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.
When we point out that more feminism has a side effect of helping men too, they hear it as “Feminism’s main purpose is to help men.” (Because that is what they assume everything should be about.) Which explains the bitter howls of betrayal over the fact that feminists don’t drop everything they’re doing to address every problem, large or small, that they identify for men.
It’s an interesting phenomenon. I have seen multiple threads on r/mr and AVfM on this very theme. “Well if feminism helps men too, how come feminists haven’t opened shelters for male victims of IPV?” Like that’s a gotcha.
Ah, so much makes sense now. So Joe’s solution to the very real problem of male on male violence is probably something like “Free up the markets!” or “Gold the standard!” or something.
“Why aren’t feminists doing more to help me get laid?!?!!” – A male human rights activist
“A “phobia” is an IRRATIONAL fear / dislike. There is nothing irrational about a fear / dislike of people who believe that murder is justifiable**, because: whatever. It’s perfectly rational, therefore is not a Phobia.
(** and a significant minority of Muslims do hold to that literal interpretation of their religion, enough that entire nation states are run on these principles, it is NOT a vanishingly small %. And yes, some Muslims are lovely, peaceful people, despite their religion.”
Citation deeply needed, especially if you want one chance in hell in not sounding like an islamophobic asshat.
And we don’t take Aaliyah’s word,because she’s a trans woma, we take it because she actually has experience about what she’s talking about, whereas you’re just reciting a bunch of hateful stereotypes.
“@Fade – you have absolutely no idea what I know about Islam.”
You don’t need to check Wikipedia to prove you’re ignorant, bub, your words have already done that.
“Also, there’s a massive difference between you ACTIVELY LYING about what I have or haven’t said vs. me not bothering to post citations (because it’s a waste of my time, when I know manboobzers don’t read citations that don’t support their POV)”
Dude, just fucking post your citations or get off, you are convincing no one, if you aren’t going to pretend to be open to the fact that your bigotted ass is wrong, or at least try to prove your,right with citations that don’t reek like you pulled them from your ass, get off. My guineapigs are more intellectually stimulating than you. (Especially when I try to figure out,how the hell to litter box train them XD)
“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.”
I am so stealing that. My mother wants my brother and I to go to church with her on Mother’s Day — “it won’t kill you”…here’s hoping for no one gets smote.
Hey Joe? Thoughts on people who respect people who helped dump a (murdered) body before turning state’s witness? Life, it’s more complex than you make it out to be.
And you never did reply to pecunium’s other cases of people who killed someone. See, I word it that way because I’m trying to inquire your thoughts on soldiers (note, I do not mean your thoughts in war in general, for the sake of argument, let’s pretend the soldier in question is fighting Stalian or Mao or Pol Pot or Hitler or something…I’ll make it simple, WWII was a fairly clear cut war, so use that one)
Rants on the US’s current string of invasions will be ignored, let’s just take it as assumed that no one here is thrilled by it. Tangentially, http://www.Change.org/CloseGTMO
Oh and Joe, you’ve been around long enough to know that I’ll at least skim any citation. Now, post a blog or MSM piece and I’ll laugh at you, but actual studies will be treated like, well, actual studies.
Do check for sample size, face validity (studies what it purports to study) and that the methodology doesn’t suck. Mostly the first two though.
Bring on the studies!!!
But, who will be eaten first?
“A “phobia” is an IRRATIONAL fear / dislike. There is nothing irrational about a fear / dislike of people who believe that murder is justifiable**, because: whatever. It’s perfectly rational, therefore is not a Phobia.
But our distrust of the MRM (or even a larger class of men) is “ladybrainz”, and shows we aren’t adults or something; scared of people who say that Lepine is a hero, and Thomas Ball is an activist to emulate and think Brievik’s real fault was, well they don’t really think he was “wrong”, just a bit over zealous.
Nope, looking at that makes us irrational. It’s all about the equalities.
I have a perfect analogy! (If you’ll pardon me for comparing people to insects, please bear with me, I swear it pans out in the end)
Premise: phobias are irrational fears
Premise: some Muslims believe murder is justifiable
(Error not relevant to this analogy: some people of most groups think that, Muslims don’t have the market on justifying murder or anything)
Premise: fearing people who justify murder is rational
Conclusion: fearing all Muslims is rational
So far so good Joe! Sort of anyways.
