So this is an … interesting reaction to that Buzzfeed piece about Paul Elam. And by “interesting” I mean “WTF?”
Over on The Spearhead — remember The Spearhead, home to some of the crankiest misogynists on the Internet? — our old friend WF Price offers a rather unique analysis of Elam’s life story.
Price admits right off the bat that Elam is indeed as much of an “asshole” as the Buzzfeed article makes him out to be, snarkily commenting that this fact “isn’t exactly news to anyone who has dealt with him personally, or read his articles.” And then he goes on to blame Elam’s assholery on feminism.
Wat.
Well, as Price sees it, Elam hasn’t exactly suffered for being an asshole. The fact that he basically got away with abandoning his daughter proves
that telling your wife and kids to screw off when your marriage goes bad is a better strategy if you’re concerned about yourself than trying to be a niceguy. What could be a more damning indictment of feminism than that?
Um, do you really want an answer to that?
Meanwhile, Price argues, the fact that Elam has had three failed marriages shows that ladies just love assholes. No, really. According to Price, Elam’s life story
proves that being an asshole doesn’t torpedo one’s prospects with women. Quite the opposite, in fact: Paul’s many walks down the aisle are testament to the fact that there’s something about the guy that contemporary women find appealing. Elam’s a major hit with women to this day.
Checkmate, feminism!
Price then works me into the equation, for some reason.
And I don’t write this out of envy; on the contrary, I think his popularity with women has probably been his biggest problem in life (Futrelle wouldn’t understand).
Price concludes with this, er, zinger:
So if feminists were to say to me that Paul Elam proves that MRAs are terrible people, I’d respond by saying “he’s the product of your philosophy, not mine.”
It will take someone more versed in formal logic to explain exactly what logical fallacies Price is committing here, or if he’s somehow come up with a new logical fallacy all his own.
We should ask the guys at RationalWiki!
Feminism is to these guys what socialism is to neo-conservatives, in which he can be blamed for literally anything, so matter how unrelated, and they consider the case closed.
Woops, I meant ‘it can be blamed,’ not ‘he can be blamed.’ My mangina is showing!
I love RationalWiki’s page on MRA terms. So funny.
Elam has had three FAILED marriages due to his assholery. The emphasis should be on FAILED not three. Clearly Price is thinking like a PUA in that success with women is all about numbers instead of a solid, quality, life long relationship. Elam tried three times at quality and fucked up to the point where the ex wives are afraid to talk about him. It doesn’t mean he’s good with women it means he was able to disguise his true colours long enough to marry them. Then when they saw that he was an asshole they split. If women were truly attracted to men like Elam they wouldn’t divorce them.
No True MRA!
umm…. literally anything?
Falconer has it. No True Scotsman fallacy.
Acting like a selfish, irresponsible asshole is a good idea if you’re only concerned with your own happiness and don’t give a shit about other people, including your children. Take that, feminism!
The whole “chicks dig assholes” thing is so old. It’s been my experience that selfish, irresponsible assholes (male or female) are willing to say whatever they think you want to hear in order to get what they want from you. They’re “attractive” because they’re manipulative, not because they’re cruel. Once you realize what they’re really like, you kick them out of your life.
It’s odd that MRAs talk a lot about how horrible and evil the women they’ve dated/married were, but this doesn’t constitute evidence that men secretly want to be abused and bossed around by women.
I believe this is called the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy.
@diogenes
No, it isn’t. They aren’t taking their observations and using it to justify a hypothesis originally based on those observations.
My apologies if this appears twice. I think WordPress ate my first comment.
Sorry WTF Price, but abandoning your children, both in terms of contact and financial support, is not a feminist ideal. It’s like he thinks there are only two options: staying in a miserable marriage, or completely disregarding all of your responsibilities to your kids.
I know it’s not *technically* a logical fallacy, but I think my ideal categorization would be to lump the whole thing under “non sequitur”.
Pretty sure that’s just projection?
Um. No.
So. Much. No.
He’s using the classic argument known as “Nuh uh! YOU are!”
Elam has a big problem with women that David wouldn’t understand. That much is true.
…on the other hand, if Elam had spent his life single and celibate, somehow I am pretty sure it would also be feminism’s fault that he turned out this way.
right? ha
I thought WTF Price had given up the game and gotten a job. Sorry to hear that didn’t work out.
He’s a big hit with women = at least 3 women have been interested in him at some point. Makes sense.
Also:
Define “better strategy”. If “better” means keeping as much of your own money as you can while eschewing as much responsibility as you can, then okay.
But mightn’t “better” include things like not alienating everyone you’ve ever been close to? Actually having a relationship with one’s own daughter and grandkids? Not having your dirty laundry strewn across the internet, or at least having the self-restraint not to cuss out the reporter conducting the interview? Hitting middle age without carrying along mounds of bitterness and hatred at half of the human race?
I’d rather have a smaller bank account and a bigger heart, personally…
I respond to that by giving Price the binary four salute and pirouetting out of the room.
This Buzzfeed article sure has the MRA crowd riled up.
I’m new here – a friend linked to WHTM on Saturday and I have since spent a shocking amount of hours reading old posts and *all* the comments where feminism, destroying trolls and posting of cat gifs abound.
It’s almost amusing how many things MRAs blame on feminism. Violence against women, violence against men, women being raped, men being raped, murder, infanticide, homosexuality (which is apparently a bad thing), “spinsterhood”, men being assholes, mental illness, economy crashes and the zombie apocalypse. Okay, I made the last one up but if there were ever a zombie apocalypse we will totally be to blame because it is ALL OUR FAULT BECAUSE NO LOGICAL REASON SHUT UP YOU MEANIE FEMINISTS!!
Anyway, hi everyone, glad I found this place.
The “feminists are virgin-shamers!” and the “don’t listen to Dave Futrelle, he never gets laid lol” wings of the manosphere should maybe talk out their issues amongst themselves.
I developed such a level of detachment as a lawyer that I once used some crime scene photos of a murder to show what kitchen cabinet doors I wanted but even I had to abandon family law. It was too horrendous to see people just use kids as weapons.
plus, what would WTFP have thought was a fair outcome for Elam in the divorce?
For him to keep using drugs and hanging around his drug and alcohol abusing friends, while having custody of the kids? The drug charges and alcohol abuse predate the divorce and were probably a big contributing factor.
There’s a reason Susan’s parents asked her to drop the rope mid-legal-wrangling, and it sounds to me like it is that they realized that he was much more burden than asset to the family, and that he would probably always be.
And then he went and proved them right.
Seriously, though, what would Price want here? Kids hanging out with an addict all day while the sober parent works? You know what he’d say if the addict were the mom….
” All Women love assholes but don’t you dare say ALL Men are assholes or All Men love asshole women, generalizing men is misandry!” -Misoygnist assholes in a nutshell
“Women need to stop complaining about men its in our nature so grow a thicker skin! ::woman in bad relationship:: this is proof that women like ‘bad boys'” -Misoygnist assholes in a nutshell
It’s sad the word ‘nice’ is such a cute word now I don’t want to use the word anymore because they ruined it.