How you can be against both police brutality and riots

Saying the rioting and looting that's been going on in multiple cities is "about" the police killing George Floyd on May 25, 2020 is like saying the Iraq War is "about" terrorists killing 3,000 people on September 11, 2001. Excusing the rioting on the basis that the rioters are supposedly driven by good intentions and opposition to racism, and that they're rightly angry about police brutality, is like excusing Bush by saying he was supposedly driven by good intentions and opposition to tyranny, and he was rightly angry about terrorism. (I'm assuming for the sake of argument that all the rioters are truly concerned about police brutality; for instance, I'm not addressing reports that white supremacists are suspected of getting into the act.)

Don't believe what people say about their justifications for violence. Don't accept a framing that glorifies violence and presents it as deeply expressive. That's just asking to be fooled into accepting violence that isn't really justified.

Note: I haven't said that rioting can never lead to a good outcome, just as I wouldn't deny that some wars are justified. We could go on and on about this: maybe these riots will turn out to be worth it because they'll stop police brutality, and maybe invading Afghanistan was worth it because it stopped al Qaeda, and maybe World War II was worth it because it stopped Hitler, etc., etc. But we should at least be highly skeptical of claims that riots or wars are justified, because most of them aren't. The mistake is in readily endorsing or excusing mass violence whenever it feels like it's resonating with your political values. I'm not saying never excuse violence; I'm saying don't do it easily, glibly, without looking closely and in detail at the real suffering it's causing. I don't mean just skimming a news article or reading some statistics, but watching and listening to specific individuals talking about how their lives have been harmed. Do it only reluctantly and after sober reflection.

When I posted the above on Facebook, Ann Althouse (my mom) said:

Portraying The Other as instinctively propelled toward violence is racist. Please be more cautious in your efforts at appearing to be one of the good white people.

Yes, when I see people who have young kids and are supporting the rioters, I want to ask them: would you accept this from your own children? Would you accept your kids trying to burn down your house, and using the excuse that he or she is mad about bullies who hurt someone else at school? People are having lower standards for rioting adults than they’d have for young children.

Androphobia!

Case #1:

I recently assisted a young man who was subjected by administrators at his small liberal arts university in Oregon to a month-long investigation into all his campus relationships seeking information about his possible sexual misconduct in them (an immense invasion of his and his friends’ privacy), and who was ordered to stay away from a fellow student (cutting him off from his housing, his campus job, and educational opportunity) — all because he reminded her of the man who had raped her months before and thousands of miles away.

He was found to be completely innocent of any sexual misconduct and was informed of the basis of the complaint against him only by accident and off-hand. But the stay-away order remained in place, and was so broadly drawn up that he was at constant risk of violating it and coming under discipline for that. When the duty to prevent a 'sexually hostile environment' is interpreted this expansively, it is affirmatively indifferent to the restrained person’s complete and total innocence of any misconduct whatsoever.

That's from a Harvard Law Review Forum article called "Trading the Megaphone for the Gavel in Title IX Enforcement," by Professor Janet Halley, quoted by my mom, Professor Ann Althouse.


Case #2:

A UT-Arlington student who claimed she was threatened at gunpoint on campus this week admitted Friday that she’d lied, a university spokeswoman said. The student told police she hadn’t even been at the school the day she said the incident occurred....

The university had issued an alert Friday that the student told police she had been followed six miles by a man in a pickup before she reached the campus. She had reported that when she parked at the university, the man threatened her and pointed a gun at her before he left. The student also posted on social media that the man might have targeted her because she is Muslim. In a Facebook post, she referred to the killings of three Muslim students this week in Chapel Hill, N.C.

That's from the Dallas Morning News, which had originally reported, before it was revealed to be a lie: "The suspect was described as a white man in his mid-30s wearing a camouflage baseball cap, a short-sleeve blue shirt and bluejeans." The paper noted that the police were investigating and asking anyone to call with information about that suspect.

Martial arts don't prepare you to defend against real-world violence.

So says Sam Harris, explaining how to deal with violence.

