Louis CK. He’s a funny man, his observations are very keen, his temerity is laudable. Yet his observations on the stupidity of culture do not look beyond the cultural constructs that underlie it. He knows a thing is wrong, he rages against its stupidity yet fatalistically accepts that that’s the way things are. It is part of his charm.
But that’s not THE problem. You were meant to look at it that way.Objectification happened even before you saw it.
This is objectification:
But so is this:
In the second image, the women is no less an object, we can argue levels of degradation, but in the second image, the woman is not herself but a placeholder for the viewer, or a type of person.
Employees, entrepreneurs and voters are an objectified abstraction of people who are just trying to live their lives. We live in a world of objectification, our inability to see this is part of what leads to dysfunctional behavior.
As @sagoli points out, culture is key here, modern culture is hostage to market forces insofar as pop culture = culture yet there is a biological component to titillation, it underlies the social one. We understand how insincere titillation for commercial purposes is objectification, but we fail to acknowledge how the biological component of desire is tainted by the crassness of commercialism, and this is what Louis CK is talking about here, his drive is a burden because there is no healthy way for him as a man invested in culture to engage in “dirty” thoughts.
Might as well ask if we should stop desiring food to lose weight. Yes, but that’s not the point, we desire food to survive, to desire less would fundamentally alter who we are and our ability to thrive and yet the way we unhealthily consume food is cultural, subject to customs, market forces and availability.
Glad the question was asked, the answer is: No, attraction and objectification are only entangled because of cultural norms, there is less risk in changing the culture than biology.
