From: egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges)
Subject: Re: Hate Speech Okay, says the Supreme Court
Originator: news@ernie.Princeton.EDU
Organization: Princeton University
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 14:42:23 GMT

In article <1992Jul21.234433.1970@cbnewsk.cb.att.com> noraa@cbnewsk.cb.att.com (aaron.l.hoffmeyer) writes:
>In article <1992Jul18.215536.17874@Princeton.EDU> egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
>
>So, Ed, you're a bookworm.  

I've been called worse than that.  Where the hell does this come from?
Is it a character flaw?  Details, please.
>
> However, MacKinnon is not the
>greatest legal theorist to come down the pike.

She's not a theorist at all.  We were discussing the background of legal
feminism, not MacKinnon.

>  In fact, she hopped
>around from law school to law school to obtain her degree.

This is not prima facie evidence of lessened competence and it may be
the reverse.  Law school tends these days to reward frightened
conformity and punish independence of thought.

>
>She is, Ed, an oppressor trying to legislate her repressed sexuality.

The media consistently ignores and mocks the more theoretical legal
feminists.  MacKinnon's extremism and willingness to mix it up with the
establishment are exactly the sort of behaviors that attract attention,
just as the media focused on the Weathermen rather than more
broadly-based demands for change back in the Sixties.  In large measure,
Catherine MacKinnon is a manufactured figure.

>She sees the act of love-making as almost the total equivalent of the
>act of rape.  She thinks that expressing yourself in mixed company is
>something that must be regulated by the government.  For her, a man
>asking a woman if she has ever heard of Long-Dong Silver is a violation

Sexual harassment, in law and to MacKinnon, is a pattern of oppressive
activities (anyhoo, I thought Clarence T did NOT say the things ascribed
to him by Anita Hill; oh, well.)  It must also align with power
relationships.  If a subordinate man harassed his female supervisor,
she'd have a LOT more trouble in making a charge stick than the reverse
situation.

>
>Otherwise, I'm going to kick you in the shins. 

Geez Louise, Aaron, net.thermodynamics kicks in.  After a long, quite
intelligent, and reasonable post, you come out with this little gem.
Confirming my "thermodynamic" viewpoint of the typical poster as one
whose heat increases geometrically as he writes his post.

Dare I say that you cannot speak as one who is completely neutral in
these matters because of YOUR repressed violence?  

The actual facts of our society belie your balanced viewpoint.  Most men
aren't like the modal computer/science poster to this net who is, or
feels himself to be, a nonviolent chap, and even nonviolent chaps like
you may have some subconscious issues which prompt you to utter violent
threats like "otherwise, I'm going to kick you in the shins."
>
>Aaron L. Hoffmeyer
>TR@CBNEA.ATT.COM 
>
>P.S.  One hint for future posts:  Tone down on the vis-vis's, je
>june's, a la's, reifying's.  You lose and offend half of your intended
>audience right off the bat.  Some of what you have to say is fairly
>enlightened and important.  It makes us think.  But, if you want to
>masturbate intellectually, do it somewhere else.  We know you are
>well-read already.  OK, Dude?

Why should I privilege "Dude" over "vis a vis" and other foreign
phrases?  I'm 42; when I hear "dude",like Jack Nicholson in Easy Rider,
I ask "dude ranch?"  "Reifying" is a more succinct way of saying "making
a thing out of."  "Jejune" characterizes Mike Godwin's posts more
succinctly than "adolescent."  As to losing an audience, the way people
learn words is contextually, so it is inaccurate to say that people
will see some of the more Latinate and foreign words and conclude that
they cannot understand the post without a dictionary. 

In a global network, this move for language purification is folly, and
crypto-racist.  If le  mot juste happens to be foreign (whether directly 
or in derivation), I  say use it, and confusion to Strunk and White 
(The Elements of Style, whence many folks get this condemnation of 
non-AngloSaxon words, is answered quite well by Richard Lanham's book 
Style, an Anti-Textbook.)


Xref: sparky talk.politics.theory:3013 misc.legal:14809 alt.postmodern:2185 alt.censorship:6277