In a recent opinion piece for the Washington Post, writer Courtland Milloy asks some serious questions about women's fashion. Focusing on the goals that determine our dress, Milloy wants to know why some women dress in a way that encumbers and embarrasses them. Milloy asked this question after seeing a woman wearing a skirt with a waist-high slit. It was a windy day, and the woman was "struggling with great discomfort to keep the dress from blowing open." But why, he wondered, did she wear such a revealing dress in the first place?

Milloy asks this question as if he has no clue what the answer might be. Later, though, he attributes "fantasies of flashing" to women who dress in alluring clothing. He quotes a fellow writer, Phil McCombs, who also talks about the role of fantasy while celebrating male admiration of sexy women in sexy clothes: "They all look good, you bet. Because they are a dream, and men are dreamers…They watch the women going by and they talk about them because, in the end, a man's fantasy, his life and his purpose and his dream, come down somehow to a woman…It's just the way it is."

Do women intend to be provocative when they dress provocatively? Milloy suggests that it doesn't matter what they intend to be; they are what they are, and "women can be awfully provocative." And Milloy has a point. Here's an analogy he might have used to clarify the situation: If you know that yelling fire in a packed theatre will cause a riot, and you do it anyway, it doesn't really matter why you did it or what you wanted to achieve. The only good reason for yelling "fire" is to call attention to the real thing.

Similarly, Milloy seems to think the only good reason for dressing provocatively is to provoke sexual feeling. Sure, there are other reasons. But no one can really think of what they are. Even Marni McLaughlin, public relations manager for Victoria's Secret, can only come up with this defense of the split skirt: "The dress…makes the leg look long and thin." Presumably she's suggesting that "long and thin" doesn't mean "provocative". It means "attractive" in some more neutral way. The women are seeking something like admiration, and--dare we suggest this--respect. Respect for what, though? Their good physical condition, and the work it took to get it? Their knowledge of current style? Their unique combination of money and youth?

Throughout his piece, Milloy tries to sound genuinely baffled, as if he doesn't know how to respond to a sexy woman he sees on the street. But there are some things he says that are not consistent with the assumption that he really doesn't know how to respond. For example, he says that he seeks this information "not for myself, but for the fellows hanging out at all the construction sites" who are still so gauche as to tease these women and call out to them. Why does he say that men don't know what women want in these situations and then suggest that he knows, but some unnamed other and presumably less educated men don't?

It's the age-old question of why women deliberately invite sexual advances they don't want. It seems to be a fair thing to ask. The trouble is that there are at least two hidden assumptions here that might not be valid.

The first of these is that provocative clothing causes male sexual advances. In other words, the guys at the construction site would never dream of whistling at a lanky beauty if she were wearing a skirt with an ordinary hemline. This is true even though a nice educated guy like Milloy would know better than to whistle at her even if she were nude.

Are we sure this is true, though? Maybe it's not. After all, it was once universally believed that provocative clothing caused men to rape women. This was believed even when victims of rape were ninety, or nine, or nuns. That myth has since been debunked. Could the provocative dress theory of sexual teasing be ripe for debunking too? What if sexual teasing, like rape, is about power instead of lust? What if it's a way of saying, "I am free to walk down the street wearing what I like because I'm a man, but you must wear what I say you should wear because you're not."?

The second hidden assumption is that what's considered "provocative" female dress doesn't vary from time to time and place to place. But it does vary, and this variance matters. At the beginning of the 20^th century, men whistled at women for showing an inch of ankle beneath calf-length skirts. In Iran today, a woman might be hooted at if a stray lock of hair came loose around her face. Yet on many South Pacific islands and in some places in rural Africa, women routinely go bare-breasted, as they did in ancient Phoenicia. Nobody says a word about this. Not even the local construction workers.

Why does this variance matter? Because it demonstrates that men who hoot and call at women on the street are not helplessly caught in the midst of a biological impulse they can't control. Something else is going on, and whatever it is, it depends on more complicated social realities. Milloy and his friend McCombs admit as much when they say that men in these situations don't respond to real women; they respond to a fantasy, a "dream" that a woman represents.

In other words, this sort of social situation is more complicated for both men and women than Milloy acknowledges. Whether or not men choose to hoot depends on a lot more than what women are wearing. It depends on their dreams. That means it also depends on their educational level, their money, or the number and variety of their own real sexual opportunities. Milloy tacitly admits this. The less of any of the above they have, the more they will hoot at the gal on the street. And if she's young, pretty, and vulnerable, they may not care what she's wearing. After all, most modern garments can be regarded as alluring or not depending on who's wearing them. What about a pair of blue jeans, for example? Are you only allowed to wear them if you're overweight by at least forty pounds? Or if you're over sixty?

