So I want to move on from the whole Pax Dickinson thing, but I feel I would be remiss to do so without first mentioning a remarkable post on Roosh’s Return of King blog with the seemingly innocuous title Pax Dickinson And The Culture Of Tolerance. Written by a Roosh forum regular who goes by the name scorpion (nice), the post is ostensibly a critique of alleged “cultural Marxists” whom, he charges, “claim to be tolerant of everything [yet] are … intolerant of traditional masculine behavior … .”
But his post is in fact a plea for intolerance so over the top that, save for some manosphere-specific jargon, and its focus on “feminists, white knights, manginas, fat acceptance activists and homosexuals” rather than, you know, Jews, it might as well have come straight from the pages of Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
I know, I know. Godwin. But just read this shit. Scorpion accuses the “politically correct internet hit squad” of
encouraging and mainstreaming the most bizarre and marginal human behaviors in a perverse quest to prove themselves the most tolerant of all their peers. …
What this is, really, is the elevation of the deranged and deformed along with the simultaneous tearing down of the strong and traditional. They are threatened by the sight of a masculine, red pill man like Pax Dickinson who unapologetically speaks his mind without fear of offending anyone. … Every time they see him they are acutely conscious of their own inferiority, so they conspire to end him. It’s like a gang of angry, deformed and diseased street cripples overcoming a confident and successful alpha male.
Yeah, not so much.
It’s here that Scorpion really begins to channel old Mr. Hitler.
These people don’t understand that by tolerating every type of degenerate behavior, they are destroying the culture. Imagine what would happen if your immune system suddenly became tolerant of everything. Within days or weeks your body would become host to dozens of infections and viruses, and you would quickly die. That’s exactly what these people are doing to our culture. … And so the body of the West has become filled with disease.
That. my friends, is Fascism.
Naturally, Scorpion predicts that these nasty “cultural Marxists” will get what’s coming to them in the end:
A backlash against these people is starting to build. … Within a few decades will come a rebirth of more traditional values, and these cultural Marxist social justice warriors will become nothing more than a relic of an ignominious era in our history. … Our descendents will be unable to comprehend how such an absurd ideology was able to take root in society. It will be as incomprehensible and perverse to them as the idea of suddenly chopping off their own body parts (which is fittingly a practice esteemed by the social justice warriors under the guise of “transgenderism”).
Is there some sort of new requirement that every article on Return of Kings contain transphobia?
These fools think they have found the one true god, but in reality they are simply a cult of death and decay. They are the patron saints of the sick and the twisted, the degenerate and the deformed. … It’s too late to save the West as we currently know it; but like a Phoenix, a new Western culture will rise from the ashes, a culture with traditional values and a healthy immune system to protect itself against degenerate cultural scum. And it won’t soon tolerate these worshippers of tolerance.
Yes, that’s right, a gang of Don Juan wannabes on an internet forum, united around a skeezy sex tourist and self-professed date rapist, have managed to convince themselves that they are the last bastions of traditional morality in a world gone wrong.
In the wake of Roosh’s viciously racist attacks on the critics of Dickinson, and his publishing of what is essentially a fascist tantrum, I think it’s fair to say that he has thrown his lot in entirely with the racist right wing of the manosphere, alongside such other charming fellows as Heartiste and Jack Donovan and Matt Forney. Indeed, in some ways he’s even outdoing them in the hate department. (Donovan in particular is a lot more affable about his racism.)
It’s a weird choice on Roosh’s part, because the hardest-core white supremacists out there have made very clear that they don’t see him as one of them. Because he’s of Persian descent, and therefore, in their minds, not really white. Indeed, several years back, one regular on the notorious Stormfront forums posted a “warning to Estonian women” that
[a] really nasty sex tourist from America (of Middle Eastern descent) has arrived in Tartu, Estonia. He came from Latvia after staying there a month or two. His goal is to lure into sex as many Estonian women as possible, especially very young girls. His name is Daryush Valizedeh, nickname – Roosh, and he is a pick up artist who believes women should be treated “like garbage”. This includes beautiful, young white women of Baltic and Nordic descent.
The Stormfronters tracked him as he made his way around Eastern Europe; one suggested he was not only not white but that he was literally part Neanderthal.
Roosh and the neo-Nazis: sounds like a match made in heaven.
I was just thinking of the “make one person suffer a ton for the slight good of others” utilitarians. “Van Gogh had to live a miserable life so that he could create great art that would make other people happy” would totally be in line with their sort of thinking.
@katelisa
The only creative thing my depression does for me is sometimes I’m too unmotivated to do anything but draw, since drawing’s stress relieving for me, but I’m so much slower/ unenergetic overall it’s 1) not worth it and 2) very iffy on whether I get stuck on a drawing spree or just sit around watching bad tv feeling sorry for myself.
