It's a hoot. Everyone should study it carefully. Entertaining, fascinating, and wise, even if ultimately wrong on most counts. It's also important to understand if you want to understand the main intellectual trends in 20th and 21st century ethics.
Speaking of Anscombe, what do people think of her work on knowledge of the position of our own limbs? I know she's an obscure figure and all, but so much that I read these days in epistemology would just not get off the ground if her arguments succeed and I don't really see anyone in epistemology engage with her.
1: 44. A few reasons! I taught it and was far more delighted with her positive proposal than I thought I would be. (I am sure "consequentialists" have responded to it, but I don't know where. We are reading Josh Greene next, and I'm kind of eager to compare and contrast. I found a paper by Candace Upton (2006) on Anscombe "today" but I wonder if there is more.)
Louie Genitals engages in hysterical puritan authoritarianism. Surely, it's Louie Genitals who needs to stop being a hysterical bully - something other people find pretty offensive?
I'd like to see Philosophy Metablog do an entire thread parody consisting of an original post that says "Stop," followed by 100 replies saying, "Stop."
Make it happen, Metablog! Don't you take requests?
Hey guys check out what's been happening at the Philosophy Metablog! There are new posts, and there's an interesting comment thread between yours truly and a truly big boy. Why not join in the fun?
God, Schuman. What's the point of that? She writes an article about flipping off her baby, and includes multiple photos of her doing so. I suppose she thinks she has a cute story idea. Even so, I don't get it. I don't get it at all. I was not inspired to read the article. What she has done can do nothing but hurt the person who is her child who sees it later. Nothing but. Why would someone do that? Someone get Rebecca Schuman on here to explain herself.
Among mommybloggers and their fans (a large online community) there is a hashtag asshole parent and it has been a joke for a while. I think you are unfamiliar, right? I imagine it just is not your thing. No children are harmed. Plenty of children are harmed in other ways, though, if your concern is for children, sponsor a foster child.
oh, the drama. Get over yourself. You really have no right to weigh in on something you don't know about, for one. Assuming millions of moms are abusing their kids because you've decided they just have to hide the frustration of loving and caring for a young child and can't joke about it? You get to decide that? Sounds like a personality disorder. That harms all of us.
I"m 4:12. You sure do impute a lot to your interlocutors, 6:25. I have identified at least four entirely unwarranted assumptions you make about me,in your post. The assumptions are in sentence three and in sentence four (3). You're weird to do that. Are you abusive as a joke or do you take yourself seriously? Maybe you know who I am and are trying under cover of anonymity to attack? I don't know. It's weird. Or are you on the defensive because you yourself flip off your own babies? Or you are in some way strongly identifying with people who do that? I don't get it. Time waster.
Flipping off babies is not equivalent to joking about the frustration of loving and caring for a young child.
Your reply pretends that they are equivlaent, 6:25. Or else you just haven't thought about the fact that there are other ways to joke about the frustration of loving and caring for a young child and thoughtlessly equate one method of joking about X to any joking about X at all. Somehow I suspect it's the latter, that you really are not able to make distinctions.
Interesting that Leiter claims, "Most obviously, male sexual assault is more common than female sexual assault, and so has produced more victims, and more concern."
However, the criminological evidence contradicts this. US and UK crime surveys show that males and females engage in sexual assault, and interpersonal abuse, at about the same rate.
Leiter: "Many people have commented to me over the last year or so that they feel this incident would have generated much more cyber-attention and outrage if Stubblefield had been a man and the alleged victim a woman. That is probably true, though for reasons that are understandable. Most obviously, male sexual assault is more common than female sexual assault, and so has produced more victims, and more concern."
So he thinks it's understandable that we haven't heard more about this female rapist because he thinks female sexual assault is less common.
But in fact female sexual assault is equally common, and he only thinks it's less common because very few people pay attention to it. Just like very few people payed attention to the Stubblefield case.
I suspect you're making this argument in bad faith. I assume Leiter is using "sexual assault" in the narrow sense most people use it, and that the crime surveys you're referring to probably use it in a much broader sense.
Consider, for example, this rather even-handed article, which points out problems for both sides of the issue based in how we define rape: http://time.com/3393442/cdc-rape-numbers/
"most of us would agree that to equate a victim of violent rape and a man who engages in a drunken sexual act he wouldn’t have chosen when sober is to trivialize a terrible crime. It is safe to assume that the vast majority of the CDC’s male respondents who were “made to penetrate” someone would not call themselves rape victims—and with good reason.
But if that’s the case, it is just as misleading to equate a woman’s experience of alcohol-addled sex with the experience of a rape victim who is either physically overpowered or attacked when genuinely incapacitated."
It has nothing to do with how "rape" is defined. Women engage in sexual assault at roughly the same rate that men do. Women engage in abuse and violence at roughly the same rate men do, and quite possibly higher (unreported) rates. And women force non-consenting penetration at roughly the same rate men do.
I am making the argument in good faith. I agree with you that the feminists have expanded the definition of 'rape' beyond recognition. But if you don't expand the definitions like that, then there is extremely little sexual assault to talk about in the philosophical profession.
But I'm reading Leiter as saying, "Men in an unimpaired state violently force sex on the opposite sex in an unimpaired state more often than women do."
Does the criminological evidence contradict that?
I did a quick Google search, and my impression is that equal rates require including a wider range of things, such as alcohol impaired sex, supposed emotional coercion, etc. (And my cynical thought--I can't help it--is: men are bigger wusses, so if we're asked twice when we don't feel like it, we say we we're "forced.")
Perhaps a link to the specific studies you have in mind would help.
The criminological evidence confirms that women commit at least as much violence against men as men commit against women. I don't know what that means for forcible rape in particular, but anyway that's not what Leiter is talking about. He says sexual assault, and Stubblefield is a statutory rapist.
For the record I was the victim of a violent sexual assault by a female philosopher colleague. It wasn't as bad as these things can get, but it was real.
Yes it does contradict that. Simply google "gender symmetry" "domestic violence", "inter-personal violence". It is feminist propaganda -- very influential, politically convenient, and socially damaging -- propaganda, to portray IPV as uni-diriectional. It is well-known to be bi-directional.
There's a performative contradiction in Leiter's post. Rightly, he notes that FC is "junk science"; rightly he also notes that it is relevant to Stubblefield's defense that she believes, wrongly, that it works.
However Leiter then reiterates as fact a claim which is junk sociology, not appreciating that the "concern" he mentions is caused by the belief in junk sociology, and not by its actually being true.
Populist hysteria - whether about witches, communists, Jews, evil corporations, Republicans, gay priests, or a plague of demonic male rapists - is whipped up by false beliefs, not the facts. This is why Eric Hoffer's celebrated and insightful book, The True Believer remains as valuable today as it did when it was published in 1951.
Wow how do the abusive women hide the fall out? Why are the ERs and shelters unaware of the scope of this problem? How do men hide their injuries? Why aren't there reports of this in the family courts in the contentious divorces? Abused men go so far as to hide it there? Before feminism was it well known that women beat men? Are 1/5 college men sexually assaulted by women? Thanks.
Daniel J. Whitaker, Tadesse Haileyesus, Monica Swahn, Linda S. Saltzman, 2007, Differences in Frequency of Violence and Reported Injury Between Relationships With Reciprocal and Nonreciprocal Intimate Partner Violence "Data is mounting, however, that suggests that IPV is often perpetrated by both men and women against their partner. It is also becoming recognized that perpetration of IPV by both partners within a relationship is fairly common. This phenomenon has been described with terms such as mutual violence, symmetrical violence, or reciprocal violence. ... Several studies have found that men and women initiate violence against an intimate partner at approximately the same rate."
Fiebert, 2012, References Examining Assaults by Women on Their Spouses or Male Partners "Summary: This bibliography examines 286 scholarly investigations: 221 empirical studies and 65 reviews and/or analyses, which demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners. The aggregate sample size in the reviewed studies exceeds 371,600."
The questions have been answered: male victims of violence, abuse and rape report them to medics, social workers and the police. This is how the statistics described above, as Cathy Young mentioned for CDC 2014, Whitaker et al (2007), the huge literature survey by Fiebert (2012) etc., are compiled.
If you wish to deny all this evidence by experts, then please explain which of these countless studies is wrong?
> Nearly 7 percent of men, however, reported that at some point in their lives, they were “made to penetrate” another person—usually in reference to vaginal intercourse, receiving oral sex, or performing oral sex on a woman. This was not classified as rape, but as “other sexual violence.”
> And now the real surprise: when asked about experiences in the last 12 months, men reported being “made to penetrate”—either by physical force or due to intoxication—at virtually the same rates as women reported rape (both 1.1 percent in 2010, and 1.7 and 1.6 respectively in 2011).
> In other words, if being made to penetrate someone was counted as rape—and why shouldn’t it be?—then the headlines could have focused on a truly sensational CDC finding: that women rape men as often as men rape women.
On the contrary, CDC figures, as discussed by Cathy Young, support the conclusion that women rape at roughly the same rate as men do. Similar results appear elsewhere. There is very strong evidence for gender symmetry in IPV, domestic abuse, sexual assault, harassment and violence.
Contrary to 2:23's attempts to defend rape and violence, the founder of women's refuges, in Chiswick London, in 1971, was Erin Pizzey. "Pizzey has been the subject of death threats and boycotts because of her research into the claim that most domestic violence is reciprocal, and that women are equally capable of violence as men. Pizzey has said that the threats were from militant feminists"
3:14/ARG: You really have to stop accusing people of 'defending' or 'excusing' things when they are clearly not. I just read this conversation, and no-one is 'defending' or 'excusing' anything. I've seen you do this time and time again - demand people justify absurd things that have very little to do with the position they're defending, accuse people of defending or holding wildly implausible positions that they do not hold. Quoting people out of context. You really need to stop - it not only makes you look like a dick, it makes actual discussions about important issues really difficult to have. And it does, as 2:06 says, seem like bad faith.
3:30, trying to change the subject doesn't work. The bad faith is yours. The absurdity is the false claim that women don't rape, assault or engage in violence. They do. The evidence shows that women do, in fact, engage in rape, assault and violence at roughly the same rate men do.
And yet again: *nobody* on this thread is claiming that women don't rape, assault, or engage in violence. Nobody.
And it is not 'bad faith' to point out that you are attributing views to other people that they clearly do not hold. If you were really interested in the issues, rather than clearly more interested in provoking anonymous commenters, you would *stop* pulling this shit. As it is, you're the one who is making it impossible to have a sensible conversation about anything. But I assume that's your goal.
Ok, 4:18, cut out these insults. 2:23 asked, "Why are the ERs and shelters unaware of the scope of this problem?" Answer: they are aware of this problem, but it is downplayed by political activists for political reasons, as Strauss's 2010 article explains. The founder of 1971 women's refuge, Erin Pizzey, is fully aware of it too, as noted above. But she was hounded with death threats from militant feminists. 2:23 asked, "How do men hide their injuries?". Answer: they show them to doctors, police officers and social workers, and report them in crime surveys. They also showed them to Erin Pizzey. 2:23 asked, "Why aren't there reports of this in the family courts in the contentious divorces?" There are huge numbers of reports of this in family courts, as Fiebert's 2012 survey shows.
2:23's questions are an attempt to deny rape, violence and assault by women - who engage in this at roughly the same rate men do. Those questions have been answered. The answers are based on detailed evidence, including CDC evidence, and the studies documented above, and the countless studies mentioned therein.
Without evidence, you attribute "bad faith". Cathy Young's article in fact deals with that specific point, as 2:57 noted above. If you wish to have a conversation, don't engage in accusations of "bad faith". Instead, pay attention to the evidence. Don't engage in denials of rape, assault and violence. Instead, pay attention to the evidence. You've seen the evidence. Now discuss it like a grown-up.
I did give evidence for why you are arguing in bad faith.
"Don't engage in denials of rape, assault, and violence."
What part of "nobody is claiming that women don't rape, assault, or engage in violence". - which I said directly above your comment - leads you to believe that I am engaging in a denial of rape, assault and violence?
I repeat, it is not 'bad faith' to point out that you are attributing views to other people that they clearly do not hold. If you were really interested in the issues, rather than clearly more interested in provoking anonymous commenters, you would *stop* pulling this shit. As it is, you're the one who is making it impossible to have a sensible conversation about anything. But I assume that's your goal.
