Amanda Marcotte has written an excellent open letter to the Center for Inquiry — it’s measured and reflects the consensus of the 30+ people who packed my hotel room on Saturday night.
Well, there are exceptions. This was Justin Vacula’s response on twitter:
Get out, Amanda, you not welcome here. Take your dogma elsewhere (you too, Ophelia)
This is the same guy who couldn’t get anyone to pay attention to him at the Women In Secularism conference — we had more interesting people to talk to — so he spent his Saturday doing an interview for that misogynist hate site, A Voice For Men.
Who’s supposed to get out again?
Something is off on your link: it is redirecting to The Raw Story’s home page.
Disregard: there is currently a link to the letter on the home page: here it is for future reference.
Even nobody me earned an @ message from Vacula proclaiming his opposition to “dogma.” He keeps using that word. I do not think it means what he thinks it means.
The link appears to be broke. Try this.
I’m sorry, but who is Justin to tell Amanda she is not welcome? And I thought the ladies didn’t need a welcome, because they already know they are welcome, and it would just waste a lot of time to welcome welcome people… or something like that.
But what about Justin Vacula History Month!
Just where the fuck is “here” supposed to be, anyway? Twitter? A hashtag?
The capacious interior of his skull?
Congratulations, Ron Lindsay, this is what your next generation of ‘leaders’ looks like. And don’t think your publicly greeting him and telling him how welcome he is isn’t sending a loud and clear message to him — be an abusive asshole for months, and the leader of one of the top secular organizations will seek you out to shake your hand. In front of the people you’ve been harassing non-stop for months.
He’s so cute when he has delusions of grandeur. Or relevance.
Amanda Marcotte has a Wikipedia page.
So does Ophelia Benson.
Justin Vacula does not.
And that’s the truth.
So there.
I think I said this verbatim on Pharyngula a while ago, but…
At least this demonstrates why Atheism+ is necessary.
Take the path less traveled.
You don’t want to be walking through whatever those MRAs had on their boots.
He’s a Thought Leader! They get a special dispensation from the usual whines that You Don’t Speak For Me. To review:
–If you identify as a feminist, you are claiming to speak on behalf of all women everywhere, and that is wrong, because some women don’t agree with you. Therefore shut up.
–If you start a group with the word “Atheism” in its name, then you are claiming to speak on behalf of all atheists everywhere, and that is wrong, because some atheists don’t agree with you. Therefore shut up.
–If you tell someone they are not welcome in the skeptical movement, that is ok as long as you are a Leader.* Therefore, they, not you, have to shut up.
*These Leaders are formally selected through a secretive process, but it’s believed to involve complex calculations based on YouTube comments and some graphs by Thunderf00t.
Has anyone tried smelling Vacula to see if he just needs a diaper change?
Azkyroth, you are insulting every baby with a poopy diaper on the planet. Please don’t compare them to Vacula.
@myeck waters:
Yea! Babies with poopy diapers include Darkbaby and my new nephew! They’re far cuter and much more civilized than Vaculous.
#15
The comparison point is not “baby with poopy diaper;” it’s Lisa Nowak.
Shouldn’t Vacula at least be savvy enough to know that telling a woman to “get out, you’re not welcome here” is just playing right into the hands of the people saying “women don’t feel welcome in this movement”? Couldn’t he at least not shoot himself directly in the foot? I guess not.
The ‘Don’t Tell Me I’m a Bad Man For Acting Like a Jerk’ movement seems to have a problem with breaking their jerkish habits, even when it makes them look really really bad.
Wait, who is being silenced again?
@JustinVacuous: get out, you’re not welcome here. *
(* Here = any place where rational people congregate. )
What an uninspiring, dim bulb that Vacula is.
I’m much happier people like Marcotte are the future of these movements.
Lisa Nowak has a wikipedia page, too.
@chigau #10 – Good one!
Although, on consideration, perhaps he feels that since he can never gain sufficient positive notability, he is striving for infamous notability? After all, Ken Ham and Louis Sheldon have Wikipedia pages, too.
(Wikipedia notability standards for people, if anyone is interested.)
carlie,
Hasn’t it been established that he has, long ago, blasted off both legs, and that he is now plinking away at bits of his pelvis?
Well, now that you’ve pointed it out, I’m sure someone will remedy that in short order.
I am just continually astonished at precisely how fucking stupid the MRA/Slymers/Vaculas of this world/AvFMers etc are. Don’t get me wrong I am sure many of them are perfectly intelligent people who give their mothers flowers and all that,* but come on, interviews with a known hate group, one on the radar of the SPLC** of all things, and this charming “Get of my man-lawn” to Marcotte and Benson…
…is no one home? I think PZ (Booo Hisss etc!) and Rebecca (ZOMG TEH FEMINAZI!) could actually strangle a bucket of live babies on stage and do a better PR job than these assorted clusters of muppets. Truly they are out of their depth in a shallow puddle of spit.
Every time I encounter them I just get this overwhelming sense that they are a bunch of piss weak, irrelevant distractions. But then I’m not nice like you people! ;-)
Louis
*Standard disclaimer. A pastiche of comments made about the Kray Twins.
**That’s dedication right there. Being a shithead to the point that the SPLC notices you is a determined effort. That’s not accidental fuckwittery. It’s deliberate fuckwittery with practice and malice aforethought!
P.S. Carlie, #18: EXACTLY.
I wonder if Wikipedia has a dungeon.
@yazikus
He’s a #BraveHero! He’s standing up to the nasty feminazi bullying cuntbags and is therefore allowed to issue meaningless orders that they leave some arbitrary, undefined space labelled as “here”, which may or may not represent an actual physical space and is most likely not fully understood even by Vaculous himself. He’s too busy being Brave to utilise his
intellectbrainloaf.Oh, dear! Russell Blackford is going to have to issue another admonition against the witch hunt against poor Justin Vacula. (I can’t remember if it was Ophelia or Stephanie who posted R.B.’s tweet several weeks ago.)
Our friend Rhys Morgan, who has been the target of some of the slymie class, also has a Wikipedia page. But then Rhys actually accomplished something with skepticism and rational thought and diligent work, instead of running around telling everyone how awful they were and how great he was.
