Body Ownership, Self Consciousness, and Personal Bodily Identity

Abstract

A sense of bodily cohesion is necessary for understanding the phenomenological experience of self. There exists a physical boundary between perceiver and perceived. Yet the body does more than simply demarcate the self; the body and its relationships are influential on the phenomenological experience. Without an understanding of the body’s role in the phenomenological experience, the body becomes reduced to a “highly polished machine which the ambiguous notion of behavior nearly made us forget”. But scientific research points to the importance of behavior when conceptualizing the body as a whole. This paper will examine a scientific study conducted by Tsakiris, Mooney, and Prabhu in 2005 that focuses on how active and passive experience impacts bodily self-consciousness. The study finds that a motor sense of agency, as discovered through active movement, generates a stronger sense of bodily agency than proprioception. These results will then be cross-examined against two philosophical positions regarding the phenomenology of bodily experiences, bodily awareness, and self-consciousness.

RHI and body-ownership in psychology 

The typical Rubber Hand Illusion is an illusion that occurs when a participant in an experiment begins to identify with a rubber hand that is a part of the experiment. Both the rubber hand and the participant's natural hand experience the same sensations at the same time but only the rubber hand is visible. Participants find themselves identifying with the rubber hand, believing it to be part of their own body whereas their natural hand no longer exists. Botvinick and Cohen initially performed this experiment in 1998.

Tsakiris’s 2005 experiment specifically looks into body ownership. A sense of body ownership is present involuntary actions and passive experiences. This is a specific investigation into the strength and contribution of active and passive movement that create a sense of bodily agency. Participants in the study sat at a table where their right hand was visible from view. A fixed camera captured a video of the participant's hand and displayed this back to them through a projection. Before each condition participants were asked to identify the location of their right hand using a ruler projected ruler. After the condition was run, participants were once again asked to identify the location of their right hand. A significant proprioceptive drift would imply that the RHI was in effect and the participants would identify a sense of agency with the video image of the hand. There were several conditions applied during the experiment. Either the index or little finger was stimulated. The digit then experienced a tactile movement in the form of being stroked by a paintbrush, or it experienced an active movement where the participant was instructed to tap their finger in no particular pattern. 

The results provide a significant difference between synchronous and asynchronous stimulation. The synchronous and tactile stimulation provided a great amount of proprioceptive drift out of all three conditions. There was also a noticeable difference between the active and passive conditions. The RHI effect was present in all three conditions, however, it was inconsistent. The overall discussion and conclusion of Tsakiris’s experiment showcase that action produces a bodily coherence that passive movement can not. The RHI effect measured the strength the participants began to identify with the visual image of their hand. Participants attributed body ownership to the image of their hand when there was a synchronous tactile simulation. Movement, therefore, plays an important role in body awareness.  

Bodily Awareness and Self-Consciousness

Embodied phenomenology stresses the importance of the body for intentionality and meaning-giving acts. Indeed, Maurice Merleau-Ponty was one the first phenomenologists to turn to the body for intentionality. Bermúdez attempts to draw a connection between bodily awareness and self-consciousness. His thesis proposes that the bodily awareness that emerges from embodies phenomenology is implicative of self-awareness and subsequently self-consciousness. It is only through first-person awareness of bodily ownership that this conclusion can be reached. 

The body, by nature of its ability to receive sensory signals, is a sensory object. However, while it is perceiving, it is also continuously being perceived. The body remains to be a physical object and it can be perceived in the same way any other physical object can be perceived, that is through touch, smell, taste, sound, and sight. This can be classified as a conscious perception of the body. Bermúdez goes into detail regarding unconscious and conscious bodily awareness. The most obvious unconscious awareness of the body would be proprioception. There is an inherent spatial awareness that the body carries of itself. There is a kinesthetic ability to judge the placement, weight, and motion of the body as the body is currently experiencing it. Conscious awareness is typically absent in the distribution of limbs and their motion. However, body image is an example of conscious and first-person body-relative information. Body image closely parallels the phenomenological experience of the body. The subject attributes meaning to their own body and is acutely aware of how they are experiencing that body. Shaun Gallagher in The Embodied Phenomenology of phenomenology describes the effect bodily states have on the phenomenological experience. Consciousness of bodily states is not necessary for their involvement in the experience. Gallagher specifically references negative bodily states and their ability to change dispositions and subsequently perception. Similarly, full awareness of the body is not necessary to develop body image. There is a semantic component of this body relative information through the naming of body parts. Yet there are bodily functions and body parts that go without semantic information that still hold value in the overall concept of body image.

Discussion

Bermúdez brings up body consciousness as something that is phenomenologically salient. He builds upon Gallagher’s inflationary conception of body ownership. There is knowledge of body ownership embedded in the experience itself. A phenomenologically salient version of body ownership allows for a clear explanation between first person and third person experiences of the body. Indeed, Bermúdez’s taxonomy of body relative information necessitates the body to be claimed; there must be the property of myness to create a first-person and third-person distinction. However, Tsakiris’s experiment undermines this notion of saliency. Body ownership comes under attack when synchronous and tactile stimulation is applied to the body. It is clear from Tsakiris that movement is an important determinant in body ownership. But if self-consciousness is meant to be derived from body ownership, then the subject's ability to detach from the natural body through synchronous tactile stimulation provides complications. 

