THE MALE FIGURES AND QUARANTINE: ANDROSOPHICAL
CONCEPTION.
A.OPERATIONAL
DEFINITIONS
Androsophy: Herein
used as a philosophical conception of the mindset of the male humans.
Men: Used
here to refer to male humans, otherwise its Greek cognate, Anthropos, refers to both male and female humans.
Quarantine-
From Latin and later French meaning 40.Referring to 40 days of seclusion to
give time for healing, spiritual
nourishment or to minimise transmission of pathogens.
B.
BACKGROUND
The male world
is a world that may seem very strange to women and even to the males
themselves. When the boy-child is born, many parents ask whether they will
reach 5yrs and when they go beyond 5 we ask whether they will be safe wherever
they are. During wars the people who kill the most, are men, and those who are
killed the most are men. When there is
an epidemic men folks seem to be hit faster and harder than female folks. The
death rates among males are higher generally speaking. Of course the female
folks become the bearers of the burden men leave behind but fatalities are the
portion of men. Covid-19 has also posed
a challenge to men all over the world. In Kenya when we talk about quarantine,
some socio-philosophical problems related to male socialisation arise.
C.
THE PROBLEM
Can
any male figure-especially Kenyan males successfully stay indoors for 40 days
as a preventive measure against covid-19?
D.
PURPOSE
To
rationally explore the mindset of the Kenyan male and how it is crucial in the
mitigation against the spread covid-19
E.
OBJECTIVES
1. To
analyse the ontology that guides mature male figures
2. To
explore the dominant epistemological and Logical view point that governs male
thinking
3. To
rationally assess the plausibility of quarantine among Kenyan males as a means
to mitigating covid19
F.
METHOD
Analytic,
Speculative, phenomenology
G.
DISCUSSION
1.
MALE ONTOLOGY
Ontology
is the general, fundamental and rational investigation of all reality that
exists. Simply put, it is a world view. Some of the ontological questions
proper to this discourse include: So how
do the men-folk see the world? and what kind of worlds exists for a man? What
is a man as part of the cosmos? From a very general perspective, we can infer
first of all that a man is an impossible possibility, man is a mystery and man is a restless being chained on the
ground.
a.
Impossible possibility
Again
by man we imply the male figure, a brother, a father, an uncle, a grandfather,
a husband, a boy friend, a son... It has been said elsewhere that it's bad
manners to understand a man because when you start entertaining the possibility
of understanding a man the impossibility of having not understood him arises.
This is because the male world is supposed to be a mystery not just to the
female folks but to fellow men. This means that there is nothing like a
definitive male word view, each male has a world view that is self contained
and that is only fully understood by him and occasionally revealed to second
parties in piecemeal. Ipso facto, a man is a universe unto himself. When young
ladies look for suitors to marry them they delude themselves with conventional
marking scheme of what a good man is, only to realise that each man has his own
marking scheme of what a good man is. Superficiality presented to womenfolk is
only accidents devoid of substances. The substance that defines a man remains
with the man till death.
b. Man is a
mysterious man (to
be developed)
Human beings are generally a mystery to be
believed that a content to be known. The secretive nature of males and changes
reveals the fact that men cannot be pinpointed as this or that.
c. Restless
being (to be developed)
: Men
are essentially ambitious beings and because of their ambitions it is difficult
to locate them in one realm.
2.
MALE EPISTEMOLOGY AND LOGIC
Epistemology
is rational investigation of knowledge; its meaning and nature. Male
epistemology is generally tied to the relativistic nature of his ontology. As
such he adheres to relative knowledge except when he is a scientist or well
educated. It is easier to have women agree on something than to have men
agreeing even on some simple issues. Besides, the man is an independent Knower,
independent thinker. His logic is customised to his being. When the Rwandese were killing each other,
some men in New York UN offices were still defining the meaning of Genocide and
by the time they were leaving the UN board room Rwanda had decimated itself.
Reason?, Relative epistemology . Covid-19 was detected way back in November
2019 in Wuhan China but it was only made public by communist males in China
after it had killed scores. The males had to sit down first to define the
virus. In Kenya quarantine is supposed to slow transmission and today we are
talking of real lockdown in Nairobi and some parts of the coast region. But as
it is the case, quarantine is still disturbing some men's heads. You need
police for instance to OBJECTIVELY reinforce curfew among men's RELATIVISTIC EPISTEMOLOGIOGY.
Are there women who are victims and out there? Yes. Why? They have to fend for
family. Where are their husbands? Male counterparts? Who is supposed to hunt
for the family according to African culture? The point is, until a man knows
and by knowing we mean knowing according to his epistemology, all else is not
knowledge. This excludes truly learned men.
3.
PLAUSIBILITY OF QUARANTINE -KENYAN MALES
Kenya is one of
the most progressive countries in Africa with appreciable degree of tolerance
in as far ideas and opinions are concerned. Being a Patriarchal society it is understandable
that most custodians of morals, politics, education, science and culture are
men. While we appreciate the role women are playing of late, male ontologies and epistemologies are realities we may not wish away soon. There are
philosophical and practical mistakes that men at the top and at the lower
stratum commit such as alleged hiding of hard facts about Covid19, the tendency
to shroud in mystery every sensitive issues that might affect the wider
society, late response to risks ... Specific interest here is the average and hoipoloi
Kenyan male reacting to quarantine. First the fact that a Kenyan man is an
ontologically , epistemologically and a logically relativistic being, makes it difficult for
them to internalise the concept of quarantine -in which case we have to use
force to help them quarantine. A people who are only convinced by force will
always misbehave at the slightest absence of that force. So we have men sniping
to go to chang'aa dens, visiting
brothels during quarantine and coming back to infect their families after of
course beating up their wives physically or with some warped logic. This
mysterious impossible Kenyan man aka head of the family aka hubby will at the
same time be at loggerheads with his wife who insists that he must wash hands,
or buy sanitizer or help control children movements. At the end of it all the
man will attempt solution to this stalemate by going into the cave and
eventually breaking the quarantine rule.
H.
CONCLUSION
P1:
Hypocrisy and quarantine are immiscible
P2:
Proper and thorough media civic education should be part of our disaster
response team
P3:
Relativism and egos of the male world should be addressed by all concerned
parties
P4:
Alongside social behaviour of men, nutritional guidance should be enhanced
especially among older men. Face mask without proper
immunity might be a farce.
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