How bad ideas get started: The “Apex Fallacy,” the “Frontman Fallacy,” and the murderer Marc Lepine
Would MRAs still be into the Apex Fallacy if boards of directors looked like this?
So some Men’s Rightsers are up in arms because the powers that be at Wikipedia just deleted a page devoted to a phony “logical fallacy” invented by a friend of Paul Elam. According to the now-deleted Wikipedia page, “the apex fallacy refers to judging groups primarily by the success or failure at those at the top rungs (the apex, such as the 1%) of society, rather than collective success of a group.”
In other words, it’s a convenient way for MRAs to hand-wave away any evidence that men, collectively, have more power than women. Mention that men hold the overwhelming majority of powerful positions in the worlds of politics and business, and, I don’t know, podiatry, and MRAs will shout “apex fallacy” and do a little victory dance. Rich and powerful dudes don’t count, because of poor and powerless dudes!
On the Wikipedia discussion page devoted to the question of deleting the apex fallacy entry, one Wikipedia editor – who voted “strong delete” – noted that
This is men’s rights activist astroturfing. The guy above [in the discussion] isn’t posting examples of its usage because they’re all on websites showcasing brutal misogyny and hateful ignorance, like A Voice for Men.
He’s got a point. When I did a Google search for the term, my top ten results (which may be different than your top ten results, because that’s how Google works) included posts on The Spearhead; The Men’s Rights subreddit; Genderratic (TyphonBlue’s blog); Emma the Emo’s Emo Musings; and a tweet from the little-followed Twitter account of someone calling himself Astrokid MHRA. In other words, five of the ten results were MRA sites, several of them with explicit links to A Voice for Men. (That “MHRA” is a dead giveaway.)
The top result, meanwhile, linked to a post on the blog of the delightful Stonerwithaboner, who doesn’t consider himself an MRA, as far as I know. But he’s still kind of a shit, and he did recently confess to being (as I suspected) the person who was going around posting comments on manosphere sites as David H. F*cktrelle, Male Feminist Extraordinaire ™.
So, in other words , I think it’s fair to say that the term “apex fallacy” has not yet achieved academic or philosophical respectability just yet.
The deleted Wikipedia page attributes the term “apex fallacy” to Helen Smith, a psychologist who is a longtime friend to A Voice for Men, and dates it to an interview Smith gave to the odious Bernard Chapin in 2008.
But the idea seems to be a simple reworking of a bad idea that’s been floating around in Men’s Rights circles for a lot longer than that.
Back in the 1990s, New Zealand Men’s Rights Activist Peter Zohrab came up with what he called the “Frontman Fallacy,” a notion he spread via the alt.mens-rights newsgroup on Usenet and elsewhere; the term has been widely adopted in Men’s Rights circles since then. As Zohrab defined the term,
the Frontman Fallacy is the mistaken belief that people (men, specifically) who are in positions of authority in democratic systems use their power mainly to benefit the categories of people (the category of “men”, in particular) that they belong to themselves.
So, in other words, if you mention that men hold the overwhelming majority of powerful positions in the worlds of politics, business, and podiatry, MRAs will shout out “frontman fallacy” and do a little victory dance. Rich and powerful dudes don’t count, because of poor and powerless dudes!
Like the extremely similar “apex fallacy,” this idea is rather too silly and facile to count as a real fallacy, but it has proven quite popular with MRAs. Looking through the google search results for “frontman fallacy,” I see links to a wide assortment of MRA sites using the term, including AVFM, Genderratic, Stand Your Ground, Backlash.com, Toysoldier, Mensactivism.org, Pro-Male Anti-Feminist Tech, Fathersmanifesto.net, Mensaid.com, and some others. Like “apex fallacy” it hasn’t made much progress outside the Men’s Rights movement.
What’s interesting about this to me is that this is not the only bad idea that Peter Zohrab has ever had.
Indeed, Zohrab had some extremely bad ideas about Marc Lepine, the woman-hating antifeminist who murdered 14 women at the École Polytechnique in Montreal in 1989.
While Zohrab, to my knowledge, never explicitly justified Lepine’s killings, he described the massacre in one notorious internet posting as an “Extremist Protest Against Media Censorship.” Of Lepine himself, he wrote
I bet you don’t know he wasn’t a misogynist – because you have been conned by the media (as usual). In fact, he was a Men’s Rights activist (albeit an extremist one), and one of the things he was protesting about was media censorship.
Zohrab went on to say that it was clear from Lepine’s writings – or at least writing alleged to have been written by him — that
he [was] against Feminists — not against women — he clearly states that he is protesting against various issues which are aspects of Feminist sexism.
