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.
The woman in the profile photo looks like she would be a lot more interesting to talk to than Karin.
On the whole apex fallacy thing, though, I just had a rather delicious thought. You know how PUAs and MRAs like to bang on about how any woman can get laid whenever she wants and men fall all over themselves trying to please women and so on? They’re basing that stuff on what they imagine life to be like for really hot women. Thing is, only a very small number of women are in the “very hot, often fawned over” category. In fact, you might say that they represent the…apex.
Gotcha, dumbasses.
Cat poo would be more interestng to talk to than Karin.
Seriously, I want to tell her that I love her hair.
She does have amazing hair.
And it’d be more interesting to talk to than Karin.
Doh! What was I thinking! Looking for ‘facts’… sheesh. Silly me, lol.
And in general the fallacy of composition doesn’t apply when a) you’re comparing one group on average to another group on average and b) group members can influence each other.
Katz — on that note, you can actually compare apples and oranges. Just one example — which has the wider spread for average weights?
Or, which gets eaten more and is thus the preferred fruit.
Which leads me to an actual point — who gets represented more in gov’n and thus actually has more power?
Or, going back to the spread one, which has a wider spread of higher positions in general (i.e. Which gender holds more of the top and upper mid level jobs in which fields)
Oh and who ever called Karin Zarin, I knew a Zarin, he was WAY more interesting (that kid did an entire sheet of acid once, stole a projector and returned it unnoticed, accidentally gave most of his dorm floor a nitrious trip…never a dull moment when he was around!)
Oh, and he’s a fucking GENIUS who ended up working on a self-sustaining organic farm because doing the engineering on things like water supply makes him happy.
@katz
That’s why “it’s a special case of the fallacy of composition”, silly! It involves blackmail, no black people and stock photos. Karin can explain it better than I can.
@ auggziliary
That is a blatant lie. Why are so many here dependent on twisting the truth to forward your worldview? It’s certainly not helping your credibility.
Show where and exactly how I “intentionally made fun of the Holocaust”?
Or retract it.
@ Fibinachi
First of all, asking a question doesn’t necessarly imply I don’t understand the answers. In this case it’s for the purpose of identifying feminism as a movement and who else to ask than feminists?
Secondly you misread what I asked. The existence of pro-life feminism etc does not imply that the ratio of pro-life feminists vs pro-choice feminists is equal or virtually equal to that among non-feminists. I’m sure there are pro-anything among feminists somewhere. But how many are they relative to non-feminists.
That for example touches on the interesting and hardly ever asksed question: How many of all feminists are misandrists vs how many of all non-feminists are misandrists? I’m not asking any of you that though. It’s a question for research rather than individuals.
I really only used them because they were the fist examples I thought of. It was not for creating emphasis or drama. Especially since the argument didn’t need emphasis since it was only for pointing out that the existance of a movement/lobby does not imply there’s any legitimate need for it and the counterpart. To demonstrate that fallacy one only needs a counter example. That example can be as dramatic or boring as you like and it still works.
Depends on what you mean by “need”. I could start a lobby for all sorts of things and with sufficient funding PR it could have a significant influence. In the way I use the word “need” it indicates not just what some people want, but in particular, what is ethically requried for justice. And since social justice is the point of movements like feminism (right?) I don’t think it’s necessary to add that explanation to this point. Well here it is anyway.
My first comment was addressed at only the blog author and all he did was try to dig up information about me and comment on my profile photo.
Lets take a look at the first few responses I got to my comment:
And the second part of what you say there is simply false. In some case blatantly untrue. Or show where I responded with “Eh, but” etc.
@ titianblue
No. I specifically said “political representation”. We can swap the word power for that if you want but then don’t come back later saying that power can take other forms than political and pretend you refuted me.
@ chibigodzilla
That’s just a reiteration of the apex fallacy.
THAT is the kind of comments I should have read before commenting myself? Just as I suspected.
@ augzilliary
Talk about a clumsy attempt to evade a question.
Some basics: Any two things in the universe can be compared – either for establishing similar traits or differences. Doing such a comparison is asking a question. Comparing Nazies with Feminists might be just to establish that both are trivially humans. That isn’t saying they have pertinant similarities. Would you take issue at such a comparision other than with its triviality?
