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David 
to wish impossible things
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: the edge of the deep green sea
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| Post subject: David's Blog, AKA Not Another Abortion Thread |  |
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Split this from the Australia Day thread so I could reply to pietillidie's post without being shamelessly off-topic:
| pietillidie wrote: | [[David, I just read your articles. They're very well written; well done. I reckon you have a really nice tone as a writer for sophisticated argument.
I still think you're a mile off on abortion, though  Not only have you invented a bizarre new Vaticanesque category of entity (a "potential human") to downplay the ambiguous identity of the fetus, but you still don't see the underlying non-populist reason why the matter is technically a feminist one, namely that as a male you can never access what it's like to be pregnant or a mother - not by analogy or degree or any other logical proxy you care to invent - and therefore you cannot assess the impact of these on the unambiguous person's life.
Thus I still argue that there are two elements - one of which no one can make a clear determination about, and another which only the mother (and to an unspecified extent "mothers") can make a clear determination about. That leaves the balance of authority with the mother and/or mothers. The common element in your effort to deal with both of these problems is your desire to strip "human" of subjectivity, which in turn leads you to appropriate the subjectivity of motherhood.
I also see you keep refer in articles to humanism (is "human" the new god?), but the term is outdated for very good reason, namely its attempted colonisation of the subject; hence it's not surprising you take a decidedly anti-feminist position on abortion.
I would've posted this under your articles but you've switched off anonymous posts and the system doesn't accept Nick's IDs  ]]. |
Thanks for the comment, but re: the abortion post I think you're re-treading ground we've already covered.
I take a purely realist view of what the foetus is. A foetus is no more ambiguous than a tree, a rock or Richard Branson; we know their structural make-up, their status as an organism etc etc etc. The only thing ambiguous about it is what human rights we as a society ascribe to it, and that's the whole point of my article.
As for your assertion that only women can have a view on abortion rights, I contend that a woman who has never been pregnant has no more idea about it than I do. So, it's not just about male v female. And, as I argued tiresomely in the previous instalment, I believe strongly in the existence of a legal system and a comprehensive inclusion of all society's aspects within that system. That, again, is what I'm trying to argue in my article.
I believe very strongly in humanism in every aspect of life, so I don't see why this topic should be exempt.
_________________
"Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence." – Julian Assange |
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stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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Nice article David, and yes it is a road well travelled on Nicks. You and I share quite similar views on this issue as we've discussed before. Please don't let that put you off though 
Just about to go and read your other unpublished one on Paedophiles. We may find ourselves on different sides of the argument there.
OK, read it, interesting piece of work. It's not as controversial as some of posts on a similar topic you've raised.
I do agree that there is a difference between the attraction and the act of child molesting and that there is not a lot of overt support groups for this kind of thing. It's a touchy subject though from a different angle, because you're almost arguing that sexual attraction is a "condition" or an "Illness" which is something that the anti-gay lobby have been trying to argue for years.
Your argument isn't controversial really in it's own right, but the extension of it is something no mainstream publication would touch.
There is another element that I think you missed, maybe because it's not essential to your argument, and that is that I think you could potentially put Child Molesters into 2 discrete and different categories.
There are those for who it is purely an attraction and act of misplaced love. These are the ones that the programs you talk about could help.
the others are (IMO) more about power and control than love. It's about domination, despoiling of innocence, far more similar to the profile of the violent serial rapist. These are the ones that get most of the media.
you should put the article up in a post, create a new thread and see what people say. You could even take some of the feedback to try to justify why it should be published.
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down.
