Peg Tittle's Blog, page 49

The Silence of Descartes and Bacon

Reading (again) (this time in Daly) about how during the Renaissance it was so inconceivable that women were knowledgeable, especially with regard to the human body, that when they cured various ailments, they were not lauded as competent physicians but accused of consorting with the devil; such ‘witches’ were tortured with eye-gougers, branding irons, spine-rollers, forehead tourniquets, thumbscrews, racks, strappados, iron boots, and heating chairs. (A bit over-the-top, one can’t help but note.)

And as both a feminist and a philosopher, I am ashamed to say that it never occurred to me to wonder why Descartes and Bacon didn’t object; nowhere in all their voluminous writing do they address this being-’punished’-for-knowing-something. So they approved? How could they?

Taxing the Rich

Of course the rich people should have to pay higher taxes. Not because of some sacrifice for the common good principle or some trickle down principle or some from each according to their ability principle, but because they don’t deserve their money. There, I said it. They don’t deserve their millions.

Even if I worked twenty hours a day, 365 days of the year, I wouldn’t make anywhere near just one million.

So they must be making ten, twenty, a hundred times per hour what I’m making.

Is what they’re doing a hundred times more important than what I’m doing. It’s not even ten times more important. (Let’s say I’m a garbage collector.)

Is it a hundred or ten times more difficult? No. (Let’s say I’m a nurse in the paraplegic ward.)

Does it take a hundred or ten times as much skill or training? No. (Let’s say I’m an astrophysicist.)

Rich people have their millions because they’ve been paid, by others or by themselves, an unfair amount for their work. Or because they know how to work an unfair economic system that, for starters, rewards risk: the stock market.

But why do we reward risk? Because it’s a male thing. And males reward themselves for male values.

Actually, though, often it’s not a risk. If the company they started, the company they invested in, lost millions, they could declare bankruptcy. And other people would pay the price. Not them. Or if they’re really big, if they lost really big, the government might bail them out. That is, us.

Furthermore, they’re not even risking their own money. They probably borrowed the start-up money from the bank. So it’s our money. Or the bank’s money (which is just money they made by investing our money).

Or if it was their own money, well it still wasn’t. It was inherited from their parents. (Who probably inherited it from their parents). Because you can’t have that much money to invest by working and saving. Even if you work twenty hours a day, 365 days a year…

Reporting What Women Do

What if, for just one year, the media reported 90% of the time what women are doing instead of, as is now the case, what men are doing?

Not because what women do is better, or more newsworthy, but just to see how it would change our outlook, our world view.

The news might be more boring. But then, hey, what does that say?

It would likely involve a lot less death and destruction. Ditto.

It probably would have less to do with money. Again…

Better than Speech Codes

Instead of prohibiting ‘hate speech’, we should just prohibit all claims made without reasons.

Oh how our society would change! If we were legally compelled to provide reasons, justifications, evidence, for every claim we made in public…

No exemptions for politicians – every speech, every statement to the press…

No exemptions for business – every ad, my god, that one alone gives one pause…

Go ahead. Say whatever you think. But only if you also say why you think it.

How ridiculous most of us would sound most of the time. Our almost complete dependence on immature appeals to emotion, our thin and pathetic appeals to custom, tradition, past practice majorities, questionable authorities – all exposed by expression. How silent we would suddenly fall after the unwarranted, self-righteous ‘because – ’ How quickly we would just – shut up.

Bare Breasts: Objections and Replies

[I wrote this piece back in the early 90s when Gwen Jacobs did her thing (yay, Gwen!), but apparently it all still needs to be said. A couple years ago, I was 'spoken to' by a neighbour for taking my shirt off on a hot summer day when I was out kayaking. Most amusingly, I was 'spoken to' again when I did the same thing just last year, post-bilateral-mastectomy. Which brings to mind Twisty's hilarious "Cover 'em up if you have 'em and even if you don't" comment.]

In response to the moral outrage about women going shirtless in public, I offer the following.