Any discussion surrounding body ownership as phenomenologically salient has serious ethical and legislative effects. Body ownership can play an important role in the conversation surrounding body integrity identity disorder. This is a disorder where an able-bodied individual feels overcomplete with their limbs and desires the removal of one or more limbs. There is minimal research surrounding this disorder. But the current research classifies identity as the primary reason the individual desire an amputation. Bodily awareness and ownership, if phenomenologically salient, would necessitate physical cosmetic surgery for the physical body to parallel the phenomenological. There is much debate surrounding the moral obligations cosmetic surgeons have to uphold the request of individuals who desire such a proceeder. Regardless, this particular instance aids the claim that body ownership is actualized through movement that corresponds with the phenomenological body. 

Bibliography

Bermúdez, José. “Bodily Awareness and Self Consciousness.” Essay. In The Oxford Handbook of the Self, 158–79, 2011. 

Botvinick, M., and J. D. Cohen. "Rubber hand ‘feels’ what eyes can see." Nature 391, no. 756 (1998): 10-1038.

Gallagher, Shaun, and Benjamin Aguda. “The Embodied Phenomenology of Phenomenology.” University of Memphis, 2016. 

Moran, Dermot, and Timothy Mooney. The Phenomenology Reader. Routledge, 2010. 

Preester, Helena De. “Merleau-Ponty’s Sexual Schema and the Sexual Component of Body Integrity Identity Disorder,” 2011. 

Tsakiris, Manos, Patrick Haggard, and Gita Prabhu. “Having a Body versus Moving Your Body: How Agency Structures Body-Ownership.” Elsevier Inc, 2005. 

Embodied Phenomenology: The Sexual Body and The Formation of Identity

Identity is inseparable from the body. Indeed, in many ways, the body determines an individual's action and subsequent identity. And while meaning within human existence is not entirely dependent on the body, the body serves as a lighthouse for which meaning is created from the dark sea of physical and personal context. The lived-body can be used to create a schema of importance, crafting various levels of meaning that form the identity of an individual. It can then be said that the meaning one attributes to the lived-body is dependent on the actions the lived-body engages in. Sexuality allows for the creation of an intentional and objective self that differs from the lived-bodies it engages with. 

Sexuality has an existential significance as it implies existence. Moreover, sexuality is an expression of the relationship between mind and body. The vessel of the body can not engage in a communicative activity without the ability to interpret communicative symbols. Sensual acts carry a special importance with them due this duality. It is not only the action between two bodies, but the relationship between two points of intentionality. The affordances of another and the affordances of self are simultaneously considered. Maurice Merleau-Ponty describes the existential significance of sexuality in Phenomenology of Perception. It should be noted that Merleau-Ponty breaks from positions within psychology that reduce sexuality to an instinctual level. It is precisely the intentionality of sexuality that allows for meaning. Subsequently, this meaning is necessary to the creation of personal identity within the human experience. 

Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s embodied phenomenology directs the question of meaning to lay directly in the human experience. Merleau-Ponty provides a phenomenological account of the body that many thinkers before him, including Heidegger, had failed to do. While maintaining that consciousness is not a priori, Merleau-Ponty sought to discover how intentionality arises from the body. 

The body can be understood to be the experiencer of the world. It is the object that understands phenomenon subjectively. The body itself is not something that is ever observed on an objective level. According to Merleau-Ponty, the body can not be removed from meaning-giving acts. Thinking objectively of the body reduces it to a “highly polished machine which the ambiguous notion of behavior nearly made us forget”. Perception arises from the body. One can not gain access to an object without the perception that must come through the body. Indeed, it is impossible to “acquire detached knowledge” of stimuli and other objects. Perception is the combination of different modalities. All of these modalities necessitate the body to actualize whether this be the motoric or perceptual. 

Many thinkers have reduced sexuality to instinct, as if it is simply a necessary reflex of the body to maintain livelihood. Freudian psychology characterizes sexual desire as libido and lessens sexuality to an instinctual level that control human behavior. This is not the case. There can be no unintentional reflexes. The body at its adult state has organized its actions to be dependent on context and ability. Merleau-Ponty describes “reflexes themselves are never blind processes: they adjust themselves to direction”. Thus sexuality can not be minimized to an action of pure human physiology. The context dependency of sexuality requires consciousness; the lived-body is not simply responding to specific stimuli within a specific location. Rather, the lived-body is actively engaged in sexual activity and is communicative through movement. The communication presupposed verbal language and requires another to receive communicative acts. It is in this convergent space of multiple bodies, that the separation of lived-bodies is created. 

Touching is automatically communicative. The touch between humans implies the existence of one while simultaneously creating a relationship between the two. Touch can convey dispositions that exemplify or define this relationship and thus touch is an expression that carries a wealth of meaning. Moreover, the same act of physical touch can be implicative of different dispositions depending on the context. The motility of the lived-body allows for different interactions with others, a conversation between bodies that allows for individual agency to be realized. It is only within the sexual context, can a sexual identity, one the is unique to the individual, be built. Merlea-Ponty holds sexuality and gender to be at the core of human beings. This is not the case. Rather sexuality and sexual acts are one component of body schema. The body serves as a realm of possibilities, serval of those being illuminated by the acknowledgment of the sexual identity of one’s self. 

