Utopia Talk / Politics / #metoocourse (moral panic edition)

Nimatzo iChihuaha	Tue Dec 12 04:07:34 #Metoo, of course. Women are not going nuts for no reason. We’re fed up with feeling prickles down our spine as we walk alone on dimly lit streets. Fed up with thinking, “If he feels entitled to send me that message, what might he feel entitled to do to if he knew where I lived?” Fed up with strangers who smack their lips and murmur obscenities at us. Fed up with thinking, “No, I don’t want to go to his hotel room to discuss closing the contract. I’ll have to tell him my husband’s waiting for me to call. ‘My husband? Oh, yes, he’s pathologically jealous, bless his heart, and a bit of a gun nut…’” My husband is perfect in every way but one—he doesn’t exist—but he has served me so well over the years that I’m willing to overlook his ontological defects. I shouldn’t need him, but I do. I’ve been fortunate. My encounters with law enforcement have been contrary to reputation: The police have taken me seriously, once arresting a stalker when he failed to heed a warning to cease and desist. But too many women have been murdered because they could not persuade the police to take them seriously. That stalker doubtless believes he was “unjustly accused” and “his life destroyed” by a hysterical woman. He’s full of it. I’ll bet he did the same thing to many women before me. Sexual predation tends to be a lifelong pattern. Among us, it seems, lives a class of men who call to mind Caligula and Elagabalus not only in their depravity, but in their grotesque sense of impunity. Our debauched emperors, whether enthroned in Hollywood, media front offices, or the halls of Congress, truly imagined their victims had no choice but to shut up, take it, and stay silent forever. Many of these men are so physically disgusting, too—the thought of them forcing themselves on young women fills me with heaving disgust. Enough already. All true; yet something is troubling me. Recently I saw a friend—a man—pilloried on Facebook for asking if #metoo is going too far. “No,” said his female interlocutors. “Women have endured far too many years of harassment, humiliation, and injustice. We’ll tell you when it’s gone too far.” But I’m part of that “we,” and I say it is going too far. Mass hysteria has set in. It has become a classic moral panic, one that is ultimately as dangerous to women as to men. If you are reading this, it means I have found an outlet that has not just fired an editor for sexual harassment. This article circulated from publication to publication, like old-fashioned samizdat, and was rejected repeatedly with a sotto voce, “Don’t tell anyone. I agree with you. But no.” Friends have urged me not to publish it under my own name, vividly describing the mob that will tear me from limb to limb and leave the dingoes to pick over my flesh. It says something, doesn’t it, that I’ve been more hesitant to speak about this than I’ve been of getting on the wrong side of the mafia, al-Qaeda, or the Kremlin? But speak I must. It now takes only one accusation to destroy a man’s life. Just one for him to be tried and sentenced in the court of public opinion, overnight costing him his livelihood and social respectability. We are on a frenzied extrajudicial warlock hunt that does not pause to parse the difference between rape and stupidity. The punishment for sexual harassment is so grave that clearly this crime—like any other serious crime—requires an unambiguous definition. We have nothing of the sort. In recent weeks, one after another prominent voice, many of them political voices, have been silenced by sexual harassment charges. Not one of these cases has yet been adjudicated in a court of law. Leon Wieseltier, David Corn, Mark Halperin, Michael Oreskes, Al Franken, Ken Baker, Rick Najera, Andy Signore, Jeff Hoover, Matt Lauer, even Garrison Keillor—all have received the professional death sentence. Some of the charges sound deadly serious. But others—as reported anyway—make no sense. I can’t say whether the charges against these men are true; I wasn’t under the bed. But even if true, some have been accused of offenses that aren’t offensive, or offenses that are only mildly so—and do not warrant total professional and personal destruction. The things men and women naturally do—flirt, play, lewdly joke, desire, seduce, tease—now become harassment only by virtue of the words that follow the description of the act, one of the generic form: “I froze. I was terrified.” It doesn’t matter how the man felt about it. The onus to understand the interaction and its emotional subtleties falls entirely on him. But why? Perhaps she should have understood his behavior to be harmless—clumsy, sweet but misdirected, maladroit, or tacky—but lacking in malice sufficient to cost him such arduous punishment? In recent weeks, I’ve acquired new powers. I have cast my mind over the ways I could use them. I could now, on a whim, destroy the career of an Oxford don who at a drunken Christmas party danced with me, grabbed a handful of my bum, and slurred, “I’ve been dying to do this to Berlinski all term!” That is precisely what happened. I am telling the truth. I will be believed—as I should be. But here is the thing. I did not freeze, nor was I terrified. I was amused and flattered and thought little of it. I knew full well he’d been dying to do that. Our tutorials—which took place one-on-one, with no chaperones—were livelier intellectually for that sublimated undercurrent. He was an Oxford don and so had power over me, sensu stricto. I was a 20-year-old undergraduate. But I also had power over him—power sufficient to cause a venerable don to make a perfect fool of himself at a Christmas party. Unsurprisingly, I loved having that power. But now I have too much power. I have the power to destroy someone whose tutorials were invaluable to me and shaped my entire intellectual life much for the better. This is a power I do not want and should not have. Over the course of my academic and professional career, many men who in some way held a position of power over me have made lewd jokes in my presence, or reminisced drunkenly of past lovers, or confessed sexual fantasies. They have hugged me, flirted with me, on occasion propositioned me. For the most part, this male attention has amused me and given me reason to look forward to otherwise dreary days at work. I dread the day I lose my power over men, which I have used to coax them to confide to me on the record secrets they would never have vouchsafed to a male journalist. I did not feel “demeaned” by the realization that some men esteemed my cleavage more than my talent; I felt damned lucky to have enough talent to exploit my cleavage. But what if I now feel differently? What if—perhaps moved by the testimony of the many women who have come forward in recent weeks—I were to realize that the ambient sexual culture I meekly accepted as “amusing” was in fact repulsive and loathsome? What if I now realize it did me great emotional damage, harm so profound that only now do I recognize it? Apparently, some women feel precisely this way. Natalie Portman, for example, has re-examined her life in light of the recent news: When I heard everything coming out, I was like, wow, I’m so lucky that I haven’t had this. And then, on reflection, I was like, okay, definitely never been