1. It’s immoral. Why? What is it about a woman’s breasts that make it immoral for them to be uncovered?

a. They’re sexual.

i. If this refers to their role as fast food outlets, well, not every woman’s breasts are – and to legislate against all because of some (and actually a very small percentage at that, at any given time) is unreasonable.

Further, a McDonalds in Ethiopia is surely more immoral than such a breast in the park.

ii. If ‘sexual’ is intended to mean ‘sexually attractive’, well, no they’re not. At least, not to me. Nor to any homosexual man I know. Gee. D’ya think this is a law made by and for heterosexual men?

And actually, by and for only some heterosexual men – I understand that some are ‘tits and ass men’ while others are ‘leg men’. And since it’s not illegal for us to uncover our legs – in fact, baring our legs, wearing dresses and skirts, is encouraged (were the ‘leg men’ in on that?) – the law is inconsistent, at the very least.

Doubly inconsistent, at the very least, because I find men’s chests sexually attractive, and yet there is no law insisting they cover up. (Well, some men’s chests. As is the case, I expect, even with those ‘tits and ass men’ – surely they don’t find all women’s breasts sexually attractive. And if not, then again, the law prohibits all because of a few.)

But let’s back up a step. Who determines whether a body part is sexual at any given time or place – the owner of the body part or the other? When I am shirtless on a hot day out on the lake, I’m not considering my breasts to be sexual. When I’m with someone in private and in desire, I do consider my breasts to be sexual. It’s my call.

And anyway, what if they are sexually attractive? Well, you may answer, men are sexually aggressive; really, it’s for your own protection. Well, I say back, if a man has so little control that I must fear assault whenever shirtless, then I say do something about the man, not my breasts. (Surely the provocation defence is pretty much dead and buried by now.)

And in any case, that wasn’t the point; the point was it’s immoral for women to go shirtless because their breasts are sexual. But I have yet to hear why sexual is immoral.

b. The Bible says

i. – that it’s immoral for women to bare their breasts. Okay, so Jewish and Christian women shouldn’t go shirtless. They don’t have to – I’m not arguing for a law that insists women go shirtless; I’m arguing to eliminate the law that prohibits it. So you’ll still be able to follow your religion; you’ll still get to heaven, don’t worry about it. I, however, don’t share your religion. So why should I have to follow it?

ii. – that it’s immoral for men to see women’s breasts. Well, this would make it more difficult for you to follow your religion then, wouldn’t it – if women at large were to be shirtless. I guess you’d have to spend a lot of time indoors. But again, I don’t share your religious beliefs. On what basis do you limit my freedom so you can follow your religion?

2. It’s disgusting.

a. Not according to me. Why should your aesthetic rather than mine be legally supported? (And while we’re invoking personal aesthetics, what I find disgusting – much to my shame, so I’m working on this – is men’s guts that look nine months pregnant; so to be consistent, there ought to be a law insisting they cover that up.)

b. Hm. If women’s breasts are disgusting, why is Playboy thriving? (The articles, ah yes, I forgot.) Let’s pursue this for a moment. I’ll bet that the same man who ogles Candy Cane’s breasts in the centrefold would get all upset if Candy Cane did a Gwen Jacobs. Do men have some psychological problem such that they can’t handle the real thing? And is it as boring as the need to control, the need to be the centre of the universe? The real thing is okay in a strip bar, it’s okay if a woman does it for a man, but if she does it merely for herself, well, we can’t have that.

3. It’s just custom, that’s all.

‘That’s all’ is right – appeal to tradition is not sufficient for anything, let alone a law. (We’ve always bashed our babies’ brains out, so let’s have a law saying we must continue to do so. It’s just our way.)

4. It will lead to topless beaches, then nude beaches, then pretty soon everybody will be walking around buck naked.

Well, I sincerely doubt it, but – your point? (See 1, 2, and 3 above if all you’re saying is that naked bodies are immoral, disgusting, or contrary to custom.) (Otherwise, check out the slippery slope fallacy: X need not lead to Y.)

