What of Akin? What sense should we make of the fervid controversy surrounding Missouri Senate Candidate and Congressman Todd Akin’s musings on abortion? What do the howls of protest say about the Republican Party: true-believers and cynical consultants?

As Akin’s moment is apparently over (though he might yet become the distinguished gentleman from Missouri), his remarks require reprise. Interviewed on St. Louis television, Congressman Akin was asked about his opposition to most abortions, even after rape. The congressman replied,“It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something: I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not attacking the child.”

Akin’s unscripted remark produced a firestorm of protest, first, not surprisingly, from Democrats and then, more surprisingly, from Republican politicians and consultants who concluded that Akin could no longer defeat vulnerable incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill.

Politics must be understood through context, not through truth. Congressman Akin, labeled a “Tea Party favorite” (a term that deserves unpacking) had just defeated two Missouri Republicans considered more “electable.” The party establishment was suspicious of this true believer. A replacement might make the seat “more winnable.” In social psychological terms, Akin did not have what Edwin Hollander spoke of as “idiosyncrasy credits,” allowing a do-over for a rabid gaffe. Akin lacked capital in the Grand Old Party’s favor bank. Soon after the remarks were publicized, Republican leaders, as well as former Republican senators from Missouri, called for Akin to quit. Rush Limbaugh suggested that Akin should look into his heart and do the right thing. Todd Akin was crucified by his allies, betrayed by his peeps.

But what of his remarks? The controversy centered on three claims: 1) some rapes are “legitimate,” 2) women rarely get pregnant through forcible rape, and 3) if a woman becomes pregnant, the unborn child should not be punished.

The most controversial, but the least substantial, is the first. Legitimate rape. The phrase chills. Can any rape be legitimate? Still, my readers are also talkers. Teachers ramble on with only a few scraps of notes before us: no presidential teleprompter. We create texts as we speak, hoping that we don’t get it too wrong. Congressman Akin got it too wrong, but perhaps in a way that each of us can sympathize. We have all stuck our foot in it. We search for the right word and when it can’t be found, we use a word that we pray is unnoticed.

Congressman Akin meant “forcible rape.” Does anyone doubt it? “Forcible rape” is a term of art, but one that distinguishes between violent rape and what is termed statutory rape (some statutory rape is forcible; some is consensual). The term blurs the line between stranger rape and acquaintanceship rape, both of which involve force. Implicitly, Akin suggests that what the public labels rape are distinct crimes that occasionally overlap (states characterize the crimes in legal terms as various degrees of sexual assault). The demand to “take back the night” through demonstrations and rallies recognizes that at the fearful core of the crime of rape is stranger danger, even if so-called “date rape” is more common.

Statutory rape – what might be labeled, following Akin, illegitimate rape – is a crime based on collective attitudes towards age. States differ in the age limits of statutory rape. “Children” could once wed at age twelve, and these crimes are based on our collective estimation of what children are capable of and what they can consent to. Puberty was once the marker of the right to marry. Today these laws make sense, even while, when consensual, they reflect a different category of acts from forcible rape.

Todd Akin erred in referring to “legitimate rape,” we give him that, but he did so in the attempt to distinguish violent rape (and, perhaps, stranger rape) from other acts under the same category. The goal of the “forcible” terminology, of course, is to narrow the instances of rape for which abortion is permitted.

The second issue is whether a woman who is forcibly raped is likely to become pregnant. Akin did not aver that such pregnancies could not happen, only that they were rare. This is a long-standing belief in the pro-life community. If he is wrong, he is not a fabulist, but a reporter of the fables of others. As I heard the statement, I wondered, “Is this true?” Might extreme trauma prevent pregnancy? As Joel Best argues in Damn Lies and Statistics, what we know depends upon what information we choose to collect, how we collect it, and from whom. We need to have a critical stance to all statistics we are fed.