Moreover, if women in America suddenly started dressing more conservatively, would the male need to hoot at them automatically decline? Or would men who need to hoot for other social reasons simply redefine "provocative" in light of their new scaled-down expectations?

Besides, is it possible that women might have valid reasons for not dressing so conservatively? For dressing in an alluring way in a public place, or even at work? I've said that both men and women have complicated reasons for winding up in these situations. We've talked about the men. What about the women? Is it really true, as Milloy suggests, that all women who wear "peekaboo clothes" do so in order to solicit completely random male attention from all interested parties?

Let's return to our analogy about yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre. Is it really analogous to the act of dressing provocatively in public? On second thought, maybe it's not. We always have a choice not to yell "fire" in public when there's no fire. That is, no end it could possibly meet could be compelling enough to warrant that choice. But do women really have complete freedom to choose what to wear? That is, do women sometimes have to dress provocatively in public to meet a compelling need?

Let me put this another way. Do women wear peekaboo clothes because they want to, or because men want them to, or because in this society they have to dress somewhat provocatively to attract a mate?

One of the problems with our society today is the difficulty over-worked young singles have in meeting one another. Maybe that's why we now have ISO ads and scripted video spiels for blind dates. Maybe that's why professional match-makers could turn out to be the one recession-proof industry. And maybe that's also why more than half of all American marriages end in divorce. Given these dismal realities, can we really fault young women for hedging their bets and being prepared to meet Mr. Right by accident, in the office, or wherever they can? And if we can't blame them for that, can we really say that they ought to be required to run a gauntlet of catcalls from all the losers if they dress for unscheduled romantic possibilities?

After all, we've already said that the least wealthy, least desirable, and least educated men are the ones who whistle. In Milloy's own words, construction workers whistle. Courtland Milloys know better. More to the point, Courtland Milloys don't have to. More to the point, Courtland Milloys don't have a lot of suppressed rage they need to vent at the women who constantly reject them.

The truth is this: You can't look at the way a woman dresses and decide that if she looks good, she wants romantic attention from every single guy she passes on the street. If she looks good enough, she obviously wants attention from someone. But from everyone? Including the guys who don't have anyone else to look at or anything better to do?

I think not.

Writing for the Washington Post, Courtland Milloy tells the story of Ibn Ali, an African-American 10^th-grader who attends a rural Virginia high school. Ali, apparently a gifted student, writes a regular column for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. In this column he sometimes expresses controversial feelings about racially-charged issues. For example, in one installment he accused the white teachers and administrators of his school of neglecting to teach African history. In another, he blasted young African-American males at his school for brawling, telling them that they were "only entertaining white people and proving them right for thinking that blacks are a race of high-tempered ignorant monkeys." And in another, he talked about the pain he feels when white students devalue his academic achievements, assuming that standards are set lower for him because he's black.

Why is Milloy telling us this story? Because at least one of Ali's editorials had an immediate effect. After being told by Ali that whites think of them as "high-tempered ignorant monkeys," black students at his high school suddenly stopped fighting, at least on school property. As a result, Milloy concludes that Ali's experience sends an inspirational message to all young people about the power of the written word. In a metaphor that pointedly compares writing to shooting a firearm, Milloy says that Ali temporarily "holstered his pen" at his mother's request once. But he didn't stop for long, since he couldn't resist the impulse to "shake things up."

You might think this story would be especially heart-warming to me. After all, I'm an English teacher, and many of my students in community college composition classes are reluctant writers who aren't sure why they need to learn the skills we teach. Nevertheless, Milloy's editorial pained me more than it inspired me. I'm not sure this story teaches a true lesson about the power of the pen. In fact, I'm not sure Ali himself learned what I'd like him to learn from his experience.

As an inspirational story, what's wrong with this picture? Let's begin by asking what we mean when we say that a story is "inspirational." Don't we mean that it teaches others how to achieve what the hero achieved? But does this story really do that? In other words, can African-American teens all across America anticipate that as soon as they write a letter to the local newspaper about some racial problem that bugs them, the problem will vanish? And there's another issue here. What sort of letters, columns, and editorials are usually constructive? How often are any of us going to win major victories by resorting to the kind of emotional rhetoric that worked in this case for Ali?

But never mind us. How many victories has Ali himself won this way? Milloy writes as if Ali's batting three out of three, but in fact he's batting one out of three. What's worse, his only hit came with his fellow African-American teens. This means he scored only when addressing an audience of peers already inclined to listen to what he was saying.

