A similar theme to No One Makes You Shop at Wal-Mart, of course (and I believe I recall you having mentioned it here). However, I had forgotten that its sub-title is "The Surprising Deceptions of Individual Choice".
Good god, people get paid for this stuff? The excerpts from that Pallikkathayil paper he described as excellent sounded like a painful undergrad late night discussion. "But what if it's all consensual?" "But it's like totally bait and switch, maaaan."
But what if the ultimatum is given while on an airplane and one party is an actor while the other is a model?
I read the CT thread back when it was going on and I recall thinking that the determination of the neighborhood libertarians to be creepy was impressive.
"This is purely a rational exercise of my awesome Galtian intellect and it's a total coincidence that I repeatedly arrive at conclusions that justify quasi-sex slavery."
Well, kind of yes on the creepiness. But I think this is really a core problem with libertarianism -- it all rests on consent, that if everyone's consenting and no one is being threatened with direct violence to elicit that consent, nothing wrong is happening. Depending on the circumstances, there are a whole lot of situations that look unambiguously abusive to a normal person where everyone is 'consenting' and there's no direct violence in sight, which means that a libertarian has to either do a lot of fancy dancing about distinguishing between true and false consent, which I think generally doesn't hold up, or bite the bullet and say that even though those situations look abusive, they're actually just fine.
5: LB, that homeless dude totally freely consented to sell me his kidney.
I should say that I'm not just beating up on libertarians here -- I hadn't thought about it from this angle before, and I probably would have in the past accepted the proposition that 'everyone's consenting' gets you most of the way to 'everything's just fine' such that you'd need a particular argument why any given case was an exception. I think I've moved to 'everyone's consenting' doesn't tell you much of anything (although the reverse does), and really doesn't create any kind of presumption.
Here's an easy rule of thumb: if you think that going to the post office and having sex are the same kind of thing, you're doing one of them wrong.
If someone is threatening to take away something of yours that's very important is a violent threat. This just isn't a consensual interaction in any meaningful sense.
The case of "if you fuck me I'll hire you" is a bit more difficult to analyze. Even harder is "If you fuck me I'll give you a 5 year employment contract where I can't fire you without proving to a court that you violated this contract." At that point I think it's not so different from prostitution.
I can't believe the only "Mad Men" reference is someone being surprised that "Mad Men" hadn't been mentioned.
But if the problem is that a threat to fire is a threat of violence, why is it okay to threaten to fire someone for not doing normal job duties? Wouldn't that make doing your job at all coerced and unfree?
I can't believe the only Mad Men reference in this thread is somebody being surprised the only Mad Men reference in the other thread is somebody being surprised that Mad Men hadn't been mentioned.
8: don't all post offices have a rotating circular bed in the middle of them?
I hadn't thought about it from this angle before, and I probably would have in the past accepted the proposition that 'everyone's consenting' gets you most of the way to 'everything's just fine' such that you'd need a particular argument why any given case was an exception.
I think it's worth quoting from Chris Bertram's introduction in his post:
... this strikes me as being one of those cases where my confidence that it is wrong outstrips my confidence in any of the explanations about why it is wrong, but, contemplating the case, I experience no great sense of puzzlement about its wrongness.
I think that what makes it an interesting question is that the feeling of "sex is different" is part of what inspires the confidence that the behavior is wrong, but it's difficult to turn that into an easy test (I suspect, also, that there isn't a bright line between, "things that are unambiguously obnoxious but that most people would willingly put up with at work, provided they only happen occasionally" and "things which most people wouldn't put up with at work, even if they only happen occasionally." Sexual harassment in clearly in the second category, but I think there's a significant grey area between them.
10: The same reason it's ok to take away someone's house using the police power of the state if they don't pay their mortgage. Sometimes you have to coerce other people, and no one is truly free.
Really, if you're a libertarian, you should demand that all employment contracts to be entered into explicitly spell out all potential duties of the job, and insist that you will not perform any duties not so specified and that punitive action taken based on non-performance of such duties is grounds for legal action for breach of contract.
I have known people who do essentially this and while it makes for a sad, unsuccessful life, it is funny as hell to watch while it happens.
I think 'sex is different' helps make it an easy call, but like I said in the post, I don't think you need sex to get to 'consent isn't enough'. Getting consent to work with machines that are going to mangle a certain percentage of the workers is no problem if there are poor enough people in the job market -- they will knowingly make that tradeoff, of unemployment against a risk of mangling. This doesn't take the moral responsibility for mangling the workers off the employer at all, in my view.
17: That is to say *employment* is different.
Sex with the boss is also not something that is integral to the functioning of the company. Taking the mail to the post office is.
8: Because you can only do one of them on Labor Day.
Getting consent to work with machines that are going to mangle a certain percentage of the workers . . .
This depends on what the percentage is, and also isn't a bright line test. I do some work for [large process manufacturing facility] and they put an emphasis on safety, but I know there are a number of people working there who were working there 20-25 years ago when it was a much less safe place to work (not necessarily resulting in "mangling" but, I'd guess" multiple "OSHA recordable injuries" a month) and I don't think they would say the employment, at that point, was immoral.
I'm being picky because I think the OP does pose an interesting question. It seems like there should be a way to frame a rule to fit our moral intuitions, but I'm not sure what it would be.
A similar theme to No One Makes You Shop at Wal-Mart . . .
No One Makes You Shop at Wal-Mart is mostly about collective action problems -- cases where an individual is better off shopping at (or working at) Wal-Mart, but the community as a whole suffers. That's a little bit different from, "somebody has made a request that they have no right to make. Even if you willingly agree to carry it out, it was still wrong of them to put it forward."
||Holy crap. I just opened my email from the farmers market and was greeted by a picture of La Famille helpy-chalk! |>
And a note saying where to leave the ransom.
I was just about to make the argument in 19, but then Blume had to go and ruin everything.
22: Would you mind forwarding it to me? I tried to sign up for the email list, but apparently I failed. Thank you.
Also, why the special exemption for physical violence then? Isn't consenting to "mail this package or I'll beat the shit out of you" a thrilling instance of using one's personal choice in a rational manner?
I think I need to comment more(!). My sentences look like John Galt on a trolley.
I think part of the philosophical confusion here derives from moving from the act of consenting to a sort of state or quality of there being consent. The act of consenting is a speech act that we all more or less understand. Often, the act of consent is necessary for something to be morally acceptable. But the liberal move is to take this particular act, which only makes sense in certain contexts anyway, and turn it into a magic spell that creates a new state of things, a state in which everything is fine because there is consent (because the relevant parties have cast their consent spells). And this leads to weird results, because there are times when the spell doesn't work -- you can say the words, but the magic doesn't happen.
This can be theorized a few ways: Maybe an act that formally looks like consent isn't always consent. Or maybe the act of consenting is often/usually/always a necessary but not sufficient condition for making a situation noncoercive. Or maybe consent is always a fiction that liberalism uses to justify existing social relations and its incoherence as a normative concept only becomes apparent to us (enmeshed in these relations) when we look at extreme cases like "fuck me or you're fired."
If the sexual harassment is truly consensual, no action will lie, because no one is complaining.
Nonetheless, every libertarian should be forced to litigate a breach of contract suit before being allowed to present their childish views in public.
The BHL post ended up resting on the idea that it was a bait and switch problem -- the idea is that most workers weren't hired with an implicit agreement that sex was going to be part of their duties, so springing that on them unexpectedly would be wrong, and if you could get past that problem, maybe it wouldn't be wrong.
Not sure I see what is wrong with this conclusion so long as you believe sex work should be legal...I mean, say someone put up a 'Help Wanted' ad that specified that you were being hired to A) have sex with the boss on request, and B) do secretarial duties as necessary. Assuming sex work is legal and they have agreed to that contract, why wouldn't you be able to fire them for refusing to have sex with the boss? If sex work is legal you can certainly decide not to pay a prostitute who agrees to have sex with you and then decides she won't. It's exactly the same case. Didn't read the CT thread but this whole thing seems to boil down to whether sex work should be legal.
Also, have to say that just from my own perspective I don't feel 'sex is different', in the sense that not-particularly-wanted sex doesn't seem worse to me than lots of other things that are routinely asked of employees in crappy jobs. I'm just saying from my own experience. I would definitely rather have a half hour of mediocre sex with someone I'm not particularly attracted to and then get to take the rest of the week off than have to work 40 hours in something like telephone sales. I've experienced both and there's no question in my mind as to which was worse. Of course this could be unusual and maybe it's just that I'm A) kind of slutty and B) really really hate suffering through lousy boring jobs. Maybe it's different for women, I don't know.