4:55, read the evidence, and stop trying to change the subject.
2:23's comments were attempts to deny rape, assault and violence by women. Those comments have been dealt with - by referring to the relevant evidence, including evidence related to one of the founders of refuges, Erin Pizzey. I am not attributing anything that is not directly in the comments by 2:23, who might wish to read the relevant evidence instead of producing ill-tempered knee-jerk responses based on no evidence. You also need to cut out these insults. Cathy Young's article explicitly dealt with the matter you raised concerning the roughly equal rate at which males and females engage in sexual assault. It is not "bad faith" to refer to something that is dealt with in evidence-based studies. Ok? It is called evidence. If you wish to have a conversation, without groundless insults, you should pay attention to the evidence, much of which is listed at some length above.
There are no insults - simply claims about what you are doing. And I have repeatedly provided evidence for those claims. You seem to think that you can discuss any issue you like, in any way, including deliberately misattributing extreme views to your interlocutors, and that anybody pointing this out is 'changing the subject'. But it is you who is making the important conversations on this blog impossible to have, because you clearly just want to score points and annoy people, rather than engage in useful discussion.
And you've provided yet another example: "Cathy Young's article explicitly dealt with the matter you raised concerning the roughly equal rate at which males and females engage in sexual assault.It is not 'bad faith' to refer to something that is dealt with in evidence-based studies. Ok?"
For a start, I didn't raise the issue, nor am I 2:06. But 2:06 is very clearly referring to a different article - which they name in that comment - when they state that it looks like you are arguing in bad faith.
3:07, who I assume is you, then takes that quote out of context and makes it seem like it was about a different article. You then repeat the claim about 'bad faith' being used to refer to you bringing in this *new* article at 5:08. Seemingly in response to later comments I made about you arguing in bad faith.
But note that what I said - and the most recent comments about your arguing in bad faith - are about you quoting people out of context and deliberately misattributing views. So it is a non-sequitur to reply to these comments by saying "It is not "bad faith" to refer to something that is dealt with in evidence-based studies. Ok?" in reference to the Cathy Young article. No-one ever said that it was, and the most recent comments about bad faith have nothing to do with evidence-based studies whatsoever.
It seems you're either no capable, or do not want to, adhere to basic norms of discussion - like, don't deliberately misrepresent people, don't quote them out of context. You may think this makes you look clever, or maybe you think it makes you look like you're 'winning' the discussion. But you don't and you're not.
Again, no-one's 'insulting' you, let alone 'groundlessly.' I'm just pointing out the many ways in which you are failing to adhere to basic norms of discussion. And nothing about what I have written indicates that I find you 'upsetting' - though trying to pretend that your interlocutors are being all emotional when they simply are disagreeing with you, find you annoying (for good reason) and are calmly pointing out the many ways in which you are being deliberately obstructive is yet another tactic that shows that you are more interested in provocation than discussion.
There are lots of cases where a correct factual claim, supported by evidence, is made in bad faith. When it is irrelevant or misleading given the context, for example.
In any case, as I have stated above, what you clearly do is take 2:06's original quote out of context. Your repetition - in response to the number of other instances I have listed - that 'it s not bad-faith to refer to something in an evidence based study' is a non-sequitur.
If you are so sensitive that you think that someone describing you as engaging in bad faith - and providing examples - is an 'insult' then perhaps you should not be discussing things here. Most philosophers think it is a good idea to avoid gratuitous personal insults - but as I assume you must understand, this doesn't mean we should avoid pointing out people's errors in reasoning, or places where people have misrepresented others or interpreted in ways that are uncharitable. This would have a detrimental effect on philosophical discussions.
You lost, 6:11. Now read the evidence, which has been listed at length above, concerning women engaging in assault, abuse and violence at about the same rate men do.
I'm 2:06. The article by Cathy Young does not say that men and women commit sexual assaults at the same rate. The article is not about the sex or gender of assailants at all. It is about the sex of victims.
So, it's now pretty clear that whoever was claiming that men and women commit sexual assault at the same rates did not have evidence for that claim. That person should just admit it, rather than digging deeper and deeper.
6:21, merely asserting of your interlocutor 'you lost' does not make it true. Especially when they, and other commenters, have provided multiple examples of instances where you are clearly engaging in bad faith. and you fail to respond to any of these.
Nope, 2:06. The situations described are male-female interactions, as described in the article ("vaginal intercourse", etc.). The victims mentioned are victims of female perpetrators, and rate of female perpetration of sexual assault is about the same as male perpetration of sexual assault: "Nearly 7% of men, however, reported that at some point in their lives, they were "made to penetrate" another person — usually in reference to vaginal intercourse, receiving oral sex, or performing oral sex on a woman. This was not classified as rape, but as "other sexual violence." And now the real surprise: when asked about experiences in the last 12 months, men reported being "made to penetrate" — either by physical force or due to intoxication — at virtually the same rates as women reported rape (both 1.1% in 2010, and 1.7% and 1.6% respectively in 2011)."
"Contrary to 2:23's attempts to defend rape and violence, the founder of women's refuges, in Chiswick London, in 1971, was Erin Pizzey. "Pizzey has been the subject of death threats and boycotts because of her research into the claim that most domestic violence is reciprocal, and that women are equally capable of violence as men. Pizzey has said that the threats were from militant feminists""
Even if 2:23 were attempting to defend rape and violence - which I highly doubt - the fact that Pizzey received death threats - while clearly terrible - would not be 'contrary' to a defense of rape and violence.
Even if we take the most charitable interpretation, and assume by the claim '2:23's attempts to defend rape and violence" the author meant something like "2:23's claim that there is a gender asymmetry in rape and violence perpetators" the fact that Pizzey received threats for doing research, while of course terrible, does no work one way or the other to establish claims about whether there is an asymmetry, so would not run contrary to 2:23's claims. It's also from 1971, so hardly recent. It's hard to see how the quote provided is anything other than a deliberately inflammatory non-sequitur.
Coerced Sex Not Uncommon for Young Men, Teenage Boys, Study Finds "A total of 43% of high school boys and young college men reported they had an unwanted sexual experience and of those, 95% said a female acquaintance was the aggressor, according to a study published online in the APA journal Psychology of Men and Masculinity."
6:55, the fact that people do not want to discuss something with *you* - when it is clear that you are engaging in bad faith - of which there are numerous examples, none of which you have responded to - is not evidence that they are ignoring anything, or that they dislike evidence, or that they have not read evidence. It is evidence that your modus operandi - being obstructive and inflammatory and uncharitable - is obvious to them.
Now it is 'bullying' and 'aggressive' to point out that most people do not find discussions with people who are being deliberately obstructive productive, and to point to numerous instances where a person is being deliberately obstructive. Looks like 7:08 is trying to play the victim.
7:18's clearly given up in the face of mountains of evidence of bad-faith engagement and is now just resorting to repetition and accusations of 'aggression' and 'bullying.' Boring. It is kind of nice to see 7:18's bullshit clearly pointed out and described, though. I've seen the 'quote-out-of-context, followed by inflammatory non sequitur, plus a demand that someone defend some clearly absurd view that there is no evidence that they hold' so many times before on this blog.
7:26, you've been shown evidence relating to female violence, abuse and assault, from - Cathy Young, citing CDC 2014 statistics, - Strauss (2010), about denial of gender symmetry in violence, - Whitaker et al (2007), - the major literature survey by Fiebert (2012), - the experience of the founder of women's refuges (Erin Pizzey), who received death threats - a 2014 APA paper about male victimization of sexual assault.
I looked at the evidence, now I see where they got their numbers. Still not impressed that everyone I run into (in the fields of social work, policing, and Family Law) has misdescribed the nature of their work. I would agree that juvenile detention needs to be ended as a system, with those stats and the rest.
Tantrum over? Hope so. Now calm down and read the large amount of evidence that's been cited above, concerning female perpetration of violence, assault and abuse.
Funny how the person who just a few comments ago was complaining about people being 'insulting' and being 'aggressive bullies' is now saying things like "Tantrum over? Hope so. Now calm down."
8:01, if you sincerely wanted to have a discussion about these issue, you would not say things that are patronizing and deliberately provocative, personal and obviously false. The people you are talking to are not having tantrums, and they are behaving calmly. You can keep on pretending that you really care about the issues and the evidence, but your behavior clearly demonstrates otherwise.
I can only imagine that by "calm down" 8:12 must mean 'stop making it obvious to everybody that I am behaving badly in the context of a discussion." That's certainly the charitable way to interpret it - otherwise what is being said doesn't really make any sense.
One says "calm down" to a person when they have a tantrum, like your extended tantrum above, and cannot control their emotions. You are having a tantrum because your emotions are stung by the large volume of evidence you've been shown. It's up to you. I'd recommend you simply read the evidence and calm down.
8:37, it's just getting a little silly now. No-one has written anything that indicates they cannot control their emotions, or that they are having a 'tantrum' (let alone an extended one), nor that they are not 'calm.' It is really obvious what you are trying to do, and it is not working.
Hey, ever notice that when you say a word over and over it starts to sound funny and loses all of its meaning? Try it! Evidence. Evidence. Ehhh-veee-dennts. Fun!
Yes, there's no need to get so upset, 9:06. Maybe you need to sit down for a minute and take a few deep breaths. You're clearly not coping very well. There there.
I think it's because 9:06 has been pretty obviously been deliberately taunting other people for ages now. They're just getting a taste of their own medicine.
A person is shown various pieces of evidence they don't like. This causes an emotional tantrum - obsessive repetition of "bad faith!", over and over again. Asking this upset person to calm down isn't the same as "crying".
As the resident ARG whisperer around here, I recommend roaring, meowing, asking for evidence, or comparing him to Leiter. He's usually pretty okay after that. And it's more humane.
Evidence is a terrible thing ... - Cathy Young, citing CDC 2014 statistics, - Strauss (2010), about denial of gender symmetry in violence, - Whitaker et al (2007), - the major literature survey by Fiebert (2012), - the experience of the founder of women's refuges, Erin Pizzey, who received death threats - a 2014 APA paper about male victimization of sexual assault.
I'm 11:16 (third poster in the thread). I'm the one who posted the Cathy Young article in Time because it *does not* support the claim about symmetry in rape (in the narrow sense that I specified: non-impaired, violently forced sex).
The article questions the CDC's overly broad definition of rape in a way that undermines *both* feminist claims about rape culture and men's rights activist claims of symmetry:
"it is just as misleading to equate a woman’s experience of alcohol-addled sex with the experience of a rape victim who is either physically overpowered or attacked when genuinely incapacitated.
For purely biological reasons, there is little doubt that adult victims of such crimes are mostly female."
So stop including that as evidence for your view.
And stop giving evidence about violence, which 4 of the 6 items on your list concern. The question is about rape in the narrow sense specified.
That leaves the APA paper, which is hardly a slam dunk for you. First, from symmetry among high school students it doesn't follow that there's symmetry among men and women. Second, self-reports about sexuality from teenagers are, well, bullshit.
Third it's not about rape narrowly construed, but about coercion in a broad sense that includes *unwanted seduction*:
"Examples of coercion included “My partner threatened to stop seeing me” for verbal; “My partner encouraged me to drink alcohol and then took advantage of me” for substance; “My partner threatened to use or did use a weapon” for physical; and “My partner has tried to interest me by sexually touching but I was not interested” for seduction."
As the report concludes: "The findings revealed a need for more scientific study of the thin line between sexual seduction and sexual coercion, the authors wrote."
In other words, to return to the beginning of the thread: yes, it depends on how we define rape and sexual assault.
To get back to the actual beginning of the thread, if you're only concerned with "non-impaired, violently forced sex," then Leiter's claim about the higher rate of men assaulting women than vice-versa is a non-sequitur, regardless of whether it is true. He made that claim to explain the lack of OUTRAGE over the Stubblefield case, which is clearly not a case of "non-impaired, violently forced sex." Switching the genders of the individuals in the Stubblefield case wouldn't change the fact that it isn't a case of "non-impaired, violently forced sex." Leiter might as well have explained the lack of OUTRAGE by reference to men's higher rate of suicide or armed robbery.
