Did Dworkin completely lose her mind prior to its end?

[Major Nikon]

In 2000, Dworkin writes an article for The Guardian about an alleged rape she experienced in 1999.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2000/jun/02/society

Evidently The Guardian had their doubts about the account once a bit more was learned about it and they wrote a pretty scathing response.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2000/jun/08/society

Her own husband evidently didn't believe her.

Salon writes a pretty interesting article on the subject. Here's a couple of notable passages:

“I could easily believe she had a black-out, and nasty injuries, from an unexpected dose of alcohol and sunburn,” Bright said. “I would rather have sympathy for that version of events than to believe she is maliciously making the whole thing up.” Bright thinks the truth is probably simpler than that — and sadder: “By the time you finish reading [her story], you know she has finally completely lost her mind.”

Michael Lamport Commons, a researcher with Harvard Medical School’s Program in Psychiatry and Law, also sounds a note of caution: “Lying is a concept of free will,” he told me. People have to know that they are telling untruths in order to be justifiably called liars. He’s not sure that is the case with Dworkin: “While rare, people have dreams of being raped, which appear real to them … Many character disorders, including borderline personality, involve ‘lying’ and not knowing one lies.” Dworkin’s bleak personal history also raises the specter of post-traumatic stress disorder, with its all-too-common dissociative fugues and fragmented flashbacks to earlier scenes of violence.

http://www.salon.com/2000/09/20/dworkin/

[Warren DeMontague]

1. I'm not sure how in touch she was with reality throughout most of her adult life, given her writing

that said, it seems pretty clear she became increasingly disassociated with it near the end, to the point where many of her erstwhile "allies" were openly questioning her credibility and suggesting she needed some sort of psychiatric help.

Tormented and perpetually pursued by invisible monsters, demons and spooky conspiracies- I think it's fairly safe to say she quite possibly could have benefited from anti-psychotic meds. Sad.

[Major Nikon]

3. Scapegoating certainly is a symptom of an unhealthy mind

I just find it interesting how an entire movement could coalesce around someone who could be described as a fringe nut at best. I suppose that when someone is telling you what you want to hear and that you don't have to take responsibility for your own failures, you can overlook minor flaws like increasing psychosis in your intellectual leader. It's not as if this was the first time something like this has happened, I suppose.

[4th law of robotics]

5. People like confidence in leaders

Last edited Tue Sep 18, 2012, 10:08 AM - Edit history (1)

it makes them appear as if they know what they're doing even when they clearly don't.

So a confident individual that never flinches in their convictions will often attract a following.

And crazy people are often entirely confident in everything they say.

[lumberjack_jeff]

13. Exhibit #1: L Ron Hubbard.

Just sayin.

[Major Nikon]

15. There are other examples

Jim Jones and David Koresh come to mind.

Dworkin actually floated the idea of a feminist separatist colony with guns and everything. I suspect she got the idea from Solanas or someone else as it really wasn't an original idea. I'm surprised it didn't find more traction.

[hifiguy]

14. She was a disassociative or schizoid personality.

Totally out of touch fwith reality for whatever reasons. Your second paragraph is spot on.

[4th law of robotics]

2. The false rape story was just brilliant satire

and you're too stupid/sexist to get it. Just going by the usual defenses offered for these sort of antics . . .

I did not realize she was married. I couldn't imagine being married to a woman who believed all sex was rape. That must have been a cold relationship.

/apparently after the "incident" she went “. . .down the checklist: no short skirt; it was daylight; I didn’t drink a lot even though it was alcohol and I rarely drink, but so what? It could have been Wild Turkey or coffee. I didn’t drink with a man, I sat alone and read a book, I didn’t go somewhere I shouldn’t have been, wherever that might be when you are 52, I didn’t flirt, I didn’t want it to happen. I wasn’t hungry for a good, hard fuck that would leave me pummelled with pain inside.”

//Sounds like victim-blaming.

[Bonobo]

4. They probably just had sex "as women do". nt

[Major Nikon]

6. If you read through the Salon article you can find other hypothesis

Apparently some people thought she may have purposely fabricated an unbelievable story so that the media could lambast her and the feminist community could point their finger at another instance of nobody believing a rape victim.

[4th law of robotics]

7. Perhaps

But is not believing a likely fabricated story such a bad thing?

I wish people had been a bit more skeptical when the Duke Lacrosse "rape" case first came to everyone's attention.

/and if she did that then isn't she participating in making actual rape-victims less believable? She is helping to create a problem she claims to fight against.