Link fixed. Sorry about that; RawStory really does a funky number on links from the mobile version of their site.
Louis @ 27:
A murder of crows.
A business of ferrets.
A cackle of hyenas…
A muppet of MRAs?
A muppet show, surely?
carlie @ #18:
I get the distinct impression that Vacula doesn’t want women to be welcome.
After all… he did give an interview to A Voice for Men, a website noted by the SPLC as a hate site.
How can someone willing to give an interview to that mysoginistic place not want women to be unwelcome? Vacula wants an all-man leadership, with women acting largely as booth babes…
Or so I assume, judging by his tweets and actions and such during all of this.
An impotence of MRAs.
A creep of MRAs.
This one
I prefer, “creep”, too. I don’t like the splash damage by bringing up impotence nor an insult that reinforces the super importance of having a giant, hard penis.
#36 ~G~
I was thinking about how pathetic MRAs are and how impotent their rage was. The secondary meaning didn’t actually occur to me until after I’d posted. I’d edit if I could.
I also like a creep of MRAs.
There is even a dance to go with it! Getcha knees flexin and your arms T-Rex’n. Do the Creep, haaaa. Do the creep.
#36- Understood. :)
It seems like Justin Vacula is being divisive!
/delurking again
Justin Vatesticular is the proven voice of darkness when exposed to revealing light.
How about?
A whine of MRAs
A slime of MRAs
A poison of MRAs
A carcinoma of MRAs
A hoggle of MRAs
A failure of MRAs
A middle-aged-virgins-shrieking-in-impotent-rage of MRAs. (too long, perhaps?)
Nice, right there following the likes of ‘poison’, ‘carcinoma’ and ‘failure’
*glare*
Semi-relatedly, during WIS I tweeted the following:
Which, I would think, is downright a “duh” statement. Except, got this golden reply from Vacula:
I am singularly baffled.
Marcotte does indeed have a Wikipedia entry. Doesn’t make for edifying reading, does it?
Perhaps that’s a reason to be wary of her … contribution. Here’s what she wrote about the case :
The blessings of having a Wikipedia page, eh?
A wanksmear of MRAs.
A Dunning-Kruger of MRAs.
A mansplain of MRAs.
Doesn’t this guy pretend to be a “moderate” and a bastion of rationality and civility? These kinds of atheists and skeptics baffle me. They fight against buzzwords while displaying the same kind of irrationality and incivility and unskepticality and groupthinking and so on at the slightest provocation. They have a civility that isn’t even skin deep, scarcely more than a facade, a feint within a feint. They have a rationality that is as limited as any of those they claim are irrational, and perhaps even more so. They possess a skepticism so shallow that a pebble cast into it would become like a mountainous island They spout out the same nonsense over and over, repeating each other endlessly, fuming over straw feminism, aggrieved over a lessened suite of genital-based insults, furious that a world of predominantly victimized men only exists in their imaginations, and positively livid that their naive assumptions of present-day equality aren’t sufficient justification to sit on their ass and pretend that Mission Equality is acccomplished. And then they, predictable and reliant on talking points, relying on exaggerating claims of male victimhood, relying on the same misconceptions, arguments, and even terms of mockery, dare to whine about whining, dare to accuse us of echo chambers and groupthink.
The hypocrisy is amusing. A cherry on top of the MRA shit sundae.
Yeah, whatever the opposite of slut-shaming is called is bad too. Please don’t do it.
@myeck waters
We do! We have several dungeons! Here‘s our people dungeon. We also do topic bans and interaction bans. And that’s in addition to the plain old block. And if a page keeps being recreated, it is salted, as in salt the earth.
*calms down*
Ah, that boogeyman, “identity politics”. Horror of all horrors. How dare you care about minorities and get them to vote for you as a result? Why can’t you actively abuse, or at very least neglect them, like decent upstanding political groups? Going out of your way to help subjugated groups is such an underhanded political ploy! The only legitimate form of politics is going out of your way to help large and powerful groups that don’t actually need help! Anything else is just unfair!
A middle-aged-virgins-shrieking-in-impotent-rage of MRAs. (too long, perhaps?)
Someone has to say it. It’s not a moral failing to be middle-aged or virginal or impotent. (You probably didn’t mean impotent in a literal sense, though.)
Yes, acknowledging that non-white, non-male people have different experiences, and therefore different expectations, interests, and needs than white male people is “identity politics.” Pretending to “not see color” and “not see gender” and using that as an excuse to pretend that everyone’s interests are perfectly convergent with those of the dominant social class (i.e., white men) is not “identity politics.”
this is the dude who threw a twitterfit over a tweet in which i said that male circumcision has a religious basis, but not all current attempts at justifying the practice are religious. Basically he doesn’t understand what people are saying, but based on who’s saying it, it must of course be wrong somehow. hence the incoherence.
prude-shaming; and yes, it is. but then… i’m somewhat less than enthused about calling people a cancer, either.
Any path be it rocky, overgrown and fraught with perilous fauna so long as it takes me away from the likes of Vacula.
Point taken. I’ll refrain from using that as an insult.
As it is apparent from the above comments that Justin Vacula does not have a Wikipedia page, I’m forced to ask:
Who is Justin Vacula? What is his relationship to the Centers for Inquiry?
Holy shit. Vacula really likes using #bravehero. Does he seriously not realize how ridiculous it sounds yet?
Justin Vacula is an atheist activist from the Scranton PA area who has a blog and a podcast. He likes to needle and poke at Ophelia Benson, Surly Amy, and Rebecca Watson, doxxed Surly Amy at one point, and has written for the misogynist A Voice for Men website (and now also featured an interview with them on his podcast – after have previously attempted to deny that having his article featured on the site evinced any support on his part for them), and lends support and aid to the vocal anti-feminist faction of the atheist/skeptical community. He’s also a terrible writer and not very bright.
Ah but @SallyStrange if we’re having a go at people in the skeptic ‘community’ for not being very bright where on earth would we begin?
Might as well just start with the A’s and work up the alphabet.
(Ummm…pseudonyms don’t count…)
Hey Justin, you know that imaginary cookie we joked about giving you yesterday, for refraining from being a collossal asshole (in person, anyway) at the con?
