Porn and Terrorism, Not

Since basically forever the world’s porn-haters have gone prospecting for some causal link between porn and Something Bad, and for the most part they drill dry holes. But boy do they never give up. Thanks to alicublog I’ve just been treated to a rather inventive attempt at finding a new Something Bad.

Jennifer S. Bryson, director of something called the “Islam and Civil Society Project” at the Witherspoon Institute (an Opus Dei-linked theocon outfit in Princeton, New Jersey) has taken notice of the (alleged) possession of pornography by Islamic terrorists and generated 2067 words of vaporings entitled “Pornography and National Security.” Her evidence of a casual link between pornography and terrorism? Well, none. And she even admits this.

I do not know what link, if any, exists between terrorism and pornography, but I do think this question warrants attention…

Here I offer only questions. I do not know their answers or what rigorous studies of these and related issues will yield. I merely think the time has come to suggest that our continued failure to ask these questions and to pursue their answers may be a mistake we make at our own national peril.

Ohh-kay. It’s pretty clear that she’d just love to find some.

What is going on here? One is of course tempted to mock, and it is very good to yield to that temptation, if only for a little while. I could write my own essay:

I do not know what link exists, if any, between buttsex and earthquakes, but I do think the question merits attention…

Here I offer only questions. I do not know their answers or what rigorous studies of these and related issues will yield. I merely think the time has come to suggest that our continued failure to ask these questions and to pursue their answers may be a mistake we make at our own seismic peril.

(Do you feel the earth move, dear reader?) And one is also tempted to be cynical. The Witherspoon Institute might be but a humble branch of wingnut welfare (albeit with a prestigious address), but even so it seems likely you have to put forth at least a simulacrum of effort before Robbie George will sign your paycheck.

But some deeper analysis is warranted, I think, because two things are going on here. I do not wish to accuse Ms. Bryson of a deliberate deception in writing this essay: on the evidence of her writing, she seems rather too dim to manifest the self-awareness necessary for that sort of Machiavellianism. But nonetheless I can see through the rhetorical tricks, which she would have soaked up from her environment.

First, we have here a prime example of the rhetorical phenomenon known as “JAQing off.” (How apprpriate in this context.) The term is derived from the phrase Just Asking Questions, and it’s the cowardly and dishonest strategy of attempting to insinuate a proposition into the minds of readers by striking a pose of false epistemic modesty. It’s perfectly obvious that neither Ms. Bryson nor her theocon paymasters are motivated by anything like intellectual curiosity here. They hate porn (and sexual liberty generally) and will smear it in any way they can. Getting more people to “just ask questions” about an imagined link, the more people will begin to think that there might actually be a link.

And more deeply, calling for “more studies” is also a classic trick that one might call “hoping to pick future cherries.” (Also appropriate in this context.) In a stochastic world if you study any relationship between Variable A and Variable B enough times and in enough ways that there will be at least some studies that show a relationship between A and B. You don’t even need badly-designed studies or intellectual dishonesty for this to happen — the work of chance and sampling will make it happen. There will just always be some false positives if you just run enough tests. Of course, the Witherspoon Institute folks are pining to get their hands on one of those, so that they can blast it out to the world with a press release and, they hope, hyperventilating media coverage “PORN CAUSES TERRORISM! Study says.” AHH! Somebody think of the children!

Of such things are the careers of suceessful propagandists made. But I urge you, dear reader, not to be fooled.

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