tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63450269735576172752024-03-13T22:11:50.362-07:00Gynocentrism TheoryUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6345026973557617275.post-74012625448083469402011-06-29T12:00:00.000-07:002011-06-29T12:11:58.913-07:00Gynocentrism TheoryThe lecture series has now ended. <i>Gynocentrism Theory</i> is no longer accepting comments.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://gynotheory.blogspot.com/2011/01/staring-out-from-abyss.html"><b>1.</b> Staring Out From the Abyss</a><br />
<a href="http://gynotheory.blogspot.com/2011/01/same-old-story.html"><b>2.</b> The Same Old Story</a><br />
<a href="http://gynotheory.blogspot.com/2011/01/refuting-appeal-to-dictionary.html"><b>3.</b> Refuting the Appeal to Dictionary</a><br />
<a href="http://gynotheory.blogspot.com/2011/01/pig-latin.html"><b>4.</b> Pig Latin</a><br />
<a href="http://gynotheory.blogspot.com/2011/01/anatomy-of-victim-ideology.html"><b>5.</b> Anatomy of a Victim Ideology</a><br />
<a href="http://gynotheory.blogspot.com/2011/02/old-wine-new-bottles.html"><b>6.</b> Old Wine, New Bottles</a><br />
<a href="http://gynotheory.blogspot.com/2011/02/personal-as-contrasted-to-political.html"><b>7.</b> The Personal, as Contrasted to the Political</a><br />
<a href="http://gynotheory.blogspot.com/2011/02/chasing-rainbows.html"><b>8.</b> Chasing Rainbows</a><br />
<a href="http://gynotheory.blogspot.com/2011/02/false-consciousness-kafka-trapping.html"><b>9.</b> False Consciousness & Kafka-Trapping</a><br />
<a href="http://gynotheory.blogspot.com/2011/03/eventual-outcome-of-feminism-part-i.html"><b>10.</b> The Eventual Outcome of Feminism, Part I</a><br />
<a href="http://gynotheory.blogspot.com/2011/03/eventual-outcome-of-feminism-part-ii.html"><b>11.</b> The Eventual Outcome of Feminism, Part II</a><br />
<a href="http://gynotheory.blogspot.com/2011/03/how-to-break-dialectic.html"><b>12.</b> How to Break a Dialectic</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6345026973557617275.post-8984961166919060472011-03-30T09:00:00.000-07:002011-03-30T14:44:39.219-07:00How to Break a Dialectic<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Lecture No. 12</b><br /><br />
</span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"Feminism helps men too!" - late 20th century folk saying<br /><br />
</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">If you have spent even a short amount of time browsing the multitudinous websites and blogs of the Men's Rights sphere, you will have no doubt encountered a feminist detractor or
two asserting that "Not All Feminists Are Like That." This has become so common that MRAs have taken to referencing this as the "NAFALT" defence. But should the claim be so readily dismissed?
Depending on the context, the feminist might well be right. A hypothetical feminist who stumbled upon my last two posts, which point to the eventual outcome of feminism as the physical
extermination of men, might well object that <i>she</i> does not hope for this future, and therefore is Not Like That - and she is not necessarily wrong.<br /><br />
Of course, our hypothetical feminist would not have read closely enough, for I clearly stated that the physical extermination of men is more likely to be attempted as the result of an organic
process, beginning with hostile indifference, followed by active persecution through state bureaucracies, without the requirement that extermination be consciously articulated or advocated by any
more than a small number of feminists. The others only need to go along with the programme; they do not need to understand where it will all end. At the heart of this is the dichotomy between
Earnest and Radical Feminists.<br /><br />
On the face of it, this distinction seems to imply that, as feminists are fond of saying, <i>feminism is not monolithic.</i> In other words, <i>some</i> feminists might read from the gospel of Mary
Daly, while <i>others</i> just want a fair deal for women. This is a more elaborate version of NAFALT, but it does not explain why two ostensibly conflicting ideologies are referred to by the same
name: feminism. In fact, stating that feminism is non-monolithic sidesteps the issue of how all these different <i>sub-feminisms</i> relate to each other and to feminism as a whole. Would feminism
still be feminism if one of its sub-feminisms were removed? Possibly. The death of eco-feminism would not spell disaster for feminism in general, or for any other sub-feminism in particular. But
what about the two main prongs of feminism - Radical Feminism, which is openly misandric, and Earnest Feminism, whose supporters "just want a fair deal"? Could feminism survive the death of either
of these? Or does the ideology as a whole owe its existence to their reciprocity? Is their relationship <i>inherently and intrinsically symbiotic?</i><br /><br />
I contend that the differences between Earnest and Radical Feminists are superficial, accounting only for the <i>perceived</i> differences between feminists themselves. The intellectual distance
between two feminists in disagreement might seem, to them, to be vast indeed; a philosophical Grand Canyon! But to non-feminists, who stand far away from them both, and observe feminism from a
distance, the two bickering ideologues stand very close to each other. Yes, we can just about see them on the horizon - two small figures, shouting over a <i>pothole!</i><br /><br />
The feminist, having automatically ruled out the legitimacy of any space that is non-feminist, perceives feminism as the whole world, and on this tiny plane of existence, the interval of a few feet
is colossal - large enough to justify drawing a chalk line on the ground, and saying, "that is your space, this is mine, and we are not like each other! Certainly, we are not a monolith!" But, to
the non-feminist, who is not blinkered by ideology, and thus perceives much more of the world generally, the feminists in the distance are standing nearly on top of each other as they quarrel over
their claims to a small piece of land.<br /><br />
In other words: the distance between objects becomes more significant the closer you get to them. And if you pay no attention to anything that is <i>not</i> those objects, then those objects will
appear to be <i>the entire world!</i> And thus any distance between them will seem enormous, because you lack any sense of scale. Feminists are not in any kind of position to know how much they
differ from each other, <i>from the perspective of the non-feminist world;</i> they cannot judge because they lack the prerequisite non-feminism.<br /><br />
So when a feminist tries to pass off the elaborated NAFALT defence, as apologia for herself or for the atrocious behavior of her sisters, you must remind her that <i>she is in no position to
judge</i> how far she differs from other feminists! The differences she perceives might <i>seem</i> very significant from her own subjective point of view, but she must be made to understand that
she is a participant in the social organism called <i>feminism,</i> that she speaks from <i>within</i> the big tent, and thus has absolutely no right to tell us how we should look at the tent from
outside! The non-feminist world, you must explain, experiences the force of feminism <i>from one direction in particular,</i> and when we turn to look in that direction, we see infallibly that the
Earnest Feminist stands proudly, side by side, with the Radical.<br /><br />
Now, I would presume that such an arrangement as exists between Earnest and Radical Feminists is one of necessity. Feminism requires both the acceptable public face of the salesman (trustworthy,
just trying to make an honest living), and the momentum, that inner drive that keeps the whole show running (greasy, oiled palms on the factory floor). Neither could exist without the other. If
only the public face of Earnest Feminism existed, it would get nowhere, because there would be no molten core of misandry, no dynamo at its centre to motivate action. On the other hand, if only the
combustion engine of Radical Feminism existed, the movement would fold overnight, being exposed immediately as the politics of hate. Without the engine, all you would have is an object that looks
nice but goes nowhere. Forget the paintwork, and nobody would want to buy it.<br /><br />
Whatever it is, feminism must be <i>marketable</i> if it is going to be successful - so its marketability alone cannot tell us anything about what it is.<br /><br />
Earnestness and Radicalism are two sides of the same feminist coin. The dichotomy allows for Radical attacks against men, followed up by the Earnest defence that feminism is a nice doctrine, or at
least it is not monolithic, and anyway, anyone who is against it "just hates women." The two sides fit together like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, the picture only making sense when they are
combined.<br /><br />
</span></span></span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img src="http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd408/gynotheory/janus.jpg" width="300" /> </span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Yes, feminism is one single, simple entity, monolithic in its aspirations, merely presenting different faces depending on context. The various manifestations of feminism, whether intended for
public consumption or not, hold in common the constant that they seek <span style="color: red;">to increase the power of women. <span style="color: black;">This is the locus, the centre of gravity of feminism -
whether it appears as a belief in innate female superiority, or as the aspiration to female domination in material terms, the actualization of female power will be present in some form or other.
Without this epicentre, around which all else revolves, the movement could not survive; its sudden implosion would send its members spinning out of orbit in all different directions. The only thing
which binds feminists together is the belief that the status of women must be elevated and the status of men must be relegated; that women must be made more superior, and men more inferior. Beyond
this, there are only side issues, arguments which have no bearing on the primary thesis of female supremacy. These side issues are a distraction for the outside world, allowing for feminism to
remain intact and coherent even when its activists appear to run into disputes.<br /><br />
Now, we are already clear on the aims of Radical Feminists. I have already described <a href="http://gynotheory.blogspot.com/2011/03/eventual-outcome-of-feminism-part-i.html">the plans</a> <a href="http://gynotheory.blogspot.com/2011/03/eventual-outcome-of-feminism-part-ii.html">they have</a> for men and maleness. Radicals are content for all men to be exterminated or enslaved. They
have openly declared war on men, and the future, if they get their way, can be summed up by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse">infamous pictures</a> of
Lynndie England, in her little soldier's outfit, sexually humiliating naked men, using dogs to attack their genitals, and so on. The Radical Feminist dreams of this abuse, not confined to an
Iraqi prison, but normalized across the world. The victims would not be Iraqis, as Iraqis, but men, as men. Much like the Army personnel who imagined that they were delivering Collective Punishment
to members of a collectively guilty class of people at Abu Ghraib, Radical Feminists believe in the concept of <a href="http://gynotheory.blogspot.com/2011/02/false-consciousness-kafka-trapping.html">Collective Male Guilt,</a> and in the necessity of delivering punishment to all men.<br /><br />
In the Radical Feminist mind, all men are guilty, inherently, as men. "All men are rapists" is not just a relic of the past; it is the horizon that Radical Feminism is pushing us towards. By this,
I do not mean that all men will become rapists, but that all men will be <i>indicted as</i> rapists. Any punishment, then, no matter how extreme, will become justified against this class of heinous
abusers and violators. (Note that, in one of the Abu Ghraib torture pictures, the soldiers have written "I am a rapeist (sic)" onto the thigh of one of their victims - even though it was the
soldiers themselves who were carrying out the rapes. The parallel to Radical Feminism is chilling.)<br /><br />
We know this about Radical Feminists, but what about those who "aren't like that" - namely, the Earnest Feminists? It is true enough that many, perhaps most, Earnest Feminists do not look forward
to a future in which men are enslaved or exterminated. Their role is not to dispossess men and shove them into prisons, but to convince us that <i>there is no sex war.</i> Even as men are
imprisoned, tortured and murdered by state agents acting in the name of feminism, Earnest Feminists will pretend that there is not a war happening. Indeed, the effectiveness of the feminist project
depends on the misperception that a war is not happening. They frame this desperate situation as something other than it is: progress towards equality, opening up dialogues, liberating people from
restrictive gender roles, and so on.<br /><br />
No. This <i>is</i> a war, and it is one that feminists have openly declared. The true insidiousness of feminists becomes most apparent when we consider that, having declared war, they proceeded to
demand that their enemy combatants show them respect, continue to protect them, and provide for their wellbeing. The duplicitousness in pretending that a war is not happening even as one wages it
is a necessary element of the feminist way of war. Chivalry must be sustained if feminism is to advance. Women's wellbeing must remain a priority for men. If it is not - if men <i>en masse</i>
suddenly became cognizant of the war that has been declared on them, they would organize and found permanent initiatives to defend themselves. They would seek to remove female privilege. There
would be no guarantee that they would stop once parity has been restored to men and women, but could even continue to push <i>against</i> women - it is difficult to know what would happen in such a
situation!<br /><br />
A sex war, fought in traditional warlike style, in which men showed up to fight in the same numbers as women, would undoubtedly result in male victory, owing to men's physical strength and aptitude
for technical mastery. A war fought in traditional style, then, would be a losing strategy for feminists. They must wage war in a different way, which necessarily involves the active denial that
war is happening. But what about the very language of "the gender war"? Was this not born of feminist rhetoric? It was, indeed, but it belongs to that period of recent history <i>before</i> men
were willing to stand up for themselves. Men began standing up to misandry at a critical point of feminist development - that point when explicit hatred reached an apex then quickly died down. The
'third wave' was born. Ostensibly a new version of feminism, the only real difference between the third and previous 'waves' is the level of rhetorical discipline. No more do we hear of a war
against men (at least, not from the Earnest Feminists), <i>and yet the war continues unabated.</i> And when men react to the war against them, as though it is a war, they are informed that feminism
is just about equality, and the act of fighting back against their persecutors makes them horrible misogynists.<br /><br />
<i>After tearing apart entire cities and cultures, after having ground countless men down beneath their tank treads, the feminist army is confronted by one man who has picked up a rock, ready to
throw it. Teary-eyed, her lower lip trembling, the batallion leader cries out, "stop being so hateful!"</i><br /><br />
The transition from second to third wave has not made feminism any less hostile or hateful. This was a superficial change, a rhetorical rejigging - the plastering of makeup onto the public face for
public consumption. While the feminists of the second wave openly admitted to hating all men, modern day Earnest Feminists recognize certain categories of men who are not deserving of hatred -
conjuring up exceptions to more easily maintain the general rule. Earnest Feminists are less likely to say "I hate men," and are more likely to say "I only hate those men who are abusive or not active
against abusive men." Still, this is practically all men. Men who are neither abusive nor active against abusive men are the hated vast majority - the general rule. Of course, there are innumerable
reasons why a man might not devote his time to being active against abusive men - he might not even <i>have</i> that free time, unlike your typical college feminist. We need not explore the reasons
why a man would not be actively against abusive men. It suffices to say that <i>he has no moral obligation to be,</i> particularly since war has been declared on him, and the very people he is
being called on to protect are those who wish to destroy him. It is pure female entitlement - Gynocentric privilege - to expect that men should act as their personal bodyguards. And those men who
are active against abusive <i>women</i> are not admired for their contributions to humanity, of course - they are hated all the more for it.<br /><br />
Earnest Feminists are not necessarily conscious of their role as denialists. They do not need to be. They fulfil the role just as effectively when they believe themselves to be something else. It
might be thought, then, that Earnest Feminists have been misguided, manipulated even, by the Radicals. But keep in mind that they are only as Earnest as they are Feminist. Yes, they are still
feminists, and have not been 'tricked' into this identity. It is an identity freely chosen. The Earnest Feminist, remember, stands side by side with the Radical; the former too will Kafka-trap you,
she will falsely accuse you, she will tar your sex with one broad stroke. The difference between Earnest and Radical Feminists can be summed up as follows: while the Radical openly encourages and
celebrates the spreading of misandry, the Earnest Feminist trivializes, excuses and justifies it. Beyond this, there is no difference, and both seek to increase the power of women over that of
men.<br /><br />
Without the Earnest Feminist's false demeanor of reasonableness, feminism would have made no progress. As counter-feminists, we must recognize that the appearance of reasonableness from anybody
identifying as 'feminist' is a ruse. Behind the façade is ideological motive, not the capacity for compromise; the desire to dominate discussion, not to work towards collective solutions; anti-male
emotionalism, not impartial rationality. One typical Earnest Feminist ploy is to cry "try to see things from my perspective" - implying fairness, neutrality, objectivity, and so on. And yet she has
no intention of trying to see things from <i>your</i> perspective, because you are not a feminist, and non-feminist perspectives are by definition illegitimate. What she means is not "let's both
try to see things from each others' perspectives," but "I'll see things from my perspective; <i>you</i> see things from my perspective too."<br /><br />
Earnest Feminists exercise a form of control that Radicals cannot, because the latter have abandoned all pretence to impartiality. For Earnest Feminists, this is only a pretence, because the
ideology trumps all. Only a 'compromise' which fully adheres to feminist doctrine could be acceptable.<br /><br />
</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><img height="300" src="http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd408/gynotheory/Snake.jpg" /> </span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">Of course, certain Earnest Feminists go further than this, and imply that they have already incorporated mens' perspectives into their programme: "feminism helps men too!" It's a fair bet that
you'll never hear Radicals uttering such nonsense, because harming men is their conscious intention and one that they are open about. Still, the Earnest Feminists might genuinely believe that this
is an accurate statement, as they are not necessarily conscious of the harmful effects that feminism <i>necessarily</i> has on men. But this does not make it sincere. A sincere approach to "helping
men too" would involve actually asking men how they might best be helped, and then incorporating these answers into the agenda. Instead, Earnest Feminist practice involves telling men what will help them,
without deeming it necessary to canvass any more than a handful of marginal pro-feminist males.<br /><br />
The feminist idea of "help" is rooted in Patriarchy Theory - that is, it is rooted in the same animosity towards men which is the cause of the problems that a sizable number of men actually
identify as problems. To put it another way, the cure is just more of the disease. Given that feminists fundamentally <i>cannot</i> accept the culpability of their own movement in causing or
contributing towards anything negative, they will only ever locate the cause of men's problems in social phenomena which are <i>not feminism.</i> Feminism will not accept even the smallest share of
the blame for the oppressive conditions it has brought directly into existence. Men's problems may only be traced back to men themselves, and hence to historical Patriarchy.<br /><br />
It is for this reason that, when Earnest Feminists claim that feminism "helps men too," you do not then see them lobbying against false rape accusations or for equal paternity rights. On the
contrary, that kind of lobbying would damage feminist interests; men are of secondary concern, and may only be helped up from those problems that they have caused for themselves. Hence, the
terrible tragedy of men not being allowed to wear dresses, even while women can comfortably walk around in pants, is infallibly the number one priority of an Earnest Feminist who sets out to "help
men too." The fact that the overwhelming majority of men do not care about this issue and are not personally affected by it is irrelevant; it can be traced back to an impression of Patriarchy, and
is also a good excuse to promote emasculation. Earnest Feminists, like Radicals, pathologize normal masculinity. They blame men for <i>not wanting</i> to wear dresses; <i>i.e. they blame men for
not having the problems that they tell us we should have.</i> It is, so they say, male-enforced social conditioning that makes men "afraid" of appearing feminine. All evidence suggests that the
vast majority of men have greater problems than this, and do not live in fear of appearing feminine. But that's what fits the feminist narrative.<br /><br />
The notion that feminism is helping to "liberate both sexes from rigid gender roles" is particularly laughable, considering that feminism is entirely dependent upon men being forced to retain their traditional
role of protector and provider. That has been covered elsewhere.<br /><br />
When men do attempt to raise their own concerns, feminists refuse to recognize them. They victim-blame - e.g. "men are responsible for their own problems" - and attempt to shift discussion back to
what <i>they think</i> our problems should be. In effect, men are denied the right to decide what their own problems are. Our real problem, Earnest Feminists earnestly explain, is that we are just
<i>too male.</i> Despite what we may claim our problems are - that maleness is increasingly curtailed, that maleness is pathologized, that maleness has become grounds for acceptable discrimination
- the feminist response is that maleness actually is pathological and needs to be curtailed even further.<br /><br />
How is it that feminism "helps men," by ascribing negative attributes to maleness? Tell me, was anybody ever helped by others ascribing negative attributes to him? Or would you say that this harms
him? Feminism "helps men" by encouraging them to stop being men; to renounce their nature; to hate themselves; to believe that their sexuality is inherently flawed and a force for evil. What help
this is!<br /><br />
Here's a fun little juxtaposition:<br />
</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<blockquote style="color: #0b5394;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"What it boils down to is this: Men, not women, need to be the ones creating the spaces to discuss men’s issues."<br />
Quote from finallyfeminism101 weblog</span></span></span></blockquote>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><object height="255" width="300"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/qodygTkTUYM?fs=1&hl=en_GB&rel=0">
</param>
<param name="allowFullScreen" value="true">
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name="allowscriptaccess" value="always">
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<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/qodygTkTUYM?fs=1&hl=en_GB&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always"
allowfullscreen="true" width="300" height="255"></embed></object><br />
(Video: Feminists Disrupt a Forum About Battered Husbands)</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">
Get the picture? It's a game that law enforcement have been playing for decades. The 'good cop' is reasonable, even sympathetic, though of course, he insists that the responsibility for your crime
rests entirely with you. The 'bad cop' will just scream at you until you give yourself up. And when you finally do just give up, because you've been ground down, you mutter your complaints, and the
good cops over at finallyfeminism101 will remind you of what they said all along: that <i>you</i> need to be the one taking responsibility for discussing your own issues. See how that works? It's not
<i>their</i> fault. It's <i>yours.</i></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">
Yes, Earnest Feminists have supported Radical proposals every step of the way - whether this involves denying men paternity rights, or creating rape shield laws to deny exculpatory evidence and
more efficiently lock up innocent men, or diverting stimulus packages from men hit by recession to <i>women who had not even lost their jobs.</i> The only level at which Earnest Feminists disagree significantly
with Radicals is the rhetorical. A Radical might say "kill all men," and an Earnest Feminist might say "I don't agree with that," but she will go ahead and advocate that the healthcare gap be
increased further, with the full knowledge that men continue to die earlier and suffer worse health overall.</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">
Earnest Feminists distance themselves from the extremist rhetoric of the Radicals, but this is just how the dialectic works - you reach the goal slowly, bit by bit, by getting the other side to
compromise with your moderate wing. Earnest Feminists are the good cops - the ones you want to strike a deal with before those nasty bad cops get back. What's often missed is that they are all
cops. Compromise with the moderate Earnest Feminists on one issue, and the centre ground shifts: now the deal you struck is taken for granted, and the radical fantasy is a step closer. What do
Earnest Feminists do then? Rest on their laurels, content with the compromise they reached? No, they see the opportunity to get even more for women, and so they advocate for more. A compromise is
reached again, and the centre ground shifts further towards radicalism.</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">
Fortunately, I know of a way to break a dialectic, and that is to plant your feet firmly in the ground and refuse to budge an inch. Absolutely refuse to compromise on any issue. It's as simple as
that. Just keep in mind that behind the veneer of reasonableness is ideological motive, which will shift reality closer to the radical fantasy in which you are actively persecuted. If you can keep
that in mind, it becomes very easy to refuse even the slightest compromise with a feminist.</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">
Ultimately, feminists should be ignored. There is no use attempting to debate them, because their ideological motive trumps the possibility of admitting wrongness. Remember that feminist ideology
is adopted in order to satiate violent, vindictive emotions, not as a result of logical thought. Those we should make an effort to appeal to are non-feminists, but they are not counter-feminists.
That is, they are not yet activated in the struggle against feminism. One could split people up into three categories as follows:
</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
</div>
<ul>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">
<li>Revolutionaries (counter-feminists)</li>
<li>Reactionaries (feminists)</li>
<li>Civilians (non-feminists)</li>
</span></span></span></span></span></span></ul>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">The goal, then, is to recruit civilians to the counter-feminist side before the feminist camp gets to them. Given the rapid and exponential growth of the Men's Rights Movement, we are clearly
already enjoying success in this regard.<br /><br />
Adam
<br /><br />
<br />
<b>Further Reading:</b><br /><br />
<a href="http://triggeralert.blogspot.com/2011/03/feminists-misandry.html">Katherine K. Young & Paul Nathanson. <i>Spreading Misandry (extract)</i></a><br /><br />
<a href="http://www.goodwomynproject.com/2011/03/feminism-helps-men-too.html">Magdelyn. <i>Feminism Helps Men Too?</i></a><br /><br />
<a href="http://counterfem.blogspot.com/2010/11/wooly-lamb-for-mra-wolves.html">Fidelbogen. <i>A Wooly Lamb for the MRA Wolves</i></a></span></span></span></span></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6345026973557617275.post-22351269827513070002011-03-12T09:00:00.000-08:002011-03-12T09:09:29.253-08:00The Eventual Outcome of Feminism, Part II<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Lecture No. 11</b><br /><br />
</span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"Propaganda, as inverted patriotism, draws nourishment from the sins of the enemy. If there are no sins, invent them! The aim is to make the enemy appear so great a monster that he
forfeits the rights of a human being."
- Sir Ian Hamilton<br /><br />
</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The physical destruction of maleness is the logical outcome of feminist governance. The more feminist governance exists, the more anti-male persecution there will be, and the closer
to Holocaust we will find ourselves. <i>More feminism</i> will not result in greater sexual equality. <i>More feminism</i> is not the solution to the problems addressed by Men's Rights Activists.
