Blogs > Liberty and Power > To Serve Man

Aug 1, 2004

To Serve Man




[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]

Two weeks ago I discussed what I called the"paradox of religious conservatism" -- namely, the fact that those who are allegedly dedicated to the supremacy of spirit over matter are in practice committed to subordinating the spiritual aspects of human life to the merely biological aspects. The latest confirmation of this comes in the form of an anti-feminist screed from the Vatican titled On the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and the World.

While the insulting phrase"a woman is not a copy of a man" (insulting in its implication that feminists do regard woman as a" copy of a man"), which news reports have most often quoted from the document, does not in fact appear to occur in it, the rambling diatribe certainly does condemn the"human attempt to be freed from one's biological conditioning," and complains that among feminists"physical difference, termed sex, is minimized, while the purely cultural element, termed gender, is emphasized to the maximum and held to be primary."

For the Vatican, by contrast, women's biological role as mothers determines their spiritual destiny, which is -- you guessed it -- a" capacity for the other." As I've noted before (see here and here), one of the strategies of patriarchy is to define the function of women as fundamentally other-directed. Of course the Vatican document is quick to assure us that"in the final analysis, every human being, man or woman, is destined to be 'for the other'" (as if such a celebration of servility would be any more palatable if the servility were reciprocal) -- but women, we are told, are"more immediately attuned to these values," and it is their task to"live them with particular intensity and naturalness." One of the chief function of women, the Vatican opines, is to serve as a"sign" of this doctrine of universal servility by exemplifying the distinctively feminine virtues of"listening, welcoming, humility, faithfulness, praise and waiting," and thereby"recalling these dispositions to all the baptized."

In short, although every human being is called to self-immolation, women are supposed to specialise in it -- and all because of the reproductive role that nature happens to have assigned them. Isn't this precisely the biology-worship I've been complaining of? (Needless to say, these men in dresses also have no patience for those who" call into question the family, in its natural two-parent structure of mother and father" and"make homosexuality and heterosexuality virtually equivalent." Here too, the spiritual must be subordinated to the biological rather than vice versa.)

The Vatican anticipates the charge of biology-worship and seeks to rebut it. Although"motherhood is a key element of women's identity," this"does not mean that women should be considered from the sole perspective of physical procreation"; on the contrary, the"Christian vocation of virginity”" contradicts"any attempt to enclose women in mere biological destiny." (Of course, for a religion that condemns birth control, virginity is the only alternative to motherhood on offer.) Still, virginity is described as a kind of metaphorical extension of biological motherhood:

Just as virginity receives from physical motherhood the insight that there is no Christian vocation except in the concrete gift of oneself to the other, so physical motherhood receives from virginity an insight into its fundamentally spiritual dimension: it is in not being content only to give physical life that the other truly comes into existence. This means that motherhood can find forms of full realization also where there is no physical procreation.
In short, even women who are not mothers in the literal sense are still expected to model their human interactions on motherhood in a way that goes beyond what is asked of men. The Vatican, more subtle than its Baptist brethren (no surprise there!), insists that woman's role as a"helpmate" marks her not as an"inferior," but rather as a"vital helper" on a man's"own level" -- but all the same it is woman, not man, whose essence is defined in this other-regarding way. It is femininity, not masculinity, that is defined as"the fundamental human capacity to live for the other and because of the other." (From an individualist perspective, what greater insult to women can be imagined?)

The Vatican seeks to evade the charge of biology-worship by insisting that male and female are not purely biological categories. (Though when feminists say precisely this, the Vatican attacks them for emphasising gender over sex!) Although the"temporal and earthly expression of sexuality" is"transient and ordered to a phase of life marked by procreation and death," the distinction between male and female is described as"belonging ontologically to creation" and therefore as"destined ... to outlast the present time," albeit"in a transfigured form." Those who in the present life take vows of celibacy"for the sake of the Kingdom" are prefiguring"this form of future existence of male and female." But far from being the negation of biology-worship, this point of view elevates women's biological role in reproduction to a metaphysical principle entailing special duties of feminine servility from which even the grave will apparently offer no escape. (Though insofar as feminine self-immolation is supposed to be an inspiring model for men to imitate, this conception is no picnic for either sex. Thus patriarchy and altruism are complementary parts of an interlocking system that oppresses both men and women -- albeit not equally.)

The Vatican throws a sop to the feminists by acknowledging that"women should be present in the world of work and in the organization of society," and"should have access to positions of responsibility." But can women really be expected to compete on equal terms when they must also shoulder the special burden of serving as a visible"sign" of the servile virtues?

The Vatican also pays women the old false compliment of a special feminine"sense and ... respect for what is concrete," as"opposed to abstractions which are so often fatal for the existence of individuals and society." That sounds very nice; but propagating such a view of women is hardly likely to enhance their success in intellectual careers. (Admittedly some feminists have made precisely the same mistake, trumpeting hostility to abstraction as some sort of liberating"feminine voice" and"ethics of care," when in fact such stereotypes are more plausibly regarded as artefacts of women’s subjection.)

The document's tepid support for women's"access to positions of responsibility" is vitiated by its condemnation of feminists who"emphasize strongly conditions of subordination" and urge women to"make themselves the adversaries of men." Should feminists ignore the existing conditions of subordination? It is such conditions, and not those who point them out, that are responsible for adversarial relations between men and women. The goal of feminists is to abolish these adversarial relations by abolishing the conditions of subordination that maintain them.

