and psychology, the epistemology that can make sense of the literal biology and genetics, no matter how unorthodox it may seem, is most true, and most powerful.

Which is to say your personal feelings and biases may be correct, but if they are, then there will be a way to justifying them without distorting the written word of our genetics and our biology.



John

 

[dybmh]

Yes...but this does not explain why males are circumcised...which practically excludes females from the pact
Whereas in Christianity all babies are baptized.

FYI:

The Talmud says: "... a woman is considered as one who is circumcised ... " Avodah Zarah 27a

 

[Estro Felino]

FYI:

The Talmud says: "... a woman is considered as one who is circumcised ... " Avodah Zarah 27a

Thanks...
I don't know what it means..but it makes kinda sense

 

[John D. Brey]

It is a great puzzle why older, feminine conceptions of 'God through nature' became usurped by later masculine conceptions of 'God through nature'. The former being based on divine nurturing, and the later being based on divine vengeance. But clearly the latter won out, and has ruled us for a long time. Hopefully, now, the tide it turning again, to a kind of collectivized, internalized spirituality, wherein we see and seek communion with the Divine within each other, and in the world; where male and female become one, and we seek nurture through mutual cooperation (feminine intent), rather than self-aggrandizement through competition (masculine intent).

. . . Imo, turning the tide is a return to the literally true, away from orthodoxy that has drifted, and not a revolutionary re-assessment of reality. Though I assume the end result is well laid out by what you've said.



John

 

[dybmh]

Thanks...
I don't know what it means..but it makes kinda sense

The implication for this discussion is that women are not excluded from the covenant.

 

[Shadow Link]

The last decade has seen the most brilliant Jewish professors alive, notably men like Professor Elliot R. Wolfson, and or, rabbi and scholar Daniel Boyarin, examining the foundations and relations between Judaism and Christianity on a level, and to a degree, that dwarfs all that's come before (Professor Wolfson's 2019 treaties, Heidegger and Kabbalah, is a case in point). A careful reading of their most seminal works, and points, point to the fact that a metaphysics of gender is the lowest common denominator separating Judaism and authentic Christianity. Decipher the metaphysical cipher of gender, the metaphysics of gender, and the symbiotic relationship between Judaism and Christianity will be laid bare.

John

This reminds me of the Jewish commentary and subsequent queer theological tradition that understands Adam as being made as a non-binary individual in whom both the male and female is actualized.

I had read an e-book on a series of interpretations of scripture once from a Jewish professor from the 1800's(can't remember his name nor the book title). In the reading he described many things through the attributive forms of how to properly examine scripture. What stuck out most from this work was his connections through the process of evolution, explaining how during the early process of the earth's fertilization stage that human life was not a single phenomenon that had happened in a specific location, but rather that it was a wide spread event. Explaining how things like pigmentation(skin color) and such were determined by water temperatures and various other elements.


Wondering if anyone might be able to help point out who this was or what this work was entitled?


The work brought about within me many thoughts and contemplations, such as where intelligence might have first been more inclusive to one section of creation development than others, dominant physical traits, immunity, etc.

 

[PureX]

. . . Imo, turning the tide is a return to the literally true, away from orthodoxy that has drifted, and not a revolutionary re-assessment of reality. Though I assume the end result is well laid out by what you've said.

John

I think of it as a return to natural wisdom, as well. But it's been such a LONG time that it's hard to see it as a return. And I think it will be far less superstitious, regardless. So quite different in that sense.

 

[blü 2]

. . . No doubt. But for the first time in human history we may, as a species, have laid the scientific, philosophical, and theological groundwork, to make sense of such a thing in a manner that doesn't in the end have to fall back on inscrutable mystical mystery. If that's indeed the case, it would presuppose, and require, a new day and a new relationship between Judaism and Christianity.

It would? Why and what, exactly?

(I checked out Wolfson's Heidegger and Kabbalah at Amazon but unfortunately it has zero reviews. It's many years since I looked at Heidegger and formed the view that at his best he was either unimportant or incoherent ─ though as an unrepentant Nazi-hugger, who could doubt his career? However, that tells me nothing about Wolfson.)

 

[Epic Beard Man]

The last decade has seen the most brilliant Jewish professors alive, notably men like Professor Elliot R. Wolfson, and or, rabbi and scholar Daniel Boyarin, examining the foundations and relations between Judaism and Christianity on a level, and to a degree, that dwarfs all that's come before (Professor Wolfson's 2019 treaties, Heidegger and Kabbalah, is a case in point). A careful reading of their most seminal works, and points, point to the fact that a metaphysics of gender is the lowest common denominator separating Judaism and authentic Christianity. Decipher the metaphysical cipher of gender, the metaphysics of gender, and the symbiotic relationship between Judaism and Christianity will be laid bare.



John

So what exactly are you trying to discuss?

 

[SA Huguenot]

. . . Philo supposed "maleness" is immaterial, while "femaleness" is material. If we take that presupposition to the bank, then Adam's original body should have been non-gendered female. In other words, Adam's original body should have been what today we think of as "female" though before there was a "male" body, the original body would have been non-gendered since there would be nothing to compare it with in a binary or dualistic sense. It would have been just as male, notwithstanding female genitalia, as it was female, until the arrival of the phallus (Gen. 2:21) caused a distinction to be made.