Indeed, Zohrab seems not only sympathetic towards Lepine’s “cause” but seems to feel that he was being unfairly misrepresented:
The write-ups on Marc Lepine concentrate on character-assassination. They take things out of context, in the same way that fathers are slandered in the divorce/family court, in order to deprive them of custody or access. …
Marc Lepine was not only not sexist, as the media stated – he was actually fighting sexism!
Lots of MRAs love talking about the “frontman fallacy” or the new and improved “apex fallacy.” They don’t seem much interested in talking about Zohrab himself.
Like it or not, MRAs, this man is one of the leading figures in the emergence of the Men’s Rights movement online, and in the intellectual history of the movement, such as it is.
If I were a bit more paranoid, I might wonder if the emergence of the “apex fallacy” was some sort of an attempt as a rebranding, an attempt to push the “frontman fallacy” and its creator, the old, odd duck Peter Zohrab, with his embarrassingly sympathetic feelings toward a mass murderer of women, down that famous memory hole.
P.S. Don’t read the comments to that MensActivism.org posting, unless you want to get really depressed.
Posted on April 29, 2013, in a voice for men, antifeminism, dozens of upvotes, drama kings, entitled babies, frontman fallacy, men who should not ever be with women ever, misogyny, MRA, playing the victim, reddit, sympathy for murderers, terrorism and tagged antifeminism, marc lepine, men's rights, misogyny, MRA, wikipedia. Bookmark the permalink. 1,090 Comments.
@Fade: That was pretty funny. Reminds me of David Wong who defends a (modest) constructivist relativism, but laments the fact that most moral philosophers just use “the relativist” as some kind of boogeyman in their arguments.
@Dvarghundspossen: That actually reminds me of the position taken by certain care ethicists, in some ways. There was one philosopher in particular, whose name I sadly can’t recall, who suggested that modern moral theory was entirely too focused on legislative, rule-based thinking; she argued that a more productive approach might involve more collaboration and dialogue, which I think is really cool if entirely undeveloped. (Presumably this sort of approach would rest on some kind of constructivist justification and take some cues from virtue ethics? I dunno.)
@Dvärghundspossen:
This is where the whole subject intersects in radical ways with my background in a fundamentalist religion.
Strict rules. Is this always wrong or always right? Black and white thinking. Kant’s imperatives, especially his thing about the serial killer asking for his mother, really reflects this. This is right, so it is always right, I do what’s right, so I must do this. It boils down to something simple, a list that can be easily kept in the mind. This simplifies all of life which produces a comforting feeling of being in an easily categorized life, altogether.
This is an oversimplification, but this is my personal experience. That for some people if there aren’t rules that apply to every situation, then life is too terrifying and complex to face.
Which is why Kant is both viscerally attractive to me and viscerally disgusting. I want to learn more. I want to run away. He’s always fun that way. :D
Everything is about those simple principles. Everything is about finding them. Right or wrong? Always right? Always wrong? Lines! Easy categories!!
Nuance? KRYPTONITE!!!
So what’s more basic? Being the person who’s looking for good ends, or the good ends? Non-coercion (Aaliyah’s wonderful post about Kant) seems to say that Utilitarianism might lead you to a terrible evil just by finding a means to an end; the coercion of the government, as a Libertarian styles it, could lead to terrifically good outcomes, if the government was good. Using people as a means to your end.
Even if the end is, say, more people being alive, halting global warming, etc.
And it is unutterably scary to me that there isn’t somebody to come out and take my hand and point to the correct answer while smiling softly.
(yes, it is literally impossible for me to talk about philosophy without bringing up my past over and over again–it’s key to me understanding why I react to some things in a certain way, like moral relativism.)
@Fade
Same here. Sorry, people, it got to the wall of text stage with me about Kant after the first couple of posts and my eyes glazed over (yes, I know it wasn’t a discussion just for me, of course!) “Some good ideas, often badly presented/translated; some totally fucked ideas” is enough, and it sure doesn’t make me any more inclined to study philosophy, Kant’s or any other. It gives me an enormous case of the irrits every time I read about it. Sex as always and only objectifying someone? Masturbation ditto? Objectified people always objectified by everyone? If I roll my eyes any harder they’ll fall out.
@Howard
*squints* You’ve been studying Basement Cat, haven’t you?
Kittehserf, I wrote my Nanowrimo last year about a world where all the gods of all the religions existed, but they were a bunch of douches and their religions were just propaganda they worked up to draw followers in for the power play. There was a group of basically alien god-types who were coming around to destroy the world.
I played up the alien unknowable gods as the more sympathetic characters. It felt… right.
Know how former smokers get all weird about smoking?
Yup.
