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.
I’m sorry I haven’t been more active at the borg site. Just tired. It looks really cool though, and I know you’ve been doing tons of work on it Argenti so kudos to you for being super-awesome.
Blarg, that’s a dumb error, that’ll take two min >.<
Thanks.
Argenti – No problems. Hey, at least it’s fixed now! 🙂
Thanks cloudiah 🙂
Alice — switched to proper pronoun input box, forced lowercase, feel dumb.
That tumbler…fuck that tumbler….
That is just so wrong. Grrrrr.
That tumblr page is impossible. People can be rude, dismissive, verbally abusive, hateful and hurl stereotypes on Tumblr, and while that’s cruel and hurtful, IT’S NOT DISCRIMINATION. You face discrimination in employment, housing, education, public spaces, businesses, government services etc. How hard is that to understand?
Being told “cis people suck” is not discrimination and if people saying that on Tumblr is the worst “bigotry” you face I’m going to go ahead and not cry a river for you.
The narcissism of people on Tumblr is endless, most posters are only capable of feeling sorry for themselves, yet expect strangers to be outraged and empathetic over every single perceived wrong they suffer.
The thing is, EVEN if it actually WERE the case that there usually was an inverse correlation between what kind of people hold the top positions in society and what kind of people are discriminated against (for instance, if it WERE the case that although cis white men hold the top positions in society, the average cis white dude faced discrimination from black trans women), assuming the contrary wouldn’t mean you had your logic wrong. Assuming the contrary would mean you had a false empirical belief, but that’s not the same thing as making a logical mistake.
Tumblr brain bleach:
http://nothingbutkittycats.tumblr.com/
How quirky: a tumblr called “Straight Voices on Gay Rights” that doesn’t seem to actually have any content in support of gay (or LGBT+) rights. I suppose “Straight Voices on Straight Voices” sounded a bit redundant.
@Viscaria
To paraphrase Homer:
“Quirky?!!! Quirky is a grandma giving someone the finger!!! This tumblr is just undiluted arrogance!!”
It’s possible that AC is a friend here to support Karin and not Karin herself.
“This is an anti-oppressive space and all identities and intersections will be respected”
I could generate a pretty big list of slurs for the filter, if you need. :-/ Reading the comments on YouTube might prove not to have been a waste of time, after all!
Yeah, I’ve seen that Tumblr before. It’s less about queer rights and more about some cishets’ butthurt at being told it’s not about them (and possibly the “die cis scum” meme).
Some brain-bleach Tumblrs:
Pusheen
WTF, Evolution?
Women and Cats
Everything Was Pink
@auggziliary
How can you possibly think AC is Karin?
Here is Karin glowing with pride over her devastating “question”, which has in no way been addressed bagillion times by at least a half dozen posters. This means she is victorious in proving that the made up, not a fallacy “Apex Fallacy” exists. Fact.
Here is AC, a totally different person, echoing Karin’s celebratory pride over “the question”, because, as I said earlier, it’s so very devastating. This is real.
As side note, Karin directed her most outrageous bullshit response at you. She said a lot of goofy things in her, uh, ‘discussions’ with Pecunium, but this has to be the saddest attempt at backpedaling out of a brutal Godwin analogy I’ve ever personally witnessed.
Logic committed seppuku after reading this paragraph.
Emilygoddess — my problem is most of what I come up with is either allowable in other contexts, or likely to trigger the problem that it counts if it’s part of another word — the example WP uses is that press would match wordpress, but it’s also why folks here have to snicker not sn*gger.
*grumble* finish typing THEN hit post.
Email them to [email protected], or go test my contact an admin form, please.
Argenti – sent a contact an admin form (yay, testing!); it needs to be optimized for mobile devices, BTW.
Will optimize it, worked on here but here is 1024 wide >.<
And thanks for the list.
Sighhhh just after reading through the comments, then doing a quick google search and reading wiki/articles/etc I find it so frustrating that the MRAs still trot out that “Laurie Dann murdered and attacked only menz but nobody speaks about her” line. Despite Farrell himself posting a half arsed retraction, they don’t appear to care for facts. Gah.
