One effect of the Kavanaugh hearing has been a wave of fear sweeping through men—or so it would seem from various expressions of terror on social media and in talking points. The gist of the worry is that “If somebody can be brought down by accusations like this, then you, me, every man certainly should be worried. We can all be accused of something.” Trump, while mocking Blasey to the applause of the crowd, stoked the fire of this fear by asserting “it’s a very scary time for young men.” While it is but anecdotal evidence, I have heard fellow men express their fear that they could be falsely accused by someone out to get them. While it cannot be denied that some men have this fear, the question remains as to whether the fear is warranted. Obviously enough, a careful analysis of this matter will have little or no weight on the scale of emotions. From a purely pragmatic standpoint what is wanting to counter the fear is rhetoric, emotional appeals and fallacies—for these sway the heart as the ear remains deaf to reason.
One key question in addressing this fear is whether false accusations are common enough relative to sexual harassment/assault to provide grounds for a rational fear. Research indicates that false reporting of sexual assaults is between 2% and 10%. As such, it does occur and thus the fear is not utterly unfounded. However, even these false reporting rates seem to be inflated. Thus, while a man could be falsely accused of sexual assault, this does not seem very likely. In comparison, a woman is far more likely to be sexually assaulted; even going with the reported cases. It is also believed that most sexual assaults are not reported, which impacts the ratio of false reports to sexual assaults. Put another way, the odds of a man being falsely accused is far lower than the odds of a woman being sexually assaulted, so women should be far more afraid of being assaulted than men should be afraid of being falsely accused.
It can, obviously, be countered that there are many unknowns at work here. In the case of the number of unreported assaults, this number would need to be an estimate. To use an analogy, it is like estimating the volume of drugs smuggled into the United States illegally by estimating from the amount seized by law enforcement. As such, the estimation could be off—either too low or too high. In the case of false reports, the obvious problem is that only the accusations that are known to be false are known to be false. False accusations that were accepted as true would obviously not be counted, so the percentage of false accusations could be higher. As such, we cannot be certain about the ratio of false accusations to actual sexual assaults. While this might tempt some people to think that this warrants fear on the part of men, there is the obvious fact that this also applies to almost all crimes and threats and consistency would require having the same response across the board.
One cause of the worry on the part of men seems to be the belief that a woman who accuses a man will be seen as more credible than the man, simply because she is a woman and he is a man. Rolled into this also seems to be that there will be a presumption of guilt rather than innocence.
This fear seems to be utterly unfounded since women have been regarded as less credible than men, both collectively and individually. In the case of rape, the legal rules once had a bias against accusers baked into them. This has shifted from codified bias to a bias in practice, but with the same results: woman accusers are presumed to lack credibility. It must be noted that this is not the same thing as the presumption of innocence—a person accused of sexual assault or rape should be presumed innocent until proven guilty in court. The disbelief of female accusers is a presumption they are lying, which gives the accused a double advantage. One just (presumption of innocence) and the other unjust (a presumption of doubt against the accuser). As such, men would seem to have little to fear in this regard: the presumption of credibility is in their favor.
The obvious counter to this view is to argue that the presumption in favor of men is changing and now women are being regarded as credible, as in the case of Dr. Blasey. As such, men should start being afraid because of what is to come.
It would, of course, be worrisome if there was a shift to a presumption of guilt and if women were presumed to be telling the truth and men were presumed to be lying. After all, this would simply be a role-reversal of the current unjust situation and would thus still be unjust. However, what seems to have happened is that the presumption of doubt of women has been reduced and credible women are now being regarded as credible when making accusations. As such, it is not that men are now at a disadvantage and must fear that they will automatically be doubted. Rather, what they must fear is that (at least for now) women might not automatically be doubted. Roughly put, men have (perhaps briefly) lost some of their advantage against women and this hardly warrants fear on the part of the innocent.
The last thing I will consider is concerns about due process. In the case of Kavanaugh, there have been cries that he did not get his due process. This has been generalized into the claim that this same approach will be applied to other men—that they will not get their due process if accused of sexual assault.
On the face of it, Kavanaugh does seem to be getting due process. As this is written, the FBI is investigating the allegations to see if they have any foundation. He also had his time to defend himself against the accusations. Naturally, whether the process seems due or not is largely a matter of one’s politics. If Kavanaugh was a liberal Democrat being assailed by Republicans, Republicans would tend to think he had gotten his due process. Since the reverse is true, Democrats tend to think he is getting his due process. In fairness, it could be argued that because Blasey’s accusation was made late in the process, there is a problem with the due process. But, this can be countered by pointing out the obvious fact that there is no rush to confirm Kavanaugh—the confirmation hearings can go on and on until the Republicans are satisfied that Kavanaugh has had every opportunity to respond to the accusation and has gotten his due process. After all, the Republicans argued vehemently against even holding hearings when Obama made his nomination to the court and all their arguments about the acceptability of delays can simply be copy-pasted and used against them now.
