[ctrlp]

The essayist sounds like a typical academic subversive. She offers no answers or theories, only questions, aka "...the politics of X" . In other words, she only "problematizes". Let's see:

She offers a clinical yet sexually charged analysis of porn with no policy proposals (heaven forbid). Could there be a greater cliche in the Humanities departments of modern universities? Oh wait, of course she wants safe, legal sex work as well. Bingo!

She wants to eroticize pedagogy, but also make sure the college administration is there to manage it. Oh, the frisson! Reference to Fraud, er Freud? Check! OH WOW! SUCH FREUD!

Freudianism was/is a pseudo-scientific cult that only lit-crit academics and $200/hr therapists still take seriously. Along with its marxist offshoots, its radical political program was instrumental in the 20th century european/american cultural suicide that had its death rattle in the 60s counter-culture victory. Our modern malaise, including the ubiquitous porn rotting our children's sexual health is the creature of those flower-power radicals.

But it's just "Porn" in the abstract. Not the creation of actual people whom it would be fairly easy to constrain if there is a cultural will to do so. But hiding that fact behind the massive force of inevitable abstractions demoralizes the people, er "consumers", to the point of impotence. Essayists like this loathsome academic are the priestly caste of the modern world, they baffle and confuse decent people.

[vacuity]

> Oh wait, of course she wants safe, legal sex work as well.

Why is that a problem? As long as people aren't coerced/forced into it, where's the harm?

[ctrlp]

It would take a bit of time to explain why a society might not want to legalize, regulate, and tax vice. You might also want to do a deep dive into Libertarianism and consider whether it has ever made sense or could make sense for any society you might want to live in.

[johnchristopher]

Could you point to some online references of what you are suggesting ? Otherwise you are also guilty of problematizing the subject without offering answers or theories :).

[ctrlp]

I hope you're capable of doing a modicum of your own research. It wouldn't be hard to find a thread and pull on it.

[johnchristopher]

Of course I could "do my own research" but that wouldn't give my any insights on your outlook.

Wtf, is this what passes for conversation this week-end on HN ? "Do your own research" as if it's an answer and a opinion ? What's next ? "Google a counter-argument" ?

[ctrlp]

"Do your own research" is generally the correct response to someone trolling. (Asking for "some online references" is a classic troll.)

If you're actually a serious person, it's your lucky day. I enjoy a good conversation and will reply to this thread as long as you're interested. If not, well, that's what passes for conversation on HN any old week.

But if you are actually serious then you'll have to be a little more specific in your request: "Could you point to some online references of what you are suggesting?"

Btw, I wouldn't consider calling something garbage as being the same as "problematizing" in the way that word is typically used. More the opposite. My purpose is to warn well-meaning but naive or gullible people off this crap before they waste too much time (or worse). It's a trap.

Let's do this.

[vacuity]

Apparently I'm not far off from some brand of libertarianism. I don't think the government should apply the law to regulate vices, and rather that such issues should (must, to be a true solution and not a band-aid) be resolved by society. Excessive consumption of alcohol hasn't been solved, unfortunately, but the Prohibition wasn't effective either. I would be giving too much credit to say that repealing Prohibition was a "perfect is the enemy of good" situation.

https://prostitution.procon.org/questions/should-prostitutio...

I don't doubt that the people providing cons (i.e. why prostitution should be illegal) mean well for sexually exploited people. However, I think the Pro 6 excerpt is quite comprehensive and reasonable:

  No person’s human or civil rights should be violated on the basis of their trade, occupation, work, calling or profession.

  No law has ever succeeded in stopping prostitution.

  ...

  Non-consenting adults and all children forced into sexual activity...deserve the full protection of the law and perpetrators deserve full punishment by the law.

  Workers in the sex industry deserve the same rights as workers in any other trade, including the right to legal protection from crimes such as sexual harassment, sexual abuse and rape…

  ...

  Unscrupulous people should be summarily dealt with by the law, regardless of which profession they corrupt.

[ctrlp]

The government/society is already regulating vices. It really is just a question of who gets to decide what is a vice and what is not. Propositions that reference "human or civil rights" are begging the question. What are "human rights"? What are "civil rights"?

