Yesterday on Manboobz, a new commenter was called out for dismissing MRAs as "crazy." Her feelings got hurt, and she flounced off the board, which was a shame, because it could have been a great learning moment for her. It certainly was for me.
For one reason, it reminded me of how pejorative the word "crazy" is, and I should know. I recently "unfriended" an acquaintance who had commented on Facebook (and I paraphrase here) that I needed to get my head examined before I lost my medical insurance. Yeah, it hurt my feelings. And also, was that ever a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
Suffice to say, I am hardly a paragon of mental health myself. I struggle with chronic depression and anxiety, and sometimes my girlfriend warns me that I am "going off the deep end." I have more than a touch of OCD, and have been medicated for panic attacks on occasion. Overall, however, given the genetic hand I was dealt, the circumstances I grew up in, and some of the god-awful choices I have made, I have managed pretty well so far. But I digress...
My point here is that I know firsthand that to disparage people who suffer from mental disorders is cruel and unfair. I know that the vast majority of people with psychiatric diagnoses do not commit crimes and do not intentionally hurt other people. I know that psychiatry cannot fully address the nature of "evil," nor is psychiatric treatment in itself a solution.
The kerfuffle at Manbooz yesterday, as well as a brief exchange with Zosimus the Heathen (see comments), also made me reflect on how the language we use not only expresses, but shapes, our thoughts. It was one of my favorite discussion topics in graduate school. Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, anyone?
Spiritually, I would have to describe myself as a skeptic. While I enjoy attending church, and often derive sustenance from it, I am not a Believer. I sometimes envy others their faith even as I soundly reject their attempts to instill it in me. I don't have a personal conflict with this. When it comes to religion, I have zero interest in converting anyone else to my point of view. Indeed, I deeply love and respect a number of people (including My Most Beloved) who happen to find comfort and guidance in what I personally consider a lot of hooey.
However, my lack of belief in supernatural causality does run me aground when it comes to the concept of "evil." I have found myself labeling much of what I read in the manosphere as "evil." And I think I need to look at this habit, which is a kind of intellectual "shortcut," a lot more carefully. What do I mean when I call Roosh or JudgyBitch or Paul Elam "evil" people?
James Knoll, a psychiatrist, recently posted in Medscape:
What most of us label as evil is, in the final analysis, extreme selfishness. When we lack a clear understanding of
something that frightens us, we call it "evil," which temporarily allays
our anxiety. Our nerves settled, we believe we have become clear about
the nature of the problem, and then we may go about defending ourselves
against the "other" we have just created. But this defensive posture may
all too easily transition into a preemptive strike -- the result of
projecting onto the "other" the aspects of our own psyches that we hate
or fear the most. That a killer considers his self-centered
interests more important than your life is not due to some supernatural
evil force; it is simply supremely egoistic... [italics mine]
If anything keeps me kicking, it's the way life continues to remind me that I have so much yet to learn.
Almost every manospherean writer claims that just because he/she is anti-feminist, that does not mean he/she is a misogynist. Of course, the writer will then proceed to demonstrate his/her fear and hatred of women in the most fulsome manner.
A few months ago, right wing conspiracy theorist Pete Santilli, on behalf of American women, demanded an apology from Alex Jones for his "disgusting remarks" promoting rape. But better not assume from this gallant gesture that Mr. Santilli himself is not a vicious misogynist.
I read today that he has announced on the air that he wants to shoot Hillary Clinton in the "vagina." One might think that her "head" or "heart" would be more lethal targets. If it is agony, not immediate death, he wishes to inflict, why not her "stomach" or her "knees?" He wants to shoot Bill Clinton and Barack Obama too, but does not specify that it is their "testicles" that should be blown off.
He chooses Clinton's vagina because this is the organ that represents the very essence of misogynistic loathing and longing. Like Phil Spector, he wants to penetrate her with his phallic gun before he sends her into oblivion. It's so fucking telling. And it's so fucking chilling. And I'm so fucking sick of reading and hearing about this kind of shit. And now I've used up my entire f-word allowance for the day, damn it.
