The Problem of Disgust

Some time ago we talked about Dr. Martha Nussbaum's thoughts on disgust.  We shouldn't allow disgust to be a standard for making laws, she says, because it is an irrational standard, and it leaves us likely to pass unfair laws discriminating against people whom we (irrationally) find disgusting.
What she's really arguing is that feelings of the type broadly called disgust are often purely irrational, and not therefore good reasons for rules. Why not? A minimum standard for 'a good reason' is that it should be based on reason, which by definition isn't purely irrational. Indeed, most modern thinkers would say it should be purely rational -- but I don't think that's right, for as we've discussed, the ancient notion of reason was able to embrace both the true and the beautiful.... 
The feeling of disgust does occur in children learning about sex, and also in India when some castes ponder the untouchables, and also in a wide variety of other cases. Some of this may be purely irrational; other things (like the reaction when seeing a person with a serious deformity) has an underlying reason we can grasp (a revulsion of that type might have helped our ancestors avoid a serious disease), but it is one that is irrelevant or useless in modern life. Furthermore, in acting out of disgust of this type, we are failing to treat those people who are 'untouchable' or afflicted with a deformity with the respect due to human beings. 
That far, at least, her argument is surely a reasonable one: indeed, it's an argument which is wholly compatible with what the Judeo-Christian ethos that the reviewer is defending. This very principle is what took saints in to live among lepers. 
The problem with following her approach is that disgust -- pure or otherwise -- is a powerful motivator.  It's a thing like pain in that it creates an aversion in the person experiencing it.  To license it is to put a powerful weapon in the hands of the kind of bullies that occupy too much of our public space.

Today's example comes from Hustler magazine, which took a photograph of a young conservative journalist named S. E. Cupp and modified it in a way clearly designed to disgust her -- most people would be disgusted by being portrayed this way in public, in any case.  The text accompanying the photo clearly label it as not a real photograph of her, so there's probably no legal way to act against the magazine; the text also makes clear that they are doing this to punish her for her political opinions.

It is not only women who are treated this way (although as Hot Air points out, Playboy did much the same thing in 2009).  We remember the case of 'Rick Santorum's Google problem,' in which a gay rights activist (and bully) decided to disgust the Santorums by linking their name to a filthy substance associated with homosexual acts.  This was also a use of disgust to punish political opinions.

The old saying that 'sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me' isn't entirely false, but it isn't entirely true either.  Many people of good will are also of sensitive natures, who see the disgusting things being done and would never want it to be done to them.  So, they will stay quiet and keep their heads down -- which is just what the bullies want.  S. E. Cupp is surely brave enough to face it down, as Rick Santorum was, but the example of what was done to them will quiet others.  Those others have every right to be in the public space as well.

Dr. Nussbaum intended for her idea to have a humane effect on the law and the public space.  I cannot agree that the effect will be anything of the sort.  If anything, we are already too far in that direction.  There ought to be a mechanism for replying to bullies of this sort.  We need a strong enough medicine that it convinces them to do what decency would compel, had not they been born without it.

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

Larry Flynt has been publishing gross cartoons and altered photographs of famous women for at least 3 decades. The business about it being political is nonsense: it's cheap to do a photoshop, and if it's political, there will be lots of free publicity.

He's a troll. Don't feed him.

valerie

Grim said...

To be honest, until the story came up, I hadn't realized he was still alive -- or that Hustler was still being published, for that matter.

Grim said...

In any case, this is just today's example of an ongoing problem. Dr. Nussbaum's legal theories genuinely are important and influential, and deserve both serious consideration and a well-founded rebuttal.

The problem with a legal principle that disgust does no actual harm is a serious problem indeed. It seems to me that there's a real harm happening here: not just the "irrational" disgust felt by Ms. Cupp by being treated this way, but the harm to the polity of having the public space taken over by bullies. There's a pretty clear harm to the Republic done by this kind of behavior, and we ought to have some means of addressing it.

Joseph W. said...

I have a problem with the way you use the term "bullying" here.

When I was growing up, "bullying" was a kind of physical aggression, and the answer was simple up - you fight back. You don't "stand up" to it; you fight.

But if the state gets to decide which ugly words and nasty pictures are "bullying" and attach criminal sanctions to them - then we're in the realm of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunals, or locking folks up for Mohammed cartoons. No, this is not "bullying," and it is not the business of the state.

