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.
Extensive backgroundchecks and metrics like “Puppies rescued per quarter”, “people helped across street / month”, “proportion of total income invested in charity”, “bar fights broken up” plus a good helping of fussy, overworked but exceedingly polite and friendly bureaucratic middle-men.
That, and they have a “Favored Customer” programmer where they work with Santa Claus, gleaning potential future members from his “Nice” lists and watching, very carefully, the people on the “Naughty” list.
It’s an industry.
They call it “The Niceworks”
All the nice, polite bureaucrats try to avoid the boss (Joe) because his tendency to shout makes them uncomfortable. They don’t tell him so, though, because they’re just too nice.
OMG, fib, I would totally make it onto the nice people list.
Which probably means it’s miscalibrated.
Other random things that are more interesting than Joe – these shorts. They are a disco ball in shorts form.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Club-Monaco-00-Limited-cruise-collection-Silver-Mini-Shoerts-W-Pockets-Tailored-/271198483605?pt=US_CSA_WC_Shorts&hash=item3f24b07495
Speaking of people saying words at people without understanding what words mean, GirlWritesWhat apparently gave an address recently to the New York State Libertarian Party:
http://www.reddit.com/r/againstmensrights/comments/1dcoua/oh_gawd_the_hilarity_of_it_of_this_address_to_the/
Drunk posting is a bad idea!
Just read the post I wrote about my ring and realised it doesn’t quite make sense.
Just to make it clear, I’m not showing off about how funny I was.
I was saying I ACCIDENTALLY said that ‘I was going to the bathroom to gingerly brush my ring’, and it took me a couple of minutes to figure out what Mr M was laughing at.
So gotta stop drinking :( Although this week is the first week I’ve drunk anything in years so I blame Man Boobz for my impending alcohol problem.
I know Gretna Green, chosen spot of elopers for ages! Didn’t know it’d turned into the Vegas of the north. The mind boggles. :D
Yup, totally objectifying, misandrists that we are. And you would. not. believe. the pic Louis dared me to make the other night. Well, maybe you would, I don’t know!
LOL to the ring. Hmm, am I game to say “I daren’t brush it at all, the fleur de lys might fall off”?
This has nothing to do with anything, but my kittens are getting fixed tomorrow and the vet said not to feed them after midnight.
My kittens are gremlins.
Hey, I got the point of the joke!
It all makes sense now.
Uncle Joe:Murdered someone? Ok, well your opinion on right vs. wrong (on any subject) is hereby invalid, as far as I’m concerned.
Why? You don’t know what I think of Edward.
You don’t know what happened either. Maybe he was driving tired, and committed vehicular manslaughter.
But you, Mr. “I don’t know you”, just decided I approved of what Edward did.
Moreover, you think one thing, (that a jury convicted him of murder in the second degree; according to the Laws of the Bear State Republic) defines his moral bankruptcy.
That, my friend, tells me a lot about your moral universe: it’s pathetic, and small, and self centered.
I’m pretty confident that refusing to take my moral pointers from murderers is a sound position,
And what makes you imply I do that? That I know one, or several? (I do, you know. I know a total of three [to my knowledge, there may be others, of whom I am unaware of their offense], as well as two other people convicted of aiding and abetting/being involved to a degree which wasn’t considered culpable murder). Tell me what I think of them.
I dare ya.
What about people who have killed, but not in a way The State considered murder? I know a lot of them too. Some of them are British, some are French, some are Greek, some are Russian, some are Ukrainian, and some are American. Which of them do I think moral people, and which not? what are the criteria which makes such a differentiation possible?
And what of you? A guy who can’t bring himself to openly condemn people who praise Marc Lepine and Thomas Ball?
I don’t think you are a moral person. It’s not because you do, or don’t, know killers, it’s because you have the reasoning of a child. From your words here (which are what I have to judge you on: the words you have chosen to put down with the keyboard, and then further chosen to post); It’s not the merits of the situation which you use to judge things, but how the position you take makes it possible for you to posture. It’s the assumption of high ground you make; based not on reason, but emotion.
You are a clanging symbol, for you have no apparent empathy, no understanding of nuance.
So, funnily enough, I find your pathetic attempt to associate me with Stalin – one of the worst mass murderers of all fucking time, to be incredibly fucking offensive. And that you choose to try to do that, while voicing support for an actual murderer?
You bloody ignoramus. I’ve been associating you with Stalin for months; you were so lacking clue I had to be overt. Want to know what the text says?
