‘And yes, I do understand that some women find themselves in difficult situations, but “coercion” has to mean the use force or the threat of force. I don’t see any other libertarian definition.’

Libertarianism is a theory of political justice, not of lexicography. If people sometimes (as they do) use the word “coercion” to refer to circumstances in which a man’s or woman’s range of choices is constrained by human-created conditions other than the use or threat of violence, then it seems to me that the best thing to do is to acknowledge the usage and to make the distinction between coercion in this broader sense and coercion in the narrower sense of constraint of choices by use of violence or threats. We can recognize that cases of constraint in the broader sense have some important things in common with cases of constraint in the narrower sense well enough while still arguing that only coercion in the narrow sense can legitimately be met with defensive force.

“And btw, most victims of violent crime are men despite what feminists would have you believe.”

I’m not aware of any feminists who disagree with this. However, what has this got to do with anything? The overwhelming majority of male victims of violence are attacked by other men, not by women. Further, the nature of the violence is different; most violence committed against men consists of one-off assaults committed by strangers; the overwhelming majority of violence against women consists of assaults committed by a man that the victim knows, often by a man that she lives with, and is frequently part of a persistent pattern of violence. And both violence against men—overwhelmingly committed by men—and violence against women—overwhelmingly committed by men—are horrifyingly common in our society (about 60% of men and a bit more than 50% of women are the victims of a violent assault in their lifetime, according to the CDC’s conservative estimates). If you think that these facts pose a challenge to the radical feminist understanding of men and women’s respective places in American society, I don’t quite know what to say.

As for the rest of Mark’s comments, I quote one of my favorite philosophical anarchists, J.R.R. Tolkien:

‘I have just received a copy of C.S.L.’s latest: Studies in Words. Alas! His ponderous silliness is becoming a fixed manner. I am deeply relieved to find I am not mentioned. . . . I think the best bit is the last chapter, and the only really wise remark is on the last page: “I think we must get it firmly fixed in our minds that the very occasions on which we should most like to write a slashing review are precisely those on which we had much better hold our tongues.” Ergo silebo.’

“I fully support the need to eliminate the amount of gender inequality based on irrational prejudices that still exists in America and the world, but libertarian feminists don’t talk like Dworkin does (like victimized collectivists as Aeon Skoble points out). Nor do they call for government intervention.”

I don’t think that the charge that Dworkin is operating on collectivist premises in the passages cited is a just one, but I say more on that in my reply to Aeon above.

As for government intervention: I’m not sure what your target is here. It’s true that Dworkin’s applause for government intervention against, e.g., lap-dancing, or her advocacy for government intervention against pornography, cannot be endorsed on libertarian principles. (That does NOT mean, however, that her writings on the subjects of lap-dancing or prostitution are therefore without value for libertarian feminists; whether she’s right or wrong about government intervention in response to a purported problem is a question distinct from whether she’s right or wrong about the nature of the problem.)

But Dworkin doesn’t just write on lap-dancing or pornography, and it’s not her writings on lap-dancing or pornography that have, in the main, been cited in this discussion. A substantial portion of her work is on male violence against women, particularly in the form of rape and battery. And there’s no demand, from libertarian principles, that libertarian feminists abstain from calling for government action against rapists or batterers. Now, it might not be strategically wise to put too much trust in government law enforcement as a solution to pervasive criminal violence; as an individualist I’d certainly agree. But that’s a separate issue which can’t be resolved apriori by reference to libertarian first principles. And in fact it’s an issue where Dworkin is in agreement, not in opposition, to the libertarian argument:

“There is not a feminist alive who could possibly look to the male legal system for real protection from the systemized sadism of men. Women fight to reform male law, in the areas of rape and battery for instance, because something is better than nothing. In general, we fight to force the law to recognize us as the victims of the crimes committed against us, but the results so far have been paltry and pathetic.” — from Letters from a War Zone

“I have to say I don’t see this at all. Just look at the Dworkin remarks excerpted in Bob’s post: “You men” should stop raping — the underlying collectivist premise here ought to be a clear signal that there’s zero affinity for libertarian ideas here.”