(but it’s all a fun adventure novel with humor and romance and sudden tragic twists)
So I haven’t had the nerve to tell my mom that I don’t believe in God.
So I take her to church sometimes.
So I amuse myself by pretending that the hymns we’re singing are to Cthulu. It… makes some of them pretty fun, actually. Especially anything about His love or His glory.
(am I in a blasphemous mood today? The Excedrin may have turned on my headachey head)
@Howard. Holy shit, my BF would LOVE that story. Speaking of, have you heard of the similarly structured boardgame Playing Gods?
@Pecunium – In your rush to assume, you missed the post where I condemned nutcase murderer Marc Lepine then. Well done. *slow handclap*
I made it crystal clear that I have zero regard for murderers, or people who think that murderers are all great and super.
As it seems this needs to be spelled out to you*, – that applies to people who call themselves MRAs too. Or feminists or anything else.
(*despite all your pretention to being some kind of “great thinker” you are fantastically obtuse)
Also, you reveal yourself as a pathetic weasel by lying about stuff so as to use it as a “gotcha”.
You said “X is a murderer” and then in a follow up post claim that X was in fact convicted of second degree murder (which as I understand it, is equivalent to manslaughter in the UK, which may include contribution to accidental death through neglect in some way) – not the same thing as murder, which in the UK is defined by INTENT to kill someone.
Now, that might be excused as petty US parochialism, but I don’t think so, it’s just another example of a dishonest frame.
Further weaselling from you re. comparing me to mass-murderer Stalin.
Which is a Godwin in all but name.
You are a thoroughly dishonest and untrustworthy person, both intellectually and morally.
You try to hide it behind a load of pretentious pseudo-intellectual waffling, but I learned to see right through that kind of smokescreen way back when I was an undergrad.
Further, when you accuse me of vacuousness, you are obviously indulging in projection.
You disgust me.
@Joe
how about showing some intellectual honesty yourself by providing some citations for those baseless sexist claims you were making earlier.
Well, now I want waffles.
When I read DrunkyJoe’s posts I imagine a dude wacking they keyboard with his rage boner – makes it so much funnier.
Gee, I’m sure Pecunium will be just devastated to learn that you’re disgusted with him.
If second-degree murder isn’t murder, why is it called second-degree murder? We have a separate manslaughter charge here in the States.
Go snob off, you snobby “I’m mixed race therefore I can’t possibly hold prejudiced opinions about Muslims” snob.
All MRAs ever, then?
@FirstJoe:
Ummmmm, no.
Second-degree murder is LIKE manslaughter under English Law in most ways, but that specific clause? Is missing.
That would be under third-degree.
Second-degree is assault lacking intent to kill which does result in death. (which would fall under manslaughter, if I’m reading Wikipedia right)
You’re the one who comes off as a “dishonest frame” here.
Manboobz:
Come for the mockery, get drawn in by the recipes – stay for the nuanced discussions of deontological and consequential ethics as it relates to principles of inter-personal relations and the notions of original sin.
OR:
Come for the mockery, stay for the discussion of principles upon which a person should live a life.
Howsabout you name a charitable foundation working towards solutions toward the issues you care about, Iosephus I? I’m not asking you to disclose your charitable giving, just identify some nonprofit whose goals you appreciate.
This won’t make me give you a pass when you bellyache about how women’s orgs are ignoring Teh Menz, mind, so maybe you don’t think it’s worth your while. But if you don’t, I’m going to conclude that you don’t actually care about the issues, except as a stick to beat women with. You’ve been drawing lots of conclusions about us this thread, so don’t whine about us drawing conclusions about you.
First Foe to Hoe a Rodeo: Could you please be disgusted by me, too? I promise to think more disparaging opinions about you, for you to telepathically sense, if that’ll help.
@Falconer: Joe may be genuinely confused on the law question, because a quick glance at Wikipedia shows that Manslaughter under the English definition would include Second Degree Murder, Third Degree Murder, and Manslaughter. It’s a broad category, and what they call murder would ONLY be First Degree Murder.
But like I said, he’s the one that comes off as disingenuous for stopping at ‘oh, this could be like manslaughter? Manslaughter doesn’t necessarily mean murder!’
A few minutes on Wiki could have instructed him better. But we know better than to expect that. Looking things up is MISANDRY. Being expected to look things up is MISANDRY.
@Fibanici:
:) For a blog with such a tight focus, it has some range to it.
It’s kind of like moving the goalposts, isn’t it? For a cheap gotcha.
Sad, Joe. Sad.
I know the feeling. Got lucky mine figured it out and was cool with it. (which I didn’t expect)
I wish I had thought about that kind of thing back then. :) I just skipped the “amen” and “I believe” and sing the rest. Probably in order not to vex God or something. Odd times.