assaulted, definitely not, but I’ve had discrimination or harassment on almost everything I’ve ever worked on in some way,” she said during Sunday’s candid talk at Vulture Festival L.A. The more she reexamined her experiences, other incidents come into sharp relief. “I went from thinking I don’t have a story to thinking, Oh wait, I have 100 stories. And I think a lot of people are having these reckonings with themselves, of things that we just took for granted as like, this is part of the process. If I were suddenly to feel as Ms. Portman now feels, I could destroy them all—just by naming names and truthfully describing a flirtation or moment of impropriety. All of the interchanges I’m replaying in my mind would meet the highly elastic contemporary definition of “harassment,” a category vague enough to compass all the typical flirtation that brings joy and amusement to so many of our lives, all the vulgar humor that says, “We’re among friends, we may speak frankly.” It becomes harassment only by virtue of three words: “I felt demeaned.” Do not mistake me for a rape apologist. Harvey Weinstein stands credibly accused of rape. He must face a real trial and grave punishment if convicted, not “therapy and counselling.” Tariq Ramadan, likewise. No civilized society tolerates rape. Many of the men whose professional reputations have recently been destroyed sure sound like they had it coming. The law will decide whether the accused are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, but I don’t require such arduous proof: I’m already convinced that Roy Moore is a sexual predator and so is Bill Clinton. Neither my certainty nor anyone else’s should be allowed to displace the law. I may be convinced, but I might also be mistaken. These reservations aside, I am gratified that at last we all agree that a rapist—or a serial groper of random women’s genitals—should be behind bars, not the Resolute Desk. It was outrageous and unjust that we ever thought otherwise. Revolutions against real injustice have a tendency, however, to descend into paroxysms of vengeance that descend upon guilty and innocent alike. We’re getting too close. Hysteria is in the air. The over-broad definition of “sexual harassment” is a well-known warning sign. The over-broad language of the Law of Suspects portended the descent of the French Revolution into the Terror. This revolution risks going the way revolutions so often do, and the consequences will not just be awful for men. They will be awful for women. Harvey Weinstein must burn, we all agree. But there is a universe of difference between the charges against Weinstein and those that cost Michael Oreskes his career at NPR. It is hard to tell from the press accounts, but initial reports suggested he was fired because his accusers—both anonymous—say he kissed them. Twenty years ago. In another place of business. Since then, other reports have surfaced of what NPR calls “subtler transgressions.” They are subtle to the point of near-invisibility. It seems Michael Oreskes liked to kiss women. Now, it is an embarrassing faux-pas to kiss a woman who does not wish to be kissed, but it happens all the time. Kissing a woman is an early stage of courtship. It is one way that men ask the question, “Would you like more?” Courtship is not a phenomenon so minor to our behavioral repertoire that we can readily expunge it from the workplace. It is central to human life. Men and women are attracted to each other; the human race could not perpetuate itself otherwise; and anyone who imagines they will cease to be attracted to each other—or act as if they were not—in the workplace, or any other place, is delusional. Anyone who imagines it is easy for a man to figure out whether a woman might like to be kissed is insane. The difficulty of ascertaining whether one’s passions are reciprocated is the theme of 90 percent of human literature and every romantic comedy or pop song ever written. Romance involves the most complex of human emotions, desire the most powerful of human drives. It is so easy to read the signals wrong. Every honest man will tell you that at times he has misread these signals, and so will every honest woman. The insistence that an unwanted kiss is always about power, not courtship, simply isn’t a serious theory of the case—not when the punishment for this crime is so grave. Men, too, are entitled to the benefit of the doubt, and even to a presumption of innocence. We now have, in effect, a crime that comes with a swift and draconian penalty, but no proper definition. It seems to be “sexual behavior” or “behavior that might be sexual,” committed through word, deed, or even facial expression; followed by a negative description of the woman’s emotions. Obviously this is inadequate. Human beings, male and female, are subject to human failings, including the tendency to lie, to be vengeful, to abuse power, or simply to misunderstand one another. It is hard to define sexual harassment precisely, because all of these human frailties are often involved. But we must nonetheless reason out together a definition that makes sense. Mass hysteria and making demons of men will get us nowhere we should want to go. Finding a consensus is tricky because our social standards are rapidly changing. We appear now to be converging upon new rules for interaction between men and women—for example, “Never kiss a woman without explicitly asking her consent beforehand.” Such a rule is now the law on college campuses in some states. Whether we think the rule good or ridiculous, we can certainly agree that it is new. Those in doubt can may consult pre-2017 television and cinema, where men routinely kiss women without asking permission. Grandfathering or statutes of limitations can’t possibly be irrelevant to this, and only this, category of wrongdoing. This is not how we view any other crime. It has only recently become mandatory for Americans to purchase health insurance. Would we condemn a man for failing to purchase health insurance in 1985? Several cases recently in the headlines are simply baffling. They do not involve the workplace—or vast discrepancies in power—at all. Perhaps there is more to the story, but from what I’ve read, the improprieties committed by the UK’s (now former) Defense Secretary Michael Fallon amount to this: He kissed a journalist—not his employee, and not someone over whom he had power, but another adult in another profession—fifteen years ago. What transmogrified Fallon’s kiss to a crime that cost him his career were these words, and only these words: “I felt humiliated, ashamed.” Had the object of his affection said, “I felt flattered,” there would be no offense. Fallon apparently also touched another woman on the knee. Fifteen years ago. The latter incident has been reported thus: “I calmly and politely explained to him that, if he did it again, I would punch him in the face. He withdrew his hand and that was the end of the matter.” Julia said she did not feel like she was a victim of a sexual assault, and found the incident nothing more than “mildly amusing.” The facts as described are nothing like sexual assault. Any woman alive could tell similar stories. Many of us find such incidents, precisely as Julia said, “mildly amusing.” There is apparently a “list” of women prepared to make similar accusations against Fallon. Secret