Peddling Pedophilia
Hey, APA: Take
Your Licks
I can grant the dysfunction of our politicians over
the study published by the American Psychological Association, but David Plotz
is being uncharacteristically soft on what is, after all, a marked instance of
using PR doublespeak to avoid taking responsibility (""). The APA is not
fessing up, and it should.
You claim that the target article is indeed a
deserving target, but you don't take on the APA's culpability in publishing it.
In the first place, it was a peer-reviewed article, so at least three
independent scholars, in addition to the editor of the journal, felt that the
article included both legitimate empirical research and a reasonable
theoretical construct. In the second place, if, as you seem to suggest in your
"it was a dead letter" argument, the APA publishes articles that are not read,
mean nothing, and clearly won't be taken seriously, isn't that a striking
indictment of the APA's publishing pretensions? If it wants the articles it
publishes to be taken seriously, the association should take criticisms of
those articles seriously, and so should you.
You are not reading the APA's statement on this
with your normal discernment. You write:"The APA distanced itself from the
study, noting the association's long record of fighting pedophilia and
insisting that the article does not mitigate the illegality and immorality of
pedophilia." The APA's historical position on sexual abuse is perfectly
irrelevant in assessing the meaning and claims of the target article. Critics
of the article want to talk about what the article actually says, not about the
APA's historical position.
Presumably, the APA
wants the articles it publishes to be taken seriously. Presumably, if the APA
thinks that reconceptualizing adult-child sexual contact so that some instances
of it are no longer thought of as constituting abuse is simply a mistake, then
the APA can come right out and say so. That the APA has conspicuously failed to
do so is a major factor in motivating ongoing concern about the article.
-- Leslie
Graves
Spring
Green, Wis.
Free
Suicide!
I take exception to
Cyrus Sanai's assertion ("") that Oregonians, as seen by the actions of their
legislature, are unintentionally "bribing people to go early" in order to save
our precious Federal Medicaid dollars. Sanai fails to mention the methodology
that is employed in determining which medical treatments will be covered.
Specifically, it is not mentioned in the piece how preventable ailments receive
a lower ranking, regardless of cost. In fact, it seems that Sanai wishes the
reader to believe that this list was arbitrarily constructed. Nothing could be
further from the truth.
-- Jon
Chinburg
Keizer, Ore.
Cracks in the
Façade
Timothy Noah's image of
the standard old public building ("") seems to be derived from Mayan or
Egyptian pyramids, Greek theaters, the Roman Coliseum, and Notre Dame
cathedral. A little checking might persuade you that these buildings were by no
means the norm in the long lost Golden Age of public construction. By
definition, you know of them because they survived. A much larger number of
structures put up 800 or more years ago did not survive. The ruins or
the disappeared outnumber the survivors by several thousand to one. If U.S.
cities were abandoned tomorrow, would the survival rate of our public buildings
be better or worse? I am not as certain as you are.
-- Gary
Burtless
Alexandria, Va.
Turn Down Those
Stereotypes
When you asked "Is
Star Wars Racist?" (see ""), it caught my attention. I don't see much of
a need to accuse George Lucas of being racist. While I am fully aware of the
stereotypes you pointed out and agree with you to a point, I didn't pay
attention to them until you brought it up. I have always felt that racism would
eventually disappear if people like you would just drop it instead of making an
issue out of it.
-- Joel Curts
Monrovia, Ind.