Yeah. No cookie for you.
Asshole.
I am currently seeking seeking a family willing to take in some refugees from Northeastern Pennsylvania. I really want to be as far away from this asshat as possible.
I, about four years ago, had a glancing conversation with Vacula. This is when I had a blog (long time ago). He struck me as someone I wanted nothing to do with. Turns out I was right.
re: the question of “which path” to take
Maybe I’m not thinking “big” enough here, but my personal goal would be for Ron Lindsay to understand the concept of privilege better. (And I am NOT suggesting a re-education camp as the tool to reach that goal.)
Heck, if he’d just read a couple of the definitions in the FAQs or resources at a couple of feminist websites, um, after he calms down, then that would be a step, considering the influential position he holds.
Here’s Vacula’s take on his successful attendance at the WIS conference (posted at the’pit), It’s just too over the top to not quote it in full:
My conclusion? The guy’s not only dumb as a post but delusional as well.
No, Sally, that’s not what it means. Since this is at least the third time I’ve noticed you taking exception to use of the term, I think you should maybe look it up befiore fiurther bloviating (remember ‘phenotype’?). It’s not the risible dogwhistle, like, say, “politically correct” has become, that you seem to think it is. It’s a real label for a real thing and it’s not intrinsically perjorative. here, learn.
But what? It’s as if you only saw the last three words in her comment. Is all the stuff about his misogyny not even worth addressing?
Also, I’ve gotten the impression from another thread that you’re some kind of goddist, so would you care to address that? Just looking for some opportunity to poke at skeptics?
——
By the way, not to derail or pick on David Jones in particular (since I’ve seen plenty of others do it), but I just want to express my annoyance with the use of “@[name/pseudonym]” like this. You can simply use or mention a name just like you would normally. Simply being on the internet, but not on twitter, does not change that. You can say, “No, consciousness razor, I disagree with you vehemently” without an @ symbol because it’s utterly pointless in this context. It also reminds me of twitter for no good reason, which is annoying in and of itself.
Bah. Off my lawn!
/venting
1. I thought you swore not to speak to me on the grounds that I’ve been dishonest elsewhere on the net, though you refused (so far as I know) to substantiate the allegations.
2. There are plenty of people I disagree with vehemently – Michael Shermer, for example – yet nevertheless recognize that they are quite intelligent. I honestly can’t think of many other examples of people in the skeptical/atheist community who display as much raw dumbness as Justin Vacula does.
See, I get why everyone is condemning this “Vacula” person, but am entirely unclear of who he is, or if he is actually a fictional character, ala Galileo’s Simplicio.
I’d always assumed Vacula used the braveheroes name somewhat tongue in cheek, I mean no-one’s that lacking in self-awareness. After reading the pitpost ChasCPeterson quoted I have to change my mind. He really does see himself as some noble warrior fighting the evil feminists, if he wasn’t doing actual harm it’d be the funniest thing ever. I’ll be taking whatever path gets me away from him the quickest.
Oh, that’s right, David Jones, you do need to go to Thunderdome and substantiate the dishonesty you directly accused SallyStrange of.
I don’t think you should be posting anything else until you do that.
imthegenieicandoanything,
Simplicio served a properly worked out purpose. Vacula, not so much.
Suggest you google for a pic and as much evidence as you can take of the workings of his mind (sic).
Do you think Lindsay or Vacula consulted the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, when using the term in their tweets/blogs, or … well … ever? I guess we don’t really know, do we? For a long time I’ve wondered whether sophisticated apologetics also works in mysterious ways.
In any case, that appears to be what both Lindsay and Vacula mean by it. (I don’t recall others using it recently, but there may be more examples.) They’re using it as a pejorative dogwhistle, completely unanalyzed, as if simply invoking it can somehow magically defend them from the evil feminists (and, presumably, also anti-racists, anti-classists, etc.). So what it means in general, or in political or philosophical circles — or let’s just say in reality, to a reasonable and informed person — is beside the point.
What about “a creep creep of MRAs” if for no other reason that 90’s era R&B references make me smile?
Googling Vacula also brings up a company that makes hissing and blowing tools. Coincidence?
A Vacuum of MRAs works for me, if you get too close you get sucked in to the vortex of stupidity.
What a reprehensible little turd, but then with a name like “Vacula” what sort of chance did he have. Sounds like a vacuous vampire…maybe from Hell A.
Re: collective nouns. A tantrum of MRAs?
How about “a limpness of MRAs”?
…just to subtract from #41, I’ll take back the “Vatesticular” renaming, because I don’t want to look as dumb and childish as Vacula. I had to remind myself of Rebecca Watson’s renaming of “Twatson” by the obtusely ignorant and how well that went down. I don’t want to be rolling in the same gutter, despite I detest most of what Vacula is and represents. I think I can do way better…
Sorry about that folks. Back to lurking.
The collective noun discussion was started with “cluster”, which I think sounds about right.
Well, the word starts with cluster-, anyway.
carlie:
No.
In JV’s mind, only real women, like that brave hero, Karla Porter, belong in the movement. I mean come on, how much courage did it take to invite the WBC to WiS2? I’m in awe of her integrity, her bravery, her strength of character, and…oh god, gag me with a spoon!
@Jackie, Ms. Paper if ya nasty:
Moreover, who’s the CommieNaziStasInquisition trying to force their views on everyone and purge the movement of the dissidents?
What the hell are they doing here? They don’t belong here. But they wish they were special. So fucking special.
Speaking of which, I never heard: Did WBC actually show up at the event, or did they decide it wouldn’t give them the attention and publicity they desire?
How about a “disappointment” of MRAs?
Oh, jeez. Really?
I wish there had been some way to capture the pathos of the scene. All weekend long, there’d be these women speaking, giving talks that defied everything Vacula stands for, and they’d be getting this great roaring applause from the audience…and every once in a while they’d also say something that fit his worldview (for instance, I recall Susan Jacoby mentioning that Ingersoll had been a “white male Republican”), and Vacula would start applauding madly. All by himself. One sad little man at the back of the room, completely out of step with the rest of the conference attendees, clapping alone, and he thinks he is “winning.”
Wait, also: this is bizarre.
