when someone says they've been raped!" Wonderful.
There SHOULD be doubt; our whole system is built on 'innocent until PROVEN guilty beyond reasonable doubt'. But these idiots want to tear that down in the name of "Believe the victim no matter what!"
At least some victims.
This is why Lee elevated righteous scepticism: she was addressing a
culture in which instant belief had replaced fairness. As it has again
today. This is not to say modern-day feminists are racist. Of course
they aren’t. But there is a thread that ties the old racist hysteria
about black male rapists and today’s supposedly progressive panic about
“rape culture”: an astoundingly dismissive attitude towards due process
and the rigorous establishment of guilt. What both these moments share
in common is an insistence that we believe the victims. No questions, no
scepticism, no interrogation — just belief. But belief in cases like
this has caused untold damage throughout history. Black men were hanged
because of a cult of belief. In the Satanic Ritual Abuse and paedophile
panics of the 1980s and 90s, families were torn apart as a consequence
of a cult of belief. What damage is being done now by the elevation of
almost-religious belief over cool, just scepticism? Our cry should not
be “I believe you”; it should be, “I respect you and I want to believe
you. But I need proof. Strong proof. Because I prefer civilisation to
barbarism.”
Very damned much so.
1 comment:
"This is not to say modern-day feminists are racist. Of course they aren’t."
*COUGH*COUGH*SPUTTER*. Damn, I shouldn't have been eating when I read that.
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