Please quote exactly what it is that addresses those points (and only those points), because I don't see it.

It should be noted that psychological trauma isn't necessarily recognizable by the individual. That is to say, the individual might recognize the symptoms if made aware of the diagnosis and its possible link - but this doesn't imply that a victim is going around "feeling traumatized by event A".

Psychological trauma is in essence "hyper-learning". Via stress levels memory ties to the emotional component are strenghtened (emotions make memory stronger) and it can also tie them to "arbitrary" components of said memory. For example a victim of a horrible car accident might develop strong discomfort for the sound of techno-drums because of the song that played on the radio... this type of music will be his/her "trigger" for feelings of panic, discomfort, nausea or similar.

Neither are memories exact replicas of an event, they can and will change based on our conceptions, attitudes and other experiences. So our traumatized "car victim" might not remember the car crash as very "notable" or "life-changing". He/she might in fact have a fairly normal relationship to cars and car travel.

And this isn't "wishy washy" about defence mechanicsm or psychobabble, these are merely components of how our memory works biologically.

I interpreted the bolded as meaning that no one can determine that X degree of child abuse should have X impact because it's an individual response and can't be defined so easily. I think though that that is a separate issue from Dawkin's not being able to condemn his abuser simply because he doesn't feel that he experienced any 'harm' or doesn't want to appear to be whinging about something that (for him) was a minor experience when compared to the levels that abuse can be taken to. A crime was committed, it's irrelevant how Dawkin's feels about it in terms of what action should be taken. What message is that sending to contemporary victims or abusers?

I didn't interpret the article, or his follow up blog post, that way.

Yeah, and be accused of using 'weasel' language instead

Ok so this is clearer so I think my question is that how does one determine whether a particular event in someones life is a source of trauma. If they are unable to identify it and the manifestation of the trauma be disassociated with the cause as in the car crash victim who does not have the car trigger the feeling of panic but the music that was playing, is it then not possible for someone to say that they didn't find an incident traumatic.

Yes, you are correct here. It is conceivable that a person might not remember a particular incident as traumatic, even though it might (in all likelihood) be the source of trauma. But we should also be very careful in assuming people are necessarily traumatized. People react differently to dramatic events and also what on paper might seem like similar situations can also be quite different in real life.

A natural followup question will inevitably be something ala "how can anyone know, then?". As for how a professional diagnose these matters and identify root causes, I think it would have to be best described as "qualified guesswork".

This is not the most re-assuring thing to hear I guess, but it is the truth. That being said, over recent years these case-study approaches have also been backed by vast volumes of statistical data (for example showing that sexual abuse victims have much higher chances of displaying trauma symptoms). Such data weren't readily available in the past, which gave room for more speculation about the consequences of such abuse.

I think it's clear even to a layman that people react differently to different stimuli. PTSD in combat veterans can often be caused by their reaction to having had to kill, yet there are people who aren't traumatised by that, in fact they enjoy it. So it's not accurate to say 'killing is traumatic', it can be. If Dawkins says that he wasn't/isn't traumatised by his experience, then he might be right but that's not my issue with what he said. He went on to try to justify his apparent lack of trauma by calling it 'mild pedophilia' and blaming it on the standards of the time and then compounded that error IMO by failing to condemn his abuser. I think this sends the wrong message to contemporary victims and abusers.

Perhaps he's embarrassed that he's not traumatised, or maybe it's just what I've already said, that he doesn't want to look like a drama queen, or maybe he really is cynical enough to use it to drum up sales for his new book, who knows...?

Thanks for that t-d.

This seems unfair. We already appear to evaluate different types of sexual assault on a sliding scale of severity (indecent exposure at one end and rape at another) so I don't see what is so unusual about Dawkins approach here. I'm curious as to what you think are the grounds for our current system.

He's not "blaming it on the standards of the time" he said that he takes the standards of the time into consideration when judging the actor (not the act!). The same way that we don't condemn George Washington as a moral monster for owning slaves, even though we condemn slavery.

OK, so when a family says that they forgive the murderer of their child (or w/e) you think they "send the wrong message" to current murderers? Really? I don't think it's a moral requirement that the abused forgive their abusers, but I sure as hell don't think it's morally repugnant to do so.

Mental. Is there some Bayesian analysis you are doing that establishes that the hypothesis that the interviewer asked about the abuse anecdote because it's interesting is less likely than Dawkins forcing the interviewer to ask about it to sell books? Does Dawkins have problems selling books?

I don't know but having been around the school system as a Governor and as the coach of a junior sports team I'd say that physical contact is a definite no no. I even had to have another adult presnt with me if I had a one on one with a child. I'm fairly certain that a teacher putting their hand inside the underwear of an 11 year old and groping their genitals would not be considered 'mild pedophilia'. Teachers can now be barred from the profession just for having viewed indecent images of children.

