Hark! A mild kerfuffle has commenced in the libertarian thought-o-sphere over an article by a blogger Cathy Reisenwitz, wherein she argues that persuasion and ostracization (in the form of slut-shaming) is a form of soft coercion or aggression. She essentially states this is so because the shamee has never signed any kind of contract granting permission for the shamer to do what they do.
Lots of people balked at this, stating that the way the term “coercion” is framed, it allows for anything to be deemed coercion. Why, according to this logic, this would justify the shamee to respond to the shamer with force! This is clearly nutzoid, right? But her view is entirely correct, as well as the fact that any kind of action can indeed be deemed coercion/aggression, without contradiction.
In order to understand why this is the case, one needs to realize that both freedom* and force** exist irregardless of the pre-held notion of objective property rights, an ethical perspective rooted largely in the theories of John Locke (and deeply elaborated on centuries later by Murray Rothbard. They are not and cannot be defined in the context of property theory.
There is a grave fallacy that many libertarians – particularly those basing their views mostly on ethical bases – commit constantly, in that these two terms end up getting transformed in the context of their ethics. Thus, force becomes “coercion” or “aggression”. Freedom to do X becomes “liberty”. While at the same time, the freedom to do “Y”, for some reason, “isn’t really liberty” (this is a core contention between statists, anarcho-capitalists, and social anarchists). All of this, every speck of this, is rooted in the theory of objective property rights. Without it, this whole semantics-driven word substitution collapses like a house on sand.
An example of this: a tax is levied against Individual A, who gains her/his wealth through production and sale of goods. The tax is deemed coercion precisely because the force threatened in order to collect the tax is unjust according to the objective property rights theory. If someone, on the other hand, rings up $500 in credit card debt and refuses to pay the card company, they are considered the aggressor because the credit card company is deemed just in its possession of assets that enable it to lend.
Yet both parties in both situations are committing force, and thus, can both be argued to be aggressors. The tax levier is threatening force if the taxpayer does not pay up, yet it can be argued that the taxpayer is violating the property of the tax-levying organization. The debtor is an aggressor against the property of the card company, yet the card company will surely call police (public or private) if the debtor refuses to ultimately pay.
All of this is relevant because concepts of liberty cannot be kept solely within the sphere of property without severe and irreconcilable logical contradictions. “Thick libertarianism” is one example of recent intellectual developments identifying libertarian focus beyond propertarian considerations. It can (but does not have to) include: sex-positivity, gay pride, horizontal organization of firms, cognitive liberty, and yes, even promoting conscious awareness of slut-shaming, etc.
In regards to the core content of the piece, it is important to understand just how slut-shaming affects women and can end up resulting in a myriad of other undesirables – look no further than the recent rash of suicides of teenage rape victims. It is also very interesting that Cathy notes that she “didn’t sign a contract with slut-shamers any more than [she] did with [her] government”, because this remains a core classical-anarchist critique of capitalism – namely, that although trade is undertaken by individuals agreeing to exchange goods/services, no one ever directly “voluntarily” chooses to live under a capitalistic social organization.
All forms of force are equally arguable as aggression, because force only becomes “aggression” once someone ties an objective ethical perspective to property. Contrary to myth, there is nothing objective about any of these ethical perspectives, which tend to turn force and liberty into issues of semantics and dogma over reason and progress. An understanding of this makes Cathy’s piece instantly understandable and valid.
*defined as the ability to undertake X action
**defined as the undertaking of, or threat of, violence against a person or object
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