By David Futrelle
Check out my piece at the Globe and Mail today about shutting incel forums the hell down. Here’s a snippet:
[I]f appeals to shared humanity are out, is there anything else we can do? We may not be able to win back those who have plunged too deeply into the incel rabbit hole, but we can take steps to limit their ability to recruit new members. Incels aren’t born; they’re made. Sure, most new incel recruits start out embittered and lonely. But they are radicalized by their incel peers on a relatively small number of message boards devoted to the incel ideology.
So we should take a page from the anti-fascist activists who’ve done so much to kick back against the so-called “alt-right” over the last year – not only by confronting the fascists in the streets but also working diligently behind the scenes to take away their platforms online.
You can find the piece here.
Of course it’s out. He doesn’t actually care about making the situation better, or he’d be listening when women offer solutions.
You can’t, you just can’t, let your right and wrong be determined by what other people find socially acceptable. Even if it doesn’t have a lot of support, what’s right needs to be done. That’s how women won the right to vote – by fighting and bleeding and in some cases dying for it even as misogynist men continued to deny that it was nothing more or less than what was right.
Though frankly, if we were interested in justice as a culture, women’s votes would be worth double until a period of time equal to the time we couldn’t vote had elapsed. Similar stuff should have happened with people of color.
The world is changed by people who actually go out and solve those problems, who do the right thing no matter how many people oppose them, whether that’s by protesting in the streets or making it that much harder to do the wrong thing any way they can.
@Chad
How about if the solution is the one WWTH offered?
Here’s a tip: try reframing your argument as “I don’t agree” rather than “you’re wrong”. All we are doing is sharing opinions here. When you don’t agree with something, it doesn’t mean it’s “wrong”, it makes it a different point of view.
For what it’s worth, the solution you appear to be offering (correct me if I’m wrong, but this appears to be: 1) allow children to bully each other and encourage them to fight back (which is not a lot of good to those who are not natural fighters or prone to depression btw) 2) everyone should get out into the fresh air more (well, I do agree with that actually, being a hippy. We could all use more time with trees) and do forced group sport (oh….you ruined it) 3) parents should use physical violence to subdue those things about their children they don’t like (such as smashing computers) and 4) the Modern World Is Bad) suggests you’d be more at home on a MRA forum than here.
Here’s another thought; what if there is no easy solution? What if this is the product of a lot of incredibly complex factors and there is no button we can push to make it go away? I mean, I know it’s hard to accept, but what if you can’t just fix it by imposing your own preferences on the whole of the rest of society?
I’m wondering why expecting men to be better is not a solution. The success the MeToo movement is having is a perfect example of how demanding that men be better or face the consequences is a workable solution.
I know men don’t like hearing that they should treat women better. Or that they should treat other better. But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad solution.
I suspect however, that Aging Chad is looking for some way to foist the responsibility for ending misogyny solely on its victims. Because asking men to be better? That’s just uppity. That’s the not the old left old labor neoliberal capitalist boys club way, and that’s just bad!
Jees, this thread. I’m not even done writing this, but I’m gonna post it anyways before I’m completely behind.
@Aging Chad,
my duck,
my egg.
Shall we take a walk through the cratered fields of your exposition?
On Primate Behaviour
You are engaging in something called the naturalistic fallacy. Further, you are engaging it based on an assumption of what human primate behaviour is. Primate behaviour is extraordinarily diverse along the clade, and covers such a wide range of social systems that any behaviour can be pointed to as primate behaviour. Know why? Cause human behaviour is already primate behaviour.
Asking bullies to not bully is not unnatural primate behaviour. Because we’re primates. Asking bullies to not bully because bullying is wrong is not unnatural behaviour. Because we’re primates.
Rape, as it turns out, is also used as a social enforcement behaviour, in exactly the same way as bullying is. Do I need to connect those dots for you as well?
Bullying and rape are poor mechanisms for making societies work. If you want to talk about that, take it up with the primary literature before you come wading in here to espouse your opinions as if they were Antidiluvian wisdom. Maybe try engaging in some real anthropology before you start beaking off about us not doing enough creative anthropology, because creative science is a synonym for wrong science.
On Personal Experience
Okay, this is not an uncommon behaviour, so I’ll try to be gentle. Please take out your pencils and write this down. Personal experience cannot be transcribed to universal experience. Because – guess what – you’re flawed. We all are. You don’t see things that other people experience, and your experiences aren’t more objective or correct than theirs.
For example – you say that you saw your adolescent girls do things that were unconscionably cruel, but you didn’t see boys doing the same. This is not evidence that girls are more cruel than boys, it is evidence that you perceive girls to be more cruel than boys.. There are many reasons that you might perceive that, and of those many reasons, exactly one of them is that it is true. The fact that our society naturally minimizes and denigrates girls, and searches for ways to make them seem lesser, is enough that you should heavily doubt anything you believe about gendered differences between children.
