So our blabby friend JohnTheOther has an especially blabby piece up on A Voice for Men at the moment. Its ostensible subject: the pure eeeevil of unnamed anti-MRAs who misrepresent the World’s Greatest 21st Century Human Rights Movement – the Men’s Rights Movement, that is – through the eeevil practice of “quote mining.”
I didn’t read the whole thing. Mr. TheOther is not what you’d call an efficient writer. Here are a few quotes mined from the article more or less at random that I think will give you a good idea of his, um, style:
Biology, or indeed, evolutionary theory is not really the topic of this discussion, rather it is provided here as example of a rhetorical practice increasingly common among opponents of a small but growing human rights movement. …
The developing practice in opposition to human rights, of quote-mining goes beyond pathetic, into the realm of craven, futile depravity. …
However, it seems that no matter how many times it is explained that a thing formed from (bad) ideas – an ideology, and a group of people, identifiable by sex, are two distinct things, gender ideologues continue to conflate them. …
I don’t know if any of this makes any more sense in context, as I didn’t read the context. Let’s continue:
A year ago, I wrote an article focusing on the necessary public repudiation of violence, and the responsibility of open opposition to those who advocated or promoted a climate of acceptable violence, including those who openly advocate murder, such as a group of swedish feminists, and eugenics advocates on the squalid radical-hub. Statements from my original piece were quoted by at least one amoral zombie, and reframed to present my view as one which called for violence.
Of course, the author of those yellow pixels might not have realized that the original article, along with it’s unambiguous opposition to violence was posted on a site with substantially higher traffic than his own. The craven and stupid dishonesty of the quote-miner was apparent to all but a few, blinded by their own ideological goggles.
Oh, wait, I think those last two paragraphs were supposed to be about me. And I think they were supposed to refer to this post of mine, which took a look at a post of his that defended A Voice for Men’s “outing” of a group of Swedish feminists that the AVFM crew had decided, on the basis of a brief video promoting a theatrical production, were “murder advocates.” His post contained the following (unedited) paragraphs.
That’s right manboob, identifying a group of self-declared murder advocates to the public is more important than protecting those murder advocates from the consequences of advocating murder.
In the truth-is-fiction world of Futrelle’s mind, the men’s right advocates calling for public identification of a hate organization have been transmogrified into promoters of violence.
And what if they get killed David? What if rather than be arrested – as promoters of hate, and public advocates of murder, what if these depraved and murderous female supremacists come to harm at the hands of a citizen. If that happens, it will mean that a society’s system of law, designed to prevent hate organizations, and to allow redress of grievance through non violent due process is gone, wiped out by your ideology of violence and hate. That’s what you’re defending, David.
In my post, I quoted the final paragraph; here I have included the two preceding grafs to give it a bit more, what’s that word, context.
Of course, a couple of paragraphs by themselves are still kind of “out of context” I guess. Since I am pretty sure no one would like it if I simply pasted in the entire post from JtO here, I will instead direct you to his original post, here. You may make of it what you wish. I rather doubt that you will see it as a clearheaded treatise of nonviolence. Especially with that line: “And what if they get killed David?” (Which you can read in context above, or, again, in his original post. Let me link to it a sixth time here, just to make sure you know how to find his original words in context. Oops, that’s seven times now)
Interesting that a master debater of Mr. TheOther’s caliber somehow forgot to provide even one link to the controversy he was referring to, so people might be able to see for themselves what had happened, and judge his claims accordingly. I wonder why that might be?
I’ll skip the next bit in Mr. TheOther’s latest post, in which Mr.TheOther suggests that an opponent of his might have taken a quote of his out of context in a way that makes him look racist and homophobic. But since he offers no links to the actual discussion, there’s no way of judging whether this particular quote-mining claim is true. (Perhaps this discussion on the Men’s Rights subreddit could shed some light on it?)
In any case, if we put this particular discussion in a broader, er, context, there is certainly ample evidence of homophobia amongst the A Voice for Men crowd, as I have pointed out here and here. (Protip: If you want to convince people you are not homophobic, you should probably not feature a video mocking “lesbo-bos” in the sidebar of the site you help to run.)