And I never even compared feminism to nazism the way you’re dishonestly putting it. I brought up Jews in the 3rd Reich for the one purpose of giving an example for the absence of a lobby (And no, the German resistance was NOT a Jewish lobby) where one would be “needed” in the sense of social justice as I explained above.
So stop lying.
You’re missing the reason why I brought up that example in the first place. But given that I’ve explained it many times, and given your many lies, I think it’s more likely you’re just twisting things again.
I didn’t. It was an example for how a man in a supposed position of power might not be exercising that power (this has got to be about the 8th time I’m writing this).
I’m precisely NOT doing that. More lies. I took issue with the previous commenter defining women by pregnancy. They justified claiming that female politicians are would or are more able to represent women with pregancy. And I called them out on it.
Such blatant dishonesty. I have only one more question for you – the one you’ve been desperately evading all along that I reposted above: Do you or do you not believe men, because they’re men, are unwilling or unable to sufficiently represent women as well as women?
Until you’ve answered that question directly, I’ll ignore anything else you write.
@ emilygoddess
What exactly can a male politician not do to represent women, that a female politician can do? Any examples?
I didn’t say women have all the politicla power. Surely you don’t need to use such a blatant straw man if you’re resting on solid arguments?
you mean like my “claim” above, that I never made? Why should I address reponses to claims I never made?
@ chibigodzilla
Lol. I didn’t know the Allied Powers were part of the 3rd Reich. That’s the infamous manboobz history expertise. And what are the odds this gets called out by all the historical accuracy representatives here before I read it a day later? We’ll see…
@ sparky
It doesn’t as I explained above: pointing out that the KKK and feminists are humans, while trivial, does not equate them.
@ pecunium
seriously?
Wrong again: I initially said it could happen. THEN I was challenged as to why I claim that it IS happening.
Questions:
1) What is wrong with using blackmail as an example for how a politician might not be exercising their ascribed power?
Here’s the ACTUAL thread:
What a pathetic attempt to “get” me. It’s embarrassing to even watch you try these stunts.
You’re trying to find hypocrisy where there’s none. I didn’t ignore it at all. Here’s a little lesson for you:
Just because I ask somebody who makes an “if” statement, whether they believe it to actually be the case, doesn’t mean I ignored it. It’s a legitimate question.
Example:
Supposing somebody said “If women were all pigs, then it’d be ok to keep them like pigs”, and I respond by asking “do you believe women are all pigs?”, I doubt you’d only come and say “hey hey hey wait a second there, you’re ignoring the IF in that sentence”. Or would that really be all you have to say? Be honest.
Is it so hard to just admit that you wrongly identified a fallacy? I mean really.
More lies. How are you not ashamed. Here one more time in short:
1) voting majority 2)politicla lobby 3)practical observation
Omg you are STILL trying to hold onto that sinking ship of failure. One more time, that “fairy tale” was NEVER used to backup the claim that women have more political representation than men. Here’s the exact text of what I wrote to YOU directly:
“I said clearly that example served a specific purpose which was to demonstrate how somebody in a position of power might not actually be weilding that power. I never claimed the example was to backup my claim that women have more political representation.”
You must be really desperate to be pretending to miss that and hope you’d divert attention away from your mistake. I wonder if you’ll try that again or if you’ll try to find a new way to misquote or misrepresent me.
Oh the hypocrisy. You know, if people misrepresent so much of what I write and blatantly attribute statements to me I never make, what else am I to do than keep pointing that out? If I didn’t do that, you’d take it that I’d accept those attributions and then pretend to have “gotten” me that way.
No, I think you’re dishonest and proof for that is mounting up fast.
Show exactly where I made that claim. I’m going to hold you to this.
THAT is your evidence? That HAD no one challenged it, then I (according to you) WOULD have used it as a backup for a different claim? You’re funny.
So now apparently I must own up to fallacies that would but didn’t emerge, if I made a claim that Pecunium believes I would but didn’t make. And for not doing that, I’m called a liar.
It really is time for you to concede this one. The ship isn’t only sinking, you’re practically trying to lift the titanic and say it’s unsinkable. But thanks for being so amusing.
It’s bad enough getting logic so wrong, but then being condescending and arrogant, telling me I’m new to logic, is pretty embarrassing.