(Also, of course, there are many other considerations -- in reality many prostitutes do poorly paid sex work in horribly exploitative conditions, and the trade off between a half hour of mediocre sex and a full week's salary for drudge work is not what's on the table).
Young people often choose to go without insurance.
Or maybe consent is always a fiction that liberalism uses to justify existing social relations and its incoherence as a normative concept only becomes apparent to us (enmeshed in these relations) when we look at extreme cases like "fuck me or you're fired."
Worth pointing out, of course, that the liberal emphasis on "consent" didn't happen as a way to justify existing impressions of morality, it happened as a way to combat social opprobrium. E.g., "Does it really matter what these affectionate people do -- so long as they don't do it in the streets and frighten the horses!"
I'm somewhat fascinated by the power of a political ideology that renders people incapable of understanding the very simple concept of "corruption." Money corrupts. Not everything should be for sale.
Sex is a little complicated because the idea that "sex is different" is not unrelated to notions of sexual purity that are generally bad for women (and people in general). On the other hand, sex is, well, different. Not everything can be reasoned from first principles. I'm inclined to believe that keeping sex out of the workplace is a restriction on individual freedom that actually does wonders for most people's freedom by limiting opportunities for abuse. It's not bad for a society to create some barriers that make it a little challenging to convert economic power into sexual power.
Both sex and working at the post office have inspired mass shootings, so they aren't completely different.
Hillel Steiner on Exploitation is situations that superficially seem consensual. IIRC he says that an exchange is exploitative if one party would not have agreed to the exchange in an ideally fair market.
This is an interesting proposal, but it seems like you could only apply it to this case if you could define the "ideally fair market" for your sexual services, which is dubious
Steiner calls himself a left-libertarian, and may actually be involved with this bleeding heart libertarian group, although the only other person I know who is involved with them is a straight up Randian.
If the 'sex is different' thing is getting in the way, it's easy enough to substitute any number of things: "Donate your kidney to my daughter or you're fired!" "Clean my house or you're fired!"
Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite,
Who would lash us into serfdom, and then crush us with his might?
Is there anything left to us but to organize and fight?
For the union makes us strong!
Actual libertarians would be opposed to the wage system, and thus would mark both orders as immoral and exploitative.
"Your boss gives you more 'or else' orders in a week than the police do in a year." -- Bob Black
"Sell this defective product at an inflated price or you're fired!"
"Foreclose on this family or you're fired!"
"Cover up this evidence of official corruption or you're fired!"
"Dump this toxic waste down the drain or you're fired!"
"Dissect this still-living kitten or you're fired!"
"Fire the Hellfire missile from this drone at that group of Afghans or you're fired!"
"Impose these austerity measures or you're fired!"
"Frack this substrate or you're fired!"
"Discriminate against this homosexual or you're fired!"
"Shoot this young black man or you're fired!"
2: Pallikkathayil gave a job talk at a department with which I once had an affiliation. She was a superstar on the market—lots of flyouts, lots of offers—but consensus at the department with which I once had an affiliation was that while her convention interview was impressive, her actual talk was decidedly not.
I mean, say someone put up a 'Help Wanted' ad that specified that you were being hired to A) have sex with the boss on request, and B) do secretarial duties as necessary. Assuming sex work is legal and they have agreed to that contract, why wouldn't you be able to fire them for refusing to have sex with the boss?
Even if prostitution were legal and well-regulated into benignity, I would see something different about such contracts, and would want to ban the practice if it gained any prevalence.
If the 'sex is different' thing is getting in the way, it's easy enough to substitute any number of things: . . .
A longer-than-intended list of things that come to mind thinking about employment and consent.
First, I wonder if thinking about consent from this pespective adds any additional insight to the previous discussion of NCAA football and college athletics in general.
I do wonder if one of the difficulties in talking about exploitation (and corruption, as Disingenuous Bastard said) is the American discomfort with talking about Class. I'd be curious to hear from any of the British commenters whether a society that is much more open about class distinctions also has more openness about the ways in which shitty jobs are exploitative and what is or isn't acceptible.
On a related note, I just watched the documentary Facing Ali which interviews ten boxers who fought against Ali. I'd put off watching it for years because I'm not a boxing fan and I worried that it would just be depressing, because of the ways in which boxing is famously exploitative. It turned out to be fascinating -- partially the fact that all of people fought Ali at some point in their career meant that all of them were people who were successful and, generally, well served by having gone into boxing. But something that many of them said was that middle class people or people with options don't go into boxing. It was interesting to just get capsule biographies of ten people and to hear what each of their routes into boxing were. They all grew up poor but, of course, their stories and personalities were really different. My point in this long tangent is just that while boxing is exploitative, and while we may be happy that it's fading, it seems hard to wish that it had never been a prominent spot. It does seem like consent was not meaningless, and that many people could be glad for their experiences.
Getting even farther from, "fuck me or your fired" there are other interesting examples of professions that are dangerous but also attractive enough that there are a lot of people willing to sacrifice to be involved in them. Thinking of other documentaries I've seen both modeling and stunt work (a job in which, "we're going to light you and fire and throw you through the air" might be part of the job description) have a lot of people making decent but not notable money who are taking real risks with their health not just because they need that specific job, but because they like the job. In both of those cases it seems like the appropriate response is to try to regulate the worst of the abuses, to support unions or guilds who can pressure for better pay and working conditions, and otherwise stay mostly out of the way.
Which leaves me where I started: thinking that there isn't a bright line that will tell you when exploitation outweighs consent -- it's going to depend on a lot of external factors including how the job is situated in the larger culture.
The real question is whether you can insist that your prostitute take your mail to the post office.
If that's what floats your boat, why not?
I swear in a decade or two people round here will discover Marx. Not that Marx's "exploitation" is only simple "exploitation" but, it is alsothat.
There is a reason a lot of people say Karl Marx invented modern sociology defined, among other things, as the social structures of acquiescence, hegemony, and consent under conditions of unequal power relations. Lots may have studied it, Marx tried to universalize, totalize, and quantify it.
And then the identity groups say "Our oppression is nothing at all like the 8-year-old scuttling under the looms. Totally different. Marx who?"
I read a comic book version of Marx so I got the gist of it.
Worth pointing out, of course, that the liberal emphasis on "consent" didn't happen as a way to justify existing impressions of morality, it happened as a way to combat social opprobrium.
Right. I didn't say "justify existing impressions of morality," I said "justify existing social relations." Combat the opprobrium that some people might attach to gay sex or factory labor or living in apartments with significant sanitary code violations or what have you.
21,2: No One Makes You Shop at Wal-Mart is mostly about collective action problems
Yes, I was stretching it a bit to both being special cases of a Grand Unified Theory of Consent as the linchpin in all sorts of rigged games associated with the direct or indirect exercise of power.
The post and comments bored me to tears, but I did get in early. Everybody wanted to play with the libertarians instead.
"bob mcmanus 05.29.12 at 7:27 pm
I mean honestly, people, you have the desk next to hers, and as she is walking out the door you aren't walking into the boss's office? It may not come to blows, but words would be exchanged.
What the hell has happened to us?
63
MPAVictoria 05.29.12 at 7:38 pm
"What the hell has happened to us?"
We have become cowed and scared but maybe it has always been thus."
No, it hasn't always been thus, and goddamn doesn't fucking need to be thus. Ideologies and interpersonal and workplace conditions are artifacts. What does the the separation of the social from the economic really mean? It means we have to discuss whether blow jobs are in the implicit job description, and why the victim doesn't have any backup, or why we prefer to analyze the hypothetical as if she doesn't, or only accept an abstract State or Law as her protection. Whatever.
We could connect this to Corey Robin's challenge, or bring in Karl Polanyi. I think I will just go cry.
that while her convention interview was impressive, her actual talk was decidedly not.
Heehee. Not that I begrudge anyone the chance to make a living writing what seems like obvious stuff, I do it all the time. "Subject arrested for rape because while he claims the encounter was consensual, he confirms the victims account of placing a pair of scissors on the side of her neck and threatening to kill her before they had sex. In my training and experience consensual sexual encounters do not begin with a threat accompanied by an edged weapon." (seriously, not a hypothetical, not verbatim from the report, but not far off)
5
... or bite the bullet and say that even though those situations look abusive, they're actually just fine.
You don't have do say they are just fine, only that they aren't bad enough to be illegal.
I wish I was bad enough to be illegal.
