I know. It’s an MRA. It’s nine minutes long. But seriously, just watch it. You won’t regret it.
And, no, it’s not a parody.
If you want to see what the man behind the voice looks like, check out his Gravatar.
After you’ve finished laughing, you can go over and read the catty little thread it inspired over on Antimisandry.com.
Since WordPress now allows us to add polls to our posts I’m adding one right here.
EDITED TO ADD: And now, thanks to serrana, here’s a transcript of the whole bloody thing. Make like a bird, and read it:
I am Agent Orange. I am responsible for the initial collection of data from the now defunct forums of radfemspeak.net. I also recruited most of the team and set forth the vision that would become the Agent Orange Files. I continued promoting the Agent Orange Files during the radfem 2012 fiasco.
I have waited and watched for quite some time the events unfold around me in this broad movement called the MRM. I have seen a sickness strike the heart of what I’ve once considered something grand.
Now, in my capacity as a sort of bird in the sky, I hear rumblings of malcontent throughout the halls of my esteemed brothers. This troubles me as I have not been troubled before. In my life, there has been nothing that has troubled me more. I give of my time, love, and life itself in hopes of creating a society free of misandry, where all humans are judged equally before the laws of nations throughout the world.
Are we still in the wilderness, my brothers, where there are none but our own voices to fall upon our ears? Are we still shouting at the top of our lungs and hearing but a brief echo announcing our solitude? Or have we built a fortress in this cold land, paving paths to others to trade ideas in good faith? Have we not spit in the eyes of our enemies, met them in many skirmishes, and run a sword of truth into the heart of their lies over and over?
We have done much, even to the consternation of those who would use our name in vain for their own petty purposes. We men have refused to back the fight with honeyed words, and bowing to properness and propriety. We have damned the use of all but plain speech in the signing of declarations of war against those who would enslave us. We have spit upon them for good measure as is rightfully deserved.
But the sickness still comes into our fort. It is one borne of temperance of speech that hides half-truths behind the language of our enemies. It poisons the minds of men so they can no longer arm the battlements out of fear of some imagined greater power. It is a false enemy, that never has, and never will have power over the souls of free men.
It has turned brother against brother within the confines of our home. It has distracted us with questions and answers that have no bearing on our lives as free men. We tremble before these questions out of fear of answering to something other than ourselves instead of taking the fight to our enemy. It blinds us to the simplest of answers that we should care not.
We have become complicated, filled with innuendo, brimming with foppishness and base impulse, just like our enemies. We have forgotten the faces of our fathers and grandfathers. We have neglected the pain of our brothers. We have lost sight of our most basic of functions and we are becoming like those we fight in the process.
What are we if not the voice of reason and truth in an otherwise insane world? How did we fall so far as to worry about how possible allies may view us in the future? Do we not stand upon our own merits? Have we not continually crushed our enemies beneath our feet with the weapons of sharp rhetoric and truth spoken with passion and resolve? Do we really care so much about how we are branded that we are willing to sacrifice each other upon the altar of political correctness and forsake our brothers?
Beware of what you say henceforth to each other. You think carefully about our true enemy: identity politics, the politicization of experience. Don’t use dark powers that suggest to us that flowery speech will gather us more bees to make the honey, because that honey is a sour poison that kills us all one by one by one.
Think hard on the cause of suffering among us. Recognize that it is the death of the individual that does this and the removal of accountability and responsibility through the idea that there is collective salvation instead of individual merit, that there is only coercion by their gods instead of the charity of a man, that there is only room for the love of your slavemaster instead of love for yourself.
I have not sat upon a single branch since I have taken flight long ago and I will not do so until the last breath is wrenched from my body through the violence of our enemies or the ravages of age. I have been among you all. I’ve been talking and watching, teaching and learning, healing and tending.
I have been encouraging others to take back their dignity and embark upon a course of action that can best take the fight to our enemy. I hope to help free all men from their self-imposed shackles. My words have rarely been met with derision by those brothers who know me.
Those that have matched wits with me in good faith find me an honorable and competent visionary with the tenacity of a wolverine.
I would ask, but I think it wise to set the example. All of you, lay down your weapons against your brothers in arms immediately, set aside your momentary lapses of reason and come to a table that will soon be provided. Those of you to whom I have whispered secrets before, if you fancy yourself a leader, or a speaker in any capacity, you will come.
There are going to be things to be taught, and revelations that will be made apparent. Those that contribute wisely at the table will walk away with a greater sense of purpose and direction than what we have ever had before.
I promise you magic steel to further our cause. Come, sit beside your brother, though you may have smitten him before. The blood will not be washed away, but regret will at least not hang upon your brow, if you do sit with us.
In the meantime, return to the battlements, and think on this: Remember our enemy that comes from outside our hard-won land. Trust that those not showing up for discourse will have their true colors shown, or are too shamed by their past actions. Remove the names of your brothers from your lips and hold the steel strongly toward the outer walls.
