Sunday, December 3, 2017

Robert Wright and Judith Shulevitz discuss male sexual predation



Robert Wright (Bloggingheads.tv, The Evolution of God, Nonzero, Why Buddhism Is True) and Judith Shulevitz (The New York Times, The Sabbath World)

  • Bob and Judith try to rank the sexual predators in terms of badness, from Harvey Weinstein on down 00:00
  • Male power in all its variety 06:23
  • Are we entering a neo-Victorian era? 21:00
  • Why understanding isn’t forgiveness 26:50
  • Stepping down in disgrace as a career move 36:15
  • After the purge, will women finally feel at home in the workplace? 47:26
  • Bob and Judith share their own experiences with workplace sexual harassment 1:00:26

5 comments:

  1. Good discussion. The notable man they missed in discussing degrees of sexual misconduct is the chiropractor who worked with the US Women's Gymnastics Team. He stands trial now. That is situation of collusion that equals the collusion in the Sandusky case at Penn State.

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  2. Yes, I thought it was a good discussion. Glad you brought up women's gymnastics. My impression is that it's something of a cesspool of abuse, physical and psychological, even if not always sexual.

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  3. Did you read Billy Bush's op ed in the NYT? I think it is really good.
    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/03/opinion/billy-bush-trump-access-hollywood-tape.html

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  4. 1) What struck me was the 2nd two paragraphs:

    Of course he said it. And we laughed along, without a single doubt that this was hypothetical hot air from America’s highest-rated bloviator. Along with Donald Trump and me, there were seven other guys present on the bus at the time, and every single one of us assumed we were listening to a crass standup act. He was performing. Surely, we thought, none of this was real.

    We now know better.


    2) And then we have his granddaughter, Arabella, who is impressing Chinese officials with her (apparently) flawless Chinese.

    3) What is so very difficult is to place both 1 and 2 within the framework of "family". After all, Donald and Arabella are close relatives, very close. That's not how we mythologize family. But it's how us naked apes are, and art teaches us that, if only we payed proper attention to it.

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    Replies
    1. I don't have any trouble with identifying them as family. I remember hearing many "uncle references -- the uncle who was goofy, telling jokes nobody else thought funny; the uncle who traveled around the world in a family of village people; the uncle who made a fortune and was a self-made success in a family of salt of the earth types.

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