It is unlikely many three year olds are watching porn right this minute.
Puritans of course love the high figures. They provide the basis of a moral panic.
Ian B
Like the sext panic discussed in another thread, this is much ado about nothing.
So Much For Subtlety
Ian B – “Like the sext panic discussed in another thread, this is much ado about nothing.”
Actually as with sexting, we are engaged in a massive and unprecedented experiment that we hope will turn out fine. Despite preliminary evidence that suggests it won’t and the voice of experience telling us it will be a disaster.
You know, as with every other fashionable Leftist social policy of the last 70 years – abolition of the death penalty, easy divorce, legalisation of homosexuality, drug liberalisation, multiculturalism and so on. Our rulers think that childish experimentation is cool and perhaps they think that they can turn a bouillabaisse back into an aquarium.
Ian B
I must have been asleep when that “drug liberalisation” happened.
This isn’t a fashionable leftist social policy. The Proggies are anti-pornography, not in favour of it. The problem here is you’re using the wrong datum. The initial prohibitions of “obscenity” and the other various sex laws (e.g. prostitution prohibition) are not some ancient tradition, but were the product of the first Progressive Era, with the Social Purity Feminists and other Reformers leading the charge. So the absence of prohibition is the return to the normal state, not a radical new experiment. The “great social experiment” has been the implementation of moralist prohibitions (obscenity, beer, drugs, etc), the “Progressive Society”.
Okay, I’m in Northampton. We had two simultaneously notable MPs in the late 19th century, Henry Labouchere and Charles Bradlaugh. The Charles Bradlaugh has an excellent burger kitchen by the way, if you’re in town give it a try. Sit by the window and you can gaze out at the barren apocalyptic wasteland that remains where the bus station used to be, a lasting testament to letting a Tory fuckwit be council leader.
Anyway, Labouchere was the progressive Liberal MP who introduced the homosexuality amendment to the Gross Indecency Law. Conservatives at the time, the non-liberals, the traditionalists, the anti-progressives, that lot, they said “don’t do this, it will be a blackmailer’s charter”. That was their catchphrase, blackmailer’s charter. Because they recognised just how much bumbuggery there was in the world and didn’t want to go chasing after it. But the Proggies passed the law, and inaugurated several generations of the law being used to pointlessly persecute bumsexers.
My point here is that much of what modern conservatives think of as grand traditions to protect are actually previous liberal radicalisms. The same is true of drug prohibition, particularly. No doubt in a generation or so, conservatives will be treating gay marriage as a great and grand western tradition and berating other countries for not doing it. Just as today, you insist on radical authoritarian experiments like censorship and drug prohibition being maintained. When they are actually just failed radical experiments of the past.
So Much For Subtlety
Ian B – “I must have been asleep when that “drug liberalisation” happened.”
Or just ignored it.
“This isn’t a fashionable leftist social policy.”
It has not been the Right pushing these policies. It has been the Left. You can’t look at a tiny subset of feminists and claim they represent all Leftists since the 50s.
“The initial prohibitions of “obscenity” and the other various sex laws (e.g. prostitution prohibition) are not some ancient tradition, but were the product of the first Progressive Era, with the Social Purity Feminists and other Reformers leading the charge.”
It is odd you need to twist reality in such a way that it fits your dislike of Blue Stockings but this is not true:
Years before the formation of the modern United Kingdom in 1707, English law identified anal sex and zoophilia as offences punishable by hanging as a result of the Buggery Act 1533, which was pioneered by Henry VIII. The Act was the country’s first civil sodomy law; such offences having previously been dealt with by the ecclesiastical courts. Whilst it was repealed in 1553 on the accession of Mary I, Elizabeth I re-enacted it in 1563. James Pratt and John Smith were the last two to be executed for sodomy in 1835
Executing homosexuals is an ancient British tradition.
The novel was published in two installments, on November 21, 1748 and February 1749, respectively, by “G. Fenton”, actually Fenton Griffiths and his brother Ralph.[6] Initially, there was no governmental reaction to the novel, and it was only in November 1749, a year after the first instalment was published, that Cleland and Ralph Griffiths were arrested and charged with “corrupting the King’s subjects.” In court, Cleland renounced the novel and it was officially withdrawn.
As were bans on pornography.
With drugs you have a point.
“Anyway, Labouchere was the progressive Liberal MP who introduced the homosexuality amendment to the Gross Indecency Law. Conservatives at the time, the non-liberals, the traditionalists, the anti-progressives, that lot, they said “don’t do this, it will be a blackmailer’s charter”.”
So you are reaching all the way back to 1885 for this story. A little bit before feminism. Anyway. Northern Ireland only legalised homosexuality in 1982. Odd that the least feminist and most conservative part of the United Kingdom was the last to do so. And that was forced on them by London.
“But the Proggies passed the law, and inaugurated several generations of the law being used to pointlessly persecute bumsexers.”
Not pointless – it was safe to bake and sell cakes.
“No doubt in a generation or so, conservatives will be treating gay marriage as a great and grand western tradition and berating other countries for not doing it.”
I am sure that is true.
Ian B
Or just ignored it.
I don’t even know what you mean by it.
