Interesting!

And 'tout homme est un violeur en puissance, toute femme une victime potentielle'

Maybe to be posted in the 'slut walk thread' as well ;)

If this is a post "against political correctness", I think it would better placed under the Political/Social Forums.

Why should it be hidden there?

Did I say hidden?

Political correctness is a form of expression, it's not about politics. It's the ill belief that, if you use correct words -- politically correct words -- the problem will vanish or you will not hurt anybody.

The political forum is currently not shown on the main Glocals page and is therefore, de facto, hidden, in that, you have to know it is there (yes, also shown on the Forums tab, but not pushed to the front page like the other forums).

"Political correctness" is all about politics. The origin is from the US conservatives and right wingers who attempt to demonize those who argue for civility in society.

Who defines "the problem"?  

It's a very interesting discussion, particularly as France is passing laws about what certain people can wear -- which in itself is also a vital mode of self-expression.

Thank you very much for this very interesting article. Of course I share your point of view and it raises this question : to which extend a state or laws can interfere intro  the private life and intimacy of their people ? They should not. 

But there is another topic in this talk. What can one expect from any national justice ? Just norms and balance of interests, strictly based on evidence, between complaignants/aggressors.

In DSK and NFD (Nafissatoo Diallo) cases, he or she are already victim of the consequences of all this. They both lost everything... from what they first had.

You can be rich,, white and powerful... and not clean (for nearly sure) but not necessiraly coupable in every cases you find yourself charged with. And you can be poor, black and a woman and not as much clean, coupable or innocent as the first one.

I just think it is good to place justice where it has to be : a balance of interest based only on evidences... whereas intimacy, unclear situations may be develop and analyse from the infinite subtilities and complexity in between relationships.

"Important things are invisible to the eyes" says le Petit Prince.

Cheers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14679657

The above is an excellent article about why we must carefully examine our assumptions. 

"...Consider an experiment by Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan, two American economists. They drafted 5,000 CVs and placed archetypal "black" names such as Tyrone or Latoya on half of them and "white" names such as Brendan or Alison on the other half. They then divided the white CVs into high and low quality and did the same with the black CVs.

A few weeks later the offers came rolling in from employers, and guess what? The "black" candidates were 50% less likely to be invited to interview. Employers were using skin colour as a marker for employment potential, despite the fact that the candidates' CVs were identical.

But that's not all. The researchers also found that although high-quality "white" candidates were preferred to low-quality "white" candidates, the relative quality of "black" CVs made no difference whatsoever.

It was as if employers saw three categories - high-quality white, low-quality white and black candidates. To put it another way, the subliminal assumption that causes us to think that black people are all the same has powerful real-world consequences.

For many economists, this assumption, which gets under the radar of our conscious thought, explains why black people still lag behind white people in economic development more than four decades after the introduction of race-relations legislation.

Recognising that we have these biases is a good place to start in trying to combat them. And a good way of tracking progress is to watch a 100m final and see whether we fall into the trap, when seeing eight contestants with black skin, of inferring that black people are naturally better sprinters."

The "state" as you put it has the right to intervene in the lives of people where health and safety are involved.

"Interest based only on evidence" is a phrase which is, in itself, subjective because much of this depends upon how interest is defined (whose interest and why) and how evidence is defined, who collects it, and who interprets it and weighs it.

Thank you Translator for your reply.

You are right of course, evidences, analyses, researches depend a lot from background, interests, motivations and goals, parties want to reach. Let's not to mention competences, honesty, transparency with which they act.

We are talking within the frame of justice, aren’t we ?

In this particular case of DSK & NFD, for sure, motivations and means were at their highest and probably at equal level (imagine for laugh : all men vs all women). Well do you think, in order to deliver justice, both parties should pursue without evidences and only on convictions based on the past of DSK & NFD.

That's why I think justice can only be "normative" and "superficial", it helps to shape a society... but it is not enough and we have to go deeper.... where states and institutions can't go really : that is the intimacy of people and when they interact freely and according to their own and respective wills.

If you check the DSK thread in the politics forum, you will see that there is irrefutable evidence that sexual relations took place.  

Relations between human beings are never quite simple.  Where power and status are involved, the situation becomes even more complex. 

Yes I agree Translator, there was sexual act but there was no evidence of agression... and according to the past of these two persons, we just can't trust any of them in this specific case.

Then I agree with your second statement, status, power are involved and much more than that in intimacy.

If you understand French, there is a survey on Love and Men and Women. A short chronique on France info (Boris Cyrulnik) says that most "men" masturbate because their wives do not want to make love with them.

You can hear the survey here ; http://www.france-info.com/chroniques-histoire-d-homme-2011-06-15-hommes-sexe-et-amour-543763-81-167.html

I just think men and women should not wait after intitutional Justice to find their balance, they should talk and listen more to each other. 

subtleties are colorful, moving, deep and won't fit into any intitution... Let's hope we can evolve again and go further in uncovering each other ;-)

There was, in fact, some dispute as to evidence of aggression.  If you read carefully the prosecution's documents for dismissal, much is made of the fact that the alleged victim showed little emotion in recounting her story.  (Again see the political thread for more on doubts about the prosecution's changing views and interpretations of evidence.)  

A woman does not have to be battered to be raped. Threats are often enough and often times it is wholly unwise to fight an agressor.  A person with status can also make other threats, such as saying the person stole items and so on. 

The author of the article is also rather disingenuous in the cases he cites. In the example of Clinton, his behavior was clearly unethical and lying under oath was criminal.

DSK's behavior at the IMF was also quite clearly unethical and an abuse of power. The IMF has since changed and clarified its ethics regulations.

Yes, all people need to spend more time trying to understand each other. Ethical behavior and personal integrity must also be more openly discussed as well.

Thank you for the reference of the survey. I look forward to hearing it. We all understand, however, that every survey contains bias and surveys on sexual relations and identity are notoriously unreliable due to a number of different factors of which I am certain you are no doubt aware.

I think most women -- and some men -- will tell you that men -- and women -- masturbate (to quote Sir Edmund Hillary) "because it's there." As Woody Allen says, "masturbation is sex with someone you love." 

As a matter of fact, I would think for my personal conviction that DSK aggressed NFD, although it is not acceptable, he did it with a "reasonable violence" meaning that, no wound, mark, echymoses, whatsoever.

And it is not because he is clever but just because it not his style... he is certainly a kind of sexual aggressor but not to the point to physically wound her victims... as he seems to have always done it with past victims.

But no prove in this case and it appears that the victim has already complained for fake violations... so... we are in a situation where JUSTICE itself can't be discredited and shows its limits.

Thanks for the quotations... there are funny... it is still a pity people ending to love better themselves than each other ;-) I am kidding in fact...

Do you know the theory of the 3 brains regarding love ?... See Helen Fisher, the anthropoligist when you have time.

Kind regards.

René

I love the conclusion " Nous avons beaucoup de choses à apprendre de nos amis américains mais certainement pas l'art d'aimer "... 

Do you think the journalist want to rehabilitate the prestige of  " french lover"? :)

I will be lunching but I m agry with his conclusion... cocorico...

I did not want to get into this discussion because Bruckner's long article made me too angry but I think you've summarized it pretty well. 

Maybe he just wants to rehabilitate the prestige of the "french lover", nothing else.