So some Men’s Rightsers are up in arms because the powers that be at Wikipedia just deleted a page devoted to a phony “logical fallacy” invented by a friend of Paul Elam. According to the now-deleted Wikipedia page, “the apex fallacy refers to judging groups primarily by the success or failure at those at the top rungs (the apex, such as the 1%) of society, rather than collective success of a group.”
In other words, it’s a convenient way for MRAs to hand-wave away any evidence that men, collectively, have more power than women. Mention that men hold the overwhelming majority of powerful positions in the worlds of politics and business, and, I don’t know, podiatry, and MRAs will shout “apex fallacy” and do a little victory dance. Rich and powerful dudes don’t count, because of poor and powerless dudes!
On the Wikipedia discussion page devoted to the question of deleting the apex fallacy entry, one Wikipedia editor – who voted “strong delete” – noted that
This is men’s rights activist astroturfing. The guy above [in the discussion] isn’t posting examples of its usage because they’re all on websites showcasing brutal misogyny and hateful ignorance, like A Voice for Men.
He’s got a point. When I did a Google search for the term, my top ten results (which may be different than your top ten results, because that’s how Google works) included posts on The Spearhead; The Men’s Rights subreddit; Genderratic (TyphonBlue’s blog); Emma the Emo’s Emo Musings; and a tweet from the little-followed Twitter account of someone calling himself Astrokid MHRA. In other words, five of the ten results were MRA sites, several of them with explicit links to A Voice for Men. (That “MHRA” is a dead giveaway.)
The top result, meanwhile, linked to a post on the blog of the delightful Stonerwithaboner, who doesn’t consider himself an MRA, as far as I know. But he’s still kind of a shit, and he did recently confess to being (as I suspected) the person who was going around posting comments on manosphere sites as David H. F*cktrelle, Male Feminist Extraordinaire ™.
So, in other words , I think it’s fair to say that the term “apex fallacy” has not yet achieved academic or philosophical respectability just yet.
The deleted Wikipedia page attributes the term “apex fallacy” to Helen Smith, a psychologist who is a longtime friend to A Voice for Men, and dates it to an interview Smith gave to the odious Bernard Chapin in 2008.
But the idea seems to be a simple reworking of a bad idea that’s been floating around in Men’s Rights circles for a lot longer than that.
Back in the 1990s, New Zealand Men’s Rights Activist Peter Zohrab came up with what he called the “Frontman Fallacy,” a notion he spread via the alt.mens-rights newsgroup on Usenet and elsewhere; the term has been widely adopted in Men’s Rights circles since then. As Zohrab defined the term,
the Frontman Fallacy is the mistaken belief that people (men, specifically) who are in positions of authority in democratic systems use their power mainly to benefit the categories of people (the category of “men”, in particular) that they belong to themselves.
So, in other words, if you mention that men hold the overwhelming majority of powerful positions in the worlds of politics, business, and podiatry, MRAs will shout out “frontman fallacy” and do a little victory dance. Rich and powerful dudes don’t count, because of poor and powerless dudes!
Like the extremely similar “apex fallacy,” this idea is rather too silly and facile to count as a real fallacy, but it has proven quite popular with MRAs. Looking through the google search results for “frontman fallacy,” I see links to a wide assortment of MRA sites using the term, including AVFM, Genderratic, Stand Your Ground, Backlash.com, Toysoldier, Mensactivism.org, Pro-Male Anti-Feminist Tech, Fathersmanifesto.net, Mensaid.com, and some others. Like “apex fallacy” it hasn’t made much progress outside the Men’s Rights movement.
What’s interesting about this to me is that this is not the only bad idea that Peter Zohrab has ever had.
Indeed, Zohrab had some extremely bad ideas about Marc Lepine, the woman-hating antifeminist who murdered 14 women at the École Polytechnique in Montreal in 1989.
While Zohrab, to my knowledge, never explicitly justified Lepine’s killings, he described the massacre in one notorious internet posting as an “Extremist Protest Against Media Censorship.” Of Lepine himself, he wrote
I bet you don’t know he wasn’t a misogynist – because you have been conned by the media (as usual). In fact, he was a Men’s Rights activist (albeit an extremist one), and one of the things he was protesting about was media censorship.
