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Woman and man's highest calling- Cherokee proverb

greenfairy

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Both Freud and Jung thought there were masculine and feminine traits in the one psyche, be it a man or a woman, and that one is stronger or weaker depending upon the individual's sex, as a consequence the opposite sex would have an attraction consequently and permit the sort of growth the saying indicates.

Uh yeah. Good, you get it. Do you get called NF a lot?
 

rav3n

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Alright. I can see we're going nowhere. I have no obligation to prove myself to you, and I'm not going to bother continuing to try since you aren't interested in hearing my point of view. If it pisses you and a couple of other people off, so be it.
If you don't choose to prove yourself to me, why do you keep responding, particularly to posts you've already responded to or have stated you wouldn't respond to?

As far as hearing your point of view, I've read more than enough to know that there's no substance to ANY of your claims, as already outlined many times. This thread is all based on 'faith in fairy', whether it's in you or the balance of the mystical shit you're trying to sell. Not buying.
 

greenfairy

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As far as hearing your point of view, I've read more than enough to know that there's no substance to ANY of your claims, as already outlined many times. Not buying.

Right back at you.
 

Coriolis

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...Because then you can get into Taoist philosophy and Divinity being manifested in human form? Which is beautiful? Because celebrating women and men's unique qualities is empowering? Maybe I'm a rare NT who likes thinking of women and men as sacred and beautiful. Or not an NT.
Just what are these unique qualities of men and women? I guarantee for every one, there are many of the opposite sex who exhibit it. I see people as sacred and beautiful, and individual, without the need to pigeonhole them into gender or other boxes, but then I'm just a garden variety NT.

Obviously, not always men take the masculine role, and not always women take the feminine role. So then, how should we define a masculine/feminine role?
Why do we need to define roles? Better just to let each person develop their individual gifts and seek personal fulfillment.

nothing in the semantic of that proverb should make you that women are necessarily weak. there wasn't even any implication.
it only says that his "highest calling," i.e. the greatest thing a man can do is protect a woman.
perception is colored by the hyper-feminist culture we live in now.
by the same logic you're using, i could complain about the "unwarranted implication" that men are soulless, or "Sourceless" [not sure what that means to the cherokee].
but i don't, because the implication isn't there. the implication isn't even that a man needs the woman to find his soul/source. it only says that the highest calling of a woman is to help a man in that way.

when are we going to get off this feminist high-horse? not everything is sexist.
You may call it sexist. I call it gender bias. IME that means that one gender is being treated differently from the other without rational basis. Yes, you should complain about assumption that men cannot find the source on their own, or with help from other men; the assumptions are equivalent. If men don't really need this help from women, and women don't really need protection from men, then the proverb is basically saying that the highest calling of both men and women is to do something unnecessary. Sad.

Is it? Possibly. But you can rest assured their arguments would be less values and emotion based.

Much of mysticism was developed prior to science, as mankind's way to explain shit that scared them since they couldn't understand them, hence couldn't control.

As far as balance, my preference leans towards what Salomé stated. Individuation. So. What happens to the lean to built when your balancing partner leaves? Do you fall over and then use a razor blade to guilt them back to support you again?
I think the idea of balance is overrated. It can come across as being a jack of all trades and master of none. I prefer being a master of those things that fulfull me and suit my nature and abilities, while developing sufficient capacity with the rest to function satisfactorily in society. People will always be better at some things than others, and there is nothing wrong with that as long as they understand their strengths and weaknesses, and can address the weaknesses adequately.

I am a pagan, and an NT. My comments on that topic will certainly involve less emotion and more reasoning, but are necessarily values based. The increase in humanity's scientific knowledge has pulled more and more questions out of the realm of mysticism into the realm of science. One of my major gripes with religions is when they attempt to explain questions about which we have developed a scientific, empirical understanding. There are some questions which I doubt will ever be answered by science, however, and these properly fall to mysticism, spirituality, etc.

I think the idea of gender harmony falls apart when you realize that the members of a gender don't all have the same traits/functions. Let's use MBTI terminology just to have a similar vocabulary. As an INTP woman I don't think I function the same way as an ESFJ female. An INFP man and and an ESTP man have different functions. They way that we all interact with each other will take different forms that cannot be predicted by gender.
Yes. In my experience, type trumps gender every time, unless I am looking for a romantic partner or a public restroom.