Throw out everything you think you know about inherent differences between men and women. It’s almost certainly wrong. (That goes for pretty much everyone, by the way)
Let me repeat that for you again. Your personal opinions don’t matter. No one gives a shit if you do or do not like electronic art, and your opinion on it neither credits nor harms its value.
One of the central tenets of the toxic masculinity you bemoan is taht boys are taught that opinions are assertions and can be interchanged with facts.
On Your Refusal to Engage
I’ll do these piecemeal.
You know, there are books on this topic. There are, in fact, entire university programs and academic journals on it. Magazines, websites, blogs, that could give you an inkling of what “teaching boys to leave toxic masculinity” means.
But you’re not interested in learning that, ’cause you like masculinity as it is. You like bullying, and like using violence to enforce social norms. So you pretend that the idea of toxic masculinity is incoherent and unimplementable, and say that you need real solutions.
“Real” solutions in that guise are just solutions that don’t budge the status quo. Which won’t fix anything. Allowing boys to bully other boys wouldn’t do anything but push that resentment deeper inside them, sounds like a great idea. Oh, wait, it worked for you, you say, so of course it’d work for everyone everywhere.
Ugh.
Do you know Chinese people, living in China?
I recall one Chinese exchange student from Beijing Normal that we hosted for a summer. She was in tears at the freedom we have here. She went home resolved to improve conditions for her family, specifically she learned that it was possible to fight for the rights of disabled people to get ramps in sidewalks for wheelchairs and scooters.
You’re pluperfectly allowed to give away your own rights, you Dark Enlightenment ponce, but don’t you dare try to take everyone else’s.
I’ll write more as time and patience allows.
Seagull?????
Looks guise! He’s here looking for answers dammit! He looking for solutions! /s
I lived in a conservative Christian proto fascist culture. Boys were the worst bullies to me, their taunting started my cutting phase. I do not think 14 year old boys should be policing other children’s lives. Who the fuck really thinks that?
And yeah. This thread is lots of whataboutthemenz all over it. *sigh* has been here before in a incel thread telling us to be sad for incels or some shit. And did it in a condescending way, with all the sighing and shut. It irked me wrong.
And Chad is wroooong. He doesn’t listen to anything the women have been saying. Like feministguy. But he wants mommy to fix all the problems. And let boys decide what is acceptable social behavior?wtf. And videogames are the enemy?bullshit.
@Violet,
Lol, you put it so clearly.
I’ve never seen anyone argue that Lord of the Flies was an example of a good environment for children, but Chad here’s about done it.
But then Chad here would have to do better.
@Scildfreja
So much worship <3
@Aging Chad
Honestly, when I was little I wasn’t much of a fighter. I know because I was bullied and abused relentlessly, both physically and psychologically, and though I made my caretakers aware numerous times they said it was my fault for being a bitch. Also, what the hell is the point of fighting if the bullying is psychological?
On video games…I spent two to four hours a day playing video games when I was growing up. They were my escape, and helped me maintain my sanity. (See: Relentless bullying, above). My parents did force me to do one sports thing a year, and as a result I hate soccer where I was bullied, and I hate basketball where I became the team pariah for being honest even when it meant the team lost a point, I actually liked ballet but mom didn’t like that I liked ballet, and I hate team swimming and have developed a bit of a thing about being touched because I was bullied there.
I know for an absolute fact that if I had to witness my games, my escape, being hit with a sledgehammer… I learned not to cry growing up, that this signal would not get me help and only increase my problems… but still did a few times. That would have been one of those times, as the place I could just be me was destroyed in front of my eyes by people who would then turn around a second later, and lie to my face and say they loved me.
Know what would have made my childhood easier? If my bullies had been stopped, and not by some hero fantasy me. I was weak, but that didn’t mean I deserved to be treated like shit.
Re: Chad –
NO. No, no no no no. You are just wrong. You are so far into wrongtown on this that the busses have stopped running, and you will need to stay there overnight and bask in just how wrong you are.
Let’s play a game where you we go back, like, a hundred years. I have on a very nice suit (trust me on this), and you are wearing whatever you want to be wearing. You say:
Let’s go back further:
Let’s go back FURTHER:
You are basically doing this:
I was just talking with a random photographer I met on the bus, and he said “You know what the best camera is? The one you use.”
You are gatekeeping who can be considered artists. You are stopping kids who do not have any way to access darkrooms from practising their art. Where the hell do you want anyone to go to actually develop stuff, these days?
I run into this in my job, from old farts who are angry that they can’t keep working the way they did in the 80s. I’m sorry too, but the world has changed, and you need to adapt or you will not find any jobs.
Note: I chose art, because I hate this idea so much and probably no one else would react to it.
image from this article, maybe you should read it.
