Moral Health

The manner in which President Barack Obama handled the Henry Louis Gates affair is shameful and abominable.  Yesterday afternoon, I sent a letter to President Obama by way of FedEx.  The letter can be downloaded here (although the free Adobe Reader 9 may be required to open the document): PresLetter.  Below, however, is the text of the letter.

30 July 2009

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

 Dear Mr. President:

For all the admiration that I have of your talent and abilities, I am extremely dismayed on several fronts by the way in which you have handled the Henry Louis Gates matter.  Although I am black, that should not really be of any consequence.

The issue is not whether there continues to be racism in the United States, since no reasonable person can doubt that there does, though we must also acknowledge the enormous progress that has been made.  Rather, the issue is whether what we have in the instance of the Gates matter is indeed an example of the very racism that continues to be problematic in the American society.  By every reasonable standard, it is just downright foolish to think that this is what we have in the Gates matter. 

What we have with Gates is not a case of racial profiling in the sense of the proper use of that term, where none other than a wild statistical generalization based upon skin color is made that overlooks other very salient features of the person.  Gates was not accused of inappropriate behavior on account of the fact that he is black.  Quite the contrary, anyone found breaking into a house is rightly deemed suspicious, and the onus properly falls upon the person breaking into the house to show that the seemly inappropriate behavior is not what it appears to be.  Professor Gates should have grasped this very elementary point from the very outset. 

Let us concede only for the sake of argument that there was a tinge of racism on the part of Officer Crawley.  What most certainly exacerbated matters was Professor Gates’ bruised ego.  Mr. Gates is one of the “Lords of Harvard University Square” and as such he expects unquestionable deference to him from members of the Harvard University community regardless of ethnicity.  For him to expect that sort of deference from the members of society in general is for him to be more than a little besotted with himself.  It is the expectation of utter deference on Gates’ part that was at the very center of the difficulty.  Most painfully, Mr. President, it is to this mindset on Gates’ part (namely that he is automatically owed deference by any and all individuals regardless of the nature of his own behavior) to which you have wrongfully catered. 

Painfully, matters only get worse.  Most people in the United States, be they black or white or whatever, do not have the standing that Henry Louis Gates has.  Alas, what you have unwitting done is reinforced the view that, with regard to justice, “it is who you know that counts”; and this you have done with regard to a situation that simply cannot possibly be characterized as an egregious wrong that a minority has endured.  There was no lynching or threat of a lynching.  There was no stupendous miscarriage of justice.  Nor, again, was there a horrendously indefensible statistical generalization based solely upon race.  In a most ostentatious manner, you have wrongly allowed mere social ties and standing to have weight. 

A person would have to be utterly delusional—and not just naïve—to think that your intervention on behalf of Henry Louis Gates reflects a deep concern on your part about racial equality for all.  There is no 1-800-number now in place that minorities can call when they take themselves to be in a similar situation.  And, of course, there should be no such number. 

Finally, Mr. President, I hold that by the actions that you have taken in the Gates’ matter, you have betrayed the hope that the American people placed in you.  For one thing, you have effectively trivialized the fact that Lucia Whalen did what any decent person ought to have done in the circumstances in which she found herself.  For another, you have shown that you do not have the courage to do what is right if so behaving should diminish your standing among blacks (for example).  Third, you have harmed race relations by trivializing the charge of racism itself.  Whatever else is true, the scenario of Gates cannot possibly be construed as a paradigm example of racial profiling; and there is no conceivable way in which you could have thought that it did.  Justice is never served when we pretend that things are worse than they really are.  Last, but not least, if you suppose that you, Crowley, and Gates having a beer together will somehow make it all better than we have a line of thought that can only be described as an instance of naïveté par excellence. 

Respectfully submitted, Mr. President, I am

Yours sincerely

Signature
Affixed

______________

Racism can be defined as a negative evaluation that privileges color or ethnicity in an inappropriate  way.  This definition tells us what is surely right, namely that not every negative evaluation of a person is thereby racist.  It is not automatically racist to say that the crime-rate in the black ghetto is enormously high.  That is unvarnished truth.  It is, of course, possible to make this observation about the crime-rate in the black ghetto in a racist way: “The niggers are too stupid to do anything constructive.

The above definition also points to the truth that matters can be extremely over-determined; hence, it is manifestly not clear whether a given piece of behavior is racist or not.  For instance, a woman who has been raped by a stranger will understandably be afraid of just any man whom she might encounter while she is walking alone at night.  The fact that the man on a particular occasion turns out to be black is utterly relevant to the fact that she is panicking. 