lists are inherently sinister tools. The words “I have here in my hand a list … ” are never a salubrious portent. Mother Jones’ editor David Corn, it seems, offered unwanted backrubs. So what? From the prose in Politico you’d think he ravished Tess of the d’Urbervilles. The accused, we are to understand, “came up behind [his accuser] and put his hands and arms around [her] body in a way that felt sexual and domineering.” He gave her a hug, in other words; but it felt to her sexual and domineering. There is no reliable way to know if a hug will feel sexual and domineering to a woman or whether she will find this disagreeable, let alone how she will feel about it twenty years from now. So the lesson to men is clear: Never hug women at work, period. But this is insane. The project of eradicating physical affection from the workplace is cruel to men and women alike, and if it is successful, we will all go nuts. Nor does it make sense to hold all men to the same standards. Some of the accused have made entire careers out of their lewdness and exhibitionism. After revering them for decades for precisely those qualities, we are overnight scandalized to learn they are lewd and exhibitionistic. Take Louis CK. There’s an almost preternatural emotional obtuseness at work here: Did no one notice that in his stand-up routines he speaks incessantly of suicide, masturbation, self-loathing, masturbation, self-hatred, masturbation—and this is all he ever speaks of? If we’re determined to worship a comedian whose work clearly emerges from a profoundly exhibitionistic instinct and self-loathing of the deepest sort, how can we be so astonished to discover it’s not just an act? I grew up around performing artists, so perhaps my view is jaundiced. But yeah, I could have told you: Stay out of his hotel room. My point isn’t that it’s no big deal to whack off in front of your lady friends. It’s disgusting. What Louis CK did is not as banal as offering a woman a backrub or touching her knee. But it’s exactly what you’d expect from him if you’d ever watched his routines. If the man has a delusional view of the appeal to women of watching a self-loathing man whack off, shouldn’t it be relevant to our moral assessment that we, the American public, are the ones who nourished this delusion with applause, laughter, money, and massive crowds at Madison Square Garden screaming his name? How can we suddenly be so censorious upon discovering that he took his onstage act to its logical extension in his hotel room? What makes the reaction to this all the weirder is that the women in question were comedians. Didn’t they see the potential? This is gold! It’s going to bring the house down. Sure, tell the whole world and humiliate the hell out of him—obviously he had that coming. But “outraged and shocked?” Grim faces and utter solemnity? Seriously? The comedians, by their own account, screamed and laughed—and only later revealed they were “outraged.” They say that they shrieked with laughter because they were traumatized. But if you can’t understand why someone like Louis CK might have genuinely understood their laughter as “consent,” your emotional acumen is deficient. He says he asked first, and that they said yes, and that’s why he thought it was okay. Plausible? Of course. Really true? Who knows. But either way, I wouldn’t be surprised if now he hangs himself, because obviously, it isn’t all just an act. I expect everyone to be shocked, shocked, when he does. In any case, none of us gets to watch Louis CK again—or Kevin Spacey, for that matter. They’re literally going to airbrush Spacey out of All The Money, like water commissar Nikolai Yezhov in that photo of the Moscow Canal. Comrade Spacey has been vaporized. He’s an unperson. Long live Comrade Ogilvy. Isn’t anyone a bit spooked by this? Nor for the life of me can I make sense of the allegations against Leon Wieseltier. “The only problem with that dress is that it’s not tight enough,” he is reported to have said to a woman who worked for him. A lewd comment, to be sure. The daily banter of men and women the world around is full of lewd comments. ‪At times, we have learned from The Atlantic, Wieseltier drank too much and made passes at his co-workers. That’s not a wildly rare occurrence. Above all, this is Leon Wieseltier—a man legendary for babbling on publicly about his sexual appetites. He has always been known as a megalomaniacal asshole. Didn’t this occur to anyone at the Emerson Collective before they hired him? If they were surprised to learn that Leon was an asshole, they must have missed this Vanity Fair profile, written in 1995. He seems to have become a better man since then. At least he no longer spends the day snorting coke off of his interns’ rear ends. Even if every allegation against him is true, do they warrant his total professional destruction? Wieseltier’s a windbag, but I would still have read any journal he edited with interest. I’m sorry I won’t have the chance. We just can’t hold people like Louis CK and Leon Wieseltier to the same standards of probity and decorum we would—in a highly imaginary alternate universe—hold the President or a Senator from Alabama. Americans love these people precisely because they’re outrageous, lewd, and willing publicly to violate sexual and social norms. Why wouldn’t you expect Louis CK, in a hotel room, to be Louis CK, only more so? What do people imagine John Belushi was like in his hotel room? He was like John Belushi, only more so. That’s why he was found dead in his hotel room, having taken “being John Belushi” to its logical conclusion. For that matter, isn’t anyone else a bit spooked by the ritual tenor of the confessions that always follow? The most profound mystery of the Moscow Trials was the eagerness of the victims to confess. What prompted them to say things like this? I once more repeat that I admit that I am guilty of treason to the socialist fatherland, the most heinous of possible crimes, of the organization of kulak uprisings … as will be clear to everybody, that there were many specific things which I could not have known, and which I actually did not know, but that this does not relieve me of responsibility. … I am kneeling before the country, before the Party, before the whole people. The monstrousness of my crimes is immeasurable especially in the new stage of the struggle of the U.S.S.R. May this trial be the last severe lesson, and may the great might of the U.S.S.R. become clear to all. Torture, of course, forced many of these confessions. But something more profound was at work. As Lavrentiy Beria said, “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.” Every man, in his soul, feels guilty. The confessions we are seeing now have been dredged from the same place in men’s souls. They are all confessing in the same dazed, rote, mechanical way. It’s always the same statement: “I have come to realize that it does not matter that, at the time, I may have perceived my words as playful. It does not matter that, at the time, I may have felt that we were flirting. It does not matter that, at the time, I may have felt what I said was okay. The only thing that matters is how I made these three women feel,” said Representative Steve Lebsock. Now that is a remarkable thing to say. Why doesn’t it matter what he thought what was happening? Why would we accept as