Does he realize I had nothing to do with this conference? It wasn’t my idea, I had no role in its organization, I was not a speaker, I was just an attendee. I do not have a leadership role in any capacity in the atheist community — I’m just a guy with a blog. That’s it. I can’t be fired, I can’t fire anyone else, and I do not have any means of controlling anyone.
This was a meeting organized by women and for women. The one intervention by a man in a leadership position was embarrassing for all involved. If there is anyone “losing hold”, it’s Ron Lindsay, who got a massive vote of no confidence from those attending the conference.
If their website is any indication, they were protesting funerals in Oklahoma and Missouri last week, will be protesting school graduations in Kansas this week, and then will go onto protest churches and other stuff in Florida in the next week or so. A conference in DC might just have not fit into their trajectory.
With how many hands?
Would it be too obvious to point out that the current Republican Party would have no room for a person like Robert Ingersoll?
So Vacuously is right! You do have no hold on the community!
” the leader of one of the top secular organizations will seek you out to shake your hand. In front of the people you’ve been harassing non-stop for months.”
this happened?
also, ‘muppet of mras’ sounds too cute. reminded me of a “fedoration of nice guys”
I wonder if Vacula or any of his compatriots could articulate what a post-winning world would look like for them. What would be different? Would it just be that nobody ever criticizes them? Would women be seen and not heard? What is their end goal, exactly?
ck:
Justin Vacula’s status as a brave hero was sufficient to drive them away.
Seeing Justin Vacula just had a tweet that claims that Rebecca Watson is one of the biggest problems in the secular movement, it think it is safe to say that one of the conditions of the ideal Vacula world is that Rebecca Watson never says an other word.
PZ:
Hmmm, I wonder how many people attended Women in Secularism 2. I’m curious how many people were annoyed/angry/dissatisfied with his speech. I think you mentioned 30+ people were in your hotel room the other night, but beyond that I wonder how far the disappointment extended. Part of me thinks that if only a small number make their frustrations known, Ron might think it was only a minority of attendees who were irritated. If a large number of people expressed their feelings, perhaps he’d be inclined to give serious thought to their concerns.
Or maybe he would continue to be a voice for Vacula & Co.
There were about 300 attendees. The people in my hotel room were not simply the angriest top 10% — Watson and Roth were not there, nor most of the FtB bloggers, nor many people who I heard expressing their disgruntlement at other times.
Carlie @89:
That’s a good question.
Janine @ 91:
Interesting (in a really insipid way).
In light of both your comments, I wonder if JV, the Pitters and all their ilk got their way (if we assume “their way” entails PZ, Rebecca, Stephanie, Amanda, Surly Amy, Greta, Jen, et al shutting up and not longer voicing their opinions), what would be left? What would drive them? Without the “FtBullies” to oppose them, what would they accomplish?
It reminds me of a sequence I read several years ago in one of the Superman comics, where the big guy was gone for year, and Lex Luthor whined at length about how Superman stands in his way of making the world a better place. At which point Superman points out
“I was gone for a year. What did you do to make the world a better place?”
…crickets chirping.
Lex is so obsessed with everything Superman that any potential goodness is overshadowed by his ego.
I see the same with people like Vacula.
I wasn’t around before the Deep Rifts.
What drove Vacula, Blackford, et al, *before* the schism?
Was it purely speaking out against the influence of religion?
Also, in Vacula’s ideal world, PZ Myers would talk to him.
I was there. I was asleep when the 30+ converged in PZ’s room, and I’m really pissed off. I suspect it’s something like over 75% of the attendees who are pissed, if not at Lindsay’s speech, then at his petulant tirade against Rebecca. No excuse for it. At. All.
I’d be delighted to support WiS in the future, but I’m not so sure about CFI– unless Lindsay apologizes. He owes that to his employees as well as to Rebecca.
I’d also suggest that they’re half the men they used to be, but that hints on a better past that is not in evidence.
…somebody please join me in my ’90s music geekery, I’m lonely.
Wherever Vacula’s “here” is, I’ve never been there, and hell would have to really exist and freeze over, and…I still would have no inclination to go there.
But bastionofsass, discussion with those you disagree with is important. Karla Porter says so. And she is a feminist. Justin Vacula had a tweet that stated that she identifies as one. And she is a feminist that is willing to associate with one of the voices for men.
Martha:
I had a feeling there are a lot of people who attended WiS2 who are angry at Ron.
I feel bad for Melody. All the hard work she put into this…all the wonderful speakers that were lined up…all the important topics of discussion…
As others have said, Ron’s speech has taken away from the important topics discussed at the convention. Of all the times he could have expressed his views (wrongheaded as they are), he chose one of the worst possible. I wonder if he’s going to pull a Shermer and double down and fail to admit that he screwed up. Then I wonder about next year. Will CFI attempt a WiS3? If they do, how much-if any-will attendance be down (and I think it will be if the convention occurs)? To what will they attribute this diminished attendance?
(Among the many things I’m puzzled over, I am still scratching my head over why he felt no need to welcome everyone. The attendees paid to be there. They chose to spend their money to attend this convention. This should have been acknowledged and everyone should been thanked. For him to take for granted the presence of the 300+ attendees is just…boggling.)
****
Melody:
If you’re reading, while I wasn’t able to attend, I’m very appreciate of all the hard work you put into this. Thank you for all your work.
PZ@83…. “I do not have a leadership role in any capacity in the atheist community — I’m just a guy with a blog. That’s it. I can’t be fired, I can’t fire anyone else, and I do not have any means of controlling anyone.”
This is disingenuous and complete bullshit on your part PZ and you know it
Then why aren’t you presenting any evidence to back up this inane assertion? You have no evidence. Nothing but attitude and blather.
Simply because PZ is a recognized figure does not mean that he is a leader.
Please, explain why what PZ said is bullshit.
It would be either illuminating or rather funny.
eliott1
Do you seriously think that PZ has some kind of control over us?
Chigau, I have been an atheist for thirty years now. I am only realizing that it must have been the power of PZ Myers reaching out to me through time. Kind of how the Doctor effected Amy Pond’s lifeline.
eliot1:
It appears you disagree with PZ’s comments.
Can you elaborate?
How is it disingenous?
