mwh wrote:Toward a more equal world, perhaps? If only.
A language is as sexist as its culture, no? Gender is not sexist (or not overtly, the feminist in me has to add), but privileging masculine over feminine is.
Without turning it into a political debate I'll just add that the phrase "equal world" is heavily loaded with presuppositions and assumptions held by whoever says it. It is as meaningless as saying a "good world", because it relies upon the world view of whoever says it. There isn't a rigorous scientific method to discover what is "equal". Some believe equality would mean the end of abortion (equal right to life for the unborn child), some think it would mean the legalization of incest and polygamy (right of consenting adults to marry whomever they want).
All western countries have some sort of understanding of equality enshrined in law to my knowledge. I don't know of any western country where for instance racism or sexism is enshrined in law, so in that sense we're already there. But in another sense we're not; to me "equality" means justice for all, and I don't see the world getting any better when one looks at the rate of murder, rape, divorce, etc. Divorce is an epidemic in western countries, and there is a large multitude of children growing up in broken families.
The problem with much political discussion is that it stays surface level with loaded words like "equal", "right", "justice", "good", "bad", etc. None of these words have scientific definitions, they are loaded with subjective values that differ from person to person. Politics is fundamentally about morality, which means it is something that touches upon the deepest questions ever asked: Who are we? Where did we come from? Is there a God? Is there an absolute standard of right and wrong? Is there a purpose to humanity or will it matter none once our sun burns out and the earth is destroyed with all memory of everything that happened here? Is government something more than using the threat of suffering (fines, confiscation of property, imprisonment, or death) to enforce conformity to the behavior desired by those in power (how fast you must drive, whether you are allowed to homeschool your children, etc.).
I know that was a long reply, but I wanted to make the point that an "equal world" is just the tip of the ice berg, there's much lying under that phrase.
But, back to Adler, I wasn't aware that
alter functioned that way. I didn't realize
alter... alteram wasn't possible. I defer to your superior Latinity, mwh
. It seems that the term views the two as part of a class or set: the one and the other (of whatever class). So that when applied to people of different sex the reason for maintaining masculine gender would be that the class
homo is assumed:
alter homo... alterum hominem. Or am I thinking too deeply about this?