remotely rational the idea that the only thing that matters is how the women felt? The confession continues in the same vein: “It is hard for me to express how shocked I am to realize the depth of the pain I have caused and my journey now is to come to terms with my demons and I’ve brought on a team of therapists and I will be entering counselling and reflecting carefully on issues of gender inequality, power, and privilege in our society and—” For God’s sake, why are these men all humiliating themselves? It’s not like confessing will bring forgiveness. They must all know, like Bukharin, that no matter what they say, the ritual of confession will be followed by the ritual of liquidation. If they said, “You’ve all lost your fucking minds, stop sniffing my underwear and leave me the fuck alone,” they’d meet exactly the same fate. Why didn’t Bukharin say, “To hell with you. You may kill me, but you will not make me grovel?” I used to wonder, but now I see. Am I the only one who finds these canned, rote, mechanical, brainwashed apologies deeply creepy? Isn’t anyone else put in mind of the Cultural Revolution’s Struggle Sessions, where the accused were dragged before crowds to condemn themselves and plead for forgiveness? This very form of ritual public humiliation, aimed at eliminating all traces of reactionary thinking, now awaits anyone accused of providing an unwanted backrub. We are a culture historically disposed to moral panics and sexual hysterias. Not long ago we firmly convinced ourselves that our children were being ritually raped by Satanists. In recent years, especially, we have become prone to replacing complex thought with shallow slogans. We live in times of extremism, and black-and-white thinking. We should have the self-awareness to suspect that the events of recent weeks may not be an aspect of our growing enlightenment, but rather our growing enamorment with extremism. We should certainly realize by now that a moral panic mixed with an internet mob is a menace. When the mob descends on a target of prominence, it’s as good as a death sentence, socially and professionally. None of us lead lives so faultless that we cannot be targeted this way. “Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.” Your computer can be hacked. Do you want to live in the kind of paranoid society where everyone wonders—Who’s next? To whom is it safe to speak freely? What would this joke sound like in a deposition? Do you think only the men who have done something truly foul are at risk? Don’t kid yourself. Once this starts, it doesn’t stop. The Perp Walk awaits us all. Given the events of recent weeks, we can be certain of this: From now on, men with any instinct for self-preservation will cease to speak of anything personal, anything sexual, in our presence. They will make no bawdy jokes when we are listening. They will adopt in our presence great deference to our exquisite sensitivity and frailty. Many women seem positively joyful at this prospect. The Revolution has at last been achieved! But how could this be the world we want? Isn’t this the world we escaped? Who could blame a man who does not enjoy the company of women under these circumstances, who would just rather not have women in the workplace at all? This is a world in which the Mike Pence rule—“Never be alone with a woman”—seems eminently sensible. Such a world is not good for women, however—as many women were quick to point out when we learned of the Mike Pence rule. Our success and advancement relies upon the personal and informal relationships we have with our colleagues and supervisors. But who, in this climate, could blame a venerable Oxford don for refusing to take the risk of teaching a young woman, one-on-one, with no witnesses? Mine was the first generation of women allowed the privilege of unchaperoned tutorials with Balliol’s dons. Will mine also be the last? Like so many revolutions, the sexual revolution risks coming full circle, returning us right where we started—fainting at bawdy jokes, demanding the return of ancient standards of chivalry, so delicate and virginal that a man’s hand on our knee causes us trauma. Women have long been victims, but now we are in so many respects victims no longer. We have more status, prestige, power, and personal freedom than ever before. Why would we want to speak and act as though we were overwhelmingly victims, as we actually used to be? Women, I’m begging you: Think this through. We are fostering a climate in which men legitimately fear us, where their entire professional and personal lives can be casually destroyed by “secret lists” compiled by accusers they cannot confront, by rumors on the internet, by thrilled, breathless reporting denouncing one after another of them as a pig, often based only on the allegation that they did something all-too-human and none-too-criminal like making a lewd joke. Why would we even want men to be subject to such strenuous, arduous taboos against the display of their sexuality? These taboos, note carefully, resemble in non-trivial ways those that have long oppressed women. In a world with such arduous taboos about male purity and chastity, surely, it is rational for men to have as little to do with women as possible. What’s in this for us? From the Salem Witch trials to the present, moral panics have followed the same pattern. Stanley Cohen’s Folk Devils and Moral Panics remains the classic study. To read it is to appreciate that we are seeing something familiar here. The media has identified a folk devil, which it presents in a stereotyped way, exaggerating the scale of the problem. The “moral entrepreneurs,” as Cohen terms them—editors, politicians, key arbiters of respectability—have begun competing to out-do each other in decrying the folk devil. The folk devil symbolizes a real problem. But so vilified has the scapegoat become, in popular imagination, that rational discussion of the real problem is no longer possible. Cohen argued that moral panics must be understood in their wider socio-historic context. We may understand them, he proposed, as a boundary crisis: At a time of rapid change, they express the public’s uncertainly about the boundary between acceptable and unacceptable behavior. The widespread anxiety about unsettling change is resolved by making of certain figures scapegoats—folk devils. They symbolize a larger social unease. Why this moral panic, and why now? I’m not sure, to be honest. I can hazard a few speculations. We’ve in the past thirty years experienced a massive restructuring of gender roles. When Hanna Rosin wrote her 2010 Atlantic essay, “The End of Men,” she was not exaggerating. “What if,” she asked, “the modern, postindustrial economy is simply more congenial to women than to men?” What if? Because it seems very much that it is. “The postindustrial economy is indifferent to men’s size and strength,” she wrote. “The attributes that are most valuable today—social intelligence, open communication, the ability to sit still and focus—are, at a minimum, not predominantly male.” America’s future, Rosin argued, belongs to women. “Once you open your eyes to this possibility, the evidence is all around you.” And it is. Let us put this in the crudest of Freudian terms. Women have castrated men en masse. Perhaps this panic is happening now because our emotions about this achievement are