I think Ted was wrong in trying to be too logical in public in an area which is taboo. And it is taboo for a reason; there are victims who rightfully do not want to be doubted, and of course rape is always rape, there is no such thing as not-quite-rape.
In a logical argument, unless you are perfectly right (no one is perfectly right), you are bound to have some errors, some of them significant. That's the point of arguing really, so that someone who is right corrects someone who is wrong. The problem with public rape discussions is that erring on the side of the perpetrator has very harmful consequences, much more harmful than consequences from erring on the side of the victim. While I don't think that Ted is malicious, he should have left this discussion to somewhere private. In private, being wrong on either side in a discussion is not going to cause harm to victims. And discussing things in private can help wrong people come right: personally, I corrected some of my misconceptions in private argument with people who knew better.
But having said all this, although Ted may be misguided, and although he was insensitive for the sake of his idea of statistical honesty, I have to disagree when you call him a rape apologist. That is just seeing this from one perspective without trying to understand what he really is on about. I don't think he saw this as a discussion about rape per se, to me he seems like he is discussing statistical interpretation with rape as a case study, while everyone else was discussing rape.
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Ted was wrong in trying to be more logical than sensitive
Date: 2012-10-29 11:20 pm (UTC)In a logical argument, unless you are perfectly right (no one is perfectly right), you are bound to have some errors, some of them significant. That's the point of arguing really, so that someone who is right corrects someone who is wrong. The problem with public rape discussions is that erring on the side of the perpetrator has very harmful consequences, much more harmful than consequences from erring on the side of the victim. While I don't think that Ted is malicious, he should have left this discussion to somewhere private. In private, being wrong on either side in a discussion is not going to cause harm to victims. And discussing things in private can help wrong people come right: personally, I corrected some of my misconceptions in private argument with people who knew better.
But having said all this, although Ted may be misguided, and although he was insensitive for the sake of his idea of statistical honesty, I have to disagree when you call him a rape apologist. That is just seeing this from one perspective without trying to understand what he really is on about. I don't think he saw this as a discussion about rape per se, to me he seems like he is discussing statistical interpretation with rape as a case study, while everyone else was discussing rape.