Last edited by stui magpie on Fri Jan 28, 2011 4:47 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| Post subject: Re: David's Blog, AKA Not Another Abortion Thread | |
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| David wrote: | | I take a purely realist view of what the foetus is. A foetus is no more ambiguous than a tree, a rock or Richard Branson; we know their structural make-up, their status as an organism etc etc etc. The only thing ambiguous about it is what human rights we as a society ascribe to it, and that's the whole point of my article. |
And that's why I said you're "a mile off". What you're actually doing is confusing "realism" (what the heck is it?) with (scientific) materialism. No one who supports abortion doubts the material existence of the fetus and our scientific knowledge about the fetus, so why even mention it? It's a straw man. What people doubt is the personhood and hence legal status of the fetus, and you haven't solved that. "Personhood" is an amaterial notion, as is "legal status". The issue can only become a material one if you can demonstrate through biological analysis that the fetus has the requisite elements of personhood, but you can't.
| David wrote: | | As for your assertion that only women can have a view on abortion rights, I contend that a woman who has never been pregnant has no more idea about it than I do. So, it's not just about male v female. And, as I argued tiresomely in the previous instalment, I believe strongly in the existence of a legal system and a comprehensive inclusion of all society's aspects within that system. That, again, is what I'm trying to argue in my article. |
The law clearly does take mothers as its most expert testimony on the experience of pregnancy. And I had just argued as much:
| pietillidie wrote: | | That leaves the balance of authority with the mother and/or mothers. |
And beyond that, you don't really believe in the comprehensive inclusion of the entirety of society in the legal system (it doesn't even make sense saying it). You believe in a legal system which weights only experientially and technically relevant expert testimony. On the matter of abortion, that leaves us with women and medical experts as the relevant parties, the former of which are able to testify the process is wholly personal and at times extremely traumatic, the latter of which are able to testify that the biological change and psycho-physical trauma associated with birth, as widely reported by women under a range of conditions, cannot be doubted.
| David wrote: | | I believe very strongly in humanism in every aspect of life, so I don't see why this topic should be exempt. |
What is "humanism"? It's an extraordinarily vague notion. Whatever it is, it's certainly not materialism. Materialism centres itself on science, and science decentres the human. One of the most profound turns of thought in the Englightenment was the realisation that humans are insignificant. To be a "humanist", you have to define what "human" is. If you go with homo sapiens, you've just decentred humans again. If you go with "human", you have to define "human", and then you're back in the ambiguity game.
You can't use vague notions such as "realism" and "humanism" to paper over ontological ambiguities. And the irony is this: the people who win the "realism" (i.e., "commonsense") argument hands down are women given they are really pregnant and often really psycho-physically traumatised. You're only in the game at all to begin with because "person" - a decidedly non-biological and non-materialist concept - has a moral halo effect over the fetus, not the other way around. So I think on this you're both technically and popularly wrong.
We are a million miles off accounting for human experience and morality through materiality, which is why efforts to do so look much more like religion than science. We still can't even describe the biology of a single thought let alone that of a cultural system.
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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David
to wish impossible things
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: the edge of the deep green sea
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| stui magpie wrote: | There is another element that I think you missed, maybe because it's not essential to your argument, and that is that I think you could potentially put Child Molesters into 2 discrete and different categories.
There are those for who it is purely an attraction and act of misplaced love. These are the ones that the programs you talk about could help.
the others are (IMO) more about power and control than love. It's about domination, despoiling of innocence, far more similar to the profile of the violent serial rapist. These are the ones that get most of the media. |
This is a good point - much like many prison rapists probably aren't homosexual, it's all about power. I probably should work that in somehow.
_________________
"Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence." – Julian Assange |
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David
to wish impossible things
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: the edge of the deep green sea
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| stui magpie wrote: | | you should put the article up in a post, create a new thread and see what people say. You could even take some of the feedback to try to justify why it should be published. |
Here you go. Any feedback/criticism is welcome.
| Quote: | It is quite possible that there is no more reviled member of society than the paedophile. One need only browse a tabloid or tune into talkback radio to witness the kind of vitriol that the subject tends to arouse, and it is considerable. The emotive language in such media tends to challenge the very humanity of paedophiles, with epithets such as ‘monster’ and ‘animal’ common parlance. A Facebook group, with a membership of a little under 200,000, challenges even the latter equivalence - “Why do we test on animals when we have paedophiles sitting in prisons?” its title queries.
It shouldn’t be particularly surprising that child sex abuse provokes this kind of rage. The concept of vulnerability and innocence exploited, combined with the very real psychological damage inflicted on many victims, makes paedophilia a highly emotional topic, particularly for those who have seen the effects on loved ones or suffered from abuse themselves. It is neither astounding nor unreasonable that society’s sympathies lie more or less exclusively with the victims.
