Except that, as C. Bob’s letter nicely illustrates, parenthood is entirely unrelated to DNA.

This will only exacerbate the unnecessary and harmful stigma and distress we load onto kids and parents, created by our absurd notion of a “biological” parent.

known from the film, for covertly and sweetly luring viewers to its truths.

It boils down to the normalization and rewarding of cowardice, conformity, arrested moral development, and antisocial behaviors by systems of meaning and social economy that are structural, just “the way things are”, whose currencies are status and protection rather than goodness or truth, making exceptional and deviant behavior, like that of Mr. Greenwald here, all the more important and valuable.

She would indeed deliver the impressive-sounding primate jargon with casual bravado and in a way that snows her friends, because that’s how defense mechanisms work most effectively.

Genes generally don’t cause anything, but genes interacting through layers of environments do. Human children who experience consistently responsive care and nurturing in the absence of trauma, neglect or serious sensory or developmental problems become securely attached. Those who don’t develop attachment problems.

Individuals with high genetic proclivity toward use of addictive substances to manage distress don’t necessarily become addicts. Every human trait exhibits variation that is associated with variation among genomes. (“You mean there are genes related to impulsivity, to propensity to use addictive substances, to vulnerability to autism, to eye color, and they vary among people? Who coulda guessed?”). The fallacy serving as defense mechanism and seen almost daily in the mainstream media posits that once genetic loci are identified as associated with a trait, we have a “cause” or explanation for undesirable or harmful expressions of that trait.

“It’s the genes. That’s why I can’t stop smoking and shoving deep fat down my pie hole. No point trying. That’s why my kid has ADHD too.”

The problem with this useful falsehood, and the cost of using it defensively, is that it tends to perpetuate problems by allowing escape from agency and behavioral change, and tends to come back around to bite us in the ass. “Back off honey, you know that runs in my family. I drink because I have that disease, I gamble because I’m a risk-taker, and you get smacked once in a while because I have a higher genetic proclivity for impulsivity.”

It’s a standard cover for criminality (rest assured, he’s a family man), constructed by cohorts. All that seems to be missing apparently (haven’t read it), and a bit puzzling, is mention of church attendance.

Also thanks to Svutlana, just another day, smallfox, Angry Midwest, d. c. eric, shaunarine, inverseproposition, Rosenkavalier, and others. This thread desperately needed those posts.

Thomas is indeed a man, in the only sense that matters: he freely and courageously chose to construct self, as it turns out in ways that (ultimately, trivially) result in our utterances of “man”.

So much puzzlement and consternation – because this story is not about Thomas Beatie, but rather about the rest of us, and the symptomatology of the dis-integerated psyche, of disowned maleness and femaleness.

Male and female together in one self, in one body? Unthinkable. Frightening. The dissonance and distress seem intolerable. Words fail us. Disapproval and rejection loom. Escape must be the only option.

on the basics, and no degree of deficit in writing style would change that, would it? Credit is due Ms. Price and Broadsheet for encouraging difficult self-reflection.

Adults who observe this or any other capitalist/tribalist/patriarchal system with hierarchies of power, status and security see and acknowledge inherent pathologies that are affronts to human dignity, opportunity and well-being.

There does appear to be a possibly unfairly caricatured but real representation of feminism that discounts these structural problems with a focus and drive toward achieving the same afflictions that have rewarded “successful” men - status, power and material wealth - and equates that achievement with empowerment. I think Ms. Hoffman’s main point is that accepting the terms of that game, “works within and strengthens the very structures that violently maintain social hierarchies” and social illnesses.

Her points about criminalization of behavior and our out-of-control use of incarceration are idealistic, hard to embrace, and right on: the structural pathologies, like capitalism, that result in deprivation, fear and lost hope, and that we embrace or at least accept, in part create environments that drive criminal behaviors.

I think she would like to see feminism’s greatest strengths and values applied to broader structural issues. She’s not alone.

is it possible that you’re trying to have it both ways?

You said Salon could do without the type of reader who takes pleasure in unfair personal attacks, the type who might also find appealing the musings of, say, a Rush Limbaugh.

So I have to wonder what you sincerely imagine to be the type of reader drawn to Salon by the addition of the contributions of Ms. Paglia. You might check the letters there sometime.

that the ideals of the sixties have not been valued, validated or incorporated into dominant culture?

That means, apparently, that the decade’s countercultural movement must have been insignificant, yet not quite so insignificant that 40 years later we see a continuing need to marginalize it on evidence that its ideals have not found traction in . . . . um . . . . . American Culture and Institutions and on force of . . . . well . . . . anecdotes about over-excited Beatles fans and the amusing foibles of stoners.

That all does say a lot.

But not about the sixties.

actually seems like an unusually effective use for a church.

Maybe that’s just me.

Ms. Clark-Flory already topped you with the face-scratching.

No one will ever, ever go wrong capitalizing on childhood insecurities by recommending and affirming staying safely arrested in childhood. Check out the desperate popularity of “Since You Asked”.

The best you can do is provide another view, model something different, and wish them well.