Comments Elsewhere

Lopez: “Who asked for this promise? When?”

Roderick: “Does someone have to ask for it? Why? We’re talking about a promise, not a contract.”

Lopez: “Isn’t a contract just a formalized promise? I honestly don’t see the distinction you’re trying to make, here.”

Trying to channel the shade of J.L. Austin for a moment…

I think the speech act here is neither a contract nor a promise; it’s an oath, which is similar to both in certain respects but also importantly different.

A contract, to start out with, is more than a formalized promise. You can make (ethically binding) promises that fail to meet the conditions of being a contract. For example, if I promise to get you a pony for your birthday and then renege, I’ve broken a promise (and done something which is blameworthy unless there are extenuating circumstances). But I haven’t breached a contract: among other things, there is no quid pro quo.

The lack of quid pro quo is connected with another feature of promises as against contracts: they can be more unilateral; you can make unasked-for promises (my promise ethically binds me to get you the pony whether or not you asked me to make it), whereas contracts by their nature have to be (in some important sense) reciprocal.

But while promises can be more unilateral than contracts, they cannot be completely unilateral. There are such things as unasked-for promises, but there is no such thing as a promise made to no-one in particular, and there’s no such thing as a promise made to someone not in a position to receive it (e.g. if I say “I promise to buy Lopez a pony for his birthday” in my room and never tell you about it, I haven’t made you a promise; if I say “I promise to buy you a pony for your birthday” and you reject the promise—“I don’t want a pony for my birthday,” say—then I’m not bound by a promise either). Similarly, as Austin points out, while there can be such a thing as an unasked-for promise to benefit someone, there is probably no convention for an unasked-for promise to harm someone (“I promise to bean you on the head” may be binding if you’ve asked me to bean you on the head for some reason, but not if you haven’t asked me; contrary to the cheesy quip, that’s a threat, not a promise).

Oaths, of course, are different; their binding force, unlike that of both contracts and promises, is entirely self-regarding. You can make an oath to someone, but you don’t have to; you can, e.g., take oaths of vengeance without the knowledge or consent of anyone else (least of all the intended victim). Importantly, when you break an oath of this sort, if it’s blameworthy, then it’s blameworthy because of what it means about you—whereas the blameworthiness of breaking a promise or breaching a contract primarily comes from the fact that you are doing wrong by someone else.

All of these conditions, of course, are relevant to what a n office-holder is doing when they swear to uphold the Constitution. Among other things, it’s unclear whether they are swearing this to anyone in particular. You could say it’s a promise to each of the citizens of the U.S., and the fact that they never asked for it wouldn’t count against taking it as a promise; but the fact that it is clearly made whether or not we consent to it (you and I and Lopez, for example, don’t), and the fact that some of the terms of the unasked-for “promise” involve harming us, do count against so taking it.

Is it extra-blameworthy to break an oath to do evil? I don’t know; I suppose that’s a question that the epics have grappled with in a lot more depth than I could here. Of course, you have to distinguish breaking an oath to do evil in order to do good (which is probably praiseworthy courage, in most cases at least, although courage may require taking a heavy cost for having taken an oath that you couldn’t ethically fulfill) from breaking an oath to do evil in order to do even more evil than the oath provided for (as in the case of most everyone currently in the U.S. government). In the latter case, my suspicion is that the oath-breaking makes the oath-breaker more contemptible but probably doesn’t make the acts themselves any more evil than they otherwise would be. But I’m not firmly convinced either way.

Aeon, of course I can speak only for myself and not for Roderick, but if he’s citing the statistic that appears in our essay (which seems likely), the figure comes from the CDC / NIJ National Violence Against Women Survey, whose results are reported on at length by Patricia Tjaden and Nancy Thoennes (2000) at http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles1/nij/183781.pdf. The full Methodology Report is apparently available only in print, but there is a discussion of the methodology on pp. 13-15 of the research brief at http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles/172837.pdf.