I said racism involves privileging color an inappropriate way.  My favorite example of this would be, say, the 40-something white woman who reacts as if the middle-aged black man whom she encounters on the sidewalk is going to steal her pocketbook.  To the best of my knowledge, this is not what middle-aged black men do.  So even if it is reasonable for the white woman to think that a black youth might so behave, it is preposterous for her to think that this is how the middle-black man is going to behave. 

The odds are that—from the standpoint of aches and pains and the like—he is just as concerned with merely getting from point A to point B as she is.  So he is not going to snatch her pocketbook and dart across the street, jumping over fences and whatever else in the way that a teenager or 20-year old would!  Finally, in this regard: the typical middle-aged male ‑‑black or white or whatever— looks his age.  At any rate, he looks much closer to his age than he does to looking like a person who is only 20-something.  I have yet to encounter, for example, a 45-year old person (of any race or sex) whom everyone takes to be merely 25-years old.  No doubt that there are cases of this sort.  But they are surely rare. 

The charge of police brutality on the part of white officers against blacks is common.  I have never been in that situation.  So I cannot fully speak to it.  What I will say is this: When anyone is in a life and death situation, it is at the very least understandable that instinctively the person moves to defend her or his own life.  Are there instances of police brutality?  I am sure there are.  However, I am equally convinced that here is nothing like complete cooperation to undercut any concern that law enforcement official might have in that regard. 

This brings me to the Henry Louis Gates matter.  I suspect that the matter is complicated in a particularly interesting manner.  As a very distinguished Harvard University professor, Mr. Gates is understandably used to having considerable power and deference.  On the Harvard University campus surely just about everyone knows who he is.  He is a god among earthlings.  This is meant not as a caricature, but as a very real articulation of the considerable standing that Mr. Gates has as a Harvard University professor.  When he is on campus, what most certainly has to be true is that when he says that he is Henry Louis Gates he pretty much says all that needs to be said.

Alas, this kind of standing in the university setting rarely carries over in the real-world.  And that, alas, is the problem.  It is the very rare professor whose academic reputation spills over into the everyday life of the ordinary person.  Perhaps Richard Dawkins?  Perhaps Stephen Hawkins? 

For a very distinguished professor, going from the academy to the world of the ordinary person is rather like jumping off a cliff.  There is simply no telling whether one will land safely or not.

I suspect that part of the problem is that Mr. Gates was unreasonably expecting deference in a context in which it was quite inappropriate for him to do so.  This, alas, is most unfortunate.  We need to know the limits of our standing and its general applicability.  A very renowned professor, such as Henry Louis Gates, should never lose sight of the reality that her or his standing in academic circles rarely if ever carries over in the non-academic world. 

The police most certainly did not cringe or genuflect upon learning that he is Henry Louis Gates.  Indeed, I suspect that it is almost certain that –perish the thought— his name had no significance with them at all.  This reality is not racist in anyway whatsoever.  It simply reflects the fact that, with extremely rare exception, having considerable standing in the academic world does not at all carry over to having considerable standing in the world ordinary people. 

Mr. Gates should have appreciated this.  I appreciate it.  But then I am no Henry Louis Gates.  Not by a long-shot.  Yet, I grasp the issue here far better than one might imagine.  I shall always remember the moment when in response to the question from the taxi driver who was taking me to the airport, namely “Where are you, off to today?” I came back with “Oh, I am just going to California.”  You see, for someone who routinely takes a plane to Paris (France), California seems relatively close.  From what I can tell, all sorts of people on the Syracuse University campus know that I regularly fly off to Paris.  To hear some students tell it: Why, I fly to Paris every week.  The point here, of course, is that I am not entitled to suppose that my standing on the Syracuse University campus, in the small –150,000 person— town of Syracuse spills over into the life of the ordinary person in Syracuse. 

Here is a simple fact of the world.  Even if one is Henry Louis Gates, breaking into one’s very own house does not look good.  It is downright silly to expect the police to exhibit Harvard Square deference under circumstances of this sort.  Indeed, it would have been irresponsible for the police to do so.  I do not doubt for a moment that there are instances of racism that are tied to the fact that a white does not expect a black to have the standing that the black has.  Some of those instances are serious.  Some of those instances are trivial.  In the case of Henry Louis Gates, I do not see that we have an instance of this sort of thing at all. 

When anyone is seen breaking into a house, the onus is very much upon the person doing so to provide substantial proof that she or he is the owner of that house.  Indeed, far from being annoyed at having to do so, it is clear to me that decency and thoughtfulness requires that one graciously provides such proof.  Why?  Because in an instance such this decent and responsible officers are merely doing their job. 