Zohrab went on to say that it was clear from Lepine’s writings – or at least writing alleged to have been written by him — that
he [was] against Feminists — not against women — he clearly states that he is protesting against various issues which are aspects of Feminist sexism.
Indeed, Zohrab seems not only sympathetic towards Lepine’s “cause” but seems to feel that he was being unfairly misrepresented:
The write-ups on Marc Lepine concentrate on character-assassination. They take things out of context, in the same way that fathers are slandered in the divorce/family court, in order to deprive them of custody or access. …
Marc Lepine was not only not sexist, as the media stated – he was actually fighting sexism!
Lots of MRAs love talking about the “frontman fallacy” or the new and improved “apex fallacy.” They don’t seem much interested in talking about Zohrab himself.
Like it or not, MRAs, this man is one of the leading figures in the emergence of the Men’s Rights movement online, and in the intellectual history of the movement, such as it is.
If I were a bit more paranoid, I might wonder if the emergence of the “apex fallacy” was some sort of an attempt as a rebranding, an attempt to push the “frontman fallacy” and its creator, the old, odd duck Peter Zohrab, with his embarrassingly sympathetic feelings toward a mass murderer of women, down that famous memory hole.
P.S. Don’t read the comments to that MensActivism.org posting, unless you want to get really depressed.
BTW, if beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy, Madeira means he wants us to be delirious.
For those what care, I’ve been posting tipsily from about here.
@Fibinachi
Wading through the boring shit FirstJoe has been posting was worth it to get to the tropical island of your wonderful post. (Is that metaphor too much?) Your posts are always great to read though.
Pecunium — you driving up if we can schedule it? Because picking me up would be awesome, otherwise we’re doing lunch with my mother (she was fine about lunch with Rogan/LBT though, from my view anyways, so I don’t think it’d be a problem, but the less people trying to park downtown, the better!)
And you linked to this thread btw, that booze must be good!
Cloudiah — I shall endeavor to stage a rescue if needed and possible 🙂
And if you both want, I’ll email you both and we can take this to email. I do have both your addy’s after all
Also, awesome. (Ironically the under the sea musical in Kingdom Hearts II gives me way more trouble than the end boss in the first game…let’s not talk about the end boss in the second one…or Maleficent)
Kitteh — yeah he did, NWO never managed to piss me off as much as he did that night. And yeah, my hyphens convulted it I guess. I typed it without them but it made no sense >.<
On second thought, picking me up would probably mean meeting my father, he’d behave if I introduced you just as a veteran I know from online, but I know your thoughts on meeting him. Maybe not such a good idea.
It’s been a few years since I read any Kantian moral philosophy and even longer since I read any Kant, but I don’t recall Kant’s schema being convincingly binding. I mean, even if one grants that Kant persuasively links moral conduct to reason given a certain metaphysics, all you’ve done is shift the standard from “you can’t act in such-and-such a way or you’ll be a bad person” to “you can’t act in such-and-such a way on pain of irrationality.” The latter is only more binding than the former if the agent in question bothers to care about acting rationally.
But then I’m a philosophy major who slowly became disillusioned with every major moral theory, so I might just be bitter.
Argenti, sure, email us all. I’ll try to pin my sister down, since she said there would be one day I’m on my own the week of the 6th… But it might be the 6th, in which case I will be mostly on Long Island with a friend until the ferry takes me away.
I am so damn excited to get away for a while. Though in other ways this is a terrible time, with one friend starting chemo and another in a rehab center recovering from cancer/chemo.
Did I say FUCK CANCER yet today? FUCK CANCER.
I don’t think you did, so FUCK CANCER. And I’ll email you both once Pecunium confirms that’s okay with him.
In any case, I’m going to bed. Tomorrow should be fun, my mother wants to go shoe shopping (this never happens, like, ever, I expect chaos)
I look at the ax murderer problem within the framework of the mere-means principle, just as I do with every other moral situation (although sometimes I like to add in virtue ethics to the mix because it leads to a much more informed moral perspective).