[Major Nikon]

8. That's pretty much the story of her life

Dworkin was always counterproductive to the feminist movement. Betty Friedan warned against it very early on and her prediction proved to be very true. Feminists still to this day aren't able to enjoy the political influence they had pre-Dworkin. She almost single handedly divided and conquered feminism, all in the name of feminism. Her proselytes still don't accept this to this day and probably never will.

[4th law of robotics]

9. When they do realize what she did

do you suppose they will claim she was an agent of the patriarchy? Driven by male oppression to destroy the one organization that could save women because she had succumbed to Stockholm syndrome?

I'm sure you could squeeze a few dissertations out of that.

[Major Nikon]

10. The feminist Manchurian candidate?

[4th law of robotics]

11. Why not?

Once you seriously argue that PIV sex is an unnatural conspiracy by the patriarchy to oppress and murder women then something like that would seem downright plausible.

[Major Nikon]

12. I'm not sure the reason for their conspiracy theory can be found in another conspiracy theory

But it is funny to think about, in a dark sort of way.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

17. Her "husband" Stoltenberg is an interesting character in his own right.

and just as crazy as she was. The life of a homosexual misandrist was probably pretty lonely.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

18. Oh, yeah....I read he wasn't her husband in the "traditional" sense

Obviously based on her rantings, I couldn't imagine it was possible for her to have a "normal", if you will, coupling.

[Warren DeMontague]

19. No, she made it very clear that they didnt "do it"

Lest anyone think she didn't practice what she preached.

[4th law of robotics]

23. This obsession with strictly enforced sexual abstinence to remain credible

strikes me as something from a religious order. Not a supposedly progressive and modern movement.

[4th law of robotics]

22. That is so very sad

Poor guy went through his whole life filled with hatred and not just that but hatred of his own gender.

What a horrible way to live.

It's too bad these people don't get the intervention and help they need. Instead they're encouraged to spiral further and further out of control.

[caseymoz]

16. There's also the delusional liar.

That is, a person who has delusions, and then will deliberately lie to get other people to believe them. It combines a serious mental illness like paranoid schizophrenia with an unethical personality, or personality disorder. I think these sorts of people can be pretty dangerous. Examples would be L. Ron Hubbard, David Koresh and Jim Jones.

Why can't a psychopath also be a psychotic?

[lumberjack_jeff]

20. "Why can't a psychopath also be a psychotic?"

Because ordinarily one would need a fairly keen sense of reality - or at least other people's perceptions - to successfully manipulate them into fulfilling your desires.

... unless the people you are manipulating are inclined to share your delusion.

[caseymoz]

21. Who says they're successful?

Perhaps the greatest number of them are so crippled by it, they aren't. They're either impoverished or imprisoned, but you have a few who become cult leaders, because their delusions follow themes that resonate or are shared by others who are merely delusional. Moreover, the leader's willingness to a lie to get people to believe his or her delusions would play on followers' hopes and fears. A cult leader of this sort grasps that the followers aren't as privileged to share his or her special insights. So, the leader is willing to tell the "white lie" in order to spread "greater truth." However, they may be so inclined to lie that they might do it when there's no calculation involved.

(I want to say that what I write next is hypothetical. It's the way I see Andrea Dworkin and other feminist leaders who seem to have left reality, and the original purpose of their movement, behind. I have no psychology degree, but I do have direct experience.)

This David Koresh "leader" is a bit different than his merely delusional followers, who will spread the lies the leader tells them, but won't originate any themselves. These would tend to be middle-rank followers, they tend to be sincere and unshakeable in their beliefs. They are not to be confused with the general membership. This last category doesn't have a mental illness besides any that may be caused by the cult.

A psychotic-psychopath may lead a secular movement. There's no psychological rule that says the pathological dynamic this personality creates only occurs in religions. I think totalitarian parties of the 20th century had it. Any somewhat fringe, borderline organization, such as the militia movement, or a conspiracy cult would be susceptible to it. I'm not saying it happens to them all the time, I'm saying when it occurs, it's most likely to happen with those organizations.

Therefore, you'll have someone like Andrea Dworkin in feminism. Unfortunately, I think there are likely others like her who have gravitated toward the women's movement and tend to spread false information within it. A lot of them in academia.

I've already pissed off women reading this, but I'll add: the whole feminist movement is not like this, thankfully, but it doesn't take very many to sidetrack it or even some damage. All it takes is a system that somehow promotes them leadership, or at least, makes them prestigious. I think feminists reliance on novel social science with no effective skepticism does just that.

[Shitty Mitty]

24. She had a husband?

Didn't know that

[Major Nikon]

25. In the legal sense at least

Dworkin claimed to be an asexual lesbian and her husband was gay. So it's hard to imagine a marriage in the traditional sense, but I'm not going to go so far as to say her marriage was a fraud.