True he got a reaction from his white teachers about his criticism of their Eurocentric teaching. But it wasn't a constructive reaction. It wasn't the kind that solves problems or creates an opportunity for important change. What Ali wants is change. Yet it's not at all clear that this is what he'll get from the school he's criticized. He did "shake things up," but in a way that may actually retard change rather than advance it. Who knows?

My point is not to trash Ali's real achievement. It's a big deal for any teen to write regularly for a major city paper. Ali deserves praise for his courage, as well as for his even-handed criticism of both whites and blacks, both young and old. He also deserves praise for his faith that a better world can be had for the asking. But writing these columns doesn't make him Nelson Mandela. Maybe he knows that. But I'm not sure Milloy does. Milloy gives him too much blind credit and too little advice about what strategies to change.

And that's what bugs me. For better or worse, we live in a world where too many young people get way too much praise for too little achievement. Criticism is seen as abuse. Teachers act as if low grades are poison. God forbid we tell Ibn Ali that he might get better results from a hostile audience with more cautious and rational appeals. God forbid he hear that you should understand your enemies before you judge them. That might stifle creative expression.

Ibn Ali may have the potential of Nelson Mandela. But I wonder if mentors like Milloy will help him fulfill it. Nelson Mandela didn't become the leader of South Africa by jotting down an angry column for a local newspaper. It took years in prison, unbelievable courage, and the guts to suffer unbearable hardship. It took real understanding, of his enemies as well as his friends.

Knowing this prompts me to ask a question. When the time comes for America's future leaders to change the world, will anyone have taught them how?

William Kristol notes that modern American politicians have difficulty facing tough choices. This has never been more true of anyone than it is of George W. Bush, the "compassionate conservative" who was elected with the smallest margin of victory in American history. But there are some times when choices have to be made, Kristol says, and Bush is now facing such a juncture. The decision Kristol claims he and Congress must make is whether or not to allow human cloning. In Kristol's view they should not. Moreover, in Kristol's view this decision is a no-brainer: "For current, practical purposes, our political leaders do not have to have studied all these arguments. All they have to do now is to realize that, if they do not call a halt to certain experiments, if they do not limit limit the 'progress' of science in certain ways, it will be virtually impossible to do so later."

The vagueness of Kristol's language makes it unclear whether he would allow "certain experiments" on human cloning and not others. Also unclear is whether Kristol can specify the "certain ways" in which scientific progress ought to be limited. He offers no clue what his criteria are for allowing some forms of research or progress and not others. More disturbingly, "these arguments" which are so obviously right that the politicians need not study them are all opposed to the legalization of human cloning. Kristol doesn't acknowledge that anyone has ever written positively about the possibilities of human cloning, although in fact some intelligent scientists have.

If we listen to some of Kristol's precise words, we can see how one-sided his argument is. Kristol says that to legalize human cloning is to "stumble heedlessly into a brave new world of eugenic enhancement and technological manufacture of human beings." Exactly what is he saying here? We have to know this in order to understand how drastic and sweeping his claim is. It's important to test the science behind this statement for accuracy. But it's also important to understand the historical realities that give his words special emotional connotations.

First, let's evaluate the science. Is it in fact true that "eugenic enhancement" is the only possible goal of human cloning? And is it true that all human cloning would be done in a context that amounts to the "technical manufacture" of people as if they were cars?

It's hard to know how Kristol could say this without hearing the arguments of real people who actually want to clone human beings. But he gives no evidence that he's ever heard or seen such real arguments, so we must assume he hasn't. At any rate, if he has, he's refusing to take these arguments into consideration without saying why he won't.

So now let's ask, "Why would anyone want to clone a human being?" There are two reasons frequently given: (1) As an infertility treatment, it would probably soon become both cheaper and more reliable than anything now available, and would have a special appeal to infertile couples who had lost a young child through death. And (2) We could probably soon manipulate the development of cloned human embryos in order to produce specialized human tissues rather than a whole new human being. This would provide a theoretically unlimited supply of organs for transplant to anyone. And the organs would all be perfect matches. Using this procedure, one person could be both recipient and donor, thus doing away with the need for dangerous and debilitating immune suppressant drugs.

Neither of these reasons has anything whatsoever to do with "eugenic enhancement." In fact, improving the human genome is not even a secondary goal of human cloning if used in these contexts. Rather, the goal is to recreate a copy of what already exists--which is exactly what the goal of cloning logically should be. Moreover, these would be medical procedures designed either to save an already existing life, or to create or replace a desired child for a desperate infertile couple. Does that sound like the cold, calculated "technological manufacture" of a human being as a commodity or product?