If by sexual assault you only mean "non-impaired, violently forced sex", then Stubblefield isn't about sexual assault on your (rather silly) definition of that term. It makes no sense, then to explain the lack of outrage about that case by referring to the rates of actual (in your view) sexual assaults.
I'm not taking a position on whether women actually commit sexual assaults (broadly defined) at same rate as men. But the dispute has to be centered on that claim, not on whether sexual assault properly includes non-violently forced sex.
"Your APA membership dues were due by September 1. Please take a moment to renew your membership now so your online access, special discounts, and upcoming publications can resume as soon as possible."
Oh, yes. I am very eager to renew my membership to our alleged professional organization, which is run by an anti-male, feminist activist who isn't even a philosopher.
My guess is that MildSalsa has always been hot, long before she was old enough to deal with it. Maybe being treated inappropriately by authority figures and being valued as a sex object over being valued as a thinker is something she's sick of. But now she's getting backlash from angry nerds who bloomed late enough to handle it. And just have no idea where she's coming from because they didn't experience it themselves. And you know, once you're in the crosshairs of an angry nerd, fogetta bout it. But that's just my guess.
I'm not MildSalsa but 8:17's explanation seems likely. I've had (often *married*) professors make more and less overt sexual interest towards me. One person is easy to brush off, but after the second, or the third...
It's especially distressing when the interest is not about who you are as a person, but merely about your physical attractiveness. It's weird.
Because she effectively denies people one aspect of their agency in her own mind, and says that anything that threatens to reintroduce it makes her uncomfortable, as though that is or should be a reason to stop doing it.
Compare: But look, as a young black person, I can’t walk outside without being reminded that I am black, and I can’t watch TV without being reminded how problematic that is for everyone else. It’s really distracting to be worrying about that when I’m trying to learn, think, and talk about difficult topics.To avoid this distraction, I like to imagine my professors as blind people who can't see my skin color, who get around by echolocation and familiarity with their surroundings. And when professors admit to having visual perceptions, I have to lose my illusion. You might think that losing that illusion isn’t a big deal. After all, I couldn’t possibly have convinced myself of it in the first place. That might be true. But I can honestly say, that any that it’s extremely stressful for me to think about any of my professors ever having a single thought about skin color. Maybe that seems extreme, but you know, all that stuff about the truth being stranger than fiction and so on.
But if that's what she has to do to navigate in the world, then who cares? I didn't see her/him advocating 'colorblindness' or 'sexual blindness' as a moral principle.
11:56, she asked professors (or insinuated that they ought) to refrain from reminding her that they are sexual beings. Apparently she now has coping mechanisms for when they bring up their spouses or kids, but not for jokes.
It's not just that. It's also that he or she says they feel "uncomfortable", and that things are "unpleasant" because people are questioning them, as if that's a good reason. "You wanted my opinion, and I gave it" isn't a reason for people to unquestioningly accept your opinion, especially philosophers. "Don't tell me what to feel" almost adds itself "even if my feelings are unreasonable".
It's the embodiment of an attitude that we see all too much that college students don't want to be challenged, that every viewpoint is equally deserving of respect if it's someone's, and that they shouldn't ever have to feel challenged for their thoughts and feelings.
I read [the initial post] as her explaining the effects of (potentially) offensive jokes, whatever people should do in response to that is up for discussion.
I'm not mad at MildSalsa. I just find it absolutely ridiculous that the New Consensus now requires that we be hypersensitive to the possibility that what we say will upset an adult child who has to pretend that her philosophy instructors are asexual beings who have their children delivered to them by storks.
"I’ve experienced being hit-on by a professor, not once, but twice."
Oh, the HORROR! I can't think of anything worse than another adult slightly hinting that they find me sexually attractive. Twice, even—think of all the cooties one could get!
Here is her initial post to a thread about sexual jokes, although she added others:
"Okay, so I think that “mild” describes other things other than salsa, even jokes which are sexual in nature.
But look, as a young woman, I can’t walk outside without being reminded that I am a sexual object, and I can’t watch TV without being reminded how problematic that is for everyone else.
It’s really distracting to be worrying about that when I’m trying to learn, think, and talk about difficult topics.
To avoid this distraction, I like to imagine my professors as asexual beings, who are partnered out of some sort of asexual devotion to their BFF or have children because of storks.
And when professors admit to having heard of sex, I have to lose my illusion.
You might think that losing that illusion isn’t a big deal. After all, I couldn’t possibly have convinced myself of it in the first place.
That might be true. But I can honestly say, that any that it’s extremely stressful for me to think about any of my professors ever having a single thought about sex.
Maybe that seems extreme, but you know, all that stuff about the truth being stranger than fiction and so on."
In case you missed it, this is written on purpose a little (a lot) exaggeratedly.
I've always enjoyed introducing to my undergraduate students the idea that properties can bear relations to one another. That way, I can let "F" stand for such a relation, and ask them to consider some A-ness being F-ed by a P-ness.
Ok, I'm only going to try and limit my responses here to one: But yes, 11:54, 11:56, 12:24, and 1:28 had me right. I was reporting how sexual jokes have the effect of a stereotype threat on me. Then I used exaggerated claims to make a joke about how I cope with stereotype threat. I wasn't making any normative claims about what we ought to do. And I don't think it's fair to say I'm afraid to be challenged. Here I am, responding to you. As for 1:04 mocking me with "oh the horror," 8:17 and 11:30 have it right. I'm not super confident in my ability to come across as a strong scholar. I am super confident that people think I'm pretty. I know that sounds really annoying to those of you who have had it the other way round, and I don't mean to irritate you. But we all have these sorts of things on our plate- things that make us doubt that we have what it takes to get the things we want. I was just reporting mine because it was relevant to that particular discussion.
Also MildSalsa, I wonder if you agree that professors who "hit on" students don't just let it go when they are rejected. It is not at all like being "hit on" by peers. The scary part about realizing someone you are not attracted to (like a professor) is about to "hit on" you is what comes after you reject them. They will make you pay for the blow to their ego, stop acting friendly, etc. So that's what young people have to dread when they realize they are being "hit on." And I don't know anyone who takes being targeted for social punishment well or terribly easily.
Ha, I don't know anyone who takes being targeted for social punishment well or terribly easily either, 4:55!
In my case, I can't tell if I was any sort of target specifically because I rejected anyone. But I can say that really bad things happened to me afterwards. But I think those things were more the results of my very shaken confidence in myself and those around me. For example, I lost my graduate funding at an unprecedentedly early point in my program. One reason for this was that I just sort of stopped functioning after having to deal with all the Title IX formalities (not my idea) and so I was punished for not turning-in work. The strange part about this was that I was far from the only person who failed to turn in work. I'm not sure why my case was different from theirs, but my guess is that I was so wiped-out from the whole ordeal that I just didn't have enough energy or confidence left to stick up for myself. To be honest, that whole time was just sort of a very confusing whirlwind for me.
But yeah 4:55, what you describe does happen. And it's terrible.
I'm glad MildSalsa is being called out for her bullcrap.
To think of others (who are quite likely, not asexual) as asexuals is, quite literally, childish. That's fine. Being childish can be awesome. But expecting other people to sustain the delusion into adulthood is another matter. That is where MildSalsa stands.
Use of "infantile" is usually exaggerated or metaphorical. Here, it plainly and literally applies.
That's why nobody will ever truly love you 8:16. You're unlovable and will die alone.
And you're not smart. You're just really good at whining and blaming other people for your failures, you entitled evil brat. You know it, I know it, and anyone who knows about your outrageous tantrums knows it.
Mildsalsa may have explained herself, but not in a way that upholds anything she originally said. Unless she completely cancels any implicature that others should at all change their behavior because of her awareness that she's attractive (other than those professors who hit on her), I also take what she said as childish and demeaning. I'm a man, who often has sex with women, and I don't want to have sex with any of my students. Not all sexual beings want to have sex with YOU, even if you are very attractive.
9:11, if you are in fact not 8:16, you're being similarly uncharitable. Evidenced by the fact that you describe someone who has just explained that she's been through some fairly serious-sounding stuff as asking people to 'change their behavior because of her awareness that she's attractive.' That's about the most uncharitable way I could think of to describe what's going on.
mildsalsa did specifically disclaim any interest in "telling people what they ought to do" or whatever. i'm reserving judgment on whether we should be charitable about this statement until i see pictures of her.
Glad you don't want to have sex with MildSalsa not-8:16. If you're one of her professors (and I don't think you are, but maybe you were- who knows?), she has already said explicitly that she doesn't think you do. So great! Everyone's on the same page. As for implicature, saying on a philosophy blog, "I'm in such and such demographic, and such and such jokes make me feel some way," has no normative implicature. Why? Because philosophers know how entailment works, that debates about normative realism haven't been settled, and that most people think you can't get a prescription from a description.
Fine, then ask mildsalsa what I'm supposed to do with this information. If it's anything other than not hit on her, which I would never do, then my objection stands. If it's just not hit on her, then I kindly suggest she package her thoughts better, because it sure sounded like she wanted to make demands on every professor because she had a bad experience and feels attractive and feels uncomfortable knowing her professors have sex with people.
She wants you to know that some students might be alienated by sexual jokes, and she provided an actual, real world example that explains why someone might feel that way. And like she said, she was making a "self-deprecating" joke when she said she needs to imagine people to be asexual. And then she apologized for misusing the term in an offensive way.
this is another struggle about who gets to be alienated/offended more (attractive female students or desexualized male philosophers). as such it's completely uninteresting to any rational person, but i'm still interested in seeing some pictures of this "mildsalsa" character.
i've found students sexually desirable in the past. the idea of somehow magically not finding a hot student attractive because they're your student is ludicrous. if not-8:16 has that power, great; that's incredible. most of us don't. most of us also understand that it is good to do one's best not to make it known, etc. this is a good situation for trying one's best and not enforcing very stringent rules, i think.
I claimed that MildSalsa's initial comments (literally and without exaggeration) deserve the title "infantile". To suppose that academics are all asexual is to submit to a delusion that is childish. I mean to use these terms, again, literally and as precise descriptions. And to repeat, I don't have a problem with people who wish to live that way (only with those who try to make others participate in the delusion -- it is, at the very least, unclear where MildSalsa falls on that question).
In reply, I got these remarks:
"Go fuck your sexual, adult self..." and then: "That's why nobody will ever truly love you 8:16..."
What I did not get is any reasoning to suggest that I was incorrect in my claim about terms like "infantile" or "childish" and their application.
Because it seems pretty clear, 9:55, that whatever your stated intentions you were using those terms precisely because they usually have insulting connotations.
9:46, I don't think it's about who 'gets' to be offended. It's simply about being made aware of effects that you might be having that you may not have previously been aware of. Some people might just not care to listen to people explain why they feel a certain way about things, or why certain kinds of comments might have certain kinds of effects on them. If so, those people should just ignore comments in which people explain those things.
10:07 says I am using terms like "infantile" and "childish" "because they usually have insulting connotations". Very well. I hereby cancel the implicatures 10:07 imputes. Better? I use the terms literally and without insulting connotations (on the contrary: being childish can be, as I said, awesome). I offer, instead, a precise description of MildSalsa's remarks.
Fuck off 10:28. Nobody's afraid of what you might do anymore. You don't matter and you never should have. We can go all night, but I won't say a single kind thing to you. It's up to you if you want to be sleepy and distracted tomorrow.
Typical. Some troll drops a turd on the Daily Nous (well-played, MildSalsa). And of course the PMMB goes nuts, including its own resident shitlord, who is apparently determined to be unkind. Well-played, shitlords.
Some of y'all clearly disagree on this point, but I think we all owe everyone kindness. I'm always disappointed (but no longer surprised) when I meet people who don't think so.
9:46 here, i want to mention that i think the "nobody will ever love you" was way out of line and seemed to come out of left field somewhat. i was surprised and confused by the pile-on. i think it's highly possible that the same person made a few posts, or that people who know each other in person all made posts against the same interlocutor. regardless, i think "no one will ever love you" is just a few steps below "kill yourself" or "get raped" in the "don't-say-this"-a-thon.
First 10:45, I usually agree. But I don't know in this case. Second 10:45, you're right on all counts. I can't take it back yet. I'm tired of having to be alone in being the bigger person here. It hurts so badly. I don't really know what else to say.