“The Spirit of The Great Lenin and His Victorious Banner inspires us during this Great Patriotic War”
That’s why I chose that poster. Because you are like Stalin (and Lenin). Rhetoric over substance. You say you condemn murderers, but here, in a thread about one; you haven’t said shit. When it comes down to taking a stand… you stand for yourself, and no one else.
Just like Uncle Joe.
@Kittehserf, wonder what Joe thinks fleur de lys is code for?
I just can’t with GWW AND libetarians. They’re both so second-rate and inhumane it’s not even funny.
All kittens are gremlins. So are cats.
Ophelia, one daren’t imagine!
French something, but I can’t say it’s the word I think of when it comes to nicknames for portions of the French male anatomy. ;)
Shiraz: I am the yeast of Uncle Joe‘s problems.”
*giggle fit*
Careful, it’s a spore point with me.
That’s also why cats hate getting wet.
“Careful, it’s a spore point with me.”
::dies::
Fleur-de-lis sounds like fleur-de-lit, which would mean a bed flower (ish), which is clearly a vagina reference. Naughty!
A song about penises.
Or being in a flower bed (possible, though we’d have to be, ah, pretty careless, since we’d be wrecking our own work). Or the flower of the bed, which could be either of us if we were in a suitably overwrought-romantic mood. Or a having-a-giggle-at-overwrought-romanticism mood, for that matter. :P
Another song I used to cry over as a teenager!
@Joe
I’m pretty sure that there are religious people here (who thus believe in religious morality) and a lot of non-religious people who aren’t moral relativists. I’m certainly not a relativist – I’m a moral objectivist (not to be confused with Ayn Rand’s nonsense) who adheres to virtue ethics and the mere-means principle of Kantianism.
You must also keep in mind that, even among the relativists, a large number of them proceed with moral discourse as if they aren’t relativists, thus their judgments are nearly indistinguishable from those of moral objectivists. I mean, I certainly see everyone here bring up all kinds of tacitly accepted moral values, such as autonomy, consent, and agency, and they express a clear aversion to inequality and injustice (even when it’s nebulously defined). The only ones who aren’t like that are the ones really committed to their relativism, often to the extent of discarding the very notion of moral judgment.
I haven’t noticed anyone here being like that. As an ex-Muslim, I’ve mostly seen certain kinds of liberals and a large number of Muslims use the “Islamophobia” card. And in fact, even among those liberals, I’ve seen them mostly talk about Islamophobia in the context of ethnic prejudice. Of course, I’ve seen my fair share of “Sharia is just another way of ruling society – stop being such a bigot!” bullshit among apologetic liberals. But usually they bring up Islamophobia, specifically defined in much of non-Muslim liberal discourse as antipathy against Muslims, when Muslims are actually being discriminated against because there are intrinsic characteristics being falsely assigned to all Muslims and consequently there are unfair stereotypes hurled against them. I am the first one to point out that Islam isn’t a race, and I fucking hate it when people say that it is, but prejudice against Muslims is still alive and well.
In that specific context, it’s still a woefully misleading word, but that’s what it means. And you must understand that before you blindly accuse such liberals of being pro-Islam. In my experience, when I actually show them proof that Islam is a vile religion, they usually don’t have much else to say (thanks to the fact that Islam is actually pretty easy to interpret). That by itself suggests that the particular context of using the “Islamophobia” card is common.
Whereas Aaliyah can say that she HATES Islam, because she has told Manboobzers she is a Muslim apostate, non-white, transwoman and thus everything she says is right.
No rational person can respect people who think that truth changes depending on who is telling it.
You’re right – no one does. That includes most of us. Standpoint empistemology is being used here heuristically only, so you’re making a straw man. No one is saying that I’m right about Islam because I’m ex-Muslim, non-white (I’m half-white technically but I digress), trans*, and female. They’re saying that my opinions are trustworthy because 1) I have also made it clear that I know what I’m talking about and 2) I’m more readily capable of judging Islam and Islamic culture as I have experience with being a Muslim.
Again with the assumptions about their moral compasses. Stop it.
Also, I find it strange how you just left out the sexism in Islam when you described how horrible Islam is. Especially since one of the worst things about Islam is its blatant endorsement of the patriarchy.
You are going by a very narrow definition of “phobia.” I agree that some people have no idea what they’re talking about when they use that word, but words gain secondary meanings all the time; in this case, “phobia” can also mean “strong aversion.” Hence its apt usage.
The only problem with the term “Islamophobia” is the fact that it inevitably frames discourse such that criticism of Islam is often seen as criticism of all Muslims without regard for their humanity.
Full of nonsense as always, Joe. You never fail to disappoint.
I am at a complete loss to understand what bindweed has to do with F Joe’s penis.
