Sex and Character: Difference between revisions
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'''Sex and Character''' is a book published in 1903 by [[Otto Weininger]] which argues that all people are composed of a mixture of the male and the female substance, and that these views are supported scientifically. It is largely inspired by [[Aristotle's views on women]] in the fourth century BC. |
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==Male activity and female passivity== |
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The male aspect is active, productive, conscious and moral/logical, while the female aspect is passive, unproductive, unconscious and [[amorality|amoral]]/alogical. Weininger argues that emancipation should be reserved for the "masculine woman", e.g. some lesbians, and that the female life is consumed with the sexual function: both with the act, as a prostitute, and the product, as a mother. |
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==Foregoing love for the absolute== |
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Woman is a "[[matchmaking|matchmaker]]". By contrast, the duty of the male, or the masculine aspect of personality, is to strive to become a genius, and to forego sexuality for an abstract love of the [[absolute (philosophy)|absolute]], God, which he finds within himself. |
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==Nature of genius== |
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A significant part of his book is about the nature of genius. Weininger argues that there is no such thing as a person who has a genius for, say, mathematics, or music, but there is only the [[universality (philosophy)|universal]] genius, in whom everything exists and makes sense. He reasons that such genius is probably present in all people to some degree. |
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==Negative archetypal characteristics of Jews== |
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In a separate chapter, Weininger, himself a Jew who had converted to Christianity in 1902, analyzes the archetypical Jew as feminine, and thus profoundly irreligious, without true [[individualism|individuality]] (soul), and without a sense of [[goodness and evil|good and evil]]. Christianity is described as "the highest expression of the highest faith", while Judaism is called "the extreme of cowardliness". Weininger decries the decay of modern times, and attributes much of it to feminine, and thus Jewish, influences. By Weininger's reckoning ''everyone'' shows some femininity, and what he calls "Jewishness". |
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==Added notoriety due to Weininger's suicide== |
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Weininger's suicide in the house in Vienna where [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]] had died, the man he considered one of the greatest geniuses of all made him a ''[[cause célèbre]]'', inspired several imitation suicides, and turned his book into a success. The book received glowing reviews by [[August Strindberg]], who wrote that it had "probably solved the hardest of all problems", the "[[The woman question|woman problem]]". |
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[[Category:1903 books]] |
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[[Category:Sexism]] |
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[[Category:Antisemitic publications]] |
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{{nonfiction-book-stub}} |
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[[de:Geschlecht und Charakter]] |
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[[he:מין ואופי]] |
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