The manslaughter/murder distinction is a technical question, I don’t think the average lay person would make a distinction.
I read of a case in which someone who’d just bought a whole bunch of drugs was stopped by the police, and then had the bright idea to bolt his whole stash so the cops wouldn’t bust him for possession.
Needless to say, the poor man died. The state is prosecuting the person who they say sold him the drugs on a second-degree murder charge. If he’s convicted, does anybody honestly think people will look at him and say, “There goes that manslaughterer?”
I have now updated my Man Boobz Testimonials post with Fibinachi’s contribution. :D
Uncle Joe: I made it crystal clear that I have zero regard for murderers, or people who think that murderers are all great and super.
As it seems this needs to be spelled out to you*, – that applies to people who call themselves MRAs too.
Apart from having the same philosophy and view of women.
You said “X is a murderer” and then in a follow up post claim that X was in fact convicted of second degree murder (which as I understand it, is equivalent to manslaughter in the UK, which may include contribution to accidental death through neglect in some way) –
You understand incorrectly. If Google is too difficult for you (we already know you won’t click a citation, not from a “feminist”: we are biased, but the people who praise murderers can invent fallacies; those are just fine. For a dude who claims to be all sorts of morally absolute, you sure got a funny way of showing it).
The lesser offense of manslaughter is found elsewhere.
I will be kind and spare you the complex details of the various types of vehicular manslaughter (which are distinct crimes to vehicular murder).
Now that we have that out of the way (and why didn’t you ask any questions about the other murderers I have known? Or the other killers?) was there actually point in that, mistaken, observation? Oh wait, I see, it was another attempt to paint me as ignorant, or dishonest: Now, that might be excused as petty US parochialism, but I don’t think so, it’s just another example of a dishonest frame.
See, this is where a tiny bit of effort on your part (perhaps stepping outside your petty UK parochialism) would have kept you from hanging your ass in the wind (yet again).
I said murder, because it was murder. It wasn’t premeditated,but he acted in a way which was meant to kill someone. It’s sort of hard to say that firing a gun at a group of people who are running away wasn’t done with malice; and the intent that someone might die.
So yeah, Edward committed murder.
What’s yer point?
Further, when you accuse me of vacuousness,
When did I say you vacuous? You are, but I don’t recall saying it. Mendacious, dishonest, thick as a brick, yeah, I recall saying those. But I don’t recall saying you were vacuous. If I did, well there ya go. If I didn’t, forgive me, I was remiss.
Further weaselling from you re. comparing me to mass-murderer Stalin.
Which is a Godwin in all but name.
Too bad you don’t understand Godwin. Also, you don’t know why I compared you to Stalin. If I thought it apposite I’d compare you to someone else, but you aren’t slick enough to be Goebbels, nor smart enough to be Mao; you lack the peevish petty mindedness of a Ceaucescu, and are with out the bunkered delusions of a Kim Jong Il; that and your chosen name just lends itself.
So it’s good old Joe for you.
Howard: Murder is variable, from state to state. Calif. has no, “third degree.
Second degree is done with malice, and intent, but lack premeditation; or other factors (hate crime, part of another felony, of a known peace officer, with a destructive device, arson, etc.)
@Falconer – it’s telling that the only ways manboobzers can concieve of helping people are:
1 – more laws
2 – charity
3 – “social justice” campaigning activism
i.e.
1 – appeals to authoritarianism,
2- engaging in structures permitted by authority,
3 – appeals for herd approval
There’s more to life than that, thank fuck.
That said, there IS a charity called Mankind that does some good work in the UK, aiming to provide shelter places for men victims of domestic violence (40% of all victims, according to Home Office stats). So there’s one.
And I have zero expectation that women’s / feminist orgs would help men. Why would I expect that?? Feminism: it does not exist to help men. At best it’s neutral to men, at it’s worst it’s actively harmful. Obviously.
Which is why I always LMAO when I hear feminists say that the answer to men’s problems is more fucking feminisim. Fuck off with that horseshit. Who even falls for that? The kind of people who’ve been ripped of by 419 con artists who then send more money when the scammer says there’s a problem with the transfer and they just need $X,000 more??
I know feminists have a low opinion of men in general, but the “you just need more feminism” meme ridiculously underestimates men!
@Bannister – What the hell, apparently you expect me to have a lawyer’s grasp of the confusing intricacies of US laws!!? Fuck off. Pecunium was obviously trying to construct a “gotcha frame” and was crowing about it too. And now you’re trying to dig your mate out of the hole they made.
@Pecunium – tl;dr –
Give it up, you’ve made it clear that you’re an untrustworthy weasel, and I’m not wasting any more time on anything you come out with. You’re done.