That was my poor phrasing. If GW was still alive and referred back to his having kept slaves as a bit of 'mild slavery'...... Or to use a more accurate version of the analogy, if slavery still existed illegally, and one of GW's slaves had said that looking back he couldn't condemn GW for keeping him as a slave, what message does that send to the illegal slavers? If one of the actual victims doesn't think they, and other slaves they knew, were harmed by the experience then maybe a certain level of slavery is ok after all?

In any case, I don't view Dawkin's teacher as a 'moral monster', that's a bit of hyperbole if you don't mind me saying, I view him as someone who did something wrong, not as serious a wrong as murder, but still wrong.

Dawkin's didn't say that he forgave his abuser, he said he couldn't 'find it in him to condemn him'. Is that forgiveness? Also, people have other reasons for forgiving someone of a crime other than that they have a lenient opinion of the crime committed.

Do you think then that 'numerous victims’ rights organizations' are also overreacting or misrepresenting what Dawkins said?


Mental? I read it somewhere and was simply pointing out that Dawkin's may have ulterior motives and that we don't know for sure what's informing his attitude towards his own abuse and the effects it may or may not have had on him.

My personal theory is that it was motivated by the desire not to appear that he considers himself a victim because by comparison with what other people have experienced, he doesn't feel he's earned that title and doesn't want to be viewed that way. I think there's a lot of evidence in the article to support that view. He basically says it himself.

Who is disputing the bolded? It can still be a "definite no no" while being considered less of an outrage than other forms of sexual assault. You seem to see things as totally black or white, and if touching a child is bad then it has to be exactly as bad as raping a child or else it isn't bad at all.

You're making the exact same mistake here as you do in the sexual assault case. Let's say for the sake of argument that GW actually did treat his slaves very well. It seems perfectly reasonably to condemn the act of keeping slaves (without qualification) but to acknowledge a different level of condemnation for the slave owners based on how they treated their slaves; slaveowners who beat their slaves being more worthy of condemnation than those who treated them kindly. If one of GW's former slaves pointed out that he treated him kindly that in no way entails anything about the morality of slavery per se.

I don't mind you saying, as you don't realize you've misunderstood. The potential "moral monster" in the analogy is the chap who abused Dawkins, not Dawkins himself. You've clearly not understood the analogy.



I think "not condemn" and "forgive" are pretty close to synonymous in this context. Feel free to replace all my uses of "forgive" with "not condemn" if it helps you.

Exactly!! Dawkins not condemning his abuser doesn't mean that he thinks it's a-ok for people to touch up kids. This is the drum I've been banging for the last umpteen posts.

Yes, frankly. Though I've only seen comment by two such organizations, and the one that I recognise (NSPCC) is reacting only to the moral relativism aspect - a moral relativism that you were defending last week, though you now seem to have adopted a weird moral absolutism where the morality of an act is completely divorced from its effects.

Yes, accusing someone of downplaying a sexual assault in order to sell more books is mental.

He explicitly says it himself, so why are we entertaining conspiracy theories?

I would dispute that physical contact should be a definite no no, but maybe thats not what you meant?

Without getting into what I think normatively, I'm talking about what is considered moral/immoral, not what actually is. So even though any physical contact with schoolchildren is (or may be) considered a "no-no", ruffling a kids hair it is still treated differently to raping kids.

ok, got you

This is what I'm driving at. During our developmental periods, virtually any event in our life may have a lasting impact in ways that we don't understand. "Trauma" (or "damage") is some way of classifying the impact, and it implies a negative outcome.

Edit: So to say that the developmental process will ALWAYS be DAMAGED by a certain class of events is wrong. It would be acceptable to say that the developmental process will ALWAYS be AFFECTED by such events, but then that's a trivially true statement.

I think the underlying logic that was presented was a highly problematic false dichotomy. It seemed to force the position that either

1) Dawkins openly admits that there was trauma.
2) By not openly admitting that there was trauma, he's minimizing ("submerging") the experience, which is his way of coping with the trauma.

This seems like a wrong-minded approach. This approach seems to assume that there is necessary trauma, and that seems to be an error.

I think this makes perfect sense. If he says that there was no trauma, and there's no apparent evidence for trauma, then we can reasonably conclude that there's no trauma. Is it possible that there's something lurking deep inside, and the exact right stimulus will cause it to surface? Sure. But to assume that it's there is highly problematic.

Somewhere along the path of trying to explain that I don't consider what happened to Dawkins to be 'mild' I must have inadvertently given the impression that it's black and white to me, of course it isn't, there are degrees of abuse and corresponding punishments.

