The early 17th century [...] saw a narrowing of scope for freedom of discussion and imagination that operated on a social plane, with the onset of a new insistence on "respectability" in thought or behaviour, and also on a personal plane. There, it took the form of an alienation quite familiar to the late 20th century, which expressed itself as SOLIPSISM in intellectual matters, and as NARCISSISM in emotional life. (emphasis mine) [p42, Stephen Toulmin, COSMOPOLIS.]
Intellectual solipsism and emotional narcissism. Looks familiar?
1 comment:
It would seem to come down to good old philosophical idealism. The behaviour is linked to the idea that the world has a pre-established harmonic structure and, so long as the male is keeping his end of the bargain (being "nice"), he ought to be able to collect what is due to him. It would seem to be a tacit belief in a pre-existing (but invisible) normative structure that would make actual communication about one's needs and intentions seem redundant. So the young (or, perhaps, rather more aging) man who gets himself into a pickle of a fix over women is hardly likely to have made any actual decisions on his own behalf that got him stuck. It's more likely he was just conforming to a programme that he had been socially conditioned to follow. (Note also the gender essentialism -- how women are seen to be defined by 'emotion'. Any kind of essentialism is also a feature of philosophical idealism.)
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