Some years ago I read an article online about forgiveness from a Jewish perspective. I think it may have been by a rabbi, but unfortunately I made no note of it so cannot attribute it as I should. (If anyone does know I'll be happy to credit.) In any case, the story was this: at a public function, a man approached the writer, saying that he had been a Nazi and participated in the oppression of the Jews. What he wanted was for the writer to forgive him.
The writer did not.
The reason, he explained, was that the former Nazi was asking him for a kind of forgiveness he was not empowered to give. A Catholic priest bestows forgiveness for sins committed against third parties; a rabbi does not. The Nazi's crimes had been committed against other people, and it wasn't his place to speak for them. As he told the story, he clearly felt offended by this further evidence of disrespect for Jews, approaching a stranger and demanding his forgiveness according to a moral template imposed from Christianity - in other words, expecting him to give up his Jewishness to serve a sinning Christian. I'm not sure if it was his writing or my interpretation that further considered it insensitive in the extreme to approach a random Jew and announce yourself a former Nazi, dropping that emotional burden on him and reminding him that he lives in a world where the slaughter of his brothers and sisters will never see true justice. The former Nazi had placed his own feelings - his imagined right to demand forgiveness - far above the comfort, safety and dignity of the man he demanded it from. On a personal level, it was bad behaviour. But it was also bad behaviour on a cultural level, and that's important.
A few days ago, Fred's Patheos blog linked within a couple of clicks to this considered and serious article on a recent controversy. It sums up the issue better than I could, but briefly: Hugo Schwyzer, a sometime 'feminist' blogger guilty of the attempted murder of a woman and with a history of predatory behaviour towards his female students, is currently facing a backlash because of his behaviour, and particularly the fact that he was far from honest in disclosures while taking prominent positions as a feminist spokesman - including writing for Scarleteen, the admirable sex-ed website for young adults, which has further demonstrated its commitment to young people's welfare by pulling his articles. And apparently, this is being considered too harsh by Schwyzer's defenders.
Now, I'm in an easy position to judge; I wasn't familiar with Schwyzer before this controversy started outing him as a dangerous man, so I have no old loyalties to struggle against - so by the argument I'm about to make, I should pause before I plume myself on my superiority to his defenders. A brief look at his writing took me to his piece blaming a former girlfriend for making him an 'accidental rapist', and it was sickeningly creepy - not just because of the blame, but because as he described the conversation that began this supposed enlightenment, the emphasis is all on his feelings of horror and shows no compassion for the girl. She attempted to explain that sometimes she didn't feel like sex, gave out signals that he either misread or ignored, and then said 'yes' because she hadn't the confidence to say 'no'; his response, according to him, was 'Are you trying to tell me I raped you?' - which any sensitive girl can easily read as 'I'm escalating the situation to crisis level immediately: make an accusation (which I already know you aren't confident enough to make) or else back down, set aside your own feelings and comfort me for my distress at what you've just told me.' Not surprisingly, the girl started to cry and blame herself, and yet he writes as if we're supposed to pity him. A horrible story. And not his worst by any means.
So when some people are claiming that rejecting Schwyzer as a feminist spokesman is unforgiving and excessive, I disagree: every movement attracts people who like to game the system, and for a man who wants emotional caretaking and narcissistic supply from women, what better position to adopt than heroic, penitent spokesman-ally? But it's more than just that.
Fred's piece points out that when we want mercy and grace for all, we must start with protecting the powerless; forgiving the powerful comes later. But I'm also thinking of another post of his in which he reflects on the homophobia of some strands of Christianity, considering, among other causes, the 'safe target' explanation: it's more comfortable to condemn 'sins' you feel no temptation to indulge in yourself. (For the record, I passionately disagree with the contention that same-sex sexual activity is sinful. I'm quoting 'sin' because it's the term used by homophobic Christians; I think they are factually and morally wrong for so doing.)
I'm coming to the conclusion that these two problems - judging others for acts that don't tempt you, and forgiving others for acts that haven't hurt you - are two sides of the same coin.
The common factor, I think, is this: both are pleasurable when done lightly. When we condemn a sin, we are performing a kind of mental magic: we disavow it. We draw a line in our minds with ourselves on one side and the sin on the other. If it's a line we know we've sometimes crossed, at least a bit, and may cross again, that's far from comfortable, but if it's a line we know we've never crossed and never will, we are, in effect, congratulating ourselves. Now, there's nothing wrong with some healthy self-congratulation; a person who takes satisfaction in their good behaviour is more likely to repeat it. It's just that if you're going to repeat the behaviour - such as not sleeping with someone of your own sex - because you're happier that way anyway, then the self-congratulation is excessive. I don't consider it sinful to sleep with a member of your own sex, but I personally don't want to do it: the enjoyment of pursuing the sexual orientation I do have is reward enough for me. If I start congratulating myself for pleasing myself, I'm beginning to treat myself as a God: what is pleasing to me is morally right, no matter what other considerations. Dangerous.
And I am, likewise, beginning to deify myself if I get too insistent about forgiving people who haven't wronged me. I might personally forgive Schwyzer or an ex-Nazi for whatever harm they've caused me, but really, that's very, very little harm. They've made the world I live in a worse place, which harms me because I'm not an island, but it's a very survivable kind of harm. Forgiving someone who's actually hurt you is difficult - especially if the effects of those hurts have never been healed, and perhaps can never be healed. Genuine forgiveness is slow and painful; it can be rewarding at the end because we let go of the pain - but again, if it's a pain we haven't seriously felt, forgiving becomes closer to giving oneself a little spiritual treat and then giving ourselves another as reward for the first. We are rewarding ourselves for pleasing ourselves, acting as if we, godlike, are the ultimate reference point for forgiveness. Christians often say that sin is wrong because it hurts God as well as the victim, and thus God needs to forgive; we should probably all think twice before jockeying for that slot in the universe.
We like to feel like good people. It's easy to be stoical about other people's pain. Those two things can combine to ill effect.
