When a college feminist decided, one cold night in 2014, to burn her personal copy of pseudofeminist Christina Hoff Sommers’ book The War Against Boys, the internet’s antifeminists responded as if Hitler himself had risen from the grave.
“Universities bring book-burning back, one page at a time,” declared a blogger at TheRebelMedia. After an extended comparison with the infamous book burning campaigns of the literal Nazis, he declared that “[t]he burning of Hoff Sommers’ book is a striking visual synecdoche for the malaise afflicting free expression across not only North American college campuses.” In a featured article, A Voice for Men described the burning as a “disturbing” example of “misandry in academia.”
On the Men’s Rights subreddit, meanwhile, one angry dude declared that
If you’re burning a book, you’re basically admitting to being not just a bigot, but one who doesn’t even have enough confidence in the strength of their own views to believe that they can stand up for themselves without needing to silence and censor those that oppose them.
If we set aside the fact that, unlike the Nazis, who confiscated the books they burned, a person burning their own copy of a book that is readily available to others is not actually censoring anything, he’s got a point.
So it’s interesting to see how many of the Internet’s antifeminsts and Anti-Social-Justice-Warrior-Warriors are embracing a proposal from one of their own to literally censor all academics who teach stuff they don’t like.
On Change.org, professional feminism-hater Carl Benjamin, known on YouTube as Sargon of Akkad, has started a petition demanding that “UNIVERSITIES” — presumably, every single one of them — immediately “Suspend Social Justice Courses” because he thinks that “social justice” professors are up to no good.
In vague but melodramatic language Benjamin proclaims that
Social justice has become scientifically illiterate, logically unsound, deeply bigoted and openly supremacist.
He doesn’t specify exactly what kind of supremacism he’s complaining about here; presumably not white.
Nor does he ever define exactly what courses count as “social justice courses.” There aren’t any departments of Social Justice that I’m aware of. [EDIT: Oops! Turns out there are.] Does Benjamin mean a tiny handful of, say, women’s studies courses taught by radical feminists? Or does he hope (at least in his wildest dreams) to take down the humanities and social sciences as a whole?
Social justice professors are indoctrinating young people into a pseudoscientific cult behind closed doors that is doing damage to their health, education and future.
Well, technically, I guess, virtually all college courses are taught “behind closed doors,” since the doors of lecture halls generally do get closed before class begins. Technically, I’m writing this post behind closed doors, because I don’t leave the doors of my apartment wide open. (People might wander in; the cats might wander out.) I suspect that Benjamin himself wrote up his petition behind closed doors!
Benjamin goes on to declare that
[s]ocial justice … has become another ideology fit only to pave the road to Hell, so it is time to turn around and choose another path that is concerned with reason, science and improving the lives of every human.
If only some evil Social Justice English professor has indoctrinated Benjamin in the devilish art of writing without resorting to hackneyed cliches.
But that’s pretty much all there is to Benjamin’s petition. Somehow, thought, the vagueness of Benjamin’s plan hasn’t stopped 9,878 people — so far — from signing the petition.
It is, however, possible that some of the signers are a little bit confused as to what exactly they’re signing.
Indeed, the top two most-liked comments on the petition, for example, were written by people who seem to think that Benjamin’s proposal to peremptorily censor all college courses that he thinks are excessively social-justicey is, somehow, a defense of free speech?
Benjamin has posted a video in which he explains his crusade in a little more detail. It’s possible that somewhere in it he answers the question of how exactly his plan to drive all professors he doesn’t like from all the college campuses in the world is actually a crusade for free speech.
Here’s the video in question:
Oops! Wrong video. Let me try again:
Huh. I don’t think that was it either.
No, that’s clearly not it.
Ok, ok. I found the real one here.
But it’s 40 minutes long. I sampled the first 2 seconds, and that was about all I could bring myself to watch. So I guess I’ll just have to resign myself to a life of servitude under the jackboots of the Social Justice warlords. Still, that’s a far better option than actually watching a Sargon of Akkad video all the way through.
This followed by
Yeah, but you really care about these issues and totally aren’t here to inject harmful, damaging statements into a conversation you were never invited into with people who are actually affected by the “fun” topics of debate on a daily basis.
Fuck you.
Yeah, rape is totally only a problem in those other countries.
-_-
I see that I’m in an unworkable position-to be honest, I think I’ve seen it for a while but put it aside because I wasn’t ready to face it. Now I have to figure out what my next step is. My first reaction is to go Independent because I don’t really see myself fitting in with either Democrats or Republicans (at least not the way the parties are now-they’re both going too far to their respective extremes), but I’m not sure of it since Independents have so little influence in the current system. We need to make the system more open to third parties, but for now which do you guys think would be the better pick: Democrat or Independent?
@Nikki
If by Independent you mean somewhere between the two major parties, then definitely Democrat. I don’t really know what you could possibly mean by Democrats going “too far to the extreme”. Are you suggesting that the Democratic party is on the extreme left somehow? And if so, WUT?
