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Topic: Human rights, cultural diversity, and moral relativity
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Silent H
Member (Idle past 5848 days) Posts: 7405 From: satellite of love Joined: 12-11-2002
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Howdy Brenna. I don't understand how you don't realize all of your statements end up defending my position. Let me break this down as simple as I can (because it can be complex). The UN is a political body meant solely to work out practical issues between nations. It is not about building norms, except in rules regarding direct contact between two nations. You are right that people have conceptualized it as greater than a practical instrument, including growing vague meanings into concrete normative expectations. However, it is still just a practical tool, and no matter what wonderfully worded documents anyone signed (or all of them), they are simply going to do what is in their interest by defining these things according to their own norms and needs. The UN generally has better success when it stops acting like morality cop. By the way, I am about to post three things to molbi. The one on FGM contains a link directly pertinent to the ongoing debate about FGM v MGM. You might find it interesting.
h "Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard
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Silent H
Member (Idle past 5848 days) Posts: 7405 From: satellite of love Joined: 12-11-2002
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Message 137 of 270 (435963)
11-23-2007 10:51 PM
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1... Armchair to Armchair (to Molbi)
My intention was to simply condense three replies, with an extra set of links. However, after reading your last post (and trying to find articles you cited) I've got more to discuss and a single post would be huge. Hence I'm creating more than one post, each on a single topic. Among the insults you threw at me was the charge of armchair anthropology. We are all... as far as I understand... armchairing it here (though as you will see in later posts I have grown to suspect one of us is in a Lay-Z Boy recliner...heheheh). Not one of us is flying off to start our own studies. The only question is how much work we're putting into understanding each other's arguments, providing (in good faith) evidence that might be pertinent, and understanding that evidence (ours and others'). This post is about understanding each other's arguments. The focus of this thread, as set out in my OP, is an ethical and political debate. I'm NOT arguing how cultures, communities, and nations are-- or should be-- defined by modern Cultural Anthropology. That would be a semantics issue with no relevance to the ethical and political argument at hand. As long as I set out definitions for the terms I am using, that should be fine enough. Requests for such citational "proofs" of common or scientific usage indicates a lack of clarity on what the real debate is about. That said... FGM was put forward as an example "cultural practice" for use in debate. In this case, requesting citations for statements made about FGM is pertinent. Though ultimately it is more important for others to define their own Ethical and Political position, than to knock mine. It is important to note-- if you could not figure it out from the OP-- that my position did not rest on the nature of FGM. It could be as horrible or as nice as anyone can imagine. Such things are irrelevant to me. Thus to me, the debate on the nature of FGM (and any evidence provided), is a secondary debate on the state of scientific methods and knowledge regarding that topic. Finally, coercion as an instrument of international political power is an assumption made by the OP. Not in the sense of any specific case, but that it is a tool available to any group with power over another. Some examples were given to start generating limits on its usage. One was the Spanish conquest of Central America, another the US's actions in the war on terror. During this discussion international documents were raised as if to point to real world consensus on a definition of human rights. When I mentioned coercion as plausible mechanisms behind such agreements, I was asked to cite sources for such a thing. But that is to miss the point entirely. We can agree for sake of argument... especially to save time and space... that absolutely no coercion ever takes place during international agreements. That does not make what they agree to objective reality, logically mandated, nor actions taken consistent/justified (ethically or politically). For example, the world body as a whole can announce that Jesus Christ is our savior, that the second temple must be built so that he can return to save humanity, and direct vital world resources to that end in the name of all humans on the planet. Such a thing wouldn't make those claims real, nor count as evidence that it could be. Likewise that many or all world bodies institute an agreement claiming that human rights are inherent to all humans, and that cultural traditions are not important compared to protecting "human dignity"-- as if that were not itself an artifact of cultural origin--, and that cultures only exist to improve the existence of individuals-- so that they can be judged by that measure accordingly--, does not make those concepts true or consistent. To engage in that logic is to commit the fallacy of Appeal to Authority or Majority. To end with a citation that works as a nice example of what I am talking about with regard to coercion as a tool, and FGM as an example, here is an excerpt from an article in the NY Times (linked to a free version at another site) :
{note: edited to save space} And the women who have been carrying out the cutting, and who have been revered by their communities for doing so, are beginning to lay down their knives. Ms. Shuriye, an elderly mother of eight who is known far and wide in northeastern Kenya for her expertise as a genital cutter, is one of them. When local members of Womankind Kenya, a grass-roots group opposing the practice, visited Ms. Shuriye's hut outside Garissa two years ago, she chased them off her property. This was something her mother had done before her. She started as an apprentice while still an adolescent by holding down girls' legs for her mother to perform the rite, which opponents call genital mutilation. "I thought my mother would curse me from the grave if I didn't carry on the tradition," she said. There were tangible benefits as well. She had prestige in her community and earned a good income, more than her husband did as a camel herder... She said she had no use for those people who came around denouncing her way of life. But the opponents were a determined lot. They knew that Ms. Shuriye was one of the longest-serving genital cutters around and that she held sway over the community. If only she could be converted, they figured, others would certainly follow. Ms. Shuriye, a frail but feisty grandmother who wraps her head in colorful scarves, was rather set in her ways. Again and again she refused to hear their arguments. "It was so difficult to change her mind," said Sophia Abdi Noor, the founder of Womankind Kenya... "We knew she was respected, and we wanted her on our side." Finally, the anti-cutting advocates tried a different tack. They showed up with religious leaders. Ms. Shuriye, a religious Muslim, could not chase them away. She sat down with some influential clerics in her community who had come to the realization that the tradition was harmful, and not dictated by or consistent with the teachings of the Koran. The imams denounced the practice. They told her that the vagina was a part of the body, just as important in the eyes of God as an eye, a finger or a limb. Cutting it, they argued in their long session outside her home, is a sin. They went even further. They told Ms. Shuriye that her sins required her to compensate the girls she had maimed. Each