Which is to say that if Philo is correct about immaterial maleness and material femaleness, then the original, material body, of humanity, should have possessed what we now consider female genitalia.

That being the case, normal gender metaphysics may have been distorted from the very Genesis of the written word.



John

I do not agree, for God said:
Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
if your claim was true, God would have said, lets make man in our immage so God made a woman, changed her into a man, and made a woman as his companion.
This is utter sillyness.
The bodies Adam and Eve had before they sinned was immortal, covered with a glorious light and they did not know they were naked due to this light.
When they lost their innocence, they for the first time realised their differrences and nakedness.
I am a bit concerned about your synchronisation with transvetite sexchanges etc.
If you still done know:
There are only 2 sexes on this earth!
Male and female!
Any other claims about a woman caught in a male body, and vice versa, is no more than pure phsycological sickness.
As for Christianity and Judaesm, Christianity is the heir of the Old Testament, and Jesus is YHWH manifested in the flesh as the Word of YHWH, and ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father, and the Spirit of YHWH.

God is not male, nor female (|Matt 22: 30) neither is humans, we only live in a mortal body that has a male or female creation.
Our spirits are without any gender, but we live in the gender God created for us.
If you are a Man, you might say, I am a man no more, but a spirit of the living God, but you can never claim to be a woman!
and obviously vice versa.
Any male claiming he is female, does not damm well know what a female is.
Just as a female claims she is a man, she needs to see a psichiatrist too.

 

[SA Huguenot]

. . . I think you're right on the mark. Nevertheless the counter-intuitive metaphysical element to what you've said comes about when we note that the female, who is the cooperative, the unifier, is, in biological truth, the singular, since every ovum begins as a female, and only becomes a male if hormonal imbalance causes the deformity of the natural female genitalia and mind which we know as the male.

The male knows the female better than the female can possibly know the male, since at some level of his existence, every male was pure female, while everyone born female, has never existed as, nor truly experienced being a male.

This points out the strange and disjointed metaphysics whereby the female represents community, unity, and family, while the male represents singularity, oneness, and privilege. In the metaphysics of biology, i.e., material reality, the female is singular, while the male is communal (male and female).



John

Also not true.
When the ovum exists as only an ovum, with no sexual identification at all before fertilised by the sperm, which will then determine male or female construction from the very first cell of the fetus.
To say that man was first female, then became male because the ovum was female, is pure directional bias.
I can just as well say, the sperm was first female before it joined with the ovum, therefore women are men first, then women.
And no, the male is Not:
"communal (Male and Female)" This is a total lie!
His cells are all Male, his sperm divides and become XY, or XX.
Once they join with the ovum, you get either male or female.

 

[SA Huguenot]

I dont see women as only feminine but they are potentially masculine. We may all be aware of the exceptions to the rule and even be able to perceive the exception in every individual known well to ourselves.

Never confuse feminininity and masculinity with gender.
To say that because a woman are of strong stature, she is more male than her counterparts, or because a man is more feminine he can now be considered a woman is ridicilous.
No, a woman can have a beard, and muscles, she will still be a woman.
A man can cut anything off, use hormones to grow breasts, he will still be a man.
Period.

 

[sealchan]

. . . All good points.

The framework I'm approaching this from comes from the realization that in sound Biblical interpretation, based on foundational Jewish and Christian biases (which accept the inerrancy of scripture . . . though no "interpretation" of scripture is inerrant), the actual, literal, text, is the truth of the matter such that all "interpretation" (and there is no meaning without interpretation) must find its power and legitimacy in its ability to makes the most sense of the literal meaning of the text.

In this sense, biology is the literal text of our material existence. Our bodies, and our genetic genesis are of a kind with the text of Genesis.

Our thoughts have a freedom, as all interpretation does, to feel, and see, and believe, in subjective ways, that free themselves from the literal biology, and the literal genetics, where our thoughts arise. But as in Biblical interpretation (where the interpretation that can justify itself, no matter how unorthodox, with the literal text most closely, without metaphorizing or allegorizing the literal, is the most true and powerful), so too in metaphysics, and psychology, the epistemology that can make sense of the literal biology and genetics, no matter how unorthodox it may seem, is most true, and most powerful.

Which is to say your personal feelings and biases may be correct, but if they are, then there will be a way to justifying them without distorting the written word of our genetics and our biology.



John

In what context is Genesis literal? As an historical account? As an imaginal experience? As a story with psychological value or impact? Is its literalness found in our modern lives or in the minds of its authors and their contemporaneous audience?

And what if Genesis is as much a mirror as it is a substance? Where lies its literalness but scattered across the knowledge and experience of every one who picks up the story and listens?

 

[sealchan]

Never confuse feminininity and masculinity with gender.
To say that because a woman are of strong stature, she is more male than her counterparts, or because a man is more feminine he can now be considered a woman is ridicilous.
No, a woman can have a beard, and muscles, she will still be a woman.
A man can cut anything off, use hormones to grow breasts, he will still be a man.
Period.

Indeed nothing in Creation/Nature is in essence perfectly other but is always a mixture of complimentary opposite qualities. Human perception and cognition is based on acts of discrimination as well as integration. To say anything at all we must divide up our reality into pieces even if we reunite them immediately thereafter.