I propose a general rule: the surest way to get someone outraged is to criticize their heroes, whether they’re political, religious, scientific, or atheist. The only solution is to not have any heroes.
It seems that I dared to criticize John C. Wright, and one of his fans wrote to disagree with me.
Mr. Myers,
I was made aware of your blog post by John C. Wright’s mention of it. I suggest you read his opinion of it, it is instructive to say the least.
I have never read anything written by Vox Day. However I have read nearly everything by John C. Wright. I share his opinion that your choice of choice of “damning” passages written by Vox Day could have been better made. Particularly by a biologist.
Because there’s nothing more hilarious than a supposed scientist arguing that fertility in women is a social construct, and the fact that women are the only type of human who can bear children is a political issue.
So really, if that’s the worst thing you could come up with written by Vox Day, you should get yourself another horse to beat. This one’s dead.
I also saw your post, “I’ll be good Mommy…” I’m reminded of a post I wrote a while ago regarding the propaganda tactics being taken up by your fellow travelers in the mainstream press. They seemed distastefully familiar for some reason.
http://phantomsoapbox.blogspot.ca/2012/12/where-have-i-seen-that.html
In case your finger is too tired to click, I’ll sum it up for you. Your behavior in demonizing gun owners is a tactic first used to good effect by Mr. Joseph Goebbels. My father and uncles spent a goodly portion of their late teens and twenties sorting that little issue out. I could go through the whole rest of my life quite happily without seeing that repeated, thanks very much. Sadly, it looks like you aren’t going to let that happen.
The Phantom
“The Phantom”? Really? Was The Shadow too busy to write?
You might be wondering what Wright said about me. Here’s Wright’s comment:
This is an interesting link. It is from a soul who thinks it is immoral to act professionally, that tolerating someone of unpopular, or, rather of rightwing opinions (which are here said both to be poison and to dominate the narrative) is intolerable. You are not supposed to read books and judge them on their merits. Politics is precisely what a professional association of science fiction writers gathered to protect the interest of science fiction should be about.
With utterly unintentional hilariousness, the writer denounces Theodore Beale in words of thunder as a misogynist, and to prove the point quotes a utter bland an uncontroversial statement that women are better off marrying young, when they are at their most fertile and most able, thanks to the energy of youth, to care for their babies. (He has said many more misogynistic things, some of which have indeed offended me; why pick this passage? I can only speculate it is because here Beale puts his finger on what feminists hate most. They hate being women, they hate being wives, they hate being mothers, they hate fertility, and therefore they hate babies with the hatred of Moloch)
For them, everything is politics, and politics is religion, and anyone not on the side of the Leftwing angels is on the side of the Rightwing devils. These are intolerant, zealous, uncivilized fanatics. It is not because of us that there is no middle ground, no quarter, no rules of engagement. This is their life. This is their all.
No sane man would agree to join, pay dues to, or remain a member of a professional organization like that.
Let me break that first letter down into two parts. The first part is this bizarre argument that Vox Day has said many things that are far worse than the one quote I gave — please, Lord, may I never have defenders this incompetent. Then, further, they make the claim that what Day/Beale wrote was “a utter bland an uncontroversial statement” [sic] that I, as a biologist, ought to know was completely true, and that somehow I was “arguing that fertility in women is a social construct”. Say what? It seems the one quote I excerpted was a particularly good one for smoking out people who thought it was innocuous. Here is the post I wrote, and here is that bland and uncontroversial quote from Day/Beale:
Because raising girls with the expectation that their purpose in life is to bear children allows them to pursue marriage at the age of their peak fertility, increase the wage rates of their prospective marital partners, and live in stable, low-crime, homogenous societies that are not demographically dying. It also grants them privileged status, as they alone are able to ensure the continued survival of the society and the species alike. Women are not needed in any profession or occupation except that of child-bearer and child-rearer, and even in the case of the latter, they are only superior, they are not absolutely required.
I guess I need to spell out what is objectionable in that statement to the clueless: it is not that only women are capable of getting pregnant, or that fertility is a social construct. It’s the assertion that the purpose of women’s lives is to bear children. It is the reduction of half of humanity to one biological function, without recognizing that they can have additional abilities and aspirations that give them fulfillment, and that they can contribute to society in a great many ways. It is the assumption that culture is by and for men, and that women’s role is to support them…and that they should be damned grateful for that privilege.
That Wright and “The Phantom” think that statement is uncontroversial shows how deeply the poison has gone.
The second part is the traditional invocation of Godwin’s law. The post he linked to is stupid and vacuous; it was prompted by Rachel Marsden’s response to the Newtown murders, in which she encouraged more background checks to keep guns out of the hands of the “mentally stunted, emotionally disturbed and deeply insecure”. From that beginning, “The Phantom” leapt to the conclusion that Marsden had just called all gun owners “mentally stunted, emotionally disturbed and deeply insecure”, and therefore, she was just like Joseph Goebbels because… insert cartoon of overweight gun owner fondling a gun, followed by unrelated Nazi caricature of overweight Jewish man, therefore liberals equal Nazis.