The report is horrible stuff; what’s more horrible is that the experiences tha I have learned about from my friends don’t even leave me with cognitive dissonance about its truth; the survey methodology is solid but I can also believe the numbers because they have been proven true in my life. Which is a horrible thing to realize.

That said, here’s a dry and abstract discussion of the figures that we know.

Section 5 of the report discusses “Intimate Partner” Violence (including a survey of the past literature), and reports that NVAWS found (p. 38, exhibit 9):

• 24.8% of women surveyed had suffered, at the hands of an intimate partner, rape, attempted rape, or physical assault, in their lifetime.

• 25.5% of women surveyed had suffered, at the hands of an intimate partner, rape, attempted rape, physical assault, or stalking, in their lifetime.

“Intimate partners” are current and former spouses, male or female cohabiting partners, boyfriends or girlfriends, and dates. (Figures elsewhere demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of the intimate partner violence against women reported in the survey is committed by male partners. Although findings of widespread violence against women in lesbian relationships would hardly be reassuring, either, from a feminist standpoint.)

“Rape” and “attempted rape” are defined quite conservatively—that is, the categories include significantly fewer activities than would be prosecutable under existing sexual assault laws. The screening questions can be found on p. 13 of the research brief. Part of the reasons for the narrowness of the screening questions is, I think, to avoid the controversy around Mary Koss’s findings (controversy which I happen to think is unwarranted and which I know in some cases — Katie Roiphe’s and Christina Hoff Sommers’ attacks, for example — to be based on mischaracterizations, but which is beside the point here).

“Physical assault” was screened using the Conflict Tactics Scale, with assaults ranging from slapping or hitting to using a knife or gun. (Abuse was usually repeated: women who reported being physically assaulted by a partner in the past 12 months had been assaulted, on average, about 3-4 times that year.)

As we mention in the footnotes to the essay, a full discussion of the validity of common statistics on violence against women was beyond the scope of our essay; our effort was to make some progress on the philosophical issue of how radical feminist class analysis and libertarianism can be reconciled, and to mostly bracket the empirical question of whether the evidence and arguments commonly given to support feminist class analysis are cogent. Of course, that’s an awfully important issue, but we ran long on talk as it was, and for myself I think it’s an issue that is already thoroughly discussed in the existing feminist literature.

That said, it is an important issue for the claims made in our paper, even if it’s one we bracketed at the time, and I’d be glad to discuss it further here as you like.

“Might not one argue that one reason, if not the reason, that the State attempts to undermine the family is that it is one patriarchal institution competing with another?”

Geoffrey, I think this is an excellent point. I think that paleolibertarians (for example) drastically overestimate the degree to which father-right and State prerogative come into conflict with one another, but I think this is incisive remark on why they do where they do. It’s worth thinking about this in light of, for example, the rape ritual of the so-called jus primae noctis in feudal Europe.

I think two issues need to be separated here.

1. There’s a philosophical issue as to whether or not class analysis of any sort involves premises that qualify as “collectivist” in some way that should make them objectionable to libertarians.

2. There’s an empirical issue as to whether or not there is, in fact, a class system of male supremacy over women in the culture and society being discussed.

It’s important to note that these are two different issues. Of course, if (1) goes against class analysis, then there’s no point in going on to (2). But it doesn’t go the other way; whether you answer (2) positively or negatively, (1) remains open; there are a lot of class analyses in the boat with feminist analysis based on claimed hierarchies other than sex (e.g. economic class, race, sexuality). Historically radical individualists such as Spencer, Tucker, Spooner, de Cleyre, etc. have been willing to apply class analysis in more or less all of these cases. You might argue that conditions have changed since the 19th and early 20th century in relevant ways, and that class analysis that was once factually well-justified no longer is. O.K.; I’d disagree, and we can argue about that, but if that is the response, then you have already conceded the ground on (1) by admitting that there are historical cases in which this sort of class analysis is legitimate and useful.