of them was due 80 camels, they said. Ms. Shuriye, prosperous by local standards but not that prosperous, was shaken. She sobbed. Then she prayed. Finally she pleaded with the imams for a way out of her impossible situation. They said the only way to avoid paying the compensation was to seek the forgiveness of each of the girls she had cut. That is when Ms. Shuriye turned from a cutter to an active opponent. She began making house calls on the girls who had gone under her knife. Many of them were women now. She explained her conversion and pleaded for their forgiveness. She cried each time, she said. So what we have is a NY Times article positively spinning women's rights groups using the power of Islamic Faith to enter an elderly woman's home against her will so that male Islamic religious leaders can blackmail her emotionally (fear of God), and financially (fear of enforced restitution based on Sharia Law) to end a cultural practice they claim is about male domination, and then cajole other women into the same... not to mention view herself and all others as damaged victims, where they used to feel proud and happy. The layers of irony and hypocrisy are many fold as an onion, and stink just the same. I hope that's obvious coercion. Anyway, the next two posts look at elements of the problem my OP discusses (evidence for my usage of terms and their reality), as well as evidence regarding the nature of FGM. Edited by Silent H, : to molbi
h "Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard
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Silent H
Member (Idle past 5848 days) Posts: 7405 From: satellite of love Joined: 12-11-2002
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Message 138 of 270 (435965)
11-23-2007 11:17 PM
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2... Multi v Mono culture (to molbi)
I'm certainly not going to challenge whether you have a degree in Cultural Anthropology. And I readily admit the closest cred I have is a minor in Soc with a course in Cultural Anthro. That said, I was taken aback by some of the incredulous comments you made, and one night something hit me. What is a cultural anthropologist doing using feminist doctrinal analysis on the practice of FGM? How is one reducing FGM to merely an instrument of sexual domination of women, as if there are no other factors involved, and asking an inane question regarding whether the removal of that "barbaric" practice would destroy the culture? Barbaric? That comment really started to stand out. Now maybe its the fact that I was into sociology and anthro-- taking courses and such-- a long time ago and things have changed a bit. But one of the first things we learned is that culturally dependent political analysis, like feminist theory or marxism or capitalism, is contrary to Anthropology. Indeed cultures must be understood from within their own belief system to make sense of them. Cultural relativism being a working tenet of anthropology. To the members of the cultures in question, particularly with regard to FGM, they are the ones being civilized, and we are barbaric. To not cut those parts away is to remain an animal, and acting on bestial qualities that are beneath civilized humans. There are also symbolic units, between male and female, which I would think a "professional" anthropologist would understand and accept as a part of the cultural belief system. You asked if its loss would destroy their culture. It would clearly change it. What do you mean by destroy? Speaking as a Cultural Anthropologist, what does it take to destroy any culture? Especially on a piece by piece basis. To argue that way, would it destroy our culture to lose any of the individual rights we enjoy? Or how about democracy as a system of gov't? This appears to be a poor form of argument on your part. That I cannot show an entire collapse of a system, based on the removal of one element does not argue that it is not an important part of that culture which might change it dramatically. Neither does it argue that removing such a practice is right according to our own standards. Of course then there was the issue of what a culture was at all. You couldn't understand my usage. A nation as a culture??? What is that? But the term is fluid even within the field of Anthro, right? There is no fixed term especially when making comparative statements regarding different groups of individuals. Which is a culture and which a subculture? According to your nonfluid view, what could ever be defined as a culture? But assuming I should re-evaluate my word choices, I went to Wiki and found very similar usages to mine at their entry on Nation, from which...
A nation is a form of cultural or social community. Nationhood is an ethical and philosophical doctrine and is the starting point for the ideology of nationalism. Members of a "nation" share a common identity, and usually a common origin, in the sense of ancestry, parentage or descent. A nation extends across generations, and includes the dead as full members. Past events are framed in this context; for example; by referring to "our soldiers" in conflicts which took place hundreds of years ago. More vaguely, nations are assumed to include future generations. A nation is a state, and while traditionally monocultural, it may also be multicultural in its self-definition Most nations are partly defined by a shared culture. Unlike a language, a national culture is usually unique to the nation, although it may include many elements shared with other nations. Additionally, the national culture is assumed to be shared with previous generations, and includes a cultural heritage from these generations, as if it were an inheritance. You can find my defs and usages similarly explained at Wiki's entries on... Culture, and American Culture, and Western Culture. Heck let's just throw in a link so you can check my crazy ideas about Cultural Anthropology while we're at it. Now I'm not claiming that Wiki is infallible or a full academic resource. However, it seems to undercut any incredulity you had at what I've been saying or the plausibility of my defining things as I have. Interestingly, while I was there, I found they had a link to monoculturalism. It's even mentioned in the quote above. Sadly I thought I was sort of popularizing the term... but the fact is that it's already in use in the EXACT MANNER I HAVE BEEN USING IT! Of course you weren't completely alone on expressing incredulity at people advocating such a thing. The following are excerpts from Wiki's Monoculturalism entry (actually part of their Multiculturalism page). It will run from description, to advocates of such, and some examples of success for that movement.
Monoculturalism implies a normative cultural unity or cultural homogeneity. Where a nation has accepted high levels of immigration, monoculturalism has been accompanied by varieties of assimilationist policies and practices to encourage forms of acculturation to (and protection of) the norms of the dominant culture. In the Western English-speaking countries, multiculturalism as an official national policy started in Canada in 1971, followed by Australia in 1973.[2] It was quickly adopted as official policy by most member-states of the European Union. Recently, right-of-center governments in several European states”notably the Netherlands and Denmark” have reversed the national policy and returned to an official monoculturalism... A similar reversal is the subject of debate in the United Kingdom and Germany, among others, due to evidence of incipient segregation and anxieties over 'home-grown' terrorism... ...In the United States especially, multiculturalism became associated with political correctness and with the rise of ethnic identity politics. In the 1980s and 1990s many criticisms were expressed, from both the left and right. Criticisms come from a wide variety of perspectives, but predominantly from the perspective of liberal individualism, from American conservatives concerned about values, and from a national unity perspective.
