[lbo-talk] Caroline Fourest: In Praise of Consent

Somebody Somebody philos_case at yahoo.com
Sat May 21 00:34:34 PDT 2011


Let's begin with a little self-criticism. The protection of private life or the presumption of innocence in no way justify minimizing a case of sexual aggression, or doubting the innocence of the woman who says she is the victim of it.

Somebody: I strongly disagree. The woman's innocence is not at question, but Strauss-Kahn's is. I would agree there's a distinction between legal presumption of innocence and an individual's own assessment of the evidence, but even here, it's quite early in the case.

There's an assumption here that we should take the word of accusing women for granted. That's probably fair enough by and large, but then by granting that we incentivize women to make false charges when it suits them. Sorry, but that's just human nature (that dreaded anti-Marxist notion).

This whole case is a non-political matter until proven otherwise, and shouldn't even really be a matter of ideological debate.



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list