Democracy feeds on argument, on the discussion as to the right way forward. This is the reason why respecting the opinion of others belongs to democracy. – Richard von Weizsacker
Those who wish to control others, to attack consensual actions with criminal laws, and to eliminate options which make them uncomfortable, believe that morality is set in stone; they think that right and wrong are as separate and distinct as black and white, and that they and only they have the direct proclamation from Godhead about which is which. Nor is this kind of thinking limited to traditional religions; most mass movements, including political parties and various “-isms”, have the same type of rigid and unyielding perspective on human behavior. Rational people, however, understand that morality is a process of weighing out various factors, comparing the relative right and wrong of each, in order to come to the most just, least harmful decision possible; it is not merely a matter of blind, robot-like obedience to some ultimate moral authority which instantly excuses any cruelty, harm or absurdity as long as “The Law” is followed to the letter.
Because the real world is an unimaginably complex, constantly changing set of phenomena, it is literally impossible to control it with a rigid set of laws; attempting to establish such a regime inevitably causes far more harm than good, and therefore it’s a pretty safe bet that any movement whose members all spout the same rhetoric, make the same moral pronouncements and otherwise march in lockstep conformity is not on the side of Good. Such mass movements want only to impose their own Order upon the chaotic universe, and for the most part dissent or disagreement within such a movement tends to be dealt with harshly. It’s absolutely true that this makes a doctrinaire, parochial movement much more efficient than one bound only by mutual goals and a respect for individual differences; while the former marches forward in mechanical synchronization, the latter tends to creep along like some immense amoeba, often attempting to go in multiple directions at once as its various independent parts disagree about nearly everything. This is of course why those who support individual liberty above all else have problems competing with groups whose leaders have no moral qualms about telling the rank and file what to do and how to think; it’s also the reason the cause of sex worker rights has so much difficulty in its struggle against the prohibitionists, who are unified by a shared dogma and thus need not concern themselves with moral judgment.
Efficiency, however, is not the same as moral rectitude; in fact, as I explained above it’s more often the opposite because a legalistic doctrine attempts to impose mechanistic order upon individual free-willed beings, thus robbing them of the opportunity for moral growth. Members of authoritarian groups are like battery hens, living creatures bound tightly into place to serve the needs of their masters rather than being free to follow their own paths. This is an abomination; it is anti-life, and I am committed to opposing it in all its forms. I believe every person must come to his own conclusions, which is why I’m so very careful about making pronouncements on complex moral issues. As I explained in “Change of Heart”:
…every parent, teacher, writer, celebrity or other person with an audience, however small, has the moral responsibility to ensure that any moral pronouncements he makes truly come from his conscience rather than from a misguided need to advance an agenda at the expense of others’ freedom, happiness and physical needs. Bloggers obviously fall under this stricture as well, so I always think long and hard about complex moral issues before taking a stand on them one way or another, for fear of inadvertently influencing people to embrace a wrong merely because it might advance a cause in which I personally believe.
About two weeks ago I made a moral decision regarding a course of action about the prohibitionist mouthpiece who calls herself Stella Marr; I decided that sharing some (though not all) of the information which had been given to me about her might help to undermine her ability to advance the prohibitionist cause through her lies. It was not an easy decision, but I believe it was the correct one, as explained in last week’s “Heart of Ice”; many others in the sex worker rights community agree with me to a greater or lesser degree, but some do not, and that’s a GOOD thing because if we all agreed about an issue as complicated and thorny as this one, it would mean we must be falling into the same kind of grotesque conformity as our persecutors demand of their followers. And that wouldn’t be good for either the individuals in our movement or for the movement itself; one of the three different sources who spilled the beans about Stella to me is a member of a large prohibitionist group, who told me that she and many others are soul-sick about their leader’s tyrannical insistence that all members speak with one voice. In other words the prohibitionist groups gain efficiency at the expense of their members’ emotional health and the long-term integrity of the organization.
