Returns From the Returns

The following arrived by way of what I quaintly call the 'alpha channel'. All right, non-public communication space, to translate for those outside the loop. ;) The orange highlightings are my own stylistic addition for the purpose of, well . . . highlighting!

"As your last post concerned the inattention paid to certain arcane theories as of late, I thought I would add something in that vein. Call it MANY REGRESSIVE RETURNS II.

"Feminism is a theory of gender that has no sympathy for the male gender, that has no knowledge of men's experience, that does not give men their due. In it, men are only partly human creatures—to be messed over in accordance with feminist complaints. That Intellectuals like Richard Rorty side with feminists is a small disappointment. Men have other intellectual benefactors. I'm thinking of the late Norman Mailer. His was a world of prose and poetry that reveled in human experience including the hearts of men—something the sterile world of academia cannot do. That is why men like Rorty, sitting in their ivory towers, have no truck with their own gender but can more readily identify with other pallid intellects like Catharine MacKinnon, a woman so obviously hateful of men. It is why Rorty can applaud as an "insight" the completely alien notions of Jacques Derrida in which "he explicitly argues that fundamental philosophical questions cannot be separated from the thinking of sexual difference." "Indeed", Rorty says, "I should go further and say that Derrida's most original and important contribution to philosophy is his weaving together of Freud and Heidegger, his association of "ontological difference" with gender difference." This weaving together enables us to see for the first time the connection between the philosophers' quest for purity, the view that women are somehow impure, the subordination of women, and "virile homosexuality" (the kind of male homosexuality that Eve Sedgwick calls "homo-homosexuality", epitomized in Jean Genet's claim that "the man who fucks another man is twice a man").

"Huh?

"I can imagine Genet recoiling in horror at Derrida's and Rorty's deliberate misinterpretation! Shall we send him a copy of Norman Mailer's The Prisoner of Sex? 'If a bugger is a man, if he is indeed twice a man — a man who fucks a male is a double male,' says Darling in Our Lady of the Flowers — it is because there is no humiliation more profound in prison than to be at the bottom of the order, to be helpless without a protector, and usable as a female by every other convict. Over and over in Genet we are treated to the spectacle of males turning into females. After a few years, Darling, the double male, is as much female as his mistress Divine, and Adrien Ballon who begins as a stud ends a queen, ends in fact as Our Lady of the Flowers."

"I suppose it takes a great writer of prose to understand another great writer of the same. Male feminists cannot be trusted with the delicate logic of male experience in or outside of prison. As we might expect, one can draw differing conclusions when comparing life on the inside of prison to life on the outside. In Derrida's interpretation, women are at the bottom of the order as men in prison. In Mailer's interpretation, men become the prisoners of sex, and in close proximity to women become like them without the distance "social constructs" provide. Naturally, sloppy analysis of either interpretation may say it all comes to the same thing. Women end being the lesser of men. Or as Tennyson put it in Locksley Hall, 'Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, matched with mine, are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine.'

"The difference is found in what I said to begin with. Derrida's and Rorty's interpretations lack that very quality feminists are always talking about — empathy. In this case it's empathy for men that's voided. They want to break down the social constructs that distance men and women by pointing to the fact that they are, indeed, social constructs. Mailer has all the respect in the world for these constructs as his sympathies rest with his own gender. And like a Nietzschean protector, Mailer, far from endorsing the naturalness of male control, presents the sexes as engaged in a power struggle that the male is by no means assured of winning.

"I suppose the moral here is: Don't expect feminists to play fair, especially with the coercive powers of the State on their side. After all, if women can accuse men of endless bias in their own favor, how the hell are we to trust that women are any different? Among many feminists, the notion of equality between the sexes has recently morphed from one where double standards were officially rejected to one in which they are tacitly endorsed. Why? Because you can't impose a single standard on two dissimilar creatures and expect similar results. With one gender being dissed as the sexual oppressors and the other coddled as the sexually oppressed, policy regarding how they should be apportioned prerogatives or dealt with for the same offense is not likely to work on the same presumptions nor show them equal consideration.

"Surely one definition of equality is finding as much fault in ourselves as we do in others. Fortunately, there are a few "feminists" like Patricia Pearson, author of When She Was Bad: How And Why Women Get Away With Murder, who have men's backs. Nevertheless, Pearson's book is not widely accepted by her womanist sisters nor is it likely to find a place on Oprah's "inspirational books" list. Opinions regarding sexual politics mirror the fact that we live in a feminist culture. Feminism is no longer a form of what Foucault termed "subjugated knowledges." Rather, the reverse is true. The critical analysis of feminist thinking, now found mainly on the internet, is closer to currently "repressed" knowledge.

"With that said, I give all the credit in the world to Angry Harry, Mensnewsdaily, www.mediaRADAR.org (respecting accuracy in domestic abuse reporting),The Counter-Feminist, and other places of solace for men on the internet."

Well! It's an honor to be shelved among such luminaries. I'll keep doing what I can, to be a pipeline for subjugated knowledge. . . :)

Many Regressive Returns!