As to the rest, yes and no. There was a sodomy law but no general law against being ghey, which was the Liberal Labouchere’s contribution. The Sodomy Law itself being the result of Protestantism passing formerly Ecclesiastical Law onto the State. So, Puritans. But yes, I’m probably misdirecting here.
The major point being the switch from a law referring to specific acts to a general State jihad against gheys, leading to ludicrous scenes of specific Police detachments cruising gay bars to entrap pooves. And that this was the doing of Progressives, not Conservatives. So the correlation and causation is between the Progressive left and prohibitionism, not liberalism. Feminism was in full swing by 1885 by the way, in both the UK and USA.
Fanny Hill is a contrary case indeed, however we should note that by the 19th century, those laws were effectively a dead letter- until William Wilberforce got his Proclamaton Society together and started bringing private prosecutions to resurrect them. The Progressive jihad against obscenity snowballed from there.
And in the modern era; well, again, it’s the Progressive Left who resurrected the panic about sexual material in the past few decades after people had decided to be more liberal about it in the 1960s and 1970s, by developing the whole Feminist model of sexual victimisation, objectification, etc.
All of which comes back to what we started debating, which is that “the Left” do not have any correlation with liberalism- on sex, drugs, booze or anything else.
The Meissen Bison
SMFS: It is unlikely many three year olds are watching porn right this minute.
C Boobies?
BraveFart
@The Meissen Bison
Thanks for that!
Theophrastus
IanB
SMFS has picked you up, quite rightly, on several matters. I would add two points.
There was a sodomy law but no general law against being ghey, which was the Liberal Labouchere’s contribution.
Labouchere’s amendment was not a general law against being homosexual: it was an attempt to outlaw fellatio, masturbation, and other non-penetrative acts between homosexuals. Quite different.
Also, conflating evangelical Christians like Wilberforce (who sat as an Independent but largely supported his friend Pitt) with later leftist progressives is disingenuous, to say the least.
Ian B
Labouchere’s law was an effective law against anything a bit gay; for instance, men dancing together or kissing could be grossly indecent. This was the crucial shift from the illegality of a sexual act (sodomy) to a general jihad against poofiness.
As I have often stated, the First Wave Progressives began as Evangelical Christian reformers. Progressivism is social gospel rather than socialist, just as the Labour Party has always been more Methodist than Marxist.
The central thing I’m trying to get across here anyway is this IMV wildly mistaken belief among conservatives that the (anglospheric) left are correlated with social liberalism, amoralism or immoralism. They are not. They are fierce moralists. The absolute last thing they want is a moral free-for-all.
Theophrastus
Labouchere’s law was an effective law against anything a bit gay; for instance, men dancing together or kissing could be grossly indecent.
True; but it did not make homosexuality illegal. It was a law about what you could do in a public place, not a “general law” against homosexuality.
As I have often stated, the First Wave Progressives began as Evangelical Christian reformers. Progressivism is social gospel rather than socialist…
But conservative evangelical Christian reformers were not progressives. To class them as such is to stretch the term ‘progressive’ to the point were it is largely meaningless.
As I just said, the progressives were simply the name given to the later stage of those Christian reformers, after it became organised in a campaign kind of way. There is no break between the two. The progressive movement was overtly based on Christian morals; women like Frances Willard (Womens Christian Temperance Union), Jane Addams (the uber-progressive) and so on. Josephine Butler, the Suffragettes, Social Purity.
It’s not a fallacy. The error is trying to separate the two things to exclude Christians from an overtly Christian phenomenon. “Progressive” by the way was an American label for them, so I could be reasonably criticised for using it to describe British campaigners. But I think that is valid, as they are the same phenomenon in the two countries (and others- Canada, Australia).
This is I believe absolutely crucial in understanding the modern “progressive” formation.
Ian B
Addendum:
Please note I am NOT saying that all Christians, or all evangelical Christians, are or were Progressives- rather that it arose from particular movements within Christianity in England and the rest of the Anglosphere.
Ian B
Another Addendum:
Basically Theo (and SMFS) I appreciate you don’t agree with me (fair enough) but my position on all this is not attacking or “blaming” Christianity, it is an attempt, over some years now, to analyse trends within Christianity and their effects. Which I was drawn into effectively by accident precisely because I was trying to understand where the Proggies came from, and why they are how they are, and the other explanations I encountered seemed inadequate to me.
We live in Christendom. Whatever one’s faith or lack thereof, Christianity has been the basis of our moral philosophy for (depending where you are) between one and two millennia. You simple can’t describe Western Mankind’s nature without it.
Theophrastus
There is no break between the two.
They are two quite different traditions of social reform. One is conservative and evangelical Christian; the other is secular and radical, even socialist. The two traditions are still visible today. What is the advantage in conflating them?
The progressive movement was overtly based on Christian morals
That is a truism. What else could it have been ‘based’ upon in the circumstances? For as you say later: We live in Christendom. Whatever one’s faith or lack thereof, Christianity has been the basis of our moral philosophy for (depending where you are) between one and two millennia. You simple can’t describe Western Mankind’s nature without it.
It’s not a fallacy.