It was rather interesting that his list of things that are wrong with Islam didn’t mention sexism. I guess the sexism part is OK?
@thebewilderness – it’s the last thing he shoved it into, maybe?
Of course, Kitteh! I should have realized.
“O Prophet! Tell thy wives and daughters, and the believing women, that they should cast their outer garments over their persons (when abroad): that is most convenient, that they should be known (as such) and not molested. And Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.”[Qur'an 33:59]
“Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has given the one more (strength) than the other, and because they support them from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in (the husband’s) absence what Allah would have them guard. As to those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (Next), refuse to share their beds, (And last) beat them (lightly); but if they return to obedience, seek not against them Means (of annoyance): For Allah is Most High, great (above you all).” [Qur'an 4:34]
Nope, that’s not misogyny. In fact, it looks kind of like misandry when you pretend that women have nothing to do with those verses. Sort of.
Aaliyah: I’m pretty sure that there are religious people here (who thus believe in religious morality)
I am among the theists on the board. I practice a Kantian Morality, informed by my religious sensibilities.
“Be kind to one another” is the guiding principle of my morality.
@kitteh (Is it okay if I call you Kitteh?) In the second Verse of this poem by Scott, he definately says something about rude thistles and the fleur-de-lis ;). Oo er.
http://allpoetry.com/poem/8479345-For_A_That_And_A_That-by-Sir_Walter_Scott
Also, anyone here know Terry Pratchett?
Ever since Magrat called Nanny Ogg’s ‘double entendre’ a ‘double intender’ that’s what we’ve called it. (Although, apparently Nanny Ogg’s were more single intenders.)
As someone familiar with Kantianism only within the framework of non-religious ethics, I find that very interesting. I see Kantianism and theological ethics as coming from two different places, so I’m curious as to how you are able to combine them feasibly. Maybe there’s something about Kant’s writings on theology that I’m unaware of. I haven’t really looked into Kantian theology anyway.
Although I can certainly see how the mere-means principle and the Golden Rule go hand-in-hand – in fact, I think the Golden Rule is a corollary principle of the mere-means principle (which sometimes leads people to erroneously equate the Golden Rule and the categorical imperative – yeesh).
(Although, apparently Nanny Ogg’s were more single intenders.)
All that broom-riding in her youth.
5 hours behind here but I have to comment on this one (in part because I’m never going to let him live it down)
“You are disqualified from any consideration as holding a meaningful opinion – because you come out with ridiculous stuff like that.”
Says the man who once insisted that feminist acknowledgement of trans* people proves that feminists support communism. Please do explain that again though, I’m still dying to hear how my discomfort with gender boxes makes me a commie (not that I’m not or anything, but still)
Tangentially, I found a brochure “What do Communists really want?” dated the late 40s in my grandfather’s basement — end child labor, equal pay for women. *sigh* 60 years later and we got one of those done (in this country anyways). I don’t think my grandfather and his father would be too happy to know that I’m keeping their commie propaganda…it exists from when they went undercover to infiltrate the American socialist party :)
And the nursing home isn’t moving his room after all, going up tomorrow to scope the apt and measure somethings. Then to decorate! (And buy more shelves because holy shit batman is there a lot of communist and socialist stuff I want to display in here)
Opheila – ‘course it’s okay to call me Kittehs. :)
Sir Walter was being so rude there my delicate sensibilities can hardly bear it! ::fans self::
There are LOTS of Pratchett fans here! I’d swear my Magnus was one of Greebo’s offspring.
Someone should make LastJoe read Nanny Ogg’s recipes. His head would explode.
Dammit Bagelsan, I was enjoying that cup of tea!
Say, were they alpha broomsticks?
I’m trying to imagine Joe slowly learning the details of a complex moral problem:
Person: “I had sex-”
Joe: “You’re a bad person!”
Person: “-with my husband-”
Joe: “Wait, now you’re a good person.”
Person: “-before we got married.”
Joe: “Uh, bad again.”
Person: “And I got pregnant-”
Joe: “…um…”
Person: “-so I scheduled an abortion-”
Joe: “Bad!”
Person: “-but ended up keeping the pregnancy-”
Joe: “Good?”
Person: “-and gave the baby up for adoption.”
Joe: “…Bad?” *headsplodes*
Silly me, I thought that Joey would seem more interesting after I’d had dinner and a few beers, but sadly no. Luckily, after attempting some half dozen times, he finally managed to flounce off properly.
Joey – “I don’t expect to change any minds and I don’t want to actually engage with anyone here, I just came to rant at people about why everyone is so mean and wrong for not listening to me!”