Some of the rhetoric, however, is indefensible. It is disturbing to see that some are so quick to advocate the death penalty (and worse) for child molesters, particularly given the fact that Australia has not employed capital punishment for over 40 years. What seems clear is that such people are yet to come to grips with why that form of sentencing has been abandoned. The abolition of the death penalty in Australia was, among other things, a statement that even the worst criminals are still, essentially, human beings. That some would so readily have this paradigm revoked for convicted paedophiles is a problem that is symptomatic of the largely unconstructive public discourse on paedophilia.
Even the terminology itself is flawed. A paedophile, correctly defined, is an adult who is sexually attracted to children. That this term is also employed by the media and the wider public to refer to somebody who sexually abuses children is problematic in the extreme, as it asserts an equivalence that depends on a major logical fallacy. If an act of child sex abuse depends on a sexual urge towards a child or children, common sense dictates that at least some who feel that desire do not act on it. To argue otherwise ignores the elementary distinction between impulse and action, and fails to take into account the powerful inhibition, guilt and compassion reflexes that inform much in the way of human behaviour. It is quite likely that there are many more paedophiles than there are child molesters, but, crucially, data on this simply doesn’t exist.
Even Australian law struggles with this important distinction. Child pornography legislation, in particular, more or less punishes paedophiles for being paedophiles. That child pornography ought to be illegal is indisputable; nevertheless, the hefty penalties inflicted on those found with such material in their possession are deeply troubling.
There are no easy answers as to how paedophilia should be dealt with. A good start, however, might be to establish how and why it originates. Astoundingly, such information is highly inconclusive. Theories abound: that it is a result of unhealthy exposure to sex at a young age (e.g. through abuse); that it is a mental disorder related to developmental difficulties; even, possibly, that it is a sexual orientation present at birth. It is quite possible that some or all of these are factors, but the result is clear: through no choice of their own, whether as a result of biology, socialisation or both, some people at some stage find themselves sexually attracted to children.
The manner in which society deals with this fact is, to say the least, deeply defective. Paedophilia is stigmatised to the extent that few support services exist to assist those who feel such urges, and treatment is generally only available to those who have already offended. Unsurprisingly, many of those who are captured and then released into the community go on to re-offend; unsurprising, because the vast majority of data being collected on paedophilia is being taken from people who had the disposition to act on their impulses in the first place, and it is on this skewed information that treatment is being based. No wonder, then, that paedophilia is such a little understood condition as a whole. Comprehensive study of paedophilia is going to remain out of reach until non-offending paedophiles allow themselves to be examined psychologically, and whilst media continue to promote vigilantism and hysteria, this is extremely unlikely to happen. Likewise, without appropriate counselling, the paedophile is considerably more likely to turn to other paedophiles for support through sexual-desire based frameworks such as chat-rooms and P2P networking, and thus pave the way for their own future sexual offences. It’s not an ideal situation by any standard, and, while police may be becoming increasingly adept at catching offenders, the problem is not being addressed at its root; as a result, child sex abuse continues more or less unabated.
In order to maintain a humanist society, we require progressive humanist paradigms; paradigms that extend even to those who break social order and harm others. Paedophiles are people too – people who require treatment, or at the very least assistance in managing their condition. If we are serious about protecting children from sexual abuse, it is critical that greater understanding and openness replace the mindless vilification that dominates discourse on paedophilia. |
_________________
"Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence." – Julian Assange |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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^I think Stui's advice is sound.
IMO you really need to make a point of isolating the external criminal manifestation and showing cognisance of its real life impact. Remember, sexual abuse is a pervasive problem and the impact is so great it destroys people's minds and damages countless lives, so I don't think you can submit a piece on the subject without showing awareness of that. The average reader is unlikely to be prepared to engage the matter merely as a thought exercise.