The genetic fallacy occurs when “a conclusion is suggested based solely on someone’s or something’s history, origin, or source rather than its current meaning or context. This overlooks any difference to be found in the present situation, typically transferring the positive or negative esteem from the earlier context.” That is exactly what you are doing.
The error is trying to separate the two things to exclude Christians from an overtly Christian phenomenon.
But it is only a partly Christian phenomenon. And you are saying it an “overtly” Christian one – for the trivial reason that (in your own words) “Whatever one’s faith or lack thereof, Christianity has been the basis of our moral philosophy …”. Which is like saying Marxism is overtly Judaic in inspiration.
And, no, I don’t think you are attacking Christianity, nor am I defending it here. I do, however, think you are strangely obsessed with an evidence-lite and unhelpful ‘theory’ of your own devising.
Andrew M
Teenagers have had an ever-increasing supply of porn in print format since the 1900s. We’re seeing the same panic as with cannabis – the stuff today is alleged to be stronger, more addictive, and thus causes more problems than in the past.
This leads to three questions:
1. Is today’s porn “stronger”? (Yes)
2. Is it more addictive? (Science says yes)
3. Does this cause more problems? (No – quite the opposite)
The incidence of sex crimes has tumbled with the widespread availability of internet porn. Therefore porn is a good thing for society; especially for young women. (Granted it may not be such a good thing for young men. I’ll leave that argument open.)
Ian B
No, Theo, I am saying that the Victorian Progressive Movement was synonymous with overt Christian reform, as with (for example) the Womens Christian Temperance Union. Progressivism was Christian reform. Not “secular” in any way.
Neither is the genetic fallacy in play. To understand Progressivism, you have to understand its history. As a moral reform movement, predicated on a particular interpretation of Christian morals; particularly (and particularly in the USA) in the post-millennialist belief that sufficient Christianisation, in moral terms, of mankind would induce the return of Christ.
A pretty good primer on the American experience by Murray Rothbard-
1. No. The “not your daddy’s Playboy” argument asserts this, but ignores the weird and kinky (and sometimes nowadays illegal) stuff that was doing the rounds in the 1970s. Bestiality, incest (okay, “fake” but a common theme) and frequent use of overt rape scenarios. Not to mention the (relatively small amount in fact) of paedo stuff that started the whole current panic.
2. “Addictive” is meaningless outside body chemistry. This is just a revival of the idea that liking something morally “corrupting” is a kind of illness which therefore requires intervention.
3. Porn appears to be neutral in terms of “problems”. It simply is a thing that is, like all the other things that worry moral guardians like video games and rock’n’roll. All the evidence on the issue is that there is no issue.
Liberal Yank
“No doubt in a generation or so, conservatives will be treating gay marriage as a great and grand western tradition and berating other countries for not doing it.”
Considering the number of articles I’ve skipped reading about the treatment of gays in Russia I would guess 4 years is far more likely than a generation.
“Progressivism is social gospel rather than socialist”
An idea that needs to be maintained in all debates.
“They are two quite different traditions of social reform. One is conservative and evangelical Christian; the other is secular and radical, even socialist. The two traditions are still visible today. What is the advantage in conflating them?”
For the non-conservative, non-evangelical Christian radical has a completely different meaning. The difference between these two traditions is that they each want different changes made, not that they don’t want to make radical changes.
I can believe that when “they” checked 1 in 5 children were watching internet porn. Not counted are the 2 in 5 children watching at their friend’s house. Also not counted were the 2 in 5* making porn, although not necessarily for others to view, at the time. Somehow even I managed to end my teenage life having discovered sex.
*At one point this number was 5 in 5. It’s amazing the number of things that kids just don’t do in the real world now.
Andrew Duffin
So many things wrong or stupid in that article, it’s almost impossible to comment on it at all.
We could start with “how would they know?” and go rapidly downhill from there.
It’s pretty much mince.
But there will still be a moral panic and – of course – a “crackdown”.
Heaven preserve us from crackdowns.
Andrew M
Ian B,
1. It’s definitely “stronger”. Today vs 1980s:
(i) HD 3D videos, vs still photos;
(ii) Vast quantities, vs one or two magazines;
(iii) Available to anyone anytime, vs available to whoever happened to find Razzle in the bushes, circulated during school hours only;
(iv) Dark stuff existed but was very hard to get, vs dark stuff just a few clicks away.
None of that matters unless points 2 and 3 can be satisfied. Since point 3 can’t be, it’s moot.
I would provide evidence for point 2, but I’m at work and management don’t appreciate me spending the afternoon googling for porn. Even if it is “just for research”.
Grikath
“I can believe that when “they” checked 1 in 5 children were watching internet porn. Not counted are the 2 in 5 children watching at their friend’s house. ”
Given that they pull the usual “children”-up-to-18-yrs-old trick, one in 5 could be correct.. About all the boys aged 14-17, plus a good fraction of the girls in that age group.
Nothing surprising there, methinks. Nature at work.
Ian B
Andrew M-
That’s quantity not quality. Or, um, it’s quality in the sense of better technology (boy, are Super-8 loops blurry) but not qualitatively regarding content. That is, I would argue that it isn’t any stronger in terms of content, there’s just more of it and you can see what’s going better.