Those others have the right to be in the public space as well.

But "the public space" is not a small square of ground that only a few can occupy at once. There is an awful lot of unpleasant writing and drawing out there, that I will not read or look at. Have the people who wrote and drawn it really excluded me from "the public space"? No. So the fact that I have the right to be there, says nothing about their right to write and draw what they like. (If they shout it in my window through megaphones, so I really can't shut it out, that's another thing; but printing it in a magazine I never read or on a website I never visit? No, this is not bullying, if that term is to have meaning.)

I don't agree with Dr. Nussbaum's notions either, as you summarize them. In fact, I think natural disgust lies at the heart of morality and law - or at least the criminal law. Rape carries harsh penalties, and used to carry harsher ones, because of the natural disgust it creates - there are lots of details to it, but that's what it amounts to; and if we didn't have emotions like that tied to the sex act, then rape would not be such a horrible crime. I don't say every disgusting thing ought to be a legally sanctioned crime; but if the criminal law doesn't line up somewhat with disgust, it will not line up with the actual human beings who must enforce it.

bthun said...

"Dr. Nussbaum intended for her idea to have a humane effect on the law and the public space. I cannot agree that the effect will be anything of the sort. If anything, we are already too far in that direction. There ought to be a mechanism for replying to bullies of this sort. We need a strong enough medicine that it convinces them to do what decency would compel, had not they been born without it. "

If our laws will not defend the innocent from the scurrilous, the laws needs to be changed.

If the people who write and/or interpret our laws will not defend the innocent from the scurrilous, they'd be well advised to beat their plowshares into swords. A reckoning approaches.

Joseph W. said...

If our laws will not defend the innocent from the scurrilous...

Defend the innocent from the scurrilous doing what, Bruce? Beating them? Talking rude about them? Drawing nasty pictures of them in magazines they don't have to read?

I don't think I'd support a legal regime where the state "defends" against that in any circumstances; I sure as hell don't support it in the world of PC. I can just imagine who'd get hold of those laws, and whom they'd be used against! There's a great deal that I think that would be called "scurrilous" by people who'd love to shut it down, and shut me up for thinking it.

bthun said...

Portraying a young lady with a penis in her mouth crosses the line. At least it does for me Joseph.

If scurrilous does not describe the Flynt's character's portrait of the Cupp lady with said penis in her mouth, please point me to an up to date dictionary since mine must be mighty antiquated.

Grim said...

I'm not sure, Joe, why you are under the impression that I was suggesting that the state be the enforcer here. The law needs to reflect an understanding that actively trying to use disgust to silence political opponents is a harm that the disgusted has a right to resist. Currently, the law doesn't recognize that: it says you have a right to disgust someone just as much as you want, as long as you do it in public.

It seems like the person so targeted ought to be able to bring a suit for something like political harassment -- a civil suit, not a criminal one. In terms of criminal law, all I'd say is that "He published a photoshopped image of me / my wife / my daughter like this one" ought to be a positive defense against assault charges.

bthun said...

While my inner Neanderthal is on display tonight, let me ask, is there still a law against an act of defaming a person's character?

Is that another antiquated notion?

Grim said...

There is, but I think it requires the claim to be presented as factual. Hustler is very clever about this; they know where the boundaries are (heck, they established several of them).

In my book they are like Westboro Baptist Church. They've figured out a way to maximize the harm they can do without anyone being able to touch them under the law. Unfortunately, though, it's not just a few crazies anymore. This kind of thing is becoming a regular feature of life in the Republic.

For a long time now I've thought we need to build a coalition against behavior of this sort. Unfortunately, all the catchy names I come up for the coalition are unprintable.

Well, by my standards.

bthun said...

Given the admitted malice by Flynt, or whatever the dogs name, I'd have thought libel might be a good place to start with a civil action.

I suppose anything goes these days, if you're savvy enough to frame the malice within the legal chalk lines...

Joseph W. said...

Bruce - defamation of character is a civil lawsuit, not criminal law. The trick there -- in this country, at least -- is that the statements have to be untrue; and they have to cause some damage (e.g., you lose business because of the statements).

Grim -- So take an example. I state, in public, that black IQ's on average are somewhat lower than white. I publish a graph that shows how crime correlates with IQ, and with race. A race-baiter declares that these things are awful - they are disgusting - and I am a you-know-what for saying and publishing these awful things. A group of young thugs, stirred up by these words, beat the crap out of me. I call the police; the boys are tried -- and they say --

"His publication of these disgusting graphs and nauseating racist statements is a defense to assault."