Quick lesson:
Truth tables for a conditional statement of the form A -> B will show that such a statement is false exactly when A is true and B is false. When A is false, B can be either true or false and the whole statement remains true. In other words, nothing is stated about the truth value of B in the event that A is false. That is what my statement contained: that If A is false, then A->B is does not establish B. It doesn’t contradict it either, it just says nothing. So I rightfully, asked a followup question if the person actually thought A was true because only that would lend their conditional statement the potential to establish the truth value of B.
“we see that this confers to members of the in-group certain social advantages, which are denied to the out-groups”
does NOT show men to be inherently less able or willing to represent women. Just like you attribute things to me I didn’t say, you’re just as dishonest about claiming to have given examles you never gave.
Oh and I take back my implicit and over-generous acceptence of your “anwer” to my question as it took place here:
Yes or no? And the question is very much relevant since, establishing if the distribution of the genders among politicians affects their political representation, obviously hinges on what differences you attribute to those political represenatives. If there is no difference, then the representation is not differenent. Duh!
Where did I claim that? Just yet another lie. Or please, by all means, prove it and show where I said that….
Just saying you already explained it, doesn’t make it true. You don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt on anything here.
Ok, so you don’t think the women’s lobby is stronger than the men’s lobby. Which men’s lobby would that be? North America? All of history? Come on, why be so generous; we all know that the entire universe is a men’s lobby…. I suppose you’ll claim you already explained that as usual. Where? Show me? Evidence?
I don’t know what your gender is. It doesn’t matter. We were talking about all female voters and they are indeed not as sexist as you. I’m surprised you didn’t read into that statement that I microwave babies.
That was really the first answer. Every other response up to that point (including yours) was evading the question or sidestepping it. Further, that’s not a personal attack against anyone specific. You cannot compare that to me being directly called troll etc.
Those are observations that are factually true. There are so many exmples now it’s ridiculous. Or are you denying that people here have been dishonest to me?
Like the “fact” that I’m
?
Caught you again. And don’t try to say “oh I didn’t say that”. You lost that exucse as soon as you spoke for everyone by saying “we are working with facts”.
@ Argenti
And how are men unable to learn any of this?
At best you’ve only shown how mothers or infertile women need more representation. But that’s not what you’re calling for.
Notice the goalpost shift? Apparently I’m not comparing the ratio of men to women in politics anymore, but the ratio of CIS men to women.
Here’s how I suspect people here would have responded to that if I had made that statement:
“you misogynist asshole saying women are like disabled people”.
Didn’t say . rinse repeat.
@ all those who made comments like this:
You fell right into the trap.
You see, I anticipated that this would come. That’s why I added that I wasn’t upset and only observing, which is true. In fact, it shows your bigotry more clearly than had you stayed civil (thx btw). But I deliberately added it before describing the observation and not to the end because, combined with your “selective memory”, I suspected that, in your blind haste to get me you’d forget I wrote it and just come bulldozing back with the classic bully’s shaming response (along with a little victim blaming) thereby unwittingly confirming my observation. Bully behaviour is so predictable. Just give ‘em a tiny sign of weakness and they’ll latch on mercilessly.
Thanks for the entertainment.
Anyway, it’s getting too tedious having to constantly “remind” people of what I actually wrote. So I leave and you will likely continue to bash me among each other, hoping that just repeating it often enough to each other will make it feel true. I suspect that’s how you have been doing things for a long time, perhaps even years. That must be how threads get over 700 comments with the same dozen or so people, happily twisting and ignoring the truth just for a few crumbs of self-esteem. In any case I won’t stick around to read such self-indulgent bigotry.
I’m afraid that little bit of feel-better had to come at the cost of whatever intellectual honesty you might have had because underneath all the snickering and giggling, you know that not one of you could make your case let alone touch mine and any attempt to feel like you could, had to rely on either my absence or plain dishonesty. Doubt it’ll make any one reconsider their worldview but at least it was entertaining. I might pop by in 5 years or so, probably to see the same dozen people snickering with no progress whatsoever. We’ll see.
Now let the snickering begin…
Please – stick that flounce.
Sweetie, you’ve been tedious from the get-go.
Keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better. Because if you ever achieve even a touch of selfawareness, you’re going to feel pretty crappy at how you spent hours embarrassing yourself on this blog.