Let’s admit that men have breasts too: women’s are more developed and have the potential to produce milk, but both sexes have two areas of tissue density on the chest, each centered by a nipple.

Given then that the distinction seems to be based on a difference in development, pre-pubescent girls should be shirtless, by custom, as freely as boys. The custom is, however, that girls as young as two years of age are dressed in two-piece bathing suits – what’s the point of the top piece? Could it be the insane need to differentiate on the basis of sex? Pink and blue, girls and boys, Ms. and Mr. – secretaries and presidents.

Developing Authority and Being a Parent

I’m wondering whether it’s just me or…whether most women who never become mothers simply never develop an authoritative manner.  Men have it from the get go: they are automatically thought, by themselves as well as by others, to be authorities, and early on, they develop both the habit of telling others what to do and the expectation that they’ll be listened to.

Women don’t.  (Unless they’re deluded.)   At least, not until they become a parent.  Only then do they gain some authority.  Only then do they start telling someone what to do and expecting to be listened to. 

Sure, the authority they now have extends only to their kid, but it leaks out.  As it does with men.  When you talk with authority in your house, to your wife or kids, you don’t suddenly ‘turn it off’ when you leave the house.  It’s an acquired manner, a way of carrying yourself, a way of presenting yourself that becomes part of yourself. 

I’ve never acquired that manner.  I’m not in the habit of telling anyone what to do.  I don’t expect to be listened to.  So, despite my breadth and depth of knowledge and skill, I don’t have any authority.

Making Certain Words Illegal

Hate speech.  Libel.  Slander.  Threat.  Intimidation.  Blasphemy.

‘Making words illegal violates our freedom of speech!’  Of course it does.  But that freedom, like many others, isn’t absolute.  Our freedoms are limited freedoms.  They are limited by several things (Joel Feinberg identifies six liberty-limiting principles), one of which is the harm principle.  That is, when our action harms another person or society in general, it is limited.  It is illegal.

‘But speech isn’t an action.  I didn’t do anything.  I just said – ’  Saying is doing.  Words are speech acts.  They are acts of speech.  And anyway, if the result is the same, does the method really matter?

‘Yeah but the result isn’t the same.  Words can’t hurt you.’  Well, not physically, no.  But they can cause psychological injury.[1]  And there’s the heart of the matter: should we make causing psychological injury illegal?

Actually, that’s not the heart of the matter.  Yes, we should, and we do.  The crime of torture includes acts which inflict severe mental pain or suffering (CCC 269.1[1]).

The heart of the matter is when should we make psychological injury illegal?  In order to answer that question, we need to figure out what exactly is injurious about psychological injury.  I can identify two kinds of injury that can result from speech acts. 

First, they can cause pain; it hurts to be called whatever or told whatever.  Second, they can cause a loss.  Consider insult.  At the minimum, it’s annoying, it’s irritating, it pisses us off.  That’s life.  But consider ongoing insult.  That makes life harder; it’s exhausting to deal with it, whether you confront or ignore, and so you have has less energy to deal with other stuff.  Such as the pursuit of your interests.  Not only is there a loss of energy, there can be a real loss of opportunity and freedom.[2]  When blows to your self-esteem and confidence are ongoing, it’s hard not to start believing the insults, and so you start to doubt your worth, your potential, you censor yourself, you limit your options.  And of course this could, often does, have economic consequences.  You may not pursue a high income career (by not taking any one of the many steps required).[3]  Even if you don’t believe the insults, you might censor yourself for fear of provocation and violence, and if that happens in the classroom or the workplace, it can affect your grades and your evaluations, which can lead, again, to limited opportunities. 

Both of these, pain and loss, lead us to the next issue: how severe does the injury have to be?  For example, do insults cause pain or just discomfort?  Are we talking about a little  embarrassment or debilitating humiliation?  As for the loss, do the insults distract us from our task of the moment or cripple us for life? 

