Moral Health

In the rush to proclaim that women and men are equals in every single respect, radical feminists have gotten a lot wrong.  Nowhere is this more evident than in the realm of sexuality.  There was a song that intoned that women want sex is as much as men do.  I have no qualms with that claim.  What is of importance is not whether women and men want sex to the same extent or not.  After all, any generalization in this regard must be adjusted to the particular woman and man involved.  The real issue is whether or not the ineliminable differences between the bodies of women and men have fundamentally different implications for the sexual experience of women and men.

Radical feminism has made the mistake of suggesting that when it comes to sexuality the only substantive difference between women and men is that men have a penis whereas women have a vagina.  But this radically under characterizes the difference between men and women.

Even allowing that the sexual experience is vastly richer than vaginal penetration, what has to be acknowledged as well is that there is a vast psychological difference between women and men when it comes to the act of coitus.  During that act, women are penetrated and men are not; and that difference is absolutely profound.  For instance, it involves trust on the part of women that has no parallel whatsoever on the lives of men.

Between couples deeply committed to one another and united by love, women have to trust men in a way that no man ever has to trust a woman during the act of coitus.

Imagine, then, the very vulnerable position that hooking-up puts women in.  For the best analogy that I can think of would be that a man submitting to a rectal examination by anyone who walked through the door and claimed to be a physician.

The very nature of hooking-up is that two people get together and have sex and if, per chance, they happen to learn anything about one another, including one’s another’s name, that is an unintended consequence.  Yet, women are supposed to have sex with a complete stranger with all that this involves in terms of making herself extremely vulnerable during the act of coitus.  And let us be brutally honest, any guy who is out to hook-up with a gal for sex wants there to be coitus at some point during that sexual encounter.

This might explain why there is such a high correlation between women who drink and engage in hooking-up.  This is because the alcohol serves to numb women to the vulnerability that they take on in having coitus sex with a complete stranger. I regard the vulnerability to be so great as to constitute a form of psychological duress that will not go away, no matter what story of female-male equality that one puts forth.

It is this truth that radical feminists have ignored; and their doing so has caused young women great damage; for it has resulted in young women going against their better instincts.  After all, no self-respecting women can think it a good thing to make herself vulnerable sexually to a perfect stranger.

Changing gears entirely, another difference between women and men is that women become pregnant and men do not.  Of course, abortion is available nowadays.  Just so, there is the poignant fact that abortion is an operation.  It is not on the order of a manicure or a haircut.  This is surely yet another reason for hooking-up to be something that women find repulsive.

Of course, the possibility of pregnancy underscores in a most dramatic way that women and men have quite different bodies.  On the one hand, from none of this does it follow that women cannot have or should not have an insatiable sexual appetite.  On the other hand, given the fundamental ways in which the bodies of women and men differ, why would anyone think it appropriate for women and men to be equally open to uncommitted sex?  Of course, men like the idea.  But that should come as no surprise.  For them, never has equality felt so good.  And I meant to use just those words.

If before the era of hooking-up, it was a man’s world, radical feminism with its embracing of hooking-up has made things even more of man’s world.

What I have argued?  I have not claimed that sex is wrong for women or that women should not be desirous of sex.  I hold no such view.  Nor, again, have I denied that women have been inappropriately excluded from positions of authority and power.  It seems to me obvious that they have.  But equality in the work place, which is as it should be, will never change the fact that women and men have fundamentally different bodies.

Both women and men should take one another seriously.  And this means that genuine differences in the bodily configuration of women and men should be acknowledged.  A vagina is one kind of organ; a penis is an entirely different kind of organ.  Neither can be defined in terms of the absence of the other.  Accordingly, a body with a vagina and a body with a penis do not have an identical perspective on the interaction that takes place between these two organs.  No one thinks for a moment that the tongue and the hands should yield identical sensations of the same object.  And we expect people to have a concern for protecting their tongue that they do not have for protecting their hands.  Interestingly, we have more of an analogy here than not between the vagina and the penis.

The mistake of radical feminism lies in the presupposition that equality between women and men has meant eradicating all differences in social behavior between women and men.  Ironically, because the bodies of women and men are constituted quite differently, eradicating all differences in social behavior between women and men is possible only at the expense of the well-being of either women or men—or perhaps both.

