Did Tom Matlack of the Good Men Project – not to be confused with Ben Matlock, fictional defense lawyer beloved by the elderly – swallow one of those mysterious “red pills” I keep hearing about on Men’s Rights blogs? Whatever he swallowed, it’s apparently causing him to hallucinate.
How else to explain his recent post on the GMP site titled “Being a Dude Is a Good Thing.” Now, as a dude who spends a good deal of time every day being a dude, I’ve got nothing against anyone being a dude, provided that’s what they want to be. It’s just that the piece itself is full of some rather strange generalizations that don’t actually seem to be, you know, true, at least not in what’s commonly known as “the real world.”
Rather than try to rebut his argument, because he doesn’t seem to have much of one, let’s just look at some of his loopier pronouncements:
Why do men get blamed for everything?
Uh, because they don’t? Sure, men get blamed for things, but guess what? Women get blamed for things all the time, too, from witchcraft, to divorce, to getting themselves raped, battered or killed. They’ve been blamed for earthquakes, for “inciting” male lust, for killing chivalry and “killing off real men,” for “taking roles intended by God only for men.” Heck, some inventive sorts have even figured out how to blame women for men who are assholes. And this guy has decided that “Black Women are to blame for the disrespect Black Men show towards Black Women.” For endless additional examples, scroll back through the posts and comments here, visit any of the blogs on my “boob roll,” or simply continue living on planet earth.
Back to Matlack, whose generalizations get more surreal by the sentence:
In the locker room, in the bathroom, on the walk out of the board room, in my conversations with men of all kinds, that’s what I hear more than anything. The resignation that to be a man is to be unacceptable at some level to the woman in your life.
Really? Who on earth are you hanging out with? And what women are they hanging out with? Are men other than Tom Matlack and his possibly apocryphal conversational partners actually having conversations like this on a regular basis? If the “woman in your life” basically hates men, what is she doing with you, and what are you doing with her?
One close friend jokes, “When speaking to my wife I always make sure to look at the ground in deference. And I make sure not to make any sudden movements.”
Um, what?
I’ve watched him. He loves his wife.
He’s a very competent human being. But with her he’s decided the only way to survive is to submit. The female view is the right view. The male view just gets you into trouble.
You see what I meant before about the hallucinations, right?
But Matlack suggests there is hope for the poor demure, never-before-heard-from men of the world. Apparently they are starting to open their mouths at last.
It seems that the blame game in the mainstream, whether through the minimization of male life in pop culture or on television or through the continued obsession with men behaving badly, has finally struck a chord with the average guy.
Let’s just pause a moment to reflect on this whole “minimization of male life in pop culture or on television.” Mr. Matlack, do you actually watch movies or television, or visit libraries or anything like that? Most movies revolve around men as the main characters, with women in many cases serving as little more than a love interest or simply as scenery. Have you ever heard of the Bechdel test? Read up on it, run the test on some of your favorite films, and then get back to us on the “minimization of male life in pop culture.”
Now back to Matlack’s manifesto:
We are no longer willing to be blamed for being men. We are no longer willing to avert our gazes and stay silent about our feelings. We are raising our voices and telling our stories in our own male vocabulary.
Yeah, because men have been so utterly silent about their feelings, their opinons, and pretty much everything, up until now.
To women, I assume the response is, “well, it’s about time.” But just remember when we talk it’s not going to sound like a women in a man’s body. It’s gonna be all dude. And you are just going to have to deal with that.
Ladies, prepare yourselves for a lot more Dudesplaining in the near future. Dudes will be ignored no longer! Dudes!!! DUUUUUDESSS!!!!!!
EDITED TO ADD: Matlack’s gotten some responses on Twitter to his dudely roar; he’s posted a bunch of them here. Guest appearances by Amanda Marcotte and (seriously) Roseanne Barr.
I’m still interested in hearing why people like his resignation post… it’s whiny, and he is saying that certain people, including me, matter less.
CassandraSays, and kladle… well, the substitutionary atonement theory, or satisfaction theory if you willl isn’t the only way to see the christian redemption.
At various times and places, it hasn’t even been the dominant one. It really starts picking up steam in early medieval christianity, and gets REALLY bloody and dark after, well, the black plague (Hey, let’s think about this. If your society got hit with something like the Black Plague, your religion would get a LOT darker, and that’s basically what happened.)