Aeon, this is surely stronger than can be justified. Herbert Spencer, in his old age, came to endorse military conscription; Thomas Jefferson, throughout his life, kept other human beings in outright slavery and used his considerable political influence to protect the institution. Neither position could be endorsed without collectivism of a far worse variety than anything Dworkin has ever employed, but that hardly means that either Thomas Jefferson or Herbert Spencer could be said to have “zero affinity for libertarian ideas.”

As for whether she was right to address the men in the National Organization for Changing Men in the second-person plural about stopping rape, that depends on a further argument she makes. It is not that all men are collectively responsible for the fact that many men commit rape (although it is statistically extremely unlikely that, in an audience of several hundred men, she was not addressing, inter alia, some men who had committed rape). It is that she holds that men, as a class, participate in a system of male supremacy—an interlocking system of ideas, cultural practices, material conditions, government coercion, “private” coercion through violence, etc.—that, among other things, issues in the extraordinary prevalence of the rape of individual women by individual men. I think that there are similarly good grounds to say that there is a “political class” in the United States, and that not all the members of that class personally beat people up or throw them in jail for failing to live up to arbitrary government decrees; but they do participate in a system of oppression and exploitation that ultimately issues in, among other things, beating people up and throwing them in jail. And that it is worth while to point this out to them as one of the reasons why they should work to undermine the political class system that they participate in and benefit from.

Neither class analysis involves any attribution of collective guilt or collective responsibility; nor do they presuppose any kind of centralized command-and-control structure. (Lynch law in the post-Reconstruction South would be another excellent example). This is just class analysis. I think that the example of the 19th century individualist anarchists’ writings on, among other things, racism, sexism, the exploitation of workers, and war, should be a good enough grounds for seeing that individualism is not incompatible, as such, with class analysis. If 20th century individualists mostly passed by class analysis then so much the worse for them, and the sooner we learn to do it again the better.

“I found it irksome that Roderick and Johnson assume that libertarian detractors of radical feminism are unfamiliar with the actual writings of radical feminists.”

What we were trying to urge is not that all libertarian critics of feminism are unfamiliar with the actual writings of radical feminists, and if we suggested that I’m sorry for it. But let me try to make my presumptions and my aims a bit more clear indirectly with a couple of questions back to you. I agree with you that there are libertarians, yourself and Tibor among them, who have substantial experience directly with radical feminist writings; but do you think that there are any prevalent libertarian complaints against radical feminism that are based on misunderstandings (whether through ignorance or misreading) of what radical feminists have historically said and done? And if you do, how prevalent do you find them to be?

Thanks, Robert, for raising the issue. A full reply to some of all the points is way beyond what I can do in the scope of a comment, but that’s no excuse not to get started with the space you’ve got.

“It would appear, then, that Andrea Dworkin is one leftist whom Roderick and Charles consider a potential ally.”

I can speak only for myself and not for Roderick, of course.

I don’t, actually, consider Andrea Dworkin a Leftist at all, exactly; in any case my recollection is that she rejects the term for herself. She’s a radical feminist, and there are a lot of complicated historical and theoretical issues involved in positioning feminism vis-a-vis the traditional (male-dominated) Left, which may not be worth digging too deeply into just now. This is worth noting mainly because it may or may not be the case, in particular cases, that the reasons for urging an alliance with the (traditional) Left are the same as those for urging an alliance with feminists. What I have to say on behalf of SDS, for example, has some things importantly in common with and importantly different from what I have to say on behalf of Andrea Dworkin; Dworkin gets a lot of very important things that SDS misses, and SDS gets a few important things that Andrea Dworkin misses.

