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 see the real Ion is starting to emerge from the cocoon.
It looks about as I expected.
Well, just because this seem to be appropriate to the discussion:
Just because you’re a black boy
Just because you’re a white
It doesn’t mean you’ve got to hate him
It doesn’t mean you’ve got to fight
It doesn’t make it alright
It doesn’t make it alright
It’s the worst excuse in the world
And it, it doesn’t make it alright
Sometimes, songs make it all too clear.
Ion must have missed Jerry Falwell’s blaming everyone from the ACLU to lesbians for 9/11 and the agreement of Pat Robertson-both of whom are or were staunch conservatives.
And frankly, wanting to know why someone does something so we can stop it in the future is not a bad thing. In fact it is a military strategy that is a couple of thousands of years old:
“Hence the saying: If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War Chapter III, second to last verse.
Because the US is not really multicultural,
Hey! i already said that!
Owning an Italian restaurant doesn’t make you an Italian and eating pizza doesn’t make you an expert in Italian culture.
Oooh, nice construction of strawmen. I appreciate that; however, the foundations are faulty.
Nobody say that is what multiculturalism is, nor acceptance of diversity.
But here in the city I live in, there are significant cultures of Hispanic, Hmong, Muslim, African, Germanic, Polish, Irish, Jewish, Arab, and Itialian, and I am almost certain I missed some. Oh yeah, Russian. And, of course, Germans. we still don’t know how to classify German Jews or Russian Jews. As said, pigeonholing is difficult for me.
You know how we deal with it? By having festivals celebrating each and every one of those heritages, and welcoming everybody.
It’s kind if weird, in America, where White European is supposed to be the default, but it works. And… it makes the city work. It makes it possible to work and live together. And… it is kind of awesome.
So, fuck you racists. That’s kind of what I want to say.
Ion’s argument is the same level of idiocy as if someone were to claim that criminal profilers support serial killers. Only a complete slack-jawed moron like him would say trying to understand why people engage in terrorism is the same as supporting or excusing terrorism. This is what happens when someone becomes convinced that being intelligent is not masculine and therefore weak and bad.
You’re right, it’s not a bad thing… unless, maybe, one (no single person or group in particular) doesn’t necessarily want it to be stopped in the future.
Oh yeah, and in these festivals? We all drink beer and eat food and listen to music and dance, and fuck me if it is not true that EVERY FUCKING CULTURE ON THIS BELEAGUERED PLANET does not do that.
And then we all go home and fuck like bunnies. except for the Babtists.
every last one of these seven billion persons have far more in common than we do separating us.
Here’s a comment posted to Sadly, No! by commenter Julia Grey. I’d like to repost it here in its entirety, since it explains so well what Breivik was actually trying to accomplish:
Shorter zombie: I like you. Let’s party.
@ZRM:
“So, fuck you racists. That’s kind of what I want to say.”
This message has been brought to you and approved by the Zombie Rotten McDonald for President Right Fucking Now Foundation.
@Johnny Pez: I’m pretty sure Breivik admitted as much at this point, or at least came clean that he wanted to make an example out of those kids so the government would change policy immediately.
Wow, these kids get actual representation in their local government bodies? Now that makes it even worse because it is hard enough getting young people involved without having to add into it “you might get shot for being politically active.”
“Wow, these kids get actual representation in their local government bodies? Now that makes it even worse because it is hard enough getting young people involved without having to add into it “you might get shot for being politically active.””
See also “Liberal Hunting Permit”. Feature, not a bug. Open warfare, civil war on cultural/political lines, is not the idea. The idea is to terrorize specific groups in society to the point where they’re afraid to do anything that might draw attention or aggression.
Wow, these kids get actual representation in their local government bodies? Now that makes it even worse because it is hard enough getting young people involved without having to add into it “you might get shot for being politically active.”
Well, with the exception of the racist sexist eliminationist gun nut, Norwegians are awesome.
Socialist, single payer health care, expansive safety net, … dammit do they need a zombie architect?
the Zombie Rotten McDonald for President Right Fucking Now Foundation.
well, see that is not gonna get anywhere right out of the gate, because I smoked Pot….and I enjoyed.
And I will do it again. I am unrepentant and undamaged.
Party platform:
BRANES!
Which is still better than anything the Republicans will come up with.
No one cares about that at this time ZRM. In fact here is what you could use as your platform and you probably would win:
Fuck the rich-they destroyed the economy.
And the movement to draft ZRM for the presidential election picks up steam… 🙂
Being a shorter zombie would, unfortunately, make getting to the brains more difficult. Longer/taller zombie = pretty great 🙂
I wonder if it’s a 90% chance of a false rape claim only when white men rape. Would mra’s believe women if their attackers were Moslem?
@Kave:
“I wonder if it’s a 90% chance of a false rape claim only when white men rape. Would mra’s believe women if their attackers were Moslem?”
Yes, but they’d also believe the women deserved it.
Maybe, for better or worse, Chomsky is consistent on his views that sovereign nations are, you know, sovereign.
I see what you did there. And I don’t like it.
VoiP, hardly surprising though really. Bigots typically don’t pick just one group and hate them to the exclusion of all others. They always need more and more people to feel superior over. So you’re always going to find a cross-section of many different groups bigots hate, as well as the imagined conspiracy all those hated groups are supposedly engaging in together against the bigots.
Shora:
I see you talking about BELIEF SYSTEMS, and I get where you’re coming from. When you try to equate those belief systems with ETHNIC GROUPS, or RELIGIONS, that do not necessarily share those BELIEFS, you fail to persuade. You realize that they are different, yes? Meanwhile, it was a shabby thing you did when you tried to slip that equation past us, as here: “demographics, belief systems, etc”–as if we wouldn’t notice what you are doing!
no more mr. nice guy
This is anecdata for sure, but my roommate is from India, and she said that Muslims live under Sharia law while Hindus live under their own law, and India hasn’t ceased to exist–in fact, most of the terrorism in India is from radical Hindu nationalists/racists, not Muslims.