The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception
Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer
Reading Questions:
• What happens when all cultural products are produced according to the logic of industry?
o What happens to culture itself?
o What happens to individuals as ‘consumers’ of these ‘products’?
Excerpts:
The sociological theory that the loss of the support of objectively established religion, the
dissolution of the last remnants of pre-capitalism, together with technological and social
differentiation or specialization, have led to cultural chaos is disproved every day; for culture
now impresses the same stamp on everything. Films, radio and magazines make up a system
which is uniform as a whole and in every part… Under monopoly all mass culture is identical,
and the lines of its artificial framework begin to show through. The people at the top are no
longer so interested in concealing monopoly: as its violence becomes more open, so its power
grows. Movies and radio need no longer pretend to be art. The truth that they are just business is
made into an ideology in order to justify the rubbish they deliberately produce…The result is the
circle of manipulation and retroactive need in which the unity of the system grows ever
stronger… It has made the technology of the culture industry no more than the achievement of
standardization and mass production, sacrificing whatever involved a distinction between the
logic of the work and that of the social system…The attitude of the public, which ostensibly and
actually favors the system of the culture industry, is a part of the system and not an excuse for
it…the claim that this is done to satisfy the spontaneous wishes of the public is no more than hot
air…
Marked differentiations such as those of A and B films, or of stories in magazines in different
price ranges [or the difference between indexed goods within a brand, i.e. Toyota Avalon,
Camry, Corolla--KF], depend not so much on subject matter as on classifying, organizing, and
labeling consumers. Something is provided for all so that none may escape; the distinctions are
emphasized and extended. The public is catered for with a hierarchical range of mass-produced
products of varying quality, thus advancing the rule of complete quantification. Everybody must
behave (as if spontaneously) in accordance with his previously determined and indexed level,
and choose the category of mass product turned out for his type. Consumers appear as statistics
on research organization charts, and are divided by income groups into red, green, and blue
areas; the technique is that used for any type of propaganda. How formalized the procedure is
can be seen when the mechanically differentiated products prove to be all alike in the end. That
the difference between the Chrysler range and General Motors products is basically illusory
strikes every child with a keen interest in varieties. What connoisseurs discuss as good or bad
points serve only to perpetuate the semblance of competition and range of choice. The same
applies to the Warner Brothers and Metro Goldwyn Mayer productions. But even the differences
between the more expensive and cheaper models put out by the same firm steadily diminish: for
automobiles, there are such differences as the number of cylinders, cubic capacity, details of
patented gadgets; and for films there are the number of stars, the extravagant use of technology,
labor, and equipment, and the introduction of the latest psychological formulas. The universal
criterion of merit is the amount of “conspicuous production,” of blatant cash investment. The
varying budgets in the culture industry do not bear the slightest relation to factual values, to the
meaning of the products themselves.
The man with leisure has to accept what the culture manufacturers offer him…but industry robs
the individual of his function. Its prime service to the customer is to do his schematizing for
him…There is nothing left for the consumer to classify. Producers have done it for him…Not
only are the hit songs, stars, and soap operas cyclically recurrent and rigidly invariable types, but
the specific content of the entertainment itself is derived from them and only appears to change.
The details are interchangeable. The short interval sequence which was effective in a hit song,
the hero’s momentary fall from grace (which he accepts as good sport), the rough treatment
which the beloved gets from the male star, the latter’s rugged defiance of the spoilt heiress, are,
like all the other details, ready-made clichés to be slotted in anywhere; they never do anything
more than fulfill the purpose allotted them in the overall plan. Their whole raison d’être is to
confirm it by being its constituent parts. As soon as the film begins, it is quite clear how it will
end, and who will be rewarded, punished, or forgotten. In light music, once the trained ear has
heard the first notes of the hit song, it can guess what is coming and feel flattered when it does
come …
Real life is becoming indistinguishable from the movies. The sound film, far surpassing the
theater of illusion, leaves no room for imagination or reflection on the part of the audience, who
is unable to respond within the structure of the film, yet deviate from its precise detail without
losing the thread of the story; hence the film forces its victims to equate it directly with reality.
The stunting of the mass-media consumer’s powers of imagination and spontaneity does not
have to be traced back to any psychological mechanisms; he must ascribe the loss of those
attributes to the objective nature of the products themselves, especially to the most characteristic
of them, the sound film. They are so designed that quickness, powers of observation, and
experience are undeniably needed to apprehend them at all; yet sustained thought is out of the
question if the spectator is not to miss the relentless rush of facts. Even though the effort required
for his response is semi-automatic, no scope is left for the imagination. Those who are so
absorbed by the world of the movie—by its images, gestures, and words—that they are unable to
supply what really makes it a world, do not have to dwell on particular points of its mechanics
during a screening. All the other films and products of the entertainment industry which they
have seen have taught them what to expect; they react automatically. The might of industrial
society is lodged in men’s minds…The culture industry as a whole has molded men as a type
unfailingly reproduced in every product.
The constant pressure to produce new effects (which must conform to the old pattern) serves
merely as another rule to increase the power of the conventions when any single effect threatens
to slip through the net. Every detail is so firmly stamped with sameness that nothing can appear
which is not marked at birth, or does not meet with approval at first sight…
Anyone who resists can only survive by fitting in. Once his particular brand of deviation from
the norm has been noted by the industry, he belongs to it as does the land-reformer to capitalism.
Realistic dissidence is the trademark of anyone who has a new idea in business… Not to conform
means to be rendered powerless, economically and therefore spiritually—to be “self-employed.”
When the outsider is excluded from the concern, he can only too easily be accused of
incompetence… As naturally as the ruled always took the morality imposed upon them more
seriously than did the rulers themselves, the deceived masses are today captivated by the myth of
success even more than the successful are. Immovably, they insist on the very ideology which
enslaves them…
The result is a constant reproduction of the same thing. A constant sameness governs the
relationship to the past as well. What is new about the phase of mass culture compared with the
late liberal stage is the exclusion of the new. The machine rotates on the same spot. While
determining consumption it excludes the untried as a risk. The movie-makers distrust any
manuscript which is not reassuringly backed by a bestseller. Yet for this very reason there is
never-ending talk of ideas, novelty, and surprise, of what is taken for granted but has never
existed…
Business is their ideology. It is quite correct that the power of the culture industry resides in its
identification with a manufactured need, and not in simple contrast to it, even if this contrast
were one of complete power and complete powerlessness. Amusement under late capitalism is
the prolongation of work. It is sought after as an escape from the mechanized work process, and
to recruit strength in order to be able to cope with it again. But at the same time mechanization
has such power over a man’s leisure and happiness, and so profoundly determines the
manufacture of amusement goods, that his experiences are inevitably after-images of the work
process itself. The ostensible content is merely a faded foreground; what sinks in is the automatic
succession of standardized operations. What happens at work, in the factory, or in the office can
only be escaped from by approximation to it in one’s leisure time [i.e. you are fried from having
worked a mindless job all day, so you just want to watch TV to turn your mind off—KF]. All
amusement suffers from this incurable malady. Pleasure hardens into boredom because, if it is to
remain pleasure, it must not demand any effort and therefore moves rigorously in the worn
grooves of association [i.e. you don’t want to have to ‘work’ at your entertainment—KF]. No
independent thinking must be expected from the audience: the product prescribes every reaction:
not by its natural structure (which collapses under reflection), but by signals. Any logical
connection calling for mental effort is painstakingly avoided. As far as possible, developments
must follow from the immediately preceding situation and never from the idea of the whole. For
the attentive movie-goer any individual scene will give him the whole thing… Often the plot is
maliciously deprived of the development demanded by characters and matter according to the
old pattern. Instead, the next step is what the script writer takes to be the most striking effect in
the particular situation…
The stronger the positions of the culture industry become, the more summarily it can deal with
consumers’ needs, producing them, controlling them, disciplining them, and even withdrawing
amusement: no limits are set to cultural progress of this kind. But the tendency is immanent in
the principle of amusement itself, which is enlightened in a bourgeois sense. If the need for
amusement was in large measure the creation of industry, which used the subject as a means of
recommending the work to the masses…amusement always reveals the influence of business, the
sales talk, the quack’s spiel. But the original affinity of business and amusement is shown in the
latter’s specific significance: to defend society. To be pleased means to say Yes. It is possible
only by insulation from the totality of the social process, by desensitization and, from the first,
by senselessly sacrificing the inescapable claim of every work, however inane, within its limits
to reflect the whole. Pleasure always means not to think about anything, to forget suffering even
where it is shown. Basically it is helplessness. It is flight; not, as is asserted, flight from a
wretched reality, but from the last remaining thought of resistance. The liberation which
amusement promises is freedom from thought and from negation. The effrontery of the rhetorical
question, “What do people want?” lies in the fact that it is addressed—as if to reflective
individuals—to those very people who are deliberately to be deprived of this individuality. Even
when the public does—exceptionally—rebel against the pleasure industry, all it can muster is
that feeble resistance which that very industry has inculcated in it.
Nevertheless, it has become increasingly difficult to keep people in this condition. The rate at
which they are reduced to stupidity must not fall behind the rate at which their intelligence is
increasing. In this age of statistics the masses are too sharp to identify themselves with the
millionaire on the screen, and too slow-witted to ignore the law of the largest number. Ideology
conceals itself in the calculation of probabilities. Not everyone will be lucky one day—but the
person who draws the winning ticket, or rather the one who is marked out to do so by a higher
power—usually by the pleasure industry itself, which is represented as unceasingly in search of
talent. Those discovered by talent scouts and then publicized on a vast scale by the studio are
ideal types of the new dependent average. Of course, the starlet is meant to symbolize the typist
in such a way that the splendid evening dress seems meant for the actress as distinct from the real
girl….Now the lucky actors on the screen are copies of the same category as every member of
the public, but such equality only demonstrates the insurmountable separation of the human
elements. The perfect similarity is the absolute difference…Now any person signifies only those
attributes by which he can replace everybody else: he is interchangeable, a copy. As an
individual he is completely expendable and utterly insignificant, and this is just what he finds out
when time deprives him of this similarity.