Internal dissent, though it decreases efficiency, is a good thing; in the long run a group of allied individuals is far stronger than a mindless horde which falls apart should the leadership fail. That’s why I think it’s extremely important that you, my readers, decide for yourselves the morality of this issue. I’ve already laid out my own case in the aforementioned column, and though I’ve seen a number of arguments explaining why different people think I was wrong (including some in the comments to that column and the “outing” column itself), the best one in my opinion was “To Go Beyond is as Wrong as to Fall Short” by Jenny DeMilo. Jenny is no fan of Stella’s; her essay starts with “She’s nuts, that’s clear…tinfoil hat wearing, frantic OCD and inconsistent in her writing style kinda nuts…she uses all the language the abolitionists use, she…says she has seen prostitutes murdered before her and tells tales of pimps and hos that is the stuff of TV movies. She thinks we’re all trafficked victims and she’s called activists “pimps” for fighting for the rights of sex workers…She offends me as a sex worker, she offends me as a free thinking woman, she offends me as a human.” But despite Jenny’s personal dislike of “Stella” she still thinks my actions and those of others were wrong, and she wasn’t afraid to tell me in no uncertain terms. I respect that, and I think her voice deserves to be heard; please give it a read. Not in spite of the fact that she disagrees with me, but rather because she does; she says so not because an authority told her to believe it, but because her own moral compass pointed that way. Authoritarian systems become corrupt because nobody dares to disagree with the authorities, but free thinkers are kept honest by the open dissent of other free thinkers.
Having an ever-expanding reading list – don’t we all – I will admit that I put several of your posts on the back burner because there are never enough hours in a day. I am glad I read today’s post right away and it’s an instant favourite with me. I’ll have a hard time choosing a quote to go along with it when I’ll re-post it because there are so many excellent ones to choose from. Very, very good piece. Thank you for writing it.
You’re welcome, Matt.
Well, you know, freedom requires constant thought, constant action, and correcting of course, It gets exhausting.
Adopting some ready made morality quiets the mind, it gives you the answers, no more struggle to find them. That is one of the appeals of religion, I think.
And it’s not surprising you’re checking your actions. Thinking people, who have not adopted the dogma, do.
But what you did was ok.
It would be one thing if Marr was a harmless nut. But she’s not. She’s playing fast and loose with the facts of things, and in doing so, endangering others. Taking action to stop that is the right thing. Good on you.
Thank you, Comixchik. I feel that the day we stop re-examining complex moral decisions is the day we start on the easy road that never leads to good.
“Adopting some ready made morality quiets the mind, it gives you the answers, no more struggle to find them. That is one of the appeals of religion, I think.”
To the brain, [url=http://lesswrong.com/lw/k5/cached_thoughts/]cache lookups[/url] of this sort are cheap and new processing is expensive. Sometimes I think the vast majority of the stupidity in the world is simply because thinking is so hard relative to regurgitating conclusions fed to us by others. Most of us are built to take the path of least resistance most of the time, because it usually works. Adopting someone else’s morality as your own is such a path; it assumes they’ve done the hard moral thinking already, so why duplicate it?
Answer: Because they may have done it wrong, or lied about the results, and you have no way of knowing without re-thinking it yourself.
And their conclusions, however valid they may be, still need to be applied to the situation. Acting by rote will never accomplish this. And even valid conclusions, misapplied (I’m being kind here), are no longer valid.
The choice is, then, to think, or not to think. Far too many people, as you point out, choose not to think.
i think it was the best thing to do,exactly because she wasnt harmless.she did major damage to a cause that is so much difficult to succeed,right from the start.honestly im not sure what to think of her,because i dont know her entire story.if she was trully a prostitute who suffered but embellished her story with outrageous details,maybe even under the influence of manipulative ”feminists”,with an agenda,i do feel sorry for her.if she has mental problems and is in need for help,the same.if she is herself a radical feminist who by trying to further her agenda,she created this character as a tool for her propaganda,i dont give a fuck for her,but i do feel sorry for her husband if any harm is to come to him and also because he married her.