Anne Carson states that “the self forms at the edge of desire” and indeed a sense of self is inevitably extracted from sexual encounters as they necessitate desire. While Carson is addressing desire and eros more broadly as a mental phenomenon, the relationship between desire and the body. Merleau-Ponty points to the significance of body language and its use as communication in sexuality. Moreover, desire derived from the affordances of both the lived-body and the bodies of sexual partners. Thus it is due to the body’s role in sexuality that desire and subsequently self can be formed. The subjective self extracted from the sexual experience exists in the context of lived-bodies. 

Bibliography

Carson, Anne. Eros the Bittersweet. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 

1986. 

Moran, Dermot, and Timothy Mooney. The Phenomenology Reader. Routledge, 2010. 

A Defense of Eros As A Natural and Necessary Desire

Desires are attributed as the strongest motivators for human action. Indeed, these desires can range from that of the social positive to the natural negative. However few things are necessary for a robust and fulfilling life, or perhaps a life without pain will suffice. Typical Epicurean thought categorizes desires by their level of necessity and their fulfillment, that is to say, whether they are natural or empty. Many questions could be asked inquiring into the true meaning of empty, for if the Epicureans hold a reductionist view, then there should be nothing as truly empty. But there seem to be differences drawn between the elements of the world and human desire. Friendship can be thought of as one of the most crucial elements of happiness. It is the only socially positive desire that the Epicureans define as natural and necessary. 

But a deeper investigation is required of friendship. Specifically, Epicureans makes a clear distinction between eros and friendship. The former is categorized as a natural desire, but unnecessary. It is necessary to consider the differences and similarities between friendship and eros to understand a paradox present in this categorization of needs. 
Hedonism directs an individual to pursue pleasure and avoid sources of pain. But there are desires that create pleasure that can not be fulfilled just the same as the fear of death will never be diminished. Epicurean thought holds that neither is truly attainable because they fail to exist at the same time as happiness does. When thinking of death, it will never be relevant as long as one has their own existence. And existence will not be relevant after one has died. This is an understandable conclusion as the two exist contradictions when holding a reductionist point of view. However, this line of thinking can not be carried into the consideration of some desires. Eros will always have the potential to exist as it necessarily requires the existence of an individual. This desire can be satisfied, but it is the nature of its fulfillment that remains. 

Eros has been described to be tyrannical for its defining feature, the effect it has on the individual it occupies. Indeed, there are countless descriptions in classical Greek literature that ascribe madness, obsession, and pain to eros. Epicurus is known to have described eros as a sort of madness that occurs as a result of an intense desire for sex accompanies by anguish. Subsequently, there is the advocacy against marriage and having children. 

But despite the woes, eros is so compelling on the heart it drives human motivation. This, of course, is most famously seen in the compelling speeches within Plato’s Symposium. Socrates recollection of a conversation with Diotima frames eros as a thing of the divine and almost entirely good, 

“Then love,' she said, 'may be described generally as the love of the everlasting possession of the good?' 'That is most true.'” . 

Prior to Epicurean thought, eros is held as divine and necessary. Of course the Platonic view on eros shifts between the Symposium and the Republic, but its presence remains lofty. Sappho recognizes goodness and describes eros to be bittersweet. The passionate love that both the gods and human experience is multifaceted. There are speeches dedicated to its existence and emotional havoc because as a feeling, it can not be consolidated in any way without taking from its complexity. This complexity appears sequentially; there is the sweetness and pleasure from love followed by its problematic half. It is this ordering of possibilities that defers reason from its pleasures. The madness and tyranny that are commonly attributed to eros imply that the source of its pains is a matter of control. The subject and object of this control must be further explored as well as additional questions surrounding the implication of being controlled and being in control. It can be the case that the individual in love is under the control of desire, but that individual still has autonomy. They maintain control of themselves however blinded by a desire just as they seek, or have, control over the subject of their desire. Eros appears now as an ongoing strain for control over oneself and another. But this strain is one where it appears there will be no winner, for any individual will always have control over themselves. If both parties are equally pulling for control over themselves, there can be no movement of control between the two. The strain of desire then is maintaining oneself and while this strain is painful, it results in no loss. It is therefore not reasonable to proclaim eros as that which pain triumphs pleasure. It is not a purely neutral experience but it does not result in loss. 

The necessary and natural social desire that will lead to happiness is friendship. But this friendship needs to be investigated Friendship is not necessary because of the pleasure it provides, but rather it is necessary because reasoning proves that pleasure is maximized through friendship. This does require a consenting acknowledgment that the pleasure from the relationship outweighs whatever pains may accompany it. But any agreement can be broken unilaterally. There will forever be a risk involved in any social agreement and friendship is no exception. Ceirco states that since the desire of friendship exists not through nature but through reason, then the first law of any friendship should be an agreement to only act virtuously towards each other. 

Even if friendship maximizes an individual's social pleasure, it does not guarantee that there will be an absence of pain in the future. Even if there is a mutual agreement to only act virtuously in accordance with each other, there is no regard for the conduct towards others. If one’s friend is to have been involved in a crime, then the friend, by nature of the virtues required in friendship, must necessarily defend the guilty or at least assist in a way that will benefit them. If the individual chooses not to, then they lack trust which is the opposite of friendship Surely this will cause the individual pain that potentially trumps the pleasure of friendship. At this point, the individual must make a cost-benefit analysis where the cost of the friendship will perhaps be too grand of a pain to maintain. Friendship in this instance is no longer a necessary desire as it very well could produce pains grander than a life without friendship. 