I guess Joe thinks there shouldn’t be laws against stealing because it appeals to authoritarianism….
ps, how are we supposed to think you’re not an untrustworthy weasel when you don’t ever bother to cite anything?
Joe, have you MET yourself? This right here is more projection than IMAX.
Shorter Drunky Joe: I can’t compete, so you’re a stuuupid poopie head!
Someone needs a nap.
I don’t know why we waste more than two seconds on Joe and his dishonesty, goalpost shifting, and all-around shitlordery.
@Hellkell
because I feel sick =P but if you want us to ignore him, I can to that.
Nah, Fade. I get chew toys are fun, but this one is old.
Uncle Joe: What the hell, apparently you expect me to have a lawyer’s grasp of the confusing intricacies of US laws!!?
No. What I do expect is that when one is painfully ignorant, one might check before spouting off with insulting language, and condescending blather. You tried to paint me as unclear on what murder was.
You tried to tell me what the law was. You were wrong. I was kind enough to give you a quotation of the relevant code (since you won’t follow citations).
I was kinder to you than you deserve.
You tried to use that to propose I was making a “gotcha” by saying I knew murderers, when I didn’t, and so (I’m not sure how) making you look foolish.
You made a claim (that you don’t respect people who respect murderers). I asked a tangential question, about people who merely know murderers.
You fucked up, and decided that when I said “second degree murder” I was trying to trick you. Your lack of faith in your fellow man is sort of sad. If you were more trustworthy, perhaps you would be more trusting.
But you don’t, actually, disavow the work of those who praise murderers. This whole defense you’ve made of, “The Apex Fallacy” is you taking the word of those who praise murderers. of those who encourage others to commit murder.
You are a liar, or a fool, or both.
Uncle Joe: @Pecunium – tl;dr –
Give it up, you’ve made it clear that you’re an untrustworthy weasel, and I’m not wasting any more time on anything you come out with. You’re done.
If you don’t read my writing (as you’ve said more than once), how do you know it was untrustworthy?
Do you think your (self-declared, and self-maintained) ignorance is going to persuade people?
Do you really think your disdain is going to make me tear my hair and mend my ways, coming to the Uncle Joe School of Misogyny?
Good luck with that.
You are a wanking yobbo, and proud of it.
Typical libertarian* horseshit. Hey, anyone remember whether Joe was the one who kept trying to say that a (now retired) American politician whose name rhymes with/looks like Don Gaul was not a racist, just because he published a bunch of racist newsletters back in the day? Was that Joe, or was it a different asshat libertarian?
*I know there are different varieties of libertarian, but Joe is definitely from the horseshit camp.
Joe is a fan of that politician, yes.
@Gametime: Yeah, ethics of care proponents often have this “fuzzier” idea about morality as well. Now I haven’t read that much of such philosophers, but from what I’ve read, they do tend towards the conservative (like, we don’t have duties towards people in the third world countries since we don’t have any particular relationship with them, and duties only rest on relationships, people who don’t feel emotionally attached to other animals have no duties to other species and so on). That’s my main problem with them.
I say I feel sympathetic towards virtue ethicists who stress the lack of perfect guidelines in morality because Kantianism ends up being a bit fuzzy if you (as I do) admit that Kantian duties may clash.
And I do think there are connections between meta-ethical theories (like constructivism) and normative ethics. Kant’s ethics is simultaneously normative-ethical and meta-ethical, and most neo-Kantians today hold some kind of constructivist view (there are moral principles because we need morality to figure out what to do in various situations, therefore we construct morality). Although moral realists, who think morality is just THERE independently of what we think and something for us to DISCOVER rather than make, can be either deontologists or utilitarians, and there are also utilitarians who favour a more constructivist approach… So it’s not like having a certain normative-ethical approach imply a certain meta-ethical approach or the other way around, but there are connections, and there are theories that sort of straddle normative-ethical and meta-ethical questions simultaneously.
@Howard: Oh, we’re probably all influenced in our philosophical views by less-than-perfectly-rational factors from our lives… I’m probably primed to like philosophers who stress rationality and autonomy and the will determining actions regardless of where our desires point and so on from the fact that I continuously struggle with mental illness and have to exert lots willpower when it comes to just living my everyday life.
Btw, you might want to check out the H P Lovecraft society’s collections of beautifully sung and arranged Christmas carols, where the usual texts have been replaced by hymns to Cthulu.
Wait–Joe’s a non-American fan of Ron Paul? This is a thing?
To the rest of the planet, an apology.
Howard, your gods sound like they’d be right at home in Dunmanifestin!