Don't worry, 10:28. I understand where you are coming from. I called my girlfriend a slut once, and she was *still* annoyed with me even after I explained that I meant it purely in the archaic sense of having low standards of cleanliness (because she prefers to vaccuum less frequently than I do) and cancelled any implicatures to do with sexual behavior. Stupid slut.
I'm the one who someone said no one would ever love. Don't worry: it didn't upset me. And even better, I am and feel very loved nearly all of the time. I sincerely hope all of you out there can truthfully report something similar, despite our sharp disagreement.
I don't have anything more to say about "childish", though, so I'm tapping out.
Hmm. Interesting that one disagreement here comes down to when and how implicatures can be cancelled. Other disagreements in these comments have also turned on similar issues (or so I seem to recall). Interesting! I expect it might do us all a little good to think through that issue carefully. If there are experts reading, any pointers to relevant literature on implicature-canceling?
Flight of the Conchords are pretty funny, but I can't explain myself too much. I'm sorry. But I can say that I would never have treated any of these people the way they treated me. They thought it was okay, and that it was funny. It was neither of those things. It nearly destroyed me in so many ways. I will never be as good as they are at being truly shitty towards other people. I shouldn't have tried. It doesn't suit me. I know that won't make them feel any remorse because nothing ever will. It just is what it is. Life's not fair, and untalented assholes win all the time.
I have no idea what you're talking about, 11:14. Who are "these people"? What is the "it" you talk about that destroyed you and that people thought was funny? Someone said someone else was lying. Who is lying?
Basically, your incoherent ramblings are incoherent.
Thanks 11:17. I'm not going to explain myself anymore than I have. Bottom line is that I think 8:16 is some particular person who hurt me really badly, over and over and over again. So I tried to give her a taste of her own medicine by saying something hurtful. Maybe it made her feel as bad as she made me feel. But 10:45 showed me why it didn't make me feel any better. It just made me feel worse for making a negative contribution to something- even some obscure blog thread.
You can call me incoherent if you really want to. That's fine.
This blog is not as obscure as you might think, 11:28. I hear philosophers talk about it all the time at conferences and on FB (though some won't link out of principle). We all read it but don't want people to know!
One problem with anonymous commenting is this: nasty people can exploit the fact that when some nasty behavior is a one-off, we tend to give them the benefit of the doubt. I'm pretty sure, for example, that there is one person - and it's the same person - who is repeatedly a dick (deliberately misrepresents and misquotes people alll the time, is really patronizing and assholish - tells people that they're not capable of critical thinking, that they're throwing tantrums, etc). If I knew for certain it was the same person doing this, I would be way harsher when they acted like this. But I don't know for certain, so I try to exercise some restraint (because we all are a bit short with other people occasionally). But I'm pretty sure the person knows that because other people can't be certain its the same person, they will let them get away with it way more than if they were certain, and exploits this fact. (To be clear, I don't think that this person is anyone specific - like, I don't think I know their name. I just think that the comments that are like this in multiple threads are by the same person, someone who clearly gets their rocks off by being a dick anonymously on the internet).
there are definitely a few repeat offender-types, like ARG and the anti-ARG (the Femtroll?). but it's better to err on the side of every comment coming from a different individual unless otherwise identified. i know i hold some ARG-style beliefs, i'm sure there are reasonable people here who hold some Femtroll-style beliefs, and it seems kind of intrinsically important that there be an opportunity for dialogue between people like me and people on the other "side".
That's kind of the problem, though - the poster makes one or two reasonable sounding posts. People respond, often expressing disagreement (because that's what we do, right?) and then it really quickly becomes clear that the poster is just determined to be a dick. I'm sure that puts an awful lot of people off responding in the first place. It really sucks to go in to a conversation, expecting that it might be a fun and useful disagreement, only to quickly realize that you're really just someone's punching bag. And while of course we shouldn't really care that some anonymous dick thinks we 'can't think' and 'need to go back to kindergarten' or whatever, it still sucks to have someone say those kind of things to you. I also get annoyed generally when I think someone hasn't understood, and so I spend time explaining myself more clearly, and then it turns out that really they were just trying to pull me into an insult-fest.
The ARG seems to be around a lot lately. Have not seen much anti-ARG though.
I wonder if one of the problems is people who do what 11:28 does above -- become convinced that some anonymous interlocutor is some particular real-life arch-enemy, and then unleash all the hatred you'd like to unload on that person in real life.
Sometimes when I read posts, I do this. I start to hear them in some particular philosopher's voice or other, and then I let all of my annoyance with that real-life person transfer to my anonymous interlocutor. It definitely isn't healthy, if only because the odds are very low that my identity hunches are correct.
We could all take a few chill pills and ease off on the vitriol.
Nothing is better than having wild, loud sex with your philosophy professor during office hours. And proving theorems in logic is better than nothing. Therefore, since 'better than' is transitive, proving theorems in logic is better than having wild, loud sex with your philosophy professor during office hours.
Maybe not, but it's more mature than "Fuck off. You're the worst" and "Go fuck your sexual, adult self. You suck. Good luck sucking tomorrow." and 'That's why nobody will ever truly love you 8:16. You're unlovable and will die alone." and "And you're not smart. You're just really good at whining and blaming other people for your failures, you entitled evil brat."
This is the MildSalsa that feels uncomfortable when people tell sexual jokes.
everyone was really upset that they don't have any pictures of you and they started a whole internecine thing mildsalsa. i think it's clear what your responsibilities are here
MildSalsa and I are not the same person. If 8:16 isn't who I thought they were, then obviously I'm the biggest idiot here. If they are, I have nothing to say. But I like the message in 2:03's video, and I've installed an app on my home computer that redirects me from here to PhilPapers. Bye PMMB.
9:37 just can't help themselves, can they? They just have to include something in every comment that is designed to provoke and irriitate, seemingly for no other reason than that they enjoy getting a rise out of people.
Are you the 'tantrum' person from the other day, 9:37? Cause you're sure as hell displaying a lot of the same behavior. Though of course I'm sure you'll deny it even if you are.
No, I haven't commented in a while until this thread. I just thought 11:28's comments were hurtful and uncalled for, even if she thinks maybe she's addressing someone she dislikes irl. And I thought she was identical to MildSalsa, which would have made it a bit hypocritical.
I was wondering what explains the Title IX abuse in universities during the past year's. It turns out the Department of Education has been threatening universities to withdraw their funding if they do not deprive men accused of sexual assault of due trial.
The Title IX madness is due to the convergence of three pernicious forces. First, there is the letter you cite and other guidelines which amount to threats, which, as I understand, actually came from the Office of Civil Rights, a division of the Department of Justice, not the Department of Education. (I also read that the impetus behind the whole thing was some pet project that Joe Biden started because he was looking for something to do.) The second piece is the large set of man-hating feminists who occupy influential roles within universities and coerce everyone to go along with their man-hating polices by painting women as weak, helpless victims and anyone who disagrees to be heartless, backwards misogynists. The third piece is the spineless university bureaucrats who eagerly throw their male students under the bus to avoid confrontation with the feds and the fems.
I don't really understand it. More specifically what's the question? Is it whether BB will choose many New Consensibles for the advisory board? Or what?
The question is: if a bunch of New Consensus people are on the editorial board, will they value being a member of the New Consensus more than things like publications when evaluating faculty reputation?
Seriously 2:01? You can't think of any way that those in charge of the PGR, if they have certain views, could somehow benefit those with the same views? Here's an obvious way: picking evaluators who have those views.
They could, I'm sure. I was just responding to 1:54, who seemed to think that the board does the evaluation. Also, it's not at all clear to me that BB will pick New Consensibles for the board. She is not very predictable.
But here's an interesting question: will New Consensibles decline to participate in the evaluations, on principle? It kind of puts them in an awkward position, doesn't it?
Anyone have any thoughts on Anscombe's Modern Moral Philosophy?
ReplyDeleteIt's a hoot. Everyone should study it carefully. Entertaining, fascinating, and wise, even if ultimately wrong on most counts. It's also important to understand if you want to understand the main intellectual trends in 20th and 21st century ethics.
DeleteWhy do you ask?
Speaking of Anscombe, what do people think of her work on knowledge of the position of our own limbs? I know she's an obscure figure and all, but so much that I read these days in epistemology would just not get off the ground if her arguments succeed and I don't really see anyone in epistemology engage with her.
Delete1: 44. A few reasons! I taught it and was far more delighted with her positive proposal than I thought I would be. (I am sure "consequentialists" have responded to it, but I don't know where. We are reading Josh Greene next, and I'm kind of eager to compare and contrast. I found a paper by Candace Upton (2006) on Anscombe "today" but I wonder if there is more.)
DeleteI'm not a moral philosopher, but it's my favorite in the genre.
DeleteCan you summarize what she says about our knowledge of the position of our own limbs very briefly? Thanks, if so.
DeleteDid you mean proprioception?
Delete4:39,
DeleteWho me, 3:26? I'm just following up on what 4:23 said.
What about it, 4:23?
Must write to Louie Genitals about the hostile environment created by unabomber jokes. The metabros nearly fainted, poor little dears.
ReplyDeleteStop.
DeleteStop writing replies that consist entirely of the command to stop.
DeleteLouie Genitals engages in hysterical puritan authoritarianism. Surely, it's Louie Genitals who needs to stop being a hysterical bully - something other people find pretty offensive?
DeleteI'd like to see Philosophy Metablog do an entire thread parody consisting of an original post that says "Stop," followed by 100 replies saying, "Stop."
DeleteMake it happen, Metablog! Don't you take requests?
No.
DeleteStop.
DeleteReally, stop.
DeleteNo.
DeleteStop, God damn it.
DeleteStop.
DeleteSTOP!
DeleteNo.
DeleteWhat's with all the dumb NuCons in this thread?
DeleteStop.
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DeleteHey guys check out what's been happening at the Philosophy Metablog! There are new posts, and there's an interesting comment thread between yours truly and a truly big boy. Why not join in the fun?
ReplyDeleteCheers guys.
For the record, I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure BigBoy is a girl.
DeleteGod, Schuman. What's the point of that? She writes an article about flipping off her baby, and includes multiple photos of her doing so. I suppose she thinks she has a cute story idea. Even so, I don't get it. I don't get it at all. I was not inspired to read the article. What she has done can do nothing but hurt the person who is her child who sees it later. Nothing but. Why would someone do that? Someone get Rebecca Schuman on here to explain herself.
DeleteAmong mommybloggers and their fans (a large online community) there is a hashtag asshole parent and it has been a joke for a while. I think you are unfamiliar, right? I imagine it just is not your thing. No children are harmed. Plenty of children are harmed in other ways, though, if your concern is for children, sponsor a foster child.
DeleteYes, unfamiliar.
DeleteI do think it harms them. And harms all of us.
Respect is a thing.
oh, the drama. Get over yourself. You really have no right to weigh in on something you don't know about, for one. Assuming millions of moms are abusing their kids because you've decided they just have to hide the frustration of loving and caring for a young child and can't joke about it? You get to decide that? Sounds like a personality disorder. That harms all of us.
DeleteI"m 4:12. You sure do impute a lot to your interlocutors, 6:25. I have identified at least four entirely unwarranted assumptions you make about me,in your post. The assumptions are in sentence three and in sentence four (3). You're weird to do that. Are you abusive as a joke or do you take yourself seriously? Maybe you know who I am and are trying under cover of anonymity to attack? I don't know. It's weird. Or are you on the defensive because you yourself flip off your own babies? Or you are in some way strongly identifying with people who do that? I don't get it. Time waster.
DeleteFlipping off babies is not equivalent to joking about the frustration of loving and caring for a young child.
DeleteYour reply pretends that they are equivlaent, 6:25. Or else you just haven't thought about the fact that there are other ways to joke about the frustration of loving and caring for a young child and thoughtlessly equate one method of joking about X to any joking about X at all. Somehow I suspect it's the latter, that you really are not able to make distinctions.
Bless you, Philosophy Metablog.
ReplyDeleteInteresting that Leiter claims, "Most obviously, male sexual assault is more common than female sexual assault, and so has produced more victims, and more concern."
ReplyDeleteHowever, the criminological evidence contradicts this. US and UK crime surveys show that males and females engage in sexual assault, and interpersonal abuse, at about the same rate.
The irony is fascinating.