So I guess my main criticism of your piece is it comes across as aloof, which is not your intention I know, but that aloofness damages your rhetorical credibility as it signals at worst a callousness and at best a lack of experience dealing with both victims and the most sinister perpetrators. If you don't know any victims personally, you may want to look up some accounts. Also, I think some reference to data and actual cases is important when dealing with such a specialised pathology, as is reference to expert opinion (many experts sympathise to some extent with your argument). This again is part of credibility.
Yes, I do note the irony  I engage topics in VPT as a chance to debate stuff with people I know, but I would never write like I do for a general audience. Mind you, I don't want to project my own approach on you and discourage you pursuing your own voice, either. But the ability to tailor one's writing to different audiences is presumably essential.
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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Skids 
Quitting drinking will be one of the best choices you make in your life.
Joined: 11 Sep 2007
Location: Joined 3/6/02 . Member #175
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Are you a father David?
I have three daughters and I don't consider rock spiders as even close to humans who deserve anything.
There are many 'humans' walking the planet who are nothing more than oxygen thiefs.
_________________
Don't count the days, make the days count. |
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David
to wish impossible things
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: the edge of the deep green sea
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| pietillidie wrote: | | IMO you really need to make a point of isolating the external criminal manifestation and showing cognisance of its real life impact. Remember, sexual abuse is a pervasive problem and the impact is so great it destroys people's minds and damages countless lives, so I don't think you can submit a piece on the subject without showing awareness of that. The average reader is unlikely to be prepared to engage the matter merely as a thought exercise. |
Good advice, but isn't this more or less what I tried to do?
| Quote: | | The concept of vulnerability and innocence exploited, combined with the very real psychological damage inflicted on many victims, makes paedophilia a highly emotional topic, particularly for those who have seen the effects on loved ones or suffered from abuse themselves. It is neither astounding nor unreasonable that society’s sympathies lie more or less exclusively with the victims. |
I do know several victims personally, for what it's worth. And, Skids, I suspect my views on this would be the same whether I had children or not (which of course I don't).
_________________
"Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence." – Julian Assange |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| David wrote: | The concept of vulnerability and innocence exploited, combined with the very real psychological damage inflicted on many victims, makes paedophilia a highly emotional topic, particularly for those who have seen the effects on loved ones or suffered from abuse themselves. It is neither astounding nor unreasonable that society’s sympathies lie more or less exclusively with the victims.
I do know several victims personally, for what it's worth. |
I think you'll find it's worth a heck of a lot in public rhetoric. The point I'm making concerns the need to establish credibility and rapport with the reader.
I don't think a disclaimer solves the problem in this genre; the audience is likely to read straight through it. That is, people are not used to reading formal argument structure, and certainly not formal arguments about topics they usually engage at a visceral level. Even people versed in formal argument need to be primed for it, which they probably wouldn't be if this was in the mainstream media.
Anyway, for what it's worth, for a general audience in a mainstream publication I would personally employ a more "grounded" voice (real cases, known events, expert testimony, etc.). Your argument tone is always excellent IMO, but I reckon you have to build credibility and rapport before you can get to an argument on a subject like that.
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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| Quote: | | I do know several victims personally, for what it's worth. And, Skids, I suspect my views on this would be the same whether I had children or not (which of course I don't). |
sorry dont know about the rest of the arguement, but until you have your own kids, natural or adopted, that you have loved, cared for, worried about, cried over, rejoiced with, you could not possibley understand, everything changes,
my sister has your view too, and cracks it when ever i say you dont have kids you dont get it, but it is a fact, you just dont know it until you do - maybe one day youll find out, then you will know....
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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swoop42 
Whatcha gonna do when he comes for you?
Joined: 02 Aug 2008
Location: The 18
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Personally I believe the majority of people who are sexually attracted to children are wired that way from birth.
Just like homosexuality it isn't a lifestyle choice.
The human brain is the most complex organism there is and our understanding of it and how it works is still small.