With all that has been stated above, the argument supporting the exclusion of eros as a necessary desire is weakened. Of course, the desire for sex can be framed as an empty desire similar to that of the desire of fame and money, but all desires in excess bring pain and lack fulfillment. If Ceirco’s law of friendship requiring a mutual agreement to act virtuously is necessary for friendship, then the same agreement should be made between an individual and the one they desire. In both instances, there is the active participation of the involved parties giving all that they can at that moment, their word. Reason directs towards friendship, but reason can not deter from eros. Indeed, there is a calculated risk that must be made as there can be no pleasure derived from eros without pain. But the guarantee of the combination of the two leads to the possibility that the pain endured and the pleasure felt are balanced. If this is the case, then it is not more justifiable to deny eros than it is to pursue it. 

References

Carson, Anne. 2014. Eros the Bittersweet: An Essay. N.p.: Princeton University Press.

J. M. Rist, Epicurus on Friendship (Cambridge, 1972), pp. 127-39. n.d.

Konstan, David. 2005. “Epicurus (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epicurus/#EpicLife.

McNeill, David N. “Human Discourse, Eros, and Madness in Plato’s ‘Republic.’” The Review of Metaphysics 55, no. 2 (2001): 235–68. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20131707. n.d.

Melchert, Norman, and David R. Morrow. 2018. The Great Conversation: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy. N.p.: Oxford University Press.

Plato. 385 BC. Symposium. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1600/1600-h/1600-h.htm#link2H_4_0002.

A Cross Examination of the Fallibility of the Humane God

There is a conceptualization of God that exists outside of the individual. As is the definition given to god is developed historically, there exists a requirement that the object of spirituality and the individual exist separately. When they are to be considered comparatively, of course, there can be no congruence between the two especially when their characteristic of existence is brought into evaluation. The relationship between the diety and the affirming individual must be called into question to understand the role the individual plays in the development of the diety. 

For this paper, the term humane god will be used to describe a concept of god that contains morally valued humanistic attributes related to goodness. The humane god carries varying degrees of kindness, forgiveness, and humility. Indeed, this is a god of flaws as it is meant to reflect the flaws and attributes of the beings that create said diety. The acquisition of these attributes, both flaws, and strengths, is based on different logical arguments which will be analyzed. The development of the humane god will be defined in conjunction with an assertion that the benevolent god is also deeply flawed and not an ultimate conscious being of power. The two can not exist simultaneously. The philosophies of Feuerbach, Hegel, and Nietzsche in relationship to the moral character of god will be examined to critique the humane god. Materialistic religion, master-slave dialectic, and morality will be brought into the discussion to criticize the proof behind the defense of a humane god. 

A great malady to human spirituality is individualism. Indeed, each individual exists separately from one another as the object that it is. But from this existence, there is the tendency to assume that the essence of the individual is contained within existence and existence only. The two rather exist separately and are not contingent on each other. Indeed, the essence is best displayed and comprehensible through existence. But essence does not necessitate its existence to still be the essence. The existence of particle qualities and values of god are not reflective of god’s essence by their nature of existence. 

Feuerbach begins his argument in Essence of Christianity by drawing attention to the difference between the religious in comparison to the nonreligious. While not all humans are religious practicing, humans as a species carry the capacity to practice religion and hold spiritual claims. What separates the two is the presence of a species consciousness which can be obtained and practiced through the internal dialogue of an individual that centers on their essence. Here the object of existence must confront its essence to obtain species consciousness. Yet to put oneself as the object of contemplation requires the confrontation of one's cognitive limitations. These limitations that are discovered through this act of self-reflexivity are often misunderstood to be common to the species. Of course, species consciousness is what is necessary for religious capacity, but the limitations of one's conscious ability are specific to the individual as opposed to the species. The consciousness of one's limitations must have existed, and as stated earlier that existence does not directly reflect on essence as they are two separate things entirely. The mistake that is made in the act of self-reflexivity is misattributing these limitations to the essence of the species. 

The consciousness of existence is then turned on the object of spirituality, god. The limitations of the individual's capacity to reach a species consciousness are then attributed to god. The priority of existence over essence necessitates that god must too hold the limitations of the individual. While the individual recognizes their limitations, by applying them to god they are simultaneously categorizing these attributes as both of spiritual superiority and humanistic shortcomings. Benevolence as a barrier to consciousness is turned onto god. The individual has thus idolized a specific description of human morality that is also claimed as a hindrance. 

Feuerbach’s argument rests on premises that are based on objective analysis of religion as opposed to any assertion of a priori premise. This is the sentiment expressed in the preface to the second edition of The Essence of Christianity. Feuerbach avoids establishing any sort of premise by categorizing his own as de facto based on the historical and philosophical facts of religion. And while a foundation of historical facts is as close to objective as one can get, there exists a history outside of Feuerbach’s knowledge. One must be aware of the accuracy of the history they hold before asserting it as a foundational premise. Even drawing on the personal history of a single individual, there still exists object historical elements that are often left from the consciousness simply due to their distance. Thus historical premises can be held but must be done so with the knowledge that they require their acknowledgment of subject and object experience. The spiritual object takes precedent over the thought; the former being a catalyst. The material world is then crafted as a determinate for what exists in our minds. Idealism requires thought as a prerequisite to the object; therefore truth and reason are founded in thoughts outside of the immediate objects in existence. Feuerbach is very clearly breaking away from this idealist presupposition by placing importance on objects themselves. Though as the conclusions Feuerbach draws are developed, it is important to consider that historical evidence does not exist without ideas in itself. Indeed, history will continue to move and evolve as a reflection of the human consciousness and the corresponding argument can not be easily refuted, but history is molded from the ideas in existence before the actions that compose it. The historical premises that Feuerbach draws on are objects to the thinker solely because he is many steps removed. 

