Ethics

Is There a Barbarism Switch?

By Ed Brayton

Greg Laden asks a very interesting question on his blog: Is there a rape switch? Here's what he means by that:

"The switch" is a term I first heard from Victoria Brandon, who wrote a term paper for me on this in 1993. The basic idea of a switch would be supported if more or less randomly (though age biased, likely) selected men, put into a certain situation, tended to commit rape on a much larger scale ... or more exactly, a much larger percentage of the men rape under those circumstances ... than would ever be predicted based on anything anyone knows about these men before or after the circumstances prevail.

In other words, when all the young men stay home, they are mostly not going to rape anyone. In contrast, when the same exact men go off to war, an alarming percentage of them rape. Switch off, switch on.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on June 05, 2009 (boomark / email).