The less the culture industry has to promise, the less it can offer a meaningful explanation of life,
and the emptier is the ideology it disseminates. Even the abstract ideals of the harmony and
beneficence of society are too concrete in this age of universal publicity. We have even learned
how to identify abstract concepts as sales propaganda. Language based entirely on truth simply
arouses impatience to get on with the business deal it is probably advancing. The words that are
not means appear senseless; the others seem to be fiction, untrue. Value judgments are taken
either as advertising or as empty talk. Accordingly ideology has been made vague and
noncommittal, and thus neither clearer nor weaker. Its very vagueness, its almost scientific
aversion from committing itself to anything which cannot be verified, acts as an instrument of
domination. It becomes a vigorous and prearranged promulgation of the status quo…
Throwing like a Girl: A Phenomenology of Feminine Body Comportment Motility and
Spatiality
Author(s): Iris Marion Young
Source: Human Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Apr., 1980), pp. 137-156
Published by: Springer
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20008753
Accessed: 30/12/2009 20:15
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.
Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=springer.
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Springer is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Human Studies.
http://www.jstor.org
HUMAN
STUDIES
3, 137-156 (1980)
Throwing Like a Girl:
A Phenomenology
off Feminine Body Comportment
Motility and Spatiality*
Iris Marion
Young
of Philosophy, Miami
Department
University
In discussing
the fundamental
significance of lateral space, which is one of
the unique spatial dimensions generated by the human upright posture, Erwin
Straus (1966) pauses at "the remarkable difference in the manner of throwing
of the two sexes"1 [p. 157]. Citing a study and photographs
of young boys and
as
the
he
describes
difference
follows:
(Straus, 1966)
girls,
any use of lateral space. She does not stretch her arm
girl of five does not make
she does not twist her trunk; she does not move her legs, which remain side by
is to lift her right arm forward
she does in preparation
for throwing
to the
in a pronate position_The
and to bend the forearm backward
horizontal
ball is released
The
sideward;
side. All
force, speed, or accurate
his right arm sideward
aim_A
to throw,
boy of the same age, when preparing
and backward;
the forearm;
twists, turns and
supinates
bends his trunk; and moves his right foot backward.
From this stance, he can support his
ball leaves the hand
throwing almost with the full strength of his total motorium_The
itmoves
with considerable
toward its goal in a long flat curve [p. 157-158].2
acceleration;
without
stretches
This paper was first presented at a meeting
ofthe mid-west
division ofthe Society
forWomen
in October
in Philosophy
1977. Versions
ofthe paper were subsequently
at a
(SWIP)
presented
session sponsored
Division
of the American
by SWIP at the Western
meetings
Philosophical
Circle meeting,
1978; and at the Third Annual Merleau-Ponty
April
Duquesne
at those meetings
1978. Many people in discussions
contributed
University,
September
gratifying
to Professors
I am particularly
and helpful
Sandra Bartky, Claudia Card,
responses.
grateful
J. Davidson
and William
McBride
for their criticisms
and
Simons,
Alexander,
Margaret
Association,
suggestions.
Endowment
Final
revisions
of
for the Humanities
were
the paper
Fellowship
complete
in Residence
while
I was
for College
a fellow
Teachers
in the National
program
at the
of Chicago.
W. Straus, The Upright Posture,
in Phenomenological
Psychology
(New York: Basic
to particular
in the text.
Books,
1966), pp. 137-165. References
pages are indicated
to be performed
which arrive at similar observations.
2Studies continue
See, for example,
M. Joanne Safrit, and Thomas W. Roberts,
Lolas E. Kalverson,
Effect of
Mary Ann Robertson,
University
^rwin
Guided
Practice
Vol.
on Overhand
48, No. 2, May
than girls.
greater velocities
See also F. J. J. Buytendijk's
Quarterly,
Throw
Ball
Velocities
1977, pp. 311-318.
The
of Kindergarten
Research
Children,
found that boys had significantly
study
remarks inWoman: A Contemporary
View (New York: Newman
In raising the example of throwing, Buytendijk
to stress,
is concerned
Press,
1968), pp. 144-115.
as am 1 in this paper,
that the important
is not the strictly physical
thing to investigate
but rather the manner
in which
each sex projects her or his Being-in-the-world
phenomena,
through movement.
137
138
YOUNG
he does not stop to trouble himself with the problem for long,
Though
a few remarks in the attempt to explain this "remarkable
Straus makes
is observed at such an early age, he says, it
difference." Since the difference
seems to be "the manifestation
of a biological, not an acquired, difference" [p.
to specify the source of the
at a loss, however,
is somewhat
157]. He
difference. Since the feminine style of throwing is observed in young children,
of the breast. Straus (1966) provides
it cannot result from the development
further evidence against the breast by pointing out that "it seems certain" that
who cut off their right breast, "threw a ball just like our Betty's,
the Amazons,
thus dismissed
Susan's"
the breast, Straus
and
Mary's
[p. 158]. Having
the weaker muscle
of the
considers
power of the girl as an explanation
that the girl should be expected to compensate
for
difference, but concludes
of reaching around and
such relative weakness with the added preparation
in style of throwing by referring to a
back. Straus explains the difference
"feminine attitude" in relation to the world and to space. The difference for
him is biologically
based, but he denies that it is specifically anatomical. Girls
throw in a way different from boys because girls are "feminine."
is the fact that a
than this "explanation"
is even more amazing
What
as definitive for
movement
takes
and
which
body comportment
perspective
of human lived experience devotes no more than
the structure and meaning
an incidental page to such a "remarkable difference" between masculine
and
For throwing is by no
and style of movement.
feminine body comportment
means the only activity inwhich such a difference can be observed. If there are
then
and movement,
indeed typically "feminine" styles of body comportment
a concern to specify
this should generate for the existential phenomenologist
of the lived body. Yet Straus is by no
of the modalities
such a differentiation
to describe
means
the modalities,
in his failure
and
alone
meaning,
and "feminine" body
of the difference between "masculine"
implications
and movement.
comportment
A virtue of Straus' account of the typical difference of the sexes in throwing
is that he does not explain this difference on the basis of physical attributes.
that the early age at which
the difference
is convinced,
Straus
however,
appears shows that it is not an acquired difference, and thus he is forced back
feminine essence in order to explain it. The feminist denial
onto a mysterious
in behavior and psychology between men and woman
that the real differences
to some natural and eternal "feminine essence" is perhaps
expressed by de Beauvoir. Every human
thoroughly and systematically
the particular existence of the female
is defined by its situation;
existence
person is no less defined by the historical, cultural, social, and economic limits
ifwe
of her situation. We reduce women's condition simply to unintelligibility
some
essence.
to
In
feminine
natural and ahistorical
"explain" it by appeal
we
not
a
into
that
fall
should
feminine essence, however,
such
denying
in the behavior
the real differences
and
which
denies
"nominalism"
can be attributed
most
139
THROWING LIKE A GIRL
of men and women. Even though there is no eternal feminine
experiences
essence, there is (de Beauvoir,
1974) "a common basis which underlies every
in the present state of education and custom."3
individual female existence
set of circumstances,
The situation of women within a given socio-historical
in
each
woman's
the
variation
individual
experience, opportunities,
despite
has a unity which can be described and made intelligible. It
and possibilities,
should be emphasized, however, that this unity is specific to a particular social
formation during a particular historical epoch.
De Beauvoir
(1974) proceeds to give such an account of the situation of
women with remarkable depth, clarity, and ingenuity. Yet she also to a large
extent, fails to give a place to the status and orientation ofthe woman's body
as relating to its surroundings
in living action. When de Beauvoir does talk
to her
the woman's
about
relation
bodily
being and her physical
on
to
more
a
the
she
tends
focus
facts
of
evident
woman's
surroundings,
She discusses how women experience the body as a burden, how
physiology.
at puberty,
the hormonal
and physiological
changes the body undergoes
are
to
felt
and
fearful
menstruation
be
and
and
pregnancy,
during
mysterious,
claims that these phenomena weigh down the woman's existence by tying her
to nature, immanence, and the requirements of the species at the expense of
her own individuality.4 By largely ignoring the situatedness of the woman's
to its surroundings and itsworld, de
actual bodily movement
and orientation
tends to create the impression
that it is woman's
Beauvoir
anatomy and
are
as
at
in
such
which
least
of her unfree
determinative
part
physiology
status.5
paper seeks to begin to fill a gap that thus exists both in existential
and feminist theory. It traces in a provisional way some of
phenomenology
the basic modalities
of feminine body comportment, manner of moving, and
relation in space. It brings intelligibility and significance to certain observable
in our society typically comport
and rather ordinary ways in which women
themselves and move differently from the ways that men do. In accordance
concern with the situatedness of human experience,
with the existentialist
I
make no claim to the universality of this typicality ofthe bodily comportment
of women and the phenonemological
based on it. The account
description
here claims only to describe the modalities
of feminine bodily
developed
This
Sex
3Simone de Beauvoir,
The Second
Books,
(New York: Vintage
1974), p. xxxv. Cf.
pp. 275-276.
Buytendijk,
4See Chapter
of Biology.
I, The Date
account
served as the basis of her own thesis that the
5Firestone
claims that de Beauvoir's
is rooted in nature, and thus requires the transcendence
of women
of nature itself to
oppression
be overcome.
claim
such. That
perhaps
See The Dialectic
that Firestone
Firestone
de Beauvoir
is guilty
would
Books,
of Sex (New York: Bantom
1970). De Beauvoir would
of desituating
woman's
situation by pinning a source on nature as
find inspiration
for her thesis in de Beauvoir,
indicates that
however,
has not
steered
away
from
causes
in "nature"
as much
as is desirable.