Feminism <i>is</i> the problem. How could it be otherwise? Feminists believe that a debt is owed to them by all men, and they are perfectly content to recover this debt in blood and suffering. No
matter how much pain they inflict unto the world, it will never be enough to satiate their violent, vindictive emotions. Rather, the more harm they inflict upon men, the more normalized this
becomes, and - like a drug addiction - they will need ever greater 'highs' to satisfy the hate, culminating in the Final Punishment, the total eradication of men.<br /><br />
Note that I am not mincing words. I will not tread lightly around this subject. I will not resort to euphemism or conceal my message 'between the lines'. I will not leave you with the mere
implication that Male Holocaust is the eventual outcome of feminism, before quickly moving on to talk about other things, as though airing the idea should be an embarrassment for the speaker. I am fully
aware that mine is a marginal view of feminism, and may be considered by some to be 'extreme', but then the widespread misunderstanding and misrepresentation of <i>what feminism is</i> is just
another symptom of the sickness I am describing. I will state, quite openly, that this is the conclusion I have reached, having considered all the available evidence, and it is a conclusion I would
encourage nobody to take lightly. The imminent attempted eradication of half the human race calls for writing unimbued by flippancy or fancy. It does not permit me to enter into civil discussion
with those who will be attempting said eradication or cheering it on from the sidelines. There is no object in a respectful exchange of views with such people; the very idea appears, to me, to be
an ugly parody of truly civilized discourse - sort of like Neville Chamberlain trying to appease Adolf Hitler. No, my aim is to convince as many people as possible that this is, indeed, <i>the truth,</i> and thus to propel them to do whatever they can to stop a
humanitarian disaster before it begins. To that end, I shall tell it like it is, and call out the enemies of humanity as I see them - and they are feminists, who are even now, as you read these
words, beavering away at stamping that official seal onto their key tenet of Collective Male Guilt.</span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img src="http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd408/gynotheory/chamberlain-hitler.jpg" width="300" /></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />No matter how far down the rabbit hole she has gone, the feminist is cognizant, at some level, of the fact that a person must have actually committed a crime in order to be guilty of it.
Initially, this fact appears before her, phantomlike, as an inconvenient truth, a sticking point, an irritant - like a lump in the throat, or a speck in the eye, that simply will not go away. This
irritating truth is a logical interceptor, a pile of debris left on the tracks. She wonders: must I stop and turn around? Can my feminism, this wonderful vehicle for my catharsis, be reconciled
with my assumptions of human individuality and legal impartiality? Of course it cannot, and if she remains a feminist, she abandons the latter. Treating individuals as individuals destroys any
legitimate appeal to Collective Guilt and Collective Punishment, and vice versa: subscribing to notions of Collective Guilt and Collective Punishment negates the possibility of treating individuals
as individuals. Having made her choice, she ignores this truth, that individuals must individually commit acts to be held individually accountable for them. It becomes irrelevant; revenge is higher
on her list of priorities. Individual responsibility has ceased to matter for her, and it must cease to matter for others also. Those who remind her of it are attacked (cue the shaming tactics),
and eventually, the fact itself is attacked. Individual responsibility is the product of false consciousness; <i>all men</i> carry guilt. Biological essentialism, once the stock in trade of the
fascist far right, is resurrected as justifier of the authoritarian New Left.<br /><br />
Feminists are uninterested by truth. They do not formulate their principles based upon analysis of collected truths. The starting point for all feminism is misandric emotion, and subsequent
principles are formulated upon this. Truth is largely incidental. It is greatly appreciated when it appears to coincide with feminist arguments, and outright attacked when it does not; otherwise,
it is irrelevant. Facts are a tool of the patriarchy; feminism aims to elevate subjective passions and wills to the lofty quarters previously reserved for what can be objectively verified.<br /><br />
Detractors remain, of course, pointing out the awkward, inconvenient, irrefutable truths. For instance: even if we accept the <a href="http://counterfem.blogspot.com/2011/02/one-in-four-hundred-seventy-six.html">fallacious</a> claim that one in four women gets raped, that would imply that, at most, one in four men commit rape, assuming that each rapist commits only one rape. But this is
not very realistic, since we know that there are serial rapists, whose recidivism would drive the number of guilty parties down significantly. Could anybody who touts the 'one in four' figure
<i>realistically disagree with this assessment?</i> Such people are forced to conclude, with us, that at least three quarters of men have never and will never rape anybody; in other words, they are
demonstrably <i>not</i> rapists. Is it not monstrous, then, to tar one hundred percent of a demographic with the crimes of less than a quarter? Perhaps we should hold rallies, in the style of Take
Back The Night and so on, in which we chant "three-in-four! Three-in-four!" until people get the message that the overwhelming majority of men are not rapists and do not deserve to be labelled as
such. What do you think?<br /><br />
Whatever the case, Collective Guilt appears to be ruled out - but we underestimate feminist creativity. While some of feminism's more demented followers have asserted that "all sex is rape" -
making nearly all men into rapists for having engaged in consensual sex at some point, including that initiated by women - most of the 'third wave' has gravitated to a phony rationalization that a
'rape culture' persists among men <i>en masse.</i> Rape culture doctrine holds that, although a minority of men in fact commit the act of rape, the other seventy-five percent (or, if we are being
realistic, a significantly higher percentage) are cheering them on from the sidelines, deriving pleasure vicariously from the knowledge that women are being sexually attacked. Collective Guilt is
secured. The truth - that men are <a href="http://www.avoiceformen.com/2010/12/26/males-more-histrionic-than-females-over-rape-claims/">more histrionic than women</a> when it comes to rape claims -
is immaterial and can be safely denied or ignored. Further examples of feminist creativity - finding innovative ways to blame all men for the crimes of a small number - can be found for every
subject that they write about. I will not list them here because our discussion must move on. It will suffice to say that all such creativity resolves to the myth of 'the patriarchy' - that
individual men who do not control or abuse women nevertheless, somehow, simply because they are men, actively support the processes through which other men do control women. <i>The only thing that
a man must do to be guilty of this is to be male; ergo, by existing, he is guilty.</i> All feminist male-blaming creativity is a variation on this bio-essentialist theme, and all of it serves to
legitimize Collective Guilt and Collective Punishment.<br /><br />
The feminist process of destroying men and maleness will not necessarily follow a defined plan. It does not have to! To this very day, historians <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functionalism_versus_intentionalism">continue to debate</a> whether there was ever a direct order given for the Final Solution, or if the Holocaust was the result
of cumulative radicalization within the totalitarian, anti-Semetic state bureaucracy of Nazi Germany. It is at least conceivable, then, that the murder of millions can be achieved organically,
after a significant period of demonization which leaves most of the population indifferent (if not hostile) towards the scapegoat. Very few people are actually needed to carry out a genocide -
typically less than ten percent of a population, often less than five. Indifference is all that is required of the remainder.<br /><br />
Having said this, there is at least <a href="http://www.the-spearhead.com/2010/06/06/excerpts-from-the-scum-manifesto/">one explicit plan for Male Holocaust,</a> which was emphatically <i>not</i>
written as a satire, even if its author later brushed off troubling questions with this claim. While the <i>SCUM Manifesto</i> is remembered today as a bizarre relic which in no way represented
mainstream feminism at any time, it's worth pointing out that the text only achieved 'classic' status because of its overwhelming popularity. Even if we were to contort ourselves into believing
that Valerie Solanas intended the text as a joke, we cannot believe the same about her followers. Of these, perhaps the most famous would be Robin Morgan, who included excerpts from <i>SCUM</i> in
her anthology <i>Sisterhood is Powerful,</i> and stated her sincere aim that the "Feminist Revolution" would achieve not "some false state of equality," but "a proud gynocratic <i>world."</i><br /><br />
Still, <i>SCUM</i> hardly contains the blueprints for male extermination. The feminist project has not followed <i>SCUM</i> to the letter, though this is perhaps because there is no letter to
follow. The text is more statement than program; it is the violent, vindictive emotionalism laid bare, the ugly face of feminism unmasked, the dissected contents of a dirty bomb formerly disguised
as a birthday present. In the long run, the publication of <i>SCUM</i> has probably benefited anti-feminists most of all. It is proof positive that feminism is, at least in part, supportive of
female supremacy and the elimination of men; and that such views, when initially aired, were received with enough support from the feminist sector to make the book famous. Would feminists today be
so dismissive of <i>SCUM</i> if anti-feminists had not seized on it as evidence?<br /><br />
To get back on track: while there certainly are individuals working within state bureaucracies whose chief aim in life is to make men suffer - and indeed, government departments have been set up
for this very purpose - an official order to eliminate men has not (yet) been given, as far as we know. But one does not need to be given, for the situation may come about organically. For decades,
males have been subject to the worst possible demonization in mass media - including, earlier this year, <a href="http://www.the-spearhead.com/2011/02/06/abuse-charlatan-gears-up-for-super-bowl-with-abuse-bingo-rapist-babies-ad/">the portrayal of newborn babies as inherently evil, rapists-in-waiting.</a> The slurs made against all men, which cannot possibly be justified on the grounds of
deterring that small number of men disposed to committing crimes, are typical of a dehumanization campaign. The aims of this long hate crusade are threefold. First, that women, being exposed to the
endlessly repeating feminist hate loop, will adopt the view that men are violent, inhumane oppressors, and are therefore deserving of whatever evil they suffer. Although most women will initially
oppose this message, the endlessly repeating hate loop, because it is so persistent and pervasive, eventually breaks down psychological resistance. Once the hate loop had gathered enough momentum
to carry itself, and was becoming bigger all the time, like a snowball rolling down a hill, then our cultural guardians needed only to intervene occasionally in order to fine-tune its content. E.g.
it was not enough for a woman to only fear 'strange men'; it had to be transmitted to her that her own husband, her father, her son, etc., are activated cells in 'the patriarchy' which is
oppressing her, that they are each a 'potential rapist,' and so on.<br /><br />
The second aim of the dehumanization campaign is to get men to turn on each other. That this forms part of feminist methodology is not surprising, since exploitation of masculinity and male
physical muscle, to be used against other men for the benefit of women, is the central plank of historical Gynocentrism. In addition to appealing to powerful men to pass punitive legislation
enabling the brutalization of their less powerful brethren, feminists drive wedges between common men. By promoting <i>to men</i> the message that their own sex is full of rapists, abusers and
pedophiles, men will be less inclined to identify with other men, or with men in general, and will feel much less in the way of mutual support or sympathy. Even as the sexual grievance industry
indefinitely expands the meanings of emotive words like 'rape,' 'violence' and 'pedophilia,' any man <i>accused</i> (not even charged, let alone convicted) of any of these acts becomes a <i>persona
non grata</i> among his own sex. Even worse, the falsely accused man (or the man 'guilty' under the new definitions of these terms) finds himself on the receiving end of vigilante justice by
outraged men who have swallowed the feminist line that male abusers are rampant everywhere (therefore <i>this</i> accused man <i>must</i> be guilty). When the falsely accused and the newly
criminalized are being loaded onto train cars for deportation to death camps, men who have not yet been accused will turn their heads, consoling themselves with the thought that <i>those</i> men
must be abusers, and so they are deserving of whatever happens to them. The men who have not yet been accused are lulled into a false sense of security, believing that they will be safe, so long as
they continue to obey the feminist state.<br /><br />
The third aim of the dehumanization campaign is to normalize brutality against men. Feminists are <i>boiling a frog,</i> as the proverb goes. The cumulative brutalization of men occurs in
increments, each of which appears to be objectionable, but not appallingly so (except, perhaps, to those who are paying close enough attention to perceive the creeping despotism). Already, we have
surpassed situations which would have caused men to pour onto the streets in revolt had they been achieved in one fell swoop - the enslavement of men by family courts and child support laws, rape
trials held in secret and without a jury in Sweden, the negation of the presumption of innocence for men in several states, mandatory arrest laws for men who call the police because their
girlfriends have stuck knives in their chests, men being incarcerated and sold into sexual slavery in debtor's prisons because their wives were bored, and so on.</span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img src="http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd408/gynotheory/angry_mob.gif" width="300" /></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">As the brutalization of men becomes the norm, practised by more people, a greater number of misandrists will become emboldened to act out their hate. Feminism does not entail men 'losing
privileges,' or suffering for a little while until the sexes are in balance and life becomes a perfect harmony. The <i>more feminism,</i> the worse things will be for men, right up to the point of
extermination. The level of persecution corresponds precisely to the level of feminist governance. When a great mass of feminist bureaucrats set to work, finding innovative ways to persecute men,
the individual feminist bureaucrat realizes that there is no limit to what she can get away with.<br /><br />
I would like to talk a little more about exactly why this is. From its earliest days, feminism was envisioned as a cultural war. Making misandric persecution a reality meant that the dehumanization
and brutalization of men had to become normalized phenomena - background noise, those aspects of existence nobody bats an eyelid at, those facts of life that adults resign themselves to, the
unpleasantness of which can be explained away by defeatist mantras like "it's just the way things are," "it sucks but what can we do about it," and "men and women are different, so just man up and
take it." Creating this kind of hostile indifference towards Men's Rights was necessary because it is the foundation upon which active persecution stands. Saying that hostile indifference has
become normalized is another way of saying that it is normal for people to practise hostile indifference. In other words, enough people practise hostile indifference for it to be considered normal.
That is, a great number of people practise hostile indifference, and are not taken to task for it, because it is sufficiently widespread to rule out the possibility of individuals being taken to
task for it.<br /><br />
What we have, then, is hostile indifference towards men as a characteristic of the social organism as a whole, and it is within state bureaucracies that feminists congregate to build active
persecution upon this normalized hostile indifference. The hostility and indifference towards men allows them to get away with this, because it affords each misandric individual anonymity and
irresponsibility. She did not <i>create</i> this situation; she is not personally responsible for it. She is not <i>the only one</i> pushing for active persecution; everyone else is (at least)
indifferent in this regard, and anyway, there are plenty of others working in the same field. Being pre-emptively 'let off the hook' through anonymity and irresponsibility, the individual feminist
forms part of a collective mob whose members can indulge in a sentiment of invincible power, allowing them to yield to emotions which would otherwise have been restrained. Purely numerical
considerations - strength in numbers - enable the individual operator to evade all questions of guilt and culpability. They become mere cogs whose existence and purpose is nonsensical when
abstracted from the greater machine. They simply do as they are told, they simply 'go along with' what everyone else is doing - ostensibly harmless, unremarkable, dutiful.<br /><br />
Where a state seeks to achieve some ideological goal, its bureaucracy becomes the archetypal model of human consciousness overwhelmed by crowd psychology. Every collective acts collectively, that
is, without pausing to allow the individuals to reflect, without consulting the individuals, without requiring that they give their enthusiastic assent. The collective acts with immediacy,
according to its will, leaving absolutely no room for criticism from individuals within or without. Individuals within the collective act as all the others do. They are, by definition, anonymous
and unaccountable. Excited by an idea, and indulging in the power of numbers, a collective does not allow or admit that anything could prevent the fulfilment of its will.<br /><br />
The feminist mob acts in the same way that all ideology-based collectives do - by magnifying the miniscule transgressions made against the collective, and trivializing atrocities perpetrated
against others. An almost perfect example of this comes from the feminist website <i>Sociological Images.</i> First, the magnification of the miniscule. In September 2010, one of the site's authors
announced her outrage that a line of rulers (i.e. measuring sticks) commemorating great scientists in history included Marie Curie under the heading "Great Women Rulers of Science." A horrific
injustice, this is not. Still, at this point, we might simply assume that those habituating the blog are fragile people, finding themselves easily offended by much in life - we might think that
they would feel the same way if they stumbled upon some equivalent version of these rulers with the sexes reversed.<br /><br />
We might think this is the case, until we scroll down to the comment section and find an accusation that Paul Elam's <i>A Voice for Men</i> site is nothing but a load of "whining." Now, in the two
weeks prior to that comment being made, <i>A Voice for Men</i> had <a href="http://www.avoiceformen.com/2010/09/25/shrugging-misandry/">discussed the following:</a>
</span></span></span></span><br />
<blockquote style="color: #0b5394;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A police state that arrests and incarcerates male victims of domestic violence and enables female perpetrators to continue criminal behavior; a ten to one death gap concerning capital
punishment that works against men; a five to one death gap against men related to suicide; the staggering attrition of males in higher education and employment; the utter lack of reproductive
rights for men, and the incidence of false rape allegations against men which even the police are calling epidemic.</span></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">At first glance, the cognitive dissonance is astounding. Could the feminist really have dismissed discussion of such human interest issues as these, while her own counter-movement has nothing more
offensive to talk about but the headings on rulers (which actually highlight, not obscure, the fact that there have been great female scientists)?<br /><br />
As Paul succinctly puts it, <i>"women’s whining = pursuit of justice. Men’s pursuit of justice = whining."</i> In following this simple maxim, feminists adhere perfectly to the dark elements of
crowd psychology: magnifying the miniscule when it concerns them, and trivializing atrocities when these are committed against others.<br /><br />
Like all other collectives governed by the principles of crowd psychology, feminists have a tendency towards the power of suggestion: that an idea only needs to be spoken aloud for it to be taken
as the gospel truth. Of course, this only works with certain types of ideas - most obviously, those which aid in magnifying the miniscule, but certainly not the ones that draw attention to the non
-trivial atrocities suffered by others. It matters not that the cries of rape advocates - "one in four!" - are based on a study, the <a href="http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/2010/04/if-rape-were-as-rampant-as-activists.html">methodology</a> of which is so flawed that any serious researcher would have transferred it directly from the printer and into the <a href="http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd408/gynotheory/wastepaper-basket.jpg">big round file.</a> Young women will continue to pour onto the streets chanting it - "one in four! One in four!" -
why? Because it serves the crowd to have been transgressed against in such a way, because it provides them with those feelings of righteous indignation which serve as a springboard from which they
may launch the active persecution of the targeted class. No individual need bother checking the facts, and the crowd would not pay any attention to one who did anyway. As an example of this power
of suggestion in action within a feminist state bureaucracy, we need look no further than the United Kingdom's former Minister for Women and Equality, Harriet Harman, who was eventually <a href="http://www.angryharry.com/esStopLyingHarman.htm">ordered by a judge</a> to stop spinning the lie that rape has only a six percent conviction rate. Even then, rape advocacy groups like Women
Against Rape have <i>continued</i> to refer to this completely invented figure. Evidencing one's claims is a trifling matter, and one subordinated to the necessity of exciting the mob. </span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img src="http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd408/gynotheory/Propaganda.jpg" width="300" /></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The power of suggestion is particularly pronounced in the feminist crowd because it is mostly composed of women, and women are more impressionable than men. This is not an inherent difference
between the sexes, but a socialized defect. A lifetime of privilege, of parasitic exploitation and entitlement, of juicing the fruits of another's labor, has left many women devoid of character,
with unrealistic views of the world which leave them open to certain kinds of manipulation that men are not so easily taken in by. Feminism is ideological snake oil, and impressionable women are
its customers. If an idea excites them, if that one-in-four statistic sends a shiver down their spines, if it causes them to <i>feel</i> something so strongly, then there <i>must</i> be at least an
element of truth to it - so the unconscious mental processes go. How could something that is <i>not real</i> affect her in a way that <i>feels so real?</i> Impossible, one would think. Once
feminists understood and appreciated the malleability of women, they had merely to present astounding statistics which, when recited endlessly, to the point that they become background noise, exist
on some plane beyond truth and falsehood, the plane of popular consensus, and so cannot be refuted by the evidence that most men would have asked for upon originally hearing the claims.<br /><br />
For the same reason, we find the tendencies among feminists to simplify, and to go immediately to extremes. An exceptional instance of violence against women becomes, for feminists, the rule which
is practised against all women, everywhere. A college student making a rape joke to his fraternity brothers becomes a microcosm of society as a whole. On that note, making a rape joke is the same
thing, for feminists, as condoning the actual rape of human beings. There is no room for nuance, no accounting for the thousand shades of grey that exist between black and white; only the two
colors perceived by monochrome Manichean Essentialists. A rape joke could conceivably and consistently be made by people spanning the entire spectrum of opinion on rape, in the same way that people
can make jokes about dead babies, tasteless though they may be, without necessarily supporting or contributing towards infanticide. This is common sense stuff, but common sense stuff does not
excite the passions of ideological mobs. Collectives such as feminism rely, for their shared understanding, on a fundamental <i>lack</i> of nuance - to infallibly appeal to all its adherents, an
ideological collective must propagate a small number of simplistic, exciting, image-like ideas. In the case of feminism, which is an ideological collective based upon the validation of violent and
vindictive feelings held towards men, we should not be surprised to find that these image-like ideas are so often characterized <i>by violence.</i><br /><br />
Feminism's validation of immature, simplistic, exaggerated, generalized and extreme ideas results in violent emotion as a guiding principle of justice - in other words, the Collective Guilt and
Collective Punishment I have already discussed. Feminist jurisprudence flows directly from the violent and anti-male emotions of individual feminist operators, emotions which are, in turn,
validated by the ideological collective which has successfully constructed a climate of hostile indifference towards men. There is not even the pretense of impartiality in feminist jurisprudence -
it is openly 'anti-normative,' seeking favorable conditions for female criminals while indefinitely expanding the scope of punishable male deviancy. Those who advocate and practise it are open
about their vindictive sexism, and their reforms continue, under the radar. We are heading towards explicit male persecution because there is nowhere else this can go and very few people willing or
informed enough to stand up and say 'no'.<br /><br />
For those who would deny that feminism condones and advocates violence against men, I need only direct you to their own creations. Here is the banner for feminist website Feministe:</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img src="http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd408/gynotheory/feministebanner.jpg" width="400" /></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />Now, despite the relatively tame content of this particular site, does it seem conceivable that the out-of-frame target of this little girl's firearm is <i>not</i> a grown man? It's a clever
trick, because the target is not shown, allowing for <a href="http://counterfem.blogspot.com/2007/04/exposing-them-without-commenting.html">plausible deniability</a> on the part of the site's
members. After all, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5389984.stm">feminists don't shoot people, do they?</a> As Fidelbogen puts it:
</span></span></span></span><br />
<blockquote style="color: #0b5394;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Try looking at the little girl in <i>context</i> with the word FEMINISTE directly behind her. Note the synergy of the two elements, how they combine into a visual-conceptual unity of
message - effectively amplifying and reinforcing each other.</span></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Moving on, we might consider the hilarious irony of <a href="http://www.rooshv.com/according-to-jezebel-im-downright-psychopathic">feminists voicing concerns</a> over the likelihood of Pick-Up
Artist Roosh Vorek being violent while simultaneously making violent threats against him:
</span></span></span></span><br />
<blockquote style="color: #0b5394;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I must find out his real name so if I ever meet him I can suckerpunch him in the dick.<br /><br />
I think Roosh is a great example… of what truly needs to be purged.<br /><br />
I’m wondering if his blog is violent enough to notify the DA’s office.</span></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I'm wondering too. But what I'm wondering about is why the phrase 'cognitive dissonance' gets thrown around by anti-feminists in situations like these, since the feminists' behavior is perfectly
consistent. It is simply that they have magnified all miniscule transgressions against women - such as, a vaguely insulting comment from a Pick-Up Artist - and have trivialized all atrocities
against men. When it is appreciated that feminist operations are all characterized by double standards in their dealings with men and women, it will be understood that there is no 'dissonance' here
at all, cognitive or otherwise - their behavior is fully consistent with their twin assumptions that every inconvenience a woman faces is a humanitarian tragedy, and that men do not matter at all.