How is it complete bullshit?
Is PZ more than a guy with a blog? If so, what else is he?
Can he be fired?
Can he fire anyone else?
Does he have any means of controlling anyone else?
You’ve made unevidenced assertions. If you’re going to be taken seriously-if you want PZ to take you seriously (especially since I doubt you care whether anyone else does)-you have to do more than make assertions.
So, can you back up your claims?
Or do we dismiss your opinion with a great, big POOF?
Janine:
Damn. PZ’s got power over time and space? And it hasn’t corrupted him yet?
Tony, PZ has been corrupted. That is why Justin Vacula and Karla Ported wish to talk to him. They are trying to save him.
Janine
That explains some things about my life, too.
—
tsk
Tony, where have you been?
He uses…sarcasm.
@104…@105…@107…
I addressed a comment made by PZ. If he has a question or wants to challenge my response I’m happy to respond to him directly. What I won’t do is get into the usual unproductive circle jerk with you.
He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and satire.
Open forum. But you do not seem to understand the concept.
Also, it seems that you think you do not need to back up you charge. And you complain about the “circle jerk”. You are the one JAQing off.
Oh please, elliott, do you think that PZ will willingly reveal the manifold and subtle ways in which he pulls all the strings? How ever so naïve of you.
We, on this open forum, are much more interested in how you think he wields his power.
Same here. It was like some cold tentacle wrapped itself around my brain and forced me to submit to its will, then vanished back into the abyss. I’m only just now starting to connect all of these things together.
eliott1
If you really wanted to communicate with PZ, you’d send him an email.
Here, you speak to all of us.
This is disingenuous and complete bullshit on your part eliott1 and you know it.
Wait, no, that’s just useless trolling. What I meant to say was that there is no substance for anyone to challenge or respond to.
well, so are “radical feminism” and “post-modernism”, but that’s not how these terms are generally used by that crowd. They may well connect the actual meaning to the dogwhistle in a vague, approximate manner, but they use it as a pure label-of-evil, as if slapping it on something is already an argument against it, regardless of whether it’s been slapped on accurately or not, regardless of whether the particular bit of identity politics/radical feminism/postmodernism is actually bad.
that’s not actually hard to figure out. They want it to be the way it was before the question “why are there no women?” was ever asked, but with the bonus of being able to prevent the question (or similar questions) from being asked ever again by being able to swiftly kicking out anyone who asks (or worse yet, suggests an answer that doesn’t amount to shrugging).
That’s what they’ve explicitly declared as their goal, over and over again.
PZ Myers saying “I’m not a leader, I’m just a guy with a blog”. Humility to some, dirty pool to others. Pray tell, what, exactly, is the breadth and depth of PZ’s influence? What do you imagine that PZ’s level of relevance and power is in the overall atheist movement? In the feminist portion of the atheist movement? It seems that you MRAs have it both ways on the subject. PZ is just an angry fringe, not representative of atheism and with no real clout when you want to dismiss him and his complaints. PZ is the leader of a massive angry lynch mob that represents the entirety of the atheist feminists and is a major source of the Deep Rifts that threaten to tear the atheist movement and leave MRAs suffering terrible fates at the hands of the Femstapo when you want to play Chicken Little and issue your own ridiculous mancentric complaints.
#bravesirhero
Now I’m curious about eliott1’s use of the word ‘usual’.
Have We™ The Hivemind® toyed with eliott1 on another occasion?
Justin Vacula’s status as a brave hero was sufficient to drive them away.
As redundant.
As you stare into the flickering monitor, darkness overcomes you and an unspeakable image forms in your mind. No living mortal has ever witnessed its malevolent form, but you recognise it without question. The words that are spoken are in an eldritch tongue, but their meaning is all to clear.
Dread PZulhu has awoken. His ichorous tentacles seek you out across time and space, and there is no place in this universe for you to hide.
Roll for sanity check.
See. Now. Y’all are just confirming eliott1’s contention that PZ controls us.
We can all think for ourselves!
W cn ll thnk fr rslvs!
From what I’ve been able to gather from google, it seems like the answer is: a little, but not much.
Here is braveherorobin barging into the thunderdome saying he had unspecified personal information about how people were wrong about something or other, held to that for a few comments, and then proceeded to blatantly troll, because why not. Combined three of the best below:
He got better after these. Apparently it didn’t stick.
His most recent performance is dropping a single post deuce into the “It’s 4 am and people are really annoyed” thread, quibbling over the definition of “tirade”.
Sad thing was: He was commenting here a year ago and seemed to be perfectly sensible until that Thunderdome thread. Trolling is a hell of a drug.
eliot1:
Try his email, rather than a blog, which is open for anyone to respond to your stupidity.
I attempted to address you politely, which was clearly a mistake. You’re not interested in dialogue.
Take a hike fuckwit.
“YES! WE’RE ALL INDIVIDUALS!”
“I’m not.”
“Shh!”
anteprepro
oh. That thread.
—–
[meta]
Tony
I ♥ you but your #107 was really not ‘polite’.
It was more of an interrogation.
I liked it but ‘polite’.
Not really.
chigau:
Yeah, you’re right.
I was trying to be nicer to the resident fuckwit than I really wanted to be.
BTW, I went over to Amanda’s blog and read her open letter to CFI. It was a good letter. The comments thread, however, has been taken over by MRA trolls.
Good of Elliot to identify that discussion with him would be unproductive wanking.
to get pats on the head for being utter asses.
really. It’s just that simple.
Rey Fox:
Yeah. That’ll work.
with or without nailing heads to floors?
Tony! The Virtual Queer Snoop #100
Rebecca, of course. Guaranteed.
it reminds me of the things that Fred Phelps used to say about his little cult there.
carlie
Oooh, I know. There’d be time travel in that world – and I’d be his mum. He’d love that.
What is with MRA trolls and their habit of walking into a public comment thread and acting like it’s a private email chain with the blog owner and all the various commenters are butting in and hacking the thread?
It certainly couldn’t be that it’s a power-play maneuver to try and position themselves as the only worthy commenter on the site, one so important that they can’t be bothered to put up with little things like community posting rules or other commenters. Much like they go through life trying to puff up their dominant group status to try and seem like the most important viewpoint and the only person worth paying attention to.