Excerpt:

Herein lies a crucial distinction between traditional martial arts and realistic self-defense: Most martial artists train for a “fight.” Opponents assume ready stances, just out of each other’s range, and then practice various techniques or spar (engage in controlled fighting). This does not simulate real violence. It doesn’t prepare you to respond effectively to a sudden attack, in which you have been hit before you even knew you were threatened, and it doesn’t teach you to strike preemptively, without telegraphing your moves, once you have determined that an attack is imminent.

When we mourn the loss on September 11, what do we affirm?

Leon Wieseltier said, at a 9/11 memorial a few days ago hosted by The New Republic:

We mourn only the loss of what we have loved and what we have valued, and in this way mourning darkly refreshes our knowledge of the causes of our loves and the reasons for our values. . . .

Here is what we affirmed by our mourning on September 11, 2001, and by the introspection of its aftermath:

that we wish to be known, to ourselves and to the world, by the liberty that we offer, axiomatically, as a matter of right, to the individuals and the groups with whom we live;

that the ordinary lives of ordinary people on an ordinary day of work and play can truthfully exemplify that liberty, and fully represent what we stand for;

that we will defend ourselves, resolutely and even ferociously, because self-defense is also an ethical responsibility, and that our debates about the proper use of our power in our own defense should not be construed as an infirmity in our will;

that the multiplicity of cultures and traditions that we contain peaceably in our society is one of our highest accomplishments, because we are not afraid of difference, and because we do not confuse openness with emptiness, or unity with conformity;

that a country as vast and as various as ours may still be experienced as a community;

that none of our worldviews, with God or without God, should ever become the worldview of the state, and that no sanctity ever attaches to violence;

that the materialism and the self-absorption of the way we live has not extinguished our awareness of a larger purpose, even if sometimes they have obscured it;

that we believe in progress, at home and abroad, in social progress, in moral progress, even when it is fitful and contested and difficult;

that just as we have enemies in the world we have friends, and that our friends are the individuals and the movements and the societies that aspire, often in circumstances of great adversity, to democracy and to decency.

"Does Society Encourage Genital Assault Against Men?"

Dr. Helen asked that question in this column from last year. She said:

[N]o one notices or cares about violence against men’s genitals, except to poke fun of those men who are kicked or hit in the balls. People even make fun of men whose penises are severed, as in the case of John Wayne Bobbitt. . . . I often see shows where a man is kicked in the groin and this is often depicted as funny or “no big deal.” Imagine the uproar if a women were punched in the breast on a television show. It is unthinkable.

Now that another one of those stories is in the news, people are going to be talking about genital assault in a way that would be unimaginable if the gender roles were reversed. Why is that?

Mexico's drug violence and journalistic self-censorship

A typically appalling account of Mexico's drug wars by the New York Times quotes a chilling front-page editorial in the Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez, which has been so ravaged by the violence that there's been an exodus from the city. It's a common gimmick for an editorial to pretend to address someone ("An Open Letter to ____"), but this is the first time I've seen one that literally addresses a group of people — the drug lords — as a genuine form of communication:

“We want you to explain to us what you want from us . . . . What are we supposed to publish or not publish, so we know what to abide by. You are at this time the de facto authorities in this city because the legal authorities have not been able to stop our colleagues from falling.”

I noticed the article because one of my friends recommended it on Facebook, which showed up in my feed as: "[Friend's Name] likes 'Mexico Paper, a Drug War Victim, Calls for a Voice.'" My friend remarked on the vacuous cheeriness with which Facebook's jargon has pervaded our content sharing:

When you "recommend" a NYTimes article, Facebook treats it as a "like." "Like" is not the right term for my regard for this article.

Why are young men often passionate about religion and war? Can women put an end to war?

John Horgan takes 18 seconds to recount the 3 phases of circumstantial religious belief in his life (via Bloggingheads on Facebook):



That's part of a discussion of why young men are often passionate about both religion and war. This segues into a discussion of whether war is inevitable and what factors make war less likely:



Here are the social factors that make war less likely, according to Thomas Hayden (who bases this on the empirical research he did for his book Sex and War):

1. A low ratio of younger (18-34) men to older men.

2. More women engaged in civic life. (This has to be a widespread engagement, not just having a few token women in highly visible leadership positions.)

3. More education for girls.

4. Less unemployed men.

5. "Family planning."

With the exception of #1, those are all good things anyway. What a novel concept: caring about women . . . and men! Let's try it!