Thus, after decades of feminist teeth-gnashing about the horrors of domestic violence, and how it is a subject so serious it should never be joked about or taken lightly, feminist website Jezebel
produced <a href="http://jezebel.com/#%21294383/have-you-ever-beat-up-a-boyfriend-cause-uh-we-have">a now-infamous article</a> gloating over the greater incidence of domestic violence perpetrated by
women, and issuing direct threats to men generally that the website's authors will act abusively towards them should men "fuck with" them. Now that men are the victims, it's acceptable to post
amusing pictures of battered men; to refer to female-perpetrated abuse as "busting open a can of whupass"; to refer to male victims as "the dudes" and to employ veiled shaming tactics implying it
is their own fault for not fighting back. If you follow the link, please check out the comments - make sure you click on 'All' and scroll down to get a proper impression of what feminists are
<i>really</i> like when they think they are safely out of the world's gaze.<br /><br />
The image-like ideas that feminism employs are not connected by <i>logical bonds,</i> although they are all consistent at base because they all contribute towards <span style="color: red;">increasing the
power of women. <span style="color: black;">To the uninitiated, it appears that the various antics of feminist activists are not at all connected, and that the most contradictory, dissimilar ideas are
supported side by side. E.g., feminists simultaneously <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/oct/15/lads-magazines-feminist-protests">advocate for the censorship</a> of softcore
pornography targeted at men and <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/13/women-erotica-sex-objects-magazine">lament that there does not exist</a> more explicit pornography
featuring naked and aroused men for the consumption of females. This only leads to sputtering accusations of 'cognitive dissonance' if one takes for granted that feminists assume their own
philosophy is universalizable. If they did assume this - if their goal truly was sexual equality and impartiality - then it would indeed be true that feminists would be irrational and could fairly
be said to suffer from cognitive dissonance. But this is not the case. Their philosophy is not intended to be universalizable. The aim is not to apply a uniform standard towards men and women; it
is to level women up and level men down. It is to grant women more rights, <i>indefinitely,</i> and to force new obligations onto men, <i>indefinitely.</i> Double standards are the feminist rule,
not the exception.<br /><br />
And what is the logical outcome - say, if tomorrow, feminists got everything they are advocating for today? We would be plunged immediately into a two-tier system of rights and obligations, where
men and women form distinct castes of citizen, the former weighed down by the obligations that enable the latter to luxuriate in their total autonomy. Life for women would be a literal lawlessness,
while men's every move would be dictated from above, geared to the purpose of providing for all female needs and wants. It would not be inappropriate to call such a system <i>sexual feudalism,</i>
and every time I read a feminist article, this is the impression that I get: that they to construct a new aristocracy, comprised only of women, while men stand at the gate, till in the fields,
fight in their armies, and grovel at their feet for starvation wages. All feminist innovation and legislation creates new rights for women and new duties for men; thus it tends towards the creation
of a male underclass, the accomplishment of which will be the first step towards the extermination of men.<br /><br />
At present, feminism displays all the hallmarks of a dangerous movement about to become fascistic: its adherents demand blind submission to dogma, they are unable to discuss its principles, they
desire to spread its ideology (by whatever means necessary), they are intolerant of those who do not embrace it, they immediately rush to generalization, they demand authenticity and conformity to
a rigorous standard of morality, and they utilize bio-essentialist rhetoric and violent imagery to denigrate their targets. The (often literal) dehumanization of men, coupled with feminist
governance, could not be leading anywhere <i>but</i> the enforcement of Collective Punishment, the idealized end point of a principle of justice based upon the validation of violent, primal
emotion. Not one iota of sympathy, of fellow human-feeling, is to be felt for innocent men subject to the worst atrocities.<br /><br />
Holocaust is the ultimate utopian vision of some radical feminists, and they are perfectly open about this, discussing the male-free world of the future as insipidly as if they were discussing
holiday plans. Other radical feminists imagine a future in which men's numbers are greatly reduced and the remaining males are kept as slaves. Still others dream of a society similar to ours, but
with women in the lead in all spheres of life, with all pretense to equality abandoned. Earnest feminists, meanwhile, do not necessarily intend any of these outcomes, but as they are members of the
collective, they will act as members of the collective, and even if they do not participate in the active persecution of men, they will be forbidden - as an unspoken rule - from exhibiting any
sympathy at all for men, no matter what they suffer. Those who do are promptly expelled, labelled anti-feminists, and subject to vicious attacks by the in-group. No feminist will stop the process
of male elimination, nor will she feel any regret once it is complete, as long as she remains a feminist.<br /><br />
The destruction of males does not require a majority of feminists to even be on board; it is an organic process which unfolds naturally in time, and once a certain point is passed, there will be no
stopping the attempt. Women like Hannah Rosin, who desire not equality but female supremacy with men as a permanent underclass, will find that the psychic forces which led them to agitate for this
do not simply disappear once sexual feudalism is achieved. Feminism is a movement <i>based upon</i> the gratification of those psychic forces, the permanent, hateful needs of misandric women, and
no limits will be reached for as long as men can be made to suffer even more.<br /><br />
Utopian visions supposedly present the perfectly just and moral society, but really, they envision the end of morality altogether. Utopia is that in which nobody makes an immoral decision; thus,
nobody really makes moral choices. Rather, they have been socialized so well - through intimidation or brainwashing - that they always make the same choices. This silly little fantasy has inspired
tyrants to send millions to their deaths. Early modernity is marked by the two most prominent examples of this: the French and Russian revolutions. Both were fought on the premise that the old
regime would give way to a new age of human perfection. Both ended in failure, but not before soaking their countries in blood. The historian Hippolyte Taine wrote that it was by invoking "liberty,
equality, fraternity" that the architects of the French Revolution were able "to install a despotism worthy of Dahomey, a tribunal similar to that of the Inquisition, and to accomplish human
hecatombs akin to those of ancient Mexico." Similarly, Communism was presumed to be the realization of freedom and all human potential - until it was actually realized. Communist countries
repressed and starved their populations, worked them to the point of exhaustion, banned free speech, purged dissidents, and invaded other countries with a zeal for imperial conquest that must have
seemed rather surprising to those who saw communism as an ideology of peace. And all this, not for any existing object - not for land, or resources, or for freedom - but for a social order that had
never existed and was merely <i>imagined.</i><br /><br />
We should not expect Feminist countries - capital F, standing for explicit Feminist Governance - to be any different. Feminist countries will starve and repress, they will force men and dissenting
women into labor camps, they will ban open discussion, commit murder on a grand scale, and they will invade other countries, all in the name of liberating women. If there is anything we can learn
from the last few hundred years, it is that humanity repeatedly fails to learn the important lessons. After men, which group shall be persecuted? Must we all take a turn, as though our biological
characteristics make us representatives of those who appear similar to us, across all time and space? After the horrors of the Soviet regime and the Holocaust, is it not sensible that we all agree
to cease judging heterogeneous groups of people by bio-essentialist standards, and damning them all to hell on earth because of the <i>apparent</i> crimes of a minority (be this in reference to the
Elders of Zion or to 'the patriarchy')?<br /><br />
Now, I am well aware, that simply asking these questions is not going to change anything. It is certainly not going to change any feminist minds. But I am not here to plead with feminists. I am
here to interrogate them, to embarass them about their future plans, and to spread the word about what those plans are. Because even the self-proclaimed <i>enlightened, progressive</i> feminist
movement has not learned the lesson that humanity should now be well-versed in.<br /><br />
In contradistinction to them, I say - peace be with you.<br /><br />
Adam
<br /><br /><br />
<b>Further Reading:</b><br /><br />
<a href="http://www.misandryreview.com/misandry-review/2010/08/02/a-glimpse-of-collective-hysteria-80-years-into-the-past-video/">John Dias. <i>A Glimpse of Collective Hysteria, 80 Years into the
Past</i></a><br /><br />
<a href="http://www.the-spearhead.com/2010/07/12/the-symbiotic-relationship-between-misandry-and-power/">Welmer. <i>The Symbiotic Relationship Between Misandry and Power</i></a><br /><br />
<a href="http://counterfem.blogspot.com/2006/12/nice-respectable-word_11.html">Fidelbogen. <i>A Nice Respectable Word</i></a></span></span></span></span></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6345026973557617275.post-45811584831829777872011-03-05T09:00:00.000-08:002011-03-05T09:13:39.814-08:00The Eventual Outcome of Feminism, Part I<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Lecture No. 10</b><br /><br />
</span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities
to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison." - Nathaniel Hawthorne<br /><br />
</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It seems sensible, at this stage, to pose the question: <i>why is all this happening?</i> The answer I can offer up, for the purpose of this lecture, is not historical but
psychological: it offers explanation through reference to the mental state of feminism's operators. There certainly are historical processes at work, explored elsewhere, but no social movement
survives purely for the sake of its history. Nobody is born a feminist. There must be some stimulus, or stimuli, working to remodel formerly non-feminist women and men into activated feminists. But
we cannot explain feminist conversion by the agitation of those already existing feminist activists. We can certainly believe that feminist activism plays a role in recruitment, but this is not
adequate as an explanation. Why would an individual then commit to <i>feminism,</i> rather than any other particular social movement whose advocates engage in agitation for the purposes of
ideological recruitment?<br /><br />
It must be that feminism offers such individuals something that other movements do not. I propose that, by opening up space for perfectly satisfying, collective man-hating, feminism offers a form
of catharsis eagerly seized upon by those <i>already predisposed to misandry.</i> There are probably as many rationalizations for misandry as there are individual feminists – we would have to
explore the intimate details of an individual feminist's life, particularly her mental culture, to come to a conclusion about when and why she decided to blame an entire sex for each of her
inconveniences. What is common to them all is hostility to masculinity, i.e. maleness. When the initial excitement brought about by mutual indulgence in sexual hate has died down, the lines of
communication between feminists remain open. Feminism provides more than the opportunity for catharsis. The feminist soon realizes that she need not restrict herself to echo chambers, but might try
her hand at real change. A thrill rushes through her at the thought of not just disparaging, but actually hurting men. Backed up by an extensively organized, generously funded and institutionally-
connected movement – one that enjoys a rosy reputation as defender of that greatest virtue of our time, equality – she sets to work. Feminism is a misandrist's dream.<br /><br />
Implicit in what I have written above is the corollary that feminism <i>does not create misandry.</i> Feminism promotes, endorses, reinforces, organizes and aggrandizes misandry, but it does not
generate it outright. A woman who is not antipathetic towards men will not become so upon exposure to feminist thought. More likely, she will recoil at its odious philosophy. Feminism simply
provides a space for women and men who were already misandrically-inclined to congregate and make plans.<br /><br />
The forerunner to feminism was traditional Gynocentrism, a self-sustaining social system which taught women that men should sacrifice on their behalf, and taught men that they were defective women.
The female privilege inherent to this sexual ecology was undoubtedly accompanied and reinforced by animosity towards men – the 'flawed' sex – most particularly those men who did not conform to the
Gynocentric role expected of them. Feminism departs from this model, not only in the sense that it provides organization for this misandry, but also in the instability of its operations. Feminism
relentlessly demands greater male sacrifice for the benefit of women. This is a process to be intensified without an end point. Such a process lacks forward planning or any semblance of
equilibrium. Ever greater constraints are placed on the very class of people whose labor and genius sustains the social order in which feminism can thrive. The parasite is killing its host, and
will either be purged or die along with it. <a href="http://gynotheory.blogspot.com/2011/01/same-old-story">Feminism is simply not sustainable.</a><br /><br />
But it is not as though feminists think in these terms. Despite their forays into such recondite subjects as jurisprudence and post-modernism, feminist thought ultimately resolves to the validation
of primal emotions. The central tenets of Western-style justice systems, evolving as they did under patriarchy, aspired to impartiality and objectivity in all proceedings. We speak of <i>habeas
corpus,</i> the right to trial by jury, the presumption of innocence, punishments which fit rather than exceed corresponding crimes, and so on. That these doctrines of civic freedom have lasted for
so many centuries is testament to the integrity of the generations of men who inherited them. Feminists, in their efforts to replace these 'outmoded, patriarchal' institutions, do not engage in
anything like the deep thought that begat their careful construction. Much less do they entertain the notion of impartiality. All feminist legal innovation – whether it is introducing the
presumption of guilt (for men), advocating an inquisitorial rather than adversarial trial system (for men), or proposing that women should not be punished at all when they commit crimes – flows
from the same source: the violent and vindictive emotions of individual feminist operators. Feminism is so dangerous because it exists to validate these emotions, and to assign them a permanent
place in discussions over how society might be better organized.<br /></span></span></span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img src="http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd408/gynotheory/twisted.jpg" width="300" /></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />The success of feminism in this regard can be appreciated when we consider the popularity of <a href="http://gynotheory.blogspot.com/2011/02/false-consciousness-kafka-trapping.html">collective
guilt,</a> anathema as it is to the principles of neutrality and impartiality underpinning our liberal justice systems. Collective guilt is an emotional discharge, a visible effect of concentrated
class hatred. It is an attack on the verifiable truth of individual moral agency. Under a system of collective guilt, one's actions have no bearing on one's fate. Human beings are sent to the
gallows for the circumstances of their birth. There is no purpose for trials, or any institution which exists to ascertain the facts of the case and to assign guilt. Guilt is already assigned; the
facts are irrelevant. What follows collective guilt is collective punishment.<br /><br />
Feminists are not yet in a powerful enough position to deliver collective punishment to the entirety of the male sex. Instead, they cast as wide and as deep a net as possible, hoping to snag as
many men and boys as they can. Wherever an individually identifiable man appears on their radar, he becomes the latest pariah, even if the accusations against him are weak and unfounded. This is
irrelevant; all that matters is that he has been identified. Then, he becomes the target for unbridled angst, a public piñata, an effigy of all men, of maleness itself. He becomes the
personification of the entire male sex, and the collective punishment that feminists yearn to deliver unto all men is inflicted onto him. Even after he is proven to be innocent of all accusations,
the attacks intensify, as though the reluctance of the world to acknowledge his guilt is an even greater injury than the charges brought against him. In a short while, he will be forgotten, and a
new whipping boy will be discovered. Until that time, feminists will try to outdo each other in editorials, speeches, and in the comment sections of newspapers and weblogs, calling for the most
grotesque mutilations and acts of violence against him.<br /><br />
An impartial legal system, which treats human beings as individuals, is a barrier against collective punishment. To do away with it altogether would allow for the punishment of many more men, on
the basis that they are men, which is why feminists have fought so relentlessly to overturn impartiality. Bit by bit, feminist agents within government, academia and the legal system have replaced
individual moral agency and the rule of law with the micro-management of people. As the mantra goes, <a href="http://gynotheory.blogspot.com/2011/01/old-wine-new-bottles">the personal</a> <a href="http://gynotheory.blogspot.com/2011/02/personal-as-contrasted-to-political.html">is political</a> - it is, increasingly, the business of the state. Even when not explicitly framed like this,
the <i>underlying principle</i> of all feminist innovation is to bring the state to bear down, ever more closely, on our personal, everyday existences. If the personal really is <i>the same thing
as</i> the political, then <i>political correctness</i> must be <i>personal correctness</i> - a perverse and pervasive system of control which scrutinizes an individual's every move, in order to
lock him into place. You must be <i>personally correct,</i> in terms of your beliefs, your desires, your pursuits, your tastes – right down to the jokes you are permitted to laugh at – according to
<i>their</i> standards. <i>They</i> being the self-declared 'victims' of society, who are nevertheless powerful enough to enjoy lunch with the President and set out the terms on which the
government is to run your life.<br /><br />
The idea is not that men should overcome all the obstacles in their struggle to be politically/personally correct. After all, those who are demanding that men run this daily gauntlet are the very
same people lining up to beat them with clubs as they try. The idea is that men should, so to speak, <i>die trying.</i> The intention is that men fail. For as long as average men manage to live
peacefully, and even successfully, more and greater incursions into their personal space shall be required. It is at the point of failure – when men have failed to live up to the increasingly
constrictive rules set out for them – that they can be punished. The ordeal gets tougher by the day and with each passing of new legislation.<br /><br />
At the extreme end of societal micro-management, we find states like North Korea, a brutal, totalitarian dictatorship which controls all forms of media, place severe restrictions upon speech,
association, movement and access to information, and detains dissidents and their families in concentration camps where many die from starvation or medical experimentation. Western societies are
separated from the continuum of despotism, on which we find North Korea, by a small number of fundamentals, some of which have already been referenced: respect for the autonomy of the individual,
the presumption of innocence, the separation of executive, legislative and judicial powers, etc. These doctrines correspond precisely to those which feminism aims to tear down. The violent,
vindictive emotions from which feminism springs are, by nature, irrational; there exists no internal, rational boundary, to suggest that <i>enough is enough</i> once a certain benchmark is reached.
The furious impulses at the heart of feminism would not stop short of constructing a totalitarian regime which restricts men's speech, their association and movement, and detains them in
concentration and labor camps where they are subject to starvation and mutilation.<br /><br />
Are we so far removed from savage regimes like North Korea that this is not a possibility? We should not allow ourselves to be misled by appeals that we live in a democracy, and that the leaders
are ultimately accountable to the people. Our democracy is only ostensible, offering little real choice. The bipartisan consensus between leading parties ensures that the state continues to grow,
and the feminist agenda is further promoted, whether the new government cloaks itself in red or blue. Facing no serious political opposition, the leaders do not have to bow to the people to secure
their mandate. All public pandering is superficial, though highly effective, in the same way that all totalitarians have enjoyed the popularity of the masses. By definition, totalitarians must be
populist: the support they must mobilize, in order to remain in power, cannot be that of an armed minority alone. In exchange for the sponsorship of the masses, totalitarians caress their egos,
giving enthusiastic praise to them for their courage, declaring them the inspiration of all progress. At least, the greater part of them are praised. Groups which are not in favor are, in contrast,
treated with contempt prior to their destruction. It is the majority which becomes tyrannous – as Alexis De Tocqueville warned – when the leaders isolate a particular segment of the population for
blame and castigation. Enjoying their glorification on behalf of the leader, the chosen majority will side against the undesirables, and treat them with abominable malice. It is a story that has
played out, over and over, throughout history – not least in the populist tyrannies of the twentieth century. Today, our leaders exalt the feminine and malign the masculine – a prejudice running so
deep that it has become normalized, to the point where few consider it unusual for the President to <a href="http://glennsacks.com/blog/?p=2322">bash men on Father's Day.</a> Men – who are, indeed
in the minority, making up 49% of the population – are suffering the early stages of the tyranny of the majority. Leaders of all parties pander, first and foremost, to the female majority, and
particularly to the pressure groups set up (supposedly) in their interests. More pernicious than this is the entry of women into politics – not because of the fact that they are women, but because
almost every female politician, whatever her party allegiance, makes women's issues her priority. In contrast, male politicians swear their allegiance to the principles of their party and to the
demands of their constituents, but not to men's issues. There are no politicians who make men's issues a priority, but plenty – male and female – who run on the cross-party, women's issues
platform. The world is not so simple that we can say men are over-represented because they are present in greater numbers. Although there is a greater number of men in politics, it is women who are
over-represented, because more politicians represent them than they do men. The sex of the politician makes no difference to the legislation that he passes. In courting the female vote, and
particularly in his efforts to please feminist groups (organized misandry), he will perpetuate and extend chivalry, he will publicly belittle his own sex, and he will pass ever more anti-male
legislation, sanctioning the brutalization of ordinary men.<br /></span></span></span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img height="200" src="http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd408/gynotheory/injail.jpg" /></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />Systematic destruction follows systematic contempt. The eventual outcome of feminism is nothing less than a Holocaust, the almighty crescendo to mark the success of a century or more of sexual
warfare and the demonization/degradation of the masculine. Those men, such as the male politician who has stoked the fires of gender tribalism to win votes and benefit his own career, will become
the concentration camp facilitators and the enforcers of population reduction programs. They shall be the Uncle Toms, the Judenräte atop white horses, who will ultimately meet the same fate as the
men they have helped exterminate. The anti-male, homicidal and genocidal violence in feminist rhetoric is well documented:
</span></span></span></span><br />
<blockquote style="color: #0b5394;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"The male is a domestic animal which, if treated with firmness ... can be trained to do most things" - Jilly Cooper, SCUM (Society For Cutting Up Men)<br /><br />
"I want to see a man beaten to a bloody pulp with a high-heel shoved in his mouth, like an apple in the mouth of a pig" - Andrea Dworkin<br /><br />
"Kill your fathers" - Robin Morgan<br /><br />
"Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the
government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation, and destroy the male sex" - Valerie Solanas, <i>SCUM Manifesto</i><br /><br />
"It is no accident that in the ancient matriarchies men were castrated, sacrificially slaughtered, and excluded from public forms of power; nor is it an accident that some female supremacists now
believe men to be a distinct and inferior species or race. Wherever power is accessible or bodily integrity honored on the basis of biological attribute, systematized cruelty permeates the society
and murder and mutilation contaminate it. We will not be different" – Andrea Dworkin<br /><br />
"Why have any men at all? … The proportion of men must be reduced to and maintained at approximately ten percent of the human race" – Sally Miller Gearhart<br /><br />
"If life is to survive on this planet, there must be a decontamination of the Earth. I think this will be accompanied by an evolutionary process that will result in a drastic reduction of the
population of males" – Mary Daly</span></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The stock feminist response is to point out that these quotes are from radical feminists, who have not been active for a long time, and do not represent mainstream feminism. While it is not exactly
true that they do not represent mainstream feminism, we can find more recent examples of feminist attitudes:
</span></span></span></span><br />
<blockquote style="color: #0b5394;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"It is time that government had a strategy on changing men away from power and oppression as part of its strategy for women and gender justice ... Changing future agendas for women
involves changing men; changing men involves deconstructing men and reducing men’s power; and, in the longer term still, this may even involve the abolition of men" – EuroPRO-Fem, a European men's
pro-feminist network</span></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The following is extracted from a recent discussion on a feminist weblog:
</span></span></span></span><br />
<blockquote style="color: #0b5394;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Allecto:</b> I think there is a very simple solution to the ‘problem’ of the team sport of gang-raping that is so popular as a form of gay male bonding between football players.
Mandatory castration of all men who play football and all men who watch football. This would be a quick and easy solution.<br /><br />
<b>bonobobabe:</b> I like your castration idea. I’d take a step further and castrate all male babies at birth.<br /><br />
<b>Mary Sunshine:</b> There is no remedy for this situation other than to halt the emergence of any more human males.</span></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Two caveats must be advanced before we go any further. The first is not a compromise; it is not self-censorship or moderation. It is a statement of fact. <i>The overwhelming majority of women do
not, and would not, support the extermination of men.</i> The question of whether all or most or only some feminists support the extermination of men is one that I shall address in a couple of
weeks' time. Clearly, there are feminists who do not openly support the extermination of men. Nevertheless, they have a role to play in the process, as do all misandrists. For the time being, it
will suffice to say that <i>all</i> feminist self-reflection and self-criticism reaches the verdict that they are not being 'feminist enough,' i.e. it results in further radicalization. I quote
from the back cover of Zillah Eisenstein's <i>The Radical Future of Liberal Feminism,</i> a feminist text which arrives at this very conclusion:
</span></span></span></span><br />
<blockquote style="color: #0b5394;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Eisenstein shows that liberal feminism is 'self-contradictory' because it 'accepts liberalism and at the same time rejects its patriarchal base.' Yet in truth, feminism is 'potentially
subversive', to both liberalism and the capitalist patriarchal state, and it must and can become radicalized as it pushes against the limitations of what can be accomplished within the context of
the state … Eisenstein advances the view that liberal feminism contains within itself the seeds of radical change.</span></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The significant point about the above quote is that Eisenstein, the feminist author, rejects the 'patriarchal base' of all liberal institutions; that is, she would happily do away with legal
impartiality, equality before the law, presumptive innocence, and so on. <i>Retaining these doctrines, which exist to protect innocent people, is not on the feminist agenda,</i> and Eisenstein
comes to the very same conclusion that I have presented in this lecture: that liberal feminism will become radical when it achieves all it can through the liberal state. The violent and vindictive
emotions will not be satiated, ever. Once feminism has gone as far as it can go through the liberal state, 'liberal feminists' will turn against it and plot its overthrow.<br /><br />
The second caveat is that the physical destruction of men is not inevitable. It is the logical outcome of feminism, but our future is not set in stone. Given that feminists have explicitly <a href="http://www.the-spearhead.com/2009/10/05/theyre-calling-for-slavery-now/">called for forced male labor</a> and the <a href="http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/2009/04/feminist-scholars-new-%0A%0Abook-proposes.html">presumption of innocence to be removed</a> <a href="http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/2010/12/jessica-valenti-america-should-model.html">when men are accused of rape,</a> and
that lawmakers are <a href="http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/2011/01/witch-doctor-lawmaker-emmett-hanger.html">seriously floating the suggestion</a> that those found guilty of sex offences
should be physically castrated, we might conclude that we are already some way down the feminist road to hell. Feminism has no internal brakes; a victory does not temper the feminist's violent
emotions, but provides the momentum for her to push for greater results, in the knowledge that she can get away with hurting men. Any barrier to the progress of feminism will therefore have to come
from outside feminism. It is up to external agents to build a brick wall in feminism's path.<br /><br />
We are more than sixty years into an organic process that will leave humanity with an irrevocably changed society. The catalyst for the abolition of Gynocentrism is its own radical and
unsustainable expression in feminism. Those same social and conceptual changes which made feminism possible prompt the question of why men should put up with <i>any</i> form of Gynocentrism. The
critical mass of opposition to Gynocentrism, resulting in its overthrow, will be reached as soon as feminism is exposed to the world. What remains to be seen is whether feminism shall expose
itself, or whether it will be exposed by counter-feminists. The former will occur if the movement becomes powerful enough to explicitly launch the physical destruction of men. My own view is that
feminists <i>will</i> make this final roll of the dice, and that they will be ultimately unsuccessful, although many men will suffer tortuous deaths. The other possibility is that feminism is
exposed in advance of this, preventing much of the violence, and allowing for the repeal of all Gynocentric rule with minimal bloodshed. Whatever the case – whether feminism exposes itself, or is
exposed – it is done for. Cast in the disinfecting sunlight of the world's gaze, held to account for its grievous transgressions, never again will feminism be tolerated.<br /><br />
Adam
<br />
<br /><br />
<b>Further Reading:</b><br /><br />
<a href="http://mensnewsdaily.com/archive/g/gay/2005/gay061305.htm">Roger F. Gay. <i>Unraveling Feminism in Sweden</i></a><br /><br />
<a href="http://www.rense.com/general63/dur.htm">Shannon O'Neil. <i>Man Hatred OK at University of New Hampshire</i></a><br /><br />
<a href="http://www.australian-news.com.au/gender_bias.htm">Martin Lehmann. <i>Feminist Zealots Create an Anti-Male World</i></a></span></span></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6345026973557617275.post-24640015761159685542011-02-26T09:00:00.000-08:002011-02-26T11:53:51.315-08:00False Consciousness & Kafka-Trapping<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Lecture No. 9</b><br /><br />
</span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"Never mind whether it's Critias or Socrates who is the one refuted. Just concentrate on the argument itself, and consider what on earth will become of it if it is examined."