One of my best friends is a former boyfriend I'll call "Max," if by "best" you mean the kind of friendship that doesn't require much maintenance. In other words, Max and I will go for months without contact; then he'll suddenly swing through the front door unannounced, with a parcel of DVDs and CDs in his hand, demanding a drink and the next six hours of my time.
We're close enough friends that I served as the officiant at his wedding.
Anyway, Max was a terrible boyfriend: a lazy, lying, mooching pothead (and I would say that to his face, and I often do). He hasn't changed much, but somehow those qualities are more tolerable now that we are not romantically involved.
Not that Max and I ever had a great romance, mind you, except insofar as I briefly wished it to be. What Max and I shared was a common taste in music, and a mutual passion for one artist in particular.
Shortly after Max and I broke up, he learned I had played some songs by the same artist for another lover, and he was devastated by what he took to be the worst form of infidelity. How could I squander something so intimate and significant on a roll in the hay? Years later, he still brings it up: the betrayal of it.
You have to understand: When Max turns you on to a singer or a band, to a movie or a book, he is giving you the very best part of himself.
I'm not as territorial as Max is, but I have the same tendency to guard what is precious aesthetically and emotionally. That's why when Roosh twittered a reference to David Foster Wallace the other day, my hackles went up. No! No! No! You of all people cannot have my DFW!
@rooshv
It was with some relief, then, that I noticed that Matt Forney had posted a link to a review by Vox Day of Wallace's Infinite Jest, in which he suggests Wallace killed himself because he realized he (Wallace, that is, not Vox Day) was a terrible writer.
Much has been written about why Wallace hanged himself. He had valiantly struggled with severe depression throughout his life. The sudden epiphany he was a "terrible" writer was almost certainly not one of the reasons. As always with the manosphere, I suspect that there is a certain amount of projection going on here.
I'll concede that Wallace is not an easy read, and certainly not everyone's cuppa, and Infinite Jest is a bit intimidating, partly because of its length, but also because Wallace is not afraid to make demands of the reader. You have to give Wallace the wheel, so to speak, and then just hang on to your seat. I don't know if I would have been willing to put in the effort if he hadn't already won me over with his hilarious anthologies of essays and short stories. I recommend starting with "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" (especially if you have ever been on a cruise).
Yes, Matt Forney et al., Wallace does use a lot of "big words." Thank goodness for the dictionary in my nook. Oddly enough, some of us wordsmiths actually relish the opportunity to expand our vocabularies.
It's so reassuring to see Matt Forney hates Jonathan Franzen too.
Roosh has repeated categorically that he will not have children with an American woman, while in the next breath he glorifies "raw dogging" as many women as possible, including women he frankly detests. A few months ago, I felt compelled to remind his impressionable young male readers that unprotected sex was likely to lead to unplanned
fatherhood. I figured Roosh would delete the comment; in fact, that comment may have led to his blocking my IPO.
Back when I worked at an abortion clinic, I would sometimes ask young girls (15-16 year olds, typically) why they hadn't used contraception, and the answer was usually to the effect, "I didn't want a baby, so I didn't think I could get pregnant." This kind of magical thinking is a part of the adolescent's natural egocentrism, of course, which often leads to lamentable consequences. Some adolescents are exceedingly responsible about their behavior, but we can't expect that most will be, and it's not their "fault" when they're not.
By the time a person is in his early twenties, the prefrontal cortex has had a chance to develop and get connected with the rest of the brain. That's why "21" is a reasonable age at which to grant legal adulthood. Unfortunately, our pesky sexual impulses continue to override common sense for a long time to come. It may take years of experience to understand that "something that feels so good" may not, in fact, "be so right."
The Misogynists talk a lot about "sperm jacking," whereby devious women trick
unwitting men into impregnating them, thereby guaranteeing the mother
the right to suck her victim dry of child support for the following
eighteen years. Unlike most of the manosphere fodder, it's not a baseless fear. It does happen.
Late last night, as I was leaving the athletic club I've recently joined, I was waylaid by a young fellow working the front desk. (Part of becoming a fat old lady is that everyone under 30 now perceives me as a maternal figure, which is kind of touching but also kind of annoying.)