I do not think this is solely a religious problem; more or less everyone has a moral compass and likes to feel they follow where it leads. But as a culture strongly influenced by Christianity, we necessarily have inherited an ethos and language of forgiveness. When it's important to us, we can misuse it - but the misuse, I would say, is double. On the one hand, be unforgiving towards acts you don't want to commit; on the other hand, balance yourself out with a large helping of forgiveness towards those who haven't hurt you. A big emotional reward for very little cost.
And if we want to do either of these things in private, well, that's our own business. But from a religious perspective, this non-Christian is starting to suspect whether it's a kind of idolatry, setting our own feelings up as God. And from a secular perspective, we should certainly think twice before we demand that this is the shining standard by which to judge the public good.
--Kit Whitfield
The Slacktiverse is a community blog. Content reflects the individual opinions of the contributors. We welcome disagreement in the comment threads, and invite anyone who wishes to present an alternative interpretation of a situation to write and submit a post.
I don't know what the piece you're referring to is, but I seem to recall it being connected to Simon Wiesenthal and/or The Sunflower...ok, a brief attempt at googling suggests it's just a similar story, so maybe I'm not helpful...
Posted by: Lonespark | Apr 30, 2012 at 04:26 PM
Reading over the Schwyzer thing, I think my view on it would be that it's not alright to reject him as an advocate for feminism because he used to be a terrible person. After all, Paul became a pretty big figure in Christianity despite killing Christians for a living before.
What I do think is appropriate to reject him for is that it seems like he didn't STOP being one. He's still being a dick. I can understand him writing "This is how I felt when I learned that I'd raped her" because, well... I can't see how he could write how SHE felt about it. I could imagine him reacting wrongly to it as well. But reading the article, he seems to have taken the wrong lesson from it. Rather than taking the lesson of "I should have noticed" it seems a lot more like he's saying "She should have been more clear, I didn't do anything wrong."
Basically, in the situation he's in, where you find out you unknowingly raped someone, there are two ways you can take that. You can see it as "I should have realized, I will do better," and "She should have been clearer, she should do better." And it seems clear he did the latter. Of course he was horrified that he'd raped someone, because that shows he's a human being. He probably reacted with "Are you saying I raped you?" because he didn't honestly believe it. But then, once he believed it, he didn't respond properly. So, no, he shouldn't be down with feminism because, well... He's not a very good feminist. >_>
Posted by: Steele | Apr 30, 2012 at 06:52 PM
One problem with allowing someone with Schwyzer's history to be an advocate for feminism is that the presence of such a person in feminist spaces makes those spaces unsafe for sexual assault survivors. Since activism around sexual crimes against women is such a key part of feminism, feminism should not allow a platform for those whose presence will trigger PTSD symptoms in sex crime victims. What's more, Schwyzer was profiting both financially and in terms of popular acclaim from writing about the horrible things he'd done. He was making money off his crimes. He was also continuing to behave unethically, by continuing to disrespect women's boundaries, and by denying and hiding parts of his history and by glorifying the parts of that history he was willing to admit.
Other people have said this better than I just did: here, here, and here
Posted by: kisekileia | Apr 30, 2012 at 08:40 PM
I used to read Schwyzer's blog, probably 5 or 6 years ago. But I noticed that he was always very deferential and accommodating to creepy MRA male commenters, while tending to be rather harsh with female commenters, esp those who objected to the constant MRA-friendly comments.
A bunch of people I follow on Tumblr are outraged about his latest stuff, but their angle seems to be more like, 'white feminists are *all* jerks; what can you expect?' which I think is kind of unfair.
I do think it's creepy that a male feminist got so much attention and acclaim when his feminism seems much less important than his being a dangerous and kind of horrible person. I've only ever met male feminists online, and I have to wonder if they truly exist outside of cyberspace. (Based on my personal experience, they don't.)
Posted by: Laiima | Apr 30, 2012 at 09:01 PM
@Laiima: I've only ever met male feminists online, and I have to wonder if they truly exist outside of cyberspace.
Given the way I understand the word "feminist" then yes I have met male feminists outside of cyberspace. Of course, male feminists are sometimes unaware of particular issues/problems that face particular women -- but then so are female feminists.
Posted by: Mmy | Apr 30, 2012 at 10:11 PM
@Laiima -- I'm marrying a male feminist. Yes, they exist. And they don't expect praise and sex for saying they're feminists. Plenty of men do that, and I'd frankly rather deal with Limbaugh-type straightforwad misogynists than those creepy Nice Guy misogynists.
Actual feminist men ask women what we want and need, and actually listen to us. One would think this would be simple, but plenty of men like to pretend simply not abusing us is heroism on the level of running into a burning building to save 12 babies and a kitten.
Posted by: Lliira | Apr 30, 2012 at 11:39 PM
I'm marrying a male feminist. Yes, they exist. And they don't expect praise and sex for saying they're feminists.
To play devil's advocate on this point, men as a general rule are pretty powerfully socialized to see themselves as superior to women, and overcoming that does take effort, and in many cases, the effort will seem futile and therefore be discontinued if there is no reward. Praise, cookies, whatever. (I do not recommend categorizing 'sex' under 'whatever'.)
I don't actually know what side of the cookie debate I'm on. Possibly the side that says cookies are a good thing in moderation and accompanied by or alternating with the reminder that a decent human being does feminist things because he (pronoun deliberate) is a decent human being, not because he gets cookies for so doing.
As for Schwyzer...we can't stop him from advocating whatever the hell he wants to advocate, and we should not try, but we can, as kisekileia et al are doing, point out loudly and repeatedly that he has a history of being a douchebag, and the fact that he is saying many of the same things we're saying does not mean that he speaks for us or even with us.
Posted by: MercuryBlue | May 01, 2012 at 12:45 AM
I think my view on it would be that it's not alright to reject him as an advocate for feminism because he used to be a terrible person. After all, Paul became a pretty big figure in Christianity despite killing Christians for a living before.
For the non-Christians in the audience, that's not a compelling argument. And as I said, imposing Christian-specific values on non-Christian victims is a problem in itself.
--
I'm marrying a male feminist.
