The word, namely "truth", nowadays has faded out due to many reasons, but could we put the truth away? I don't think so. I am going to give an account that is arguably more acceptable than others.
Speak For Amber Heard; or, A Pre-Tested Road to Doom
"One day Pharaoh was eating grapes, holding a bunch; Satan came to him and said: could you ever think some be able to make that bunch of grapes to pearls? Pharaoh said decisively: NO. Then Satan made grapes into pearls. Pharaoh shouted: Such a master who you are! Satan slapped his neck, and said: in the kingdom of God did not accept my slavery; how you claim yourself as god with such foolishness!" (Jwamee al-Hikayat by Oofi)
A Case For Feminism
Links to posts on Feminism
Here I linked all posts on Feminism and it will be updated after publishing new posts.
Note: feminism in our time is not all about women's rights, what you read is not supposed to undermine, underestimate, or underrate women's rights, security, wellbeing, or equality, but it aims to promote it along with the same for male victims without destroying justice.
A. Depp vs. Heard trial
As Amber Heard's allegations about Johnny Depp began and the UK court rejected the case, another public allegation was published in Washington Post. Depp this time sued Amber Heard; unlike the UK case, after starting of the trial, which was public, evidence spread through cyberspace. As pieces of evidence were important, it caused public attention and feminists severely reacted. It was a good case for assessing feminists' praxis and theory; it was not good at all. Here you can find a few opinions:
1. How and Why Depp vs. Heard Trial Stimulate Public Sphere: An Outline
2. The slogan "Believe women" and Demoralizing
3. David Spiegel's Testimony Was a Real Failure
4.Speak For Amber Heard; or, A Pre-Tested Road to Doom
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David Spiegel's Testimony Was a Real Failure
It would be helpful to say I do not write to have Johnny Depp, the actor the celebrity, my concern has two dimensions: one, a human, father, and husband, is being sacrificed by activists who labeled Amber Heard as a "survivor" now they do not accept their advertised, branded face be abuser, not a survivor; two, what is going on could happen to any of us, when we seek justice in the court, the abuser find a couple of unethical, negligent experts to accuse us.
Dr. David Spiegel's Testimony as a psychiatrist was a failure in its literal meaning; he passed many rules and boundaries that should not have been passed by scientists. Meanwhile, it is interesting that no one from the psychiatry field denounces such scientific testimony as "abuse". As he is an expert on abuse, I suggest we see what is "science abuse"?
First of all, he testified in a way that understands by a large number of listeners that johnny Depp's drug and alcohol abuse caused domestic violence. However, now and then, he mentioned percentages or pronounce words to imply the likelihood of his sayings, but it is clear that he take the stand to accuse Johnny Depp of abuse. But I believe he knows that most of what he said was in vain.
I say that David Spiegel has abused science because science is not about certainty. Science gives us insights into a big number of cases. That is the first notion in social sciences; For example, suppose a psychiatrist conducted research on sexual abuse, and turned out that 70% of abusers suffer from drug abuse. To this point, if the research was a good one, the example was big enough to represent all human beings, the method was right and valid and interpretations make sense, then we can say for any given group of abusers with 100 members there is a chance to find 70 of them being also drug abusers. No more than.
But 70% is a big number, thus can we conclude that drug abuse is the cause of sexual abuse? Based on the research it just "could" be the case; why? Because we have 30%, 30 cases in every 100, that are sexual abusers but they are not drug abusers. If something would be a cause it should every time and always create the effect, except for rare conditions that prevent effects. So if bipolar disorder is the cause of periodic manic, it should cause periodic manic in more than, let's say, 95%. 5% would be for rare cases for example.
In the case of the abusers' example, no one could say drug abuse cause sexual abuse. first, it is just about probabilities and likelihood; second, when given drug abusers that at the same time also committed intimidating partner violations, be under study a psychiatrist could relate those two based on previous studies. But if we just know, that a certain person was a drug abuser, that is not possible to deduce that she or he was a sexual abuser too, a simple fact that undergraduate a student knows. I'm going to the next point which is the absence of distinguishing causation from correlation.
In the second place, Spiegel's Testimony was an obvious failure in science due to his negligence of "correlation". Causation and correlation have many similarities which could confuse observers. I will explain it in an easy-to-understand way. By definition, causation is the relationship between a cause and an effect in which the cause created (produced/ bring about) another thing called the effect. Correlation is a mutual connection between two things that usually appeared side by side; such as flu and runny nose, as well as, between fever and runny nose. Generally speaking, although causation is a kind of correlation because cause and effect always appeared at a time, every correlation is not causation, too. For instance, fever and runny nose correlate, perhaps more than 90%, but neither fever cause runny nose nor runny nose causes fever; the virus which is responsible for Flu (influenza) causes both fever and runny nose. Another example, is always thunderbolt and thunder are seen together, first thunderbolt then thunder, but they are not causing and effect, they are in correlation. The cause for both is something else: electric discharge between the atmosphere and ground which causes both thunderbolt (lightning) and thunder (loud sound).