While I was trying to browse the pool schedule, the kid launched into a story about his personal travails with his "baby mama." In the span of twenty minutes I learned all this: He had once been a happy chap with a promising career as a Red Bull sales representative. Apparently Red Bull has aphrodisiac qualities I was hitherto unaware of: Every day, flocks of pretty girls laid siege to his cart, demanding free samples. To his surprise (and mine), there are Red Bull groupies. As a result, the poor guy had more pussy than he knew what to do with. And all of this went to his head (and nether regions).
One lass came back for more than the Red Bull. She told him she was a 22 year old university student on the pill; as it turned out, she was an 18 year old high school dropout who had decided to have a baby. Six weeks later, he learned he was going to be a father. And that's when the nightmare began. Because allowing for hyperbole, even if only half of what he related to me was true, she (and her parents) sounded like absolutely terrible people.
The kid didn't want this pregnancy and he wasn't consulted, but he was willing to "man up" and take responsibility. Over the past two years, his efforts to establish a relationship with the child have been thwarted, yet he has grown emotionally attached to the child, and would like to be a good parent. He and his parents have already poured $18,000 into the legal system in an effort to gain more access.
He was practically in tears last night because he had just learned his son had been taken to the ER with a dislocated elbow. My eyebrows shot up: How did that happen? Well, the child had been trying to play with his mom's laptop, so mom had picked him up by one arm and swung him away from it. "Poor little guy!" the young man fretted. "I hope you're documenting everything," I said.
I also said, "I hope things get better. Don't give up. Your son needs you in his life." I was trying to say all the right things, but what I really wanted was to quit listening to this saga. It was harshing my post-workout mellow. I also resented hearing this kind of story right now; when I am so furious with the MRM, the last thing I want to entertain is the notion that men do have some legitimate grievances, and Father's Rights are definitely an area where changes are called for.
Obviously, forcing anyone into parenthood is unethical, to say the least. As a woman, I know that being pregnant against one's will is like being pushed on to a train you can't get off of. Desperate women will risk death to jump off that train. Knowing this as I do, how can I not feel some measure of sympathy for guys secretly giving their pregnant girlfriends abortifacients? It is unfair.
Biology is unfair in general. The legal system is sometimes unfair to men. It sucks, but that's the way it is. Meanwhile, as Annie Sprinkle says, "Learn to love latex!"
I was idly browsing the comments in Roosh V today. It was the familiar topic of how poorly the charms of American women compare to those of Eastern European women. Ho-hum. Roosh is doing a lot of recycling these days. The fans themselves seemed a bit weary of the subject, like they were just going through the motions.
However, one young man (I assume) did write something that stuck in my head all afternoon, to the effect (and I paraphrase here) that he really wished American women would get with the program, figure out how much they were hated, and start making themselves more pleasing "before civil war breaks out."
Now it's not uncommon for these guys to propose, uhm, forceful means to resolve their frustration, i.e., a Spearhead post not long ago calling for the sexual enslavement of single mothers, or gathering up all the fat girls into forced labor camps to work off those unsightly extra pounds, or that poor Incel guy who wants "the government" to require pay women to go out with him. I suppose forcefully imposing their collective will on more than half the population doesn't seem that far out to them (as long as they don't factor in all those beta and omega men who would surely balk at seeing their female relatives, friends and colleagues carted off).
Roosh himself has hinted rather darkly that "things" were reaching some sort of tipping point; that "things" were going to get "uglier" in the near future.
Actually, I've run across a lot of similarly ominous warnings from the online misogynists. The following is plucked from The Spearhead in January 2010: "May your words provoke a reaction. I grow impatient for the coming war."
And then I was introduced by No More Mr. Nice Guy to Eivind Berge's blog, wherein he declares "Feminism versus MRA is an irreconcilable difference that can only be resolved by violence."
Berge was recently charged with inciting violence by Norwegian authorities, but the charges have been dropped. In the process, however, his sanity was brought into question by nearly everyone he knew, an understandably harrowing experience that he describes in Kafkaesque detail -- but which leaves this reader pretty much convinced he is indeed one crazy barrel of lutefisk possibly brilliant but definitely disturbed individual.