Women who are raped can and do become pregnant. But statistics are conflicting. Estimates of pregnancies resulting from rape – extrapolation from surveys – range from as low as 200 to 3000 to over 30,000 in the United States each year. But Akin also claimed that stress or trauma prevents pregnancy. Again research appears mixed. Some research finds that rape victims are less likely to get pregnant than those engaged in consensual sexual activity; other studies suggest that rape victims are more likely to become pregnant; still other studies find that pregnancy rates are identical. I am not a biologist, haven’t examined the details of the study procedures and the populations involved. Surely some research is more credible than others. In my reading, there is some consensus in the fertility literature that extreme life stress decreases the likelihood of pregnancy, although this may involve long-term stress, rather than sudden trauma.

The third claim is neither a misstatement nor a factoid. It is a value. This pro-life perspective suggests that even if a woman gets pregnant after rape, she has a moral responsibility. The child should not be the second victim of the crime of rape. I do not find the claim persuasive, but it is one that I understand. If a fetus is a human life, deliberate abortion constitutes murder. And we recognize that the perpetration of one crime does not justify a second. The victim of sexual harassment does not have the right to castrate the harasser, and certainly not the harasser’s child. I find the logic of trauma more compelling, but this is not a wild and fanciful argument, but one of misplaced compassion.

Putting aside the gaffe and the controversial science, this value is the center of the Akin controversy. It is here that cynicism resides. This value led Republican Party mandarins to attempt to abort the Akin campaign. Yet, this same value is to be found in the 2012 Republican platform for all to read.

Todd Akin has been condemned for the sin of sincerity, a true representative of a false party. He claimed a belief that is ideologically central, but one that elites believe should be conveyed with a wink, a sop to the unsophisticated. This election is not to be fought over dead babies.

In the dark days of segregation, Strom Thurmond used to filibuster about States Rights and Southern traditions. His South Carolina colleague Olin Johnston, as explicitly a racist as there was in the Senate, cynically remarked of Thurmond’s crusade: “There is no use talking to Strom. He really believes that shit.” Todd Akin is a Republican problem because he believes his shit too well.

In the past week, I have published in Deliberately Considered and posted on my Facebook page a series of reflections on the implications of the nomination of Paul Ryan as Vice Presidential candidate of the Republican Party. And I have explained that the basis of my understanding of the present situation is a conservative insight concerning the dangers of ideological thought. The replies have been quite illuminating. The discussion starts with an interesting American irony: amusing, perhaps more.

Ryan’s nomination, I believe, assures the re-election of President Obama. The basis of my belief is a judgment that Americans generally are guided by a conservative insight, an American suspicion of ideological thought. Conservative insight defeats the conservative ticket.

Yet, on the intellectual front, there are few conservative thinkers who would illuminate this. Exceptions? Andrew Sullivan, perhaps also David Frum. (Anyone else?) But because these two are so guided, few, if any, conservatives recognize them as comrades in thought.

Aron Hsiao in a reply to one of my posts on conservative intellectuals explains the factors involved:

“The essence of the moment is that the mainstream demographic blocs of the Right have, as an ideological move, adopted anti-intellectualism as a central tenet of conservatism. Any marriage of democratic practice and political epistemology at the moment therefore precludes the conservative intellectual; if someone is intellectual in the slightest, the Right will disown him/her. They are the oft-maligned “RINOs” (Republicans in Name Only). To make matters worse, any intellectual at the moment of any value is loathe to be associated with the totality of the present (i.e. recent form of the) conservative project in America and thus tends to gravitate toward the (D) party. My suspicion is that rationally informed self-selection (they have careers and statuses, after all) results in a state of affairs in which few serious intellectuals can be found in the (R) party…”

Aside from the way he uses the term ideology, I agree completely with Hsiao. The implications are indeed scary.  I explained my understanding in my last post. I think it can help us understand the unfolding electoral debate.

Ideologists are more enamored by the purity of the ideological position, than they are committed to factual reality. This week we observed the strange case of the Republican candidate in Missouri Senate race, Congressman Todd Akin. Akin knows about wondrous powers of female biology “from what doctors have told him.” In cases of “legitimate rape” the reproductive system shuts down, according to the Congressman. I wonder what he thinks about the rape war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and beyond? From such ideologues we also “know” that there is no human induced climate change and that evolution is just a theory, persuasively challenged by creationist “science.” With the incredible power of the ideology induced human mind: fiction becomes fact; fantasy (in the technical Freudian sense of wish fulfillment) becomes science. Human suffering is ignored. Faced with a serious anti-abortion ethical dilemma, a new science is born.