I think you did the right thing. If she’s as unbalanced as I think she is, she’ll thrive off the chaos she’s causing because in her mind, any attention be it negative or positive is good attention. The problem with these types is that the more of the silent treatment you give them the louder and more outlandish they get. Sad thing is is I don’t think that will stop people from believing her fiction.
I really wasn’t sure if you’d done the right thing, outing Stella. And I’m still not sure.
I tried an “the ends justify the means” approach: the means being the outing, and the ends being either to get her to shut up, or to accept that she’s confabulating, dissembling.
I can see extremes to outing: the London Times outed a blogger called “Nightjack” (I think), a British bobby who wrote a well respected blog about everyday life as a cop. I know your views on cops, but this blog was highly thought of as a day to day experience of a cop; he was exposed through an illegal internet search, his blog disappeared. But who gained from this?
And then they’ve (the red tops) outed several sex bloggers: so I now know who “girl with a one track mind” is, but really I’m not that much wiser. I don’t actually know her, I’m not going to know her; she could be anybody. But I gather that her life was violently disturbed; was it for the better? And they were hot on the heels of “Belle de Jour” before she pre-empted them and outed herself. Again, I don’t know “Belle”, I doubt if I’ll ever meet her, even though we discussed our (ghastly) experiences of teenage acne on Twitter. Am I any better off? Where is the public interest in this? It’s typical British prurience, no more, no less, sex sells. “In what way” does knowing the real identities behind the blogger identities actually assist us? Muckraking.
On the other hand, the outing of the blogger “Alexa di Carlo” (if that’s correct) was a public service; he (it was a he) did write a blog about life as a ho, but also was grooming young girls. The blog might have been amusing, the grooming wasn’t — and it was right that he was exposed because the grooming was disgusting, though I was only aware of it after the outing.
So what do you expect to achieve from outing Stella? Is she really going to confess that all her stories are make-believe; is she going to retract them? And by outing her, are you going to get her audience to believe that what she’s been spouting is garbage? It would be nice to think so, but, sadly, I don’t think this is going to happen. So many people believe what they want to believe; so many people’s thought processes are incapable of change, no matter how pressing the evidence. Never mind the evidence, so many people choose to believe what fits their mind-set. Changing people’s minds and mind-sets is very hard work.
I have some preliminary evidence that the “outing” has served a useful function, not in and of itself but by Stella’s reaction to it. One of my sources is a “survivor”, and she says that many people were turned off by Stella’s hysterical reaction, paranoia and silly theories about the incident, and are beginning to distance themselves from her. The fact that one of them helped in the “outing” should also tell you something about how some of them feel about her tactics; I was specifically told it was partly a reaction to her labeling sex worker rights activists as “pimps”. Apparently, a large minority (possibly even a majority) of “survivors” respect sex worker rights activists even if they disagree with our approach to helping sex workers, and were horrified and disgusted at Stella’s attempt to discredit us; they therefore wanted her discredited as much as we did and were willing to take steps in that direction.
Well now, isn’t that interesting. Stella’s use of a single word — “pimp” — is enough to show her up for what she is (a fake). And yet her story’s quite believable. It’s very difficult, if not impossible, for a non-expert to accurately describe a scenario; and yet a real expert will see it immediately as faked, as an imitation.
I find this in novels: take Iain McEwan’s “Saturday” about a neuro-surgeon. The descriptions of the operations are accurate, but overall the story just doesn’t “gel”, it isn’t believable for me, but then I once was a surgeon, I really know about these things. McEwan did a couple of years research, but still to someone who knows, it’s just not “right”. And yet this is a very highly praised novel, and rightly so.
And I’d say that the same applies to you, Maggie; an expert who can sense bullshit at 100 yards. In your speciality, that is.
On the topic of outing liars and hypocrites? I am all for it. That is why I have my IgnorMANus and man hating women forums.
I am denouncing any woman whos email turns up in my mail box who will not take the position that women should live up to their claims of equality by being “equal before the law” and insisting that women criminals found guilty of crimes receiving the same remedy instruction as a man.