52: I don't know her work, but I'd bet that she's writing the simple stuff in part to critique a received view. The idea that if there's consent (between knowledgeable adults), no one else can say anything in a liberal society is pretty common, and it isn't clear on that kind of concept why consenting to some things is okay and other things seems wrong.
Off the top of my head:
1) Received view of consent is value-neutral.
2) Many people think that prostitution would be acceptable if between consenting adults and suitably regulated.
2.5) It is possible to consent to sex in a work environment.
3) Many people accept that when we accept employment, we implicitly consent to do lots of things not spelled out in our contracts in exchange for money, and we think it's okay for an employer to fire us if we don't do what they ask. (Excepting Sifu's careerless libertarian friend.)
4) So, given 1-3, why does it seem wrong to add "and fuck me!" to an employment contract? (Note that it's hard to caveat 1) without undermining the 2s, and vice versa.)
I don't think this is solvable on purely liberal grounds, but I am neither a rising star courted by top departments (I'm going for Plucky Underdog, I think) nor am I a good political scientist. But that's where the problem is.
29: This can be theorized a few ways: [A] Maybe an act that formally looks like consent isn't always consent. [B] Or maybe the act of consenting is often/usually/always a necessary but not sufficient condition for making a situation noncoercive. [C] Or maybe consent is always a fiction that liberalism uses to justify existing social relations and its incoherence as a normative concept only becomes apparent to us (enmeshed in these relations) when we look at extreme cases like "fuck me or you're fired."
Option A seems clearly a dodge (as in, righto, then, we'll call those cases in which the consent theory doesn't produce a result that conforms to our intuitions "Schmonsent" or some such, so they're not counterexamples after all).
Option B is promising, and I believe is the go-to avenue of exploration.
Option C is most intriguing, and tends to be the Marxian/late Capitalism area of interest.
I'm going for Plucky Underdog, I think
Cue theme music.
57: The idea that if there's consent (between knowledgeable adults), no one else can say anything in a liberal society is pretty common
I'm a little puzzled by this: it's pretty common among the lay public, maybe, but I thought it was pretty clearly viewed as bunk in political theory and philosophy. Maybe I'm out of date, though.
4) So, given 1-3, why does it seem wrong to add "and fuck me!" to an employment contract?
I think you kind of give the game away with the "suitably regulated" part of 2.
[C] Or maybe consent is always a fiction that liberalism uses to justify existing social relations and its incoherence as a normative concept only becomes apparent to us (enmeshed in these relations) when we look at extreme cases like "fuck me or you're fired."
Option C is most intriguing, and tends to be the Marxian/late Capitalism area of interest.
Logically prior to "consent" is of course the individual and/or the subject. Historically prior to liberalism is Cartesian dualism, and counter to Descartes is of course Spinoza.
Spinoza and Stiegler on the Politics and Semiotics of Disindividuation ...June 05
All over my head of course, but that's where I want to live.
Really? I think consent-makes-it-ok is a pretty fringe view to be perfectly honest.
While this is slightly unfair, I always think of employment law in general as consisting of lists of things that you can't consent to.
For instance, you can't consent to be employed below minimum wage. Or wevs.
An American employer would put it differently: 'Let me remind you that you're employed at will, and I can fire you at any time for any reason or no reason. How about we have some sex?'
Maybe the guy who did the comic book Marx did Spinoza too.
61: I don't think so. At least, I imagine the kinds of regulations people want for legalized prostitution don't ban things like "will most of the time answer the phone and file the paperwork." (And this started, recall, with mocking the libertarian answer that the problem w
63: It seems to be relatively common in political discourse, especially with regards to sex. (For good reason!)
And if the response to the question in 64 is genuine consent, that is, if the advance was not unwelcome, then it's not actionable. An employee can consent to sex with an employer.
I'm not sure whether this means we're living in a libertarian paradise, or if I just don't understand the question.
67 --- yeah, which bumps weirdly up against employment, where more people tend to feel that consent is not a get out of jail free card.
Noticeably though consent doesn't seem to be a very strong argument legally. It doesn't show up until quite late --- the Wolfenden Report is perhaps the first big UK shift towards consent. And even then it seems quite weak at least in sexual/criminal contexts --- the S&M thing. It is in contract though*. Which doesn't tell us much about it philosophically. It might just tell us the legal system is a repressive and old-fashioned institution. But it does tell us a bit about the practical effects of consent-theory in the world. And that does make me suspicious of things like 33.
* but not always in employment; in NZ there's an interesting change in nomenclature between the right wing government's Employment Contracts Act and the left wing governments Employment Relations Act.
I am possibly being unfair to the importance of consent above.
|| Two weeks from noticing a friend making a few spelling errors and using some words incorrectly to reading "emergency surgery", "malignant", and "terminal situation".
The quick death schtick is better for the one doing the dying but it's sure a kick in the head for those left behind. |>
Cala could finish her 67.1.
Otherwise, the fact that consent-makes-it-okay is relatively common in political discourse reflects the fact that libertarian thinking is increasingly common. It breaks down in numerous scenarios which actually do obtain. Taking sex work as a model is a mistake.
That's awful FDW. My thoughts for your friend, their family, and you.
71.2: yes and yes. From what you say it must be a brain tumour and they can be so horrible if it is prolonged. Shorter may be kinder but a dreadful time for everyone. You keep telling yourself you have to come to terms with it but the unreality persists. Thoughts and best wishes. Hope you have a chance to spend some time with your friend.
That's terrible, FDW. Sympathies.
Unrelated: Andrew Gelman has two new posts about Jonathan Haidt that are worth a look.
Thank you. Yes, a brain tumour. He has been unconscious since the surgery on Tuesday and they are not sedating him into an induced coma to prevent swelling. I am hoping he stays out of it while the family comes to a decision about life support. Maybe I am projecting. Once I am that far gone I would rather stay gone.
Profound sympathies to FDW. But having seen a friend die of a prolonged brain tumour (and a shitload of other stuff resulting from it), believe me this is better. Even for those left behind.
To the OP: why are liberals so skittish about the word POWER? (OK, I know why, that was a rhetorical question.) The issue of power is well understood and legislated for is certain arenas; do the libertarians who think it's OK for a boss to say, "Fuck me or you're fired" also think it's OK for an academic to say "Fuck me and I'll give you a passing grade"? Because that's a sacking offence in every University in the civilised world (and I know it still happens). Do they understand why it's a sacking offence? Do they think it shouldn't be? Do I give a shit what right wing libertarian wankers think?
80: My hypothesis is academically inclined children from upper middle class American families tend to become either libertarians or SWPL-liberals. So this is what they fight about after they grow up.
81 was an oblique answer to why people keep giving a shit what right libertarian wankers think.
I have a second cousin who is dying of the sudden-diagnosis-but-lingering kind of brain tumor right now. It is horrible, in all kinds of ways that it's too early in the morning for me to inflict on unfogged.
Sympathy to FDW. This is basically what happened to my friend Chris: September, he did a hundred mile bike ride with his wife. October, he had a nagging cough but was fine -- we had dinner with him around Halloween. November he went into the hospital to have it checked on, and he died right around Thanksgiving. Once it's a little in the past, I think it's easier for the people left behind as well: hardly any memories of sickness or pain.
80
... do the libertarians who think it's OK for a boss to say, "Fuck me or you're fired" also think it's OK for an academic to say "Fuck me and I'll give you a passing grade"? Because that's a sacking offence in every University in the civilised world (and I know it still happens). Do they understand why it's a sacking offence? Do they think it shouldn't be? ...
There is an interesting point here. It is banned it the academic world because it is a form of corruption like selling grades. And in the business world in most cases the "boss" asking for sexual favors is just another employee and not the owner of the business. So the "boss" is in effect stealing from the company as would be the case with other kickbacks. So this is largely just another instance of the agency problem.
Of course you can ask hypothetical cases about what if it is explicit company policy that managers should be entitled to sexual favors from their subordinates but I doubt this would be all that common in reality.
... Do I give a shit what right wing libertarian wankers think?
Evidently.
I will add the analysis in 86 also applies to sales situations where offering or demanding sexual favors in exchange for an order is analogous to offering or demanding a cash payment (kickback).
We must take steps to ensure the holders of capital get all the sex that results from the employment of said capital.
It is banned it the academic world because it is a form of corruption like selling grades.
-
So the "boss" is in effect stealing from the company as would be the case with other kickbacks.
-
offering or demanding sexual favors in exchange for an order is analogous to offering or demanding a cash payment (kickback).
One hardly even knows where to start with all this...
On the "between consenting adults" issue, I always thought of that as basically pragmatic. It's not that activities between consenting adults are always in some absolute sense OK, but rather that we mainly rely on the law to prevent things that are likely to lead to general societal harm.