It’s complicated.  Physical blows tend to injure no matter how strong you are or how fit you are.  But psychological blows, well, to some extent it depends on your emotional health (on how mature you are, how secure your ego is) and your cognitive health (how intelligent you are, how able you are to evaluate the truth of the words).  The more fragile you are, the more devastated you will be when you’re called an idiot. 

Furthermore, it is our thoughts, opinions, beliefs, values, and attitudes that determine whether certain words injure us, and we are responsible for our thoughts, opinions, beliefs, values, and attitudes.  If your belief in some fairy tale god is such that your blood pressure hits the roof when I say “God doesn’t exist” – really, am I to blame?  So, to some extent, if we’re injured by certain words, it’s our own fault.  The same applies to threats: for example, a threat uttered by someone who’s holding a gun and is known to have used it in the past is more likely to be believed and therefore more injurious than a threat uttered by someone who is stoned, giggling, and gunless.

Of course it all comes down to the standard of reasonableness.  It’s reasonable to expect the other person is not so frail that a gentle shove fractures the spine.  Likewise, surely it’s reasonable to expect that an insult or blasphemy doesn’t send someone into emotional shock.  Do we really need to require, legally, a minimum standard of physical and psychological health, on the one hand, and a minimum standard of care, on the other?  Perhaps.  In which case, a combination of intent (‘I only meant to scare him, I didn’t know he was phobic’; ‘I only meant to shove him, I didn’t know he had a bone condition’) and consequence (he needed to be sedated; he has a broken back) determines whether certain words should be illegal?

For this reason, I would exclude from the realm of the illegal words that provoke violence.  Let the violence be illegal, yes, but the provocation for the violence?  Please.  If we expect people to steel themselves against psychological injury from words, surely we should also expect them to steel themselves against making a physically violent response to words.  After all, the latter is surely more within our control than the former.[4] 

Onto the next issue: does it matter whether the injury is done in private or public?  Typically words in the public arena are considered more problematic because you can’t avoid the public arena.  You can’t avoid the subway walls, for example, the same way you can avoid listening to a certain radio station or reading a certain magazine.  However, spousal physical abuse, even though conducted in the private arena, is now considered illegal.  Does this suggest that words spoken in the privacy of our homes should be as illegal as those written on the subway walls? Perhaps – if they are as severe as the physical abuse and if the person can’t avoid them (that is, if they have nowhere else to go – which may well be the case if they have children or are children).

Does it matter whether the words are written or spoken?  An insult in writing is easier to avoid (just don’t read it), unless, of course, it’s written in public.  But an insult in writing has a longer life. 

Does it matter whether it’s specific or general?  ‘You are a loser!’ vs. ‘Canadians are losers!’  My guess is the specific insult is more personally damaging.  But maybe not.  The general insult of slavery and porn have been quite injurious.

Does it matter whether the words in question are true?  Whether it turns out to be true or not, if there’s good reason to believe a threat, and the threat is serious enough to cause serious emotional injury – a constant state of fear, for example – it should be illegal.  As for insults, it seems to me that if it is true, it shouldn’t be illegal to say it.  And yet there seems to be something more wrong with a billboard that says “Jane Smith smells” than with one that says “John Smith rapes” – both are an invasion of privacy, but the latter is in the public interest, it’s purpose is to prevent harm to others, so that trumps privacy.

Notwithstanding all of this, a major complication of criminalizing psychological injury from speech acts is establishing cause and effect.  It’s easier with physical injury and physical acts.  Not only is establishing cause and effect easier, establishing severity is also easier.  I’m tempted to suggest that that’s because the physical is less complex than the psychological, but I suspect it’s more because we understand the physical more than we understand the psychological: we know all about the heart, the lungs, the nervous system, the sensory systems, the 206 bones in the body, but we have yet to catalogue every sneer, every smirk, the hundred ways of making eye contact…

[1] Assuming, of course, a distinct separation between the physical and the psychological.  And most current research indicates no such separation.  Even without such research, we know that psychological states can affect our physical states (sadness makes us tired) and physical states can affect our psychological states (a good workout can make us happy.)

[2] Certainly threat and intimidation will have this consequence.