No, embracing the gender binary isn't for everyone. But if you have a gender and you are in a relationship with another gendered person, you will each have individual gender associated differences, which will ideally be in balance with each other. So if you see this as a gender binary, you are participating in it whether you believe in it or not. If you choose to believe it's something else, then your argument is irrelevant.
No. We will each have INDIVIDUAL differences, which ideally will be complementary enough to broaden our horizons, while leaving enough similarity to ensure compatibility.

I see. It certainly would have helped if people had made that clear. I actually agree on this, which is why I took steps to say in my personal reflection that I see it as more complex and holistic. Also if you take into account the culture, it would suggest otherwise. It's true that it appears this way on the surface- I'm just saying proverbs are meant to be looked at more deeply. So I guess it's effective for people who do, and not effective for people who want to evaluate things based on surface clarity.
If you view the quote in the OP as just one perspective among many, the problem largely goes away. Each of us can view gender complementarity (or individual complementarity) in the way that makes most sense for us. We can learn from discussion of alternate viewpoints without having to embrace them.

Bottom line:
I don't believe men and womens' highest callings are different. On the other hand, I certainly don't think every person's highest calling is the same.
 

Pseudo

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Oh ok. Will look at those. Sry.

Edit: Ok, answered 211 already.



I would say that it is meant to be understood non-literally, as most things of this nature are. So people who like to take things literally and focus on gender roles associated with the binary would not find it useful. Things said in symbolic ways held a lot more significance in tribal cultures. In modern American culture at least, we either tend to say things completely literally and rationally, or are completely fluffy and sentimental. In my opinion the OP was meant to lie somewhere in the middle, if you take the culture into account. So examining it with logic and literalism alone isn't going to give you the true meaning.


Right, we established already that you don't believe that it's true meaning is the literal meaning. What I want is your impression of what the actual meaning is.
 

Coriolis

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Both Freud and Jung thought there were masculine and feminine traits in the one psyche, be it a man or a woman, and that one is stronger or weaker depending upon the individual's sex, as a consequence the opposite sex would have an attraction consequently and permit the sort of growth the saying indicates.
If all of these traits can occur in both men and women, we might as well call them by names that have no sex or gender association: P and Q, for instance. That might short-circuit some of the assumptions that seem tied to the terms "masculine" and "feminine".
 

greenfairy

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Right, we established already that you don't believe that it's true meaning is the literal meaning. What I want is your impression of what the actual meaning is.

Answered that in my WOT. Which no one seems to think has any validity.
 

sprinkles

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Ha ha...Fi/Te's acting up in a temper tantrum!

What? It's a tantrum when greenfairy does it, but not when you do it? What do you think "back at you" means?

If you aren't willing to accept your statements as legitimate when they are reflected back to you, then why did you say them?

Sounds like some "But I'm ACTUALLY right and you just THINK you are" nonsense to me.
 

rav3n

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I think the idea of balance is overrated. It can come across as being a jack of all trades and master of none. I prefer being a master of those things that fulfull me and suit my nature and abilities, while developing sufficient capacity with the rest to function satisfactorily in society. People will always be better at some things than others, and there is nothing wrong with that as long as they understand their strengths and weaknesses, and can address the weaknesses adequately.
Which is fine since that's your choice. But you're not trying to sell your choice to others with vague hand flutterings, as a gender construct highest calling.

I am a pagan, and an NT. My comments on that topic will certainly involve less emotion and more reasoning, but are necessarily values based. The increase in humanity's scientific knowledge has pulled more and more questions out of the realm of mysticism into the realm of science. One of my major gripes with religions is when they attempt to explain questions about which we have developed a scientific, empirical understanding. There are some questions which I doubt will ever be answered by science, however, and these properly fall to mysticism, spirituality, etc.
I have to question this. If you're aware that science has pulled the vast majority of questions out of the mystical realm, aren't you choosing to believe something mystical that in the near or distant future, will be proved or disproved by science? In other words, belief or faith in mysticism was a proven sham? Is it really that important to have answers, when these answers aren't sourced in any proof, that they're pure faith?

How is this different than believing in God?

Btw, I'm a unbeliever, if you haven't figured this out. :D
 

greenfairy

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Just what are these unique qualities of men and women? I guarantee for every one, there are many of the opposite sex who exhibit it. I see people as sacred and beautiful, and individual, without the need to pigeonhole them into gender or other boxes, but then I'm just a garden variety NT.


Why do we need to define roles? Better just to let each person develop their individual gifts and seek personal fulfillment.


You may call it sexist. I call it gender bias. IME that means that one gender is being treated differently from the other without rational basis. Yes, you should complain about assumption that men cannot find the source on their own, or with help from other men; the assumptions are equivalent. If men don't really need this help from women, and women don't really need protection from men, then the proverb is basically saying that the highest calling of both men and women is to do something unnecessary. Sad.