Now, it really goes off and becomes a central part of Protestantism after that, so it’s definitely something that’s dwelt on in a lot of the Western understanding. Not that Catholicism doesn’t have it, just that Catholicism did have some other options around. (And Catholicism has even actually scrubbed the darker interpretations of such from it’s catechisms in recent times)
(And even more so the Orthodox and others)
So not all understandings of the crucifixion are about literally paying an angry god with blood. And not all understandings of the fall are about original sin. There’s many others. When it gets trotted out by christian or critic of christianity as being “THE CHRISTIAN CORE BELIEF…” well, I understand where that impression came from, but there’s been too much Christianity without it for that to be the case.
What’s right or wrong is something I no longer have much of a stake in, but I do think that it’s important to realize that a great deal of Christianity hasn’t followed that particular script.
Some very good catholic thoughts:
http://www.womenpriests.org/mrpriest/sat_gen.asp
http://www.womenpriests.org/mrpriest/sat_god.asp
Escape from the Cannibal God is a good title, heh.
Some protestant universalist thoughts:
The thing is, Christianity has always been… Well, extremely VARIED, and that’s probably what let me comfortably fade into a philosopher’s god/no god at all understanding of these matters. There was no moment of grand deconversion for me, no slip from theism to atheism, so much as a change of perspective. But I do admit that the fact that there’s just so dang MANY christianities is probably a better argument for throwing in with one of them than any problems with theology. I still love collecting the various strains though. Ahh, variety.
But I do admit that the fact that there’s just so dang MANY christianities is probably a better argument for throwing in with one of them than any problems with theology. I
Argument for NOT throwing in with them.
Sorry, have to use my feminized non-STEM medieval studies learnings for something.
And noting that I certainly believe the sacrificial lamb theology has had many negative effects and is a deep central bug in the Western psyche. I just don’t think that when one speaks of Christianity qua Christianity, love it or hate it, one should assume it’s definitely a non-negotiable core of that spectrum of religion, or that it’s always been the way things were seen even in the West.
You can all buy my book on the various notions of christian redemptions and their effects on history when I write it, I’m gonna stuff it now XD
As very often, I personally find myself agreeing, for the MOST part with Roderick Long in my own view, which is basically that the logical structure of reality itself is something that can meaningfully be called god, if one leans that way, or not god, if one leans in that direction. I certainly find it personally satisfying.
http://praxeology.net/unblog03-04.htm#02
http://praxeology.net/unblog03-04.htm
you know that none of what you said or your expertise will matter since NWO or Meller will just show up, claim some sort of STEMness and therefore their expertise in EVERYTHING and then you will be pwned as a woman should be >_>
Well, this is true. Even the fact that I, well, basically just deified logic won’t help me when it’s just me and my silly girly brain and fluffy emotions. WHERE’S MY GOD NOW!
In the old days, when MEN did history, I wouldn’t even have been able to lift the heavy books, either.
The idea of heaven & hell are, for me, no different than The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Fantasy revenge.
“Hey, things are shitty for you, but don’t worry JUSTICE will prevail. (After you’re dead. {You can’t prove me wrong because no one has come back from being dead and even if they do we’ll ret-con their story to mesh with what we believe})
Oh! AND!!! All the people who are shitty to you will TOTALLY be punished! Fur REALZ this tiem!”
as zhinxy says, there are a lot of Christianities; which doesn’t even address the Jewish aspects of the idea of sacrifice for atonement. As to “slumming it” there are Christianities which see it that way,and others which don’t.
The question (and where the differences lie) is awareness. If Jesus was man, and divorced of awareness of his divinity; with all the free will of any other person, then it’s not slumming.
If he was aware of his actual divinity, then he was.
In my opinion the only way the doctrine of sacrifice works, is if it’s the former. But Christianity comes of a stew of lots of religions, and what it has (in all it’s forms, Arian, Nestorian, Manichaen, Orhthodox (in all it’s flavors), Catholic (in all it’s flavors), Protestantism, in all it’s flavors, Catharism, etc. are at least as varied as any other family of religions. It’s hard to make sweeping statements about what “Christians” believe.
Ah, David Futrelle.
Y’ know, not one single thing you said here was wrong, or off the mark, or even, I would argue, below the belt. No foul: all points to you.