Anyway, this next bit of his definitely has something or other to do with me:
Bottom feeding quote miners indulging in snarky feats of futrelian deceit likely do win rhetorical brownie points, at least when seen through their own ideological goggles. But they are cementing their own a public persona which will wear about as comfortably as klan robes do at a NAACP meeting. The altered landscape this movement is building is not someday, it is now, and it is coming faster all the time.
Uh, dude, my last name has two L’s in it. It should be “Futrellian deceit.” If you’re going to turn my name into a slur, at least spell it correctly.
For individuals in opposition to human rights of men and boys now, whether through lying, repetition of old, false dogmas, or the craven tactic of mis-represented and mis-attributed meaning, the comfort of a formerly one-sided monologue is over. The public squirming we see in attempts to render MRA voices silent or apologetic will escalate before it abates. But that’s okay.
Hey, Mr. TheOther. If you really want to prove my “futrelian” or even my “Futrellian” deceit, how about this: provide specific examples of me taking something you or some other MRA has written out of context in a way that distorts its meaning.
For your convenience, you can find all the Man Boobz posts that reference you here and here.
And for anyone who now has the song “Working In the Coal Mine” stuck in their head, here’s the Lee Dorsey original:
OK,,, You really have to decide what gender you are.
Get that man a copy of The Elements Of Style, stat!
I think my brain just seized up.WTF does that mean?
It means that, like Fox News hates Media Matters, JohnTheOther really hates it when people quote what he says.
Because he likes to be able to pretend he never said it if it becomes an embarrassment to him. Which happens often, I gather.
Amoral zombies? How is a zombie supposed to be moral – only eat the brains of bad people?
Futrellian deceit – make people look bad by quoting what they’ve actually said.
Oh, the hyperbole of it all. Won’t somebody think of the children???
In the comments, Rad says (about the picture at the top of the post — link below goes to stock photo image, not to AVfM):
That picture kinda looks like girlwriteswhat doing WWII cosplay.
But I’m just quote mining. While I included Rad’s entire comment here, I did not include every word he has ever written on the Internet, which is what makes me so futrelian.
Is it just me or is that writing style super common to pretty much all bigots?
It’s like, they heard there was this thing called postmodernism, and heard it tended to obscure people’s arguments, and then were like, “I’ve got arguments that I wish were more obscure!” And then they tried to learn postmodernism without understanding any of the actual points.
In some ways I kind of wish they would have some courage in their convictions and be direct about it instead of just making everyone debating them run circles for hours trying to get them to actually own their arguments.
So let me get this straight. MRAs can use ONE QUOTE by ONE RADICAL FEMINIST somewhere back in the Seventies to “prove” that “all Feminists are evil monsters who want to enslave/eradicate men,” (despite no political or legal movement of feminists to do such things) yet….when their bloggers reiterate the same, tired old arguments for why women should, say, *not be able to get legal recompense for male spousal abuse*, *not be allowed to vote*, or *lose their right to own property* or even lose their rights to choose who they want to marry……or EVEN (and this is the kicker) kill off all the “non hot” (to them) women and women who like other women (except in porn, where it’s for his pleasure), and in fact any woman who disagrees or has her own opinion about anything that might possibly conflict with his world view (because we all know that one person disagreeing with a man is TEH END OF TEH WORLDZ for his ego).
And this is *mainstream* MRA belief system…not just the fringe weirdos.
Let’s not forget that there are ACTUAL legislative groups in power right now who are trying to take away women’s access to birth control and reproductive choice. Let’s also not forget that there are probably lobbyists who want to take away women’s right to vote. It wasn’t all that long ago that women DIDN’T have that right.
To me, this is as messed up at people who go on about the “good old days” when black people were slaves and therefore carefree and could just defer to the White Man’s directions about everything (because we all know that black people can’t achieve anything unless under the watchful eye of some white dude, amirite? /sarcasm), and there was WATERMELON FOR ALL. After all, as the white guy who benefitted off of the free slave labor, *HE* was the actual put-upon individual, doing all the hard work of living in a big house, making money off of selling their children, taking all of the money reaped from the work of his slaves, and the OH SO HORRIBLE TASK of throwing them some scraps or a shack to live in from time to time.
Let’s not forget that many MRAs also exhibit this level of racism (also homophobia, etc). But in my mind, it makes sense. If you are a hate group, you take all kinds of hate.
And people ask why I think that the MRM is a hate group.
