A tiny group of gallant men (and “their women”) go underground to fight the evil gynocratic overlords. Is this the plot of a terrible dystopian potboiler from 1971, or a description of how most MRAs see themselves, and the world, today?
Turns out it’s both. I found this pic in the Blue Pill subreddit, and now I really, really want to read this book.
Here’s a book review from someone who did.
Hey y’all, read Howard’s INCREDIBLE ADVENTURES link upthread, if you haven’t already. It’s a hoot.
Cassandra,
I f I said something that sounds like I was implying all atheists have personally suffered oppression, it wasn’t meant. I was speaking of atheists in general, as a group. A person from any marginalized group can go through life without being personally oppressed. That doesn’t make it not a marginalized group. I haven’t experienced anything more serious than a few snide comments myself. For me, the knowledge that half the country thinks I’m immoral or amoral without even knowing me is upsetting. For others it may not be.
Where did I say that all atheists suffer oppression and they’re wrong for saying they haven’t? I really don’t recall saying that. It doesn’t even sound like something I would say. It was either a misinterpration or I badly phrased something while typing hastily on my phone.
Actually sometimes being the wrong religion can result in worse treatment than being an atheist. I used to live in Saudi Arabia, which is about as theocratic as it gets, so obviously atheists aren’t going to be anyone’s favorite people, but it’s not actually illegal to practice atheism because, well, how does one practice atheism, and how does anyone know unless you tell them? Whereas setting up religious services in your house, well, that could get you a visit from the mutaween, who are not known for their open minds and friendly approach.
LBT:
Technically, that attitude would be misotheism, presumably based on dystheism (the belief that gods are evil). Antitheism is opposition to other people’s theism, which is perceived as a societal problem. People often use “antitheism” loosely to mean opposition to religion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misotheism
Shadow:
“New Atheist” is a somewhat fuzzy concept, but it certainly does not mean newbies in the movement. Basically it means a historically new type of atheism, although many of us would say we’re the same old stuff, only more vocal. It’s like, some 10 years ago religious apologists and sundry cultural critics noted, “Hey, there’s a vocal atheist movement now, not like in the old days when atheism was limited to philosophy clubs”.
So yeah, it doesn’t make sense to imply that smug assholes are something new in atheism, particularly since that would imply that “New Atheism” is a movement by and for smug assholes. I think smug atheist and asshole atheist are great terms when you mean smug assholes in the movement.
I am disappointed in the definition of misotheism. I thought it had to do with soup.
Worship of the fermentation process, maybe?
Cassandra:
Eh, in my understanding you can’t really “practice” atheism, although you might set up a community around it. The so called “atheist movement” is really a secularist movement (as in opposing the privilege of dominant religion) with strong aspects of antitheism (arguing/preaching against religious belief) and skepticism (promoting evidence-based thinking, not that all atheists are good at it). And yes, it certainly serves as a community of like-minded people.
It’s true that since atheism isn’t a strongly communal activity like most religions, It’s easier to be secretly atheist than a religious heretic. Then again, precisely because religion is communal, members of oppressed religion tend to get more support from each other.
Emilygoddess:
“My husband is so awesome everyone must cuddle him daily!”
So much THIS. Whenever I hear someone go on about “religious privilege” I get flames on the side of my face. I’m sure the Muslims behind Park 51 were super privileged to have the entire country debating their constitutional rights. I’m sure both Sikhs and Muslims are super privileged to know that people might burst into their house of worship for being Muslim (or for being a group that people don’t know aren’t Muslims). Or the Jews who apparently control the banks (but can’t keep their temples from being vandalized with swastikas). Or the Pagans who get their kids taken away and their businesses run out of town.
To those of us who are religious minorities, it’s pretty obvious that the privilege lies specifically with Christianity (and a specific kind, at that), and that atheists and religious minorities share a common interest in maintaining a secular state and dismantling the social structures that privilege Christianity. Which is why it’s so upsetting when someone starts going off on how all religious people are ignorant bigots and theism is the enemy and so on – dude, we’re on the same side.
RE: cassandrakitty
Actually sometimes being the wrong religion can result in worse treatment than being an atheist.
No joke. I had a Jewish friend not much older than me who STILL ran into kids who asked where his horns were. I have yet to see an atheist center burned down or groups of atheists pepper-sprayed on the street for being atheists.
RE: Arctic Ape
Technically, that attitude would be misotheism
Thanks! I wasn’t sure what the term was.
RE: emilygoddess
To those of us who are religious minorities, it’s pretty obvious that the privilege lies specifically with Christianity (and a specific kind, at that), and that atheists and religious minorities share a common interest in maintaining a secular state and dismantling the social structures that privilege Christianity.
*standing ovation* Thank you, you have summed up all my feelings nice and succinctly. I have yet to see an atheist face bigotry that is somehow different or worse than that unleashed on non-dominant religious groups. (And let’s not even talk about those poor fuckers who practice Falun Gong… *shudder*)
Something I was thinking about last night: the cry of “it’s not rational” from some people makes so little sense. Is everything humans do supposed to be rational, to make Perfect Objective Sense? Is emotion not allowed to influence any of our decisions? Even if that were possible, who’d want to live that way? It’s one thing to talk about things that lead to bigotry and social harm, but to talk as if belief = fundamentalist variety of X religion and therefore automatically harmful is stupid and offensive.
