[PEN-L:11194] Re: On censorship

[Michael Eisenscher <meisenscher@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Rakesh,

Why should the burden be on Maggie or any other women on this list to
respond to sexism?  When I challenged Karl around his sexism, it was not out
of some noble sense of chivalry nor because I did not believe women on the
list could not respond for themselves, but because I found it personally
offensive in addition to feeling a personal responsibililty not to remain
silent.  I don't think Maggie needs help or protection from Karl, but the
fact that she does not doesn't relieve men on this list from a
responsibility to repond to instances of sexism just as whites bear a
special duty to address racism.

I also don't think we need Karl's paranoid personal abuse on the list to
have a good discussion about feminism or anything else.  In fact, his
vitriole actually makes having such a discussion more difficult.  From what
I have seen in my limited time on this list, there are very few participants
who shrink from difficult questions or seek to avoid controversy.  IMHO what
got Karl booted was not the fact that he posed intellectually challenging
questions.  It was his demeaning personal abuse, invective, and often
irrational ranting.

In solidarity,
Michael

At 04:19 PM 7/7/97 -0700, rakesh bhandari wrote:
>
>>patience and toleration and then exercised your responsibility.  Otherwise,
>>what is the point have having a moderated list at all?  If, rather than
>>sexism, Karl had expressed equally damaging racism, would those who have
>>spoken in favor of allowing him to remain continue to be so inclined?  Karl
>>and others like him have many venues on the Internet to spew their hurtful
>>vituperation.  This list does not have to be one of them.
>
>But, Michael E, Maggie hasn't yet asked for protection from Karl. As I do
>think it is an important question how racism *and forms of anti-racism*
>contribute to social divisiveness and irrational social analysis, I was
>looking forward to a deep discussion about the nature of feminism.  For
>example, in my dept, there is a simple refusal by many grad students to
>engage systematically people like Robert Epstein, the Chicago libertarian
>law professor, and Yehudi Webster, the iconoclastic author of The
>Racialization of America, because they are both opposed to race-based
>remedies (though for very different reasons). Webster argues that
>race-based remedies can only reinforce the system of racial classification
>and the pernicious realist theory of races upon which it is based. For this
>reason, he argues against race-based remedies despite whatever advantages
>they may really bring. I have offered a criticism of his argument in my
>disseration, but I was helped immeasurably by engaging with it. I was
>hoping there would be some productive consequences from a critical
>investigation of feminism. And for this reason, I oppose the ban on Karl
>(though I think his being booted from marxism-international for violation
>of its post limit is more than legitimate). It would seem to me that the
>only reason to ban Karl would be that everyone who disagreed with him would
>not take time to answer him systematically--leaving Maggie with all the
>work.
>
>All the best,
>Rakesh
>
>
>