One possibly true story about the Talking Heads is that, while working with Brian Eno on their genre-shattering album Remain in Light, the band members, or perhaps Eno, decided they wanted to do a song that sounded like Joy Division. The only problem was that none of them had heard Joy Division before, and apparently (this part of the story makes no sense) couldn’t track down any of their recordings.
So instead of recording a song modeled on Joy Division’s distinctive sound, Eno instead suggested that they do a song based only on the descriptions of the band’s music in the British music press.
The resulting song, “The Overload,” offering a glum coda to an album best remembered for its more exuberant moments, doesn’t really sound anything like Joy Division. But it does sound exactly like a song based on, well, what people were saying at the time about Joy Division.
I think about this story a lot, and I really want it to be true — a reflection of Eno’s genius as a producer who knows that sometimes setting constraints on creativity can force musicians and other artists to ratchet up their own creativity.
It’s also a reminder of what happens when you base your understanding of music, art, whatever, not on direct contact with the art in question but on other people’s vague feelings and ideas about it.
In the case of The Overload, the song stands on its own, in large part because David Byrne and Brian Eno and the rest were able to conjure up something interesting based on the vague adjectives applied to Joy Division in the press; they weren’t trying to represent Joy Division’s actual aesthetic. It was more of a game of telephone.
Why am I going on about this? Well, because every time I stop by the Men’s Rights subreddit, or any site that involves large numbers of ignorant people avidly discussing the alleged evils of feminism, I see something similar going on.
It’s clear from the comments that virtually none of the commenters have ever actually read a book or even a handful of articles about feminism. Unfortunately, they’re getting their information from somewhere even less reliable than the music press; they’re largely just repeating what they’ve heard about feminism from other people as ignorant on the subject as they are. It’s a game of telephone that’s lost almost all touch with reality.
Here are a few comments taken from recent discussions of feminism on the Men’s Rights subreddit — or, rather, discussions of a not-terribly-accurate facsimile of feminism the Men’s Rightsers have made up, basically to make themselves and each other mad. When your movement, such as it is, is driven largely by hate, you gotta remember to keep stoking the hate.
One recent comment:
[F]eminists are the aggressors who started the gender war; and … feminism is not seeking the goal of equality at all.
There are lots more comments just like that one:
Even when they get equality, they’ll still bitch about not having equality. In the end they’ll find something to bitch about, they always do.
One more:
As I get older I realized feminism is a scam. It is a great injustice against men. I don’t even understand how it’s legal. It’s not fair at all.
Apparently feminism is some sort of big lurking monster intend on murdering men, or something.
Or maybe just a cult. A death cult.
I’m done playing nice.
Feminism is a cult of hatred and death and anyone who still claims to be one should be mocked and jeered at
Having been pegged (accurately) as members of a hate movement, some MRAs try to reverse the charges:
What they want is more dominance and privilege at our expense.
Feminism is a fraud and a hate movement and you need to stop giving in to their frame of reference.
Longtime Men’s Rights eccentric DavidByron2 has a delusionary class analysis of feminism:
The 1% support feminism for much the same reason they support Nazism or racism. At some point though these things become too much of a risk to continue to be associated with so they may move on to supporting other ways to divide the working class.
Here’s another popular MRA fantasy: that feminism can be defeated with a sort of reverse-Lysistrata move.
The only way feminism will be defeated is if we truly treat women as equals. What I mean by that is, we treat them like we treat males. So no sex, no marriage and no children. Just pretend they are males.
Once enough of them are childless and in depression, they will begin to wake up. If we keep on allowing them to practice hypergamy, to get the upper-hand for no reason in society AND STILL give them children and commitment, they will not change.
Luckily for us, there are heaps of them in their 30s and 40s that are now alone and due to their biology will never be able to find a proper partner to commit to them unless they aim really low or an exception to the rule is found (she is extremely attractive etc).