140
YOUNG
situated in contemporary
advanced
existence for women
industrial, urban,
and commercial
society. Elements of the account developed here may or may
in other societies and other epoch, but it
not apply to the situation of woman
to which,
if any, other social
is not the concern of this paper to determine
this account applies.
circumstances
with which I am concerned
The scope of bodily existence and movement
here is also limited. I concentrate primarily on those sorts of bodily activities
or orientation of the body as a whole, which
relate to the comportment
or which require the enlistment of strength and the
entail gross movement,
of the body's capacities and possibilities with the resistance and
confrontation
I am concerned with is
of
malleability
things. Primarily the kind of movement
of a definite
movement
in which
the body aims at the accomplishment
purpose or task. There are thus many aspects of feminine bodily existence
which I leave out of account here. Most notable of these is the body in its
sexual being. Another aspect of bodily existence, among others, which I leave
is structured body movement which does not have a particular
unconsidered
which
reasons of space, this limitation of
dancing. Besides
example,
on
the
derived
is
based
conviction,
primarily from Merleau-Ponty,
subject
of the body as a whole toward
that it is the ordinary purposive orientation
the relation of a subject to
defines
which
and
its
environment
initially
things
its world. Thus focus upon ways in which the feminine body frequently or
or movement
itself in such comportment
conducts
may be
typically
revelatory of the structures of feminine existence.6
particularly
I mean
I should clarify what
here by
the analysis,
Before
entering
I take
"feminine" existence. In accordance with de Beauvoir's understanding,
or
women
a
essence
not
all
to designate
which
mysterious
quality
"femininity"
female. It is, rather, a set of
have by virtue of their being biologically
the typical situation
of being a
which delimit
structures and conditions
as
as
well
in
this
a
which
situation
woman
the
in particular society,
typical way
as
not
it
is
women
Defined
themselves.
the
is lived by
such,
necessary that any
not
that
it
is
there
be distinctive
women be "feminine"?that
necessary
is,
situation
of
women.7
This
the
of
structures
and behavior
typical
aim?for
6In his discussion
those
on
focuses precisely
of feminine
of the "dynamics
existence,"
Buytendijk
these kinds of expressive
which are aimless. He claims that it is through
not through action
aimed at the
for the sake of walking?and
walking
sorts of motions
movements?e.g.,
is
or feminine existence
that the pure image of masculine
of particular
purposes,
accomplishment
the basic existentialist
contradicts
manifest
however,
assumption
(pp. 278-9). Such an approach,
structure
one's
and goals which
in projecting
consists
that Being-in-the-world
purposes
to be learned from reflecting
there is certainly
While
situatedness.
upon feminine
something
tasks is basic to the structure of
in noninstrumental
movement
activity, given that accomplishing
As I
of feminine motility.
it serves as a better starting point for investigation
existence,
must take account
a
of
feminine
existence
full
this
out
at
of
the
end
paper,
phenomenology
point
movement.
of this noninstrumental
to
in at least some respects, according
for men to be "feminine"
7It is not impossible, moreover,
human
the above
definition.
141
THROWING LIKE A GIRL
it possible to say that some
of "feminine" existence makes
understanding
women escape or transcend the typical situation and definition of women in
this primarily to indicate that the
various degrees and respects. I mention
of feminine bodily existence is not to be
account offered here ofthe modalities
to whom aspects of the
falsified by referring to some individual women
account do not apply, or even to some individual men to whom they do.
The account developed here combines the insights ofthe theory ofthe lived
and the theory of the situation of
body as expressed by Merleau-Ponty
women as developed by de Beauvoir (1974). I assume that at the most basic
account of the relation ofthe lived body to
level, Merleau-Ponty's
descriptive
in the Phenomenology
its world, as developed
(1962), applies to
of Perception
a
more
a
At
in
human
existence
any
general way.
specific level, however, there
is typical of feminine
which
is a particular
style of bodily comportment
of
consists
ofthe structures and
and
this
modalities
existence,
style
particular
in
the
the
world.8
of
existence
conditions
body's
I rely on de Beauvoir's
for developing
these modalities,
As a framework
in patriarchal
account of woman's
existence
society as defined by a basic
tension between immanence and transcendence.9 The culture and society in
which the female person dwells defines woman as Other, as the inessential
is thereby both
correlate to man, as mere object and immanence. Woman
the
and
and creativity
denied
by
socially
culturally
subjectivity, autonomy,
which are definitive of being human and which in patriarchal
society are
the man. At the same time, however because she is a human
accorded
is a subjectivity and transcendence
the female person necessarily
existence,
and she knows herself to be. The female person who enacts the existence of
women
as human
in patriarchal
society must therefore live a contradiction:
in transcendence,
she is a free subject who participates
but her situation as a
woman denies her that subjectivity and transcendence. My suggestion is that
the modalities
of feminine bodily comportment,
and spatiality
motility,
exhibit this same tension between transcendence
and immanence, between
subjectivity and being a mere object.
I offers some specific observations
Section
about bodily comportment,
physical engagement with things, ways of using the body in performing tasks,
and bodily self-image, which I find typical of feminine existence. Section II
account of the modalities
of feminine
gives a general phenomenological
III develops
Section
and motility.
these modalities
bodily comportment
further in terms of the spatiality generated by them. Finally, in Section IV, I
draw out some of the implications of this account for an understanding
ofthe
HDn
inasmuch
this
there also exist particular
specificity
more
is a particular
style of movement
be concerned
with those in this paper.
as
level
of
there
however,
^ee
de Beauvoir,
Chapter
XXI,
Woman's
Situation
modalities
or
of masculine
less typical
and Character.
of men.
motility,
I will not,
142
YOUNG
of women, as well as raise some further questions
which require further investigation.
Being-in-the-world
oppression
about
feminine
I
The basic difference which Straus observes between the way boys and girls
throw is that girls do not bring their whole bodies into the motion as much as
the boys. They do not reach back, twist, move backward,
step, and lean
forward. Rather, the girls tend to remain relatively immobile except for their
arms, and even the arm is not extended as far as it could be. Throwing
is not
the only movement
in which there is a typical difference in the way men and
women
use their bodies. Reflection
on feminine comportment
and body
movement
in other physical activities reveals that these also are frequently
characterized, much as in the throwing case, by a failure to make full use of
the body's spatial and lateral potentialities.
Even in the most simple body orientations
of men and women as they sit,
one
can
a
and
observe
in body style and
stand,
walk,
typical difference
are
as
extension. Women
not
with
as men in their
their
bodies
open
generally
the masculine
stride is longer proportional
to a
gait and stride. Typically,
man's body than is the feminine stride to a woman's. The man typically swings
his arms in a more open and loose fashion than does a woman and typically
has more up and down rhythm in his step. Though we now wear pants more
than we used to, and consequently
do not have to restrict our sitting postures
because of dress, women still tend to sit with their legs relatively close together
and their arms across their bodies. When
simply standing or leaning, men
tend to keep their feet further apart than do woman, and we also tend more to
keep our hands and arms touching or shielding our bodies. A final indicative
is the way each carries books or parcels; girls and women most
difference
often carry books embraced to their chests, while boys and men swing them
along their sides.
The approach persons of each sex take to the performance of physical tasks
that require force, strength,
arid muscular
coordination
is frequently
different. There are indeed real physical differences between men and woman
in the kind and limit of their physical
of the observed
strength. Many
differences between men and women
in the performance
of tasks requiring
are due not so much
coordinated
to brute muscular
strength, however,
sex
uses
to
but
the
the
each
in
tasks. Women
way
strength,
body
approaching
often do not perceive themselves as capable of lifting and carrying heavy
and shoving with
force, pulling,
things, pushing
significant
squeezing,
grasping, or twisting with force. When we attempt such tasks, we frequently
fail to summon the full possibilities
of our muscular
coordination,
position,
tend not to put their whole
into
bodies
poise, and bearing. Women
in a physical task with the same ease and naturalness as men. For
engagement
143
THROWING LIKE A GIRL
to lift something, women more often than men fail to
example, in attempting
make their thighs bear the greatest proportion of
themselves
and
firmly
plant
the weight. Instead, we tend to concentrate our effort on those parts of the
to the task?the
arms and shoulders?
connected
body most
immediately
to
the
of
the
the
at
task
all. When
power
rarely bringing
legs
turning or
to
we
take
another
concentrate
example,
twisting something,
frequently
effort in the hand and wrist, not bringing to the task the power of the
is necessary for its efficient performance.10
cited throwing example can be extended to a great deal of
athletic activity. Now most men are by no means superior athletes, and their
bravado
efforts more
often display
than genuine
skill and
sporting
The relatively untrained man nevertheless
coordination.
engages in sport
more
free
motion
with
and
reach
than
does his female
open
generally
a
a
Not
is
of
there
like
counterpart.
only
typical style
throwing
girl, but there is
a more or less typical style of running like a girl, climbing like a girl, swinging
like a girl, hitting like a girl. They have in common, first, that the whole body
is not put into fluid and directed motion, but rather, in swinging and hitting,
shoulder, which
The previously
for example,
is concentrated
the motion
in one body part; and second, that
the woman's motin
tends not to reach, extend,
lean, stretch, and follow
in
her
the
of
intention.
direction
through
women
as they move
in sport, a space surrounds
them in
we
are
move
not
to
which
free
beyond; the space available to our
imagination
movement
is a constricted space. Thus, for example, in softball or volley ball
women tend to remain in one place more often than men, neither jumping to
reach nor running to approach the ball. Men more often move out toward a
ball in flight and confront it with their own countermotion. Women
tend to
wait for and then react to its approach rather than going forth to meet it.We
frequently respond to the motion of a ball coming toward us as though itwere
coming at us, and our immediate bodily impulse is to flee, duck, or otherwise
do women
protect ourselves from its flight. Less often than men, moreover,
to
self-conscious
and
their
direction
motion
in
give
placement
sport. Rather
than aiming at a certain place where we wish to hit a ball, for example, we tend
to hit it in a "general" direction.
For many
often approach a physical engagement with things with timidity,
uncertainty, and hesitancy. Typically, we lack an entire trust in our bodies to
carry us to our aims. There is, I suggest, a double hesitation here. On the one
that we have the capacity to do what must be
hand, we often lack confidence
Women
10It should be noted
that this is probably
in advanced
typical only of women
of the Bourgeois
woman
has been extended
to most women.
societies, where the model
not apply
to those societies,
for example,
where most
people,
including women,
observation,
physical work. Nor does this particular
own society who do heavy physical work.
of course,
hold
industrial
It would
do
true of those women
heavy
in our
144
YOUNG
times I have slowed a hiking party in which the men bounded
done. Many
across a harmless stream while I stood on the other side warily testing out my
branches. Though
the
footing on various stones, holding on to overhanging
others crossed with ease, I do not believe it is easy for me, even though once I
in a flash. The other side of this
take a committed
step I am across
a
I
of
tentativeness
fear
is, suggest,
getting hurt, which is greater in women
men.
Our
is
in
often
attention
divided between the aim to be realized in
than
must
the
that
motion and
it, while at the same time saving
body
accomplish
our
often
from
We
harm.
itself
bodies as a fragile encumberance,
experience
rather than the media for the enactment of our aims. We feel as though we
must have our attention directed upon our body tomake sure it is doing what
we wish it to do, rather than paying attention to what we want to do through
our bodies.
All the above factors operate to produce inmany women a greater or lesser
We have more of a
feeling of incapacity, frustration, and self-consciousness.
l1
men
our
to
than
underestimate
tendency
greatly
bodily capacity. We decide
the
is
task
beforehand?usually
mistakenly?that
beyond us, and thus give it
less than our full effort. At such a half-hearted
level, of course, we cannot
the tasks, become
and fulfill our own prophecy.