Ciao.
Begin?
PS: I note in conclusion that only one person has had the guts to answer the question directly and clearly if they believed men, because they’re men are unable/unwilling to represent women sufficiently. And that person is cornered into justifying their sexism, trying to rely on goalpost shifting. No hint of a justification as to why men (not cis, not trans, not whatever, just men) are inherently less able to represent women (not disabled, not pregnant, not whatever, just women).
No other attempt was made to meet the challenge of that question. It’s obvious why: saying yes, gets you into the same corner of having to justify sexism and saying no means admitting that it doesn’t matter how many men/women there are in politics. In both cases it would reveal a contradictory worldview. You realized this and that’s why you’re afraid to answer. I doubt there will be any answers after I’m gone either.
… But that’s not true either? I don’t know about “Inherently”, but I do know that representing a group of people with a specific need is much, much easier when you have an understanding of that need and its impact. Fact of the matter is, most people don’t get much ability to understand the perspective of others unless they have like experiences, so saying that men might have some difficulties completely presenting the needs of women isn’t sexist. It’s not “Because they’re men”, it’s because “They’re not women”. The same thing goes for literally *everything* – I’d have some difficulty lobbying for the case of the synesthiatic blind group of third generation immigrants, because I don’t have a good experience of their, well, lives or experience.
Saying that “Men might have some difficulty representing women” or “They’re not going to be good at it” isn’t about their sex, it’s not sexism in the least. “White people have some difficulties representing black people”. “Ducks have some difficulties representing tigers”.
… and it doesn’t matter how many men or women or tiger duck or blind bats there are in politics, unless the discussion is about their ability to represent people and their needs and lives, which is bloody demonstratably easier if the person doing the representing has experience and capacity to rely on when doing the representing.
Come on, dammit. That line of “Logic” is such a smorgashboard of false conclusions and weirdly derived anti-logical outcomes that I’m to have to ask – are you kidding? Is that a joke? I’m going to “inherently” be less able to represent your needs because I’m not you. You can tell me what they are, and I’ll do my damn well level best to get them lobbied for, but that’s still a matter of second-to-third hand outreaching and mind to mind communication. Priviledge, you know? Power differentials in percieved social situations?
That’s… that’s what representing is? That’s why you have lobby groups in the first place, even, to lobby for the kind of things and needs people percieve need to be represented better… it’s not sexist or anything to do that and if we’re talking about womens lobbying at all and male politicians then they do need it to represent their interests, that’s what… I don’t… ahfkckcha my fucking head.
Objectivism is all well and good, and I agree with a lot of it, sure, but the outside world is difficult to comprehend with complete human sense, and Kantian approaches do help describe a lot more socially, in politics too.
It’s not a “Got’cha” double blind about our buried sexist female supremacist views if both sides of this purported double blind lead into a wall of non-logic! There was no attempt made to “Meet the challenge”; because there was no challenge, just you asserting this to be a fact when it isn’t. Criminey crickery for a lot of crooked bollocks!
Gawd. This wall’o’words stuff is still going on.
Lucky us to be the recipients of such bounty.
So Karin wins the record for failing to stick a flounce.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4O50A-aM3RE/TRbW_O9PDqI/AAAAAAAAACA/aBLuf_p9Ud4/s1600/bored-cat.jpg
OW! I just got run over by an idiotic teal deer named Sarr.
Sarr: First of all, asking a question doesn’t necessarly imply I don’t understand the answers. In this case it’s for the purpose of identifying feminism as a movement and who else to ask than feminists?
Ah… more dishonesty. You said feminism was possessed of a “unified agenda”, and then made a list of things feminism was supposed to be in agreement on.
Either you were ignorant, or you lied. Me, I’d have copped to being ignorant, but each to their own.
Secondly you misread what I asked. The existence of pro-life feminism etc does not imply that the ratio of pro-life feminists vs pro-choice feminists is equal or virtually equal to that among non-feminists.
Non-responsive, and goalpost shifting. The question wasn’t, “are pro-life feminists a large part of the movement”, it was, “Are you saying feminism has no unifying agenda that distinguishes it from the rest of the population? , which you tried to prove with that list.