ambivalent. Perhaps our ambivalence is so taboo that we cannot admit it to ourselves, no less discuss it rationally. Is it possible that we are acting out a desire that has surfaced from the hadopelagic zone of our collective unconscious—a longing to have the old brutes back? That is what Freud would suggest: We are imagining brutes all around us as a form of wish-fulfillment, a tidy achievement that simultaneously allows us to express our ambivalence by shrieking at them in horror. The problem with Freudian interpretations, as Popper observed, is that they’re unfalsifiable. They’re not science. But they’re tempting. Certainly, something weird is going on here. It is taking place in the aftermath of the most extraordinary period of liberation and achievement women have ever enjoyed. No, of course we don’t want the old brutes back. But perhaps we miss something about that world. Wouldn’t it be comforting, for example, at a time like this, to believe what women used to believe—that responsible men were in charge of the ship of state, and especially our nuclear weapons? Moral panics have a context. They emerge at times of general anxiety. Scholars of the Salem witch trials point to Indian attacks, the political reverberations from the English Civil War, crop failures, and smallpox outbreaks. Residents of colonial Massachusetts filtered these apprehensions through the prism of their Calvinist theology. If their moral panic was prompted by the anxieties of their era and adapted to the theology of their times, why should we be any different? I’m not sure what, precisely, is now driving us over the edge. But I’d suggest looking at the obvious. The President of the United States is Donald J. Trump. Our country is not what we thought it was. We’re a fading superpower in a world of enemies. The people now running the United States cannot remotely persuade us, even for five minutes, that they know what they’re doing and are capable of keeping us safe. Who among us doesn’t feel profound anxiety about this? Daddy-the-President turns out to be a hapless dotard. Women who had hopefully imagined rough men standing ready to do violence on our behalf so we could sleep peacefully in our beds at night have discovered instead—psychologically speaking—that Daddy is dead. That’s enough to make anyone go berserk. Perhaps this realization is powering some of the hysteria we’re now seeing about sexual harassment. Rapid social and technological change, a lunatic at the helm, no one knows what tomorrow will bring—we’re primed for a moral panic par excellence. That it has something to do with men and male beastliness is an adaptation to the theology of our era: American culture has been obsessed with gender—the rarer and odder the better—for at least the past decade. What’s more, we really do have an unreconstructed slob in the Oval Office, one who is genuinely offensive to women. Some of the anger directed at these poor groveling schmucks is surely—really—meant for him. No woman in her right mind would say, “I want the old world back.” We know what that meant for women. Nor would we even consciously think it. But perhaps, instead, we are fantasizing that the old world has come back, rather than confronting something a great deal more frightening: It’s never coming back. We are the grown-ups now. We are in charge. Maybe it doesn’t matter where the sources of the present moral panic lie. But could we at least get enough of a grip to realize that it is a moral panic—and knock it off? Women, I’m begging you: Please. --------------------- Calm the fuck down and carry the fuck on. We used to say that to people who were getting bombs dropped on their heads and most recently people when people were run over by terror trucks, now we have to tell it to people who had their pussies grabbed. Because people with actual pussies are more likely to be sensitive, you know pussies. They are a protected group solely based on them having pussies. Anyway, Calm down. We shall prevail, we will not go into the empty night yada yada yada etc. and so on. Carry on.
jergul large member	Tue Dec 12 04:46:27 It is really very simple. Do not do to a person what you would not want a Catholic priest do to your son In any context where you have implicit or explicit power over that person. But in a wider sense: How did you think changes emerging from gender diversion in education would manifest? Of course highly educated women think pigs are pigs.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Tue Dec 12 09:25:21 "Do not do to a person what you would not want a Catholic priest do to your son" This is not the definition of #metoo, in Sweden (nr 1 in metoo) anyways. Swedish Public service had a survey done. The question was "have you ever been sexually harassed OR sexually offended". Basically anyone who has been called a cunt, dick, whore or whatever motivated by completely different feelings/emotions than sexual desire. Fairly large span, wouldn't you say? Serial rape or serial insult. If you dive deeper you will see that some of the most prominent leaders of this movement are actually arguing that an insult is violence. So no "it is not that simple" something you will probably never understand. Certain problems are more complex, they require more thinking and _less action_ and hashtags in the short to midterm. Instead of bungling things that have nothing to do with each other under one umbrella term so you can a big movement. First order thinking, you excel at it. "implicit or explicit power over that person." lol you truly are a fucking idiot lulzgul. This is probably The issue with you lies. Screw the contents and facts, studies and peer review, no. It is that I can not take for granted speaking with you that I am speaking with an adult. This (not even childishness) retarded adult baby mind of yours seeps into every aspect of your faculty, like cancer. If you are not OK with anything being done to you, you have an obligation to make that clear. This is R.Kelly all over again, you do not have to be 18 to know if you want someone to piss (actual urine) on you or not. Likewise if my boss came in and asked if he can jerk off in front of me in my office, it would not take me a fucking hashtag and movement to come to terms with "did I or didn't I want this". Interesting example from Sweden, when the #metoo came to the Police. There was this women on TV who had to quite as a police officer because she got PTSD getting harassed by her colleagues. I am not saying anyone should endure harassment from anyone, but my second thought was, she probably should not have passed the evaluation. You are expected to suffer gracefully as an adult human being to some extent and not panic or break down. Not every individual is equally prepared to deal with the "horrors" of life. The question is, should the rest of society model itself after the lowest common denominator on this matter? No for the same reason we should not listen to all the fear mongers and frightened on Terrorism. We are letting some very base and >powerful< emotions rule the agenda of the day. btw Highly educated women go into the humanities where their heads are filled with the type of garbage that produces neurotic behavior. They learn they are not obligated to even say NO when they do not consent. It creates retarded children walking around in adult bodies.