Now let's see what is the problem in Spiegel's mind. He related sexual abuse, precisely IPV, to abusing substances, drugs, opiates, and alcohol, on the ground that they have unstable moods, impair judgment, cause forgetting, etc. He added that a big number of his clients have these problems, seemingly he was making the point that he knows what he says. Suppose always drug and alcohol misuse and abuse could be seen together, even let's say in 80% of cases. In such a supposition no one could say drug abuse cause IPV; because it should be studied if one is the cause of another one, namely, the correlation possibility would be rejected with great certainty. It is necessary because maybe there is a hidden psychological disorder in the person that pushes them into abusing drugs, and that very disorder makes an inclination in the person to commit IPV.
Furthermore, if drug abuse is always with the sexual abuser, how could Dr. Spiegel know that sexual abuse is not the cause of drug abuse? He said drug mixing and abusing impair judgment and cause sexual abuse, or help the person to commit IPV. But let's suppose, as a layman, that when someone committed sexual abuse against a partner, that crime bothers the abuser when the person thinks about it, got judgemental about her/his personality, and so on; thus, to forgot about it gradually takes drugs, alcohol, mixing them. It could be a possibility.
To conclude, the most powerful reason for refuting Spiegel's testimony is that what he said was even from a psychiatric viewpoint very hard to believe. Spiegel stated that mixing opiate with alcohol, which should not be mixed impairs judgment, then the person could not judge between good and bad, as in normal time can; so far is good. But the problem is that mixing opiate with alcohol not only impairs judgment but also weakens strength in the person. When one takes drugs and opiates or opioids and alcohol together, judgment impairment is accompanied by sedation, hard breathing, respiratory failure, or even death (In the end a few scientific materials are linked). Question to Dr. Spiegel: if Depp's co-use of alcohol and opioids and other drugs was at a level that impaired his judgment, how much is it possible for him to tear up a phone, injured his hand, despite that committing domestic violence in which he penetrated a bottle to the vagina of a young, sober, healthy woman? Doest possible that mixing those did not cause sedation, breathing problems, and respiratory problems? Just should it be judgment impairment and necessary end up in IPV? Please give it another try.
Here I just explained the core reasoning of the testimony, in another one I should give some time to violating the psychological code of ethics.
For effects of mixing opioids with alcohol any simple search in scientific databases bring on much research, but for naming two reliable sources see:
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How and Why Depp vs. Heard Trial Stimulated Public Sphere: An Outline
As a first impression, we may say: "fine! That's a celebrity thing; none of our business" heading back to something supposedly more important. It could be a good strategy, nonetheless, the reason is not valid. As a matter of fact, celebrities needed to be chased very passionately by fans and public opinions; it is the logic of fame that is the core of being a celebrity. From time to time when a celebrity feels that public opinion forgets her/him, intuited the necessity of immediate resolution; when there is no good ground to lay a relatively attractive topic they often insanely bring on a catchy, insane subject to capture news titles. Even when other ways failed, they anonymously leaked private, sexual, meaningless videotape to invade yellow media and social media contents. Such a boiling serves well to fame, although it will be forgotten soon. The public sphere, particularly more serious opinions, usually would not participate in, and should not. Having in mind this particular type, some situations appear similar to what I just mentioned while in reality, they are not shallow, but rather of great priorities. Distinguishing between these two kind is difficult but important. Since these cases affect society, We should know when to back off and when to step in. It is noteworthy that in the political realm similar events occurred which need to be dealt with likewise.
One interesting case of an event that, at first not seen as serious, was the Dreyfus Affair in France, which started in 1894 and lasted for nearly 12 years of intense controversies among the French, from common citizens to writers and politicians. Once upon a time in 1894, a case of allegedly selling military information to Germans was revealed to French military counterintelligence. First, in 1894 captain Alfred Dreyfus was accused and then convicted. He was a Jew, which make him very delicious for active anti-Semitic groups, employed La Libre Parole newspaper as the principal organ, back then; not only being Jew expose him to hasty allegations, but the anti-Semitic groups saw him as a convincing basis to accuse all French Jews, profiling them as disloyal, finally take them down. At first, except for Dreyfus's relatives and close people, no one showed suspicion, doubt, or query on the validity of their conviction; perhaps the only side which took his Jewish background of him into serious account was anti-Semitics. On the opposite side, no one said that he was accused just because of his Judaism. After almost three years things have been changed; a counterintelligence officer recognized the handwriting of another suspect, who was in a line of suspicion with Dreyfus, on sold documents to Germans. He had been on the list from the very beginning but the French army alleged Dreyfus, evidently on cognitive bias. To make a long story short, new information along with case bases from the start, inflamed the public sphere in France dividing it into two campaigns, Dreyfus on the face of it anti-Semitism laid beneath. The tension got all social units onto the battlefield, to the extent that well-known novelist, Emile Zola wrote an open letter titled "I accuse", whose consequences were encouraging citizens largely to take a side as well as one year in prison for Zola himself due to "libel". Dreyfus Affair revives basic rights, weaken religious, and racial discrimination, sharpen trial and improve judgment accuracy.