It is incomprehensible to me that Mr. Gates –a man whom I know and very highly respect‑‑ did not to grasp this very simple and basic point.   Just under 20 years ago, I wrote an essay for Ebony entitled “Next Life, I’ll Be White” in which I talk talk about racism as indefensible statistical generalization.  I did not make clear point about indefensible statistical generalization point in the essay.  At any rate, the very point of this blog-entry is that we do not have that sort of thing in this case.  Under the circumstances, the fact that Gates knew that it was his house does not change the fact that he needed to explain what he was doing breaking into it.    

As for President Obama: Well, he played the race card in a most thoughtless and unfortunate matter.  And that is very much a disappointment to me.

Who cares if the surgeon general is about 40 pounds overweight, as is the case with Regina Benjamin—President Obama’s nominee for the position?  There is a perfectly good sense in which it should not matter, just so long as she can do her job well.  And the job of the surgeon general is not about skinny dipping or doing high-fashion runway performances. Unfortunately, there is a perfectly good sense in which it does matter—or so does in the present times.  In a culture in which people make all sorts of excuses for themselves, a overweight surgeon general may very facilitate just that sort of thing.

I can hear it now: “I don’t see why I should have to lose weight.  Look, the Surgeon General Benjamin is overweight; and her extra weight did not get in the way of her success”.  Of course, no one should think like that.  Alas, it is a sign of the times that people will think like that.

After all, this is the culture when, on the one hand, everyone insists that have the right to do as they please and, on the other, everyone is claiming to be addicted to whatever it is they do more than they should do.  It is stunning the pitiful excuses make for their own negligent and unhealthy behavior.

There was surely a time when any number of people might have noted that Regina Benjamin is about 40 pounds overweight, would have deemed this unfortunate about her, and then they would have been exhibited a certain determination that no such would ever happen to them.  Far from using the fact that she is overweight as an excuse to be indifferent to their own weight, they would have used this fact about her as a source of inspiration, if you will, not to become like her.  What is more, they would have attended more to the fact that she is intellectually very talented than to the fact that she is overweight.  Alas, that was back in the day when people had what goes by the name of commonsense.

There was the time when the most unschooled person could be counted to have a considerable amount of commonsense.  Nowadays, par contrast, there seems to be no correlation at all between commonsense and being well-educated.  To hear the way in which some who hold professional degrees reason about matters, one would think that they were enduring perpetual brain fart.

Some say it is irrelevant that Dr. Regina Benjamin is overweight.  Others say that it is absolutely relevant.  The fact of the matter is that they both have point.

It should not take too much commonsense to see that.  And that, of course, is just the problem.

When self-discipline generally had a purchase upon people’s lives and people actually thought before they acted and so forth: Those who say that Dr. Benjamin’s weight is irrelevant are perfectly right.  There was also a time when images did far less work in society.  It is absolutely undeniable that nowadays, though, that images do a lot of work.  Indeed, images often do more work than the words accompanying the images.

In a culture that is image-driven, it is fare to ask what kind of impact will Dr. Regina Benjamin’s image have upon others?  I wish that I could say that it will not have a negative impact.  Alas, there is little, if any, reason to think that this is so.  I have indicated above a line of reasoning above that any number of people might employ to excuse the fact that they are overweight.  And that, unfortunately, is a very serious problem.  This is not how things should go.  However, there is very little reason to think that things will not proceed in the way.  Suddenly, Dr. Benjamin has become the poster-child for the idea that a little extra weight is good for you.  After all, the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance has already weighed in support of Regina Benjamin.  So the poster-child point that was just made is hardly ridiculous.

This is also leads me to question the thoughtfulness of President Obama.  How could a man who understands the impact of images as well as he does be so obtuse the very real problems that Dr. Benjamin’s image may cause?  Let us concede for the sake of argument that it is absolutely wonderful that she is a black person.  None of this undercuts the point that I have been making.  In fact, things might be exacerbate with her having the position, since it might undercut the motivation of blacks to maintain their weight, which is a very significant matter given the prevalence of high-blood pressure among blacks.  This is known as a Pyrrhic victory.  The delight that many will take in a black holding the office will be offset by the damage that will occur to the health of many black people who used Dr. Regina Benjamin’s image as an overweight person to excuse their failing to maintain their weight.

Of course, I could be terribly wrong; and I very much hope that I am, since I imagine that Dr. Benjamin will be confirmed.  What is true, though, is that we live in a society in which people feel entitled to given into their feelings and in which the self-examination of our feelings is viewed as a burden.  This contributes to our being a society that is driven by images.  Against, this backdrop it would seem that the odds of me being wrong are rather like the odds of surviving a plane crash.  It happens.  Just so, no one in her or his right mind would count upon surviving a plane crash.