Hrothgar Member	Tue Dec 12 11:57:14 According to a the sprawling definitions of #metoo I've been quite guilty of violations against my wife during attempts to get her in the mood for sex on a great number of occasions. Gropings, verbal harassing, unwanted touchings of pretty much her entire body. I'm a monster.
Paramount Member	Tue Dec 12 12:11:17 I didn’t read all that text but I read the last paragraph. ”Calm the fuck down and carry the fuck on. [...] now we have to tell it to people who had their pussies grabbed.” So if a refugee grabs a woman by her pussy we should tell her to calm down and not be hysterical about it? Because it is a part of our culture?
jergul large member	Tue Dec 12 12:48:33 Nimi Do you want a Catholic priest to call your son a whore? It is that easy. Positive consent is a pretty established principle. I ask if I can have your house. You say nothing. I get your house? Women dominate most fields of study. For neurotic degrees, see economics and business administration. For degrees for the mentally handicapped on the autism spectrum, see engineering.
jergul large member	Tue Dec 12 12:50:00 Nimi Can I live with you next summer? I won't take no for an answer :).
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Wed Dec 13 06:45:53 "Do you want a Catholic priest to call your son a whore?" Irrelevant for many reasons, mainly because calling someone a "whore" is not the same as raping them. It does not warrent nor should it illicit the same response from me as an individual or society as whole. "Positive consent is a pretty established principle. I ask if I can have your house. You say nothing. I get your house?" Because there are legal matters to be resolved when a house changes owners lulzgul. Insurances, deeds, responsibility etc. etc. large sums are money are changing hands things that we do not need for you to suck my dick, we can just go on about. Soooo your solution is to regulate human interaction with a bureaucracy like the selling of a house, some kind of regulated quasi-prostitution? Very socialist/left wing and also very autistic (lack of a social aptitude) male/systemization WELL I am saying you are an idiot. First and foremost because you are bringing up the pedophilia as somehow comparable with adult interaction. A pedophile could never be in the right. You know a "positive consent" wouldn't mean jack shit if we are talking about a child. Ironically the "pedophilia card" is straight out of the playbook of the conservative moral panick over "hedonistic lifestyles". Nice! In conclusion, you think women are infants, wards of the state that need to be looked after just like we look after children and keep them safe from pigs/pedophiles. "It is that easy." It is also very easy to not be mistaken for a Jihadi. Don't do what a Jihadi would do. About as fuzzy and ill definited for this sentence to be meaningless, but do serious damage as it is applied. This is why you have the phd and I tell people with phds what to do. "Can I live with you next summer? I won't take no for an answer :)" Aaaand full retard. GG lulzgul Anyway with all the retarded things dismissed, we are back to all the bad reason to model society after and giving in to the demands of those least fit to deal with the obstacles and suffering that life entails. No one deserve to be raped or groped and criminals shall be punished. You may however deserve to be called a cunt, an insult can not be wrong as a matter of principle and yes you should "take it" and "deal with it". None of these things should break you or cause PTSD and in the overwhelming majority of people they do not. Some members of our specie are (genetic factors exist) more sensitive to trauma, they are more prone to overreact to suffering and trauma. In fact our entire specie is very good at overreacting, because overreacting as opposed to not reacting has very clear benefits for survival. We are also obviously hardwired to empathize with those who are suffering and try to help them and beyond that, panic and hysteria can be as contagious as any vector. So. Do we want to be free of our evolutionary coded imperative and the selfish nature of the genes, or not? Denying human nature is not a valid option when trying to understand and solve social issues.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Wed Dec 13 06:52:12 "In conclusion, you think women are infants, wards of the state that need to be looked after just like we look after children and keep them safe from pigs/pedophiles." BTW your arguments would go home very well in any Islamic culture. Infantalizing women, dismissing their autonomy to make choices (even poor choices). These are all the first steps towards full segregation of the sexes, which BTW is being insinuated by female Swedish politicians. "Stay away from areas where there are multiple men" as a way of reducing risks for women. Amazing that this is the shit my mother and her sisters were told in Iran in the fucking 70's! :) all relevant again in places like Sweden and Norway. What happened?
jergul large member	Wed Dec 13 07:09:54 Nimi Metoo is not in any way limited to rape. Its about sexualized exploitation in any relationship characterized by power inequality. So, do you want a Catholic priest to call your son a whore? If you are fine with that, then you stand a lot freer to not understand what metoo is about. There are a lot of legal and economic consequences that follow from non-consentual sexual assault. It being criminal and all. You have heard me make the case that the criminal-justice systems have an obligation to pursue cases where balance of probability standards are likely to award a victim restitution. To underline the economic values at stake. My solution is that sexualize activity be founded on the principle of consent between individuals in a context where consent is freely given. I see that you disagree with that oh petty human from a 4+ wife culture. Howl at any moons lately? Anyone is free to call anyone else a cunt. If they are willing to pay the conscequences of doing that. Staying away from relatives would be the safest approach to improved security for women and children incidentally. But, no, I am arguing access to the full recourse of the criminal justice system. So a post-defacto solution that in turn will impact on behavior. Anyone should be free to move about with the trust that any crime commited against them will meet the full force of the law.
