Comments

1. Marcus Ranum says

   April 23, 2015 at 5:58 pm

   Et tu Nuge?

2. themadtapper says

   April 23, 2015 at 7:16 pm

   It’s kinda sad, really. Dawkins has so many wrong-headed ideas about feminism, and maybe there was a time where he could have been reasoned with on the matter. But he has all these anti-feminists telling him how wonderful and brilliant and right he is, and so caught up is he in his own cleverness that he can no longer even conceive of the idea that he could be wrong about it. The supposed “thought leader” is now nothing more than a tool. Misogynists and anti-feminists pat him on the head and encourage him to keep spouting off inane things about women and feminism, then gleefully parrot them and declare their ideas vindicated because they’re supported by such a famous, smart, and important figure as Dawkins. He gives them the very thing he has sworn to never give to other loons like creationists: credibility. Yet not only does he lend these people credibility, he does so willingly and wholeheartedly. The man who shunned and mocked the courtiers regarding the religious emperor’s clothes has marched out on stage naked to lecture feminists on the wonders of his intellectual finery.

3. Hj Hornbeck says

   April 23, 2015 at 9:12 pm

   Hmm, it’s not often you can put “inspired two hate groups with my rhetoric” on your CV. Maybe if we could point him at a few TERFS…

4. Lady Mondegreen says

   April 24, 2015 at 12:20 am

   Check the #UPINFY tag for the latest culture war front, (University Probably Is Not For You) in response to Based Mom’s treatment

   Ugh, there’s Sommers’s awful Gamergate nickname, “Based Mom.”

5. Lady Mondegreen says

   April 24, 2015 at 12:24 am

   BTW I think people should hijack this hashtag. I just heard that a Facebook friend who teaches had some student walkouts when he discussed privilege. I’m sure more examples could be found. (Jeremiah True, anyone?)

6. sonofrojblake says

   April 24, 2015 at 2:39 am

   there are no safe spaces we can’t prove are not safe from facts.

   What would be the opposite of that statement?

   @themadtapper, 2:

   The supposed “thought leader” is now nothing more than a tool.

   No gendered insult, please. /s

7. medivh says

   April 24, 2015 at 4:49 am

   Tool as in hammer, rather than the more metaphorical slang. Not everything is a penis, Mr. Freud.

8. themadtapper says

   April 24, 2015 at 5:19 am

   @6:
   As medivh said, not using the gendered meaning. “Tool” as in “being used”. I know you put a “/s” on the end, but figured I’d clarify anyway for anyone else reading.

9. sonofrojblake says

   April 24, 2015 at 6:37 am

   I know you put a “/s” on the end, but figured I’d clarify anyway for anyone else reading.

   If they need you to clarify after I explicitly labelled that sentence as not to be taken seriously, then what they’re doing is not “reading”.

10. AJ Milne says

    April 24, 2015 at 7:12 am

    Well, I guess if he’s bound and determined to rebrand himself as some kinda British Rush Limbaugh, it’s only appropriate he should have his dittoheads.

11. deepak shetty says

    April 24, 2015 at 9:59 am

    Sounds as if Dawkins should be favoring “teach the controversy” too – University students can be challenged with incest /cannibalism/anti-feminism but ID is off limits?

12. medivh says

    May 7, 2015 at 9:31 am

    @9, sonofrojblake; I missed it, because two characters at the end of a cliché isn’t enough to override cliché processing in my brain. Nor was I aware after I caught the two characters what they meant in the context of your sentence. themadtapper’s context is the one I learned it from.

    So, iono, keep in mind that we’re not in your head, and that the failure mode of clever is arsehole?

13. Ophelia Benson says

    May 7, 2015 at 9:44 am

    Yeah, “/s” is the very opposite of explicit, let alone explicit italicized. I’ve never seen “/s” before and had no idea what it was supposed to mean.