From: perez@mgr.hjf.org (Charles Perez)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,misc.legal,alt.postmodern,alt.censorship
Subject: Re: Hate Speech Okay, says the Supreme Court
Keywords: egnilges
Date: 27 Jul 92 19:00:01 GMT
Organization: HJF AIDS Research Project, Washington DC

In article <1992Jul25.034520.17957@Princeton.EDU> egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
>In article <1992Jul24.212058.9607@panix.com> gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
[...]
>
>Dworkin, MacKinnon et al. are not interested in the abolition of certain
>types of thought but of certain kind of actions, and they do not
>maintain that there is a clear and distinct boundary between speech and
>action.

Which is to say that there is no clear distiction between thought and
action, but that contradicts the first part of your statement. Dworkin
& Co. *are* interested in criminalizing (not banning - they want to
make certain thoughts (or at least their *expression*) crimes, sins
even, and then cash in on the guilt) thoughts.

>
>In describing Dworkin, MacKinnon et al. as "fans of censorship" you
>accept the terms set by their opponents.  This is that Dworkin/MacKinnon
>are advocates of censorship whereas their opponents are defenders of
>free speech.  It's been shown in this thread, however, that the interest
>in free speech by such institutions as Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler, the
>Electronic Frontier Foundation, the New York Times, et al., while real
>to some extent, is not disinterested.  Playboy, Penthouse and Hustler
>all have an interest in selling magazines.  Freedom of electronic data
>interchange assists corporate sponsors of the Electronic Frontier
>Foundation in meeting their goals, whence the support of the EFF by
>Lotus and others.  And so on.

So, naturally, PEI, Penthouse, EFF, and others, are dastards operating
for crass profit, while Dworkin, MacKinnon, et al. are benevolent
reformers operating from the highest of motives ;-). Don't make me
laugh, Ed.

>
>Dworkin, MacKinnon et al. are to some extent supporters of censorship
>partly because of the truly pathological levels of violence in our
>society, violence which BEGINS in words

Violence begins with the first violent move, not with words. Or are you
saying that violence begins with a thought, with any consideration of
whether violence is appropriate? So, to control the violence, we control
the thoughts? No, there is a word for the person who controls his own
thoughts, who is presumed able to think about what to do and when to hold
back. That word is "adult". Think through the implications of what you
post, Ed. Then maybe you won't seem like a fool.

>and which is often directed
>against women.  Much of this violence against women arises because of
>the insane expectations of relationships created by magazines like
>Playboy and Penthouse.

Says who? Why is the word of a Ted Bundy, who has every reason to
rationalize his motives, suddenly good when he says what you want
him to say (answered my own question :-) )? The studies *I* read
list reading Playboy and Penthouse as counterindications to violence
against and disrespect of women. Reading Playboy because I *hate*
women? Really.

>However, Dworkin and MacKinnon have never
>advocated across the board censorship, simply censorship of pornography
>and of hate speech.

Not relevant. Censorship is censorship, no matter what the motive or
what you want to censor. Ed, you are such an easy mark when it comes
to refuting you. Maybe your postings should be in a rhetoric textbook.

>What they advocate is consistent with accepted
>legal doctrines concerning pornography and "fighting words",

"Accepted"? By whom? You can always find someone who "accepts" what you
have to say.

>they only
>wish to render these doctrines more pointed and more supportive of the
>groups that have been specifically targeted by porn and fighting words.

They want to prejudice any case against a "pornographer" by making laws
that hold violent criminals as children and "pornographers" as the
responsible parties.

>
>>
>>The reason for this is that censorship has to include in its
>>structure the very thing it seeks to repress.  The simplest
>>case of this is the famous command not to think of a one-
>>eyed camel; the corresponding act of censorship would be the
>>prohibition of speaking of a one-eyed camel.  Every act
>>enforcing this prohibition would, _per_se_, carry out the 
>>very action it sought to prevent.
>
>Laws against hate speech may make passing mention of Nazi regalia.  But
>this is not likely to disturb anyone.  Even laws against porn do not
>have to excite.  Perhaps you're thinking of the Meese report which did
>manage to be pornographic because old fatboy went overboard and included
>all sorts of explicit illustrations.  However, Dworkin's accounts of her
>victimizations excite pity, the reverse of hateful emotions; and
>MacKinnon's almost Germanic pedantry excites boredom at its worst
>(despite its value), not anger or sexual arousal.