The Vatican's insistence that men and women are equal partners is likewise belied by the document's stress on the"importance and relevance" of the fact that in incarnating himself as Jesus Christ, God"assumed human nature in its male form." Even for those who accept the (to my mind blasphemous and un-Biblical) notion that God once became a human being, one might have thought that he picked a male form for the simple reason that a female preacher in first-century Palestine would have had even more trouble gaining a hearing than Jesus did. But the Vatican apparently sees it as signifying that divinity is more appropriately expressed in male rather than female form. Thus patriarchy is undergirded by patriolatry.

In one of his better moments, St. Paul wrote that in Christ"there is neither male nor female." (Galatians 3:28.) In short, our physical biology does not determine our spiritual vocation. The Vatican document ingeniously interprets this passage in precisely the opposite sense, to mean that"the distinction between man and woman is reaffirmed more than ever," in that the"rivalry" which has"disfigured the relationship between men and women" will be replaced with harmony once the sexes reconcile themselves to their Church-assigned roles. In short, the ideal held out to women is: peace through surrender.

To this, the only proper answer can be: no peace without justice!

Écrasez l’infâme!


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M.D. Fulwiler - 8/3/2004

Well, your suggested "alternative" is certainly not the life of a human being, but it seems to be the Christian conception of what a disembodied saint experiences in heaven. Which seems utterly appalling to me. Yes, worse than a vegetative state!

The Misesan state of total contentment is not something one can ever achieve in reality, and I don't believe anyone would actually want it. However, we do seek to ~increase~ our contentment all of the time. Given the state of physical reality , this is ~always~ possible. And the actions taken to increase our contentment can be, perhaps paradoxically, a source of greater contentment in and of themselves.


Charles Johnson - 8/3/2004

"I don't see the any substantive difference between discontent with the way things are and discontent with the way things would be if one didn't act. They are both discontent. You cannot be in a ~true~ state of total contentment with the way things are if you are thinking about the bad things that might happen if you don't act."

This seems like a pretty puzzling doctrine. The (putatively) happy person that Roderick's talking about is "dissatisfied with" the alternative to acting in a particular way not in the sense of being discontented with any *actual* state of affairs, but rather in the sense that she *would* be less happy with it *if* it came about. Even if Misesian stasis *were* complete happiness, then it's unclear to me why someone in such a state wouldn't be aware of how it would be less delightful to act in any way whatever (which is, I suppose, why Mises thinks she would not act at all). And if the objection doesn't work against Mises's account, I don't see why it should work against Roderick's.

(There is an alternative: you could accept the argument, accept its application to Mises's picture of contentment, but argue that complete Misesian contentment requires complete obliviousness toward alternative possibilities--to be so completely consumed by, say, beholding the Beatific Vision of God, that you couldn't even think of anything else. But that is less even than the life of a vegetable; it's certainly not the life of a human being. If a theory about what "contentment" amounts to leads to that conclusion, then it's surely *not* a theory of what we mean by the word "contentment" in its ordinary use.)


M.D. Fulwiler - 8/2/2004

Well, I don't see the any substantive difference between discontent with the way things are and discontent with the way things would be if one didn't act. They are both discontent. You cannot be in a ~true~ state of total contentment with the way things are if you are thinking about the bad things that might happen if you don't act.


Roderick T. Long - 8/2/2004

On this point I'm an Aristotelean/Randian/Rothbardian, not a Misesian: happiness is an activity, not a state, and action requires not discontent with the way things are, but discontent with the way things would be if one didn't act (so one can be in a state of contentment with the way things are and yet be performing lots of actions).


M.D. Fulwiler - 8/2/2004

But since you are supposed to be perfectly happy in heaven, you won't have a reason to do anything, correct? As Mises points out in "Human Action," we only act because we are dissatisfied with the current state of affairs. If we were perfectly happy, we wouldn't do a thing. Hence heaven is total stasis, total inaction. If we were "restless," we wouldn't be in heaven.


Roderick T. Long - 8/2/2004

Based on my understanding of mainline Christian theology, which is admittedly limited, resurrected souls get enormously improved version of their original bodies. I would guess that means, inter alia, a body in its 20s with any defects corrected, plus some supernatural extras (the one most frequently mentioned is the ability to walk through walls -- based on the fact that Jesus is said to have done this after being resurrected).

> And what, pray tell, am I going to
> do with my penis in heaven? Inquiring
> minds want to know.

You can keep it but you can't do anything with it. If you get restless, just walk through a wall or something.


M.D. Fulwiler - 8/1/2004

If you get your same body back after the second coming, what age is your body going to be? 20, 30 or the age at death? And what sort of a "body" do aborted embryos get? Also, does God correct your imperfections? In other words, do you get some sort of "extreme makeover"? I'd like more muscle, less body fat, a straighter nose and a few crooked teeth taken care of! And what, pray tell, am I going to do with my penis in heaven? Inquiring minds want to know.


Roderick T. Long - 8/1/2004

This position has arguably been implicit all along. In official Thomistic theology, the soul is essentially bound up with its body, and when it is separated from the body it is in an incomplete state. For the Church, disembodied existence is only a temporary condition; the final goal is bodily resurrection. So the soul has always been essentially gendered, insofar as it is, even when disembodied, essentially the soul of a particular type of body. (Of course that position by itself implies nothing about different roles or virtues for different sexes.)


Jonathan Dresner - 8/1/2004

The report I heard mentioned, and I think this is more important than people realize, that the report claimed that our souls, not just our bodies, are gendered. 'We are born man and woman, we live man and woman, and we die man and woman' and apparently, though our souls aren't interested in the physicality of gender, we retain that 'fundamental characteristic' in the afterlife. This might explain the 'only men can be priests' thing, if the souls are in fact fundamentally different. But there's now a theological, not just textual or social, foundation to the Roman Catholic church's gender position, and that is going to be much harder to change, so it will be more necessary to work around.