Brazilians! Portuguese! I have fantastic news! Fidelbogen is now available in Portuguese!
Yes, our old frenemy Fidelbogen, the self-described Counter-Feminist Agent of Change (CFAC), and the would-be philosopher king of the manosphere, has managed to find someone who is, for some perverse reason, willing to translate snippets from Mr. F’s blogs into Portuguese.
This is a bit ironic, in that Fidelbogen’s writing, in its original English, reads a lot like a bad translation from the German. He’s a writer of almost pathological verbosity; rarely has any writer said so little with so many words. Not that, at the root, he has much to say; underneath all the verbiage, his ideas are trite and simplistic. And yet he seems convinced that he’s a genius. He’s one of those terrible writers who thinks he’s great. The manosphere is full of them.
And so I thought I’d use the opportunity to present some examples of Fidelbogen’s magisterial prose.
These examples are all from Mr. F’s new blog, CounterSnippets, which he evidently sees as a sort of “Dummies” version of his regular blog, The Counter-Feminist, a place where he can put forth pithy counter-feminist slogans for the masses. As he describes it:
This blog is a meme-dispersion apparatus. It is called “counter-snippets” because it features snippets of counter-feminist philosophy — sometimes one or two sentences, but typically a short paragraph. Each snippet is designed to be memorable and to stick in the reader’s mind. Having done so, it may take root and grow like a seed
As you’ll see from the examples below, Mr. F has not quite mastered the fine art of pithiness just yet.
Each of these quotes is from a separate post.
The complete phenomenology of female supremacism outdistances what any given feminist would openly acknowledge to be feminism, and the word feminism itself operates as a misdirection of attention. (Source)
In the end, the non-feminist revolution is not an identifiable human target group but a cloud of forces manifesting through human actions which can sometimes be politically linked to each other, but other times not. (Source)
In the end, the feminist left gets the bulk of its blood supply from the feminist right. And that blood supply is nothing less than old-school gynocentrism itself. (Source)
Feminism has driven you fifty miles out into the country and left you there to fend for yourselves. Yes, it is unwise to take rides from strangers. Now you’ve got some walking to do, but hopefully the exercise will prove beneficial. I am the messenger. (Source)
We would understand feminism as a gynonormative project, while acknowledging that it could not have come into operation without a preexisting base of gynocentricity in the traditional culture.
Gynonormativization is integral to the establishment of female supremacy. (Source)
Counter-feminist analysis concludes that feminism and female supremacism are interchangeable terms, and we assert that no other analysis will generate effective political traction.
You may agree, or not, that feminism equals female supremacism — yet female supremacism as a datum is not to be doubted. (Source)
We of the non-feminist sector claim the status of an autonomous power with respect to the feminist power on earth, and we demand the full measure of diplomatic courtesy due to such a status. (Source)
Feminism as a whole needs both the academic and the pop cohorts. The academic cohort is needful so that feminism will have an intellectual vanguard — so that the snake will have a head, in other words. The pop cohort is needful so that the vanguard ideology will be demographically incarnated in numbers — so that the snake will have a body, in other words. (Source)
Remember that ALL feminism is packed into a system of interwoven karma. ALL feminism contributes to an evolutionary trajectory which points toward a radical feminist future. (Source)
Your message will take root and grow only if you make the herd disintegrate. Do that, and their power to dismiss your message will disintegrate in tandem. And when people get to this point, they will instinctively cast about in search of a new herd they can join. You know how joiners are. So it is a good idea to prepare something they can cling to, that they will be more readily persuaded to make the jump. (Source)
If we translate all of his posts from Fidelbogenese to plain old English, the message of his blog seems to be pretty simple:
1) We non-feminists should be the ones to define what feminism is.
2) Not all feminists are radical feminists but somehow they really all are, because of … karma?
3) Once we defeat feminism, it should be easy enought to herd the former feminists into our flock if we set forth some nifty little memes for them to “cling to.”
