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.
Just repeating this with my Greebo icon. Carry on.
Holy crap, this thread took a left turn while I was catching up. Sorry for re-engaging Joe.
I admit, most conversation about moral systems are out of my depths because I haven’t gotten any system yet except “be decent to people”, but since someone linked to SMBC earlier, this might be relevent.
/hope this is on the right thread.
lol, I’m glad you folks liked it!
@Howard: Lots of virtue ethicists, and this starts with Aristotle, argue that morality is inherently a pretty fuzzy subject. Looking for the perfect principle that you can just apply to any situation and get a strict answer to the question “what ought I to do?”, such as a utilitarian principle or Kant’s categorical imperative, pretends that morality is simpler than it actually is. All you can hope is really to develop a good way of THINKING about moral matters, and try to train yourself into getting better and better at making moral judgements; but at the end of the day, you’re stuck with trying to make as good a judgement as you can in every new situation you find yourself in, with no simple principle to apply.
That’s why being a good person is most basic according to most virtue ethicists – because there are no simple rules. At the end of the day, you can’t say any more in favour of some moral rules (which, according to this view, has to be rules-of-thumb and no more than that) than that they are rules carefully reflecting, empathic and so on people are willing to endorse, and you can’t say any more in favour of certain consequences than that some consequences are such that carefully reflecting, empathic and so on people will consider them good.
I’m somewhat sympathetic to this view, actually.
@Fade: That was pretty funny. Reminds me of David Wong who defends a (modest) constructivist relativism, but laments the fact that most moral philosophers just use “the relativist” as some kind of boogeyman in their arguments.
@Dvarghundspossen: That actually reminds me of the position taken by certain care ethicists, in some ways. There was one philosopher in particular, whose name I sadly can’t recall, who suggested that modern moral theory was entirely too focused on legislative, rule-based thinking; she argued that a more productive approach might involve more collaboration and dialogue, which I think is really cool if entirely undeveloped. (Presumably this sort of approach would rest on some kind of constructivist justification and take some cues from virtue ethics? I dunno.)
@Dvärghundspossen:
This is where the whole subject intersects in radical ways with my background in a fundamentalist religion.
Strict rules. Is this always wrong or always right? Black and white thinking. Kant’s imperatives, especially his thing about the serial killer asking for his mother, really reflects this. This is right, so it is always right, I do what’s right, so I must do this. It boils down to something simple, a list that can be easily kept in the mind. This simplifies all of life which produces a comforting feeling of being in an easily categorized life, altogether.
This is an oversimplification, but this is my personal experience. That for some people if there aren’t rules that apply to every situation, then life is too terrifying and complex to face.
Which is why Kant is both viscerally attractive to me and viscerally disgusting. I want to learn more. I want to run away. He’s always fun that way. 😀
Everything is about those simple principles. Everything is about finding them. Right or wrong? Always right? Always wrong? Lines! Easy categories!!
Nuance? KRYPTONITE!!!
So what’s more basic? Being the person who’s looking for good ends, or the good ends? Non-coercion (Aaliyah’s wonderful post about Kant) seems to say that Utilitarianism might lead you to a terrible evil just by finding a means to an end; the coercion of the government, as a Libertarian styles it, could lead to terrifically good outcomes, if the government was good. Using people as a means to your end.
Even if the end is, say, more people being alive, halting global warming, etc.
And it is unutterably scary to me that there isn’t somebody to come out and take my hand and point to the correct answer while smiling softly.
(yes, it is literally impossible for me to talk about philosophy without bringing up my past over and over again–it’s key to me understanding why I react to some things in a certain way, like moral relativism.)
@Fade
Same here. Sorry, people, it got to the wall of text stage with me about Kant after the first couple of posts and my eyes glazed over (yes, I know it wasn’t a discussion just for me, of course!) “Some good ideas, often badly presented/translated; some totally fucked ideas” is enough, and it sure doesn’t make me any more inclined to study philosophy, Kant’s or any other. It gives me an enormous case of the irrits every time I read about it. Sex as always and only objectifying someone? Masturbation ditto? Objectified people always objectified by everyone? If I roll my eyes any harder they’ll fall out.
@Howard
*squints* You’ve been studying Basement Cat, haven’t you?
Kittehserf, I wrote my Nanowrimo last year about a world where all the gods of all the religions existed, but they were a bunch of douches and their religions were just propaganda they worked up to draw followers in for the power play. There was a group of basically alien god-types who were coming around to destroy the world.
I played up the alien unknowable gods as the more sympathetic characters. It felt… right.