Men's magazines from back in the day when men were attacked by small animals

A blog called The Art of Manliness has lots of front covers of men's magazines from the early to mid 20th century. (They're from this art book published by Taschen.)

The names of the magazines are as un-subtle as possible:

Man's Life
ALL MAN
MAN'S magazine
FOR MEN ONLY
MALE
TRUE MEN stories
man's CONQUEST
Fury — exciting true adventures for men
Real — the exciting magazine FOR MEN

As I said in the heading, small animals were a theme. As you can see from the top of that blog post, one magazine cover proclaims: "Weasels Ripped My Flesh." This was apparently quite popular — not only did it inspire a Frank Zappa album, but one can detect traces of it on another magazine cover: "Flying Rodents Ripped My Flesh." Other covers have snakes, otters, and turtles.

Matthew Yglesias has a good catch on Twitter (which is how I found out about this whole thing). He calls it the "Best magazine cover-line ever":

"Sex Can Be Fun!"

The Art of Manliness argues that they were a bygone era's equivalent of pornography:

The popularity of men’s adventure magazines peaked in the late 1950s, when fifty different titles were published and hundreds of thousands of men picked up the magazines at the local drugstore or read them at barbershops. But as Playboy and then Penthouse came on the scene, and the courts loosened their restrictions on what was deemed obscene material, “the sweats” began to seem quite tame and outdated in comparison and couldn’t compete. They quietly disappeared in the 1970’s.

The link to the Art of Manliness post comes from the excellent blog Sociological Images, which observes:

They are a window into a time when being a man was clearly a very distinct achievement, but much less related to consumption than it is today.

Today’s men’s magazines emphasize control over oneself and the conquest of women, as do these vintage magazines, but instead of tests of strength, cunning, and fighting ability, they emphasize conquest through consumption. The message is to consume the right exercise, the right products (usually hygiene or tech-related), the right advice on picking up women and, well, the right women. In contrast, these old magazines pit man against nature or other men; consumption has not yet colonized the idea of masculinity.

Maybe the old view was more purely masculine: adventurous, heroic. But that's nothing against the new view. It's not inherently bad to consume things — consumption is a part of life. You're already consuming a magazine. I'd rather the magazine try to cajole men into buying the right cologne than try to implant in their heads that life is a series of a vicious attacks.

Do sex and violence in pornography and other media lead to more or less rape and violence in real life?

Some data.

What happens to men, violence, and sex in a matriarchy

From an interview with an Argentinian who spent time among the Mosuo people of China, observing their matriarchal culture (via Church of Rationality):

[Q:] What is life like for a man in a matriarchy?

[A:] Men live better where women are in charge: you are responsible for almost nothing, you work much less and you spend the whole day with your friends. You're with a different woman every night. And on top of that, you can always live at your mother's house. The woman serves the man and it happens in a society where she leads the way and has control of the money. In a patriarchy, we men work more -- and every now and then we do the dishes. In the Mosuo's pure form of matriarchy, you aren't allowed to do that. Where a woman's dominant position is secure, those kinds of archaic gender roles don't have any meaning.

[Q:] What astonished you the most?

[A:] That there is no violence in a matriarchal society. I know that quickly slips into idealization -- every human society has its problems. But it simply doesn't make sense to the Mosuo women to solve conflicts with violence. Because they are in charge, nobody fights. They don't know feelings of guilt or vengeance -- it is simply shameful to fight. They are ashamed if they do and it even can threaten their social standing. ...

[Q:] How does [the] division of roles function when it comes to love?

[A:] ... Someone always wants to present you with a woman and there is always a woman there who is smiling at you. Like I said, these are very strong women who give the orders and yell at you as if you were deaf. But when it comes to seduction, they completely change. The women act shy, look at the floor, sing softly to themselves and blush. And they let the men believe that we are the ones who choose the women and do the conquering.

Washington Post reporter Gene Weingarten says "hooray" to his colleagues' getting into a fistfight.

"Hooray that there is still enough passion left somewhere in a newsroom in America for violence to break out between colorful characters in disagreement over the quality of a story."

(Here's the backstory.)

Via Metafilter, where one commenter asks:

What the ---- is with this glorification of workplace violence?