In
frustrated,
perform
we
a
are
task
self-conscious
about appearing awkward,
frequently
entering
and at the same time do not wish to appear too strong. Both worries
to our awkwardness
and frustration.
If we should finally release
contribute
ourselves from this spiral and really give a physical task our best effort, we are
It has been found
greatly surprised indeed at what our bodies can accomplish.
that women more often than men underestimate
the level of achievement
they
have
reached.12
of the observations
which have been made thus far about the way
move
and
comport their bodies applies to all women all of
typically
some aspect of this typicality do
the time. Nor do those women who manifest
so in the same degree. There is no inherent, mysterious
connection
between
None
women
and being a female person. Many of them
these sorts of typical comportments
result, as will be developed
later, from lack of practice in using the body and
one can nevertheless
tasks. Even given these qualifications,
performing
a
of
of
feminine
and
style
body comportment
sensibly
general
speak
movement.
The next section will develop a specific categorical description
of
the modalities
of the comportment
and movement.
versus actual physical
in three enthnic groups, Child
Gross, Estimated
strength
In a test of children at several different ages, at all but the
39 (1968), pp. 283-90.
on self-estimates
lower than boys and rated themselves
girls rated themselves
age-level,
nSee A. M.
Development,
youngest
of strength,
even lower.
of strength become
and as the girls grow older, their self-estimates
of Expressed
of
A. Cifton
and Hope M. Smith, Comparison
12SeeMarguerite
Self-Concept
Motor
Skilled Males
and Females
and Motor
Performance,
Perceptual
Concerning
Highly
their level of acheivement
underestimated
in
16 (1963), pp. 199-201. Women
Skills,
consistently
far more often than men did.
skills like running and jumping
THROWING LIKE A GIRL
145
II
are that feminine movement
of feminine motility
The three modalities
an inhibited intentionality,
and a
exhibits an ambiguous
transcendence,
discontinuous
unity with its surroundings. A source of these contradictory
of feminine comportment,
is the bodily
self-reference
which
modalities
derives from the woman's
experience of her body as a thing at the same time
it as a capacity.
that she experiences
1. In his Phenomenology
Merleau-Ponty
(1962) takes as
of Perception,
structures of existence, which are
of the primordial
his task the articulation
prior to and the ground of all reflective relation to the world. In asking how
for a subject, Merleau-Ponty
reorients
the entire
there can be a world
or
not in mind
by locating
subjectivity
questioning
but in the body. Merleau-Ponty
gives to the lived body the
status which Sartre, as well as "intellectualist"
thinkers before
ontological
as being
alone: the status of transcendence
him, attribute to consciousness
toward and action upon and within
for-itself. It is the body in its orientation
the initial meaning giving act (p. 121; pp.
its surroundings which constitutes
as pure presence to the
146-147). The body is the first locus of intentionality,
The most primordial
world and openness upon its possibilities.
intentional
act is the motion ofthe body orienting itself with respect to and moving within
its surroundings. There is a world for a subject just insofar as the body as
its surroundings
capacities by which it can approach, grasp, and appropriate
tradition
of
that
consciousness,
in the direction of its intentions.
to the
is a transcendence
While
feminine bodily existence
and openness
a transcendence which is at the same
transcendence,
world, it is an ambiguous
time laden with immanence. Now once we take the locus of subjectivity and
to be the lived body rather than pure consciousness,
all
transcendence
is ambiguous
because the body as natural and material
is
transcendence
immanence. But it is not the ever present possibility of any lived body to be
passive, to be touched as well as touching, to be grasped as well as grasping,
of the
which I am referring to here as the ambiguity of the transcendence
of the lived body which Merleau
lived body. The transcendence
feminine
is a transcendence which moves out from the body in its
Ponty describes
in an open and unbroken directedness upon the world in action.
immanence
is pure fluid action, the continuous
The lived body as transcendence
calling
forth of capacities, which are applied to the world. Rather
than simply
in immanence, feminine bodily existence remains in immanence, or
beginning
is
better
overlaid with immanence, even as itmoves out toward the world in
motions
of grasping, manipulating,
and so on.
I3Maurice Merleau-Ponty,
Humanities
Press,
1962). All
Colin Smith,
trans. (New York:
Phenomenology
of Perception,
to this work are noted
references
in parentheses
the text.
within
146
YOUNG
In the previous section, I observed that a woman
typically refrains from
a
her
whole
into
and
rather
concentrates
motin in one
motion,
body
throwing
rest
the
of
the
of
the
alone
while
remains
part
body
body
relatively immobile.
moves
a
a
out
that
of
the
toward
task
while
the rest remains
is,
part
body,
Only
I also observed earlier that a woman frequently does
rooted in immanence.
not trust the capacity of her body to engage itself in physical relation to things.
she often lives her body as a burden, which must be dragged
Consequently,
and prodded along, and at the same time protected.
in motility
locates intentionality
2. Merleau-Ponty
the
(pp. 110-112);
on
are
in
the
world
the
which
mode
and
limits
opened up
depend
possibilities
of the bodily "I can" (p. 137, p. 148). Feminine existence, however, often does
not enter bodily relation to possibilities
toward its
by its own comportment
in an unambiguous
and confident "I can." For example, as
surroundings
tend to posit a task which would
noted earlier, women
be
frequently
once
as
their
attempted
beyond
accomplished
relatively easily
capacities
the feminine body underuses
its real capacity,
before they begin it. Typically,
of its physical size and strength and as the real skills
both as the potentiality
which are available to it. Feminine bodily existence
is an
and coordination
which simultaneously
reaches toward a projected
inhibited intentionality,
to that end in a
its full bodily commitment
end with an "I can" and withholds
"I cannot."14
self-imposed
An uninhibited
and
intentionality
projects the aim to be accomplished
toward that end in an unbroken
connects
the body's motion
directedness
and unifies the body's activity. The body's capacity and
which organizes
structure its surroundings
and project meaningful
motion
of
possibilities
movement
forth to enact
and action, which in turn call the body's motion
is to experience
the harmony
them (Merleau-Ponty,
1962): "To understand
between what we aim at and what is given, between the intention and the
Feminine motion often
performance..."
[p. 144; see also pp. 101,131-132].
severs
In
relation between aim and enactment.
this mutually
conditioning
and
those motions which when properly performed require the coordination
Fisher on various aspects of sex differences
in body image
of Seymour
to
here. It is difficult
with the phenomenological
developed
description
suggestively
use his conclusions
as confirmation
of that description,
because
there is something
of a
however,
I shall refer to some of these findings,
with
aspect to his reasoning. Nevertheless,
"speculative"
14Much of the work
correlates
in mind.
that qualification
is that women
One of his findings
have a greater anxiety
to the same results. Fisher
their legs than men, and he cites
as anxiety
interprets such leg-anxiety
in body conception
and body image it is the legs which are the body
about motility
itself, because
in Fantasy
and Behavior
with motility.
See Body Experience
(New York:
part most associated
are accurate,
this
1970), p. 537. If his findings and his interpretation
Appleton-Century-Crofts,
earlier
tends
studies which
to correlate
an aspect
have
with
of feminine
come
the sort of inhibition
body
comportment.
and timidity
about
about movement
which
I am claiming
is
147
THROWING LIKE A GIRL
of the whole body upon some definite end, women frequently
directedness
move in a contradictory way. Their bodies project an aim to be enacted, but
at the same time stiffen against the performance of the task. In performing a
physical task the woman's body does carry her toward the intended aim, but
often not easily and directly, but rather circuitously, with the wasted motion
is a frequent
which
resulting from the effort of testing and reorientation,
of feminine hesitancy.
consequence
For any lived body, the world appears as the system of possibilities which
are correlative
to its intentions (p. 131). For any lived body, moreover,
the
world also appears as populated with opacities and resistances correlative to
its own limits and frustrations. For any bodily existence, that is, an "I cannot"
may appear to set limits to the "I can." To the extent that feminine bodily
existence is an inhibited intentionality,
however, the same set of possibilities
to its intentions also appears as a system of
which appears coorelative
frustrations correlative to its hesitancies. By repressing or withholding
its own
motile energy, feminine bodily existence frequently projects an "I can" and an
"I cannot" with respect to the very same end. When the woman enters a task
she projects the possibilities
with inhibited intentionality,
of that task?thus
an "I can"?but
them merely
as the possibilities
of
projects
projects
thus projects an "/cannot".
"someone," and not truly her possibilities?and
3. Merleau-Ponty
gives to the body the unifying and synthesizing function
locates in transcendental
which Kant
an aim
By projecting
subjectivity.
toward which
it moves,
the body brings unity to and unites itself with its
it sets things in
through the vectors of its projected possibilities
surroundings;
relation to one another and to itself. The body's movement
and orientation
organizes the surrounding space as a continous extension of its ownbeing(p.
the same act that the body synthesizes
its surroundings,
143). Within
it synthesizes
itself. The body
is immediate
moreover,
and
synthesis
"I do not bring together one by one the parts of my body; this
primordial.
translation and this unification are performed once and for all within me: they
are my body itself [p. 150].
The third modality
of feminine bodily existence
is that it stands in
discontinuous
I remarked earlier
unity with both itself and its surroundings.
that inmany motions which require the active engagement and coordination
of the body as a whole to be performed properly, women tend to locate their
motion
in a part of the body only, leaving the rest of the body relatively
immobile. Motion
such as this is discontinuous
with itself. That part of the
an
is
which
toward
aim
in
is
relative disunity from those
body
transcending
which
remain immobile. The undirectedness
and wasted motion which
is
often an aspect of feminine engagement
in a task also manifests
this lack of
body unity. The character of the inhibited intentionality whereby feminine
severs the connection
motion
between
aim and enactment,
between
in the world
possibility
discontinuous
unity.
and
capacity
in the body,
itself produces
this
148
YOUNG
toMerleau-Ponty
(1962), for the body to exist as a transcendent
According
to
enactment of intentions,
the
the
world
and
immediate
it cannot
presence
exist as an object (p. 123). As subject, the body is referred not onto itself, but
onto the world's possibilities.