For the most common cases that people refer to (sexual activities between consenting adults in private) it's pretty hard to make a plausible case that any sort of wider harm will result. Those who try to make such cases (religious types from the right, some flavors of radical feminists on the left) are generally forced to fall back on vague assertions about the corruption of our precious bodily fluids & etc.
80: why are liberals so skittish about the word POWER?
I didn't think they were, to tell you the truth: libertarians are skittish around it. Liberals will talk about a level playing field -- equal power between negotiating partners -- and are at pains to ensure, to the extent possible, that such obtains. Libertarians seem to assume that all parties are, as they are, equal partners, which seems to be why they have trouble with the notion that 'consent' might be constrained even in the absence of a threat of violence. No?
On reflection, though, yes, there are certain types of liberals who don't like to talk about power. Maybe they're afraid of sounding Marxist.
ffeJ, I think Moby started and finished: It's OK to demand sex for employment if you're the capitalist, but not if you are employed by the capitalist.
Unless, of course, the capitalist gives informed consent.
The Andrew Gelman links on Haidt in 76 are worth a look for those interested in Haidt. I remain interested having seen the man on Bill Moyers' show (to my surprise), and listened to him carefully and with dedication explain why liberals are failing some of our fundamental psychological needs, which is why it's so hard to stay on board with them.
The whole topic is more classic libertarian/conservative empathy failure. The people having fun yakking about it are not picturing themselves facing a sexually unappealing (ugly, obese, wrong gender, let's say) boss telling them that if they want to keep the job, they will bend over and take one of the boss's many elaborate dlidoes in the butt. They're thinking about themselves commanding the favors of an attractive underling. The moral failing is precisely the same one as with them willing to think all day about themselves heroically torturing evil guys to forestall the ticking time bomb, but no time at all pondering themselves as the innocent person mistaken for a terrorist and being tortured for info they don't have about a ticking time bomb that may not exist.
One could construct a payoff matrix emphasizing the unequal outcomes, and particularly the costs of refusal to the underling, but I think it's pretty reasonable to start by asking the circumstances under which the speculator would take it themselves before anything else. Anything else is typical privileged bullshit.
FDW, condolences from here, too, and good wishes. That's hard stuff. Do get grief counseling - there's a lot of solid practical help about such things these days, and it did me more good than I'd have guessed after Dad went similarly.
94: I think it's pretty reasonable to start by asking the circumstances under which the speculator would take it themselves before anything else. Anything else is typical privileged bullshit.
Indeed. I didn't read the CT thread, so I don't know whether it was blind, but I avoided it out of fear.
What is the term for insisting on discussing hypotheticals without acknowledging that the discussion itself is an exercise of power?
I'm thinking of the example from a few months ago of students objecting to a professor continually using rape examples in class, as well as the CT thread mentioned in the OP.
Witt, if you find a good handle for the phenomenon, please share it. My lexicon is in need.
What is the term for insisting on discussing hypotheticals without acknowledging that the discussion itself is an exercise of power?
Platonism?
What is the term for insisting on discussing hypotheticals without acknowledging that the discussion itself is an exercise of power?
Exactly Privilege, isn't it?
Hegemony is the language, privilege is the discourse, power is the event.
You know, this belongs in some other thread (specifically the campaign finance thread) but this, from Nathan Newman, from the Cory Robin thing K-Sky linked to the other day, is the smartest thing I've read recently on politics:
Nathan Newman Seth: And we still have all these left-liberal folks bemoaning rising inequality while ignoring the fact that de-unionization lies at the heart of the problem. If workers are ripped off at the point of production, that's what gives the corporations all the money in profits to spend on politics to make sure inequality isn't addressed in any other way.
Campaign finance reform is ultimately ridiculous, since big money will find a way to spend if their interests are at stake. Unions are the only significant form of campaign spending reform, because it both makes money available for progressive politics AND reduces the profits of the plutocrats so they have less money to spend against our interests.
Walking a picket line to raise wages by $2 per hour is also walking a picket line to reduce the money available to corporations to spend in politics by $2 per hour per worker. So anyone concerned about corporate money in politics should be fighting with unions. But mostly they don't.
And so labor leaders know that if they mount a union organizing campaign, they are on their own. But if they launch a recall election campaign against Scott Walker, they get lots of allies in that electoral fight. So guess what? They choose to recall Scott Walker because at least then they have some allies.
Right on. If you want progressive politics, find ways to give working people power and money, in the workplace, in society, and in politics. The most obvious way to do that is through unions It's really that simple.
I think the original discussion is embedded in a bunch of culture-specific assumptions about what are and are not reasonable expectations for an employer to demand of an employee, and as such, it will be hard to find good general principles that exactly match our particular cultural understanding.
Take that example of "take this package to the post office or you're fired" that many of us seem to think is ok for an employer to demand. What if it's a CEO demanding it of a Senior VP? Particularly if it's not a "make sure this gets done" type of request, but "I insist you do this personally." Still OK? What if the CEO is male and the Senior VP is female? What if he's insisting that she do this not just as a one-time thing, but regularly as part of her duties? Is it still unproblematic? Or do we think that this is something that's ok to demand of a receptionist, but not a Senior VP?
That argument works better for private sector unions.
True. But the public sector unions also serve as a counterweight to corporate power, though more indirectly -- they both fund progressive politics and provide a strong counterweight in fights over slashing the public sector.
101
I think the original discussion is embedded in a bunch of culture-specific assumptions about what are and are not reasonable expectations for an employer to demand of an employee, and as such, it will be hard to find good general principles that exactly match our particular cultural understanding.
Generally the employer isn't demanding sexual favors for the good of the business, a manager is demanding sexual favors for their personal gratification which is no more legitimate than demanding underlings kick back 1% of their salaries. The prurient aspects are just a distraction.
100
Right on. If you want progressive politics, find ways to give working people power and money, in the workplace, in society, and in politics. The most obvious way to do that is through unions It's really that simple.
It's "obvious" that the right plan is to keep trying the same things that have repeatedly failed to work in recent years? I don't think so. This is the Green Lantern Theory in action on the left.
It's not obvious that there's anything that will keep this country from self-destructing.
Hegemony is the language, privilege is the discourse, power is the event.
False consciousness is the mechanism. Bad faith is the lingering odor. The surplus value of labor is the ice cream. The bird is the word.
Other than both being disproportionately likely to involve men named Hal, I don't see what the Green Lantern has to do with unions.
105: Generally, people own businesses as a means of achieving personal gratification one way or another. If there is no agency problem, why couldn't an owner seek sex directly from employees? In your system, the owners would be unrestrained.
It's not obvious that there's anything that will keep this country from self-destructing.
Revolution!
We must destroy the country before it destroys itself!
108:You didn't like that?
How about
What can be said, who can say it (with effect), which determines what can be done.
I can say the mourners at an Afghan funeral are not "militants" but what I say really doesn't matter, the drones fly anyway. Because they are militants. Or the question is whether or not they are militants, which limits the discourse.
So the question of "blow jobs as implicit job description" is posed as a contractural question, with a very distant and corrupted referee in the state. Back in the day, a worker wouldn't pick up a hammer without intervention by a union steward. State was fuck-all.
The problem isn't unions, which are a moldering corpse, the problem is individualism. Lots of social structures could work, if we went bowling again.
So who (a social "who") can say "You can't do that!" (demand a blow job) with real effect?
I said long ago on this blog, we have abrogated the right to command to the state, as the entity with a monopoly on violence and authority. This is the liberal authoritarianism.
I really suck at bowling. I can't break into three-digit scores with any regularity.
109
Other than both being disproportionately likely to involve men named Hal, I don't see what the Green Lantern has to do with unions.
The Green Lantern Theory (as explicated by Yglesias with respect to America's ambitions in Iraq) is that failure just demonstrates a lack of will rather than reflecting objective conditions and can be remedied by cheerleading far from the front. Halford similarly seems to want to reinforce failure.
I just remembered seeing an interview with a former backup singer for Ray Charles. His backup singers were called the Raelettes, and the woman noted that "if you wanted to be a Raelette, you had to let Ray."
110
Generally, people own businesses as a means of achieving personal gratification one way or another. If there is no agency problem, why couldn't an owner seek sex directly from employees? In your system, the owners would be unrestrained.
In world where prostitution is legal it is unclear why they should be constrained. Other than by any regulations on prostitution (such as requiring prostitutes to be licensed).
Has anyone said that the decline in union power came from lack of will?
