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| Scott Adams: Sometimes dumber than Dilbert’s boss. |
So Scott Adams — the Dilbert guy — has a blog. About a week and a half ago he made the mistake of asking his readers to give him a topic to write about. Well, some MRAs heard about this, and, being MRAs, decided that they would flood his site with comments urging him to write about Men’s Rights. And so he did.
What they got from him wasn’t quite what they hoped. Really, though, it wasn’t what anyone would have hoped. So much so that Adams decided to take his post down, saying that it had gotten “a bit too much attention from outside my normal reading circle.”
Luckily, through the voodoo of Google, we can still see the original post. Adams started out, depressingly enough, by more-or-less agreeing with MRAs on a wide assortment of their pet issues big and small — from men paying more for car insurance to the alleged anti-male bias of the legal system. Much of what he wrote made as little sense as many real MRA rants; even his little jokey asides fell completely flat.
We take for granted that men should hold doors for women, and women should be served first in restaurants. Can you even imagine that situation in reverse?
Generally speaking, society discourages male behavior whereas female behavior is celebrated. Exceptions are the fields of sports, humor, and war. Men are allowed to do what they want in those areas.
Add to our list of inequities the fact that women have overtaken men in college attendance. If the situation were reversed it would be considered a national emergency.
After more or less agreeing that men are getting a raw deal, Adams dismissed the complaints of women upset that women earn less than men; to Adams, this is because they are naturally timid souls who don’t know how to ask for raises.
So far, so not-so-good. But then Adams pulled the old switcheroo on his MRA readers, who up until this point were presumably giddy with excitement.
Now I would like to speak directly to my male readers who feel unjustly treated by the widespread suppression of men’s rights:
Get over it, you bunch of pussies.
Uh oh! Shaming tactic! MRAs love directing vagina-based insults at others — mangina anyone? — but they hate hate hate it when anyone directs a vagina-based insult at them. To be fair, calling someone a pussy is not much of an argument.
But here’s where Adams pulled a sort of double switcheroo. After insulting Men’s Rights activists, he did them one better with a bizarre, brazen misogynistic argument that seemed to have been cribbed from some of the more idiotic comments on the various MGTOW message boards. It turned out that the reason Adams thinks men should “get over it” is that … well, read it for yourself.
The reality is that women are treated differently by society for exactly the same reason that children and the mentally handicapped are treated differently. It’s just easier this way for everyone. You don’t argue with a four-year old about why he shouldn’t eat candy for dinner. You don’t punch a mentally handicapped guy even if he punches you first. And you don’t argue when a women tells you she’s only making 80 cents to your dollar. It’s the path of least resistance. You save your energy for more important battles.
What what what?? This is the sort of shit you expect from some low-grade misogynist loser on The Spearhead. But no, this is Scott Adams, internationally famous cartoonist and bestselling author. Instead of trying to explain just what the fuck he means by all this, Adams continued on with a very strange, and strangely sexual, chess metaphor:
How many times do we men suppress our natural instincts for sex and aggression just to get something better in the long run? It’s called a strategy. Sometimes you sacrifice a pawn to nail the queen. If you’re still crying about your pawn when you’re having your way with the queen, there’s something wrong with you and it isn’t men’s rights.
Apparently In Scott Adams’ world, chess players don’t get all their kicks above the waistline, Sunshine.
After a few more paragraphs that, frankly, don’t make any more sense than what I’ve quoted so far, Adams seemed to realize that maybe he shouldn’t have really suggested that women were a bunch of retarded children. But instead of going back and removing that from his post, he dug himself further in with a weird and completely unconvincing denial:
I realize I might take some heat for lumping women, children and the mentally handicapped in the same group. So I want to be perfectly clear. I’m not saying women are similar to either group. I’m saying that a man’s best strategy for dealing with each group is disturbingly similar. If he’s smart, he takes the path of least resistance most of the time, which involves considering the emotional realities of other people.