That said, what I think about Dworkin is that she is a very important, and very frustrating, figure. Important because of her contributions to radical feminist thought and activism, frustrating because of her failures to see the libertarian conclusions that her positions should ultimately lead her to. Broadly speaking, the purpose of taking a good look at the work of radical feminists such as Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon, among others, is not because we consider them to be libertarian feminists (they aren’t), or because we agree with everything they say (I certainly don’t, and I take it that Roderick doesn’t either), but rather to suggest that some of what they’ve written offers an important correction for the mistakes that have been made, both by some libertarian critics of feminism, and by those attempting some form of libertarian feminist synthesis. This may be sailing towards Scylla in order to avoid Charibdys, but there’s a place for that in a fallen world, and I think that’s actually overstating the problems with radical feminism as a whole pretty substantially. (As I mentioned in replying to a question from Tibor, most of the points at which, say, Andrea Dworkin’s position is particularly problematic are points at which there are other well-established positions within the radical feminist traditions that are preferable.)

I guess part of all of this is a matter of emphasis, and of precisifying what we mean by quoting (e.g.) Dworkin or MacKinnon. It’s a question worth asking, but I don’t think that the answer really should be much of a head-scratcher once everything is said and done. Most libertarians wouldn’t hesitate to pull a juicy quote from Thomas Jefferson; many if not most wouldn’t hesitate to say that we can learn a lot from John C. Calhoun—even though both of them personally committed crimes against natural law far worse than anything Andrea Dworkin has ever done or countenanced, and even though Calhoun went so far as to defend holding other human beings in chattel slavery as a “positive good.” Citing Dworkin or MacKinnon as sources of important lessons for a libertarian feminism shouldn’t entail agreement with, or blindness towards, their real mistakes any more than citing Jefferson or Calhoun as sources of important lessons for natural rights and decentralist libertarianism should entail agreement with, or blindness towards, the monstrosity of American race slavery.

I think it’s quite right to urge radical feminists towards more libertarian positions; I think one of the major points in our essay is that there are important things that libertarians can learn from radical feminists, too.

‘Is Dworkin “solid on civil liberties”?’

Here I would say “No,” but other Leftists and feminists certainly are. Also, though, that her position—problematic though it is—has often been profoundly mischaracterized by opponents, including civil libertarian opponents (it’s bad, but it’s neither as bad as they claim it is nor bad for the reasons they claim it is), and that opposition to it has been package-dealed with uncritical attitudes towards (e.g.) pornography that aren’t actually justified by any argument from libertarian principles (or from any true principles, I think, but delving into that is something for another time).

‘Is she one of those “whose instincts are firmly anti-authoritarian?”’

I’d say that they very clearly are—based on her essays and her memoirs, among other things; this may serve to point out that anti-authoritarianism is important and valuable but not always sufficient. She doesn’t endorse government coercion, where she does, because she thinks a powerful government coercing people into a just cause is a great idea; she does it because she (rightly) thinks that the issue of violence against women and entrenched sexism is overwhelmingly large and urgent, and (wrongly) thinks that admittedly problematic and dangerous government interventions are justifiable in dealing with it, even though she is deeply and thoroughly suspicious of State power.

Is that a mistake? Yeah, it is, but I don’t think it’s a failure to be sufficiently anti-authoritarian. It has more to do with a failure to be sufficiently individualist. The two are related, but not the same thing at all.

‘Is she perhaps neither—but her analysis of power relations in society is valuable to libertarians anyway?’

This much I’d whole-heartedly endorse.

More to come, here and elsewhere, I’m sure.

Beito: “In response to evidence of this type, some conservatives, most notably David Horowitz, have called for universities to expand the existing use of race and sex (biological diversity) as factors in hiring to include ideological diversity.

“While I think that Horowitz makes a stronger case than many of his critics are willing to concede, I have never been sympathetic to the approach he recommends.”

I have to differ here. There are many reasons to worry about hiring practices that are intended to skew towards race and gender “diversity” within the academy. But whatever you might decide in those deliberations, Horowitz’s proposals are a very different beast. His case isn’t compelling, either within the entrenched logic of skewed hiring or from without. It amounts to nothing less than a sustained assault on the idea of the University, in a way that hiring skewed by race or gender does not.

Here’s why: one of the typical arguments given for policies that encourage demographic diversity is that in a society coping with a history of oppression (and a great deal of ideology coming out of academic institution to support various forms of that oppression), it’s worthwhile to cultivate an academic community with people who come from historically excluded groups, because those people bring a systematically different set of life experiences to the discussion and therefore may be aware of arguments and evidence that may never be seriously aired in more insular academic settings.

