[PEN-L:11759] Query for Harry Cleaver

["James Michael Craven" <CRAVJM@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Harry,

Since you assert that my assertions about the nature and effects of
prostitution are mere a priori assertions, please answer the
following: 1) How many prostitutes have you personally spoken with at
length about these issues? 2) How many prostitutes has your graduate
student spoken with? 3) Under what conditions? (e.g. a Japanese
person interviewing prostitutes in Japan might have a real problem
because of the pervasive and brutal influences of the Yakuza and
prostitutes might fear reprisals); 4) What empirical work have you
done/published in this area?; 5) How many activists dealing with mail-
order-brides, prostitution etc in Asia and elsewhere have you spoken
with?

If anyone is interested, I can make copies of my work (in Spanish)
in Puerto Rico ("Dimensions, Impacts and Dynamics of Some Industries
of the Underground Economy of Puerto Rico") including some of my raw
notes and informant reports available.

Here we go back to an old debate. When any and all forms of rebellion
or counter-culture are framed as progressive and characterized as
"self-valorization", "individualistic empowerment" etc, then it
becomes very easy to legitimate--even commodify--narcissistic self-
indulgence as "revolution." The libertarians and other anarchists
love this stuff because it allows them to indulge in their own
individualistic acts and self-indulgent life styles (that really do
nothing for anybody except themselves and a few followers) and handle
the congnitive dissonance problem by framing any and all acts of
ultra-individualism as "rebellion" and therefore "revolutionary."

They can say "we are all whores" in some way so therefore what the
hell, one kind of whoring is the same as another. On one level I can
see the argument, and certainly academics who do Faustian bargains
for tenure, promotions, publish-or-perish etc have no business
"looking down" on prostitutes; on the other hand, I just can't forget
the pain and devastation I have seen in Asia and elsewhere. I'm
sorry, but this crap about the voluntarism and "free exchange" and
"self-empowerment" and "self-valorization" glosses over some very
ugly and very brutal realitites. Tell all of this stuff to the young
Shan girls who are lured or even bought into brothels in thailand,
who are kept in peonage and abject slavery, who are used even after
they acquire AIDS and other diseases and then sent back to their
villages to die.

Historically the anarchists and "left"-libertarians and "bohemians"
who have infiltrated Left movements have always taken much more than
they have ever given in my opinion. By framing all ultra-
individualistic acts as "rebellion" and all "rebellion" as
"revolution" they can crank out their narcissistic self-indulgent
poetry or crank out their profitable Left-market-niche theories
(carving up reality and facts to fit real a priori theories) without
any real coommitment, discipline, focus or whatever.

Well as that other individualistic and rebellious and
counter-culture "revolutionary" Dennis Miller says: "Of course that's
my opinion, I could be wrong."

                                Jim Craven

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