From: egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges)
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 23:01:08 GMT
Organization: Princeton University
Originator: news@ernie.Princeton.EDU

In article <1992Jul27.190001.5960@nocusuhs.nnmc.navy.mil> perez@mgr.hjf.org (Charles Perez) writes:
>In article <1992Jul25.034520.17957@Princeton.EDU> egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
>
>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.

Completely incoherent.  What do they want to ban?  Thoughts?
Expression?  And there's at least one unbalanced parenthesis.
>
>>
>
>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.

Penthouse et al. makes millions of dollars as do the companies (like
Lotus) funding EFF.  Whereas feminists aren't in it for the big bucks.
Do you seriously claim that MacKinnon is as rich as Bob Guccione?

We all act from a mixture of motives, but this is a laughable equation.
Penthouse and Lotus are motivated exclusively by money; it's a part of
the creed.  Whereas part of the critique of feminism is that feminists
are starry-eyed idealists and altruists.

>
>>
>
>Violence begins with the first violent move, not with words. Or are you

Oh?  "You fucking asshole!"  "Hey babe, howd'ya like to get raped!"
"Do that again and I swear to God I'll beat you within an inch of your
life!"

>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.

Dworkin/MacKinnon don't say you read Playboy because of a preexisting
hatred of women, Dworkin/MacKinnon claim that Playboy induces this
hatred by turning women into sex objects.  And I trust my perceptions
rather than studies which are apt to be funded by the Playboy
Foundation, which (like the EFF) has an axe to grind.  Why don't you?
Do you have to be told what to think?
>
>
>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.

Fine, censorship is censorship.  And there is microcensorship and benign
censorship, as when I 86'd Henry Schaffer after he lied.  I suggest that
you not worry about rhetoric and cultivate basic reading skills, for
I've been saying all along that the fact that something is "censorship"
does not automatically imply that it is evil.
>
>>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.

How about Brandeis for starters, who in 1941 promulgated the "fighting
words" exception to blanket free speech?  

>>
>
>>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?

We live in a society in which pop songs can read "boom boom boom let's
go back to my room we can do it all night we can make it all right."  I
don't have a problem with this (although the message may contribute to
the spread of AIDS.)  I do have a problem with the fact that we shuttle
between a Democratic tweedledum and a Republican tweedledee in politics.
I do have a problem with the increasing contraction of choice in
economic life-styles, such that people can no longer experiment with
their lives or walk away from bad jobs as members of my generation used
to be able to do.  
>
>>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.

Learn some history first.  The Freudian "steam engine" theory was
developed for 19th century bourgeous Viennese, a population different in
many respects from contemporary American lumpenproles.  It's
unscientific to assume, without argument, that psychological laws apply
to both populations without change. The assumption that they do drives
Playboy's "philosophy."

>
>>
>>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?

Dumb looks are still free, I can see.  I guess your incomprehension of a
key point didn't make you decide that silence was the better part of
valor.  But this point undercuts Gordon's post, for he accuses
Dworkin/MacKinnon of creating the problem by presenting it in their
prohibitions, of encouraging violence against women by always talking
about it.  He presented the piano leg as an example, for the piano leg
reminded the repressed Victorian of the naked limb which was forbidden;
the taboo caused the Victorian, in Gordon's account, to see the taboo'd
object everywhere.

This is the "repression" model.  

But on my "addiction" model, which accounts for violence against women
as an addictive process, presenting violence won't cause it IF the
violence is presented in a context which deglamorizes it.  Addicts in
recovery deal successfully with the content of their addiction every day
by presenting it to themselves and explicitly rejecting it.  Note that
Hustler, say, has only one-half the formula; it an other porn mags
present the object but make light of its use and actively encourage
violence against women (it should be noted that in a blundering apology
to feminists, Larry Flynt presented a notorious cover of a woman being
fed into a meat grinder; but because of his track record, feminists
interpreted this as further incitement to violence, and I personally
witnessed outraged feminists screaming about this cover on the streets
of NYC in 1988.)  Dworkin and MacKinnon present sexual violence but
Gordon was wrong in claiming that this would encourage it, for they
present it only to reject it, as do addicts in recovery.

By the way, psychology (which you recommend I study) is completely
unsuccessful with addiction and also responsible for the denial of
sexual assault in early childhood.  Its failures outnumber its
successes.
>
>
>You said it yourself. They want to shut *other* people up. Their true
>motives, lusts for power others, come shining through.

What's a "lust for power others?"  Is a "power other" like a "power
lunch", a spouse with a big income?  I doubt that that's what they want,
or what you meant to say.  And you want me to shut up.  The Prez wants
to shut MIA hecklers up.  Why don't you stop blithering about other
people's motives and engage the substance of what Dworkin/MacKinnon
say?  Why is it okay for Charles Perez to want Ed Nilges to shut up, but
not okay for Dworkin to want pornographers to shut up?
>
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,misc.legal,alt.postmodern,alt.censorship