Maybe that’s true and maybe that’s false, but it’s important to see that it is importantly different from Horowitz’s notion, which is that it is worthwhile to skew hiring practices based on the political conclusions that researchers come to. (This is connected, of course, to a whole raft of what is, effectively, ideological identity politics from the Right.) But there is absolutely no value whatsoever to diversity of conclusions. The point of the University is to build a community in a conclusion is taken to be worthwhile only insofar as (and only because) the argument for it is worthwhile. Horowitz’s notion is to skew hiring in favor of certain conclusions whether the research and the argument supporting those conclusions measures up under standards of academic rigor or not; that is, to turn the idea of the University entirely on its head.

Think of it this way: demographic diversity arguments are intended to skew hiring based on non-academic factors. A bad idea? Perhaps. But Horowitz’s plan is intended to skew hiring based on anti-academic factors. Of the two cases, I think Horowitz has very clearly got the less compelling and more dangerous one.

Me: “Bargainer certainly didn’t; what he did say is that there is no open question about the morality of boiling innocent foreigners alive under a libertarian theory of justice.”

Micha: “But this is clearly not the case. The vast majority of libertarians are not pacifists when it comes to war between nations states. Most libertarians believe that war between nation states is sometimes justified, even though war between nation states necessarily involves killing innocent non-combatants.”

Thanks for the prodding, Micha; I deserve it. But surely this isn’t quite the issue. It’s true that there are plenty of undoubtedly libertarian accounts of justice in wartime that allow for knowingly killing innocent civilians in the course of attacking legitimate military targets (if you’re waging a legitimate war, anyway). But I’m going to be a bit of an aprioristic wank here and just stipulate that no libertarian account of justice allows for intentionally targeting civilians for attack. (If an account endorses it, I’d just argue that’s enough to make it something other than a libertarian account.) And the sort of cases that Barganier and Borders are fussing over are clearly in the latter camp—it’s hard to imagine how you’d be boiling civilians alive for the war effort unless you were intentionally targeting civilians to be pitched into the cauldron. And even if you could devise some sort of story to make it fit libertarian strictures, this would be beside the point: Borders’ stated position commits him, afortiori, not only to saying that the possibly-acceptable cases don’t violate any objectively binding moral obligations, but also that the clearly unacceptable cases don’t violate any objectively binding moral obligations, either. Whether or not there are some cases of boiling foreigners alive that can be open questions for deliberation under a libertarian theory of justice, there certainly are some cases of boiling foreigners alive that could not possibly be open for deliberation. But Borders gladly admits that his position means that both the former and the latter are up for deliberation, based on matters of strategy and of personal taste. I don’t think it requires a lot of hermeneutical acrobatics to see that that’s what Barganier’s taking Borders to task over. And I think on that point that Barganier is clearly in the right.

Micha: “Whether you find Max’s argument offensive, at least it is an argument. Barganier’s is a vile form of ad hominem, and terribly bad form.”

I don’t know whether Barganier is acting in bad form or not; his post is insulting, to be sure, and his encouragement of writing to IHS over the issue may be questionable. Fine. But he is engaging directly in an argument; the form is: Max Borders’ position entails a monstrous consequence; in fact, he admits this very consequence; no libertarian theory can involve that consequence; therefore, Max Borders position is deeply in conflict with libertarianism. That’s a straightforward and valid argument (moreover, I think, a sound one); it’s certainly not an argumentum ad hominem, let alone one of a particularly vile form.

Bill Woolsey writes: “So, regardless of whether boiling foreigners alive is or is not in the interest of America, it is neither moral or immoral.

“He went on to argue that he (like most people)
would find boilling people alive distasteful and
that he doesn’t believe that it is in the U.S.
interest.

“In no way was he advocating boiling people alive.”

