By David Futrelle
Alt-rightish YouTube “philosopher” Stefan Molyneux doesn’t much like fat people or women who don’t have babies when they’re, by his standards, sufficiently young. So I guess it’s not altogether surprising that he’s managed to work both of these bugaboos into a conspiracy theory suggesting that the fat acceptance movement is part of a nefarious plot to lower (white) birthrates in the west.
At least that’s my reading of this recent tweet of his:
Molyneux has not (yet) elaborated on this suggestive tweet, but presumably the, er, “logic” behind it is that
- obesity can lower fertility
- nefarious cultural marxists want to lower the white birth rate because reasons
- fat acceptance leads to more obesity
- therefore the fat acceptance movement is a plot by these nefarious cultural marxists to lower fertility
This “logic” is not actually logic — the conclusion doesn’t follow from the premises, and the premises themselves are dubious as hell. Yes. there is some evidence suggesting that obesity can lower fertility, but the other premises are nonsense. “Cultural Marxism” is an imaginary movement invented by antisemites to make their antisemitism sound more intellectual. And there’s evidence that fat shaming, not fat acceptance, can lead to weight gain.
I looked around online to see if I could find others putting forth similar conspiracy theories about fat acceptance and fertility, but I couldn’t find anyone. So this may be a Stefan Molyneux Original.
Not that people in and around the manosphere aren’t coming up with their own equally crackpotty conspiracy theories about fat acceptance. Andrew Anglin of The Daily Stormer, predictably, thinks that fat acceptance is
part of a propaganda campaign of the Jews … Instead of looking at fatness as a form of sick degeneracy – not to mention a dangerous health hazard – which should be shamed, fat accepters believe that fatties should love their fatness, and force it on everyone else …
[T]his embracing of degeneracy is par for the course. It is part of the whole equality doctrine of the Marxist Jews.
In an old video, Matt Forney — remember him? — railed against fat acceptance as
basically an extremely retarded version of identity politics, [which] is one of the biggest legacies of cultural marxism and one of the the biggest reasons why our society is falling apart at the seams. ..
And yeah, I’m overweight. … yeah, I know I have fucked up. I have not worked as hard as I should have to lose weight. That’s not the issue, that’s not, that’s not the issue here.
Then there’s the gal on Reddit’s PurplePillDebate who thinks that fat acceptance “serves as a way for women to gain power over men … .” And there’s the guy on Reddit’s PurplePillDebate who thinks that the
fat acceptance movement is cultural marxism supersized. This is about using bad science and laziness to justify their disgusting lifestyles and bodies. This movement will have consequences in lifespan and depression.
I also notice how these fat acceptance bullshit is 99 percent about women, cause these fat princesses won’t accept anything lower than a sex god because they start believing their own lies about being beautiful.
Weird how all of those coming up with conspiracy theories about fat acceptance are terrible human beings, if not actual neo-Nazis.
At some point, presumably, all these conspiracy theories will join together into one big messy mega-theory, like a fatphobic Nazi version of Voltron. I can’t wait.
H/T — All the people on Twitter who helped me remember the old cartoon I was thinking of.
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@Paireon
He actually did suggest that men freeze their sperm in their 20s, and not smoke marijuana. He appears to ignore the fact that egg freezing also exists to prolong fertility. Your point stands, though, in that he doesn’t insist men give up on careers to raise children.
I never thought of the far right as eusocial before, but now that you mention it, that seems fairly accurate. Eusociality also involves strict labor distribution, which he’s a fan of.
While it’s fun to speculate about eusocial and common behavior, I would like to remind that we have zero (0) idea of whether eusocial insects have unquestioning groupthink, for a variety of reasons, the main one is that we have no fucking idea of how animal thinks, even one that are very close to humans. If anything, what I remind from ant’s behavior is that they really, really don’t share a groupthink at all.
Plus, all or almost all far right thinkers imply or outright say that their followers will get exemptions because they are special (virtuous, white, aware, whatever). I am pretty sure that Stefan Molyneux sell his ideas as a way to not be a sheep, which at the least is an appeal to privileges and freedom.
@Ohlmann
The irony is that he, and other conspiracy theorists, position everyone else as sheep when it is really their followers who become unquestioning sheep. The projection is strong.
Do these fat-shamers somehow think that what they’re doing is new? Because I think I can save them some trouble! Guys, if someone is fat, they’ve already experienced plenty of shaming. They’re fully aware that many people, including people whose opinions matter to them, think they’re an uggo who will die prematurely. Since they’re still fat, they’ve either rejected this, or are unable/unwilling to change. So you might as well stand down, because your message won’t save western civilisation.
@Moggie
And frankly, if “saving Western Civilization” means making and maintaining the world the way they want it (i.e. an authoritarian theocracy and/or dictatorship that kills everyone who isn’t white and subjugates women), then I’d rather not “save” it.
Man, I really wish that theory that our weight is influenced by the configuration of our gut fauna plays out, just to see the expression on all these fat shamers’/ “ItS jUsT a MaTtEr Of WiLlPoWeR” gym-bros’ faces on that day. Right before I and every other chonk on the planet grabs a syringe, loads it with our pie-craving passengers and comes for them… ?