In a reasonable society in which self-discipline and commonsense prevailed and, furthermore, people are not driven by images or strongly disposed to make excuses for themselves, nothing would be more irrelevant than the fact that Dr. Regina Benjamin is about 40 pounds overweight.  That society is manifestly not the American one.  And that fact makes it utterly disingenuous to say that weight is not a relevant factor.

Since any experience can be a profound learning experience that gives one general insight, the interesting question has to be in what sense are the following remarks by Judge Sonia Sotomayor defensible: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life”.  Interestingly, the respect in which her claim has any plausibility is also a respect in which the claim has remarkable applicability across the board, regardless of ethnicity, sex, and so forth.

First of all, the claim is not that any Latino women could make a wise decision simply in virtue of having lived as a Latino person.  And it is certainly a good thing that the judge did not make that claim; for there are way too many stupid people of every ethnic persuasion whose ability to extrapolate anything substantive from the experiences of their life is woefully limited. 

The fact that a person has lived as Latino, with all that this is meant to imply in terms of social interaction and various forms of social injustice, does not in any way entail that the person will be more insightful person about the world. 

For one thing, one could become full of bitterness as a result of which one distorts in an unfavorable way any and everything that one experiences, including one’s experiences with fellow members of one’s ethnic group.  And, of course, this point fully applies to all other ethnic groups (however an ethnic group might be construed).

And with regard to the point in the preceding paragraph, it is worth noting that even a successful person can be extremely bitter—so much so that the person’s bitterness is an impediment to enjoying the fruits of her or his success.  In the example that follows, I shall talk about  helping under-privileged minorities, although I understand all too well that anyone of any color can be under-privileged.  Some of the poorest people whom I have ever seen are white.

Now, imagine a white who has devoted her entire life to helping under-privileged minorities, and who has been quite successful at helping such individuals to succeed.  Well, if I am not mistaken, then Judge Sotomayor’s remarks apply with full force to that white person.  This is because that white person will have sensibilities that I am not likely to have although I belong to a minority group.  I make this latter claim for the following reason.

Although I enjoy by most accounts considerable success as a professor, it is not the case that I have devoted my life to helping minorities.  Nor have I obviously encountered one barrier after another owing to racism.  It is true that I have on various occasions helped members of every ethnic group.  Just so, it is simply false that I have devoted my life to helping minorities, under-privileged or otherwise.  Accordingly, a wise white person who has devoted her or his life to helping such minorities, and who has been very successful in this regard, will surely have much more understanding about the plight of under-privileged minorities than I will have. 

Throughout my life, I have enjoyed a sustained sense of self-confidence (not to be confused with arrogance, which is the tendency not to take others seriously).  If I want to do something, I simply assume that I will be able to do it in some (morally decent) way or the other.  In general, I have no clue what to say to people who are forever asking “What if this and what if that goes wrong?”  Why?  Because my view is that if Plan A seems not to be working , then switch to Plan B.  And so on.  Of course, we sometimes have to try our hand at something else.  But that truth strikes me as a feature of life and not something to dwell upon.  It is not a feature of racism or oppression or poverty that we sometimes need to change plans.

Let me put the point another way: If an easily discouraged under-privileged minority person needs encouragement and the choice is between talking to a white person who has devoted her or his life to helping under-privileged minorities and talking to me, the unexpurgated truth is that the under)privileged minority individuql would do much better talking to the white person rather than to me. 

Now, I can imagine someone saying “Surely, Laurence Thomas, you can speak to the issue of racism even better than the white person who has devoted her or his life to helping under-privileged minorities”.  Alas, this need not be true at all; given the context in question.  To begin with, there is no one way to deal with issues of racism.  Second, what I might experience in terms of racism may in many instances be quite removed from what an under-privileged minority might experience. 

If, for instance, a black person received her Ph.D. at the age of 25 from a program ranked 4th in the country at the time, I think it is safe to say that such an individual probably has very little to say about, for example, feelings of self-doubt and racism that an under-privileged black might have.  Accordingly, such an under-privileged black would do much, much, much better talking to the white person who has devoted her or his life to helping under-privileged minorities.  President Obama, for example, very may have grown up poor, but he has a scholarly pedigree that few will ever attain; accordingly, there is a very real sense in which he cannot speak to “struggling to stay the course” in a way that parallels the concerns of someone trying just to attend community college. 