Know how former smokers get all weird about smoking?
Yup.
(but it’s all a fun adventure novel with humor and romance and sudden tragic twists)
So I haven’t had the nerve to tell my mom that I don’t believe in God.
So I take her to church sometimes.
So I amuse myself by pretending that the hymns we’re singing are to Cthulu. It… makes some of them pretty fun, actually. Especially anything about His love or His glory.
(am I in a blasphemous mood today? The Excedrin may have turned on my headachey head)
@Howard. Holy shit, my BF would LOVE that story. Speaking of, have you heard of the similarly structured boardgame Playing Gods?
@Pecunium – In your rush to assume, you missed the post where I condemned nutcase murderer Marc Lepine then. Well done. *slow handclap*
I made it crystal clear that I have zero regard for murderers, or people who think that murderers are all great and super.
As it seems this needs to be spelled out to you*, – that applies to people who call themselves MRAs too. Or feminists or anything else.
(*despite all your pretention to being some kind of “great thinker” you are fantastically obtuse)
Also, you reveal yourself as a pathetic weasel by lying about stuff so as to use it as a “gotcha”.
You said “X is a murderer” and then in a follow up post claim that X was in fact convicted of second degree murder (which as I understand it, is equivalent to manslaughter in the UK, which may include contribution to accidental death through neglect in some way) – not the same thing as murder, which in the UK is defined by INTENT to kill someone.
Now, that might be excused as petty US parochialism, but I don’t think so, it’s just another example of a dishonest frame.
Further weaselling from you re. comparing me to mass-murderer Stalin.
Which is a Godwin in all but name.
You are a thoroughly dishonest and untrustworthy person, both intellectually and morally.
You try to hide it behind a load of pretentious pseudo-intellectual waffling, but I learned to see right through that kind of smokescreen way back when I was an undergrad.
Further, when you accuse me of vacuousness, you are obviously indulging in projection.
You disgust me.
@Joe
how about showing some intellectual honesty yourself by providing some citations for those baseless sexist claims you were making earlier.
Well, now I want waffles.
When I read DrunkyJoe’s posts I imagine a dude wacking they keyboard with his rage boner – makes it so much funnier.
Gee, I’m sure Pecunium will be just devastated to learn that you’re disgusted with him.
If second-degree murder isn’t murder, why is it called second-degree murder? We have a separate manslaughter charge here in the States.
Go snob off, you snobby “I’m mixed race therefore I can’t possibly hold prejudiced opinions about Muslims” snob.
All MRAs ever, then?
@FirstJoe:
Ummmmm, no.
Second-degree murder is LIKE manslaughter under English Law in most ways, but that specific clause? Is missing.
That would be under third-degree.
Second-degree is assault lacking intent to kill which does result in death. (which would fall under manslaughter, if I’m reading Wikipedia right)
You’re the one who comes off as a “dishonest frame” here.
Manboobz:
Come for the mockery, get drawn in by the recipes – stay for the nuanced discussions of deontological and consequential ethics as it relates to principles of inter-personal relations and the notions of original sin.
OR:
Come for the mockery, stay for the discussion of principles upon which a person should live a life.
Howsabout you name a charitable foundation working towards solutions toward the issues you care about, Iosephus I? I’m not asking you to disclose your charitable giving, just identify some nonprofit whose goals you appreciate.
This won’t make me give you a pass when you bellyache about how women’s orgs are ignoring Teh Menz, mind, so maybe you don’t think it’s worth your while. But if you don’t, I’m going to conclude that you don’t actually care about the issues, except as a stick to beat women with. You’ve been drawing lots of conclusions about us this thread, so don’t whine about us drawing conclusions about you.
First Foe to Hoe a Rodeo: Could you please be disgusted by me, too? I promise to think more disparaging opinions about you, for you to telepathically sense, if that’ll help.
@Falconer: Joe may be genuinely confused on the law question, because a quick glance at Wikipedia shows that Manslaughter under the English definition would include Second Degree Murder, Third Degree Murder, and Manslaughter. It’s a broad category, and what they call murder would ONLY be First Degree Murder.
But like I said, he’s the one that comes off as disingenuous for stopping at ‘oh, this could be like manslaughter? Manslaughter doesn’t necessarily mean murder!’
A few minutes on Wiki could have instructed him better. But we know better than to expect that. Looking things up is MISANDRY. Being expected to look things up is MISANDRY.
@Fibanici:
🙂 For a blog with such a tight focus, it has some range to it.
It’s kind of like moving the goalposts, isn’t it? For a cheap gotcha.
Sad, Joe. Sad.