Pemmie – “I don’t agree with MRAs or anything, but let me tell you, at great length, why you should totally do things their way!”
Ugh. Flip the fucking tape, we’ve heard all this before.
It has everything to do with everything! Kittens are always relevant, especially kittens as cute as those!
I want the darling with the freckle. Okay, I actually want all of them, but I think my current cats would murder me in my sleep!
Say, were they alpha broomsticks?
Not compared to Greebo. Everyone’s a beta to him!
“Shiraz: Can we see some citations on this? It sounds like you’ve pulled this from your ass.
Thus proving he knows one way to use a colon.”
Pecunium you owe me coffee (exchangeable for a tour of MoMA, which we have really got to do once shit settles down on my end)
Fibinachi, all my thoughts and hopes for your friend.
And yes, please do get a blog or write a book, or anything that allows me to read more of your writing!
Quoted For Truth!!!!!elebenty!!!1!!!
Hey @Bagelsan. :)
So, all this talk of Pratchett got me perusing quotes of ‘Witches Abroad’ and then I was thinking about religion as everyone was discussing it, weird mind thread, but y’know vodka.
I try to be an Engaged Buddhist incidentally, the ‘engaged’ bit allows me to call trolls
wanker. But Pratchetts take on Buddhism is far more appealing.
Also @Bagelsan, was it you who said you didn’t mind hating on hipsters? Can’t find that bit of the thread. :)
@pecunium, Aaliyah:
Those were very neat summations of interesting subjects. Thank you.
—
@Opheliamonarch
Yes.
In fact I’m reading Night Watch right this minute.
I can also recommend Kate Griffin, Midnight Angel series 1-4. I got the same vibe from them as I normally do from Pratchett. Funny until it’s sad until it’s heartbreaking until it’s beautiful until it’s funny, again.
@Bagelsan:
Hehe. Applause.
@Systemic repeat:
“No, I’m not actually an MRA. I wouldn’t call myself a feminist either. I think the answer lies in the middle of these two extreme positions”
“So.–”
“Which is why I believe that what I am now going to say is what I really believe.
“Oka–”
“And I am going to talk about these beliefs a lot, chief of which, by the by, happens to be that men are infinitely suffering and women out to get them”
“Wait so–”
“And that Feminism is a movement motivated by the desire to channel resources upward the chain of what I like to call “Misandric Hand Me Ups”
“Look can–”
“And also, actually, thinking about it, I am partial to a lot of MRA points. They have some good ideas, very righteous folk that, perhaps the MRA and the more moderate, non Solanas feminists should join forces?”
“Liste–”
“Anyway, it’s been great talking to you, I’ve gotta dash. Have fun being inferior to men, now, as all women really are! And that’s real!”
“…goodbye”
@Gillyrosebee:
Thank you.
@Morality:
… Tell you what, I’m not going to go there. Against opinions as nuanced as sourced as those above, I have little to add other than meaningless paraphrasing.
It’s not the blockquote monster. I come out on top!
I just realised how totally alpha my vibrator is.
@marinerachel, is it in the shape of a fleur-de-lys or a broom? :)
Pratchett is so great. His books are hilarious. :D
Also @Bagelsan, was it you who said you didn’t mind hating on hipsters? Can’t find that bit of the thread.
I don’t think so…
Now look you lot, that’s two cups of tea in one afternoon. Could y’all put tea trigger warnings up or something?
Hey, Argenti, I still don’t know when/if I’ll be free when I’m in New Haven, but I’ll email you when I know and maybe we can have coffee & cannolis, go to a museum, or whatever.
HAHAHA YOU CAN’T GET ME I’VE ALREADY SPILT THAT CUP
… oh.
Kantian Morality is, at it’s root, Hillel’s Golden Rule (Do not to unto others what you would not have done to yourself). Kant was a Catholic,and (in a different way to Descartes) used Logic (in an almost reified sense, which caused him to engage in horrid causistic reasoning) to derive “Absolute Morality”.
Pure Kantian Ethics are untenable. But taking the Categorical Imperatives as guides one can take the other guidelines of religious sensibilities and use those, in combination, to inform how one deals with other people.
Kitteh, we should all invest in sippy cups for when we read this blog! :)
I’m still waiting for a list of names/organizations that are guilty of this:
“I have a problem with feminists who attack men, who seek to silence, or disadvantage men, or who go out of their way to stop men getting help, or organising themselves to help one another.”
Are there networks devoted to stopping men from helping one another? I wasn’t aware.
Snarf warnings are for the weak! If feminists don’t want to rinse out our sinuses or our keyboards, we should just go make sammiches or iron shirts!!