So my disappointment with Judge Sonia Sotomayor is not so much that she made the claim that she made, but that she failed to see its universal applicability.  And I am rather surprised that she did not offer a very substantial illustration of what she meant.  In fact, I think that it was irresponsible of her not to do so, especially since she could have easily offered an illustration that has universal applicability. 

So I will end this blog-entry with an illustration from my own life.  There is a very interesting respect in which my ability to be disconcertingly discerning of the non-verbal behavior of the 400 students in my signature course Ethics and Value Theory (at Syracuse University) owes something significant to my being a minority who lives in a primarily white world.  Unfortunately, it is true that so many of us, regardless of our ethnicity, privilege skin color above all else.  In my own life, I can see that sort of thing a mile away and often with simplest question.  Here is one such question that often follows my merely stating that I am a professor: “What do you teach, Black Studies”.  Or, here is a query that was raised by one of my former undergraduate students: “There is nothing about racism on the syllabus.  When do we discuss the topic of race in class?”    

Then there is the concern on the side walk that many a white woman has that I might steal her pocketbook.  Having dealt with that concern all my life, I can typically see the tension mount more than a half a block away.  Whatever the profile is of people stealing pocket books from white women might be, I am sure that I do not fit it.  And “No”: I have never stolen anyone’s pocketbook.

At any rate, the most famous case of this sort occurred when I was invited to be a speaker at a conference on a university campus, and a 50-something white female janitor called the campus police on me while I was standing in the hallway watching a display (located right next to the auditorium entrance where the conference was being held).  There I was in a coat and tie watching the display; the campus police officers arrived and we said “Hello” to one another, and then they proceeded to speak to the janitor who –whilst pointing to me—says: “He is the one”.  It was a great moment of amusement, since they the officers grasped ever so clearly that I was not the thief that the woman had supposed I was.  But oh was the president of the university embarrassed.  

The moral of the story in the preceding paragraphs is this: Given a lifetime portfolio of experiences like that and one becomes extremely good at discerning the character of the slightest bit of non-verbal behavior.  And it is those powers of observation developed over the years –several decades, in fact‑‑ that have made me disconcertingly perceptive in Philosophy 191, which in turn has made me an extremely effective professor.  This is the kind of point that Judge Sonia Solomayor was trying to make. 

Considerable powers of non-verbal observation require an unusual array of experiences.  Could my powers of non-verbal observation have come by way of another route?  Of course, they could have.  But this truth hardly takes away from the reality that my powers of observation came about in the way that I described. 

A final comment: Some people might think that the story that I have recounted about being visibly black undermines my remarks earlier, since it does not matter whether I am from the hood (as they say) or a professor.  Fortunately, there is no inconsistency here; for how one can diffuse any such experiences make all the difference in the world in terms of how one lives one’s life.  The most innocent guy with all the “trappings” of being from the hood does not have at his disposal the resources that come with being a professor who has a relatively successful career. 

Analogous to the white person who has devoted her or his life to helping under-privileged minority children, a wise Latina judge might have some important insight into how both justice and injustice manifest themselves in the lives of people of every ethnic group.  In order not to be open to the charge of racism: this ought to be and must be the point that Judge Sotomayor was trying to make. 

Since any experience can be a profound learning experience that gives one general insight, the interesting question has to be in what sense are the following remarks by Judge Sonia Sotomayor defensible: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life”.  Interestingly, the respect in which her claim has any plausibility is also a respect in which the claim has remarkable applicability across the board, regardless of ethnicity, sex, and so forth.

For the full text, see

Judge Sonia Sotomayor :
The Right and Wrong of Her Remarks

Published : Sunday, 19 July 2009

Women might very well be morally superior to men.  At any rate, there is an argument in evolutionary theory that might deliver this very conclusion.  From the standpoint of survival, evolution entails that women are naturally disposed to have greater powers of discernment than men.  Why?  Because bearing a child is an extremely serious commitment on a woman’s part.  Accordingly, it is in her interest to choose a man who will do right by her and her children.  This means, in effect, that she needs to grasp the difference between the man who really wants to be there for her and the man who merely wants to have sex with her.

This is where the powers of discernment enter into the picture.  Of course, men have been known to say just about anything—to utter any lie—that will deliver to them the opportunity to have sex with the woman whom they are pursuing. 

A discerning woman looks not just as what a man says.  She also considers how what a man says fits in with the way he lives his life.  And if she does not know enough to make a reasonable extrapolation that he is worthy as a sexual partner, then prudence on her part entails that she has to obtain more positive information before she grants him sexual success. 