WHAT ABOUT THE KITTIES
The songs Dvärghundspossen is referencing are, at least some of them, from A Very Scary Solstice:
http://www.cthulhulives.org/solstice/
A good friend gave me a copy for my birthday once.
But i was probably just in her friendzone, or something, and she should totally have… something something instead?
No it doesn’t. So what? It helps men anyway, regardless of the fact that it focuses on women.
@Kittehserf:
I just assume the kittens and cats and felines and pussies and fuzzballs and critters and alley walkers and night crawlers and little ones are assumed, a priori to exist.
They don’t need to be mentioned, they’re 75 % of Manboobz anyway.
@Aaliyah:
That’s one of the funny ones. People will use it as a slam, like there. But yes, you’re right, Feminism does not exist to help men.
Or rather, Feminism was not created to help men, and it does not continue to exist to help men, because one important assumption is that men already require very little help, and that, at worst, they are caught up in problems already identified by feminist theory.
So help is incidental and useful and totally improves everyone life, but no, it does not exist to help men any more than gravity exists to make stones fall down.
… But I guess the trolls will harangue on the point anyway?
When we point out that more feminism has a side effect of helping men too, they hear it as “Feminism’s main purpose is to help men.” (Because that is what they assume everything should be about.) Which explains the bitter howls of betrayal over the fact that feminists don’t drop everything they’re doing to address every problem, large or small, that they identify for men.
It’s an interesting phenomenon. I have seen multiple threads on r/mr and AVfM on this very theme. “Well if feminism helps men too, how come feminists haven’t opened shelters for male victims of IPV?” Like that’s a gotcha.
Ah, so much makes sense now. So Joe’s solution to the very real problem of male on male violence is probably something like “Free up the markets!” or “Gold the standard!” or something.
“Why aren’t feminists doing more to help me get laid?!?!!” – A male human rights activist
“A “phobia” is an IRRATIONAL fear / dislike. There is nothing irrational about a fear / dislike of people who believe that murder is justifiable**, because: whatever. It’s perfectly rational, therefore is not a Phobia.
(** and a significant minority of Muslims do hold to that literal interpretation of their religion, enough that entire nation states are run on these principles, it is NOT a vanishingly small %. And yes, some Muslims are lovely, peaceful people, despite their religion.”
Citation deeply needed, especially if you want one chance in hell in not sounding like an islamophobic asshat.
And we don’t take Aaliyah’s word,because she’s a trans woma, we take it because she actually has experience about what she’s talking about, whereas you’re just reciting a bunch of hateful stereotypes.
“@Fade – you have absolutely no idea what I know about Islam.”
You don’t need to check Wikipedia to prove you’re ignorant, bub, your words have already done that.
“Also, there’s a massive difference between you ACTIVELY LYING about what I have or haven’t said vs. me not bothering to post citations (because it’s a waste of my time, when I know manboobzers don’t read citations that don’t support their POV)”
Dude, just fucking post your citations or get off, you are convincing no one, if you aren’t going to pretend to be open to the fact that your bigotted ass is wrong, or at least try to prove your,right with citations that don’t reek like you pulled them from your ass, get off. My guineapigs are more intellectually stimulating than you. (Especially when I try to figure out,how the hell to litter box train them XD)
“So I amuse myself by pretending that the hymns we’re singing are to Cthulu. It… makes some of them pretty fun, actually. Especially anything about His love or His glory.”
I am so stealing that. My mother wants my brother and I to go to church with her on Mother’s Day — “it won’t kill you”…here’s hoping for no one gets smote.
Hey Joe? Thoughts on people who respect people who helped dump a (murdered) body before turning state’s witness? Life, it’s more complex than you make it out to be.
And you never did reply to pecunium’s other cases of people who killed someone. See, I word it that way because I’m trying to inquire your thoughts on soldiers (note, I do not mean your thoughts in war in general, for the sake of argument, let’s pretend the soldier in question is fighting Stalian or Mao or Pol Pot or Hitler or something…I’ll make it simple, WWII was a fairly clear cut war, so use that one)
Rants on the US’s current string of invasions will be ignored, let’s just take it as assumed that no one here is thrilled by it. Tangentially, http://www.Change.org/CloseGTMO
Oh and Joe, you’ve been around long enough to know that I’ll at least skim any citation. Now, post a blog or MSM piece and I’ll laugh at you, but actual studies will be treated like, well, actual studies.
Do check for sample size, face validity (studies what it purports to study) and that the methodology doesn’t suck. Mostly the first two though.
Bring on the studies!!!
But, who will be eaten first?
“A “phobia” is an IRRATIONAL fear / dislike. There is nothing irrational about a fear / dislike of people who believe that murder is justifiable**, because: whatever. It’s perfectly rational, therefore is not a Phobia.
