I LIKE being a creature in a body, tho... https://ieji.de/@damian/116032458331781332
mind-body discourse, this is a Plato hate zone, misogyny & slavery
The dichotomy in the linked poem reminds me of the utter revulsion I felt when I first read some of Plato's dialogues as a teenager. Plato and the others talked like heads without bodies, as though the head/body or reason/physical were entirely separate things and one was of a higher order than the other. This seemed to tie in directly to their contempt of women, too, because they thought themselves in charge of reason and women + enslaved people as creatures tied to the physical and emotional. Just remembering it makes my skin crawl, and of course this kind of thinking is not just some ancient artifact but the basis of our so-called modernity and enlightenment.
@ljwrites I just rolled my eyes when I heard that, and took everything else with a grain of salt.
@dnkboston I'm going to absolve Louise Glück because the quote is extremely selective. The quoted stanza actually a describes a temporary state of mind while watching the stars, and the full poem, Telescope, is actually about coming BACK to the world and its physicality. Here's the quote in its context with surrounding stanzas:
You’ve stopped being here in the world.
You’re in a different place,
a place where human life has no meaning.
You’re not a creature in a body.
You exist as the stars exist,
participating in their stillness, their immensity.
Then you’re in the world again.
At night, on the cold hill,
taking the telescope apart.
@ljwrites @dnkboston oh wow its a lot more poignant with that last stanza included, i wish the OP hadn’t trimmed it off
@Satsuma @dnkboston Yeah, this is dishonest quoting tbh, whether by the op or the source they got it from. It's like if I said, "Flat-earthers say the Earth is flat! These people are ridiculous!" and someone writes the headline, "'The Earth is flat,' says L.J."