Comment by pugio | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pugio | Hacker News Reader

Let's add some nuance:

Circumcision, for (orthodox) Jews, is one of the most fundamental conditions for identification and belonging to that group. Leaving a Jewish male baby uncircumcised would most likely lead to feelings of alienation and isolation later on in life – feelings which could have significant psychological impact and could largely negate the benefits one gains from strong communal structures.

Regardless of the process's inherent morality, a blanket ban may cause more harm than good. Cultures have dependency trees, like a Jenga tower: remove one block, even one that, in isolation, is a negative, and you risk destabilizing the entire structure and causing significantly more net harm than that single negative you erased.

More generally, I'd propose a corollary to Chesterson's fence [1]: Before you (in righteous external-observer outrage) destroy an element of a culture, make sure you understand what role that element plays, and what harm you may cause with such heavy handed destruction.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton.27...

No. Full stop. Just as with female genital mutilation, male genital mutilation should be banned. For religious purposes this proposal should fit:

https://www.google.com/amp/www.newsweek.com/fgm-compromise-n...

That is a nick, not full mutilation.

That nick is the equivalent of male circumcision and is practiced by the Bohras, an Islamic sect. It makes a tiny incision for girls in the foreskin covering the clitoris and it is not clear that this reduces sexual pleasure in the future.

It is very far from FGM which removes the clitoris etc.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawoodi_Bohra

We have hundreds of years of data on Jewish males and how they fare after this operation at 8 days old, and it is not at all clear that they are medically or psychologically worse off than without it.

The fact that it is considered a requirement in the Jewish religion for membership in the Jewish people plays a major role in the phychological well being of the child and adult, and as the parent comment has said this needs to be considered!

Thank you for pointing out that the FGM nick actually has lasting effects. I was not aware of that, and it's not something that I support.

> The fact that it is considered a requirement in the Jewish religion for membership in the Jewish people plays a major role in the phychological well being of the child and adult, and as the parent comment has said this needs to be considered!

And it should be. It should be considered just like stoning is considered, and thrown out as against modern principles (in most places, sadly not all). It should be considered, just like homosexuality should not have you burned at the stake. This is no different.

I recognize that this is not a light decision, but it is a brutal act (with non 0% chances of horrible things going wrong) that has no physiological need.

Exaggerate much? This is why the anti-circ crowd isn't taken seriously. Can you point to comparative sexual studies where men circumcised as adults for non-health reasons suffer from great psychological and physical harm, as would be expected from a brutal act similar to being burned at the stake or being stoned? Most studies of circumcision show no harm, some slight benefits, or some slight harm.

That's not an argument, it's an assertion, one that does not address any points made above.

Yes, I make the assertion that all people, including defenseless babies, should be free from harm.

Now, the nick I leave as a compromise, b/c I do understand that this is a fundamental requirement of the religion as it is followed. This allows for religious practice to be followed with out mutilating the child.

A nick is harm. Either you compromise your morals or you don't. If you do make allowances for other concerns (ie. religious practice), then you're debating degree, not kind.

Also, while a nick _may_ work for certain religions, it serves zero purpose for Judaic circumcision, and would actually be forbidden as unnecessary harm.

The same is true for female genital mutilation in certain Islamic cultures. I still don't think "it's culturally important" is a reasonable defense, and I doubt you do either.

And just to cut off this objection, the vast majority of female circumcision involves removal of the clitoral hood, which is (mutatis mutandis) anatomically equivalent to removal of the foreskin and has similar effects and risks.

By the way, FGM is not an exclusively Islamic tradition in some Muslim-majority countries. There are certain non-Muslim African communities that engage in these awful practices.

You are factually wrong about the majority of FGM removing just the foreskin.

Most FGM is type II

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_mutilation

Saying it has similar effects and risks is just handwaving.

And it is largely practiced in Africa, where tribal ritualistic bodily modification has remained a much bigger thing (compared to the rest of the world). Consider women who stretch their lips with disks to attract men etc.

I have a circumcised penis and I am not Jewish. Reducing the Jewish identity to having your penis circumcised is just flawed as it naturally excludes Jewish women.

Jewish males can still have their private parts circumcised when they become adult as it was supposed to be the case, a rite of passage for getting into the adult world.

Most of your rebuttal is centered around a "slippery-slope" argument and it is not convincing enough.

Entirely incorrect.

As an orthodox Jew, I can tell you that failure to circumcize your son at 8 days old (outside of extenuating circumstances, e.g. medical issues) is one of the worst sins you could commit.

Furthermore, you would be ostracized from the community, and your child will suffer socially, and emotionally.

Once the child turns 13 he is responsible to ensure that he it's circumcised, and considering that he most likely will not have abandoned his religion by 13 he will go through with it. So now there's physical pain as well.

That's a theological critique, mine was sociological one from an outside observer. Still, the theological arguments don't work under a secular government which takes pride in separating the state from religion.

They do. It's called religious persecution.

And if a government would ban circumcision, I'd be willing to bet that all Orthodox Jews would leave. And if the government prevented that (which has certainly happened before), then it is well documented that many Jews are ready to give up their lives in order to circumcise their sons.

Update: only my first comment was theological; the rest were socio-physical

Babies feel pain, which you seem to be saying they don't with:

> by 13 he will go through with it. So now there's physical pain as well.

I'm not saying they don't. But the experience is forgotten quickly.

It's really not. There is evidence [1] that the trauma of circumcision lasts a lifetime

1. One example is Ch 4 and 5 of http://www.circumcision.org/cht.htm

Jewish _male_ identity, obviously. "Supposed" is irrelevant (and highly debatable). What _is_ is that Jewish male identity views circumcision as one of its lynchpins. Kick away that support, and you create a powerful identity crisis.

Slippery slope argument says that "we shouldn't do X (even though X is inherently okay) because it might lead yet another set of actions – Y – which is a negative". I'm not saying that at all. Banning circumcision will lead to significant identity issues as a direct consequence, not as a result of some other intermediate effect that obtains as a result of the ban.

My supposed remark was a reference to how this ritual was practiced in other human cultures as Jews didn't invent male circumcision.

It was like "Hey boy, you've hit puberty and become a man now. Let's do this small rite of passage and cut that foreskin off your dick so you could join the rest of the tribe of grown up men"

> Leaving a Jewish male baby uncircumcised would most likely lead to feelings of alienation and isolation later on in life

Do Jews really go around checking each other's penises all the time?

1. Internal identity: Being told that a Jewish male must be circumcised, realizing you're not, and experiencing alienation. This can hit adolescents quite hard.

2. Marriage: Barring a specific medical reason to not be circumcised, many Jewish women would take issue with an uncircumcised husband.

3. Locker rooms.

But really #1 is the most immediately pressing.

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