ReplyDeleteLeiter: "Many people have commented to me over the last year or so that they feel this incident would have generated much more cyber-attention and outrage if Stubblefield had been a man and the alleged victim a woman. That is probably true, though for reasons that are understandable. Most obviously, male sexual assault is more common than female sexual assault, and so has produced more victims, and more concern."
So he thinks it's understandable that we haven't heard more about this female rapist because he thinks female sexual assault is less common.
But in fact female sexual assault is equally common, and he only thinks it's less common because very few people pay attention to it. Just like very few people payed attention to the Stubblefield case.
I suspect you're making this argument in bad faith. I assume Leiter is using "sexual assault" in the narrow sense most people use it, and that the crime surveys you're referring to probably use it in a much broader sense.
ReplyDeleteConsider, for example, this rather even-handed article, which points out problems for both sides of the issue based in how we define rape: http://time.com/3393442/cdc-rape-numbers/
"most of us would agree that to equate a victim of violent rape and a man who engages in a drunken sexual act he wouldn’t have chosen when sober is to trivialize a terrible crime. It is safe to assume that the vast majority of the CDC’s male respondents who were “made to penetrate” someone would not call themselves rape victims—and with good reason.
But if that’s the case, it is just as misleading to equate a woman’s experience of alcohol-addled sex with the experience of a rape victim who is either physically overpowered or attacked when genuinely incapacitated."
It has nothing to do with how "rape" is defined. Women engage in sexual assault at roughly the same rate that men do. Women engage in abuse and violence at roughly the same rate men do, and quite possibly higher (unreported) rates. And women force non-consenting penetration at roughly the same rate men do.
DeleteI am making the argument in good faith. I agree with you that the feminists have expanded the definition of 'rape' beyond recognition. But if you don't expand the definitions like that, then there is extremely little sexual assault to talk about in the philosophical profession.
DeleteWoops, replied to this in the main thread, see there.
Delete"I am making the argument in good faith."
ReplyDeleteBut I'm reading Leiter as saying, "Men in an unimpaired state violently force sex on the opposite sex in an unimpaired state more often than women do."
Does the criminological evidence contradict that?
I did a quick Google search, and my impression is that equal rates require including a wider range of things, such as alcohol impaired sex, supposed emotional coercion, etc. (And my cynical thought--I can't help it--is: men are bigger wusses, so if we're asked twice when we don't feel like it, we say we we're "forced.")
Perhaps a link to the specific studies you have in mind would help.
The criminological evidence confirms that women commit at least as much violence against men as men commit against women. I don't know what that means for forcible rape in particular, but anyway that's not what Leiter is talking about. He says sexual assault, and Stubblefield is a statutory rapist.
DeleteFor the record I was the victim of a violent sexual assault by a female philosopher colleague. It wasn't as bad as these things can get, but it was real.
Yes it does contradict that. Simply google "gender symmetry" "domestic violence", "inter-personal violence". It is feminist propaganda -- very influential, politically convenient, and socially damaging -- propaganda, to portray IPV as uni-diriectional. It is well-known to be bi-directional.
DeleteThirty Years of Denying the Evidence on Gender Symmetry in Partner Violence: Implications for Prevention and Treatment
DeleteThere's a performative contradiction in Leiter's post. Rightly, he notes that FC is "junk science"; rightly he also notes that it is relevant to Stubblefield's defense that she believes, wrongly, that it works.
DeleteHowever Leiter then reiterates as fact a claim which is junk sociology, not appreciating that the "concern" he mentions is caused by the belief in junk sociology, and not by its actually being true.
Populist hysteria - whether about witches, communists, Jews, evil corporations, Republicans, gay priests, or a plague of demonic male rapists - is whipped up by false beliefs, not the facts. This is why Eric Hoffer's celebrated and insightful book, The True Believer remains as valuable today as it did when it was published in 1951.
Dominance and symmetry in partner violence by male and female university students in 32 nations
DeleteWow how do the abusive women hide the fall out? Why are the ERs and shelters unaware of the scope of this problem? How do men hide their injuries?
DeleteWhy aren't there reports of this in the family courts in the contentious divorces? Abused men go so far as to hide it there?
Before feminism was it well known that women beat men?
Are 1/5 college men sexually assaulted by women?
Thanks.
Your attempt to excuse rape, assault and violence is noted.
DeleteDaniel J. Whitaker, Tadesse Haileyesus, Monica Swahn, Linda S. Saltzman, 2007, Differences in Frequency of Violence and Reported Injury Between Relationships With Reciprocal and Nonreciprocal Intimate Partner Violence
Delete"Data is mounting, however, that suggests that IPV is often perpetrated by both men and women against their partner. It is also becoming recognized that perpetration of IPV by both partners within a relationship is fairly common. This phenomenon has been described with terms such as mutual violence, symmetrical violence, or reciprocal violence. ... Several studies have found that men and women initiate violence against an intimate partner at approximately the same rate."
Fiebert, 2012, References Examining Assaults by Women on Their Spouses or Male Partners
Delete"Summary: This bibliography examines 286 scholarly investigations: 221 empirical studies and 65 reviews and/or analyses, which demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners. The aggregate sample size in the reviewed studies exceeds 371,600."
You can't answer those questions?
DeleteThe questions have been answered: male victims of violence, abuse and rape report them to medics, social workers and the police. This is how the statistics described above, as Cathy Young mentioned for CDC 2014, Whitaker et al (2007), the huge literature survey by Fiebert (2012) etc., are compiled.
DeleteIf you wish to deny all this evidence by experts, then please explain which of these countless studies is wrong?
ARG's at it again. I demand you explain something in order to justify a view which I will attribute to you in order to make you look bad!
DeleteThat "Thirty Years of Denying..." article isn't about sexual assault.
ReplyDeleteSo, hm, it is indeed starting to seem like bad faith.
> Nearly 7 percent of men, however, reported that at some point in their lives, they were “made to penetrate” another person—usually in reference to vaginal intercourse, receiving oral sex, or performing oral sex on a woman. This was not classified as rape, but as “other sexual violence.”
Delete> And now the real surprise: when asked about experiences in the last 12 months, men reported being “made to penetrate”—either by physical force or due to intoxication—at virtually the same rates as women reported rape (both 1.1 percent in 2010, and 1.7 and 1.6 respectively in 2011).
> In other words, if being made to penetrate someone was counted as rape—and why shouldn’t it be?—then the headlines could have focused on a truly sensational CDC finding: that women rape men as often as men rape women.
http://time.com/3393442/cdc-rape-numbers/
http://time.com/3393442/cdc-rape-numbers/
Delete"it is indeed starting to seem like bad faith."
DeleteOn the contrary, CDC figures, as discussed by Cathy Young, support the conclusion that women rape at roughly the same rate as men do. Similar results appear elsewhere. There is very strong evidence for gender symmetry in IPV, domestic abuse, sexual assault, harassment and violence.
Contrary to 2:23's attempts to defend rape and violence, the founder of women's refuges, in Chiswick London, in 1971, was Erin Pizzey.
Delete"Pizzey has been the subject of death threats and boycotts because of her research into the claim that most domestic violence is reciprocal, and that women are equally capable of violence as men. Pizzey has said that the threats were from militant feminists"
3:14/ARG: You really have to stop accusing people of 'defending' or 'excusing' things when they are clearly not. I just read this conversation, and no-one is 'defending' or 'excusing' anything. I've seen you do this time and time again - demand people justify absurd things that have very little to do with the position they're defending, accuse people of defending or holding wildly implausible positions that they do not hold. Quoting people out of context. You really need to stop - it not only makes you look like a dick, it makes actual discussions about important issues really difficult to have. And it does, as 2:06 says, seem like bad faith.
Delete3:30, trying to change the subject doesn't work. The bad faith is yours. The absurdity is the false claim that women don't rape, assault or engage in violence. They do. The evidence shows that women do, in fact, engage in rape, assault and violence at roughly the same rate men do.
DeleteAnd yet again: *nobody* on this thread is claiming that women don't rape, assault, or engage in violence. Nobody.
DeleteAnd it is not 'bad faith' to point out that you are attributing views to other people that they clearly do not hold. If you were really interested in the issues, rather than clearly more interested in provoking anonymous commenters, you would *stop* pulling this shit. As it is, you're the one who is making it impossible to have a sensible conversation about anything. But I assume that's your goal.
Ok, 4:18, cut out these insults. 2:23 asked, "Why are the ERs and shelters unaware of the scope of this problem?" Answer: they are aware of this problem, but it is downplayed by political activists for political reasons, as Strauss's 2010 article explains. The founder of 1971 women's refuge, Erin Pizzey, is fully aware of it too, as noted above. But she was hounded with death threats from militant feminists. 2:23 asked, "How do men hide their injuries?". Answer: they show them to doctors, police officers and social workers, and report them in crime surveys. They also showed them to Erin Pizzey. 2:23 asked, "Why aren't there reports of this in the family courts in the contentious divorces?" There are huge numbers of reports of this in family courts, as Fiebert's 2012 survey shows.
Delete2:23's questions are an attempt to deny rape, violence and assault by women - who engage in this at roughly the same rate men do. Those questions have been answered. The answers are based on detailed evidence, including CDC evidence, and the studies documented above, and the countless studies mentioned therein.
Without evidence, you attribute "bad faith". Cathy Young's article in fact deals with that specific point, as 2:57 noted above. If you wish to have a conversation, don't engage in accusations of "bad faith". Instead, pay attention to the evidence. Don't engage in denials of rape, assault and violence. Instead, pay attention to the evidence. You've seen the evidence. Now discuss it like a grown-up.
I did give evidence for why you are arguing in bad faith.
Delete"Don't engage in denials of rape, assault, and violence."
What part of "nobody is claiming that women don't rape, assault, or engage in violence". - which I said directly above your comment - leads you to believe that I am engaging in a denial of rape, assault and violence?
I repeat, it is not 'bad faith' to point out that you are attributing views to other people that they clearly do not hold. If you were really interested in the issues, rather than clearly more interested in provoking anonymous commenters, you would *stop* pulling this shit. As it is, you're the one who is making it impossible to have a sensible conversation about anything. But I assume that's your goal.
4:55, read the evidence, and stop trying to change the subject.
Delete2:23's comments were attempts to deny rape, assault and violence by women. Those comments have been dealt with - by referring to the relevant evidence, including evidence related to one of the founders of refuges, Erin Pizzey. I am not attributing anything that is not directly in the comments by 2:23, who might wish to read the relevant evidence instead of producing ill-tempered knee-jerk responses based on no evidence. You also need to cut out these insults. Cathy Young's article explicitly dealt with the matter you raised concerning the roughly equal rate at which males and females engage in sexual assault. It is not "bad faith" to refer to something that is dealt with in evidence-based studies. Ok? It is called evidence. If you wish to have a conversation, without groundless insults, you should pay attention to the evidence, much of which is listed at some length above.
There are no insults - simply claims about what you are doing. And I have repeatedly provided evidence for those claims. You seem to think that you can discuss any issue you like, in any way, including deliberately misattributing extreme views to your interlocutors, and that anybody pointing this out is 'changing the subject'. But it is you who is making the important conversations on this blog impossible to have, because you clearly just want to score points and annoy people, rather than engage in useful discussion.
DeleteAnd you've provided yet another example:
"Cathy Young's article explicitly dealt with the matter you raised concerning the roughly equal rate at which males and females engage in sexual assault.It is not 'bad faith' to refer to something that is dealt with in evidence-based studies. Ok?"
For a start, I didn't raise the issue, nor am I 2:06. But 2:06 is very clearly referring to a different article - which they name in that comment - when they state that it looks like you are arguing in bad faith.
3:07, who I assume is you, then takes that quote out of context and makes it seem like it was about a different article. You then repeat the claim about 'bad faith' being used to refer to you bringing in this *new* article at 5:08. Seemingly in response to later comments I made about you arguing in bad faith.
But note that what I said - and the most recent comments about your arguing in bad faith - are about you quoting people out of context and deliberately misattributing views. So it is a non-sequitur to reply to these comments by saying "It is not "bad faith" to refer to something that is dealt with in evidence-based studies. Ok?" in reference to the Cathy Young article. No-one ever said that it was, and the most recent comments about bad faith have nothing to do with evidence-based studies whatsoever.