Premise: phobias are irrational fears
Premise: some spiders are poisonous
Premise: fearing poisonous things is rational
Conclusion: fearing all spiders is rational (including the perfectly harmless house spider that crawled somewhere up into the window behind me)
W00t, my fear of perfectly harmless spiders is justified!!
In less silly analogies:
Premise: phobias are irrational fears
Premise: some men are rapists
Premise: fearing rapists is rational
Conclusion: fearing all men is rational
Well there you have it Joe, the entire world is justified in fearing you because you’re male and some men are rapists (in before a complete and utter failure to understand that this is not, in reality, what Schrödinger’s Rapist is about…but that is relevant…)
Premise: you can’t know if someone is violent (or will justify violence) until they are violent (or justify violence)
Premise: some men are rapists
Premise: rape is a form of violence
Conclusion: you can’t know if any given man is a rapist before he rapes
Note Joe, this one does work for your fear of Muslims —
Premise: you can’t know if someone is violent (or will justify violence) until they are violent (or justify violence)
Premise: some Muslims justify murder
Premise: murder is a form of violence
Conclusion: you can’t know if any given Muslim justifies murder until they justify murder
Notable difference here? One does not simply walk into Mordor. No wait…one does not simply say one is not a rapist. Nor that one is not a murderer. But saying one does not justify murder (or rape for that matter)? The entire issue is one of words, language, what one says. So yep, what one says can in fact have bearing on whether one does the thing, whether “the thing” be “justify murder” or “justify rape”.
Oh and you have a fallacy of composition in there btw. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition It’s how you get from three more or less valid premises to an invalid conclusion. In the simplests terms:
Some A are B
B should be feared
All A should be feared
Nope, because not all A are B. However…
Some A are B
B should be feared
If B will occur cannot be known until it occurs
All A could be B
Works when B is an action, when B is a viewpoint (or other linguistical trait)…
Some A say B
B should be feared
If B will occur cannot be known until it occurs
Not B (we’ll call this C) can be known when it occurs
All A who are not C could be B
Anything else you need explained? Because I could do a whole lecture on aquatics, cory breeding, snails, planted tanks…
Pecunium, what’s the ratio of brewers yeast to bakers yeast? Can I just replace it at a 1:1 ratio?
If any of them had a clue about statistics, I’d say this is one more reason they deny the reality of rape numbers. Chances of a woman being killed or injured in a terrorist attack in the US or UK? Miniscule, I would imagine. Chances of her being raped, at least on US figures? One in six. Yeah, but it’s totes reasonable to hate and fear all Muslims, whereas only [insert slur of choice] b*tc*** think there’s any reason to be wary of men.
No smiting so far. If He’s listening, He’s got a sense of humor about it.
PS: My favorite bit of Islamophobia is ‘well, why haven’t the moderates disavowed the violence yet???’
Because those darned moderates are are never in the news.
Confirmation bias. The moderates can say what they like, the Joes of this world don’t listen.
Argenti: Pecunium, what’s the ratio of brewers yeast to bakers yeast? Can I just replace it at a 1:1 ratio?
To do what? Mostly it’s just yeast, so yes. If you don’t have it in a grain based environment it wants some nutrients (e.g. Fermax).
I HATE this. There are 1.2 billion Muslims in the world. 1.2 billion. How can someone claim to know what every single Muslim thinks? And further, why should we expect the majority of Muslims to condemn every single attack on US soil, given that the majority of Muslims do not live here and have no connection to any given terrorist beyond sharing a very large demographic (1.2 billion, people!)?
Pecunium…fuck it, I’ll email you, it’s easier and this is totally off topic
Two things:
1, ‘Apex’ arguments are not fallacies: they only make claims about the top. No one says “men are advantaged in the bottom quintile” and proves it by pointing to the mega rich and powerful. Similar for Frontman: these aren’t claims about how the power is used, just that some groups have disproportionate access to it.
2, I always thought this “fallacy” kind of backfired on them anyway. If they think cases of powerful leaders don’t matter, what does that imply for all their anecdotal evidence? Great, you found a rad-fem who hates men, or a psycho who chopped off some unfortunate man’s genitalia. Unlike Feminist “Apex arguments” about power, MRAs then *do* make arguments about the rest of the population: “Most women/feminists are bad because of isolated examples on frontpages.”
