Robert Stacy McCain on atrocious feminist writing:
Her paucity of ideas and her unwillingness to do actual research led Mary Daly to the crucial insight that consumers of radical feminist books didn’t really care about facts or logic or coherent argument. No, the feminist readership consists of disgruntled misfits who want someone to give voice to their inchoate rage. My theory, then, is that Daly discovered she could spend a few hours a week sitting in front of a word-processor, probably with a supply of whiskey and ice near at hand, typing any kind of stream-of-consciousness nonsense that popped into her head. So long as her rants were aimed at the phallocratic patriarchy, and invoked the celebration of radical liberated womanhood, the incoherent nature of Daly’s prose was actually a feature, not a bug. No one could refute her “arguments,” because no one could make sense of them.
Peter Risdon notes the modesty of a certain Marxoid titan:
It’s as though each narcissistic personality disorder has its own unique signature.
And Theodore Dalrymple on assault, sentimentality and moral cowardice:
I was alarmed but not altogether surprised to read that Marie… did not want [her assailant] to be locked up but rather that they should receive a punishment “so that they understand.” Understand what, precisely? That hitting a defenceless woman in the face ten times with a knuckleduster isn’t a nice thing to do? But they understood this already, only too well: It was precisely their understanding that impelled them to do it… Presumably Marie had in mind something such as psychoanalysis, perhaps mixed with a little compulsory social work or planting flowers in municipal flowerbeds. This is like trying to talk reason to Pol Pot at the apogee of his power, to get him to stand down by persuading him that what he was doing was wrong.
If Miss A suddenly finds herself being beaten by Thug B – repeatedly, ostentatiously, with premeditation and knuckledusters – and then insists her assailant should face only the most mild and inconsequential punishment, this looks an awful lot like moral preening. “See how lenient and saintly I am.” The next victim of thug B – and there usually is a next victim – may not appreciate this display of moral (self-)elevation.
As usual, feel free to share your own links and snippets in the comments.
The next victim of thug B – and there usually is a next victim – may not appreciate this display of moral (self-)elevation.
She’s showing she’s a good person by putting other people at risk.
She’s showing she’s a good person by putting other people at risk.
Quite. It seems to me that, as a virtue, leniency is hugely overrated. Especially vicarious leniency. See, for instance, this, again by Dalrymple.
Aboriginal physics.
http://www.samizdata.net/2014/03/not-just-physics-indigenous-australian-physics/
Another professor wants to create categories of thoughtcrime
From the comments at Reason, where I first saw the story:
More thoughtcrime:
Nigel Farage’s party has been outlawed because “students had a right to feel safe while studying on campus”, the governing body said. The union, which represents 21,000 students, acted after receiving a handful of complaints about the party’s policies on immigration.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/465257/UKIP-banned-from-speaking-at-student-s-union-because-of-extremist-views
… the incoherent nature of Daly’s prose was actually a feature, not a bug. No one could refute her “arguments,” because no one could make sense of them.
Which is a common feature of much leftist literature I have observed.
“You can’t argue with that” takes on a whole new meaning.
“It seems to me that, as a virtue, leniency is hugely overrated.”
Indeed. If more thugs were executed (or killed out of hand by their victims and bystanders) the world would be a better and safer place. Except for those who embrace or excuse evil.
“Nigel Farage’s party has been outlawed because ‘students had a right to feel safe while studying on campus’…”
Curious, that. Islamists who advocate for theocratic fascism are welcome, but those who denounce it are a “danger”. Why, it’s almost as if the European Left were engaged in a program to destroy their own societies.
Peter Risdon notes the modesty of a certain Marxoid titan
Words fail me.
No, wait. Basket case.
No, wait. Basket case.
Ah, but Mr Seymour – a Guardian regular – sees his writing as an alternative to the “inconsequential shit” that people otherwise read. He’s “challenging middlebrow sensibilities” with his “unapologetic intellectual swagger.” And some swearing.
Because that’s just how he rolls.
Old people waving union jacks are very dangerous. Young adult students must be protected from them.
Any position other than supporting unlimited, open door immigration is now de facto ‘extremist’.
I think you’re ignoring the key thing about Richard Seymour.
His name is “Seymour, Dick” which sounds like someone Bart asks to speak to when calling Moe’s .
No, wait. Basket case.
Yes, Seymour’s prose is laughably adolescent and practically screams “I have quite serious mental health issues.” But it matches his politics all too well. Being so much smarter than the rest of us, Mr Seymour should therefore be in charge of our lives. We are mere furniture in his Marxoid psychodrama.
I scarcely need to point out how common this phenomenon is.
The next victim of thug B – and there usually is a next victim – may not appreciate this display of moral (self-)elevation.
