So here’s the strangest response I’ve seen so far to the massacre in Norway. On Sofiastry, an antifeminist blog that seems to be broadly sympathetic to the “alt” (that is, the “intellectually” racist) right, blogger Sofia complains that feminist bloggers – she cites me and Hugo Schwyzer – are talking about the blatant anti-feminism and misogyny of mass murderer Anders Breivik. “The mendacious corollary they are trying to construct,” she writes, falling into the purple prose Alt-Righters seem drawn to like flies on bullshit, “is that all those opposed to feminist principles must be in league with all sorts of unsavory radicals.”
As I’ve already noted, this is not actually true; Sofia is being, well, mendacious. Yes, I pointed out the similarities between Breivik’s noxious misogynistic beliefs and, well, the noxious misogynistic beliefs of an embarrassingly large number of antifeminists and MRAs. But at no point did I (or, for that matter, Hugo) suggest that these people supported his despicable actions.
After purporting to be shocked – shocked! – that anyone would connect Breivik with the antifeminists of the world, Sofia offers an appreciation of sorts for Breivik’s awful manifesto. Waxing pompous yet again, she writes:
[A]lthough his actions were cruel beyond belief, and committed by a delusional, psychopath driven by his delusions of political grandeur, there is lucidity and sense in much of what he writes. He never seemed to explicitly advocated for a genocide of Muslims within Europe, but superficially claimed that he just wanted to sustain European culture.
So, let’s weigh Breivik’s pros and cons here. CON: He murdered 76 people in cold blood, motivated by a hateful ideology. PRO: He didn’t explicitly call for actual genocide?
Here’s where it gets weird. Really weird.
I feel that Breivik is being tried for more than his cruelty within the feminist community. The fact that he belongs to the privileged group of the white male makes him hate-worthy along with every other privileged white male who might sympathize with his ideology, even if they don’t happen to be psychotic. Breivik exemplifies White Men, even though Osama Bin Laden to the very same liberal ideologues did not represent Every Muslim.
It’s another symptom of our culture that feels it is OK to hold white men to higher standards of political correctness, self-flagellation and martyrdom whilst simultaneously relentlessly berating and mocking them on a cultural level.
Yep, that’s right. We hate Breivik … because he’s a white dude.
She continues on in this vein:
The subtle manifestations of an anti-white male agenda could be expounded upon for some time, even in the sexual sphere. In porn, the genre of cuckolding usually involves black men fucking white women to the dismay of her white husband. Something tells me this wouldn’t be acceptable if a black man were to stand helplessly by while a white male was sexually coercive with a black female.
Somehow we started off talking about mass murder and ended up talking about … cuckolding porn?
What. The. Fuck?
I could care less what colour a mass murderer is. I loathe them for being a mass murderer.
And it is not the same thing as been a mass killer, there is a difference.
if only he wasn’t white! then he’d be OK!
But seriously, it’s good to know there are people out there looking out for the interests of white men.
No, I hate him because he’s beautiful.
Jesus fucking christ. What the fuck, I don’t even. This shit is getting fucking ridiculous.
Why is everyone twisting themselves around when it comes to this guy? He spewed hateful, disgusting bullshit and then he killed a lot of people, many of them teenagers. What is with this fucking bending backwards to give him sympathy? He’s lucid? He’s got some good ideas, shame about that whole murdering children in cold blood thing.
I mean seriously, what the fuck? If a Muslim man did this exact same thing, with similar wording and views in that hateful shitpile of a manifesto, do you think for a hot second we’d hear anything but a complete denunciation of this man and everything he stands for?
And lady, if you think this murderous shitbag exemplifies White Men, well. Lets just say you have a far worse opinion on White Men then I ever will….
Johnny Pez wins the intertubes…and my heart
In porn, the genre of cuckolding usually involves black men fucking white women to the dismay of her white husband. Something tells me this wouldn’t be acceptable if a black man were to stand helplessly by while a white male was sexually coercive with a black female.
Sounds like she’s been doing a bit of fantasizing wanking research.
curse you WordPress. “fantasizing wanking” were supposed to be strikethroughs.
…hey, wait. I kinda like it the way it came out.
if a black man were to stand helplessly by while a white male was sexually coercive with a black female.
in America, we call this the Jefferson administration
are you intentionally missing the point there? i’m saying he’s being tried for MORE than being a murderer, as his beliefs, ideologies, and background seem to be invoked more than it would be for a muslim within the liberal/feminist community. you can’t deny that people are exploring the MRA/nationalist aspect MORE than if it were to be a muslim terrorist act since i’ve never heard a news outlet or feminist blog criticize islam.
and yes, you can link cuckoldry porn… it’s called abstracting a general principle/idea and linking it to other manifestations of the same prejudice.
I do think she has a point.
When a Muslim commits an atrocity there’s more of a “mind how you walk, mind how you talk” type of vibe from the Left.