"In order that we may be able tomove our body
towards an object, the object must first exist for it, our body must not belong
to the realm of the 'in-itself" [p. 139]. The three contradictory modalities
of
feminine
inhibited
inten?
transcendence,
bodily
existence?ambiguous
their
and
discontinuous
in
the
fact
that
root,
however,
unity?have
tionality,
for feminine existence the body frequently is both subject and object for itself
at the same time and in reference to the same act. Feminine bodily existence is
to the world (Fisher,
not a pure presence
it is
1964) because
frequently
in the world.15
referred onto itself as well as onto possibilities
section illustrate this self
Several of the observations
of the previous
reference. It was observed, for example, that women have a tendency to take
of an object coming toward them as coming at them. I also
up the motion
tend to have a latent and sometimes conscious fear of
observed that women
we
which
bring to a motion. That is, feminine bodily existence is
getting hurt,
self-referred in that the woman takes herself as the object ofthe motion rather
to the
is also self-referred
Feminine
than its originator.
bodily existence
extent that a woman
is uncertain of her body's capacities and does not feel
are entirely under her control. She must divide her attention
that its motions
between the task to be performed and the body which must be coaxed and
it. Finally,
into performing
feminine bodily existence
is self
manipulated
her
as the
motion
referred to the extent that the feminine
subject posits
that is looked at. In Section IV, we will explore the implications ofthe
motion
social existence as the object ofthe gaze of another,
basic fact of the woman's
which is a major source of her bodily self-reference.
In summary, the modalities
of feminine bodily existence have their root in
the body as a mere
the fact that feminine existence does not experience
must
a
which
be
and
into movement,
coaxed
up
picked
thing?a
fragile thing,
as
at
To
exists
acted
be
which
looked
and
lived
sure,
upon.
any
body
thing
exists as a material
thing as well as a transcending
subject. For feminine
the body is often lived as a thing which is other
bodily existence, however,
than it, a thing like other things in the world. To the extent that feminine
lives her body as a thing, she remains rooted in immanence,
existence
is
inhibited, and retains a distance from her body as transcending movement
in the world's possibilities.
and from engagement
in their general body
between men and women
l5Fisher finds the most
striking difference
have a significantly
higher degree of what he calls "body prominence,"
image is that women
to the body. He cites a number of different
studies which have come to
of and attention
awareness
Fisher gives for this finding is that women have a higher degree
the same results. The explanation
to pay attention
to their bodies,
to prune and dress
because
of body awareness
they are socialized
in
See also Sex Differences
them, and to worry about how they look to others. Ibid, pp. 524-525.
Body
Perception,
Psychological
Monographs,
78 (1964),
Number
14.
THROWING LIKE A GIRL
149
III
between lived space, or
For Merleau-Ponty
(1962) there is a distinction
the
uniform
and
space of geometry and
space,
space,
objective
phenomenal
science inwhich all positions are external to one another and interchangeable.
and lived relations of space are
Phenomenal
space arises out of motility
the
motion
the
of
and the intentional relations
body's
by
capacities
generated
which that motion constitutes. "It is clearly in action that the spatiality of our
should
body is brought into being and an analysis of one's own movement
of it" [p. 102; cf. pp. 148-149, p.
enable us to arrive at a better understanding
if there are particular modalities
of feminine bodily
249]. On this account,
are also particular
must
follow
it
then
that
there
and
comportment
motility,
existence lives space as enclosed
of feminine spatiality. Feminine
modalities
or confining, as have a dual structure and the feminine existent experiences
in
herself as positioned
1. There is a famous
years ago in which he
construct a scene for an
space.
several
study which Erik Erikson (1964) performed
to
asked several male and female pre-adolescents
out
some
of
movie
He
that
found
toys.
imagined
girls
typically depicted indoor settings, with high walls and enclosures, while boys
scenes. He concluded
outdoor
that females tend to
typically constructed
or
he
what
calls
enclosed
"inner
space, while males tend to
space,"
emphasize
or
a
"outer
what
he
calls
space,"
emphasize
spatial orientation which is open
of these observations
is
interpretation
as
"inner
the
enclosed
ofthe
space"
psychoanalytical:
girls depict
projection
space of their wombs and vaginas; boys depict "outer space" as a projection of
the phallus.161 find such an explanation wholly unconvincing.
If girls do tend
to project an enclosed
space and boys to project an open and outwardly
directly space, it is far more plausible to regard this as a reflection ofthe way
each sex lives and moves
their bodies in space.
In the first section, I observed that women tend not to open their bodies in
their everyday movements,
but tend to sit, stand, and walk with their limbs
close to or enclosed around them. I also observed that women
tend not to
reach, stretch, bend,
lean, or stride to the full limits of their physical
capacities, even when doing so would better accomplish a task or motion. The
and
outwardly
directed.
Erikson's
available to the feminine body is frequently
space, that is, which ^physically
of greater radius than the space which she uses and inhabits. Feminine
existence appears to posit an existential enclosure between herself and the
space surrounding her, in such a way that the space which belongs to her and
on Womanhood,
I6Erik H. Erikson,
Inner and Outer Space: Reflections
3 (1964),
Daedelus,
of his findings
is also sexist. Having
Erikson's
in his opinion
pp. 582-606.
interpretation
a particular
he takes to be space within
the
discovered
that "inner space"?which
significance
for girls, he goes on to discuss the womanly
"nature" as womb and potential mother
body?holds
with anything
else the woman
which must be made
does.
compatible
150
YOUNG
to her grasp and manipulation
is constricted,
is available
and the space
to her movement.17
A further illustration of this
is not available
beyond
of feminine lived space is the observation
confinement
already noted that in
tend not to move out and meet the motion of a
sport, for example, women
ball, but rather tend to stay in one place and react to the ball's motion
only
when it has arrived within the space where she is. The timidity, immobility,
and uncertainty which frequently characterize feminine movement
project a
limited space for the feminine "I can."
the body unity of transcending
2. On Merleau-Ponty's
(1962) account,
an
link
creates
between
the body and the outlying
immediate
performance
its whole
embraces
space, and
space. "Each instant of the movement
active
the
first
and
institutes
the link
which,
initiative,
by
being
particularly
In
feminine
between a here and a yonder...
the
existence,
however,
"[p. 140].
severs
an
a
the
a
of
enclosed
between
"here"
and
space
continuity
projection
a
as
is
In
existence
there
the
of
feminine
double
the
space
"yonder."
spatiality
"here" which is distinct from the space of the "yonder. "A distinction between
and
space which is "yonder" and not linked with my own body possibilities,
I inhabit with my bodily
is "here," which
the enclosed
space which
is an expression of the discontinuity
between aim and capacity to
possibilities,
of the tentativeness
realize the aim which I have articulated as the meaning
the inhibited intentionality
of feminine
and uncertainty which characterizes
a
in
is
of
the
feminine
which
existence
The
space
space
"yonder"
motility.
in the sense of understanding
that "someone" could
projects possibilities
move within it, but not I. Thus the space of the "yonder" exists for feminine
in.
existence, but only as that which she is looking into, rather than moving
is that feminine existence
of feminine spatiality
3. The third modality
the body is the
in space. For Merleau-Ponty,
itself as positioned
experiences
space; there would be no space without the
original subject which constitutes
body (pp. 102; 142). As the origin and subject of spatial relations, the body
does not occupy a position coequal and interchangeable with the positions
occupied by other things (p. 143; pp. 247-249). Because the body as lived is
not an object, it cannot be said to exist in space as water is in the glass (pp.
139-140). "The word 'here' applied to my body does not refer to a determinate
or to external coordinates,
but the
in relation to other positions
position
the anchoring of the active body in an
laying down of the first coordinates,
in
the
face of its tasks" [p. 100].
of
the
body
object, the situation
insofar as feminine bodily existence is
Feminine
spatiality is contradictory
a
and
both spatially constituted
constituting
spatial subject. Insofar as
as
and intentionality,
transcendence
the
lives the body
feminine existence
as having a more clearly
is that women
themselves
experience
findings
from
themselves
than men. More
clearly then men they distinguish
from them. See Body Experience
in Fantasy
and
and take a distance
their spatial surroundings
Behavior,
p. 528.
17Another
articulated
of Fisher's
body
boudary
151
THROWING LIKE A GIRL
body actively constitutes space and is the original coordinate which
in accord
the
unifies
spatial field and projects spatial relations and positions
to
extent
the
that feminine motility
is laden with
with its intentions. But
immanence and inhibited, the body's space is lived as constituted. To the
is self-referred and thus lives
extent, that is, that feminine bodily existence
as
an
itself
I, I
object, the feminine body does exist in space. In Section
even our own motions,
as
observed that women frequently react to motions,
we
are
an
motion
the object of the
which issues from
alien intention,
though
In its immanence and
rather than taking ourselves as subject of motion.
feminine
inhibition, feminine spatial existence ispositioned
by a system of coordinates
own
not
have its origin in her
which does
intentional capacities. The tendency
for the feminine body to remain partly immobile in the performance of a task
ofthe whole body illustrates this characteristic
which requires the movement
of feminine bodily existence as rooted inplace. Likewise does the tendency for
women to wait for an object to come within our immediate bodily field rather
than move
out toward it.
devotes a great deal of attention to arguing that the diverse
Merleau-Ponty
senses and activities of the lived body are synthetically related in such a way
relation with all the others. In
that each stands in a mutually
conditioning
stand in a relation of reversability;
particular, visual perception and motility
an impairment
in the function
in the functioning of one, for example, leads to an impairment
of the other (pp. 133-137). If we assume that reversability of
the above account of the modalities
visual perception
and motility,
of
and the spatiality which arises from them suggests that
feminine motility
as well.
visual space will have its own modalities
There have been numerous
studies which have reported
psychological
differences between the sexes in the character of spatial perception. One ofthe
most frequently discussed of these conclusions
is that females are more often
"field independent." That is, it has been claimed that males have a greater
for lifting a figure out of its spatial surroundings
and viewing
capacity
relations in space as fluid and interchangeable, whereas females have a greater
as embedded
to regard figures
within
and fixed by their
tendency
surroundings.18
The above account
of feminine motility
and spatiality
gives
to these results is enormous.
of studies coming
See Eleanor E. Maccoby
and
The Psychology
Jacklin,
Press,
(Stanford
of Sex Differences
1974), pp.
University
91-98.
of years psychologists
For a number
used the results from tests of spatial ability
to
in general, and from that to general "analytic" ability. Thus it
about field independence
generalize
I8The number
Carol
N.
was
concluded
that women
have less analytical
such
ability than men. More
recently, however,
have been seriously
called into question.
Julia A. Sherman,
See, for example,
generalizations
Problems
in Space Perception
and Aspects
of Sex Differences
of Intellectual
Functioning,
74 (1967), pp. 290-99.
