Censorial leftists (Was: Interesting article)

Phillip M. Hallam-Baker hallam at ai.mit.edu
Wed Dec 3 19:16:26 PST 1997



>Indeed, and in a wonderful case of schadenfreude, when the
>Dworkin-MacKinnon anti-porn law was enacted in Canada, "Lesbitan Erotica"
>bookstores and publishers were shut down. (I believe this was in Toronto,
>and it may have only been in that city or region that the law was enacted,
>not in all of Canada. Toto can clarify.)


Tim you miss the best part one of the first books to be banned
was by Dworkin.

Dworkin writes with a pseudo academic style but despite a third of
her book being 'references' very little of her argument is supported.
She deliberately quotes out of context and tries to claim feminist
icons such as Simone de Beauvoir for her cause despite the fact 
that "Mrs Jeane Paul Satre" was anti censorship.

Don't write the feminists off too quickly Tim, de Beauvoir's essay
'Must we burn de Sade' is the anti-censorship equivalent of your
cypherpunk manifesto.

MacKinnon is a more respectable flake. Her book 'Towards a 
Feminist theory of the state" starts off explaining that she is
trying to construct a Marxist theory of the state.

Even this wouldn't be quite so bad if what she was writing had
some recognisable connection to anything Marx wrote. Its more
a sort of left wing US academia game in which the object is to
shock your liberal friends.


            Phill








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