I think there are differences. Evidence can be found to support both points of view. So you have a valid point, and so do I. But I don't really care enough to debate it. Carry on. I'm glad to see an NT pagan on the thread.
I am a pagan, and an NT. My comments on that topic will certainly involve less emotion and more reasoning, but are necessarily values based. The increase in humanity's scientific knowledge has pulled more and more questions out of the realm of mysticism into the realm of science. One of my major gripes with religions is when they attempt to explain questions about which we have developed a scientific, empirical understanding. There are some questions which I doubt will ever be answered by science, however, and these properly fall to mysticism, spirituality, etc.
Yes, thank you.

If you view the quote in the OP as just one perspective among many, the problem largely goes away. Each of us can view gender complementarity (or individual complementarity) in the way that makes most sense for us. We can learn from discussion of alternate viewpoints without having to embrace them.
Yes, this is how I view things. It's a message framed in a way that benefits certain types of people and not others.
 

greenfairy

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Which is fine since that's your choice. But you're not trying to sell your choice to others with vague hand flutterings, as a gender construct highest calling.

I have to question this. If you're aware that science has pulled the vast majority of questions out of the mystical realm, aren't you choosing to believe something mystical that in the near or distant future, will be proved or disproved by science? In other words, belief or faith in mysticism was a proven sham? Is it really that important to have answers, when these answers aren't sourced in any proof, that they're pure faith?

How is this different than believing in God?

Btw, I'm a unbeliever, if you haven't figured this out. :D

I'm an atheist and a polytheist at the same time. :gleam: Chew on that. Does your head hurt yet?

Which I have explained in a post if anyone's curious.
:sage:
 

Nocapszy

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You may call it sexist. I call it gender bias.
no one called it sexist. but there was an actual implication that you suspected sexism.
IME that means that one gender is being treated differently from the other without rational basis.
i will always laugh when people think that the concepts of social and rational have any relevance to one another.
Yes, you should complain about assumption that men cannot find the source on their own, or with help from other men; the assumptions are equivalent.
but yet you ignored this side of the argument completely and went straight ahead with the feminist agenda. if you're a female, well that could be a self interest thing. i suspect it has more to do with brainwashing by peer pressure.
If men don't really need this help from women, and women don't really need protection from men, then the proverb is basically saying that the highest calling of both men and women is to do something unnecessary. Sad.
the values invoked by the proverb are seen consistently in every culture i've ever heard of. it could be that those values were simply carried down through every generation since the pangea-mother culture the rest of us must have spawned from, but more likely, we have biological motivations/incentives for acting that way.
when you say that these things are necessarily not the highest calling [and i sense that you discourage those behaviors suggested in the proverb], you say equally that men and women have no need for one another at all.

the truth is, even if protectiveness of females is not something we see in males in their individual relationships, or soulfulness of females in the same, it exists on the macro scale all the same.
it's not an insult to either "gender" [i'm pretty sure you mean sex]: it's just humanity.
the only insult is spun by a perspective which holds that women under protection by men are weak.
 

Coriolis

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I have to question this. If you're aware that science has pulled the vast majority of questions out of the mystical realm, aren't you choosing to believe something mystical that in the near or distant future, will be proved or disproved by science? In other words, belief or faith in mysticism was a proven sham? Is it really that important to have answers, when these answers aren't sourced in any proof, that they're pure faith?

How is this different than believing in God?

Btw, I'm a unbeliever, if you haven't figured this out. :D
It is no different than believing in God. My personal beliefs involve God and Goddess, to some degree mirroring the masculine/feminine complementarity we have been discussing here, but I see it as informative rather than normative. In other words, they are archetypes that demonstrate the duality of human attributes, without requiring any 1-to-1 mapping in actual humans (could be the P and Q sets of traits I referenced above). Seeing them as masculine/feminine, male/female makes for some pretty poetry, but that's it.

There are some questions I don't think science will ever answer, because I see the answers as inherently subjective. These include: why are we here? what is our purpose in life? how should we relate to each other and the world around us? what is right/wrong, or good/evil, and do these distinctions even make sense? is there a god/deity/higher power, and if so, what is its nature? does any part of us continue after bodily death, and if so, what happens to it? This last might eventually be explained by science, but my belief for now is that the explanation will not be complete. In short, science attempts to understand objective reality, while spirituality examines subjective purposes. Much of the science/religion debate comes from one trying to operate in the sphere of the other.
 
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