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 With Women, we speak of "love", "duty", "right", "wrong", "pity", "hope", and other irrational and emotional conceptions, which have no existence, and the fiction of which has no object except to control feminine exuberances. Edwin Abbott (1838-1926)
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Hey, Edwin, I will slap you! If he doesn't know "love" I feel sorry for him.
I am carrying my heart~I am carrying my rhythm~I am carrying my prayers~But you can't kill my spirit~It's soaring and strong (Paula Cole's Me Lyrics)***We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We ARE spirtual beings having a human experience.(T.deChardin)***There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. (Albert Einstein)
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I think the quote might have come from his 'Flatland' which I recall being enthralled with as a child. It was a sort of primary school introduction to relativity. Possibly the fact that he was a theologian might explain his need to control 'feminine exuberances'. Rather unkindly his middle name was also 'Abbott' so it could have been playground taunts that turned him into a bit of a misanthrope. In the book males are polygons whilst women are mere lines so perhaps misogynist is a more apt description.
"Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon" Suzanne Ertz
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Oh Christine! Your indignant post made me laugh.
You go, girl!
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I, too, love Christine's reply. Pedro is, indeed, correct: this is from "Flatland". The book was written as a satire about Victorian attitudes toward women and toward male social classes. The book received considerable criticism as being misogynistic, some at the time and much of the criticism later. While Abbott may not have had modern sensibilities regarding women, I suspect the charges of misogyny are over the top. He received enough criticism that he wrote a new preface for the second edition of the book, to explain that the views therein were not necessarily the views of the author. The putative writer of the preface is a Sphere from Spaceland. (He first introduced the putative author of "Flatland", A. Square, to the third dimension.) A. Square has been imprisoned in Flatland for trying to convince the inhabitants of the reality of a third dimension. It helps to understand that in Flatland, not only are women lines and men polygons, but that irregular polygons are considered obligate criminals and the more sides a polygon has, the more noble it is. (Triangles are working-class, squares and pentagons professional class, hexagons lowest-order nobility, etc. Males aspire to produce offspring as nearly circular as possible.) Quote: Preface to the second edition
. . . Acting, therefore, as his interpreter and summarizer, I gather that in the course of an imprisonment or seven years he has himself modified his own personal views, both as regards Women and as regards the Isosceles or Lower Classes. Personally, he now inclines to the opinion of the Sphere (see page 81) that the Straight Lines are in many important respects superior to the Circles. But, writing as a Historian, he has identified himself (perhaps too closely) with the views generally adopted by Flatland, and (as he has been informed) even by Spaceland, Historians; in whose pages (until very recent times) the destinies of Women and of the masses of mankind have seldom been deemed worthy of mention and never of careful consideration. If you read Flatland (it's available online at Google Books), you are hard-put to see it as anything but satire, rather biting satire. I loved this book as a kid, and saw in it extreme disapproval for the way women were considered and treated (I think the class-thing went over my head the first time). I thought he put it the way he did to make it more readily accepted by the Victorians in general.
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"While Abbott may not have had modern sensibilities regarding women,"
R I G H T . . . !
And Christine, congratulations to a spirited woman. (I had a spirited wife, and I have a spirited daughter and granddaughters, and that's the best.)
But tell me again how you feel sorry for this guy?
floyd
“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”
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Christine, I don't think slapping Edwin Abbott, or the fictitious character who said these lines, would help. In fact he would most likely dismiss your action as another typical "feminine exhuberance"; indeed you could be said to have played into his fictitious hand. You might try engaging with him, although he would be highly resistant to this, as it would bring him in touch with his own scary, threatening emotional side. Or just let your life be an example to him.
I think it's true, though, that many men still regard love, compassion and other non-logical faculties as annoying, girly stuff, something to be left to women. And then when they really need these faculties, they find themselves out of their depth; that's when they turn to us. But many women do the equivalent; they leave it up to a man to take care of the practical and public spheres of life - fixing the gutter, running for council, managing their finances. Women like me, who take care of these things for themselves, are still often derided for being "unfeminine".