The creation of a benevolent god rests on the moral assignment of individuals. Benevolence includes kindness, compassion, the ability to forgive, humility, general recognition of limitations, and personal capacity. Neitzche holds all of these traits to be representative of slave morality. The existence of societal structure necessitates a struggle for power of power between slave and master and with this comes the creation of separate moral identities. 

Nietzche also claims that the development of slave morality requires the active refute of those with master morality. By assigning god slave morality, the identity of the entity containing the

The dialectic between slave and master is crucial to understanding the translation to morality. The interaction between varying levels of self-consciousness is a requirement of Hegel's dialectic. An element of this dialectic is framed as a zero-sum game in regards to one's existence. Of course, the construction of master and/ or slave necessitates limited power. If this were not the case, there would be no struggle between the two and thus eliminating the dynamic. The application of slave morality, or the categorization of such, applied to god requires a necessary struggle of a master. The power distribution of consciousness is called into question when it relates to identifying the holder of master morality. The existence of a humane god implies the attribution of elements of slave morality. 

If the humane God has these attributes, then it is necessary that they were assigned by the master consciousness. When referencing Feuerbach’s assertation of the individual assigned their flaws to god, it can then be understood that the master in this dialectic is the individual themselves. The humane god’s existence is contingent on the distance the individual creates between themselves and the value of benevolence. Individuals prioritize master morality for themselves while simultaneously acknowledging that they are incapable of achieving these moral elements. 

Feuerbach has demonstrated that God’s creation is dependent on the individual's recognition of their flaws, one of which is the inability to acknowledge flaws within themselves. The religious individual contains a species consciousness but fails to identify their reliance on existence as a premise for proof. Due to this, the individual assigns god benevolent features creating a humane god that contains the same flaws as the individual. These flaws are reflective of slave morality which is a direct result of a struggle against those who contain master morality. The humane god is now categorized as the slave within the struggle of morality, necessitating that the individual is the master. When considering Hegel’s slave master dialectic, the power struggle of consciousness is seen between the individual and god. Since god has been assigned, by the individual, attributes of slave morality, then the individual is the holder of the master's self-consciousness. By framing the flaws of the individual's existence, not of the species’ essence, the humane god has become the slave to the individual. This power struggle is of course forever ongoing, but the created dynamic posits the humane god as fallible in the perpetual confrontation of consciousnesses despite the now relic thought of the humane god being a superior conscious being. 

Bibliography 

Berg, Henk de, and Duncan Large, eds. “Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–72).” In Modern German Thought from Kant to Habermas: An Annotated German-Language Reader, NED-New edition., 81–96. Boydell & Brewer, 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt6wp91n.7.

Smith , Simon. “Beyond Realism: Seeking a Divine Other.” Vernon Press , 2017. 

Feuerbach, Ludwig. 1957. The essence of Christianity. New York: F. Ungar Pub. Co.

Harvey, Van Austin. Feuerbach and the Interpretation of Religion. Cambridge Studies in Religion and Critical Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.uno.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=54509&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, Arnold V. Miller, and J. N. Findlay. 1977. Phenomenology of spirit. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1998. Beyond Good and Evil. Dover Thrift Editions. New York, NY: Dover Publications.

Smith , Simon. “Beyond Realism: Seeking a Divine Other.” Vernon Press , 2017. 

Witchcraft to Myth; Crafting a Language That Allows For Liberation

When female spirituality is not presented by white men of class privilege, the readers can empathize with the women who typically would be presented as witches, harmful beings. Rather, the transition between prosecuted witchcraft and the witch-myth is telling of shift that still breeds a proposed paradigm of women’s expectations within society. Myths change with cultural context, however, when feminine spirituality is presented as a myth it is often a portrayal of how women are not meant to behave. Unconquered Spirits written by Josephina Lopez is a pioneering text in its craft and transformation of a myth originally meant to confine femininity and motherhood in the context of religious colonization. Lopez has allowed the La Llorona myth to be one of comfort, an act of aid to women fighting for freedoms under a different type of oppression.  In the contemporary era of understanding the importance of feminism, literature, and the power of myth-making, it is crucial to consider the ways myths that previously upheld patriarchal ideas of gender, can be pivoted into a source of empowerment. Myth will always matter on a global and domestic scale, however, those who tell the story have the ability to create a substantial liberating impact. 

