Subjectivity and the French Subjunctive

This is relatively minor point, but I encountered an interesting distinction in class the other day with the French subjunctive. A verb mood (not tense) that is rarely discussed in the English language, it is used to "express a wish, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, necessity, or action that has not yet occurred." (Thanks, Wikipedia.) Take the following sentence, for example:

The best director that I know is Martin Scorsese.
Le meilleur réalisateur que je sache est Martin Scorsese.

Here, the verb "sache" is in the subjunctive mood of "savoir," or "to know." This is because I am expressing a judgment about Martin Scorsese as the best director I know. However, the same sentence can also be translated with the indicative mood, and the resulting meaning is quite different:

The best director that I know is Martin Scorsese.
Le meilleur réalisateur que je sais est Martin Scorsese.

In this version, the verb "sais" is in the indicative mood. What does this mean, then? By choosing to not use the subjunctive here, the sentence takes on a much more presumptuous tone. Rather than expressing an opinion or judgment about the best director one knows, it is asserting an objective truth on the topic. This sentence, then, may very well be followed by an argument as to why Martin Scorsese is such a wonderful director.

The larger point here is the amazing subtelty of language, that one can express this kind of intellectual arrogance with simply a different verb in one language, but not in another. If one takes language to be a means of expression of a people--an expression of Hegel's zeitgeist--it becomes a very fascinating study.

On A Personal Note...

I just gained transfer admission from the Fu Foundation School of Applied Sciences at Columbia to Columbia College! Now I can officially major in Philosophy (& Physics)!

Playground Tactics and Feminism

Reading MacKinnon's Feminism Unmodified (besides garnering perplexed glances from across the library table) has been enlightening and frustrating in many ways. For starters, MacKinnon's distinction between feminist analysis of male and female as fundamentally different or the same is an important one. Whereas arguing from the principle of sameness almost necessarily implies existing behind a veil of ignorance where gender is not considered, arguing from the principle of difference requires constant modification of rules, laws, traditions, etc. to "equalize" the differences. Therein lies the fundamental misunderstanding of feminism, I think. That feminists have argued from both sides makes it very confusing as to what exactly a feminist wants. The answer is equality, but how this is brought about is rather tricky.

I'd like to draw attention to feminist philosophy at a meta level, and pose the question:

Does the existence of feminist literature and philosophy promote and further this cause of "sex equality," (which MacKinnon points out is in ways an oxymoron) or does it actually hinder its own progress?

MacKinnon's philosophy is very straight-forward, and though neither apologetic nor accusatory, outlines this gender disparity in a very objective manner. In so doing, however, is she undermining her own goal? In many ways, the legal system is equal when it comes to gender, or at least has the intention of being equal. Of course, there are many problems, especially when the sameness-as-basis and difference-as-basis ideologies collide. Most of the problems that even MacKinnon raises are grounded in historical inequality and circumstances that cannot be changed. The fact that quilt-making is not true art the way a Picasso painting is--or that it is not acknowledged as such--is something that is embedded in our social consciousness based on the way we have been conditioned into believing what constitutes art. Is this more subtle form (though still powerful) of gender inequality to be fought with direct philosophy?

Part of what dealing with this question brings to mind is the playground tactic of "playing it cool," and addresses many regular conflicts we have between feigning ambivalence and confrontation. Perhaps this suggestion even seems sexist in itself in "silencing" the voices of the feminists, but that is far from my intention. We all want power, but power is also directly correlated with responsibility. As the client of this dominatrix [credit to Paige Simmons and Facebook for making this information available to me] would tell you, the pressures on "successful" men of being in positions of power are not always so pleasant. My objection is simply the fact that some of the evocative language used in MacKinnon strikes me as distancing women from men. What is truly the best method in which to pursue this gender equality?

Greeks and National Affiliation

First, I must begin by declaring my affiliation with the Delta Gamma Chapter of Sigma Nu Fraternity. Like any organization, it's had its ups and downs, but I can honestly say that I feel very lucky to be associated with so many wonderful brothers.

I, however, cannot say that I can honestly support the national affiliation of my fraternity and fraternities in general. The hierarchical and infrastructural system created in 1869 is beyond outdated and does not reflect the purposes and needs of the modern fraternity. Sigma Nu is founded on the tenets of love, honor, and truth:

To Believe in the Life of Love,
To Walk in the Way of Honor,
To Serve in the Light of Truth,
This is the Life, the Way, and the Light of Sigma Nu --
This is the Creed of our Fraternity.

Poor capitalization and punctuation aside, this creed is both decidedly vague and utterly unmentioned in the rushing process. Chapters do not emphasize it, nor should they. At the same time, I have heard it both used and misused, and it is no more than an equivocal statement with which one cannot honestly disagree. The endless paperwork and "support network" requested and provided by the national headquarters add little to nothing to the experience of being a brother, and this rhetoric merely represents the unthinking hierarchy that the old-school fraternities still aim to maintain. It's not difficult to come up with theodicies explaining away the national affilitaion, but that does not justify these ties.

Fraternities as they have become redefined are no longer centers of ideology. Most liberal college campuses have moved far beyond that, and other institutions have become leading centers for ideology. Additionally, with a diversification of such intellectual ideas and ideologies, it's impossible to capture one singular idea within the context of a far-reaching national fraternity. As numbers increase, the ideology necessarily becomes vague and diluted.

Another important problem is that the values often embodied take on a "slave" valuation of morality, as characterized by Nietzsche. The following quote comes from his first essay in the Geneology of Morals. Just like the values of the Christian institution cited here, these values of "love, honor, and truth" are no more than slave valuations of morality.

--And what do they call that which serves to console them for all the suffering of life--their phantasmagoria of anticipated future bliss?

--"What? Do I hear aright? They call that "the Last Judgment,' the coming of their kingdom, of the 'Kingdom of God'--meanwhile, however, they live 'in faith,' 'in love,' 'in hope.'"

--Enough! Enough!

What, then, can a national affiliation provide a fraternity? Fraternities have a positive associational aspect to them which is highly valuable, and provide a certain flexibility in action as well as a communal residential opportunity not available elsewhere. They are perhaps as close as one can find of a Marxist species-life on a modern American college campus, with collective material projects taken on, and--with the exception of their national affiliations--free from the constraints of a singular, forward-moving agenda.

Of course, practically speaking, the system requires a national affiliation. Even newly founded fraternities will find themselves to be proselytizing and spreading chapters to other colleges, but perhaps we ought to think as a community as to why we are involved in Greek life in the first place. Is it the values and ideologies, or the friends and people? What was it in its conception and what is it now? Should we stay true to the "intentions" of our ancestors or have we transcended the molds they've created for us?