No. 106
Human genes contain too little information even to specify which hemisphere of the brain each of a human’s 1011 neurons should occupy, let alone the hundreds of connections that each neuron makes.
No. 107
For the woman who is a practitioner of feminist literary criticism, the subjectivity versus objectivity, or critic-as-artist-or-scientist, debate has special significance; for her, the question is not only academic, but political as well, and her definition will court special risks whichever side of the issue it favors.
No. 108
If she defines feminist criticism as objective and scientific – a valid, verifiable, intellectual method that anyone, whether man or woman, can perform – the definition not only precludes the critic-as-artist approach, but may also impede accomplishment of the utilitarian political objectives of those who seek to change the academic establishment and its thinking, especially about sex roles.
No. 109
These questions are political in the sense that the debate over them will inevitably be less an exploration of abstract matters in a spirit of disinterested inquiry than an academic power struggle in which the careers and professional fortunes of many women scholars – only now entering the academic profession in substantial numbers – will be at stake, and with them the chances for a distinctive contribution to humanistic understanding, a contribution that might be an important influence against sexism in our society.
No. 110
Perhaps he believed that he could not criticize American foreign policy without endangering the support for civil rights that he had won from the federal government.