@Nikki
Too bad for you then, because ‘fiscal conservatism’ is built on the same racism and general bigotry as social conservatism, and the two cannot be separated. Fiscal conservatism is also catastrophic on an economic level.
@Alan
Nationalist movements attract fascists like shit attracts flies. Movements by actual oppressed peoples (e.g. Irish Republicans, Zapatistas, Rojavans etc.) often have a far-left wing basis, but even they have to be careful; see De Valera and the Irish constitution for what happens when you’re not.
Agreed. Also, in my version of socially liberal, class oppression is included. The Republican theories of how to deal with poverty are predicated on the idea that poor people are poor because they’re lazy and coddled and just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. That idea is bigoted and untrue.
This statement doesn’t really help your case that I’m wrong about you having no concept of intersectionality, oppression, or privilege. Saying “you’re privileged” is not the same as saying “your life is perfect” or “you deserve no empathy for personal problems.”
Your problems matter to you and that’s fine. Your problems presumably matter to the people who care about you. That’s also fine. Your personal problems are not oppression and not a political problem though. That’s the difference. It’s not that marginalized people are less equipped to work through problems, it’s that they experience non-oppressive personal problems of the kind that everyone has plus the problems resulting from oppression.
If you actually want to help (and I personally doubt you do) your friend and other rape victims, you might want to stop responding to statements like this
With statements like this
Why do rape survivors and their allies need to tiptoe around what you “don’t like.” Seriously. Who gives a shit what you like? Prioritizing your own feelings over the way women deal with the rape that’s always looming over our lives is piss poor allyship.
POM already did the statistical rundown about why that’s a false equivalence.
There’s another reason it’s a false equivalence. You’re comparing a marginalized group (women) fearing that members of a dominant group (men) will harm them with a dominant group (white, usually Christian people) whipping up fear among other members of the dominant group in order to justify oppressing a marginalized group (Muslims).
Yeah, keep telling me you have the slightest grasp of privilege and oppression. It’s hilarious!
Nikki,
Not trying to dogpile here, apologies if all the replies are too much at the moment but
Can you provide examples of extremism by the Democrats on fiscal issues? Because I hear people say stuff like this a lot, but no one can ever seem to show that the Democratic party is an extreme left party. Probably because they’re not.
Blarg, I don’t know how to say any of this! I’m confusing myself!
I agree much more with Democrats than Republicans, but I worry about government waste and I don’t even know how much of it’s a legitimate concern and how much is just a postRepublican hangover.
I also think that both parties and the US political system as a whole are becoming too partisan-Republicans are going much farther right and attracting metric shit-tons of bigots in the process, Democrats are going farther left, and any common ground that may have once existed between the parties has eroded and there’s likely no way we can ever get it back. At least it seems like Democrats are going further left-maybe that’s just an illusion caused by how far right the current Republicans are going.
And I’m afraid of going from one pole to the other all at once-I’m thinking of easing into it by going to Independent at first and then to Democrat later, which is what my cousin did.
Does any of this make sense? Can you guys provide any help?
If at any point I seem to be pushing back too much, I apologize now and in advance and retrospect. Trying to figure all this out is a hard process and will take some time. I may get defensive at times during the process, but I genuinely appreciate all the answers I’m getting.
^Not true
@Nikki
I also want to make sure that I’m not being too rude. Several people have replied to you already, and I realize that it can be overwhelming when you’re clearly in the minority with many people disagreeing. If this goes too far, just let me know and I’ll tone it down.
@wwth, @IP
No, you’re not dogpiling or being too harsh. I’m trying to tackle all of this and clarify my opinions to myself and others and I may be pushing myself a little hard and trying to bite off more than I can chew. I’ll say something if/when I feel like I’ve reached my limit and need some brain bleach. Thanks for your concern, both of you.
I can’t think of any examples of Democratic fiscal extremism at the moment. This doesn’t necessarily mean that there aren’t any (see Einstein’s comment about the universe and human stupidity), but the fact that I can’t think of any leads me to conclude that Democrats going farther left is indeed an illusion caused by how far right Republicans are going.
@Nikki
Pretending as if the Democrats are going way off into the extreme left has been a Republican strategy for a long time. Just look at how they’ve tried to paint Obama as a communist when in reality there’s nothing extreme about him in the slightest. And they constantly accuse him of being a totalitarian dictator, even though he’s a democratically elected president doing normal president-y things.
Basic things such as bodily autonomy, non-discrimination, a living wage, etc, are being described as never-before-seen levels of extremist commie nazi end-of-the-world catastrophes. This is a deliberate strategy, which apparently has worked in your case.
Yeah, I think if the GOP started insisting that the sun rises in the west and sets in the east, the corporate media would start saying that it’s similarly extreme to the position of the sun rising in the east and setting in the west even though the latter position is the one that is demonstrably true.
On the politics! From my outsider Canadian perspective, your Democrats are sort of centrist, with part of the party to the right (pro-corporate) and part to the left (mild social welfare network support). Your republicans are all very much right-wing.