Yes, I'm married to one. Or at least, I'm married to a man who believes absolutely that women are the equals of men and takes great exception to sexism. He doesn't call himself a feminist, for reasons he can't exactly put his finger on - he says it feels 'strange' when a man calls himself a feminist, and adds that he worries the 'logical next step is the man claiming to be a better feminist than a woman' - but he's definitely, in his own language, 'supportive of feminism'.
Frankly I think that's a better way to say it.
--
To play devil's advocate on this point, men as a general rule are pretty powerfully socialized to see themselves as superior to women, and overcoming that does take effort, and in many cases, the effort will seem futile and therefore be discontinued if there is no reward.
In my experience, men who give up because they don't get extra cookies are men who aren't really motivated by a desire not to be sexist in the first place. They're motivated by a desire not to be seen as sexist, and consequently will be satisfied with the appearance and get resistant when it comes to genuinely treating women as equal - and often get all the more vicious when it's pointed out that they're supporting sexism because it offends their self-image. Cookies and strokes don't make them less sexist; they get more self-satisfied with their status as 'feminists', and more inclined to demand a space in feminist discourse, but when push comes to shove they get just as nasty as any unreconstructed misogynist.
My view? The thing to do with those guys is defeat them, not pet them, and hope that by creating a better future we'll ensure their sons are better men than they are.
Posted by: Kit Whitfield | May 01, 2012 at 02:29 AM
I think my view on it would be that it's not alright to reject him as an advocate for feminism because he used to be a terrible person.
I think that 'used to be' is missing a very important dynamic when it comes to abuse: abuse is a personality and a habit, and overcoming it is a lifelong work - and getting the status of a feminist man actively undermines that work. From Lundy Bancroft's Why Does He Do That?, a book on partner abuse:
"My colleagues and I discovered this dynamic through a mistake we made in the early years of abuse work. A few times we asked clients [ie abusers] who had made outstanding progress in our program to be interviewed on television or to speak to a group of high school students because we thought the public could benefit from hearing an abuser speak in his own words about his behaviours and his process of change. But we found that each time we gave a client public attention, he had a bad incident of mistreating his partner within a few days thereafter. Feeling like a star and a changed man, his head swelled from all the attention he had been given, he would go home and rip into his partner with accusations and put-downs. So we had to stop taking our clients to public appearances."
Bancroft - who runs an abuser program - points out that the roots of abuse lie in entitlement. A man who feels entitled to abuse, exploit and murder the women around him becomes a man who feels entitled a star role in the women's movement. There's no 'used to be' about this behaviour: it's a man who feels entitled with regard to women who has simply changed some of his patter. In public, at least.
Posted by: Kit Whitfield | May 01, 2012 at 02:54 AM
//One problem with allowing someone with Schwyzer's history to be an advocate for feminism is that the presence of such a person in feminist spaces makes those spaces unsafe for sexual assault survivors.//
I tried to engage with him on Twitter a couple of weeks ago, suggesting that if he really wanted to contribute to feminism he should start by removing himself from spaces where his presence would be potentially triggering to survivors. He seemed to think he could respectfully disagree with this. As far as I'm concerned, that says everything about his attitude to other people, and it's extremely creepy.
Posted by: Nick Kiddle | May 01, 2012 at 05:20 AM
To play devil's advocate on this point, men as a general rule are pretty powerfully socialized to see themselves as superior to women, and overcoming that does take effort, and in many cases, the effort will seem futile and therefore be discontinued if there is no reward.
Men aren't dogs. They're adult human beings, and do not need to be rewarded for being decent human beings beyond the "reward" of being treated like they are decent human beings. It would be extremely condescending to tell a man he was so incredibly awesome for being able to see half of the human race as human. Ooh and I bet he's potty trained too, what a good boy!
Posted by: Lliira | May 01, 2012 at 06:32 AM
The pop-psych emphasis on forgiveness may be responsible for some of the belief on the part of abusers that they are entitled to forgiveness, and the belief on the part of those who have been hurt that they must forgive (and quickly!) those who have hurt them. It's not overt religion, and it's framed in psychological terms (that forgiving is healthy, benefits the forgiver, etc.) so it's aimed at those who aren't Christian as well as those who are. And it's definitely a part of the general push to forgive those who haven't directly injured the forgiver, coupled with blame for those actually injured who haven't forgiven yet.
It's certainly true that abusers concentrate on their feelings and not those of their victims...and on their victims' behavior and not their own. (So the abuser can say "It hurts me when you don't write/call/love me" but never consider the abuser's own behavior that led to the unwillingness to write/call/love the abuser.)
It's taken me over 60 years to forgive someone, and it's as much exhaustion and the realization that he will never get it (he's going to be 100 this year--still alive, still clueless) that made it possible.
Posted by: EMoon | May 01, 2012 at 10:17 AM
Yeah, what EMoon said. There's also people speaking about their own experiences where "letting go" or "moving on" is something they were able to do and something that helped them live more happily and freely. Accepting what is is often important (and difficult) for one's own mental health. But that doesn't mean that anyone one else is obligated, or even to correct, to forgive/forget/ignore/accept wrong behavior. And in most cases I don't see victims asking for that.
But then going too far in the opposite direction, depending on the situation, seeking vengeance on someone's behalf, is counterproductive and hurtful. In either case it's treating the people whose experience and feelings matter as tangential to the response.
Posted by: Lonespark | May 01, 2012 at 10:29 AM
Alas, I haven't been given the authority to bestow grades on the Official Feminist Imprimatur, but in my own humble opinion a man such as you describe is certainly a "better feminist" than any number of women (Michelle Bachmann and Beverly LaHaye come to mind)
Posted by: hapax | May 01, 2012 at 11:55 AM
But then going too far in the opposite direction, depending on the situation, seeking vengeance on someone's behalf, is counterproductive and hurtful. In either case it's treating the people whose experience and feelings matter as tangential to the response.
True, though I don't think that's what Schwyzer's critics are doing in this situation; as far as I can tell, many of them are representing abuse survivors who are currently being made to feel unsafe by Schwyzer's insistence on remaining a feminist spokesman and forcing his presence into situations where it's been explicitly stated he isn't wanted.