@Moggie – it’s not about saving western civilization – it’s about having fun by causing pain in others.
@Cat Mara : eh, it’s just a question of having more willpower than what almost humans are able to muster, and without the strong motivation the few that were able to do that had*. Easy !
* I refer to people starving themselves to death or near as a form of protest and the like.
That being said, science is also closing toward that gut fauna is an entire part of someone, including personality. Which mean very real ethical issue with any gut flora manipulation in my opinion. I don’t take bets about how likely it is that scientists will forget that part and make horribly unethical experimentation on gut fauna, probably on women and/or person of colors, before ethic watchdogs catch on.
@Rahu – Actually, they think one of the core facets of Western Civilization is precisely the ability to hurt others for fun and profit. So of course they want to save it – or their idea of it, anyway. Otherwise they couldn’t indulge in their hobby as freely.
As a fat woman, it’s helped me not want to kill myself and motivates me to get out and do things like walk and ride my bike, which are both forms of exercise. The feeling of shame that am to disgusting to even leave my bed or apartment, makes me curl up in bed and cry which is shit exercise. my stepdad tried to motivate me this way, it made it worse. I don’t think I’m some goddess and have very low standards in terms of the physical appearance of my lovers. I just want to be able to not be so miserable, that I give up. I don’t get whole ‘fat acceptance is evil’ cuz without it, I’d have given up and gotten bigger.
Can you at least allow that? That it gives some of us the feeling we are human enough to exist and try and take care of ourselves?
@numerobis
I see what you did there … 🙂
Personally I think I have some overwhelming proof that there is a conspiracy to destroy white fertility, and Stefan Molyneux and the guys like him are the ones behind it!
Just think about it
A) They constantly tell young white guys that women are terrible and to have ridiculous standards for women they date, which will keep white guys from seeking possible relationships that could lead to white babies.
B) They want guns everywhere, and nothing hurts your fertility like a bullet to the head.
C)They oppose helping the poor, meaning less white people with enough money to start a family.
D) And the teach white men to be complete assholes all the time, driving away women since who wants to date someone who might believe that fat acceptance is a jew plot?
I think that makes a lot more sense then the conspiracies alt-righters are spewing.
Oh look, Stefan Molyneux is yelling again. Something about fat women this time. Same, same.
I’m currently reading Johann Hari’s book about depression (Title is something like “Lost Connections”). He mentions a study that reported as many as 40% of obese women had a history of being sexually abused, which is much higher than the rest of the population. Anecdotally, some of these women claimed to have put on the weight (at least subconsciously) as a layer of protection, thinking men would be less likely to notice them with the extra padding. So perhaps Stefan should actually be railing against the effects of sexual violence on white western birth rates.
Anecdotally, as in I’m a fat woman and also know some more fat women, there is also the fact that abuse suffered by fat women is minimized and/or not taken seriously in this culture. “You should be grateful for the attention.” or “Nobody would want to harass the likes of you.” and so forth.
Stop looking for a “world view” from the igno-right. These people have no world view, they have an innumerable bunch of isolated (mostly) hates, all mushed together. It’s like they took one piece out of each of a million jigsaw puzzles, threw them all in one box and tried to put it together.
Translation: “Women I believe to be beneath me won’t sleep with me, and this must be society’s fault.”
@Weird Eddie:
FTFY. They don’t usually even try to put it together. They just have a bag of jumbled pieces. And when, on infrequent occasions, they do try to put it together the result is, predictably, a giant mess like we see now with QAnon.
OK, what the hell is going on here? I tried to edit the above to fix it over and over again but the edit wouldn’t “take”! Every time, afterward when I hit reload the changes reverted. Why does the edit feature no longer work? More to the point, why does it still appear to exist and “go through the motions” if it’s not going to actually do anything?
Now this is even more bizarre. Posting the above comment seems to have caused the one above it to change back to the edited version somehow — after the timer had run out and it should have been carved in stone still as the broken version.
What. The hell. Is going on???
Sometimes the comment that you edit doesn’t update until after the timer runs out.
Really? Why?
No idea, I’m afraid. It’s probably just another bug that crops up sometimes.
I know engaging with these people directly is useless because they’re too far gone to be honest or even coherent, but if we just assume that obesity might be caused by other things than people accepting obesity (which seems pretty obviously true given that accepting a problem logically requires the existence of that problem), fat acceptance may increase fertility by making it so more people have sex. Obviously, if someone is viewed as ugly, they’re less likely to procreate.
An Autistic Giraffe nails the broader problems, of course. If these guys really cared about fertility, they’d actually embrace the policies that make it easier. They don’t.
Yes, they don’t feel the need to have a worldview who is internally consistent.
While strictly speaking that’s not news, I have the feeling it have been took to new heights by thoses bozos. The worldviews of a XIIth century peasant probably wasn’t entirely consistent, but it was rough around the edge, not between each belief.