//random ramblying sorry.
@Argenti Aertheri
Sorry to hear you had a shitty psych, though yay you’re getting a new one. 🙂
Also, hi 😀
@ Marie
There’s a photo of Roosh doing his shambling zombie PUA thing at the top of the other thread about him but, as has been previously mentioned, he looks like he’s considering eating your brains. So, you know, fair warning.
@cassandrasays
Huh. You’re right he does look a lot like a zombie.
Hi Marie! You always make at least as much sense as I do, so you might as well comment even if you think you make no sense (my personal standard? If it makes more sense than Owly, I might as well hit post)
Katz — but art is subjective while his suffering was objective. Also, they know best. (And, this one legit, there’s no way to know he wouldn’t have still made art)
Tangentially, pecunium, thank you a million times over for getting me in sneezing distance of Starry Night. Those brush strokes! The colors! Someone fetch me a fainting couch?
@argenti aertheri
😛 Normally I comment fine when I’m un-sense making, but when I’m mellow* I just debate typing something up before going ‘nah. not worth it.’
*not a good thing for me. Idk if I chose the right word.
I was being unclear so I’ll just say that of course medication (and, for that matter, suffering) might or might not affect one’s creativity and it’s difficult to judge. But it’s almost water under the bridge because *even if* it were certain to have a particular effect, it wouldn’t be okay to make people suffer for the sake of art.
You didn’t actually sneeze on Starry Night, did you? I hope you guys weren’t in New York reenacting Mr. Bean.
Hi Marie!
There’s another side to the whole “artists shouldn’t take medications evah” BS: not all artists have mental illnesses or indeed any condition needing medication, and the suggestion that mental illness = THE GREATEST ARTISTS is another aspect to this that pisses me off no end.
emilygoddess – interesting about the New Age stuff; my contact with it was limited and I’ve probably had a different impression because learning reiki is specifically about learning a complementary (not alternative!) therapy in order to help other people. It’s a long way from the total self-absorption end of things.
Oh lord, my artist/art student soul shrunk a bit when I watched that.
A friend of mine had a college roommate who put up a Mr. Bean poster at the end of their bunk beds. My friend was not happy to get stared at all semester.
@cloudiah
Hi! 😀
“You didn’t actually sneeze on Starry Night, did you?”
No, though I did have to resist the urge to reach out and feel those magnificent brush strokes.
Falconer — the mac is being stoopid, I’ll get that to you sooner or later though.
No worries! I have more games than time anyways.
Actually, check your email, we may be in business here.
RE: Marie
Do they have any light weight/ foldable ones? Fade’s got a foldable cane, which isn’t terribly like crutches, but I was wondering if they have something similar. Idk if I’m making any sense, mobility devices aren’t something I know a lot about.
I don’t know! I’ve never seen any, but it might be worth checking out though.
RE: emilygoddess
They usually pedestalize people like Van Gogh or Ernest Hemingway, arguing that treating their illnesses would have deprived the world of their artistic achievements, and the art we have nowadays is just not as good, and people with MIs should stop taking their meds so the rest of us can have art, and blah blah barf. I fucking hate this shit.
URGH. Okay, first of all, last I checked, both those guys committed suicide. Also, I was able to make MORE art once I got on my meds, because for me, depression’s biggest symptom is constant exhaustion. It’s hard for me to make art when the very effort of living is a labor!
RE: Dvarghundspossen
So… I got my first psychotic episode when I was ten (yeah, I know that’s unusually early) and I totally thought I was the most special person in the universe.
Jeez. When my system member had one induced, we were sixteen, and it mostly manifested that she felt the furniture was going to eat her, and she was constantly terrified and sobbing.
RE: Argenti
But I’m of the opinion that mild hypomania, depending your profession, and/or hobbies, can actually be a good thing in terms of output.
I don’t know whether it counts as hypomania, but I definitely have my creative highs. Unfortunately for me, my system now has rules to try and restrain them, because I used to do art for eight, ten hours at a stretch, and not eat. The lack of food would then spur the high EVEN HIGHER, thus spurring a restriction spiral until I inevitably collapsed.
So yeah. For me, it’s still actually pretty dangerous.
Speaking only for myself, I have an urge to be creative whether I’m episodic (suffering) or not, to have the ability to do it to my satisfaction interrupted was devastating. I know my productivity fluctuates with depression – lots of sketchbooks and unfinished or half-formed ideas vs. finished work. My suspicion is that the desire to make things exists independent of other emotional states, but those states can influence what’s produced.