But even the quantitative comparison is misleading I think. There is massive quantities of all media now, an unimaginable bounty compared to my youth of 3 (then 4) TV channels, a transistor radio and expensive vinyl records. Proportionately, it isn’t any bigger a deal than it was.
Theophrastus
IanB:
…I am saying that the Victorian Progressive Movement was synonymous with overt Christian reform, as with (for example) the Womens Christian Temperance Union. Progressivism was Christian reform. Not “secular” in any way.
But the Victorian progressive movement included many people who were not Christians or who had lost their faith — J S Mill, Matthew Arnold, Charles Dickens, John Ruskin….Their motivation for pursuing social reform was a Christian-inspired humanism, not Christianity itself. So, yes, there were some evangelical christian reformers; but there were also deists and atheists involved, often as the prime movers. And that distinction is still discernible today.
As for the genetic fallacy, it does not rule out understanding the history of ideas. And you are obviously committing it by conflating modern progressivism with its historical origins..
jgh
Re: Progressives. In the early 20th century many Municipal Progressive Parties were Conservative-Liberal anti-Labour alliances.
Theophrastus
Jgh
Well, quite. But IanB has acute confirmation bias.
Luke
Ian B,
Much enjoyed your contributions. Didn’t know about the blackmailers’ charter arguments at all.
Luke
“Hey kids, you can have the football, it’s all yours, so long as you don’t touch it.”
“Gee, thanks Dad, I mean it’s not like you’ve banned having a football per se, is it?”
“That’s right.”
Grikath
I can see a lot of you grew up in the Land of Repression.,, 😛
Not many mags in the 80’s indeed… It’s surprising how well you could finance couchsurfing ** in the UK by …importing… specialty mags in the 80’s and 90’s.
Good specialty porn had a higher price/weight ratio than cannabis in those days in the UK. Makes for interesting bartering, and a solid impression that all them laws didn’t work then either.
** the Hipsters think they’ve invented this and other stuff. Sez enough about them, innit?
So Much For Subtlety
Andrew M – “The incidence of sex crimes has tumbled with the widespread availability of internet porn. Therefore porn is a good thing for society; especially for young women. (Granted it may not be such a good thing for young men. I’ll leave that argument open.)”
There is no particular reason to think that sex crimes have tumbled because of internet porn. And by “tumbled” what you mean is “returned to the level they were before the social reforms of the 60s” anyway. It is just as likely that DNA testing has reduced the rate.
As for its effect on society, I was talking to a nice young girl who couldn’t find a decent boy in London. Apparently they all wanted to come on her face. Dating has changed since I were a lad – and somehow I think porn might be connected to this. I have been told that in the 60s rape was rape. Boring vanilla vaginal penetration. But now most stranger rape involves at least three orifices. I would think, if true, porn has something to do with that too.
So Much For Subtlety
Ian B – “Basically Theo (and SMFS) I appreciate you don’t agree with me (fair enough) but my position on all this is not attacking or “blaming” Christianity, it is an attempt, over some years now, to analyse trends within Christianity and their effects.”
I don’t care if you attack Christianity or not. I object to your,
1. a-historicism,
2. your shoe-horning all social developments since Jesus into a pre-existing ideological structure,
3. the abuse of the actual evidence that requires,
and 4. your refusal to consider you might be wrong.
The fact you have to insist that sex-positive Jewish feminists like Erica Jong are in fact Puritan Christians used to be amusing. But it misrepresents what she believes, who she is, what the movement she was part of was about, etc etc etc
So Much For Subtlety
Ian B – “There was a sodomy law but no general law against being ghey, which was the Liberal Labouchere’s contribution.”
Labouchere did not make being gay illegal. He broadened the scope of the sodomy law to including things like oral sex. At a time when being “a liberal” was still very much a statement about your family background, rather than a statement of ideological belief.
“The Sodomy Law itself being the result of Protestantism passing formerly Ecclesiastical Law onto the State. So, Puritans. But yes, I’m probably misdirecting here.”
Henry VIII is not widely known for his Puritanism. In fact if I am not much mistake he remained a Catholic his entire life.
“Fanny Hill is a contrary case indeed, however we should note that by the 19th century, those laws were effectively a dead letter- until William Wilberforce got his Proclamaton Society together and started bringing private prosecutions to resurrect them. The Progressive jihad against obscenity snowballed from there.”
A contrary case? The book was not legally published in the UK until 1963. The laws were not a dead letter. In the 19th century the British had to go to Paris for their porn for that reason. My Secret Life was not published openly in the English speaking world until the 60s either. Likewise The Romance of Lust was published anonymously – and not legally until 1969.
Something was deterring them.
“And in the modern era; well, again, it’s the Progressive Left who resurrected the panic about sexual material”
Sure. That I can agree on.
“All of which comes back to what we started debating, which is that “the Left” do not have any correlation with liberalism- on sex, drugs, booze or anything else.”
They did, but they don’t. The Wolfenden Report was not written by Conservatives. Leo Abse was not a Conservative. Lord Arran was but he is exceptional [1]. Nor was he Jewish like the other two.
[1] Arran was obsessed by two things, legalising homosexuality and protecting badgers. He got the former but not the latter. When asked about this, he is supposed to have said “Not many badgers in the House of Lords”.