It is also certainly not about trying to power-play the blog owner by exploiting conversation norms to make it seem like this commenter deserves a direct response from the owner because if the owner doesn’t respond, this newcomer will continue derailing conversation in the comment thread demanding a private audience. And it’s certainly not like once this audience was given, it only entrenches this behavior further by allowing a justification for treating it like a private conversation. Hey, I was just answering Blog Owner’s question, why are you, random peon, answering for them?
And it definitely is not about dismissal and diminishing the community being intruded. Minimizing the commenters by treating them as beneath notice and unimportant and their time as hardly worth noting or caring about and minimizing the blog owner by diminishing their audience and thus allowing the invader to feel more like an equal or superior. “Oh, person with hundreds of commenters a day, you are surely such an unimportant small fry that you have nothing better to do than personally educate some bad faith little weasel trying to play a bullshit high school debate club game” and “your arguments are barely worth noting because you are such a nobody compared to me, a random guy who invades threads and can’t even bother to be remotely on topic or care about basic conversation conventions”.
And it certainly isn’t about the domination of the conversation itself. That the point is a derailing of topics that might lead to consciousness raising or a sensation among minority group members that they are anything less than unwanted and unwelcome even in their own spaces. And that any bad faith topic used to do so is worth it as long as it frustrates and distracts even if it makes you look like the overprivileged, cartoonishly pompous, deliberately ignorant codswallop that you are.
So given that it isn’t about all of that, I wonder what it could be in the magical fairy world where this is an honest-to-Bob good faith attempt to communicate with another community on serious issues and not a cheap and offensive bullying tactic.
I’m guessing it involves traumatic pasts where community commenting guidelines killed a beloved pet or close family member.
elliott1 imagines PZ must be the leader of the radfem horde because the ladybrainz quiver in awe of him for being old, white, bearded and male. Obviously elliott1 has never considered women thinking for themselves to be a possibility.
Cerberus – and it most certainly couldn’t be that they’re so egotistical as to think that their words of criticism must cut deep into the blog owner, causing them to deeply desire to find out more. “Oh no, some guy named elliot has made a cryptic comment criticizing me! I must engage in personal dialogue with him specifically to find out what he means and why he is unhappy with me!”
I can see where he might have been trying to go with this – using it as a rhetorical device. If the message had been “I’d spend time welcoming you, but you’re here for an important purpose and I don’t want to keep you from it with long flowery introduction speeches, so let’s get to the good stuff”, that would have made sense. And I would think that’s what he thought he was doing. However, instead what he really said was “I’d spend time welcoming you, but this whole conference isn’t even worth it”. That turns the rhetorical device from a compliment into another layer of the insult.
Vacula is really obsessed with Ophelia, isn’t he. I actually listened to a random #bravehero and it was basically Vacula and his buds over and over expressing their wilfull ignorance of basic feminist issues (I mean he fails to get the basic facts right as well as understand what words like “privilege” actually mean) and complaining about Ophelia and Rebecca.
And #98 . *spoiler* According to Dante’s Inferno, the bottom layer of hell is actually frozen over.
I’d suggest pig-flying as a metaphor for an improbable event next time ;)
@142 =8)-DX
I thought Hell frozen over every winter…
cr @#70, jadehawk @#119: re ‘identity politics’, point well taken. I didn’t realize that SS was responding to a quote from Vacula. It’s pretty clear that he doesn’t know what anything means.
nightshadequeen @#143:
yes
no
no
hell, no
I think their post-winning world would be them merely talking about the same old skeptic stuff: bigfoot, UFOs, religion, etc. They would prop themselves up as the rational people and have their egos stroked by their contemporaries. You can see this in all the conversations they’re having and in all the problems they have with Atheism+ or with atheists taking on social justice issues.
It’s all about wankery. “Look how awesome we atheists are. We’re smarter than creationists. We’re smarter than religious people. Wank wank wank.” They don’t want to be associated with irrationality, and when it’s pointed out that way, they have to defend it by trying to take down the people who say otherwise.
Their post-winning world would be atheism merely focusing on the same exact stuff it’s been fighting for years. It would be a bunch of white guys wanking on about how rational they are, listening to white guys give speeches and put up videos about “Why We Laugh at Creationists.”
PZ:
No, sorry, I’m going to have to take some exception to this as well.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Pharyngula is the most popular blog at the most popular science/freethought blog collection in all of the Internets. Saying that has no influence is like claiming Fox “News” is unimportant ’cause they’re just, you know, a news channel.
I have seen it argued a number of times here (correctly, I think), that the dichotomy of ‘internet’ and ‘real world’ is a false one – the internet is the real world, or part of it, and things here have real influence.
PZ is a tremendously influential blogger, if only by hosting a blog where people can come together and discuss ideas (it’s much, much more, of course.) He’s also a pretty decent draw and sought-after speaker at freethought events, and on the verge of being an author on the subject as well. If that doesn’t constitute a leader of the movement, what would?
PZ can’t be fired – not directly, true. But he could have a blog no-one read or comment on, a book no-one buys, speeches no-one attended. That would mean he would have much less influence on the movement, yes? He would cease to be a _______ of the community (fill in with whatever word you feel is appropriate).
PZ can’t fire anyone – again, true, technically. PZ can, however, deny anyone he wants a voice on the most popular freethought venue available – and does so when he feels he must (generally for excellent reasons). He can lend his support to certain events, or speakers, or groups – or refuse to.
The line between ‘controlling’ and ‘influencing’ people is not, I think, sharp or well-defined. If PZ thinks he can’t influence anyone, what the hell is he blogging about?
What PZ is doing is important, and vital, and sometimes inspirational.
That’s being a leader, like it or not, fancy titles or not.
I note that some of the presumably more literate folks on the other side were sending out angry tweets the other day to the chorus of “how did we ever consider PZ Myers a leader in our movement”. To which I thought it was rather revealing how some people think having “leaders” is a good or necessary thing.
I still consider myself part of the atheism “movement”, but fuck me if I accept anyone as my leader, not PZ Myers, and certainly not the likes of Blackford or “nuke them from orbit” Harris. Nor Richard “let’s repost Ron Lindsay’s unprofessional ill-advised rants on the RDF website” Dawkins.
