> In fact, she thinks this Cartesian move is born from the philosophical ‘adolescence’ that Descartes never grew up from.
Ouch. It hurts. I'm a terminally unmarried man, and probably a "philosophical adolescent" as she puts it: I see a family as a bad thing for health, all these people at my home, or all these obligations to visit relatives who I do not know really and do not care of. And probably because of this I cannot understand what is she talking about. For example, she talks about Descartes wondering do other people exist:
> Now I rather think that nobody who was playing a normal active part among other human beings could regard them like this. But what I am quite sure of is that for anybody living intimately with them as a genuine member of a family … their consciousness would be every bit as certain as his own.
Probably they would be be certain, but why does it matter what they are certain of? They can be mistaken. All these relatives always want something from you, or idk like my parents have a great hopes for my life, which I cannot fulfill and I wouldn't even try, but still they will make me feel guilty about it. Of course in such an environment you cannot think straight, and you have no time to think about some abstract things, you'd prefer practical solution to ignore a question from which follows no practical implications. It is even a rational thing to do, but it doesn't make them right automatically.
So, it seems, that being an unmarried man I'm not qualified enough to understand what is this about. Yeah, it hurts. Luckily she wrote a book about it, probably the book will have a clearer message.
Cutting ties with my family and letting in only people I want in my life was the best mental health decision I ever did (forced by events, I don't get any bravery points)
Of course plenty of caveats apply, but mostly I have sufficiently good social skills, no handicaps and I am able to provide for myself or : I don't need a the family safety net.
I really like the friend relationships I maintain now and I am also happy that what is asked of me is only basic human decency (a standard that is curiously applied to strangers but not always to relatives and parters...).
Also I feel able to be much more generous towards others since little is expected of me. Thus I try to model intimate relationships on the basis of friendship as much as my partner emotional needs and cultural norms allow for.
Intimate and beautiful relationships are possible outside of marriage. I am not looking forward gettging married nor starting a family. Getting to spend time by myself is amazing too.
It’s not about deepness of relationships. E.g. raising kids is pretty intense experience. Procreation being one of the main functions of life, people missing such core experiences tend to have a blind spot.
My interpretation was that adolescent refers to the maturity with respect to life experiences.
The set of life experiences that a bachelor can experience is smaller than the set of life experiences that a married man with children can experience.
I don't think this is a particularly offensive thing to say, but instead, given that she's from a group whose voice has been historically subdued, I think it's a witty reparatee to refer to that philosophy as "adolescent". I don't think she's calling bachelors adolescent, but for the word of a bachelor with most likely more limited life experience, I do think it's fair to call out that it perhaps isn't the most rounded point of view.
Ouch. It hurts. I'm a terminally unmarried man, and probably a "philosophical adolescent" as she puts it: I see a family as a bad thing for health, all these people at my home, or all these obligations to visit relatives who I do not know really and do not care of. And probably because of this I cannot understand what is she talking about. For example, she talks about Descartes wondering do other people exist:
> Now I rather think that nobody who was playing a normal active part among other human beings could regard them like this. But what I am quite sure of is that for anybody living intimately with them as a genuine member of a family … their consciousness would be every bit as certain as his own.
Probably they would be be certain, but why does it matter what they are certain of? They can be mistaken. All these relatives always want something from you, or idk like my parents have a great hopes for my life, which I cannot fulfill and I wouldn't even try, but still they will make me feel guilty about it. Of course in such an environment you cannot think straight, and you have no time to think about some abstract things, you'd prefer practical solution to ignore a question from which follows no practical implications. It is even a rational thing to do, but it doesn't make them right automatically.
So, it seems, that being an unmarried man I'm not qualified enough to understand what is this about. Yeah, it hurts. Luckily she wrote a book about it, probably the book will have a clearer message.