Regressions and Advances (Was: Re: Walzer on the Left)

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Sat Mar 16 15:18:49 PST 2002


Kendall Clark wrote:


>That, of course, is a tacky demurral; i.e., the hypothesis asked you to
>suppose that there *were* good empirical evidence showing that (let's say
>this time) violent erotic photographic and cinematic material influenced men
>to have violent attitudes and behavior toward women.

The evidence is as good as the specification, and I don't think you can specify anything rigorously as "violent erotic...material."


>The bit about criminalization, however just shows that you aren't really
>very well acquainted with the proposal which I've been suggesting in this
>thread is a good starting point. MacKinnon and Dworkin's ordinance would
>have *criminalized* NOTHING. It was purely a civil ordinance.

How reassuring. Someone can sue a publisher or author for damages. As a publisher and author, I have no kinder sympathies for this point of view.


> As Susie Bright suggested
>> in her response to you,
>
>Which is unfortunate since she's *not* on LBO, I can't have a conversation
>with her about her claims. I don't care for offlist, expert one-shots,
>personally. Just my 2 cents.

You mentioned her specifically, and she addressed your points specifically.


> the Bible has encouraged people to
>> extraordinary acts of violence, individual and collective, but I
>> wouldn't want to ban it. Slasher movies are far more violent than
>> almost all porn - should we ban those too?
>
>Unlike porn, the point of neither the Bible nor slasher movies is to 1)
>sexually arouse (primarily) men, and 2) to provide a source of masturbatory
>and sexual fantasy material.

So the porn text is guilty by reason of intent? And what's wrong with the intent to inspire sexual fantasy? Sexual fantasy is fun. I don't feel like hurting people after I have them, either.


> Neither slasher movies nor the Bible are likely
>to lead to sexual fetishization, either

So it's the sexual fetish, not the incitement to violence?


>Surely the industry deeply exploits its workers. Ought leftists care about
>that?

I believe Susie B addressed that point too.

Doug



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