War photography and violence

This New York Times piece on war photographers taking photos of dead or mortally wounded American soldiers ends with a "wholly unexpected" comment from photographer Don McCullin:

“I feel I totally wasted a large part of my life following war. I get more pleasure photographing the landscape around my house in my twilight years.

"Have we learned any lessons from the countless pictures of pain and suffering? I don't think we’ve learned anything. Every year, there’s more war and suffering."

But is that last statement true? Steven Pinker wrote this essay saying it's actually the opposite:

Violence has been in decline over long stretches of history, and today we are probably living in the most peaceful moment of our species' time on earth. ...

Conventional history has long shown that, in many ways, we have been getting kinder and gentler. Cruelty as entertainment, human sacrifice to indulge superstition, slavery as a labor-saving device, conquest as the mission statement of government, genocide as a means of acquiring real estate, torture and mutilation as routine punishment, the death penalty for misdemeanors and differences of opinion, assassination as the mechanism of political succession, rape as the spoils of war, pogroms as outlets for frustration, homicide as the major form of conflict resolution -- all were unexceptionable features of life for most of human history. But, today, they are rare to nonexistent in the West, far less common elsewhere than they used to be, concealed when they do occur, and widely condemned when they are brought to light. ...

The decline of violence is a fractal phenomenon, visible at the scale of millennia, centuries, decades, and years. It applies over several orders of magnitude of violence, from genocide to war to rioting to homicide to the treatment of children and animals. And it appears to be a worldwide trend, though not a homogeneous one. The leading edge has been in Western societies, especially England and Holland, and there seems to have been a tipping point at the onset of the Age of Reason in the early seventeenth century. ...

On the scale of decades, comprehensive data again paint a shockingly happy picture: Global violence has fallen steadily since the middle of the twentieth century. According to the Human Security Brief 2006, the number of battle deaths in interstate wars has declined from more than 65,000 per year in the 1950s to less than 2,000 per year in this decade. In Western Europe and the Americas, the second half of the century saw a steep decline in the number of wars, military coups, and deadly ethnic riots.

Zooming in by a further power of ten exposes yet another reduction. After the cold war, every part of the world saw a steep drop-off in state-based conflicts, and those that do occur are more likely to end in negotiated settlements rather than being fought to the bitter end. Meanwhile, according to political scientist Barbara Harff, between 1989 and 2005 the number of campaigns of mass killing of civilians decreased by 90 percent.

Since McCullin purported to base his view that war photography is futile or counterproductive on empirical evidence, I hope he'd change his view if presented with this contrary evidence. But it wouldn't be surprising if he didn't. People reflexively refer to any kind of social problem as an "increasing" problem, and this tendency seems to be more powerful than statistics. Pinker lists a few factors that cause people to make this mistake:

Partly, it's because of a cognitive illusion: We estimate the probability of an event from how easy it is to recall examples. Scenes of carnage are more likely to be relayed to our living rooms and burned into our memories than footage of people dying of old age.

So, ironically, war photography itself feeds into the belief that war photography is ineffectual.

More from Pinker:

Partly, it's an intellectual culture that is loath to admit that there could be anything good about the institutions of civilization and Western society. Partly, it's the incentive structure of the activism and opinion markets: No one ever attracted followers and donations by announcing that things keep getting better. And part of the explanation lies in the phenomenon itself. The decline of violent behavior has been paralleled by a decline in attitudes that tolerate or glorify violence, and often the attitudes are in the lead. As deplorable as they are, the abuses at Abu Ghraib and the lethal injections of a few murderers in Texas are mild by the standards of atrocities in human history. But, from a contemporary vantage point, we see them as signs of how low our behavior can sink, not of how high our standards have risen.

Pinker's essay only observes that there has been a decline; he doesn't try to explain it. He ends by saying:

With the knowledge that something has driven [violence] dramatically down, we can also treat it as a matter of cause and effect. Instead of asking, "Why is there war?" we might ask, "Why is there peace?" From the likelihood that states will commit genocide to the way that people treat cats, we must have been doing something right. And it would be nice to know what, exactly, it is.

There's no way war photography could be the main answer to Pinker's question, since he's talking about a trend that's been underway since long before photography existed. But the fact that people are willing to look at the reality of war in vivid detail might have played a small role in the progress we've made.