I suggest you can't really have a useful understanding of political questions in the abstract. When you look into the history of these policy decisions, there's always something more going on than a purely reasoned universal morality.

Take your example of Prohibition. The Temperance Movement was around for a long time before it formed a political party and started gaining traction. Why? Was there any connection between the massive social upheavals that were changing the society in the U.S. at the turn of the century that might have put wind in the sails of this party? Prohibition was "progressive" politics but does that word "progressive" still mean what it meant then? No. You can't have a Progressive party without some sense of "progressing towards what?". In that case, you were talking about the WASP ruling class that had very long-held ideas about what progress meant, dating back to before the founding of the country by English Dissenters. Of course, the advent of WWI had the normal accompanying propaganda campaign. Prohibition benefited from wider anti-German sentiment (anti-beer) and war-time grain conservation efforts.

But, arguably a bigger reason for Prohibition's policy achievements were widespread anxiety about urbanization and "saloon" culture in the cities, which was widely and accurately associated with immigrants and african americans. In a sense, you can see Prohibition as a last-gasp attempt to control the social forces changing America at that time and restore "law and order". The fact that it gave rise to organized criminal gangs (mostly run by the very people they were trying to restrain) was an unintended consequence. We see a similar thing at work with the War on Drugs.

I would argue, the reason these Prohibition-type campaigns against vice fail is because they treat the symptoms, not the disease. The disease is a culture that is dissipated and lacks moral cohesion. Arguing about "moral universalisms" like libertarianism proposes is just more of the same. All honest morality is particular, just like all rights are particular. There has never been and never will be a universal morality without turning the world into one homogeneous goo. So long as there are different peoples, there will difference conceptions of the good. The sort of pro/con argumentation is a distraction from reality, imho.

[vacuity]

The history lesson is very much appreciated. I didn't know most of those facts about Prohibition.

I agree with everything you said about morality. There is no real cure for the "disease"; critical thinking is lacking among the populace but even with it, people will still hold various moralities. I think the government should enforce a few minimal, overarching rights and households and companies can impose additional restrictions (idea may need refinement). There is no universal morality, so I say we should provide maximal freedom within reason. That would at least be a subset of many people's moralities. At the end of the day I'd rather have some government than none.

I appreciated the pro/con linked because I could see why other people held the positions they did and because I found a perspective that particularly resonated with my morality. Understanding where other people are coming from is useful even if they have significantly different moralities, I think.

[ctrlp]

I appreciate your points and why one might want such things. I don't, however, think it's possible for the government to enforce a few minimal, overarching "rights" except over populations capable of self-governance. If something isn't possible, then there's little point in spending too much time thinking about it, (except theoretically). At worst, it can be a kind of "opiate of the masses", who can spin their wheels thinking about such things like "profit maximizing rational actors" and other myths, while the real power is controlled by those who practice realpolitik.

There is a real cure for the disease, but it involves creating enclaves of such populations. The early American settlers were such a population. Barring a new frontier and settler population capable of self-government, then we look back to the conditions that allow for culture to develop. Culture cannot develop without separation and boundaries.

Think of the culture of any organization. If you've ever been part of a growing corporation, you'll have experienced culture changes in person as the org becomes larger and larger. With more diverse personnel, the surface area of commonality becomes smaller and smaller. HR starts to take on more and more of a role in dictating the rules of the org. Disputes must be arbitrated by the corporate "government". Compare to how things were in the beginning, when much agreement could be assumed and people could generally "manage themselves".

The analogy, obviously, is to society and government. When people don't have the "moral law within," then we start to see all kinds of new rules to constrain a multifarious population that doesn't constrain itself. You can have a very diverse society with many rules, or a very homologous society with very few official rules (but many implied). You can't have both at the same time. The irony is that the effect of having many rules is that the individual people become all the same, because they have delegated their moral decision-making apparatus to the state. Morals are just an indirect way of saying Values. Values are what people think are better/good and worse/bad. So, basically, the State is deciding what is good/bad. Hence, the people running the State (those practicing realpolitik) decide what is good or bad.