- The comparison is irrelevant and meaningless, because in the social context we need facial recognition in order to fully relate to and bond with other individuals. This is why school teachers are not allowed to wear veils over their face.
Again, it is not irrelevant because you haven't negated it. Any form of communication takes place in a
social context. Education does not require facial recognition. Long distance education works in this way. There are also other reasons, such as disability, for lack of facial communication. That doesn't mean education is denied to those people.
- It very much is the topic. It is right at the heart of the topic. Just because it is an awkward question to answer, does not mean you should try to swat it away as irrelevant. It is at the heart of the matter. In the real world (not the world of message boards and e-mail), how could society function if nobody could see each others face?
If this topic was about whether face-covering should be allowed in public at all that would be valid.
But I am not talking about that.
- No. Once again, you are wrong. It is at the heart of the subject as to why face veiling is deeply problematic both for society, and for us as humans. We are social beings. We are not 'political constructs'. We need human interaction. This is the heart of the matter, the very heart of the matter of burqa and niqab and why face veiling is so troubling for us collectively and individually.
It
is a straw man because I did -not- claim any such things like we are just 'political constructs' - but that the idea of a social contract
is a political idea which you are using
incorrectly, in the process misrepresenting my argument - as I have by no means denied we are social beings (something of which I think you have a limited understanding).
You are confusing two concepts (really two separate arguments).
You might find it troubling. But, for all intents and purposes, that is
your problem. Women who wear face-covering -are- able to interact and bond with others, and society does function with a number of women covering their faces, whether or not you, or I, like the practise.
- I?ve spent the last few posts explaining exactly what it is, and I live in hope that you cotton on to it, but I'll expedite it again. We are biologically programmed to be social animals, and the most basic function of the social instinct is recognition, empathy and responsiveness.
You have not explained it at all. Again, you are confusing two different ideas:
1) The social contract
2) Biological nature
All of these most basic human instincts require a simple thing, that you can see the face of the person with whom you interact. It is part of the unspoken social contract.
The most basic human instincts do not require face-to-face communication (indeed they wouldn't be instincts). Tell that to a blind person.
- Actually, I was just trying to explain it to you in the simplest terms
As if you have anything to explain to me.
If you are trying to account for a 'biological social contract(TM)', you have to tell me what it means (if it means anything). You haven't done so. I suspect that's because you don't know what it means yourself, let alone what it's got to do with my approach to the regulation of clothing in public life.
- It does inhibit the simplest human responsiveness needed to have social relations; face to face contact.
Face to face contact may be important, but it is not necessary for most social relations to take place. Otherwise mass society would be impossible, and we wouldn't have things like
social contracts.
Tell me again, how could society function if everybodys face was veiled.
Perhaps it couldn't. But this is not is what I am talking about and isn't a refutation of my very particular argument, which has escaped you all along.
It quite literally goes against our most basic need for facial recognition, to read the human code of a face, empathy, emotion and human bonding.
It doesn't literally go against those things, if by which you mean prevent them.
- The subject of the thread is rooted in the issues as to why as a society and as an individual the facial veil is disconcerting, disruptive of the most basic human impulses, and troubling to the most fundamental of social contracts that binds our society together. In the context of this, I was outlining some of the reasons why the face veil (imagine a society in which you can see no woman or mans face) presents problems that a hijab does not.
You have made (some) points which are relevant to the subject in general but not to
my own arguments, the substantial content of which you have dodged completely, or simply not understood.
Topic: Muslim student, 18, banned from college because she refuses to remove her burkha