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By David Futrelle
It’s been clear for some time that YouTube philosopher-thing Stefan Molyneux is a huge racist. But until recently, he’s tried to be a little bit coy about it.
No more. Last week, he announced he was open to white nationalism. This week, on Twitter, he made his white supremacy all but official.
On Monday, he offered this weird paean to his caveman ancestors, portraying them as prehistoric heroes cast out of Africa by its resident caveman meanies:
My ancestors were driven out of Africa and struggled to survive winter and hunger.
Over thousands of years, they became smarter and wiser through suffering.
They made the modern world.
Now the Africans say we are “privileged” & thieves.
No – suffering made us.
No more guilt.
— Stefan Molyneux, MA (@StefanMolyneux) December 3, 2018
Yesterday, he demanded that people of all races express their gratitude to white dudes:
From 800 BC to 1950 AD, 97% of the world’s scientific advancements occurred in Europe and North America.
98% of the significant figures were male.
No white males, no modern world.
Fact.
I’m grateful.
Are you?
End the hate.
Aspire to admire, whatever the race.
— Stefan Molyneux, MA (@StefanMolyneux) December 5, 2018
Like a lot of white supremacists, Molyneux still insists he’s not a white supremacist, noting that when he talks about race and intelligence tests he acknowledges that “whites score lower than East Asians.” But his denials are a bit hard to square with his insistence that white guys are basically responsible for everything good in the world.
I think it’s kind of a big deal that one of the biggest icons of the Men’s Rights movement is now openly spouting white supremacist talking points.
Wait, some might say, Molyneux isn’t really an MRA, is he?
No, Molyneux doesn’t identify primarily as an MRA — he’s usually described as a “libertarian philosopher” or something like that. But he adopted the label back in 2014, explicitly declaring himself an MRA during a very well-received speech at a conference organized by Men’s Rights hate group A Voice for Men — and since then has been warmly embraced by the movement. The admiration is mutual.
He’s made numerous videos with people who are big in the small world of Men’s Rights activism, among them AVFM head boy Paul Elam, documentary director Cassie Jaye, “Honey Badger” Karen Straughan, and “Myth of Male Power” author Warren Farrell, the ideological grandfather of the Men’s Rights movement and someone Molyneux calls a “good friend.”
Molyneux’s videos and internet radio shows have been featured dozens of times on A Voice for Men, where a regular contributor once gushed that “[m]y respect for Stefan Molyneux knows very few bounds. … He is incredibly smart.” He’s been linked to even more often on the Men’s Rights subreddit, currently the biggest and most active MRA forum online.
Bigots rarely stick to only one kind of bigotry, and so it’s hardly a shock to see the viciously misogynistic Molyneux — who’s been railing angrily about alleged “female evil” for at least five years now (and shows no sign of stopping) — fully embracing his worst racist instincts.
Molyneux is hardly the first Men’s Rights activist to do so: “Crying Nazi” Christopher Cantwell was an A Voice for Men contributor before he became a violent white supremacist.
Most MRAs have never had a problem with Molyneux’s extreme misogyny. It remains to be seen if any prominent MRAs step up to criticize his ever-more-open white supremacy. So far I haven’t heard a peep.
The second sentence is absolutely right, the first, not so much. I’m an atheist, but I tire of the common and fallacious claim that the Church was always a drag on scientific and technological advance. Sometimes it was, sometimes it energetically promoted them, sometimes neither. It was during the period 1000-1500 CE, when the power of the Church was at its height, that western Europe went from being a backwater to being at least as advanced in these areas as anywhere else (well, possibly China still had an edge, but Europe was advancing much faster). As for the Incas and Mayans, well the Mayans had a neat calendar, but neither had metal tools*, wheeled transport, ocean-going ships, printing, ploughs, gunpowder, the compass, clear glass, and a host of other things widespread throughout the “Old World” when Europeans arrived in the Americas.
*The Mayans and Aztecs used obsidian (I don’t know about the Incas) for knives and swords, but there’s a limit to how it can be shaped.
Whoa, I wish I had time to discuss on these points with you all! Not until early Friday, mammoth time.
Also, laughing at “philosopher thing”.
“Aspire to admire, whatever the race.”
When I catch you admiring something other than your own reflection, sir, maybe we can talk. Until then — until you give me a boost up to your altitude, IOW — I guess I’m stuck at my own low level where I’ll have to converse with persons of my own type and grade. Such a pity. Ciao.
“From 800 BC to 1950 AD, 97% of the world’s scientific advancements occurred in Europe and North America.
98% of the significant figures were male.”
Even presuming any of this this gibberish was true – has to ask how does this apply to Stefan? Really why would this make him better than anybody else? this makes as much sense as presuming one was superior because the baseball team you root for just won the World Series.
And oh yes – during that time period – 1) the concept of Zero and Arabic numbers – the name kind of gives the game away. 2) Algebra which is is an Arabic term.
@Professor Fate
Not quite. It was popularized in the middle east and moved from there into the backwaters of europe courtesy of various arabic people, but they probably got it from some persians who got it from some hindus who came up with the numerals and the idea of a positional numbering system along with stuff like zero.
@KG
It bears remembering that the whole notion of higher education in big chunks of europe for quite a span of time was intricately associated with the church; that’s where the first universities came from, and you’d be hard pressed to find many medieval or early modern philosophers or scientists who weren’t christian monks, friars or clergy of some kind, or their islamic counterparts. The enlightenment didn’t happen in a vacuum, after all…
I forgot clockwork in my comment above. Probably the most important medieval invention, and developed in, by and for monasteries.
