Iqra’i

A quick response to Nicola’s engagement with Jake on that grimy curbside business of prostitution would be to sagely nod and murmur in a slightly self-satisfied manner about the predictability of a classic libertarian vs traditionalist conflict. In the red corner: “Prostitution will always occur - we should provide clean economic channels for an inevitable series of transactions to occur in a crime-free environment”. In the blue corner: “Legalizing constitutes condoning! We can’t promote a culture that commodifies sex! Quelle horreur, the Queen of France, then the Dauphiness, would exclaim!” When Nicola argues that: “Conservatives should object to prostitution”, it sounds horribly like “objecting morally should be the same as criminalizing” - at which point Jake, I and all the other mishmash of libertarians and classical liberals can congratulate ourselves on being able to separate the two. Or affirm, as Jake does, that government cannot legislate social change.

Yet while I agree with the libertarian conclusion in favor of legalization, such an argument tends to straw-man the traditionalist position. It’s not that traditionalists don’t realize that prostitution will always occur. They know only too well. They recognize, frequently, that there is nothing that can be done, however hard they bring down the force of law, that can dent the durability of the oldest profession in the world. In fact some may even recognize that by criminalizing prostitution they run the risk of increasing the incidence of it, and certainly make the lives of vulnerable women far nastier and often shorter. The tension between Nicola’s and Jake’s views, however, actually stems from an even more basic traditionalist criticism of libertarianism’s laissez-faire approach : that shame is good. As always, this leads back to the dance of the seven Burkean veils that seems to preoccupy the Right at Yale. The “sacred” veil of which Nicola speaks is not imposed by those who are ignorant of that which lies beneath. It is merely that the illusion is more useful, and more bearable than the reality. This particular function of the veil is to split our vision of ourselves into two tiers: the grimy world of our failings and the elevated ideal, which even if rarely lived purely can at least provide a exemplar to which we can aspire. Legislators who outlaw prostitution do not delude themselves that prostitution will cease overnight. They merely hope that it will become invisible. Yes, invisibility is even more dangerous to the women involved than visibility. But a world in which we at least kid ourselves that we treat each other’s bodies with dignity makes the personal ties on which society is based far more sustainable.

Which leads me to the problem of my personal contradictions. I continue to support the legalization of prostitution on the quasi-economic grounds that legalization lessens the actual suffering posed to women. Yet like any good anti-Marxist I have always considered the aesthetic and intellectual wellbeing of society to be far more important than mere economic conditions. So I continue to apply my libertarian economics to my cultural concerns with the old “a cultural free market creates the most vibrant cultural life” chestnut. This argument is worth at least a whole blog post of its own, so you’ll all have to keep watching this space. Clues: cultures are defined by oppositions engaging with a theme, high culture is frequently inspired by its opposition to low culture, a world in which we are free to listen to Britney Spears is a world in which some will always react by turning to Bruckner to make sense of it all. You need not have read your Foucault to accept that it is impossible to prevent the discourses of the noble society and the base society from negotiating each other.

The argument that “the government cannot legislate social change” misses the point of Nicola’s claims, for she does not dare to hope that true social change can be effected, only that those elements which already exist can be separated from each other and labeled appropriately. To take up arms against it, therefore, one must argue that this very taxonomy of shame is unviable. One can disagree with the aesthetics of the traditionalist ideal - which in the specific case of prostitution, would be unlikely. One can disagree with the prioritizing of cultural health over the economic well-being of individuals - in which case both sides of the argument are premised on a false dichotomy. Or else one can disagree with the heart of the traditionalist argument and posit that such a division between the real world and the ideal world is thoroughly unhealthy.

EDIT: I’ve straightened out the formatting here; I’m not entirely sure what was wrong with it. –N