What makes a man worthy as a sexual partner (during a woman’s fertile years)?  From the standpoint of evolutionary theory the answer frighteningly simple: A man is worthy as a sexual partner only if he is unequivocally prepared to do right by her and their child should she become pregnant, whatever they might have intended to happen while have sex.

It might first be thought that evolution surely requires that men be equally discerning, since there is nothing to be said for having a woman who will not make a good mother.  Alas, this is not quite right owing to the biological asymmetry between women and men.  Only women carry and bear children.  This fact gives them an independent reason to be discerning that no man can ever have.

Now enormous powers of discernment require considerable intellectual ability.  So we know that whatever else true, it follows from the very powers of discernment that evolution has accorded women that they must also have considerable intelligence.  The very idea that women are somehow less intelligent than men has no basis in evolutionary theory; and, as I have just indicated, this can be seen from a rather unusual perspective, namely the powers of discernment that evolution accords women. 

Now, the asymmetry between women and men that has a deep biological basis points to why a man might be bothered by a so-called loose woman.  It is not just that she is having lots of sex.  It is also the case that she is not being as attentive as she should be to her own well-being; for in having lots of sex, the woman takes on a risk that no man does. 

As we all know, birth control and abortion has made things far less risky for women.  Alas, we can also ask another question.  Have these abortion and birth control also numbed the moral powers of discernment on the part of women, since the exercise of those powers is inextricably tied to the asymmetry between women and men with regard to the matter of pregnancy.  And what we know is that any power not used at crucial points of development rarely attains the secure development that it should attain. 

If people stopped speaking at the age of adolescence, their powers of communication would drop precipitously.  I can see no reason why powers of discernment should be any different. 

This raises a most fascinating issue with regard to feminism.  If I am even close to right, then it has to be a serious mistake for the moral and intellectual development of young females in the very throes of physical development to have them adopt the behavior of males.  That is rather like having a healthy adolescent lie in bed throughout her or his adolescent years.  That would be just horrendous for the development of a healthy adolescent’s body. 

Women and men are moral equals as well as intellectual equals.  But these two dimensions of equality do not entail that women and men are identical physically.  And any theory of womanhood that ignores this truth misses the mark at a most fundamental level. 

It goes without saying that, on a variety of fronts, feminism has done much that is wonderful for women.  But if I am right, the insistence that women should act just like men is very profound mistake, because that piece of counsel is damaging to the very moral development of young women. 

Equality with men is one thing.  Being identical to men is quite another.  Some feminists have confused the two supposing that the only way to have the first is to have the second.  And that is a profound mistake.  Carol Gilligan, Claudia Card, and Annette Baier are three feminist women who seem to have grasped this point. 

I believe that the above three women have marvelously understood that embracing womanhood in the use of their bodies rather than trying to be identical to men is profoundly affirming to them as women without at all sacrificing their moral equality to men. 

There is a way of being coy that is part of the moral development of women that has no parallel in the moral development of men.  And this is necessarily tied to the considerable differences between the bodies of women and men.  Coyness, of course, can be mean.  It is also a part of what can make a woman quite attractive to a man, precisely because it reveals a certain moral quality about the woman.  And this is part of the reason why the courting process between women and men is, in general, the way it is. 

We do not need to change that process for, in the final analysis, it has nothing at all to do with any inequality between women and men, but just the simple fact that the bodies of women and men are not identical.  Not surprisingly, nor is the sense of self that each has. 

Any form of feminism that insist upon women acting like men is misguided and in the end does women more harm than good.  This points to why sexual liberation, when women behave sexually in the way that men do, has hardly been the boom for women that many supposed it would be.  On the other hand, it has been quite a boom for men; though, unfortunately, not in terms of having respect for women.  

Rape and the false accusation of Rape are two of the most heinous deeds that human beings are capable of committing.  Both deeds have to be willful in the way that even murder does not have to be.  Blind rage can lead someone to kill someone.  If I stumbled upon someone who was molesting my child, I think it is safe to say that it would take the very hand of God to keep me from instantaneously moved to inflict deadly harm upon the molester.  There would not even be the reflection on my part of a nanosecond.  However, neither rape nor the false accusation of rape stem from the natural response of anger to a most insidious and morally repugnant wrong. 

It is by accident that today I stumbled across a story in the United Kingdom, where Gary Wood had been falsely accused of rape by Natalie Jefferson.  Then I did a search to discover, much to my surprise, that this charge occurs with alarming frequency. 