A vast array of myths and literature exists to tell the story of witches present before a proper understanding of propaganda and its relationship to fear and gender could be articulated. Importantly, these stories are written from the perspective of highly educated men, those who existed in a world of privilege that allowed them to create a story showcasing the potential harm of powerful women. In her essay, “The Thieves of Language: Women Poets and Revisionist Mythmaking”, Ostriker argues that a specific language has been applied to create myths, this is a language that has been dominated and crafted by men, leaving a sort of female rhetoric absent from the literature of Greek and Roman times. In part, this language does not acknowledge the active ways women are involved in everyday life, nor does it attribute their importance and significance in the creation of these myths.  This language has power and has shaped stories as it has “been an encoding of male privilege, what Adrienne Rich calls an "oppressor's language" inadequate to describe or express women's experience, a "Law of the Father" which transforms the daughter to "the invisible women in the asylum corridor" or "the silent woman" without access to the authoritative expression we must also have it in our power to "seize speech" and make it say what we mean” (Ostriker, 69). Furthermore, the existence of this language has inherently created a binary in which women can exist in myth, either as a destructive force through their lack of upheaval to feminine expectations, or a nurturer that is the shining example of classic femininity. “At first thought, mythology seems an inhospitable terrain for a woman writer. There we find the conquering gods and heroes, the deities of pure thought and spirituality so superior to Mother Nature; there we find the sexually wicked Venus, Circe, Pandora, Helen, Medea, Eve, and the virtuously passive Iphigenia, Alcestis, Mary, Cinderella. It is thanks to myth we believe that women must be either "angel" or "monster” (Ostriker, 69). Ostriker goes on to argue that women poets in the modern Romanticism age are mythmakers who have used a different language than the oppressor’s language, through disguised rebellion as obedience. It is important to note that Unconquered Spirits written by Josephina Lopez does not use this language, it is active and fierce in its presentation of systematic violence. Lopez does not “seize speech” but commands it through metaphorical characters and an interwoven experience that showcases Chicano femininity.

The shifting negotiation of motherhood and the expectation of mothers is a battleground nestled on feminine bodies when comparing literature written by men and women, white women, and women of color. The La Llorona myth directly tackles the concept of motherly expectations. The extreme taboo surrounding infanticide is created because there is an expectation that mothers must endure the pain surrounding the freedom of female sexuality. “The ideology of motherhood, specifically in its reference to matriarchal roots, reduces a woman to her biological functions. Compared to the full range of powers which women actually held in matristic times at the beginning of agrarian societies, only the ability to bear children survives in such projections of motherhood in the highly industrialized society of the 20th century - as if this reduction did not, in fact, correspond to an older misogynist ideology of femininity”, implements the social idea that culturally, it is most significant to view women in regards to their status as a mother (Bovenschen, 89). Unconquered Spirits can also be analyzed through a psychological lens that has been applied to many myths and their relationship to archetypes, specifically following Jungian psychology. In “Women Who Run With the Wolves” Estes examined the wild woman archetype and the ways this analysis can provide translated insight from folklore and myth into tangible and applicable thinking processes. When considering how “women’s culture may have evolved into more conscious reasoning about the role of mothers”, there will always remain to be “the internal mother will have the same values and ideas about what a mother should look like, act like, as those in one’s childhood culture.” (Estes, 186). In respect to Unconquered Spirits, the audience finds themselves battling a societally accepted stance on motherhood, as well as their own internal mother. In Act I Scene 14, the audience witnesses Xochitl throws her children to Tonantzin, the lake as well as the Aztec Goddess of the Earth, so that they are not caught and not baptized. Here the audience is confronted with the questions: is death a kinder option than that of colonized religion? Especially on a white audience whose identity may not exist in this play, the question can be easily blurred. 

What Unconquered Spirits does so brilliantly, is convey the complexities of motherhood in a colonized and unjust world. It presents the reader with extreme discomfort, as we are forced to address 3 women who do not follow the traditional path of motherhood, and their infanticide is procured through, literal death in “little pieces”, a metaphorical death upholding traditional myth, or one that renders the reader to evaluate whether the protagonist, Xochimilco, abandoned her children or freed them from a life of harm at the hands of potentially abusive men (Lopez, 180). Lopez presented questions that can not be easily answered, but by existing in the form of theatre, there is a reality the audience must experience and thus question. Lopez has transformed the myth of La Llorona as “ a scapegoat to explain conquest, incest, male treachery or infidelity, sexual desire, and the dichotomy between love and hate” to one that showcases the potential for female and Chicano liberation (Boffone, 93). Though neither of these things comes lightly, they require a sacrifice that is often not made among white feminist movements, which is why this myth and play push the reader/audience so intently. 

A lingering question remains, are witchcraft and myth synonymous? Blatantly no, they are entirely different sects of culture. However, witchcraft prosecution has transformed, and what we know see is the utilization of myth as a psychological tactic cohering feminine bodies to remain out of power. It is important to understand this transition as “that which male historiography omitted, suppressed, or tabooed did not simply disappear; even experiential action is at certain moments historically aware, to the extent that it elicits the collective 'return of the repressed.' This re-recollection is neither reflective nor simply intuitive - it is possible given a continual and consistently unfulfilled longing for liberation, measured in comparison to the most blatant examples of those things which still cause suffering” (Bovenschen, 85). Rather, “the witch and the saint became myth”, leaving readers and consumers of myth with the same ideology regarding feminine expectations. 

Myths need to be reclaimed, and rewritten, absent of both the “oppressors language” and the language created in a clever, but silent, rebellion. “Gone is the bogeywoman version of children’s nightmares; when La Llorona reappears after Xochimilco’s confession before God,13 thus replacing the Anglo- and male-centric spiritual leader and replacing him with an indigenous female figure, she is merely a woman and no longer the horrific figure previously seen on stage” (Boffone, 103). There is fear within myth, but there is also the opportunity to transform said myth into a liberating and applicable foundation. According to Frantz Fanon, “Decolonization, we know, is a historical process. In other words, it can only be understood, it can only find its significance and become self coherent insofar as we can discern the history-making movement which gives it form and substance”, and the recreation of historically harmful myths is something of significant substance (Fanon, 3).

