“In this world, a man, himself, is nothing. And thereain’t no world but this one.” (The Thin Red Line – 1998) TheThin Red Line is one of the stunning movies about World War II with thrillingconflict scenes and exciting war spirit (The Thin Red Line, 1999). Also, it has manyrealistic acts which make you feel the all agony, urgency and misery of thosesoldiers have because of the war environment. Considering it’s a militarymovie, it’s not surprising that most of the performers are actors. So that it’snot very difficult to feel the masculinity while watching it.
However, if wecan catch a good point of view, we will see that all those agonies and miseriesare actually the product of a long process of that masculinity. Cinemais one of the most stimulating branches of art, if you are a hawk-eyed watcher.Most of the times it adapts the reality into a screenplay. Let’s tackle themilitary movies again. All we have that stereotyped picture in our memories ofa nurse dressing a wound of an injured soldier. It seems like a very ordinaryscene for the most of us. However, have we ever thought why this seems sonatural to us? Many people may claim that males are physically moreadvantageous than females and that’s why females would be more useful at thebackstage of the battlefield for other chores such as nursing injured soldiers,cooking, preparing materials and so on.
However, many philosophers don’t thinkso. Traditionalmoral philosophy has been shaped for centuries by philosophers that majority ofthem are males. Yet we see that, even though there are very different kind ofapproaches, “care” perspective is neglected or given insufficient recognitionby mainstream moral theories. So that, it wouldn’t be inaccurate if we call it“masculine morality”. And this masculine morality is the source of currentinequitable world.
Why? Because when we examine the historical background of allsocieties on the earth, we face with dozens of wars, invasions, plunders andall kind of destructive actions. And of course, most of these events took placebefore twentieth century when women had very limited effect on decision makingpolicies and moral philosophy. Hereat, masculine morality spread everywhere asdestruction for sake of power, authority, victory and so on. Anyhow, humanityalways found a way to build up and create new civilizations.
However, here wemust draw attention to the source and agent of this constructive turnabout. Inmost of the cases, women were the ones who constituted the rebirth of damagedand wounded societies. And they didn’t do it for sake of some kind of will topower or authority but the care instinct prompted them to cure, recuperate andrecover. From this point forth, the care approach can be entitled as “femininemorality”. Froma historical perspective, we can claim that Western modern theory is a resultof this masculine morality. So that liberalism is glorified product of thisphilosophy which has strong rational basis (McLean & McMillan, 2009). Economicliberalism, is an economic system organized on individual lines, which meansthe greatest possible number of economic decisions are made by individuals or households thanby collective institutions or organizations (Adams, 2001).
And from the economic view, economic liberalism wouldseem like the most profitable system. United States of America is one of thebest examples to talk about economic liberalism. It constituted its economybased on, so called one of the most rationalist system, liberal economy andgained one of the largest economies on the world (World Economic Outlook Database, 2016).However, can we assume that United States is one of the most equitable statesaccording to economic conditions? I think anyone who has some knowledge about thelife in United States would say that this would be a mistake. The richest 1% ofthe American population in 2007 owned 34.6% of the country’s total wealth, andthe next 19% owned 50.5%. Thus, the top 20% of Americans owned 85% of thecountry’s wealth and the bottom 80% of the population owned 15% (Wolff, 2010).
Also, homelesspeople are serious problem which their situation is getting worse (Gee, 2017). In 2012, PresidentBarrack Obama, who singed health insurance law so called “Obamacare” (Wallace, 2012), was accused ofbeing a communist by some right-wing groups. Consideringall these data, implementation of the most liberal policies may not be enoughto create an equitable society. Let’s take a look at another side of Atlantic.
When we look at Nordic countries, such as Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland,we would see much more equitable and just society. These states are welfarestates where concept of government in which the state plays a key role in theprotection and promotion of the social and economic well-being of its citizens (The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica, 2015). The Nordic modelhas been successful at significantly reducing poverty (Drum, 2013). In this point ofview, we can say that these states have more sustainable systems and publicorders. In this context, we can say that the states who havefeminine morality and care approach are more likely to have just societies andhealthy individuals. That’s why it seems like more beneficial in the long term. For anotheraspect of this debate, Immanuel Kant claimed that women needed the guidance ofmore “rational” males (Kant).
Males and femalesare different creatures both physiologically and psychologically and it’snatural that this kind of distinctions create different result. For instance, whilefemale jealousy is more likely to be inspired by emotional infidelity, malejealousy is most likely to be brought on by sexual infidelity (Pietrzak, Laird, Stevens, & Thompson, 2002). Even though it’s adebated issue, we can say that women are more emotional creatures rather thanmen and this situation might make men seem like more rational.
Also, men mayhave rational sense in relationships as women consider them from emotionalside. I came up with another movie which argues one of the most controversialdebates in relationships between men and women. The Unbearable Lightness ofBeing is a 1988 American film adaptation of the novel of the same name by MilanKundera, published in 1984 (Rotten Tomatoes, 2008). And Tereza asks Tomas that controversial question that “How can someonemake love without being in love?” as Tomas considers love and sex areindependent notions that he sees sex as an entertainment as light as football.However, Tereza, as a woman, considers sex as interdepent with love. I think this debate tells usso much about all conflicts between masculine justice perspective and femininecare perspective in the terms of morality, ethics and so on.
To sum up,we can say that there is no doubt about justice will be considered as one eyedwithout care perspective as happened during the world history for centuries.Rationality will always require the sense of care as leverage to provide a justsystem. Otherwise it won’t be a surprise to see other examples like UnitedStates where billionaires blame homeless and poor people for being lazy. Careperspective always will be the savior of humanity when uncontrolled rationaldesires start destructive conflicts and wars. Rationality will always be the naughtyboy of the house unless it’s been cared by a rigorous mother.