This ordeal, and the resulting sense of betrayal from Berge's point of view, led him to "repudiate" his own family, a familiar theme with other MRAs. Sooner or later, their misogyny drives everyone away, and destroys all intimacy... they get increasingly isolated... their mental disorders get worse and more entrenched...
I'm not sure whether to laugh, cry, or buy myself a shotgun. Where are these gathering storm clouds but in their own fevered imaginations? And what would this final showdown look like? I mean, where would the battle lines be drawn and what would their tactics be? And what would the final outcome be? It sounds like the premise of a really awful sci-fi movie. Or a video game perhaps?
Although I'd like to dismiss all this as adolescent bluster and blowing off steam, I'll admit this kind of talk makes me uneasy, and I hope that the SPLC continues to monitor these websites carefully.
Update: I read today that radio host Pete Santilli announced on the air, "I want to shoot Hilary Clinton in the vagina."
If anything characterizes The Way We Live Now, it is the cult of celebrity. It seems like almost everyone wants to be famous. We crave recognition so badly that many of us don't care what it takes: better notoriety than anonymity. And because we live in a day of unparallelled opportunities to self-publish and self-promote, people often have to scream to be heard above the din of competing sources of input. One way to stand out above the fray is to be Outrageous.
One recent commenter on Manboobz alluded to this as a way of explaining the "manosphere." For the most part, it's an internet phenomenon, which has linked various and numerous unhappy and disenfranchised white men. Unable to form a coherent platform, they have united behind a common enemy, which they call "feminism" but which really is femininity in general (including, as we have recently seen, female children and transsexual women). Much has already been written about this elsewhere, and much more eloquently than I could.
Members of the manosphere post, for the most part, anonymously. They have to, because to openly espouse the views they claim to hold would be to commit social and professional suicide.
A handful of leaders do identify themselves (Roosh V aka Daryush Valizadeh, Paul Elam, Matt Forney aka Ferdinand Bardemu), and a few have had their true identities made known against their will (Roissy "Heartiste" and the guy who went by "violentacrez"). Of course, any semblance of a "normal" life is over for them: they are now officially and irrevocably married to their online personae. In some ways, they have paid the ultimate price for their narcissism (or "martyrdom" as their acolytes might frame it).
Yet in order to maintain readership, they must keep producing more of what their readers want, which is ever more outrageous material. The "outrage" comes from the overtly hateful nature of their ideas, the hateful expression of these ideas, and sometimes from a potent and disturbing stew of fantasy, entitlement, resentment, and violent retribution. In other words: hate porn.
Then there are people like JudgyBitch, who is torn between the demands of her compulsive exhibitionism and the need to protect her personal life. From what I have seen, exhibitionism usually trumps prudence in these cases. Hence, she uses pseudonyms, but "vlogs" on YouTube; being recognized and outed is but a matter of months. And that is not a threat, since I have neither the means nor the interest in doxing her. It is simply a prediction and perhaps a warning. We may enjoy the anonymity of the internet, but we are foolish indeed if we think that it is guaranteed.
Personally, I'm not sure the threat of exposure is an entirely bad thing. Perhaps it's a reflection of my age, but I don't hold anonymity to be sacrosanct. The internet is not the confessional. A blog is is not your analyst's couch. Writing about, or for, other people affects them. Words can be as influential and powerful as actions, and they should be treated as such. People should be held accountable for what they say. Free speech is not free of consequences.
Right now the Internet is The Wild West and anything goes, so naturally it is a fertile ground for the worst of people and the worst kinds of people, but in time I am confident we will develop some respect for its power; we will demand and adopt standards of behavior and responsibility. Meanwhile, we are left with vigilante groups like Anonymous, which is perhaps better -- or perhaps worse -- than no moral order whatsoever.
At the same time -- and getting back to the title of this post -- I do understand the merciless thirst for recognition, and how blogging plays to that. That's because I understand The Quest for Immortality and The Denial of Death. What's more human and existentially poignant than to counter the inevitability of death by howling in protest? Of course, ranting and raging avails us little -- often makes everything worse in fact -- but it makes us feel powerful, and distracts us from the unbearable knowledge that all of this -- and all of us -- will be dust in a hundred years.