I thought it was because of the decline of domestic manufacturing and Nixon's southern strategy.
116: I want them to be restrained because I want certain things kept off the table for employment contracts. I was merely pointing out that the first part of your 105 didn't make sense.
The game was up when trade with countries whose comparative advantage was nonexistent labor laws and miserable wages (and no environmental protection) became feasible.
Killing off the unions was then just a matter of time and propaganda.
117: And the blindness of union leadership akin to Detroit execs not seeing VWs, Hondas, and Datsuns on the roads. They were warned often enough, I know 'cause I'm related to one of the Cassandras and got to hear the stories at the dinner table.
118
... I was merely pointing out that the first part of your 105 didn't make sense.
How does it not make sense? I was just pointing out that in many cases your boss is not the owner of the business and hence does not have any rights to request sexual favors that an owner might have.
Did you ever drive a Ford Granada?
117
Has anyone said that the decline in union power came from lack of will?
That was the implication I derived from Halford's claims about what is simple and obvious.
Halford also ignored the conflicts between some progressive goals and union power. There are tradeoffs involved and some on the left think the other goals are more important.
122: Because it implied that mangers were usually acting in the interest of the business, not seeking their own gratification.
125
Because it implied that mangers were usually acting in the interest of the business, not seeking their own gratification.
How do you get that from:
... a manager is demanding sexual favors for their personal gratification which is no more legitimate than demanding underlings kick back 1% of their salaries. ...
It was the "for the good of the business" that made me think of the mention of "personal gratification" was implying a contrast.
James, I'm not sure that your argument gets any farther than the "bait and switch" argument referred to in the original post.
If an employer had the right to include some request for sexual services as an implicit part of an employment contract, they could also give to managers, as a perk, the right to take advantage of that.
(writing that squicks me out badly, but hopefully that makes the point -- one reason why a manager demanding sexual favors counts as their working against the firm's interest is because we don't believe the firm could justify the manager's behavior -- even if the firm wanted to make that part of the manager's privileges.)
119:Maybe, but complicated with multiple factors
Exchange rates. A very weak dollar would make imports expensive and domestic manufactures viable. End of Bretton Woods.
Tax and regulatory structures, profit incentives, etc can lead companies to make internal re-investments in productivity rather than seeking short term profits.
Trade policy.
Current reading Economic Ideology and Japanese Industrial Policy 1931-1975.
129
If an employer had the right to include some request for sexual services as an implicit part of an employment contract, they could also give to managers, as a perk, the right to take advantage of that.
Sure they could in theory but it's hard for me see why they would. The WSJ could give it's reporters the right to trade on inside information (about pending stories) as a perk but it doesn't. There is lots of socially destructive behavior that there is no need to make illegal because it is naturally rare.
If and when prostitution is made legal and large companies start routinely including provision of sexual services to bosses as a condition of employment I will worry about banning it. Otherwise this seems like an imaginary problem.
119
The game was up when trade with countries whose comparative advantage was nonexistent labor laws and miserable wages (and no environmental protection) became feasible.
In my opinion the balance of power shifted towards management as unlawful union actions became less tolerated.
Otherwise this seems like an imaginary problem.
Similarly, there's not much point in legislating about the conditions under which we must push fat men in front of trolley cars. I'm glad we settled that.
If and when prostitution is made legal and large companies start routinely including provision of sexual services to bosses as a condition of employment I will worry about banning it. Otherwise this seems like an imaginary problem.
I have no idea why I'm still arguing this, particularly since I find this particular argument deeply creepy, but I think you're incorrect both theoretically* and empirically.
We live in a world in which saying, "fuck me or you're fired" is banned, I think we all agree that those bans are a good idea, and the discussion is about what theoretical basis best allows us to justify those bans.
I also don't think the idea of a company approving of managers sexually harassing their subordinates is as unlikely as you make it out to be. Because of the existing bans no company could explicitly support that practice, it would open them up to lawsuits, but I think there are plenty of examples of companies which tacitly approve of sexual harassment.
Imagine the cliche of the Hollywood casting process in which it's routine for the casting director has the power to say, "fuck me or your won't be hired." during an audition. Do you really think, assuming the cliche is true, that the studios are all disproving, but see no way to police the behavior. It seems more likely that there would be an collective sense that it is a perk of being a casting director. I don't think it would be hard to find real world situations which would approximate that cliche.
* I don't think your theory is wrong, I just think it's wrong to say that it offers more power than the "bait and switch" theory referenced in the OP.
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The current word is "days, rather than weeks or months." It's all too damn sad though at least no one is performing horrific medical witchcraft for their own needs and not his.
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The current word is "days, rather than weeks or months." It's all too damn sad though at least no one is performing horrific medical witchcraft for their own needs and not his.
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Wow, FDW, that's stunning. Even if it is better (and from my limited experience I definitely think it is better for all concerned), it's still a horrifying whiplash to go from normal to end-of-life that quickly.
My thoughts are with you and yours.
I'm trying to figure if a reminder of the fragility of life means I should leave the bar or stay way late. Very sorry for your friend.
Stay way late. I just found out a friend of mine is dying, too, so that's at least three more drinks. Settle in.
Or rather, I sorta figured he was dying; I just found out it's both certain and imminent.
How awful for both of you. I'm so sorry.
I don't really want sympathy. I just want Moby to get super drunk.
Er, that sounded weirdly dickish about sympathy. Anyhow, I just want Moby to get super drunk.
In my opinion the balance of power shifted towards management as unlawful union actions became less tolerated.
I think the balance of power shifted towards management as effective union actions were made unlawful.
Some guy came and sat next too me. He ordered a ginger ale and talked about not being an alcoholic and the Reds.
Ohio. Reds are paying Detroit and Detroit just pulled ahead.
Well, that'll be nice for Detroit.
Detroit has bigger problems. Anyway, if my wife wonders why I'm out so late on a school day, I'm going to blame Sifu and the human condition.
See? From every tragedy we can pull moments of grace/boozing.
I'm very sorry, Sifu and FDW.
Mrs. K-sky's circle of friends lost another relatively young woman to cancer recently (40s); her memorial service was a couple weekends ago.
This was hot on the heels of another friend dying of cancer last December, one of Mrs. K-sky's oldest and dearest friends. I think I posted about it when it was going on.
Another friend from that group wrote a piece for the LA Times about the Facebook group that sprang up to communicate about her friend's last days.
As Dav/d's condition worsened, the number of posts to the group swelled. This meant that Dav/d was able to experience something akin to a common fantasy: attending your own funeral. Often, he was awe struck by the emotional testimonies posted to the group. "People really put themselves out there," Apr/l says. "People felt safe enough to say things, to say how they really felt, and sound vulnerable, and Dav/d was OK to be vulnerable too."
Yet this outpouring led to another uncomfortable moment for Apr/l. As it became known that Dav/d had only days to live, a few posters began to write of him in the past tense, posting comments that read more like eulogies. His eyesight failing, Apr/l had been reading every one of the group's posts to Dav/d aloud, but she had to carefully reword the past tense to present as she read. "Like if someone wrote 'Dav/d Spanc/r was this,' I would read it as 'Dav/d Spanc/r is this' instead."
(In both these cases there were months before it was down to weeks or days. I just figured, since we're talking about dying friends, the article was germane.)
It was pretty phenomenal -- say what you will about Facebook, and grant that there may be an emotionally ghoulish side to this, but there would have been no other way to share such an experience without it. People from every part of his life connected with each other on the group Wall, and became friends with each other in real life through saying goodbye.
134
* I don't think your theory is wrong, I just think it's wrong to say that it offers more power than the "bait and switch" theory referenced in the OP.
Sure it does, it applies in more cases. As I noted in 87 it applies to sales situations between companies. It also applies where the subordinate initiates the exchange of sexual favors for career favors. It is wrong even when both individuals involved have no problem with it.
That would be heartwarming except for the whole "someone in the same decade of life as me dying of natural causes" thing. On the other hand, I look in better shape than Detroit's relief pitcher.
Detroit's pitcher does have more gold than me.
I just checked, I used the past tense in a remembrance after I got the last bit of bad news. However, that will not hurt him.
I feel that Moby is our most committed in-bar commenter. Horray for PA liquor laws? Anyhow, I'm sitting by the fire pit with a paleo Margarita and feeling bad that people's friends are dying.
I'm home now. Trying not to slur my speech.
It is wrong even when both individuals involved have no problem with it.
This seems contradictory to what you said before, James. You were quite clear that if the business owner and the manager are okay with it, then there's no problem.
