Our old friend Paul Elam of Men’s Rights hate site A Voice for Men has promised his long-suffering and evidently increasingly broke donors that he would be looking into some exciting new money-making ventures in order to fund his lifestyle site.
We’ve already seen the the first of these get-rich-quick schemes in action: AVFM’s new publishing house. Elam evidently sees publishing as a sort of virtual ATM in which near-zero effort is repaid handsomely with cash.
The first book from what’s now called Zeta Press was a poorly received collection of re-edited blog posts about Men Going Their Own Way. AVFM followed with e-book reprints of the public domain writings of anti-women’s-suffrage socialist E. Belfort Bax, first published more than a century ago. (Never mind that Bax’s works are already available for free online at Marxists.org, the Internet Archive, and elsewhere.)
Apparently feeling that they are not yet squeezing enough blood from the turnip that is E. Belfort Bax, AVFM is floating another idea: a book that “translates” Bax’s often convoluted Edwardian era prose into hip and happening modern lingo. In an post today, AVFM “writer” August Løvenskiolds presents a little sample of what this might look like.
Unfortunately, Mr. Løvenskiolds may not be the best man for the job. For one thing, he seems to lack the necessary attention to detail. In his post today, he refers to E. Belfort Bax several times as E. BEDFORD Bax. I’ve indicated one instance in the screenshot below:
But there may be an even bigger problem with Mr. Løvenskiolds’ proposal: He seems to think that “translating” Bax into the parlance of our times means, well, completely rewriting it so it sounds like a Paul Elam fever dream.
Here is a sentence from Bax’s writings:
From all we have said, it will now be evident, one would think, to the most prejudiced reader that modern English Law, following obsequiously a deluded or apathetic stage of public opinion, has solved the problem of the division of rights and duties between the sexes, by conceding to woman all rights, and imposing on man all duties.
And here is Løvenskiolds’ “translation” of this passage:
So, it all comes down to this: even the most tone-deaf feminists have to be quaking in their Louboutins over the facts I’ve presented so far – so much so that I expect a false rape accusation from some disgruntled women’s studies ingenue will occur at any time. The general apathy to a critical examination of the claims of feminism is policed by such false accusations, which are a near certainty once a critical examination of feminism begins.
Rape hoaxes are well-known and were an “old school” feminist tactic at the time To Kill a Mockingbird was written fifty plus years ago. I expect one to drop on me like Dorothy’s tornado=blown house in The Wizard of Oz but unlike a privileged Wicked Witch I’ve taken precautions against such petards.
The fact remains: modern feminism has gained all the rights of men, and then some, while rejecting the obligations of men to preserve society and protect women and children. When women have all the rights and men, all the obligations, this system of society has a simple name. Slavery.
A person with no rights and lots of obligations is identical to the most downtrodden of slaves. A person with all the rights and no obligations is the most extreme of tyrants.
I’m not making this up; if you don’t believe me, take a look at his post.
I think we could probably do a better job than Mr. Løvenskiolds. And so I’d like to invite you all to try your hand at some Bax translations – take the passage above, or any other passage from Bax’s work, and “translate” it into something a little more groovy in far out ways.
NOTE TO EXCESSIVELY LITERAL MINDED READERS: Paul Elam is not actually our friend.
…that bears very little resemblance to the actual passage. And given how most of these people sound the same, that’s saying something.
Please, I can do better than that.
“All of the above makes it clear–or so one would think–to even prejudiced readers that modern English law, through the delusion or apathy of the public, has solved the problem of dividing rights and responsibilities between the sexes by awarding women all the rights and imposing all the responsibilities on men.”
I mean it’s complete bullshit in any language but come on, Lovenskiold, you appointed yourself ONE JOB and you can’t even do that right.
This is reminding me of that woman who decided to restore an old painting of jesus and made a complete hash of it.
That is how bad this “translation” is.
Pro-tip: when translating writings from before 1900, try not to reference things that occured after 1950. That’s… just not what a translation is.
From all we have said, it will now be evident, one would think, to the most prejudiced reader that modern English Law, following obsequiously a deluded or apathetic stage of public opinion, has solved the problem of the division of rights and duties between the sexes, by conceding to woman all rights, and imposing on man all duties.
to:
From all we have said, it should be obvious to even the most close-minded MRAs. or so we would hope, that modern English culture, following the deluded backlash of a few vocal idiots (AVFM),has yet to solve the problem of gender inequality, by actually looking at men and women of every gender as equals, rather than imposing your own insecurities as a fault on the other gender.
Out with the old:
From all we have said, it will now be evident, one would think, to the most prejudiced reader that modern English Law, following obsequiously a deluded or apathetic stage of public opinion, has solved the problem of the division of rights and duties between the sexes, by conceding to woman all rights, and imposing on man all duties.
In with the new:
By falling for my unrepentant and unfounded spin, I’m hoping that I’ve hooked the most insecure and ignorant among you and deluded you enough to agree to my misguided and self-serving opinions. It helps that you were all at least partially deluded by paternalistic opinion in the media and society. I hope that you will all join me in whining about having to concede fair and equal rights to women in society, as well as whine about having to pull our own weight in relationships and home life. We need to keep frightening women into submission to keep the status bro intact.
It always amazes me how utterly certain MRAs are that their beliefs are rooted in fact, yet they spout such complete bullshit. How have women not taken responsibility for protecting society? I dunno if they’ve been paying attention, but it’s pretty hard to argue that feminism hasn’t played a role in giving women the right to serve as police, firefighters, and in the military.
And while we’re on that, aren’t these the same people who will tell us that letting women serve as soldiers, police, etc. is PC nonsense because women are too weak to fight anyway? These are the kinds of contradictions you run into when you simultaneously want to pretend patriarchy is nonexistent yet blame women for every manifestation of it, I suppose.