As one hostile commenter unkindly and needlessly pointed out, I have a very "obscure" blog. Indeed, I'm thrilled if five people look at it a day. I'm pleasantly puzzled by the number of visitors I do get. I'm not trying to make a name for myself here, much less a profit. I'm just practicing my writing skills, and I find it more motivating to write for an audience (even if it's only an imaginary, potential audience).
Like Hansel and Gretl, I've littered my blog with so many crumbs that it would be fairly easy to figure out who I am, if anyone cared (and I am very, very sure that no one does). And not that it matters because it really, really doesn't, in part because I am not only old, but also (like my heroine Jane Eyre) plain and poor and obscure and have no family or reputation to protect. Also, when I write critically about the New Misogynists, I only write what I would say to their faces, given the opportunity. I would be happy to meet with Roosh V or Janet Bloomfield in person and tell them what I think. Hell, I'd buy the first round!
However, a few years ago, I had a very different blog. It was a kind of confessional, recounting with humor and some salacious detail a year spent pursuing casual encounters on craigslist. (Frankly, I was more than a little inspired by A Round Heeled Woman by Jane Juska.) Well, as you know, Sex Sells, even sexual escapades as weird and pathetic as I was often describing in my crazy little blog.
As my readership took off, I found that more and more I was living my life in service to my blog. Consequently, I was engaging in behaviors that were increasingly humiliating and risky (both to my physical and emotional well being) just to have something to regale "my readers" with over their morning coffee. It got a little out of hand. Sometimes I said and did things I didn't really believe in or feel good about, just for the "copy." Inevitably, I got more than a little burned out. And, as fun as it was to shock and delight a lot of random strangers in cyberspace, I had to let it go. (Also, I happened to meet someone I loved, thereby putting the final kabosh on pursuing or reporting what I might call "My Slutty, SluttyYear.")
This experience gives me a little personal insight into -- and real sympathy for -- why and how a phenomenon like JudgyBitch is born. I imagine she's been bored and flailing about for something beyond family responsibilities to give her life meaning and purpose. Maybe she's always been the kind of gal with plenty of outrageous opinions, the kinds of opinions that are offered more for shock value than real insight ("the life of the party" so to speak), and now she's found a way to get a lot more attention for them. The validation comes from making people gasp (Oh no she didn't!) rather than making them reflect or engage in honest debate. She's found a forum where she is made to feel exceptional ("A woman in a man's world") and is accorded special recognition and privilege as such. As she is egged on, she goes farther and farther out on the limb, she exposes more and more, her position becomes more and more tenuous, she seems more and more deluded... But that attention! That masculine attention! It is as addictive as crack, and she just can't stop.
In response to my comment that the only way I can cope with the MRA/PUA crowd is to remind myself that they are merely dinosaurs bellowing piteously as they lurch into oblivion, a clever blogger who also comments on Manboobz posted a link to the "Extinction" scene in Disney's "Fantasia."
As I watched it, I realized that I'd seen this before, and that the visual image I was describing had been formed and implanted in my brain while watching "Fantasia" as a child fifty years ago.
I find myself muttering "Dinosaurs!" a lot these days, and usually in reference to people more or less my own age -- which is not so very old, mind you -- who can't or won't grasp that the greater social environment has changed, and however much they moan and roar, it's not ever going back to accommodate them. I cannot remember the exact quote, but something like "shuffling backwards into the future" comes to mind.
And I ought to know. Every day, I'm painfully aware of my increasing obsolescence. It hasn't been a smooth, gradual decline either: within the last decade, I went from being at the top of my game (whatever game you can think of) to playing bingo with a hearing aid in the back of a church basement (figuratively).
The bitch of it is, I know how tiresome I am being whenever I launch into a story about the ways things were -- I can see it in my students' and younger colleagues' eyes -- yet I cannot stop myself. I want them to know. I have something important to share here: the ways things are compared to the way things were. I was there! I know!
It doesn't matter what the topic is: abortion, feminism, Islam, neighborhoods, technology. Whatever, I must dive in and insert my historical perspective. Because that is all I have to offer now. And I cannot bear to be completely silenced, not yet.