Not a specialist in this field, but I am pretty sure that there is no evidence that the ancestors of ALL those who left Africa via the East (so that is all Asians, Europeans, Arabs, Pacific peoples etc etc) over 80,000 years ago were ‘driven out’, and ALL humans have struggled to survive harsh conditions.
The route east via what is now north east Africa – Suez region – is thought to have had such a shallow and narrow water channel at that time that crossing it would not have been particularly challenging – nothing like the crossing that people around what is now Indonesia and Papua New Guinea had to get to Australia around 60.000 years ago, for example.
Considering the vast contributions the (Muslim) Arabs and northern Africans made to science during a time when Europe was in what’s quaintly known as the Dark Ages, I highly doubt that white men are even half the scientists Stefan Foodprocessor and our Unabomber admirer have painted them as being.
Not to mention that one of the world’s oldest still-operating universities — quite possibly THE oldest — was founded by a Muslim woman in Morocco during said embarrassing period of white European downfall.
@KG
Just want to point out that while the conquistadores made fun of the Incas for not having invented the wheel, they soon found out that wheels weren’t actually very practical in the Andes.
Aside from that, yes. I assume you’re familiar with https://historyforatheists.com/, which is wonderful for its atheist puncturings of New Atheist untrue talking points, as well as its relentless mockery of Richard Carrier.
While we’re on the subject of people being held back by a lack of education-
As I understand it, Isaac Newton was the son of an illiterate sheep farmer. Well-to-do, but illiterate. He was the first generation of English children to go to a village school (rich boys had tutors). Once there, people noticed he was exceptionally bright, so his uncle paid for him to go to high school in the nearby town, where again, he did really well in his studies. And he got to Cambridge university by working as a servant to richer students.
If he’d been born even 30 years earlier, he’d probably have stayed illiterate.
If he’d been born female, he’d probably have stayed illiterate.
If he’d been born elsewhere in Europe, he’d probably have stayed illiterate. The UKwasn’t egilitarian by modern standards, but i believe it was somewhat more egilitarian than most other countries at the time.
So how much potential genius was wasted for lack of an education? My guess is a vast amount. And it’s still happening.
@Sheila Crosby
Michael Faraday is another interesting example. Received almost no education, but working as an apprentice bookbinder largely taught himself chemistry and physics. Unfortunately he had limited mathematics and couldn’t always prove his theories. He was still one of the great scientists despite his lack of education, but he could have been even more.
@ rabid rabbit
Incas knew all about wheels, as did the other Mesoamerican cultures; but like you say, wheels aren’t that practical for transport in that sort of lanscape.
@Alan
I stand shamefacedly corrected, though I suppose I could try to spin it as “Yeah, but I said it was the Spanish who were the ones making the mistake.”
@Catalpa
Yes, when women devote themselves to meaningless pursuits they’re wasting valuable time and resources and falling behind in the race for dominance by their own fault.
When men devote themselves to meaningless pursuits it’s proof of their superior drive and passion and power.
There’s a word for that. Would score a lot of points in scrabble.
One point about the history from 800 BC- 1950 for about 2/3 of the time at last (roughly) our knowledge is not that great.
In most cases we do not know that much about inovations and contribution exept from very famous people.
What we do know from today:
1. In Science today we have many people working together, to give credit only to one person is often very misleading.
2. Often men tend to take credit for stuff done by women, or stuff done by men is seen as more important than stuff done by women.
So our view from history is biased and not acurate, since our society is a western one, we are often taught thinks from a western perspective and often from a point of view of our homecountry.
I learned for example more about the german midleages than about the history of the USA in school, African or Asiahistory played almost no role (not counting Palestina or Egypt early history) if not conected to European History.
@Who?
Very true, not to mention the uncountable pieces of evidence of colonial europeans destroying artifacts and historical documents because it’s existence was a defilement of the christian white man’s view of how reality should be. This hit poc’s queer history especially hard.
@Katamount: For his next edition of “Worst Jobs In History”, Tony Robinson should spend a day with the Cleveland Browns coaching staff.
Denial is baked deep into the essence of being a white supremacists ever since the NSDAP attached “Worker’s” and “Socialist” to their name.
Our boy does know that gunpowder, movable type, and the fucking rudder for ships are all imported from China?* Not to mention blast furnaces, compasses, hydraulics, and clockwork? That early colonial Yanks learned about the smallpox vaccine from an African man? I think he doesn’t.
*The rudder may not have been invented there, but that’s where white people learned about it
I have to admit something embarrassing: for a moment, when reading this article, I thought it was referring to game developer Peter Molyneux and got very confused.
…Then again, there were those crunchy chicks…..
Rabid Rabbit, Alan Robertshaw,
A bit of a side-issue, but I’m not that convinced by the “Wheels wouldn’t have been useful in the Andes” argument. The Inca were considerable road-builders. Possibly the lack of useful draft animals discouraged the development of wheeled transport, although of course people can transport a lot more pulling or pushing a wheeled cart than on their backs. Anyhow, the main point stands: it just ain’t so that any society in pre-Columbian America was anywhere near as technologically advanced as many “Old World” cultures at the time of the European invasion. Which doesn’t, of course, reflect on the innate intelligence of the peoples of those cultures.