This fellow below, while as delusional as the commenters above, has a rosier view of the future:
the current generation of feminists are just pushing for supremacy, and lost their chance. possibly the credibility for the entire movement, that had since then done some remarkable stuff, like voting rights, rights to own property, equal rights in marriage, etc
I’m hoping that once this generation of karens dies, in the next 100 or so years feminism and mra migth do as they’re supposed, and go hand in hand creating equality and fairness for both, instead of competition and political tension where both mock each other and refuse to understand the other side
Nah. That’s all on you guys. You’re the ones that have taken leave from reality.
That does give feminists one advantage in the current ongoing battle with MRAs: We pay attention to what MRAs really say instead of just repeating endless dire nonsense that we and our colleagues have made up about Men’s Rights. In other words, we know what we’re up against. The MRAs have no clue.
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Apparently it was a deliberate decision by Byrne and Eno to avoid hearing anything by Joy Division and just go off written descriptions of the music. Just to see what they came up with.
Joy Division were themselves no strangers to ‘unconventional’ producers though. Their records were produced by Martin Hammett. He’s well worth a google. To give a clue as to what he was like, Andy Serkis played him in a film and said that Hammett was the strangest character he’d ever had to portray. When it was pointed out Serkis had played Gollum, Serkis stated he stood by what he had said.
Re: Hammett
Serkis’ performance…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGA6rmsnDkQ
vs the man himself…
Hmm, the MRA’s take themselves out of the running, leaving the field even more wide open for the Chads and/or men who do want to commit. Plus women who don’t want to procreate face less pressure.
This is a win for the MRA boys how?
At least their object of reference actually exists, even if they refuse to actually learn very much directly about it.
Think of the poor theologists, who can do nothing but theorize or repeat hearsay (some of which has been getting copied and mutated for thousands of years) because the object of their study either doesn’t exist or doesn’t actually intervene in the world, and is thus inaccessible to direct observation …
“I know you are but what am I?” How old are these MRAs? 12?
I am ashamed to admit it, but it is true that I once claimed to be a hatred. Or a death.
Or maybe just an unashamed grammar nazi. At this point, who can tell?
Thanks for the music recommendation.
This sounded great to me for half a second (no cat-calling, forced births, or pedestals? Sign me up!) but then I remembered MRAs also treat men badly. Whether it’s sneering at weakness, namecalling, homophobia, or framing men as violent predators from whom women need protection, they have a dim view of other men, who are either competition, ethnic stereotypes, or punching bags.
I’d rather they treat us like science books and completely ignore us.
Welcome back. You’re just in time for a mass shooting committed by a Nazi MRA
https://twitter.com/chadloder/status/1476004412514463744?s=20
It happened last night, yet I’ve only just heard about it tonight. It’s so fucked up that mass shootings are barely even news anymore.
Fuck fuck fuckity fuck. There are also two police murders of unarmed POC (one Black, one Latinx) in the news. One was run off the road by a police vehicle for cycling while black and the other was, like Breonna Taylor, struck by indiscriminate gunfire by a cop who evidently saw POC as disposable and as random ignorable background noise.
America is looking more and more like “Syria, but with pretensions to having an actually functioning central government” rather than a modern wealthy nation with elections, civil rights, and the rule of law.
“ It’s a game of telephone that’s lost almost all touch with reality.”
That “almost” is absolutelu hilarious!
And sad.
I guess we human animals often tend to couch others’ thoughts in our own terms at least to some extent – but all the really heavy-duty, industrial-scale, weapons-grade million-watt projection generally comes from the right. It’s to light up their epic battles against all those straw-men.
Maybe stop telling me you would love my thoughts, and to please comment, when nothing I have posted has been approved, even though none of it was in any way objectionable?
unrelated but relevant: a recent mass shooting in Denver has been found to have been committed by one Lyndon James McLeod, 47, an alt-right MRA who was, according to some sources, a popular figure in that field, regularly complaining about how women and LGBT are destroying masculinity and America (although it seems evident he also suffered from mental disturbances, likely untreated, in addition to being generally a colossal asshole). He murdered 5 people in a methodical manner, going to multiple sites, and most were “alternative” tattoo shops popular in the local LGBT community. The dead victims were majority AFAB if I’m understanding the news correctly (at least one of the tattoo shops was an LGBT refuge with nonbinary artists). Police shot him dead.
