There is no objective basis for your argument, society does have taboos against making pornography out of someone’s image without their consent. As a thought experiment you could generate some interesting discussions. But as rhetoric this is just silly and unconvincing. My whole argument is about centering human reflection and action as an objective basis for social analysis, so i reject finding a categorical similarity between a real event with real consequences and a hypothetical situation based on fantasy. The whole practice of testing logical consistency of real situations against a hypothetical situation is exactly what I was dismissing in my last comment.
Being able to do thought experiments is useful as an education tool, it is a powerful reflective process to help us develop a deeper understanding. But using it as a rhetorical device has exactly the opposite effect.
If people started taking facial pictures of you and your loved ones and started creating porn out of it, telling you that they pleasure themselves to pictures of your mother or whatever, that would be an extreme violation of your and your moms personal autonomy, regardless of whether you hypothetically didn’t care or liked it or whatever. This is another hypothetical situation but it is one with more categorical similarity to the OP than yours. You wouldn’t say, oh its too bad society has backwards views on nudity.
But to me, basing my argument on such a hypothetical would be wrong headed. I can use it to illustrate a point, but neither hypothetical is based in objective reality. Its just people who share an objective reality arguing about hypothetical differences.
I’m not interested in hypothetical change, and no one who wants to achieve positive improvements in the lives of others should concern themselves with hypothetical situations, unless we are engaging in a pedagogy where hypotheticals can act as generative themes to stimulate reflection on real conditions. But a hypothetical isnt real, and it risks becoming mindless rationalizing, like people engage in when thy have have done, or intend to do harm, but rationalize away anything (such as how our actions affect other people) that conflicts with what we want.
It is rhetoric, not material analysis, that is often used to influence specific conclusions or types of consciousness. The way you present the argument is not the kind of consciousness I would want to develop in others, I would prefer to deal with the facts, especially where it concerns the use of certain tools to create harmful images of another person. That harm is objective, and based in our social reality, and can’t be disappeared by a wishing certain social norms which partially shape the harm being done, didn’t exist. I don’t think its too difficult to acknowledge that you don’t know what kind of society would exist if it didn’t have these social norms, and if humans had a “more enlightened” attitude toward nudity, that we wouldnt be able to identify the harmful intent behind creating and distributing degrading pornographic images of another person.
I’m not going to engage with any more idealism around these circumstances, unless I find it interesting or relevant, which I won’t if it is deployed as rhetoric.
Thanks for walking me through your logic in the second half of your post. I thought that’s what you were saying. I think those “extra steps” are a bit alienating, though it is sort of interesting as an exercise to think about.
There is no objective basis for your argument, society does have taboos against making pornography out of someone’s image without their consent. As a thought experiment you could generate some interesting discussions. But as rhetoric this is just silly and unconvincing. My whole argument is about centering human reflection and action as an objective basis for social analysis, so i reject finding a categorical similarity between a real event with real consequences and a hypothetical situation based on fantasy. The whole practice of testing logical consistency of real situations against a hypothetical situation is exactly what I was dismissing in my last comment.
Being able to do thought experiments is useful as an education tool, it is a powerful reflective process to help us develop a deeper understanding. But using it as a rhetorical device has exactly the opposite effect.
If people started taking facial pictures of you and your loved ones and started creating porn out of it, telling you that they pleasure themselves to pictures of your mother or whatever, that would be an extreme violation of your and your moms personal autonomy, regardless of whether you hypothetically didn’t care or liked it or whatever. This is another hypothetical situation but it is one with more categorical similarity to the OP than yours. You wouldn’t say, oh its too bad society has backwards views on nudity.
But to me, basing my argument on such a hypothetical would be wrong headed. I can use it to illustrate a point, but neither hypothetical is based in objective reality. Its just people who share an objective reality arguing about hypothetical differences.
I’m not interested in hypothetical change, and no one who wants to achieve positive improvements in the lives of others should concern themselves with hypothetical situations, unless we are engaging in a pedagogy where hypotheticals can act as generative themes to stimulate reflection on real conditions. But a hypothetical isnt real, and it risks becoming mindless rationalizing, like people engage in when thy have have done, or intend to do harm, but rationalize away anything (such as how our actions affect other people) that conflicts with what we want.
It is rhetoric, not material analysis, that is often used to influence specific conclusions or types of consciousness. The way you present the argument is not the kind of consciousness I would want to develop in others, I would prefer to deal with the facts, especially where it concerns the use of certain tools to create harmful images of another person. That harm is objective, and based in our social reality, and can’t be disappeared by a wishing certain social norms which partially shape the harm being done, didn’t exist. I don’t think its too difficult to acknowledge that you don’t know what kind of society would exist if it didn’t have these social norms, and if humans had a “more enlightened” attitude toward nudity, that we wouldnt be able to identify the harmful intent behind creating and distributing degrading pornographic images of another person.
I’m not going to engage with any more idealism around these circumstances, unless I find it interesting or relevant, which I won’t if it is deployed as rhetoric.
Thanks for walking me through your logic in the second half of your post. I thought that’s what you were saying. I think those “extra steps” are a bit alienating, though it is sort of interesting as an exercise to think about.