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.
@Cat Mara, Alan Robertshaw
I’m fond of the Malleus Maleficarum in a twisted kind of way.
Tourette’s syndrome: from demonic possession and psychoanalysis to the discovery of gene.
The urge to be oppositional towards things of social importance is part of how we can end up responding the parts of social consciousness that are normally unconscious in most people (the paper just looks as motor signals, but the urges and sensations are present in many mental domains).
I’m fortunate in that the sensations just end up being information about the most sensitive social things. Also we share the pattern detection that probably also produces the social mythologies like penis-bird-nests and witches, as well as conspiracy theorists.
There is this intense need to make everything in experience make sense and we are extremely pattern sensitive. It all has to fit into an explanation and so too often any shared features between things present in an emotionally intense context will do. I’ve had to become practiced at discarding beliefs on a regular basis, I’ve had to develop very strong standards for beliefs and I’ve had to prevent myself from being satisfied with the first most shallow pattern that represents anything so that I’m sure I can apply patterns to other contexts properly.
Re: Ponies.
I was there for the birth of the Brony fandom and present for many of the big controversies. I make no excuses for the shitty behavior of other Bronies and just try to be a good example while I let other people express the bad experiences they have had, there are a lot people with shitty character in that fandom to go with the decent people. It’s sometimes difficult to talk about but one of my hobbies is watching organizing of people that hurt other people as a means of collecting information about how people hurt other people. What I try to do in places like this is a result of that morbid curiosity. I was addicted to the 4chan’s /b/ board for about 7-8 years and watched as pony related content started flooding over from /co/. It was amazing, and I became addicted. One of the myths on /b/ is the idea that you can’t troll a collective of trolls (a common response was “don’t piss in the ocean of piss”), that is not true. So many people hated seeing it and while many were posting friendship and kindness related pony memes ironically, there was a lot of legitimate love of the show for its own sake.
All those tough manly trolls frothing and ranting was glorious to see and similar to how /b/ reacted to furries years earlier. Just as the furries were globally banned for a time (and resulted in the founding of 7chan, trigger warning on that place), so too were the Bronies banned and Ponychan was founded. This was where I finally decided to try interacting at an image board because many of them really loved the show for its own sake and I too had fallen in love with it by this point. They tried to emphasize the show’s values in the rules and porn was even banned. Porn, banned, on an image board (I personally like the pony related porn, but I apply the same morals to that as I do human porn). While there still problematic things in the environment it was far better than other similar social environments. Watching the community grow and interact reminded me of the formation of new religions or political groups. Explosions of art and fanfics and other symbolism as people mixed themselves with the show they loved. And the male masculine actually torn by the fact that they were in love with a “girl’s cartoon” (I was one of them for a while). There was something there that people at 4chan really wanted and needed emotionally and socially. I spent most of my time in the serious discussion board /dis/ and eventually I was asked to be the moderator of /dis/ even though I was an outspoken feminist.
But it was not to last. I think fandoms are a social manifestation of relationships between individuals and the same time courses and stages apply. Eventually lust and love dimmed and personal differences became louder than the things attachment created could withstand. Not to mention the influx of people from 4chan who had no idea what positive community values might look like and tended towards the MRA/racist/LGBTphobe type. Ponychan is a much harsher place than it was and I have not been back for a while. Maybe someday, but I spent more time confronting shitty bigots than I did enjoying fellow fans and the show.
Ponychan has spawned another image board, ponyville. It was founded by Ponychan’s Fluttershy mod who is one of the kindest people I have ever met (I was the Twilight mod). It is a much better place than Ponychan currently is and the community values are much better. As of several months ago it did not have the bigot problem that Ponychan did, but I’m on a break from that community as a whole right now. My experiences range from ecstatic to traumatic and I’m trying to process everything.
Beware of flutterrage…
http://pinkie.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/rsz/mlfw4779_large.jpg
You WILL love her…
Not related but I found this pic amusing.
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/502525219775076454/E0B409C0E809B0EF0535488B9158A94BF7C7FB15/
So the word bouncing around Twitter is that dear old Sargon’s particular insight into the workings of Academia might be somewhat might be somewhat diminished by the fact that he never actually attended college, or indeed finished high school.
I’m not saying I expected better, but I am somewhat chuffed by this news.
@Mallory I’d like to see how you’re getting that. I only got one tweeter from that and the rest are idiots who can’t fact check for spit.