I don’t feel anyone should be forced to take meds, and I also don’t believe anyone should be shamed for taking them either. I went through an anti-med stance after having bad experiences with them, and I still think there’s a lot about the pharmacuetical companies and the way they market meds that is worthy of criticism. But I’ve relaxed that stance since. It’s not all or none. No one should have to feel they have no say if they’re being prescribed things that aren’t working out for them, or if they feel their concerns are being dismissed by a psychiatrist.
Candle Cove is one of my favorites. Damn it, I think I feel another late-night creepypasta binge coming on…
@Kittehserf I may be overgeneralizing. Certainly there are all manner of helpers in the New Age community: reiki masters, various diviners and psychics and intuitives who offer their services in good faith (there are also plenty of scammers, of course). I guess it depends on who you’re talking to. I feel like I hear a lot of “I, me, my” when New Agers talk about their beliefs.
I don’t mean to single out New Agers. The same criticism could be laid on a lot of other religions. Mainstream American Protestantism, for example, is centered around YOUR personal relationship with Jesus Christ. And the New Agey “personal spiritual development” stuff is all over the Pagan community. It might be more of an American trait than a trait born of any particular spiritual path.
I think I’ve seen a cane which has a seat attachment; I don’t know if that will help re: flexible support. The movement aid I use is a walker, and then only when I’ve managed to throw out my back again so I can’t walk without it; since my injury is balanced, a cane doesn’t help.
Medwise, I’m 95% against forced medication, but working with someone right now who is a delight on her medications and all but non-functional off of them, I can feel my commitment to a hundred percent consensual slipping. Which I’m not sure how I feel about it, since usually I’m beating the all things consensual drum, so running into a circumstance where I’m seeing the downside of that when someone’s executive functioning is just gone off of medications… grar, psychological ethics suck; there’s so much potential for destroying lives that it sucks.
RE: Deoridhe
In my case, what happens is my legs suddenly get weak. My upper body, however, is still fine, so I want the strength of my upper body to compensate for my usually-rock-solid legs. A cane alone wouldn’t help, because both legs are weak; I want something for both sides.
I also feel very lucky for my past shrink. When we had our worst dissociative episode, she had to make an executive decision over whether to institutionalize us immediately or wait until we were in a condition to consent to treatment. Since she knew we were terrified of being hospitalized, were in a city she wasn’t familiar with, and had a lot of friends looking after us, she chose to wait until we had enough brains to register what was being asked of us. It must’ve been a scary decision to make, since we had all the self-preservation and understanding of a Jello salad, but I’m very glad she made it. It helped us feel in control of what was a very nasty period of our life
@deoridhe
I’m 100% against forced meds. Idk what/ if your experience has been with meds, but I was forced to take them for a while when I was 11-12. They never gave me bad effects (or any effects I could tell, but the moment I got out of kiddie asylum I just faked taking them to my parents) but the feeling of loss of control is fucking terrible.
So idk if I’m making any sense, but those are my 2cents about it.
Interestingly, I was introduced to feminism writing and new age stuff at about the same time, in my early twenties. I also learned Reiki and a bunch of other modalities. Some made a difference for me, others didn’t.
I think you have a point about the religious self-centredness. My impression looking back (at the 80’s and 90’s, when I was immersed) is that the people who came to new age at that time were hurting, and were stumbling around trying to find a way to make the world fit more comfortably, and were kind of rejecting (but not really) the whole 80’s materialism & me mentality.
And as I get older, I can look at different belief groups and see some really well-thought-out arguments supporting them, accompanied by HORDES of people who haven’t really thought it through, but are tagging along for fun, and for some bizarre reason have become spokespeople, spouting off some really ridiculous theories.
Okay, seriously bedtime now. I apologize for my lack of coherence.
“cultural Marxist social justice warriors”
Okay, I’m gonna be honest, I genuinely don’t get the linkage between Marxism and the social justice types? What I mean is, if you asked the people who are kind of focussed on what we stereotypically think of as social justice, I just honestly get the impression that most of them would not be Marxists or not consider themselves as such. In fact I think a lot of the culture stuff actually comes from more postmodernist approaches which is actually more of a backlash against the traditional Marxist left and is a completely different theory. At least the orthodox Marxist left would be likely to actually criticise social justice type approaches as being too obsessed with culture and not enough focussed on class.
You’re crediting the people who use that term with far more thoughtfulness, education, and intelligence than they actually have, imo.
These are the sort of people who talk about “isms.” They literally think all words with the same suffix mean the same thing.
Thanks Argenti, that’s interesting. Yeah, maybe it’s a fairly widespread kind of phenomenon, but for most people it doesn’t cause much trouble.