edhall@randvax.UUCP (Ed Hall) (09/23/86)
Some open questions to Mark T.: Your opponents generally seem to feel that the Meese Commission Report is biased, and was undertaken with a specific outcome in mind. Since I consider Ed Meese to be only slightly more liberal than Atila The Hun, and since several commissioners already where on record as having strong opinions on pornography (all against!), I find the accusation of bias a reasonable one. It seemed very, very clear that great pains were being taken not to make the same ``mistakes'' that Nixon did fourteen years ago. You've done little to rebutt this charge of bias. I think you need to do so--going back to the politics which generated the commission and the way they discharged their mission--before you continue to use it in your anti-pornography arguments. Why rely on this report to buttress your arguments when the people you're arguing against don't support it as a source of unbiased information? More to the point: where are your other sources? Surely there are many out there--some of which support a benign view on pornography. Look them up, study them, see where the logical fallacies and statistical inaccuracies lie. Certainly there have been studies since the Nixon era that support a viewpoint contrary to the Meese Commission. Where are they wrong? You can't claim to have an open mind on the subject until you've done some digging for opinions different than your own. [Yes, I've read up on the anti-pornography side, from Meese to Dworkin to Linda Lovelace. I've got better things to do with my time than read an entire rambling thousand-plus page report, though. Besides, most porn really isn't to my taste, and the pages and pages of explicit plot summaries in the report--have YOU read them?--are nothing but porn in themselves. Funny that they'd do that--you don't see the government handing out cocaine just so people can see how bad it is!] Remember that two commissioners--two women!--publically repudiated many of the findings of the male majority, claiming the majority had no factual basis to support said findings. Have you investigated this? Have you read the Nixon-era report? Have you visited adult bookstores and moviehouses so you can see with your own eyes just what it is you're talking about? [I've not an extensive amount of experience here, but my suspicion is that the S&M-laced stuff the Meese Commission concentrated on is pretty uncommon, and that scenes of domination feature women in the dominant role as often as men.] One final comment: the discussion seems to be degenerating into a religious argument (and anything based upon American Protestant Ethics is a religious argument at core). Consider that some of the most sexually explicit paintings and writings of other cultures come from a religious base. Consider also that one of the most productive industrial nations on Earth--Japan--has one of the lowest rates of sex crimes yet consumes enormous amounts of often violent pornography. We consume less, condemn it far more, yet rate number one in terms of sex crimes. The reasons for this difference are doubtless complex, as is the issue of pornography--far, far more complex than the Meese Commission ever considered, which is why I dismiss its findings as superficial propaganda and seek the truth elsewhere. -Ed Hall decvax!randvax!edhall
mat@mtx5a.UUCP (m.terribile) (10/01/86)
> Some open questions to Mark T.: > > Your opponents generally seem to feel that the Meese Commission Report > is biased, and was undertaken with a specific outcome in mind. Since > I consider Ed Meese to be only slightly more liberal than Atila The > Hun, and since several commissioners already where on record as having > strong opinions on pornography (all against!), I find the accusation > of bias a reasonable one. It seemed very, very clear that great pains > were being taken not to make the same ``mistakes'' that Nixon did > fourteen years ago. As I've said, it *IS* clear that a number of the Commissioners were aware of real harms that they associated -- rightly or wrongly -- with either the production, consumption, or distribution of certain sexually explicit materials. On the other hand, I also think that, given the difficulties involved, they made a compelling case that *some* of the harms do stem, if not from the material itself, then from the manners and circumstances in which it is produced and distributed, and maybe consumed. As far as the 1970 Commission: do you disagree with the assertion that the circumstances surrounding that statement are no longer true? How do you feel about the British and Canadian Commissions, which found at least the possibility of harm? As far as outcomes being predetermined: if the Commission was set up with as right-wing, righteous, and bible-thumping an agenda as some seem to feel, it obviously failed, indicating that it felt that there should be *no* restrictions on the ``written word'' (so long as it is non-pedophilic) and deploring the shoddy state of current research, relying as little as possible on it. (and then you cry that the Commission didn't use scientific methods!) And why the lengthy discussions about just what *constitutes* pornography (as opposed to erotica as opposed to ... )? Evidently there must have been a majority which felt (perhaps on rational grounds, perhaps on simple personal bias ...) that *not* all such material is harmful, or indecent, or whatever grounds one might have for condemning it, and that it was important to *not* condemn that material. > You've done little to rebutt this charge of bias. I think you need to > do so--going back to the politics which generated the commission and > the way they discharged their mission--before you continue to use it > in your anti-pornography arguments. Why rely on this report to > buttress your arguments when the people you're arguing against don't > support it as a source of unbiased information? Because I think that we've got a constructive discussion going. Even if we don't agree on the things that are in that Report, we are getting things aired, and apparently it is worth the while of the folk engaged in the discussion to engage in it. And *yes*, I *am* interested in what Adam has to say, and I've had to do some thinking to see where he and I really do agree, and at what point the disagreement begins. (Obviously we expect to see different results when certain hypothetical studies are done; obviously I take a conservative view in many ways; but the differences are more subtle than that ...) > [Yes, I've read up on the anti-pornography side, from Meese to Dworkin > to Linda Lovelace. I've got better things to do with my time than > read an entire rambling thousand-plus page report, though. Besides, > most porn really isn't to my taste, and the pages and pages of > explicit plot summaries in the report--have YOU read them?