She notes that while women are consistently
found
Review,
Psychological
to be more
independence
than men
dependent
women
generally
perform
field
in spatial
tasks,
as well as men.
on
nonspatial
tests measuring
field
152
YOUNG
some theoretical intelligibility to these findings. If feminine body spatiality is
such that the woman experiences herself as rooted and enclosed, then on the
it would
follow that visual space for feminine
reversability
assumption
existence also has its closures of immobility and fixity. The objects in visual
in a fluid
of potentially
alterable
and
space do not stand
system
to
the
correlative
various
relations
intentions
and
body's
interchangeable
projected capacities.
in their immanence.
Rather,
they too have their ownplaces
and are anchored
IV
of feminine bodily comportment,
The modalities
and spatiality
motility,
which I have described here are, I claim, common to the existence of women
in contemporary
society to one degree or another. They have their source,
nor physiology,
not in a
in
neither
and certainly
however,
anatomy
source
their
in the
"essence."
have
feminine
Rather,
they
mysterious
women
as
their
sexist
in
of
situation
conditioned
by
oppression
particular
contemporary
society.
in sexist society are physically handicapped.
Women
Insofar as we learn to
with the definition
in accordance
live out our existence
that patriarchal
culture assigns to us, we are physically
and
inhibited, confined, positioned,
transcendences
objectified. As lived bodies we are not open and unambiguous
which move out to master a world that belongs to us, a world constituted by
our own intentions and projections. To be sure, there are actual women
in
or
to
not
whom
the
of
above
all
does
part
contemporary
society
description
are not manifest
in or determinative
of the
these modalities
apply. Where
in a negative
existence of a particular women, however,
they are definitive
mode?as
that which she has escaped, through accident or good fortune, or
more often, as that which she has had to overcome.
of feminine bodily existence
of the sources of the modalities
is too
to dwell upon at length. For the most part, girls and women are not
to use their full bodily capacities
in free and open
given the opportunity
nor
are
as
as boys to
with
the
much
world,
they
encouraged
engagement
more
Girl
is
often
skills.19
and
play
sedentary
develop
specific bodily
In
after
the
of
school
and
school
than
activities
boys.
play
girls are
enclosing
not encouraged
to engage in sport, in the controlled use of their bodies in
get little practice at "tinkering"
goals. Girls, moreover,
achieving well-defined
One
obvious
of girls and women
active. See Mary
19Nor are girls provided with examples
being physically
Toward
Sex Role Socialization
Research
Differential
Appropriation,
Amplitude
and
for
Alliance
48
Education,
Health,
pp.
Recreation),
(1977),
Physical
(American
Quarterly
for young children revealed that children are thirteen times more
288-292. A survey of textbooks
active woman,
and three times more
active man than a vigorously
likely
likely to see a vigorously
E. Duquin,
to see a relatively
active man
than a relatively
active
woman.
153
THROWING LIKE A GIRL
with things, and thus developing
spatial skill. Finally, girls are not asked often
to perform tasks demanding
physical effort and strength, while as the boys
are
to
asked
do so more and more.20
older
grow
they
are not merely privative,
of feminine bodily existence
The modalities
however, and thus their source is not merely in lack of practice, though this is
certainly an important element. There is a specific positive style of feminine
is learned as the girl comes to
which
and movement,
body comportment
that she is a girl. The young girl acquires many subtle habits of
understand
like a girl, tilting her head like a girl,
feminine body comportment?walking
a
like
and
girl, gesturing like a girl, and so on. The girl learns
standing
sitting
She is told that she must be careful not to
actively to hamper her movements.
to
not
tear
not
to
her clothes, that the things she desires to
hurt,
get dirty,
get
do are dangerous for her. Thus she develops a bodily timidity which increases
with age. In assuming herself as a girl, she takes herself up as fragile. Studies
have found that young children of both sexes categorically assert that girls are
more
likely to get hurt than boys,21 and that girls ought to remain close to
home while boys can roam and explore.22 The more a girl assumes her status
as feminine, the more she takes herself to be fragile and immobile, and the
more she actively enacts her own body inhibition. When Iwas about thirteen,
I spent hours practicing a "feminine" walk which was stiff, closed, and rotated
from side to side.
of sex differences
in spatial perception,
Studies which record observations
skills have also found that these
solving and motor
spatial problem
tend to increase with age. While
differences
very young children show
no
motor
in
differences
movement,
skills,
etc.,
virtually
spatial perception,
seem to appear
in elementary
school
and increase with
differences
If these findings are accurate, they would seem to support the
adolescence.
conclusion
that it is in the process of growing up as a girl that the modalities
of
feminine
bodily
comportment,
and
motility,
make
spatiality
their
appearance.23
There is, however, a further source
is perhaps even more
existence which
I have stated in the
those modalities,
woman
lives her body as object as well
20Sherman,
encouraged
of the modalities
of feminine bodily
than these. At the root of
profound
previous section, is the fact that the
as subject. The source of this is that
socialization
op. cit., argues that it is the differential
etc. that accounts
to "tinker," explore,
for the difference
of boys
between
and girls in being
the two in spatial
ability.
of Children's
21See L. Kolberg, A Cognitive-Developmental
Analysis
in E. E. Maccoby,
Ed., The Development
of Sex Differences
Press,
1966), p. 101.
Attitudes,
22Lenore
Perspective
J. Weitzman,
(Palo Alto,
230p. cit., Maccoby
Sex
Calif.:
Role
Socialization,
Mayfield
Publishing
and Jacklin,
pp. 93-94.
in Freeman,
Co.,
1975), pp.
Sex-Role
Concepts
(Standford
Ed., Woman:
111-112.
and
University
A Feminist
154
YOUNG
patriarchal society defines woman as object, as a mere body, and that in sexist
society women are in fact frequently regarded by others as objects and mere
bodies. An essential part of the situation of being a woman is that of living the
ever present possibility
that one will be gazed upon as a mere body, as shape
itself as the potential
and flesh that presents
object of another subject's
intentions and manipulations,
rather than as a living manifestation
of action
and intention.24 The source of this objectified
is in the
existence
bodily
attitude of others regarding her, but the woman herself often actively takes up
her body as a mere thing. She gazes at it in the mirror, worries about how it
looks to others, prunes it, shapes it, molds and decorates
it.
This objectified bodily existence accounts for the self-consciousness
of the
feminine relation to her body and resulting distance she takes from her body.
As human, she is a transcendence and subjectivity, and cannot live herself as
mere bodily object. Thus, to the degree that she does live herself as mere body,
she cannot be in unity with herself, but must take a distance from and exist in
with her body. The objectifying
regard which "keeps her in her
discontinuity
can
account
of being positioned
for
the
also
and for
place"
spatial modality
women
not
to
move
tend
their
limbs
enclosed
frequently
why
openly, keeping
around themselves. To open her body in free active and open extension and
to invite objectification.
is.for a woman
bold outward directedness
The threat of being seen is, however, not the only threat of objectification
lives. She also lives the threat of invasion of her body space.
which the woman
The most extreme form of such spatial and bodily invasion is the threat of
rape. But we are daily subject to the possibility of bodily invasion inmany far
more subtle ways as well. It is acceptable,
for example,
to be
for women
that it is not acceptable for men to
touched in ways and under circumstances
men?whom
it is not acceptable for them to
be touched, and by persons?i.e.
touch.251 would suggest that the enclosed space which has been described as a
is in part a defense against such invasion.
of feminine spatiality
modality
Women
tend to project an existential
barrier enclosed around them and
with the "over there" in order to keep the other at a distance.
discontinuous
lives her space as confined and enclosed around her at least in
The woman
some small area in which she can exist as a free subject.
part as projecting
are objectified
in which women
24The manner
is not the same
by the gaze of the Other
as the objectification
is a condition
of self-consciousness
in
by the Other which
phenomenon
trans. (New York: Philosophical
See Being and Nothingness,
Sartre's account.
Hazel E. Barnes,
the basic ontological
of being-for-others
is an
category
1956), Part Three. While
Library,
are subject to is that of being regarded as a
which women
see Sandra
of sexual
particular
dynamic
objectification,
Bartky,
in Sharon
and Margorie
and
Ed., Philosophy
Bishop
Psychological
Oppression,
Weinzweig,
Women
Calif: Wadsworth
Co.,
1979), pp. 33-41.
(Belmont,
Publishing
The Sexual Politics
and Jo Freeman,
of Interpersonal
25See Nancy
in
Henley
Behavior,
for-itself,
objectified
mere
in-itself. On
Freeman,
op.
the objectification
the
cit., pp.
391-401.
155
THROWING LIKE A GIRL
to the study of aspects of women's experience
The paper is a prolegamenon
and situation which have not received the treatment they warrant. I would
like to close with some questions which require further thought and research.
its attention upon the sort of physical tasks and
This paper has concentrated
Further
body orientation which involve the whole body in gross movement.
at
existence
would
into
woman's
bodily
require
looking
investigation
If we are
activities which do not involve the whole body and finer movement.
in situation,
going to develop an account of the woman's body experience
of a woman's experience of her
moreover, we must reflect on the modalities
body activities,
body in its sexual being, as well as upon less task-oriented
arises
is
whether
the description
which
such as dancing. Another
question
sort
to
the
of
well
tasks.
here
would
any
physical
Might
apply equally
given
it is a task or movement
which is sex
kind of task, and specifically whether
of feminine bodily existence? A
typed, have some effect on the modalities
further question is to what degree we can develop a theoretical account ofthe
the modalities
of the bodily existence of women
and
between
connection
I have an
For example,
and experience.
other aspects of our existence
intuition that the general lack of confidence that we frequently have about our
cognitive or leadership abilities, is traceable in part to an original doubt in our
body's capacity. None of these questions can be dealt with properly, however,
the kind of guided observation
and data collection
without first performing
to a large degree, is yet to be performed.
that my reading has concluded,
REFERENCES
In S. Bishop & M. Weinzweig
S. Psychological
(Eds.), Philosophy
Bartky,
oppression.
1979.
Women.
Calif: Wadsworth
Co.,
Belmont,
Publishing
A Contemporary
View. New York: Newman
F. J. J. Woman:
1968.
Press,
Buytendijk,
and
1974.
S. The Second
Sex. New York: Vintage
de Beauvoir,
Books,
of expressed
of highly skilled males
Clifton, M. A., & Smith, H. M. Comparison
self-concept
motor performance.
and Motor
and females concerning
Skills,
1963,75,199-201.
Perceptual
sex role socialization
toward amplitude
M. E. Differential
Research
Dunquin,
appropriation.
1971, 48, 288-292.
Quarterly,
on Womanhood.
E. H. Inner and outer space: Reflections
Daedelus,
1964,5, 582-606.
Erikson,
S. The Dialectic
Firestone,
Fisher,
S.
