Liberty & Power: Group Blog

Robert L. Campbell

Are Andrea Dworkin's Instincts Anti-Authoritarian?

In his New Year's message, Roderick Long presses his call for a libertarian alignment with the Left. I encourage Roderick and Charles Johnson to make the text of their recent presentation at the Molinari Society meeting available for discussion. In the meantime, I have a few questions.

Of his reasons for favoring such an alignment, Roderick says:

For me the case is not primarily strategic, since I'm far more in inherent sympathy with the left's economic and cultural concerns than most libertarians are (and part of the point our panel were making in Boston is that libertarians have done too little justice to such concerns); but it certainly is at least strategic. The statist right, which now controls the Presidency, both houses of Congress, and much of the media, is, as Lew [Rockwell] rightly observes, "the most pressing and urgent threat to freedom that we face in our time," and it's in the interest of libertarians to build bridges with the left, who have been "solid on civil liberties" (at least by comparison) and "crucial in drawing attention to the lies and abuses of the Bush administration."
While there are, admittedly, plenty of authoritarian types on the left (as everywhere else), there are also plenty of people whose instincts are firmly anti-authoritarian but who have been lured into supporting state socialism because it's been sold to them as the only effective counterweight to state capitalism. These leftists are our potential allies, but no alliance will be forthcoming so long as we continue to confirm most leftists' impression of libertarianism as a variant of conservatism.

Concerning the Molinari Society talk, Roderick declares:

I got particular satisfaction out of the affinities we identified between Herbert Spencer (much maligned and mischaracterised by leftists who've never bothered to read him ...) and Andrea Dworkin (much maligned and mischaracterised by rightists who've likewise never bothered to read her...).

It would appear, then, that Andrea Dworkin is one leftist whom Roderick and Charles consider a potential ally. Is Dworkin "solid on civil liberties"? Is she one of those "whose instincts are firmly anti-authoritarian?" Is she perhaps neither--but her analysis of power relations in society is valuable to libertarians anyway?

Charles urges everyone to read Dworkin's writings and judge for themselves. Excellent advice.

Let's look at an essay that Charles has singled out for praise, "I Want a Twenty-Four-Hour Truce in Which There Is No Rape."

Here is one passage that I think might deserve comment. Keep in mind that the essay is not based on a speech that Dworkin gave to the tribal elders of Waziristan. It is based on a speech that she gave to the National Organization for Changing Men, in St. Paul, Minnesota:

We women. We don't have forever. Some of us don't have another week or another day to take time for you to discuss whatever it is that will enable you to go out into those streets and do something. We are very close to death. All women are. And we are very close to rape and we are very close to beating. And we are inside a system of humiliation from which there is no escape for us.

A good deal more in this speech is worthy of comment, but I want to give priority to Dworkin's conclusion:

Even in wars, there are days of truce. Go and organize a truce. Stop your side for one day. I want a twenty-four-hour truce during which there is no rape.
I dare you to try it. I demand that you try it. I don't mind begging you to try it. What else could you possibly be here to do? What else could this movement possibly mean? What else could matter so much?
And on that day, that day of truce, that day when not one woman is raped, we will begin the real practice of equality, because we can't begin it before that day. Before that day it means nothing because it is nothing: it is not real; it is not true. But on that day it becomes real. And then, instead of rape we will for the first time in our lives--both men and women--begin to experience freedom. If you have a conception of freedom that includes the existence of rape, you are wrong. You cannot change what you say you want to change. For myself, I want to experience just one day of real freedom before I die. I leave you here to do that for me and for the women whom you say you love.

Keep in mind, too, the definition that Dworkin puts forth in the same essay:

And by rape you know what I mean. A judge does not have to walk into this room and say that according to statute such and such these are the elements of proof. We're talking about any kind of coerced sex, including sex coerced by poverty.

I would like to hear those libertarians who believe that Dworkin is doing good and important work explain what her words mean to them. Readers of this blog know that I'm hardly reticent about expressing my opinion. My concern is that whatever I contribute to the present discussion will be dismissed with the remark that I've once again bogged down in some red-state fever swamp. And merely being told that has no information value at all. Please, I really want to know. What do you think is the correct reading, and why?

The same goes for Dworkin's views on sexual intercourse, which she insists have been so grossly misrendered.

Finally, I am curious to know what Roderick and Charles think of an op-ed from 2002, which praises the city council of Glasgow, Scotland, for enacting a ban on lap dancing. Including their interpretation of the final line.


Posted on Thursday, January 6, 2005 at 4:32 PM 

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