Though, cock carousel sippy cups, with a bendy straw where the carousel pole goes through would be totally awesome!
PeRMALame’s vision of equality seems to be that all opinions and beliefs must be given equal weight. Therefore, if feminists have some good points, then mra’s must have equally good points.
“Civil rights activists have some good points, I suppose, but we should listen to white supremacists, too.”
“LGBTQ activists do have a point or too, but true equality means combining their ideas with the ranting of angry, bigoted homophobes.”
“You know, those people who think it’s wrong to shoot innocent people in the face may have something, I guess, but we shouldn’t be so quick to write off the pro-shooting innocent people in the face crowd, either.”
Bagelsan, that’s an excellent idea.
Dave should sell a range of sippy cups with the mammoth and cock carousel pics on them. He’d have a guaranteed market!
@Fibinachi, just listening to the audio version of ‘Snuff’ Love Vimes. T.P. just gets better and better.
@Bagelsan, so the hipster ref. seems really surreal now, huh?
Oh…just thought….really hoping you’re not a hipster…that would be bad….
@kittehserf, sippy cups and bibs for you :)
Aaaaaaaaaaah ninjaed by gillyrosebee!
I’m not at all a hipster, I just don’t have an opinion on them one way or the other. I’m hipster agnostic. :p
“@kittehserf, sippy cups and bibs for you ”
Another marketing possibility for the Dark Lord: bibs with Manboobz logos. Or maybe SNARF WARNINGS ARE FOR THE WEAK © gillyrosebee, 2013
*schmoo*
I’m still thinking on it, though. It’s clear that sippy cups are misandry, but my poor little (somewhat intoxicated) girly brain isn’t quite offering up the specifics of why.
I was hoping at one point to do a poll to determine our collective favorite fake-MRA poster, and then make that into t-shirt — but a sippy cup or a bib would work as well.
These sippy cups kinda look like whore penguins in Spanx:
It’s hard to find misandrist sippy cups.
Oh, boom:
This sippy cup is awesome!
I, for one, am completely in favor of cock carousel sippy cups. And the mammoth one could have the straw be the trunk.
Cloudiah: Why didn’t you do a poll? Is it just the sheer number of posters?
@Bagelsan…I don’t have anything against hipsters either *they’re evil*.
I mean I’m totally okay with people being hipsters….in fact some of my best friends are hipsters….well no, they’re not…*those neck beards just gross me out* …..it’s just…no….fine with the hipster thing….and neck beards…no..really…fine with it…er…sorry…
I didn’t know Kant was a Catholic. Interesting. I guess it makes sense, though.
I have a very different view of pure Kantian ethics, however. While I follow Kantian morality in practice, I’m not sure if I can see it as untenable or tenable. I do believe that Kantianism, taken as a secular philosophy, is the only normative theory that gets close to establishing an objective moral framework.
Whether he has actually succeeded is something I’m not entirely sure about, but the reason I think that he at the very least has made a good attempt is that his main meta-ethical aim is very cogent. Kant aimed to construct a morality consisting of moral principles that are binding in that defying them would be contrary to reason. This is something that many non-Kantian moral philosophers, in my view, have failed to do cogently.
Utilitarianism is a good example. I still fail to see how one could justify utilitarianism without falling into the is-ought trap. And I’m not very fond of John Stuart Mill’s justification of utilitarianism. I fail to see how the principle of utility is binding on all agents.
I only find it difficult to fully agree with Kant’s moral metaphysics because it relies on the assumption that free will is a thing. Something which I’m not sure is a good move.
Out of curiosity, what about Kant’s justification of Kantianism itself (separated from your religious views) is flawed in your view? By that I specifically mean the mere-means principle, although I can see how criticizing the first formulation of the CI could also be relevant.
Of course, since this is a very messy topic, I hope I’m not pressuring you to respond, but I’m interested in hearing another perspective.
Cloudiah — fuck, that’s right, you’ll be up this way soon. My schedule is a complete disaster, but drop me a line and I’ll see what isn’t full of chaos? (Among other things, my brother’s getting his wisdom teeth out and can’t drive afterwards, and I don’t drive…plus the situation with my grandfather…and I have to reschedule my SSI hearing and keep leaving voicemail because there is apparently never anyone in the SSI office and *head explodes*)
I have more cory eggs btw, hopefully this batch will fare better than the last batch (none of ‘em hatched/survived the larvae stage to be noticed). Pecunium I acquired brewers yeast and keep forgetting to ask whether to use the same amount as baking yeast or what the ratio is (GNC carries it btw, which my brother looked up, proving he is useful for something besides breaking his teeth)