You know what, I’m just gonna climb out of the rabbit hole now while I still can.
There’s another problem. If you’re “translating” writings from 100 years ago, either the “critiques” of feminism are going to be sorely out of date, or you’re going to have to replace them completely. In that case, what’s the point of translating at all, unless your rhetorical skill is so severely lacking that you have to borrow an ancient argumentative form to house your ramblings?
I mean, just think:
This is going to have to be preceded by actual arguments. Is he going to “translate” arguments about 100-year-old British law, or is he going to insert modern MRA views of (I’m assuming) US law?
I agree that someone with no rights would be a slave… But are they *seriously* arguing that men *have* virtually no rights? If so, that is scary. These are supposedly adult human beings. These people can vote.
Also, they find the writing of an *anti-suffrage* advocate relevant for today’s MRAs? Quite revealing that this so called “egalitarian” and “humanitarian” movement finds inspiration in the ideas of a man who opposed even basic rights for women. But then again, it is refreshing to see some “we need to get these inferior female creatures back under our masculine heel” type of honesty from these perpetual liars.
Oh boy. I can’t wait to see how this turns out. It’s like they’re just using Bax as an excuse to go off on another nonsense tangent. So, pretty much what they do all day, e’rry day.
Kirbywarp:
I just thought about this comic.
http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20110621.gif
God – not another US adaptation that misses the point of the British original! 😉
“From all we have said, it will now be evident, one would think, to the most prejudiced reader that modern English Law, following obsequiously a deluded or apathetic stage of public opinion, has solved the problem of the division of rights and duties between the sexes, by conceding to woman all rights, and imposing on man all duties.”
1st Translation:
“Women achieving the bare minimum of human rights means all my rights are being taken away! Wah!!!”
2nd Translation (sort of more modern):
“OMG women now have the right to not have sex with me so therefore that means they have all rights and I have none. Poor menz…”
Not wanting to spend valuable time digging through Bax’s writings, I’ll just translate the above passage…
“From all we have said, it will now be evident, one would think, to the most prejudiced reader that modern English Law, following obsequiously a deluded or apathetic stage of public opinion, has solved the problem of the division of rights and duties between the sexes, by conceding to woman all rights, and imposing on man all duties.”
My translation…
“It is a period of war between the sexes. Rebel
MGTOWs, striking from a hidden
base mom base, have won their first victory
against the evil Feminist Empire.
During the battle, rebel spies managed
to steal secret plans to the Empire’s
ultimate weapon, the GAMES JOURNALISM, an
unethical games journalism with enough
power to destroy an entire hobby.
Pursued by the Empire’s sinister manginas,
MHRAs race home aboard the
rational facts, custodians of the logic
that can save our people and restore
freedom to mankind….”
I may have cheated and plagiarized a bit.
“Come on, now it should be totes obvs even to the most backwards of hats that I’ve gotten bored of trying to translate this.” But hey: I got almost half a sentence there, That’s better than any of my other tries.
How would you go about lolcatting this?
Ooh we need things said in Edwardian English? Oh, you said translated out of Edwardian? Sorry, but can’t help you there.
Ok, joking about which I prefer aside, I’ll give it a go.
“From all we have said, it will now be evident, one would think, to the most prejudiced reader that modern English Law, following obsequiously a deluded or apathetic stage of public opinion, has solved the problem of the division of rights and duties between the sexes, by conceding to woman all rights, and imposing on man all duties.”
I would think that, given the evidence, it would be clear to even the most biased person that popular opinion has deluded the law into solving gender inequality by giving females all the rights and none of the responsibilities, while shouldering already oppressed men with all the burdens.
…I’m really not that much clearer am I? I’d say coffee might help, but I think in this case it might make me even truer to Victorian English (Edwardian isn’t really my period, but close enough)
That is legit the first thing that came in to my head when I read this. Hahahahaaaa.
“How would you go about lolcatting this?”
I can haz cheeseburger? I no haz thumbs 🙁
(What, it does gets the gist of it!)
My translation of the above quoted passage:
“I fear change and women, and will commence with wild speculation and assfacts.”
I don’t know, it has a bit more substance that Way Argenti Aertheri. There’s actually a valid complaint in it.
Apparently he got paid by the word. We can make this a lot better just by stripping out all the filler.
I have to say, I do always find it funny how MRAs can look at past feminist backlash movements that petered out over the years and completely fail to see that they’re just a more recent manifestation of (mostly) white men trying to hold back the tide of progress. Backlash movements, for the record, that have invariably failed. Self delusion is a hell of a thing.
There’s one other interesting observation here: apparently MRAs are so regressive that their version of gender politics is actually compatible with those of a man in the 19th century.
Adam, you share a name with my brother who is a libertarian MRA or MRA sympathizer and every time you post I get a little thrill of fear that he’s here and might have seen me comment here and will call me out right here lol, but then you’re reasonable and make sense and I’m like ‘whew!’ Sorry, just sharing randomly. Carry on with the OT discussion.
Kirbywarp: You mean this fiasco that I only just found out about today, via your comment and google? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/22/octogenarians-hilarious-f_n_1821389.html
One funny comment: “It’s like The Scream mated with a spider monkey.”
I almost regret that Bax wasn’t a classical artist and the modern hip translation a bad revision of his art. I now want to know what that would look like.
Do you think we could get any MRA’s to paint their own Madonna pictures? (while leaving the originals alone, I hope. It sort of hurts to see painstakingly rendered imagery damaged.)
@lordpabu:
Yup, that’s exactly what I was referencing. I would have embeded an image if my browser wasn’t acting up and crashing every time I tried to get the image url. I don’t know if it’s better or worse that this act of translation won’t tarnish the original.