“As a man, if I commit a rape, or batter anyone for that matter, I will be prosecuted and imprisoned.”

This shows a considerable faith in the reliability of the criminal justice system that I don’t happen to share. In point of fact I know that it’s false, if intended as a universal claim or even a statistical generality: the vast majority of rapes, for example, go unreported and unpunished. (I, for one, personally know men who raped or otherwise assaulted friends of mine and walk the streets today.) Given how rape survivors have been and still are typically treated when they make allegations public—and, for that matter, given what I, as a libertarian, know about the workings of government law-enforcement—I don’t find this at all surprising.

I don’t find the fact that violence against women is nominally illegal in the United States—as opposed to, say, some parts of Pakistan, or Afghanistan under the Taliban, or modern Europe and America up to the mid-19th century—tremendously reassuring. This only refutes the feminist class analysis if the only means by which a class system can be created and enforced is through State power. But why believe that? Lynch law in the post-Reconstruction South was nominally illegal too—it was conspiracy to commit murder—but I would not know what to make of a claim that that fact made lynch law irrelevant to the class relations between black and white Southerners. How much does nominal illegality mean when widespread, frequent violence can usually be practiced with impunity and with a considerable weight of cultural hostility towards the victim and sympathy for the attacker?

“If you really want to combat a system of male supremacy, then, sounds like you should devote your energy to pushing for liberalization of the Arab world.”

There may be many things that feminists, in the United States and abroad, could be charged with, but I don’t think that too little awareness or political commotion around the cause of women in the Arab world, East Africa, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc. is one of them.

I asked: “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?”

Aeon responded: “I haven’t made an exhaustive study of this specific question, but my general sense is that most libertarian criticisms of radical feminsim, incl. those made by libertarian feminists, is that radical feminism errs by being, well, illiberal. But hang on, when you ask about libertarian criticisms, are you referring to cranky letters in Liberty Magazine, or to real work by libertarian academic philosophers and political theorists? My guess would be that the former may well be prone to misunderstandings and caricature, but so what? The latter is surely not.”

Fair question; although I am interested in the “cranky letters to Liberty” (and “crude remarks at conventions”) genre—since some of my interest on this point has to do with actual libertarian and feminist practice, and the attitudes and actions of the rank and file are relevant here—my main question was about academic libertarian theorists. For myself, I can think of several examples of serious misunderstanding of radical feminist claims—sometimes apparently from lack of acquaintence with the material, and sometimes apparently from misunderstanding material in spite of familiarity with it.

Here are some examples:

1. Murray Rothbard’s 1970 tirade against WL, in which, among other things, he clearly mischaracterizes feminist arguments on pay equity and apparently misreads Robin Morgan as a lesbian separatist, among other things, in the course of an obnoxious polemic that ends up describing the “quintessence” of the WL movement as “a bitter, extremely neurotic if not psychotic, man-hating lesbianism.”

2. The popularity, amongst libertarian academics, of the claim that Andrea Dworkin and/or Catharine MacKinnon claims that all sex is rape, a claim that neither one ever made and which they have repeatedly denied when asked.

3. Wendy McElroy’s claim, in Liberty for Women, that class categories in radical feminism are not fluid because they are fixed by biology rather than the use of force.

4. The popularity, in some libertarian circles, of Christina Hoff Sommers’ distinction between “equity feminism” and “gender feminism,” a pair of opposed categories that—so far as I can tell—actually track no historical tendency of thought and no shared premise whatsoever. (I don’t know what “gender feminism” is supposed to actually be, but I do know that if you put Kim Gandy, Andrea Dworkin, and Mary Daly into the same political boat, you are surely misunderstanding something.)

More examples could be mentioned at length, but a number of these are discussed in the essay, so maybe it will be best to just post the URI when it goes up momentarily, and ask for comments on what is said there.

“Actually, I haven’t seen much glamorization of rape in the popular culture.”