jergul large member	Wed Dec 13 07:11:14 Oh, and you did not say "no" to my staying with you this summer. I greatly appreciate it. Its been a while since I have been to Sweden.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Wed Dec 13 07:49:29 "Metoo is not in any way limited to rape." That I have made multiple post, referencing survey done by Swedish public service and explained why this is an issue. Is your brain running late? "Its about sexualized exploitation in any relationship characterized by power inequality. " Asserted by you (and your tribe) as a socialist and gender theory advocate. It has not been established in any way and can be dismissed on the same grounds. "If you are fine with that" Irrelevant example is still irrelevant example. You are categorizing wildly different thing as causes by the same things, because they on the surface to a critical theorist seem to be connected. Cunt is a sex organ, therefor calling people cunt is related to sex. Rape can only occur when there is a power inequality, therefor rape is about power. This is the garbage that comes out of the humanities department over represented by women and socialists. It disregards "There are a lot of legal and economic consequences that follow from non-consentual sexual assault. It being criminal and all." First you have to establish that a crime has taken place, once you have done that THEN may come the legal/economic consequences. While when handing over the ownership of something like a house this can not be avoided, in fact you first deal with the legal and financial matter PRIOR to getting the house. You should seriously stop, we established long ago that you do not understand the judicial system even at a layman level. This is why you are comparing criminal law with the regulation and ownership of property. Very different worlds. But you DID managed to confound the ownership of PROPERTY in a discussion about _WOMEN's_ right to not be raped/groped. NICE :) You are on the Islamist role. Is it becoming more apparent why I have in the past drawn parallels between Islamist and Socialist? Once we get past your liberal facade there is a authoritarian collectivist/tribalistic religious nutbag hiding.
jergul large member	Wed Dec 13 09:04:31 Yes, me and my tribe has defined: "Metoo is about sexualized exploitation in any relationship characterized by power inequality." I do not actually care about the inner motivations of those that exploit power inequality. But rape is indeed a function of power inequality. By definition. Calling someone a cunt may or may not be many things. Doing so may have consequences a person has to be willing to face. Establishing that a crime has taken place is a lot easier than convicting someone of that crime. Different standards of evidence. A crime is simply a balance of probability issue. I have consistently argued that the criminal justice system should use compensatory standards in addition to criminal ones. You may be found innocent of rape, but still find the victim awarded 10s of thousands (usd) in compensation. The only thing lacking is the system's willingness to pursue cases on a balance of probability basis. Restitution is inherently an economic issue. It is gender neutral by the way. I am arguing an individual's right to compensation for wrongdoings that harm that individual. Call me a libertarian.
jergul large member	Wed Dec 13 09:05:01 Do you have a spare bedroom, or should I bring a sleeping bag?
jergul large member	Thu Dec 14 01:41:34 This is anectdotal, but interesting. I have been to two towns where gender stereotypes were reversed (longyearbyen and hammerfest). Women dominated the nighclub scene in both towns and it actually was slightly unpleasant. There is probably a biological imperative at the basis, but it would rest on the human propensity to exploit power until it is constrained. This is not gender specific. Exploitation and limitation being both profound parts of what makes us human. Society changes (see trends in educational attainment levels) and our human tendency to limit unpleasantness gains a better, more level playing field. meetoo is simply a reflection of that change. Or an instrument of change at worst.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Thu Dec 14 01:44:28 I don’t give two shits how _you_ define these things jergul. I already have metoo defined by swedish pbs survey, it has been quantified. Sweden is the leadind #metoo nation. I will accept the consensus definition. Sexual insult requires no power inequality. Crime require no power inequality and so on. Basic stuff. That you do not care about motivation of a crime or action is just another testament to how poorly you understand criminal law. Motivation is also key in prevention. But only someone who can think more than one step, would think of this. You have consistently argued to lower the standards of evidence to catch _alleged_ offenders and pump them out of money in a civilian court. Garbage jergul, your arguments can be condensed to WE HAVE TO GET TOUGHER ON CRIME! How lulzgul? LOWER THE STANDARDS OF EVIDENCE AND MAKE EM PAY! Textbook vrituesignaling, empty in content.
jergul large member	Thu Dec 14 02:24:23 And I don't give two shits about your thoughts. Lets just think of these musing as gifts I leave for prosperity. Crime actually does require a situational power inequality, or the victim would not be subject to the crime, now would he/she? The same is true of sexual insult that by definition is meant to be demeaning (or devalue a person's relative power position). I don't care about the inner workings of sexual criminals nimi. That is the job of health services. I think victims have a right to restitution if their case is proven to a sufficient degree of probability in a court of law. I do not think it appropriate to use a civil court to do this (though in some jurisdictions you have to), but rather to simply use the criminal system which allows for restitution without a criminal conviction. The missing link here is the criminal-justice systems understanding that the burden of evidence is significantly lower than they currently practice. Cases should be considered against the likelihood of not only getting a criminal conviction, but also on the basis of restitution being awarded to the victim under lower standards of evidence. So, no. Not empty in content, and not virtue signaling (as this forum is hardly the place to go after people's pocketbooks). What is with the aggression, bro? You done something you should not have?
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Thu Dec 14 03:50:13 "situational power inequality" Asserted without evidence, dismissed without evidence. And these are rather complex issues/subject and claims about the human nature of psychology and behavior/interaction. Which you are too dumb and uneducated to even understand. Sad! "Lets just think of these musing as gifts I leave for prosperity." You have very little to say that is of actual use for facilitating prosperity, on this subject or others. Most people here agree, and this here is your audience. I am quite sure that seb is doing the heavy lifting in the thread about global warming. "but rather to simply use the criminal system which allows for restitution without a criminal conviction." Ah yes, I don't think a civilian court should do it, but a criminal court should act as a civilian court instead. Brilliant. "the criminal-justice systems understanding" Of law ss to be trusted over yours, without hesitation, goes without saying, google should be trusted over you and I am very skeptical towards google. 75% of female lawyers in Sweden did not sign under the petition for #metoo. Scratch your head over this one, lulzgul.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Thu Dec 14 03:59:09 "What is with the aggression, bro? You done something you should not have?" If you have nothing to hide Jergul, give us your contact information. "I don't trust a man that doesn't have something strange going on about him, cause that means he's hiding it from you. If a man's wearing his pants on his head or if he says his words backwards from time to time, you know it's all laid out there for you. But if he's friendly to strangers and keeps his home spick-and-span, more often than not he's done something even his own ma couldn't forgive." Your religious defense (facade) of feminism through the years and now #metoo, actually makes you looks suspicious. How many women have you groped/raped/insulted?