--
hapax, I shall pass your compliment on to my husband. :-) I cannot speak for him, but my best guess is that he wouldn't consider being more egalitarian than those ladies named to be anything much to shout about.
--
Side note: people talk about 'cookies' as a slang term for 'emotional rewards'. Am I right in thinking that the origin of this is Chris Rock's stand-up? Because if so, it's rather ironic: 'What kind of ignorant sh*t is that? "I ain't never been to jail!" "What do you want, a cookie? You're not supposed to go to jail, low-expectation-having motherf*cker!"'
And while I'm not qualified to make any kind of comment about the racial point he's making, when it comes to low-expectation-having motherf*ckers wanting cookies ... well, the cookie is a rhetorical question, not an offer.
Posted by: Kit Whitfield | May 01, 2012 at 12:13 PM
Christian forgiveness can be make it appear that no matter what someone does to you, you have to forgive them. Certainly Jesus pushed that ideal, but I suspect that Jesus was more about letting go of old angers and hates and embracing the ideal of impartial love. However, even Jesus didn't seem to think that would come easy.
On the other hand, and as a Christian, forgiveness only comes with repentance, not just a pro-forma sorry but genuinely knowing what pain the sin caused. I commented on Fred's blog that a penitent ex-oppressor must wholly adopt the relative position of those they persecuted, in that way the struggle of the oppressed becomes their own struggle. That's what Paul did, the archetype of the converted sinner. Paul made no effort to excuse or hide what he had done and, despite his justly deserved reputation as a moralizing prick, he never wrote anything to the effect of "see I accepted Jesus, now you have to forgive me." At his most arrogant and insufferable, he only points out what he has done since his conversion, not claiming victimhood for what he did before.
The practical upshot is no one is entitled to forgiveness from those they have wronged. Unfortunately, the institutional Church has emphasized quick forgiveness to the point where they push "you forgive, so we can forget." And frankly that's a big load of bullshit, no matter how it gets dressed up.
Victims, people who have been wronged, may choose to forgive if they feel time, distance, or the actions of their abuser warrant it. God in this equation is (by my understanding) an advocate for the victim, providing forgiveness when the oppressor/abuser finally accepts their sinfulness with full understanding and remorse, and when needed providing them with the ability to see the effect that their actions caused. That last part is the only role that the community/church should have. (I know that can skate close to the more common pointing out other people's faults. It's less problematic if the community is concentrates on sins that cause real,demonstrable harm to others rather than more abstract harm to one's self and/or some ethereal harm to the group or world and/or improbable harm to God.)
Posted by: histrogeek | May 01, 2012 at 12:23 PM
@Kit Whitfield: He doesn't call himself a feminist, for reasons he can't exactly put his finger on - he says it feels 'strange' when a man calls himself a feminist, and adds that he worries the 'logical next step is the man claiming to be a better feminist than a woman' - but he's definitely, in his own language, 'supportive of feminism'.
I like his way of articulating it.
The men I was thinking of when I responded above would probably have a response similar to your husband's (not giving themselves the title of feminist.) At the same time we are still struggling to achieve a shared set of definitions across countries and cultures and political systems. If you take the definition on the Feminism101 site
By that definition of feminism my in-his-nineties father is a raging feminist. I wouldn't be surprised if Sarah Palin would sign on to that belief. Of course many people (Palin included I suspect) are gender essentialists and therefore believe that certain weaknesses and strengths are inextricably tied to the gender of the person being judged. It is a clever way of being on both sides of the issue.
If by "being a feminist" as opposed to "supportive of feminism" one is analogizing to the difference between "supporting a concept" and "having a lived experience of it" (like the difference between being against racism and actually knowing what it is like to be African-American in the United States) -- then short of specific unusual circumstances men can be supporters of feminism but not themselves feminists.
Posted by: Mmy | May 01, 2012 at 12:31 PM
people talk about 'cookies' as a slang term for 'emotional rewards'. Am I right in thinking that the origin of this is Chris Rock's stand-up?
Don't have the faintest idea. Anyway, clearly bringing it up here was a mistake, and I apologize.
Posted by: MercuryBlue | May 01, 2012 at 12:34 PM
"I'm married to a man who believes absolutely that women are the equals of men and takes great exception to sexism. He doesn't call himself a feminist, for reasons he can't exactly put his finger on"
As a similar type of man, I think part of the reluctance to call ourselves "feminist" comes from some 80s-era identity politics. I always felt that men supporting feminism, whites supporting people of color, straights supporting QUILTBAG, etc. people ought to be very cautious about claiming the mantle of other people's liberation movements lest we look ridiculous, recreate condensing paternalism, or use other people's liberation struggle to assuage our own guilt. Now being a supporter or ally, that is less likely to produce those patterns. The other reason I suspect is an unconscious adoption of the negative association of the word "female" in our society. Thus "feminist=effeminate man."
I'd love to say the first reason is the primary concern for me, but there is always the fear that the real reason is the second. So vague uneasy is a natural reaction.
Posted by: histrogeek | May 01, 2012 at 12:38 PM
I don't think that's what Schwyzer's critics are doing in this situation;
No, I didn't mean to imply that.
TW: violence, rape, abuse
I meant more like how people will say they want to beat up or kill people who raped their friends or loved ones. I've done that without thinking when it wasn't wanted and it was very bad. I've also done it, kind of jokingly, when it was more like supporting the person's own revenge fantasies. And I've those kinds of attempts to offer support make things much worse in cases of family abuse...
Posted by: Lonespark | May 01, 2012 at 12:56 PM
I'd love to say the first reason is the primary concern for me, but there is always the fear that the real reason is the second. So vague uneasy is a natural reaction.
Understandable, if regrettable. In justice to my husband, since I brought him up, I don't think it's an issue for him. Among other things, he grew up around highly intelligent women (his mother's a retired professor of philosophy, his sister's a maths PhD) in a family with no particular gender roles (mother, sister and father are all football fans, and his sister was an enthusiastic goalie in their formative years; his dad has 'masculine' habits but also likes to cook and is fond of cute things), so according to him he tended to find sexism rather bewildering as a child; if anyone suggested that women were stupider or weaker than men, he'd just think from experience, 'Well, obviously that's not true.'