But Bill, nobody that I’ve read on the matter has suggested that Borders does advocate boiling people alive. Bargainer certainly didn’t; what he did say is that there is no open question about the morality of boiling innocent foreigners alive under a libertarian theory of justice. Whether he advocates boiling innocent aliens alive or not, Borders leaves the question open for deliberation about its strategic value and our own tastes; and that is monstrous enough from the standpoint of common decency–let alone libertarian political theory–on its own demerits.

As for his own attempt to weasel around this problem by offering our “sentimental” reasons for finding the whole affair ghastly, they are incoherent, as I argue elsewhere. I won’t re-argue it at length here; the bottom line is that the only way we can make sense out of “sentimental shoulds” is by reference to how our emotions do or do not express judgments about what we ought and ought not to do. But that means that the reasonableness of the sentiments has to stand up to reflective judgment or else be dismissed as irrational (and so not giving any “should”). And that seems to tie our sentimental shoulds back into our normative shoulds: the sentiment of horror is only a reasonable sentiment if it expresses a judgment of a real state of affairs (viz. that it is really is horrible to boil someone alive).

There are some further epicycles that you could try to put onto the theory to explain away the judgment as something other than a moral judgment. Some of them I considered and rejected in brief; others can be dealt with elsewhere and at more length; but Borders set out none of them in the course of his argument. He just invoked the sentiments as a sort of magic charm to summon up reasons for action. But it doesn’t, in fact, advance the argument one inch.

As for comparing Borders to Prince Dracula–whether it’s juvenile or not is not something that I’m a fit judge of (since I’m rather partial). But I will say that Max Borders has explicitly stated, and argued at length, that there is no moral difference in principle between himself and Vlad Dracula. He has tried to argue at length and in several different places for a theory that would hold that absolutely any atrocity whatsoever could be committed against aliens without violating any principle of justice–from assault and pillage to impaling and boiling alive. It is his own stated position that the only difference between what he’s willing to do and what Vlad was willing to do is a matter of contingent circumstance, and a matter of personal taste. If that is not a monstrous position to hold, then what is?

“Yes. At some point, these medievals need to brought into the 21st century, or at least the 20th.”

Medieval Islam was far advanced beyond both medieval and early modern Europe in wealth, individual freedom, and religious tolerance. “Medievalism” should be a term of praise, not abuse, with regard to Muslim societies; the problem with folks like the Taliban and the Wahabis of Saudi Arabia is that they hearken back to a past that (fortunately for the Muslims of the 14th century) never existed.

It also seems a bit odd to me to portray either the Saudi monarchy or politicized Islam — both of them fabrications of the 20th century and its worldwide wars — as needing to be brought into the 20th century. Better that we urged them to get out of it as quickly as possible.

Or, better yet, you can use http://tinyurl.com/ to chop those monstrous URLs into something manageable. For example, the review of the Incredibles can now be accessed through:

http://tinyurl.com/6gax6

Enjoy!

I’m unclear on what the excellent point that Goldberg is making is supposed to be.

There’s an extensive literature by Leftists on the tortured relationship between Leftism, anti-imperialism, and nationalism. Everyone from internationalist Marxists to milksop Social Democrats to anarchists has written and argued extensively about when, where, and how you might support nationalist movements. Explicit topics of discussion have included Zionism, competing forms of Jewish nationalism (Bundism), Arab nationalism, Palestinian nationalism, etc. (The discussion hasn’t been confined to post-colonial nationalism; it’s also discussed phenomena such as Black Nationalism in the United States.) In spite of a lot of intense disagreements, there has always been a general consensus that “It’s the Empire, stupid!”—i.e., that there’s a big difference between nationalist tendencies that are struggling against international empires and those that are struggling to strengthen the resolve and power of international empires. The main debates focus on how cautious the Left has to be about which anti-imperial nationalisms they’re willing to support (i.e., supporting most, some, or none), with different answers coming out all around, but none of them urging an uncritical embrace.

I might mention that this is precisely the position which has been taken by some L&P posters on secessionist movements here and around the world.

I don’t expect Goldberg to agree with either any of the particular views or the general consensus of that discussion. Heck, I don’t even expect him to know much about it. But if he doesn’t know about it, then why is he still writing about it?