Reading Postmodern Philosophy from a Gender Critical Framework

February 16, 2025

So I’ve scheduled an event on “X” to discuss postmodern philosophy. Postmodernism has been blamed for all the excesses of “woke” politics, particularly the idea that women are identified for oppression based on our adherence to sex stereotypes (gender) rather than our sex. But is postmodernism, actually, to blame, or are the genderists misreading postmodern philosophy as they have misread feminism, Marxism, intersectionality, and everything else?

I have selected as the first article for discussion “Points Against Postmodernism,” by Catharine MacKinnon. This has been an extremely influential article, which began circulating circa 2012 among radical feminists disgusted by the abusive behavior of the genderists. I accepted it uncritically when I first read it, being primed to hate anything “postmodern” since the 80s, when the word (to most of us) only meant bad poetry.

MacKinnon has since published a position paper endorsing all the talking points of the genderborg, but that doesn’t change the immense influence of the earlier paper amongst radical feminists. Thus, I chose this article as a starting place for discussion of the actual ideas of Foucault, Derrida, Baudrillard, Deleuze, etc. Does postmodern theory actually support the contentions of gender ideology?

Reading Postmodern Philosophy from a Gender Critical Framework. Sunday, March 2, 2025 at 1:00 pm EST.

Wolf Moon Magic

January 17, 2025

I had the opportunity to see the lights at the Wild Center in Tupper Lake at the full moon this month. It was a very magical evening.

I believe most people think of the “wolf at the door” in the January moon, referring to the cold and desperation of winter’s depths. We have had a very cold month, after last year’s unseasonably warm winter, but the good thing about that has been more snow to play in.

The wolf is a matriarchal symbol of family, because wolves are so family oriented. The youngsters stay with the clan a few years after they’re full size to help raise the next litters.

When is a year not a year?

December 31, 2023

One of the things I like about traditional Irish spirituality is the use of riddles to impart wisdom.

I’ve been musing on how a “year” can be a period of time, and not necessarily a complete revolution of the earth around the sun. It can be a period of time, say a period that starts in one year, continues for the whole next year, and completes in the following year.

Al Stewart’s song “The Year of the Cat” is like that. You get the feeling that he’s not talking about an exact year–it could even be two or three years. In this song, the year is a place to visit. Not home, but a new and different experience that isn’t “you,” but that you would cherish. It’s about going into the mystery of uncharted experience, and metaphysical time is different from earth time, usually longer.

When I got notice that I had to leave my old apartment in 2022, I kept seeing cat signs everywhere. I saw a bobcat dead in the road, and I ran across the scent of bobcat in the woods. (They really stink!) On one hike to a secluded canoe launch on Lake Champlain, I heard that song, coming from a boat on the lake. I though, wow, the cat is coming into my life strongly. I meditated a lot on what a cat meant to me at that juncture, when I needed to move and didn’t know where I was going. The Year of the Cat seemed like a journey into the unknowable.

Last week, on two trails, I ran across lots of bobcat tracks. They brought to my mind the song. I wrote in Divining with Animal Guides about how an image in popular culture cat be a sign from an animal, but in this case, the animal sign made me think of the song.

I’ve decided that I’m living in a place, now, where I cannot stay for a very long time, as I did before. This is a sojourn, not a homecoming. And that’s okay.

Here’s an odd bit of trivia about my life in the context of this song. I’m hardly a world traveler, and I haven’t left the North American continent since 1978, but I have been to Morocco! It was an unforgettable experience I wouldn’t have missed.