I've written too much to xmca these days and should really take time to
be quiet for a while... but there's something in Ed's message that
deeply disturbs me; no, it's not personal Ed, it's just that your
thinking represents some of the popular notions of today, which to me
could be very misleading and dangerous... to make things short, I'll use
point-form:
(1) human rights and dignity (including women's dignity and rights) are not
something of the West! When Ed you said "women's literation may be a
form of Western cultural imperialism", I was really really disturbed!
My college friend did her doctoral research on the history of women and
women's thinking in ancient China... what she discovered, based on
historical records and various sociocultural data she collected,
indicates that women in ancient China by no means "willingly" accepted
the dominant male social order...
I sometimes think there are so many MYTHS about women in other cultures
"willingly" accepting social injustice... and so on... Hey! We're also
human, who will to dignity and basic human rights... we're not that
different from you Western folks!! Don't mythicalize us!
(2) postmodernism =/= relativism
I remember this issue being heatedly debated in my Human Rights Education
class (with Dieter Misgeld at OISE)... some fellow-students said
everything is relative... including basic human rights... and that some
cultures should be allowed to kill, to torture, to ... other human beings if
it's "okay within their cultural norms"...
Like Dieter, I believe that if there does exist a culture in which some
humans "willingly accept" these things... it would be something to be
discovered, not to be assumed a priori... Relativism is a kind of
absolutism... it assumes a priori that we are different... well, however,
an alternative view is to view universality as embodied, not as an
abstract principle, and so is diversity and difference... it's to be
discovered in concreate practical embodied situations and people, not to
be assumed in abstract...
There's now research work being done in the Graduate Dept. of Philosophy
at the U of Toronto... exploring the perspective that postmodernism does
not necessarily lead to relativism...
So much for now... do want to hear what you think!
Best wishes,
Angel
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Angel M.Y. Lin
Doctoral Candidate
Modern Language Centre
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
252 Bloor St. W., Toronto, ON M5S 1V6, Canada
E-Mail: MYLIN who-is-at OISE.ON.CA
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Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When ... we stand face to face in the cyber space? ...
--Adapted from: The Ballad of East and West, Rudyard Kipling
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