Theophrastus
I object to your,
1. a-historicism,
2. your shoe-horning all social developments since Jesus into a pre-existing ideological structure,
3. the abuse of the actual evidence that requires,
and 4. your refusal to consider you might be wrong.
Precisely, SMFS. Well said. Indeed, I wish I had written that about IanB’s monomaniacal absurdities – and I probably will one day soon.
The other four are sexting on their phones.Er..
Puritans; stupid and indefatigable.
It is unlikely many three year olds are watching porn right this minute.
Puritans of course love the high figures. They provide the basis of a moral panic.
Like the sext panic discussed in another thread, this is much ado about nothing.
Ian B – “Like the sext panic discussed in another thread, this is much ado about nothing.”
Actually as with sexting, we are engaged in a massive and unprecedented experiment that we hope will turn out fine. Despite preliminary evidence that suggests it won’t and the voice of experience telling us it will be a disaster.
You know, as with every other fashionable Leftist social policy of the last 70 years – abolition of the death penalty, easy divorce, legalisation of homosexuality, drug liberalisation, multiculturalism and so on. Our rulers think that childish experimentation is cool and perhaps they think that they can turn a bouillabaisse back into an aquarium.
I must have been asleep when that “drug liberalisation” happened.
This isn’t a fashionable leftist social policy. The Proggies are anti-pornography, not in favour of it. The problem here is you’re using the wrong datum. The initial prohibitions of “obscenity” and the other various sex laws (e.g. prostitution prohibition) are not some ancient tradition, but were the product of the first Progressive Era, with the Social Purity Feminists and other Reformers leading the charge. So the absence of prohibition is the return to the normal state, not a radical new experiment. The “great social experiment” has been the implementation of moralist prohibitions (obscenity, beer, drugs, etc), the “Progressive Society”.
Okay, I’m in Northampton. We had two simultaneously notable MPs in the late 19th century, Henry Labouchere and Charles Bradlaugh. The Charles Bradlaugh has an excellent burger kitchen by the way, if you’re in town give it a try. Sit by the window and you can gaze out at the barren apocalyptic wasteland that remains where the bus station used to be, a lasting testament to letting a Tory fuckwit be council leader.
Anyway, Labouchere was the progressive Liberal MP who introduced the homosexuality amendment to the Gross Indecency Law. Conservatives at the time, the non-liberals, the traditionalists, the anti-progressives, that lot, they said “don’t do this, it will be a blackmailer’s charter”. That was their catchphrase, blackmailer’s charter. Because they recognised just how much bumbuggery there was in the world and didn’t want to go chasing after it. But the Proggies passed the law, and inaugurated several generations of the law being used to pointlessly persecute bumsexers.
My point here is that much of what modern conservatives think of as grand traditions to protect are actually previous liberal radicalisms. The same is true of drug prohibition, particularly. No doubt in a generation or so, conservatives will be treating gay marriage as a great and grand western tradition and berating other countries for not doing it. Just as today, you insist on radical authoritarian experiments like censorship and drug prohibition being maintained. When they are actually just failed radical experiments of the past.
Ian B – “I must have been asleep when that “drug liberalisation” happened.”
Or just ignored it.
“This isn’t a fashionable leftist social policy.”
It has not been the Right pushing these policies. It has been the Left. You can’t look at a tiny subset of feminists and claim they represent all Leftists since the 50s.
“The initial prohibitions of “obscenity” and the other various sex laws (e.g. prostitution prohibition) are not some ancient tradition, but were the product of the first Progressive Era, with the Social Purity Feminists and other Reformers leading the charge.”
It is odd you need to twist reality in such a way that it fits your dislike of Blue Stockings but this is not true:
Executing homosexuals is an ancient British tradition.
As were bans on pornography.
With drugs you have a point.
“Anyway, Labouchere was the progressive Liberal MP who introduced the homosexuality amendment to the Gross Indecency Law. Conservatives at the time, the non-liberals, the traditionalists, the anti-progressives, that lot, they said “don’t do this, it will be a blackmailer’s charter”.”
So you are reaching all the way back to 1885 for this story. A little bit before feminism. Anyway. Northern Ireland only legalised homosexuality in 1982. Odd that the least feminist and most conservative part of the United Kingdom was the last to do so. And that was forced on them by London.
“But the Proggies passed the law, and inaugurated several generations of the law being used to pointlessly persecute bumsexers.”
Not pointless – it was safe to bake and sell cakes.
“No doubt in a generation or so, conservatives will be treating gay marriage as a great and grand western tradition and berating other countries for not doing it.”
I am sure that is true.
I don’t even know what you mean by it.
As to the rest, yes and no. There was a sodomy law but no general law against being ghey, which was the Liberal Labouchere’s contribution. The Sodomy Law itself being the result of Protestantism passing formerly Ecclesiastical Law onto the State. So, Puritans. But yes, I’m probably misdirecting here.
The major point being the switch from a law referring to specific acts to a general State jihad against gheys, leading to ludicrous scenes of specific Police detachments cruising gay bars to entrap pooves. And that this was the doing of Progressives, not Conservatives. So the correlation and causation is between the Progressive left and prohibitionism, not liberalism. Feminism was in full swing by 1885 by the way, in both the UK and USA.