While am sympathetic to the persecution that Falun Gong practitioners get, its teachings are also incredibly racist:
1. the afterlife is racially segregated
2. mixed-race individuals can’t go to heaven because of 1.
Hell, anti-semitism is so prevalent that we have a specific word for it.
I thought playing oppression Olympics and analyzing what groups have it worse was frowned upon in social justice spaces but there are now several comments on this page doing just that. This is the kind of thing people mean when they say there’s hostility towards atheists here.
I’m not going to claim atheists have it either worse or better but here are some examples of atheists being oppressed. I should point out that if you Google atheist oppression there will be several instances of people (including atheists themselves) mocking the idea that atheists can be oppression mixed right in with the examples of the oppression that’s being mocked as not existing.
http://www.alternet.org/belief/4-reasons-atheists-have-fight-their-rights
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/16/atheists-discrimination_n_4413593.html
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/archive/breaking-news-indonesian-atheist-officially-arrested/
atheist-activist-arrested-for-blasphemy-in-Egypt
Do I really need to point out that just because you haven’t experienced or witnessed an oppression that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen? Come on. I know you all are better than this.
*wkaes up at 7 pm* the Borg code is done, as of 10 am. It should be loading substantially faster if you aren’t logged in, if you are it’s not loading from the site cache so it’s not that much faster.
LBT — yeah, but I think part of it might be that, particularly being non-binary, they wouldn’t understand. And this wouldn’t already have decided it makes me evil.
I wouldn’t mind going back to my senior year of HS, but I basically lived in the theater. It’s that I miss, not HS.
Kitteh — you want a calm or brine shrimp? Or belly rubs? Are those puffer puppy eyes, or puppy ones? Probably prefer cookies huh?
@ Argenti
I’m guessing the non-response from your parents probably was the “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but that’s nice, dear” kind of thing that parents often do when their children are talking to them about something they’re completely unfamiliar with and don’t really understand.
Cookies and belly rubs!
Coming into this VERY late, but:
Notice this dystopia is set in “the Far Future of 1992″. Either it was compressing its future trying to put everything”Within YOUR Lifetime!” or adhering to the trope of the time that “Humanity WILL become extinct before 2000 via Inevitable Global Thermonuclear War”.
And there was a lot of shlock on the SF paperback scene a few years each way of 1970. Ever heard of Runts of 61 Cygni C? Sticks in my mind just for the subtitle/blurb:
“An alien world, twin to the sun, where one-eyed runts play endless games of sex.”
Now THAT’s Shlocky!
Notice this dystopia is set in “the Far Future of 1992″. Either it was compressing its future trying to put everything”Within YOUR Lifetime!” or adhering to the trope of the time that “Humanity WILL become extinct before 2000 via Inevitable Global Thermonuclear War”.
Yes, and they did. What are yo-
Oh, Christ, H.U.G. – you’ve got the simulator emulation set to extreme AND you’ve set your immersion level way too high again. We’ve told you that you get identity problems if you do that. Last time, you were wandering around thinking you only had two arms for a week.
Hit the reset buttons, and sit on your tentacles quietly until the nurse can get to you, okay?
I seen at least two bad 60’s sci-fi programs with similar premises. One had a planet ruled by women who wanted to evade earth with a giant dolls house the other had men drugged and working on a plantation in some kind of dystopian future, it had something to do with travelling through the earth in some weird vehicle thing. Can’t remember what either of them were though.
Probably kinda late to say this but …
After realizing that I had really hit a raw nerve with Katz, which I hadn’t intended but was partly the result of my having carelessly written “Christians” when I meant “Calvinists”, I decided that I needed to take a time-out and rethink my tone if not my ideas. I know that I have a tendency to get riled up and become argumentative in a way that is not appropriate to the discussions you have here. I tend to spend a good deal of time on political blogs which tends to make me a bit insensitive to tone. (On one blog, another poster suggested that, among other things, I am in the habit of pleasuring my mother with sex toys. It’s hard to respond to that sort of thing without becoming a bit intemperate.) I see that I stirred up more unpleasantness than I ever intended, and I apologize for that. I do enjoy this blog, and I will try to behave better in the future.
(1) I do not believe in god, but I am not an atheist. I have never seen a conclusive argument either for or against the existence of god. I can’t accept the common view that god is a wrathful old man taking revenge on his creatures for alleged misbehavior, but I accept that human understanding is limited and there could be a supreme being or force that is beyond our comprehension. I find Richard Dawkins insufferable for asserting rather that stating his opinion that there is no god. I don’t know, you don’t know, and he doesn’t know. As to the issue of whether atheists are oppressed, I will only point out that there are openly gay people in Congress while no Congressperson (and there must be a few) has been willing to come out of the atheism closet. Barney Frank was an out gay man for decades but waited till he had retired from Congress to come out as an atheist.
(2) I specifically have a serious problem with the Calvinistic belief in total “depravity” which in effect you can’t be a good person unless you believe in their god. More generally I have a serious problem with religions that unite with oppressive governments to magnify that oppression, to try to force people to conform to their beliefs, to define good people as evil because they do not believe the right things. Religion has been a major force behind huge amounts of war and persecution throughout history. I have never had a problem with anyone’s personal beliefs as long as they recognize the right of others to believe differently, and as long as they treat others with kindness and respect. (Obviously I am not perfect in that respect, but I usually try.) The main problem I have with religion is the intolerance and hatred that SOME believers promote SOME of the time. That, in my view, is evil.