Behavior that is rewarded, will be repeated…
“Behavior that is rewarded, will be repeated…”
That applies not just to the thug but to the leftist intellectual:
These preening poseurs, with their mighty brains, rarely themselves suffer the consequences of their evil ideas.
Sweet Jebus who almost fought the Chicken of Bristol, I clicked on the RS McCain link, and it was the next worst thing to summoning the Elder Gods. Eyebleach warning next time, David, please. It takes a lifetime of gnashing one’s teeth daily to get that expression; I’ll bet she made sure to do so after every meal.
I know it’s unfair to comment on someone’s looks, but she’d better stick to feminism, because femininity is an opium dream, bless her heart.
If you’re trying to be compassionate to Thug B, you might keep in mind that it’s not in Thug B’s best interest to get away with bad behavior, that getting yanked back hard might be the only thing strong enough to get Thug B to reconsider his bad choices.
Assuming, of course, that Thug B’s best interest is what’s actually being considered.
she’d better stick to feminism
Does mouldering in the grave count as feminism? A return to Mother Earth, etc.?
These preening poseurs… rarely themselves suffer the consequences of their evil ideas.
And even if there’s personal blowback, it’s remarkable how reality can still be held at bay. Remember this comedic encounter?
Oh. My.
Mary Daly:
Given these conditions of Stag-Nation, Elemental Shrews and Furies urgently experience the need for Re-Naming/Re-Claiming our stolen Flames, undoing the promethean theft of Fire, retrieving our ravaged desire.
The would-be preventers of this retrieval of gynergy, the ghosts/ghouls that want our movement dead, are snools. The noun snool (Scottish) means “a cringing person”. It means also “a tame, abject, or mean-spirited person” (OED). In sadosociety, snools rule, and snools are the rule. . . . Snools are sadism and masochism combined, the stereotypic saints and heroes of the sadostate. . . .
Snools appear and re-appear in various forms. . . . Among the henchmen required for the smooth operation of fixocracy are . . .
Lewis Carrol:
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, and the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun the frumious Bandersnatch!”
He took his vorpal sword in hand: Long time the manxome foe he sought —
So rested he by the Tumtum tree, and stood awhile in thought. . . .
Mark Twain:
I don’t reckon them times will ever come again. There never was a more bullier old ram than what he was. Grandfather fetched him from Illinois–got him of a man by the name of Yates–Bill Yates–maybe you might have heard of him; his father was a deacon–Baptist–and he was a rustler, too; a man had to get up ruther early to get the start of old Thankful Yates; it was him that put the Greens up to jining teams with my grandfather when he moved west. Seth Green was prob’ly the pick of the flock; he married a Wilkerson–Sarah Wilkerson–good cretur, she was–one of the likeliest heifers that was ever raised in old Stoddard, everybody said that knowed her. She could heft a bar’l of flour as easy as I can flirt a flapjack. And spin? Don’t mention it! Independent? Humph! When Sile Hawkins come a browsing around her, . . . .
Parody or in earnest? “5 Things Women Need to Do in Their Lives (Or the Suffragettes Died for Nothing)”
Definitely parody. Being hyper-critical, the author should have reined it in a little to make it more ambiguous.
Parody or in earnest?
Parody, or so it seems.
Actually, given the general difficulty involved in distinguishing the genuine articles from their satirical imitators I wonder if it wouldn’t just be easier to start calling these parodies ‘counterfeits’ or ‘forgeries’?
“…shun the frumious Bandersnatch!”
Well, yeah…
Also, False Alarm.
Re the Dalrymple article, the youth with the knuckledusters was apparently sentenced to a year in prison, and his ‘sponsor’ was given a year’s probation. From what I can make out, the victim still views her reluctance to punish as exemplary and wants her experience to inspire “debate” and “understanding,” as she defines it. Though that kind of “understanding” – i.e., a selfish reluctance to punish premeditated thuggery – seems likely to encourage more assaults, and worse assaults, not peace and harmony.
‘Marie’ makes it clear that she sees herself as a missionary, so if she were in fact to repudiate her own deeply held values then this would be yet another humiliating injury inflicted on her by these two vicious, evil little c***s. Understandably, she’s reluctant to do so, however hollow her claims now sound as a result.
For if ‘Marie’ were to revise her view of the world, then the scum would not only have succeeded in destroying her face physically – 15 stitches is a lot and likely to leave their mark on her for life* – but they will also have succeeded in violating her inner sense of morality, in stripping her ethical understanding of all meaning.
While in a wider sense I agree that ‘Marie’ is ultimately mistaken, I think her position is at least understandable – the mind can only cope with so much reality and seeing as she clearly started out as a strong idealist she has probably had much further to fall and much more to cope with as a result of her experience than most others might.
