Moral Health

Some wrongs are so obnoxious that it is difficult to grasp how anyone could even conceive of them, let alone commit them.  So-called corrective rape must be countenanced as a wrong of this sort.  Corrective rape is the willful raping of women by a gang in most instances in order to “cure” the women of their lesbianism.  This is taking place in South Africa.  And in the interest of clarity, let me add that what is taking place is the willful raping of black women by black men.  The clarity here precludes any thought that this evil act of curative rape has racist motives.  

And if it were not enough that curative rape is common in South Africa, it turns out that the government of South Africa is turning a blind eye to this horror, issuing the following statement according to one source: “While hate crimes – especially of a sexual nature – are rife, it is not something that the South African government has prioritised as a specific project”.

What we have here is a bastardly mutation of a belief that is common enough, namely that having heterosexual sex will somehow weaken, if not eliminate entirely, a person’s homosexual desire.  To this end, parents have counseled heterosexual sex and individuals have tried heterosexual sex on their own.  Indeed, parents have set up sexual encounters with the hopes that this end would be realized.

Using rape, though, as a supposed means to eliminating homosexual desire is utterly ignominious.  

Yet, there is something that profoundly bothers me in another way; and that is the deafening silence regarding the matter around the world.  There is no sense of public outrage anywhere.  

For instance if one Googles “lesbian rape in South Africa, NYT”, what one gets is a set of remarks under the rubric “Schott’s Vocab” and not a story by the New York Times regarding the matter.  A search in the French newspaper Le Monde does not turn up anything.  Probably, my search was not thorough enough.  But, alas, that is just the point.  The two-part problem is that of women in South Africa being ganged-raped in order to cure them of their lesbian desires and the South African government doing nothing about it.  This is such an abomination that one would think that every major newspaper would report it as a means of bringing public pressure to bear upon the matter.

A Google search turns up quite a few pages on the subject: corrective rape in South Africa.  Yet, this horror does not seem to be a part of the public consciousness.  For instance, if one searches the site “PetitionOnLine”, there is no petition there to stop corrective rape in South Africa.  

Yet, there is a petition at PetitionOnLine to force the American Philosophical Association to protect homosexuals at religious-affiliated institutions:

http://www.petitiononline.com/cmh3866/petition.html

Most religious-affiliated institutions do not privilege or condone homosexuality.  Yet, it is also the case that these institutions clearly do not condone violence against homosexuals.  Quite the contrary, these institutions roundly condemn such a thing.  At any ratee, some 1400 philosophers have signed the petition to protect homosexuals at religious-affiliated institutions, many of them women.  Surely, at least one philosopher knows about the practice of curative rape in South Africa.  Still, the site does not have a petition about the matter.  I shall start a petition on the site within the next week, as I shall need to get the wording right.

There is no feminist outcry as such.  For instance, I cannot not find a statement by NOW (The National Organization for Women) condemning the practice.  How do you suppose that NOW missed this horror?  

Finally, for all the talk about being African-American, I have yet to hear a single black in America make reference to the horror of curative rape routinely occurring in South Africa.  I do not hold that blacks have any more of an obligation than non-blacks to speak about the matter.  Rather, my point is that if individuals are going to make such a fuss about being identified as having African roots, then it stands to reason that these individuals would speak out against a most horrific evil that is routinely being committed against black women.  Otherwise, what the hell is all the fuss about being African-American really about?  

This brings me full circle.  A horrendous wrong is taking place on a regular basis.  It is being ignored by the very government which should be in the business of protecting its citizens.  Given the results of a Google search, this tremendously despicable state of affairs has been made widely known.  Yet, there is nothing remotely resembling a public outcry regarding the matter.  

This is one of the most egregious instances of moral numbness that I have witnessed in my lifetime.  

I have no idea how to make sense of the claim “I am a woman/man trapped in the body of a man/woman”, the case of having both sets of genitals aside.  After all, barring some story about ancestry, we would think it silly (at best) and sad (at worse) if for instance a person were to insist upon being an Asian trapped in a black person’s body. 

I am more than a little distraught over the fact that way too many people—including many philosophers whom I admire—seem more worried about taking seriously individuals who claim to be a woman/man trapped in the body of a man/woman than taking seriously the absolutely despicable horror of curative rape that has become a part of the ugly moral landscape of the nation of South Africa.  

Every now and then, Life presents us with a most majestic moment of moral excellence just as it should be—moral excellence that transcends all those differences which in the end are not definitive of our humanity.  In this instance, William Carroll and Evangeline Harper are the two moral exemplars about which I write.  1968, William Carroll transcended race in one way; and in 2008 Evangeline Harper transcended race in another way. 