Read what the original poster *wrote*, Ed. Netters here tend to be
intelligent and well-educated, and most of them have heard of the
"straw man" fallacy. What you illustrated as "not disturbing", "boring"
or "exciting pity" were not actual bans on certain thoughts, with the
possible exception of the ban on hate speech. Even so, it is not the
reading of the law that evokes what the law is to supress, it is its
*enforcement*.

>
>>
>>It is the same with other forms of censorship -- the 
>>censorship of sexual or of violent material, for example.  
>>The censorship sets up a structure in which the thing 
>>prohibited is the central idea which lies behind every act 
>>of enforcement.  The result is (in the case of censorship 
>>of erotica) to sexualize everything on the boundary 
>>between what is censored and what isn't, because _the_ 
>>_boundary_points_to_the_center_.  That is why, in the 
>>Victorian era, it was considered rather improper for a 
>>woman's ankles to be displayed, at least if she were of 
>>a certain class.  The ankle became sexually inspiring
>>because it indicated the calf, which was hidden; the
>>calf, the knee; and so on.  Sometimes, people felt the
>>need to cover the legs of tables, and call them limbs!
>>
>
>You don't say. This is the old "steam engine" theory of sexual
>repression.  It has some validity.  However, for many men, venting rage
>and having sex leads not to relief but to addiction to sex and violence.

Go to school, learn a little psychology. Hunger, thirst and lust are
*primary drives*. Rage is an *emotion*. They are not the same. Lumping
them together in this context is dishonest, Ed.

Primary drives go away when slaked. Or do you say that eating often leads
to addiction to food?

Emotions stick around until their cause goes away or they are released.
They are released by expressing them (not necessarily *giving in* to
them). They are only repressed when they are *disowned*, when their
reality is denied. This act of release never creates any sort of emotional
addiction. The "uncontrollable" urge to take out any sort of rage on its
object is actually a defect of character or maturity. It certainly shows
a lack of discipline.

>This is probably the result of the way in which our society is
>structured, in which personal behavior is "free" but economic and
>political arrangements are insanely rigid.

How do you define "rigid" in this context?

>So maybe in the past the
>"steam engine" theory had validity which it nowadays lacks.

Again, learn some psychology before you go running your mouth.

>
>Addicts in successful recovery often report that they think of the
>object of their addiction every single day and they welcome these
>thoughts.  These thoughts, it is said, "keep the memory green."  Perhaps
>we need Dworkin and MacKinnon to remind us of the way in which women are
>victimized.  Perhaps here, too, silence=death.

Huh?

>
>>
>>The prohibited erotism becomes, so to speak, the shadow or 
>>dark side of everything said within the reach of the 
>>prohibition -- and the more that is said, the more 
>>messages that are sent, the more probable it is that the 
>>prohibited is implicit in the permitted.  The repressed 
>>does not have to return; it simply hides behind the 
>>unrepressed and becomes part of it. 
>
>This has validity.  However, you appear to assume that Dworkin and
>MacKinnon want us to be silent about sex, and violence against women.  I
>should think they want the opposite.  Dworkin is quite explicit about
>the ways in which she was victimized.  They DO wish to attenuate
>discourse about sex and women from a male point of view; one of
>Dworkin's writings is titled "Against the Male Flood."

You said it yourself. They want to shut *other* people up. Their true
motives, lusts for power others, come shining through.

Ed, do some work on your thoughts before expressing them on the net.
If you're trying to make a career as a bullshit artist, your technique
is way down. If you actually believe what you say, you have some
major work to do. Do it. Refuting this post of yours doesn't even
have me breathing hard.

.sig
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,misc.legal