But, let us suppose that Kavanaugh was denied due process and has been treated unjustly. Does it follow that every man should be afraid that this will happen to him because it happened this one time?
Going from the one example of Kavanaugh to all men by using an inductive generalization would make for a very weak argument. It would look like this.
Premise 1: One man, Judge Kavanaugh, did not get due process when accused of sexual assault in his supreme court confirmation hearing.
Conclusion: Every man should fear not getting due process when accused of sexual assault.
The strength of a generalization depends on the representativeness and size of the sample. In this case, the sample size is one man who is in very unusual circumstances. As such, the inference is incredibly weak.
It can be countered that there are more examples for the sample than just Judge Kavanaugh. Trump put himself forward as an example and, of course, people will point to all the powerful men brought down recently during the #meetoo movement. The challenge is, of course, showing that in each example the man did not receive due process. If enough examples are found to create a representative sample, then the inductive generalization would be strong and men would be warranted in their fear that they would not receive due process because it would be reasonable to believe that they would not.
Anecdotes about men who did not receive due process would be worth considering since they would be individual cases of injustice. However, making an inference from anecdotal evidence to a general conclusion would obviously be the fallacy of anecdotal evidence.
Since I do believe in justice (in the moral sense of the term), I believe that everyone should get due process. As such, each case in which a person is denied due process would be a case of injustice and if it is shown that the denial is systematic and widespread against one class of person, people in that class would be right to fear injustice. However, there does not seem to be systematic and widespread denial of due process to men accused of sexual assault. But, if evidence is forthcoming for such oppression, I will certainly join with my fellow men and oppose it. After all, what sort of person would tolerate systematic injustice and denial of due process?
Alan Dershowitz wrote an excellent piece yesterday. He asked liberals to consider a scenario in which a liberal Muslim is nominated to the supreme court. After a long hearing process before the committee, 11 days prior to a potential vote, a man comes forward and states that the judge is actually a terrorist, stating that he saw him in an extremist mosque and that he once saw him place a bomb that hurt someone. There are no witnesses to corroborate what the accuser says, nor any forensic evidence. The judge’s character has never before come into question.
Liberal reaction?
Also, for the record, let’s remember that the Roe V Wade case, which in truth is what’s causing all of this mess, was begun by a woman who lied about being raped. She admits to lying.
https://twitter.com/obianuju/status/1047871266454196225
Well, is the accuser credible? Was there another witness (“Muhammad Judge”) present during the alleged bombing? Are there other incidents of alleged terrorism? If not, the analogy is too weak.
In such a situation, the Democrats would presumably back the candidate and the Republicans would be doing to the Muslim what the Democrats are doing to Kavanaugh. Trump would, one imagines, be tweeting up a storm attacking the Muslim.
That said, the case against Kavanaugh is weak. While there is general agreement that Blasey is credible; there is not enough evidence to support her claim to even a preponderance of evidence level.
Actually, in Dershowitz’s example, the case was stronger for the terrorist judge than rapist Kavanaugh. First, the bomb detonation actually occurred and was not in dispute. Nobody besides Ford says this party happened. Second, the accuser did not name witnesses who later stated that didn’t even know the accused, as did Ford.
The purpose of this, which he uses in teaching law, is to show implicit bias. People will approach the subject entirely differently based on politics.
“…Well, is the accuser credible? Was there another witness (“Muhammad Judge”) present during the alleged bombing? Are there other incidents of alleged terrorism?”
Based on the “new rules”, this does not matter at all. If we follow the same rules that we did about Kavanaugh, all of this is “tried” in the court of public opinion, and anyone who watches or reads the news, subscribes to Facebook or Twitter, or listens to the radio already has an opinion.
By the time “credibility” is established, or by the time any witnesses or evidence is gathered, it’s too late. People have made up their minds – they either hate him or they hate those who hate him, and they are hated right back.
You seem to be of a very utilitarian stripe here – that the methods of inquiry or public dissemination all depend on they outcome – that if the offender is ultimately found “guilty”, then any and all methods used to get to that point are justifiable.
Worse, the offenders guilt or innocence matters less than the confirmation – if he is not confirmed, that means that he must have been guilty, etc., etc.