By that principle, I do, in fact, have a duty to not lie because lying involves treating someone as a mere means to an end.
By the same principle, however, I have a duty to not let my mother die. Normally this would be an imperfect duty that would be ignored in favor of following the perfect duty of not lying. However, if the direct consequence of me telling the truth is her death, then I am surely responsible. Not letting her die, therfore, is also a perfect duty, as I also have the perfect duty to not kill anyone.
In turn, this implies that the ax murderer problem has no prescriptive answer. If I lie, I’ll treat the ax murderer unjustly, but if I tell the truth and so cause my mother’s death, I’ll treat my mother unjustly. Since neither action is more morally reprehensible than the other, it follows that I have no choice other than the choice to violate one duty or another. So if I lie to the ax murderer, my action is worthy of neither praise nor blame. It was simply something I did as someone deprived of autonomy as I had no other choices available. And since ought implies can according to Kantianism, I am obligated to do neither. Clearly I’m unable to choose freely, so I’m not morally culpable for doing either action. Within the Kantian framework, it is absurdto suggest that I am wrong for lying to the ax murderer because I was deprived of agency in that situation. It is also absurd suggest that I am wrong for letting my mother die by telling the truth because I did not intend to kill her and I was, again, deprived of agency in that situation.
What I have said so far is how many neo-Kantians would look at the ax-murderer problem. The best way to summarize that position is that lying to the ax murderer is a morally neutral act in that it deserves neither praise nor blame. It’s simply an unfortunate situation you’re in in which you don’t have any meaningful agency. Either action is acceptable.
Personally, though, I would lie simply because I would feel horrible if I let my mother die. I also combine a virtue ethics perspective with the mere-means principle, so I would see lying to the murderer as morally right in a way because letting her die would hardly be a virtuous thing for me to do. I like ethical pluralism.
And if it were possible, I would instead avoid lying by saying something like “I know where she is, but I’m not going to tell you.” At that point, if the ax murderer decided to try to get rid of me in order to move on and kill my mother, self-defense would be acceptable. And it would give me a chance to save her without lying.
And besides, I have to actually be sure that he will kill her if he finds out about her location through me. If that isn’t the case, then lying won’t help anyway. There’s also no guarantee that the ax murderer would even believe my lie.
Cloudiah, here you go. Because glitter text is powerful.
cloudiah/Argenti: It would either be the train, or the motorcycle. Picking you up would be doable, but sort of tricky (I have a spare helmet, and a jacket, and these days even pants; i’ll wager), but if it’s short notice (which it seems to be), it might have to be train.
Long Island, however, it pretty close. The LIRR is easy.
Here’s my Kantian defense of abortion, since we’re on the topic of ethics.
I forgot to add that that entry shows another way in which Kant’s moral theory can be used in ways that make it less rigid and conservative.
Lol, well, that might be awkward, but I have riden on the back of a motorcycle before (not in years, but somethings really don’t change). Might have to pick you up if you take the train though, I really wouldn’t want to try getting a city bus from the station)
But yeah, we’re talking like, next week basically. Because I forgot.
Aaliyah: Kant, when pressed on this (and so we can assume this is Pure Kantian Ethics) said anything other than saying, “she is upstairs” was wrong. He elaborated that, should she hear the ax murderer at the door, and flee; thus being found when you lied; and so killed, then you would be at fault. But that, should you tell the truth, and the ax-murdered push past you, climb the stairs and kill her, there would be no blame attached to you.
Resolving this is why there are neo-Kantians.
My alpha vibrator is shaped like a mighty dolphin, the domliest doms of the sea. We had a *terrific* evening.
You would be at fault for what someone else did based on what a third person said? Yeah see, this is my issue with Kant in a nutshell. Example! Well known in these parts: my father is an asshole. Altogether probable thing: when my mother and I leave in the morning, he’ll have some sort of hissy fit. So, hypothetical here…
Me: “so, shoe shopping last?”
Her: “I was thinking pedicure first” (don’t knock it until you’ve had one, whirlpool foot baths!)
Overhearing this, the inevitable “we can’t afford that!”
So, who’ve fault is it if he does something more morally wrong than being an asshole? Yes I realize there are no axes or murders, but in what world is his behavior not his responsibility?