It's partly for this reason that I'm a bit sceptical when men blame their socialisation; there's socialisation, but there's also observation.
Posted by: Kit Whitfield | May 01, 2012 at 01:13 PM
@Laiima: I've only ever met male feminists online, and I have to wonder if they truly exist outside of cyberspace.
IMHO, there are quite a few of them around, hiding in disguise as happily-married men. It's one of the secrets of a happy marriage: respecting your spouse as your equal. In my experience, men of that nature treat all women with the same respect they give men, and were taught to respect their mothers, aunts, sisters, etc. from childhood. i.e., not feminist teachings as such, but basic courtesy and respect for everyone around them.
Posted by: Dragoness Eclectic | May 01, 2012 at 02:01 PM
@Kit: (re:Paul) For the non-Christians in the audience, that's not a compelling argument. And as I said, imposing Christian-specific values on non-Christian victims is a problem in itself.
Horrified conviction that one has done terrible things, contrition, repentance, and genuine reformation into someone who helps instead of harming are far from unique to Christianity. Google "Asoka", for a non-Christian instance. I do not consider citing St. Paul as an example to be "imposing Christian-specific values"; he's just one of the best known examples in the West.
That being said, Schwyzer doesn't act like such a person. Not being him, I can't say what's in his heart; I can only comment on external appearances. One such appearance is that the man must have been suffering from severe depression at one point--murder/suicide pacts are not the products of a healthy mind. Is it right to condemn a person as an unregenerate abuser when he's mentally ill? Depression can push a person to all kinds of screwed-up thoughts and actions, things they would not do or believe if they were thinking clearly.
That being said, I find what little I have seen of his current commentary and behavior odious.
I do not think that forgiving what has not really hurt us is a problem, unless we start patting ourselves on the back for doing so. (Which, if I understand your post correctly, was your issue with it: it's a great temptation to pride and belief in one's own intrinsic goodness) Sometimes the other person thinks they did terribly wrong to you and are hurting with guilt, even if they didn't really hurt you at all. In my opinion, the compassionate thing to is to forgive them and assure them it's all right.
Sometimes I am wronged by someone who commits the same sin I have against others in the past, and I understand all too well the flaws that tempt someone to commit whatever act it was, and feel compassion for them; there, but for the grace of God, go I, etc. Understanding where they are coming from, knowing I have also done whatever stupid, hurtful thing they did, makes it not just easier to forgive, but almost compelling to do so. I have been no better than they are.
Posted by: Dragoness Eclectic | May 01, 2012 at 02:32 PM
I do not consider citing St. Paul as an example to be "imposing Christian-specific values"
Well, I do. By that logic, pretty much nothing is Christian-specific; it's not the only religion to believe in a single deity, a messiah-prophet, the importance of forgiveness, the corrupting influence of wealth, or anything else. It is, however, the only religion that considers the New Testament to be the most important religious text and St Paul's writings to be among the most important parts of the New Testament.
If citing Paul isn't Christian-specific, nothing is.
--
One such appearance is that the man must have been suffering from severe depression at one point--murder/suicide pacts are not the products of a healthy mind. Is it right to condemn a person as an unregenerate abuser when he's mentally ill?
One needs to be very careful of 'must haves'. Without a competent medical diagnosis, assuming that someone must have been mentally ill to attempt a murder-suicide is rash; it's not the act of a healthy set of values, but that doesn't necessarily mean depression.
And even if he were depressed - well, so what? I've been depressed; I did not decide to do the closest female equivalent to partner murder/suicide and kill myself and my baby. I felt utterly worthless, I had no energy, I was convinced there was no hope for myself or the world, I thought about dying several times a week ... and then I got up and looked after my son, and put on the best smile I could manage so as not to frighten him. And I banged on the doctors' door until I got the help I needed, and when I finally got it, I took it and used it like I was supposed to until I got better. Mentally ill people fight like dogs every day to keep from hurting the people around them. It's no kind of excuse.
Unregenerate abusers can get depressed, but that's like saying unregenerate abusers can catch a cold. People can get depressed, and unregenerate abusers are people. It's not an either-or, and it doesn't mean they aren't abusers.
--
I do not think that forgiving what has not really hurt us is a problem, unless we start patting ourselves on the back for doing so. (Which, if I understand your post correctly, was your issue with it: it's a great temptation to pride and belief in one's own intrinsic goodness)
No, it's not just that. It's that it's really not our place to forgive somebody for something they haven't done to us. We can decide not to judge them for it, but that's not the same as forgiveness; we only have the right to forgive people for harm actually caused us. Otherwise we're usurping the function of the real victim.
Posted by: Kit Whitfield | May 01, 2012 at 03:23 PM
TW: suicidal ideation, misogyny
//One such appearance is that the man must have been suffering from severe depression at one point--murder/suicide pacts are not the products of a healthy mind. Is it right to condemn a person as an unregenerate abuser when he's mentally ill? Depression can push a person to all kinds of screwed-up thoughts and actions, things they would not do or believe if they were thinking clearly.//
This line of thinking makes me incredibly uncomfortable. I don't know whether I'd refer to my crisis as depression or unbearable stress, but I have been in a place of thinking the only way out was to die, and I have even been in a place of considering whether it would be more merciful to kill my child along with myself or leave him to grow up with the knowledge that I had abandoned him. The fact that I was able to step back from the edge before doing anything to either of us is very much a case of "there but for the grace of god" situation.
BUT. I think there's a world of difference between going through that calculation with a baby that is still utterly dependant on you and going through it with another adult. Especially with a woman, given the way women are so often thought of as children. The way he describes his thought processes makes it very clear that he felt like he had the right to make the decision of whether her life was worth living for her. His illness or addiction might have loosened his inhibitions or distorted his ideas of what the future might hold, but I don't think it could have given him the idea that the choice was anything other than hers to make - unless he already believed that on a deeper level.