It’s hard to imagine a philosophy that’s much more condescending and cynical than this. No wonder Fidelbogen tries to disguise his philosophy in giant gasous clouds of verbiage.
Xantë — no problem!
Dr. G — hello delurker, have you yet been offered your hard chair of misandry and SCENTED MOTHERFUCKING CANDLE?
As for the OP, yeah, that’s worse than when I had to pad things to be over the minimum (brevity is lost on some college profs — “must write x words to have possibly said anything of value”)
“I am the messenger” here to tell you that “the angels have the blue box” XD
“Must write 5-8 pages with the following font and margin rules”
*writes an outline, posts it above computer, writes it up, formats, sees 4 pages, swears, pads essay*
^ my undergrad days in a nut shell, so I understand where the USE MORE ADJECTIVES comes from, but fuck, there’s a limit on when that fails and you should just repeat yourself. And, oh yeah, just go for the short version when you aren’t going to have it auto-rejected as too short.
Yes, academia does teach bad writing!
Since I do mostly entertainment stuff it’s not like I have to stick to the AP style or anything like that, but still, working with word limits does eventually teach you to focus on what you most want to say. What annoys me about a lot of MRAs, and makes their stuff so hard to read, is that they’re not even trying to communicate clearly. They seem to think that it’s the reader’s job to wade through all the wanking to find whatever point they’ve buried somewhere in there, and that they should be praised for burying it under a pile of purple prose.
@Argenti
What field are you in? I’m in sociology, which might be even further inclined that way due to a sort of field-wide inferiority complex or need to push sociology as a “proper science, you guys!” or what-have-you.
The other thing, of course, is that academia often doesn’t teach good writing.
I only ever took one class that was focused on journalism, but that one class was more useful to me in terms of teaching the nuts and bolts of good, clear writing than any of the classes that were part of my undergrad degree.
(Psychology major, minors in sociology and politics.)
lowquacks — I was a psych major, never actually finished my degree though (the economy went to shit and I couldn’t get a loan)
@CassandraSays
Reverse of what I was going to do! Except I’m reasonably hopeless at psychology and not particularly into it, so looks like it might end up being a linguistics or polisci minor for me with a sociology major.
For a bunch of reasons I’m already quite sure I won’t finish in the usual 3 years/4 with honours, so I’ll just take things as they come.
I’ll try to take journalism classes if they come up and I’ve got a few classes left to fill in then!
@Argenti
Ugh, sorry about that. Here, if you can get into uni, you can go. You’ll have something called HECS, which is an interest-free loan to pay off, but you’ll be subsidised. Of course, the looking-likely-to-win-in-the-federal-election-later-this-year Liberal Party want to deregulate tertiary education and dramatically change all of that. . . I could be in your situation in not too long a time.
In retrospect I wish I’d changed my major to politics, but I was too stubborn and reluctant to admit how much disliking most of my psych professors was tainting the experience for me. There was one politics professor who was a fantastic writer! Unfortunately she didn’t really have time to do much one on one work with students, but at least her critical comments were useful.
Where’d you go to uni? Sounds like a US setup.
Welcome Dr G! 🙂
Argenti – gahhh, that sounds worse than the the “write a 500 word essay” days of high school, when it was handwritten on foolscap. Come to think of it, they might have opted for “500 words” over “two sides of a sheet” because kids did rule very wide margins and develop remarkably large handwriting. 😉
Me? In London.
BTW, do you know of any Aussie bands that might not have made much of a stir yet over here that would be worth taking a look at? I’m open to anything alternative-ish, so punk, metal, indie, dark electronica, pretty much anything that falls under the general umbrella “alternative”.
@CassandraSays
Oh, alright. My dad’s about your age, I think, and his university experience was centred on one subject and very personalised. He did go to UCL and that’s pretty fancy though, so maybe that’s it?