Also, you want a workable solution? Try this one:
@ Scildfreja
As always, that was amazing, and you are amazing.
Also the same for Rhuu.
That’s exactly what he’s doing and what he sounds like.
Screw it – y’all win, and have driven me from the conversation because I’m either some sort of unconscious MRA guy at heart who should be with my own kind OR am an imperfect ally, and therefore a witch to be crushed at the sacrificial altar of a sophomore seminar on grievance non-solutions.
Plus, I have to complete my tasks I set for myself today.
I shan’t be revisiting this site and wish you the best (you’ll need it), but do consider that in your zeal to combat rage, you don’t become the rage you hate – it is going to consume you.
Ciao.
Annnd flounce. I knew that was coming.
Oh snap, I’m sorry to hear that, Chad.
Do come back if you ever want to have a conversation where you listen as well as talk.
FLOUNCED.
Aging Chad “Hey, I’m going to say some really problematic things! Just accept them, right? You all want allies?”
WHTM: Um, here are reasons why those things you said are problematic.
Aging Chad: “WHAT I’M GOING TO DOUBLE DOWN”
WHTM: “NO.”
Aging Chad: “Why aren’t you nicer to me? So much for the Tolerant Left!”
Maybe you should also check this shit out, the Paradox of Tolerance. It’s from the forties, so hopefully that’s old enough to be relevant to you.
This thread.
Jesus Haploid Christ, this thread.
Rhuu, guaranteed that Chadly thinks Popper are things filled with cream cheese.
Can you be any more pretentious?
And we have a flusterbounce! Or blusterquit! Whatever, another guy who simply won’t engage with the reality that he tried to peddle bullshit and we didn’t buy it.
Nah, we just want you to be a good human being, and that means addressing the misogyny you displayed to us. We expect men to be better. That’s the solution.
Yep, because “imperfect” is the same as “Active proponent of bullying, and opponent to any circumstance that might cause men to not feel free to act like shitheads to other people”. Oh wait, no, that’s misogyny and antifeminism. Also look at the coding of academic language in a villainous light.
Ah yes, the vague insinuation that you, a MAN, unlike us girls, actually have work you do in a day. Can’t have a defeat in detail without it.
Oh yes. We’re angry mean little bitches because when you peddle bullshit, we refuse to buy it and instead demonstrate why we don’t buy it.
Two things.
If Chad really wants to go the primate route. Well, fine. Lookie here, the culture in a particular troop of baboons changed and males learned to be less aggressive. It’s almost like primates aren’t necessarily inherently violent, are subject to culture, and their culture can change. Just like humans!
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC387823/
The results were positive for both the female and the male baboons in the troop.
Now in this instance, the aggressive males all died and that’s what changed the group dynamic. But I don’t think we need kill all aggressive males to change the culture in humans. We can perhaps get similar results by making male aggression socially unacceptable. As someone noted on the previous page, this is already happening. Once we stopped being so accepting of domestic violence by allowing no fault divorce, providing resources for victims, and enforcing laws against IPV, rates of domestic violence went down.
The second thing I wanted to note. How ridiculous is it that we have someone claiming that young people in groups don’t do anything positive anymore and the internet can’t be used for positive change when in the past couple of months we’ve seen young people organize in massive numbers – largely using social media as a tool – to protest gun violence. Not only protest gun violence, but doing massive voter registration drives. And they’ve made sure to do it in a gender and race inclusive way. How dare anyone pull this “kids these days” crap when right now young people are more politically active and engaged than I’ve seen in my entire lifetime.
@Chad And if you ever do come back, please do answer the following questions:
1) Why should I not expect men to be better? I can name seven women I know who’ve been raped off the top of my head, one who was raped after being given rohypnol, and one who was given rohypnol and only saved from rape because her friends were smart enough to realise she was acting out of character. Yes. I expect men to be better than this.
2) Why should I not be angry? I’ve been shouted down, talked over, sexually assaulted, stalked, intimidated and told to “fucking smile” by men since I was 13. I have had to talk through the rapes mentioned above with friend after friend (of course they were all boyfriends/acquaintances/happened while drunk, so no point going to the police. Didn’t stop the PTSD though). I am angry. I am really, really fucking angry. Please explain to me why this is wrong.
EDIT: *deep breath* Okay, I’m good now.
Oh, how sad we are to have missed an opportunity to ally with a man who engages in the very toxic masculinity that feminism is fighting against. However will the movement survive without Chad!?
@WWTH
It’s going to be a struggle, right? But we’ll just have to muddle through somehow.
Oh deary, deary me, without Chad around how will we know if we’re feministing right?
But y’all’ve only been talking about these issues on this site for, what, slightly less than a decade? How dare you reject a hot take from a man who just showed up yesterday! He was a man! With thoughts!
@Jesalin
We might get all angry and then our ladybrains will overheat and we’ll let kids do unacceptable forms of art