--are > nothing but porn in themselves. Funny that they'd do that--you don't > see the government handing out cocaine just so people can see how bad > it is!] The ``pages and pages'' are one small section of the report; unfortunately it *would* be improper to issue a report without an attempt to show what they were talking about. I agree that the prose of the report could be tauter; could you have done better under the same circumstances? (Never mind, I know that you wouldn't have bothered.) > Remember that two commissioners--two women!--publically repudiated > many of the findings of the male majority, claiming the majority had > no factual basis to support said findings. Have you investigated > this? Have you read the Nixon-era report? Have you visited adult > bookstores and moviehouses so you can see with your own eyes just what > it is you're talking about? [I've not an extensive amount of > experience here, but my suspicion is that the S&M-laced stuff the > Meese Commission concentrated on is pretty uncommon, and that scenes > of domination feature women in the dominant role as often as men.] I've been trying for six days to get the time to type those dissenting sections in. I think that you'll find that the essence of the dissent (which involved 3 statements by 3 Commissioners in combination) wasn't quite as simple as that. The strongest statement was a basic anti-censorship statement which acknowledged the possibility of harms. And the Commission itself (shall I find the page?) wrote that they could not be certain how representative the stuff was. On the other hand, it *was* representative of the things that some of them had seen in their work with individuals who *were* harmed as a (possibly indirect) result of *someone's* *production*, *consumption*, or *distribution* of explicit material. In this case, it may be argued (and I suspect it is the case) that much of the stuff they surveyed was *exactly* representative of the material that is associated with harms, and *not* representative of the material that most of the consumers here are familiar with. And if *that* is the case, maybe we *can* find a place to draw lines between material that is involved in patterns of harm, and the material that people here are into. And maybe it isn't the case. But we ought to try to get around to that question; we've nibbled at it a few times, but never really taken a bite out of it. > One final comment: the discussion seems to be degenerating into a > religious argument (and anything based upon American Protestant Ethics > is a religious argument at core). ... If you are arguing that it is either unreasonable or improper for a society to at least *display* (if not entirely hold to) a minimal set of common mores, then I wonder how you define a society or a culture? > ... Consider that some of the most > sexually explicit paintings and writings of other cultures come from a > religious base.... But *not* photographs of people actually doing it, nor video depictions. Perhaps there is no difference; somehow I don't buy it. By presenting these depictions, are we not in some way violating the very notions of sexual privacy that are so often argued on this group? Perhaps not. As a matter of personal opinion (to keep this from growing any longer) I think we are. > ... . Consider also that one of the most productive > industrial nations on Earth--Japan--has one of the lowest rates of sex > crimes yet consumes enormous amounts of often violent pornography. We > consume less, condemn it far more, yet rate number one in terms of sex > crimes. ... Didn't someone recently point out that sexual violence often goes unreported in Japan and is a *big* problem? > ... The reasons for this difference are doubtless complex, as is > the issue of pornography--far, far more complex than the Meese > Commission ever considered, which is why I dismiss its findings as > superficial propaganda and seek the truth elsewhere. I will agree that the phenomona are complex, and that we will probably never understand them all. I will argue that in the face of certain harms to an admittedly small class of individuals, by an admittedly small and abnormal group of offenders, it is not acceptable to throw up our hands and say ``I don't understand'' and not try remedies whose chance of harm is very small indeed, whose chance of at least partial and temporary success is fairly good, while trying to better understand what is happening so that we can both repair current damage and prevent future damage. -- from Mole End Mark Terribile (scrape .. dig ) mtx5b!mat (Please mail to mtx5b!mat, NOT mtx5a! mat, or to mtx5a!mtx5b!mat) (mtx5b!mole-end!mat will also reach me) ,.. .,, ,,, ..,***_*.
nolan@lll-crg.ARpA (Matt Nolan) (10/08/86)
Survey Time.
How many peole are reading Porn Commission related articles?
How many people "n" them?
I didn't even start reading them because they seem so long. Now
I feel I am missing out, because there are many postings. Are people
argueing with each other back and forth or are new points being discussed?
Suppose I were to start reading them, can someone post what has been discussed,
like a summary article? Also, are there particular people who you recommend
to read as opposed to not reading at all?
Nolan, Mattgsmith@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Gene Ward Smith) (10/09/86)
In article <1587@mtx5a.UUCP> mat@mtx5a.UUCP (m.terribile) writes: >As far as outcomes being predetermined: if the Commission was set up with >as right-wing, righteous, and bible-thumping an agenda as some seem to feel, >it obviously failed, indicating that it felt that there should be *no* >restrictions on the ``written word'' (so long as it is non-pedophilic) and >deploring the shoddy state of current research, relying as little as possible >on it. What is the basis for this recommendation? It seems to me that the compelling argument against pedophile material is that it must of necessity involve the exploitation of children. This is not the case for "the written word", or for drawings. On what basis would one allow written depictions of rape, torture of unwilling victims, mutilation and mayhem, but not of sex with ten year olds? One does not, after all (or at least *I* do not) wish to even call into question the legality of Lolita or the pedophilitic poetry in the Greek Anthology (i.e., if someone wants to translate it, it should undoubtedly be legal, since the Marquis de Sade would be). Another question is what sort of visual depictions are being outlawed. Does "Show Me" count? I read it was popular pedophile material, but it's just pictures of naked kids. Practically family photo album stuff! ucbvax!brahms!gsmith Gene Ward Smith/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720 "There are no differences but differences of degree between degrees of difference and no difference"
rodrique@hplabs.UUCP (Mike Rodriquez) (10/10/86)
I don't generally read any articles where the first page is all quotes, and/or the percentage read after one page is less than 25%.....just don't have the time or interest. Mike (ps, as a backbone SA, I am beginning to wonder whether I have the money to spend on shipping these articles around.)