At any rate, both rape and the false accusation of rape bespeak a moral callousness that is beyond my imagination.  Why, I have trouble sitting at the same table with someone who prefers that I not be there.  So the very idea of having sex with someone who does not in any way wish me to do so is truly unfathomable to me.  Yes, yes: I understand that rape is not supposed to be about sex, but about power.  Still, I have difficulty seeing how the exercise of this form of power is in anyway affirming to a man’s masculinity.  And if the rape is not about affirming in some way the manhood of the rapist, then what is it about? 

False accusations of rape are heinous from a very different direction.  And it is a sad commentary on the character of American society that such accusations are not all that rare.  And such accusations have been unwittingly facilitated by a shift in the countries moral climate.  There was a time when legally a man could not be accused of raping his wife even if he forced her to have sex with him.  Furthermore, a woman very nearly had to dress with the modesty of nun in order not to be accused of “asking for it”.  Well, it should certainly be obvious that wanting sex is one thing and wanting to be raped is surely quite another.

At any rate, the moral climate has shifted in favor of women in the following ways.  One the one hand, the sexuality of women has been acknowledged; on the other, there is proper insistence that acknowledging the sexuality of women does not give men an entitlement to have sex with a woman.  Indeed, no one is entitled to have sex with a woman—not even her spouse.  Needless to say, respect for women is rightly held to be inextricably linked to just this fact.

In the meantime, and out of respect for women, the standards for rape have shifted in that a woman no longer has to show evidence of enormous violence against her.  And it is this shift that has facilitated the heinous false the allegation of rape. 

Rightly so, a woman no longer has to be ashamed of having an interest in sex.  So merely being in the bed with a man no longer counts against a woman as being in a compromising position.  There is a respect in which the charge of rape operates somewhat like the charge of racism in that in both cases the accuser is given what I shall presumptive credibility, owing to the respective histories of injustice.  If, nowadays, a black says that a white treated him in a racist manner, then tendency is to look for ways in which this could be true rather than to question the credibility of the black. 

Nowadays, all that is needed to make the charge of rape is something akin to the following: “I said “stop”, he kept going; and I was afraid”.  While signs of violence certainly serve to substantiate a charge of rape, they are no longer necessary in order for that charge to have credibility.  The most famous illustration of this latter point in recent history is the accusation that three white lacrosse players of Duke University had raped a black woman.  These three white students were pretty much tried, convicted, and hung by the jury of public opinion.  As it turns out, all the charges were dropped.  Indeed, the charges proved to be notoriously unfounded in the first place.

With the charge of racism, people rush to prove that they are politically correct, and so that they are not racist.  With the charge of rape, people likewise rush to prove that they are politically correct,

But, alas, here is a most profound difference—a difference that should not surprise us.  The charge of racism can range from the trivial to the profound.  The charge of rape is always profound.  One consequence of this difference is that the charge of rape has considerable residue even after it has been dropped.  While racism is wrong, not every form of racism constitutes a criminal offense.  Indeed, some forms of racism seem to flow from sheer stupidity.  No so with rape.

By contrast, rape is necessarily a criminal offense.  So when the charge of rape is made, there a great deal of social and institutional sullying that takes place even before the trial occurs.  A person so charged may be suspended from his position and he may be placed under house arrest.  Indeed, just about everything that he does will be subject to some manner of legal inspection.  .  While neither charge is trivial, the charge of rape has greater social residue, if you will, than the charge of racism unless the charge of racism involves something particularly flagrant kind of case. 

One horrendous consequence of this fact about the charge of rape is that a false charge of rape can continue to ruin a person public standing even after he has been cleared of the charge.  The case of Scott Michael Waite is a chilling example of this reality.  Although I have referenced an important blog regarding false rape accusations, the story about Scott Michael Waite originally appeared in The Star Tribune.

As a result of the criminal proceedings there were injurious things about Waite’s past and private life that otherwise no one would have ever known about were brought to life.  This is and would be true of anyone who is subject to investigation on account of being accused of rape.  Waite, for instance, used to smoke marijuana—something that would not have become public record but for the charge of rape against him.  What is more, his name is associated with having been accused of rape; for that is the story that made headlines.  The fact that the charges were dropped is relegated to the back pages.  Thus, the dropping of the charges did not suffice to undo the sullying of his reputation.  So it is for any man falsely accused of rape.  

Notice that a woman’s past cannot be as easily used against her; for the fact that a woman has had sex on numerous occasions with different partners does not make it the case that she was not raped. 

I hold a very simple truth, namely that we must be ever vigilant on two accounts.  Rape is surely wrong.  And in the marvelous words of Cathy Young, written in the Boston Globe (“A Rush to Injustice in the Duke “Rape” Case”): 16 April, 2007), there is nothing whatsoever anti-male in embracing this truth.  It is equally the case, alas, that the false accusation of rape is wrong and some women are disposed to commit this wrong.  By parity of reasoning, as Young notes, there is nothing at all anti-female in embracing that truth. 