Posted by: Nick Kiddle | May 01, 2012 at 04:16 PM
Kit, are you thinking of Eli Weisel's book The Sunflower? It's similar, but instead of the Jew being approached by an ex-Nazi, Weisel recounts being approached by a dying SS guard while he was being forced to work in a hospital.
Posted by: Leum | May 01, 2012 at 06:42 PM
In justice to my husband, since I brought him up,
You know, when I first read this, I thought Kit was saying that she had raised her husband from childhood. Which makes the remainder of the post a welcome bit of amusement amidst serious subjects.
On those serious subjects, I still tend to believe what I said on Fred's blog: forgiveness is good for third parties who are forgiving repentant people after caring for victims. A repentant abuser shouldn't be permitted near former victims or people fitting the same profile, same as most recovering alcoholics shouldn't be allowed near alcohol. Still, one sense of forgiveness is "readmittance to the human community," and I'd like to think that in a culture as large as ours, there ought to be some space where former villains are permitted full membership in the human race without having to bring them into their former victims' presence.
I don't think that blithely dismissing a wrong is the same as forgiveness, nor do I think that forgiveness of unrepentant people is remotely helpful. For the Christian argument, not five verses after Jesus said "judge not", he followed up with "don't throw your pearls before pigs".
And that's why I think that the people urging "forgiveness" for Schwyzer are full of... I'm torn between the fact that I pretty much never cuss and the fact that the Schwyzer deal seems to deserve worse than the natural bleep there.. I'll leave it to the reader to decide what the "forgivers" are full of.
Posted by: Kirala | May 01, 2012 at 07:11 PM
It wasn't just the idea of forgiving him that was so offensive in the discussions of the matter. The incredible self righteousness of people criticizing women, who had just discovered they had been conned by him and were outraged over it, because they were not prepared to forgive instantly and put the matter behind them was very hard to take.
I almost do not know where to start with this of Hugo.
The racism over the Marcotte book cover? That was a huge blow up and what first brought him to my attention. When he was taken to task for it he shut down comments to his blog and took a vacation.
The use of sock puppet IDs to laud himself on his blog.
The claiming to be a professor of womens studies when he is not?
The self diagnosis of narcissism that he served up as a get out of jail free card when he was called on his behavior?
It has been obvious for a long time that he is not an honest person.
TRIGGER WARNING: Details of rape, violence against women and attempted suicide / murder.
When he told the story of how he picked up his ex gf who had just been beaten and raped because she could not pay a debt, brought her back to his place and made "hot monkey love" with her and then arranged the stove so the gas leaking would kill her, but was rescued when he called a friend to tell what he was doing, some of us were extremely disturbed that this man was in a position of authority over women. Efforts were made to get to the bottom of his multitude of lies and half truths. Many of us were hoping that he made the story up. He did not.
When Sam dropped a link to the story in the thread of yet another mainstream feminist blog post all about how swell a feminist Hugo is, the s hit the f.
As far as I am concerned it was way past time for a wake up call on this particular grifter.
It is extremely difficult to forgive someone when they are still doing what they, and their supporters, are demanding forgiveness for. Hugo is still doing what Hugo has always done.
I have a copy of the attempted murder story he posted if you wish to read it.
Posted by: thebewilderness | May 01, 2012 at 08:16 PM
@thebewilderness: if people ask you might post a link to that story but leave aside any copyright issues (I presume Schwyzer holds the copyright over his work) it would require layers and layers of trigger warnings and might make the page unreadable for some of our reading community.
Posted by: The Board Administration Team | May 01, 2012 at 08:38 PM
Could the bewilderness' comment at 8:16 have a trigger warning placed on it please? And anyone who further comments on the attempted murder story in that level of detail?
Thank you.
Posted by: cjmr, who will probably figure out her typepad logon eventually | May 01, 2012 at 09:09 PM
@cjmr: Thanks for catching that. Have gone back and edited in a TW
@everybody: Please be careful about adding trigger warnings when discussing this issue.
Posted by: The Board Administration Team | May 01, 2012 at 09:17 PM
I'm sorry, I should have thought to do the TW.
It is one of those situations where the way he talked about it was even creepier than what he was talking about having done. That is why I offered the text.
As far as the cookie question, I remember it from my childhood and suspect that Chris Rock remembered it from his.
Posted by: thebewilderness | May 01, 2012 at 09:42 PM
@thebewilderness: It is one of those situations where the way he talked about it was even creepier than what he was talking about having done. That is why I offered the text.
Is there are good link that we could post with TWs?
I have to say I read HS's blog for a while without knowing his back story and got a sense of "something" from his writing that disturbed me although I couldn't quite articulate what it was. I look back now and wonder if stuff wasn't "seeping through."
Posted by: Mmy | May 01, 2012 at 09:55 PM
Student activist has a number of posts on the various Hugo issues.
The google caches of his original posts have all gone away. I only have access to it in a private forum where it was screen capped with the expectation that he would purge his site when the hullabaloo erupted. You can imagine our surprise when no hullabaloo erupted.
So, the short answer is no. I cannot provide a link. Except for a few excerpted quotes, the post has gone down the memory hole.
Posted by: thebewilderness | May 01, 2012 at 11:05 PM
Kit - I think that 'used to be' is missing a very important dynamic when it comes to abuse: abuse is a personality and a habit, and overcoming it is a lifelong work - and getting the status of a feminist man actively undermines that work.
I think that may have been my point, I'm not sure. What I was saying was that people can change, that they can become different people, and once they see that it was wrong, they can be very helpful. Once their eyes are open to what they were doing, to the fact that they were being abusive, and to knowing how wrong that was, they can become very powerful advocates for the people they once oppressed. Especially if they use the guilt over what they did wrong to motivate them. People who were hateful can become loving... That said, I think that he quite clearly DIDN'T.
His reaction to 'you pressured me into sex' being 'well you should have been more clear about it' was externalizing the problem. It was, as has been pointed out, blaming the victim. It shows that he hasn't realized he did something wrong. Until he knows he did something wrong, that it was, in all reasonable sense of the word, HIS fault, he can't be expected to be a part of the feminist movement.