Fanny Hill is a contrary case indeed, however we should note that by the 19th century, those laws were effectively a dead letter- until William Wilberforce got his Proclamaton Society together and started bringing private prosecutions to resurrect them. The Progressive jihad against obscenity snowballed from there.
And in the modern era; well, again, it’s the Progressive Left who resurrected the panic about sexual material in the past few decades after people had decided to be more liberal about it in the 1960s and 1970s, by developing the whole Feminist model of sexual victimisation, objectification, etc.
All of which comes back to what we started debating, which is that “the Left” do not have any correlation with liberalism- on sex, drugs, booze or anything else.
SMFS: It is unlikely many three year olds are watching porn right this minute.
C Boobies?
@The Meissen Bison
Thanks for that!
IanB
SMFS has picked you up, quite rightly, on several matters. I would add two points.
There was a sodomy law but no general law against being ghey, which was the Liberal Labouchere’s contribution.
Labouchere’s amendment was not a general law against being homosexual: it was an attempt to outlaw fellatio, masturbation, and other non-penetrative acts between homosexuals. Quite different.
Also, conflating evangelical Christians like Wilberforce (who sat as an Independent but largely supported his friend Pitt) with later leftist progressives is disingenuous, to say the least.
Labouchere’s law was an effective law against anything a bit gay; for instance, men dancing together or kissing could be grossly indecent. This was the crucial shift from the illegality of a sexual act (sodomy) to a general jihad against poofiness.
As I have often stated, the First Wave Progressives began as Evangelical Christian reformers. Progressivism is social gospel rather than socialist, just as the Labour Party has always been more Methodist than Marxist.
The central thing I’m trying to get across here anyway is this IMV wildly mistaken belief among conservatives that the (anglospheric) left are correlated with social liberalism, amoralism or immoralism. They are not. They are fierce moralists. The absolute last thing they want is a moral free-for-all.
Labouchere’s law was an effective law against anything a bit gay; for instance, men dancing together or kissing could be grossly indecent.
True; but it did not make homosexuality illegal. It was a law about what you could do in a public place, not a “general law” against homosexuality.
As I have often stated, the First Wave Progressives began as Evangelical Christian reformers. Progressivism is social gospel rather than socialist…
But conservative evangelical Christian reformers were not progressives. To class them as such is to stretch the term ‘progressive’ to the point were it is largely meaningless.
In your cod social philosophy, you repeatedly commit the genetic fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_fallacy
As I just said, the progressives were simply the name given to the later stage of those Christian reformers, after it became organised in a campaign kind of way. There is no break between the two. The progressive movement was overtly based on Christian morals; women like Frances Willard (Womens Christian Temperance Union), Jane Addams (the uber-progressive) and so on. Josephine Butler, the Suffragettes, Social Purity.
It’s not a fallacy. The error is trying to separate the two things to exclude Christians from an overtly Christian phenomenon. “Progressive” by the way was an American label for them, so I could be reasonably criticised for using it to describe British campaigners. But I think that is valid, as they are the same phenomenon in the two countries (and others- Canada, Australia).
This is I believe absolutely crucial in understanding the modern “progressive” formation.
Addendum:
Please note I am NOT saying that all Christians, or all evangelical Christians, are or were Progressives- rather that it arose from particular movements within Christianity in England and the rest of the Anglosphere.
Another Addendum:
Basically Theo (and SMFS) I appreciate you don’t agree with me (fair enough) but my position on all this is not attacking or “blaming” Christianity, it is an attempt, over some years now, to analyse trends within Christianity and their effects. Which I was drawn into effectively by accident precisely because I was trying to understand where the Proggies came from, and why they are how they are, and the other explanations I encountered seemed inadequate to me.
We live in Christendom. Whatever one’s faith or lack thereof, Christianity has been the basis of our moral philosophy for (depending where you are) between one and two millennia. You simple can’t describe Western Mankind’s nature without it.
There is no break between the two.
They are two quite different traditions of social reform. One is conservative and evangelical Christian; the other is secular and radical, even socialist. The two traditions are still visible today. What is the advantage in conflating them?
The progressive movement was overtly based on Christian morals
That is a truism. What else could it have been ‘based’ upon in the circumstances? For as you say later: We live in Christendom. Whatever one’s faith or lack thereof, Christianity has been the basis of our moral philosophy for (depending where you are) between one and two millennia. You simple can’t describe Western Mankind’s nature without it.
It’s not a fallacy.
The genetic fallacy occurs when “a conclusion is suggested based solely on someone’s or something’s history, origin, or source rather than its current meaning or context. This overlooks any difference to be found in the present situation, typically transferring the positive or negative esteem from the earlier context.” That is exactly what you are doing.
The error is trying to separate the two things to exclude Christians from an overtly Christian phenomenon.
But it is only a partly Christian phenomenon. And you are saying it an “overtly” Christian one – for the trivial reason that (in your own words) “Whatever one’s faith or lack thereof, Christianity has been the basis of our moral philosophy …”. Which is like saying Marxism is overtly Judaic in inspiration.