That for example touches on the interesting and hardly ever asksed question: How many of all feminists are misandrists vs how many of all non-feminists are misandrists? I’m not asking any of you that though. It’s a question for research rather than individuals.
Convenient that (and I see you’ve tried to pre-empt the, “I don’t believe what I just said” by saying it “needs research”, which is a deferral. It’s a, “have you stopped beating your wife” married to a begged question: Nice trick that, most people don’t have the ability to be that fallacious, and mendacious, in one sentence).
Depends on what you mean by “need”. I could start a lobby for all sorts of things and with sufficient funding PR it could have a significant influence. In the way I use the word “need” it indicates not just what some people want, but in particular, what is ethically requried for justice. And since social justice is the point of movements like feminism (right?) I don’t think it’s necessary to add that explanation to this point. Well here it is anyway.
Oh… so lobbyists aren’t actually relevant to the question of needs/power?
What was your point about them again? Because if lobbying groups aren’t based on need, then the lack of them (which you argued is the case for men) doesn’t show a lack of power. It shows, actually, that men don’t care.
Why might they not care? Because they don’t need to. Why not? Because they don’t lack the ability to get laws passed in their interest.
My first comment was addressed at only the blog author and all he did was try to dig up information about me and comment on my profile photo.
Again you show a lack of awareness. No one is entitled to response. Of course you lied about what happened. Other people spotted your use of a stolen image (which, unless you have been given explicit permission from the copyright holder is what you did), and he looked into it. But you can’t argue (from the evident facts) that Dave’s reaction was go looking you up. He ignored you. He paid attention to someone else.
And the second part of what you say there is simply false. In some case blatantly untrue. Or show where I responded with “Eh, but” etc.
There was the bullshit about, “men don’t have power because some women, somewhere, might;perhaps, be blackmailing them”.
Which you then denied believing. That counts as, “Eh but….”
No. I specifically said “political representation”.
Oh! I see, more dishonest word games (and refusal to engage with the arguments of those who dispute with you).
You are pretending that women, being a slightly larger portion of the population, must therefore be a larger portion of the voting public and so they have representation.
Which is tautological, and contrary to the facts. Because (as discussed above, and repeatedly [so that a reasonable person can only condclude it is willful, since it is both ongoing, and of more than one person; to which persons you have directed comments to other parts of the responses in which those arguments were made), women are systematically denied full participation in the political process.
So they aren’t given their free choice of representatives (which is, to a lesser degree true for everyone), and so they are not as well represented as men. Which can be shown by how they are disadvantaged in the laws (e.g. BC was allowed to be refused on principle, but Viagra and Cialis aren’t, and when people discussed; in Congress, the issue of BC being something a healthcare provider could exclude from a woman’s coverage, but ED drugs weren’t… well that’s what they said… women’s needs for healthcare are less important than man being able to pop wood when he wants to.
Some basics: Any two things in the universe can be compared – either for establishing similar traits or differences. Doing such a comparison is asking a question. Comparing Nazies with Feminists might be just to establish that both are trivially humans. That isn’t saying they have pertinant similarities. Would you take issue at such a comparision other than with its triviality?
What drivel is this.
One compares things because they are in some way like. If I were to compare Whermacht Dress Uniforms to the Coldstream Guards Dress Uniforms then I am, probably, comparing clothing.
Depending on how I compared them I might be making a structural comparison between the two units.
But you can’t make a comparison and strip it of context; because the act of what you compare (in this case the action of nazis and the actions of feminists) is the contextual framework for making any hope of… you know… comparing (from the latin com [with] and par [equal), which is to make the similarities of two things plain.
And I never even compared feminism to nazism the way you’re dishonestly putting it. I brought up Jews in the 3rd Reich for the one purpose of giving an example for the absence of a lobby (And no, the German resistance was NOT a Jewish lobby) where one would be “needed” in the sense of social justice as I explained above.
That’s not what you did. You said that the absence of a “masculism” lobby didn’t prove there wasn’t a need; because like Jews in the Holocaust…
So, Men = Jews. Nazis = people with lobbies: feminists have lobbies.
QED you compared feminism to Nazism.
you mean like my “claim” above, that I never made? Why should I address reponses to claims I never made?