This is my favorite fuckeryflail: But they are cementing their own a public persona which will wear about as comfortably as klan robes do at a NAACP meeting.
Cementing a persona
A persona is like a costume/clothing
This persona is like CONCRETE clothing
And it’s just like a Ku Klux Klan robe (meaning that people who criticize misogyny are like the Klan, and the misogynists are just like the NAACP–that Southern Poverty Law Center article still grinding away at Mr. TheOther apparently).
And wearing a concrete robe would be uncomfortable not because CONCRETE is not comfy to wear, but because Klan at NAACP meeting.
And somehow “they” are cementng “their own” — so it’s not just themselves, but all of us? Maybe?
*blinks*
Wow, he sure has a lead ear for a metaphor………………………
Damn, I love it when people post incoherent stuff. Then I get to write a precis. One sentence (or so) for each paragraph.
**Note: tl, dr ahead **
1: (more than one paragraph here) Some opponents of evolution take a sentence of Darwin’s out of context. They are liars and are doing so deliberately.
2: But I neither know nor care much about evolution and I don’t want to talk about it (you hear me PZ Myers?)
3: It’s just an example of quote-mining. It’s a popular thing to do, and getting more popular.
4: I used the word “adept” in the last paragraph but actually people who quote-mine are bad and evil, and so are their readers. Also, this is the third paragraph in a row where I mention “human rights” as the opposition to “quote-mining”. [Note from editor: I do not recall anything in the bill of rights about “all quotes must be surrounded by sufficient context, where ‘sufficient’ is well-defined and stuff”. But that’s just me.]
5: “I admit to a dislike of women and the violent ideology of feminism being endlessly portrayed as synonyms for each other.” -> [Note from editor: This is vague enough that I can’t actually be sure what’s intended. Is it: “I admit that I dislike ‘women’ and ‘the violent ideology of feminism’ being portrayed as synonyms? Or is it “I admit that ‘disliking women’ and ‘disliking feminism’ are often portrayed as synonyms”? I’m suspecting the second one, but not sure. Back to non-editor:] Some people don’t seem to get that there is a difference. [Sorry, editor again: I agree with everything in this paragraph, either way you interpret the first sentence.]
6: My post about those swedish feminists was intended to say “violence is bad, and people have to stand up and say so, at all times when anyone is saying that violence is okay, in any tone or attitude”. Then someone quoted me and said that I was advocating violence [note from editor: perhaps because you didn’t denounce it while you were talking about it?]
7: More people read my post than his though, so more people agree with me than with him.
8: I argued recently with someone who said that one of my articles was bigoted. What a weird wrong person!
9: It’s because my article said “Once men get equality, maybe then I’ll become a bigot. Maybe not. But it’s wrong to keep gay men out of men’s rights.”
10: So the person had to be deliberately misreading and quote-mining.
11: [This is a tough one.] MRA’s are less responsive to criticism than they used to be, and that’s probably why quote-mining is becoming more popular in opposing MRA’s. [No, it doesn’t make any sense to this editor either.]
12: People who oppose MRA’s don’t have any real arguments, so they just quote-mine and lie.
13: If I say I don’t like women’s words [“yellow journalism”], quote-miners pretend it means I don’t like women. I add pictures to my articles to deliberately make myself look bad, to make the quote-miner’s job easier.
14: Back when no MRA ideas were popular, these feminist tactics worked. Now, some stuff in MSM sounds like stuff MRA’s might say.
15: Quote-miners look dumb. They are bad.
16: Quote-miners will be remembered as “on the wrong side of what is a human rights movement”.
17: Even though quote-miners (like David Futrelle) aren’t good people like MRA’s, they have some popularity right now. But they will be remembered as bad people.
18: MRA opponents will do more unfair arguing before they stop. That’s okay.
19: The only motivation I can think of for these opponents is that they think men are bad and evil. I suppose lying and bad arguing seems okay to them, in the pursuit of keeping men down. But popular opinion will agree with us, not with them. And even if someone did agree with them, well, someone agreed with Nazis once too. [sorry, this paragraph has like eight different things in it]
cendare, thank you for your work here. Please enjoy this picture of a baby sloth in a boot, which I hope will cleanse your brain of JtO stink:
http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/enhanced/web04/2012/7/1/16/enhanced-buzz-17382-1341174511-0.jpg
Ithiliana, yeah, I love JtO’s deft use of metaphor. He also talks about how evil quote-miners like me are “blinded by their own ideological goggles.”