It’s the flimsiest excuse to compare gun owners to victims of the Holocaust that I’ve yet seen.
Tell me, PZ, how does Mr Super-Simplistic Beale deal with the fact a woman’s time of peak fertility does not correspond with her emotional maturity or the peak earning potential of her likely partner? Or indeed with the knowledge that children born to older mothers / educated mothers at longer intervals tend to thrive?
No, I don’t expect you to answer for him. I am worried, though, about the waste. To date I have been alive for 866 months. Of that time I have spent 11 months pregnant and three months breastfeeding, though someone else could have taken over that bit. Does he not worry that without an ability to occupy my mind and something interesting to do the rest of the time I might have become bored and obstreperous – bored enough to become a threat to public order?
He doesn’t think things through, does he?
(Sorry, I missed this the first time around.)
You’re already obstreperous!
Not to mention that the implied pumping out of baby after baby is bloody disastrous for the planet, let alone the woman.
The Avenger, The Spider, and The Masked Marvel all wish to apologize on behalf of their colleague, who’s clearly wearing his mask a bit too tightly these days…
I wonder how Walt Wallet and Pogo feel about this.
Maureen at @ 1
I assume the last bit is to tell young women to marry older men who can support them.
Of course, I’m now thinking about all the other things a peasant woman circa 1000 would have to do besides bear and raise kids. Producing enough cloth to keep people clothed, for instance, is a full time job when you had to start from fibers. The majority of women never had a time when their sole job was bearing and raising kids.
Um, isn’t this rightwingese for “live in white neighborhoods and have lots and lots of white babies of whiteness?
“Um, isn’t this rightwingese for “live in white neighborhoods and have lots and lots of white babies of whiteness?”
Yes. I don’t know about Wright, because I haven’t read much of his stuff, but VD is exceptionally concerned about the “browning” of Europe. He thinks that if white Europeans don’t have enough babies then they will be overwhelmed by immigrants who aren’t the correct shade of skin tone and this will somehow spell the end of all Western civilization.
*looks at world*
Sounds like a good idea to me…
The purpose of men is to donate some gametes and then flop down on a barbecue and cook so the woman has something to eat during her pregnancy, an energetically expensive process.
Hmmm, oh wait, that is for spiders. We have a lot larger behavioral repetoire and longer lives than 8 legged arthropods.
*This is BTW, child abuse. Vox Day wallows in slime like a pig wallows in mud.
John C. Wright:
That’s a stunning display of ignorance, Mr. Wright. Throughout history, most of the women fighting for the right to be full human beings have been parents. A good many feminists nowadays are parents. Some, like myself, aren’t parents because we don’t want to be, and think having that choice is important, a choice granted to individuals. By the way, there’s a difference between being a wife and being a servant.
Needless to say, the phantom is that bog common loser, a serial killer. Of strawpeople.
This isn’t what Beale said or what PZ hammered on.
No.
Women hate people who hate them. Misogynists like Vox and Wright.
Inaji
And have always been.
And many of us are married, even to people of other genders.
And have sex.
Really, they have this idea of feminists out of bad movies who are all political lesbians who go bakrupt over burning too many bras to burn.
Raven:
Speak for yourself, please. I prefer to expend more energy on change than hate.
Yep I hate being a woman.
Um, wait…
The funny thing is that he thinks the “Lefty Bilge-o-Sphere” includes obnoxious wingnut Rachel Marsden. I won’t link to what she has been up to more recently, but you can use Google if you’re interested.
Talk about ducking into the punch. I’m SO glad Mr Wright showed up to defend himself against charges of misogyny. He sure showed how off-base that accusation was!
abelundercity@4,
Heh. Phantom; the Jon Voight of superheroes.
There can be no damned quarter when the other side thinks “Half of humanity should have no rights to any path in life besides being a broodmare” is an uncontroversial statement!
Wright whines about people making things too political.
Wright says a statement about women’s purpose being child-bearing is uncontroversial.
Wright says that feminists hate being wives and hate having children.
Wright whines about leftwingers demonizing rightwingers.
Really, that pretty much is why I hate right-wingers in a nutshell. All wrapped up in a neat little package.
you know at an early age it occurred to me that the argument that women should only be allowed to be mothers and homemakers because all of the reasons usually given was a little stupid. I see no reason why an argument of a complete opposite nature could not be made for very similar types of reasons that males should be prevented from being involved in anything of any real social importance except for the purposes of reproduction. They have a strong tendency for irrationality and result in too much competition and even combat over access to sexual partners which they think about far to much. That they are far too disruptive to be allowed to the same rights and responsibilities.
In fact society might function far better and have a better survival prospect if the numbers of men were reduced some what.