Works Cited

Boffone, Trevor. “La Llorona on Stage: Re-Visiting Chicana Cultural Paradigms in Josefina 

Lópezs Unconquered Spirits.” Latin American Theatre Review, vol. 51, no. 2, 2018, pp. 91–107.

Bovenschen, Silvia, et al. “The Contemporary Witch, the Historical Witch and the Witch Myth: 

The Witch, Subject of the Appropriation of Nature and Object of the Domination of Nature.” New German Critique, no. 15, 1978, p. 82.

Estés, Clarissa Pinkola. Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman 

Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Grove Press, 1968.

López Josefina. Unconquered Spirits. Alexander Street Press, 2004.

Ostriker, Alicia. “The Thieves of Language: Women Poets and Revisionist Mythmaking.” Signs: 

Journal of Women in Culture and Society, vol. 8, no. 1, 1982, pp. 68–90.

A Comparative View of Violence Against Women In Light of a Global Pandemic

In light of a global pandemic, there is an overwhelming amount of statistics pointing to a decrease in violence and homicide due to government order shelter-in-place mandates. However, there is a serious domestic risk involved with the actions taken to mitigate the risk of Covid-19; while violence in terms of robberies and homicides has decreased, domestic violence has increased substantially. Feminist International Relations Theories seek to examine the gaps created by Realist and Liberal International Theory, crafted and presented by men, and in a time of global panic, the same theories can help governments and NGOs understand how domestic violence and violence against women, is perpetuated in conjunction to global stressors. Considering feminist theory can be an additional tool used to provide resources to families facing domestic violence. 

The significance and importance of Feminist IR theory is not in its ability to rearticulate IR ideas, but rather to reach places to understanding where previous theorists have not considered. Understanding that the social world has inherently been classified due to gender, is a crucial component and one that is necessary to understand when considering the increase in domestic violence during this time. Additionally, there is power in viewing the international world through a feminist lens, as it is historically rooted in activism and legitimate change. It is important to consider feminism as an action, as opposed to a reactive academic field. Within the paper, “Feminist Methodology in International Relations An Ongoing Story”, Jaramillo defined general goals of feminist IR theory, specifying that “what feminist IR seeks is not to be something to study, but a way to study the world.” 

While the world has responded at different rates, there is a clear understanding that shelter-in-place orders, as well as social distancing, is a necessary tool states must leverage to combat the virus. However, with this comes a multitude of risks that can result from prolonged periods of isolation. A decline in mental health amongst adults is one of the most pressing, but the issue of domestic violence in a time of isolation is not given nearly as much attention. While media outlets are desperately covering the importance of face masks and the price of oil in the downturn of the current economy, women and the issues pertaining to women are quietly being swept aside as a less pertinent issue. Not that face masks and oil costs are irrelevant, they are highly influential to the physical and economic safety global citizens are being presented with, but it is impossible to fully capture the risks of this global pandemic without a comprehensive survey at how this situation is affecting people based on gender and nationality. This can better be stated as the “...importance of feminist methodology within IR. In the understanding that gender is present in every portion of life and that we can’t escape it and finally demystifying the naturalness of a gendered world”. Something that must be taken into account, is the relationship between feminism, gun violence, and domestic violence. In her 2020 book, Hood Feminism, Mikki Kendall points to the relationship between gun violence and feminism as 

“What does feminism have to do with guns? After all, guns aren’t a feminist issue, right? Except they are. They just might not be a feminist issue for your life. Not right now, anyway. But many women, especially those from lower-income communities face gun violence every day. The presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation makes it five times more likely that a woman will be killed”. 

And while this risk exists clearly evident, the sale and production of guns and firearms are still considered essential, putting women and families at a heightened risk. “Reports of increasing gun and ammunition sales in the U.S. during the crisis are particularly concerning given the clear link between firearm access and fatal domestic violence incidents”. Thirty states within the United States have allowed for the continued sale of firearms. This classification has been met with strong opposition from the international human rights group Amnesty International. Additionally, international voices including the UN are urging for a global ceasefire, in order to redirect resources to combating Covid-19 that previously would have gone to war efforts, which implies that the U.S public opinion surrounding firearms strongly differs from the international opinion.

Furthermore, to understand the relationship between shelter-in-place orders and domestic violence, the sale and consumption of alcohol must also be considered, as “... in most countries in Europe and the Americas, alcoholic beverages have remained freely available during the lockdown, even if sales hours were often restricted. In several countries, sales of alcohol have spiked since the imposition of the lockdown.”. Campbell points to a relationship between alcohol abuse and family violence within “An Increasing Risk of Family Violence during the Covid-19 Pandemic: Strengthening Community Collaborations to Save Lives”. The pattern of increased firearm and alcohol sales all point to added stressors and potential enablers of domestic violence, a risk that absolutely needs to be evaluated as countries move forward. And while the United States is lacking in its reach of protective measures aimed towards women and families, there is a variety of work being done on a global scale. 

“Governments, civil-society actors, and international organizations such as UNICEF and the World Health Organization have promoted strategies aimed at mitigating the effects of the lockdown on couples and children, though there are still massive gaps in these provisions, and the risk of domestic violence will probably grow as the strains of the crisis accrue”, 

it is pivotal that these gaps are filled.