This may be true, but my sense is that the other side has a more top-down and authoritarian approach to this, and fancies its leaders. I may be wrong.
Anri you forgot to add that while PZ does not have much… he is a river to his people! (but with the voice of Anthony Quinn)
If their bullshit doesn’t have the official stamp of a Lindsay or a Dawkins, then it’s immediately seen for the bullshit it is.
Huh. What are the others?
Interesting that Jack Sarfatti was banned by Jimbo Wales himself.
…because… that way lies Godwin.
I’m not a family, but there’s plenty of room in my apartment…
Pejorative, from Latin peior “worse” (compare French pire). Has nothing to do with perjury.
With your permission, Gräfin von Schnarkmistress, that’s not limited to Morally Repugnant Assholes. All sorts of common or garden fuckwit have been new to the Internet and not known what a blog is.
I seriously don’t believe he even thought that far. It’s just stupidity: elliott1 started from the assumptions that PZ has time to read every single comment, and that who gives an answer is more important than whether it’s true or false.
They haven’t learned enough history, so they try to repeat it.
When the generation of my grandparents and your parents wanted a leader, after all, they actually got one, and he even took “Leader” as his official title; if you met him, you were supposed to call him “my Leader”.
You and I went over this in school again and again and again. The average member of the English-speaking parts of the Internet did not.
Gah. He’s not getting any smarter anymore, is he.
“Leader” and “leadership” are very common terms in American election campaigns, attributed to one’s own candidate and rhetorically demanded from the other(s). I want to cringe every time.
[From the Vacula piece Chas posted]
Wait… a lair? PZ is a lair? A lair for what?! PZ! Doctor! Quick! You need a rectal exam!
@Anri
An influential and much respected member of the movement, yes. But that is not a leader.
An open letter to Justin Vacula:
See, here’s the thing. Yes, I am an atheist. I believe there is no god/s. But that’s not really all that important to me. Sure, I support religion being removed from the public sphere. And I stand in solidarity with those being persecuted for their atheism.
But you know what? What’s even more important to me? Women’s rights. LGBT rights. An end to racism.
So while you’re any sort of “leader” in this movement, I don’t want to have a goddamned fucking thing to do with it.
Love and hugs,
UE
Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend. – Albert Camus
.
Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either, just fuck off and leave me alone. – a poster I had in the 70’s
Do you think that? Really?
I’ve never said anything of the sort. Still, misreading is a forte of yours. I said, in fact, that I wasn’t going to give you an assurance I’d be courteous because I think you’re not sincere and you’re not honest.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/05/16/the-scarlet-crayon-of-atheism/comment-page-1/#comment-621448
Witness your misrepresentation here of what I actually wrote
Yep David Jones, that’s pretty much an accusation of dishonesty. So kindly fuck off.
David Jones, you totally said that, own your words.Don’t try to weasel out of it.
This was a really bad weekend (Ron Lindsay et al), followed by a really bad monday (More Ron Lindsay) and tuesday (OHAI Rape Culture). Here’s to hoping Wednesday will be better!
Alright, that explains it. I figured one of us had to be missing something. Just for fun (for certain values of “fun”), see if you can find any hints of “identity politics” just in that one quote from Vacula you gave in #63. Or in any of Lindsay’s recent blatherings. The level of incoherence and lack of self-awareness is staggering. Not that you (Chas) haven’t noticed that already, but I think it’s worth repeating.
As an aside, if anything, the atheist/anti-bigot/egalitarian side here is opposed to so much focus on a single identity. Claiming ourselves as atheists and only atheists would be isolating and undermine our own limited goals (whatever those would be: “gods don’t exist… so there! I win.”), because even those can’t be articulated without reference to how they’re relevant to a wide variety of individual atheists and to what else happens in the rest of society. Besides the psychological and sociological aspects of “the movement,” just from a logical perspective, atheism does imply lots of things about the validity/soundness of other kinds of beliefs. You’d have to be just plain ignorant or thoughtless to suggest otherwise.
Well, I say I didn’t say that. So you can demonstrate I’m wrong and you’re right by quoting what I said and linking to where I said it.
Waiting…….
I sincerely apologize that I mistook “You’re dishonest, therefore I refuse to be courteous to you” followed by radio silence for “You’re dishonest therefore I refuse to speak to you.”
When you made this allegation earlier, I suggested you take it the Thunderdome in order to avoid derailing the thread. I put my response there: http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/05/09/thunderdome-26/comment-page-1/#comment-622549
I suggest you do the same.
Exactly. If all you have is an argument from authority and you’ve given up god as a possibility for your authority then you need to find yourself another authority to replace god. One might go so far as to say that they’re not atheists at all because all they’re really doing is replacing an imaginary god with a flesh-and-blood god whose infallibility is all the argument they need or can understand.
Thumper; Atheist mate:
Hmm, I’m not certain I agree with you there.
It seems to me that as ‘cat-herd-esque’ as we tend to be, that’s as much of a leader as we’ll tolerate. (Some of us, anyway).
. . .
rorschach:
Ah, well, this is certainly true.
There’s nothing authoritarian about PZ, and I think that confuses people on the opposite side who seem to presume every leader must be considered infallible, soaring above the Great Unwashed like a majestic eagle, venerated and unquestioned.
I do think one can be a leader without being a commander, or without having a title or anything official at all, and I think PZ fits that situation.
But it’s all very fuzzy. Beardly, one might say.
He’s more of the Great Suggester, in my mind.
Sili you say the PZ is suggestive?
I will have to go back and re-read some of the more difficult post subjects with that in mind.
Some times I am too literal.
thanks for the heads up!
uncle frogy
Anri,
Very vaguely put, but I can accommodate such: it seems to me that in the sense that I am part of some movement, it is only in the sense that if PZ points somewhere that I might want to go I might go there (but not otherwise) that he is in any way a leader to me.
(I haven’t signed up for anything)
There are two forms of being a leader:
You can be in charge, and tell other people what to do, with the expectation they will obey your instructions.
Or you can excel at something, and be “ahead of the pack” in some regard; and perhaps those who are similarly inclined will follow in your footsteps of their own accord.