1968, William Carroll crawled through a burning apartment that was pitch black with smoke.  He did so in order to find the baby he heard crying.  Given the location of the apartment, namely public housing in the Roxbury section of Boston, the issue of the ethnicity of the infant was already pretty much settled: that baby had to be black. 

And when he found that baby, he gave her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in order sustain her life.  Thus, we have a white man who in effect was breathing life into a black baby. 

Nothing nowadays, no doubt.   But this simple gesture some 40 years ago was anything but insignificant.  In a most rhapsodic way, William Carroll revealed himself to be a man of deep moral principle.  And his behavior reveals what we might call the propinquity of moral principles effect. 

Once one is committed as a non-black to doing whatever it takes to find a black life in a burning building, then if one should find that life it is only reasonable that one would do whatever it takes in order to keep that life alive, including mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.  As a non-black, it would be incongruous beyond measure to risk one’s life in order to save a life that is black and then balk at giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to the black if that is what it takes in order to keep that person alive.

In 1968, William Carroll did what perhaps some white person or the other would not have done. 

Alas, the story has a richness from the other direction.  Evangeline Harper learnt that she owed her very life to the valiant efforts of a that white fire fighter; and she did not rest until she found him in order to express her gratitude to him for saving her life—for doing so at a time in American history when some white or the other might have persisted just little less than Carroll did to rescue the infant whom he knew would be black child. 

Even when we are merely doing our duty, we can do so with a level of rectitude that commands our admiration and gratitude.  Ms. Harper did not lose sight of this truth.  Nor, again, did she allow so-called ethnic pride to be obstacle to her expressing her gratitude. 

Just as whites can bow to peer pressure from other whites and fail to do the right thing, it is no less true that blacks can bow to peer pressure from other blacks and fail to do the right thing.  Regrettably, it is easy nowadays to imagine some blacks arguing “You don’t owe that white man anything given all the wrong that whites have done to black people”.  This, to be sure, is a very silly argument.  In matters of race, however, we find silly arguments on all sides that grow and persist like weeds. 

The just person looks beyond race and not at what most people of her or his race have done or would do.  This is very nicely exemplified in case of putting one’s life on the line in order to save another and going out of one’s way to show gratitude toward another.

As is well-known, moral theory does not require that people risk their lives in order to save the life of a complete stranger.  And while doing such a thing is often key to becoming a hero or, in any case, having honors bestowed upon one, it is next to impossible to make sense of attaining such things as the motivation for putting one’s very life on the line.  After all, the honors and accolades rarely result in a higher standing of living.  Being given the key to the city or badge of honor or a marvelously engraved plaque rarely results in a dramatic change for the better in lifestyle. 

As for gratitude, if the only reason why a person says “Thank You” is because everyone insisted that the person to do, then that utterance of “Thank You” does not really amount to an expression of gratitude.  Gratitude, like love, only works if it comes from the very depths of the soul of person in question.  Indeed, expressions of gratitude done only for public attention are about as satisfying as burnt toast. 

This gives us the moral beauty on both sides of this wonderful moment.  William Carroll did what no one would have criticized him for not doing.  Evangeline Harper did what no one would have criticized her for not doing.  And at its very best, this is what living morally is about, namely doing what is right when not a soul would think to criticize one for not doing so. 

What a different world this would be if only we could count on—not every other person or every 3rd or 4th person so to behave, but merely every 10th person so to behave. 

May the lives of Carroll and Harper stand as an everlasting fount of inspiration of the moral majesty of which human beings are capable if only they should keep their eyes on the moral prize.

Is one a prude, if one objects to full-view breastfeeding in public as opposed to discreet-breastfeeding in public?  With full-view breastfeeding, a woman simply pulls out her breasts and begins to breastfeed the child in her arms.  With discreet breastfeeding, a woman uses a towel to cover that breast that she pulls out in order to breastfeed the child in her arms. 

The State of Rhode Island has just made full-view breastfeeding of an infant in public legal wherever it is now legal for a woman to bottle-feed an infant in public.  So if a woman is sitting on the front row in a church or a mosque or a synagogue and the clergy person is male, said woman is now legally entitled to start full-view breastfeeding her child right before the male clergy, since there is no question but that she could bottle-feed the child while sitting in the front row.

The irony here is that the very legal act that is intended to give breastfeeding the very same standing as bottle-feeding does so only by ignoring the simple reality that there is a fundamental difference between breasts and baby-bottles. 