There is no doubt in my mind that women are the worse off for the attempt to eliminate all differences in social behavior between women and men.  And one bit of proof of this is that while men are now more demanding of women—expecting them “to put out sexually” from the very start, it is hardly the case that men are more respecting of women.  This constitutes a loss-loss situation for women.  The expression “bitches and hoes” has become a part of the lingo for referring to women.  That ought to have been a hint that what wss countenanced as progress for women was anything but that.  It is, though, the language of hooking-up.  Men go out looking for “some bitches and hoes” to lay.  And that is preicsely what men find.

Every now and then, one hears a story that is so outrageous that one thinks that the story has to be false.  I am going to tell one such story.  To begin with, the story is about a man, namely Mr. Keith Sampson, reading a book; and the title of that book is How the Fighting Irish defeated the Klu Klux Klan by Ted Tucker.  Now, even if the words “Klu Klux Klan” gave one pause, the rest of the title should certainly put one at ease.  I mean defeating the Klu Klux Klan is surely a good thing; and in some cosmic sense, it is even a better thing if it is the Fighting Irish of the University of Notre Dame who is giving the Klu Klux Klan a whipping.  How could anyone with an ounce of commonsense not see this as just wonderful?

Well, leave it to political correctness and a black person, namely Ms. Nakea Vincent, who fixed upon the words “Klu Klux Klan”.  Oh, did I mention that Sampson is a white man?  No, I did not.  But should it matter?  Absolutely not.  Sampson was not reading a book entitled “How to Burn Niggers on Sunday”.  Rather, he was reading a book whose very title made it clear that the book was about the Klu Klux Klan having been defeated.  How is it even possible for a black person who has an ounce of common sense to be offended by that? (more…)

What most intrigues me regarding the remarks of Alicia Keys is that if she is right that gangsta rap was an invention on the part of whites for the purpose of having black people kill one another, then black people are truly dumb.  Again, if black people started killing one another because whites set up some stupid competition, then what follows is not only that at least the white people in question are racists, but that blacks are incredibly stupid.

After all, there can be no mistake whatsoever that killing a person with a gun constitutes harming that person.  It is thus impossible for any two black people to kill aim to kill one another  with a gun without realizing that they are aiming to harm one another.  It does not matter who set up the killing, be they racist whites or greedy blacks or whomever.

So, even if we assume for the sake of argument that there were white folks sitting around who dreamed up the idea of using gangsta rap to have blacks kill one another.  What needs to be explained is how did it turn out that blacks fell for that idea!  And Ms. Keys has not uttered a single word that would explain how blacks might have fallen for this white racist idea. (more…)

Offhand, it might seem that George Wallace and Barack Obama have only three things in common: (1) both were born in the United States; (2) both are men; and (3) each sought (with Obama still seeking) the office of President of the United States.  Well, they both have a fourth commonality, namely that each affiliated himself with a racist ideology.  Wallace affiliated himself with racist ideology against blacks; Obama affiliated himself with racist ideology against whites.

There was a time in George Wallace’s life when KKK folks were heroes for Wallace.  Likewise, there was a time when a man called Jeremiah Wright was a hero for Obama.  (There is also the case of Pastor James Meeks, but let us leave that aside.)

Wallace freely chose to identify himself with the racist ideology of the KKK.  Obama freely chose to identify with the racist ideology of Pastor Jeremiah Wright.

Before the end of his life, George Wallace repudiated the racist ideology of the KKK.  And in doing so, he made no excuses for his past identification with those who espoused that racist ideology.  He did not claim that this or that Grand Master of the KKK was rather like an uncle or a father figure to him.  No, Wallace entirely repudiated that past.

Although Barack Obama has, of late, distanced himself mightily from Pastor Wright, there is the truth that Obama has sought to excuse his affiliation with Pastor Wright, claiming that the Pastor is rather like an old racist family member with whom one disagrees but nonetheless tolerates.  What a bankrupt analogy for such a smart man.

Now, it is a fact about life that people make moral mistakes—even moral mistakes that I find rather unfathomable.  Just so, there is nothing that beats fully owning the moral mistake that one made.  Of course, sometimes we make a moral mistake because we have been deceived or misinformed.  That was not so with Wallace.  That was not so with Obama.

Wallace once took blacks to be niggers.  Obama profoundly identified, of his own free will, with a black minister who took whites to be an incarnation of the devil himself.  Surely, both ideology are utterly inexcusable.

Now, before someone reminds that blacks, unlike KKK members, have not gone around lynching whites, let me just note that if ne’er a KKK person had lynched a white the KKK ideology itself would rightly be deemed utterly despicable nonetheless and any white who identified with that ideology would be correctly countenanced as a racist.  After all, there are lots of ways to be racist without ever lynching a black.  One could merely go around insisting that all blacks are vastly inferior to blacks.  This would be horrible though ne’er a black is lynched.

