On Sun, 22 Oct 2006 10:33:24 -0800 Miles Jackson <cqmv at pdx.edu> writes:
> joanna wrote:
> > There is also a mountain of data about sexual abuse in families.
> No one
> > is saying that she has proved her case; we are objecting to her
> > allegations being dismissed out of hand.
Responding to Joanna, I don't think that anyone here is saying that Bettina's allegations should be dismissed out of hand out of hand, but basing such allegations on "recovered memories" seems to be frail basis for supporting allegations that at best would tarnish a person's reputation, and which at worst, if they had been made while Herbert was still alive, could have sent him to prison.
> >
>
> The only people making claims in this thread about what really
> happened
> are you and Jesse: "HA raped his daughter". What James, Yosh and I
> are
> pointing out is that we can't just simply accept accusations at face
>
> value, especially when they are based on recovered memories. No one
> is
> saying "We know the memory was fabricated"; we're just saying her
> vivid
> memory account is not clear evidence that the abuse occurred.
As I understand it, you, Yoshie and James Heartfield are all arguing that such allegations should not be accepted without corroboration. That seems to me to be eminently reasonable given the apparent, that the notion of recovered memories seems closely tied with pseudoscientific theories concerning repression and forgetting. A recovered memory might be accurate, but there seem to be good reasons to regard such memories, as being in themselves not too reliable.
>
> So without corrobating evidence, we're left with the fact that
> Bettina
> has a vivid memory of abuse; however, we cannot make a confident
> claim
> that "she was abused" or "she wasn't abused". I know this lack of
> certainty is disconcerting in cases like this, but in my view, "we
> can't
> be sure one way or the other" is the only logically and morally
> defensible position.
>
> Miles
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