Unequivocally, breasts are also sex objects; and this is a fact that does not change simply in virtue of the reality that a woman is breast-feeding. 

Of course, any decent man (not married to the woman) will look the other way should a woman pull out her breast in order to feed her child.  And that, interestingly, enough is just the point.  A decent man would look the other way precisely because he would want to avoid the schizophrenia of the situation, namely that of admiring the woman’s breast while she is in the midst of engaging in a motherly function.  The woman’s husband, on the other hand, might very well admire her breast while she is breastfeeding.  And there is a very straightforward way in which his doing so can be just right.  That is the woman whose breasts he caressed and fondled as she and he were engaged in the very act of love-making that gave rise to the very child that she is presently nursing. 

Breasts will never be baby-bottles and baby-bottles will never be breasts.  Whatever equality is about, it cannot be about ignoring this simple truth.  And it will be noticed, by the way, that in the preceding paragraph I said that a decent man would look away.  It is just plain silly to suppose that only a man steep in sexism would need to look away. 

What is very puzzling, alas, is the following obvious question: Why the push for full-view breastfeeding, wherever bottle-feeding is legal, when surely discreet-breastfeeding would have more than sufficed for the purpose in question, namely that of feeding the infant?  In order to realize discreet-breastfeeding, very little is needed.  In a public setting, it would take only a second to come up with something creative, should a woman not have a towel with her.  Thus, we are not talking about a requirement that would constitute some burden.

One thing is very clear, from the fact that something is perfectly natural, what does not follow at all is that discretion is out of order.  When a man sees a woman whom he finds very attractive sexually a spontaneous erection is as natural as anything can be.  Yet, there can be any number of occasions when, rightly so, a man absolutely does not want his ever so natural erection to be noticed. 

The mistake of the new Rhode Island law is the mindset that taking seriously differences between women and men is automatically sexist.  Suppose a male clergy person is subject to spontaneous arousals whenever he is in the presence of women.  Well, it is very clear that such a male would do well to briefs rather boxer shorts during services, for instance.  Since women do not have prominent erections when they are sexually aroused, there is no need for attire that keeps such a thing from being noticed.  So there are times when men have to take precautions but women do not. 

Discreet breastfeeding is a simple way to perform an ever so important act for a child whilst diffusing the issue of sexual attraction that men characteristically and naturally have for female breasts.  Whatever the law might be, surely this is the decent thing for any woman to do. 

As we know, breastfeeding is a perfectly natural act.  So is sex, urinating, and defecating.  What we also know, given just the preceding examples, is that there are many ways to do what is natural and some of those ways are most inappropriate.

No woman should be prevented from breastfeeding in public.  Discreet breastfeeding roundly satisfies this objective without placing a burden upon women and also without ignoring the simple reality that for any psychology healthy straight man naked breasts are wonderful things to behold.  The asymmetry here has nothing to do with sexism but simply with the biological reality. 

There is no point in asking the hypothetical question: But what if discreet breastfeeding were not possible for humans?  For we would have to be very different indeed in order for it to be the case that discreet breastfeeding were not a possibility; and no one knows what other changes would also come about. 

Finally, it is mistake to point to the fact that our concern with full-view breastfeeding is just so much nonsense, since there are no doubt cultures where this is done.  Well, I suspect that those cultures are also quite different in lots and lots of other ways.  In particular, I suspect that the quotidian life of such cultures is not nearly as sexualized as Western culture is.  And that is no trivial difference. 

In a culture that sexualizes everything from eating cereal to using to buying a car to using a cell phone, surely there is context for sexual modesty.  And if breastfeeding one’s child is not such a context, then nothing can be.

23 March 2009

Chancellor Nancy Cantor
Office of the Chancellor
Syracuse University
Syracuse, NY  13244 

Dear Chancellor Cantor:

Diversity is a center piece of your ideal for the university and Syracuse University in particular.  Just so, a reality that must be kept in mind is that diversity admits of many configurations.  After all, there is a very straightforward sense in which the plantations of American Slavery admitted of diversity along various dimensions, from skin color to type of work, with respect to Blacks.  But, of course, that diversity was riveted with the morally obnoxious conception of Blacks as inferior.  What I infer from this is a very simple and poignant truth, namely that what we want is not just diversity, but a certain conception of diversity.  Thus, for the reasons that I shall give in what follows, it has to be a grave mistake to privilege diversity above all else.