[3] Of course it is this kind of loss that makes libel and slander illegal.  Both refer to false statements (libel, written; slander, oral) that injure a person’s reputation, and you can bet that the reputation being talked about is that which enables the person to make money.

[4]  I’ve always been suspicious of ‘crimes of passion’ and ‘fighting words’ – maybe it’s just me, maybe it’s just me being a woman, but I simply can’t imagine what someone might say that would make me take a swing at them.  Tell them to go to hell, yes, but hit them? 

More reasons not to celebrate being Canadian…

We’re barely in the top quarter when it comes to the gender gap in wages (we’re fourth worst).

We’re barely in the top quarter when it comes to the gender gap in health (it’s safer to be pregnant in Estonia than in Canada).

Speaking of which, we’re one of the last six countries in the developed world not to have paternity leave.

We’re apparently unable to produce even one female Nobel prize winner (every single one of Canada’s 21 Nobel Laureates have been men).

We’re barely in the top quarter when it comes to the gender gap in political power (even Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Mozambique, Costa Rica, Uganda, Angola, Nepal, Serbia, Slovenia, Ethiopia, and Mexico have more women in their parliaments than Canada does).

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/20...

Canada Day – Are you sure you want to celebrate?

Before you get all patriotic and fly your little Canadian flags in celebration of Canada Day and, presumably, of being Canadian, think about it. Are you really proud to be:

- the second worst of all the industrialized countries when it comes to sulfur dioxide emissions

- the second worst when it comes to carbon monoxide emissions

- the second worst when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions (we pump out 48% more greenhouse gas emissions per capita than the OECD average, up about 13% since 1990, in violation of our international commitments)

- second only to the States with regard to water consumption

- the third worst when it comes to energy consumption

- the second worst when it comes to energy efficiency

- fourth worst when it comes to producing ozone-depleting stuff

- not even in the top ten with regard to garbage production per person (we’re 18th out of 27) (and we’re 24th out of 25 for glass recycling, 21st out of 28 for paper and cardboard recycling)

- when it comes to producing nuclear waste, we’re #1!! Yay!! We produce more nuclear waste per person than any other OECD country!!

- in the bottom of the class when it comes to pesticide use

In short, we are hogs. We are stupid, don’t-give-a-damn pigs. We’re the ones to blame for so much of this climate change—the heat waves, the floods, the droughts, the high food prices. Our fault. Yup, fly your little flag. That’s it, wave it, smile… Ya stupid idiot.

http://www.environmentalindicators.co...

Jass Richards on PTSD (from The Blasphemy Tour)

(excerpted from Jass Richards’ The Blasphemy Tour)

 

“We hope you’re enjoying Texas?” the show’s host said, after he introduced Dylan and Rev as his first guests of the day.

“Well, we’re a little puzzled by all the American flags. Outside on people’s houses and their lawns—we’ve even been seeing them sticking up in the middle of the forest, at people’s cabins presumably. What an eyesore.”

She didn’t notice the intake of breath.

“Well,” the host replied, “many people fly the flag because they have a son or daughter serving overseas.”

Rev hadn’t thought about that. She did now. Then said, “And why would they want to advertise such stupidity?”

“Well, it’s not stupid,” the host was trying to be calm. “Wanting to serve your country—”

“Oh please. Most of the people who enlist wouldn’t give their fellow Americans the time of day. I’ll bet they never volunteered at a soup kitchen or even gave up their seat on the subway. Suddenly they’re willing to—”

“They’re fighting for our freedom,” the host interjected.

“Yeah? How? How exactly does killing someone in Afghanistan or wherever make that guy—” Rev pointed at random to the one of the techies, of which there were suddenly several, all paying rather close attention to what was going on— “free? He looks pretty free to me already.”

The host tried again. “They’re bringing democracy to a country that—”

“—they know nothing about. Most of them couldn’t even point to it on a map. Every time I see coverage of American soldiers overseas, they’re shouting at its residents in English. And then they’re angry when the people they’re shouting at don’t do what they’re told. Apparently it doesn’t even occur to the soldiers that they speak a different language. What, they think the world speaks their language? How arrogant. Or just stupid.