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Thu Dec 14 04:01:06 *nature of human..
jergul large member	Thu Dec 14 04:16:59 Nimi Its just that you seem scared. One has to wonder what the combination of steroids, hashish, alcohol and nightclubbing may have lead to. Seb did do the heavy lifting in the last thread at least. I got bored. Economic restitution is part of criminal proceedings in Norway at least. It just has a lower standard for evidence. I checked into it. The first barrier is public awareness. You have to file a restitution claim along with the initial police report. I have a suspicion few people know enough to make the system work for them. But that is easy to resolve. A 25% participation rate is actually quite high for any signature scheme. Compensation for damages is one of the foundations of western law.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Fri Dec 15 02:10:00 Do you understand that one can fear for things other than the personal, socialist? For principles, institutions and the future?
jergul large member	Fri Dec 15 02:15:15 You mean social-democratic institutions, social-democratic principles, and a social-democratic future? I worry a hell of a lot less after recent developments in the US. For your take on politics and social development, see tribal cultures of Iran ~1970.
jergul large member	Sun Dec 17 12:08:39 http://www...r-forslaget-om-samtyckeslag-ut Sweden on track to pass consent law (metoo legislation). It becomes illegal to have sex with a person who has not given positive consent (either verbally, or by active participation). New crimes are to be introduced: Negligent rape. Covers cases where a person does not realize he or she is raping someone. The goal is to increase sentencing rates. gg nimi.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Sun Dec 17 13:37:07 https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/advokatsamfundet-en-samtyckeslag-kommer-inte-leda-till-fler-fallande-domar awww lulzgul.
jergul large member	Mon Dec 18 01:53:45 Learn to post links? "Vi kommer ha precis samma problem med att styrka att ett övergrepp har begåtts. Det är ett bevisproblem" Convictions will increase simply because misunderstandings now become the basis for convictions. But more importantly, the number of criminal cases going to trial will increase. Giving the basis for restitution even when convictions cannot be made. Lower burden of evidence lessens the "bevisproblem". 100 000 Skr goes a long way in demonstrating "we believe you far more than we believe him". gg nimi.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Mon Dec 18 05:15:16 I am not getting into the details of legal matter with someone who has less insight into legal matter than a google search can produce. You posted an article where a social democratic (your gang) virtue signal minister of the current government wrote about how they will "get tough on crime", your run of the mill rhetoric and polemic. I countered this with an article where the head of the attorney's union of Sweden, thoroughly trashes the suggestion that your own virtue signaling fellow tribesmen _themselves_ admit will have very little effect. This was over before we started, but let's continue a little more. Then we are back to "if we lower the standards of evidence we will convict more people". Your ability to solve difficult social problems is, genius lulzgul, just genius! I wonder what other great things we can achieve, by lowering quality requirements? 75% of Female lawyers did not sign the metoo petition that wanted to lower standards of evidence. Lawyers after lawyer in articles detailing why destroying "Rättstat/rättssäkerhet" Swedish for "Rule of law" and the principles that hold democracy together to convict more rapist is a horrible idea. Why? Because they unlike jergul these people have at least a layman understanding of law, while jergul does not understand the difference between regulation and criminal law. I am quite shocked at what a shitty advocate you are for socialism/feminism. IF there ever where fence sitter in our audience on these matters, you have done all the leg work, really. Lower the standards of evidence is on par with "kill all poor/hungry people to solve poverty/hunger".
jergul large member	Mon Dec 18 06:20:26 Nimi We are not talking of lowered standards of evidence for convicting people or rape, but rather using restitution more systematically. It has a lower standard of evidence. This is also part of the western legal system. Beyond reasonable doubt for crimes with victims does not provide good safeguards for the victims. So economic compensation has a lower standard. 25% signed. That is a wildly successfull petition. Though you have not actually provided the link, so we can only guess at what the hell you are actually on about. You seem worried, bro. Perhaps don't combine clubbing with hashish and steriods?
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Mon Dec 18 06:50:50 "That is a wildly successfull petition." NIH! NIH! NIH! "you have not actually provided the link" "I am not getting into the details of legal matter with someone who has less insight into legal matter than a google search can produce." The link I provided was a related story to the link you posted (but also on Swedish TV). I am keeping this thread at the appropriate level. You assert stupid things and I just smash down the pins. You are talking about the internal matters of a country you do not understand. You say rape convictions are high in Sweden, Swedish society says they are low. You say lower the standards Swedish attorneys says this is retarded. You say this legal proposition will make things better, even the politicians are careful in saying anything, the lawyers trash it. There are no links or sources necessary for this. We are not here to convince each other you and I. The entire premise for your "get tough on crime" lulzshit is destroyed by the relating article authored by the one of the most prominent lawyers (female) of Sweden. We good lulzgul :)
jergul large member	Mon Dec 18 06:56:46 Nimi So many words you are able to pull out of your ass at once. I suspect another side-effect of poor impulse control implied by combining night clubs with steroids and hashish. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVE9xYsLbFc
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Mon Dec 18 07:17:28 We all have issues jergul, but whatever my issue is, it is functioning at a higher order than you, not because I am so smart but because the only difference between you and a religious Muslim is that you have a godless secular religion. Religions when they enter our history and culture very often have positive effects for people and sociies they effect. They change old and stale systems and sometimes through creative destruction. They are however religions and attract people who will tell you, about the different methods of managing society, "I have thrown my lot with this gang". It is always the socialist who tell me words like this with pride, a coworker the other day when I explained how another coworker basically views his socialism (Bosnian) as a religion "I do to she said, I am a religious socialist! If there were no Socialdemocrats I would vote communist!". With religion, time is never on your side. It may change things for the better in the short term, but being a religion full of religious nutbags things like orthodoxy, heresy, exile etc. will inevitably become issues and in the long run your movement will becomes the anti-thesis to what it once started out as. #socialismiscancer
jergul large member	Mon Dec 18 09:05:12 #gohomenimi
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