Talk:Circumcision/Archive 2

I admit that I am personally not very neutral here. While I am among those who think "barbaric" is a perfect description of this practice, I think I've been fair in my coverage. Someone with less interest may want to check my prose though. --Lee Daniel Crocker

I looks pretty good to me; I did some minor editing. But I think the practise is pretty barbaric too. --STG

I think you guys have spent too much time in American hospitals. :) I have seen an American doctor perform a circumcision, and the event was pretty damn barbaric. But the barbarism wasn't in the fact that a tiny piece of foreskin was removed. What's wrong with that? Its not as if they touch the penis itself. When done skilfully and moderately, removal of a piece of the foreskin will be no worse than having someone pierce your little girl's ears for earrings. No, the real problem was the way that doctors literally strap a frigthened newborn down to a board, and then dig into the penis. I no longer wonder why so many gentiles are repulsed by this. But as a Jew I have been priviliged to personally see two Brit milahs (Jewish ritual circumcisions) up close, and it was a different sort of thing. No panic, little pain, and the infant was happy again in under one minute. People who have been to many of these events inform me that the two I saw were standard. RK

Since you probably don't have the benefit of a foreskin anymore, let me tell you that it is the most sensitive part of the body. There is absolutely no comparison with an ear lobe. And your phrase "it is considered barbaric if performed by a doctor without anaesthetic" is plainly false; it is considered barbaric if performed without anaesthetic, period.

What I mean was that to me, I think a doctor's way of performing circumcision is barbaric because of the way that they do it, and they pain and fright it causes the baby. That's why I consider their way barbaric. As for the comparison to the earlobe, I hold that it is correct because (a) Babies don't have fully developed nervous systems at birth the way that an adult, teenager, or child does later on. Thus, while it must hurt, it isn't the same thing to them as it would be to you or me. (b) I was actually thinking about the amount of physical damage done to body tissue. Its more, yes, but not that much more. RK

Aside from the current wisdom that babies do feel pain in an 'adult way', babies have the disadvantage of not understanding time. So when you hurt a child, as far as it knows that pain is the entire world forever. Now I'm sure that doesn't appear in the dictionary under mental cruelty, but maybe it should. And to declare my bias, I'm a Brit in the US who had an American friend at pre-natal classes ask about my 'intact' status, and my thought on having his potential son circumcised. He raised all the standard issues about looking like his Dad, etc., but wasn't sure it was worth it. I asked him how he would feel in the (hugely unlikely) event that his son died because his Dad didn't want him to have a flap of skin on the end of his penis.

There certainly is no comparison between a modest circumcision of the foreskin, and female genital mutilation (FGM). A better comparison would be to kidnap a 12 year old boy, strap him down, and literally chop off the head of his penis, leaving only the shaft and testicles. That, sadly, is the biologically correct analogy to FGM. There is no need for people to exagerrate what male circumcision is in order to disagree with it. RK

Sorry, RK, but the idea that infants don't feel pain the same way or as intensely as adults was debunked long ago, and you shouldn't be hanging your hat on that. And it's a weak justification at best. I would tend to agree that as practiced by a skilled Moel it's probably a lot less traumatic than the hack-jobs done by American doctors, but "less traumatic" is hardly a recommedation. Even if it were completely painless, and even if it had real health benefits, it still amounts to permanently lopping off a normal, functional, healthy part of a kid's body without his consent. Any son I have will grow up intact and make that choice for himself. --LDC

FGM is far worse, but mutilation is mutilation. Piercing children's ears is mutilation too. -- Tarquin

203.109.250.xxx, whoever you are, even though I may happen to agree with you, your additions about legal challenges don't really add to the reader's understanding of circumcision in general, and so I'm going to move them to a new page, where hopefully others may add other legal tidbits on both sides. Even the cause of lobbying for its elimination is better served by keeping the rhetoric to a minimum and being rigorously unbiased. --LDC

Since to Jews and Muslims the practice is a religious commandment, the medical arguments for and against are probably irrelevant. Perhaps some mention should be made of this, though I don't know how to frame it in neutral terms. As a Jew, I consider this to be more a freedom-of-religion question than a medical one.

What about people who don't believe in freedom of religion? I certainly don't believe it takes precedence over the child's welfare!

Which of these statements is true?

The only country that still routinely circumcises a majority of male infants is Israel.

The only countries that still routinely circumcises a majority of male infants are those of the middle east.

All mention of this topic has been temporarily removed pending verification. --maveric149

The USA practiced routine circumcision. Does it still?

The speculation about the "hygienic" origins of circumcision is complete nonsense. Nobody who knows anything about childhood history could believe something like that.

Nor could anyone who knows anything about the evolution of religion or history per se start making assertions like you are making now.

First of all, until a few centuries ago, people were filthy. Westerners in particular had fleas, lice and never bathed. For children, it was worse. Pretty much throughout human history, children were swaddled.

Nice piece of Eurocentric blather.

Swaddling, or something like it, occured in nearly all (if not absolutely all) societies across the entire planet and for most of human history (except for the earliest infanticidal period) and across all social classes. Come back when you have some facts.

Swaddling, a barbaric practice mercifully unknown in the modern Western world, involves tying an infant in bandages. The infants scream their heads off in the practice because it 1) tightly constricts the chest, 2) sends all the blood to the head until it's purple, 3) takes away all freedom of movement, and 4) puts them into a withdrawn, dormant state.

Parents have always considered swaddling "convenient". Taking infants in or out of their bandages is extremely inconvenient. Plus, and here's the killer for the "hygiene" argument, most cultures believed that filth (feces and urine) were beneficial to the infant. So the swaddled infants were left to lie in their own filth.

