Why Gail Dines Is About As Leftist As The Tea Party

[fishwax]

44. I'm not a fan of Gail Dines, but I'm sure there have been more convincing/logical critiques of her

This one, alas, has several flaws that undermine the effectiveness of the overall message.

The post basically offers a three-pronged argument against the assumption that Dines is a leftist (or is representative of the left): first, some right-wingers use leftist rhetoric; second, she tends towards authoritarianism; third, she exaggerates the significance of some things. The first is a good point; however, while it works against the "assumption" that Dines is a leftist, one could deploy the same point (as a cautionary mechanism) against anyone who employs leftist rhetoric. The second ignores the fact that, alas, the "us or them" thinking he's specifically addressing is, while more frequently in evidence on the right, not exclusive to it. The third simply points out a flaw in thinking that is itself ideological neutral. So the structure of the argument doesn't really do what the title/thesis imply.

Aside from that, there are little things that undermine credibility. Like this:

Now, there are certainly plenty of predatory capitalists around….and far too many of them. I would guess, though, that the overwhelming majority of them are probably NOT pornographers. In fact, I’d even say that some of the most agreesive capitalists happened to be staunchly antiporn activists….like, say, the Koch Brothers who fund Tea Party activists or Rupert Murdoch, who practically runs FOX News Channel as the propaganda wing of the Right. Why does Professor Dines give the latter such a pass, while casting her laser-like ire solely on a small convention like AEE?? (Also, remember that AEE used to be part of the much larger Consumer Electronics Show, before the latter squeamed about being associated with “porn” and broke AEE off into its own seperate wing. And beginning last year, AEE and CES don’t even share the same venue. So much for the complicity of “predatory capitalism”.)

First, I think even the most zealous anti-porn advocate would readily concede that "the overwhelming majority" of predatory capitalists are not pornographers. But that doesn't give any information as to the number/percentage of pornographers who are. Similarly, the notion that some capitalists kicked some other capitalists out of their convention does nothing to dismiss the complicity of predatory capitalism in the latter.

Second, the examples that he gives undermine the argument. Are the Koch Brothers staunchly anti-porn activists? Or is this just based on an assumption that all right-wingers hate porn? I've never heard of them being involved in anti-porn activities, and their Libertarian-party past would suggest otherwise. As for Murdoch, he's a purveyor of pornography through his media holdings.

There are other such mistakes, like the "no true scotsman" fallacy in the paragraph that follows or the apparent assumption in the penultimate paragraph that porn is inherently a "form of progressive speech and action." (Though, to be fair, this might simply be a careless misuse of the word "other.&quot