Freedom of speech is not a popularity contest. Sometimes people -- particularly philosophers -- have to say or write what is 'politically unpopular' or 'politically incorrect'. Without this 'rhetorical crashing through of political, legal, economic, and/or philosophical boundaries', 'cultural taboos' associated with philosophical injustices would never be confronted...like the 'stoning of women (or men) in Iran'...or women showing their face, or being allowed to wear makeup or heels (again in Iran), or in Canada not so long ago... women being allowed to vote...and being allowed to become a member of parliament, and being allowed to be a lawyer and a judge...
Similarily, 'domestic assault' issues need to be addressed from the perspective and the equality of both sexes, not just one sex; and with the fact that a 'sexual assault charge' can destroy a man's life -- his professional career and his marriage and family -- and I am not talking about a conviction here but an assault charge -- an assault charge that may easily be front page news when the charge is laid and nowhere to be found in the same newspaper when the man is found a year or two later to be innocent of the charge -- to repeat, with the fact that a sexual assault charge can easily destroy a man's life -- something needs to be done strongly to deter and prevent a woman from laying a 'false charge' for any of a number of reasons such as one or more of the big three: power, revenge, and/or money. This applies particularly to those cases where a woman with the wrong motivation in her mind might be looking for a 'large payout' to keep the court case out of court....
And finally, if there is one chance in a hundred that a Classical Psychoanalyst's application of 'The Oedipal Theory/Assumption' might prevent the analyst from recognizing the 'actuality of a real childhood sexual assault', then that theory and assumption needs to be strongly and democratically addressed through 'freedom of speech'.....not subject to the potential coercion of 'being expelled' from Psychoanalysis for opening one's mouth against the theory....and in effect, being 'silenced like a lamb'...This is not democratic....but then again, who said Psychoanalysis was or is democratic?
The power holders at the top of Psychoanalysis -- I don't even know who they are any more -- keep running and hiding and not saying anything on an issue that keeps coming back to haunt them, over and over again, like the 'repetition compulsion' and/or 'transference'....and they keep getting philosophically 'pulverized' on Freud's rigid interpretation of The Oedipal Complex because there is no logical defense on what Freud and now Psychoanalysis in general keeps trying narcissistically to hold onto (there is some serious 'separation anxiety' going on here and/or 'self preservation in the name of Freud' at all cost...) -- my image in my head is of anti or counter or modified Oedipal Theorists metaphorically 'Storming The French Bastille'...over and over again, and one day, like the French Bastille, the 'Psychoanalytic Bastille' that is holding The Oedipal Complex 'prisoner'....will fall...
I hope I am alive to see it...
And I hope Jeffrey Masson is alive to see it...One day he will be vindicated...
Just as one day all the men in Canadian jails who are serving sentences for 'domestic assault'...
That a woman would never have been charged on...
Will also be vindicated...
We have heard of 'racial profiling'....Well, there is 'sexual profiling' as well...
Most men in Canada are all to aware of this phenomenon....
But once again...the 'lambs -- even grown men -- are silenced'....
-- dgb, Sept 2nd, 2010,
-- David Gordon Bain