Alvino-Mario Fantini, a conservative intellectual who has contributed to Deliberately Considered, I believe understands the problems here, the need to distinguish conservative thought from right-wing ideology. He responded to a commenter on my Facebook page, which he took to be an unwarranted dismissal of a significant conservative thinker. He asked:

What do you mean when you say “these days, Russell Kirk would be considered an ‘intellectual’ ?” Was he not? His seminal work The Conservative Mind was the work of a deep thinker (not an activist): an elegantly-written overview of literary and political examples of the “conservative imagination.” If anything, Kirk rejected ideology and would likely have very little to do with many of today’s GOP leaders.

Fantini shares my judgment that a serious debate between the left and the right needs to happen and hasn’t. He agrees with Gary Alan Fine that we live in partisan gated communities and that our ideas and our politics are diminished as a consequence. Fantini testifies that an important American conservative would have been appalled. Perhaps the most tragic consequence is that one party is now mired in an ideological fog, seducing a significant part of the public through ideology empowered media, i.e. Fox and company.

It is with this in mind that George Finch, disagrees with my observations and conclusions concerning the nomination of Paul Ryan. Finch noted on Facebook:

With all due respects, this country is very ideological, one that is based in the sanity of private property, individualism, the wisdom of the market, and a god-like capitalism. All are related of course. To top it off government is now seen as incompetent and part of the problem, not part of a solution. Ryan can appeal to this better than Romney, and with the right pr (lies) they may not scare people. Obama like most of the Ds do not help as they are now deficit hawks and have shifted to the Right and their ideology over the years. Obama will cut the safety net , and Ryan and his folk can use this to counter the D’s attacks and confuse people. The issue is not whether there are any Conservative intellectuals, but how far close we are coming to a form of Friendly Fascism.

And I responded:

I am not so sure that the American population is quite as nutty as you think, or that the market is worshiped in the way right wing ideologues hope and you fear. I think, and hope, that these things are in play and that the Republicans have over played their hand. I fundamentally disagree with you on Obama. He is not a deficit hawk and I think he has long fought the shift to the right and it is most clear now. Friendly Fascism is an epithet. I think it warns of the dangers of the rise of the hard right in one party, not both. Here again is a strong reason to vote for Obama and the Democrats.

Finch concluded the exchange by conceding that he has been hard on Obama, hoping that I am right in my electoral prognostication (“I would vote for a stale, bug infested baloney sandwich rather than Romney”), but asserting that Obama may be the conservative I have been looking for, given his commitment to stability and support of existing institutions and realities.

We, Finch and I, apparently, will vote the same way in November, though our reasons will be different. He will vote for “not Romney – Ryan,” holding his nose as he votes for a conservative, while, I, as a centrist who wants to move the center left, will vote for Obama, a centrist who wants to move the center left. Finch as a left-wing ideologist (as he and Hsiao understand the term) will vote against right-wing ideologists and their policies. While I will vote against ideology and a set of political principles with which I don’t agree, and vote for a candidate who I think is principled but also against “isms,” a politician looking for meaningful dialogue with his opponents, but holding to his own positions and visions, as he beautifully describes the reinvention of the American Dream. Finch, I suppose, imagines that the Romney – Ryan ticket is likely to win, given the pervasiveness of right-wing ideology in the American population. I agree that there is a problem, but think and hope that an ideology aversion will prevent this from happening.

I found this discussion here and on Facebook illuminating. It gets me thinking about the tension within conservative thought between anti-intellectualism and opposition to ideology, i.e. as I put it previously, opposition to all “isms.” We suffer from the former, would greatly benefit from the latter, in my judgment. And I am not convinced with Pait, as he responded to my last post, that ideologists get things done, while those who oppose modern magical thinking don’t.  But I agree with him, it is a challenge. More soon.