-
Socrates of Athens<br /><br />
</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It is necessary, at this point, to set aside the the thread I have been weaving, and take a detour into the deep wilderness of <i>feminist logic.</i> The phrase <i>feminist
logic</i> will strike most of my readers as a misnomer - if not an oxymoron! - so let me reassure you that what I really mean is <i>feminist attempted logic.</i> And there is nothing logical about
that, I assure you!<br /><br />
First, why is the use of logic so threatening to feminists? We know, assuredly, that it <i>is</i> - with some feminists going so far as to claim that logic is nothing but a tool of the patriarchy.
Of course, this is absurd. Logical argument is, by definition, a collection of valid inferences - so <i>it is not possible to argue against logic.</i> To put it another way, you cannot <i>reason
against reasoning,</i> because the very attempt to do so involves the (attempted) use of reason. The only way to attack logic without using (or attempting to use) logic would be to attack it most
<i>randomly</i> - that is, without <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entailment">entailment.</a> The argumentative points you make, in attacking logic, would have to have no relation to each
other whatsoever. You could not say, for instance:
</span></span></span></span><br />
<blockquote style="color: #0b5394;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Men use logic to defeat women in argument, <i>therefore</i> logic is a tool of the patriarchy</span></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">because the use of "therefore" indicates a logical consequence, i.e. it indicates entailment, which is <i>a matter of logic!</i> This leaves the feminist with two unfavorable choices: she can state
that logic is a tool of the patriarchy, <i>without reference</i> to premise, evidence, example, definition, and so on - without any reference, indeed, to reality; or she can accept that her own
argument, because it attempts to link two propositions together on a logical basis, is <i>itself</i> a tool of the patriarchy - and as the proponent of the argument, <i>so is she!</i><br /><br />
Hence, the appropriate response to the feminist argument that "logic cannot be trusted, because it is a tool of the patriarchy," is to say: "and so are you! Hey - <a href="http://gynotheory.blogspot.com/2011/01/pig-latin.html">as a patriarch,</a> I appreciate you doing my job for me!"<br /><br />
</span></span></span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img src="http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd408/gynotheory/feministlogic.jpg" width="300" /></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />But again, <i>why</i> is logic so threatening to feminists? Could it be that feminists are simply misguided about the nature of logic? That is doubtful. Having seen feminists defeated by logic many
times, I am quite sure that they fear it because that their beliefs cannot withstand it. Like any cult, feminism does not allow its members to investigate the truth, nor does it tolerate free and
open discussion of its core beliefs. Still, none of this makes a bit of difference to <i>us</i> - <b>as non-feminists, there is no human authority obliging us to hold our thoughts or tongues on the
matter of feminism.</b><br /><br />
Yes, feminists fear logic because it contradicts other ways of 'knowing' the world - e.g. <i>being told what to think.</i> They also fear that logic will discredit ideological 'truths.' Feminists
want <span style="color: red;"><b>you</b> <span style="color: black;">to see the world <i>as they say you should see it</i> - they certainly don't want you coming to your own conclusions! Particularly not
conclusions critical of feminist orthodoxy, derived, for instance, from the process of asking questions and receiving unsatisfactory answers. And yet this is <i>precisely</i> the outcome that
feminists guarantee, when their anxieties over criticism and the consequences of open discussion cause them to react, kneejerk-fashion, with <i>shaming tactics.</i><br /><br />
What would a discerning neutral observer think, when he hears a reasonable question answered with an attack against the interlocutor's character? Will this inspire him to adopt all tenets of the
questioned set of beliefs? Is he more likely to feel <i>threatened into submission</i> by the shaming tactic used against the gadfly, or to feel offended by proxy at the ideologue's evasiveness and
insulting manner?<br /><br />
Ideologues don't tend to ask themselves searching questions like these. Small wonder, then, that the word 'ideology' began life as a term of abuse. It was not until Marx and Engels wrote <i>The
German Ideology</i> that the phrase took on the characterization we associate today with identity politics. One's ideology, they claimed, is the product of one's social position – that is, whether
one is a proletariat or a bourgeois. The socialist proletariat are the possessors of the ideology which reflects truth, while the capitalist bourgeoisie possess only 'false consciousness.' It is
never explained how it is known that things are this way around and not the other – i.e., why can't the bourgeoisie possess true ideology, and the proletariat be subjected to false consciousness?
That question does not need to be answered, because Marxism is a closed system of thought. It is like a man who stands not on the ground, but somehow, on his own feet; any one part of Marxism
stands upon the other parts of the theory, and does not depend upon the vagaries of the experiential world for support. In other words, what happens in the real world does not matter – Marxism is
self-verifying. The truth which backs up its claims is located <i>within</i> the theory, utterly independent of any contrary evidence that can be gathered from the actual experiences of actual
people.<br /><br />
It is much like feminism, then – being abstract and anti-contextual, deciding upon the story before the facts are known. Feminism, to feminists, requires no justification outside of itself. It is
impenetrable by external argument, and thus irrefutable – because it is inherently unreasonable. That is to say, <i>it cannot be reasoned with.</i> It is a waste of time trying to get feminists to
see sense, and every MRA soon learns that he will more easily squeeze blood from a stone. The only discourse which will make feminists sit up and change their ways is the discourse of power: and
this is a discourse that must be backed by action. Anti-feminists must be comfortable with the idea of wielding power over feminists, at least enough to marginalize them into irrelevance. This is
the end game. Building critical mass is how we get from here to there, but we take a step backwards every time we indulge feminists in their sophistry.<br /><br />
Take, for example, the feminist sophism that we are 'locked in' to a perspective determined by the sex we belong to. Any counter-feminist argument launched by a man, no matter how accurate his
observations, no matter how evidenced his claims, can be dismissed on the grounds that it was made by a man. The argument goes like this: "you're only saying that because you're a man. If you
weren't a man, you wouldn't have a male perspective, and so you wouldn't be saying that." The implication is that a male perspective is inherently wrong – that a man, owing to his being a man, is
incapable of grasping truth. So you see, this is really the same 'false consciousness' trick as practiced by Marx and Engels and their followers – the feminist has not explained how or why it is
that a woman's perspective, owing to her being a woman, is necessarily the one which yields to truth.<br /><br />
The 'false consciousness' trick is, ultimately, an evasion. In one dishonorable move, the feminist has sidestepped the argument itself and attacked the interlocutor – "you can't possibly be right,
because you are male." For the feminist, this is enough. She considers the matter closed, and moves on. By the same undisclosed reasoning by which Marx knew that the proletariat possessed the
truth, the feminist 'knows' (i.e. strongly feels) that her own ideology possesses the truth. But that undisclosed reasoning, whatever it is, does not work in reverse. The feminist is confident
enough that a counter-argument, using the same tactic - "you wouldn't be saying that if you weren't a woman" - is inapplicable and impossible. The implication is that feminist women view the world
objectively, whereas mere men are 'locked in' to a privileged perspective and cannot see the way things truly are. An attack on the perspective of a man, for it being a male perspective - even the
identification of a perspective as peculiarly 'male' - is nothing less than a statement of female supremacy.<br /><br />
As for non-feminist women, they too are oppressed by 'false consciousness.' You see, when women use their own minds to decide things for themselves, they are being manipulated by the patriarchy!
But when they stop thinking for themselves, and defer to feminist consciousness without question, <i>then</i> their minds are 'liberated!' Do you see how this works?<br /><br />
Now, I hate to ruin their fun by being a man who says things he wouldn't say if he wasn't a man, but there's something that doesn't quite make sense about all this. What the feminists are trying to
impart is a kind of <i>sexual determinism.</i> That is, the notion that they are attempting to propagate is one which states that our actions and behaviors are determined according to our sex, and
we have no freedom of choice in the matter. We are <i>moral robots,</i> hard-wired from birth to view the world in one particular way, from which we cannot deviate.<br /><br />
This theory would only be meaningful if it could tell us how men and women will act or think. Yet, both men and women are far less predictable than the pigeon-holers of the world would like them to
be. There are, for instance, feminists who are men, MRAs who are women, and people of both sexes who buck all the trends we can imagine. Feminist sexual determinism, then, has become a useless
theory; if there is any truth to it, it is limited to those aspects of human behavior that cannot be identified. It has been reduced to tautology: <i>we will always do those things which we will
always do!<br /></i>
</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><img src="http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd408/gynotheory/brain.jpg" width="300" /></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><br />It hardly needs stating that men and women are not two opposed and internally homogeneous classes of people. <i>Feminists would very much like them to be.</i> Indeed, feminism rests upon this
faulty perception. The idea that men and women should be opposed to each other is a feminist construction, and any deviation from this is a threat to the whole feminist enterprise – hence the
imperative of familial destruction. This is also why the most venomous attacks are reserved for male 'feminist allies.' That small number of men who exert the strictest self-discipline in
accordance with feminist orthodoxy come under the most fire for being <i>not feminist enough.</i> This happens because every man who is pro-female in the slightest is a thorn in the side of
feminism, just as much as the most outspoken anti-feminist woman (perhaps even moreso: in the case of feminist men, there is no equivalent to the 'false consciousness' argument used to dismiss
anti-feminist women). It must be <i>denied</i> that feminist men could ever be <i>feminist enough!</i> The illusion must be maintained that men are 'the enemy' - and this means repudiating the
friendly intentions of male allies. In declaring themselves feminist, those men fail to conform to feminist sexual determinism, thus contradicting feminist theory and threatening the progress of
the movement as a whole. It is not so easy to paint them as atavistic brutes, and this is largely down to their own efforts to make themselves amenable - which is precisely why they receive such
vitriolic scorn.<br /><br />
To get back on track: there is more that Marxism and feminism hold in common than the Appeal to False Consciousness. Both fit a certain template, upon which we could map any <a href="http://gynotheory.blogspot.com/2011/01/anatomy-of-victim-ideology.html">modern radical ideology.</a> Again, it is developments in language and thought which allow for the theoretical
configurations making possible social movements like feminism. Socialism was only possible once the state and the economy were <i>conceptually distinguished</i> - in feudal times, no distinction
between the two was discernible, rendering moot the possibility of a socialist system being idealized. It was in response to the rise of capitalism, with all that this entailed - Enlightenment
thought, economic individualism, free markets, free labor, an end to tax farming, the formation of the business and working classes - that Utopian socialism and (later) Marxism became possible
<i>in the realm of the imagination.</i><br /><br />
Similarly, nationalism - in its modern form, as an ideology - only became possible once society and culture were distinguished in language and thought. Our question here is, <i>what had to be
distinguished before feminism could become a possibility?</i><br /><br />
This is a question which would take a great deal of space to answer - more space than I have available here. It will suffice to say that the escalating liberties being granted to men resulted in a
divergence of expectations between men and women. Reasonably enough, we might think, a small number of women began to question why the Enlightenment notion of individual freedom extended only to
men. However, what is often missed is that these women began from a position of strength - they were already the beneficiaries of Gynocentric cultural codes that placed them high above men, atop
pedestals. Over the coming decades, men tripped over themselves delivering whatever women demanded. It is likely that most of them sincerely believed that individual freedom should be extended to
women as to men. But the very fact that Gynocentrism was already in full force meant that female supremacy was the only possible outcome of feminism. The 'equality' feminists sought was an
'equality' to do all the things men are permitted to do, <i>and</i> to retain their traditional advantages over men, accrued through centuries of Gynocentrism. The recipients of additional
advantages are, of course, not equal at all, but privileged at the expense of all others. This was always the intention.<br /><br />
Despite the occasional claims of feminists that they are dispensing with all forms of male thought and creating anew, feminism slots in neatly with other radical ideologies which preceded it (and
which were, of course, dreamed up by men). To take the most obvious fact about modern radical ideologies, their basis is in <i>forms of association</i> - Marxists oppose the proletariat to the
bourgeoisie, nationalists oppose their own culture or race to a culturally or racially diverse society, and feminists oppose women to men. The <i>key relationships,</i> used by ideologues as total
explanations for all human phenomena, correspond to the forms of association which are emphasized. For Marx, the key relationship is economic - the control of the workers by the capitalists is an
economic relationship, and all else (politics, religion, culture) is mere 'superstructure' atop this 'base.' The superstructure may change, but nothing <i>fundamental</i> will alter unless the
economic relationship of the classes is reconfigured. Similarly, for nationalists, the key relationship is cultural (or racial, if the two are differentiated). This is the 'base,' upon which
everything else is built. Changes to the superficial structures on top of the 'base' (e.g. modifications to political and social institutions) are irrelevant; the only fundamental change will come
about via transformations in culture and/or racial demographics.<br /><br />
We find the same pattern in feminism. Opposing women to men, the key relationship for feminists is, of course, sexual. It is the relationship of men to women which determines all else (politics,
economics, culture, religion, and so on). The elements of the superstructure may well change, but until the <a href="http://gynotheory.blogspot.com/2011/02/old-wine-new-bottles.html">domination of
women by men</a> is smashed at the <i>base level,</i> nothing fundamental will be achieved.<br /><br />
It is this belief which ultimately explains <i>feminist attempted logic.</i> Their attempts at rational argument are clouded by a belief in collective guilt - that all problems or inconveniences
faced by women result from this base relationship (the domination of women by men), so that, as long as problems or inconveniences remain, it must be the case that men (collectively) are dominating
women (collectively). It does not matter if a particular man is innocent - he is still 'the enemy,' as feminists are more than willing to admit (see: <a href="http://counterfem.blogspot.com/2007/02/redstockings-manifesto.html"><i>The Redstockings Manifesto</i></a>). Nor does it matter if a particular woman is guilty - she is absolved in the name of
collective innocence.<br /><br />
And on these grounds, we encounter the peculiar feminist debating tactic called <i>Kafka-Trapping.</i> I did not invent the term; the credit must go to Eric S. Raymond, whose original article on
the subject is linked below. Nor did Eric intend the term to be used <i>only</i> for feminists - <i>any</i> member of a victim ideology can effectively Kafka-Trap their opponents. The name,
<i>Kafka-Trapping,</i> is a reference to Franz Kafka's work <i>The Trial,</i> in which the protagonist is told that he is very, very guilty, although his crime is never specified; and, as he soon
discovers, the only 'way out' is to admit his guilt (though he knows not what of), thus acquiescing in his own destruction.<br /><br />
In Eric's own words, a Kafka-Trap is
</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<blockquote style="color: #0b5394;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">an <i>unfalsifiable</i> claim, about <i>thoughtcrime,</i> intended to <i>induce guilt</i> so the subject becomes manipulable.
</span></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">The most chilling thing about this tactic is that the Kafka-Trapper declares <i>your mind</i> to be <i>out of bounds to you</i> - her judgment is a dismissal of your own opinion about your own
thoughts. <i>Think you know what you think? Think again, buddy!</i><br /><br />
Now, I shall reproduce, from Eric's blog, six models of the Kafka-Trap which feminists <i>will</i> use against you. Learn them. Know them. Recognize them for what they are: nothing more than <i>ad
hominem</i> evasions. Calling out the tactic, as a Kafka-Trap, is sufficient for its refutation.
</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">(Note: in the following examples, I have used the terms 'sexist' and 'sexism' but these may be replaced by 'misogyny,' 'woman-hating,' 'patriarchy,' etc.)<br /><br style="color: #0b5394;" />
<b style="color: #0b5394;">Model A Kafka-Trap</b><br style="color: #0b5394;" /><span style="color: #0b5394;">
Your refusal to acknowledge that you are guilty of sexism confirms that you are guilty of sexism.</span><br style="color: #0b5394;" /><br style="color: #0b5394;" />
<b style="color: #0b5394;">Model C Kafka-Trap</b><br style="color: #0b5394;" /><span style="color: #0b5394;">
Even if you do not feel yourself to be guilty of sexism, you are guilty because you have benefited from the sexist behavior of others in the system.</span><br style="color: #0b5394;" /><br style="color: #0b5394;" />
<b style="color: #0b5394;">Model P Kafka-Trap</b><br style="color: #0b5394;" /><span style="color: #0b5394;">
Even if you do not feel yourself to be guilty of sexism, you are guilty because you have a privileged position in the sexist system.</span><br style="color: #0b5394;" /><br style="color: #0b5394;" />
<b style="color: #0b5394;">Model S Kafka-Trap</b><br style="color: #0b5394;" /><span style="color: #0b5394;">
Skepticism about any particular anecdotal account of sexism, or any attempt to deny that the particular anecdote implies a systemic problem in which you are one of the guilty parties, is itself
sufficient to establish your guilt.</span><br style="color: #0b5394;" /><br style="color: #0b5394;" />
<b style="color: #0b5394;">Model L Kafka-Trap</b><br style="color: #0b5394;" /><span style="color: #0b5394;">
Your insistence on applying rational skepticism in evaluating assertions of pervasive sexism itself demonstrates that you are sexist.</span><br style="color: #0b5394;" /><br style="color: #0b5394;" />
<b style="color: #0b5394;">Model D Kafka-Trap</b><br style="color: #0b5394;" /><span style="color: #0b5394;">
The act of demanding a definition of sexism that can be consequentially checked and falsified proves you are sexist.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">It is the last model, Model D, which I find the most intriguing. It implies - and my experience with feminists verifies - that simply asking <i>how to not be sexist</i> will be taken as evidence of
one's sexism. The reason why I focused so heavily on definitions in my earlier lectures is because of the utility of attaching concrete meanings to terms. If we have a concrete definition of
sexism, for instance, I could check my own behavior against this definition, and potentially discover that I do not fulfil any of the criteria - i.e., I am not sexist. But this does not satisfy the
feminist notion of <i>collective guilt.</i> It feels like a panicked response on their part, then, to insist that any man who tries to discover whether or not he is sexist <i>is automatically
sexist</i> simply for trying to find this out. In other words, he is a sexist for not wanting to be a sexist. Could there be any clearer indication that feminists <i>want</i> men and women to be
two conflicting classes of people?<br /><br />
The purpose of the Kafka-Trap is to leave absolutely no room for the trapped individual to believe in his own innocence. A denial that he is oppressive is further evidence that he is oppressive;
the only other option is to admit that he is oppressive, which is <i>also</i> evidence that he is oppressive. (Note the following from the <a href="http://www.turningpointservices.org/images/wheelpowercontrol.gif">Violence Wheel,</a> designed by the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project: "saying the abuse didn't happen" is abusive. So, you
see, whether you plead "guilty" or "not guilty" in a court of law, both pleas are evidence of your guilt.) Oppression is alleged <i>because</i> the individual is a member of a group - but not
necessarily one that <i>he identifies with.</i> The in-group identification is <i>ascribed to the individual by the operator of the Kafka-Trap.</i> To quote from Eric once more,
</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<blockquote style="color: #0b5394;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Real crimes – actual transgressions against flesh-and-blood individuals – are generally not specified. The aim of the kafkatrap is to produce a kind of free-floating guilt in the
subject, a conviction of sinfulness that can be manipulated by the operator to make the subject say and do things that are convenient to the operator’s personal, political, or religious goals.