In fairness to Kristol, a third reason for human cloning has also been cited by some. And this reason, unlike the others, is connected to human eugenics. The third reason would be to create clones of gifted individuals for couples who'd like to have a child that's gifted in that special way.

But this is the least often mentioned reason for cloning human beings, and for good reason. It's not practically feasible. The reason it's not practically feasible is that in this "brave new world," as Kristol calls it, we could--and almost certainly would--evolve laws to establish a person's ownership of his own DNA. Good luck cloning Bill Gates without his permission, a permission Gates among others has already said he wouldn't give.

This brings me to a discussion of the second problem with Kristol's language, the emotional connotations of his charges in light of recent history.

For the past 50 years, we haven't been able to use the word "eugenics" without immediately thinking of the people who made it infamous, the Nazis of World War II Germany. For them, "eugenics" meant genocide against those they considered genetically inferior. It meant not only wholesale slaughter of the retarded or mentally ill, but of all "inferior" ethnic groups, which in the end meant almost any non-German. Because of the importance of the word "eugenics" to their philosophy, "eugenics" is now a taboo word the way "liberal" is a taboo word in some circles.

These emotional connotations of the word help explain why Kristol is so blind to the possibility that we could regulate human cloning, and human genetic engineering, without banning them entirely. Listen to what he says about regulating the new genome-based technologies:

"The genetic revolution offers great hope for the medical treatment of disease, through gene therapy and other forms of healing," Kristol says. "But if this revolution is not subject to human guidance and limitation, it will produce consequences that will be…devastating to human liberty and human dignity…What, now, is to be done? The cloning of human beings is on the horizon. Ban it."

In other words, even while acknowledging that some of the technologies related to cloning offer "great hope for the treatment of disease," Kristol says that the use of human cloning cannot be limited in any way except by totally banning it. This means, for example, that we couldn't choose to legalize human cloning for reasons one and two, above, but not for reason three; or for reason one and not for two or three, or for two, and not for one or three. Nor, if we allowed cloning for reason three, could we give individuals legal control over how their DNA could be used. Once human cloning existed, it would necessarily "have" to be used by anyone for any purpose and in any context whatsoever.

By that logic, once we'd dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima, destiny would have required its use in every hamlet around the globe for the past fifty years. Nor could atomic energy ever have found other, more peaceful uses.

The worst thing about Kristol's logic is that he's taking refuge in ignorance. And, like many who take refuge in ignorance, he's marshalled his armies against the wrong villain. Earlier we established that the logical goal of cloning is not "eugenic enhancement," but simple replication of what already exists. This does not mean, though, that "eugenic enhancement" is not the goal of any of the new genetic technologies that offer "great hope for the medical treatment of disease." Genetic engineering is quite frankly aimed at "eugenic enhancement." And if human cloning had any role to play in "eugenic enhancement" of the human species, it could only do so as the handmaid of genetic engineering.

Human cloning, in other words, is the sideshow. Genetic engineering is all of the main three rings of the circus. It's genetic engineering, and how this will be used, that matters. Yet Kristol doesn't even think to mention genetic engineering. Nor has he apparently given any thought to how to regulate that form of "unstoppable progress."

In short, while Kristol vigilantly guards the front door of our democratic traditions, a truly alarming monster could be walking casually in unnoticed through the back. Kristol has a point when he says that we should give a lot more thought to how these new technologies will be applied. But his own editorial is a poor example of the kind of thought the situation requires.

In "Let Them Speak Freely--and Offensively," liberal columnist Richard Cohen takes aim at what he views as the hypocritical practice of monetary fines leveled against high profile public figures, mainly athletes, for offensive speech. He cites several examples. Cohen's goal in doing so is to demonstrate inconsistences in the standards and principles by which these offenses are supposedly judged.

The first thing Cohen demonstrates is that we use the wrong criteria to decide whether and how much to fine someone for offending people. Instead of looking at the seriousness of the offense, or at how many people might have been offended, we guess whether, given the target group and the context, the people who were offended are likely to object. If they are, we beat them to the punch by fining the loudmouth who insulted them. And we make the price high. If they aren't, we dish out a lower fine or even ignore the incident.

This is the case even when we're comparing two different incidents involving the same person. Thus, when basketball star Allen Iverson insulted gays in an interview, he was fined five grand. But when he wrote a rap song that not only insulted gays, but also talked about raping and killing women, he was ignored. Why? Cohen doesn't speculate. But he might be thinking that we expect to hear offensive insults in rap songs. In that context we don't take them seriously. But if you say the same thing in a suit and tie during an interview, you sound as if you mean it. We think that's different. Besides, targeting only gays is more serious than targeting both gays and women. Women aren't a small, well-organized, and vocal minority. But gays are. And they're likely to react when they're surprised by an insult in a context where they wouldn't expect one. Partly in order to head off a lawsuit, an organization like a sports league will fine a union member who crosses that more dangerous line.