It seems you're either no capable, or do not want to, adhere to basic norms of discussion - like, don't deliberately misrepresent people, don't quote them out of context. You may think this makes you look clever, or maybe you think it makes you look like you're 'winning' the discussion. But you don't and you're not.
I'm not doing anything, except clearly upsetting you by producing evidence, which causes you to make groundless insults. Read the evidence.
DeleteAgain, no-one's 'insulting' you, let alone 'groundlessly.' I'm just pointing out the many ways in which you are failing to adhere to basic norms of discussion. And nothing about what I have written indicates that I find you 'upsetting' - though trying to pretend that your interlocutors are being all emotional when they simply are disagreeing with you, find you annoying (for good reason) and are calmly pointing out the many ways in which you are being deliberately obstructive is yet another tactic that shows that you are more interested in provocation than discussion.
DeleteOn the contrary, 5:51, claiming that a correct factual claim, supported by evidence, is made in "bad faith" is a simple example of an insult.
DeleteJust read the evidence and cut out the insults.
There are lots of cases where a correct factual claim, supported by evidence, is made in bad faith. When it is irrelevant or misleading given the context, for example.
DeleteIn any case, as I have stated above, what you clearly do is take 2:06's original quote out of context. Your repetition - in response to the number of other instances I have listed - that 'it s not bad-faith to refer to something in an evidence based study' is a non-sequitur.
If you are so sensitive that you think that someone describing you as engaging in bad faith - and providing examples - is an 'insult' then perhaps you should not be discussing things here. Most philosophers think it is a good idea to avoid gratuitous personal insults - but as I assume you must understand, this doesn't mean we should avoid pointing out people's errors in reasoning, or places where people have misrepresented others or interpreted in ways that are uncharitable. This would have a detrimental effect on philosophical discussions.
You lost, 6:11. Now read the evidence, which has been listed at length above, concerning women engaging in assault, abuse and violence at about the same rate men do.
DeleteI'm 2:06.
DeleteThe article by Cathy Young does not say that men and women commit sexual assaults at the same rate. The article is not about the sex or gender of assailants at all. It is about the sex of victims.
So, it's now pretty clear that whoever was claiming that men and women commit sexual assault at the same rates did not have evidence for that claim. That person should just admit it, rather than digging deeper and deeper.
6:21, merely asserting of your interlocutor 'you lost' does not make it true. Especially when they, and other commenters, have provided multiple examples of instances where you are clearly engaging in bad faith. and you fail to respond to any of these.
DeleteNope, 2:06. The situations described are male-female interactions, as described in the article ("vaginal intercourse", etc.). The victims mentioned are victims of female perpetrators, and rate of female perpetration of sexual assault is about the same as male perpetration of sexual assault: "Nearly 7% of men, however, reported that at some point in their lives, they were "made to penetrate" another person — usually in reference to vaginal intercourse, receiving oral sex, or performing oral sex on a woman. This was not classified as rape, but as "other sexual violence." And now the real surprise: when asked about experiences in the last 12 months, men reported being "made to penetrate" — either by physical force or due to intoxication — at virtually the same rates as women reported rape (both 1.1% in 2010, and 1.7% and 1.6% respectively in 2011)."
Delete6:51, you ignore the evidence and engage in insult. Is this because you dislike evidence, or you like insults, or both? Either way, read the evidence.
DeleteAnd another:
Delete"Contrary to 2:23's attempts to defend rape and violence, the founder of women's refuges, in Chiswick London, in 1971, was Erin Pizzey.
"Pizzey has been the subject of death threats and boycotts because of her research into the claim that most domestic violence is reciprocal, and that women are equally capable of violence as men. Pizzey has said that the threats were from militant feminists""
Even if 2:23 were attempting to defend rape and violence - which I highly doubt - the fact that Pizzey received death threats - while clearly terrible - would not be 'contrary' to a defense of rape and violence.
Even if we take the most charitable interpretation, and assume by the claim '2:23's attempts to defend rape and violence" the author meant something like "2:23's claim that there is a gender asymmetry in rape and violence perpetators" the fact that Pizzey received threats for doing research, while of course terrible, does no work one way or the other to establish claims about whether there is an asymmetry, so would not run contrary to 2:23's claims. It's also from 1971, so hardly recent. It's hard to see how the quote provided is anything other than a deliberately inflammatory non-sequitur.
Is empirical evidence forbidden?
DeleteCoerced Sex Not Uncommon for Young Men, Teenage Boys, Study Finds
"A total of 43% of high school boys and young college men reported they had an unwanted sexual experience and of those, 95% said a female acquaintance was the aggressor, according to a study published online in the APA journal Psychology of Men and Masculinity."
6:55, the fact that people do not want to discuss something with *you* - when it is clear that you are engaging in bad faith - of which there are numerous examples, none of which you have responded to - is not evidence that they are ignoring anything, or that they dislike evidence, or that they have not read evidence. It is evidence that your modus operandi - being obstructive and inflammatory and uncharitable - is obvious to them.
DeleteLook, stop behaving like an aggressive bully, 7:05.
DeleteNow it is 'bullying' and 'aggressive' to point out that most people do not find discussions with people who are being deliberately obstructive productive, and to point to numerous instances where a person is being deliberately obstructive. Looks like 7:08 is trying to play the victim.
DeleteNo, 7:12. Read the evidence you've been provided with at great length. And do cut out the aggression and bullying. It doesn't work.
Delete7:18's clearly given up in the face of mountains of evidence of bad-faith engagement and is now just resorting to repetition and accusations of 'aggression' and 'bullying.' Boring. It is kind of nice to see 7:18's bullshit clearly pointed out and described, though. I've seen the 'quote-out-of-context, followed by inflammatory non sequitur, plus a demand that someone defend some clearly absurd view that there is no evidence that they hold' so many times before on this blog.
Delete7:26, you've been shown evidence relating to female violence, abuse and assault, from
Delete- Cathy Young, citing CDC 2014 statistics,
- Strauss (2010), about denial of gender symmetry in violence,
- Whitaker et al (2007),
- the major literature survey by Fiebert (2012),
- the experience of the founder of women's refuges (Erin Pizzey), who received death threats
- a 2014 APA paper about male victimization of sexual assault.
Your response to this evidence? A tantrum.
I looked at the evidence, now I see where they got their numbers. Still not impressed that everyone I run into (in the fields of social work, policing, and Family Law) has misdescribed the nature of their work. I would agree that juvenile detention needs to be ended as a system, with those stats and the rest.
Delete7:39, give up. The comment at 7:26 is clearly not a 'tantrum.'
DeleteTantrum over? Hope so. Now calm down and read the large amount of evidence that's been cited above, concerning female perpetration of violence, assault and abuse.
DeleteFunny how the person who just a few comments ago was complaining about people being 'insulting' and being 'aggressive bullies' is now saying things like "Tantrum over? Hope so. Now calm down."
Delete8:01, if you sincerely wanted to have a discussion about these issue, you would not say things that are patronizing and deliberately provocative, personal and obviously false. The people you are talking to are not having tantrums, and they are behaving calmly. You can keep on pretending that you really care about the issues and the evidence, but your behavior clearly demonstrates otherwise.
Read the evidence and calm down.
DeleteI can only imagine that by "calm down" 8:12 must mean 'stop making it obvious to everybody that I am behaving badly in the context of a discussion." That's certainly the charitable way to interpret it - otherwise what is being said doesn't really make any sense.
DeleteOne says "calm down" to a person when they have a tantrum, like your extended tantrum above, and cannot control their emotions. You are having a tantrum because your emotions are stung by the large volume of evidence you've been shown. It's up to you. I'd recommend you simply read the evidence and calm down.
Delete8:37, it's just getting a little silly now. No-one has written anything that indicates they cannot control their emotions, or that they are having a 'tantrum' (let alone an extended one), nor that they are not 'calm.' It is really obvious what you are trying to do, and it is not working.
DeleteHey, ever notice that when you say a word over and over it starts to sound funny and loses all of its meaning? Try it! Evidence. Evidence. Ehhh-veee-dennts. Fun!
Delete"It is really obvious what you are trying to do"
DeleteYes, I've merely asked you to calm down and read the evidence.
"... and it is not working."
I can see that. So calm down and read the evidence.
9:06, why are you crying? It's okay, don't cry.
DeleteI see that you're not responding, 9:06, because you're busy crying. That's all right. Let it all out. There, there.
DeleteFeels better, doesn't it?
You'll be right as rain before you know it, and then we can all continue this discussion after you're done having a nice, good cry.
Yes, there's no need to get so upset, 9:06. Maybe you need to sit down for a minute and take a few deep breaths. You're clearly not coping very well. There there.
DeleteWe should play ARG bingo. There's a nice example of a quote deliberately taken out of context at 9:06.
Delete"Calm Down' could be another square. 'Read the evidence/Learn Science' is another obvious candidate.
Why are three people taunting 9:06?
DeleteI think it's because 9:06 has been pretty obviously been deliberately taunting other people for ages now. They're just getting a taste of their own medicine.
DeleteA person is shown various pieces of evidence they don't like. This causes an emotional tantrum - obsessive repetition of "bad faith!", over and over again. Asking this upset person to calm down isn't the same as "crying".
DeleteAs the resident ARG whisperer around here, I recommend roaring, meowing, asking for evidence, or comparing him to Leiter. He's usually pretty okay after that. And it's more humane.
DeleteEvidence is a terrible thing ...
Delete- Cathy Young, citing CDC 2014 statistics,
- Strauss (2010), about denial of gender symmetry in violence,
- Whitaker et al (2007),
- the major literature survey by Fiebert (2012),
- the experience of the founder of women's refuges, Erin Pizzey, who received death threats
- a 2014 APA paper about male victimization of sexual assault.
I've got evidence too:
Deletehttp://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/201/11/1607.full
I'm 11:16 (third poster in the thread). I'm the one who posted the Cathy Young article in Time because it *does not* support the claim about symmetry in rape (in the narrow sense that I specified: non-impaired, violently forced sex).
DeleteThe article questions the CDC's overly broad definition of rape in a way that undermines *both* feminist claims about rape culture and men's rights activist claims of symmetry:
"it is just as misleading to equate a woman’s experience of alcohol-addled sex with the experience of a rape victim who is either physically overpowered or attacked when genuinely incapacitated.
For purely biological reasons, there is little doubt that adult victims of such crimes are mostly female."
So stop including that as evidence for your view.
And stop giving evidence about violence, which 4 of the 6 items on your list concern. The question is about rape in the narrow sense specified.
That leaves the APA paper, which is hardly a slam dunk for you. First, from symmetry among high school students it doesn't follow that there's symmetry among men and women. Second, self-reports about sexuality from teenagers are, well, bullshit.
Third it's not about rape narrowly construed, but about coercion in a broad sense that includes *unwanted seduction*:
"Examples of coercion included “My partner threatened to stop seeing me” for verbal; “My partner encouraged me to drink alcohol and then took advantage of me” for substance; “My partner threatened to use or did use a weapon” for physical; and “My partner has tried to interest me by sexually touching but I was not interested” for seduction."
As the report concludes: "The findings revealed a need for more scientific study of the thin line between sexual seduction and sexual coercion, the authors wrote."
In other words, to return to the beginning of the thread: yes, it depends on how we define rape and sexual assault.
To get back to the actual beginning of the thread, if you're only concerned with "non-impaired, violently forced sex," then Leiter's claim about the higher rate of men assaulting women than vice-versa is a non-sequitur, regardless of whether it is true. He made that claim to explain the lack of OUTRAGE over the Stubblefield case, which is clearly not a case of "non-impaired, violently forced sex." Switching the genders of the individuals in the Stubblefield case wouldn't change the fact that it isn't a case of "non-impaired, violently forced sex." Leiter might as well have explained the lack of OUTRAGE by reference to men's higher rate of suicide or armed robbery.
DeleteIf by sexual assault you only mean "non-impaired, violently forced sex", then Stubblefield isn't about sexual assault on your (rather silly) definition of that term. It makes no sense, then to explain the lack of outrage about that case by referring to the rates of actual (in your view) sexual assaults.
I'm not taking a position on whether women actually commit sexual assaults (broadly defined) at same rate as men. But the dispute has to be centered on that claim, not on whether sexual assault properly includes non-violently forced sex.
