Comments on: Newsflash: sex discovered in 1985

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Sun, 04 Apr 2004 03:37:05 +0000

“John—good thing Scammell turns out to be a jerk, eh? Imagine if he had had serious liberal, feminist credentials, or something—making him, you know, a respectable person—and actually turned out to have a serious argument concealed somewhere behind his smug tone. Wouldn’t that have been embarrassing!” No. It wouldn’t. Not in the slightest. In fact there are people who do have such credentials who do talk nonsense like that – “lipstick feminists” for example – and it’s not in the least embarrassing. It’s irritating and to some feminists surprising, but not embarrassing. Guess what – some of us already know that not everyone agrees about everything, even in cases when they have other things in common. So all this heavy irony is just thrown away. Is that embarrassing? Hope so.

By: Dan Simon

Dan Simon — Sun, 04 Apr 2004 03:02:15 +0000

John—good thing Scammell turns out to be a jerk, eh? Imagine if he had had serious liberal, feminist credentials, or something—making him, you know, a respectable person—and actually turned out to have a serious argument concealed somewhere behind his smug tone. Wouldn’t that have been embarrassing! Yes, I—like several commentators here—found Scammell’s style rather unnecessarily arrogant and ridiculing. It’s too bad so many of his detractors had to respond in kind. Thoughtful discussion of the issue he raised—which I assert is not nearly so cut-and-dried as both sides seem to think, although I’m personally inclined to favor the Crooked Timber position over Scammell’s—would have been so much more enlightening than all the ad hominem spitball-throwing.

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Sat, 03 Apr 2004 09:44:22 +0000

For background on who would write this kind of drivel, I’m indebted to commentator Paul Watson, over at my personal blog. Paul writes

Michael Scammell is indeed a “wannabe stick poker” A former media officer for the US Consulate in Melbourne, he now works as a PR hack for the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service. That’s when he’s not writing silly Op Eds for The Age, of which there’s been quite a few. On one hand, he styles himself as a classic libertarian but he‚s equally happy to let fly with the odd shock-jock style anti-feminist rant I suspect that his latest piece is more cognate with the latter “bad Michael” than might at first be realised. His dressing-up of the debate here as a generational one is all the more offensive because of the searing irony in Scammell’s being given a regular gig in The Age’s boomer-dominated Op Ed pages. AFAIK, he is one of very few regular writers without any institutional (academia, thinktank etc) oomph behind them, and he is almost certainly the only GenXer to have such a privileged freelance arrangement with The Age. In other words, Scammell isn’t just a mediocre intellect venting his personal problems through the Op Ed pages. He‚s a corporate lickspittle sell-out ˆ which means IMO he ain’t no GenXer, whatever his date of birth.

By: darrons

darrons — Sat, 03 Apr 2004 08:03:34 +0000

With reference to John Isbell’s original comment, the correct slogan should be: “Fuck me up the arse.” We Australian’s don’t understand the relevance of having carnal knowledge with a donkey like creature

By: Mr Ripley

Mr Ripley — Sat, 03 Apr 2004 04:51:00 +0000

Rea: I think the objectionable c-word is "Cockburn." Or maybe that's frowned upon at someone else's blog.

By: bob mcmanus

bob mcmanus — Sat, 03 Apr 2004 04:23:32 +0000

“rightonitude” God I love it when y’all philosopher types coin new jargon. Especially when it makes me feel like pulling my lava lamp and black-light posters out of the garage.

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Sat, 03 Apr 2004 01:58:46 +0000

“What concerns me is the blithe dismissal of opposing views in each case, as if those who disagree (and there are probably a lot of them) are not coming to a different conclusion about a difficult issue, but rather simply reacting with the benighted ignorance and crassness typical of some vaguely defined set of ridiculous people.” Well said! That exactly sums up the tone of this Scammel guy, which is precisely why his squib is so irritating.

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Sat, 03 Apr 2004 01:55:39 +0000

I said that in a confused manner. I wasn’t referring to party affliation or that sort of thing, but something more like, I don’t know, rightonitude. The way the guy seems to assume there’s something terribly benighted and pathetic and unhip and kind of ridiculous about objecting to sexism and worker exploitation. What Maria said – that whole ‘Oh yes we’ve done all that, yawn yawn, what are you so uptight about’ routine. That’s what I meant by ‘kind of the point.’

By: John Isbell

John Isbell — Sat, 03 Apr 2004 01:54:24 +0000

dan simon: “I only wish that more people would adopt a position of greater modesty—if not with respect to their bodies, then at least with respect to their opinions.” Absolutely. I for one will welcome it when you begin doing just that, Dan.

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Fri, 02 Apr 2004 23:56:29 +0000

“It all depends which way the causation flows.” Dan, as far as I can recall, I’d never heard of this guy before yesterday. Certainly, I have no idea which side of the party-political fence he stands on, if any.

By: john c. halasz

john c. halasz — Fri, 02 Apr 2004 23:39:56 +0000

Not to ignore the weightiness of the issue being discussed here, but “the Victorian Minister For Women’s Affairs”- what a woebegone circumstance.

By: Dan Simon

Dan Simon — Fri, 02 Apr 2004 23:33:20 +0000

“Michael Scammell is presumably on the opposite side of the fence/tracks/aisle, so his opinions of these things are likely to be opposite to the Timberites’” Uh…yeah. That’s kind of the point, isn’t it? It all depends which way the causation flows.

By: Dan Simon

Dan Simon — Fri, 02 Apr 2004 23:24:37 +0000

Russell—I agree that it is not inconsistent to “oppose the imposition of demeaning sexualized messages or styles…while at the same time allowing for (or at least opposing overreactions against) context-appropriate ‘immodesty.’” But then, neither do I consider it inconsistent to view the horror of child abuse as sufficient reason to err on the side of caution when judging images of child nudity, while simultaneously treating salacious slogans on t-shirts worn by (adult) saleswomen as an unserious issue. What concerns me is the blithe dismissal of opposing views in each case, as if those who disagree (and there are probably a lot of them) are not coming to a different conclusion about a difficult issue, but rather simply reacting with the benighted ignorance and crassness typical of some vaguely defined set of ridiculous people. For what it’s worth, I tend towards the socially restrained end of the spectrum on most such issues, including both of these. But I recognize that I’m not always in the majority, that individual cases differ—sometimes in subtle but important ways—and that there are usually good arguments to be mustered on both sides of any specific instance. I only wish that more people would adopt a position of greater modesty—if not with respect to their bodies, then at least with respect to their opinions.

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Fri, 02 Apr 2004 21:31:29 +0000

“Michael Scammell is presumably on the opposite side of the fence/tracks/aisle, so his opinions of these things are likely to be opposite to the Timberites’” Uh…yeah. That’s kind of the point, isn’t it?

By: Russell Arben Fox

Russell Arben Fox — Fri, 02 Apr 2004 21:08:43 +0000

Dan, I’m by no means opposed to “traditional notions of modesty”; on the contrary, I think they are unfortunately violated much too often. It’s not inconsistent or classist to oppose the imposition of demeaning sexualized messages or styles, whether through a boss’s edict or the pressure of the market, while at the same time allowing for (or at least opposing overreactions against) context-appropriate “immodesty.” (I can’t believe I just used that word in reference to a baby.) The key is recognizing that different sorts of relationships hold in each case.