Flatland sounds like an interesting book, I'm going to look out for it.
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Scorning women was very accepted during his time, but it is surprising to see someone negate the existense of love. Hopefully, Abbott was expressing these views only through a character and did not believe them himself. If love does not exist, I would like to see the actions of Ghandi explained.
Flatland does sound like an interesting read, and way to go Christine! There are plenty of fictitious characters who need slapping.
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Human mind is unfathomable.
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Edwin Abbott (1838-1926) : Flatland 1884 : science fiction and or mathematical fiction. Since the 1950s Flatland has become more popular especially amongst science fiction and cyberpunk fans. Which is a blend of cybernetics and punk another good example would be Isaac Asimov's Foundation. May the force be with you my friends, 42=32+8+2=101010 :)
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One other word of warning suggests itself to me, though I cannot so easily mention a remedy; and this also refers to our relations with Women. About three hundred years ago, it was decreed by the Chief Circle that, since Women are deficient in Reason but abundant in Emotion, they ought no longer to be treated as rational, nor receive any mental education. The consequence was that they were no longer taught to read, nor even to master Arithmetic enough to enable them to count the angles of their husband or children; and hence they sensibly declined during each generation in intellectual power. And this system of female non-education or quietism still prevails.
. My fear is that, with the best intentions, this policy has been carried so far as to react injuriously on the Male Sex.
For the consequence is that, as things now are, we Males have to lead a kind of bi-lingual, and I may almost say bi-mental existence. With the Women, we speak of "love," "duty," "right," "wrong," "pity," "hope," and other irrational and emotional conceptions, which have no existence, and the fiction of which has no object except to control feminine exuberances; but among ourselves, and in our books, we have an entirely different vocabulary and I may almost say, idiom. "Love" then becomes "the anticipation of benefits;" "duty" becomes "necessity" or "fitness;"and other words are correspondingly transmuted. Moreover, among Women, we use language implying the utmost deference for their Sex; and they fully believe that the Chief Circle Himself is not more devoutly adored by us than they are: but behind their backs they are both regarded and spoken of — by all except the very young — as being little better than "mindless organisms."
Our Theology also in the Women's chambers is entirely different from our Theology elsewhere.
Now my humble fear is that this double training, in language as well as in thought, imposes somewhat too heavy a burden upon the young, especially when, at the age of three years old, they are taken from the maternal care and taught to unlearn the old language — except for the purpose of repeating it in the presence of their Mothers and Nurses — and to learn the vocabulary and idiom of science. Already methinks I discern a weakness in the grasp of mathematical truth at the present time as compared with the more robust intellect of our ancestors three hundred years ago. I say nothing of the possible danger if a Woman should ever surreptitiously learn to read and convey to her Sex the result of her perusal of a single popular volume; nor of the possibility that the indiscretion or disobedience of some infant Male might reveal to a Mother the secrets of the logical dialect. On the simple ground of the enfeebling of the Male intellect, I rest this humble appeal to the highest Authorities to reconsider the regulations of Female Education.
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Of course with the advent of the woman's liberation movement, we have seen a great deal of changes in the last 100yr's or so since he wrote Flatland. With great woman Prime minsters as an example. Still methinks in the company of females, men at times do act differently and vice versa. Anyway to much to comment on with this one so going to listen AC/DC "giving the dog a bone" :-) catch up later.
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floyd wrote:
"While Abbott may not have had modern sensibilities regarding women,"
R I G H T . . . !
And Christine, congratulations to a spirited woman. (I had a spirited wife, and I have a spirited daughter and granddaughters, and that's the best.)
But tell me again how you feel sorry for this guy?
floyd
because he doesn't know love.
I am carrying my heart~I am carrying my rhythm~I am carrying my prayers~But you can't kill my spirit~It's soaring and strong (Paula Cole's Me Lyrics)***We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We ARE spirtual beings having a human experience.(T.deChardin)***There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. (Albert Einstein)
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