And, no, I don’t think you are attacking Christianity, nor am I defending it here. I do, however, think you are strangely obsessed with an evidence-lite and unhelpful ‘theory’ of your own devising.
Teenagers have had an ever-increasing supply of porn in print format since the 1900s. We’re seeing the same panic as with cannabis – the stuff today is alleged to be stronger, more addictive, and thus causes more problems than in the past.
This leads to three questions:
1. Is today’s porn “stronger”? (Yes)
2. Is it more addictive? (Science says yes)
3. Does this cause more problems? (No – quite the opposite)
The incidence of sex crimes has tumbled with the widespread availability of internet porn. Therefore porn is a good thing for society; especially for young women. (Granted it may not be such a good thing for young men. I’ll leave that argument open.)
No, Theo, I am saying that the Victorian Progressive Movement was synonymous with overt Christian reform, as with (for example) the Womens Christian Temperance Union. Progressivism was Christian reform. Not “secular” in any way.
Neither is the genetic fallacy in play. To understand Progressivism, you have to understand its history. As a moral reform movement, predicated on a particular interpretation of Christian morals; particularly (and particularly in the USA) in the post-millennialist belief that sufficient Christianisation, in moral terms, of mankind would induce the return of Christ.
A pretty good primer on the American experience by Murray Rothbard-
https://mises.org/library/origins-welfare-state-america
Andrew M-
1. No. The “not your daddy’s Playboy” argument asserts this, but ignores the weird and kinky (and sometimes nowadays illegal) stuff that was doing the rounds in the 1970s. Bestiality, incest (okay, “fake” but a common theme) and frequent use of overt rape scenarios. Not to mention the (relatively small amount in fact) of paedo stuff that started the whole current panic.
2. “Addictive” is meaningless outside body chemistry. This is just a revival of the idea that liking something morally “corrupting” is a kind of illness which therefore requires intervention.
3. Porn appears to be neutral in terms of “problems”. It simply is a thing that is, like all the other things that worry moral guardians like video games and rock’n’roll. All the evidence on the issue is that there is no issue.
“No doubt in a generation or so, conservatives will be treating gay marriage as a great and grand western tradition and berating other countries for not doing it.”
Considering the number of articles I’ve skipped reading about the treatment of gays in Russia I would guess 4 years is far more likely than a generation.
“Progressivism is social gospel rather than socialist”
An idea that needs to be maintained in all debates.
“They are two quite different traditions of social reform. One is conservative and evangelical Christian; the other is secular and radical, even socialist. The two traditions are still visible today. What is the advantage in conflating them?”
For the non-conservative, non-evangelical Christian radical has a completely different meaning. The difference between these two traditions is that they each want different changes made, not that they don’t want to make radical changes.
I can believe that when “they” checked 1 in 5 children were watching internet porn. Not counted are the 2 in 5 children watching at their friend’s house. Also not counted were the 2 in 5* making porn, although not necessarily for others to view, at the time. Somehow even I managed to end my teenage life having discovered sex.
*At one point this number was 5 in 5. It’s amazing the number of things that kids just don’t do in the real world now.
So many things wrong or stupid in that article, it’s almost impossible to comment on it at all.
We could start with “how would they know?” and go rapidly downhill from there.
It’s pretty much mince.
But there will still be a moral panic and – of course – a “crackdown”.
Heaven preserve us from crackdowns.
Ian B,
1. It’s definitely “stronger”. Today vs 1980s:
(i) HD 3D videos, vs still photos;
(ii) Vast quantities, vs one or two magazines;
(iii) Available to anyone anytime, vs available to whoever happened to find Razzle in the bushes, circulated during school hours only;
(iv) Dark stuff existed but was very hard to get, vs dark stuff just a few clicks away.
None of that matters unless points 2 and 3 can be satisfied. Since point 3 can’t be, it’s moot.
I would provide evidence for point 2, but I’m at work and management don’t appreciate me spending the afternoon googling for porn. Even if it is “just for research”.
“I can believe that when “they” checked 1 in 5 children were watching internet porn. Not counted are the 2 in 5 children watching at their friend’s house. ”
Given that they pull the usual “children”-up-to-18-yrs-old trick, one in 5 could be correct.. About all the boys aged 14-17, plus a good fraction of the girls in that age group.
Nothing surprising there, methinks. Nature at work.
Andrew M-
That’s quantity not quality. Or, um, it’s quality in the sense of better technology (boy, are Super-8 loops blurry) but not qualitatively regarding content. That is, I would argue that it isn’t any stronger in terms of content, there’s just more of it and you can see what’s going better.
But even the quantitative comparison is misleading I think. There is massive quantities of all media now, an unimaginable bounty compared to my youth of 3 (then 4) TV channels, a transistor radio and expensive vinyl records. Proportionately, it isn’t any bigger a deal than it was.
IanB:
…I am saying that the Victorian Progressive Movement was synonymous with overt Christian reform, as with (for example) the Womens Christian Temperance Union. Progressivism was Christian reform. Not “secular” in any way.