Ideally, the subject will then internalize these demands, and then become complicit in the kafkatrapping of others.</span></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">That actual transgressions are not specified is true for all models apart from Model S, in which a specific transgression <i>is</i> specified, but any doubt regarding the alleged victim's account
of things is taken as evidence that the doubter is guilty along with the alleged perpetrator. How familiar this all sounds! Is it not the precise experience of anyone who encounters feminists while
discussing the prevalence of false rape accusations? On that note, I shall refer you to a comment from the feminist Amanda Marcotte, which she quickly deleted, but not before <a href="http://counterfem.blogspot.com/2010/06/amanda-marcotte-says-that-you-want-to.html">Fidelbogen saved a copy:<br /></a>
</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><img src="http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd408/gynotheory/marcotteGaffe.jpg" /></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><br />Let's talk about Amanda Marcotte some more, shall we? In fact, in her honor, I would like to define a seventh model of the Kafka-Trap, Model J:
</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<blockquote style="color: #0b5394;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Model J Kafka-Trap</b><br />
Even if your innocence is proven in a court of law, this not only confirms your guilt; it also confirms the guilt of the (legal) system that found you innocent.</span></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">Exhibit A for Model J is a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Marcotte#False_Rape_Controversy">series of comments</a> that Amanda Marcotte made in the wake of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_University_lacrosse_team_scandal">Duke Lacrosse false rape accusations.</a> Unable to accept that the accused men could possibly be innocent (hey, why do we
even <i>have</i> trials?), she said the following:
</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<blockquote style="color: #0b5394;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In the meantime, I've been sort of casually listening to CNN blaring throughout the waiting area and good fucking god is that channel pure evil. For awhile, I had to listen to how the
poor dear lacrosse players at Duke are being persecuted just because they held someone down and fucked her against her will—not rape, of course, because the charges have been thrown out. Can’t a
few white boys sexually assault a black woman anymore without people getting all wound up about it? So unfair.</span></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">Leaving aside the content of her raging diatribe, doesn't the <i>style</i> of her writing strike you as <i>that of a twelve-year old,</i> perhaps one who has only just discovered swear words, and
believes that using them as much as possible is 'cool'? In the spirit of this post, then, and given the evidence before us, I hereby believe that Amanda Marcotte is, in fact, twelve years old. Any
argument to the contrary, from Amanda or anyone else, will be taken as further evidence that she is twelve years old.<br /><br />
All right then. Since she has clearly not been brought up properly, I shall recommend a regimen of discipline that will soon have her speaking as a proper young lady should! I suggest, first, that
Amanda Marcotte shall have her mouth vigorously washed out with soap; next, that she shall receive a stern, bare-bottom spanking (over some patriarch's knee, of course); and then, that she shall be
sent to bed without dinner for a week. This will soon set her straight! And since I refuse to believe any evidence to the contrary of my opinion that she is twelve years old, any disagreement with
my opinions on this matter shall only reinforce my contention that she is utterly deserving of this punishment. Now, what do you think about <i>that?</i><br /><br />
Adam
<br />
<br /><br />
<b>Further Reading:</b><br /><br />
<a href="http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2122">Eric S. Raymond. <i>Kafkatrapping</i></a><br /><br />
<a href="http://counterfem.blogspot.com/2010/11/do-you-know-what-kafka-trapping-is.html">Fidelbogen. <i>Do You Know What 'Kafka-trapping' Is? </i></a><br /><br />
<a href="http://rationalargumentator.com/Femspeak.html">Michael Miller. <i>Femspeak</i></a></span></span></span></span></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6345026973557617275.post-73377800720401517642011-02-19T09:00:00.000-08:002011-02-19T09:41:21.493-08:00Chasing Rainbows<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Lecture No. 8</b></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />"Equality, rightly understood as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences; wrongly understood, as it has been so
tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism." - Barry Goldwater<br /></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What is it that enables us to live meaningful lives? This is a question with a long history, and after more than two thousand years of scratching our heads, our species is not much
the wiser. Answers fall just as easily as they are formed. Perhaps the only real wisdom to be imparted by centuries of soul-searching is that the solution cannot be reduced to the realization of
only one value. Efforts to bring about a social system based upon the realization of one value in particular - be it religious doctrine, the will of the nation, or social equality - have invariably
resulted in widespread repression, and not the golden age of peace and virtue as postulated by their ideologues. In contrast, those societies which have managed to create and maintain the space for
people to actually live what they might call 'meaningful lives' are those which have kept a number of values in balance. This is not a very exciting solution, but it is better to be dissatisfied
with the great mysteries of life than to be enserfed or 'disappeared' by a regime in pursuit of a more enticing dictum.<br /><br />
Whatever the case, the argument for autonomy seems convincing – balanced, as it must be, against other values. It is difficult to see how one's life could be considered meaningful where one does
not possess even the most basic rights of self-determination. On this point, I am superficially in agreement with the feminists, who have made autonomy (and <a href="http://gynotheory.blogspot.com/refuting-appeal-to-dictionary">not</a> <a href="http://gynotheory.blogspot.com/pig-latin">equality</a>) their guiding principle. Of course, in their case, it is
only women's autonomy that matters, and this is to be extended as far as possible. Nevertheless, we do agree that autonomy, in and of itself, is <i>a good thing,</i> although I would qualify my
support with the corollary that it must be balanced against other values so that it does not become <i>license.</i><br /><br />
It is the most spectacular irony, then, that so long as they remain feminists, women will never knowingly taste freedom. Feminism is a victim ideology which <a href="http://gynotheory.blogspot.com/2011/02/personal-as-contrasted-to-political.html">freezes women perpetually in <b>Struggle;</b></a> it cannot afford to indulge in <b>Liberation,</b> else the
game is up. To continue playing, feminists must imagine that they are under the control of external forces which are responsible for every fate that befalls them. They have a name for this mass
delusion: <i>The Patriarchy.</i> Every bad decision, every unwanted consequence, every minor inconvenience can be traced back to this mystical, mythical and invisible system of control which exerts
influence over women, in much the same way that animistic tribes explained severe weather phenomena by reference to angered and vengeful deities. If feminists are to pretend that <b>Struggle</b> is
still relevant, then it cannot be admitted that women are in control of their own actions, for this would imply that they are free moral agents. Women must be made to believe that they are delicate
vessels being tossed about in an ocean storm, with navigation and steering rendered futile, and no land in sight. Perhaps we could contrast this to the MGTOW movement, which resembles a series of
wooden canoes, light but durable, whose occupants paddle alone on calm seas – for the time being, at least.<br /></span></span></span></span><br />
<div align="center">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img src="http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd408/gynotheory/pirate-ship-sinking.jpg" width="300" /></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />Even when women are privileged beyond their wildest dreams – which is inconceivable in feminist theory – they still may not be considered free. Women are not permitted to enjoy freedom; it
<i>must</i> be denied for the ideology to survive. It <i>must</i> be reiterated, until it comes to mind reflexively, that "we still live in a patriarchy," and "women are still not yet equal," and
so forth. Feminism's adherents can never rest, because they will not allow themselves to. They are forever <span style="color: red;">chasing rainbows.<br /><br />
<span style="color: black;">They are mentally barricaded in, shut off from the very world that they impose their designs upon. They are forced to conceive of themselves forever <b>Struggling,</b> lest they
become <b>Liberated,</b> and therefore irrelevant. As I said last week, a tripartite perception of history (past as Oppression, present as Struggle, and future as Liberation) is a constant of
feminism, and this is decided upon in advance of the facts. Regardless of context, the present is <b>Struggle,</b> with <b>Liberation</b> perpetually set some way off into the future. As the
proverb states, <i>tomorrow never comes.</i><br /><br />
As I have mentioned previously, feminism is fundamentally anti-contextual, deciding upon the story in advance, and then fitting the facts around this. The process is simple. Take the key points
about the given situation, and through the use of dislogic, eristic, moral relativism, symbolism, self-contradiction and dreamlike fantasy, frame the discourse as one in which women are moving from
<b>Oppression</b> to <b>Liberation,</b> but will not get there without feminist <b>Struggle.</b><br /><br />
This is not to say that feminism operates statically. The first step in the process just described is to draw in the facts from real life. If feminists did not do this, their preaching would have
zero appeal to the non-feminist sector, because it would seem to have no bearing on the experiential world. Feminism is anti-contextual in the sense that the story is decided prior to the facts,
but it is nevertheless dependent on the context of any particular situation. The real life context must first be experienced and understood, and only then can it be co-opted into feminist
discourse. To take a clear example, feminists in the United States today do not agitate for women's right to vote. They would get nowhere if they did, because, having the vote, they have nowhere
else to go (in this regard). The franchise is not now a relevant issue in the context of the real world. On the other hand, the fact that most business leaders are men will be verified by most
people's experiences of the world; this, then, can be drawn into feminist discourse, as an example of <b>Oppression.</b><br /><br />
Forgive me for being overly simplistic. It must be made clear how the process of manufacturing <b>Struggle</b> is playing a pivotal role in the changing nature of <i>rights.</i><br /><br />
What is a right? As it has typically been understood, a right is a claim which, in usual circumstances, is inviolable. In other words, if I have a right, then I have some kind of claim - the
permission to do something I wish to do, or to be protected from something I do not wish for - and other individuals may not deprive me of this claim. To take a clear example, I have the right not
to be assaulted - other individuals are not permitted to assault me. They may do so nonetheless, in which case they have transgressed against my right; they have done what they are not permitted to
do, and prevented me from doing (or avoiding) those things which I am permitted to do (or avoid). Accordingly, I am permitted to seek recompense for the violation of my right.<br /><br />
A theory of rights requires an enforcer, in order to prevent rights transgressions and provide recompense to those whose rights have been violated. The enforcer that we are familiar with is the
state, particularly those institutions involved in the creation and practise of law: the legislature, the judiciary, the police force, and so on. It is necessary that the state possesses the
monopoly on the use of force, else its rule would go unenforced, and there would be no deterrent against rights violations. In an extreme case, the citizens may rise up and overthrow a weak state,
subsequently instituting their own form of justice which may be far from impartial. Max Weber famously described the state as "the monopoly of the legitimate use of force." I have left out the word
'legitimate' from my definition here, because it strikes me as an entirely subjective judgment, not to mention an inevitable one from the point of view of those in control of the state. Those who
seize power and use it to persecute one section of the population will surely believe their own monopoly on the use of force to be legitimate - indeed, they will most likely believe their own use
of force to be of greater legitimacy than that of the regime which they deposed, no matter how that regime conducted itself.<br /><br />
Note that there is no inherent limitation to the concept of rights; there is no in-built brake system. There can never be a point where we say, "now we have all the rights." There will always be
potentially more rights that we <i>could</i> possess. That is not to say we categorically <i>should</i> possess more rights. The full possession of all
<i>conceivable</i> rights would be an inconceivable license - total autonomy, in which all claims would be permitted. This would mean that the individual with license would be free to violate the
rights of others. In this case, the rights of others would be meaningless whenever they encounter the licensed individual. Logically, all people cannot have total possession of all rights, because
each would be permitted to infringe upon the rights of all the others - which means that nobody's rights would be secure, and the strongest individual or group would be entitled to establish
arbitrary rule by physical force alone.<br /></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<div align="center">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><img src="http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd408/gynotheory/founding-fathers.jpg" width="300" /></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><br />Clearly we need limitations, and the Constitution of the United States of America is the exemplar in this regard. As the finest statement of personal liberty and representative democracy the
world has ever known, it exists to protect a number of fundamental rights from being overturned by the strongest collection of individuals - namely, the government. Laws may come and go, but so
long as the constitution is upheld, the foundational rights of the individual citizen are set in stone - or, at least, are extremely difficult to remove or alter. Where a government repeatedly
violates its own constitution, it (ideally, at least) runs the risk of being overthrown by an uprising of citizens, who would, together, form a stronger collective.<br /><br />
The United States Constitution, adopted in 1787, built upon the liberal philosophy of the time, most especially that of John Locke. Sections of the Declaration of Independence, signed eleven years
previous, are more or less lifted from his <i>Second Treatise of Government.</i> The ideas expressed in this work are not those of the liberalism we know today; they sit somewhere closer to what we
would now term <i>libertarianism.</i> It was only in the second half of the nineteenth century that liberalism underwent the profound transformation into the collectivist ideology we more readily
associate with the term today.<br /><br />
In his 1859 text, <i>On Liberty,</i> J. S. Mill introduced a new articulation of the traditional liberal moral defence of individual rights. It runs something like this: <i>individuals have the
right to do whatever they choose, so long as this does not harm others.</i> Mill exercised caution when considering the application of this principle: one would not be harmed, for instance, by
losing in open competition (e.g. the free market). Following Tocqueville, he voiced concern that democracy, if unmoderated, could devolve into majoritarian tyranny.<br /><br />
We may thank the successors of Mill for the perversion of individualist liberalism into a collectivist and authoritarian philosophy. It was one small step from Mill's axiom - <i>individuals have
the right to do whatever they choose, so long as this does not harm others</i> - to the doctrine of New Liberalism: <i>if I cannot do what I would otherwise choose, then somebody must be harming
me.</i> It was the self-proclaimed 'liberal socialist,' Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse, who built upon Mill's premises and added a new twist: that freedom is not good <i>in and of itself,</i> but must
be subordinated to some higher end. It follows that any freedom which is not subordinated to this higher end is not morally justified. It was the social radical Richard Henry Tawney, building on
this development, who advocated an egalitarian society based on the premise that "freedom for the pike is death for the minnows" - in other words, that certain identifiable groups are not deserving
of equal autonomy, but must have their share restricted. It was Lester Frank Ward who disavowed the individual altogether and argued that the state should direct all social and economic
development, including the happiness of its citizens. Perhaps most tellingly of all, he was an enthusiastic supporter of the notion that women are innately superior to men. To quote an especially
relevant passage:
</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">And now from the point of view of intellectual development itself we find her side by side, and shoulder to shoulder with him furnishing, from the very outset, far back in prehistoric,
presocial, and even prehuman times, the necessary complement to his otherwise one-sided, headlong, and wayward career, without which he would soon have warped and distorted the race and rendered it
incapable of the very progress which he claims exclusively to inspire. And herefore again, even in the realm of intellect, where he would fain reign supreme, she has proved herself fully his equal
<b>and is entitled to her share of whatever credit attaches to human progress hereby achieved.</b></span></span></span></span></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">The purpose of this detour into the changing nature of rights was to hone in on the historical developments that precipitated certain aspects of modern feminism. Some contributors to the Men's
Rights Movement have somewhat abstractly attacked 'modernity' and 'Enlightenment values.' This is fine if they are intending to attack individual autonomy in general, but we must look more
carefully if we actually want to get to the root of the problems facing men, as men, today - which, I would argue, coalesce into the deprivation of male autonomy. It is modernity, and particularly
Enlightenment thought, which made individual autonomy a possibility - and it is social liberalism, and most especially feminism, which are turning it into an impossibility for men.
<br /></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<div align="center">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><img src="http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd408/gynotheory/ScalesOfJustice.gif" width="300" /></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><br />The innovation of social liberalism is conspicuous in the section of the Ward quote above which I have emphasized. It is entitlement; the creation of new
obligations for others to fulfil; the construction of rights claims, not rights <i>of individuals,</i> to be held equally, but <i>against</i> an identified segment of the population (the 'enemy'
group). Of course, every right, if it is taken seriously, demands obligations of others - if I have a right to not be assaulted, then you must not assault me, and vice versa. The difference between
such a claim and the claims of New Liberalism is that the former is an obligation to <i>inaction,</i> while the latter is an obligation to <i>action.</i> My obligations to inaction mean that I
cannot transgress certain boundaries - the rights of other people. I may not hurt them, steal from them, or do damage to their possessions. I am forbidden to do certain things which would interfere
with the autonomy of others, but apart from that, I am free to do as I please. Obligations to action are of a different sort altogether: the one who holds me to such an obligation has the power to
command me. I am told how to act, and I am forbidden to act any other way. This curtails my autonomy.<br /><br />
For instance, if you require some object in order to accomplish a certain project, then your autonomy is curtailed if you do not possess the object. Therefore, you have a claim to my object,
presuming that I possess one. It matters not if I have earned or otherwise rightfully own my object; the theory goes that you should have it anyway. Claims of ownership and desert are subordinated
to the autonomy of individuals, which translates to the wants (not needs) of specially identified 'victim' groups. If, say, I am interviewing a man and a woman for a position in my employ, and the
woman demands that she be given the job as a crucial step in her career plan, <i>I am denying her autonomy by not employing her,</i> even if she is the least qualified candidate. She needs the
position in order to <i>achieve what she ultimately wants,</i> and so she is <i>wronged</i> if she does not get it. The doctrine of New Liberalism - <i>if I am unable to do what I would otherwise
choose, then somebody must be harming me</i> - clearly serves the victim agenda of feminism. Any limit whatsoever on the actions of women, including those introduced in the name of fairness and
impartiality, can be taken as a new <b>Oppression</b> according to this doctrine.<br /><br />
'New' or 'social' liberalism is in fact the perversion and corruption of liberalism - and it finds its highest expression in the caste system of rights feminists are busy creating. Women's rights,
a catch phrase once trumpeted as a progressive march towards a fairer future, has become the trump card that never loses its value, ready to be played any time a woman wants to 'get one over the
guys'. In the early days, the idea of <b>Struggle</b> was more creditable, and even seems admirable in retrospect. Women struggled for rights which men possessed: the right to vote, the right to
own property, the right to divorce, the right to the same wage as a man doing the same job. Once upon a time, it was perfectly plausible, to an unbiased observer, that feminism meant to bring about
equality between the sexes. That is not to say this view is inherently correct, only that it was believable, from a point of view external to feminism, that the feminist project carried this
altruistic goal.<br /><br />
But what are the women's rights advocated today? The right to confiscate men's money, the right to commit parental alienation, the right to commit paternity fraud, the right to equal pay for less
work, the right to pay a lower tax rate, the right to mutilate men, the right to confiscate sperm, the right to murder children, the right to not be disagreed with, the right to reproductive choice
and the right to make that choice for men as well. In an interesting legal paradox, some have advocated - with success - that women should have the right to not be punished
for crimes at all. The eventual outcome of this is a kind of sexual feudalism, where women rule arbitrarily, and men are held in bondage, with fewer rights and far more obligations. To date, the
transformation of rights into obligations to action have given us a welfare state in which, according to <a href="http://www.singularity2050.com/2010/01/the-misandry-bubble.html">The Futurist,</a>
</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">virtually all government spending [...] from Medicare to Obamacare to welfare to public sector jobs for women to the expansion of the prison population, is either a net transfer of
wealth from men to women, or a byproduct of the destruction of Marriage 1.0. In either case, 'feminism' is the culprit [...] Remember again that the earnings of men pays 70%-80% of all
taxes.</span></span></span></span></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">Feminism views the independence of individual citizens as a barrier, not a safeguard. Personal autonomy hinders feminism's progress in moralizing the world and bleeding men dry for the benefit of
women.<br /><br />
Women's rights? It's nothing but a power grab.<br /><br />
Adam
<br /><br /><br />
<b>Further Reading:</b><br /><br />
<a href="http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-256.html">Michael Weiss and Cathy Young. <i>Feminist Jurisprudence: Equal Rights or Neo-Paternalism?</i></a><br /><br />
<a href="http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html">Founding Fathers of the United States. <i>The Declaration of Independence</i></a><br /><br />
<a href="http://www.pellebilling.com/2010/10/mens-rights-manifesto/">Pelle Billing. <i>Men's Rights Manifesto</i></a></span></span></span></span></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6345026973557617275.post-74043120090596689262011-02-12T09:00:00.000-08:002011-02-12T09:14:06.547-08:00The Personal, as Contrasted to the Political<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Lecture No. 7</b></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"They prided themselves on belonging to a movement, as distinguished from a party, and a movement could not be bound by a
program." - Hannah Arendt</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Last week, we looked at how the concept of <i>domination</i> has become a justification for encroaching despotism. It should not
come as a shock to attentive readers that virtually every keyword in the feminist lexicon is used in a similar way. Whether the term being
discussed is <i>misogyny</i> or <i>rape</i> or <i>patriarchy,</i> the tendency is to broaden its meaning to cover as wide a semantic area as
possible, smuggling the maximum possible ideological contraband within an overcoat of righteousness. The real-world effect of all this is to
restrict male autonomy through the criminalization of men's actions. The limitless possibilities for semantic bleaching correspond to extensive
prison sentences and crippling fines. The intention is to criminalize <i>the norm.</i> Every move that a man makes should send a shiver down his
spine, should force him to look over his shoulder, with a panic-stricken expression, wondering, "what new law have I just broken?" Men are to
live in a perpetual state of surveillance and presumed guilt - a panoptical existence in which they are repeatedly chastized for doing wrong.
That is, according to an invasive, alien moral standard that they are invited to obey, not understand, and certainly not to question or
refute.<br /><br />
But when the criminalized behavior falls within the domain of actions in which both men and women engage, the argument requires a corollary that <i>it is different,
and worse, when men do it.</i> For instance, certain nasty individuals of both sexes engage in <i>sexual harassment,</i> but we must understand
that when men do it to women, it is <i>chalk,</i> and when women do it to men, it is <i>cheese.</i> The two, we are assured, are incomparable,
regardless of how a victimized man might see things – after all, even in his victimhood, he is blinkered by his <i>privilege.</i><br /><br />
The whole fairy tale is aptly summed up in the feminist mantra, <span style="color: red;">the personal is political. <span style="color: black;">As was discussed
last week, the proper context in which this claim should be viewed is the recent history of the Western world. Particular focus should be given
to a current within our shared political culture, which has given rise to despotic government and threatens to do so again. How else are we to
interpret a statement that all things within the domain of the individual are in fact the business of government? If we do not own or control
those things which are <i>personal</i> to us, there cannot be anything to speak of that we do own or control, up to and including our
lives.<br /><br />
But it would be a mistake to view the mantra simply as a statement of belief, i.e. that its speaker merely <i>believes</i> the personal to be
political. All manner of people have all manner of kooky theories, and a group of people communicating their <i>belief</i> that all aspects of
our lives are managed by the state would be about as troubling as tin foil conspiracy theorists or the Flat Earth Society. When a feminist says
that <span style="color: red;">the personal is political, <span style="color: black;">however, she is <i>not</i> simply stating a belief; she is making a call to
action. There are implications hidden within the phrase.<br /><br />
Last week's discussion involved a section on ideologies, and the progressivist assumptions at the roots of Western political culture. To recap,
ideologies assume a difference between <i>how society is</i> and <i>how it ought to be,</i> predicated upon a specific moral view of the world.
What this means, as far as feminist analysis is concerned, is that if the personal is <i>not</i> currently political, <i>then it should be made
that way.</i> Practically all feminist innovation consists of making those things which are personal into political matters. The logical end-
point is to be found where there are no strictly personal actions, no personal utterances, intentions, thoughts or beliefs; all of these, expressed
publicly or privately, would be strictly political. Every decision, down to the minutiae details of everyday life, becomes a political matter for which individuals are held to account, not as individual transgressors, but as members of an
oppressive class which must answer for its sins.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div align="center">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><img src="http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd408/gynotheory/ship.jpg" width="300" /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">'The political' is another one of those <i>essentially contested concepts</i> – in other words, it is one of those concepts most open to
abuse. It is an elusive idea, which can be grasped but never precisely pinned down – and attempts to do so are rather like trying to grab all the
air in an inflatable mattress. One of the things we <i>can</i> say about 'the political,' is that it has not always been identified with 'the
ideological' – which seems sensible enough, since 'the ideological' is a product of modernity, a relative newcomer as far as politics is
concerned.<br /><br />
Once upon a time, 'the political' was a term which referred to Kings, Queens, courtiers and nobles, their struggles and their successions; but
certainly <i>not</i> to doctrine. That change came about gradually, with the steady fall of religious fervor that marks modernity.<br /><br />
I am aware that I skate close to etymological fallacy, so let me clarify what I am arguing. I am not complaining that there is a <i>proper</i>
meaning of terms such as 'the political' which has fallen out of fashion. I have <a href="http://gynotheory.blogspot.com/2011/01/refuting-appeal-to-dictionary.html">previously acknowledged</a> that language is forever in flux. As a corollary, I do recognize that <i>objectively correct</i>
definitions are something of a rarity. My purpose, in highlighting <i>linguistic</i> change, is a correlative highlighting of <i>social</i>
change! <span style="color: red;">The one rarely undergoes a paradigm shift without bringing the other along.<span style="color: black;"> There is immense power
in language, to not only reflect but to define the experiential world. If we want to understand how things came to be the way that they are, we
should cast a searing torch beam over historic changes in vocabulary – it is here that we will find the notional germ cells that gave rise to the
feminist disease.<br /><br />
Such as in the case of 'the political'. Today, everything <i>controversial</i> is reflexively considered a political matter. Whether we are
discussing a person's unusual lifestyle, or a new work of art that pushes boundaries, or a website that advances an innovative worldview, we feel
quite certain that what we are discussing is a <i>political statement.</i> The controversial, then is political; or perhaps it would be more
accurate to say that the <i>unusual</i> is political. Non-conformists of all stripes are prompted to attach some political purpose to their
actions or beliefs. The effect of this very public challenge is to lock individuals into a system of pervasive control; stepping out of line
makes one into a target.<br /><br />
And this is precisely what feminism requires - for men to stand in line, and to target those who do not. It's a lot easier to pursue <span style="color: red;">the project for increasing the power of women <span style="color: black;">when you can effectively gag those who stand to lose the most from
its success.<br /><br />
The flip side to all this is women's <a href="http://gynotheory.blogspot.com/2011/01/anatomy-of-victim-ideology.html">exponentially increasing and
'compensatory' license.</a> It is <i>men alone</i> whose private lives are to be locked into the system of public control; women, in contrast,
are to enjoy the spoils of victory in a new era of female sexual anarchism. Perhaps the only consolation we can realistically take is that
despotisms are great generators of spiritual enlightenment among the oppressed. It was the persecution of early Christians that drove pious men
and women to live alone in the desert, in imitation of Jesus Christ – it was only in the fifth century that these monastics were co-opted into
the Church, having sought a purely ascetic existence as an alternative to the material world that had driven them out. Similarly, the oppressive
regimes of the Hellenistic period led many in the Greek city-states to embrace mystical philosophies which advocated turning away from the world.
Given that we are well on our way towards feminist despotism, it is not surprising that a parallel development is fledgling, in the form of the
Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW) movement. MGTOW have rejected the Gynocentric demand that men must define themselves according to their sexual
prowess. Accordingly unburdened, many MGTOW have taken up introspective deliberation on the nature of man and masculinity – discussions which are
androcentric and therefore not accountable to feminist orthodoxy. At its core, the MGTOW movement turns away from the world – from marriage,
children, self-sacrificing employment, even relationships with women altogether – seeking solace from hostile agents as did the ascetics and
mystics of the ancient world.<br /><br />
Although I endorse the MGTOW lifestyle, I am conscious that it is not enough – for fulfillment or for survival. Feminism is simply not in the
business of leaving men alone. It is a progressivist ideology, which means it just keeps on growing, with <i>no internal checks</i> on its own activities; <i>it has no
brakes!</i> All attempted self-criticism yields to further radicalization. Unable to perceive the world from outside of the feminist bubble, its
disciples think and act in an <i>anti-contextual, abstract fashion.</i> The only checks on the activities of such ideologies must come from the
outside – i.e., from the rest of society. If feminism will not slow down and stop of its own accord, then external agents must build a brick wall
in its path. This is a moral requirement - the alternative is to allow it free reign, in which case we will inevitably end up with despotism.
Thus far, feminism has proved remarkably <i>socio-dynamic,</i> and has faced very little <i>political resistance</i> – meaning that the velocity
of persecution is set to increase.<br /><br />
I should like to clarify. The word 'feminism' can refer to more than one thing. Most obviously, <i>feminism the movement</i> is the not precisely
the same thing as <i>feminism the ideology;</i> rather, the former is driven by the dictates of the latter. <i>Feminism the ideology</i> is a
victim ideology, which means that it exists in defense of a certain class of people which has been designated as <i>the victims.</i> The dual
objectives goals of a victim ideology are, as I have remarked previously:<br /><br />
<span style="color: blue;">(1) To equalize with the 'enemy' group;<br />
(2) To forge its own 'victim identity,' separate from and unaccountable to the 'enemy' group. <br /><br />
<span style="color: black;">If objective (1) is ever achieved, then the ideology <i>simply ceases to be,</i> which means that <i>the movement also ceases
to be.</i> The movement, however, is not an inorganic entity which mechanistically fulfills the needs of the ideology. It is made up of <i>people</i>
who have become dependent upon it, psychologically and financially. The end of inequality, however it was originally measured, would spell
disaster for Women's Studies graduates everywhere. For instance, the inability of feminist organizations to admit that rape rates are falling and
that false allegations are reaching epidemic levels is down to the losses that would be sustained by ideologues sitting in (usually empty) rape crisis centers. <i>The ideology cannot be permitted to die</i> – there is far too much riding on it, namely, <i>the movement,</i>
and whatever goodies its principal actors have managed to get their paws on. As with many people, the threat of redundancy is enough to bring out
a hard-line conservatism, which insists, in this case, on the existence of brand new oppressions still to be overcome. There is an awful lot of
money riding on the continued perception that women are disadvantaged. Feminism is not merely a <i>movement</i> any more, but an <i>industry</i>
- aptly referred to by some as <i>the sexual grievance industry.</i><br /><br />
Should this industry crash, it would leave a hole in the purses of career feminists nearly as large as the hole it would leave between
their ears. The alternative to continued state support for the overcoming of new oppressions is almost unthinkable. It would not only mean an end
to men subsidizing their own persecution - it would also threaten to leave a psychic vacuum in the minds of professional feminists. Whatever would they do, should they be deprived of their blood money?<br /><br />
The feminists do, of course, have a backup plan. I refer you to objective (2). The reason why victim ideologies tend to die hard when equality or
even supremacy of the 'victim' group is achieved is this: they shift their aims towards the inherent separateness of the 'victim' and 'enemy'
groups, and refuse accountability to the rest of the world. Indeed, any attempt by a person external to the designated 'victim' group, to hold
the members of said group accountable for their transgressions, is tarnished as the effort to roll back objective (1) – and the person who dared
to raise the complaint will be called any number of amazing names.<br /><br />
A victim ideology is necessarily tripartite in its understanding of time. The past is identified with <b>Oppression,</b> the present with
<b>Struggle,</b> and the future with <b>Liberation.</b> This tripartite historiography is a constant. If any one of the three states –
<b>Oppression, Struggle</b> or <b>Liberation</b> – is removed, then we no longer have a victim ideology. It falls apart, owing to its
inconsistency. There <i>must</i> have been past <b>Oppression,</b> as this justifies the present <b>Struggle,</b> which also <i>must</i> be the
case for the present, as a matter of tautology – what else would we be talking about? <b>Struggle</b> must be <i>towards</i> something, and this
is <b>Liberation,</b> promised in the future. Below is a diagram of sorts, presented from the feminist perspective:</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div align="center">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><img src="http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd408/gynotheory/ideology1.png" width="700" /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;">It is a childish caricature, fitting for a childish worldview. Note what is required for the tripartite <b>Oppression, Struggle,
Liberation</b> to make sense – the actor who did the oppressing, who must be struggled against, and from whom the designated victims shall be
liberated. This is, of course, men.<br /><br />
The above picture is presented from the feminist perspective, in which time moves horizontally, from left to right. In the real world, time's
arrow is broken. We are frozen permanently in the present phase, and from there, time moves vertically and downwards:</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div align="center">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><img src="http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd408/gynotheory/ideology2.png" width="700" /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;">There is simply too much riding on feminism (i.e. the sexual grievance industry) to allow the actual liberation of women to be acknowledged.