I haven’t been particularly excited by anything Australian recently – Tame Impala are huge, but you’ve probably heard of them, and I don’t buy the hype. I’m mostly into styles that either aren’t done in Oz much or don’t fit your description, anyway.
They’ve been around for a while, but you might dig Buggirl? They’re a band who formed quite near me and represent the ever-campy Aussie pub-rock answer to The Black Keys and White Stripes and other retro-y two-pieces that came out around the 2000’s. Female vocalist, very AC/DC-type rock riffing, no bass. nothing new but don’t sound as formulaic as everyone else trying that, have a song where the singer wants to be Ian Astbury?
Really blanking on Aussie stuff though. I could plug a few friends’ bands, I guess?
The problem with the one professor who I liked were that a. politics wasn’t my major so there was a limit to how much time she was realistically willing to invest and b. everyone else loved her too. So her office hours were completely swamped. I should have just switched majors, or gone to journalism school like I actually wanted to.
None of the stuff above sounds all that exciting. That’s the problem, I feel like I’m neglecting Australia but the few times I come across anything it just isn’t all that interesting.
There’s really not a lot, happening, and most of it’s happening in EDM, so don’t worry. Dead Letter Circus were Aussie favourites and do a Muse-without-the-Queen super-riffy super-echoey heavy rock thing? They’re hardly new, though.
We don’t seem to be very good at developing regional scenes or anything, which I think hurts us. That and the Oz obsession with dad-rock and suspicion of anything too slick or modern.
Also, you must remember that we’re a tiny tiny country by population, despite being one of the biggest countries by area.
Megan Washington’s a consistently decent songwriter’s songwriter type from Victoria, too, but could be a bit twee/Urban Outfitters-ish for you. Think Kimbra without the affected voice or need to cram a million different recent indie-rock trends into everything crossed with Elvis Costello in a good mood and a tiny dash of St Vincent.
Yeah, if you’re not developing regional scenes, or genre-specific scenes, that’s going to hurt the end product. It’s like playing a sport – it helps to have lots of other good people to play with and compete against. Some bands can still do it without a thriving scene to grow in, but it’s harder.
I feel less bad about neglecting that area if a local’s telling me there’s nothing much going on, though.
You’re very right – the pub-rock scene of the ’80s and various reactions to it were some of the best Aussie groups.
It’s not just cultural cringe, either. I dig Ken Done and Australian novelty books and jokes about beery Aussie guys. Probably the continent it’s safest to sleep on outside of Antarctica.
It’s interesting how Aussies have a cringe reaction to AC/DC that doesn’t exist anywhere else. I guess it’s kind of like watching non-Brits talk about Thatcher for a Brit, where other people rhapsodize about what a strong leader she was and Brits try to side-eye and roll their eyes at the same time.
Must… suppress… Thatcher… rant…
^see, it’s true. We can’t help it.
Rest of the world – You guys must be so proud of her!
Brits – (Sputtering)
I don’t know if it’s necessarily a cringe reaction to AC/DC so much as a very complicated relationship.
We realise they’re our most enduring import but get a bit tall-poppy on the whole thing and definitely realise how corny they can be. Acca-Dacca recently have become associated with the sort of suburban racism-conservatism that mirrors the Tea Party and such there, so it’s not cool to admit to liking them, but most Aussies know quite a few of their songs, any Aussie guitarist could play most of their (admittedly repetitive) catalogue, and we’ll admit to having them if it means we win at Pure Rock.
Early AC/DC gigs are a bit like early Sex Pistols gigs, by the way – just about everyone aged 40-50 was, supposedly, at the first or one of the first, and no amount of acquired dagginess can take that “memory” away from them.
The English and historically radical half of my family hated (and still hate) her, and I was raised on Adrian Mole, so never felt that myself, and I don’t think the pro-Thatcher sentiment’s very strong over here – we’re definitely only told about her in school in the context of Billy Elliot and the Miners’ Strike and Falklands War, plus she’s a bloody pom, isn’t she?