"Your APA membership dues were due by September 1. Please take a moment to renew your membership now so your online access, special discounts, and upcoming publications can resume as soon as possible."
ReplyDeleteOh, yes. I am very eager to renew my membership to our alleged professional organization, which is run by an anti-male, feminist activist who isn't even a philosopher.
Is there data on the rate of mental disorders (I imagine they don't track personality disorders) in the field of philosophy v. other fields?
ReplyDeleteAnd, maybe relatedly, do you think narcissists, true ones, do better in philosophy due to it?
True narcissists do better at nearly everything.
DeleteInteresting questions! I hope someone who frequents this blog can give some leads.
DeleteIn your view, which male philosopher has had the most success with women? I'm going to guess Ayer on account of his marriage to Vanessa Salmon.
ReplyDeleteWow, she's gorgeous. And Nigella Lawson's mother, no wonder.
ReplyDeleteBut Existential Comics has established this over and over. The correct answer is Albert Camus, of course:
http://existentialcomics.com/comic/30
Whoa, why is everyone so mad at MildSalsa!?
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that MildSalsa has always been hot, long before she was old enough to deal with it. Maybe being treated inappropriately by authority figures and being valued as a sex object over being valued as a thinker is something she's sick of. But now she's getting backlash from angry nerds who bloomed late enough to handle it. And just have no idea where she's coming from because they didn't experience it themselves. And you know, once you're in the crosshairs of an angry nerd, fogetta bout it. But that's just my guess.
DeleteI'm not MildSalsa but 8:17's explanation seems likely. I've had (often *married*) professors make more and less overt sexual interest towards me. One person is easy to brush off, but after the second, or the third...
DeleteIt's especially distressing when the interest is not about who you are as a person, but merely about your physical attractiveness. It's weird.
Because she effectively denies people one aspect of their agency in her own mind, and says that anything that threatens to reintroduce it makes her uncomfortable, as though that is or should be a reason to stop doing it.
DeleteCompare: But look, as a young black person, I can’t walk outside without being reminded that I am black, and I can’t watch TV without being reminded how problematic that is for everyone else. It’s really distracting to be worrying about that when I’m trying to learn, think, and talk about difficult topics.To avoid this distraction, I like to imagine my professors as blind people who can't see my skin color, who get around by echolocation and familiarity with their surroundings. And when professors admit to having visual perceptions, I have to lose my illusion. You might think that losing that illusion isn’t a big deal. After all, I couldn’t possibly have convinced myself of it in the first place. That might be true. But I can honestly say, that any that it’s extremely stressful for me to think about any of my professors ever having a single thought about skin color. Maybe that seems extreme, but you know, all that stuff about the truth being stranger than fiction and so on.
That sounds good, I might make that joke to describe the way I cope with racially based stereotype threat.
DeleteBut if that's what she has to do to navigate in the world, then who cares? I didn't see her/him advocating 'colorblindness' or 'sexual blindness' as a moral principle.
Delete"What is it like to be a black?"
Delete11:56, she asked professors (or insinuated that they ought) to refrain from reminding her that they are sexual beings. Apparently she now has coping mechanisms for when they bring up their spouses or kids, but not for jokes.
DeleteIt's not just that. It's also that he or she says they feel "uncomfortable", and that things are "unpleasant" because people are questioning them, as if that's a good reason. "You wanted my opinion, and I gave it" isn't a reason for people to unquestioningly accept your opinion, especially philosophers. "Don't tell me what to feel" almost adds itself "even if my feelings are unreasonable".
DeleteIt's the embodiment of an attitude that we see all too much that college students don't want to be challenged, that every viewpoint is equally deserving of respect if it's someone's, and that they shouldn't ever have to feel challenged for their thoughts and feelings.
I read [the initial post] as her explaining the effects of (potentially) offensive jokes, whatever people should do in response to that is up for discussion.
DeleteI'm not mad at MildSalsa. I just find it absolutely ridiculous that the New Consensus now requires that we be hypersensitive to the possibility that what we say will upset an adult child who has to pretend that her philosophy instructors are asexual beings who have their children delivered to them by storks.
Delete"I’ve experienced being hit-on by a professor, not once, but twice."
DeleteOh, the HORROR! I can't think of anything worse than another adult slightly hinting that they find me sexually attractive. Twice, even—think of all the cooties one could get!
Who/where is MildSalsa?
Deletehttp://dailynous.com/2015/09/02/taking-jokes-too-far-in-the-classroom-ought-experiment/
DeleteHere is her initial post to a thread about sexual jokes, although she added others:
"Okay, so I think that “mild” describes other things other than salsa, even jokes which are sexual in nature.
But look, as a young woman, I can’t walk outside without being reminded that I am a sexual object, and I can’t watch TV without being reminded how problematic that is for everyone else.
It’s really distracting to be worrying about that when I’m trying to learn, think, and talk about difficult topics.
To avoid this distraction, I like to imagine my professors as asexual beings, who are partnered out of some sort of asexual devotion to their BFF or have children because of storks.
And when professors admit to having heard of sex, I have to lose my illusion.
You might think that losing that illusion isn’t a big deal. After all, I couldn’t possibly have convinced myself of it in the first place.
That might be true. But I can honestly say, that any that it’s extremely stressful for me to think about any of my professors ever having a single thought about sex.
Maybe that seems extreme, but you know, all that stuff about the truth being stranger than fiction and so on."
In case you missed it, this is written on purpose a little (a lot) exaggeratedly.
Anyone have any good philosophy sex jokes? Let's start a list.
DeleteTwo behaviorists have sex. Immediately afterwards, one of them turns to the other and asks, "Was that as good for me as it was for you?"
DeleteI've always enjoyed introducing to my undergraduate students the idea that properties can bear relations to one another. That way, I can let "F" stand for such a relation, and ask them to consider some A-ness being F-ed by a P-ness.
Deletea lecture on "parts and wholes" or "penetrating operators" is one long sex joke
Deleteand don't get me started on the original position
Ok, I'm only going to try and limit my responses here to one: But yes, 11:54, 11:56, 12:24, and 1:28 had me right. I was reporting how sexual jokes have the effect of a stereotype threat on me. Then I used exaggerated claims to make a joke about how I cope with stereotype threat. I wasn't making any normative claims about what we ought to do. And I don't think it's fair to say I'm afraid to be challenged. Here I am, responding to you. As for 1:04 mocking me with "oh the horror," 8:17 and 11:30 have it right. I'm not super confident in my ability to come across as a strong scholar. I am super confident that people think I'm pretty. I know that sounds really annoying to those of you who have had it the other way round, and I don't mean to irritate you. But we all have these sorts of things on our plate- things that make us doubt that we have what it takes to get the things we want. I was just reporting mine because it was relevant to that particular discussion.
DeleteAlso MildSalsa, I wonder if you agree that professors who "hit on" students don't just let it go when they are rejected. It is not at all like being "hit on" by peers. The scary part about realizing someone you are not attracted to (like a professor) is about to "hit on" you is what comes after you reject them. They will make you pay for the blow to their ego, stop acting friendly, etc. So that's what young people have to dread when they realize they are being "hit on." And I don't know anyone who takes being targeted for social punishment well or terribly easily.
DeleteHa, I don't know anyone who takes being targeted for social punishment well or terribly easily either, 4:55!
DeleteIn my case, I can't tell if I was any sort of target specifically because I rejected anyone. But I can say that really bad things happened to me afterwards. But I think those things were more the results of my very shaken confidence in myself and those around me. For example, I lost my graduate funding at an unprecedentedly early point in my program. One reason for this was that I just sort of stopped functioning after having to deal with all the Title IX formalities (not my idea) and so I was punished for not turning-in work. The strange part about this was that I was far from the only person who failed to turn in work. I'm not sure why my case was different from theirs, but my guess is that I was so wiped-out from the whole ordeal that I just didn't have enough energy or confidence left to stick up for myself. To be honest, that whole time was just sort of a very confusing whirlwind for me.
But yeah 4:55, what you describe does happen. And it's terrible.
going to need to see some pictures of MildSalsa in order to be able to competently weigh in on this fracas
DeleteLol. No. Maybe when I get tenure in 1,000,000 years. But then I'll be old, so this won't be a problem. Sigh.
Deletephilosophy is just way too full of this armchair reasoning. i need empirical data if you want me to evaluate this what's going on here.
DeleteI'm glad MildSalsa is being called out for her bullcrap.
DeleteTo think of others (who are quite likely, not asexual) as asexuals is, quite literally, childish. That's fine. Being childish can be awesome. But expecting other people to sustain the delusion into adulthood is another matter. That is where MildSalsa stands.
Use of "infantile" is usually exaggerated or metaphorical. Here, it plainly and literally applies.
8:16: Go fuck your sexual, adult self. You suck. Good luck sucking tomorrow.
DeleteThat's why nobody will ever truly love you 8:16. You're unlovable and will die alone.
DeleteAnd you're not smart. You're just really good at whining and blaming other people for your failures, you entitled evil brat. You know it, I know it, and anyone who knows about your outrageous tantrums knows it.
For God's sake, 8:16. She's explained herself about three times now. Your comment is both incredibly uncharitable and totally unecessary.
DeleteMildsalsa may have explained herself, but not in a way that upholds anything she originally said. Unless she completely cancels any implicature that others should at all change their behavior because of her awareness that she's attractive (other than those professors who hit on her), I also take what she said as childish and demeaning. I'm a man, who often has sex with women, and I don't want to have sex with any of my students. Not all sexual beings want to have sex with YOU, even if you are very attractive.
Delete9:11, if you are in fact not 8:16, you're being similarly uncharitable. Evidenced by the fact that you describe someone who has just explained that she's been through some fairly serious-sounding stuff as asking people to 'change their behavior because of her awareness that she's attractive.' That's about the most uncharitable way I could think of to describe what's going on.
Deletemildsalsa did specifically disclaim any interest in "telling people what they ought to do" or whatever. i'm reserving judgment on whether we should be charitable about this statement until i see pictures of her.
DeleteGlad you don't want to have sex with MildSalsa not-8:16. If you're one of her professors (and I don't think you are, but maybe you were- who knows?), she has already said explicitly that she doesn't think you do. So great! Everyone's on the same page. As for implicature, saying on a philosophy blog, "I'm in such and such demographic, and such and such jokes make me feel some way," has no normative implicature. Why? Because philosophers know how entailment works, that debates about normative realism haven't been settled, and that most people think you can't get a prescription from a description.
DeleteFine, then ask mildsalsa what I'm supposed to do with this information. If it's anything other than not hit on her, which I would never do, then my objection stands. If it's just not hit on her, then I kindly suggest she package her thoughts better, because it sure sounded like she wanted to make demands on every professor because she had a bad experience and feels attractive and feels uncomfortable knowing her professors have sex with people.
DeleteShe wants you to know that some students might be alienated by sexual jokes, and she provided an actual, real world example that explains why someone might feel that way. And like she said, she was making a "self-deprecating" joke when she said she needs to imagine people to be asexual. And then she apologized for misusing the term in an offensive way.
Delete+1, 9:36. Nice to hear something sensible on this.
Deletethis is another struggle about who gets to be alienated/offended more (attractive female students or desexualized male philosophers). as such it's completely uninteresting to any rational person, but i'm still interested in seeing some pictures of this "mildsalsa" character.
Deletei've found students sexually desirable in the past. the idea of somehow magically not finding a hot student attractive because they're your student is ludicrous. if not-8:16 has that power, great; that's incredible. most of us don't. most of us also understand that it is good to do one's best not to make it known, etc. this is a good situation for trying one's best and not enforcing very stringent rules, i think.
I claimed that MildSalsa's initial comments (literally and without exaggeration) deserve the title "infantile". To suppose that academics are all asexual is to submit to a delusion that is childish. I mean to use these terms, again, literally and as precise descriptions. And to repeat, I don't have a problem with people who wish to live that way (only with those who try to make others participate in the delusion -- it is, at the very least, unclear where MildSalsa falls on that question).
DeleteIn reply, I got these remarks:
"Go fuck your sexual, adult self..." and then: "That's why nobody will ever truly love you 8:16..."
What I did not get is any reasoning to suggest that I was incorrect in my claim about terms like "infantile" or "childish" and their application.
Go fuck yourself 9:55.