Posted by: Steele | May 01, 2012 at 11:48 PM
I absolutely believe that people can be not truly responsible for their actions due to mental illness. I'm a bit uncomfortable with people saying "well, I wasn't homicidal when I was depressed, so depression can never cause homicidal behaviour," because the same general type of mental illness can have different symptoms of different severity level sin different people. However, in this case, Schwyzer's subsequent behaviour has made it clear that he's a creep and that the murder-suicide attempt was at least somewhat consistent with his general personality.
Posted by: kisekileia | May 02, 2012 at 09:03 AM
TW violence, depression, misogynistic violence, pregnancy, violence against children
I'm a bit uncomfortable with people saying "well, I wasn't homicidal when I was depressed, so depression can never cause homicidal behaviour,"
I don't see anyone saying that here. But people with mental illness are still people. They can still make decisions. They can still appreciate distinctions between right and wrong behavior (in pretty much all cases, and talking about depression without additional problems like psychosis I think I'm on pretty firm ground saying this...). They may not be able to control their thoughts of feelings but they can make choices about how to act on those feelings.
I have read some of the writings by mass murderers, and there can be a really uncomfortable feeling where the thought process is really similar to how I think when I'm depressed. The same thing goes for the rationales offered by people who have stolen money or killed people to keep secrets, or neglected or harmed children because they were overwhelmed. They may have been acting on a certain degree of compulsion and feeling like there was no way out, but they still considered some alternatives and took or failed to take certain steps...
Drugs do complicate the picture, but there are still plenty of people struggling with mental illness and/or drug addiction who don't assume they have the right to take out their pain on others or make decisions for others.
Posted by: Lonespark | May 02, 2012 at 10:59 AM
TW: Mental illness, depression
Absolutely - and personal responsibility still applies - but to say "mental illness need not lead to bad actions" seems a little like saying "exhaustion need not lead to car accidents". No, the one does not always or even usually cause the other - but one should consider the impaired judgment that results and evaluate accordingly. When I am sufficiently tired, driving safely is nigh-impossible; when one is sufficiently deep into mental illness, acting safely in the world is nigh-impossible. There are more and less excusable reasons for getting into an impaired state; there are more and less excusable reasons for failing to recognize and get help to get out of that impaired state. Straight-up saying "well, I wasn't homicidal when I was depressed, so depression can never cause homicidal behavior" may not be considering differing circumstances enough.
Again, Schwyzer doesn't seem to fit the profile of "sufficiently". If he's too far gone into depression to recognize the value of human life, he has no business acting as an authority figure or really doing anything but seeking help. And if he were too far gone to seek help, he'd be too far gone to be whining on the Internet.
Posted by: Kirala | May 02, 2012 at 12:34 PM
//I'm a bit uncomfortable with people saying "well, I wasn't homicidal when I was depressed, so depression can never cause homicidal behaviour," because the same general type of mental illness can have different symptoms of different severity level sin different people.//
I hope I didn't come across as saying that, because I agree that it varies for different people depending on completely random factors. But at the same time, I don't think mental illness can cause specifically misogynist violence unless there's at least a streak of misogyny present in the baseline character make-up, so to speak.
//However, in this case, Schwyzer's subsequent behaviour has made it clear that he's a creep and that the murder-suicide attempt was at least somewhat consistent with his general personality.//
Absolutely this. The way he tells the story is full of self-justification and romanticising the circumstances - he tries to distance himself from his "pre-sobriety" behaviour, but the mindset is still quite clearly there.
Posted by: Nick Kiddle | May 02, 2012 at 03:40 PM
@Lonespark, people with mental illness can be so far gone that they don't understand what is right and wrong. Remember Andrea Yates? We have "not guilty by reason of insanity" as a legal defence for a reason--because sometimes, people can be too far out of touch with reality to be fully responsible for their actions.
I don't think, however, that that likely applies to Schwyzer, given his subsequent behaviour. I agree with Nick that the murder-suicide is consistent with who he is in general.
Posted by: kisekileia | May 02, 2012 at 08:18 PM
[[kisekileia: people with mental illness can be so far gone that they don't understand what is right and wrong]]
I worked at a shelter/day center for a while, and some of the women there probably fell into this category. Some of them didn't understand stuff that was going on around them in general.
Posted by: sarah | May 03, 2012 at 10:28 AM
Related to various aspects of this excellent piece - Fred Clark recently linked to a Salon article by a former DAily Show producer, about meeting one's political "enemies" and sometimes finding them more pleasant than one's political allies. In standard Daily Show fare, the article ends up calling for everyone to cut everyone more slack. There was a bit that particularly leapt out at me-
(From http://www.salon.com/2012/04/27/the_daily_show_guide_to_my_enemies/singleton/ )
-to which my callous bleeding heart responds "And do you figure she'd have been warm and affable and lovely and lent your friend a wool cap if one or both of you had been gay? Or obviously Muslim? Or..." (Mind you, if the answer is 'yes', then she's still just being hypocritical while she's supporting bigotry and harm.) I've only lately begun to notice this trend - supposed allies* who don't share the characteristics of the marginalised group in question and who feel like they've discovered some deep secret of the universe when they aren't actively targeted with hate from the bigots. As if the core of bigotry isn't "treating some types of people better than others".
*I've ended up kind of agnostic as to whether I'm a 'feminist' or a 'feminist ally'. I usually think of myself as 'a feminist', but I've also encountered some people who are extremely hardline on the rule that one can't be a feminist without having the lived experience of a woman (which I lack), and the one thing I am certain of on this matter is that I cannot be bothered to care enough to get into a fight over it, nor do I think that a man fighting with a woman over his right to not have the 'ally' qualifier is making great use of his time, ally-wise.
Posted by: Will Wildman | May 03, 2012 at 11:45 AM
Can I just say thank you? Outside of explicitly Jewish spaces (and not even all of those), it is *incredibly* rare to find people acknowledging that Judaism and Christianity are different worldviews, with different values and attitudes. Christianity is not Judaism Plus Jesus and Judaism is not Christianity Sans Jesus, and it's nice to see people recognizing that.
