I’m still officially on my Man Boobz staycation, but I felt I needed to mention yet another example of a woman saying that men can stop rape … and getting rape threats in return.
Political analyst Zerlina Maxwell went on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News earlier this week and made the terrible mistake of suggesting to a hostile audience that men aren’t really doing any favors to women by telling them to arm themselves against rapists. Instead, as Salon notes, she said this:
“I don’t think that we should be telling women anything. I think we should be telling men not to rape women and start the conversation there.” She told Hannity, “You’re talking about this as if it’s some faceless, nameless criminal, when a lot of times it’s someone you know and trust,” adding, “If you train men not to grow up to become rapists, you prevent rape.”
Indeed, increased rape awareness has contributed to a dramatic decrease in rape over the last thirty years.
But apparently a lot of men were shocked – shocked! – that a woman would suggest that their patronizing advice was less likely to prevent rape than rape prevention education aimed at the demographic group that is responsible for the overwhelmng majority of rapes. That is, men.
So, naturally, the angriest of these men decided they would show Maxwell just how wrong she was … by threatening her with rape on Twitter.
Here’s just one example:
Rape culture in action.
Maxwell’s supporters have stepped up to defend her and her remarks, and have started a hashtag — #TYZerlina — to continue the discussion. If you’re on Twitter, join in .
Here’s the Fox News segment in question featuring Maxwell:
I’m glad pecunium responded because it caught my eye over in Recent Comments and I got to watch that video of the puppy on the steps about 17 times.
Good grief.
So … the Bruces were right, eh? Kant really was a pissant. How does the moral wrong of lying outweigh the moral wrong of permitting, or not trying to prevent, a murder?
Reason 2548977312 why so many famous philosopher dudes piss me off. They come across having not one spark of empathy or imagination or just basic human decency; it’s like life’s a bloody lab experiment.
/rant
Kitteh’s: Kant’s problem is that he was looking for Ultimate Truth. As such there was only one right way to act. At an abstract level, this is defensible, but (much like Libertarianism, or Rationalism) but the models are just that, and like such models don’t map well to the actual world.
So I don’t think he’s a pissant; he was lucky enough to live in a world where many of the practical aspects of life weren’t things he had to deal with, and so he could (and did) argue for things which aren’t feasible, nor reasonable. I think he argued for it because he had invested so much in the purity of the ideal. He felt that to accept compromises; to deal with real life problems undermined the model.
Since he was in a completely safe neighborhood, in a completely secure position, and was self-contained enough (he appears to have been, if not asexual, sufficiently disinterested in romance that he never formed any known romantic attachment: he was also quietly, but devoutly religious; which he seems to have divorced from his moral philosophy) that he never faced problems which tested this idea.
But it also means that what we have of his arguments are abstract, and academic.
The underlying message of Kant is very good (and took me some time to get to grips with): “You’re not special”.
I was quoting the Bruces’ Philosophers Song with the bit about the pissant. 🙂
But he sounds like privilege on legs, doesn’t he? Almost ivory-tower league. But even then, even in such a comfortable setting … yeah, way too idealistic.
I wonder how he’d be if he were on this plane now. I’ve read things by people just as wildly and unrealistically idealistic, people with a lot less excuse for being so simply because they have more opportunity to know about the wider world.
I wonder if Kant’s still doing philosophy or has decided it was all a bit silly, or just the wrong track, and there are other ways to use the mind …
I know you were quoting them, and while it’s funny, it’s not fair.
Kant was dealing with abstract questions. As with all abstractions (say the “rational person”) it doesn’t work in the real world. But, if you were to challenge the idea in the “ax murderer problem” he would say that, in an ideal world, there would be no ax murderer, and so the “dilemma” wouldn’t come up. He would also say the question, as a hypothetical, is about the moral, not practical, aspects of the case.
It’s blinkered, but not so much a case of, “privilege on legs” as one of essentialism. The essence of “right behavior” is what he was paid to examine, and as such that is what he did.
Moreover Kant, unlike some modern politicians/moralists didn’t think that one’s moral choices needed to comport with his moral philosophy. What I mean by that is he wouldn’t say that one ought to lose access to the social safety net for a moral failing which did no direct harm to others.
Paul Ryan, Geert Wilders, Tony Abbot, etc. seem to think one’s “morals” and economic situation are correlated, and that there are people who are, “special”. Kant would argue against it. In many ways, Kantian Ethics support communism/socialism more than they do capitalism. That, at the extreme cases (see again, ax murderers/lying) the absolutism of the doctrine comes into sharp focus, but the underlying principles (no one gets to make rule that don’t apply to everyone, equally, and no person is to be used as means to another’s ends) are actually quite reasonable, and humane.