If it were to be admitted that women are not only liberated, but the recipients of a number of advantages over men, then the <i>movement</i> and
the <i>ideology,</i> and thus the <i>industry</i> that is feminism, would become moot. Women's current role, which is perhaps more appropriately
described as <b>Privileged,</b> is not even conceivable on feminist time. <b>Liberation</b> must always remain a future goal, and can never be
permitted as a present achievement. Feminism is self-sustaining this way – by forever propelling itself into new <b>Struggles.</b> The tripartite understanding of time
is independent of context; it is fundamentally abstract and <i>anti-contextual.</i> The tripartite is assumed <i>before</i> the truth about the
world at any given moment is ascertained, and the facts of the world must then be hammered out into a feminist-friendly shape.<br /><br />
It is of little consequence that all the great <b>Struggles</b> have been won. Feminists can just create new ones. And since men are (as the case
must always be) the oppressors to be struggled against, it is quite justifiable to take away whatever power they still possess.<br /><br />
Until they possess none.<br /><br />
Adam </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><br />
<b>Further Reading:</b><br /><br />
<a href="http://counterfem.blogspot.com/2010/07/bright-line.html">Fidelbogen. <i>The Bright Line</i></a><br /><br />
<a href="http://www.articlesaboutmen.com/2010/09/feminism-the-birthplace-of-sexist-hypocrisy-911/">Adrian Smyth. <i>Feminism: The Birthplace of
Sexist Hypocrisy</i></a><br /><br />
<a href="http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/2010/09/underreporting-canard.html">Archivist. <i>The 'under-reporting' canard</i></a></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6345026973557617275.post-66696778451547807412011-02-05T09:00:00.000-08:002011-02-07T13:17:40.737-08:00Old Wine, New Bottles<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Lecture No. 6</b></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">“Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called” - J. S. Mill</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Domination.</i> So much of feminist analysis revolves around this concept. A man who punches his wife is not just angry at her;
he is attempting to <i>dominate</i> her. A man who disagrees with a woman and talks over her is not just being rude; he is trying to
<i>dominate</i> her. A rapist is not really that bothered about sex; his crime is a display of power, he just wanted to <i>dominate</i> the
woman.<br /><br />
You see, the fact that these things happen at all is not enough for the male-bashers of the world; they shall forever require more grist for the
misandric mill. Punishing actual criminals is one thing, but it's simply not gratifying enough to leave it there – they need to articulate what
their womyn's intuition has always told them, and go on the attack against <i>all</i> men. The problem, of course, is that the overwhelming
majority of men don't attack women in any perceptible way whatsoever. The solution, as feminists found, is to play Dr. Freud and posit some
subconscious, underlying motivation - a dark, sexual, deviant, violent mentality, which acts as a universal explanation for male
behavior.<br /><br />
You see, even when men are not actually engaging in criminal acts, the criminality is still there, it is just latent - so the feminists would
have us believe. The idea that all men possess an inherent, latent evil, and that women do not, serves as a useful cover for all sexist hate
speech against men. We find it at work in senseless diatribes against a non-falsifiable "rape culture," in campaigns to prohibit the private
consumption of pornography, and in apologia for malicious women who falsely accuse men of sex crimes. Consider this statement from Mary Koss: "rape represents an extreme behavior but one that is on a continuum with normal male behavior within the culture."<br /><br />
Inherent male deviancy, so they say (or
imply), manifests as a continuum of dysfunctional maleness, covering everything from a simple verbal disagreement, all the way up to the murder
of a spouse. All male actions which do not contribute towards the feminist project - <span style="color: red;">increasing the power of women<span style="color: black;"> - are to be taken as evidence of an innately flawed masculinity which seeks, above all, to dominate the fair sex.<br /><br />
Put it this way. Would you say that being murdered helps to increase a woman's power?<br /><br />
No?<br /><br />
Well, what about losing a verbal sparring match - does this help to increase her power? Or doesn't it? It certainly seems that one will have
greater autonomy if she can more easily convince others that her view is correct.<br /><br />
So, if both of the above examples exist on a continuum of women losing power, the corollary of which is patriarchal domination, then of course
men are to blame. That is, if our analysis is based in dubious, feministic assumptions.<br /><br />
The concept of domination, so taken for granted in its present manifestation, is a supreme example of the linguistic shifting I have <a href="http://gynotheory.blogspot.com/2011/01/refuting-appeal-to-dictionary.html">discussed</a> <a href="http://gynotheory.blogspot.com/2011/01/pig-latin.html">previously.</a> As a term, it carries ideological contraband, concealed in an overcoat of righteousness. Originally, the term
<i>domination,</i> which has its root in the Latin <i>dominus,</i> referred specifically to the power exercised by a master over slaves. Like so
many other terms that feminists have seized upon in order to manipulate perceptions of reality, <i>domination</i> has become an object of
semantic bleaching.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div align="center">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><img src="http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd408/gynotheory/dominus.jpg" width="350" /></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">What is really interesting about all this, is that our new concept of domination - as unjust hierarchy, to be opposed and attacked - has been put
to use in a specific direction: as a sponsor for <i>true</i> despotism. The single most obvious red flag marking the road to despotic rule is the
encroachment of the public sphere into the private lives of individuals. Despotism is <i>precisely</i> the type of unjust hierarchy with which we
identify domination; yet if the latter term is broadened sufficiently, to encompass all areas of private life, then a crushing and brutal
dictatorship is the inevitable result.<br /><br />
This is the context in which we should understand the feminist slogan which has had the most staying power: <span style="color: red;">the personal is
political.<span style="color: black;"> Note that (according to the slogan), the personal is not only <i>a matter of interest to</i> the political; it
does not <i>form part of</i> the political; it is not <i>of equivalent importance to</i> the political. It <i>actually is</i> the political.
The two terms are presented as though they are identical, interchangeable.<br /><br />
<span style="color: red;">The personal is political.<span style="color: black;"><br /><br />
If this is true, then there does not exist the smallest space of privacy which is a matter for the individual alone – that is, over which the
individual is sovereign. It is true enough that a private life worth anything would not be possible without an overarching public structure – it
is <i>law</i> which protects all the liberties that make private lives and interests possible. To use J. F. Stephen's favorite analogy, law is
the pipe through which the waters of liberty flow. It is when public life - the state - fails to recognize its own limits that society becomes
threatened by despotic rule.<br /><br />
Intellectuals of all ages have come up with the most ingenious of reasons for why it is that their mode of thought is superior to all that passed
before. The majority of people have simply assumed this without the need for justification whatsoever. What is peculiarly modern is the
construction of artificial boundaries between our own time and epochs past. We do not, for instance, consider ourselves to be living on the same
historical plane as those of Medieval Europe, let alone of Ancient Greece. These are times inexplicable and inaccessible to us. It is a seductive
fantasy by which we explain away any fears conjured up by the horrors of history books. We like to believe that bloody autocracies will confine
themselves safely to those pages, and that such things could not happen <i>here,</i> not <i>now;</i> not in real life. Surely, we have moved
beyond all that. <i>We</i> are Enlightened, unlike the human beings that existed before us.<br /><br />
But are we not on the same historical plane that gave rise to Soviet Communism and the Nazi party? These particular reigns of terror occurred
within the last century, no matter how much we might like to think of ourselves as having progressed beyond such barbarism. Supposedly, we in the
Western world abhor totalitarian regimes; and yet the rise of the two mentioned previously is indicative of a trend existing <i>within</i> our
political culture. Among the baggage we have inherited from the Enlightenment is the concept of <i>utopia.</i> The term was coined in the 16th
century, and it designated, for the first time, the notion of a perfect socio-political order. With the birth of this idea, the seeds were sown
for the cleansing of human impediments as an operationalized political program. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div align="center">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><img src="http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd408/gynotheory/8022.jpg" width="350" /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">Prior to the Enlightenment, human life was mostly assumed to be cyclical. As surely as the sun would rise in the morning and set once more in the
evening, so great powers would rise and fall, only for new ones to take their place. Such was the science of Polybius, whose historical works did
not arrange events in chronological order, but presented human experience as a unity. Dynasties, empires, cultures, people and their communities
lived and died in the swings of the cosmic pendulum.<br /><br />
One of the major conceptual innovations of modernity is <i>progress</i> as the guiding ideal in politics and society. Not only do we assume that
we are constantly on the move away from our own history; the belief persists that it is only a matter of time before each problem yields to a
solution. Faith in human knowledge has never been so great as in the Information Age; we actively seek to overcome what were long considered
intractable facts of life.<br /><br />
The purpose of this digression is not to cast doubt over the possibilities for human knowledge, nor to suggest that an attempt to improve the
human condition is an ignoble pursuit. It is to point out that we are all children of the Enlightenment, no matter where we fall on the
political spectrum. It is to point out that there are certain peculiar assumptions which form the base and scaffolding of Western political
thought, and it is upon these assumptions that ideologies as diverse as conservatism, liberalism, National Socialism and feminism are
built.<br /><br />
The -ism itself is an altogether modern phenomenon. An -ism (or we might say, an 'ideology') assumes a difference between <i>how society is</i>
and <i>how it ought to be,</i> predicated upon a specific moral view of the world. This is obviously true for those ideologies explicitly
advocating change – liberalism, socialism, feminism, and so on. It is just as true for conservatism and traditionalism, ideologies which (as they
see it) aim to resuscitate the baby that has been thrown out with the bathwater of the ages.<br /><br />
Typically, that which ideologues find so objectionable about the world is its existing configuration of power. The great texts and speakers of
the ideology describe a configuration of power, argue for its recognition as injustice, and then present the means for achieving the desired
change. The means may involve working through the existing institutions of state, or they may necessitate their overthrow, or they may shun
mainstream practices altogether and advocate working their magic through civil society.<br /><br />
Whatever the ideology implies in practice, this is a marked difference from what went before. Progress, not recurrence, is at root of all
political expectation. Whether this is progress towards the classless society, or ethnic purity, or the return of traditional virtues, progress
is the constant. The view that <i>something is wrong</i> and <i>something needs to be done about this,</i> as a <i>political</i> statement, is a
recent invention, one which defines our shared political culture. Conservatives are caught up in the same 'progressive' web, but then, so too are
iconoclasts, who signal their compliance with conventional modes of thought even as they state their intentions to break away. The more they
struggle against this inevitability, the more stuck they find themselves. To take a relevant example, feminists have sometimes declared that they
are moving away from 'patriarchal' assumptions altogether, and building up their own worldview from scratch, quite untainted by male influence.
In truth, nobody starts from scratch, and feminism remains deeply embedded in modes of thought which have evolved over centuries, exclusively
through the minds of men. The feminist ideology, and all of its innovations, simply could not occurred without centuries of work by men
beforehand.<br /><br />
Next week's lecture shall take a closer look at the feminist assertion that the personal is political, and the hidden implications contained
within this catch phrase. In the weeks that follow, we will consider the concept of utopia, which has been mentioned only in passing here. A
brief comment here will suffice: utopia is the logical extension of progress, in that it is the end of all progress, the final stage of human existence. It is a
profoundly dangerous idea, one responsible for the most oppressive regimes and bloody revolutions the world has ever known. While personal power and
glory may have been the motivating force behind the actions of despotic individuals still in recent memory, it was a collective, utopian vision that
aroused their followers to make manifest the most violent of fantasies. In all cases where utopians grip the reigns of power, the human beings
which do not fit into their vision of a new world order are treated as the living garbage of a faded regime.<br /><br />
It is with disgust and horror that the West looks back at the utopian despots of the twentieth century, and yet these particular despotisms
correspond to a tendency that forms the infrastructure of our own politics. The disgust and horror is real enough, though, and perhaps the most
truly progressive shift in recent times is the rejection of extremism, in all its forms, by populations determined to leave behind the century of
genocide.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">
</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<div align="center">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><img src="http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd408/gynotheory/roots.jpg" width="350" /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">Only, it's not that simple. You can pull up the heads, and tear the stalks clean from the earth, but unless you dig out the roots, you will find
those flowers in bloom again before long. Utopianism, with the cleansing of human impediments that it always implies, is coded into our political
DNA. Widespread detestation of the recent, failed totalitarianisms will not make this go away; it can only make the despotic tendency fall quiet
for a little while. A new despotism can only emerge if it does so silently, in disguise as something quite different – perhaps as organized
opposition to certain forms of unjust domination, the solution for which is always to increase the power of the state relative to the autonomy of
the individual.<br /><br />
<span style="color: red;">The personal is political,<span style="color: black;"> say the feminists.<br /><br />
I can hear the goosesteps getting closer. <br /><br />
Adam
<br /><br />
<b>Further Reading:</b><br /><br />
<a href="http://counterfem.blogspot.com/2007/02/redstockings-manifesto.html">Fidelbogen. <i>The Redstockings Manifesto</i></a><br /><br />
<a href="http://www.the-spearhead.com/2011/01/17/who-really-wants-control/">W. F. Price. <i>Who Really Wants Control?</i></a><br /><br />
<a href="http://angryharry.com/esGovernmentalBeast.htm">Angry Harry. <i>The Governmental Beast</i></a></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6345026973557617275.post-20048299956742408442011-01-29T09:00:00.000-08:002011-01-29T09:00:01.089-08:00Anatomy of a Victim Ideology<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Lecture No. 5</b></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"The weakness of men is the façade of strength: the strength of women is the façade of weakness" - Warren Farrell</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Among the worst mistakes that freedom-loving people can make is to stereotype feminists as a small, motley crew of angry lesbians who have long since ceased to be relevant. Take note: <i>this stereotype helps them.</i><br /><br />
I must repeat myself: <i>this stereotype helps them.</i><br /><br />
Let that sink in for a moment. Every time you have belittled feminists as a bunch of cranky old hags that nobody takes seriously, you have helped to obscure their program and indeed, their very existence as a form of organized power. Belittle them, you must - but do so in a way which <i>exposes,</i> not <i>obscures!</i> For feminism is far from being a relic of the past. The feminist movement is taken very seriously indeed by those with the power to enforce its core aims:<br /><br />
<span style="color: blue;">(1) The expropriation of resources from men to women.<br />
(2) The punishment of men.<br />
(3) To increase (1) and (2) in terms of scope and intensity indefinitely.<br /><br />
<span style="color: black;">Obscurity assists the realization of these goals by creating doubt amongst potential opponents. The misidentification of feminism as a cultural artifact which no longer holds sway over the operations of government and society is a product of feminism's own metamorphosis. Note that the <i>essence,</i> or <i>substance</i> of feminism has not changed over the years, only its <i>form,</i> or <i>packaging.</i> The change of packaging has proved so effective that some now deny that the product still exists.<br /><br />
<i>Au contraire.</i> As much as the times changed with feminism, feminism has changed with the times. In the transformation of feminism from a movement opposed to government and society at large, into a movement which <i>controls</i> the state and public opinion - and uses this position to persecute the new enemies of the state - its strategies underwent a certain cultivation. Today, feminists no longer need to throw temper tantrums to get their way, because while they once raged against the machine, they now control it. <i>This</i> is the truly profound shift in Western societies since the height of consciousness about feminism in the middle of last century; it is not that feminists have become <i>less</i> relevant, but <i>more.</i></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;">As Fidelbogen <a href="http://counterfem.blogspot.com/2011/01/dawn-of-new-era.html">recently put it:</a><blockquote>
<span style="font-size: small;">Feminism is now lodged in the institutional structures, hence, "respectable". I might compare it to organized crime, which was openly thuggish in the early racketeering days, but once they got their people into "city hall", and into electoral politics, learned to wear a silk tie and play the game in a different way.</span></blockquote>
When feminists were outside the tent, causing offense was one of their prime weapons - poorly disguised as <i>edgy boundary-pushing.</i> Who remembers this lovely piece of propagandistic hate, published in the 1970s?</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div align="center">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><img src="http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd408/gynotheory/1970s.jpg" width="350" /></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;">The above is precisely the kind of thing that feminists today like to pretend never happened. Now that feminists are inside the tent, they are forced to <i>defend</i> their gains; in the 1970s, when the above picture was produced, they attacked from the outside, and sought to tear down official morality rather than (as they do now) define and dictate it.<br /><br />
And how better to maintain control than by punishing those who attack, or who <i>might</i> attack, the new status quo? We are of course referring to men, who stand to lose the most from the three core aims of the feminist project as listed above. Today, feminists believe that women have the inalienable right <i>to not feel offended,</i> and they do not hesitate to employ state violence to enforce this. Prosecuting those (men) who cause offense is their new weapon, one which has replaced the old (causing offense). Of course, persecuting people merely for being offensive is rather less charitable than men were to feminists before feminists took over. But, as Gynocentrism Theory tells us, men were only charitable to offensive women in the early days of feminism because women already exercised substantial control.<br /><br />
Do feminists believe that they are doing right? The answer is an unequivocal yes for most of them - they truly do believe that they are a righteous people, and even when they become cognizant of doing wrong, they rationalize that they are also, simultaneously, doing right. How could this be? Well, let me show you how it works, by tracing the anatomy of a victim ideology.<br /><br />
Once a period of consciousness-raising has propagated the belief that the members of a group are - by their essential nature as members of the group - victims, the group shall pursue two objectives:<br /><br />
<span style="color: blue;">(1) To equalize with the designated 'enemy' group;<br />
(2) To forge their own 'victim identity,' separate from and unaccountable to the 'enemy' group.<br /><br />
<span style="color: black;">You will notice that, while the first objective brings the 'victim' group closer to the 'enemy' group, in terms of status, expectations, autonomy, etc., the second widens the gulf between them. The first objective, we are told, will unite us in our common humanity, and bring about liberty for all, and other nice things like that. But as soon as we get close to this, there tends to be a drift towards proclamations of the importance of the second objective. Nothing will ever be enough to satisfy the 'victim' group, because they view themselves as <i>essentially and inherently</i> the victims of the 'enemy' group, regardless of what may have changed in reality. A victim ideology is <i>anti-contextual,</i> and its followers - the self-designated 'victims' - shall never see themselves as anything but. Their victimhood is affirmed in advance, and the facts must be made to fit the story. In other words, they will spin any situation into one where they are most harshly treated.<br /><br />
This is why feminists like Hillary Clinton can get away with <a href="http://counterfem.blogspot.com/2010/03/this-makes-perfect-sense.html">saying things like</a>
</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<blockquote>
women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat.</blockquote>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;">Well, sure - losing family members to horrible deaths is so much worse than actually having to die those horrible deaths. That is, if your whole worldview is tainted by sexism and you reduce the status of men to Protecting/Providing Objects. In Mrs Clinton's quote, no humanity is ascribed to men whatsoever. The <i>real problem</i> is not that they are traumatized, mutilated and blown to pieces <i>per se;</i> it is that, because of their being subject to atrocities, men will not be able to fulfill their protecting/providing roles quite so effectively. It is, therefore, <i>women</i> who lose out, because men don't actually matter except insofar as they can assist females. This is precisely the kind of attitude which emerges out of a victim ideology. The entirety of existence, in all its wonderful complexity, is reduced to black-and-white primitivism: <i>my people matter, your people don't.</i> Or, as we shall see, <i>my people good, your people bad.</i> Anything good for <i>my people</i> is good, no mind whether it is good or bad for <i>your people.</i></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;"><i> </i>
</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<div align="center">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;"><img height="300" src="http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd408/gynotheory/anatomy2.jpg" /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;">This kind of thinking is known as Manichean Essentialism, and it is the metaphysical cornerstone for feminism as a whole. Decades of consciousness-raising have ensured that women are reflexively considered to have been wronged, whatever the facts. Whenever genuine examples of women being wronged cannot be found, <i>compensatory privilege</i> becomes the sanctioned goal. That is, women are treated more leniently in one regard because they are believed to be disadvantaged in <i>unrelated regards,</i> or just disadvantaged in general. One recent example of this from the United Kingdom is the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/7995844/Judges-told-be-more-lenient-to-women-criminals.html">order</a> <a href="http://www.the-spearhead.com/2010/09/12/british-high-court-dame-orders-lower-sentences-for-women">issued</a> <a href="http://www.the-spearhead.com/2010/09/13/more-on-the-drive-to-reduce-female-sentences">by</a> Dame Laura Cox to judges that they must treat female criminals with greater leniency, a ruling which simultaneously reduced British men to second class status while green-lighting abusive women who might otherwise have been deterred.<br /><br />
There are some who go further than this. Baroness Corston, who explicitly identifies as a feminist, believes that <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-442113/Womens-prisons-close-decade.html">women don't really deserve to be punished at all when they commit crimes.</a> Her 2007 Government report advocates that all women's prisons should close, and that even the most violent and abusive female offenders should not be locked up. Indeed, they
</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<blockquote>
would no longer go to one of the country's 15 women's prisons, which would all close. Instead, killers such as Rose West, serving life for the murder of ten young women and girls, would be sent to "homely" local custody units. There they would be allowed to live as a "family unit" with between 20 and 30 other women prisoners, organising their own shopping, budgets and cooking. The units would also allow them to stay close to their families ... All the women's jails would shut within the next decade, <b>and could instead be converted into prisons for men</b> ... The report claims: "Women and men are different. Equal treatment of men and women does not result in equal outcomes."</blockquote>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;">The above is a classic example of Orwellian Newspeak. Anti-feminists of all stripes have been saying for decades that men and women are essentially different. Feminists have insisted that men and women are essentially the same, and we must therefore have equal treatment. But as soon as equality works retrograde to the goal of female empowerment, it is dropped like a hot potato, and feminists twist themselves around in incredible semantic gymnastics to justify the sudden turnabout.