DeleteBecause it seems pretty clear, 9:55, that whatever your stated intentions you were using those terms precisely because they usually have insulting connotations.
Delete9:46, I don't think it's about who 'gets' to be offended. It's simply about being made aware of effects that you might be having that you may not have previously been aware of. Some people might just not care to listen to people explain why they feel a certain way about things, or why certain kinds of comments might have certain kinds of effects on them. If so, those people should just ignore comments in which people explain those things.
10:07 says I am using terms like "infantile" and "childish" "because they usually have insulting connotations". Very well. I hereby cancel the implicatures 10:07 imputes. Better? I use the terms literally and without insulting connotations (on the contrary: being childish can be, as I said, awesome). I offer, instead, a precise description of MildSalsa's remarks.
DeleteFuck off 10:28. Nobody's afraid of what you might do anymore. You don't matter and you never should have. We can go all night, but I won't say a single kind thing to you. It's up to you if you want to be sleepy and distracted tomorrow.
DeleteTypical. Some troll drops a turd on the Daily Nous (well-played, MildSalsa). And of course the PMMB goes nuts, including its own resident shitlord, who is apparently determined to be unkind. Well-played, shitlords.
DeleteYou can fuck off too, 10:38. I'm pretty sure nobody owes you any kindness either.
Delete10:28, 10:07 here. It looks like you deliberately left out the first part of my sentence when you quoted me, hence missing the point entirely.
DeleteWhat I said "whatever your state intentions, you were using those terms precisely because they usually have insulting connotations."
10:28: "you were using those terms precisely because they usually have insulting connotations." Very well" - and a restatement of intentions.
I now pretty sure that you are 'deliberately quote people out of context in ways that are misleading.' (aka ARG).
Some of y'all clearly disagree on this point, but I think we all owe everyone kindness. I'm always disappointed (but no longer surprised) when I meet people who don't think so.
Delete9:46 here, i want to mention that i think the "nobody will ever love you" was way out of line and seemed to come out of left field somewhat. i was surprised and confused by the pile-on. i think it's highly possible that the same person made a few posts, or that people who know each other in person all made posts against the same interlocutor. regardless, i think "no one will ever love you" is just a few steps below "kill yourself" or "get raped" in the "don't-say-this"-a-thon.
DeleteI don't think ARG even knows what an implicature is, 10:43!
DeleteFirst 10:45, I usually agree. But I don't know in this case. Second 10:45, you're right on all counts. I can't take it back yet. I'm tired of having to be alone in being the bigger person here. It hurts so badly. I don't really know what else to say.
DeleteDon't worry, 10:28. I understand where you are coming from. I called my girlfriend a slut once, and she was *still* annoyed with me even after I explained that I meant it purely in the archaic sense of having low standards of cleanliness (because she prefers to vaccuum less frequently than I do) and cancelled any implicatures to do with sexual behavior. Stupid slut.
DeleteI'm the one who someone said no one would ever love. Don't worry: it didn't upset me. And even better, I am and feel very loved nearly all of the time. I sincerely hope all of you out there can truthfully report something similar, despite our sharp disagreement.
DeleteI don't have anything more to say about "childish", though, so I'm tapping out.
Now you're just lying. Fuck off. You're the worst.
DeleteHmm. Interesting that one disagreement here comes down to when and how implicatures can be cancelled. Other disagreements in these comments have also turned on similar issues (or so I seem to recall). Interesting! I expect it might do us all a little good to think through that issue carefully. If there are experts reading, any pointers to relevant literature on implicature-canceling?
DeleteWho's lying, 11:00? "Be more constructive with your feedback, please. Why?"
DeleteAgreed, 10:45. The vitriol here is discouraging. It is the price of free speech, though. Time to pay up, suckas.
DeleteFlight of the Conchords are pretty funny, but I can't explain myself too much. I'm sorry. But I can say that I would never have treated any of these people the way they treated me. They thought it was okay, and that it was funny. It was neither of those things. It nearly destroyed me in so many ways. I will never be as good as they are at being truly shitty towards other people. I shouldn't have tried. It doesn't suit me. I know that won't make them feel any remorse because nothing ever will. It just is what it is. Life's not fair, and untalented assholes win all the time.
DeleteI have no idea what you're talking about, 11:14. Who are "these people"? What is the "it" you talk about that destroyed you and that people thought was funny? Someone said someone else was lying. Who is lying?
DeleteBasically, your incoherent ramblings are incoherent.
This thread just shows how sexually and emotionally infantile the philosopher (generically) is. Way to go people!
DeleteThanks 11:17. I'm not going to explain myself anymore than I have. Bottom line is that I think 8:16 is some particular person who hurt me really badly, over and over and over again. So I tried to give her a taste of her own medicine by saying something hurtful. Maybe it made her feel as bad as she made me feel. But 10:45 showed me why it didn't make me feel any better. It just made me feel worse for making a negative contribution to something- even some obscure blog thread.
DeleteYou can call me incoherent if you really want to. That's fine.
Let's go back to collecting philosophy jokes of the sexual variety. That was more fun.
DeleteThis blog is not as obscure as you might think, 11:28. I hear philosophers talk about it all the time at conferences and on FB (though some won't link out of principle). We all read it but don't want people to know!
DeleteAgreed. Sorry about the detour. I truly am. When I come back, I expect this thread to be buried with sex jokes.
Delete"i'd like to dip into that mild salsa, but it'd be con queso by the time i got out"
DeletePeople do weird things on the metametablog when they think they know who other people on the blog are.
DeleteOne problem with anonymous commenting is this: nasty people can exploit the fact that when some nasty behavior is a one-off, we tend to give them the benefit of the doubt. I'm pretty sure, for example, that there is one person - and it's the same person - who is repeatedly a dick (deliberately misrepresents and misquotes people alll the time, is really patronizing and assholish - tells people that they're not capable of critical thinking, that they're throwing tantrums, etc). If I knew for certain it was the same person doing this, I would be way harsher when they acted like this. But I don't know for certain, so I try to exercise some restraint (because we all are a bit short with other people occasionally). But I'm pretty sure the person knows that because other people can't be certain its the same person, they will let them get away with it way more than if they were certain, and exploits this fact. (To be clear, I don't think that this person is anyone specific - like, I don't think I know their name. I just think that the comments that are like this in multiple threads are by the same person, someone who clearly gets their rocks off by being a dick anonymously on the internet).
Deletethere are definitely a few repeat offender-types, like ARG and the anti-ARG (the Femtroll?). but it's better to err on the side of every comment coming from a different individual unless otherwise identified. i know i hold some ARG-style beliefs, i'm sure there are reasonable people here who hold some Femtroll-style beliefs, and it seems kind of intrinsically important that there be an opportunity for dialogue between people like me and people on the other "side".
DeleteThat's kind of the problem, though - the poster makes one or two reasonable sounding posts. People respond, often expressing disagreement (because that's what we do, right?) and then it really quickly becomes clear that the poster is just determined to be a dick. I'm sure that puts an awful lot of people off responding in the first place. It really sucks to go in to a conversation, expecting that it might be a fun and useful disagreement, only to quickly realize that you're really just someone's punching bag. And while of course we shouldn't really care that some anonymous dick thinks we 'can't think' and 'need to go back to kindergarten' or whatever, it still sucks to have someone say those kind of things to you. I also get annoyed generally when I think someone hasn't understood, and so I spend time explaining myself more clearly, and then it turns out that really they were just trying to pull me into an insult-fest.
DeleteThe ARG seems to be around a lot lately. Have not seen much anti-ARG though.
I wonder if one of the problems is people who do what 11:28 does above -- become convinced that some anonymous interlocutor is some particular real-life arch-enemy, and then unleash all the hatred you'd like to unload on that person in real life.
DeleteSometimes when I read posts, I do this. I start to hear them in some particular philosopher's voice or other, and then I let all of my annoyance with that real-life person transfer to my anonymous interlocutor. It definitely isn't healthy, if only because the odds are very low that my identity hunches are correct.
We could all take a few chill pills and ease off on the vitriol.
Okay, here's one.
DeleteNothing is better than having wild, loud sex with your philosophy professor during office hours. And proving theorems in logic is better than nothing. Therefore, since 'better than' is transitive, proving theorems in logic is better than having wild, loud sex with your philosophy professor during office hours.
So turn your fucking problem set in, already!
Except cut out that whole "philosophy professor" thing.
DeleteI added that just for MildSalsa.
DeleteI'm sure she appreciates that.
DeleteWell, that makes sense, MildSalsa/11:28. I really hope you're right. I still think you're childish, and these outbursts confirm it even more.
DeleteBecause anonymously calling someone childish is so mature.
DeleteMaybe not, but it's more mature than "Fuck off. You're the worst" and "Go fuck your sexual, adult self. You suck. Good luck sucking tomorrow." and 'That's why nobody will ever truly love you 8:16. You're unlovable and will die alone." and "And you're not smart. You're just really good at whining and blaming other people for your failures, you entitled evil brat."
DeleteThis is the MildSalsa that feels uncomfortable when people tell sexual jokes.
Whoa! I didn't say that! I don't know what happened here!
Deleteeveryone was really upset that they don't have any pictures of you and they started a whole internecine thing mildsalsa. i think it's clear what your responsibilities are here
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_xsw2HKnjg
DeleteMildSalsa and I are not the same person. If 8:16 isn't who I thought they were, then obviously I'm the biggest idiot here. If they are, I have nothing to say. But I like the message in 2:03's video, and I've installed an app on my home computer that redirects me from here to PhilPapers. Bye PMMB.
Delete9:37 just can't help themselves, can they? They just have to include something in every comment that is designed to provoke and irriitate, seemingly for no other reason than that they enjoy getting a rise out of people.
DeleteAre you the 'tantrum' person from the other day, 9:37? Cause you're sure as hell displaying a lot of the same behavior. Though of course I'm sure you'll deny it even if you are.
No, I haven't commented in a while until this thread. I just thought 11:28's comments were hurtful and uncalled for, even if she thinks maybe she's addressing someone she dislikes irl. And I thought she was identical to MildSalsa, which would have made it a bit hypocritical.
DeleteI was wondering what explains the Title IX abuse in universities during the past year's. It turns out the Department of Education has been threatening universities to withdraw their funding if they do not deprive men accused of sexual assault of due trial.
ReplyDeleteOCR’s April 4 “Dear Colleague” Guidance Letter
I supported Obama in the past but I must say I am ashamed of my mistake.
The Title IX madness is due to the convergence of three pernicious forces. First, there is the letter you cite and other guidelines which amount to threats, which, as I understand, actually came from the Office of Civil Rights, a division of the Department of Justice, not the Department of Education. (I also read that the impetus behind the whole thing was some pet project that Joe Biden started because he was looking for something to do.) The second piece is the large set of man-hating feminists who occupy influential roles within universities and coerce everyone to go along with their man-hating polices by painting women as weak, helpless victims and anyone who disagrees to be heartless, backwards misogynists. The third piece is the spineless university bureaucrats who eagerly throw their male students under the bus to avoid confrontation with the feds and the fems.
DeleteSomething Justice Whineberg won't allow on his 'new PGR leader' thread:
ReplyDeleteI'm curious to see whether there will be a New Consensus dividend in the new PGR.
Someone has made the same point now and it's been published, fwiw.
DeleteI don't really understand it. More specifically what's the question?
DeleteIs it whether BB will choose many New Consensibles for the advisory board? Or what?
The question is: if a bunch of New Consensus people are on the editorial board, will they value being a member of the New Consensus more than things like publications when evaluating faculty reputation?
DeleteThe editorial board has no special role in evaluating faculty reputation, so that doesn't seem like a very interesting question.
DeleteThe funniest comment on that thread is the first, as though anyone cares who an anonymous commenter on the New Infantilism blog "nominates"!
DeleteSeriously 2:01? You can't think of any way that those in charge of the PGR, if they have certain views, could somehow benefit those with the same views? Here's an obvious way: picking evaluators who have those views.
DeleteThey could, I'm sure.
DeleteI was just responding to 1:54, who seemed to think that the board does the evaluation.
Also, it's not at all clear to me that BB will pick New Consensibles for the board. She is not very predictable.
But here's an interesting question: will New Consensibles decline to participate in the evaluations, on principle? It kind of puts them in an awkward position, doesn't it?