Talk of diversity by a university president who does not give pride of place to the importance of intellectual excellence has three very untoward consequences: (1) It enables those who have doubts about the intellectual wherewithal of minorities to continue in their doubt by citing the silence of the university president in this regard.  (2) The failure to do so deprives those minorities plagued with self-doubt owing to the stereotypes of intellectual inferiority, with a deep affirmation of the excellences of which they are capable.  (3) Most problematically, when diversity is dramatically privileged above intellectual excellence, minority people are effectively turned into mere human pegs and are thus dehumanized; for what is made to count most is not the set of excellences that each minority person contributes to the university but merely the fact that each such person is a place-holder in the tapestry of diversity.  Alas, there is far too little distance between that conception of diversity and the racism of yesteryear. 

I beseech you, Chancellor Cantor, not to lose sight of the fact that an unarticulated firmly held belief in the intellectual wherewithal of minorities can never be a substitute for the passionately and publicly espoused conviction that minorities will better society by the intellectual excellences that they bring to it.  Nothing can take the place of affirming vividly the excellences that each and every student brings to the campus; and a conception of diversity that privileges diversity above all else, leaves little if any room for the cultivation and sanctification of those intellectual virtues that enrich our humanity in a way that diversity alone simply cannot do. 

The ideal of sexual equality serves to illustrate this point.  We expect men who believe in sexual equality to praise the intellectual talents of women.  We expect men to express both their admiration and appreciation for the work of women in the field.  This ideal is rightly given expression in the public sphere; and it stands as an ineliminable marker of a man’s commitment to sexual equality.  We correctly expect men to affirm women as moral and intellectual equals—and not merely as creatures to whom men are inclined to give assistance. 

Just as men do not truly take women seriously if men do not acknowledge and affirm the intellectual virtues of women, it is no less true that we cannot take minorities seriously if we do not acknowledge and affirm the intellectual virtues of minorities. 

It may very well be your view, Chancellor Cantor, that intellectual excellence in all its forms is a consequence that necessarily follows in the wake of diversity.  But this is not what you say.  Nor. again, is it in this consequence that you rejoice.  Your silence here is deafening. 

When I look minority students in the face, I would hope that I could remind them of your abiding hope—as evidenced by your remarks here, there, and everywhere—in the intellectual excellences which they can bring to bear upon the university, the society, and the world.  Alas, I cannot do that. 

As you know, one of the defining features of racism against Blacks has been the insistence that Blacks are intellectually bereft.  This is what Thomas Jefferson thought.  This is what Alex de Tocqueville thought.  If you would have me believe that you think no such thing, then what I need to hear from you is not just that diversity is a good thing.  I also need to hear you affirm loudly and clearly the wherewithal of Blacks and other minorities to command respect, and thus your respect, through the intellectual excellences that they exhibit. 

Let me be unmistakably clear.  The issue for me is not whether diversity is a good thing.  Surely, it is.  You have received emails from me that were sent to me by students ranging over a number of ethnic groups.  These emails are an everlasting affirmation in the intellectual firmament of my life.  Thus, I admire your wish to reach across Route 81.  Just so, I am profoundly aware of the fact that it is the intellectual affirmation of these very students which has meant so very much to them.  What is more, what ineluctably follows in the wake of these minority students being recognized for the intellectual excellences that they exhibit is an abiding affirmation of their ethnic identity. 

The Pillar of Excellence letters that I began sending out in 2007 (copies of which have been sent to you each semester) stand as a marvelous illustration of this point.  I have no idea whether Mr. Bloodyfield (not the real name, of course) is Black or Latino.  He and I discussed this matter with amusement; and he did not bother to clarify things, which was just fine with me.  What I do know, however, is that the Pillar of Excellence letter that he received was enormously treasured as a measure of his intellectual contribution to my course.  His mother shared the letter with his high school principle who in turn wrote to me to express his delight in Dangerfield receiving such a letter.  Whether the recipient of a Pillar of Excellence letter has been Arabic or White or Jewish or Black or Native American or Latino or whatever, the significance attached to the intellectual affirmation of these letters continues to surpass anything that I ever expected when I first conceived of the idea. 

No one needs me to clarify her or his ethnic identity.  By contrast, everyone revels in the genuine intellectual affirmation that a professor affords her or him, as my Pillar of Excellence letters make unequivocally clear.  This is why I know in a profoundly experiential way that it is a fundamental mistake to privilege diversity above all us. 