I am hated on for taking that position.
I am ALSO outing any MAN who “leaps to the defense” of these denounced women as IngnorMANuses. An IgnorMANus is “a man who ignores the rights violation of a man thereby damaging us all”
“Injustice anywhere damages justice everywhere” MLK.
I take the position that ANY INJUSTICE needs to be dealt with no matter how big or how small…for if we do not…we get conflict between men.
Why is it always about you dipshit? You are hated on by everyone because you are a first class turdburgler. Maggie’s article has nothing to do with you and your ignorant bullshit.
I AM KRULAC – DISTRIBUTOR OF “ROMAN VENGENCE!”
Here’s the situation, as I see it …
You have a whole class of women out there who’ve had their agency robbed from them. They’re engaging only in a consensual activity – an activity that has been arbitrarily banned by the banners. Because of this, they live in the shadows, in the underworld of American society where they have also been robbed of the right of equal protection. Because of this, the police force treats them often as a RESOURCE – to be robbed, raped, mentally tortured, you name it.
Maggie herself was raped by cops (and correct me if I’m wrong here – but you weren’t even a prostitute at that point – they just thought you were). Additionally, she was railroaded by a criminal justice system that required her to liable herself in order to escape a permanent mark on her criminal record.
All of this is a result of the prohibitions against hookers who, again – are simply engaged in private consensual behavior according to terms dictated by themselves.
All of this would end if prostitution were simply decriminalized and these ladies could live their lives in the light of day – with full protection of the law.
Along comes Stella Marr – who lies about her experiences as a prostitute in order to perpetuate all this piss and vinegar that is a result of these prohibitionist laws.
AND WE ARE ACTUALLY DEBATING WHETHER OR NOT HER IDENTITY SHOULD BE REVEALED?
Look here – she’s got US law on her side. She’s got the news media on her side. She’s got every religious institution in the nation on her side. Why does she have to also LIE in order to win? Aren’t the scales tipped far enough in her favor, given all the above – where she should not have to compromise her honesty in order to win this argument?
Who do we have on our side?
Maggie McNeill and her cohorts.
Jesus – this is a no brainer. I ask … “What would Caesar do?” … and there is one answer – “Caesar would start building crosses!”
Now, I will say this … I generally think this kind of cat fighting is beneath women, and the dirty stuff should be left to men. However, apparently we’re all out of men cuz the men won’t DO what they’re supposed to do in this case and speak up for these disenfranchised women.
I’m so fucking worked up I can’t even make a point – my point was, do people really want Stella Marr’s rights protected at the expense of whores who are still suffering? When is it their turn to enjoy some protection?
As a purely legal matter no actual rights are at issue here. In the USA, neither Stella Mar, nor krulac, nor Maggie nor yours truly have any legal or constitutional right not to have our secret identities revealed. Anyone could take it upon themselves to identify most anyone else who posts anywhere under a pseudonym, and suffer no actual legal liability.
Exposure usually causes butthurt, and nothing more. If the exposed actually believes he will be physically endangered by exposure, then he has less judgment than a gnat for trying to anonymously libel others in the first place. Even if the exposed is behaving like an saint, there is still no legal liability for the exposer.
But, as is usual for true believers (see Eric Hoffer’s classic book of that title), good judgment is not their strong suit.
Correct.
Not quite; there’s no debate as far as I’m concerned. I just want it absolutely clear that my actions and those of the others who “outed” her were OUR individual actions, not the result of some consensus vote among all sex worker activists. And furthermore, that I think that LACK of consensus is a good thing.
One does not simply take a lack of consensus into Mordor, dearie! 😀
On the whole – I agree with you – every SINGLE THING you said about consensus is true. Everything. Okay well, I’ll at least say that I agree with all that and couldn’t have said it better.
On the other hand …
“Lack of Consensus” is to a Yugo what a Unified Force is to a MERCEDES.”
Anyone ever seen a Yugo on the Autobahn by the way? Nope … me neither!