Sex differences
1970.
of Sex. New York: Bantam Books,
in body perception.
Psychological
Monographs,
1964,78,
(Whole No.
14).
S. Body
Fisher,
1970.
Experience
in Fantasy
and Behavior.
New
York:
Appleton-Century-Crofts,
versus
in three ethnic
A. M. Estimated
actual
Child
groups.
strength
physical
283-290.
1968,39,
Development,
J. The sexual politics of interpersonal
In J. Freeman
behavior.
(Ed.),
Henley, N., & Freeman,
Palo Alto, Calif: Mayfield
A Feminist
Woman:
1975.
Co.,
Perspective.
Publishing
L. E., Robertson,
M. A., Safrit, M. J., & Roberts, T. W.
Effect of guided practice on
Kalverson,
Gross,
overhand
May,
throw ball velocities
1977,311-318.
of kindergarten
children.
Research
Quarterly,
(Vol. 48). No.
2,
156
YOUNG
sex-role concepts
L. A cognitive-developmental
analysis of children's
Kolberg,
E. E. Maccoby
Stanford,
of Sex Differences.
(Ed.), The Development
1966.
Press,
University
Maccoby,
E. E., & Jacklin, C. N.
1974.
Press,
The Psychology
of Sex Differences.
and attitudes.
Stanford,
Calif:
Stanford
Calif.:
Stanford
University
M.
Merleau-Ponty,
1962.
Press,
Phenomenology
of Perception.
C. Smith
(trans.),
New
York:
Humanities
H. B. Barnes
(trans.), New York: Philosophical
Sartre, J. P. Being and Nothingness.
1956. (Part Three).
in space perception
and aspects
of
of sex differences
J. A. Problems
Sherman,
Review,
1967, 74, 290-299.
Psychological
functioning.
E. W.
Strauss,
1966.
The
upright
posture.
Phenomenological
In J. Freeman
L. J. Sex role socialization.
Weitzman,
1975.
Palo Alto, Calif.: Mayfield
Co.,
Publishing
Psychology,
(Ed.), Woman:
New
York:
A Feminist
Library,
intellectual
Basic
Books,
Perspective.
In
Copyright © 1997 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
1 1 1
8 9 10 11
For further information, please address
Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
P. O. Box 44937
Indianapolis, Indiana 46244-0937
www.hackettpublishing.com
Jacket design by Chris Hammill Paul
Text design by Dan Kirklin
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Plato.
[Works. English. 1997]
Complete works/Plato;
edited, with introduction and notes, by
John M. Cooper;
associate editor, D. S. Hutchinson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-87220-349-2 (cloth: alk. paper)
1. Philosophy, Ancient.
2. Socrates.
I. Cooper, John M. (John Madison).
II. Hutchinson, D. S.
III. Title.
B358.C3 1997
184—dc21
96-53280
CIP
ISBN-13: 978-0-87220-349-5 (cloth)
!DOBE 0$& E BOOK )3".
Theaetetus
167
SOCRATES: No, it doesn’t. But there is also an unlawful and unscientific
practice of bringing men and women together, which we call procuring;
and because of that the midwives—a most august body of women—are
very reluctant to undertake even lawful matchmaking. They are afraid
that if they practice this, they may be suspected of the other. And yet, I
suppose, reliable matchmaking is a matter for no one but the true midwife.
THEAETETUS: Apparently.
SOCRATES: So the work of the midwives is a highly important one; but
it is not so important as my own performance. And for this reason, that
there is not in midwifery the further complication, that the patients are
sometimes delivered of phantoms and sometimes of realities, and that the
two are hard to distinguish. If there were, then the midwife’s greatest and
noblest function would be to distinguish the true from the false offspring—
don’t you agree?
THEAETETUS: Yes, I do.
SOCRATES: Now my art of midwifery is just like theirs in most respects.
The difference is that I attend men and not women, and that I watch over
the labor of their souls, not of their bodies. And the most important thing
about my art is the ability to apply all possible tests to the offspring, to
determine whether the young mind is being delivered of a phantom, that
is, an error, or a fertile truth. For one thing which I have in common with
the ordinary midwives is that I myself am barren of wisdom. The common
reproach against me is that I am always asking questions of other people
but never express my own views about anything, because there is no
wisdom in me; and that is true enough. And the reason of it is this, that
God compels me to attend the travail of others, but has forbidden me to
procreate. So that I am not in any sense a wise man; I cannot claim as the
child of my own soul any discovery worth the name of wisdom. But with
those who associate with me it is different. At first some of them may give
the impression of being ignorant and stupid; but as time goes on and our
association continues, all whom God permits are seen to make progress—
a progress which is amazing both to other people and to themselves. And
yet it is clear that this is not due to anything they have learned from me;
it is that they discover within themselves a multitude of beautiful things,
which they bring forth into the light. But it is I, with God’s help, who
deliver them of this offspring. And a proof of this may be seen in the
many cases where people who did not realize this fact took all the credit
to themselves and thought that I was no good. They have then proceeded
to leave me sooner than they should, either of their own accord or through
the influence of others. And after they have gone away from me they have
resorted to harmful company, with the result that what remained within
them has miscarried; while they have neglected the children I helped them
to bring forth, and lost them, because they set more value upon lies and
phantoms than upon the truth; finally they have been set down for ignorant
fools, both by themselves and by everybody else. One of these people was
150
b
c
d
e
151
168
b
c
d
e
Theaetetus
Aristides the son of Lysimachus;4 and there have been very many others.
Sometimes they come back, wanting my company again, and ready to
move heaven and earth to get it. When that happens, in some cases the
divine sign that visits me forbids me to associate with them; in others, it
permits me, and then they begin again to make progress.
There is another point also in which those who associate with me are
like women in child-birth. They suffer the pains of labor, and are filled
day and night with distress; indeed they suffer far more than women. And
this pain my art is able to bring on, and also to allay.
Well, that’s what happens to them; but at times, Theaetetus, I come
across people who do not seem to me somehow to be pregnant. Then I
realize that they have no need of me, and with the best will in the world
I undertake the business of match-making; and I think I am good enough—
God willing—at guessing with whom they might profitably keep company.
Many of them I have given away to Prodicus;5 and a great number also
to other wise and inspired persons.
Well, my dear lad, this has been a long yarn; but the reason was that I
have a suspicion that you (as you think yourself) are pregnant and in
labor. So I want you to come to me as to one who is both the son of a
midwife and himself skilled in the art; and try to answer the questions I
shall ask you as well as you can. And when I examine what you say, I
may perhaps think it is a phantom and not truth, and proceed to take it
quietly from you and abandon it. Now if this happens, you mustn’t get
savage with me, like a mother over her first-born child. Do you know,
people have often before now got into such a state with me as to be literally
ready to bite when I take away some nonsense or other from them. They
never believe that I am doing this in all goodwill; they are so far from
realizing that no God can wish evil to man, and that even I don’t do this
kind of thing out of malice, but because it is not permitted to me to accept
a lie and put away truth.
So begin again, Theaetetus, and try to say what knowledge is. And don’t
on any account tell me that you can’t. For if God is willing, and you play
the man, you can.
THEAETETUS: Well, Socrates, after such encouragement from you, it would
hardly be decent for anyone not to try his hardest to say what he has in
him. Very well then. It seems to me that a man who knows something
perceives what he knows, and the way it appears at present, at any rate,
is that knowledge is simply perception.
SOCRATES: There’s a good frank answer, my son. That’s the way to speak
one’s mind. But come now, let us look at this thing together, and see
whether what we have here is really fertile or a mere wind-egg. You hold
that knowledge is perception?
4. Aristides is one of the two young men whose education Socrates discusses in Laches
(see 178a–179b).
5. A famous Sophist. See Protagoras 315d, 337a–c, 340e–341c, 358a–b.
169
Theaetetus
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: But look here, this is no ordinary account of knowledge you’ve
come out with: it’s what Protagoras used to maintain. He said the very
same thing, only he put it in rather a different way. For he says, you know,
that ‘Man is the measure of all things: of the things which are, that they
are, and of the things which are not, that they are not.’ You have read
this, of course?
THEAETETUS: Yes, often.
SOCRATES: Then you know that he puts it something like this, that as
each thing appears to me, so it is for me, and as it appears to you, so it
is for you—you and I each being a man?
THEAETETUS: Yes, that is what he says.
SOCRATES: Well, it is not likely that a wise man would talk nonsense. So
let us follow him up. Now doesn’t it sometimes happen that when the
same wind is blowing, one of us feels cold and the other not? Or that one
of us feels rather cold and the other very cold?
THEAETETUS: That certainly does happen.
SOCRATES: Well then, in that case are we going to say that the wind itself,
by itself, is cold or not cold? Or shall we listen to Protagoras, and say it
is cold for the one who feels cold, and for the other, not cold?
THEAETETUS: It looks as if we must say that.
SOCRATES: And this is how it appears to each of us?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: But this expression ‘it appears’ means ‘he perceives it’?
THEAETETUS: Yes, it does.
SOCRATES: The appearing of things, then, is the same as perception, in
the case of hot and things like that. So it results, apparently, that things
are for the individual such as he perceives them.
THEAETETUS: Yes, that seems all right.
SOCRATES: Perception, then, is always of what is, and unerring—as befits knowledge.
THEAETETUS: So it appears.
SOCRATES: But, I say, look here. Was Protagoras one of those omniscient
people? Did he perhaps put this out as a riddle for the common crowd of
us, while he revealed the Truth6 as a secret doctrine to his own pupils?
THEAETETUS: What do you mean by that, Socrates?
SOCRATES: I’ll tell you; and this, now, is certainly no ordinary theory—
I mean the theory that there is nothing which in itself is just one thing:
nothing which you could rightly call anything or any kind of thing. If you
call a thing large, it will reveal itself as small, and if you call it heavy, it
is liable to appear as light, and so on with everything, because nothing is
one or anything or any kind of thing. What is really true, is this: the things
of which we naturally say that they ’are’, are in process of coming to be,
6. Protagoras of Abdera was a fifth century
to have been the title of his book.
B.C.
philosopher and sophist; this appears
152
b
c
d
e
794
c
d
e
449
b
Gorgias
CHAEREPHON: Now then, since he’s knowledgeable in a craft, what is it,
and what would be the correct thing to call him?
POLUS: Many among men are the crafts experientially devised by experience, Chaerephon. Yes, it is experience that causes our times to march
along the way of craft, whereas inexperience causes them to march along
the way of chance. Of these various crafts various men partake in various
ways, the best men partaking of the best of them. Our Gorgias is indeed
in this group; he partakes of the most admirable of the crafts.
