Apparently worried that not enough people were conflating the woman-hating, reactionary assholes who call themselves Men’s Rights Activists with the woman-hating reactionary assholes who call themselves pickup artists, MRA stronghold A Voice for Men has come rushing to the defense of PUA skeezeball Roosh Valizadeh, in the wake of his recent troubles in Canada.
In a post titled La défense de Roosh, Roosh fan and recent Bill Cosby defender Jonathan David Farley reports that
I attended Roosh’s World Tour in Washington, D.C. At a last-minute-buyer’s ticket fee of $60, I thought the price was well worth it─not just for the information, which I knew already─but for the comedy. As a former professional comedian, I know comedy: I wouldn’t have paid $60 to see Chris Rock, one of my favorite acts, but Roosh V’s speech was better.
But Farley doesn’t just see Roosh as a brilliant comedian (?); he also, well, just read this, because, what?
While I no longer have a need to do what Roosh advises in his book Day Bang, which I have a signed copy of, I have a longing to do what Roosh does: help men become happy. Roosh is in that respect much like the Buddha or Dalai Lama.
That’s right: “ROOSH IS … MUCH LIKE THE BUDDHA OR DALAI LAMA.”
The rest of Farley’s post is a weirdly perky defense of Roosh and some of his, er, teachings, with Roosh’s abundant misogyny surgically removed.
Far from promulgating “hate speech,” Return of Kings tells men that if they want the highest-quality women, they have to improve themselves, whether it’s through starting an internet business to become financially independent, lifting weights, or learning the wisdom of classical philosophers.
Do you even lift, Athanasius of Alexandria?
He goes on to suggest that Roosh’s, er, teachings may help to prevent mass murders in the future.
Far from creating another Elliot Rodger─the murderer who joined a forum dedicated to hating pick-up artists and their ideas─Roosh’s speech, books, and website may prevent one.
Roosh does life-saving work.
The whole post is so ridiculous — even by AVFM standards — that I found myself wondering if Farley isn’t just a very committed troll. Nope. He’s real. I’m not quite sure what strange path led him to Roosh.
EDIT: Changed the end.
According to John Safran, Roosh and the Dalai Lama could hardly be more different:
RosaDeLava:
Well, you could say the same about a lot of religious teachings. The major religions are not exactly free from misogyny or homophobia, for example.
@Moggie
My point is that groups such as PUA focus on telling men how they can get sex, and if someone treats it like a life guide they might think it’s ok to dedicate their life to having sex, and only that, and it wouldn’t be nitpicking because that is the core of the ideology.
However, I agree. There are wrong teachings in many (maybe all) religions, but those are usually footnotes and not the core of the ideology. Though I can’t say that I haven’t seen several religious fundamentalists that take little snippets and treat them as if they were the most important thing.
I have no idea if there are people who treat PUA as a religion, though, so I’m probably just blowing things out of proportion.
What, no comparison to Rosa Parks?!!!
I am generally an even tempered guy, but seeing it spelled Ghandi always makes me irrationally irritated. Not quite sure why.
Happiness is almost orthogonal to Buddhism; since the phenomenal world is illusory, any pleasure you derive from it (and any pain, as well) is equally illusory.
The further you look into almost any famous person’s actual life history, the less admirable they tend to appear.* I can still read Lovecraft and listen to Miles Davis, despite their manifest failings as human beings; I do not defend my enjoyment by lying about them. But Doosh is in a different category, that of horrible person who has produced nothing to justify anyone enjoying what he’s done.
Sorry, forgot the footnote.
*Except for Mr. Rogers. The more I find out about his life, the better he looks. If more Christians were like him, the religion would have a better reputation.
There is much cherry picking in Fundamentalist Religion – patriarchs decide which verses in the King James Version of the Bible to beat people over the head with, and they have a handful of carefully selected women charged with acting as enforcers of young females. The pieces that are chosen from the Bible are interpreted to mean what the patriarchs want/need them to mean, in order to reinforce the positions they have taken on various matters and disseminated to their flocks. Complementarianism, Quiverfull, and modesty doctrine – if one wishes to do a bit of research on these alone, then one will find that there are many leaders in fundamental religion who take snippets and make them the most important things.
I feel the same way about Mr. Rogers. He was probably my favourite person during my childhood. I love him to bits the more I know about him.
It’s funny that they should mention the Dalai Lama because any time I hear one of those MGTOW types, it reminds me of an old Buddhist parable:
If you’re “going your own way”, why are you still carrying her?
Well, to be fair, the Dalai Lama also has connections with Nazism that his fans like to ignore.
And Shoko Asahara.
But MRA’s are totally not even remotely related to PUA’s, right? It’s also really funny because the Dalai Llama is a self-described feminist who if shown manosphere writings would likely pronounce them very sick indeed.
Roosh the Douche has as much in common with The Dalai Lama as I do with Catherine de Medici
@Robert: “The further you look into almost any famous person’s actual life history, the less admirable they tend to appear”
Jezebel might be another exception…and yes, she was an actual historical figure. Granted, she already has a horrible reputation.
Also granted: Jezebel (allegedly) did some heinous things and if she actually did them, nobody would justify those actions…but her biggest crime (according to the familiar story, written by her enemies) was worshipping the “wrong” deity.