But our distrust of the MRM (or even a larger class of men) is “ladybrainz”, and shows we aren’t adults or something; scared of people who say that Lepine is a hero, and Thomas Ball is an activist to emulate and think Brievik’s real fault was, well they don’t really think he was “wrong”, just a bit over zealous.
Nope, looking at that makes us irrational. It’s all about the equalities.
I have a perfect analogy! (If you’ll pardon me for comparing people to insects, please bear with me, I swear it pans out in the end)
Premise: phobias are irrational fears
Premise: some Muslims believe murder is justifiable
(Error not relevant to this analogy: some people of most groups think that, Muslims don’t have the market on justifying murder or anything)
Premise: fearing people who justify murder is rational
Conclusion: fearing all Muslims is rational
So far so good Joe! Sort of anyways.
Premise: phobias are irrational fears
Premise: some spiders are poisonous
Premise: fearing poisonous things is rational
Conclusion: fearing all spiders is rational (including the perfectly harmless house spider that crawled somewhere up into the window behind me)
W00t, my fear of perfectly harmless spiders is justified!!
In less silly analogies:
Premise: phobias are irrational fears
Premise: some men are rapists
Premise: fearing rapists is rational
Conclusion: fearing all men is rational
Well there you have it Joe, the entire world is justified in fearing you because you’re male and some men are rapists (in before a complete and utter failure to understand that this is not, in reality, what Schrödinger’s Rapist is about…but that is relevant…)
Premise: you can’t know if someone is violent (or will justify violence) until they are violent (or justify violence)
Premise: some men are rapists
Premise: rape is a form of violence
Conclusion: you can’t know if any given man is a rapist before he rapes
Note Joe, this one does work for your fear of Muslims —
Premise: you can’t know if someone is violent (or will justify violence) until they are violent (or justify violence)
Premise: some Muslims justify murder
Premise: murder is a form of violence
Conclusion: you can’t know if any given Muslim justifies murder until they justify murder
Notable difference here? One does not simply walk into Mordor. No wait…one does not simply say one is not a rapist. Nor that one is not a murderer. But saying one does not justify murder (or rape for that matter)? The entire issue is one of words, language, what one says. So yep, what one says can in fact have bearing on whether one does the thing, whether “the thing” be “justify murder” or “justify rape”.
Oh and you have a fallacy of composition in there btw. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition It’s how you get from three more or less valid premises to an invalid conclusion. In the simplests terms:
Some A are B
B should be feared
All A should be feared
Nope, because not all A are B. However…
Some A are B
B should be feared
If B will occur cannot be known until it occurs
All A could be B
Works when B is an action, when B is a viewpoint (or other linguistical trait)…
Some A say B
B should be feared
If B will occur cannot be known until it occurs
Not B (we’ll call this C) can be known when it occurs
All A who are not C could be B
Anything else you need explained? Because I could do a whole lecture on aquatics, cory breeding, snails, planted tanks…
Pecunium, what’s the ratio of brewers yeast to bakers yeast? Can I just replace it at a 1:1 ratio?
If any of them had a clue about statistics, I’d say this is one more reason they deny the reality of rape numbers. Chances of a woman being killed or injured in a terrorist attack in the US or UK? Miniscule, I would imagine. Chances of her being raped, at least on US figures? One in six. Yeah, but it’s totes reasonable to hate and fear all Muslims, whereas only [insert slur of choice] b*tc*** think there’s any reason to be wary of men.
No smiting so far. If He’s listening, He’s got a sense of humor about it.
PS: My favorite bit of Islamophobia is ‘well, why haven’t the moderates disavowed the violence yet???’
Because those darned moderates are are never in the news.
Confirmation bias. The moderates can say what they like, the Joes of this world don’t listen.
Argenti: Pecunium, what’s the ratio of brewers yeast to bakers yeast? Can I just replace it at a 1:1 ratio?
To do what? Mostly it’s just yeast, so yes. If you don’t have it in a grain based environment it wants some nutrients (e.g. Fermax).
I HATE this. There are 1.2 billion Muslims in the world. 1.2 billion. How can someone claim to know what every single Muslim thinks? And further, why should we expect the majority of Muslims to condemn every single attack on US soil, given that the majority of Muslims do not live here and have no connection to any given terrorist beyond sharing a very large demographic (1.2 billion, people!)?
Pecunium…fuck it, I’ll email you, it’s easier and this is totally off topic
Two things:
1, ‘Apex’ arguments are not fallacies: they only make claims about the top. No one says “men are advantaged in the bottom quintile” and proves it by pointing to the mega rich and powerful. Similar for Frontman: these aren’t claims about how the power is used, just that some groups have disproportionate access to it.