Far too many liberal and left-wing advocates of identity politics are wrong for thinking that fully integrating social and economic institutions is a necessary step towards a more just and equal society. The answer might be the opposite. As members of previously oppressed minority groups gain access to institutional and economic power, they will gain stronger identites aligned with their newfound power and class rather than their previous (or previous generation’s) condition. Many feminists confronted this so-called “Apex Fallacy” after Sheryl Sandberg (Lean In) began arguing that feminist goals will be best achieved by encouraging women to join with and support the corporate ethos of hyper-compeititon. No longer should feminists critique inequalities of power and influence *in general*, Ms. Sandberg argues. That kind of thinking undermines the ambition to become “leaders.” Women should seek to gain from instituional inequalities equally with their male leadership counterparts to achieve equal status with the most powerful men. So even if 99% of women’s voices aren’t heard, at least we’ll get to hear from the Sheryl Sandberg’s of the world. Voila! hooray for feminism? Really? Ask any average white male if Warren Buffett makes them feel empowered. Ask any avergae African American if Spike Lee’s latest movie makes them feel like they have more opportunity. Women should feel EXACTLY the same regarding people like Sandberg: Meh. A real feminist (and leftist) should say, “F*** your individual self-interested success, I want a better world for everyone.” Apex Fallacy? It resonates with this lefty.
Paragraph breaks. Use them. They are your friends. Then, at least, we might bother to read your bullshit.
Also
When were you elected arbiter of what a “real feminist” should or should not do? Especially since you understand neither oppression nor the apex fallacy.
The opposite of “fully integrating social and economic institutions” would be not “fully integrating social and economic institutions.” In other words, women, people of color, LGBQ people, and trans people not having full access to economic and social institutes and their voices not being heard. So, basically, exactly what we have now.
Yeah, no, I don’t think the opposite of an inclusive and prejudice-free society is the way to make a more just and equal society.
Yeah, see, oppression and power? These aren’t feelings. Just because your average white man doesn’t “feel empowered” next to Warren Buffet doesn’t mean he isn’t privileged. And yeah, when the majority of those who hold wealth and power in the US are white men, then that does mean that white men are the ones in power. And, modes of oppression can intersect. A poor white man will have less power than a rich white man. But he will have more than a poor white woman or a black man.
We, thanks for telling us women & feminists how we should feel! Without you coming along and telling us what are opinion should be, I don’t know what we’d do! Thanks, random Internet stranger!
I think that necro comment shows a much more prevalent problem with current leftist ideology then the issue it decries:
Namely, that Perfect is the Enemy of Good.
Sometimes you just have to decide what you want and prioritize. Yes, it would be very good if we could replace our current economical system with a fairer one. But while all social issues are of course interconnected, it still is an issue apart from gender equality, and most importantly a *struggle* apart from gender equality. While it is all good and well to fight for ideals, surely what should matter is the well being of the people on the ground. And caring for more gender equality *within the existing system* surely does help the well being of people, even if it doesn’t bring down the system.
Since Octo is the only person posting in a reasonably civil manner, I will respond.
The Good may not only be the enemy of the Better (or More Perfect), some Goods, divorced from a more universal and inclusive agenda, may be counter-productive. Identity politics has advanced a great deal of our intellectual understanding of the mechanisms and process of oppression, but it has also been corrosive to progressive politics as a whole for two reasons. It has divided and subdivided people against one another and it has been completely co-opted by the core system of exploitation and oppression: capitalism.
FFS, another brocialist.
Ollie, you can take your pseudo-intellectual bloviating and blow it out your ear.
Cause blathering on about how harmful “identity politics” is to the greater liberal agenda or whatever the hell it is your going on about doesn’t do fuck-all about the actual conditions or people’s lives. Quite frankly, telling people who are facing injustice in their lives to just shut up about it for the greater good is downright asinine. And yes, economic oppression is one form of oppression. There are others, like race and ethnicity and sex and gender and sexual orientation, and all of these different systems intersect.
Damn right, sparky.
@Oliver Omar
I don’t think you understand the apex fallacy as conceived by anti-SJ folks. The apex fallacy is an idea intended to counter the assumption that having more representation among the most powerful indicates privilege. For example, many proponents of the concept of the apex fallacy contend that, just because there are more upper-class men than there are upper-class women, doesn’t mean that men are institutionally privileged because of their gender.
Unfortunately, their critique is fallacious in itself because it rests on a straw man. No feminist or other social justice advocate is actually saying that the most socioeconomically privileged men are representative of all other men. They’re just saying that the greater representation of those socioeconomically privileged white men compared to their female counterparts suggests that men as a whole are privilege because of their gender. Whether most men do not feel that Warren Buffet empowers them has no bearing on how privileged men are for being men.
I’m a lefty as well (specifically an anarcho-communist), and I am wholly critical of Sandberg’s neoliberal feminism. I care much more about abolishing the material conditions that lead to women’s socioeconomic subordination than reforming capitalism so that it’s nicer to women because I think capitalism itself needs to go. But things like the lack of female CEOs are still relevant to analyzing patriarchy even if very few people (regardless of gender) are CEOs.
The apex fallacy is a concept that leftists should ignore. At best, it rests on a flawed analysis of power, and at worst it completely infects other analyses of power to the point of making even able-bodied, neurotypical, straight white men look like victims of oppression.