So Kant gets a bad rap.
Ok, that’s exactly the logic problem that introduced me to Kant (I refuse to call anything that removed from reality a philosophical argument, but that’s just personal opinion).
I have one for you/Kant, the gaslighting ex’s favorite “I’m so smart!” philosophical question. Take your standard runaway train question, put “a bunch of kids” (call it 7 cuz I like prime numbers) on one track, the track the train’s already one, and three train employees surveying th other track, you just happen to be in the switch booth — it isn’t your job, you have no standing obligation to do anything. Gaslighting ex was of the opinion that you do nothing, the train goes where it was assigned to go by the train company, runs over the kids, but hey, you aren’t involved, so no moral bearing on you.
[insert Argenti fuming here] because fuck, you’re involved. You can refuse to act, but it’s still an act by omission not some magical GOTCHA. On one hand, the survey team is whee they belong while the kids are trespassing, on the other, the kids out number the survey team (and, for bonus utilitarianism points, are neither really aware of the danger in the way the surveyors are, and are younger [not sure that matters]). On the third, and to me most important hand, three surveyors aware of the risks of their job stand a much better chance of getting off the tracks safely.
Leave it to Mr. GOTCHA to ignore the “but can the people the train is heading towards see it coming and leave the area?”
I’m curious Kant’s stance on “no, you have to do something, and both options suck”
@Argenti
I’m not sure I would be able irl to do anything but watch and sob in horror, but if I were able to act, that is the first place my brain would go (right along with recognizing they were adults). Two groups of kids? I don’t think I could ever choose in time even if the numbers were different.
This is Ethics 101: You throw the switch. The workers know their job has risks.
Take the second formulation. There are workers on the track. There is no switch to throw, but it happens you are on an overpass, and (this is an ethics problem, ignore the physics), there is a person with a large backpack. If you shove them over the edge they will die, but the train will stop, and the workers (there is some number, larger than one) will live.
Do you shove the person over the edge?
No. Because that person didn’t accept the risks.
People usually resolve the first one with “you save more people”, and then use the same rationale for the second. They may also apply the issue of age.
Those are not fatal to having a, “right” answer; but right is only valid in Ethics insofar as the answers to related problems are come to by similar reasoning. If you choose, “they signed up for it” with the first one, and then use, “The needs of the many” in the second, your personal ethics are inconsistent, and one can argue you have a weak (or non-existent) moral compass; rather choosing ad hoc solutions, than maintaining a coherent set of precepts.
It’s the coherent set of precepts, taken to their logical extremes, which makes Kant look like a fool, when he wasn’t.
“I’m not sure I would be able irl to do anything but watch and sob in horror…”
Yeah at least philosophical questions are more “what to do in theory” because I’d probably lose my shit too. Stand there haing a panic attack over what to do until it was too late and then spend years feeling horrible. Actually, that applies either way.
Could Kant have really said “yes my mother’s upstairs” to preserve his high and mighty “at least I didn’t lie” while cleaning up pieces of his mother? Reality, philosophers seem immune to it.
Utterly off topic, but any comments/advice on low dose seroquel as a sleeping pill? I can’t do trazidone or remeron, so seroquel it is. And honestly, I’d much prefer an anti-psychotic as sleeping pill than a sleeping pill that’ll make me psychotic (mixed states are fun! >.<)
@Argenti
When I tried seroquel (without a prescription so extra grains of salt and whatnot), it made me calm, but not sleepy. There was also some bad side effect that I don’t remember (so many drugs, so many side effects!), but that kept me from ever trying it again. Good luck!
I should add that I am pretty sure it worked for the boyfriend (depressed, not bipolar), but he doesn’t take it anymore. When he gets home, I can ask for more details if you want.
Being me, I’d have to at least attempt throwing a “dude, toss your backpack in front of the train, quick!”. But no, the person attached can jump voluntarily, but you can’t push. As you said, the workers know the risks (and as much as travelers are in denial about it, train passengers know the risks too), people on bridges really haven’t accepted any “I might get pushed off in front of a train” risk. Hell, that’s patently silly.
The other one I found trying to find Mr. GOTCHA’s particular strain of runaway train was:
You and 6 others are kidnapped, if you kill one then the rest live, if not they all die. Either way you’ll survive.
