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... more involved ones in reply to your more recent thread. It is true that there have been cultures in which circumcision is a coming-of-age ritual signalling the shift from boyhood to manhood, or rather from childhood to youth, though since the objection here is to the circumcision of newborn males I don't quite see how that is relevant to the issue at hand. I would think it obvious: the act is a physical and symbolic act of transition into a social body, and it is the importance of that fact that anti-C project you describe fails to appreciate (willfully, as I ultimately argue). I don't think that left wing opposition to cutting male genitalia has anything to do with hostility to masculinity, but with a genuine belief that infant genital mutilation (for, when we get rid of the euphemisms, that is what we are dealing with) is contrary to certain ideas that are indeed liberal in origin. Two points here: 1. I'll have to articulate my argument more carefully then, though I had provided a decent outline of it. Hostility to masculinity is practically a given in Anglophone/European left-wing thought, and in the absence of any other viable argument, we are left with that implicit hostility as the only remaining way of interpreting the anti-C position. I don't know where else it could come from. It reeks of it. 2. I reject the idea that any euphemisms are involved here; I also reject the term "mutilation," which suggests rendering a part of the body ugly at least, and by implication dysfunctional. Male circumcision does not involve the latter at all – I can be sure of that – and as for the former, well, people can respectfully disagree on the aesthetic question, usually with those who are themselves in the one camp preferring the look of those in the same camp. What you would call "mutilation," then, I would call a failure to make the obvious improvement. More on that below. It matters. It is the idea that a child is not “born Muslim” or “born Christian” or “born atheist”. Our identities are not exactly chosen, since we are obviously shaped by our upbringing, but nevertheless there is the idea that we should always be able to change our identities, that an identity shouldn't be a prison. I am sure that you wouldn't, for example, feel that apostasy should be punished. At the same time, where I might agree with you is that viewing the topic through the modern lens of “consent” is theoretically simplistic. I'm in complete agreement, in fact, a very important point of agreement between us. But anyway, I digress. In the end I shall always be against circumcision, for the following reason. As you know, I am not a Christian; my attitude towards the world is partly Indic and partly Hellenic. I am fascinated by the male body, which I see as noble and beautiful, and I see circumcision the same way the Greeks saw it: as a mutilation, an uglification. Is that how the Greeks saw it? As an uglification? Honestly I'm entirely ignorant on that front. Did some Athenian or Spartan decry it? As I said, there is nothing in the Christian tradition that promotes circumcision either, and in fact, the non-necessity of circumcision was established early. It was never banned for any reason, least of all "ugliness." You're not opposing anything Christian in opposing the Christianity I espouse. Speaking personally, I don't see it as an uglification at all. Putting aside any claim to anthropology, I can hardly be alone! My own interpretation is of the achievement of a sort of smartness, trimness, attentiveness, and readiness. Circumcision discards the remnant fleshy folds of the labia. That otherwise funny-looking vermicule becomes something less of a worm and more of an animal, an arrow-headed pointer, something inherently oriented forward in time, an intelligence. All this revealed even when the phallus is not erect. And again, that trimness – it's even something cleaner: you don't get drops of piss stuck in there, and "smegma" – surely the ugliest Greek word ever to have entered into the English language – disappears as a problem. I can pile up all sorts of aesthetic arguments in favor of the little snip. To return to your arguments against it: As a cinephile, I have noticed that, in contrast to European or Indian films, frontal male nudity is virtually non-existent in films produced in countries where circumcision is common; and I have sometimes wondered whether this is because there is a recognition at some subconscious level that the exposure of the glans is ugly and obscene. That's a very interesting observation. Thank you. Assuming the correlation truly holds, why it holds is the obvious next big question. I share the intuition that there is something provocative about the exposure of the glans, which is a part of the logic of exposing it. That it should be "ugly and obscene" is one way of reading it, I suppose, but obviously I don't read it that way; I'd say it's a matter of its being more visibly vibrant, more sexually stimulating than the "ugly worm..." Well, maybe. Anyway, you offer a very interesting observation and connection, one I will certainly further. I don't think our argument here will come down to how it's resolved, but it may mean something. And if it does, one way or the other, then whatever argument (for or against) that relies on it lies in a realm that is semiotic and subconsciously innate, and not just on issues of "bodily autonomy." Love for nature, and a feeling that it should not be treated with violence, is something that I feel very strongly, and in this too my attitude is not wholly removed from the Hellenic. The Greek Anthology contains epitaphs to dead insects. Oh, come on. Are you trying to associate defense of ritual circumcision with some sort of loss of a connection with nature? [verses deleted] I want to suggest that unless you truly feel the sentiment of these verses you have not grasped the world aright. The verses are wonderful. But a Greek may still pick flowers, no? We live by harvesting, seizing. The apples of the apple tree are hoping to be picked. Nature is overflowing with offerings that are properly, according to their final ends, taken away – especially in the sexual realm. Your dedication to a pagan naturalism offers no real opposition; it offers no reason to think that circumcision is not the most natural thing in the world. This is why I have a problem with Pharmakon's blithe pill-popping and flesh-tearing tendencies. Now, of course, he will say that such things as cancer are as much a part of nature as the healthy functioning of the human body, and we rightly tear out cancer cells. But I suppose that the point is that cancer is opposed to the healthy functioning of the body, whereas the foreskin belongs to it. Here, again, we agree, and we need to stress this, because even together we're in a minority position: We take seriously notions of Formal Cause and Final Cause, or more generally the notion of telos: that to understand what something is, you have to understand how it can be formally identified, and what purpose(s) or project(s) it serves, and those purposes can be identified with the wholeness of the creature, of its health and well-being. And we're not alone in that: a big part of what makes this board unique is its admittance of "pictures" of what BL is that aren't reduced to individual psychology, notions of "sexual identity," and all that crap. We see BL as being "for" something, as having some sort of purpose, however imperfectly realized or understood. Of course there can be no comparison between cancer and a foreskin. I mean, come on. The foreskin is there for who knows how many reasons; it has a biological evolutionary history that segues into the evolution of homo sapiens. But that in no way impinges on the possibility that the anthropological intelligence of homo sapiens might have discovered a sort of key to human masculinity in this bit of flesh, and, therewith, a huge ontological resource in daring to snip off a bit of it. For these reasons, I shall never reconcile myself to the tearing of male genitalia and the uglification of the male body. Such hyperbole! Nothing is being "torn." We have sharp knives. And, again, I don't find it ugly at all: I take it to be it ennobling, cleansing, masculinizing, and sexy. p.s. compare this to female "circumcision," which is a true horror. |