The senator from Hawaii said that men need to “shut up.” She never apologized or walked it back, and she was not criticized by other Dems for her remark.
The Dems have clearly moved from not simply being pro-women, but to actively being anti-male.
We will see how well that works out for them.
I would say that some Democrats are anti-men, but that example hardly shows that the Democrats are anti-men. One would not justly infer that all or even most Republicans are anti-women because of the positions held by some Republicans.
I don’t think a Republican senator’s career would last long if he said in a public statement that “women should shut up and do the right thing for once”.
Democrat politician silence was deafening and shows tacit support (at least to gain votes) for the statement. Blumenthal ( I believe) was standing right behind her when she said it, and he smiled.
We’re not really arguing that attacks against women and (especially white) men are equally accepted in our country are we? A look across the headlines of op-eds from major newspapers over the last two weeks shows decisively that this is not true.
While I am for free speech, there is only one form of hate speech that is essentially “institutionalized”. And that’s hate speech against white men. And again, doesn’t matter that much, but it’s very difficult to have an honest debate with a group of people who refuse to acknowledge their own obvious position.
The problem with casting white men as victims is that, as a class, we control all three branches of government, most of academics, most of the military, most state legislatures and so on. If, as a class, we are victims, we are the most powerful victims in history.
Perhaps a Senator might be in trouble, but Trump does just fine saying whatever pops out of his word port.
Yes, and that’s why he was elected. The belief from those that voted for him is “fair is fair”.
Trump does not accept a universal notion of fairness. This is the notion that people should be treated the same, unless there is a morally relevant difference between them. Naturally, it could be argued that Trump does accept this notion; he just has a morally reprehensible conception of relevant differences.
When Trump asserts that something is unfair, he generally seems to mean that he is not completely getting his way in the matter. However, it is hardly unfair (for example) that the press reports what he does and says what he does. When he does point out that the many who are not rich are being treated unfairly, he is certainly right–but this is not something he says from a love of fairness or justice. As his behavior shows. He is, rather, using the legitimate grievances of workers to enrage them to support a party that consistently acts contrary to their interests.
As a specific example of Trump not getting how fairness works, he certainly was not fair to John McCain. McCain’s service and his heroism in prison earned him respect; Trump has only contempt for virtue. He is the tyrannical man, as described quite accurately by Plato. If you just want to stick with the tribe of Republicans; he shows contempt for any Republican who dares to show even a single vertebrae of their backbone in defying his whims.
Trump also got his wealth in unfair ways; it seems that tax fraud was a major source of his earliest income. Now one might rage that the evidence is all fake. One might also say that outsmarting the state to get extra money is morally fine; but that same principle must also apply to praising people who cheat the state out of welfare money (the infamous takers that haunt the minds of the Fox folks).
I didn’t say Trump wants to play fair. Only the rules from the Left seem to be what Harry Reid said: “He didn’t win did he? “, just like the Left. When one side declares a war, and is being unreasonable, the other side has little choice but to escalate and meet force with force. The Left does enjoy weak personalities which they can run over, discredit and trash, only to later deify or at least act like somehow they were ever in agreement with them. See John McCain and George Bush.
The evil set-up of Kavanaugh, engineered by dozens of Democrats politicians and staffers (whether Ford’s accusations should have been considered or not) is worse than all of the bad things Trump has done. It was an abomination. It was not just bad words, bad inflection, or bad data. It was willful destruction of a human being, in a ritual manner in front of the whole nation. Throughout the process they tried to milk every ounce of political juice they could from it, showing that it was not an event which happened upon them and forced them to carry through with an investigation. They mocked America with this. They were willing to burn the country to the ground to get rid of him. It won’t soon be forgotten.
Yes, Trump was unfair to McCain. However, McCain started the feud and drew first blood.
Obama was also unfair to McCain when he mocked McCain in an ad for not being able to use a keyboard. It was well known that the reason McCain could not type was due to war injuries.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-08-27/remember-when-obama-and-his-supporters-hated-and-mocked-john-mccain
Fortunately, Obama and McCain worked through any beef they might have had. He did, after all, ask for Obama to give a eulogy for him. Even those who loath Obama should give him credit for eulogizing across the aisle.
What an absolute, total, and complete load of crap this is. Why, it’s like George Zimmerman never existed. Wished that one away to a cornfield, didn’t you? Better prepare your standard terrorism fallback position of an every man being more likely to be killed in their bathtub than be put through the wringer by a lynch mob. Give me a fucking break. You and your fellow travelers who fail to see what they are doing to the concept of blind justice in this country are scum. Ignorance, or feigned ignorance, at this point is no excuse. You want to fight “fascism” or “preserve humanity” look no further than your bathroom mirror for the true enemy.