SOCRATES: Polus certainly appears to have prepared himself admirably
for giving speeches, Gorgias. But he’s not doing what he promised
Chaerephon.
GORGIAS: How exactly isn’t he, Socrates?
SOCRATES: He hardly seems to me to be answering the question.
GORGIAS: Why don’t you question him then, if you like?
SOCRATES: No, I won’t, not as long as you yourself may want to answer.
I’d much rather ask you. It’s clear to me, especially from what he has
said, that Polus has devoted himself more to what is called oratory than
to discussion.
POLUS: Why do you say that, Socrates?
SOCRATES: Because, Polus, when Chaerephon asks you what craft Gorgias
is knowledgeable in, you sing its praises as though someone were discrediting it. But you haven’t answered what it is.
POLUS: Didn’t I answer that it was the most admirable one?
SOCRATES: Very much so. No one, however, asked you what Gorgias’
craft is like, but what craft it is, and what one ought to call Gorgias. So,
just as when Chaerephon put his earlier questions to you and you answered
him in such an admirably brief way, tell us now in that way, too, what
his craft is, and what we’re supposed to call Gorgias. Or rather, Gorgias,
why don’t you tell us yourself what the craft you’re knowledgeable in is,
and hence what we’re supposed to call you?
GORGIAS: It’s oratory, Socrates.
SOCRATES: So we’re supposed to call you an orator?
GORGIAS: Yes, and a good one, Socrates, if you really want to call me
“what I boast myself to be,” as Homer puts it.3
SOCRATES: Of course I do.
GORGIAS: Call me that then.
SOCRATES: Aren’t we to say that you’re capable of making others orators too?
GORGIAS: That’s exactly the claim I make. Not only here, but elsewhere, too.
SOCRATES: Well now, Gorgias, would you be willing to complete the
discussion in the way we’re having it right now, that of alternately
asking questions and answering them, and to put aside for another
3. Iliad vi.211.
Gorgias
795
time this long style of speechmaking like the one Polus began with?
Please don’t go back on your promise, but be willing to give a brief
answer to what you’re asked.
GORGIAS: There are some answers, Socrates, that must be given by way
of long speeches. Even so, I’ll try to be as brief as possible. This, too, in
fact, is one of my claims. There’s no one who can say the same things
more briefly than I.
SOCRATES: That’s what we need, Gorgias! Do give me a presentation of
this very thing, the short style of speech, and leave the long style for some
other time.
GORGIAS: Very well, I’ll do that. You’ll say you’ve never heard anyone
make shorter speeches.
SOCRATES: Come then. You claim to be knowledgeable in the craft of
oratory and to be able to make someone else an orator, too. With which
of the things there are is oratory concerned? Weaving, for example, is
concerned with the production of clothes, isn’t it?
GORGIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And so, too, music is concerned with the composition of tunes?
GORGIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: By Hera, Gorgias, I do like your answers. They couldn’t be
shorter!
GORGIAS: Yes, Socrates, I daresay I’m doing it quite nicely.
SOCRATES: And so you are. Come and answer me then that way about
oratory, too. About which, of the things there are, is it knowledge?
GORGIAS: About speeches.
SOCRATES: What sort of speeches, Gorgias? Those that explain how sick
people should be treated to get well?
GORGIAS: No.
SOCRATES: So oratory isn’t concerned with all speeches.
GORGIAS: Oh, no.
SOCRATES: But it does make people capable of speaking.
GORGIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And also to be wise in what they’re speaking about?
GORGIAS: Of course.
SOCRATES: Now does the medical craft, the one we were talking about
just now, make people able both to have wisdom about and to speak about
the sick?
GORGIAS: Necessarily.
SOCRATES: This craft, then, is evidently concerned with speeches too.
GORGIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Speeches about diseases, that is?
GORGIAS: Exactly.
SOCRATES: Isn’t physical training also concerned with speeches, speeches
about good and bad physical condition?
GORGIAS: Yes, it is.
c
d
e
450
796
b
c
d
e
451
b
Gorgias
SOCRATES: In fact, Gorgias, the same is true of the other crafts, too. Each
of them is concerned with those speeches that are about the object of the
particular craft.
GORGIAS: Apparently.
SOCRATES: Then why don’t you call the other crafts oratory, since you
call any craft whatever that’s concerned with speeches oratory? They’re
concerned with speeches, too!
GORGIAS: The reason, Socrates, is that in the case of the other crafts the
knowledge consists almost completely in working with your hands and
activities of that sort. In the case of oratory, on the other hand, there
isn’t any such manual work. Its activity and influence depend entirely on
speeches. That’s the reason I consider the craft of oratory to be concerned
with speeches. And I say that I’m right about this.
SOCRATES: I’m not sure I understand what sort of craft you want to call
it. I’ll soon know more clearly. Tell me this. There are crafts for us to
practice, aren’t there?
GORGIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Of all the crafts there are, I take it that there are those that
consist for the most part of making things and that call for little speech,
and some that call for none at all, ones whose task could be done even
silently. Take painting, for instance, or sculpture, or many others. When
you say that oratory has nothing to do with other crafts, it’s crafts of this
sort I think you’re referring to. Or aren’t you?
GORGIAS: Yes, Socrates. You take my meaning very well.
SOCRATES: And then there are other crafts, the ones that perform their
whole task by means of speeches and that call for practically no physical
work besides, or very little of it. Take arithmetic or computation or geometry, even checkers and many other crafts. Some of these involve speeches
to just about the same degree as they do activity, while many involve
speeches more. All their activity and influence depend entirely on speeches.
I think you mean that oratory is a craft of this sort.
GORGIAS: True.
SOCRATES: But you certainly don’t want to call any of these crafts oratory,
do you, even though, as you phrase it, oratory is the craft that exercises
its influence through speech. Somebody might take you up, if he wanted
to make a fuss in argument, and say, “So you’re saying that arithmetic is
oratory, are you, Gorgias?” I’m sure, however, that you’re not saying that
either arithmetic or geometry is oratory.
GORGIAS: Yes, you’re quite correct, Socrates. You take my meaning
rightly.
SOCRATES: Come on, then. Please complete your answer in the terms of
my question. Since oratory is one of those crafts which mostly uses speech,
and since there are also others of that sort, try to say what it is that oratory,
which exercises its influence through speeches, is about. Imagine someone
asking me about any of the crafts I mentioned just now, “Socrates, what
is the craft of arithmetic?” I’d tell him, just as you told me, that it’s one of
Gorgias
797
those that exercise their influence by means of speech. And if he continued,
“What are they crafts about?” I’d say that they’re about even and odd,
however many of each there might be. If he then asked, “What is the craft
you call computation?” I’d say that this one, too, is one of those that
exercise their influence entirely by speech. And if he then continued, “What
is it about?” I’d answer in the style of those who draw up motions in the
Assembly that in other respects computation is like arithmetic—for it’s
about the same thing, even and odd—yet it differs from arithmetic insofar
as computation examines the quantity of odd and even, both in relation
to themselves and in relation to each other. And if someone asked about
astronomy and I replied that it, too, exercises its influence by means of
speech, then if he asked, “What are the speeches of astronomy about,
Socrates?” I’d say that they’re about the motions of the stars, the sun and
the moon, and their relative velocities.
GORGIAS: And you’d be quite right to say so, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Come, Gorgias, you take your turn. For oratory is in fact one
of those crafts that carry out and exercise their influence entirely by speech,
isn’t it?
GORGIAS: That’s right.
SOCRATES: Tell us then: what are they crafts about? Of the things there are,
which is the one that these speeches used by oratory are concerned with?
GORGIAS: The greatest of human concerns, Socrates, and the best.
SOCRATES: But that statement, too, is debatable, Gorgias. It isn’t at all
clear yet, either. I’m sure that you’ve heard people at drinking parties
singing that song in which they count out as they sing that “to enjoy good
health is the best thing; second is to have turned out good looking; and
third”—so the writer of the song puts it—“is to be honestly rich.”
GORGIAS: Yes, I’ve heard it. Why do you mention it?
SOCRATES: Suppose that the producers of the things the songwriter
praised were here with you right now: a doctor, a physical trainer, and a
financial expert. Suppose that first the doctor said, “Socrates, Gorgias is
telling you a lie. It isn’t his craft that is concerned with the greatest good
for humankind, but mine.” If I then asked him, “What are you, to say
that?” I suppose he’d say that he’s a doctor. “What’s this you’re saying?
Is the product of your craft really the greatest good?” “Of course, Socrates,”
I suppose he’d say, “seeing that its product is health. What greater good
for humankind is there than health?” And suppose that next in his turn
the trainer said, “I too would be amazed, Socrates, if Gorgias could present
you with a greater good derived from his craft than the one I could provide
from mine.” I’d ask this man, too, “What are you, sir, and what’s your
product?” “I’m a physical trainer,” he’d say, “and my product is making
people physically good-looking and strong.” And following the trainer
the financial expert would say, I’m sure with an air of considerable scorn
for all, “Do consider, Socrates, whether you know of any good, Gorgias’
or anyone else’s, that’s a greater good than wealth.” We’d say to him,
“Really? Is that what you produce?” He’d say yes. “As what?” “As a
c
d
e
452
b
c
798
d
e
453
b
c
d
Gorgias
financial expert.” “Well,” we’ll say, “is wealth in your judgment the greatest
good for humankind?” “Of course,” he’ll say. “Ah, but Gorgias here disputes that. He claims that his craft is the source of a good that’s greater
than yours,” we’d say. And it’s obvious what question he’d ask next. “And
what is this good, please? Let Gorgias answer me that!” So come on,
Gorgias. Consider yourself questioned by both these men and myself, and
give us your answer. What is this thing that you claim is the greatest good
for humankind, a thing you claim to be a producer of?
GORGIAS: The thing that is in actual fact the greatest good, Socrates. It
is the source of freedom for humankind itself and at the same time it is
for each person the source of rule over others in one’s own city.
SOCRATES: And what is this thing you’re referring to?
GORGIAS: I’m referring to the ability to persuade by speeches judges in
a law court, councillors in a council meeting, and assemblymen in an
assembly or in any other political gathering that might take place. In point
of fact, with this ability you’ll have the doctor for your slave, and the
physical trainer, too. As for this financial expert of yours, he’ll turn out
to be making more money for somebody else instead of himself; for you,
in fact, if you’ve got the ability to speak...
Purchase answer to see full
attachment