It is my prayer and hope that you will repair matters by giving intellectual excellence the proper and immutable place it should have in your conception of diversity.  In these trying times, there can be little doubt that the underprivileged of all backgrounds are very much in need of help.  All the same, we must not exploit that desperate need by rendering such individuals mere place-holders in the tapestry of diversity.  For that is but a palliative that in end eviscerates the humanity of these individuals whilst allowing Syracuse University to bask in the image of doing good. 

A university is an institution whose raison d’être is that of fostering intellectual excellence.  When the intellectual wherewithal of its primary constituents, namely students, is affirmed and underwritten, then new life will be breathed into the idea of diversity as individuals look across differences and go on to see and take delight in the richness of humanity in each and every person.  When things are as they should be diversity is none other than the majestic attendant of intellectual excellence.  Surely, it is our common humanity that should count more than the differences, which from an evolutionary standpoint, are ever so nugatory.   

Necessarily, then, to privilege diversity above all is, on a number of accounts, to widely miss the mark.  Or so it is if you believe that the fundament lesson to be learnt from a university is surely not that human beings should be treated as mere place-holders in the tapestry of diversity. 

Most respectfully, I am

Sincerely yours,

_______________

Laurence Thomas

When an 11-year old boy, kills his father’s girlfriend that is indeed a cause for concern.  However, the case of Jordan Anthony Brown raises concerns from a number of different fronts.  There is the obvious issue of children being so exposed to violence that they become numb to the very violence that they themselves commit.  This is not the issue that interests me, although there is much to be said about the matter.  In fact, what I want to say is relevant to children becoming numb, but my point comes at the matter from a rather different angle.  The remarks in this blog entry are, with gratitude and appreciation, inspired by Michael T. McFall’s recent book Licensing Parents (Lexington Press, 2008). (more…)

So-called oppressed groups have mastered the art of dismissing criticisms.  They do so simply by calling “the other” who made the criticism an X-ist (racist or homophobe or Islamaphobe or antisemite or sexist, etc.).  So if the Xs in question are women, and “the other” is a man, then the women dismiss whatever he might have to say by calling him sexist.  Now, of course, there are indeed homophobes, and racists, and sexists, and antisemites, and Islamaphobes in the world.  But what is manifestly false is that every criticism made by “an other” against one of these groups is thereby an instance of X-ism.  The trick is to be mindful of the difference between an X-ist, on the one hand, and “an other” who in fact makes a genuine criticism of substance.  A criticism can be important and not X-ist in character even if, in the end, it can be met.  Unfortunately, you would not know that nowadays by the way in which the charge of X-ism is so freely invoked.

For instance, a white who questions the moral and political legitimacy of affirmative action is automatically slammed by blacks as being racist; and it seems not to matter what the white says.  For all that I know the practice may be justified.  Yet, from this it hardly follows that valid questions concerning it cannot be raised.  Indeed, one way to insure that the practice is properly justified is to address valid questions.  And the truth of the matter is that anyone can ask a valid question.  Sometimes, alas, a child unwittingly does so.

It is thus none other than moral arrogance to dismiss a person’s question as valid—as X-ist, even—simply because individual (a) the individual is not a member of the group in question and (b) the individual has raised a searching criticism.

On the other hand, it goes without saying that a non-member of a so-called oppressed group has an obligation to make herself or himself very, very informed about the issues in question.  And when a non-member has done this, then members of the group are morally obligated to acknowledge this, even when they can successfully meet the non-member’s criticisms. (more…)

Sans comprendre un mot de français, la mère de Diogo a passé plus que 4 heures dan la salle, en assistant la soutenance de la thèse de sa fils.

On Friday, 2 December 2005, I had the pleasure of being part of the doctoral defense of Mr. Diogo.  Present in the room was his mother who did not understand a word of French.  For you see, Diogo and his family are Portuguese; but he had pursued his doctorate in France, writing (in French) a masterful thesis on Foucault.  And his mother had traveled to France for the occasion of her son’s doctoral defense.  Mr. Diogo is an only son whose father had passed away.  I do not think that there is anything on the face on the face of this earth, short of death itself, that would have prevented Mrs. Diogo from being present for the occasion.

Though she did not understand a word, one would have thought from her comportment that she was weighing every sentenced that was being uttered.  For a person could not have appeared more attentive than she did.  However, I shall never forget the expression of joy on her face, when the room broke out in applause upon the committee’s announcement that Diogo’s thesis had been passed.  That moment was all the reward that she needed for the 4 hours of conversation that took place in a language that she simply did not understand.  The fact that she could not understand a word was but a mere detail.

