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A Feminist Critic of Feminism
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- Implications for Debate
- BIBLIOGRAPHY
- LIBERATION IS THE HIGHEST VALUE
A Feminist Critic of FeminismConcerning gender issues, Sand certainly believed that women should be liberated. But she made an important qualification: All humanity must be liberated before the more subtle issues of sexism could be addressed. Her qualification was inspired by her disgust of the petty complaints of privileged women who compared, say, marriage to slavery, or domestic housework to servitude. After witnessing the real effects of economic oppression on the masses, she concluded that such overstatement by bourgeois women was not only absurd, but detrimental to the total human liberation that is a precondition for everyone’s growth. A wealthy housewife who says “I am a slave” obviously does not know much about slavery. Even if these women were speaking metaphorically, the metaphor trivialized the genuine slavery that did exist in the Nineteenth Century. All social inequality was wrong in Sand’s eyes, and women who prioritized their personal liberation above that of other, more oppressed groups were hypocrites of the worst kind. Sand could not have been aware at the time that truly radical feminism would see patriarchy as the universal source of the very general oppression she opposed. Radical feminists would contend, for example, that racial slavery, war, capitalism, and economic inequality are all manifestations of hierarchy, aggression, and dehumanization, all of which find a common source, or at the very least a common source of exacerbation, in patriarchy. For Sand, patriarchy was one among many sources of oppression. For her radical counterparts, it was the source. The fact that Sand embraced neither an absolutist view of patriarchy nor a belief in the infallibility of socialism points to a quirk in her thinking that, depending on who you ask, may be a strength or a weakness: Sand was not a social philosopher. Her thoughts, political or otherwise, were defiantly and proudly unsystematic. She could live with the often contradictory and inconsistent conclusions that followed, but those who searched for underlying, consistent patterns in social analysis would be unsatisfied, for Sand never embraced the systematic assumptions of absolute truth that afflicted her contemporaries. This, too, places her more in league with Twentieth Century Postmodernists and Pragmatists than with Nineteenth Century “scientists of liberation.” Implications for DebateFor these reasons, debaters may be a bit confused if, while researching George Sand, they find her at times cursing feminists and at other times embracing them, or displaying the same inconsistencies with socialists. But once debaters accept her dismissal of consistency, her real value can be seen: More than most other thinkers, she can describe the human, inner subjective side of ideas. Her argumentative strength is found in her poetic language and her appeal to a certain, elusive magic in the passion of human beings, especially those who seek liberation. She is a valuable and colorful supplement to the well-developed but often dry language of other valuable debate sources. ‘I
Barry, Joseph. INFAMOUS WOMAN: THE LIFE OF GEORGE SAND (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1977). Cats, Curtis. GEORGE SAND (New York: Avon, 1975). Crecelius, Kathryn 1. FAMILY ROMANCES: GEORGE SAND’S EARLY NOVELS (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987). Dickenson, Donna. GEORGE SAND: A BRAVE MAN-THE MOST WOMANLY WOMAN (Oxford: Berg, 1988). Marx, Karl. CLASS STRUGGLES IN FRANCE 1848-1850 (New York: International Publishers, 1986). Naginski, Isabelle Hoog. GEORGE SAND: WRITING FOR HER LIFE (London: Rutgers University Press, 1991). Powell, David A. (Ed.). GEORGE SAND TODAY (Landham: University Press of America, 1989). Sand, George. THE BAGPIPERS (Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers, 1977). _______ CONSUELO (Jersey City, New Jersey: DaCapo, 1979). _______ THE COUNTRY WAIF (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1977). ________ INDIANA (Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers, 1978). Schor, Naomi. GEORGE SAND AND IDEALISM (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993). Thompson, Patricia. GEORGE SAND AND THE VICTORIANS (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977).
LIBERATION IS THE HIGHEST VALUE1. MORAL BEINGS MUST TRY TO MAKE SOCIETY BE1TER George Sand, Writer, in Isabelle Hoog Nagtnski, GEORGE SAND: WRITING FOR HER LIFE, 1991, p. 175 Is it really seeking a remedy merely to avert one’s eyes with horror and hold one’s nose, while saying that there is only corruption and infection in the sick ward? What would you think of a medical student who could not set eyes on a gangrened limb without fainting in disgust? Dare to descend into the leper colonies of moral humanity. Do not waste time saying that this is horrible to look at; think of finding a remedy. 2. WE SHOULD WORK FOR LIBERATION EVEN IF IT SEEMS UTOPIAN Marylou Graham, “The Politics of George Sand’s Pastoral Novels,” in David A. Powell (Ed.), GEORGE SAND TODAY, 1989, p. 179 Art, Sand tells us, “est une oeuvre de transformation.” Her pastoral novels depict a vision of the transformation of peasant society, while aiming to transform readers in order to engage them to work toward that utopian vision, so inviting to read about, and so formidable to achieve. The first step in allowing Sand to transform us from readers to reformers is to recognize the political agenda rooted so deeply in her depiction of the Berry countryside. 3. BENEFITS OF FREEDOM OUTWEIGH ANY IMAGINED RISKS George Sand, Writer, in Isabelle Hoog Naginski, GEORGE SAND: WRITING FOR HER LIFE, 1991, p.76 Freedom of thought, freedom to write and speak, sacred conquest of the human spirit! The small sufferings and the ephemeral worries engendered by your mistakes or your excesses are meaningless, when compared to the infinite benefits that you bestow upon the world. 4. COMPLICITY IN OTHERS’ OPPRESSION IS MORALLY WRONG George Sand, Writer, in Isabelle Hoog Naginski, GEORGE SAND: WRITING FOR HER LIFE, 1991, p. 175 Resignation in and of itself is a virtue one must have. But to resign oneself to the unhappiness of others, to tolerate the yoke weighing down on innocent heads, to calmly watch the course of events without trying to discover another truth, another order, another moral system! oh! that is impossible! 5. VIOLENCE IS UNJUSTIFIED AS A MEANS OF SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION George Sand, Writer, in Joseph Barry, INFAMOUS WOMAN: THE LIFE OF GEORGE SAND, 1978, pp. 374-5 I’ll have no more bloodshed, no more evil means to bring about good ends, no more killing in order to create. No, no! My age protests against the tolerance of my youth. That which has just taken place should make us take a great step forward. We must rid ourselves of the theories of 1793. A curse on all those who dig charnel houses. No life ever comes out of them. Let us learn to be stubborn, patient revolutionaries, but never terrorists. We will not be heard for a long time, but what does it matter! The poet should live on a height above his contemporaries and see beyond his own life. Humanity will progress only when it learns to despise the lie in men and respect mankind despite the lie.
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