I think it’s fair to say that PZ is far more forward thinking with regards to feminism and other social issues than many other prominent male atheists.
In that respect, it could be argued that PZ is a leader in the atheist community, but he’s certainly not a leader of the atheist community.
We need more community organizers. That takes leadership.
How about an infection of MRA’s?
Heh. If they were MRAs employed by an organization, they could collectively be referred to as The Staph.
…I’ll go get my coat now…
response:
this is your brain on the false leader-follower dichotomy
no it isn’t. doing important, vital, and inspirational work is being an influential member of the civil society, not a leader. PZ is not leading me anywhere, no matter how inspirational he might be.
can we actually stop with that trope? it’s pretty obvious that many atheists are very easy to herd; they drift towards leaders very easily, and then defend them against any form of criticism, including the warranted kind.
more evidence that the “leadership” rhetoric is fucking with people’s brains. A leader is someone who gets people walking in the direction the leader wants. That’s what the word means. Someone who writes interesting and smart things that people take into consideration as they’re walking their own path, in their preferred direction, at their preferred pace is not a leader.
isn’t that what pioneering is?
strawman. influence is not leadership… well except maybe to authoritarian personalities.
the only reason he has influence at all, is NOT because he had a leadership position, was famous as a scientist, or was rich and powerful. Hell, he’s a small town college professor FFS.
it’s because most people who read what he says think he’s spot on, and many even rethink their positions based on his arguments.
it’s that simple.
Anyone who isn’t basically an authoritarian can see it.
srsly
who refers to their Leader™ as “Poopyhead”?
then you don’t understand what the difference is between a professor with a blog and the CEO of a nonprofit organization.
go back to school, maybe?
…only those who luv him.
;P
in case it wasn’t obvious, I’m betting Anri would score pretty high on the RWA scale.
Yep, and I was even going to use that word, until I forgot it in my usual long-winded overediting.
Regardless, people are getting hung up on the “leadership” word unnecessarily. PZ was responding to a declaration that he was “losing hold of the community”, which implies some form of authoritarian control; and we can all agree that he (and in fact no-one) has that sort of authority over the community at large, so it was as stupid thing to say as the rest of it.
Ichthyic, re: authoritarianism
Hmmm… I wouldn’t blame it on that, though I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt to be authoritarian.
Instead, it seems to me more like a cultural issue. Americans do have some weird predisposition to think in terms of leadership rather than civic-mindedness (or similar concepts in “private” interactions), like Jadehawk mentioned in the “humanism” thread. I just don’t know much about how that sort of language gets used in other societies, and how that compares to the US (more like majority English-speaking countries, with the US probably being the worst about it).
I certainly wouldn’t describe any of the people above as having authoritarian personalities or any particular personality at all. It’d be an armchair internet diagnosis anyway. Rather than a whole personality and all that entails, I think we should just be dealing with one concept here, as a concept, like “freedom” or “rights,” which (in my experience) tends to be confused and misused (especially in the US?) for whatever reason.
Jadehawk:
Good point.
Now, if only we could find examples of people actually saying their thoughts or actions were changed by reading PZ, or interacting with the community he’s gathered here, I might have a point.
But there are no examples of that.
None.
It was all just people already moving in directions they were going anyway, right?
. . .
Ichthyic:
It is if you are using that influence to, yanno, ask people to do things.
Like bomb polls, or attend conferences, or become active locally.
In other words, he’s making arguments that lead people to think new thoughts.
He’s speaking, and people are listening.
I am able to separate, in my mind, someone who has titles and enforced authority from someone who can lead people just by asking them to think things, and sometimes do things (giving to charity, bombing polls, attending conferences) they might not have done before.
If you’re not, that’s fine, but please don’t assume that’s a mental failing on my part, ok?
Thanks.
. . .
John Morales:
Yes, exactly.
Just because someone doesn’t have the authority to punish you for not going down a trail he’s pointing out doesn’t mean he’s not acting as a leader by pointing it out, talking about it, and showing people less familiar with it how to get there.
(And I presume you did sign up to post on Pharynluga… which is why you can, right?)
Anri:
Well, according to your exact agreement with me, it does mean she’s not acting as a leader by pointing it out, talking about it, and showing people less familiar with it how to get there whenever those people don’t care to go there.
Silly Anri, so confused by my words: sign-up in the sense of enlisting, not in the sense of gaining access.
One right here. Me. Before I became involved in Pharyngula (and this is, since I gave up blogging, my only real on line presence) I considered myself liberal, progressive, pro-feminism, open minded. I know now that I was not. I had no problem blaming victims (even myself). I had no problem blaming the poor for their condition. I had no problem with rape jokes. I had no problem with racist jokes, or anti-GLBTQ jokes.
And then this blog, PZed and the horde, hit me upside the head with a 70 pound halibut. And the most important thing that I learned was to shut up and listen. Even though I am white, middle class, college educated, straight, cis-gendered, and a professional, I learned to shut up and listen and began to learn again.
But, according to you, I do not exist.
But didn’t you just claim that was not possible?
Ogvorbis:
.
seconded
I can’t tell whether you can’t read, don’t understand what it means to take someone’s writing into consideration, or are strawmanning me on purpose.
FYI, taking someone’s writing into consideration means adjusting one’s path to accommodate information one found accurate and useful.
anri was being sarcastic, claiming that I said no one ever had his mind changed by PZ’s writing. Because apparently the only two choices are doing 100% your own thing, or accepting PZ as a leader because he got something right and changed your mind on something. The option of walking your own path while integrating useful information provided by people like PZ into it is not a thing.
Jadehawk:
You are correct. I apologize.
anri, I retract my #185. I was out of line. Sorry.
hey i asked a question
“the leader of one of the top secular organizations will seek you out to shake your hand. In front of the people you’ve been harassing non-stop for months.”
this happened?
Sorry there, John, that was a joke.
Or would have been, had it been funny.
. . .
Jadehawk:
Oddly enough, I don’t have to follow someone’s leadership 100% of the time to consider them a leader.
I don’t have to agree with them all the time, either.
. . .
Ogvorbis, broken failure.:
Apology not needed, but accepted anyway.
Thanks.