debka_notion (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
debka_notion) wrote2005-02-21 11:39 pm
debka_notion) wrote2005-02-21 11:39 pm
Relevant Except
Found this in my umpteenth partial re-reading of Stranger in A Strange Land: (It's kind of relevant to discussions I've been having, as well as both being relevant and insulting to one of my ways of interacting with the world, all at once)
"Ruth, once she broke the barriers, progressed faster than I did; she was a priestess long before I became a priest. But she's the spiritual sort; she thinks with her gonads. Me, I have to do it the hard way, between my ears." (Stranger, p. 403 in my copy. It's Sam, talking about his wife to Jubal.)
I rather strongly object to the idea that spirituality has to do with one's sexual equipment. (Unless I have the definition of gonads wrong: but I don't think I do- sexual glands/organs, yes?) While one can link the two, I don't think there's an implicit link between the two sorts of awareness. Nor am I so sure that spirituality has anything to do with how one learns. It seems more like Heinlein is connecting spirituality and intuition, which is somewhat more understandable, when one considers spirituality as pure-faith based, versus reason-established, If that is even a safe or appropriate distinction to make. I'm not always sure that it is. In many ways I'd like to say that it isn't, once you get there, except that I think that that is overly idealistic. The two methods provide different backgrounds. Someone who has come to a belief in something through reason/thought is going to have a much more cognitive understanding of the subject than someone who just believes- it's organic, not done on the level of thought. Certainly intuition tends to be faster- but it Isn't the only way to be spiritual. Heinlein's reading is both overly simplified and somehow seems derogatory, and based on/relative to the idea/apologetic (at least in Judaism) that women are more spiritual than men.
Relevant to the book- it's funny how much said book is full of philosphy type stuff that I just read and sort of soaked up and never really thought too much about consciously earlier in my life. I do wonder how much of it has influenced my own personal philosophies. Certainly I can see lots of similarities. And I tend to use ideas soaked up from SF/F in my explanations of my beliefs sometimes. I guess that's the price of reading these things often and starting very young. I mean, it's useful, and it doesn't clash with my later ideologies in any ways that I've found particularly bothersome. But rereading this now, it does start to seem a bit more obvious.
"Ruth, once she broke the barriers, progressed faster than I did; she was a priestess long before I became a priest. But she's the spiritual sort; she thinks with her gonads. Me, I have to do it the hard way, between my ears." (Stranger, p. 403 in my copy. It's Sam, talking about his wife to Jubal.)
I rather strongly object to the idea that spirituality has to do with one's sexual equipment. (Unless I have the definition of gonads wrong: but I don't think I do- sexual glands/organs, yes?) While one can link the two, I don't think there's an implicit link between the two sorts of awareness. Nor am I so sure that spirituality has anything to do with how one learns. It seems more like Heinlein is connecting spirituality and intuition, which is somewhat more understandable, when one considers spirituality as pure-faith based, versus reason-established, If that is even a safe or appropriate distinction to make. I'm not always sure that it is. In many ways I'd like to say that it isn't, once you get there, except that I think that that is overly idealistic. The two methods provide different backgrounds. Someone who has come to a belief in something through reason/thought is going to have a much more cognitive understanding of the subject than someone who just believes- it's organic, not done on the level of thought. Certainly intuition tends to be faster- but it Isn't the only way to be spiritual. Heinlein's reading is both overly simplified and somehow seems derogatory, and based on/relative to the idea/apologetic (at least in Judaism) that women are more spiritual than men.
Relevant to the book- it's funny how much said book is full of philosphy type stuff that I just read and sort of soaked up and never really thought too much about consciously earlier in my life. I do wonder how much of it has influenced my own personal philosophies. Certainly I can see lots of similarities. And I tend to use ideas soaked up from SF/F in my explanations of my beliefs sometimes. I guess that's the price of reading these things often and starting very young. I mean, it's useful, and it doesn't clash with my later ideologies in any ways that I've found particularly bothersome. But rereading this now, it does start to seem a bit more obvious.
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It may also have something to do with Heinlein's generally weird approach to women in his books.
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Instead she was knocked out and in bad shape.
Some geeks still want the original ending because they can't get enough of Heinlein hitting them over the head with dopy sermons.
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But I think I was ignoring all those parts about women think intuitive and men are intellectual. Standard Heinlein sexism.
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Two why's
Nor am I so sure that spirituality has anything to do with how one learns. -- Why not?
Huzzah!
The Vortex