And I have to game the system going “and if I shoot myself?” Hey, it’s killing one of the hostages! Whether that’d work or not, voluntarily taking the bullet for the rest of the hostages clearly trumps just picking one.
Relatedly, thoughts on what to do for the trapped and starving, resorting to cannibalism but how? Because I put “already dead”, “volunteered”, and “chosen by lottery/least healthy/etc” as different questions. (The Donner party almost certainly ate the dead, that or starve? I see no ethical reason not to resort to cannibalism — sorry but respect for the dead is way less important than preserving the lives of the living)
Some Gal — I confirmed that I can just not take it if I want, which is fine since it’s just for sleep. She wants me to call so she knows why I stopped (side effect reporting I imagine) but it isn’t really a big deal. So don’t worry about asking him if that’d be awkward or weird or anything.
I’m just glad it isn’t fucking remeron, I’m missing half of last April thanks to that shit.
If Lying is Wrong then Lying is always Wrong and since these concepts are Platonic and Wrongness touching me is always the Worst Thing… and presuming you are not allowed to try to take a different option and stop him…
Then goddammit just tell him you refuse to tell him anything that will enable him to take a victim and that you consider him evil.
That’s telling the truth, and it means that the only person necessarily involved (and maybe paying a price) is you.
Telling The Truth as a concept is bigger than just answering every question you’re asked honestly.
But he is getting at Concepts, not concepts. And I’m gaming the system.
Ask for volunteers. No telling which one has six months to live until you ask.
—
But of course, the point is to try to find the line between Utilitarianism and Virtue Ethics.
(all I know about this, I learned from Ex Urbe. Read this!)
PS: No, seriously, everybody should read Ex Urbe’s series on Machiavelli. The first piece will move you to tears. Every subsequent piece just gets better. It utterly upended everything I thought I knew about him. http://exurbe.com/ And a new part just went up without me noticing!! Away to the reader to digest this newest installment!!
@Argenti
Now a Val Kilmer movie so bad I don’t remember what happened! (I am so not joking.) And it isn’t a problem to ask, I just have to remember to do it. 🙂
Some Gal — thanks
And yeah, assuming I can’t just volunteer (whether I have a death wish has long been questioned, let’s just say I’m certainly enough of a fool that I’d probably do it) — ask for volunteers, because yeah, someone might be dying anyways, or be religious of a sort that makes dying to save others noble and good, or something. In any case, shooting a volunteer is the best ethical solution. Baring that, idk, draw lots? Take a consensus on what factors should matter and math them out? No option other than killing a volunteer (or yourself as volunteer) seems ethically sound.
And fuck yeah to gaming Kant and saying you think the ax killer is evil and refuse to say anything that will enable his murdering. Even Kant apparently couldn’t word a question that truly only had two options, gaming the false dichotomy FTW!
Ethically sound?
Well, if I’ve been trapped there by somebody’s whose sadistic game is to force me to violently kill one person or watch six people die in order to break me, so they take away any chance of cooperation by isolation, and declare that if I cheat by killing myself then everybody dies, then arguably I can save five people’s lives by making myself a bad man and making one person dead. And one thing may be bad, but the other thing is worse.
The biggest problem is, of course, if this was a real-life scenario, then the sadist is presumably just going to rinse and repeat till we’re all dead, because he’s enjoying inflicting the suffering on both shooter and shootee. In real life stall him out as long as possible to give outside help every chance of intervening, do your best to find an opportunity to fight, because, yanno, going along with it is not going to end well.
But, y’know, hypotheticals. 😛
The boyfriend said Seroquel made him sleep very well. He stopped taking it because it worked a little too well. (He would feel out of it really quickly and he’d wake up still sleepy.)
You guys are illustrating all the reasons why I have so little patience for ethical dilemmas. They overlook so much of the complexity of the real world as to be completely useless in practice.
(That and just take one philosophy class and it’ll seem like you’ve heard this all a billion times. “Ugh, not Cutting Up Chuck again!“)
OT: Happy pi minute!
(Where I am, anyway.)
Howard — I was thinking if killing yourself counted as killing one of the hostages saving the rest. Then that would be more ethically sound, but oh yeah to stalling, looking for exits/chances to fight/etc.
Some Gal — thanks, seeing how I have it as a sleeping pill, we’ll see then. My current failure of a sleeping pill doesn’t put me to sleep, just keeps me out and leaves me waking up still half asleep, so it sounds like an improvement.
Yes, have you all eaten π-pies today?