“Which explains why they really go,” she continued. “They get suckered in by the ads, about courage, honor, glory. ‘I’ll do what my country asks me to do,’ they say with such self-righteousness. Oh please. Who asked? Name one person who came to you and said, ‘Hey, John, could you please go kill that person for me.’

“And then they come back all distraught and messed up because they did just that. Like it’s such a horrible surprise. The six weeks of being taught how to load and shoot a gun should’ve been a clue.”

“Well, they thought they’d just be killing—”

“The bad guys? What are they, twelve?”

“But—”

“I get, and admire, the desire to be a hero. It’s just that in the context of war, heroism is—” she paused, trying to find the right word, “—manufactured.”

No one seemed to understand what she was getting at, so she turned back.

“Look, you sign up to be a soldier, you kill people. At the very least, you hurt them. And they scream, and bleed, when their arms and legs are blown off. Especially the kids. Go figure. Did you think they’d get up and walk away after they’d been shot?” She spoke into the camera. As she’d been instructed.

“And now you want to kill yourself because you can’t live with what you did. Or, worse, because you can. You didn’t anticipate that? Why the hell not!”

Dylan noticed that a few people in suits had moved in among the growing crowd of techies. As had Tucker.

“How is it you have no idea what happens in war? Wilfrid Owen. 1916. All Quiet on the Western Front. 1929. M.A.S.H. 1970. Coming Home, Apocalypse Now. Late 70s. Born on the Fourth of July, Casualties of War. 80s. In the Valley of Elah! Every generation comes back and tells us. This is nothing new. Where have you been?

“I’ll tell you. With your head in the sand and your hands on your video games, dreaming little boy dreams of being a hero.

“Did you think it wouldn’t actually be you to pull the trigger? Zimbardo! Milgram! We have done the studies. We know what happens when people are put in that situation. And it’s not like these studies are hidden or censored. Anyone can go to a library and sign out a book on psychology, a book on group influence, peer pressure, indoctrination, brainwashing, there are lots of them. You can even get one on eBay. For ninety-nine cents.”

One of the suited men had started making throat-slitting gestures to the host, who was trying, unsuccessfully of course, to stop Rev. Tucker quietly moved to stand behind the man, ready in case—well, ready.

“And it’s not like you had to sign up. If you’d been forced to do it, that would be different. If someone had held a gun to your own kids’ heads, that would be different. But you chose to go. You chose to subject yourself to military conditioning and now you’re crying because it worked. “So if you ask me,” she said, fully aware that no one had asked her, “you deserve every sleepless night, every nightmare, every flashback you’re now getting. You should have known. That you didn’t is your own fault.

No one jumped into the silence that followed.

“And you should have thought about it. Before you did it. But you didn’t, and now you’re a mess. Well good. You should be. That’s the price of being a philosophically irresponsible idiot. Not to have thought through the ethics of it—it’s a failure of personal responsibility.” She looked squarely into the camera again. “Again, what are you, twelve?”

“But if you question the morality,” the host pointed out, “you’re labelled a bleeding heart. A boyscout. A pussy.”

She looked at him. “Since when did ethics become a girl thing? And besides, so what? You ignore right and wrong just to avoid being called a pussy? When your loved ones tell you they’re enlisting, you don’t try to stop them? Because you don’t want to appear weak? You should tell them what fools they’re being! Tell them it’s a suicide mission no matter how it turns out!”

Dylan noticed then that many of the people, actually all of them except the one still slitting his throat, were nodding, silently applauding, or giving a thumbs up.

“And please, enough with the talk about ‘psychological injury’ and trouble ‘transitioning’. Since when is ‘transition’ a verb?

“And ‘post-traumatic-stress-disorder’—give me a break. It’s guilt. Nothing more, nothing less. Guilt for having done something monstrously wrong, something cruel, something barely justifiable. And since when is guilt a disorder?”