Brevik ticks the race, gender and (probably) class privilege boxes so these same people can give themselves over more fully to making the same associations between Brevik and other ideological strands/demographics (i.e. male anti-feminists) that they usually chastise the right for doing with Muslims in response to Muslim violence.
Shora,
I don’t think offering an opinion that he had some good ideas is offering sympathy. You can have an opinion about somebody’s ideas and a different one about their actions and personality. “Sofia” does call him a delusional psychopath, which seems like a strange way of offering sympathy.
So, she does seem to do the obligatory moral quarantine of his personality. As far as his ideas go, the plain fact is that Brevik is probably not clinically retarded. So a non-retard apparently churns out 1500 pages of opinions that weren’t actual gibbering, people will wind up agreeing here and there. This really shouldn’t be so much of a shock to have people throwing their hands up and wailing over it.
As far as exemplifying white men goes, I think “Sofia” means exemplifying in the eyes of liberals. I don’t know about that, there are liberals who do think that the white male “kyriarchy/patriarchy/power elite” or whatever would just love to gas and shoot all the lefties, minorities etc. etc. and Brevik is their true voice but I really think a lot of libs just recognize the guy was a far right nutter.
Johnny Pez wins the intertubes…and my heart
The former is commonplace, the latter a treasure beyond price.
I thought most anti-racists didn’t like cuckolding porn that much because it’s kind of weird and racist. I mean, yes, people should be able to masturbate to whatever they want to, your fantasy isn’t hurting anyone else, but My Daughter Is Fucking Blackzilla #12 is hardly the vanguard of anti-racist thought.
Cuckold porn? CUCKOLD PORN?!
And Glen Beck is comparing the children that died that day to the Hitler Youth?
You know what? It’s the first really nice day after an oppressive heat wave. I think… I’m going to go outside. For a good long while.
Glen Beck is what? I…I…I…I…*sigh* I don’t even…
Something tells me this wouldn’t be acceptable if a black man were to stand helplessly by while a white male was sexually coercive with a black female.
If I weren’t on an office computer, I could probably find an example of this in under five minutes. Have we forgotten Rule 34 so quickly?
@Alex: Read, and be sad:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/07/glenn_beck_is_still_on_the_air.php
(I thought you read pharyngula?
Like I said in the two thread about this Guy and the people defending/agreeing/yeah butting him: HOW HARD IS IT TOADMIT HE IS HORRIBLE AND ALL THE WAY WRONG!?
How hard can it possibly be???
@RW: i get that she’s trying to say that leftists see breivik as representative of “the white man” or whatever, the problem is that it’s a silly, untrue smear for which she has no proof, (shocker: large number of leftists still white men) designed to distract from the fact that there are actual racists (like, i dunno, anders breivik for instance), who actually do try to make every islamic terrorist a representative of the muslim world.
Uck. Typos via virtual keyboard. Sorry
“if only he wasn’t white! then he’d be OK!”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1uhmnNnmL8&w=560&h=349%5D
“Ian Huntley practising witchraft?!?! Oh you’re joking, I liked him!”
seriously, while the facts from oslo were still scant, a conservative columnist for a major paper took to the opportunity to blame muslims for it and to remind everyone that we have to be ever vigilant against the threat of scary muslims, and i can’t find a single example of any serious call to round up and gas all the white dudes now that we know the killer was one. why should anybody take this equivocation about how both side are the same seriously.
When a Muslim commits an atrocity there’s more of a “mind how you walk, mind how you talk” type of vibe from the Left.
Um. Because when you don’t know shit about a religion/culture that is a disadvantaged minority in your country you are more likely to be an inaccurate presumptuous asshole and inspire violence exactly like THIS?
“[A]lthough his actions were cruel beyond belief, and committed by a delusional, psychopath driven by his delusions of political grandeur, there is lucidity and sense in much of what he writes.”
I know that I am not going to get what I want, but I would *really* like people to stop conflating violence they don’t understand with mental illness. This dude was bad, but he was not crazy. He decided to believe things that were wrong and then he acted on those beliefs in a completely and totally rational way.
Conflating crazy people with criminals makes the lives of mentally ill people more difficult and makes the lives of the victims of crime more difficult because people think “X person I know can’t be a rapist because rapists are crazy and X isn’t crazy”, “X person can’t beat their spouse”, “X person is completely safe to work with even though they constantly talk about being frustrated with their job and life and how they should be able to carry concealed weapons,” etc. forever.
RW; I never said that Breivik was clinically retarded. I’m confused as to why you brought it up. He’s a horrible human being who did an atrocious thing. I don’t understand why people in the far right are twisting around this issue so much.
Question; do you see anyone wandering about saying that maybe Hitler had some good points who weren’t racist fuckheads? Also, do you really believe yourself that “this man committed a horrible atrocity and murdered children but he naturally has some good points here and there” is an appropriate response to this tragedy? really? Really? Does ANYONE actually believe this?