Doing Me Too right
Me Too has trended in recent times. There are multiple facets of this of course. But when one steps back at looks at it in a broader historical context, there has never been a time in history, across cultures, in which sexual harrasment was not considered bad. It is just that unjustifiable sexual harrasment has been very narrowly defined in the past and the social and legal tools to fight it have been very limited. Over time, with the changing status of women, there have been intermittent bursts of social and legal reform and both the definition of unjustifiable sexual harrasment and the tools for fighting it have grown. Such bursts have depended on some famous events of a given moment, or a succession of such events, and a public response to it shaped by contemporary currents of social thought. Me too is just the latest such burst. But not every spike of public attention on a given social problem leads to reform. Some such trends peter out without adding to the stock of systemic solutions. That is especially unfortunate because the problems are real and chronic even in quieter times when the public eye is not directed towards them. If reform can only happen at a moment which manages to become a nexus of public attention, and such moments are necessarily rare, it is clearly irresponsible to squander any such moment. The key is to put long term constructive thinking over momentary emotionalism
Me Too has galvanized actual legal reform in some countries but in Western countries, the new machinery of trying to convict sexual predators has been extralegal. A sort of people's court is used and some kind of blackballing or "cancellation" is the punishment for the condemned. Now a starting requirement for such a people's court is clearly that it must be willing to convict on flimsier(but still psychologically convincing) evidence than the law courts. Otherwise what is the point? But how far can one take it until it becomes a kangaroo court, a parody of natural justice that becomes unsustainable when the first enthusiasm of the underlying movement has died out? Me Too goes the whole hog of taking a single complainant's testimony as sufficient to convict and loses much of its credibility and durability. On the other hand, the negative fallout, such as an increased unwillingness on the part of businesses to hire women is also greater
Can we keep a people's court model of reform, which will still convict significantly more offenders, especially serial offenders, and yet manage a much better balance and appeal to more people as being consistent with natural justice? I think we can and the following is my proposed reworking of the Me Too process. First let us ask a broader question. In what ways can a people's court relax its standards of evidence necessary to convict in comparison to actual law courts? The first principle is that people's courts must assign greater credibility to personal testimonies and circumstantial evidence. They cannot demand forensic evidence which they don't have the competence to evaluate anyway. The second principle (which will be crucial to what follows) is that someone can be convicted on the accumulated evidence of their entire history. Perhaps surprisingly the law courts do not allow this. A person with ten prior convictions of rape, if charged again for the same, is guaranteed that the jury cannot be informed of his criminal history, and he can only be judged on the facts of the current case. A people's court can profitably ignore this principle. The third principle is of course the radical one of banishing due process all together and convicting on the strength of a single complainant's testimony. My contention is that the second principle is strong enough especially in the context of sexual harrasment and the controversiality of the third principle can be avoided altogether. Serial sexual predators especially depend on the fact that in each case on its own, the evidence against them is circumstantial and depends on a conflict of personal testimonies - theirs against the complainant's - and their testimony will win out in credibility in that comparison. But stack the evidence over several cases and suddenly the game changes dramatically. Cosby is the best example. Anyone might consider a single complaint as merely a shakedown of an eminent philanthropist who will pay to avoid the fuss and humiliation of a court battle even if justice is on his side. Twenty and up separate complaints by separate women who knew Cosby over a wide swath of time and didn't know each other and Cosby's guilt starts to look like a common sense fact. The principle of accumulating evidence across cases is very powerful and does not offend against ordinary people's idea of natural justice. If the extra power of Me Too comes from just this principle, it is still extremely powerful, and now moreover sustainable
Without further ado, let me lay down a blueprint for the actual process:
Step 1: The first complaint is made to some appropriate personnel. The identity of the complainant will be known to the personnel but if she wishes, it will be kept private from everyone else. The fact that a complaint has been made will be made public. If possible, the publicity can be restricted to other potential complainants only, women who have worked with the accused, but nobody else, by means of something like a group text or email. But these women should know so that a groundwork is set up for subsequent complaints
Step 2: Once the first complaint has been made, a term will be set for the time left for subsequent complaints. Typically something like one year. At the end of that term, there will a trial
Step 3: The correct form when a complaint is made, even if the complaint as well as the complainant's identity is fully public, is that neither accused nor accuser is treated any differently. "ALWAYS BELIEVE WOMEN" IS REPLACED WITH "NEVER DISBELIEVE ANYONE" It is precisely this civilized restraint and the abeyance of impulsive judgement and condemnation that will encourage further complaints which will take the process further
Step 4: Near the end of the trial period the accused will be informed so that they can prepare their defence
Step 5: During the informal trial chaired by handpicked senior people in the field, the evidence of multiple complaintants will be tested for mutual independence,internal coherence, whether the women had told someone else at the time of the alleged incident etc, whether the women know each other and had any common cause against the accused etc
Step 6: All or much of the trial minus specific details on request will be released to the public
Step 7: An occasional acquittal must be accepted with the same grace by the public as a conviction. Otherwise there is no point to the process
The great advantage of such a balanced process is that we can actually hang on to it as a way of dealing with sexual predators long past the current trending status of Me Too. The local trend may pass into history but it's impact remains as an systemic improvement
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having a child has taught me that every toddler is completely justified in their frustrations and tantrums because learning how to do something you have literally never encountered or heard of before is insane. and being expected to be completely calm in the face of this constant barrage of overwhelming information is doubly insane.
i got charlie a sticker activity book and it occurred to me i have to TEACH someone how to unpeel stickers. it's SKILL that requires DEXTERITY and FINE MOTOR ABILITY. i thought it was obvious that you have to curl the page a little bit to create a break in the cut so the sticker comes up.
obviously a fucking BABY wouldn't know that because they have no background experience to inform their thought process. OBVIOUSLY. and OBVIOUSLY the LITERAL BABY wouldn't get it right the first few times. it would OBVIOUSLY take practice. lots of it.
i hate this feeling. it's so obvious. why are children treated so badly when they're learning everything for the first fucking time. why do people treat children so horribly and expect so much. they're brand new. why didn't i get the same grace i give to my child? why did no one have patience for me? why, when it's this easy?
it's so easy. it's so fucking easy.
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