That my stance might appear contradictory had occurred to me in that I might appear to be judging historical actions by contemporary standards which seems absolute rather than relative, but, sexual abuse of children was illegal 50 years ago. It was wrong then and it's wrong now. That it occurred more often didn't make it more ok then than now. The very fact that it's not ok is the reason that it's become so difficult for pedophiles to act out their desires now. We've made a lot of progress and I think that Dawkin's comments didn't help in that effort because they downplay and make light of something that is viewed as serious, and possibly he said it just because he didn't want to look like a self absorbed, insensitive jerk. Maybe it never occurred to him how how comments my be construed.

I think that this is a separate issue. The fact that Dawkins suffered no harm (at least that's what he's telling us), and claims on behalf of his peer group (the teacher was a serial abuser) that they also didn't suffer any harm, makes no difference to the fact that a crime was committed and no matter how much sympathy or understanding he may feel for his abuser, they should still be punished.

I agree, and it wasn't my idea and I wasn't accusing him of doing that.

Given the specific circumstances how do you suggest that the abuser be punished?

Why should he ( or any abuser) be punished?*

I feel sorry for your children. You pretend you are open with them, but really, they have to obey your every command, and are punished when you deem them to have done wrong.

*Please note, I am not advocating that we just "let them get away with it" but punishment is surely an outdated and kind of insane idea, for any crime.

Which makes perfect sense. We have to reward actions based on their potential, this is the basis for any criminal system. For example we can punish someone for planning a murder, storing outdated dynamite or driving too fast - even if they never harmed anyone neither physically nor mentally. Instead we punish on the known risks of their actions.

But neither do we ignore consequence. Often the consequences are themselves crimes. For example it is illegal to store outdated dynamite, but it is also illegal to explode dynamite without proper procedures and precautions taken... so a person who has outdated dynamite self-ignite will be punished for both violations. He might also be punished for damages to property, endangering others and maybe even for having damaged (or killed) others. If you read court transcripts or verdicts you will often see such "lists" of actions. For example if you drive too fast and kill someone, you will likely be prosecuted for involuntary manslaugher (or equivalent) and the traffic violation of driving too fast.

In addition we can also consider the consequences even when the consequences are not themselves specific crimes (but they can be). This we resolve with tort and delict, and here we also consider the severity of the consequences.

It should also be noted that the principle applies in reverse. If you hurt somebody, but the consequence was not really something we could hold to be a "reasonable outcome" of your actions... this will also be considered.

To continue with the dynamite example we could here imagine someone storing dynamite exactly as legislated, who were provedly making certain safety precautions were taken... but the dynamite still self-ignited and killed someone... this would be a completely different scenario than somebody who had been (potentially criminally) negligent.

Ofcourse, I also realize many people will say something ala "law is not ethics". Which is true, but these principles of law are based on ethics.

In this case, the abuser took his own life. Had he not, I would expect him to be subject to whatever the normal punitive measures are for the serial sexual abuse of 11 year old boys. I have to wonder if the abuser's suicide was related to his actions. We'll never know, but if that was the case, then clearly Dawkin's abuser had a different opinion of what he was doing than Dawkins himself does.

I don't know if you've been following, or are aware of, the recent 'BBC' sexual abuse scandal. The abuse mostly took place in the period from the 60's to the late 80's. None of the abusers are being treated leniently simply because the standards of the time were different, because frankly, they weren't.

So Stuart Hall was treated leniently to the tune of 15 months for 14 counts of sexual assault. It was so lenient that the Attorney General referred the case to the court of appeal and the sentence was increased to 30 months.

In any case you can't really use their being charged now as evidence that the treatment of abusers now is evidence that the standards of the time are not different. What you should probably consider is whether the widespread abuse of children and young adults would happen now at the BBC and if not is it possible because our understanding of those standards have changed?

In any case your argument was that his abuser still deserved punishment which is a tough line to defend when the abuser is dead.

I don't know the details of the number of victims or the nature of the abuse Stuart Hall carried out but I do know that his victims didn't forgive him, or at least enough of them didn't forgive him that he was tried and convicted.

I think that what has changed is that victims feel more confident about coming forward to make complaints.

It's hard to punish someone who's dead (and who may well have killed themselves because of their own less forgiving opinion of their behaviour) but that's not the issue, it's that Dawkin's couldn't condemn him and I think he should have. How would you feel as a recent victim of a similar type abuse if such a respected and well known public figure is saying 'I wasn't harmed, I don't condemn my abuser'? I think it's a step backwards.

I hate to repeat myself, but you don't seem to be grasping that "not condemn" and "not punish/try/convict" are completely different things. I think people should be punished for breaking the speed limit, but I don't condemn them.

I would respect that person's position, absolutely. Now, if they said that such abusers should not be punished, I would take issue, but that position is not entailed by the first. It's not even implied, as far as I can see.