Aeon, what about: the works of Norman Mailer, Henry Miller, Hunter S. Thompson, John Updike’s Rabbit series, Eldridge Cleaver’s Soul On Ice, A Clockwork Orange in film or print? How about Hitchcock’s Frenzy, Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs, or perhaps less enlightening fare such as Revenge of the Nerds? The musical stylings of the Rolling Stones (“Midnight Rambler,” for example), 2 Live Crew, NWA, or Eminem?

Or, need I say it, Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead?

The glamorization of rape and sexualized violence is not exactly an underground phenomenon. Feminist works such as Kate Millett’s Sexual Politics, Susan Brownmiller’s Against Our Will, Susan Faludi’s Backlash, Sut Jhally’s documentary Dreamworlds and others discuss the matter at considerable length and with plenty of examples from various domains and periods of the culture.

(Note also that this is also bracketing entirely the contents of pornography, which should not be set aside in a discussion of popular culture, but which is whole new can of worms to open.)

The cultural treatment of rape has improved, somewhat, since the heydey of windbags like Mailer and Thompson, or the age of (incredibly mean-spirited) 1980s sex “comedies.” But there is still a lot to confront out there, and if there have been any substantial changes for the better it would be pretty hard to say what might have caused that if not the sustained critique of rape culture by folks such as Dworkin, Millett, Brownmiller, Faludi, etc. for the past three decades.

Roderick, regarding alcohol-prohibitionist abolitionists:

would the fact that the person in question was un-libertarian on the alcohol issue be a reason not to quote him or learn from him on the slavery issue? I can’t see why.

Aeon:

Because it’s cherry-picking at best, and misleading at worst. If the underlying reasons for the person’s saying something that, on the surface, you agree with, are wrong, then it’s IMO not much use to quote that person.

I don’t get it. Does having anti-libertarian reasons to favor one position preclude having libertarian reasons to favor another? Are we supposed to treat any analysis written by someone who held a non-libertarian position as fruit of a poisoned vine?

Are you willing to apply the same standards to the author of this “cherry-picked” quote?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. —That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

After all, he not only endorsed but personally practiced, on a large scale, crimes against liberty far worse than anything Andrea Dworkin has ever countenanced (and made the protection of those crimes a significant part of his later political career).

I don’t know whether this is quite what you are looking for, but it is certainly one of my favorite indie films: Girls’ Town, starring Lili Taylor, Bruklin Harris, and Anna Grace as three young women trying to cope with the suicide of their friend. Talking about it, they come together, and in memory of their friend bond with each other, stand up for each other, and save each other a time or two, in the course of confronting controlling mothers, date rapists, and abusive deadbeat exes.

Sheldon, I think Kennedy’s point is that it would be illegitimate to seize people’s money for tax-funded disaster relief even if it were authorized in the Constitution—if, for example, the Bushists suddenly became strict constructionists and rushed an amendment through the Congress and state legislatures allowing them to disburse the funds, that wouldn’t change the moral or political case against tax-funded state-to-state transfers one bit. Ergo, the appeal to the Constitution seems out of place—since the transfer is illegitimate whatever the Constitution says, why point out its silence?

David,

Word is that there is a TV movie of Their Eyes Were Watching God made for ABC, featuring Halle Berry as Janie, which should be airing March 6:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0406265/

Thought y’all might be interested.

-C

Thanks, Jeanine, for your kind words about our essay. I think that you and I may disagree about many things at the end of the day but the need to bring vigorous feminist debate into the world of libertarian activism is certainly not one of them. I agree with you that there are many feminists—and, contrary to what many libertarians seem to take for granted, radical feminists significantly more so than liberal feminists—who are open to libertarian insights, if we will only take the trouble to acknowledge gender as a serious issue in its own right and talk about a respectful alliance of equals. There’s a long history of feminist activism independent of, or directly in opposition to, State power and both libertarians and feminists would be wise to look to it.

Thanks also for your enlightening comments elsewhere in the thread.