I’m also recently reminded of the McMartin preschool case, the Duke Lacross case, the UVa/Rolling Stone case, amongst others. It is important to recognize a real or virtual lynch mob in the moment so as to prevent further damage to society as a whole. And even more so, to recognize when one has been an active or semi-active participant in such. But of course we’ve been through this time and time and time again. But every man, not to mention every woman, has nothing to worry about.
I’m rather tired of the argument that the maniacs and sociopaths are equally distributed at the tail ends of either side of the political bell curve.
In has been a rather obvious observation of mine, since my freshman year of college when I knew nothing about politics, that the Left operates at a different level of nuts.
How could the mix of Marxist teachings and postmodernism lead to anything but madness?
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/10/postmodernism-relativism-breeds-bullies-conflict/
Oh, I’m tired of that argument as well. Have been for a couple decades now. Especially the way it is tossed out as a means of getting out of an argument without having to deal with the realities. Of course there are extremists of many stripes. Not just maniacs and sociopaths but charlatains who can’t do real work but will run their mouths to anyone who will pay them. You know the type. There will always be a market for such no matter what the real situation is. What I find is that many people when they start to think for themselves become afraid at the reality that they begin to see and retreat to a safe space of unthinking acceptance of an imaginary norm. In order to get to that space they need an explanation for the absurdities, thus the reach for the safe middle ground, thus the Overton Window.
I don’t think this is a matter of analyzing statistics and trying to parse through all those numbers and deciding whether or not the fear is widespread or justified – we’re talking about perception here, and of power.
An analogy at this point would be that of racism, and the power that that wields. We’ve talked about it many times on this blog – that whether or not a person is truly racist, or if their remarks were or were not intended to be racist, means absolutely zero. They are not examined in any way whatsoever other than by whether or not someone is offended by them, or if an enemy or rival can somehow twist the words around to make them seem offensive in the public eye.
There is talk about “secret signs” and “dog whistles that only other racists can hear”.
And, as we have just learned, the “court of law” means nothing, nor does the right to privacy of anyone accused. It’s all about public perception and public opinion.
And so it is with sexual harassment, or “misconduct”. While there are definitely clear-cut examples that are unquestionably bad behavior, in large part it is a moving target, and one that has some pretty dire consequences.
Case in point – Brett Kavanaugh. Do we have any idea if this was a false accusation? Do we have any idea if this was an exaggerated accusation, or even an accusation based on initial consent, then a change of heart?
We have no idea of any of this – yet Kavanaugh, his name, his reputation, and his family have been publicly dragged through the mud to the point where, as I’ve said before, everyone in the country has an opinion – half the country hates him, and the other half hate those who hate him.
A charge of harassment doesn’t have to be “well-founded” or “proven to be true”, it just has to exist. And it doesn’t have to be “official” – it can even be made and then withdrawn – or even, God forbid, just posted on Facebook.
Like “racism”, the idea of harassment or misconduct has become weaponized, and it’s a powerful weapon indeed. It’s like a minefield – some of the mines can be clearly marked on a map – but the ones you have no idea about are the ones that will kill you.
Which side is pushing the use of these fearful weapons? I can’t stress enough that this is why Trump was elected. Few understand economics, or foreign policy issues. More understand what they see as dangerous speech control on campus and elsewhere, bizarre relativistic arguments, and the advancing hoard of 3rd wave feminists and other SJWs who cannot be appeased.
Fortunately, the crazy stuff that makes the news is rare and occurs mostly at institutions elite enough to be able to do all that stuff. On most campuses, the professors are there to try to teach and the students are probably skipping class.
When people ask me about trigger warnings in my classes and free speech zones on campus; I respond that I don’t do trigger warnings (if someone is triggered by Mill, Plato, Wollstonecraft, King or Lao Tzu, there is nothing I can do). As far as free speech zones, that would be the whole campus.
Most of my students are first generation college students. They are trying to move up in the world and don’t have time for relativism.
As far as relativism goes; all the arguments I’ve seen over the years tend to have fatal flaws. They either end up in absurdity (like the relativism argument for tolerance) or self destruct by collapsing into nihilism.
But, professors just teaching stuff and students sitting in class checking their Instagram accounts makes for boring video.
I must confess to a secret evil dream: that the elite schools collapse into absurdity and I get a raise.