CITADELS OF PRIDE

The renowned philosopher looks at the intersection of toxic male pride and sexual abuse and harassment.

Nussbaum explains that her latest book discusses legal technicalities to encourage fair judicial solutions: “So when you think that this text is abstract, please try to remember that it embodies a noble moral idea!” But much of the book is more journalistic than scholarly, and in a section on NCAA sports, the author sounds more like Bob Costas in a reflective mood than a public intellectual. Nussbaum fairly argues that sexual abuse involves “treating people as things,” which reflects overweening pride, and legal remedies such as “victim impact” statements can “taint a criminal trial with retributive overreach,” jeopardizing the process. The author clearly shows how toxic masculinity infects three “citadels of pride”—the federal judiciary, the performing arts, and the “diseased” world of college sports. Nussbaum perceptively notes, for example, that Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, and James Levine were taken to task only when they were “too old and ill to make money for others any longer.” In her most controversial chapter, the author urges Division 1 colleges to limit the abuse by replacing their football and basketball programs with the kind of minor league teams that exist in baseball. Nussbaum’s sections on sports suggest that she’s strayed too far from philosophy to write with her usual aplomb. In those chapters, the writing is flatter, and her argument about college football doesn’t fully consider the vastly different situations between major programs like Alabama and Ohio State (many of which are unquestionably diseased) and smaller D-1 schools, where eliminating athletic scholarships could have negative consequences for students who are otherwise unable to attend college. Many readers, however, won’t care that this is not her best work: There’s a variety of insights to be gleaned from any Nussbaum book, and her comments here are sure to set sports-talk radio shows on fire in Tuscaloosa, Columbus, and beyond.

An uneven examination of a topic that continues to require vigilant attention.