Thanks to the red squiggly line, I can still spell. Also I can drink beer like God intended instead of whatever a paleo margarita is.
On the veldt, mixed drinks didn't have umbrellas.
They had rain on the veldt, but not rain like we know it.
I'm having a hard time imagining what a paleo margarita would be. Nothing in a regular margarita sounds very paleo to me.
Also, the latest (AOTW) Dinosaur Comic is sort of relevant to the OP.
160
This seems contradictory to what you said before, James. You were quite clear that if the business owner and the manager are okay with it, then there's no problem.
The two indiividuals I was referring to were the two having sex. And I did not say before that it was ok if the owner approved, just that this reason (misuse of authority) would no longer apply, it might be still be wrong for other reasons such as a general bar on prostitution. And I think it possible that approval by ownership would be so rare that there would be no great need for the law to accomodate the possibility.
"Asinine ontology, Teleology weak."
(It's a stamp my philosophy TA had for grading.)
Wait, what was 170 actually supposed to be? A good thing I'm putting off starting any real work this morning (Spufford's "Response: Part 1" is up at CT).
Oh no, I'm really sorry, FDW. And Sifu.
An interesting piece in the NYTimes that should be about how China is manipulating its currency to boost exports is instead about how, despite large increases in exports, high wages are holding back exports. It's really amazing to me how American working people, like the author of this piece, are duped into believing that wages are always and everywhere - even in China! - too high.
175: I was talking with a labor organizer friend this weekend, and one of the things that I found most interesting was when we discussed functional illiteracy. Do to a tough childhood, including homelessness and other disruptions to school, my friend had never really gotten comfortable with reading. When she started organizing, she realized she was in over her head with all the documentation she had to familiarize herself with, so she basically re-taught herself to read, with the help of labor law pamphlets and the Harry Potter series. She said that dealing with the functional illiteracy of people she's working with in the service industry is one of the bigger challenges. I guess we shouldn't be surprised by this, given how much of it was predicted by Orwell & Bradbury, but it's still a little shocking, coming from a highly-literate background, to be reminded that there are so many people out there who have been totally betrayed by state-sponsored education* and are flailing around in this sea of words without a life jacket.
*She says that, anecdotally, there is a strong correlation between attending charter schools and functional illiteracy.
And I did not say before that it was ok if the owner approved, just that this reason (misuse of authority) would no longer apply, it might be still be wrong for other reasons such as a general bar on prostitution. And I think it possible that approval by ownership would be so rare that there would be no great need for the law to accomodate the possibility.
God help me for wading in, but: in 2009 12.5 million people worked at business with less than 10 employees. That includes some self-employed, but presumably quite a lot of people whose boss is also the owner.
164: Tequila is made from cactus, which I think is OK for the Paleo people.
Are limes OK? I think that fruits are OK in small amounts. Then the only problem is the orange liqueur, which has sugar in it. But there are plenty of plausible work-arounds.
Though really drinking any kind of distilled spirit goes against the spirit of paleo.
178: One issue, even in a scenario where prostitution is legal, is that there is a whole different level of economic coercion happening when it's your boss making the demands. An independent sex-worker who is not trafficked or coerced by a pimp can generally say no to an individual client. (Having that no effectively enforced by the local authorities is another question, which is one argument in favor of legalization.) But saying no to the one person who controls whether you can work at all or get access to health care for the next indefinite period of time is something else again. So I think it's still squicky, even in the "prostitution is legal" scenario.
My sympathies as well for FDW and Sifu Tweety, that's quite the news to get.
It's not really paleo, but I wasn't going to give up booze and agave/cactus isn't a grain so it's a favored cheat among the paleo. The recipe is tequila, fresh lime juice, a little fresh orange juice, optional agave sweetener or honey. Some advocate adding seltzer water but I say no.
The circle (jerk) of life is complete: Unfogged's pickup of a CT thread has now been picked up by CT. Obviously it's the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.
I should put up a new post linking to it. Just to keep the loop going.
Maybe just put up a new post linking to your new post rather than his. Cut out the middleman and increase efficiency.
Well if the blogosphere is going to disappear up its own arsehole I'm going to stop reading it and watch this instead.
Total fail, Chris Y. That's not even close to the best marmoset-related 60s/70s soul piece on YouTube. This one, featuring Joe Raposo, is the best.
What Nick S. has been saying, which is why it is not such a good idea, maybe, to wave around the "you people haven't considered the realities of power" flag without asking (as I mentioned in the other post, which fell victim, reasonably enough, to "sex is different")--empirically--what people think that means. If you have a group of people who don't really know, but think it makes a lot of sense that sex with subordinates would be one of the perks--or a group of people who think sex with subordinates ought to be one of the perks--what argument is left to those who disagree?
Put another way, if the implied contract does include compulsory sex, and prostitution is illegal, AIUI the contract is illegal, and thus (in essence) the employee chooses between the law and loyalty to the firm. At that point, it might seem, all bets are off.
And the internship thing is interesting, because I've known people in their first months of works who complained that their duties were too menial (as compared to people who'd been there longer, or had more advanced degrees). I don't think it's unreasonable to give more menial tasks to the least senior person in the group. It would be unreasonable to reserve menial tasks, however, for the female (or nonwhite) members of the group. Even if they were promoted in parallel with other employees. (Arguably, it would harm them in future job searches to have an excessive proportion of menial tasks on their resume--of course, this assumes that other employers don't make the same assumptions about women or nonwhites.)
"I now think that lack of consent can tell you there's a problem, but the presence of consent doesn't, by itself, give rise to any kind of presumption that an employment or other relationship is not a serious problem."
"In the course of the year 1838, the peaceful island of Barbados was rocked by a strange and bloody revolt. About 200 Negroes of both sexes, all of whom had recently been emancipated by the Proclamations of March, came one morning to beg their former master, a certain Glenelg, to take them back into bondage."
Happiness in Slavery, by Jean Paulhan. Published as the introduction to The Story of O.
I don't know what's more perverse, French theory or Anglophone refusal to deal with the fact that it tries, in its indulgent mannered way, to deal with the the complexities of human life as lived.
I remember one day many years ago, my mother raging at the newspaper. A 50 year old man had been sent to rot in jail as a pedophile. He was HIV positive. He was a miserable old queen and all he was accused of was sucking off underaged hustlers who worked the local chicken run. They took pity on him. He was sad and harmless. My mother was disgusted, not by him but by the cruelty of the state, who would leave a broken man to die alone in misery.
Liberals want to make humane laws to relieve us all of the obligations of humanity.
The entire discussion, here and at Crooked Timber is absurd.
I do hope I'm not responsible for single-handedly attracting Seth Edenbaum to this thread.
The last sentence of this post posited something as if it were some sort of discovery. I found that shocking.
I know working class Catholics who vote as their priest tells them but we're not about to ban the Church, nor should we. There are people who vote following their parents, or in knee-jerk opposition. Some people choose to be passive. I'd call it immoral, but we can't make it illegal. Too many cops identify themselves with the law to the degree that if you question their decisions even politely they'll you accuse you of questioning the law. Their passivity, as laziness, licenses their aggression.
I wanted to ask this at CT.
National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie.
The Nazis were defended by a Jewish lawyer and the ACLU. The case went to the Supreme Court and they won, as they should have.
But how would that case go today and which side would you be on?
Rules can not absolve us of responsibility.
---
A philosophy grad student at Columbia came back to the school and work at The Journal of Philosophy after teaching summer courses at Princeton. Asked how it went she said: 'It was strange. My students were all obsessed with sex. Not the idea of sex or the meaning of sex, but sex!" Even the people who worked in the office thought that was a bit much.
It's a true story.
So when the discussion has turned to food, there's no point commenting on the thread anymore, is that how it works?
Re my @190 where I've worked people have often been so temperamental (and, you could argue, coddled, but for good reason) that administrative-type menial work was considered one of the burdens of power. These were tasks with educational benefit, as well as directly necessary to the core work of the team, they were just boring and they implied a lack of ability relative to coworkers that could be construed as insulting (were the person in question not twenty-one).
195:You can always talk about food, if you give a fuck about food, which I don't, unless it's Japanese food, which I care about only as sociological data, not that I would eat the disgusting shit.
Watched a family put a full octopus tentacle up to a 100-day infant's mouth last night. Some kinda ritual.
Food threads, and most sex and baby threads are bob-repellent. Threads about academia also work.
What Nick S. has been saying
We should invite the CT commenters around more often. . . .
So when the discussion has turned to food, there's no point commenting on the thread anymore, is that how it works?