2, I always thought this “fallacy” kind of backfired on them anyway. If they think cases of powerful leaders don’t matter, what does that imply for all their anecdotal evidence? Great, you found a rad-fem who hates men, or a psycho who chopped off some unfortunate man’s genitalia. Unlike Feminist “Apex arguments” about power, MRAs then *do* make arguments about the rest of the population: “Most women/feminists are bad because of isolated examples on frontpages.”
Meep, ok, first, I agree completely. Second, as one of the resident crazies, maybe don’t use “psycho” as a slur? Thanks :) *totally not cutting off genitalia*
But yeah, it entirely negates wtf The View said about Bobbit, and zombie Dworkin and Solanas. And, for that matter, every damned claim about how men invented this that and the other thing.
Also, the MRM is allergic to the concept of fallacies. They just don’t get it. The numbers of times one of ‘em’s been called an asshole and claimed it was an ad hominem *shakes head*
Hey Futrelle, have you ever heard of a fallacy called “argument from authority”? How about “argument ad hominem”?
Because that’s basically the ENTIRE argument you’re making here.
Hi Hippie Redneck, and thank you for necroing a thread from April. Did it take you nearly 5 months to come up with a response? Anywho, just for shits and giggles, let’s examine your response. (I know I’m not David, but what the heck.)
“Argument from authority” is not in and of itself a fallacy. It only becomes a fallacy when at least one of three conditions is met:
1. the authority is not a subject-matter expert
2. there is no consensus among experts in the subject matter
3.when it is used in the context of deductive reasoning.
Now, as you’ve made no case for any of these conditions being met, it is tempting to dismiss you out of hand. However, I would like to give you the opportunity to recover from your lazy, chickenshit unsupported allegation by explaining exactly where David makes a fallacious argument from authority.
An argumentum ad hominem is an argument made personally against an opponent instead of against their argument. Please note that “instead of” as it is important. If a person makes a valid argument against someone, and also insults their person or character, that is not an ad hominem fallacy. Similarly, if a person insults another persons person or character without tying that insult to any argument, that is not an ad hominem fallacy. So when I say that Hippie Redneck is a lazy chickenshit, that is simply me expressing my opinion of your character. Ergo, it is not an ad hom. When I say Hippie Redneck is a lazy chickenshit, and also point out that H.R. has not provided support for any of his allegations, that is not an ad hom fallacy, because I am both insulting you and making a valid argument.
Statement assumes facts not in evidence.
Thank you for playing Spot that Fallacy, which gave me an excuse to avoid thinking about Syria while eating breakfast. (Too bad Argenti wasn’t here to play.) Sorry that you didn’t do very well, H.R., but we’ll make allowances for it being your first time.
I bet you’re so excited that you got to use those fancy terms in a comment. It’s a shame that you don’t know what they actually mean, though.
All David is saying is that Wikipedia took down the “apex fallacy” entry because it lacked reliable sources. You can’t just write a Wikipedia entry and expect it to be accepted regardless of whether it has valid citations. Wikipedia has standards for its entries, and contributors must adhere to them when making contributions.
Nor did he make an ad hominem argument; he just pointed out that Zohrab also happens to be a misogynist who was apologetic about Marc Lepine’s crimes.
I highly recommend that you understand what terms mean before using them.
I just remembered Hippie Redneck thought Vox Day was a satirist, prompting me to make him a meme.
I was asleep, but now that I’m here I find your guest hosting of Spot! That! Fallacy! To be entirely acceptable. He didn’t give you much to work with but you dissected both claims quite nicely.
And I don’t care to look at the news regarding Syria. Was discussing it with pecunium the other day and decided I wanted to be a fish kept by an aquarist at least as devoted as I am. We care far more about our fishies than humans do about each other (sometimes, you lot excluded from the uncaring of course)
It’s quite real. The flaw lies in concluding that men as a group have more power than women based on the premise that there are more men among the tiny minority that has most of the power.
I don’t even need the apex fallacy to show why this is invalid – at least in democracies. For a group to be represented politically, the person doing the representing doesn’t need to be a member of that group. In fact, you’re being sexist if you assume that male politicians can’t or won’t advocate for women’s issues as well as women only because of their genitalia.
Women in fact have far more political representation and that’s easily shown in multiple ways.
How many “rich and powerful” dudes are there relative to “poor and powerless”?
In conclusion: The apex fallacy is definitely a logical fallacy. It’s usage is extremely common across the mainstream culture and media. Therefore being able to identify it is useful for advancing understanding and clearing up myths.
*pops popcorn*
*offers drinks*