________________________________
From: Mark Neocleous
Sent: 24 May 2011 15:02
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: FW: UK member of Parliament attacks Prof Anne Phillips

Dear all
For info/attention, should you be interested, a letter from Alex Worsnip to MP Dennis MacShane regarding his question in the Commons concerning Anne Philips course on feminist political thought at LSE. You can get the full question (i.e. 'question') he asked here:
http://thedisorderofthings.wordpress.com/2011/05/21/the-poisonous-drivel-of-dr-denis-macshane-mp/

Maybe the 'question' is a sign of things to come.
Mark





Dear Dr MacShane,



I write in protest against your comments in the House about the feminist political theory course taught by Professor Anne Phillips at the LSE. As you will remember, you cited a question posed in the reading list for this course, ""If we consider it legitimate for women to hire themselves out as low-paid and often badly treated cleaners, why is it not also legitimate for them to hire themselves out as prostitutes?" You then commented, "If a professor at the London School of Economics cannot make the distinction between a cleaning woman and a prostituted woman, we are filling the minds of our young students with the most poisonous drivel."



The most glaringly objectionable thing about your comment is the assumption that by merely posing the question, Professor Phillips is stating the view that there is no difference between a cleaning woman and a prostituted woman. The question is posed as one for discussion and critical reflection, in a reading list. Nothing about posing such a question suggests that the professor has taken any one side on it. Nor does posing a question involve 'filling anyone's mind' with anything, let alone 'poisonous drivel': this is not indoctrination, but debate. As such, your comment is an unwarranted smear on Professor Phillips which you should publicly retract.



But the issue goes deeper than this. Note that the question posed is not whether there is anydifference between prostitution and low-paid menial work, but whether there is a difference that makes for a difference in the legitimacy of a person choosing to engage in either activity. Your assumption is that, because it is just 'obvious' to you that prostitution is illegitimate whilst low-paid menial work is not, we should not even ask the question about what makes the difference. Someone with a PhD in International Relations ought to know better than to peddle this kind of anti-intellectualist inverse snobbery. The point of academic inquiry is not to blithely defer to received opinion, but rather to critically challenge it, seeing whether and how it can be given a rational basis. For example, many great moral philosophers have addressed themselves to the question of what exactly is wrong about an act like murder. In taking this as a pressing question, and seeking to answer it, it should be, and is, obvious, that they do not thereby endorse murder. If it is so obvious to you what makes the difference in legitimacy between prostitution and low-paid menial work, I invite you to tell us all what it is. The ironic thing, of course, is that in actually considering what it is that justifies your opinion on this matter, you would be doing exactly the kind of critical thinking that the question is designed to encourage. Perhaps you will turn out to be right; perhaps you do have a good argument as to what separates the two acts. That is exactly what the question is supposed to provoke, and were you right, that would not invalidate the asking of the question.



Suppose, however, that none of this is true. Suppose that Professor Phillips was, in fact, stating the opinion that you have wrongly inferred that she states. It would still be wrong for you, as a parliamentarian, to try to discredit her research. It is not your place to dictate what questions are and are not for interrogation by academics. Surely the very point of a university is that it is a place for unconventional, counter-intuitive opinions that do not merely prop up the assumptions of the status quo. This is how progress is made - not, necessarily, because they are correct, but because they force a gradual synthesis of opinion which means that society's norms and assumptions can shift over time. If the views are wrong, let them be shown to be so. Your implication that any such opinions 'fill the minds of our young people with drivel' is insulting to Professor Phillips' students and their capacity to think rationally and autonomously. The question that Professor Phillips poses raises genuine issues about autonomy. It may be obvious to you that a woman cannot autonomously choose to sell sex, but that is an assumption that, at the very least, calls for justification and defense.



Finally, you neglect a crucially important dimension of the question. I take it that your assumption is that, if low-paid menial work and prostitution are equivalent, then the conclusion must be that both are legitimate. You do not even consider the possibility that the implication of the question may be that, just as prostitution is thought to be a violation of the prostitute's autonomy, low-paid menial work may too be a violation of the worker's autonomy. One would have thought that a supposedly progressive member of parliament who represents the Labour movement might consider that possibility.



Sincerely,

Alex Worsnip



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