“Compassion for Boys and Men.” This, the slogan of Men’s Rights hate site A Voice for Men, has always struck me as a teensy bit ironic, given that site founder and head angry dude Paul Elam spends much of his time berating other men, and really only seems interested in showing “compassion,” if it can be called that, for those who not only agree with everything he says but also donate money to him.
Recently Mr. Elam ran across a four-year-old video that’s been posted to the Men’s Rights subreddit numerous times in recent days. It shows a young woman assaulting a campus preacher, and knocking him off a platform, after falsely accusing him of groping her. (The woman, a student at Middle Tennessee State University, was arrested and later pled guilty to assault charges, getting a year’s probation, some community service and a fine; the preacher suffered only minor injuries.)
But the fact that a few people in the crowd cheered for the attacker apparently convinced Elam that everyone in the world except him and a few of his pals are worthless pieces of crap.
Look at the crowd cheer this violent lunatic on. It isn’t just her that is the problem. We live in a psychotic world where women can do whatever they want to men, as long as they vomit up a lie, like “get your hand off my breast.” It is a world which praises sickness, as long as the person to suffer for it is male.
Well, actually, it looked like most of the people in the crowd were a bit shocked by her assault and the preacher’s fall, and several people came forward to help him. And I’m not quite sure how Elam managed to miss the fact that the woman in question was led off by police at the end of the video.
In this culture, most every woman is Sharon Osbourne. Most every man is Hugo Schwyzer.
By describing women as a bunch of “Sharon Osbournes,” Elam is not (I don’t think) suggesting that they are savvy, articulate women who’ve been able to not only survive but flourish in male-dominated industries; no, he’s making a reference to the one time that Osbourne made a horrible castration joke on national television, and suggesting that women are a bunch of evil harpies that love to fantasize about cutting men’s dicks off.
By referring to men as “Hugo Schwyzers” — Elam’s post was written before Schwyzer’s recent Twitter meltdown — he’s not (I don’t think) suggesting that men are all a bunch of manipulative predators who glom onto feminism as a way to exploit and manipulate women, but rather suggesting that they’re a bunch of obsequious manginas who let women walk all over them.
I feel confident in attributing these interpretations to Elam’s words because he’s made these arguments many times before. It’s pretty obvious that Elam hates women. It’s only a little less obvious that he hates most men as well.
But I don’t think it’s really this video that’s got Elam angry. It looks to me like he’s still stewing over a recent op-ed by libertarian anti-feminist Cathy Young — a writer in many ways deeply sympathetic to the Men’s Rights ideology — which took a passing shot at A Voice for Men and similar sites whose “steady diet of vulgar woman-bashing … discredits any valid points they may make.”
So far Elam’s site has run at least four other posts — possibly five? I’ve lost count — responding to the single sentence mentioning AVFM in her column, including one by him and another by a “brigade” of self-described “Honey Badgers” (female MRAs), but Elam can’t resist the opportunity to point out yet again that he’s going to remain as angry as he wants to be:
I do not give a rat’s fucking ass about offending or upsetting any of them.
This world does not deserve MHRAs that are decent or measured or considerate of the mainstreams sensibilities. This world deserves a jerk on the collar and a slap across the face and the flying spittle of rage that it earns with each man and boy that it denigrates and abuses.
“The Flying Spittle of Rage” makes a much better — and more accurate — slogan for AVFM than that boring old “Compassion for Boys and Men.”
And, just to ice the cake: since you don’t know the Plural of Virus
To go into a bit more detail (the linguists, and those interested in linguistics would probably enjoy the entire entry), on the latin aspects of the word:
It’s a verb! Noptopus is a verb! (And it’s aetheri not aertheri and you can pick pecunia or peculium, and Latin, Y U WEIRD!?)
Meh, yeah I’d keep the Welcome Package a nice unconditional gift rather than making it rulesy. That said, I can imagine putting together a list of common beginner mistakes, and in that (along with “don’t make fun of furries” and “don’t play devil’s advocate”) we could mention that this is generally a religiously tolerant space.
FWIW, I certainly don’t want to turn this into a “let’s always talk about how atheists are terrible” space (or even a “let’s always talk about how certain atheists are terrible” space) either, nor a “never ever mention religion ever for any reason” space.
But most of all I don’t want to become the conversation police, though not sure I’m succeeding on that front 9_9
Freemage gave a good summary, I think.
PS I thought we agreed on “sea beasties.”
Romanian says viruși, which is both not Latin, and rather nice. (Pecunium, the pronunciation sounds more Russian than Latin to me, if that helps you any)
I didn’t realize there would be a hazing.
I’ve been using eight legged sea creatures, but I think you’re right about sea beasties.
katz: I hear you on not wanting to become a conversation cop. I refrain from comment on a lot of these topics, as they come up, so as to avoid the sense of dogpile: I don’t want it to become an unfriendly space for anyone; of good will.
Latin for octopus appears to be polypus, ’twas not expecting that. Plural polyporum.
And Romanian…this one is based in neither Latin nor Greek, I don’t recognize the root at all. (Pecunium is octopus = caracatiță a Slavic root?)
