> i really don't know how to think about these sorts of incidents with the
> organized use of rape in Afghanistan--let alone comparing the Taliban's
> sytematic, predictable violence with the supposed chaotic violence of the
> NA. i don't particularly like the game that Bruce Hare calls, colorfully,
> "the toilet bowl of comparative oppressions." what i do know, is that it
> wouldn't chap my ass so much if i thought that, unlike the Shrubs, the
> issue of gender inequality were a _real_ concern, and not just something
> people on the left gesture at in superficial ways.
I think we were looking at the subject in two different ways.
I was arguing with Brad over the likely real-world consequences of U.S. actions in Afghanistan. To you, the subject was more interesting as an opportunity to evaluate the discourse of a first-world male leftist. You took note of the various theory-predicted pitfalls I was falling into. "See that? - that's the Toilet Bowl of Comparative Oppressions." "Look there - a classic instance of Saving Brown Women From Brown Men."
Don't get me wrong. It's important to think critically about discourse - people do it all the time on this list, including me. But it's possible to get so wrapped up in the metacriticism that you make all criticism impossible.
How exactly can one discuss the politics of a war-torn third-world nation without delving into the barbarism of the country's various armed factions? Must you pause every 5 minutes to remind your listeners that, yes, while the 1980-92 Guatemalan genocide was appalling, we can observe a similar dynamic at work in the problem of police brutality in the USA? And must you then pause again to apologize for descending into the Toilet Bowel of Comparative Oppressions? After a while, doesn't that kind of "discourse" get a little choppy?
Seth