But.. you’re always so unsufferably obnoxious, sarcastic, so casually and petulantly dismissive of other peoples’ experiences when they don’t reflect your own, it doesn’t even matter any more that you’re right. You’re the noise drowning out your own message – which is unfortunate, because the message (‘misogyny is bad’) is an important one. Since you already know you’re right anyway, would really be so bad then to be right with just a little more empathy and magnanimity?
Nobody needs to tolerate bigotry Most. He’s addressing a group that mocks rape and lies about domestic violence. They didn’t hit the Southern Poverty Law Center’s radar for nothing.
Also David hurts people’s feelings? Bawww. He’s mild. You’re being controlling.
This is a new, weird little game.
Post on old topics that you agree with the blogger but that they should be nicer to the bigots (who aren’t going to show everyone the same).
petulantly dismissive of other peoples’ experiences when they don’t reflect your own
If that was true, this place would be full of straight, cis, white dudes, rather than the diverse place that it is.
@Most
In my opinion, hateful people get way TOO much empathy from society. Nobody is forced into being hateful. I have known refugees who have gone through horrors I can’t even imagine and come out of it as loving decent people. And they still have to constantly struggle to get real empathy from society.
So when middle class Western people DECIDE to hate another group, whether it’s women or people of color of lgbtq people, and then someone demands THEY are so misunderstood and deserve SO much empathy because it’s so HARD to be both privileged and full of hatred, I give that person a serious side-eye.
Do you also go on MRA forums to ask them to have more empathy for rape victims? Have you asked your government to have more empathy for nonviolent offenders by doing more to prevent prison rape? Have you campaigned for donations to the West African food crisis, asking for more empathy for starving children?
Why is it that hateful bigots are at the top of your “IT”S SO IMPORTANT THAT PEOPLE FEEL EMPATHY” list?
It’s actually an old game. Several times drive-by trolls have hit old threads, as if it’s dropping some kind of truth bomb stealthily, hiding it where nobody will see it so that years later it’ll look like they got the last word and nobody was able to refute them.
Ignoring that the date-stamps on the posts will make it wildly obvious what they did.
Ignoring that there’s a ‘view recent comments’ option that assures his fallacious bullshit will be called out.
Ignoring that tone arguments are a vital part of any sexist argument.
Etc., etc.
Howard Bannister: Yeah, that’s true.
I guess it’s the combo of “post on a really old topic” plus “I agree, but why aren’t you being nicer to the bigots?”, both of which i’ve seen before separately, that i’ve never seen together before.
It’s like there’s a list of Troll Techniques ™ and they pick two out at random to be their Troll Theme ™.
It’s like a game of twister. You spin the needle once… ah, you got ARGLE BARGLE. That’s nice. Spin again… wait, you got ARGLE BARGLE twice? We’ll respin. Owly already has that schtick….
And now i’m trying to think of Troll Technique ™ combos that would be hilarious.
“Haha, you spend all your time on here posting, losers” plus “excessive posting and multiple failed flounces” is always good. Steele is getting close to that one, too.
I’m a big fan of the advancing block technique “All women are horrible and all men are naturally violent” + “I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY YOU’RE BEING SO MEAN TO ME I NEVER SAID ANYTHING MEAN ABOUT YOU.”
I feel Most’s technique could be called the “Stealth MRA-but-not-actually-but-actually-am SUPER SYMPATHY WHINE.”
Or the Joe method; ‘such and such a culture and religion (of brown people) are inferior and violent.’ ‘HOW DARE YOU CALL ME RACIST THAT MAKES YOU A RACIST AGAINST WHITE PPL!!!!!’
Nothing Joe says will ever beat the “Joe WTF,” where he doubles down on a stupid argument by stating an unbelievably more stupid argument.
A few weeks ago, when he was arguing that the Frankfurt School was bad because Marxism, but George Orwell was good, and I called him out on the fact that Orwell was even more influenced by Marxism, he dropped “But what you don’t understand is that the Frankfurt School was actually a KGB plot to cause a Soviet invasion.” LOL!
Or when I called him out for thinking that most Iranians speak Arabic, and he doubled down with “But ALL Muslims speak Arabic, just like how all Portuguese people speak Spanish.” It was pretty glorious.
just like how all Portuguese people speak Spanish – Ugh
*Insert obligatory Spanish/Russian alphabet joke here*