In a like vein, racist blacks can be racist towards whites in lots of ways without ever lynching a white.  One form of black racism could be the horrendous sullying of the moral character of all whites.

Getting back to the difference between George Wallace and Barack Obama, I ask a very simple question: Who is the more morally upright person in terms of how he dealt with his racist inclinations of the past?  It should come as no surprise that I regard Wallace as the more morally upright person.  What is more, in the absence of some very strong considerations that I have not taken into account, I think this is the correct comparative assessment of the two.

Notice that I am more than prepared to allow that Obama made a mistake in associating with and identifying with the ideology of Pastor Jeremiah Wright.  What I find absolutely unconscionable is Obama’s attempt to excuse his doing so.  Try as I might, I cannot find a way to excuse his doing so, though I can accept without any difficulty a genuine admission of wrongdoing in this regard.

Now, it seems to me that a great many of my liberal friends are prepared to excuse Obama’s embracing of racist ideology in the name of justified black rage against whites.  Well, this is just so much nonsense.  Obama received a B.A. from Columbia University (1983) and a J.D. from Harvard University (1991).  This makes Obama rather privileged—not just more privileged than most blacks in the United States but more privileged than most whites in the United States.

Without denying for a moment that Obama has experienced some form of racism, it is simply not plausible for him to maintain that racism was a serious impediment to his succeeding in life.  That is, the justified black outrage strategy gains very little traction in the life of Obama.

If Obama were to claim that a family had been lynched by a white racist, then a plausible case for moral outrage on Obama’s part towards whites would at least be understandable.  But one cannot, as a black, have his life of remarkable good fortune and then have a case for warranted moral outrage towards whites.  This is a most fulsome stance.  There are far too many of whatever ethnic identity who can barely dream of the life that Obama has been fortunate enough to live for it to be remotely plausible that he has a case for black rage.

To my mind, this makes Barack Obama’s identification with Pastor Jeremiah Wright even more suspect and unacceptable.  Why, I can think of a number of blacks whose views I find problematic who nonetheless I have stopped considerably short of identifying with the ideology of Pastor Wright.  These include Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.  Let me also point out that Cornel West, who reminded us of his bouts with racism in Race Matters, has nonetheless stopped considerably short of embracing views that are akin to Pastor Wright’s views.

So let me note once more that Wallace fully acknowledged the wrong of his despicable past.  He made no attempt to excuse it.  Obama, by contrast, has endeavored to excuse it when he could simply have acknowledged that he was wrong and that he no longer identifies with that line of thought.

Of course, we know precisely why Obama has not done that.  For it is not at all clear that he would have distanced himself from Pastor Wright had his affiliation with Wright not become an albatross.  So, if George Wallace were alive and running for office, there can be no doubt that from the standpoint of racial equality Wallace would make a far more morally superior candidate than Barack Obama.

In a word, here is the difference: Whereas Wallace had the courage to denounce unequivocally his racist past, it is precisely that kind of defining courage that Obama manifestly does not have.  It is only with one of these individuals that we have an upright person.  Or so it is at least with regard to the issue of race.

So it would appear that my little stance regarding text messaging has taken on proportions that far exceed anything I would have imagined.  On in its own website, the magazine Inside Higher Education.Com has an article on what I did; and there are now more than 100 responses to the article about my behavior.  The article is entitled “If You Text, This Professor Will Leave”.  I should like to thank Scott Jaschik for a very balanced and accurate story.  That is extremely rare these days.  My appreciation for his judicious manner is without end.

One of the questions that keeps coming up is “Why did I bring up ethnicity at all?”  I have a satisfactory answer to that question.  Obviously, I do not think that this or that minority is more or less intelligent than anyone else.  Rather, I was making a simple moral suasion point that goes like this: Insofar as minorities are going to complain about racism and the lack of minority students and professors, there is something rather incongruous when they are brazenly disrespectful to a minority professor.  I could be wrong about the point.  However, there is nothing racist about the point.

I know that various groups have used a like line of moral suasion.  Surely, there was a time when a woman professor might have uttered such a thing to a woman student.  The members of all sorts of groups have thought it particularly important to be respectful of one another in the presence of non-members of that group.  Jews have; blacks have; women have.  And so on.  I am sure poor whites have, too.