The liberal-feminist critique is related to the liberal and libertarian critique, since it is concerned with what happens inside the cultural groups. In her 1999 essay, later expanded into an anthology, "Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?" the feminist and political theorist Susan Okin argues that a concern for the preservation of cultural diversity should not overshadow the discriminatory nature of gender roles in many traditional minority cultures, ... In the United States, the cultural relativism implicit in multiculturalism attracted criticism. Often that was combined with an explicit preference for western Enlightenment values as universal values... The elite consensus on multiculturalism co-existed with widespread aversion to immigration, and an ethnic definition of the Dutch nation. Dutch nationalism, and support for a traditional national identity, never disappeared, but were not visible. When these factors re-entered political debate in the late 1990s, they contributed to the collapse of the consensus. The Netherlands has now attracted international attention for the extent to which it reversed its previous multiculturalist policies, and its policies on cultural assimilation have been described as the toughest in Europe. In 1999, the legal philosopher Paul Cliteur attacked multiculturalism in his book 'The Philosophy of Human Rights'[43] Cliteur rejects all political correctness on the issue: western culture, the Rechtsstaat (rule of law), and human rights are superior to non-western culture and values. They are the product of the Enlightenment: Cliteur sees non-western cultures not as merely different, but as anachronistic. He sees multiculturalism primarily as an unacceptable ideology of cultural relativism, which would lead to acceptance of barbaric practices, In 2002, the legal scholar Afshin Ellian - a refugee from Iran - advocated a monocultural Rechtsstaat in the Netherlands.[45] A liberal democracy cannot be multicultural, he argued, because multiculturalism is an ideology and a democracy has no official ideology. What is more, according to Ellian, a democracy must be monolingual. The Dutch language is the language of the constitution, and therefore it must be the only public language - all others must be limited to the private sphere. The Netherlands, he wrote, had been taken hostage by the left-wing multiculturalists, and their policy was in turn determined by the Islamic conservatives. Ellian stated that there were 800 000 Muslims in the country, with 450 mosques, and that the Netherlands had legalised the "feudal system of the Islamic Empire". Democracy and the rule of law could only be restored by abolishing multiculturalism.
The most prominent figure in the post-Fortuyn debate of the issue was Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Her first criticisms of multiculturalism paralleled those of the early liberal-feminist critics in the United States - the emphasis on group identity and group rights diminished individual liberty for those within the minorities, and especially for women. As time went on, her criticism was increasingly directed at Islam itself, and its incompatibility with democracy and western culture. By 2004 she was the most prominent critic of Islam in Europe. When she scripted a short film on Islamic oppression of women, featuring texts from the Quran on the naked bodies of women, its director Theo van Gogh was assassinated by an Islamist. Threatened with death and heavily guarded, she spent most of her time in the United States, and moved to Washington in 2006 to work for the American Enterprise Institute. In 2006 she also expressed support for the Eurabia thesis - that Europe is being fully Islamised, and that its non-Muslim inhabitants will be reduced to dhimmitude.[48] In a speech for CORE in January 2007, she declared that Western culture was overwhelmingly superior... For anyone familiar with my personal history, the above examples may explain why I am particularly sensitive to this movement, and quite negative on Hirsi Ali. I loved the Netherlands pre-monoculture takeover, and Ali was greatly responsible for the xenophobic movement which directly cost me the first attempt at getting citizenship there. It was with some personal delight to watch her movement turn on her, trying to strip her citizenship, as she had successfully done to so many others. Hehehe, she even left before I did. That she came to America to spread those same policies through the same neo-con org that gave us the Iraq War has not escaped my attention, and is rather aggravating. Anyway, given the above, if you (molbio) want to continue acting like you've no clue what I am talking about, why you can just bloviate me.... heheheh, kidding. I don't lose my religion until next post.
h "Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard
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molbiogirl
Member (Idle past 2670 days) Posts: 1909 From: MO Joined: 06-06-2007
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Message 139 of 270 (435972)
11-23-2007 11:39 PM
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Reply to: Message 137 by Silent H
11-23-2007 10:51 PM
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Re: 1... Armchair to Armchair (to Molbio)
Wow. Now I see what Crash was bitching about!
Among the insults you threw at me was the charge of armchair anthropology. We are all... as far as I understand... armchairing it here (though as you will see in later posts I have grown to suspect one of us is in a Lay-Z Boy recliner...heheheh). Not one of us is flying off to start our own studies. Speak for yourself.
arm·chair quar·ter·back (plural arm·chair quar·ter·backs) noun Definition: 1. viewer who criticizes conduct of games: somebody who is certain that he or she can make better calls than the coaches or players while watching a competitive sport on television 2. giver of unwanted advice: somebody who offers unwanted advice about how to do something or tries to supervise an activity without being asked http://encarta.msn.com/...61535560/armchair_quarterback.html As an undergraduate, I did work on the Tchambuli. Now, however, I am a PhD candidate in Biochemistry. I work with ribozymes.
During this discussion international documents were raised as if to point to real world consensus on a definition of human rights. When I mentioned coercion as plausible mechanisms behind such agreements, I was asked to cite sources for such a thing. But that is to miss the point entirely. We can agree for sake of argument... especially to save time and space... that absolutely no coercion ever takes place during international agreements. That does not make what they agree to objective reality, logically mandated, nor actions taken consistent/justified (ethically or politically). Sounds reasonable so far ...
For example, the world body as a whole can announce that Jesus Christ is our savior, that the second temple must be built so that he can return to save humanity, and direct vital world resources to that end in the name of all humans on the planet. Such a thing wouldn't make those claims real, nor count as evidence that it could be. Likewise that many or all world bodies institute an agreement claiming that human rights are inherent to all humans, and that cultural traditions are not important compared to protecting "human dignity"-- as if that were not itself an artifact of cultural origin--, and that cultures only exist to improve the existence of individuals-- so that they can be judged by that measure accordingly--, does not make those concepts true or consistent. To engage in that logic is to commit the fallacy of Appeal to Authority or Majority. ... Oops! Spoke too soon! What in the flying squirrel does this have to do with your hypothetical (some country not following a UN resolution that they signed onto)? Non sequitur much? Seriously. Where oh where, in your fevered imagination, have you found an appeal to authority in your hypothetical?
To end with a citation that works as a nice example of what I am talking about with regard to coercion as a tool, and FGM as an example, here is an excerpt from an article in the NY Times (linked to a free version at another site) Yes. That is coercion. What has that to do with my original question? In case you have forgotten: What evidence have you that the OAU was coerced into signing the various UN human rights resolutions?
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 137 by Silent H, posted 11-23-2007 10:51 PM | | Silent H has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 144 by Silent H, posted 11-24-2007 12:27 AM | | molbiogirl has not replied |
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macaroniandcheese 
Suspended Member (Idle past 3956 days) Posts: 4258 Joined: 05-24-2004
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Message 140 of 270 (435974)
11-23-2007 11:45 PM
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Reply to: Message 136 by Silent H
11-23-2007 10:23 PM
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The UN is a political body meant solely to work out practical issues between nations. It is not about building norms, except in rules regarding direct contact between two nations. it is about building norms. norms are cultural standards. they are developed by people in communication. the entire purpose of international organization is to build international standards of behavior. read a book or two. read this. look, it's even a cheap copy. look. i know this is hard to believe. but i promise you i know what i'm talking about. i don't need you to break it down simple for me. i'm an elective and a dead adviser away from having a master's in this shit.
they are simply going to do what is in their interest yes. they will do what's in their interests. but interests are complicated things. only realists are dense enough to believe that interests only means short or long term specific national security. interests include what's best for the nation, the whole nation, and what's best for the leader. that's the thing about norms. they aren't defined by writ. they're defined by developed standards in the international system. because of the increase communication, there is a singular international culture. there really is. what you don't seem to get is that there are lots of "cultures" and they intertwine and overlap and diverge all over the place. the culture of the international system is continually developing and standards are changing and strengthening. one of those normative standards is that you don't interfere with national sovereignty. another is that you keep your word. these sound like very simple, obvious things, but they're the very heart of normative standards.
You are right that people have conceptualized it as greater than a practical instrument, including growing vague meanings into concrete normative expectations. you misunderstood. norms form on their own. they really, really do. the un is a facility. it helps build norms by increasing communication and the freedom to do it. then, the codify some of the norms that are developed. if nations fail to follow their standards, they pay the consequences. they won't pay them legally yet, but they will pay them in their relationships with other nations. nations who don't play nice don't have friends. notice anything with the us recently? that no one wants to play with us?
You might find it interesting. probably not.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 136 by Silent H, posted 11-23-2007 10:23 PM | | Silent H has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 151 by Silent H, posted 11-24-2007 2:02 AM | | macaroniandcheese has replied |
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macaroniandcheese
Suspended Member (Idle past 3956 days) Posts: 4258 Joined: 05-24-2004
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Message 141 of 270 (435975)
11-23-2007 11:47 PM
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Reply to: Message 137 by Silent H
11-23-2007 10:51 PM
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Re: 1... Armchair to Armchair (to Molbi)
We are all... as far as I understand... armchairing it here (though as you will see in later posts I have grown to suspect one of us is in a Lay-Z Boy recliner...heheheh). Not one of us is flying off to start our own studies. um. no. try again. if you choose to post from ignorance, that's your prerogative. but do not accuse the rest of us of your sin.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 137 by Silent H, posted 11-23-2007 10:51 PM | | Silent H has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 146 by Silent H, posted 11-24-2007 12:51 AM | | macaroniandcheese has replied |
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molbiogirl
Member (Idle past 2670 days) Posts: 1909 From: MO Joined: 06-06-2007
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Message 142 of 270 (435977)
11-24-2007 12:12 AM
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Reply to: Message 138 by Silent H
11-23-2007 11:17 PM
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Re: 2... Multi v Mono culture (to molbio)
What is a cultural anthropologist doing using feminist doctrinal analysis on the practice of FGM? How is one reducing FGM to merely an instrument of sexual domination of women, as if there are no other factors involved, and asking an inane question regarding whether the removal of that "barbaric" practice would destroy the culture? You loves to do some assumin', doncha, H? Please. Show me where I claimed FGM is "merely" an instrument of domination. Show me where I claimed "there are no other factors". In case you haven't noticed, I'm from Missouri. So. SHOW ME.
You asked if its loss would destroy their culture. It would clearly change it. What do you mean by destroy? I haven't any idea what YOU meant by destroy. It's from your OP! The first sentence, for pete's sake:
It is my belief the concept of human rights is currently being used as a pretext to destroy cultural diversity. After you finish answering your own question, how's about your dismantle your strawman:
Speaking as a Cultural Anthropologist, what does it take to destroy any culture? Especially on a piece by piece basis. To argue that way, would it destroy our culture to lose any of the individual rights we enjoy? Or how about democracy as a system of gov't? This appears to be a poor form of argument on your part. That I cannot show an entire collapse of a system, based on the removal of one element does not argue that it is not an important part of that culture which might change it dramatically. Neither does it argue that removing such a practice is right according to our own standards. Oh yessss! He's an assumin' boy, yes he is! Show me where I said "removing one piece" of a culture would "destroy" it? YOU are the one who claimed that human rights are being used as PC cover to destroy other cultures. I asked YOU to show how it would work! And now you're accusing ME of having said eradicating FGM would destroy an FGM-practicing culture? Yowza. You are a piece of work, H. Re: monoculture. Why don't you mosey on over to pubmed and google 'monoculture'. What's this? Biology cites? Hmmmmmm. How's about an anthro database, AnthroBase - Social and Cultural Anthropology - A searchable database of anthropological texts. Maybe you'll have better luck over there. Huh. Nothing! Let's try another anthro site, http://wings.buffalo.edu/ARD. Darn it! Nothing again! Let's try another one,
Advance Your Career
. Dammit! Nothing! Huh. Whodathunkit? Anthropologists don't use that term, it seems. Look. H. You need to show me that "monoculture" exists. Not that some wingnut thought it up.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 138 by Silent H, posted 11-23-2007 11:17 PM | | Silent H has replied |
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Silent H
Member (Idle past 5848 days) Posts: 7405 From: satellite of love Joined: 12-11-2002
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Message 143 of 270 (435978)
11-24-2007 12:13 AM
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3... FGM (to molbi... and others interested in MGM)
As I said I am not an expert on FGM. The practice of FGM, based on what I knew, seemed pretty awful. I was surprised when looking at the data, that perhaps some of my knowledge was counter to evidence. I like skepticism so I ran with questioning my own preconceptions, and public mantra, on the topic. You are correct that Lightfoot-Klein's (from now on I'll say Klein's) research had methodological flaws, and I don't remember saying otherwise. My only point with her research is that it presented some opposite conclusions to popular conception, and gave a pretty good account for questioning methodology in earlier research on FGM's effects. Cultural traditions regarding how sex is discussed could heavily influence results. One would think an anthropologist would have found that interesting and plausible, rather than mocking the tradition (the smoke ceremony being a public secret... how does that undercut what she said?), and throwing personal insults at her (as if not being classically trained is a real charge?). You then offered abstracts which appeared to support claims of FGM's negative effects on female sexuality. From what I could see, the methods of the first were problematic in that it was clinical (which is well known to skew results) and the stated results in the abstract essentially meaningless (what do the %s actually represent) as well as inconsistent. The second article was simply a literature review and contained the same type of articles (old) you challenged Klein's paper for referencing. Given the nature of your criticism of Klein, and the nature of your citations, I presented a cite of a very recent study that countered the claims in yours, and suggested there was more research with such "non-negative" findings. My question to you... now what? Your only criticism was that it was an abstract. Did you not offer citations which were merely abstracts? Were they not meant to convince me? If I had agreed they showed your position was right, wouldn't argument have ceased? If they were meant to convince, then mine should have been equally acceptable to you. You should have dealt with the results. Ironically when I went to post this, I found another post by you offering still more abstracts and lit reviews in support of your position... but no methods to research. You even concluded by suggesting you had put the issue "to bed". Am I supposed to ignore why you handwaved away my cite, and now accept this new stuff (which ironically is OLDER than my cite)? Anyway, being interested in the science I decided to look at the cites you gave as much as I could find given my admitted armchair restrictions... On your first two cites. Dareer's paper is old (something you seem to criticize in others) and isolated to undescribed interviews of Sudanese women (whose culture is known not to be easy to assess on such questions). The second quote you referenced as coming from Hosken, F. (1993). The Hosken Report... However I found that same quote as coming from Rushwan, H. (1996). Intriguingly those two quotes were together (though in opposite order) in an FGM lit review at: PATH. Perhaps you can shed light on whether you or they mis-cited that quote, which by the way is nothing but an undocumented assertion as offered. It's a non-sequitur. I am assuming of course that you weren't quote-mining PATH to pretend you did some great literature search yourself. That link contains some interesting mix of info, including some contrary stuff regarding effects on sex drive as well as why it is practiced... I'll leave the link as is, but here are some very short snippets around the piggy-backed quotes you had used in your post (but not from there of course)...
Cultural values and ambiguities make women's sexuality very complex. This is also an area that has not been widely studied. Although it is difficult to verify reports of women's sexual experiences, physical complications from FGM often impede sexual enjoyment... In a 1993 Sudanese study, 5.5 percent of women interviewed experienced painful intercourse while 9.3 percent of them reported having difficult or impossible penetration. Those opening statements are suggestive as to the state of knowledge and call into question their ultimate assertions. Given that this is an entity whose purpose is to eradicate the practice, they might be taken with a grain of salt. Intriguingly those last figures are rather low and it is a later study than the other Sudanese study you offered. Further up the page you can see a study which has the complaint of low libido (in Kenyan women) at only 3.6%. Your third cite (Thabet) has some merit. I'd like to know more about it, though again the methods are unknown. Taken as is, it is interesting to note that the author is arguing that parts remain for pleasure, even in type 3's, if only that they have to be reconstructed for greater pleasure. And as is there are still a lot of women who do have pleasure (even if statistically less than uncut women). I found another article done around the same year, with somewhat different findings. Admittedly it is of type 1&2 vs uncut, which may dovetail with Thabet's findings to suggest it is only the most severe (type 3) which can lead to reduced pleasure, though fixable through clitoro-labial reconstruction. Here it is in full, sorry that this is long... The association between female genital cutting and correlates of sexual and gynaecological morbidity in Edo State, Nigeria. Okonofu FE, Larsen U, Oronsaye F, Snow RC, Slanger TE. BJOG (2002 or 3)
OBJECTIVE: To examine the association between female genital cutting and frequency of sexual and gynaecological symptoms among a cohort of cut versus uncut women in Edo State of Nigeria. DESIGN: Cross sectional study. SETTING: Women attending family planning and antenatal clinics at three hospitals in Edo State, South-south Nigeria. POPULATION: 1836 healthy premenopausal women. METHODS: The sample included 1836 women. Information about type of female genital cutting was based on medical exams while a structured questionnaire was used to elicit information on the women's sociodemographic characteristics, their ages of first menstruation (menarche), first intercourse, marriage and pregnancy, sexual history and experiences of symptoms of reproductive tract infections. Associations between female genital cutting and these correlates of sexual and gynaecologic morbidity were analysed using univariate and multivariate logistic regression and Cox models. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Frequency of self-reported orgasm achieved during sexual intercourse and symptoms of reproductive tract infections. RESULTS: Forty-five percent were circumcised and 71% had type 1, while 24% had type 2 female genital cutting. No significant differences between cut and uncut women were observed in the frequency of reports of sexual intercourse in the preceding week or month, the frequency of reports of early arousal during intercourse and the proportions reporting experience of orgasm during intercourse. There was also no difference between cut and uncut women in their reported ages of menarche, first intercourse or first marriage in the multivariate models controlling for the effects of socio-economic factors. In contrast, cut women were 1.25 times more likely to get pregnant at a given age than uncut women. Uncut women were significantly more likely to report that the clitoris is the most sexually sensitive part of their body (OR = 0.35, 95% CI = 0.26-0.47), while cut women were more likely to report that their breasts are their most sexually sensitive body parts (OR = 1.91; 95% CI = 1.51-2.42). Cut women were significantly more likely than uncut women to report having lower abdominal pain (OR = 1.54, 95% CI = 1.11-2.14), yellow bad-smelling vaginal discharge (OR = 2.81, 95% CI = 1.54-5.09), white vaginal discharge (OR = 1.65, 95% CI = 1.09-2.49) and genital ulcers (OR = 4.38, 95% CI 1.13-17.00). CONCLUSION: Female genital cutting in this group of women did not attenuate sexual feelings. However, female genital cutting may predispose women to adverse sexuality outcomes including early pregnancy and reproductive tract infections. Therefore, female genital cutting cannot be justified by arguments that suggest that it reduces sexual activity in women and prevents adverse outcomes of sexuality. Your fourth cite was from amnesty which is also against FGM. You emphasized their statement that "a majority of studies on women's enjoyment of sex suggest that genital mutilation does impair a women's enjoyment." From which YOU then concluded studies I had cited, were "outliers". My first response would be to note that your quote was from 1997, a full ten years older than my recent study which suggested that more recent studies are coming to opposite conclusions. Second, I would note the word "majority" does not tell us how much of a majority, nor if there are any reasons to hold one group as more reliable than another (for example because of age and methodology). Third, implicit in that label is that there IS contradictory evidence. This of course leads me to your decision to circumcise your own citation. What immediately followed your quote was this...
However, one study found that 90% of the infibulated women interviewed reported experiencing orgasm... The mechanisms involved in sexual enjoyment and orgasm are still not fully understood, but it is thought that compensatory processes, some of them psychological, may mitigate some of the effects of removal of the clitoris and other sensitive parts of the genitals. That means their actual conclusion was NOT what you made it out to be. Please don't do that again. I believe it's actually against the rules here, but in any case, it's pretty bad form. Especially when you go to great lengths to extol your virtue as not speaking out your ass. From what I'm reading, the telltale odour is indicative otherwise. I'm going to end this with a final citation I hope everyone will take a gander at. It should be of special interest to those debating FGM v MGM. Intriguingly it's from an anthroplogist, acting in a manner I would expect an anthropologist to be acting. The full paper is an examination of the issue of GM in the light of different views and activities concerning FGM and MGM. The author is not in favour of one or the other and even concludes that she is not arguing for relativism that excludes coming to a negative opinion of either one. But she does not shy away from condemning the bold assertions made by anti-FGM activists, including world bodies like the WHO, in their quest to demonize something and remove it from adequate scientific scrutiny, as well as anthropological understanding. If anyone wants a good idea of what my opinion is of the state of science on FGM or MGM, this is a very good example...
Genital Cutting and Western Discourses on Sexuality, KIRSTEN BELL
MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY QUARTERLY, Volume 19, Number 2: Pages 125-148,
June 2005. Various snippets (but please read the whole thing at the link above)
My goal was to provide students with a more culturally relative perspective on female circumcision and to encourage them to consider similar practices in their own society. To this end, I drew comparisons to male circumcision... Each semester, the reaction of the students was both immediate and hostile. How dare I mention these two entirely different operations in the same breath! How dare I compare the innocuous and beneficial removal of the foreskin with the extreme mutilations enacted against females in other societies! ...I discussed the tendency among policy makers to homogenize female genital surgeries and to equate operations diverse in form and function with their most severe manifestations, while simultaneously reducing their meaning to patriarchy. I also pointed out that just as there is a common inclination to consider all female operations under the rubric of “mutilation,” there is a parallel tendency to collapse the widely variable forms of male genital cutting into a single operation involving the removal of the prepuce of the penis (see Caldwell, Orubuloye, and Caldwell 1997:1184)... ...Although it is true that several of the students did perceive that operations such as subincision constitute a form of mutilation, there was little sense that it was of a sexual nature. Indeed, what was striking was how willing students were to relegate such practices to the realm of “culture,” and how unwilling they were to place female surgeries in the same realm... ... Western treatments of male and female circumcision is alien to many Africans, who consider these operations to be fundamentally related in both their functions and effects. However, little attempt has been made to explore precisely why international opinion remains largely hostile to female genital cutting and indifferent to the male operations... ...Implicit within the WHO position is the assumption that such operations destroy female sexuality. This focus on sexual health becomes even more explicit in labels such as “sexual castration” (Badawi 1989; Hosken 1994:38) and “sexual blinding” (Walker 1992) that several writers have used to describe the procedures. Thus, although these organizations claim to be concerned about health generally, they are really concerned specifically with sexual health. This is because the detrimental long-term health consequences seem limited largely to in- fibulation (see Obermeyer 1999, 2003; Shell-Duncan and Hernlund 2000:14-18; Shweder 2000), which accounts for around only 15 percent of cases. Moreover, the short-term health effects can be minimized through the use of trained surgeons, sterile equipment, and anesthetics (i.e., the transfer of surgery to a medical setting). Yet, as Shell-Duncan, Obiero, and Muruli (2000:110) point out, “paradoxically, those who emphasize female ”circumcision’ as a public health issue at the same time oppose any medical intervention designed to minimize health risks and pain for women being cut.” Thus, the opposition of the World Health Organization (1997) and many other international agencies to the medicalization of female operations would reinforce the idea that their key opposition to female genital cutting relates specifically to its impact on female sexual health... ...what is interesting here is how irrelevant the issue of reduced sensation is for both the men who have this operation and their sexual partners. This poses a striking contrast to the dominant discourses surrounding female genital cutting, where the idea of a woman undergoing genital surgery to enhance her partner’s sexual pleasure (while concomitantly reducing her own level of sensation) strikes most observers as “barbaric” and misogynistic... ...It is clear that popular discourses on genital cutting are infused with cultural assumptions about male and female sexuality. Yet, these same discourses display a tendency to essentialize and universalize human sexuality in rather disturbing ways. As Fuambai Ahmadu (2000:284) notes, The aversion of some writers to the practice of female circumcision has more to do with deeply embedded Western cultural assumptions regarding women’s bodies and their sexuality than with disputable health effects of genital operations on African women. . . . One universalized assumption is that human bodies are “complete” and that sex is “given” at birth. A second assumption is that the clitoris represents an integral aspect of femininity and has a central erotic function in women’s sexuality.
Ahmadu argues that many women (herself included) who had sexual experiences prior to excision perceive either no difference or increased sexual satisfaction. She also points out that many Western women who have clitorises are unable to achieve orgasms. Similarly, Rogaia Abusharaf (2000:152) points out that Western women overemphasize the effects of female circumcision on sexual pleasure and that the specificity of African women’s experience is overlooked. Ellen Gruenbaum (2001:133-157) also questions the generalization that female sexual response is destroyed in circumcised women, pointing out that these perspectives are, in part, the result of ethnocentrism. Discussing her Sudanese experiences, she documents the changes in her own perceptions of female sexuality, as they were challenged over the course of her fieldwork. Gruenbaum (2001:140- 141) writes, I knew that men have orgasms (“finish”) in sex, but do women also? Yes, I was told, women “finish.” I wanted to ascertain that what they were talking about was a true orgasm and not some vague conceptualization by women who had never personally experienced them. I pressed for a clearer description. Somewhat exasperated that I didn’t seem to understand plain Arabic, a visiting midwife named Miriam grabbed by hand, squeezed by fingers, and said, “Look, Ellen, some of us do ”finish.’ It feels like electricity, like this,” and she flicked her finger sharply and rhythmically against my constricted fingers. Iwas convinced we were talking about the same thing.31 Vicki Kirby (1987:44), in an early article on female circumcision, cuts to the heart of the problem with applying Western understandings of sexuality to other cultural contexts. She writes, Although a whole battery of disciplinary practices (medical, pedagogical, familial, architectural, etc.) have produced what we take to be this essence of our personhood, we have reclaimed this cultural effect as a biological fact. Consequently, what has come to secure the “truth” of Western bodies becomes problematic when it is used as a universal, explanatory grid: the pleasures and desires of a body situated in other histories and other cultures, may not be so readily comprehended. Obermeyer (1999:95) concurs, pointing out that while studies that systematically investigate the effects of genital cutting on female sexuality are rare, the available evidence raises important questions about whether the link between an intact clitoris and orgasm represents an indisputable physiological reality... ...despite the heterogeneous voices speaking on this topic, I believe that many of these perspectives share common reductionist tendencies. Therefore, I think that policy makers err in assuming that their readiness to condemn female circumcision and condone male circumcision stems merely from the natural attributes and effects of these practices. Medical and commonsense constructions of the human body are not divorced from cultural beliefs and values, and such assumptions about the nature of the male and female body need to be critically interrogated in all of their complexity. It is my view that genital operations become tied into much larger discourses about the nature of sexuality. As I have shown, in the context of genital cutting, assumptions are regularly invoked that are readily challenged elsewhere. These assumptions include the idea that the male body provides the basis for understanding the female body; that men are ruled by their penises and that females are sexually passive; and that human sexuality is reducible to anatomy and physiology. Unsurprisingly, this framework results in a widespread inability to conceptualize male circumcision as anything other than beneficial and a similar inability to conceptualize female circumcision as anything other than a form of sexual mutilation tied directly to patriarchal domination. However, I suggest that the terms under which female circumcision is presently condemned by international agencies such as the World Health Organization deserve close scrutiny. Sorry for the length, but I thought the nature of the review supported its length for accuracy. I hope people will read the full paper.
h "Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard
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Silent H
Member (Idle past 5848 days) Posts: 7405 From: satellite of love Joined: 12-11-2002
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ahem... armchairing
Well well well... Sorry to say that I use Merriam-Webster...
armchair Function:adjective Date:1858 1 : remote from direct dealing with problems : theoretical rather than practical 2 : sharing vicariously in another's experiences
We are all dealing with these topics theoretically. I realize it can be used purely derogatorily, but if you couldn't figure out I was riffing on your insult.
Where oh where, in your fevered imagination, have you found an appeal to authority in your hypothetical?
If someone says that because a world body had agreed to what I outlined, that it meant Jesus WAS our savior, needed to be brought back, etc... I thought that was pretty simple.
In case you have forgotten: What evidence have you that the OAU was coerced into signing the various UN human rights resolutions?
Are you hard of reading? I stated in that post that I was totally willing to say for sake of argument, that there wasn't any. It makes no difference to the ethical/political debate at hand. However, if you happen to be interested in how ununiform human rights are considered/treated by OAU, check into the history of their court on human rights and the impediments to its implementation. As far as I am concerned this is wayyyyyy off topic, and a subject I am not particularly intersted in... Hence I'm totally willing to give you that there isn't any.
h "Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 139 by molbiogirl, posted 11-23-2007 11:39 PM | | molbiogirl has not replied |
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Silent H
Member (Idle past 5848 days) Posts: 7405 From: satellite of love Joined: 12-11-2002
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Re: 2... Multi v Mono culture (to molbio)
Show me where I claimed FGM is "merely" an instrument of domination.
Well earlier you said this...
So. FGM is intended to control women. And I do not remember you ever discussing any other cultural reason for it. Perhaps you can cite where you discuss its other merits within that culture?
I haven't any idea what YOU meant by destroy. It's from your OP! The first sentence, for pete's sake:
Can't you tell the difference between saying cultural diversity will be destroyed and a statement that a culture has been destroyed? I said the former, you asked the latter. (AbE)And by the way, I was punking on your question itself, NOT saying you were claiming cultures could be destroyed. It was to insinuate you were asking a question you knew would be unanswerable. My original edition even had something like "You know and I know...", but I chopped the section out to save space. I thought it was clear enough.
Show me where I said "removing one piece" of a culture would "destroy" it?
You asked my how ending FGM would destroy a culture. That is ONE piece is it not? And that is NOT synonymous with my saying destruction of cultural diversity.
Whodathunkit? Anthropologists don't use that term, it seems. Look. H. You need to show me that "monoculture" exists. Not that some wingnut thought it up.
I just gave you a link to its usage. That it is not used by any specific scientific group does not make it unreal. Did you have a hard time understanding it? Oh and nice dodge on all the rest of the things you dismissed like nations and cultures. But hey, take a look at where else I found monoculture...
Main Entry: monoculture
Function:noun
Date:1915
1 : the cultivation or growth of a single crop or organism especially on agricultural or forest land 2 : a crop or a population of a single kind of organism grown on land in monoculture 3 : a culture dominated by a single element : a prevailing culture marked by homogeneity
But you know old Webster... what a wingnut! Edited by Silent H, : took, take Edited by Silent H, : clarification.
h "Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard
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Silent H
Member (Idle past 5848 days) Posts: 7405 From: satellite of love Joined: 12-11-2002
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armchair, again...
um. no. try again. if you choose to post from ignorance, that's your prerogative. but do not accuse the rest of us of your sin.
You know all I was doing was riffing on an insult. Ugh, last time I do that. Anyway, to armchair does not mean inherently to do something from ignorance, it means from a purely theoretical standpoint. It means you are not right where something is going on where the understanding might change. In this context, none of us are rushing off into the field to study the exact things we have under discussion. And I caveated my statement with "as far as I understand". Maybe someone is.
h "Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard
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crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1496 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: 03-20-2003
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Message 147 of 270 (435986)
11-24-2007 12:58 AM
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Reply to: Message 146 by Silent H
11-24-2007 12:51 AM
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Holmes-ese
Anyway, to armchair does not mean inherently to do something from ignorance, it means from a purely theoretical standpoint. Right, but you ignore that the implication is that the standpoint is theoretical precisely because a person completely lacks practical experience in what he's talking about. I.e. an "armchair quarterback" has never played any football and is in no shape to do so; an "armchair general" has never served in the military and probably can't even fire a gun. To pretend otherwise, Holmes, indicates one of two things - you don't possess the requisite skills in English to properly use idioms; or you have absolutely no problem insulting your interlocutors and then hiding behind disingenuous "explanations" of how your insults weren't really meant to be insulting. Sure, sure. It's just another one of your "jokes" gone horribly awry. How stupid do you think we are?