Posted by: Froborr | May 03, 2012 at 12:37 PM
@Will Wildman - I agree that probably bigots wouldn't be as nice if you were in the group they hated. But I think that wasn't the point of the article. The point of the article wasn't "Alright, they're really nice, so ignore them." It was more "You know what, they're wrong. They're hateful. But they're not cartoonishly malicious to all around them." I try to avoid wishing harm on people. Even, in fact, especially, the ones who are hateful towards me for my sexual orientation. Or any other thing.
What I think is important is to wish them failure. Complete, utter, total failure. But not harm or pain beyond that which keeps them from succeeding at their goals.
Posted by: Steele | May 04, 2012 at 02:28 AM
TW: depression, suicide, partner abuse, parenting difficulties
I don't think mental illness can cause specifically misogynist violence unless there's at least a streak of misogyny present in the baseline character make-up, so to speak.
Yes, this is what I meant.
The social justice and race equality blogger Tami Winfrey Harris (of What Tami Said) once gave an article the snappy title: 'If You're A Bigot When You're Angry, You're A Bigot All The Time.'* And while mental illness is more complicated than anger ... well, quite a few people dear to me have been depressed, and I've volunteer-counselled a lot more depressed people.
And what I've tended to find is that the depression exaggerates whatever their greatest faults and vulnerabilities happen to be. For instance: postnatal depression afflicted me, and also a friend of mine. We both felt bad, but our ultimate fears were different: I was convinced that my son would hate me, she was afraid that if she asked for help the authorities would deem her an unfit mother and take away her baby. DIfferent fears, because we were different people in different circumstances - and the origins of those fears were fairly easy to identify. I worry about being liked and fear over-estimating my self-knowledge. She - who was in fact a loving and responsible parent who no social worker worth their salt would ever declare unfit - was struggling with financial and personal difficulties that made it hard for her to provide perfect circumstances for her little one. Doing a bloody good job, I feel compelled to add, and the child was a darling with health and happiness shining out of every pore, but she worried about being unable to provide an ideal home, and depression magnified that worry.
So I might have worried about my baby being taken away; it was demonstrably possible for a depressed mother to do so. But I didn't, because my circumstances were more fortunate than hers and because I was more accustomed to having the class privilege that makes authority figures less threatening.
And I've known men who suffered from depression. Terrible, near-fatal depression in some cases. And yes, it affected the way they related to the women in their lives. This one became clingy, and his neediness put a lot of strain on his partner. That one became obsessed with his career problems and would shout about them to an extent that exhausted his partner. Nice men can indeed act like total bastards when they're depressed, and then stop acting that way - most of the time - when they recover.
But they're still the same men. Guy One still likes to be reassured; Guy Two still worries about his career. Their personalities have ceased to metastasise; they haven't gone away.
And in their basic natures, they respect women. So neither of them, even at his worst, ever raised a hand to his partner. They'd shout, make demands, consider breaking up. They'd consider killing themselves and leaving a partner behind.
But even when their list of options regularly included 'act very badly', 'take really stupid decisions' and 'commit suicide', killing their partners was not on that list. Their list had some incredibly bad ideas on it, but partner murder was unthinkable. It wasn't an option.
They did not consider their partners' lives theirs to end. They might lose sight of how their behaviour was affecting their partners, but they never consciously decided that they knew best whether their partners should live or die; they didn't presume or objectify. In their way, they still wanted their partners to be all right. Guy Two, for instance, describes his suicidal thoughts as a kind of messed-up altruism, thinking his partner would have a better life without him.
So I don't buy for a second the idea that 'he was depressed' is an adequate explanation for actions like Schwyzer's. Depression exaggerates and degrades and distorts, but it cannot exaggerate or degrade or distort what was not there to begin with.
I'll go with another quote, from Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon:
'Every time somebody does a thing like that to one of us, they say the people who did it were crazy or ignorant. That's like saying they were drunk. Or constipated. Why isn't [such horrible violence] the kind of thing you never get too drunk or ignorant to do? Too crazy to do? Too constipated to do?'
http://www.racialicious.com/2011/11/09/if-youre-a-bigot-when-youre-angry-youre-a-bigot-all-the-time/
--
Can I just say thank you? Outside of explicitly Jewish spaces (and not even all of those), it is *incredibly* rare to find people acknowledging that Judaism and Christianity are different worldviews, with different values and attitudes.
Well, credit really belongs to the regrettably-uncredited writer who explained the case so clearly. And to my Jewish friends for likewise explaining things. It's interesting, the differences, but if it weren't for helpful and articulate Jewish people, I wouldn't know any better. Credit where it's due; I have been educated by smart people. :-)
Posted by: Kit Whitfield | May 04, 2012 at 07:26 AM
Amen.
I had a close relative's wife (call her M) who would tell all sorts of stories about D -- she was worried that he was drinking too much, that he was doing petty pilfering at work, that he was cursing and belittling towards her, etc. The family was quite worried and talked about intervention.
Then M said that D had hit her.
And it was like shaking a kaleidoscope and having everything fall into a new pattern.
Nobody thought that D was a saint -- there were any number of poor choices, bad judgments, even crimes that we all believed him capable of, given sufficient provocation or impairment.
But it was simply inconceivable that D could physically abuse a woman. There was no way that he could have so fundamentally changed his personality, his convictions, without it becoming glaringly obvious to the merest acquaintance.
We started comparing notes on M, and it soon became apparent to everyone that she had been, to put it nicely, telling very inconsistent stories with a high level of fantasizing, and had some very serious emotional problems of her own.
(It turned out that the isolation and moodiness we had all observed in D came from his ill-advised struggles to take care of his wife's problems on his own, not wanting to "shame" her by turning to family or professionals, but that's a whole 'nother story, as they say -- and an unfortunate tragic lesson about the necessity of treating emotional illness like a physical illness, and seeking appropriate treatment as soon as possible)
Posted by: hapax | May 04, 2012 at 09:35 AM