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MixedNuts comments on Can the Chain Still Hold You? - Less Wrong
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Comments (354)
I do see the point of publishing such articles; but unfortunately they (and I) overestimated the sanity (in the LW sense) of the readers -- see the third paragraph of “Belief as Attire”. Turns out that some of the readers are more like Alabama bar patrons than like nerds, and unfortunately there's no way of saying ‘X did Y because of Z’ to Alabama bar patrons that won't sound like ‘it was right for X to do Y’.
"Rapists justify themselves by claiming consent is complicated" goes over well all the time. "I'm a rapist, but consent is complicated so it's a risk I'm willing to take" is supposed not to go over well.
Knowing the justifications rapists use is not useless. But "I had an e-mail exchange with an anonymous rapist, and here are some quotes" would suffice, whereas "Here's an article by a person I disagree with" implies some degree of respect for the defended position.
Having a few quotes doesn't give you a full understanding of the justification. If you really want to understand the justification the article is much better for that purpose.
Meh, not really. How People Rationalize Rape Culture is Feminism 102, and the article was the same old excuses. There was one bit that wasn't drop-dead standard, where he described committing rape as a risk for him to take, rather than the potential victim, but even that is kind of an extension of "consent is hard".
What we need is insight into the actual motivations for rape, and those aren't going to be in articles written for the express purpose of making the author look good. Rudolf Hess's notebooks and his psychiatrist's rarely agree.
And even then, the editor's note should be scathing enough to compensate for the status boost of publishing his article, not a half-hearted refusal to endorse.
I defy you to reproduce such an article from your model of rapists.
I think that depends on the people in the discussion. If you discuss among high status folk where everyone agrees that all the participants of the discussion have reasonable views then there no problem to point to articles with crazy views.
If you discuss in a group where there a chance that someone actually supports the crazy view you have to be more careful.
I mostly agree with what you are saying, but I'm not sure what the phrase "high status" is intended to add. High status is not the same as "clear thinking" or "rationally weighing the evidence" - and it is dangerous to pretend otherwise.
Whether or not I'm clear thinking doesn't depend on the group in which I'm operating. The views that I can espouse do depend on my social status within the group. If I'm high status I'm not constrained to argue views that are socially accepted. I can argue views based on their intellectual merits.
Fellow members in the group will value me for arguing views based on their intellectual merits without any consideration of respecting ideas. If I'm operating in a low status enviroment it's more important to signal respect to popular ideas and disrespect to the wrong ideas.
Of course I can also say that I don't care about the approval. If I fail to give respect to the right ideas on LessWrong it won't have much bad implications for my daily life. If I'm however arguing in a sphere where the approval of other people matter, it effects the views that I can publically espouse.
The website is public and has a rather large audience. Moreover, it talks about misandry (and generally gender from a male perspective) a lot, and therefore has originally tried hard to distance itself from those who call themselves Men's Rights Activists.
Considering the article in question didn't actually defend his actions, I'm not sure why.
I either disagree or ADBOC depending on what exactly is meant by "respect". People didn't stop printing copies of Mein Kampf, did they?
Mein Kampf is a pretty good example. In many countries buying and selling it is banned except under special circumstances, or requires specific notes, or is legal if you don't look like you endorse it. The Bavarian government controls the rights, and usually forbids reprints.
Most people would certainly be very suspicious of someone distributing Mein Kampf unless they did a whole annotated song and dance about how it's an absolutely horrible book but they have a duty to preserve historical evidence, disgusting as it is. "Here's a person whose conclusions I disagree with" implies that the arguments are worthy of consideration, not just evidence about the person's psychology. As opposed to "Here's what goes on in the head of a freaking rapist ew ew".
Wasn't the point of publishing the article (and the other articles they're getting flamed over) to aknowledge the fact that rapists are not necessarily Evil Mutants?
The most useful function of such an article would be if readers approached it as "evil rapist thoughts ew ew" but not "rapist mutant." (Obviously neither of these implies the other, even if they do suggest them.) Then they might be able to notice rapey thoughts when they appear and stop them with a disgust reaction. I suspect this is how most moral edification works, even.
I would argue that approaching them as "ew ew" interferes with our understanding of these thoughts, but actually I had interpreted the comment as meaning "ew a rapist" not "ew rapist thoughts".
Yes -- and that's indeed what most commenters to those articles other than "how dare you point out rapists are human" said they would be doing.
Aren't you confusing "We should empathize with rapists, because someone with their whole life history would probably also rape" and "We should sympathize with rapists, because someone in the situation they chose to rape would probably also rape"?
No. We should empathize with people - of whom rapists are a subset - because this gives us a more accurate model of them than loud declarations that the Hated Enemy is pure evil.
"We should sympathize with rapists, because someone in the situation they chose to rape would probably also rape" is an interesting notion, but I do not espouse it and the essay in question does not actually claim that it is true, although the author does admit to considering the notion.
Okay, so we are trying to do the former but not the latter.
It's pretty important to understand the psychology of racism. It's always a big social problem, with cyclical increases, one of which is currently affecting most of Europe, and whose extreme supporters are very dangerous. Would you be okay with the Forward running an article by a neo-Nazi who admits he committed at least one hate crime but thinks that occasionally beating up someone is justified by how fun Nazi Party rallies are?
If so, doesn't the increase of anti-Tutsi sentiment in Rwandan media in the years leading up to the genocide kinda bother you?
By "the latter", I assume you mean sympathize with rapists.
Well, I doubt that any actual racist thinks like that. But I would be OK with, say, a movie portraying a Nazi as a sympathetic character while showing them gassing Jews, as long as they didn't show this as a good thing to do. Helping people understand how people - not monsters, people with hopes and dreams and children - can become so confused as to kill someone without realizing they have done something wrong is a valuable service and I would absolutely support anyone doing it. Of course, they should avoid inadvertently furnishing actual racists with arguments to defend their racism when they show racist rhetoric, but that's hardly a unique problem - any sufficiently charismatic villain could risk persuading viewers (or strengthening their beliefs) and it is the responsibility of any author to avoid that while still portraying a convincing villain; this is usually accomplished by having the the hero or some other sympathetic character lecture the villain, pointing out why the villain is, in fact, evil.
... I'm sorry? That doesn't seem relevant to our discussion; if it is, could you please explain why?
That's not a fair comparison! The movie handles the framing. Show the Nazi eating cream with his children on Christmas, cut to him herding children into the gas chamber, be praised for the powerful point you make through contrast by an easily impressed critic who hasn't been to the movies since 1909.
Here, the rapist really exists, and is writing the article himself. He's very much portraying his decisions as good, even though they imply rape.
Definitely. But helping people understand how people thus confused excuse themselves after the fact is a much less valuable service.
Well, yeah, exactly. Noah Brand's note didn't say why the article was wrong, or even that the author was a rapist at all. It said he disagreed with the author. Near telling Light "I disagree with your assessment that Kira should rule the world" wouldn't carry much punch.
People advocate bad things, are allowed to keep advocating bad speech because of explicit anti-censorship reasons, other people are convinced and do the bad things.
Mein Kampf was aimed at people in Wiemar Germany, so I'm not sure it retains much persuasive power for modern, say, French.