I’m being silly here. However, as long as …
A. Everyone on our side (can I say “our” side – which includes me, even though I’m a useless air breather right now?) … everyone on our side needs to agree on the big points (and I think they all do).
B. No one seeks to manipulate the whole unit in the direction they wish it to go. What I mean here is – it would be very easy for some gals on our side, who are pissed off about the “outing” of Stella Marr – to start undermining things by “outing” gals on our side.
(And I’m sorry Maggie but, after this, you have to know that you have a big ole target painted on your ample bosoms. The other side will make it “job one” to find out who the hell Maggie McNeill is and broadcast that to the world. Then again, I’m sure you thought all about that and are prepared for the incoming, if it comes.)
I am leery of criticizing any woman who claims to be a survivor of any kind of forced labor and/or abuse, but when you use your position as a survivor to harm other women, as this “Stella Marr” has done/is doing, then as far as I’m concerned, you are fair game.
I have a message for Ms. Marr: If you can’t stand the heat, then get out of the damn kitchen. There are other women who have suffered alot more than you have in their lives, and they are not throwing the online pity party that you’re slinging at everyone.
Get a hobby, get a therapist, and get a life.
I personally think it was wrong to expose “Stella”, for much the same reasons as others, and rather left anyone who supported or partook in it open to allegations of intimidation of opponents.
These things have a habit of snowballing very quickly. A case in point is that of Nicola Brookes in the UK who made a comment about the X Factor on Facebook and has come under continuous and anonymous threat, but on and off the internet and is only now able to unmask her abusers and take a private prosecution against them.
I for one would not like my name, address, and everything else plastered all over the internet for assorted oddities to pursue.
I haven’t read all the comments above, but I just read Jenny deMilo’s piece, and it seems to me that she doesn’t appreciate the gravity of what “Stella Marr” was doing. She wasn’t just disagreeing with people, or lying and exaggerating about herself and her experiences – she was DEFAMING people and harming their reputations. That means certain people could sue her if they wanted, and they have every right to – but they would obviously need to know who she really is first, and as far as I’m concerned, they have a right to that too.
Sometimes I think people take the “high road” just because they know others will do the necessary dirty work and they can then sneer down from Mount Olympus at the mere mortals trying to cope with realities in very real ways.
The issue here, which Jenny seems to totally miss, is that Marr has a public voice, a powerful voice amplified by her status, connected to government, and thus *her lies* potentially damage the cause of ALL sex workers, worldwide; since governments reference each other where that suits thier agenda, as does listening to Marr.
She broke commandment 11: “Thou shalt not get caught out”.
Marrs untruths are a far cry from me telling porkies on Maggies blog comments, say, as an example. I don’t have the government’s ear, any more than the next guy in the street.
Marr does. Greater Power, Greater Responsibility. Innit?
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[…] Maggie McNeill: “Those who wish to control others … believe that morality is set in stone; they think that right and wrong are as separate and distinct as black and white … Rational people, however,… understand that morality is a process of weighing out various factors, comparing the relative right and wrong of each, in order to come to the most just, least harmful decision possible; it is not merely a matter of blind, robot-like obedience to some ultimate moral authority which instantly excuses any cruelty, harm or absurdity as long as “The Law” is followed to the letter.” voice http://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/a-different-view/ […]
Somehow, I didn’t post anything here. Huh. Well, now I have.
This piece illustrates well why Gnosticism faded from history, while Christianity marched in blood-spattered lockstep into the future.
Also this line; “often attempting to go in multiple directions at once,” reminded me of trying to walk my 2 ferrets; I had a splitter that allowed me to attach 2 harnesses to the same leash, in the hopes it would make them more manageable. In reality, the more energetic of the pair would simply charge off, dragging her sister limply with her, until the sister spotted something interesting, & then she would drag her pal in that direction. They didn’t exactly get far. But I wanted to put that image in your mind; 2 weasels, one silvery white & the other golden, attempting to bound in opposite directions, only to come up short… & not letting that stop them!
(RIP, Tanya):
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