As Dalrymple notes sentimentalists who confuse law with therapy, believ[e] that firmness and cruelty are the same.
A year is an absolutely risible sentence for what happened. The attack on her face is worth at the very least three years in my opinion, but the fact that it was premeditated? the fact that this sociopath was guided into the school by another’s mobile phone? That is an act of terror, pure and simple, and for that the f*****g scumbag deserves another five to ten years – f**k him if he’s 16 – that’s his f*****g problem.
*As a petite, waif-like blonde, if the scarring remains visible on her face then her encounters with scum like that have likely only just begun: every wife-beating motherf****r on the Paris Metro will start doing a double-take on her, seeing her scarring as evidence that she can be dominated and abused; the scarring – if visible – will be like ‘victimhood’ written on a neon sign.
I take absolutely no pleasure whatsovever in saying that, and I hope very much I’m wrong. I rather fear, though, that I’m likely to be right.
seeing her scarring as evidence that she can be dominated and abused; the scarring – if visible – will be like ‘victimhood’ written on a neon sign.
And to the extent that much of our judiciary favours similar sentiment and unwarranted leniency, it serves a similar purpose. A neon sign for society at large.
‘Islamists who advocate for theocratic fascism are welcome’.
I would refer you to the reaction to Universities UK’s ‘guidance’ on extremist preachers (including authorising gender segregation) to disprove that simplistic assertion. The fight against it was led by British academics and students.
‘The book is an instance of what it seems to recommend — new perceptions and judgments, expressed in a new language. It seems indeed, to be its author’s self-portrait. . . .
But the operative word is seems. For after a careful reading of more than 400 pages of Joycean word-play, this reviewer remains unsure of several of its main points. Words which have several different meanings are used in all of their meanings at once, often with intricate efforts to link all of the meanings of a word to the agenda of radical feminism. As often as not, entirely new meanings are assigned to words and new words are coined’.
This is a polite way of saying that Daly writes jibberish. I long for the days of clarity in academic reviews.
It seems to me that, as a virtue, leniency is hugely overrated.
Call me old fashioned but I don’t care about the prospects and well being of criminal thugs.
Call me old fashioned but I don’t care about the prospects and well-being of criminal thugs.
Well, surveys on the subject tend to show the general public as being much less tolerant of thieves, burglars and violent criminals than the judiciary (and much of the metropolitan commentariat). The public tends to be less interested in criminals’ welfare and speculative rehabilitation than in their removal for as long as possible. Three strikes, etc. And if you think of newsworthy judicial decisions that seem grossly disproportionate, which way do those mismatches tend to go? Overly harsh sentences are noteworthy because they’re quite rare. Overly lenient sentences seem much more commonplace. Indeed, they’re a weekly staple of tabloid newspapers.
And one has to bear in mind that a large percentage of the predatory crime in any given year is committed by a relatively small number of people, many of whom violate the law-abiding dozens of times a year. An obvious illustration being the London riots of 2011, in which the looters, vandals and general vermin (described as “protestors” by the Guardian and BBC) were found to be mostly known thugs and career criminals – 75% having previous convictions for an average of fifteen crimes, some more than fifty.
It took a swell of public outrage at previous judicial leniency to ensure that these criminals – and their victims – were treated with something approaching seriousness. This, in turn, led to much weeping and howling in the pages of the Guardian, with article after article denouncing the “severity” of sentencing and telling us how “disadvantaged” the arsonists and muggers were. Apparently on the assumption that one should minimise distinctions between the law-abiding and those who prey on them.
“Remember this comedic encounter?”
Yes, David. A classic of lunacy. In fact, I commented on it re the left’s persistent efforts to cover up Gypsy criminality. It raises uncomfortable questions, such as “what percent of Gypsies are habitual criminals or are supportive of criminality?” and “how should this affect immigration policies?”
“Call me old fashioned but I don’t care about the prospects and well being of criminal thugs.”
I’ll go along with that: I do not weep when thugs are shot dead. I only weep for their victims.
“It took a swell of public outrage at previous judicial leniency to ensure that these criminals – and their victims – were treated with something approaching seriousness.”
A modest suggestion: Require that the judges, police officials, and elected idiots live in the worst, most dangerous neighborhoods. And without any guards to protect them. And mandate that if they call the police to report a crime, the police response time must be slower than when ordinary citizens call.
“An obvious illustration being the London riots of 2011…”
Would those be the riots that leftist Cory Doctorow defended and misrepresented?
I long for the days of clarity in academic reviews.
Were academic journal submissions to be rejected for lack of rigor, 95% of the journals would have to shut down for lack of material.
“surveys on the subject tend to show the general public as being much less tolerant of thieves, burglars and violent criminals than the judiciary” wrote David.