Cohen also contrasts two other examples. This time the differing slights could not have been made by the same person, because what Cohen wants to contrast is the completely different mindsets of the two different men. Having shown that it's absurd to judge the seriousness of an insult by the context in which it was uttered, he wants to show that it's also absurd to judge two insults differently because of the motives and mindsets of the speakers.

Cohen's two examples are former Atlanta Braves (now Cleveland Indians) pitcher John Rocker and New York Knicks basketball player Charlie Ward. Rocker leveled a long strong of insults at everyone from AIDS patients to immigrants, with the clear intention of angering each faction of his audience. He expected and maybe even wanted to be attacked. Ward, on the other hand, is a devout Christian who merely stated his devout Christian (but now unfashionable) belief that all Jews everywhere, including modern Jews, are responsible for the death of Jesus. He was shocked to discover that modern Jews find this offensive. Gosh darn it all, it's just what his church teaches, and it isn't like he'd try to bring them to court or anything. Gee whiz, were they really bothered by this?

Ward, according to Cohen, is a nice man. And for that reason he wasn't punished. He apologized anyway. According to Cohen, though, it's clear that the apology was forced. Certainly it didn't indicate that he'd changed his religious beliefs.

On the other hand, no one knew quite what to do with Rocker, although everyone believed something had to happen to him. Initially he was fined twenty grand. But over time, the fine was absurdly reduced from twenty grand to five hundred dollars.

There's a larger question here, though. Should we really judge the seriousness of an offense by whether or not the speaker intended to offend people? Or would it be more logical to judge that by how dangerous the remarks could actually be to the targeted group? Cohen points out that statements like Ward's are really more damaging to the group they're directed at than statements like Rocker's are. Rocker was behaving outrageously. It was a given that he wouldn't be taken seriously. Ward was uttering religious beliefs that have actually caused massacres of Jews throughout history--some as recently as the early 20^th century. And he was serious. Moreover, he's the kind of guy people usually do take seriously.

Cohen concludes that there simply isn't any sensible way to punish offensive speech, so we shouldn't try. It particularly bugs Cohen that we'd punish the offender with a fine. As he says, fines "suggest a penalty scale for inappropriate speech, with some groups valued more than others." Also, in the case of Rocker, it suggests that we can't decide whether the feelings of every minority in New York City are worth twenty thousand or a mere five hundred dollars.

Cohen's clearly right when he points out that our public policy about offensive speech is in chaos. Even the government's laws aren't clear, much less the independent rules of organizations like sports leagues. Nevertheless, he doesn't convince me that this chaos means we don't need to regulate offensive speech at all. I wish he could convince me of that. If he could, it would mean I had more faith in our democracy than I do.

Cohen believes he's demonstrated that free speech is the only policy that ever makes sense for a democracy. But what I think he's demonstrated is that real democracy isn't possible without universal literacy. And by "literacy," I mean broad-based knowledge of history and science, which is exactly the kind of literacy we may be in the process of phasing out of American public education.

Real democracy--the kind that can afford to permit free speech--absolutely requires broad-based public knowledge of the facts of science and history. It also requires public agreement about those facts. And that means it requires widespread disapproval of religious fanaticism, especially the kind that teaches some version of science or history that nonbelievers don't share. In the absence of that sort of cultural environment, even a John Rocker can be dangerous. One or two well-placed Charlie Wards can launch a catastrophic campaign of terror. Tragically, their sincere religious faith will make them more lethal, not less so.

How much free speech will American democracy be able to handle in the coming century? I don't think the answer's clear yet. But I do know what that answer will hinge on. It will hinge on the direction of public education. As long as we require broad-based knowledge of science and history for all citizens, we can probably afford eccentric preachers and fanatics of all types. In that case, Cohen's "anything goes" approach might still work. But if we do what I think we might do, and limit education more and more to development of the tech skills necessary to earn a living, we can't afford any of the guys Cohen mentions--especially not with rapidly growing ethnic and religious diversity. In that kind of America, there will have to be lots of heavy restrictions on all kinds of public speech, as there already are in Canada and some European democracies.

Nor is it clear that all limits on free speech are bad, even when they're inconsistent or uncertain. Left to our own devices, we stumbled onto some guidelines for Allen Iverson that may be more sensible than Cohen believes. Maybe it actually is true that context is everything. And maybe it is true that vocal groups that defend themselves need and deserve more protection.

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