The global consensus of a lockdown has included the closure of business as well as bans regarding immigration and travel. The United States’ specifically has changed its stance on immigration to be that of a rather harsh isolationist policy. Initially, policies regarding a decrease in immigration which originally centered around countries where Covid-19 was initially found. However, as the effect of the virus has continued to grow, many countries have implemented intense travel restrictions that have been translated into immigration blockages.While protective measures absolutely need to be taken to slow the spread of the virus, it is important to consider the ways that these measures are being used to harm more individuals, especially those in especially vulnerable categories. As noted in an article by The Intercept, which has been classified as a source with a strong left inclination by allsides.com, the coronavirus crisis “...has been used to further restrict immigration, violate labor rights, protect defense contractors, and double down on inflammatory and dangerous political rhetoric”. As many individuals and families wait near the U.S. Mexico border, the virus has the potential to fester in these communities filled with those seeking asylum, refuge, or a general safety that the United States can offer. By denying universal entry into the country, violence and disease are very likely to continue to put at risk people into harm’s way. 

The Covid-19 pandemic has revealed the turbulent and ineffective relationship between Mexico and the United States which has allowed interest groups and corporations to benefit from the crisis. Without clear operating procedures and government issues closures, many manufacturing businesses remain operational, putting hundreds of workers at risk. A BBC article sheds light on this fact as it notes, "The factories have flagrantly disobeyed the emergency public health decree because of the absence of authority from the president and the federal government." (Grant, 2020). Interest groups within the United States are urging the Mexican government to reclassify “essential services” so that factories may begin production again, which directly can put workers across the country at heightened risk. And while at face value this appears to be an issue best addressed with IR theory in the realm of economic structuralism, it is intrinsically more complex than an argument regarding the economy. Especially at this moment in time where there is no excuse to exclude the female perspective, it is crucial to consider how the continued risk of manufacturing jobs affects women and children globally. The importance of feminist IR theory is crucial here as security, economics, and politics can be better understood “through the lenses of feminist methodology, the main focus is not the state, as it is in malestream schools, but the complexity of the construction of society, that renders it possible for state actors to act the way they do”. 

The ongoing debate of “essential work” needs to be viewed through a feminist lens, as historically,  “Women have less access to productive resources of any kind, fewer policies that protects them, less political options, and in general, fewer opportunities and rights of any kind. Feminist methodology in IR seeks to make visible these injustices, to fill the silences that exist in the academic and to project their result into the lives of hundreds of women”. Manufacturing work is mostly comprised of a male workforce, however, with the economy currently existing at such a detrimental and stagnant state, many women would consider entering the workforce in different sectors to aide household income. A rise of women in these workplaces is very likely to be followed by a rise of violence against women in these sectors. Moreover, the added stress of an inconsistent workplace environment can add to the likelihood of domestic violence situations. Governments and corporations must be aware of what policies to implement in order to protect their current and future essential workers. 

The purpose of this essay is not to direct blame, as blame amid the suffering of thousands is more unproductive and only contributes to harm done. However, it is necessary that governments and corporations, especially those with a global presence, evaluate their contribution to protecting women in a time of crisis. At this moment many countries are focusing on repairing their domestic economies, however, it is impossible to do so without considering the most vulnerable, and subsequently crucial, groups within said country. 

Bibliography 

Jaramillo, Verónica Dávalo. “Feminist Methodology in International Relations An Ongoing 

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Campbell, Andrew M. “An Increasing Risk of Family Violence during the Covid-19 Pandemic: 

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Conley, Julia. “Amnesty Slams Trump for Classifying Gun Stores as 'Essential Businesses' 

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Edelman, Adam. “Buckling to Pressure, Many States Deem Gun Stores 'Essential,' Allow Them 

to Remain Open during Pandemic.” NBCNews.com. NBCUniversal News Group, April 8, 2020. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/buckling-pressure-many-states-deem-gun-stores-essential-allow-them-n1177706.

Eisner, Manuel, and Amy Nivette. “Violence and the Pandemic Urgent Questions for Research.” 

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Grant, Will. “Coronavirus: Mexico Factory Staff Question 'Essential Work'.” BBC News. BBC, 

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Guterres, António. “‘To Silence the Guns, We Must Raise the Voices for Peace.’” United 

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Kendall, Mikki. Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot. NY, NY: 

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a Risk of Transmitting 2019 Novel Coronavirus.” The White House. The United States Government, n.d. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/proclamation-suspension-entry-immigrants-nonimmigrants-persons-pose-risk-transmitting-2019-novel-coronavirus/.

Rios, Viri. “Coronavirus Has Mexico's Workers Pinned Between U.S. Business Interests and 

Their President's Obsessive Austerity.” The Intercept, May 1, 2020. https://theintercept.com/2020/05/01/mexico-coronavirus-us-relationship/.

Salcedo, Andrea, Sanam Yar, and Gina Cherelus. “Coronavirus Travel Restrictions, Across the 

Globe.” The New York Times. The New York Times, March 15, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/article/coronavirus-travel-restrictions.html.

Tang, Kun, Junjian Gaoshan, and Babatunde Ahonsi. “Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH): a 

Key Issue in the Emergency Response to the Coronavirus Disease (COVID- 19) Outbreak.” Reproductive Health 17, no. 1 (2020).