That gives you some impression about what humans are like. Especially that "hygiene" is not a universal human desire.

To get an idea of the actual origins of circumcision, we know that neolithic tribes practice cutting and mutilation of the genitals. And they are quite willing to tell you they do it for mystical / spiritual / religious (ie, psychological) reasons.

I'm wondering who you mean here by Neolithic tribes, or even if there is such a thing today. Of course, people that practice circumcision for religious reasons will give "mystical / spiritual reasons" for doing so. That does not, however, mean that these are the real reasons for the emergence of a custom or rite.

That's right, the "real" reason is supposed to be something you're comfortable with. Come back when you have some argument or fact to offer.

The idea that ancient humans were even sane enough to consider a rationale like 'hygiene' is ludicrous. Primitive people are insane, constantly hallucinating and in waking dream states. Things like "logic" are completely beyond them. Hell, the Papua New Guinea islanders can't even understand that you need to feed children 3 times a day. So we're supposed to believe that they had a grasp of hygienic needs of children when they don't have the faintest clue about basic nutritional needs? -- ark

Thank goodness we have the benefit of your wisdom and experience to lead us to sanity. Sorry, but your logic is failing, and your ethnocentric perspective is offensive. Cut the racist hyperbole. Danny

If reality is offensive to you, that's not my problem. The insanity of primitives is an extensively documented fact, one that is accepted many psychologists, especially those interested in that subject. Again, please come back when you have some facts or arguments to offer. -- ark

The "insanity of primitives" is not a fact, and not an extensively documented fact. Here are some pertinent facts: around the fifteenth century certain European states began expanding, especially in the Americas. In general they were in search of mineral resources (such as silver and gold), land (for the cultivation of export crops such as rice and sugar, and the cultivation of other foodstuffs to support mining communities), and laobr (to work in mines and plantations). In some cases the people already living in the Americas were merely occupying land, and were killed. In other cases, the people were incoroporated into the expanding states to serve as labor. Although Europeans recognized these people to be human beings, they had no plan to treat them as equals politically or economically, and consequently they began to speak of them as inferior socially and psychologically as well. In part through this and also through other, similar processes, Europeans developed a notion of "the primitive" and "the savage" that legitimized genocide and ethocide on the one hand, and European domination on the other. This discourse extended to people of Africa, Asia, and Oceania as European colonialism, neo-colonialism, and imperialism expanded. There are no more "neolithic" people on this planet; the word "primitive" does not refer to people living in a former stage in cultural evolution, it refers to people who are at the periphery of the world capitalist economy who have been, are, or are about to be victims of Western colonial or imperialist expansion, ethnocide, and genocide.

There have been some -- many, but not all, anthropologists, and many non-anthropologists -- who developed a critique of European ethnocentrism, and sought to develop more objective understandings of non-Western peoples. They continue to challenge the presumption of European (or Western) superiority, and to challenge specific claims made by Westerners concerning human nature and the world in which humans live and act. Needless, to say, those who are committed to the superiority of the West and Western ideas, colonialism, ethnocide and genocide, are profoundly, even hysterically, threatened by such attempts.

This is not to say that non-Western people are perfect or even better than Europeans; in many cases non-Europeans and non-Euro-Americans are as capable of being as hideous as Europeans and Euro-Americans. The critique of ethnocentrism does not require an absolutely amoral position, nor does it require a knee-jerk celebration of all things non-Western. For example, circumcision may be part of a system in which men assert power over boys -- not only by inflicting physical pain but by developing a ritual, controled by men, upon which boys depend for entry to society or manhood. But this does not mean that circumcision may not have other meanings and values which we can hardly appreciate. Similarly, there are things we (I will now speak only of Americans) do that non-Westerners might consider a horrific form of child-abuse: separating young children from their parents for five, six, or more hours; condemning children to spend hours sitting in chairs under florescent lights in "schools" that are designed to brainwash children into serving the needs of society efficiently; constantly buying children toys, and encouraging them to sit for hours in fromt of a television set exposed to commercials encouraging them to get their parents to buy even more toys or other things, and chiding them for being "uncool" or "unloved" if they do not get these objects, so that by the time they reach adulthood they can only find validation in their role as "consumer."

At stake in this issue is not only the possibility of expanding our own notions of what it might mean to be human; at stake is also how we continue to treat people at ther margins of the world capitalist economy. Are they "primitives" who must be killed or civilized, "civilized" meaning teaching them how to work on plantations or mines while living in a state of relative poverty, or perhaps having a chance to secure a moderatly comfortable life by learning to appreciate, desire, and buy manufactured goods, either way supporting the world capitalist economy? citations: see Fabian Time and the Other, Wolf, Europe and the People without History, and Torgovnick, Gone Primitive SR

I am about as vicious an enemy of capitalism as you are ever likely to find. I know of every evil of Western societies you have mentioned here and many, many more. I think it likely that for any evil of Western civilization you could mention, I am aware of it and already hate it (so long as it is sufficiently general, of course).

So what's my position towards infanticidal, insane, primitives? Exterminate them.

Because the thing is, I'm also a student of moral philosophy. I do not believe that they have any right to abusing their children, sexually or otherwise. I do not believe that they have any right to neglect or brutalize their children. I do not believe they have a right to a brutal and barbaric "culture". I do not believe that they have a right to a succeeding generation of dissociative people who will go on to abuse its children. I do not believe they have any inalienable right to a future. And frankly, I don't even think they're people. Naturally, the best program would be simply to take all of their children away as they are born and raise them far far away. Failing that, I really don't care what's done with them so long as the extermination of their societies is sufficiently humane, rapid, and efficient. -- ark