So A Voice for Men has finally responded to Jaclyn Friedman’s masterful takedown of the Men’s Rights movement:
No, sorry, my mistake. AVFM didn’t respond to her article by farting. It responded with an article accusing her of farting. No, really.
In an article with the fart-referencing title “Gone with Jaclyn’s wind,” AVFM “Honey Badger” Diana Davison tries to rebut Friedman with some really, really strained fart metaphors:
In Jaclyn’s habitat, there is a foul and ominous odour beneath the sheets. Since, according to her, the MHRM are all dogs, it is easiest just to blame the stench on them.
Ho ho!
Davison then takes the argument underground:
There are many canards in the coal mine of Jaclyn’s article about the MHRM that quite quickly die of gas.
Wait, so now Jaclyn is farting carbon monoxide?
And one more toot:
The next trouser trumpet is her insistence that the MHRM is an attack of men against women … .
The fart metaphors, strained though they are, turn out to be the most coherent parts of Davison’s little rant. As far as I can figure it, her main complaints about Friedman’s piece are that:
- Friedman calls the Manosphere the Manosphere, even though there are a handful of women involved in it.
- Friedman “silenced” her by not linking to Davison’s last dumb piece about her in AVFM, and by (gasp!) blocking her on Twitter.
- Friedman doesn’t enjoy it when AVFM commenters make rape jokes about her.
Speaking of commenters, the comments to Davison’s article are of course a joy to behold.
Paul Elam gets “firsties” with a long comment lauding Davison and further attacking Friedman. Elam picks up on the whole fart thing, describing Friedman as an “orally flatulent windbag” before launching into his version of their encounter in New York during the filming of the 20/20 piece which could eventually air sometime this millennium.
His biggest complaint about her? That she (allegedly) told him to shut his fucking piehole — not in those words, of course — and nobody puts Pauley in a corner tells Pauly to shut his fucking piehole
Before you read this, I encourage you to reacquaint yourself (if necessary) with the psychological concept of projection. And to remember that Elam is very fond of telling other people to shut up. He’s quick to banhammer dissenters in his comments section, quick to toss AVFM contributors overboard when they disagree with him, and one time he actually tried to start up his own version of a Men’s Rights subreddit where he could ban whoever he wanted.
Anyhoo, with that in mind, let’s read what he had to say about Friedman:
I tell you one thing for sure, what I saw of her emotionally shined through the brightest at one particular moment. She had said about three times that the conversation we were having was over. And then of course she re-engaged in that conversation repeatedly.
The last time she said it was over, she tried to issue it like an edict…”I said this conversation is over!”
I told her that she did not instruct me to do anything.
And that is when I saw it. Pure, raw hatred on her face. She did her best to stare a hole in me, and she had the look of someone who was quite used to doing that sort of thing and having it work.
After all her histrionic bullshit about me inspiring mass murder and poor widdle defenseless wimmins having to turn to the FBI and go into some sort of rape culture protection program because of the things I had written, the thing that got her the most, that really tuned on the faucets of anger, was that she could not tell me to shut up and have me comply — or even give a fuck.
I would bet the farm that moment was her in a nutshell.
And it fits. With all the bragging she has done about her big old smelly electronic clit and how she and her friends have bullied their non compliant sisters to the sidelines; with her crusade to censor people at facebook; her blocking Diana Davison on twitter for daring to stand up as a woman who opposed her sick ideology, the true Jacklyn Friedman, the personality disordered control freak with a huge chip on her shoulder, didn’t care about any goddam cause.
She just wants to tell people what to do.
Fuck that and fuck you, Jacklyn Friedman. If someone told you that you ever had a prayer of running shit in the MHRM, they lied to you.
Oh boy. Where to even start with this feast of revealing bullshittery? Perhaps the massive projection about the “pure raw hatred on her face” and Friedman “having the look of someone who was quite used to doing that sort of thing and having it work?”
Here’s a screenshot from a video of Elam’s in which he discussed this very encounter with Friedman. What word would you use to describe that look? (Hint: The word I would use starts with H and ends with E and is “hate.”)
And then that bit about Friedman wanting to “run shit in the MHRM?” Woah. I’m pretty sure she’d rather chew her own toes off than hang out with you guys for any length of time, even if she were running the show.
Somehow I think Paul’s anger on this point is directed at, well, every other MRA who might possibly challenge HIS supreme authority in “running shit” in the “MHRM.”
And, oh, that bit about Friedman’s “smelly electronic clit?” Smelly clit?! Uh, how do I put this delicately? When there is an odor issue in that, er, general area of a cis woman, the clit is not actually the source of it. Paul, you’ve been married, what, four times? Do you somehow still not have a basic understanding of the standard-issue cis lady bits?
And now I’ve got an image stuck in my head of Elam’s hatey face in the general vicinity of some poor woman’s vagina, and I’ve officially ruined my lunch.
I’m not going to bother with the rest of the comments. It’s AVFM. There are rape jokes. There are fat jokes. There are multiple uses of the word “cunt.”
What a magnificent “Human Rights Movement” we have here.
Katelisa:
You haz ALL THE WIN.