“I hear you on not wanting to become a conversation cop.”
Except regarding the proper term for multiple eight legged sea creatures. Because that one’s usually pretty funny.
takshak: Try not to take it too personally; frankly, it has more to do with timing than anything else–you came in at just the right time for everyone to still be a little bit prickly about the subject. Just accept that that’s the general mood of the room right now, and roll with it, and all should be good.
For the record, part of the reason I’ve been trying to deal with this is that well, the last time? I was the one who did it, and with less of a justification-via-ignorance than new posters have. So I’m trying to do some good works, here.
katz & cloudiah: Thanks for the kind words; it’s appreciated to know that I’m getting this right, actually. I do agree that the sort of guidelines I’m proposing don’t really fit directly with the tone of the Welcome Package; maybe a second collection of links (or even just a page full of quotes) giving some “Here There Be Tygers” topic warnings?
*pokes head in door* Hey everybody did you hear? The ‘figurative emphasis’ definition of the word ‘literally is in dictionaries now!
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally
*runs off giggling madly*
People on this site are not following this idea:
“They don’t always succeed in making that crucial distinction between ‘I disagree with you’ and ‘I’m just going to be an asshole towards you.”
If this statement is acceptable here:
“The whole problem being that, if you start out by saying that everyone who disagrees with you is delusional, there’s pretty much no non-asshole way to go from there.”
Than this DIRECT response is reasonable as well: (and is then NOT off-subject NOR a red herring)
“The whole problem being that, if you start out by saying that everyone who disagrees with you is an immoral monster who is going to Hell, there’s pretty much no non-asshole way to go from there.”
My personal experience is similar to takshak and the way you are treating takshak is wrong.
I felt marginalized as an athiest by the theists on the thread before takshak turned a theist’s own argument on its face. *I don’t know why you might be holding takshak to a different standard than the theiests who previously commented.*
Apparently people on this thread are not capable of just saying, “I disagree with you” but must act like bullies and turn into the “superior assholes” attacking one person for saying something that is not inappropriate given the discussion on the thread.
True story. I was with a friend, and for some reason I used the phrase “Here be dragons.” She seemed puzzled, so I explained it used to be a common phrase to describe uncharted areas on maps. She still seemed puzzled, but you know, the conversation turned to other things.
It was only a few months later that I found out the reason she was puzzled was that she had mis-heard me as saying “Barbie dragons.” Which would indeed be a puzzling thing to see on a map.
I’m sorry, but I do take it personally when my character is impuned.
I wrote this, and I decided to withhold it. It seems more relevant now, so I’ll publish it. Yes, kristineedscats, it’s more directed to you, though it was a response to takshak
As to your accusation of bullying: nice way to wave a bloody shirt.
Because what was done was to say, “dude, that’s not really cool” and then to explain why. If you think that’s bullying, the door is that way; because we do it all the time, and this ain’t the place for you.
takshak:
Try not to take it too personally
I’m sorry, but I do take it personally when my character is impuned.</i
You aren't the only one to take it personally when their character is impugned. And you impugned, by extension a lot of people here; both theists, and not.
where?
Which is missing the whole thing where neither atheists nor theists are all assholes like that. Which is good, cuz we’d have serious issues otherwise (dear gods pecunium, can you imagine how that fight would go? I have no desire to discover which of us is more stubborn!)
Hm. I’m not reading either katz’s original post, nor takshak’s response to that, as impugning anyone’s character here.
But I may be missing something.
::puts this comment thread down and backs away::
takshak, Kristinneedscats – this is not a place where anyone of any belief tells other people they’re going to hell, or anything like it. It is a place where there’s been a history of people being assholes about any not-atheist beliefs, including things like otherkin or fictionkin. The most recent example of that was just the other week. We’ve a real mixture of beliefs here, and the point we’re making is to not make such broad statements that they swipe people here.
This isn’t hazing, it’s simply saying “Not the place, and there’s ugly history people don’t want repeated, kthnx.”
kittehserf, I wasn’t referring to that. I sincerely apologized for stepping over the invisible community line and I never made any broad statements. I also took Latin way back in the day.
Now, which (apologies or Latin) demonstrates my ill-will?
Kitteh — well, NWO did, but troll. No one says anything like that without getting told where to shove it. And we have had some decent philosophical discussions on objective morality // how of course atheists can, and do, have morals (well, ethics is probably more correct, but they’re nearly interchangeable so whatever)
Where? The whole problem being that, if you start out by saying that everyone who disagrees with you is an immoral monster who is going to Hell, there’s pretty much no non-asshole way to go from there.
There. Because no one here said any such thing. And when people said, “hey, we don’t roll that way”, you said, “yeah, but Theists are mean to me all the time”
But you don’t see it that way. You took a comment which used the word faith as an attack on your belief about the lack of deity, and ran with it. People told you that wasn’t what was meant, and that what you were doing was hurting members of the community, and you replied with the quote above.
That’s impugning character. It’s also false, which is adding insult to injury (if I say Ted Bundy is a murderer I am impugning his character, it is also true).