So, Grim, do we let them go? Why not? Because you don't find my statements disgusting? But the thugs and the race-baiter did. What if the local community agrees? Perhaps you'd say, the law should not recognize the defense, but the jurors should juridicially pardon the boys. After all, they were just enforcing community standards.

Gangs of thugs deciding what's disgusting, and beating or killing people who disagree, is no improvement on the state doing the same - indeed, is worse; Steyn managed to win his case (though at trouble and expense) in those idiotic HRT's; what chance would he have stood against a mob?

Currently, the law doesn't recognize that: it says you have a right to disgust someone just as much as you want, as long as you do it in public.

No, that is not true. You can't, for example, expose yourself in public just to disgust someone - nor put the kind of pictures you're describing on billboards no one can avoid. But you certainly can publish them in places the other person doesn't have to read, and if he chooses to go read them, you haven't forced disgust on him. He's chosen to read and see what disgusts him, as he is free to do or not do.

Joseph W. said...

Grim - you're correct on defamation. The standard is highest when the defendant's some kind of media (since freedom of the press comes into play) and the plaintiff's a public figure. But even in other cases with individual defendants and private persons as plaintiffs, libel and slander are about factual statements, not parodies and sick jokes.

Joseph W. said...

P.S. - And on the subject of bullying, don't you see that your proposal invites people to replace metaphorical, words-and-pictures bullying, with actual, physical, violent kind of bullying? (While declaring the victims, who dared to say such disgusting things, to be the actual bullies. A picture for our times!)

Grim said...

The standard I proposed was 'a doctored photo like that featuring either me or someone to whom I have an immediate relationship' rather than 'anything that anyone finds disgusting.' We can debate inclusion of any particular thing on the list of things that ought to be off limits, and enact each one that seems appropriate.

That's a rational process, contra Ms. Nussbaum: we'd be creating rules, defining spaces, and starting to reclaim the Republic. It wouldn't license just any sort of irrational lashing out, but it could reasonably license a person's defense of themselves and their close relations. Or we can set some similar standard: in the old days you used to be able to appoint a champion, if you didn't have the physical capacity and lacked the proper relations.

A fine picture for our time? It's the picture of the old times. I am very much a man of the old fashion, as you know.

However, in this case there's an 'old fashioned' idea that you're operating under. You say that a billboard is different from Hustler because you can't avoid them, but that's not accurate any more. The photo will soon be online, if it is not already; it will proliferate; it will turn up when she does Google searches on her own name. Just as people searching for Santorum for President ended up seeing sick "jokes" that were actually political acts, intended to harass someone for holding an unpopular position, so too will she be unable to escape.

That old standard can no longer apply. We need to revisit it.

bthun said...

Joseph,

Civil law WRT libel was what I meant in my initial comment. I must not have been clear in my rant.

A libelous billboard image vs. the image being located in a less prominent location, like a publicly accessible website on the internet, is a distinction I understand but not one i'm willing to agree diminishes the act of malice. But then I'm not an lawyer.

Ten thousand instead of ten million see the image and this gives Flynt cover.

bthun said...

or what grim said...

Darned android keyboard needs a norton bomb sight for the iddy biddy keys.

bthun said...

Norden bomb sight... sheesh. I'm retiring my fat fingers for the evening.

Grim said...

I suppose someone ought to note that Larry Flynt was shot by a White Supremacist objecting to his 'disgusting' interracial photo shoot; that's actually pretty close to your example, Joe. As I said, I'm not proposing licensing anyone to respond to anything they find disgusting, but that there should be certain particular rules that govern particular cases.

You might argue that Flynt proves that assault isn't an adequate deterrent. That shooting, and the resulting paralysis and constant pain, has not apparently dissuaded him.

But, as to that, I'd say that some people are just slow learners.

douglas said...

It seems that the problem is that there is no longer a balance of power in the system anymore. In past times when you could call a man out for a ten pace walk, there were ramifications for his actions- serious for serious. Now, you can defame someone in this way, and really be able to do it not only without challenge, but with the protection of the law against anyone who might wish to hold you to account of your actions. Now, I don't anticipate that we'll be going back to duels any time soon, but the course of action through civil law is very limited, and for public personalities (whom I'm sure S.E. Cupp would be considered one of), I suspect there is in fact nothing she can do, and that anything she did would only create more problems for her (or her supporters).

