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Your Turn, James Graham

August 9th, 2009 at 11:37 pm

I pick a fight with someone I probably shouldn't. But he started it.

I owe James Graham a drink, but that’s not going to stop me responding to his latest post, where he complains about libertarians and their reaction to the Jo Swinson ‘ban airbrushing’ fiasco.

By the end of this post I’m hoping you agree with me that this is a completely pointless and unnecessary fight – yet tackling James head on is something I’m absolutely determined to do – he’s the strongest of the LD blogosphere’s social liberal wing and I like a challenge.

James, please, do kick us off:

Frankly, if we did all live in a state of complete separation of mind and body, the libertarians would have a point. The fact that time and again we learn that environmental factors affect behaviour is a problem they have never come to terms with.

James is, once again, begging the question. Environmental factors change behaviour… but what business is this of the state, or politicians?

I’m not against bans in principle. If a judicious ban or restriction here and there can help people exercise their own personal judgement instead of being influenced by a bombardment of propaganda, then in principle it is the only liberal thing to do.

Substitute the highly indirect ‘only liberal thing to do’ for what James seems to really mean, ‘we must act’ then the fallacy becomes more obvious: “Advertising negatively effects people’s ability to make good decisions. Restrictions to advertising could limit the negative effects. We must act.” We do?

Yet Jo’s proposal is not concerned with people being tricked into thinking Product X is ‘cool’ by professional liars, so James’ argument is not even relevant (after all that).

Jo’s proposal addresses an unintended side effect of professional lying: In order to sell a product it sometimes suits advertisers to associate their products with beautiful, glamorous people. For Jo these models and actors are just too beautiful. She believes that young girls and women are being psychologically harmed, and the solution is to make the images less provocative. Okay! It’s a policy. An idea. Run with it.

To disagree with it on principle is not just a philosophical issue – it’s a psychological and sociological one. We’re talking about the state choosing to get involved with the mental health of girls and young women as a collective while reinforcing the idea that they’re helpless puppets incapable of differentiating between the glossy airbrushed world of magazines and reality. To presume this sort of interference would have nothing but positive or neutral psychological and sociological effects is… very, very brave and bold.

After having a pop at libertarians, James states his own grounds for being sceptical about Jo’s proposal: What’s the definition of airbrushing? Is using lighting, corsets and make-up to produce an image any different to hiding a spot and nipping in a girl’s waist with Photoshop? He also wonders about the evidence that ‘airbrushing’ causes measurable, significant harm.  For example, have there been clinical trials showing a causal relationship between exposure to idealised images of people and serious, crippling mental damage? It seems unlikely.

Yet with this sort of evidence of serious harm libertarians would be interested in seeing the details of the proposed solution. In fact, this is exactly why I didn’t touch the Jo Swinson story when it first came around – no evidence, so no particular reason to pay it the slightest bit of attention.

James, on the other hand, agrees in principle with it but wants evidence before lending his full support… right. So, a world shaking ideological conflict then, I’m sure you’ll agree. We both, ultimately, want evidence before voting ‘yes’.

So, here’s the end of the post and we’ve learned… well… that this was a completely pointless?

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