I think the person doing the yelling was a clopper defending their…interest. Because the person who drew the adorable pony nuzzles is a hard-core MLP fan and furry who spoke out against MLP:FiM porn; and I believe some of the people defending her were non-bronies, too? IDK, I don’t remember the exact situation and I might be reporting it all wrong, but nevertheless I think the average adult, as long as they don’t inherently think two feminine people together are porn fodder, know what is and isn’t porn of a children’s cartoon show.
As long as people aren’t dicks about stuff, I say live and let live, even if that interest is/can be problematic. Of course there are limits, like “don’t use methamphetamine” or “don’t get off to the chillens because they can’t consent yet”, but I’d think that should be fairly obvious. Then again, considering how the people quoted on this site act, maybe it’s really not.
Sargon is the biggest windbag I have ever encountered. The majority of the time he is either lying or just really lazy at research.
Here is all the reasons you need not to ever listen to him again –
Why Do Anti-Feminists Hate Feminism – The Patriarchy – Sargon is a Liar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_shpR9aSMM&index=6&list=PLvYvfWVBLG6JqWtghA5hAVIZaaMfayBdR
Warning. Shameless self promotion.
@FrickleFrackle
I wish it was obvious. The problem with porn of the CMCs and other underage characters came up way too many times, and as subject matter it appears way too often. There are still too many good reasons to be sensitive about porn.
@Boogerghost
I cant tell you how many times I have felt perfectly calm and rationally laid out a logical counter-argument, often with citations, only to be dismissed as “emotional”. Puzzled, I look back over my writing and just dont see any such indication in tone. After noticing the same thing happening to other women, amd only women, by often emotionally out of control men with no logic or citations, I realized what was actually going on with that.
Bronies have a bad rep bc a group of bronies harassed a teen girl aftervshe wrote a post asking dudes to be more careful with their MLP porn. Obv not all bronies are like that just as not all gamers are gamergaters.
@FrickleFrackle
One reason to not to draw porn of children’s show is that children will see it. Just using any search engine and look in the images and you’ll likely get porn on the first page, reguardless if you have parental blocks. Another reason is that you can get porn of underage characters in those same searches.
People have to remember kids shows are made for kids, not adults.
@Scildfreja
Your pony videos are adorable. It’s so nice to see emotions taken seriously and respected in the context of a TV show. And the graphics are way cool!
@ Michael
It’s good to see more people challenging Sargon and his shtick. Although I wish you could outline more extensively where his intellectual deceit lies, I do find he puts too much faith in ‘there is no precise unifying consensus on what X entails therefore Y is wrong and that is why people are so angry’ so I also have my qualms with him.
After all, people disagree all the time over concepts such as capitalism, socialism or anarchism and dedicate tomes to dissecting these. A sentence in Merriam Webster can only take one so far. Much the same, how what one could call patriarchal values influence various women’s and men’s issues in society could be explored at length.
Of course Sargon, being Sargon, casts the ‘there is no succinct uniform concept of patriarchy so you should ridicule the idea’ miasma following the routine well poisoning of “Patriarchy? An abstract concept as opposed to a physical thing? Let’s equate it to some pagan deity thereby comparing feminism to religious fervour!”
Overall, Sargon operates on the misguided basis that the concept is devalidated if ambiguity can be found in it
This twit and all the other freeze peach crusaders are so amazingly clueless of their hypocrisy, it’s unreal. I’m willing to bet actual money on the fact that a good chunk of those signatures are from a few angry individuals and their multiple sockpuppets.
It’s funny how he says this happens “behind closed doors” since pretty much any student attending the university can register for one of those classes. But if you also just sat in during one of those classes, even if you weren’t registered, even if you didn’t attend the university, they probably wouldn’t mind and just have class go on as usual.
Unless, of course, you sea lion or just be an obnoxious, disruptive asshole. Which these people would be.
Thanks for the link sweetie, it saved me time, and I hopped over to the petition and signed quick like a big bunny. I think the petition has some chance of reaching 250,000.
Chat later, until then, kisses!!!
This entire article is spinning this completely out of context…
These are the videos that prompted this petition:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL9iomIA_ZXN9kdecGgTz8FGyV6Az6SKi8&v=1Pdu7T3Q-ow
This is not at all what Social Justice courses are supposed to be about. In fact it’s the exact opposite. The primary purpose of Social Justice is to focus on urban planning and community building. A prime example of how social justice is actually applied in the REAL WORLD is LISC:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Initiatives_Support_Corporation
What these so-called SocJus teachers are preaching is sheer bigotry and self-loathing. This isn’t education, it’s an indoctrination into a self-hate cult. What Sargon is calling for is REFORM NOT CENSORSHIP so that we might put social justice back on its originally intended course and that is to help communities living in poverty.
