Wednesday, July 15, 2009
pornography bad
Rod Dreher irresponsibly drags the "problem of pornography" onto his blog and then attempts to hide the mess behind a few utterly boring "essay" questions. Typical Dreher. Bring up a problem that is at the root of the soul-annihilation of an entire generation, hope people will applaud you for noticing (and being "above it all, really"), and proceed to render the gravity of the problem vulnerable to the most basic statistical and narcissistic critiques.
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2 comments:
Quite. My usual problem with Dreher is actually the same as my problem with Putnam's Bowling Alone, their work recognizes a disease that very well may be destroying the souls of an entire nation but then they'll treat it with some solutions that call for now real conversion or turning of the heart.
As an aside, I have to say that I take some issue with folks always quoting the Dobson interview with Bundy as an authoritative source for the ills of pornography. The fact everyone must take to heart with Bundy is that he was a sociopath and would tell anyone what they wanted to hear so long as it got him what he wanted. He tried to tell Detective Dave Reichert that he could help catch the Green River Killer, but the investigators quickly learned that he'd say just about anything for more attention. Anyways, enough of my ranting.
While I don't believe the correctness of Dobson's "position" on pornography is contingent (or even based) on this interview (he had already been a part of the Attorney General's commission on pornography), I think you're right that it has the effect of turning the problem of pornography toward sociopathology (in more than one way), thus detracting from its current pervasiveness and accepted benignity. Of course, a lot has changed since the late 80s, and not just in distribution.
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