[Buddha-l] Re: Gender on Buddha-l

[Lee Dillion]

Hi Mike:

Your point (that knowledge of the oppressed person's point of view by 
the oppressor could have provided an advantage that helped create the 
situation) seems likely to me.  See, for example, a recent article in 
the NY Times on "Our Inner Ape" where it is noted:

"Like humans, chimps can be ruthless toward individuals who are not part 
of their troop. De Waal explains that large-brained animals capable of 
using empathy to do kind things for others are also capable of great 
cruelty, because they can imagine what their victims will feel."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/09/books/review/09grandin.html

Seems we can choose Conze or De Waal, depending on which framing device 
works best for our particular argument.


Lee



Mike Austin wrote:
> In message <0092f62694ceaca5cc54cc9d7c68cbbc at toad.net>, Bernie Simon 
> <bsimon at toad.net> writes
> 
>> The difference between the male and female point of view is the 
>> difference between the point of view (pov) of the oppressor and the 
>> oppressed. I think that somewhere in Edward Conze's collection of 
>> essays, Thirty Years of Buddhist Studies, he writes that while the 
>> oppressed understands the pov of the oppressor, the reverse is not 
>> true. The oppressor can't be bothered to think in other terms, sees 
>> their own pov as the way things are and not a pov at all, and the 
>> oppressed pov as deviant.
> 
> 
> Hehe! Off we go with another generalisation of points of view.  Is there 
> a generic oppressor's point of view  as opposed to an oppressed person's 
> point of view?  I don't see how this withstands reason any more than the 
> supposed difference between generic male and female points of view.
> 
> In the example you give,  one might even suggest that a knowledge of the 
> oppressed person's point of view by the oppressor could have provided an 
> advantage that helped create the situation.
>