On using “delusional” as a term for not-atheists: apart from the ableism, it suggests that people who have religious or spiritual beliefs are caught up in their little fantasies and have never analysed or wondered about them or (gasp!) come to a rational conclusion about what to believe.
Dawkins and sexual abuse: definitely count me among those who sees a subtext of it being nothing to whine about in his reminiscings about what happened to him. Also, does he bother with the distinction Athywren mentioned with religious upbringing? Not everyone who had one was raised in a fire-and-brimstone household, or a saccharine you’re-the-centre-of-Jesus’-world one (or any Christian one, for that matter). Given his fondness for getting all nostalgic about how lovely Anglican churches and services are, he seems to be a tad conflicted – or confused – about religion altogether. Not that that’s news; it’s been pointed out often enough that he’s pretty ignorant about it (and just look at the conflation of all Muslims into scary brown people who cut bits off women in Dear Muslima).
So… having had my ox gored, and a small bit of misreasoning in it…
I am a theist (of sorts).
I am not delusional. I know that my theism is based on an unprovable.
As to any specific atheist being better than me… it remains to be seen.
Taking my relgious upbringing into account (it shapes my worldview, and some of the core principles of moral justice) isn’t really relevant to my, “goodness” (see, for example, Richard Dawkins, and TAA).
My goodness (at anything) is measured by how well I do it.
If the argument is atheists are better thinkers than I am, because they have come to the “correct” conclusion about deity; that remains to be seen.
Because the existence/non-existence of God(s) is an unprovable. The evidence can be seen as preponderant against, but all it would take is one burning bush to falsify it (which is complicated by the sapience of any deity. For example I never saw, “Carlos the Jackal”, but I have it on pretty good authority he existed. He had his reasons for wanting me to think he wasn’t who he was, and for not being seen to do anything directly).
There are many theists who have a sincere belief they have seen some sort of “burning bush”. For them the atheist position has been falsified. I may think them mistaken (even, given some of the things touted as “proof” [say, The Virgin Mary on a piece of toast] delusional), but I am not the one who had to weigh those momments when they felt they apprehended the presence of the divine.
What all this is about is, in a word, tolerance.
To borrow from someone else, “by their fruits shall you know them”.
Carp: I had an infelicitous usage: (it shapes my worldview, and some of the core principles of moral justice), should read,
(it shapes my worldview, and some of the core principles of moral justice for me)
I was not trying to say (as so many bad theists do) that absent religion there can be no morality (because that is arrant nonsense).
I really like this, pecunium. The personal moment, the thing that can cause a shift, big or small, in one’s thinking. Things that someone else may write off as coincidence, or misinterpretation, or delusion, or not knowing about some physical phenomenon. Things, for that matter, the person experiencing them may very well consider … and in the end, decide no, it’s none of those things. It’s too easy to overlook the emotional significance or just the experience itself, the moment, when one’s an outsider.
I’ve had a few of those moments: nothing like proof, nothing that couldn’t be dismissed, but still, things that happened. (NB this isn’t about God but MrSerf.) If anything, the sudden burst of emotion that doesn’t feel like it’s mine is the strongest evidence of all.
Sorry about all the italics, but I needed to emphasise those bits!
I’m a non-theist because I disagree with the epistemic justifications for belief in gods. But I don’t think that theists are delusional or irrational at all; they simply have different justifications for their faith. I never confront theists because I’m completely apathetic about people believing in gods – it just doesn’t matter to me at all. The only theists I ever bother to confront are the ones who are pushy and bigoted, but their problem isn’t their theism – it’s their shitty beliefs.
Exactly, Ally. Neither theism nor atheism is any sort of predictor about whether someone’s going to be a Fifty Shades of Bigotry type or a decent person.
Honestly, all I really care about is whether or not someone is a decent human being.
It’s not linked to intelligence either. I’m not exactly a huge fan of the Catholic church but I have to say, I’ve never encountered (or even heard about) a stupid Jesuit.
(Mr C, who was raised Catholic, calls them the Pope’s CIA.)
Seconded.
I’m going to pipe up for us agnostics.
I’m an agnostic because I don’t personally believe in any specific supernatural goings on but I value what spirituality brings to the human experience. I’m an agnostic because I have a soft spot for mystics like William Blake because I respect the attempt to reach the transcendental or inscrutable. I’m a skeptic because I’m comfortable with doubt and I’m wary of empowered true believers who clearly aren’t comfortable with doubt.
And, yes, being a decent human being trumps everything.
He has serial killer eyes. Perfect for Halloween!
Re: agnosticism…
I think I’m agnostic? Idk. I like, don’t really think that god is real but they might be? And it doesn’t really matter if they are or not? But I still like going to the kind of church I went to as a kid, (at least ones where the preacher isn’t a homophobic dickbag) and see some value in praying.
I have no clue what this counts as.
Fade, you can think about it this way:
Agnosticism is really just the opposite of gnosticism. By themselves, the terms don’t mean much because they basically concern the certainty of belief in some concept. To be agnostic is to not really know for sure if something is true; to be gnostic is to have certainty that something is true.