A case like Dreyfus Affair proves the importance of certain ostensibly trivial instances that bear a significant, blurred value underneath. One could say Johnny Depp's case against ex-wife Amber Heard in one way or another represent similarities to Dreyfus Affair; not only based on vast, intense debates around it but rather according on value fight between different adherents and parties which see their future in it.
So to speak, by now almost all forgot about who is the plaintiff and who is the defendant, one sees herself/himself on one side as if it is their own trial. What strongly drew attention to the case is the exchange of severe arguments between a handful of parties. On one side fourth-wave feminists, or as some prefer revolutionary feminism, are positioned. Those who mostly seek to overthrow allegedly masculine way of thinking and values, harshly looking for remaining "misogyny" under skins of society; by the advent of the MeToo movement, mostly known with speak out publicly, bringing sexual discriminations, assaults and harassments to the eyes, followed by narratives and hashtags on social media, organize a powerful social; on a different position is a group of conservatives who are old enemies to all four waves of feminism, regarding the facts they're not mainly involved due to engagement of other powerful groups who are in the field; a large numerous group is fans of either side of two celebrities who are strongly confronting opposite side, sometimes extend the debate to non-fan parties; and finally, a small number of people who do not belong to any of mentioned parties, calling for justice, accuracy, reducing any kind of discrimination. For transparency and fairness to readers, I'd like to locate myself as the last party that defines itself by seeking justice, objectivity, and evidence-oriented decision. From now on I am going to give up neutral style writing; because I want to put myself on the same level as those I am going to criticize.
As it was said, practically conservatives could be left out; the fans army to both sides mostly employ terms, reason, and arguments prepared by the first unit, 4th wave feminists on one side, and the last unit, who call for justice and accuracy for all.
The argument between these two is based on some values with which they are not in agreement. On the feminist side, values centered on the "believe women" motto which encapsulates most of their doctrines. By "believe women" they want to convey the fact that "usually" or "mostly" judiciary systems and routines favor men, pushing women back; for instance, they say, in the female winner trial, which they claim is rare, male side bring the case on, again and again, until he makes the female defendant penniless, exhausting her money support. Another thing they point to is male misuse of "masculine" laws and procedures, in which there is a lot of emphases are on pieces of evidence, as they say, due to the nature of violence happening, prepare convincing pieces of evidence for the courts, judges, and jury is very difficult, if not near impossible. A few figures of the thinkers' wing go farther than saying truth-telling is masculine, not benefit women overall. Briefly, they think of a kind of revolution in culture, laws, jurisprudence regulations, and values.
In domestic violence cases, their strategy is to believe women; meaning in case of lacking pieces of evidence, or not able to convince judges or juries this fact should not result in rejecting the case or letting the man take advantage.
I, for one, find these denials not fruitful, even rather dangerous venture into new different unjust situations as unacceptable as those they deny. These measures, if implemented, would have made male victims exposed to any false allegation, in an indefensible trial in which the man has the least, or no chance to serve justly. On the other hand, this problem did not leave us with only one option, namely revolution; why do not we have a reform option? A practical, efficient way in which benefits would be maximized while producing no major new problem; if a few problems popped out we can suppose a good resolution since we are dealing with a familiar system.
Deception, often in terms of lies, is a human ability; it is a powerful, fatal weapon in a society in which truthfulness is a value and rule for the majority of its members. We are committed to truth and veracity; prima facie is a canonical way by which we conduct our judgment and acts. In such a society overlooking deception, possibility makes the whole judiciary a certain failure.
Afterward, it is not clear if these walks of reasoning did not replace misogyny with misandry.
So far I explained the outline related to points they put on the table. To this point, it could make us worry about the future. But there is more, in a different kind with what has been said. To this point we lay out reflective topics, while a couple of 4th waves, revolutionary, feminists day by day get more radical, take strategies which if not reckless, are not in full awareness of consequences.
In recent days, a lot of short or long articles published in media and newspapers are to an extent worrying; at the same time, following up and downs in the trial the views and opinions posted on cyberspace, not worrying, but frightening, as it became a little harsh and has been tried to misinterpreted pieces of evidence or overlook or ignore then.
a simple resolution to money exhaustion. That would be solved, for example by founding a financial institute to pay for female victims who are in need; if one found it difficult to do, then a revolution, that is overthrowing the whole system is more difficult. For such a problem no need to be revolutionary, which seems reckless.
This issue will be addressed in the next opinion.
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