</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<blockquote>
Women also (sic) never be sent to jail to "teach them a lesson".</blockquote>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;">Of course they shouldn't. Women shouldn't have to actually learn how to abide by the law, much less how to be functioning members of civilization. They should be allowed to run wild and free, abusing and destroying anything they please with absolute license. They shouldn't even expect a slap on the wrist for their misbehavior - <i>that would be domestic violence, don't you know?</i><br /><br />
But if feminism truly was about equality, shouldn't feminists be pushing for new laws to criminalize <i>more</i> women, rather than their anti-egalitarian approach of imprisoning less women and more men? Or does equality only matter when it is women who are deemed unequal? (In and of itself, this would imply strongly that women are a privileged class like no other.)<br /><br />
The female incarceration rate is just one-eighth that of men in the United States <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States">(Wikipedia, accessed 10th October 2010),</a> while women account for only 5.7% of inmates in Great Britain <a href="http://www.hmprisonservice.gov.uk/adviceandsupport/prison_life/femaleprisoners/">(accessed 10th October 2010).</a> Surely, if equality was the goal, we would be relaxing the punitive, feminist-inspired laws against men, and seeking to punish more women instead. I can think of nowhere in modern society that is more male-dominated or unrepresentative than the penal system - something which, in the interests of sexual equality, needs to change.<br /><br />
But no - flatly contrary to the principles of neutral, impartial justice, feminists deem it <i>a good thing for its own sake</i> to lock up fewer women! It is as though women who are guilty of crimes aren't <i>really</i> guilty - and are therefore victims of whatever is done to them as punishment. It is a popular notion that women are disadvantaged - generally, inherently, <i>essentially,</i> within the very fiber of their being - and so must be disadvantaged in every particular area of life; thus, anything done to assist them <i>must</i> be a reduction of unfair disadvantage. Any rationally-minded person can see how absurd this all is, and I include leading feminists in this, as they are shrewd but not stupid. Just deserts, deterrence, fair treatment, civilization itself be damned; this is Gynocentrism in action.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;">
</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<div align="center">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;"><img height="300" src="http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd408/gynotheory/punishment.jpg" /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;">To recap, victim ideologies such as feminism seek to:<br /><br />
<span style="color: blue;">(1) Equalize with the 'enemy' group;<br />
(2) Forge their own 'victim identity,' separate from and unaccountable to the 'enemy' group.<br /><br />
<span style="color: black;">That these two objectives are in contradiction is not just a logical flaw; it's part of a strategy which allows the 'victim' group to shift its stance as circumstances require. Objective (1) might be consistently pursued for a little while. But if the movement comes under scrutiny for disadvantaging the 'enemy' group, the 'victims' can just switch to objective (2) and emphasize the importance of their own uniqueness in ways for which equality does not suffice. Or, as feminist Germaine Greer puts it:
</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<blockquote>
In 1970 the movement was called 'Women's Liberation' or, contemptously (sic), 'Women's Lib'. When the name 'Libbers' was dropped for 'Feminists' we were all relieved. What none of us noticed was that the ideal of liberation was fading out with the word. <b>We were settling for equality. Liberation struggles are not about assimilation but about asserting difference,</b> endowing that difference with dignity and prestige, and insisting on it as a condition of self-definition and self-determination. ... <b>the visionary feminists of the late sixties and early seventies knew that women could never find freedom by agreeing to live the lives of unfree men.</b></blockquote>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;">Once equal status has been reached, the rhetoric of equality can be discarded, because who wants to be only equal to a <i>man</i> anyway? Here, in black and white, is a statement of female supremacy.<br /><br />
Same as it ever was.<br /><br />
If equality had ever been the end goal, then men's disadvantages would have been addressed seriously, and not exacerbated while men themselves were goaded. To this day, the only time a feminist bothers herself with an issue of male disadvantage is when it benefits women to point it out - as in the case of parental leave. Enforced equal paternity and maternity leave rules out any disincentive that employers have to hire women. A feminist will set aside her 'all fathers are rapists and abusers' shtick, just long enough to insist that men should have equal rights to parenting - but this is typically presented as a demand that men shoulder the burdens of raising children so that <i>women</i> may be empowered in the workplace. Even when injustices against them are being redressed, men are tools for female betterment.<br /><br />
Same as it ever was.<br /><br />
Another example is male rape in prisons. This is occasionally highlighted by feminists, <i>but only because men can be shown to be the oppressors,</i> allowing them to attack maleness itself. Feminists pick up the torch once the rapist has done his part; they complete the rape victim's sexual humiliation by destroying his self-identity, poisoning his mind with aspersions that maleness itself is to blame for his victimization; and so a fundamental, immutable part of himself was the cause of his rape. They force upon him the identity of rapist along with rape victim, their vilification of 'toxic masculinity' serving to assure him that he shares the abusive characteristics of his abuser. On the other hand, the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/8347589.stm">high level</a> of <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/8287106.stm">female culpability</a> in <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8022861.stm">child abuse,</a> both sexual and non-sexual, is ignored or denied.<br /><br />
This is why our universally applicable definition of feminism could not have included any reference to 'equality' - it's not a reasonable statement to make if we're using analytical tools more incisive than Manichean Essentialism. The universal definition remains, and no ground can possibly be ceded: <span style="color: red;">feminism is the project for increasing the power of women.<br /><br />
<span style="color: black;">Power in what regard? Power to do what? Such questions inevitably arise. The answer, if you've been following closely, is obvious - whatever they please, no matter who else is harmed. Silence is not consent, but it is complicity, when you have the power to draw attention towards abuse and the resources towards stopping it, yet you <i>fail</i> to do so on the grounds that the abusers have genitals that resemble your own.<br /><br />
And that's what it comes down to, folks - we are dealing with primitives in pantsuits.<br /><br />
Adam</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><br /><br />
<b>Further Reading:</b><br /><br />
<a href="http://www.the-spearhead.com/2010/02/09/feminism-and-the-prison-industrial-complex/">Welmer. <i>Feminism and the Prison Industrial Complex</i></a><br /><br />
<a href="http://www.harrysnews.com/tgFeministLegalTheory.htm?note">Babette Francis. <i>Feminist Legal Theory</i></a><br /><br />
<a href="http://ozconservative.blogspot.com/2010/11/mens-role-is-to-empower-women-for-what.html">Oz Conservative. <i>Men's role is to empower women for what exactly?</i></a></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6345026973557617275.post-8354729856307239992011-01-22T09:00:00.000-08:002011-01-22T10:08:42.291-08:00Pig Latin<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Lecture No. 4</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"It is as if the ordinary language we use every day has a hidden set of signals, a kind of secret code" - William Stafford</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">To recap on last week's lecture: Men's Rights Advocates should not be afraid to play around with words; to reframe debate; to recast conventional linguistic usages however we see fit. Don't be afraid to make a game out of it. Use words - and the meanings you choose to ascribe to them - to mock, humiliate, and confuse your enemies. Here's a good example - it makes use of typical feminist phraseology, but with one major difference:
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<span style="color: black; font-size: small;">Not all patriarchs are like that. I am a patriarch - and proud of it - but that doesn't mean that I, personally, am responsible for what other patriarchs do, particularly not those radical patriarchs. But patriarchy isn't a monolithic entity. There isn't only one kind of patriarchy. There are lots of different types of patriarchs who have different views.</span></blockquote>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Note that defining yourself as <i>a patriarch</i> need not imply that you define yourself <i>as feminists think that patriarchs should be.</i> Feminists are not linguistic arbiters; you are absolutely free to call yourself a patriarch using your own definition of the term, which may or may not coincide to some extent with their definition. Whatever the case, though, you certainly don't need to explain which qualities you possess that, in your mind, make you patriarchal. However, upon announcing that you are a patriarch, you may find feminists attempting to trick you into giving some definite shape to your patriarchy; the shape having already taken form in her mind, her task now is to get you to acknowledge it. She will say something emotive like, "oh, so you think men should just be able to rape women with impunity?"<br /><br />
Your initial response, of course, will be a furrowed brow. Then you will say, "of course I don't think that. And yet I am still, most certainly, a patriarch."<br /><br />
In this example, you could define patriarchy any way you please; having decided in advance that feminism is non-credible, you have dismissed altogether any feministic notion of what patriarchy is. <i>You could even, if you like, define yourself as a patriarch on the grounds that you support equality between men and women.</i> Yes, that kind of wordplay will wind them up no end, because feminism depends upon a peculiar configuration of words and meanings, which may not be circumnavigated without signaling a threat to the ideology's power base.<br /><br />
Does the suggestion above sound preposterous? Well, I can but refer you to a real example of a social movement, the success of which has depended, for the most part, on its adroitness at linguistic manipulation. I am speaking, of course, of feminism, the proponents of which have made it their business to recast perceptions of reality through the redefinition of words. But this weapon is available to all those who are marginalized; it is the <i>establishment</i> which must defend its orthodoxy, <i>not the outcasts!</i> And while feminists once made great use of this strategy on the linguistic battlefield, it has become a point of vulnerability for them now that they control the machine, rather than rage against it. <i>Now,</i> you see, they must consolidate their gains; they must conserve what they have created; and thus, they are placed on the defensive, guarding their etymological orthodoxies from those who beg to differ. As I noted in the first lecture, their capacity for controlling perceptions of reality is faltering. The iron is hot. It is time to strike!</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But, have I been too quick to dismiss the definition of feminism as offered up by feminists? I think I may have been. Even <i>essentially contested concepts,</i> as W. B. Gallie referred to them, must have meanings which are <i>greater than normative,</i> else communication about them would be rendered impossible. That is - there must be some amount of general consensus over what feminism is, between feminists and anti-feminists, or we would not be able to argue about it! Even despite the differences between a feminist's view of feminism and of our own, some <i>shared content</i> must exist at some level, or we would be talking about entirely different things. They might be talking about the feminist movement, while I am talking about horse-rearing, although we both refer to our respective subjects as 'feminism' - but we wouldn't have much to say to each other, would we, if this were the case?<br /><br />
So, I shall posit the following as a <i>universally applicable definition</i> of feminism; that is to say, it must fit everyone's criteria for what feminism is, <i>in spite of</i> the different perspectives that different people hold on its nature. It is a suitably limited definition, since it can encompass only those parts of feminism which all definitions hold in common. So, here it is: <span style="color: red;">feminism is the project for increasing the power of women.<br /><br />
<span style="color: black;">That, then, is what everybody who discusses feminism holds in common regarding the concept, whether they are supportive, skeptical, or nihilistically indifferent. No feminist, I think, would deny that this is, at the very least, the 'bare bones' of feminism, even if she would prefer to flesh it out in a lot more detail. But that will not do, for beyond this narrow inference, <i>we disagree with each other.</i> To be as objective as possible, then, we must take only that which everybody agrees upon, and that is our universally applicable definition.<br /><br />
Note that there is no mention of equality. This is because, as I uncovered last week with the help of one Nick Levinson, there are a number of feminists who explicitly did not pursue equality, but supremacy. So, equality cannot fit into the universal definition of feminism, since certain feminists themselves - who were very famously, unequivocally feminist - disavowed it. To say that feminism is 'about equality', then, would be to place oneself in diametrical opposition to several extremely influential feminists! And why, that would be ... <i>misogynistic!</i><br /><br />
Nor can feminism be said to be the project for increasing the power of women <i>relative to men,</i> since, in this counter-feminist's view, feminists are often quite content to increase the power of women in an absolute sense. That is, they endeavor to <i>grab all they can</i> for women, without reference to the status of men. The phrase 'relative to men,' then, only serves to imply that women are power-<i>less</i> relative to men at present, thus casting feminism in an unfairly favorable light. In reality, once women do achieve power which is at an equal or equivalent level to that of men, the demands of feminists do not stop. What we find is that female power becomes entrenched, and extended, and when it surpasses male power, this is simply referred to as 'parity' and ignored by feminists - at least, when they are not gloating over men's newfound powerlessness.<br /><br />
Nor are we able to list, in our universal definition, the specific areas of life, or <i>spheres,</i> in which the feminist project applies. This is because feminism is inherently universalizing; it seeks to colonize and dominate every single facet of life where men and women meet. It aims for domination in <i>every</i> sphere of life, actual and potential.<br /><br />
You may disagree with some of the points above, particularly if you are supportive of feminism. But this does nothing to change our universal definition, because all we can say about those points is that <i>they are contentious.</i> That is, feminists and non-feminists, who are educated about feminism, disagree about these aspects of feminism, and it would simply be biased to take one or the other view for granted. That would be like consulting <i>only</i> Jacobins on the historical accomplishments of the Jacobin Club, or like canvassing <i>only</i> conservatives to explain modern liberalism. It would be a good example of poor methodology, and would help us very little in our search for truth. Right? So then, our universally applicable definition cannot be expanded beyond that which we stated before: <span style="color: red;">feminism is the project for increasing the power of women.<span style="color: black;"><br /><br />
We must not be swayed by feminist attempts to deny the universalizing tendency inherent to feminism. In their attempts to win the debate over <i>what feminism is,</i> feminists are notorious for abridging their own ideology to a nub of its whole, and presenting their support for - and your dissent from - feminism as resting entirely on a single issue. Let me give an example, in which you are confronted by the Appeal to Franchise. You have just stated that you do not support feminism. Your feminist opponent's next move is to reduce the entirety of feminism to women gaining the right to vote - thus implying that you must oppose this, since you claimed to oppose feminism. You must simply remind all onlookers that feminism is about more than this and cannot be reduced to a single item as she has tried to do. You can openly state your support for that single item - in this case, the vote - while nevertheless maintaining your antipathy towards <i>feminism,</i> this being in no way reducible to women's right to vote.<br /><br />
Essentially, your conscience is clear, and you are free to label yourself a non-feminist - and even, an anti-feminist - <i>sans</i> the implication that you therefore support every single thing that feminism opposes.<br /><br />
So, to recap: the only thing we are all going to be able to agree on is that <span style="color: red;">feminism is the project for increasing the power of women. <span style="color: black;">As you may have noticed, feminists go a little further than this when speaking about what <i>they</i> think feminism is, and they shall have plenty of half-truths and obfuscations to offer up if you ask them politely enough - though remember, it's not their job to educate us about these things. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><img height="300" src="http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd408/gynotheory/icarus.jpg" /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">As such, we may leave them to their own fluffy fantasies, and move beyond the universal definition to one which more accurately accounts for men's experiences of the world.<br /><br />
So, here is the definition I offer up: "feminism is the most recent, and presently the most culturally dominant form of Gynocentrism. It is a victim ideology which explicitly advocates female supremacy, at every facet of life in which men and women meet; it does so in accordance with its universalizing tendency, and so it does so in each sphere of life, including but extending beyond the political, social, cultural, personal, emotional, sexual, spiritual, economic, governmental and legal. By female supremacy, I refer to the notion that women should possess superiority of status, power and protection relative to men. It is the dominant cultural paradigm in the Western world and beyond. It is morally indefensible, although its adherents ensure that their hegemony goes unchallenged through the domination of societal institutions and the use of state violence."<br /><br />
In response to last week's lecture, <a href="http://www.avoiceformen.com/2011/01/14/refuting-the-appeal-to-dictionary/#comment-12857">Primal offered up his own definition of feminism,</a> which is not quite the same as mine, but the two are certainly complementary:
<blockquote><span style="color: black; font-size: small;">Gender-feminism is an overarching ideology built on a stack of bald-faced lies. As the primary reverse-sexist superstition of Post Modern age, it forms the foundation for female sexual supremacy in the name of ‘gender’ equality. Like other half-baked Utopian fantasies, it is totalitarian to the core. It is formed from a witch’s brew of recycled but dis-credited ideological relics from the trash heap of history…relics like Marxism, Romanticism and Classism. It’s proponents proudly destroy well-established standards of scholarship to force others to take the ideology seriously. It’s adherents have spread like carcinogenic pathogens in authoritarian institutions…that is wherever power is perverted for political reasons. It’s philosophy is nonsensical, circular, and self-serving. As the primary moral foundation for the mainstream hate groups which operate in the name of Women’s Rights worldwide, gender-feminism is a dangerous dogma and one that has no place in civil discourse.</span></blockquote>
Both of our definitions are rather lengthy, although I think it is useful to have a statement of exactly what we mean by the term. It could be much shortened and presented as follows: <span style="color: red;">feminism equals female supremacism.<br /><br />
<span style="color: black;">That the shortened version is more memorable is offset by its unfortunate implications that i) only women are feminists, and ii) all women support feminism. Neither i) nor ii) is correct. The charge of supremacism alone is not really sufficient for our purposes; it leaves too much left unsaid regarding <i>what this supremacism is,</i> and about the <i>success rate</i> of feminism so far. For shorthand purposes, it will do, but it should be remembered that it is a reduction of broader definitions as worked out here and elsewhere.<br /><br />
What may be more useful for our purposes in presenting our view of <i>what feminism is</i> is a brief statement of its <i>goals.</i> Feminism essentially seeks the following goals:<br /><br />
<span style="color: blue;">(1) The expropriation of resources from men to women.<br />
(2) The punishment of men.<br />
(3) To increase (1) and (2) in terms of scope and intensity indefinitely.<br /><br />
<span style="color: black;">I feel that such a definition will strike a nerve with feminists themselves - <i>because it hits a little too close to home.</i> That the real-world effects of the feminist project have indeed been (1) and (2), and that these have increased in scope and intensity over the years (3) is frankly, irrefutable.<br /><br />
Time has yielded the truth about what happens when feminist-minded women come to occupy the most powerful positions in society, and that is that Men's Rights are systematically trashed. The more power that feminists have, the more new laws are created to accomplish greater confiscation of men's property and intensifying violations of their liberty, bodily integrity, and lives.<br /><br />
But there is hope. For it is deeds, not words, that shall speak our enemies. Have a pleasant weekend, everyone.<br /><br />
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<b>Further Reading:</b><br /><br />
<a href="http://exposingfeminism.wordpress.com/2008/09/15/language-manipulation/">Exposing Feminism. <i>Language manipulation</i><br /><br />
</a><a href="http://strike-the-root.com/progressivism-is-not-progressive">Alex Schroeder. <i>Progressivism Is Not Progressive</i><br /><br />
</a><a href="http://www.the-spearhead.com/2010/06/07/feminist-false-consciousness/">ISP. <i>Feminist False Consciousness</i></a></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.the-spearhead.com/2010/06/07/feminist-false-consciousness/"><br />
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</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6345026973557617275.post-3001905469983542382011-01-15T09:00:00.000-08:002011-01-15T09:00:04.933-08:00Refuting the Appeal to Dictionary<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Lecture No. 3</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"Have you ever actually looked up the word feminist in a dictionary? It means equality between the sexes. It is not about hating men. This is very simple and you would know if you actually looked it up" - Diva</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Following on from last week's overview of Gynocentrism then and now, I propose that there is a common thread of female-worship running through, and linking, traditional conceptions of masculinity - historically expressed in what we might call 'patriarchy' - and feminism, which has taken over state and supranational institutions, and is poised to unleash the explicit persecution of men.<br /><br />
It may well take many more of these lectures before this is fully elucidated, but I mention it here for two purposes. The first is a reminder that reference to this common thread runs through all these musings: that Gynocentrism has been with us for a long, long time, and has only changed its form, not its content. This is the crux of Gynocentrism Theory, and it is the narrow focus which I am taking over a broad range of subjects.<br /><br />
Secondly, to shift the discussion towards feminism. There is the danger of reading into Gynocentrism Theory a minimization of feminism's effects, considering that it is only the most modern version of a phenomenon which is centuries old. On the other hand, though, it is the most active form of Gynocentrism that we must presently deal with; it is <i>the enemy,</i> and as the all-singing, all-dancing tremendous final act in this regard, it is a phenomenon worthy of study in its own regard.</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Better the devil you know!</i> It is said that it is better to <i>know thine enemy,</i> but feminists are highly effective at obscuring their own intentions, actions, history, and penchant for the use of eristic. Amidst the smoke and mirrors, a chorus of shrill voices from all directions can be heard to proclaim, "it's not our job to educate you about feminism!"<br /><br />
Fine - then we shall have to cast around for ourselves, burrow for gems of knowledge, and procure our own judgments on <i>what feminism is.</i> And since feminists themselves have disavowed their role as our educators, the conclusions which we reach shall require no sanction from them. If it is not <i>their</i> job to educate us about feminism, then it could hardly be <i>anybody else's</i> but our own, could it? And yet, strangely enough, when we <i>do</i> seek out knowledge for ourselves, they object most vociferously to our findings, as though they do in fact covet the role of educator after all. It has been repeatedly suggested that <a href="http://counterfem.blogspot.com/2007/01/for-feminist-readers-introduction-to_31.html#comments">we might like to check the dictionary.</a><br /><br />
This is a spurious request, not least because <i>there is no 'the dictionary'.</i> There are, rather, <i>dictionaries (plural).</i> The Appeal to Dictionary is one which is made by people who, to put it bluntly, are not very bright. Such people apparently believe that language is a finite array of words, each carrying a single objective definition, the final arbiter of which is The Dictionary.<br /><br />
In the real world, language is ever fluctuating and it is corruptible. It is a collection of <i>meanings,</i> designated by <i>terms</i> - but quite how these are configured is determined by the vagaries of time and place! And very often, people <i>disagree</i> about how terms are, or should be, designated to meanings - and how meanings are, or should be, designated to terms!<br /><br />
The very existence of contested terminology, then, seems to refute the Appeal to Dictionary. Where disputes arise over the definition or use of a term, this is an indication that we have several meanings (or ideas, or concepts, if you prefer) huddled together under the same word-umbrella. To put it another way: there are several <i>things,</i> but they are all designated by the same <i>word.</i> A given configuration of terms to meanings may benefit certain people, and be of detriment to certain others!<br /><br />
Let's take an example - sometimes, the claim that feminism supports women in making false rape allegations has been refuted by a reference to feminism's stated support for sexual equality. "Feminism," a feminist would say, "is about sexual equality, and nothing more."<br /><br />
And yet false rape allegations <i>still exist</i> - as does feminist complicity in the making of them. This issue has only been deprived of recognition in language. The feminist has expertly obscured the complicity of feminism in the making of false rape allegations, by whitewashing the ideology as being "about sexual equality, and nothing more." If we accept her argument that feminism only refers to support for sexual equality, then we no longer have any terms with which to discuss or understand false rape allegations, beyond viewing them as a series of unrelated incidents. Certainly, we wouldn't be able to consider false rape allegations in their proper context, which is <i>as part of a system of control and persecution.</i> The phenomenon of a false rape allegation is surely not explicable by what we understand when we say "sexual equality," and since feminism is about <i>nothing more than that,</i> we are left with no linguistic resources with which to meaningfully speak about it; we have been struck dumb. In short, we have an existing <i>thing,</i> but it is no longer designated by any <i>words. </i>How then could we draw attention to it, criticize it, oppose it?<br /><br />
Let's take another example. A feminist may well create a false partition in the problem of Father's Rights by defining it in such a way that feminist culpability is overlooked. She could, for instance, say that "patriarchy is to blame for the unequal treatment of fathers." Once again, she has controlled the language - meanings are split between terms, or they are compressed into one, and the intended outcome is that the guilty party avoids being taken to task!<br /><br />
Now, you might think - "why does this matter? A feminist might say this or that, but <i>I</i> don't believe her; my own experiences tell me that it's not true, and I'm unlikely to be fooled by what she says."<br /><br />
That's all well and good. But there are a lot of people out there who <i>will</i> be fooled by what she says - including those who possess the very real physical power to imprison you, destroy you, or alienate you from your loved ones. Feminists aren't just saying this to people like you and I - their nonsense gushes forth in all directions, like crude oil from a burst pipe, flowing towards anybody who will listen, and especially those who can "do something about it." Their message comes through, louder than a rushing waterfall, <i>whether you want to hear it or not</i> - and their whole project depends upon the relentless repetition of a dozen or so mantras, and the sinking of their sentiments into the collective subconscious. <i>This</i> is why they endlessly prattle on, typically parroting stock phrases like subordinate cells in a hive mind! They do it because <i>it works</i> - at least, until somebody stands up and points out that the Emperor's not wearing any clothes.<br /><br />
And then, <i>all hell breaks loose!</i></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It was necessary to speak at length on this point, because we must realize that political language is never neutral, and implications are always hidden in the configuration of ideas and terms. The role of Men's Rights Advocates is to critically assess the feminist use of language, and to determine where we would be well-served to separate out several ideas which are referred to by one term, or to compress several terms into one. We should never respond to a feminist argument without first looking critically at the terms through which it is being conducted. To put it in Gamespeak, we must "control the frame!"<br /><br />
The Appeal to Dictionary can be summarily dismissed. Official dictionaries represent establishment positions. Feminism, as it is in vogue, is officially defined in the way that its adherents would <i>like</i> the world to see feminism; it is not defined in a way that describes, or accounts for, the totality of the project. That which happened, or still happens, but does not reflect the establishment view, is simply ignored. To define feminism as
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<span style="font-size: small;">the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men</span></blockquote>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;">is to brush aside much of its unpleasant history - and to deprive skeptics of the resources for an <i>unofficial</i> linguistic and historical analysis of the term. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Feminism_and_equality&oldid=389058383">This old revision</a> of the Wikipedia page 'Feminism and Equality' contains plenty of material which disputes the black-and-white dictionary definition, although the page itself <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Feminism_and_equality#Deleting_section_about_superiority">has fallen prey to the very same forces which seek to delimit the linguistic opportunities of their critics.</a> Thankfully, Wikipedia archives old versions of its articles, so the efforts of one Nick Levinson in exposing the explicitly anti-male tenor of several famous feminist works has not gone to waste. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Feminism_and_equality&oldid=389058383#Superiority">Let's get cracking!</a><br />