As far as I can figure out his weird and convoluted argument, it is this: The world really is unfair to men. But you’ll never win this argument with a women — you know how they are. So keep quiet and maybe … you’ll get to fuck the queen?
No wonder he deleted the post.
Completely off-topic observation: Every time I hear the name Dilbert, the song Dilbar Dil Se Pyare, from the 1971 Bollywood hit Caravan, gets stuck in my head. So let’s see if I can get it stuck in your head:
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>I've encountered Scott Adams's, er, unique form of reasoning in the past, so this doesn't surprise me in the least. The guy's convinced that he's a brilliant thinker, but his output is all, well, exactly like the post you're quoting here. So yeah, I don't like him.One of the funnier episodes in his sordid career of being a twit involved a short book he wrote called God's Debris. You can actually read it in its entirety (legally) here: http://www.andrewsmcmeel.com/godsdebris/It posits that God committed suicide and apparently subsequently exploded, and we're all leftover shards of his blasted corpse. It's billed as a "thought experiment," but immediately after publishing it Adams went off the deep end and, in typical stoner-philosopher fashion, couldn't be convinced that it was anything less than a revolutionary, world-changing idea that nobody had ever conceived of before ever in all the history of humankind.He's not saying it's literally true, mind you, just that if you read it there's a 100% chance that you'll never see reality the same away again and everything you've ever known will be cast in a new light. And if you deny that this happened, you're lying. Seriously.Apparently it didn't occur to him that some people are atheists and agnostics, and a (supposedly) new idea about what God is isn't really any more world-changing than a new theory about how Jack Bauer goes to the bathroom when he's onscreen for 24 straight hours.So yeah, I think he's a moron.
>I had an exchange with Mr. Adams a few years ago about politics. Basically he is a lazy person-he claims that since you cannot know everything about a candidate, why bother voting?Same with arguing with a woman-you cannot "win" therefore why even try?He is not stupid-his comics can be funny…but he is not really that great of a thinker.
>I've actually been rereading my Dilbert books lately- and each time I read them I realize more how completely sexist he is. One example that really brought it home was when he did a poll about Tina the Brittle Tech Writer, and people said, "Keep her, but balance out the cast with less stereotyped women." So he introduced Antina, who's basically a butch who weightlifts and wears a tie. Check it out.I dig Scott Adams, but I won't be buying any more of his stuff. His attitude towards women is just ridiculous.
>This will not only teach Scott Adams to stay away from the male feminists called MRAs: but will also discourage anybody in the public eye to stay from them as well: They will use what happened to Scott Adams as an example.One point of my blog was to demonstrate how self-defeating the MRM is.I suggest that is by design: more specifically: the leaders.@susannah: you're an idiot.
>Dave: Nice Murray Head reference.I realize I might take some heat for lumping women, children and the mentally handicapped in the same group. So I want to be perfectly clear. I'm not saying women are similar to either group.Oh wait, that's pretty much exactly what you said!
>Oh no, how dare a man criticises women. It can't be trueee, women are perfect princesses. But it’s all okay to criticise men on a constant basis for decades of course.Not only that, its impossible for men to be discriminated against in society. It must be all a big misunderstandingAsk the feminist bigots
>tri: Ay yi yi. Just read the intro to The Religion War. I knew Adams was an egomaniac, but I had no idea it went this far. YOU ARE GETTING VERY SLEEPY. That stuff about how he incorporated hypnosis techniques into the writing is bizarre. YOUR EYELIDS ARE GROWING HEAVY. At least when Philip K. Dick developed his crazy religious ideas in his later years he was actually pretty humble and self-aware about it. YOU WILL BUY MAN BOOBZ T-SHIRTS. Also, his ideas were sort of interesting. AND MAYBE A MUG. Susannah: I hadn't run across Antina, but does anyone else think that she looks exactly like Scott Adams himself, except for the boobs? Weird.
>Wondered where you wandered off to Nickelback.