I’ve always been a bit mystified by the idea of left-wing politics being full of government waste, and I’m fairly confident that most of that is just right-wing talking points. Left wing governments do spend more money, yes, but it’s generally spent on social services that benefits people – I wouldn’t call that waste.
You can complain about the costs of bureaucracy, also, but those costs also exist in the right wing side of the equation. At its best, those costs are handled by private companies, so can be subjected to market forces (for better or worse). At its worst, those costs are just outright denied, like the funding for the Iraq war, which was appropriated by the government, never went through a budget, and just added directly to the debt (as far as I can recall). Corruption and government bungling exist on both sides.
I like the green party, at least as a concept. They push for efficient government with reasonable social services and welfare, and an emphasis on sustainability. Not always great in practice, but focusing on sustainability in all things seems like the best way to go.
@wwth, @IP
Yeah, it’s definitely an illusion. I think I saw the illusion for a while before I was willing to admit I did, but now I acknowledge it.
I’m going to leave things here for now and give myself some time to think and process everything before making my final decision. I plan to discuss it more during this process, but I’ve reached my limit for now-I bit off a little more than I can chew atm.
Thank you both so much!
It isn’t. Two studies were done – one found that 8% of men are rapists, and the other found 13%.
Read about them here:
https://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/meet-the-predators/
https://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/predator-redux/
It turns out that rapists will self-report if you don’t use the word “rape” to describe what they did. If you ask a rapist, “Have you committed rape?” they will say no. If you ask the same rapist, “Have you ever had sex with someone, even though they didn’t want you to?” they will say yes.
1 in 10 is on the mark. It only seems high to you because you are fucking ignorant on this topic and unqualified to speak about it. You’re speaking from your feels, not from facts.
Then you didn’t look hard at all, because the Yes Means Yes writeup on these studies is all over the internet. You probably typed something inane into Google and didn’t look past the first page, didn’t you?
You know how someone reacts when this issue is important to them? It’s not with this:
The way someone who really finds this important reacts is this: “OMG, enough men are rapists that many women have to treat every man they meet with caution? This is an emergency! What can I do to reduce the incidence of rape? How can I help get these rapists off the streets so that victims and potential victims feel safer?”
It’s not, “Don’t talk about it like that, it gives me sad feels.” It’s, “What can I do to make this stop happening?”
Your words don’t match up with … your words.
No. Educating yourself is actually step 2. You haven’t crossed step 1 yet, which is to stop prioritizing yourself and going to the emergency room for paper cuts. Treat your paper cut at home, with a band-aid. Treat your sad feels at home, with a bowl of ice cream and a really nice hot bath. Don’t haul them around with you expecting everyone to think they are as important as you do.
Luckily we have other means to determine this figure than the “how many jelly beans are in this jar” technique.
@Nikki
I don’t like the party system and don’t always agree with the Democrat party so I am registered as independent. I still almost always vote blue but on principle I do not register with a party. It does suck that I’m less involved in the process as a result, but that’s what I decided. If you want to be part of the whole process and you side mostly with Democrats, what do you feel you would lose by registering as a Democrat?
MRAs are always so emotional, letting their feelings override rationality, logic and cold, hard science. Pfft.
On a less snarky note, my phone just autocorrected “Pfft” to “Orgy.”
And what a sexy, smooth voice it is too.
http://media.tumblr.com/cf2f539c1988e9c5487a186d72b7e33d/tumblr_inline_ms3pggZvAy1qz4rgp.gif
I actually entertained the thought of Torgue, you know, since he’s cool and all, but then I couldn’t resist writing in all uppercase then because I have no self restraint. Plus, I do call people “kiddo” and “babe” all the time anyway, so why the hell not, right? (Well, not on the site, but, ya know, when pretending to be Roman…)
Okay, so going with the 10% number, what sweeping changes should be made to start incarcerating these scumbags. That’s no easy task to do. I think the under reporting of the crime is one of the main issues right now. Is there anything currently being proposed that I can get behind?
Here ya go, kiddo. You can start here, if you have java script, or here if you don’t.
Guys, make sure your suggestions for how to make men stop raping us is something Richard can get behind. This is super hard stuff and he doesn’t want to agree that it’s a problem that should be addressed until we have a solution he finds suitable.
Why is under-reporting the issue you’ve decided to care about, rather than the fact that the crime is occurring?
Have you looked? Did you read those YMY articles? I suspect you didn’t, because they actually have suggestions for what you, as a man, can do about it starting today, at effectively no cost to you.
Oh, wait, nm. Those suggestions addressed what you can do to reduce rape, and make rapists feel uncomfortable, not what you can do to shift the onus of action onto people who have just been raped to take care of the problem for you. So that wouldn’t interest you in the slightest.
Notice the subtle victim blaming he tried to slip in. Rapists don’t go to jail because rape is under reported. Not because there huge flaws in the way it’s investigated and policed that cause reporting to result in victims essentially revictimized. Not because going public with an accusation result in them being called lying whores. Gee, it’s so mysterious that it’s under reported.