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<blockquote style="color: black;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Jill Johnston, in Lesbian Nation, called for men to eliminate the qualities they hold as men. "Man is completely out of phase with nature. Nature is woman. Man is the intruder. The man who re-attunes himself with nature is the man who de-mans himself or eliminates himself as man [...] A small but significant number of angry and historically minded women comprehend the women's revolution in the visionary sense of an end to the catastrophic brotherhood and a return to the former glory and wise equanimity of the matriarchies."<br /><br />
Mary Daly, in Gyn/Ecology, wrote in favor of reversing power between the genders [...] "As a creative crystallizing of the movement beyond the state of Patriarchal Paralysis, this book is an act of Dis-possession; and hence, in a sense beyond the limitations of the label anti-male, it is absolutely Anti-androcrat, A-mazingly Anti-male, Furiously and Finally Female."<br /><br />
"Do women need land and an army . . .; or a feminist government in exile . . .? Or is it simpler: the bed belongs to the woman; the house belongs to the woman; any land belongs to the woman; if a male intimate is violent he is removed from the place where she has the superior and inviolate claim, arrested, denied parole, and prosecuted. . . . . Could women 'set a high price on our blood'?" - Andrea Dworkin<br /><br />
Phyllis Chesler, in Women and Madness, drew on matriarchal history, Amazon mythology, and psychology and, with some ambivalence about relying on biology alone as a justification, argued that a war between the genders has always been underway and that women would benefit from using their full powers to be the exclusive wielders of political power to produce an unequal society in which men live but are relatively powerless, even if such a society is no more just than a patriarchy, and called for feminist women to dominate public institutions in their self-interest. "Amazon society, as mythology, history, and universal male nightmare, represents a culture in which women reign culturally supreme because of their gender [...] In Amazon society, only men, when they were allowed to remain, were, in widely differing degrees, powerless and oppressed [...] If women take their bodies seriously—and ideally we should—then its full expression, in terms of pleasure, maternity, and physical strength, seems to fare better when women control the means of production and reproduction. From this point of view, it is simply not in women's interest to support patriarchy or even a fabled 'equality' with men."<br /><br />
One organization that was named The Feminists was interested in matriarchy. Two members wanted "'the restoration of female rule'".</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: navy;"><img src="http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd408/gynotheory/AMAZONS.jpg" width="350" /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;">Unless the aforementioned organization and books did not really exist, we are forced to conclude that feminism cannot <i>only</i> have been about the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of equality with men. At the very least, what we must say is that <i>some</i> feminists may have supported equality, while <i>other</i> feminists have overlooked equality and have outright supported female superiority. And neither can the latter group be reduced to a handful of fringe lunatics. As Nick Levinson points out (much to the chagrin of feminist moderators), two and a half million copies of Phyllis Chesler's <i>Women and Madness</i> were sold.<br /><br />
That's a whole lot of hate.<br /><br />
And a whole lot of energy is spent actively sweeping this kind of thing under the rug, by those who have since realized how damaging honesty can be to one's case. Modern feminists are far more rhetorically disciplined than their forthright foremothers, and have concluded that unpopular plans are not helped into motion by being discussed openly. Rhetorical discipline adds a whole new layer of subterfuge to all that has been said regarding the designation of terms to ideas. It will not suffice only to look at what they say; we must watch carefully what they <i>do.</i> And haven't some of the above recommendations come true, per the actions of feminists? Is it not now the case that male intimates <i>accused of</i> violence are removed from their homes in which the woman has the superior and inviolate claim, as Andrea Dworkin hoped for? Have feminist women not dominated public institutions in their own interest, as Phyllis Chesler advocated? As Gynocentrism Theory tells us, women <i>already had</i> a "high price on their blood" - much higher than that of men, at almost any time in history. This simple fact is <i>the reason why</i> it was possible for the prescriptions of radical feminists to be achieved in the first place - and for dissidents to have been so effortlessly marginalized.<br /><br />
Still, times change. Establishments are overturned, and words are <i>officially</i> redefined. If the new definition of a word proves more accurate, then it must have existed for some time, <i>unofficially,</i> before the word's revision. Sometimes, establishments must change before terms catch up. The dictionary lags behind definition, because the establishment is stuck in the mud. I predict that, as we reach a critical mass opposed to feminism, and shortly before its collapse, we may well see some concessions in the form of alternative definitions of the term becoming accepted.<br /><br />
Adam<br /><br />
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<b>Further Reading:</b><br /><br />
<a href="http://www.the-spearhead.com/2010/01/21/feminism-as-a-language-ideology/">J. Durden. <i>Feminism as a Language Ideology</i></a><br /><br />
<a href="http://www.true-equality.net/archive/2008/05/29/why-i-am-not-a-feminist.aspx">ArgusEyes. <i>Why I am NOT a Feminist</i><br /><br />
</a><a href="http://lndavout.blogspot.com/2006/07/oxford-english-dictionary-massacres.html">Davout. <i>Oxford English Dictionary massacres the definition of "anti-feminist"</i></a></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6345026973557617275.post-33641542390957659212011-01-08T09:00:00.000-08:002011-01-08T09:07:27.719-08:00The Same Old Story<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Lecture No. 2</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"I'm not cut from the same mold. I don't read from the same old story" - Pennywise</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">My readers must understand that the concerns which Gynocentrism Theory addresses are not limited to <i>feminism.</i> Feminism is still fairly new on the scene, while Gynocentrism has been around for as long as recorded history. The Men's Rights Movement seeks to address problems associated with feminism, but does not limit its attention to these problems. Many of these problems existed prior to the emergence of <i>feminism proper</i> in the late 19th century, although they have been expanded and exacerbated since. Feminism is only the modern packaging of Gynocentrism, an ancient product, made possible in its present form by the extensive public welfare arrangements of the post-war period.</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img height="300" src="http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd408/gynotheory/welfare.jpg" /></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In spite of its radical rhetoric, the content of feminism, or one could say, its <i>essence,</i> is remarkably traditional; so traditional, in fact, that its core ideas are simply taken for granted, as unquestioned and unquestionable dogma, enjoying uniform assent across the political spectrum. Feminism is distinguishable only because it takes a certain traditional idea - the deference of men to women - to an unsustainable extreme. Political extremism, a product of modernity, shall fittingly put an end to the traditional idea itself; that is, in the aftermath of its astounding, all-singing, all-dancing final act.<br /><br />
Allow me to clarify. The traditional idea under discussion is male sacrifice for the benefit of women, which we term Gynocentrism. This is the historical norm, and it was the way of the world long before anything called 'feminism' made itself known. There is an enormous amount of continuity between the chivalric class code which arose in the Middle Ages and modern feminism, for instance. That the two are distinguishable is clear enough, but the latter is simply a progressive extension of the former over several centuries, having retained its essence over a long period of transition. One could say that they are the same entity, which now exists in a more mature form - certainly, we are not dealing with two separate creatures. Take any of the great Empires that swept the globe - the Roman, the Ottoman, the Spanish, the British - <a href="http://angryharry.com/es_battle_for_Alesia.htm">and you shall find Gynocentrism as the order of the day.</a> Such extensive geopolitical enterprises, historical testaments to man's triumph over the earth and sea, were built and maintained by men perfectly accustomed to the idea of dying for the sake of their women. It is an idea that has outlived nearly every other, and endures to this day in our American Empire. That men should sacrifice themselves utterly - their very essence, their being and their identity, to save women that they do not even know - is neatly encapsulated in that popular phrase, 'women and children first.'<br /><br />
(And if you're paying special attention, you will notice that it is never uttered as 'children and women first.' The very thought is absurd! This is because what is really meant by the phrase is '<i>women</i> first, <i>children</i> second.')<br /><br />
The endurance of these social and class codes owes nothing to totalitarian control. Even when staging bloody revolts against tyrannous monarchs and landed elites, men aspiring to power left the Gynocentric code well alone. The self-sacrifice of men is a sexual constant which has survived all regime change. Gynocentrism, it seems, was not entirely without benefit to men; in peacetime, a man could be fairly assured of a stable familial structure and of his own paternity for the children he helped to raise. Regardless, what was offered to men was essentially compensatory. For most of history, men apparently considered this compensation to be reasonable enough - or perhaps, Gynocentrism was so deeply ingrained that they simply did not consider it at all. Through their actions, they affirmed (and renewed) Gynocentrism, and whether it went by the name honor, nobility, chivalry, or feminism, its essence has gone unchanged. It remains a peculiarly male duty to help the women onto the lifeboats, while the men themselves face a certain and icy death.<br /><br />
It is only now, with the political and social developments of the 20th century that have driven a wedge between the sexes, that the kind of thoughts found on this weblog can emerge. Late modernity provides us with new conceptual resources - new ways of thinking, which can be traced back to the Enlightenment of the 17th-18th centuries. Out of this intellectual melting-pot eventually crawled feminism, a vindictive blend of classic Gynocentrism, victim fetishization, radical utopianism and liberal presuppositions.<br /><br />
It would be an oversimplification to say that feminists set out to make gains. On the contrary, they made demands for both gains and losses. They wanted to <i>gain</i> men's rights, but <i>lose</i> their traditional female responsibilities. This, it seemed, would put women in a social position equal to that of men. It was an argument rooted in the liberal tendencies of individualism, civic equality and self-definition. In rhetoric if not in reality, feminism asserted its points of concurrence with the most admirable aspects of traditional liberalism: equality before the law, the abnegation of arbitrary rule, and so on. Extending rights to all women appeared, logically enough, to be the successive phase of human liberation following the extension of rights to all men.<br /><br />
It was assumed - more fool us - that once granted equal rights, women would voluntarily adopt the accompanying responsibilities that men had always fulfilled. This did not come to be. Feminists were happy to gain men's rights, and lose women's responsibilities, but they were horrified by the suggestion that they should adopt men's responsibilities as a corollary. Rather than men and women sharing the burdens of the world, we got the <a href="http://www.jrank.org/history/pages/8295/white-feather-campaign.html">White Feather Campaign:</a>
</span></span></span></span><br />
<blockquote style="color: black;">
<span style="font-size: small;">This campaign began in the early days of the First World War in Great Britain, where women were encouraged to pin white feathers on young men who were not in military uniform. The hope was that this mark of cowardice would shame them into ‘doing their bit’ in the war. The practice soon spread to Canada, where patriotic women, in response to declining voluntary recruitment figures, organized committees to issue white feathers to men in civilian clothes and publicly denounced the ‘slackers’ and ‘shirkers’.</span></blockquote>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;">It is surely worth remarking that <a href="http://www.wardsbookofdays.com/14june.htm">many of these women were suffragettes;</a> and thus, even as they campaigned for equal rights with men, they used shame as a tool for ensuring that men, and <i>only men,</i> fulfilled traditionally male obligations. Particularly, duty to give up their own lives, because they were men, for the sake of women. Whatever disadvantages women may have faced at the time, there is surely no greater coercion than death.<br /><br />
Much has changed since the First World War, and the feminist project to slack and shirk on women's responsibilities while extending their license to act however they damn well please has met with wild success. And it is precisely this state of affairs which begs certain questions, made possible by the conceptual resources we have inherited from the Enlightenment: <i>what if a man doesn't want to live this way?</i> Why should men continue to fulfill or perform their traditional obligations, when women will not live up to theirs, but neither will they adopt the responsibilities corresponding to their rights at present? The questions arise: <i>were men wrong, all this time, to sacrifice for the sake of women? Should we, in fact, have no obligations to women whatsoever?</i></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;"><i> </i>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;">The reason why the Men's Rights Movement arouses such hostility, from both the left and right, is because it is the first attempt in history for a sex to attempt to break out of its traditional role. Feminism is <i>not</i> this; it is the entrenchment of the power that women already held. The Men's Rights Movement today goes far beyond simple accusations of feminist wrongdoing. Its adherents labor at historical analysis and social criticism, and with the benefit of two-and-a-half centuries of imagination and innovation stemming from the Enlightenment, can easily conceive of a world in which men, for the first time in history, are not required to self-sacrifice for women.<br /><br />
This is surely the future, and it is an inevitable reaction against - thus, an unintended consequence of - feminism itself. In times past, when men could claim compensation for their self-sacrifice, they accepted that this was simply the way of the world. In the absence of compensation, and with the screws being turned ever tighter on men in every sphere of life, they are provoked into questioning <i>the new arbitrary rule,</i> and into formulating their very own liberation project in response.<br /><br />
My statement above - that political extremism, the product of modernity, shall put an end to the traditional idea - should now be clear. Feminism, which is the extreme form of Gynocentrism, shall put an end to Gynocentrism altogether through the reaction which it creates. We are fifty years into the tremendous final act; a grand, orchestral performance, a theatrical display making unprecedented use of sound and light to confuse and cast illusion. But if all the world truly is a stage, then all men and women are actors - with roles of our own choosing, now free to toss aside the scripts we have been handed and create a new story in place of the old.<br /><br />
And when the curtain finally falls, I do believe that there shall be no encores.<br /><br />
Adam</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;"><br /><br />
<b>Further Reading:</b><br /><br />
<a href="http://www.avoiceformen.com/2010/04/03/to-man-up-or-stand-down/">Paul Elam. <i>To Man Up or Stand Down</i></a><br /><br />
<a href="http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/2010/03/titanic-its-lessons-about-gender-still.html">Pierce Harlan. <i>Titanic: Its Lessons About
Gender Still Resonate</i></a><br /><br />
<a href="http://kshatriya-anglobitch.blogspot.com/2010/11/remembrance-day-time-of-anglobitch.html">Rookh Kshatriya. <i>Remembrance Day: A Time of
Anglobitch Hypocrisy</i></a></span></span></span></span></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6345026973557617275.post-66676327229672434962011-01-01T09:00:00.000-08:002011-01-30T03:42:00.907-08:00Staring Out From the Abyss<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Lecture No. 1</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"I love an opposition that has convictions" - Frederick the Great</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The Battle of the Sexes has degenerated into a Dirty War, and we are, each of us, being drafted into it by forces who care not a whit for equality or fairness.<br /><br />
Propaganda, as a tool of control, is effective only insofar as the vision of the world that it presents concords with the perception of the world experienced day-to-day by its targets. The wider the gap between the perceived world and the propagandistic representation of the world, the less effective - and therefore less useful - the propaganda will ultimately be. We have reached a juncture at which women are increasingly rejecting feminism as irrelevant or inapplicable to their lives, because the world that feminist orthodoxy describes does not appear to be planet Earth. At the same time, we are approaching a zenith of feminist control over the actual inhabited world, which combines state repression with gender tribalism, both forces intensifying exponentially as they use each other as leverage to climb ever higher.</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img src="http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd408/gynotheory/mountain.jpg" width="350" /></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I am reminded of an ancient riddle, which asks, 'how high can one climb up a mountain?' The answer is 'to the top,' because once you reach the summit, the only possible way is down. Feminism has no obstacles left; total control is within its grasp, and by <i>total,</i> I do mean in the sense that it shall be <i>totalitarian.</i> The victim card has served as an entry pass through the back door of state and supranational institutions. Now empowered over men, feminists have re-established the principles of Valerie Solanas' <i>Scum Manifesto,</i> declaring - in language clearly evocative of the Final Solution - that we shall soon witness The End of Men. The 'sex war' is not <i>cooling down</i> as women approach (or in some cases, surpass) equality with men - it is <i>heating up.</i> Feminists are not only publicly inciting male hatred and getting away with it, they are using their positions in government, in academia, in think tanks and in the media to make their violent fantasies a reality, advocating the renunciation of men's basic human rights.<br /><br />
To take one recent example, the Secretary of State of the most powerful nation in the world <a href="http://www.the-spearhead.com/2010/12/13/hillary-clinton-confirms-global-feminist-mission">recently announced</a> that an international mobile prosecution unit shall be established specifically to target men around the world. To take another recent example, a leading feminist <a href="http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/2010/12/jessica-valenti-america-should-model.html">has suggested</a> that certain legal principles designed to protect innocent citizens from persecution and unjust imprisonment, dating back to the signing of the Magna Carta, should be withdrawn from men. Nor is feminism a problem confined to the Western world. Men are <a href="http://fightingfeminism.blogspot.com/2010/12/feminist-fascism-in-india.html">subject to</a> the arbitrary rule of women in India, facing severe penalties for <i>inadvertently</i> causing the slightest offense.<br /><br />
None of this squares with the 'women-as-victim' cliché, which has so usefully served feminists in getting to this point. Nevertheless, feminism is firmly entrenched and in control of the mechanisms which boast the monopoly on physical power, legitimate or otherwise. There is hardly any countervailing force which remains. The West has found its new Imperial Mission to replace Global Christendom: enforced worship of women. As any dissenting voice is immediately and violently stamped out, feminists are free to radicalize their anti-male agenda to the point of moral sickness and to unleash unto the world all manner of vindictive atrocities.<br /><br />
For you see, when propaganda has ceased to be an effective tool of control, one seeking control will simply find other means. Control of the state - the monopoly on physical violence - is the means which feminists have sought. But unlike propaganda, which manipulates the mind, state control only brutalizes the body. The power of the controllers always ultimately rests upon the resilience of the controlled, hence consent must still be manufactured. The Roman Empire did not last for five hundred years by the exercise of brute force, but by mass support; the Emperor was glorified as a mortal deity, and even the smallest townships in his realm voluntarily erected statues and altars in his honor. For too long, men have been worshiping at the altar of the female, and it is tempting to believe that this psychological submission will not yield even in the face of physical oppression or extermination - that men will march to their demise like sacrificial lambs, hoping to win women's favor with their last servile actions. But proclamations regarding The End of Men may well turn out to be as empty as those which were made nearly twenty years earlier, concerning <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Last_Man">The End of History.</a> The so-called Clash of Civilizations which followed led that author to refute his own position. We should be optimistic that a true Clash of the Sexes will soon have feminist-minded women eating crow.<br /><br />
As feminism grows ever more powerful, and begins to realize its radical ambitions, it will simultaneously exhaust its capacity for manufacturing consent. Those chivalric illusions which ensure the consent of men, and which feminism ultimately rests upon - 'women-as-victim,' 'women-as-precious,' 'women-as-helpless,' and so on - will become rather more difficult to maintain in time. The more force is advanced against men to bridle and inhibit their lives, the more discontent shall be nurtured among them. The misandry bubble is due to burst, and with every example of overreach, which sees yet more good men cast into the role of criminal and subjected to humiliating and vicious punishments, another crack appears in the wall, another step we take closer to the day that the whole hateful edifice collapses under its own weight - and, crucially, <i>under ours.</i><br /><br />
Our task, then, is twofold: first, to prepare the ground, in order to hasten the collapse of feminism.<br /><br />
Second (and complementary to the first): to construct the ideological weapons to help prevent a feminist resurgence following its collapse.<br /><br />
Both of these goals require, not force, but some propagandizing of our own. Things being the way they are, this does not require us to distort the truth. On the contrary, we shall, for the most part, be exposing those truths which others have distorted; revealing the facts to a wider audience than has yet received them, diligently and unapologetically. As one notable activist in the field recently put it, he does not need to <i>attack</i> feminists - all he needs to do is <i>quote</i> them. Simply exposing feminist hatred to the disinfecting sunlight of the world might well be enough to turn the tide - which is why enormous energies are expended on misdirecting, discrediting, neutralizing and obscuring the arguments and advocates of the opposition.</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img src="http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd408/gynotheory/vigeland2.jpg" width="350" /></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">One key strategy for the achievement of our task was announced at an April 2010 conference, in the form of <a href="http://www.malestudies.org/">Male Studies,</a> a new discipline already facing hostility from an academic world that has long been a bastion of radical feminism. That this sore thumb, this thorn in the side of scholarly uniformity should provoke such outrage as it has done should not be surprising. Here is a selection of topics which Male Studies is set to cover: </span></span></span></span><br />
<blockquote style="color: black;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Socioeconomic factors leading to males' over-involvement in the criminal justice system, underemployment and limited opportunities as fathers, resulting from changes in child custody law (economics, forensics, law, public policy);<br /><br />
Misandric representations of boys and mature males in the media and advertising (media studies including cinema, television and internet, and advertising);<br /><br />
Accounts of the experience of being male (history, literature, autobiography);<br /><br />
Pressing issues related to the emotional well-being of boys and older males, most notably depression and suicide (clinical psychology, medicine and psychiatry, social work).</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Friedrich Nietzsche, writing in the late 19th century, warned that if one gazes into the abyss for long enough, then one shall find the abyss gazing back into them. It must be deeply troubling for feminists, to wake up one morning and find <i>other people</i> deconstructing <i>them,</i> having made it their mission in life to expose and correct feminist wrongdoing.<br /><br />
This would seem to be the reason for <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/4/25/860191/-Setting-the-Record-Straight-on-the-Sanctimonious-Male-Studies-Set" rel="nofollow">the</a> <a href="http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/sexist/2010/04/08/mens-studies-too-feminist-for-you-meet-male-studies" rel="nofollow">abusive</a> <a href="http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/sexist/2010/04/09/sexist-beatdown-manly-masculine-male-edition" rel="nofollow">response,</a> from the feminist sector, to the idea of men discussing issues of sex and sexism without the supervision of women. It matters not what feminists think of Male Studies, because feminists are not the discipline's target audience; its success is not dependent upon their approval, a fact they will no doubt have trouble reconciling themselves to. Regardless, even if they launched a concerted campaign to stop men from discussing their experiences through the fora of academia, they are incapable of preventing this from happening elsewhere. The true sticking point for would-be dictators today is that we live in an Information Age. It is rather difficult to control the flow of information when our very epoch is defined by it. So, let's have these discussions right here, right now - as long as people can use the internet to congregate and speak their minds, nothing can stop us. Let's have these discussions in a million other places too, out in the real world - because if men had never spoken up about their experiences, <i>as men,</i> then we would not be looking forward to the commencement of Male Studies in the near future.<br /><br />
There are already a great number of websites devoted to Men's Rights issues; indeed, these seem to have proliferated over the last few years, sprouting up all over the pasture like so many delicious mushrooms! For most of these weblogs, their content needs no greater unifying theme than opposition to feminism. Given the growing and active network of people concerned about the status of men today, it has become possible to push the envelope a little further. <i>This</i> weblog aims to encourage the intellectual crystallization of what we are calling the Men's Rights Movement, by taking a narrow lens across a broad range of topics. This weblog is dedicated to the elucidation of <i>Gynocentrism Theory.</i><br /><br />
What is Gynocentrism Theory? To put it simply, it is a system which explains social relations between the sexes. It supersedes Patriarchy Theory, the cornerstone of all feminist thought. Now memetic, Patriarchy Theory has proved a remarkable tool in denying men their rights, including their most basic human rights to dignity and bodily integrity, on the pretense that all men are oppressors (or at least, allied with oppressive men from whom they receive benefits) and that all women are victims of male power. Gynocentrism Theory is the articulation of many years of effort by various thinkers in the Men's Rights sphere to describe a vision of the world which more accurately reflects the experiences of men - and many women, too. In contrast to the simplistic, black-and-white tribalism of Patriarchy Theory, Gynocentrism Theory does not equate male fulfillment with the holding of tyrannical power over women. Gynocentrism Theory does not accept that men act as a power bloc. On the contrary, Gynocentrism Theory exposes the divergence between demographics and interests; fundamentally, that while a small number of men may be the ones holding social and political power, this by no means implies that they do so for the benefit of all men; and that in fact, more usually, they do so <i>for the benefit of most women and to the detriment of most men.</i> Gynocentrism Theory advocates that power be understood as multi-faceted, and that policy has historically been a matter of appealing to, and protecting, women. </span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img src="http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd408/gynotheory/monkeys.jpg" width="350" /></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The above, no doubt, shall make heads spin among those who assume that power at all levels can be identified according to the shape of the genitals of those who get to make important decisions - regardless of <i>what they actually decide.</i><br /><br />
Any more shall be beyond the scope of this introductory lecture. And so, we shall continue this train of thought next week. Lectures will be held on Saturdays, and students from around the world are invited to attend - or catch up in their own time if they prefer. Discussions shall be held immediately afterwards. Unlike most feminist weblogs, whose authors take after their mentor Mary Daly in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Daly#Career">systematically denying men a voice,</a> all shall be welcome to speak here, although expulsions shall be warranted in the case that obscene material or personal information is posted. I prefer that feminists be fisked than filtered out, but the fate of truly persistent trolls shall be delivered at my discretion.<br /><br />
I bid you all a reflective day, and I'll be seeing you again.<br /><br />
Sooner than you think.<br /><br />
Adam Kostakis</span></span></span></span><br />
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<b>Further Reading:</b><br /><br />
<a href="http://www.angryharry.com/esgaea4.htm">Angry Harry. <i>Gaea IV</i></a><br /><br />
<a href="http://www.singularity2050.com/2010/01/the-misandry-bubble.html">The Futurist. <i>The Misandry Bubble</i></a><br /><br />
<a href="http://counterfem.blogspot.com/2010/12/for-benefit-of-newcomers-review-of-some.html">Fidelbogen. <i>For the Benefit of Newcomers: A Review of Some Basic Things</i></a></span></span></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com21