I'm not entirely sure I'm on board with the suggestions here either, but I'm not sure the downsides are worse. Certainly, the issue needs addressing.

Cass said...

I suspect I'm going to come down on Joseph's side (to the extent that there is a side here).

What interests me here is that Grim appears - and please correct me if I'm wrong, my friend! - to be arguing for a law the codifies an important social boundary. Which is sort of what I have argued wrt prostitution, except that I'm fine with it being a crime and having the state enforce the law. It is just that I see another useful purpose in having such a law: it draws a "thus far and no farther" line in the sand with respect to the commoditization of sex.

I think I remember that Grim and most everyone else opposed that idea b/c it could be abused, but I may be misstating a mishmash of poorly remembered views.

It seems to me that the proper response to this type of offense is social opprobrium, perhaps backed by boycotts... though if Hustler readers aren't already offended by Flynt, the bar is probably far too low to count on their support.

My experience with Hustler is limited to a day in 1979 when a few of the cashiers at the Navy Exchange where I worked peered into several of the brown paper wrappers neatly stacked behind our registers. I was about 8 months pregnant at the time and was so creeped out by Hustler that I haven't looked at a skin mag since.

Not that this was any great sacrifice for me, mind you :)

Grim said...

I don't recall the specific conversation on prostitution, Cass. I did write about the subject here, where I was fairly strongly opposed to the practice; but unfortunately that's one of those discussions that died with the comments system, although you can still read the original post.

What would be best is if we had a culture that could push these people aside by general will. Then the number of Westboro-Flynn types would be so few and so marginalized that we could ignore even a fairly robust about of noise from one now and then.

In fact that's usually been my model -- as Valerie said, don't feed them with attention -- but the recent business with Ms. Fluke raised the possibility that pushing back might really work sometimes. The general trend before that was that pushback just made the noisemakers stronger; but here she was standing up with S. E. Cupp, so maybe we can build that alliance I've long wanted to see against jerks.

It's a significant social harm if we lose the good-hearted people from the political discussion. A lot of those people are thoughtful, kind, but they don't want a life where they're going to be screamed at or pictured pornographically. If that's the price for political engagement, they'll withdraw from the process. That leaves it to the kind of people who were willing to wield such weapons.

It's a problem, and one that I don't think Dr. Nussbaum takes on board to the degree it warrants. We need to have some way of dealing with the aversion factor of disgust, to address that problem. I'm open to suggestions.

bthun said...

Being disgusted by the portrait of a person portrayed as Ms. Cupp was, and expecting the person who put that portrayal forward in public, even with a disclaimer admitting the image is photoshopped, but he hopes it injures anyway... Well, I hardly think it is irrational to expect the legal system to provide redress, in the way of hide/hair/cash/assets from Flynt to the target of the injury.

Now someone explain to me how this does not injure Ms. Cupp and those who care about her. Hell, I don't even know her and I think I'm injured on her behalf.

And we wonder why more and more, people scoff at 'the law'. *spit*

Cass said...

What would be best is if we had a culture that could push these people aside by general will. Then the number of Westboro-Flynn types would be so few and so marginalized that we could ignore even a fairly robust about of noise from one now and then.

I wonder, though. We lived in such a culture when I was growing up, yet if you watch old movies you'll see the theme over and over again of just how much damage ruthless/shameless people can do, even in such a world.

The moral of such movies has always been that we define and enforce society's standards each time we stand up and push back at the offender. Law provides one mechanism for doing so, but private action (IMHO) is also required.

Part of the problem here is that we've largely lost the notion of reputation as being important. We've also blown individualism up so far that another valuable concept (the one criminal law is based upon) is muddied: that some actions damage not only the individual target, but all of society.

This is why the plaintiff in a criminal action is the State. It's a good concept to keep in mind.

Cass said...

..the recent business with Ms. Fluke raised the possibility that pushing back might really work sometimes. The general trend before that was that pushback just made the noisemakers stronger; but here she was standing up with S. E. Cupp, so maybe we can build that alliance I've long wanted to see against jerks.

I hope so. The problem (and you have never done this) is that when people start the wholesale blaming and the broad brush condemnations, such people have less incentive to come forward.