But the Victorian progressive movement included many people who were not Christians or who had lost their faith — J S Mill, Matthew Arnold, Charles Dickens, John Ruskin….Their motivation for pursuing social reform was a Christian-inspired humanism, not Christianity itself. So, yes, there were some evangelical christian reformers; but there were also deists and atheists involved, often as the prime movers. And that distinction is still discernible today.
As for the genetic fallacy, it does not rule out understanding the history of ideas. And you are obviously committing it by conflating modern progressivism with its historical origins..
Re: Progressives. In the early 20th century many Municipal Progressive Parties were Conservative-Liberal anti-Labour alliances.
Jgh
Well, quite. But IanB has acute confirmation bias.
Ian B,
Much enjoyed your contributions. Didn’t know about the blackmailers’ charter arguments at all.
Luke
“It wasn’t a law against homosexuality. It was a law against anything that looked like homosexuality.”
ho-hum.
I think porn is stronger today. There was no hot kinky jo in the 70s.
UKL
As in some muslim states, a law that banned public displays of christian piety would not be a law that banned christianity per se, would it?
“Hey kids, you can have the football, it’s all yours, so long as you don’t touch it.”
“Gee, thanks Dad, I mean it’s not like you’ve banned having a football per se, is it?”
“That’s right.”
I can see a lot of you grew up in the Land of Repression.,, 😛
Not many mags in the 80’s indeed… It’s surprising how well you could finance couchsurfing ** in the UK by …importing… specialty mags in the 80’s and 90’s.
Good specialty porn had a higher price/weight ratio than cannabis in those days in the UK. Makes for interesting bartering, and a solid impression that all them laws didn’t work then either.
** the Hipsters think they’ve invented this and other stuff. Sez enough about them, innit?
Andrew M – “The incidence of sex crimes has tumbled with the widespread availability of internet porn. Therefore porn is a good thing for society; especially for young women. (Granted it may not be such a good thing for young men. I’ll leave that argument open.)”
There is no particular reason to think that sex crimes have tumbled because of internet porn. And by “tumbled” what you mean is “returned to the level they were before the social reforms of the 60s” anyway. It is just as likely that DNA testing has reduced the rate.
As for its effect on society, I was talking to a nice young girl who couldn’t find a decent boy in London. Apparently they all wanted to come on her face. Dating has changed since I were a lad – and somehow I think porn might be connected to this. I have been told that in the 60s rape was rape. Boring vanilla vaginal penetration. But now most stranger rape involves at least three orifices. I would think, if true, porn has something to do with that too.
Ian B – “Basically Theo (and SMFS) I appreciate you don’t agree with me (fair enough) but my position on all this is not attacking or “blaming” Christianity, it is an attempt, over some years now, to analyse trends within Christianity and their effects.”
I don’t care if you attack Christianity or not. I object to your,
1. a-historicism,
2. your shoe-horning all social developments since Jesus into a pre-existing ideological structure,
3. the abuse of the actual evidence that requires,
and 4. your refusal to consider you might be wrong.
The fact you have to insist that sex-positive Jewish feminists like Erica Jong are in fact Puritan Christians used to be amusing. But it misrepresents what she believes, who she is, what the movement she was part of was about, etc etc etc
Ian B – “There was a sodomy law but no general law against being ghey, which was the Liberal Labouchere’s contribution.”
Labouchere did not make being gay illegal. He broadened the scope of the sodomy law to including things like oral sex. At a time when being “a liberal” was still very much a statement about your family background, rather than a statement of ideological belief.
“The Sodomy Law itself being the result of Protestantism passing formerly Ecclesiastical Law onto the State. So, Puritans. But yes, I’m probably misdirecting here.”
Henry VIII is not widely known for his Puritanism. In fact if I am not much mistake he remained a Catholic his entire life.
“Fanny Hill is a contrary case indeed, however we should note that by the 19th century, those laws were effectively a dead letter- until William Wilberforce got his Proclamaton Society together and started bringing private prosecutions to resurrect them. The Progressive jihad against obscenity snowballed from there.”
A contrary case? The book was not legally published in the UK until 1963. The laws were not a dead letter. In the 19th century the British had to go to Paris for their porn for that reason. My Secret Life was not published openly in the English speaking world until the 60s either. Likewise The Romance of Lust was published anonymously – and not legally until 1969.
Something was deterring them.
“And in the modern era; well, again, it’s the Progressive Left who resurrected the panic about sexual material”
Sure. That I can agree on.
“All of which comes back to what we started debating, which is that “the Left” do not have any correlation with liberalism- on sex, drugs, booze or anything else.”
They did, but they don’t. The Wolfenden Report was not written by Conservatives. Leo Abse was not a Conservative. Lord Arran was but he is exceptional [1]. Nor was he Jewish like the other two.
[1] Arran was obsessed by two things, legalising homosexuality and protecting badgers. He got the former but not the latter. When asked about this, he is supposed to have said “Not many badgers in the House of Lords”.
I object to your,
1. a-historicism,
2. your shoe-horning all social developments since Jesus into a pre-existing ideological structure,
3. the abuse of the actual evidence that requires,
and 4. your refusal to consider you might be wrong.
Precisely, SMFS. Well said. Indeed, I wish I had written that about IanB’s monomaniacal absurdities – and I probably will one day soon.