Actually that was, in part, in response to your (continuing) refusal to address the discussion of how women don’t get access to the means of obtaining effective representation, and so hinders them being legally equal to men.
Karin (lousy speller) Sarr:
seriously?
Well, it’s really that you don’t pay attention, and consistently misspell at least one person’s name; I’d have let it slide, or given you a correction but you are being dishonest, and torturing logic, and generally being pettily nasty I didn’t see that you would accept the correction, and I figured that was easier than giving you another way to be an asshole.
1) What is wrong with using blackmail as an example for how a politician might not be exercising their ascribed power?
1: It’s fallacious.
2 As you used it, it’s dishonest.
I mean, a politician could be a sleeper agent from Russia, brainwashed from his youth by his parents and their handlers; so that he looked to be the ideal. all-American patriot, so that when he gets elected president he turn the US into a Satellite State of the Soviet Union.
I’m not saying it is happening, but it could.
Which is what you did, after you got called on the ludicrous nature of your, “example”.
Just because I ask somebody who makes an “if” statement, whether they believe it to actually be the case, doesn’t mean I ignored it. It’s a legitimate question.
It’s not. Because that “if” wasn’t, “All”, which is the position you demanded I defend.
Supposing somebody said “If women were all pigs, then it’d be ok to keep them like pigs”, and I respond by asking “do you believe women are all pigs?”, I doubt you’d only come and say “hey hey hey wait a second there, you’re ignoring the IF in that sentence”. Or would that really be all you have to say? Be honest.
But… I didn’t say, “If all men were misogynists”. Which is what you asked if I believed.
(and cute… another “civil” insult)
More lies. How are you not ashamed. Here one more time in short:
1) voting majority 2)politicla lobby 3)practical observation
Explain how this equals “more”. Give me concrete examples of the ways those “examples” translate to representation.
Actually, don’t. Because that’s it. That tautology, married to an equivocation
You are using representation to mean: “are represented”, when it refers to women (i.e. because there are representatives, and they represent everyone, and women are a larger part of the population, they have, “more”, and that because there are more lobbyists working on “feminist” issues, therefore they have, “more” representation”. Your “practical observation” is worthless, not least beause you won’t admit to observing things said in this thread, so I have no reason to believe you capable of accurately observing things in the wider world).
But when you use it in relation to men, you talk about political power.
It’s possible you aren’t smart enough to see that you are doing it, and that’s what’s frustrating you. I suspect, however, that you are aware of doing it, and that’s what’s frustrating the people who try to engage in honest debate with you.
“I said clearly that example served a specific purpose which was to demonstrate how somebody in a position of power might not actually be weilding that power. I never claimed the example was to backup my claim that women have more political representation.”
Then you shouldn’t have said, “women can be in power without it being obvious by blackmailing men”.
Which you did.
Show exactly where I made that claim. I’m going to hold you to this.
Twit. I did show it. That you don’t like being held to your words isn’t my problem. That you are a consistent liar, is.
THAT is your evidence? That HAD no one challenged it, then I (according to you) WOULD have used it as a backup for a different claim? You’re funny.
It’s what you’ve been doing, and it’s a rule of debate, A claim which is unanswered is considered valid.
It’s bad enough getting logic so wrong, but then being condescending and arrogant, telling me I’m new to logic, is pretty embarrassing.
Well, if you aren’t new to logic, then it’s more embarrassing.
But hey, if you want to admit to lots of practice, and still no skill, that’s not my problem.
Quick lesson:
I know, and you chose to ask, “do you believe that all the candidates have to be misogynist” which isn’t required for my statement to be true. In the majority, one might even say vast majority, of cases the only candidates are men.
Do I think men, as a class, can adequately represent the interests of women? No. Not because individual men are specifically incapable, but rather because they have blind spots, both because they are men; and so can’t understand what women need, etc. (which is true in reverse, but presently irrelevant, given the ratio of men to women in office), and because the cultural defaults of privilege, and power make it harder for a man who is in favor of womens’ issues to get laws passed.
When you add the (significant) number of politicians who ARE misogynists, the issue becomes even more intractable.
But you, you don’t give a shit. You want to pretend that “majority = political clout”, even though the world is rife with present examples of how that’s not the case (just look at the question of background checks for firearms… 90 percent of the populace want it, and it’s not gonna happen).
does NOT show men to be inherently less able or willing to represent women. Just like you attribute things to me I didn’t say, you’re just as dishonest about claiming to have given examles you never gave.