It makes as much sense as the anti-feminist pro-family that is thrown about.
uncle frogy
It makes as much sense as the anti-feminist pro-family crap that is thrown about.
uncle frogy
Gosh, imagine the enormous privileged status that will come with being regarded as socially useless for all activities other than as a Pez dispenser for babies. That’s how it worked back in the good ol’ days, right?
I am seriously at a loss for how any functioning human brain could have put those two sentences together.
Men are only good for two things. And how often do you change the oil in your car anyway? (I know, women can and do change engine oil.)
Using Vox/Wright logic, we could reduce the male population by 95% with no problem. How hard is it to be a sperm donor? (While we could and it wouldn’t make much difference, I’m not really advocating it.)
@ unclefrogy #22
It’s called war.
Many of the folks here are characterizing John C. Wright and Vox Day (Theodore Beale) as misogynists. That’s unfair. They are not misogynistic, they’re just good Christians following the moral dictates of their God.
Wright, according to Wikipedia [good enough for me — I’m not going to read his blog!], supposedly converted from atheism to Christianity (Roman Catholic ) in 2008, citing a profound religious experience with visions of the “Virgin Mary, her son, and His Father — not to mention various other spirits and ghosts over a period of several days” [well, a possible psychotic experience has got to be at least as convincing as a frozen waterfall]… and has stated: “If Vulcans had a church, they’d be Catholics.”
Beale — well, what can you say about someone who chooses to go by a just-too-cute pseudonym implying that he identifies himself as the Voice of God?
Remember, it is not these mere messengers, but God Himself in His Heaven who hates
fagswomenfeminists. So if all of you unrighteous sinners — atheists, women, scientists and other deviants — would just accept your proper subservient roles in His Creation, then all would be right with the world.Thus ends my attempt at channeling the self-serving fantasies by which the religious try to excuse their own uncivilized behavior. Now I need to go watch some Star Trek as an antidote to Wright’s slander of Vulcans.
I am seriously at a loss for how any functioning human brain could have put those two sentences together.
It is VD, or as he is more accurately named, the racist, sexist, homophobic dipshit. Having read his Hugo-nominated story (a topic that has a sordid history), I can also say that he is a terrible writer who really only seems to half-understand the material he puts on paper.
I know the Nazis weren’t the most rational people in the world, but if their goal was to limit Germans’ access to guns, they really messed up!
“But they’re not sexist! Just pointing out biology!” It’s funny (in a not funny way) how these appeals to biology or nature are never applied to men. It’s possible to boil down mens’ purpose to reproduction as well, but how boring, even inane, would humanity be if men only reproduced and did nothing else? Well, likewise, humanity would suffer in the same degree if womens’ purpose is boiled down to reproduction.
Well, neither are men needed in any profession or occupation. Occupations do not need to exist. But we like society and the contributions men give. Some of us like the contributions women give to society just as much.
@#27 Scientismist
Of course. Because the proposition that a cracker that has been mumbled over by a guy in a dress turns into the flesh of a particular 1st Century Judean inside your tummy is totally logical.
At least semi-hard?
(I’m sorry. I had to. You set it up, I had to.)
But then again, I suppose some sort of surgically implanted port for harvesting might be more efficient…
Hmm. lemme get to work on this idea. With a cheap home 3d printer, anything is possible.
Scientismist @27: Wright was actually a worse misogynist asshole before converting to Catholicism, going by his earlier writings.
Becca Stareyes @ 6,
When I get really exhausted with these dudebros who think they can rewrite the whole of evolution and human history on the basis of a single comic book picture of Man the Hunter and no evidence whatsoever then I take refuge in this video.
It’s a bit long, it is told slowly but it is the documented story of one woman in fourteenth century England and – surprise – it does not match their fantasies in any way at all!
Enjoy, if you have time.
If Grace Hopper, Ada Lovelace, and who knows how many other women whose names I don’t know had stayed home and had babies like VD says women should, there’d be no internet for him to spew on.
Scientismist:
Based on what both have said, they definitely are misogynistic. Hint: the word means more than hating women.
Now get lost with your misogynist apologetics.
Scientismist:
Apologies for the above comment. I hit submit on the above post before reading the rest of yours, otherwise I’d have seen that you weren’t serious. I’m sorry.
Phew! I thought for a moment that you’d criticized JIM Wright, who is one of my heroes so I’d be forced to write you a long pointless letter full of bad grammar in retaliation. What a relief!
(*not really. Though I do recommend Stonekettle Station. Good reading.)
raven @13
Despise would be more accurate than hate, for me, for the most part. Some politicians get a dollop of loathing with it.
moarescienceplz @29:
I lol’d.
This inspired me to coin a new sub-category of straw feminist:
http://atheismplus.com/blogs/gas/2014/08/05/new-vocab-for-feminists-straw-lamia/
@9:
I heard a story of Gandi that, when asked what he thought of “Western Civilization”, is reputed to say he was in favor of it.