This, coming from a guy who has an abysmal understanding of history and politics as well as indulging in Islamophobia and frequently uses talking points straight from white supremacists.
Jesus fucking Christ – he really lacks any semblance of self-awareness…
Also: destroying something you brought is, in fact, an act of free speech in of itself – it doesn’t matter why.
If I decided to turn my copy of The God Delusion into toilet paper, it’s because I bought it and think it would be better as such than as reading material. I don’t care if someone else liked it or not, because it was my property. If, however, I was doing that to their or anyone else’s copy – they’d be rightfully offended.
Funny, isn’t Sargon some kind of Libertarian? Don’t Libertarians have a massive hard-on about things like property rights and freedom of association? Well, unsurprisingly, that all goes out the window when they don’t like it and thus can’t allow anyone else to do it of their own volition. ‘Cause reason. Always ’cause reason.
Regford! How are ya doing, buddy? Couldn’t stay away, could you?
What is it with you guys coming in here to squawk “CONTEXT!” any time we present one of yours saying something that we disagree with?
David not only quotes huge paragraphs of what Sargon was saying, but he also links back to where he quoted it from.
So, even if it was “out of context”, it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to go find the whole context.
The video in question is called “”Whiteness” Presenter Bashes NRA, Says All Mass Shooters Are White Males” by LaughingatLiberals.
The description: “Charlotte Childress, with her sister Harriet Childress, give a presentation on hierarchy at “whiteness history month” at Portland Community College. In this excerpt, they bash the NRA, white males, say all mass shooters are white, talk about the psychology behind wanting to talk about white mass shooters without actually talking about guns, and framing the NRA as a hierarchical organization, thus making it evil.”
Oh, and the comments section is filled with racism (“What about all the black kids shooting up Detroit and Chicago?!”) and ableism (saying that the presenter isn’t “wired correctly” or that she’s “mentally ill”). There are also calls for trying to get the presenter fired. So much for free speech, huh?
Yeah, the last thing I need in my YouTube recommendations is a bunch of videos by white dudes whining that someone is presenting facts that don’t agree with their delicate little world views.
Why Most Mass Murderers are Privileged White Men
Why are so Many Mass Shootings Committed by Young White Men
Mass Shootings in the US: What Makes so Many American Men Dangerous
Mass Shooters Have a Gender and a Race
King: Muslim shooters like Syed Farook are easily called terrorists while white mass killers never get that label
Sorry, boo-boo, white men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of mass shootings. That’s not “self-hatred” or “bigotry”, that’s pointing out facts.
Wait, what?
Since when is “social justice’s primary purpose” “urban planning” and “community building”? What dictionary did you pull that out of?
Social justice is about “justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society”. Verbatim quote from Google for “definition of social justice”.
Yes, that includes housing and talking about housing discrimination on occasion, but it also means pointing out when people are being unfairly treated. It also means stuff like BLM, Feminism, and discussing social matters like racism, sexism, ableism, and so on. It sure as hell isn’t just helping people find houses and “building communities”.
That’s a fucking new one though, so props to you for being unique.
That would be major news to me, an urban planner.
Again, the schools fail me! Why must I learn everything important from randoms on the internet!
Even if “CONTEXT!!!” wasn’t just the Not Me of Internet bigots (which it totally is, along with its identical twin “SATIRE!!!”)… Are any of you ever going to try explaining what possible context could make things like “Gas the kikes,” “Slash her throat and rape the hole” or “Breivik didn’t go far enough” less horrific? Because those are all real examples that got the “CONTEXT!!!” treatment.
Either give the “CONTEXT!!!” and explain how said “CONTEXT!!!” changes the meaning, or I’m going to write you off as another parrot.
It’s a video list of of over 50 videos. Click the top left corner for the full list.