This was particularly chilling because of how near it is to my neck of the woods and I’d been considering one of those tattoo shops for some work I would like to have done.
When are the authorities going to start treating these right-wing MRA idiQts like the terrorist threat they really are?
@Seth S
When the authorities aren’t composed of people who agree with them.
That’s an interesting thought but I’m not sure it’s of much use. I don’t believe the people invested in MRA cultism are interested in “combating” actual feminism. I’m pretty sure those that aren’t half dead in the brain know that they’re creating a facsimile of feminism – and they do it on purpose.
That strategy is as old as feminism itself and it is one that regressive, destructive movements like naziism have successfully applied before. So these people can take advantage of an array of antique stereotypes that have been passed on over generations. That’s the crux of being in the “minority”: ideas about you are older than you are.
Their goal is to shout loud enough and long enough till some of their ideas will take a hold in their society.
Very inclusive “men’s rights” movement you’re building there, by assuming every man is straight.
@rusalka – That makes a lot of sense – it seems they’re either misrepresenting on purpose, or just don’t care.
Good news: Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty of 5 of the 6 charges against her. No sentencing yet, but faces “a maximum of 65 years”. She just turned 60, so even half that is very likely to be a life sentence.
This shooter on Twitter, April 2020:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/sixth-person-dies-after-deadly-denver-killing-spree-police-say
I’m pretty sure a bullet would harm me, so I guess I’m one of the weak.
Translation: “Waaaah! I want to be able to bully people who can’t easily defend themselves but law enforcement and social norms won’t let me. Waaah! Sad … and very unfair! Waah!”
Reading more, there are disturbing parallels to the incident in rural Canada a couple of years back, including the targeting of a list of personal enemies, the misogyny, and escaping from the police once and killing more victims before finally being brought down; both even wounded a female officer.
Irony this time, though: the Denver shooter, who espoused violent male-supremacist views, was killed in a shootout with a female officer.
The Canadian one was a wife abuser and had kidnapped her just prior to his murder spree, likely intending to kill her first; but she escaped. Ten’ll get you one the Denver one also has a history of DV.
@ snowberry
The prosecution will like that acquittal on Count 2. It makes no material difference to sentence; but it makes the chances of a successful appeal so much slimmer.
Where there’s a ‘mixed verdict’ it’s very hard to argue the jury didn’t consider the evidence properly, or were confused about the burden and standard of proof.
So whilst the family will no doubt throw money at every possible appeal avenue, it’s unlikely to get them anywhere. You don’t have an automatic right of appeal; you have to show the judge made an error in law or didn’t give proper directions to the jury.
As it happens, the trial judge has been elevated to the appellate court precisely because of her expertise in the law; so it’s unlikely there’ll be any grounds based on her rulings; and the jury directions were agreed between the parties. The only thing she knocked the defence back on was arguing that Maxwell was a scapegoat for Epstein. But, even if true, the reason for prosecuting is irrelevant so long as there is a case to answer. It only really becomes an issue if you’re acquitted and want to sue for malicious prosecution.
As to sentence, this chap has done a good analysis of the sentencing guidelines.
https://mitchellepner.substack.com/p/ghislaine-maxwell-convicted-of-sex
Well one of those bullets (fired by some weak female offiver no less) killed him, so… pretty weak I’d say
And I feel like this guy went into it thinking he could actually get away with it. Like… kill a bunch of people, drive back to his hut in the woods, drink some beer and no one would bother him.
False premise dude. You’re assuming there aren’t a chunk of women who are perfectly happy without kids, in fact don’t desire to have any.
Also this “mustn’t give them children” is an interesting bit from dudes who by and large insist it’s a woman’s place to “give” a man children, and it’s a problem if she doesn’t. Also also, doesn’t the Nazi faction of MRAs constantly panic that (white) women aren’t birthing enough babies?
A quick analysis of information sourcing:
If a conservative wants to know if it’s raining, they first consult the ancient writings, then consult the religious authority, then consult the secular authority….
If a liberal wants to know if it’s raining, they look outside.