There is little doubt in my mind that everyone whom Diogo’s mother knows in Portugal will hear from her lips that he was absolutely brilliant at his doctoral defense.

Poetic license has a special category.  It is called a mother’s love.  I should like, in what follows, to offer some remarks regarding the psychology of a mother’s love.

Suppose we have a mother’s love at its best and a father’s love at its best.  Will we still have a difference between a mother’s love and a father’s love?  And if the answer to that question is affirmative, should we want to dissipate that difference by way of socialization?  I am going to explore the matter indirectly at first, though what I am up to shall certainly be transparent enough.  Yet, there is a rather interesting twist in the argument.

So imagine that Sebastian and Laurena are married.  Laurena decides to make a bookshelf for the living room; and indeed her carpentry skills are such that she produces an absolutely marvelous piece of work.  Sebastian loves it; and whenever anyone compliments him on the bookshelf, as is often the case, he proudly points out that his wife, Laurena, made it for the living room.

Now, as it happens Laurena loves the bookshelf, too.  It is without a doubt her best piece of carpentry work.  So in view of the fact that they have both love the work equally, as it turns out, do they both have exactly the same relationship to the bookshelf?  Well, surely there is a pride that comes with having built the bookshelf that only Laurena can have, however true it may be that Sebasian loves it as much as Laurena does.  And if she did not feel that pride we would find that odd.  This would strike us as indicative of some sort of psychological disassociation.

Moving on: suppose that someone were to damage the bookshelf beyond repair.  Clearly, both would be hurt, as they both have lost something that they adored.  But would they be hurt in exactly the same way?  I do not think so.

Notwithstanding the fact that both loved the bookshelf equally nothing will change the fact that Laurena made it.  From this simple truth it will inexorably follow that she experiences a loss over the irreparably damaged bookshelf that Sebastian cannot possibly experience; though, to be sure, we would not expect Laurena to throw this truth in her husband’s face.

Suppose, however, that Laurena did not feel a special loss over the bookshelf having been irreparably damaged.  Surely that would surprise us.  We would wonder how anyone could put so much time into building something so beautiful and not feel a special pain over its destruction.  This, too, would strike most of us as a kind of psychological disassociation.

Finally, I cannot imagine anyone thinking that we should want to correct for this.

The parallel to parenting, among human beings and, in particular, the difference between a mother and a father to which I am alluding is too obvious for words.  Of course, a mother does not make a child in the way that a carpenter makes a piece of woodwork.  But this difference does not undercut the parallel; for during pregnancy, a mother’s relationship to her child has no equal in the life of her husband or, at any rate, the child’s father.  For those who do not see the parallel, there is not much that I should like to say here, which brings me to the twist in the argument.

Recall the point about psychological disassociation when a person fails to take any pride in a magnificent piece of work that she or he has produced or fails to feel a sense of pain when that work has been irreparably damaged.  How much more so, then, would this be true if a woman did not feel a special bond to the child that she carried and gave birth to?  And while we could through socialization no doubt rid women of this sort of feeling, the question that immediately arises is whether or not this would be a good thing from the standpoint of a woman’s psychological health.

It is a fact about the world that men have abandoned their children.  This is, of course, is utterly inexcusable.  It may be thought creating a social environment in which women behave increasingly like men in this regard constitutes social progress.  The point to which I am drawing attention is that this may be social progress that comes with a hefty price, namely the psychological well-being of women.

This question is a poignant one even if, as some of the graduate students who served as my teaching assistant hold, the fetus is of nugatory value at the outset.  For the fetus certainly does not remain that way; and it is owing to this being’s development in a woman’s body that this transformation to human status, on the view of graduate students in question, comes about.   And the force of the question that I have raised is consistent with Robert L. Trivers’ seminal and much discussed essay “Parental Investment and Sexual Selection” that first appeared in Readings in Sociobiology, edited by T. H. Clutton-Brock and Paul H. Harvey (University of California Press, 1972).

Mrs. Diogo, of course, is utterly indifferent to Trivers’ eloquent theory.  But surely the following is true: when one has put one’s life on the line to bring a person into the world, sitting four hours in a room in order to witness that person’s success is nothing at all even if one is not able to understand a single word.  For in the great scheme of things the actual words were but a detail.

_____     _____     ______

Madame Diogo, je veux que vous sachiez que mon âme a été élevée par votre présence dans la salle.  En étant là pour votre fils, vous étiez là pour nous aussi.  Voire, par votre présence, Madame Diogo, vous étiez une exemplification parfaite de l’amour d’une mère.