You know where I fly. Send a pigeon or catapult yourself to me, I care not which. I will be waiting impatiently for a response.
The problem I have with Dawkins is that he seems to suffer from the belief that if you’re a very intelligent person then whatever you have to say about anything is valuable and interesting. It doesn’t seem to occur to him that his intelligence doesn’t actually qualify him to, say, decide what are and are not valid concerns for atheist women.
I don’t remember anything in Pinker’s writing that would appeal especially to MRAs, though I might have glossed over anything like that and remembered the interesting bits.
Not familiar with either of these people, but if they’re being cited by MRAs–or anyone focused on gender issues–it seems safe to assume that they’re being cited for their opinions on gender, not for whatever contributions they’ve made to unrelated fields, and that if their opinions on gender are stupid, then it was stupid to cite them.
I don’t think it’s a just intelligent people who have that problem. It can happen to anyone famous, when people start listening to them just because they’re famous. Jenny McCarthy for example.
The idea of MRAs reading any works on language is kind of mind-boggling …
Part of the problem is that people are probably asking Dawkins for his opinions on shit that he knows nothing about. Which I think is why a lot of people get annoyed with the almost worshipful attitude that some online atheists have towards him, because that attitude encourages that sort of thing.
I know, right? Thankfully there are folks like PZ Meyers.
Anyway, here’s an example of Tremblay’s writing that I find interesting and very well-written: http://www.strongatheism.net/library/atheology/process_based_noncognitivism/
It’s a shame that he’s an asshole.
Pinker researches and writes about cognitive science with behavioral genetics and evolutionary psychology. I’m assuming it’s the evolutionary psychology that interests MRAs, even though as far as I recall he looks at how *people* behave, not how men behave and how women behave. But most of what I have read of his is the cognitive science part so I may just be forgetting the relevant bits.
And a wise person would reply that they don’t know very much about that topic.
Evo-psych AAaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Okay, I’m off into the grey wet weather to go yarn-hunting. Wish me luck!
Katz, are you under the impression that I’m defending Dawkins’ tendency to mouth off about subjects he doesn’t understand? If so I think you need to read a bit more carefully.
Have fun!
Wasn’t intending to.
Wasn’t intending to give you that impression, that is. /unclear
I do wish that more celebrities would respond to inappropriate questions with “you know, that’s not really my field”, but there aren’t many who do. Which is part of why I wish people would stop feeding Dawkins’ ego, and not attaboy him when he mouths off about gender issues.
John-H
Not a quote per se, but the “sword of truth” is from objectivist fantasy author Terry Goodkind’s series of the same name.
@ignotussomnium
Sorry for the late reply, but… Iconoass, hipster’s hipster, lonelier than thou, On Walden’s john…
@Radical Parrot- your comment about feminist and MRA classes in D&D reminded me of these:
http://s749.photobucket.com/user/ami_angelwings/library/Magyc%20Cards?sort=3&start=all&page=1
They were made by a former poster a LONG while back, and they are basically brilliant.
Oh my giddy aunt.
I have no idea how so many of you managed to listen to the whole of that man’s …. whatever-it-was. I ran it for a couple of minutes and had to pause for a while to reset my brain to the coping with nonsense setting. Then I tried another couple of minutes, and I just. can’t. go. any. further.
How anyone can take themselves so seriously when saying such unmitigated drivel entirely escapes me. How can anyone talk like that? I think he’s watched far too much television containing far too many film trailers with those uber-portentous voice overs. Or something. It’s all too daft and I almost feel sorry for the fool. Almost.
@mildlymagnificent- the trick is to listen whilst doing something else. Then you just get a magnificent phrase here and there, which is all you need.
Jeez, the MRA posts here feel especially florid. Maybe the best use of Futrelle’s vast advertising revenue would be to sponsor a thesaurus buyback.
Drew, if you don’t like the tenor of the advertisements, then stop bringing your cookies from sites of questionable taste.
The web ads I’m seeing are something about Obama, things your hairdresser doesn’t want you to know about boxed haircolor!, Tel Aviv fashion week, and something about some poor girl whose arm was bitten off by a shark.
Waaahhh! Can I be a big crybaby for a minute and whine about people associating some of my favorite things with MRA asshats? I didn’t watch the video, but read the transcript (I’m at work)…this kind of thing is like something a 12 year old would write after having watched some fantasy-genre B-movie. It is so over the top that it is more like a parody of a parody of what fantasy novels are like. Oh my poor fee-fees are so hurt right now, for the second night in a row. Why can’t MRAs be into stuff I don’t like…like idunno the ubiquitous cop dramas or something? Waaah.
Those cops are just proxy violence white knights! The MAN keeping men down.
Also, I just realized Drew might not have been the MRA guy who made the big deal about the ads. Apologies if I mixed that up.