Having a reasonably progressive government in the ’80s is something of a point of pride for many Australians, too, so Reagan-Thatcher apologia contradicts that and is pretty quickly rejected.
When we lived in Texas for a while my Dad had coworkers who loved Reagan and called him “The Gipper” and I was so confused. I’d just assumed everyone secretly hated both of those two.
Our Reagan was John Howard, who was a little later. We had a slightly different phenomenon – Howard won by quite a bit and generally had a decent approval rating, but absolutely no-one would admit to voting for him outside of very conservative types.
Maybe it’s more like the royal family? Yes, I see their historical significance and impact upon the nation and their position as a cultural export in the eyes of other nations. No, that does not mean I should treat someone who happened to fall out of the right vagina as a semi-deity, or indeed have any innate respect for them, let alone pay millions of pounds a year for their upkeep.
@thenatfantastic
Is this about Reagan-Thatcher or AC/DC?
AC/DC.
It was a terrible analogy.
Thought so! No, I liked it.
I think a better comparison who be an US-ian who resents the burgers-and-SUV stereotypes but will, every now then, point out that their country makes the best damn big dumb fast food burgers in the world or the biggest stupidest most fun four-wheel-drives, with a mix or pride and embarrassment, or something.
The Royal Family thing’s still good but probably applies more to INXS, our other big export.
I totally got distracted by Reid and the conversation moved on, but if that question about uni was at me — yeah, US.
Please return to your politics and music (interesting combination)
@cassandra
They have been around for a long time, and I have no idea how well they did OS, but I love The Living End. All my fave bands are ones I heard on Triple J during the 90s though. I recently got copies of the first 8 hottest 100s. And not just the songs on the albums… they included all 100 songs. Was so happy.
But the best place to find Aussie music that’s alternative is http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/media/listen.htm and especially keep an ear open for Unearthed.
Re MRA flag: I drew this long ago for something entirely unrelated. I thought it was appropriate. http://photos-ak.sparkpeople.com/nw/1/2/l124189167.jpg
Is it vulvapuses or vulvapodes?
vulvapi is something entirely different and illegal in 46 states, of course.
Ha man boob!
I pity the monolingual Portugeuse.
Reading MRA rants is not a privilege.
I dunno, Cassandra, I’m not an Aussie, but I like Wolfmother. I think they’re from Brisbane. They’re not a household name here yet, but some of their music pops up in soundtracks from time to time.
Here:
I’m just gonna leave this here.
Cannot. Unsee. Octopussy.
(Octopose?)
I know I’m a bit late to the “fetus catacombs” discussion, but I have to point this out.
The crux of the “The Pill Kills” campaign is that (supposedly) birth control makes the uterus inhospitable to the little microbabies so that they can’t implant and are washed out to their doom. Why is this new guy saying pretty much the opposite?
Acca-Dacca recently have become associated with the sort of suburban racism-conservatism that mirrors the Tea Party and such there,
Nooooooooo. As a huge fan, that sucks.
Another anti-feminist, huh? Cool! I didn´t know who this Mr. Fidelbogen is, but I´m certainly gonna have to find out, now, and see for myself if he´s really anywhere nearly as bad as you claim. Thanks for the pointer!
Body horror. Slut shaming. I’m willing to bet that there’s going to be some pro-life troll using this as a screaming insult in an abortion debate in the next month or so.
The idea of AC/DC being associated with conservatism is so funny. Poor Bon must be spinning in his grave.
Wolfmother I know about, but they’re not exactly up and coming, since everyone else knows about them too.
Little dead fetuses… do I get a vote for each one? Do they count as dependents on my taxes? If yes, then I am for it.
What is it with MRAs and feminists as vampires?
Internal consistency. They doesn’t haz it.
Boo-yeah! Not today, blockquote monster!
Jealous much? You bring yourself down to this level to try insulting other people’s writing and work?