What most people call “agnosticism” is really just agnostic atheism. That’s close to your position: you don’t think there’s a reason to believe that gods exist, but you aren’t entirely sure. The alternatives are gnostic atheism, which is basically the position that it is absolutely true that no gods exist; gnostic theism, the idea that at least some god(s) definitely exist without a doubt; and agnostic theism, defined by belief in gods that isn’t certain.
Yet because you qualify your position with “it doesn’t really matter if they are or not,” I would say you are best described as an apatheist – someone who not only lacks belief in gods, but also doesn’t care about the existence of gods. Whether you still like going to church doesn’t, in my view, have any bearing on your views on the existence of gods. It’s entirely possible to like some religious things despite being non-religious.
I hope I wasn’t too long-winded there!
@ally
Wow.
That is a lot of information *absorbs information* So, um, thanks. It was not too long winded at all!
Even if we are right, it proves nothing about our ability to think rationally. I’d argue that most arguments that go beyond deism make far too many assumptions, and even those that reach deism assume too much, but how many atheist arguments fall into the same pits? Too many atheists forget the central lesson of skepticism: None of us are really rational. If we’re right, it’s not because of some intellectual superiority on our part.
Good, ‘cuz thems fightin’ words! 😛
If you don’t know, then you’re an agnostic. If you don’t believe, that’s atheism. And if you don’t care, then that’s ignosticism.
It’s possible to be all three, since they refer to different issues. The idea that you only get to have one of those labels is silly, and it really bothers me that there are atheists who’ll define atheism as absolute and insistent certainty that God doesn’t exist, because that’s so laughably ignorant (not least because it ignores the vast list of gods that people have believed in, as well as all the other possible gods that nobody has thought of, in favour of the version of a particular god they grew up with).
Personally, I’m a fairly strongly convinced (though still agnostic) atheist regarding gods that care whether we believe in them and have the ability to guide those of us who care about the truth, and totally agnostic (though still an atheist) toward most of the rest.
I don’t care what anyone else believes, so long as they’re not trying to cure “the gay” or justify oppression with it. Like you guys, I’m far more interested in whether someone’s a decent person than whether they agree with me on metaphysics.
I know enough to know that I know very little, that I have been wrong about many things, and continue to be wrong about things that I don’t yet know I’m wrong about. So I’m not going to pretend that I can hold myself up as smarter-than-thou, I’m just not going to believe the things that other people believe unless they can show me why I should.
In short, vive la scepticisme!
I don’t mean to be too nitpicky, but that’s apatheism, not ignosticism. I’m an ignostic, but my position is very different from that of an apatheist: I basically believe that it’s incoherent to make any assumptions about gods (including assumptions about existence) that have not been coherently defined. For instance, if I find god X to be incoherently defined, then I won’t have any belief or even disbelief in that god – I’ll just not talk about that god. After all, why talk about something that hasn’t really been defined coherently? It would make as much sense as talking about globberygook, which has no definition. In a nutshell, you could say that an ignostic non-theist is an agnostic atheist with an extra standard for belief in gods.
The wiki entry is pretty helpful, too:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignosticism
@Ally thanks! I’d never heard the term ignostic before. Describes me perfectly. 🙂
“Good, ‘cuz thems fightin’ words!”
He wouldn’t, he knows it’d mean that epic fight if we ever really got into it. More importantly, the idea of pecunium declaring me immoral because I don’t share his religious beliefs is actually making me chuckle. (I realize you were joking, but the idea of him calling me immoral over that is just to funny not to mention!)
…amoral?
Oh! Grammar question. Please fix this sentence “it’s more likely to get [to drink] upstairs than in the fridge”? Cuz I said drinken and that isn’t a word? My mother says drank and that’s a proper past tense, which that sentence isn’t. Drunk? It’s more likely to get drunk?
@Ally
Boy, it sure is a good thing that I didn’t complain about people defining atheism poorly before I made that mistake, isn’t it? 😀
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*dies a little inside*
Honestly, the little homunculopodes inside my head told me that ignostic and apatheist were synonyms. I'll have them flogged!
I’d go with drunk… but then why are you providing alcohol to an apparently inanimate object, and how is it becoming inebriated?
But, no, seriously, drunk. You will drink it upstairs, since you cannot fit into the fridge to do so, and once the drinking is done, it will have been drunk.
(And, yeah, while I’m still reserving judgement on the people here who I haven’t interacted with much, I’m pretty much 98.3% sure that nobody here holds those sorts of views on the topic of morality – the site’s code seems to have been interlaced with a jerkicide.)
Argenti – I’d say it’s more likely to be drunk upstairs. Whether that’s grammatically correct or not I’ve no idea, but that’s how I would say it.
Did you drink the drink you drank? Yes, I drank it – it was drunk.
@Argenti -Athywren is correct, it’s drunk.
It’s written in the passive voice so you use a helping verb and the past participle form of drink. The sentence would sound less odd in the active voice: People are more likely to drink it if it’s upstairs rather than in the fridge. That way it does’t sound like people are in the fridge drinking something.
ACK! “so you are using a helping verb”
Double ACK! Fuck I sorely miss an edit button.
The first version is better. Ignore my dithering.