Q&A: Between Emotion and Reason, I’d Hear
Between Emotion and Reason, I’d Hear
Question
Hello Rabbi,
In a discussion with a postmodernist friend, a question came up for me.
He argued that the difference between male body hair and female body hair is culturally dependent and has no objective value at all (the naturalistic fallacy). That is, there is no reason everyone couldn’t be equally hairy. (I’m not talking about natural hair, but about the expectation to shave.) I argued that it’s understandable where this difference comes from; that is, the feminine character, when looking at the ideal of femininity, does create this distinction and the expectation of less hair for women. And that itself caused culture to develop in this way.
Afterward a question occurred to me: maybe I’m talking nonsense, and there is no ideal basis or anything of the sort in a discussion about aesthetics, and it’s just pure feeling.
How can one distinguish whether this is emotion or reason that I’m hearing?
What do you think about this specific case?
Thanks in advance
Answer
It is בהחלט reasonable that the attitude toward body hair is a cultural matter. Why not? What does this have to do with postmodernism? This is an esoteric topic of no real importance, and I don’t see why one should assume it has an objective dimension (no more than the way one holds a knife and fork). Postmodernism says this about fundamental values, morality, and worldviews (the extremists speak even about science).
One has to be careful of the two extremes: 1. Postmodernism—that everything is relative. 2. The fundamentalist view—that everything is absolute.