Meep, ok, first, I agree completely. Second, as one of the resident crazies, maybe don’t use “psycho” as a slur? Thanks 🙂 *totally not cutting off genitalia*
But yeah, it entirely negates wtf The View said about Bobbit, and zombie Dworkin and Solanas. And, for that matter, every damned claim about how men invented this that and the other thing.
Also, the MRM is allergic to the concept of fallacies. They just don’t get it. The numbers of times one of ’em’s been called an asshole and claimed it was an ad hominem *shakes head*
Hey Futrelle, have you ever heard of a fallacy called “argument from authority”? How about “argument ad hominem”?
Because that’s basically the ENTIRE argument you’re making here.
Hi Hippie Redneck, and thank you for necroing a thread from April. Did it take you nearly 5 months to come up with a response? Anywho, just for shits and giggles, let’s examine your response. (I know I’m not David, but what the heck.)
“Argument from authority” is not in and of itself a fallacy. It only becomes a fallacy when at least one of three conditions is met:
1. the authority is not a subject-matter expert
2. there is no consensus among experts in the subject matter
3.when it is used in the context of deductive reasoning.
Now, as you’ve made no case for any of these conditions being met, it is tempting to dismiss you out of hand. However, I would like to give you the opportunity to recover from your lazy, chickenshit unsupported allegation by explaining exactly where David makes a fallacious argument from authority.
An argumentum ad hominem is an argument made personally against an opponent instead of against their argument. Please note that “instead of” as it is important. If a person makes a valid argument against someone, and also insults their person or character, that is not an ad hominem fallacy. Similarly, if a person insults another persons person or character without tying that insult to any argument, that is not an ad hominem fallacy. So when I say that Hippie Redneck is a lazy chickenshit, that is simply me expressing my opinion of your character. Ergo, it is not an ad hom. When I say Hippie Redneck is a lazy chickenshit, and also point out that H.R. has not provided support for any of his allegations, that is not an ad hom fallacy, because I am both insulting you and making a valid argument.
Statement assumes facts not in evidence.
Thank you for playing Spot that Fallacy, which gave me an excuse to avoid thinking about Syria while eating breakfast. (Too bad Argenti wasn’t here to play.) Sorry that you didn’t do very well, H.R., but we’ll make allowances for it being your first time.
I bet you’re so excited that you got to use those fancy terms in a comment. It’s a shame that you don’t know what they actually mean, though.
All David is saying is that Wikipedia took down the “apex fallacy” entry because it lacked reliable sources. You can’t just write a Wikipedia entry and expect it to be accepted regardless of whether it has valid citations. Wikipedia has standards for its entries, and contributors must adhere to them when making contributions.
Nor did he make an ad hominem argument; he just pointed out that Zohrab also happens to be a misogynist who was apologetic about Marc Lepine’s crimes.
I highly recommend that you understand what terms mean before using them.
I just remembered Hippie Redneck thought Vox Day was a satirist, prompting me to make him a meme.
I was asleep, but now that I’m here I find your guest hosting of Spot! That! Fallacy! To be entirely acceptable. He didn’t give you much to work with but you dissected both claims quite nicely.
And I don’t care to look at the news regarding Syria. Was discussing it with pecunium the other day and decided I wanted to be a fish kept by an aquarist at least as devoted as I am. We care far more about our fishies than humans do about each other (sometimes, you lot excluded from the uncaring of course)
It’s quite real. The flaw lies in concluding that men as a group have more power than women based on the premise that there are more men among the tiny minority that has most of the power.
I don’t even need the apex fallacy to show why this is invalid – at least in democracies. For a group to be represented politically, the person doing the representing doesn’t need to be a member of that group. In fact, you’re being sexist if you assume that male politicians can’t or won’t advocate for women’s issues as well as women only because of their genitalia.
Women in fact have far more political representation and that’s easily shown in multiple ways.
How many “rich and powerful” dudes are there relative to “poor and powerless”?
In conclusion: The apex fallacy is definitely a logical fallacy. It’s usage is extremely common across the mainstream culture and media. Therefore being able to identify it is useful for advancing understanding and clearing up myths.
*pops popcorn*
*offers drinks*