That’s simply not true and after scanning through the articles, not one of them makes a citation to where they’re drawing their statistical evidence from. Regardless, all races are equally capable of violence and there are just as many black serial killers as there white serial killers:
Black Serial/Mass/Spree Killer List:
1. Matthew Emanuel Macon (Murdered and Raped 5 White Women in Lansing)
2. Jimmie Reed (Murdered his wife and his 2 month old daughter and set them on fire)
3. Shelly Brooks (Murdered 7 prostitutes in Detroit Cass Corridor)
4. Justin Blackshere (Stabbed two white cooks at Cheli’s Chili downtown Detroit)
5. Jervon Miguel Coleman (Murdered three people.)
6. Donell Ramon Johnson (Murdered a mother and a daughter)
7. Brian Ranard Davis (6 women known murdered by nigger)
8. Paul Durousseau (Seven women)
9. Mark Goudeau “The Baseline Killer” (Eight women and a man in 2005-2006)
10. Coral Eugene Watts (11 women in Texas & 1 in Michigan)
11. Anthony McKnight (Five girls and young women)
12. Derrick Todd Lee (8 Women)
13. Charles Lendelle Carter (4 known murders; admits to ‘hunting’ Atlantans for 15 years!)
14. The Zebra Killings (71 White people)
15. Chester Turner (L.A.s most prolific killer 12 women killed.)
16. Lorenzo J. Gilyard (Kansas City, MO.—13 victims)
17. Eugene Victor Britt (Gary, IN.–3 known murder/rapes.)
18. Reginald and Jonathan Carr (The Wichita Massacre–6 Whites murdered)
19. Ray Joseph Dandridge and his uncle, Ricky Gevon Gray (Richmond, VA.–Murdered 7 people in 7 days, including an entire White family.)
20. The Tinley Park Murderer (Suspect hasn’t been found but has been described as black – murdered 5 women in a store.)
21. Henry Louis Wallace (Raped and strangled 5 women to death.)
22. Charles Johnston (Murdered 3 unarmed white men in hospital)
23. Craig Price (Brutally murdered 3 women)
24. Harrison Graham (Brually Murdered 3 women)
25. Charles Lee “Cookie” Thornton (Murdered 6 Whites at the Kirkwood, MO. city council. )
26. & 27. Darnell Hartsfeld & Romeo Pinkerton (Abducted and Murdered 5 from a restaurant)
28 &29. John Allen Muhammad & Lee Boyd Malvo (Sniped 11 people from a car in DC, 9 died.)
30. George Russell (3 women, WA state)
31. Timothy W. Spencer (5 killed, Arlington, VA and Richmond, VA)
32. Elton M. Jackson (12 gay men killed, Norfolk, VA area)
33. Carlton Gary (3 killed in Columbus, GA)
34. Mohammed Adam Omar (16 women, Yemen. Omar is Sudanese.)
35. Kendall Francois (8 women, Poughkeepsie, NY and surrounding areas.)
36. Terry A. Blair (8 women, Kansas City area)
37. Wayne Williams (33 many of them children!, Atlanta, GA)
38. Vaughn Greenwood (11 killed in LA)
39. Andre Crawford (10 killed in Chicago – southside)
40. Calvin Jackson (9 killed possibley more in NY)
41. Gregory Klepper (killed 8, Chicago – southside)
42. Alton Coleman (Killed 8 in the Midwest)
43. Harrison Graham (killed 7+ in N. Philadelphia)
44. Cleophus Prince (6 killed in, San Diego
45. Robert Rozier (7 killed in, Miami)
46. Maurice Byrd (killed 20 + in St. Louis)
47. Maury Travis (17 and rising, St. Louis and possibly also Atlanta)
48. Hulon Mitchell, a.k.a. Yahweh Ben Yahweh (killed 20+ in Florida)
49. Lorenzo Fayne (killed 5 children in East St. Louis, IL)
50. Paul Durousseau, (killed 6, two of which were pregnant women, Jacksonville, FL; Georgia.)
51. Eddie Lee Mosley (killed 25 to 30 women, south Florida)
52. Henry Lee Jones (killed 4 in, south Florida; Bartlett, TN)
53. Richard “Babyface” Jameswhite (15 killed in, New York; Georgia.)
54. Donald E. Younge, Jr. (killed 4), East St. Louis, IL; Salt Lake City, UT.
55. Ivan Hill (killed 6 in Los Angeles area).
56. Michael Vernon (Bronx, NY. Killed at least seven people – )
57. Chester Dewayne Turner (12 women killed in, Los Angeles)
You can find out more from the direct source here:
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/violent-crime/violent-crime
30 years ago when many cities were suffering from overwhelming poverty. However, over the past 10 years or so, Social Justice classes have devolved into a game of blame. And this is no thanks to radicals who have even gone as far as altering the definition for Social Justice which is not just about ethnic equality but also child services, the homeless, the mentally ill, the physically handicapped, and the elderly.
No it’s not, that is what radicals have turned it into and it seems to be the only thing they care about.