I’m pretty sure that goggles are used to protect the eyes from blinding light, among other things.
@David: Yep, our ideological goggles blind us.
Their ideological goggles…..don’t exist????????????
One of the things that threw me about the discussion at the GMP was the “you have not proved patriarchy exists, and I don’t believe it does, therefore NO PATRIARCHY so quit talking about it you feminists.”
No ideological goggles over there, dudez!
It says a lot about MRAs that you keep going back to the “men we don’t like are women!” well for your insults.
—
As for the “quote-mining,” all I can say is that literally the only thing that isn’t quote-mining would be copy-pasting entire articles, and that would be very tedious to read.
Plus then they could claim you were “article-mining,” because you didn’t copy-paste every article in the manosphere.
Anyway, I’m not interested in “that quote doesn’t represent us” claims unless you can follow them up with “because that quote is wrong and I disagree with it.” Which JtO doesn’t seem to be doing. Saying “you’re painting us as misogynists!” means nothing unless you’re willing to follow it up with “because misogyny is wrong!” Otherwise, you’re just annoyed that your views were correctly represented in a venue with fewer sycophants.
I don’t think I EVER get that particular version of “Coal Mine” stuck in my head.
This one, though:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WRjgv62Ayc&w=420&h=315%5D
“For individuals in opposition to human rights of men and boys…”
WFT? JtO can GTFO.
“Ideological goggles,” he gurgles,
“and futile Futrellian fools in retreat!
Craven and klan-robed and machiavellian,
mining your way to a final defeat.”
He continues, “so what if some damage collateral
is heaped on the head of a murderous Swede?
She who on brownie-points bottom-feeds to get fatter’ll
sling more yellow pixels than Namco on speed.”
“So down with your one-sided monologogical!”
he shouts over the amoral zombical din.
“History won’t let your idiot ideologic
Biolog- and eugenical gogicals win!”
Is it just me or is that writing style super common to pretty much all bigots?
It’s a style common to people trying way too hard to sound educated. Or, as the old line goes, it’s “a dumb person’s idea of a smart person.”
Yeah, JtO’s writing style is all about posturing, using fancy language to conceal the fact that nothing he says has any substance. If he sounds super smart, people will just take what he’s saying for truth, without him having to establish a logical foundation. If he wrote in a straight forward manner, everyone would see that all he has to offer is mysognistic nonsense.
I think JtO is quickly surpassing WTF Price as BIGGEST SHIT STAIN ON THE INTERNETS!
Leeloo, you are marvelous! XD
he really thinks he’s a bold new thinker, doesn’t he?
@Ugh: I think you’re giving them waaaay too much credit with the postmoderism theory–plus a postmodern argument doesn’t have to be obscure (bad writing can occur in work drawing from any theoretical approach).
From the perspective of somebody who has taught English for 25 years and worked with a LOT of beginning college writers (during my three years as an adjunct, I had four or five first year composition courses every semester, meaning 100-125 students all turning in stuff regularly for feedback), they’re doing what a lot of writers who are not used to writing for an audience who is not themselves (or people just like them) do: they just write what’s in their heads. They don’t revise. They don’t get feedback (even from people they agree with) to see if there are places where they could improve their work (oh lord, the way they massacre metaphor and analogy).
Good clear simple to understand direct writing is some of the hardest to write–obfuscatory mashes of bullshit are easy! (Humans have had verbal language for a huge long time; reading and writing are sort of johnny late-comers, and are hard.) A lot of people think that if they just write the way they speak, all would be well (hint: it’s not-read transcripts of verbal speech).
Add in all the emotional issues this group of writers have (feeling persecuted, paranoid), plus trying to co-opt social justice language (one of the commenters over at the GMP was on about how there are no safe spaces for men!!!!, ahahahahahahahahahahaha) that they don’t truly understand, and their over-all toothgrinding dislike of women, and of men who are truly interested in more egalitarian structures, and that’s one of the reasons for the mess of mashed up metaphors and invective.
Leeloo wins today’s internet, with oak leaf clusters.
This is like a total mindfuck. God, I love MRAs.