Bullshit. I gave a long explanation of how women are excluded from the foundational aspects of candidate selection (without the secondary disquisition on the ways in which the network of access to the schools, clubs, fraternities and “smoke-filled rooms” which are deemed needful to make someone, “electable”) and you blew it off, reduced it all to, “So you think all men are misogynists”.
That was really the first answer. Every other response up to that point (including yours) was evading the question or sidestepping it. Further, that’s not a personal attack against anyone specific. You cannot compare that to me being directly called troll etc.
You’re not very good with English either. I can compare it. I did compare it. I will compare it again. You have been rude, incivil, dishonest (in word, and so far as I can see in motive). You don’t believe what you say (or worse, if you do believe it won’t stand behind it), have no integrity, and lack the grace to admit when you are wrong. You hide behind someone else’s image and expect people to cater to you.
You live under a bridge.
Or are you denying that people here have been dishonest to me?
Yes. I’m also certain you either know it. That or you’re too stupid walk and chew gum.
Caught you again. And don’t try to say “oh I didn’t say that”. You lost that exucse as soon as you spoke for everyone by saying “we are working with facts”.
Oh my… fallacy of composition. If it’s not true, that someone said 1: wrong thing doesn’t mean all things said are wrong. So yeah, we are working with facts.
You fell right into the trap.
You see, I anticipated that this would come.
That you would get your ass handed to you and need to bail?
That’s why I added that I wasn’t upset and only observing, which is true. In fact, it shows your bigotry more clearly than had you stayed civil
As to the “trap”, don’t give yourself airs. You weren’t civil, you were treated with far less hostility than many would say you earned. That I think you to have incited rude response isn’t bigotry (and if so against what… I’m bigoted against people who lie, and call other liars? Against people who intentionally equivocate and make arguments they don’t believe? That, my dear, isn’t bigotry, it’s common sense).
I’m afraid that little bit of feel-better had to come at the cost of whatever intellectual honesty you might have had because underneath all the snickering and giggling, you know that not one of you could make your case let alone touch mine and any attempt to feel like you could, had to rely on either my absence or plain dishonesty.
Nice bit of both self-valorisation, and self-pity.
So I leave and you
Promise?
OMG. I didn’t realise it was that long. And now I need to get ready for work. Pfui! I was hoping to have some real fun first.
No. If I’m parsing you right your complaint is against the phrase “The majority of powerful people are male, thererfore all males are powerful”
However, no one is making that claim. Ian’s comment boilded down to “All tings being equal, one would expect the demographic makeup of the powerful to be roughly the same as the general population. However we observe that the powerful are disproportionally men, so it follows that there is some sort of inequality, possibly a structural inequality.”
See the difference?
Sigh, this is what I get for treating zir Godwinning with any sort of thought isnt it?
Ok, lets break it down:
lob·by (lb)
n. pl. lob·bies
1. A hall, foyer, or waiting room at or near the entrance to a building, such as a hotel or theater.
2. A public room next to the assembly chamber of a legislative body.
3. A group of persons engaged in trying to influence legislators or other public officials in favor of a specific cause
Notice that it does not say a group of citizens. Loosley speaking a lobby is a group of people acting on behalf of other people. So, no the Allied Powers were obviously not part of the Third Reich however, they would not need to be to lobby the third reich. For a more direct example, let’s look here at the top spenders for US lobbying in 2012 on opensecrets.org. Who’s that at 18th? Why it’s Royal Dutch Shell, how could they lobby the US government, they’re Dutch!?
Couldn’t even hold the flounce for 30min! I am dissapoint.
Not shit, that’s becase it’s a baldfaced ‘heads I win, tails you lose’ question.
Fine since you keep asking, no I do not think that a man could not represent women apropriately, I do think that a large number the men who crrently hold office in the US do not appropriately represent women.
See, that’s how to write a long post that I will read.
*applauds @pecunium*
Don’t worry, Karin evidences a desperate need to have the last word – I predict she’ll be back before too long.
If she could restrain herself to one last word, or even a hundred, it wouldn’t be so bad, but she seems to be intent on having the last novella instead.