"The Bishop of Tenerife, Bernardo Alvarez, the highest religious authority in this region of Spain stated in an interview with local daily La Opinion that "there are minors who wish to be abused and who incite it.
The religious man did not stop there and created scandal by asking 'Why is an abuser of children considered sick? ". "There may be youths who consent – and indeed there are some' he said, referring to the abuses
"There are 13 year old teenagers who are perfectly ok with it and who even desire it. Incidentally, if you are not careful, they’ll provoke you '. These were the statements that the bishop Bernardo Alvarez made to answer a question about the pedophilia scandals that have caused a crisis in the upper echelons of the church and has called into question the procedures of Pope Benedict XVI on the subject.
Later on the bishop likened homosexuality with the abuse, and while ensuring that there is a clear difference between the two questions he did ask: 'Why is the abuser of minors is considered sick? ". As for his views on homosexuality, Alvarez stated that he respected that sexual condition, only to immediately after state that 'the phenomenon of homosexuality is something that harms people and society. "
For the bishop today "it is not politically correct to say that it is an illness, a defect, a deformation of the very nature of the human being. That's what any dictionary of psychiatry used to say and now cannot say. " For Alvarez, it is necessary "to promote education and inculcate the values of femininity and masculinity."
Obviously I completely disagree with any of this. Paedophilia is not the same thing as Homosexuality, and that anyone would argue it is highly ignorant. Although not necessarily the best scientific source, wikipedia provides some idea that there are around 2% - 20% homosexuals in most countries. It's hard to tell, because it not possible to know whether those who have had homosexual experiences are as homosexual as the ones who report having them on a regular base. They could either be curious heterosexual men or closeted homosexuals. This is not an urge, a temporary thing, or a choice (if it is a choice then they are bisexual). This is a continuing characteristic where men and women are attracted to individuals of the same gender, and have romantic and consensual sexual relations with them .
Paedophiles are individuals who for all I can tell experience an attraction for teenagers, children and in some cases babies, of either gender. I am not aware as to whether this is something that is environmental or something that can be fought and treated, or whether it is an attraction that is experienced with the same regularity as in straight and homosexual men and women. However, paedophilia, whether it is consenting or not is illegal for the simple reason that children are not considered to be mature enough to be able to make that decision for themselves because they are too young. It is considered to be a damaging experience for them to have sexual intercourse with an older person. I remember being 13 and having some pretty horny fellow students of either gender and none were so freaky that they had sex with an adult. At best it was with each other. More often than not they were bragging... You may dislike this argument. You may find it to advocate a paternalistic view of the state. I agree. It does take that position. On the other hand I am coherent. I do believe that the state has the responsibility to defend all those of its citizens who are most exposed to being taken advantage of. It should protect the unemployed, children's, the disabled's, ethnic minorities',the elderly and animals' positive and negative rights, with obvious limitations to freedom of choice .
The idea that some children may provoke sexual abuse can only make any sense in the mouth of a sexually repressed man or woman. The idea that homosexuality can be put in the same box as paedophilia is incoherent in light of these logical facts. Normality is one thing. Yes in any of our societies homosexuality cannot be said to be "normal" because it is not the "norm" or the majority observation (the mode). Yet when comparing homosexuality over the range of all the countries, it is a phenomenon that breaks national, racial, economic, religious and cultural barriers. Moreover it is not a recent phenomenon nor one that can be erased or purified (like the nazis tried), in that it is not hereditary. If it was it wouldn't be, it would have been, because evolution would have taken good care of it after a generation. It is present everywhere, and thus it is a normal phenomenon. Most important it harms nobody! It is consensual sex! CONSENSUAL!
There is no reason to opress homosexuality other than some ridiculous perception of collective identity that is tainted by the presence of a single deviation. Trust me I have my collective identity. I even have two overlapping ones: a Portuguese and a European one. Yet it affects none to know that there are gay men in either place. It would however affect it if I had been born 50 years ago, in a society where homosexuality was a crime and where paedophilia was hidden, as a necessarily tolerated embarassment, rather than a traumatising and alienating crime.
So what do we learn from this?
The american economist George Akerlof has written extensively on the topic of identities (Here and Here are some examples). His logic is that collectives of individuals create collective identities and that these identities have a tendency to be strictly enforced by the members at great pains to those who wish to not abide by them. I remmember talking to a friend of mine from Albania, who mentioned the fact that he was a muslim (of liberal taste). For some reason it hit me that although it was further from the centre of the Ottoman empire, Albania had converted to that empire's religion whereas Greece had not, despite being much closer. This seemed a paradox to which my friend expressed a simple and unassuming solution. "The Turks taxed all those who were not muslims. The Greeks could afford the tax. We couldn't!" and so in time they all converted. This is basically what Akerlof argues and what this pretty little "tree graph" describes in game theoretical terms:
The only problem here is to determine why it is that groups behave this way. I don't really know why, but I wonder if it is not something akin to an evolutionay social phenomenon caused by the dynamics of collective action problems. My idea is that although all the dynamics may escape the understanding of groups, the general rule of Mancur Olson's collective action problems hold, ie that you need homogeneity in a group for it to be successful. Therefore, it is very possible that heterogeneous groups that did not possess the appropriate institutions (representative democracy with free frequent and fair elections with a stable electoral system and with suficient but not cumbersome checks and balances all of which are compatible with the social distribution of preferences) were unable to survive their encounters with rival homogenous, coherent and well funded groups in the past. Could Athens or Rome, both of whom had too many voices be examples of this? Could that partially have been their problem? Could Feudalism and its demise fit into this as well? Does this type of logic help us to understand the counter-reformation of the Catholic Church? Either way I think it may be an interesting mix to try to understand what the evolutionary equilibria are when one mixes Akerlof collective identity framework with the insights from collective action problems. Not withstanding all of this, I would also add one comment to figure one. I believe that an interesting extension of the comments made by Akerlof and his colleagues is that the ability to alienate is a characteristic of any individual, and one which is necessary for the survival of groups who require its members to alienate those who don't follow the rules. This would be an interesting insight for me into human nature.
No comments:
Post a Comment