_________________
He's mad. He's bad. He's MaynHARD! |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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| think positive wrote: | | Quote: | | I do know several victims personally, for what it's worth. And, Skids, I suspect my views on this would be the same whether I had children or not (which of course I don't). |
sorry dont know about the rest of the arguement, but until you have your own kids, natural or adopted, that you have loved, cared for, worried about, cried over, rejoiced with, you could not possibley understand, everything changes,
my sister has your view too, and cracks it when ever i say you dont have kids you dont get it, but it is a fact, you just dont know it until you do - maybe one day youll find out, then you will know.... |
I'm sorry, I can't agree with you. I do have kids and if someone had of tried to molest either of them I want to physically tear them to pieces.
It is good feedback that some people aren't able to discuss these kinds of topics because their emotions get in the road. Something to think about David when trying to write for the mass market.
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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I've done some more thinking on this one, David, and have a challenge for you. Sort of.
Define the issue.
If, as I said before there are two different types of child molesters, lets look at the ones who are sexually attracted to children and try to decide what the actual issue is.
It is a sexual preference or a fetish?
Sexual preference is usually defined as Hetro or Homo, with those happy souls who would **** anything falling in between.
I'm not aware of any noted paedophiles who went across sexes, although to be fair I haven't exactly researched it. So assuming that mostly Paedophiles stick with a preference toward one gender, that would indicate that it's more of a fetish than a preference issue.
In that case, a fetish can be treated as an illness whereas a sexual preference (ie, hetro/homo) can't be.
I acknowledge I'm punching way out of my weight division on this issue, I have no training or exposure and what I'm posting is totally uneducated opinion.
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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Skids
Quitting drinking will be one of the best choices you make in your life.
Joined: 11 Sep 2007
Location: Joined 3/6/02 . Member #175
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| David wrote: |
I do know several victims personally, for what it's worth. And, Skids, I suspect my views on this would be the same whether I had children or not (which of course I don't). |
Well now you know another one, not personally ( which of course you don't)
I was lucky (only 'fondled' not penetrated) but one of my mates, Gavin wasn't. He's no longer with us, took his own life shortly after the abuse.
I hope the animal suffers a slow painful end to his poor unfortunate existance.
_________________
Don't count the days, make the days count. |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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Here are few more points of critique, David. I hope you're not regretting what is a gutsy move on your part
1. You write:
| David wrote: | | A good start, however, might be to establish how and why it originates. Astoundingly, such information is highly inconclusive. |
Actually, it's not astounding at all. As said above, we don't have working models of most of human behaviour. We poke around and know say that dopamine levels are related to this, insufficient activity in the neocortex related to that, people who are exposed to the other more prone to whatever, and so on, but we are still miles off mapping cognitive biology. The various theories you list are common explanations for almost every behaviour you care to think of, so again, there is nothing astounding about it.
I think this reflects a larger problem of you not citing experts or data, which is fine in general social argument, but not when you're dealing with something as technically specialised as pathology or epidemiology.
2. You write:
| David wrote: | | the hefty penalties inflicted on those found with such material in their possession are deeply troubling. |
I'd say at this point most people would be finding the horrific thought in their head concerning the origins of the material far more "troubling" than penalties they already think are not severe enough. Now, from memory you may have an argument to the contrary, but you don't provide it. There are so many issues here and so little space to deal with them, aren't you better off reducing the article to a single argument on a single aspect of the problem? You might even be better off looking at the general question of whether or not crime per se can be viewed as an illness.
3. See above for my critique of your use of "humanist". It's too vague a notion to be put forward as the basis for anything, as is the term "progressive". I reckon they only confound an already controversial piece.
4. The expression "paedophiles are people too" is extremely unfortunate as it sounds like either a callous word play on the expression "kids are people too", or a flippant word play on any variant of "x are people too", usually used in a humorous context. Again, I know this is not your intention, but it screams aloofness.
Overall, no one is ever going to accept they ought to be concerned about "indefensible rhetoric" in the light of such a heinous violence. They might be concerned about rates of abuse (you present no data), advances in early detection (no data), the costs of the crime (no data), potential treatment/minimisation (no data), perpetrator profiling (no data), and pathology findings (no data). Look at how this piece on psychopaths is worked to an analogous point right at the end of what is a very long article: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/11/10/081110fa_fact_seabrook?currentPage=all
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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