Not necessarily, but the discussion on this post was sporadic from the beginning, and I don't know how many people are still interested in hammering away at it. Hopefully people will return to it at some point (I'm curious to know if LizardBreath found anything helpful in the discussion) but we may have to wait a while.
Worth noting, incidentally, I am not the person who comments at CT as "Nick S." Whenever I read the CT threads I'm slightly glad that he doesn't comment here because that could be awkward.
196: I am now going to develop a bot to compose several comments about food, sex, and babies for each new unfogged thread.
194: The last sentence of this post posited something as if it were some sort of discovery. I found that shocking.
I don't really know who you are, Seth Edenbaum, but it shocked me as well, sure.
The Nazis were defended by a Jewish lawyer and the ACLU. The case went to the Supreme Court and they won, as they should have.
My dad was doing some sort of summer-law-school deal for the ACLU when they were sticking up for the Nazis -- he remembers working on briefs defending their right to speak in the day, then rounding up his brothers and some bricks and baseball bats and going to square off against the Nazis in Skokie.
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1) All patients in ICUs look the same.
2) All ICUs look the same.
3) Even if you watch your weight, exercise, drink paleomartinis, and all that, something can and will get you and you do not know when.
4) So, don't get too far behind in your DVR backlog.
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You're right about all that, Franklin. Keep breathing - I'm sorry it's all happening.
That sounds like an emotionally draining visit. Hope you're holding up okay.
I'm sorry, Franklin, and agree with all your points as much as I can.
Live fast, die young and leave a pretty good Wikipedia entry*.
*Relevant post is about halfway down the page.
201: The Nazis were defended by a Jewish lawyer and the ACLU.
KKK want to participate in an Adopt-A-Highway program in Blairsville, Georgia. Trying to decide how similar that would be.
To the original parade, not the defense...
Parsimon,
If you think the conclusion odd then the premise is as well, but here they both are, and linked by Henry Farrell. Neither he nor Bertram think this discussion obvious. Sad, isnt it?
Farrell in the past has defended banning political parties and expressed doubts concerning both academic freedom and tenure. Bertram has argued for direct limits on free speech.
As to who I am, do I need permission of some sort to have opinions? But why not... My parents were Berkeley Ph.Ds who as graduate students knew and worked with Alexander Meiklejohn and Ray and Ann Fagan Ginger, and a lot of other people: Harry Bridges' dock workers and beatniks. My father went to Brooklyn college and drank at the Cedar Tavern. My mother's father invented and sold the Honeywell thermostat to "old man Honeywell." My parents met in Minnesota where both were students of John Berryman. My mother's first husband ended up Hubert Humphrey's press secretary before during and after the White House. My father, along with other Berkeley grads organized the first teach ins in Michigan, Boston and Philadelphia. He was a draft counselor and my mother ran a legal panel on the rights of soldiers. They smuggled kids to Canada and were involved in other non-violent illegal activity. My father was on the board and my mother of staff of the ACLU of Penna. Neither were lawyers. I'm a carpenter with a BFA. Good enough?
Is somebody teaching spambots to concern troll?
I don't really think we care what you say, Moby, unless you can give us a little more background information about yourself. What kinds of degrees do you and your parents have, and are do you have any family connections to any sort of temperature regulatory systems or devices?
I did just have a new circuit board installed in my furnace if that helps.
I mean, it helps the air conditioner a great deal. I have no idea if it helps your opinion of me.
Probationarily acceptable. Try to come up with some names to drop by tomorrow.
No names of note, but I was pretty much continuously involved in non-violent illegal activity from 2nd semester freshman year through about age 23 so I think everyone should subscribe to my newsletter.
I do love those old Honeywell thermostats. I should get a new programmable one, but they don't look "thermostaty" enough.
I guess I'll have to wait for the adults, if there are any around. But I think I'm the first "concern troll" known for defending draft dodgers, Nazis, and HIV positive pedophiles.
Pfff. Unless they're all in your basement right now.
I guess I'll have to wait for the adults, if there are any around
We don't have those here. CT seems to have its share, though.
I'm a carpenter with a BFA.
The Christ is risen!
Food threads, and most sex and baby threads are bob-repellent. Threads about academia also work.
(takes notes)
Can I request that the first comment on every post from now on should be "I just finished feeding mashed banana to the three-month-old Vice-Chancellor, and now I have the horn"? I have this feeling that it might improve things.
My great-great-great-great-great-uncle was a pirate on the Spanish Main, and his great-great-great-nephew turned Turk and fought at the Battle of the Pyramids as a gunner under the name of Mustafa. This spring I had a gas-fired boiler installed and it works a treat, and I once built a servo-operated cat food dispenser.
I think my bona fides have now been adequately established.
"I jumped ship in Hong Kong, made my way to Tibet..."
This thread really took quite the turn in the middle, eh?
A servo-operated cat food dispenser sounds awesome. I don't have a cat, but maybe I could rig it to dispense pork rinds to me, instead.
Actually for years I daydreamed about building a servo-operated pot dispenser. Nug a day, Mr. Whiskers. Don't want you sitting around watching cartoon for fifteen hours.
[Insert this entire recent thread (I felt like BALB) here.]
224.2: it was an engineering/design project when I was a kid. The idea was that you loaded it up before going away on holiday and it issued the cat its rations every morning until you got back.
All the stuff in 222 is true by the way, though I may have miscounted the number of greats.
I think that S*th *d*nb**m is probably still waiting for some adults to turn up and engage him at a level that his mighty brain doesn't consider beneath it.
Edelbaum's already got a sympathetic interlocutor -- I'd do my part, but I think I come pre-disqualified by having written the post.
How distant a cousin was Mustafa? From the relationships as given, he could be anywhere from your grandfather, if I've counted right, to a third cousin twice removed.
226: that's very Dorothy Dunnett, ajay!
re: 226.first
I've seen those for sale in those catalogues of gadgets that used to come through the door.
The idea was that you loaded it up before going away on holiday and it issued the cat its rations every morning until you got back.
How about a series of mazes of progressively greater difficulty? You put a rat in the center of each one. On average, one rat per day frees itself from the maze, to be eaten by the cat as it emerges. This requires a certain amount of calibration to work reliably. Also, probably some cocaine as a reward for the rat.
222 earns ajay the right to comment here.
Everyone else is banned.
229: yeah, they're a SkyMall mainstay.
They would have advertised them on the History Channel but nobody could figure out a tasteful way to put a Nazi on the side.
Speaking of bona fides, I've been looking up stuff about the friend I mentioned the other day who is NLFTW and damn but that dude has some bona fides.
226: Dorothy Dunnett built servo-driven cat feeders? Is there no end to the woman's gifts?
227: he was a first cousin of a direct ancestor. But because I'm uncertain about the number of greats, as I say, I'm not sure what kind of cousin he is of mine. It was a very romantic story, actually; he fell for a lady at the Sultan's court while teaching mathematics to the Sultan's son and heir, and converted to Islam in order to marry her.
The full and Buchanesque story of the relative in question here:
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/scotreg/fortune/08Chp12LandOfTurban.pdf
235 promises mathematics tutoring and veiled ladies of nobel birth, and 236 delivers no such thing, not even a Mustafa. I feel robbed.
237: sorry. I shouldn't have said "full". But it is the same chap, honestly.
237: You were expecting Swedish dynamite heiresses?
Kids,
Someone wrote: "I don't really know who you are, Seth Edenbaum..", as if that mattered. I responded glibly, and had fun.
But I was taught by my parents as they were taught by others. Maybe you recognized a few of those names. If any of you are lawyers you should remember them from law school at least.
As to law: Bertram is uncomfortable with the First Amendment. Are you?
"The right frame, in my view, is to think of the state as 'we, the people' and to ask what conditions need to be in place for the people, and for each citizen, to play their role in effective self-government. Once you look at things like that then various speech restrictions naturally suggest themselves."
http://crookedtimber.org/2007/10/26/oh-fantastic/
It's on the post where he banned me, partly for asking why no one was willing to say anything critical of Tyler Cowen, since they were still taking him seriously in 2007, despite his calls for state sanctioned shanty-towns in New Orleans.
This post and discussion are absurd. Yes, obviously 'consent' is problematic. But laws can't be moral arbiters of everything. Policing is only easy in a police state; in a democracy laws will always have an element of the ad hoc. The only people who argue with libertarians are those jealous of its perfect logic. They want a perfect logic of their own.
That's why it took so long for Henry Farrell to give up on Cowen.
Only one commenter at the first CT thread referred to Montesquieu, and he bungled it. But even if he hadn't he'd still have been ignored.
That's sad.