Translation to ax murder, if she goes out the window, that’s her action, you can’t control her so how are you morally responsible?
And while I’m half musing while half asleep, what’s the moral status of slamming the door in his face (the ax murderer, not my father)?
Indeed. I think Kant got a lot of things wrong with the application of his moral theory. Aside from his answer to the axe-murderer problem, he was also quite misogynistic because he argued that women are inferior moral agents because they lack reason. He also argued that there is no duty to treat animals as ends in themselves (thus leading most people to call Kantianism anthropocentric). But in reality, the mere-means principle can actually provide a very cogent defense of animal rights.(http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~korsgaar/CMK.Animal.Rights.pdf)
Speaking of Korsgaard, she also has an interesting paper that deals with the ax-murderer problem (under a different name, though). Link: http://philosophyfaculty.ucsd.edu/faculty/rarneson/Courses/KorsgaardTheRighttoLie.pdf
I think that’s entirely acceptable. I certainly can’t see how it would violate the mere-means principle.
Shaking my head reading all this about Kant again, and this is why I wouldn’t do philosophy even if I had the chance. I haven’t the patience for these *cough* absolutes and mental games about things that in real life would mean saying to someone “hey, lying to a murderer is just as bad as letting you be murdered!”
You know what it reminds me of? The people (usually men) who come here or to other feminist sites wanting to play intellectual games or play devil’s advocate about things like rape or domestic violence – things that hurt far more women than men, real-life horrors and traumas. I just want to ask Kant* what fucking world he lives in where telling a lie has any sort of moral equivalency with letting someone be murdered.
*Yes I know he crossed over long since, and I really hope he’s left all that BS behind. Philosophers’ Corner of Shame, five hundred metres on your left.
I should make it clear that I don’t actually believe that lying and letting someone die are just as bad in every single sense. I’m talking strictly in terms of principles, and in practice I would definitely lie for the sake of saving someone’s life if I had to. Not only because of personal preferences, but also because it’s far more virtuous, in my opinion, to tell a lie in such a circumstance.
Sometimes I think that virtue ethics itself is far superior to all normative ethical theories. I just wish it could be justified on solid grounds.
I just wanted to clarify my views there because I, too, hate it when I hear shit like “Being falsely accused is as bad as being sexually assaulted” from anti-feminists. Or “Taxation is theft.” Or “Religious is worse than rape.”
I should clarify too – I didn’t for a minute think you’d embrace any of those ideas, Aaliyah. You made it clear you were talking about the sort of thing Kantians (Kant fanboys?) would talk about, not your own beliefs. Though even if you hadn’t said it straight out, I wouldn’t have thought those were your beliefs: your concern for justice is very clear. 🙂
Now I’m wishing Kate Beaton had a comic about Kant, but I think the only philosophers she’s done are Kierkergaard and Nietzsche!
Oh, I thought “morning height referred to the fact that you were taller after spending a fair amount of time lying down than you were after spending a fair amount of time standing up. I guess I missed that troll.
Regarding Morality:
I would lie to the Axe Murder because lying to people is a lot of fun. I can’t recommend it enough.
“Where’s your mother?”
-“Well, first she obtained your consent and now she’s in your ass, pegging you with all her might.” At this point I would pretend to high-five someone behind the axe murderer.
I had totally forgot it was Joe in that thread about pronouns. The First Joe: great supporter of trans* people, given that a) they conform to his extremely narrow view of what a trans* person is and b) they let him police their language use (and god knows what else). Truly, a hero for our times.
It’s kinda like how Joe, when criticizing the use of what he had erroneously identified as a whorephobic slur on the second page of this thread, could not resist suggesting that anybody else taking issue with it would do so only because it isn’t “politically correct.”
It’s kinda like how, when Joe repeatedly evokes homophobic violence in order to attack Muslims, it does not make me feel at all supported as a queer woman.
It’s kinda like how Joe is an untrustworthy snake.
I leave to get stuff done, and a thread that was troll-ful with the Inconvenient Truth and PEMmy gets a Joesplosion?
Ugh, these guys.