Political correctness seeks to turn the history of a group’s having been victimized into a kind moral non-culpability zone for those who are a members of the group in question.  This is to ignore the very poignant truth that being a victim of system wrongdoing has rarely if ever turned folks into model moral citizens.  Victimization and evil motivation are not incompatible pairings‑‑either logically, conceptually, or practically.  Neither blacks nor women nor any other group of people, however, defined have turned out to be the exception to this truth. 

What do Liberals and Adolf Hitler have in common?  The surprising answer is that there is a disconcerting affinity in the way in which they view ethnic diversity.  Of course, Hitler held that that the Aryan people were superior to all other peoples; and no Liberal would ever embrace that view.  Yet, owing to the way in which Liberals embrace the idea of ethnic pride, the result is that Liberals have a tendency privilege ethnicity in a way that veers towards a Hitlerian view of things. 

I understand, of course, that this charge can be made of some Conservatives.  The difference, obviously, is that Liberals claim to have the morally superior view regarding race than conservatives.  All sorts of people expect Conservatives to have morally untenable views about race.  But Liberals deem themselves to be the very darlings of diversity.

Ethnic pride is roughly understood as the view that in virtue of their ethnicity people have certain wonderful qualities that they would not have otherwise and that people not belonging to that ethnic group cannot have those qualities—at least not as well.  As we know, people have in the name of ethnic pride argued against marriage across ethnic groups.  This idea of ethnic pride flirts—and flirts mightily—with the idea that there are racial essences.

Bearing in the above mind remarks, here is what Hitler wrote in Chapter XI of Mein Kampf:

Any crossing of two beings not at exactly the same level produces a medium between the level of the two parents.  This means: the offspring will probably stand higher than the racially lower parent, but not as high as the higher one . . . . 

The consequence of this racial purity, universally valid in Nature, is not only the sharp outward delimitation of the various races, but their uniform character in themselves. The fox is always a fox, the goose a goose, the tiger a tiger, etc., and the difference can lie at most in the varying measure of force, strength, intelligence, dexterity, endurance, etc., of the individual specimens . . . .

From considerations such as those above, Hitler concludes that:

Historical experience . . . shows with terrifying clarity that in every mingling of Aryan blood with that of lower peoples the result was the end of the cultured people. 

Of course, people who talk about ethnic pride will be quick to point out that they do not believe in the inferiority of any ethnic group.  Alas, the problem lies with the idea that ethnic pride is based upon a quality that is very much akin to racial essences.  And with racial essences, one can assert “They (those members of ethnic groups) are not like us”.  This one can assert even if one cannot make the claim of inferiority.  And this very assertion has been the handmaiden of evil, because it is the seat of suspicion and mistrust.

Liberals have embraced the idea of racial essences or, at any rate, they have done so for all practical purposes.  And therein lies the affinity between the view that liberals hold regarding ethnic groups and the one that Hitler embraced.  As I noted above, although some will accuse Conservatives of this, it is Liberals who insist that they have the better view regarding race and ethnicity.  So Liberals are the very last people on the planet who should have a view that bears any affinity to Hitler’s views.

Formally, the liberal view goes rather like this:

(1) All ethnic group are equal but in different ways, with no one ethnic group being superior to any other ethnic group

And thesis (1) is compatible with the view that

(2) The intermingling of one ethnic group with another will result in both groups being diminished in some fundamental way (where the issue is not about disappearing)

Indeed, we know that various members of both white and non-white ethnic groups have boldly asserted various versions of (2), in claiming, for instance, that marriage between ethnic groups is out of place. 

Needless to say, the view that racial intermingling in marriage is inappropriate is one that Hitler himself would have endorsed.  Well, perhaps not quite; for he probably did not care much at all that non-Aryans of different ethnic groups intermingled.  The point, of course, is that we have an affinity here that should be an embarrassment to anyone committed to racial equality. 

George Santayana observed that “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”.  We now know beyond any shadow of doubt that from an evolutionary perspective ethnic differences are utterly inconsequential in terms of both talent and temperament.  Thanks to the work in evolutionary biology in the 20th Century, we now know this truth in a way that not even Darwin could have known it.  Yet, in the name of racial equality, we have made more of racial differences than a wicked man like Hitler, himself, could ever have imagined. 

What follows from this is the poignant truth that our progress is far more precarious than it should ever be given the facts that we have at our disposal.  Accordingly, we have no one but ourselves to blame for this moral reality.