I have no interest in defending the validity of the point, though I think it has merit.  I merely wish to observe that there is nothing racist about it.  There is no presupposition of inferiority of any sort.  The worse that one can say is that the view presupposes a slightly higher expectation in terms of behavior on the part of minorities.  Just so, there is nothing unsavory about this higher expectation.  Certainly, this expectation does not presuppose some particularly weighty burden.  This is no doubt an old school thought.

It is a most interesting fact about race-relations in the United States that we no longer seem to know how to talk about race critically without supposing that there is some form of racism involved.

At Syracuse University, there has been something of a rush to say that I am racist given that I mentioned ethnicity.  Let me concede for the sake of argument that I should not have done so, there is still the question of how was my doing so racist.  Not every infelicity involving race is racist.

A racist is motivated by the desire to harm someone simply owing to her or his race or by the belief that someone is inferior simply owing to her or his race.  Does anyone think that I harbor some desire to harm Latinos or Cubans?  Does anyone think that I believe that Latinos or Cubans are inferior in some way?  There is simply no evidence of that at all.  And that is for good reason; for I can say that Latino students stand among some of the most talented students of whom I have taught and of whom I am most proud.  In fact, I put an enormous of amount of my intellectual credibility on the line for a given Latino student; and it paid off.  That student will be going to an Ivy League graduate school in the fall.

On a different note, there is an issue that I simply cannot grasp; and I am hoping that someone can make sense of it to me.  To begin with, I simply love what I do.  And I am blessed with a fairly good memory.  Indeed, I make a point of learning lots and lots of names in my 350 or so person class.  I do not lecture.  Rather, I give a presentation, aiming to move with grace and aplomb between the language of my students and the ideas of academia.  This presentation includes music that is appropriate to the theme of the lecture.  Yet, I am often described as arrogant.  Am I confident?  Absolutely.  But I assume that I am no more confident that Dean Cathryn Newton of the College of Arts and Sciences at Syracuse University or Chancellor Nancy Cantor of Syracuse University or former Vice-Chancellor Deborah Freund of Syracuse University.

It is inconceivable to me that I have more self-confidence than these women or, for that matter, any number of my male colleagues.  Yet, I am frequently referred to as arrogant.  Indeed, there is no small number of people on the website of InsideHigherEducation.Com who told me to “Get over myself”.

I had always supposed that standing up for principles of the right constitute a virtuous thing—not a display of arrogance.  The only thing that I can suppose harkens back to Shakespeare’s observation of protesting too much.

I am extremely fortunate in that I am a tenured full professor with adequate professional collateral.  This enables me to take stands without running the risk of losing my job.  I am poignantly aware of the fact that there are lots and lots of people who are not in that position.

Let me conclude with a remark about why I take the stand that I do.  To begin, I attach enormous importance to the moral climate of the classroom; and I think that small things taken together can make a huge difference.  I am not comfortable directly approaching a student and asking her or him to leave.  There are issues of liability that arise here, should the student inaccurately describe what I did.  For instance, what if the student claims that I threatened her or him?  That is not good; and if the student is a woman, then it is even worse.  I may not know the student’s name; and the student may not give it to me.

Walking out is the most effective thing that I can do on the spot.  The issue is not to punish people but to take a stand.  And it has been exceedingly effective over the years, with this semester being the quite obvious exception.  If I could take a stand without walking out I would.

I have learnt much from perusing the comments about the issue on the website of Inside Higher Education.Com.  And I am sure that I will evolve in my handling of matters.  Still, there is this: We absolutely must not let the extraordinary technology that is available to us become an impediment to our showing respect to one another.

On the computer technology front, I have more than most, including many of my students; and I absolutely love it all.  I simply cannot imagine life without my computer.  Still, it is of the utmost importance to me to show respect to others, including my students.  And I know that I cannot do that if, at every instance, I give pride of place to technology, no matter what else is going on.  And as far as I can see, the simple truth of the matter is that this holds for everyone: young and old; student and non-student.  It is a human thing. No more, but certainly not one iota less.

I have received numerous emails from students.  But two particularly stand out.  Both praised me for my teaching.  One email came from a student who identified himself as a Shiite Muslim who saw me as a caring professor whose choice of music for lecture made a difference to him.  The other email came from a student who identified herself as a victim of child sexual abuse and who thanked me profusely for my remarks about trust and self-disclosure in connection with the topic of child sexual abuse.  That was the lecture during which the student was text messaging on the front row.  In any event, these two emails have elevated my soul.  No one can have everything.  Amid all the criticism, I am blessed beyond words to have received these two emails.  Insofar as an email can count as a gift from God, surely these two do.

Again: Thank you Scott Jaschik for a very balanced and accurate story.