Letters to the Editor
J.C. Miller
Published Letters: 365 Editor's Choice: 36
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Fair enough,
[Read the article: A special Broadsheet farewell ...]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Just a hunch that most of RT’s critics here are male, reacting to her criticism of Tierney’s views. Many males seem to react defensively to threats to the status quo. Some females do as well, sometimes seemingly based on a symbiosis with patriarchy that they may (consciously or unconsciously) feel defensive about. Other females may react aggressively toward each other based on perceived differences in status or power, just as males typically would. Please note that none of the above is intended as gender-defining or categorical.
Of course it’s hard to tell what’s going on here, because while the anger is evident, I don’t see much in the way of discussion of the actual substance of RT’s work. What is it specifically that is taken issue with?
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disordered
[Read the article: Don't ask, don't tell, don't be]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yes, and an interesting and sobering historical note: up until 1973, the American Psychiatric Association, in its diagnostic system (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, or DSM) coded homosexuality as a psychiatric disorder. This is the medically trained, authoritative mental health body in this country.
We all know (each and every one of us, from direct personal experience) that we experience some mixture of both same-gender and opposite-gender sexual attraction. In the current DSM there are codes and specifiers, for example, for phobias of animals, heights, etc; for caffeine intoxication; for juvenile misconduct; for a variety of “sexual and gender identity disorders”. Yet there is no code for or reference to the fear or hatred of one’s own natural sexual impulses toward other adults, fear which may lead to maladaptive denial, projection, to aggression, or attempts to control the behavior of others. If there were such criteria in the DSM, then we would be led to diagnose the Catholic patriarchy (just as an example) as psychiatrically disordered.
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deal with it
[Read the article: Flying the boob-hating skies]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]She shouldn’t have to cover up for the same reason that public nudity should be a non-issue. And for the same reason that she should be able to leave a roll of $100 bills on her seat while she uses the restroom. If you lack the impulse control to leave the bills alone, you’ve got a problem. It’s about you, not her. If you can’t be in the presence of a human body without losing control of your own thoughts, impulses, and behavior, you’ve got a problem. Deal with it and leave her alone.
Maybe this will help. Close your eyes and imagine the stranger (of a gender you are sexually attracted to) sitting down next to your airline seat, naked. What are you thinking and feeling? What, EXACTLY, is going on with you that makes you uncomfortable?
Now, grow up and deal with it.
And stop wondering why your children are learning that sex is hidden, shameful, and to be accessed secretly online.
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discretion
[Read the article: Condi's Iraq surprise]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Salon, it appears that many readers are drawn here by the socially progressive and humanistic principles embodied on these fine web pages. And, it may have been a misstep to reflexively provide the answer: “confer legitimacy and ignore antisocial behavior”, to the question: “woman” + “black” + “status” = ?
When we come to rely on letter writers to deconstruct feature articles, could it be a cue for greater editorial discretion?
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paternity
[Read the article: The wrong egg]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Our biology provides many blessings. Like the “trauma bond”, a deep, lasting emotional bond and block to development that a child innately adopts with a parent who traumatically abuses her. Or jealousy. Or the misplaced male urges that lead to battering and rape. Or the fascinating impulse that would lead the donor of a single cell to claim another person as “mine” (e.g., “my child”), and that would lead a culture to construct that person as the legal property of the cell donor. Fascinating.
We quite freely use the term “genetic”, as in “genetic offspring”. Remember “meiosis”? The father’s code gets halved, then reconfigured, then those reconfigured lines of code (to continue the analogy) get shuffled in with reconfigured code from different software (the mother’s). Those genes (lines of code) are the father’s in what sense ? Because after plugging along for a billion years they resided in his cells for an instant ? Now, he has a legal ownership or copyright ?
Many blessings. Like the debilitating sense of betrayal and abandonment that would lead an adopted child to seek out a stranger with no meaningful connection to or love for that child. Or the unconscious fear of death that drives a parent to need to own and control another person, a need to experience that person, absurdly, as somehow continuing the parent’s life after death. His “descendents”, his “legacy”.
To the extent that we use our offspring to manage existential anxiety, we discount their status as persons and their well being, accordingly constructing “parent”, “child” and “family”, in effect, in terms of legal ownership and control. Father not only knows best, but is legally or morally conferred control and ownership of other persons based on . . . . . . . . . on what ?
The less we unconsciously allow biology to drive us, the more we are confronted with choice and responsibility. Like the responsibility to treat every person with his or her best interests in mind, and to leave biological paternity out of it.