I'm with Cosma, where's the sexy harem maths tutoring?
ajay, would that be the Campbell from Kintyre?
That's the one. The maths tutoring is in a family history book; I'll look it up next time I have access and let you know the details.
This post and discussion are absurd.
I blame the mullahs.
It's on the post where he banned me
Huh, cool idea.
Now ajay, we had to replace all the carpets next time you tried to keep a CT commenter in the house. He'll be much happier at a nice farm in the country where there's plenty of straw men to chase and false dichotomies to hunt for.
When I was little, we had a dog that demanded we make appropriate references to Montesquieu in order to make it feel better about not being able to control a Crooked Timber thread that we had no intention of ever even reading the comments on. Eventually, it got hit by a car when it was trying to demand the driver state his views on the first amendment.
I always liked Seth's commentary at CT (hi Seth!) and thought he shouldn't have been banned. But then I really dig Bob too (hi Bob!) so YMMV. He's a damn sight better than the latest lame troll that's popped up there, that's for true.
BTW, here's teirce on Seth:
http://freakytrigger.co.uk/wedge/2009/05/the-mind-under-the-bridge/
I have a bad feeling that we're crossing the streams here and that I may have broken a few rules too. In which case apologies to all concerned.
As to law: Bertram is uncomfortable with the First Amendment. Are you?
Bertram's the old vaguely Colonel-Sanders-looking guy on Mad Men, right?
209: As to who I am, do I need permission of some sort to have opinions?
Eek. Of course not, and that's not what I meant. Sorry to everyone.
Bertram is uncomfortable with the First Amendment.
Well, dash it all, I rather like the idea of some sort of mechanism to stop chaps like me just saying whatever comes into our heads. Speaking personally, of course, I have my man, Jeeves - you know Jeeves - but I can quite understand that chaps who aren't as well endowed with the doubloons and ducats might want the government to do it. There are some dashed smart fellows in the Civil Service, you know. Old "Parsnip" de Roek-Bairnsfather nipped into the Home Office the other day for a bet, and he swears there wasn't a bowler hat in the place less than a size eight and half. Well, I mean to say.
You're only admiring that because you're not an adult.
I'd rather volunteer for infantry than for adultery, Moby.
249: I'm with Barry, I like both Seth and Bob. I'd rather disagree with 80 percent of something and have the other 20 percent make me think be bored agreeing with all of it.
The 1st Amendment is a peculiarly American eccentricity which makes everybody else in the world slightly uncomfortable.
Automatic cat-food dispensers are awesome. I hooked one up to my home-automation system so that it can either run on a schedule when we're away, or we can trigger it from our phones without even getting out of bed if we're feeling super-lazy and the cats are bothering us for breakfast.
How about the 3rd? Do you have troops quartered in your house?
Only for very serious crimes. And actually we normally do it on the patio, because that can be hosed down afterwards.
I reckon the 3rd would be fairly popular in London these days, what with the army installing SAMs on top of apartment blocks to defend the Olympic games against people without tickets.
268 I thought they were to be used against people sporting unauthorized logos.
"Virgin 219, this is Heathrow approach, unfortunately British Airways is the Official Airline of the London Olympics. Vector 145 and contact Paris approach control. I say again, do not attempt to land at Heathrow or you will be fired on."
269. That too. And anybody drinking Pepsi or eating Burger King inside the M25.
The Ninth Amendment is an American eccentricity that, in its specific wording and original intent, indicate that one ought not get hung up on the specific wording and original intent of the rest of the Constitution.
I think that's slightly unfair, PF. It's just saying you can't use the Constitution to prove a negative, which seems right to me.
Substantial portions of the 5th Amendment are peculiarly American eccentricities which make much of the rest of the world slightly uncomfortable (grand jury indictment, right to remain silent with no adverse inference, comprehensive protection against double jeopardy).
275: If it makes the rest of the world feel better, unless I'm serving on a jury I always assume someone who remains silent is probably guilty.
275
... right to remain silent with no adverse inference, ...
The no adverse inference part isn't in the text and is a relatively recent Warren Court idiocy.
The "no-comment rule" for federal cases dates to 1878. The court extended it to state cases in 1965.
I'm so glad this page is so full of die hard liberals.
280
The "no-comment rule" for federal cases dates to 1878 ...
As the result of a federal law, it had not been declared to be a constitutional requirement. See Griffin v. California (1965):
If this were a federal trial, reversible error would have been committed. Wilson v. United States, 149 U.S. 60 , so holds. It is said, however, that the Wilson decision rested not on the Fifth Amendment, but on an Act of Congress, now 18 U.S.C. 3481. 4 That indeed is the fact, as the opinion of the Court in the Wilson case states. And see Adamson v. California, 332 U.S. 46, 50 , n. 6; [380 U.S. 609, 613] Bruno v. United States, 308 U.S. 287, 294 . But that is the beginning, not the end, of our inquiry. The question remains whether, statute or not, the comment rule, approved by California, violates the Fifth Amendment.
Justice Black's dissent in Adamson, cited in the quote by Shearer, is really excellent. Less excellent is Frankfurter essentially calling Black a troll. (At least that who I think he means . . .)
Black, dissing Twining (upon which the decision in Adamson was based):
It seems rather plain to me why the Court today does not attempt to justify all of the broad Twining discussion. That opinion carries its own refutation on what may be called the factual issue the Court resolved. The opinion itself shows, without resort to the powerful argument in the dissent of Mr. Justice Harlan, that outside of Star Chamber practices and influences, the 'English-speaking' peoples have for centuries abhorred and feared the practice of compelling people to convict themselves of crime. I shall not attempt to narrate the reasons. They are well known and those interested can read them in both the majority and dissenting opinions in the Twining case, in Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616 , and in the cases cited in notes 8, 9, 10, and 11 of Ashcraft v. Tennessee, supra. Nor does the history of the practice of compellig testimon y in this country, relied on in the Twining opinion support the degraded rank which that opinion gave the Fifth Amendment's privilege against compulsory self-incrimination. I think the history there recited by the Court belies its conclusion. The Court in Twining evidently was forced to resort for its degradation of the privilege to the fact that Governor Winthrop in trying Mrs. Ann Hutchison in 1637 was evidently 'not aware of any privilege against self-incrimination or conscious of any duty to respect it.' 211 U. S. at pages 103, 104, 29 S.Ct. at page 21. Of course not. Mrs. Hutchison was tried, if trial it can be called, for holding unorthodox religious views. People with a consuming belief that their religious convictions must be forced on others rarely ever believe that the unorthodox have any rights which should or can be rightfully respected. As a result of her trial and compelled admissions, Mrs. Hutchison was found guilty of unorthodoxy and banished from Massachusetts. The lamentable experience of Mrs. Hutchison and others, contributed to the overwhelming sentiment that demanded adoption of a Constitutional Bill of Rights. The founders of this Government wanted no more such 'trials' and punishments as Mrs. Hutchison had to undergo. They wanted to erect barriers that would bar legislators from passing laws that encroached on the domain of belief, and that would, among other things, strip courts and all public officers of a power to compel people to testify against themselves. See Pittman, supra at 789.
I cannot consider the Bill of Rights to be an outworn 18th Century 'strait jacket' as the Twining opinion did. Its provisions may be thought outdated abstractions by some. And it is true that they were designed to meet ancient evils. But they are the same kind of human evils that have emerged from century to century wherever excessive power is sought by the few at the expense of the many. In my judgment the people of no nation can lose their liberty so long as a Bill of Rights like ours survives and its basic purposes are conscientiously interpreted, enforced and respected so as to afford continuous protection against old, as well as new, devices and practices which might thwart those purposes. I fear to see the consequences of the Court's practice of substituting its own concepts of decency and fundamental justice for the language of the Bill of Rights as its point of departure in interpreting and enforcing that Bill of Rights. If the choice must be between the selective process of the Palk decision applying some of the Bill of Rights to the States, or the Twining rule applying none of them, I would choose the Palko selective process. But rather than accept either of these choices. I would follow what I believe was the original purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment-to extend to all the people of the nation the complete protection of the Bill of Rights. To hold that this Court can determine what, if any, provisions of the Bill of Rights will be enforced, and if so to what degree, is to frustrate the great design of a written Constitution. Conceding the possibility that this Court is now wise enough to improve on the Bill of Rights by substituting natural law concepts for the Bill of Rights. I think the possibility is entirely too speculative to agree to take that course. I would therefore hold in this case that the full protection of the Fifth Amendment's proscription against compelled testimony must be afforded by California. This I would do because of reliance upon the original purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment.