| wha...? rape is coercion. good luck on that correlation. if incest is psychologically or physically coerced then it rape as well incest has a negative physical effect on society as far as i understand it, but i am no expert. it does appear to be a wise for society to ban and even discourage the practice. there is no claim here that all ideas are of equal value. however, it is the expression of the idea which i am discussing, not the value, not the practice. incest, as you say, may also have negative psychological consequences. however i could make a case that those are because of society, again i am no expert, and that does not diminish the potential social value of discouraging it. in fact i could make the case that despite the big picture problem we're discussing on the individual level the psychological problems induced by over-reactions are a downside to our collective discouragement of the practice. there's no free lunch. and sometimes the lunch costs too much, for example, how many tens of thousands of people are in prison for smoking a herb? society isn't always right (duh). that's why we defend freedom of expression. we don't know what we don't know that we don't know. ;) again: rape is coercion, and it is expression & not practice or value which i am discussing. to defend freedom of expression we must defend expression of ideas odious to us (nothing is universally odious). but hey, that's freedom 101, not sure why it needs reminding and to veer in a different direction: it's also worthwhile to consider that all of the above occur frequently in literature & pulp. i'll venture to guess that rape occurs by far the most. the intellectual age has long passed wherein entertainment containing apparently negative representations of such things can be considered without considering the appetite of the audience. if we make value statements then let's try not be delusional about audience participation (i'm not saying you claim otherwise, just throwing this in the mix) also: let's not get caught up on blaming the government for oppression, a common thread in all these discussions. amazon doesn't get a free pass by being private. power is power that affects me & you regardless where we shop. the texas board of education censors the ideas available in most american schools via the commercial apparatus of mass production aka efficiency. last i checked i don't live in texas either. |