Ugh, last time I do that. Oh, if only.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 146 by Silent H, posted 11-24-2007 12:51 AM | | Silent H has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 149 by Silent H, posted 11-24-2007 1:45 AM | | crashfrog has replied |
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Silent H
Member (Idle past 5848 days) Posts: 7405 From: satellite of love Joined: 12-11-2002
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Re: 2... Multi v Mono culture (to molbio)
Actually, let me hit you a bit harder. After all of your disingenuous behavior (and I think I feel safe in characterizing it as such) I decided to go ahead and test your claims on not finding anything about monoculture in science literature. I started with PubMed. The word itself came up with only biological stuff. But did you think to use its other forms? I tried "monocultural" and got 21 hits that are a mix of socio and bio articles. Here is 1 example... Ethnic identity and acculturation in Hispanic early adolescents: Mediated relationships to academic grades, prosocial behaviors, and externalizing symptoms. Schwartz SJ, Zamboanga BL, Jarvis LH. Cultur Divers Ethnic Minor Psychol. 2007 Oct;13(4):364-73.Click here to read Links
This study examined acculturative stress and self-esteem as mediators of the association of ethnic identity and acculturation with psychosocial outcomes. The study sample consisted of 347 Hispanic adolescents in a "new" immigrant-receiving community in the Midwest. The authors expected acculturation to influence psychosocial adjustment through acculturative stress and ethnic identity to influence psychosocial adjustment through self-esteem. Results indicated that relationships of ethnic identity to academic grades and to externalizing symptoms were mediated by self-esteem and that both U.S. and Hispanic acculturation orientations were directly associated with prosocial behavior. The relationships of U.S. cultural orientation to academic grades and to behavior problems were mediated through acculturative stress and self-esteem. Implications of these findings for the study of Hispanics in more monocultural receiving communities are discussed. Here is another... Some effects of bicultural and monocultural school environments on personality development. Goebes DD, Shore MF. Am J Orthopsychiatry. 1978 Jul;48(3):398-407.Links
Preadolescent girls in a bicultural school, compared with those in a monocultural school, showed more heterocultural peer-group organization, better self-image, and greater acceptance of an unknown cultural group. These differences were not found among younger (latency-age) children in the two schools. No significant differences were found in role-taking ability between girls in the two schools, suggesting that the bicultural school environment contributes to the difference in the other personality dimensions studied. Do I need to continue, or are these wingnuts too? I think I deserve an apology for the "not talking out your ass" claim. The stench is getting pretty thick.
h "Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard
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Silent H
Member (Idle past 5848 days) Posts: 7405 From: satellite of love Joined: 12-11-2002
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Message 149 of 270 (435994)
11-24-2007 1:45 AM
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Reply to: Message 147 by crashfrog
11-24-2007 12:58 AM
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Re: Holmes-ese
I think I'll break my silence to deal with this as its a discussion of insults. The use of the term "armchair" does not have to mean lack of practical experience at all. It can mean that one is safely speaking from a point where it is easy to criticize. Like say, outside the ballpark where one is not playing second by second under the roar of the crowd (like the actual QB is), or facing the guns (and other conditions) of battle. Thus a guy who played football all high school, and so knows the game, can grow up to be the 45 yo Armchair Quarterback saying how easy it would have been for him to have made the right play. So can a general, criticize another fighting a fierce campaign, while safe in his drawing room hundreds of miles away.
you don't possess the requisite skills in English to properly use idioms;
Perhaps I don't. I stated accurately how I was using it.
or you have absolutely no problem insulting your interlocutors and then hiding behind disingenuous "explanations" of how your insults weren't really meant to be insulting.
Clue to guy with reading problem... I was called an armchair anthropologist, not the other way around. I took her to mean not doing any practical research, or criticizing from a distance, not that I was talking from a position of ignorance. It was after her insult that I said we all are armchairing it at EvC... that implicates myself as well. Why would I insult myself? But hey, given what Molbio just said, I guess you are right... that is what SHE meant. What a shame. Happy Thanksgiving. Edited by Silent H, : for play
h "Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 147 by crashfrog, posted 11-24-2007 12:58 AM | | crashfrog has replied |
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crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1496 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: 03-20-2003
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Message 150 of 270 (435997)
11-24-2007 1:58 AM
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Reply to: Message 149 by Silent H
11-24-2007 1:45 AM
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Re: Holmes-ese
I think I'll break my silence to deal with this as its a discussion of insults. Well, then it's right up your alley, isn't it? Nonetheless I'm somewhat puzzled by your "silence." You didn't feel any particular need to be silent in the philosophy thread, and you even started this thread with the hope of moving a discussion we were having into a more appropriate forum. It was you who asked me over here, right? Then, you couldn't even bring yourself to address a single one of my refutations, instead preferring to send your own thread into a spiral of anti-feminist male entitlement at the mere mention of the practice of FGM. Instead of breaking your "silence", why can't you seem to break your habit of continuous dishonesty?
Like say, outside the ballpark where one is not playing second by second under the roar of the crowd (like the actual QB is), or facing the guns (and other conditions) of battle. And, as I said, the clear implication is always that the person is in the armchair because they're not qualified to be on the field. The implication is always one of someone who has exceeded their expertise, due to a lack of practical experience resulting from an inability to meet even the minimum requirements for participation. That's clearly how Brenna took it, and she's absolutely right to have done so. If you'd like to pretend like you're the sole arbiter of word meaning, that's fine, but you don't really have a basis to complain when the rest of us interpret your comments in English, instead of in Holmes-ese.
But hey, given what Molbio just said, I guess you are right... that is what SHE meant. Hey, congratulations, but I don't recall her ever claiming otherwise. That was your claim, remember? I know it's hard since you shift them so often, but do try to have some memory of what you're backpedalling from, ok?
It was after her insult that I said we all are armchairing it at EvC... that implicates myself as well. But many of us are not. Many of us, in fact, are practicing professionals in the fields on which we're commenting. I know you find it hard to believe, Holmes, since you oh-so-conveniently find that your background equips you to be an expert on every subject on which you comment (uh-huh); but there actually are people here who know more than you. If you paid attention to them, rather than writing off their comments as "feminist doctrinal analysis" in a fit of chauvinist pique, you might actually learn something. Anyway, now that you've broken your vow of silence, maybe you could respond to any one of the numerous points you asked me to raise in this thread? Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 149 by Silent H, posted 11-24-2007 1:45 AM | | Silent H has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 152 by Silent H, posted 11-24-2007 2:22 AM | | crashfrog has replied |
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