>It's funny how men can be criticised or female issues can be talked about at any place and any time.But when women are criticised or male issues are talked about, the person is deemed as an idiot.The feminist bigots want their cake and eat it too. When it comes to PC that's exactly what they get.The word "sexism" is usually used in western societies these days to oppress men as it's used to silence any opinion that's in favour of men no matter how valid the points are.The little greedy feminist bigots want all the focus on women instead of equal and fair balanced consideration towards men.Obviously, most feminists (all feminist in this blog) are only against misogyny, not misandry. So really they are not against sexism as a whole, they are only against half of it. This is considered to be sexist within it's self
>Nick, did you ever create that blog we suggested you create to highlight all of this misandry? No? Then why are you still here?
> It can't be trueee, women are perfect princesses.I really wish I knew how to get you to stop repeating this point. I feel like we've demonstrated enough times that it's not true.Should I name examples of women I don't like or something? Okay. Jenny McCarthy. Margaret Thatcher. That girl in middle school who knocked a cookie out of my hand so I couldn't eat it and it made me sad.See? I don't think women are perfect.
>tri –I need to do a post on all these idiotic non-arguments that MRAs love to post here all the time. Princesses, "white knights," "male feminists just want to get laid, but they won't," etc.
>Um, niko, dear?I am a regular reader of and commentor on feminist blogs. I write a sex blog from a feminist perspective. I'm minoring in Gender Studies, for crying out loud.I have occasionally seen a woman say we shouldn't debate men because they are all evil stupid rapists. The response of feminists? "There are lots of feminist men, feminism is against patriarchy not men, patriarchy hurts men too, basically you are stupid so STFU."
>To believe patriarchy exist in American society 2011 means you’re incredibly stupid and delusional.Grow the hell up and take responsibility for a change instead of acting like children by blaming every wrong in your life on patriarchy
>To believe that the patriarchy doesn't exist in American society 2011 means you're incredibly stupid and delusional.Grow the hell up and take responsibility for a change instead of acting like children by blaming every wrong in your life on women.
>"To believe that the patriarchy doesn't exist in American society 2011 means you're incredibly stupid and delusional."Prove it."Grow the hell up and take responsibility for a change instead of acting like children by blaming every wrong in your life on women." Examples?
>"To believe patriarchy exist in American society 2011 means you’re incredibly stupid and delusional."Prove it."Grow the hell up and take responsibility for a change instead of acting like children by blaming every wrong in your life on patriarchy"Examples?See, I can make empty statements too.
>I can prove it as no one can answer and prove how patriarchy exists in American society 2011. Me asking the question and not getting a logical answer is all the proof need.
>Example A: The Arizona State Legislature. Although the Republicans did kick Senator Scott "She pulled a gun!" Bundgaard out of the Majority position on a 12-9 vote. I suppose that is something.
>Examples?Name one example where "feminist literature" blames female issues on women and not patriarchy or men?Not coming up with an answer proves my point.
>You mean something like this?
>Name one example where "feminist literature" blames female issues on women and not patriarchy or men?I think you'll find that feminists are not big on blaming the victim. But as has been pointed out to you many times before, patriarchy as an institution is reinforced by men and women both.
>Try "Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man", by prominent feminist academic Susan Faludi. It's a whole book about how society, and patriarchy, has harmed men. A whole book about it! And by a feminist! And a famous famous feminist at that.
>Odd you say that Trip-I just read this inane column by a woman who claims that feminism is all about me me me me and not about her "instinctive role as a woman-to be a wife and mother."And the ridiculous premise that you do whatever it takes to take care of a child…which would mean that if your kid needs a heart transplant, you better be donating yours. Or you are a bad mother.
>Niko, you seem to be confused about whether you want "proof of patriarchy" or "proof that feminists blame women." Since Elizabeth has the first amply covered, http://www.amptoons.com/blog/the-male-privilege-checklist/ for the second.