This vaguely reminds me of a TV show (Channel 4? Help me out here folks) where ordinary members of the public on a panel had to judge the relative merits of immigration cases. I think the TV producers imagined that ordinary people were like them and were willing to wrestle with the seemingly complex moral and humanitarian issues and, probably, think everyone had a case to come here. The outcome as far as I car recall, which is dodgy at best, was that the public panel simply didn’t want to let any of them in.
Oops.
On the religion that is Progressivism. Glad somebody finally said it.
Write a comprehensive definition of “religion” – Wikipedia’s will do nicely. Now rewrite it and substitute “Progressivism”.
They’ll read identically.
Moralist Collectivism. History repeats.
Mary Daly’s final solution:
“If life is to survive on this planet there must be a decontamination of the Earth. I think this will be accompanied by an evolutionary process that will result in a drastic reduction of the population of males.”
So, just like so many members of the Phallocracy she fantasizes about harem-like future. (I imagine she might diverge from the Phallocracy’s consensus on I Dream of Jeannie outfits.)
Feminist professor takes a sign showing an aborted fetus away from a protestor and destroys it. from the police report (2 page pdf). Deploying feminist buzzwords didn’t seem to convince the cop.
“She felt ‘triggered’ … Miller-Young stated ‘I’m stronger so I was able to take the poster.’ … Once in her office, a ‘safe space’ …had destroyed it. I asked Miller-Young if she felt anything wrong had happened this afternoon. …Miller-Young went on to say that she was not sure what an acceptable and legal response to hate speech would be. … I told Miller-Young that I was worried about the example she had set for her undergraduate students. Miller-Young said that her students “were wanting her to take” the sign away. … Miller-Young said that her actions today were in defense of her students and her own safety”
Self defense? “gasp, a sign expressing a view I don’t agree with! Aiiiiiiiiiiii, it’s coming right at us! Quick, stop it before it kills us all!”
Col. M: I wonder if Mary Daly could have been persuaded by the employment of some fairly simple algebra that the only evolutionarily stable sex ratio in a mammalian species like ours is 50/50, so that even if by some means the sex ratio were to be moved strongly away from that point it would reassert itself in the next generation, and therefore the only way its maintenance could be assured would be large-scale male infanticide? And further, if she could have been persuaded of that fact, would she have resiled from her position?
Apparently on the assumption that one should minimise distinctions between the law-abiding and those who prey on them.
But it’s egalitarian!
On the loveliness that is Amanda Marcotte.
David,
I think it’s probably for the best that she doesn’t breed.
Nice link David, my my favourite comment was this:
>I don’t particularly like babies. They are loud and smelly and, above all other things, demanding. < says soulless cretin. how much of an asshole do you have to be state this publicly? Good times, when do you think the world will finally split along ideological lines? It would be better version of East and west Germany although I doubt the left would realise its their decisions that lead them to their inevitable shithole, they would probably just create conspiracy theories about how the right took their resources, pollutes their air or summon demons or some tripe
I don’t particularly like feminists. They are loud and smelly and, above all other things, demanding.
I don’t particularly like the occupy movement. They are loud and smelly and, above all other things, demanding.
I don’t particularly like hippies. They are loud and smelly and, above all other things, demanding.
Works for me.
I can’t quite get Marcotte – her contribution to the world is to enthusiastically affirm the virtues of well .. killing foetuses because they might interfere with her lifestyle.
There are the usual array of intellectually dishonest pro-abortion arguments to be found under the line: the latest (I hadn’t seen this one before) is that anyone who opposes abortion is “using a woman’s body as an incubator”.
I know that confronting these people with critical thinking is a waste of time, but it’s a thing to behold: they’ve extended a woman’s (no men here) “rights” to include anything she wants (eg: medical care to assist in a termination and protect a woman from any consequent dangers) and then angrily accuse anyone who doesn’t automatically want to provide for those wants of “using women’s bodies”
I mean … just … what’s going on in their heads that enables them to say this stuff?
David:
“And if you think of newsworthy judicial decisions that seem grossly disproportionate, which way do those mismatches tend to go? Overly harsh sentences are noteworthy because they’re quite rare. Overly lenient sentences seem much more commonplace. Indeed, they’re a weekly staple of tabloid newspapers.”
That might have something to do with this sort of thing:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100263531/heres-why-the-courts-tend-to-lean-left/
I can’t quite get Marcotte – her contribution to the world is to enthusiastically affirm the virtues of well… killing foetuses because they might interfere with her lifestyle.
Like so many of her admirers, Ms Marcotte does seem to favour that particular motif. And as we’ve seen, she delights in a kind of competitive callousness. Which seems not so much liberated as needy. And which makes me wonder if dear sweet Amanda, a woman approaching forty, is stuck at the “must-outrage-my-parents” stage of adolescence.