I have no problem believing that bin Laden was a hypocrite. But I also have no problem believing that the u.s. government is a liar. Hence I have no opinion one war or ’tother as to the existence of bin Laden’s alleged porn collection.
"Austro" as in Rothbard and Wittgenstein, "Athenian" as in Aristotle and smashing-the-plutocracy.
About Roderick T. Long
The Empirical Me
I’m Roderick T. Long, Professor of Philosophy at Auburn University. I’m an Aristotelean/Wittgensteinian in philosophy and a left-libertarian market anarchist in social theory. (More about me here.) This blog, Austro-Athenian Empire, is a continuation of my earlier blog, archived here.
Pro-erotica feminist Susan Bright claims that some of the most staunchly anti-”porn” feminists had their own collections of erotic imagery. I think that the anti-porn inclinations of conservative religious types are driven by fears that pornography leads to sexual liberation. Women are often oppressed because they are viewed as threats to male strength (whether moral or physical). This is evident in some of the ideas that drove the Great European Witch Hunt, or the notions of seminal economy in the nineteenth century. People in positions of power or aspirants to power often fear, and with good reason, sexual imagery, and the dangers it poses to the “order” they hope to impose. At the same time they often enjoy it themselves.
“I think that the anti-porn inclinations of conservative religious types are driven by fears that pornography leads to sexual liberation.”
Or perhaps by the fact that pornography is soul-corrupting?
By why pass on an opportunity to smear Christians?
So, “that pornography is soul-corrupting” is a fact, but my “I think..” is a smear? While I suppose that by referring to “conservative religious types” I included many Christians, in this case I was more directly discussing Bin Laden, a conservative religious Muslim. I guess I’ll be more inclined to believe that many conservative Christian anti-pornography types are concerned with the corruption of the soul (whatever one takes that to mean) when they make as big a deal out of things like torture or war, which one would think are vastly more “soul-corrupting.”
But why pass on an opportunity to smear people involved in the sex industry?
[...] to a reader’s email note, I learn that my recent post on bin Laden’s possible porn stash has been quoted in The Independent and The [...]
It baffles me that the president says that we don’t need to “spike the football”, but at the same time information like this is released.