Here is something that might bring a smile. :)

"Graphs on the Death of Marxism, Postmodernism, and Other Stupid Academic Fads":

http://tinyurl.com/3zhq8y

And a snippet from the above (from Sept. 2008):

"We are living in very exciting times -- at long last, we've broken the stranglehold that a variety of silly Blank Slate theories have held on the arts, humanities, and social sciences. To some, this may sound strange, but things have decisively changed within the past 10 years, and these so-called theories are now moribund. To let those out-of-the-loop in on the news, and to quantify what insiders have already suspected, I've drawn graphs of the rise and fall of these fashions."

Marxism! Psychoanalysis! Deconstruction! Feminism! Hegemony! Narratology! Oh my! Is it possible that all of these doctrines are "going south"? What the graphs appear to indicate, is that such things are being talked about less in the academic journals! And if they are being talked about less in the journals, it's a pretty safe bet they're being talked about less in academia at large. Furthermore, if academic people are talking about those things less, it means that they are edging those things out of their speech and out of their minds in favor of something else. . . .

Try to understand what is happening with those declining graph lines. Those lines suggest that the intellectual guts of political correctness are steadily rotting away!

All right, here is another item in a related vein of "news", of which the keen, sophisticated, cutting-edge readers of this most excellent of all possible web logs will not fail to grasp the importance. Well all right, perhaps it is mainly of interest to those who have got the patience to sift the arcane in search of the significant. (The purpose of the arcane, you see, is precisely to conceal the significant, like a needle in a haystack!) I myself occasionally have such patience, and it looks like THIS was one of those occasions:

"Beyond Reform: Agency 'after theory' ":

http://fty.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/8/3/315

As you will note, this is an academic article from a journal called Feminist Theory, dated December 2007 — which is fairly recent. Best of all, Sage Publications offers the article for download free of charge. Follow the link, and look for the red word free at the upper right.

Here is the abstract from the article:

"This article assesses the peculiar condition of being `after' theory. Any attempt to better understand why theory now haunts contemporary intellectual practice more than it challenges it must make use of the archive of feminist theory's critical distance with poststructuralism. In fact, feminist theory's traditional concern with the possibilities of/for agency gives us the most useful framework for assessing both the in/adequacy of theory and the in/adequacy of any `after theory' return (whether to aesthetics, intentionality, universalism, liberalism, the literary, etc.). If the question of agency puts pressure on theory's shortcomings, and the continued failure to locate agency within a constructivist framework gives legitimacy to regressive returns, then a more sustained discussion of agency is urgent. In turn, locating agency requires, philosophically and critically, a recuperation of `experience' as a way of knowing. If it can be argued that the constructive process is what occasions experience, and experience, finally, is the site of agency, then we can theorize the `how' of agency without relying on externalized positionalities (which are phenomenologically untenable). Finally, if, politically speaking, the failure to locate agency leaves us oscillating between the avowal and disavowal of reform, then a sustained discussion of agency promises to take us `beyond reform' altogether."

Even if this is not your preferred style of literature, I would encourage you to give it a go. Hint: something important is happening here; an intellectual crisis is brewing in academia. Read the rest of the article, and you will learn of a loss of faith which bedevils the intellectual ruling class! It seems they have reached a point on the cliff where they can climb no higher, and yet they can't go DOWN again! And those orange-highlighted passages jump right out and sock me in the eye — that is why I highlighted them!

Pay special attention to that little word 'agency'; it speaks tons. Then read THIS again: http://tinyurl.com/d2t6w6

. . . . where, as you will note, that little word likewise occurs.

Finally, allow me translate the meaning of "regressive return" to "an age of pre-theoretical innocence" into layman's English. It simply means throwing political correctness overboard. So in the end, the big question which the article looks into is this: how to move beyond (cultural Marxist critical) "theory" without sacrificing political correctness.

Because "theory", as we see from the first-linked website, is in decline.

I'll leave you connect more dots on your own. . . .

The Shifting Winds

Today, in my customary manner, I will make known a new MRA blog which has lately sprung to life. The name of this blog is Ithaca Men's Rights, and as you might conclude, the author is based in Ithaca, New York. Ithaca is a college town, the institute in question being Cornell University. Certain wits and wags have dubbed Ithaca "the city of evil" due to the oppressive polcor (politically-correct) atmosphere on the Cornell campus which has percolated into the surrounding social ecology. I, the present writer, spent about ten months of my very early life in Ithaca — too early to have any memory but for the faint image of a grassy hillside with some brick buildings along the top.

The blog author signs himself as 'Ithaca Skinhead', a name which bears witness to the colorful sociopolitical diversity of the NF sector. Below, I link you to a particular post on the blog:

http://tinyurl.com/a92kql

In the linked post, Ithaca Skinhead (Ithskin for convenience) demonstrates that he has a keen weather eye. Yes, here is somebody who is seeing exactly what I am seeing, so I know it isn't "just me"! And that is always a gratifying sensation. . .

Ithskin starts off his post by paying tribute to an MRA classic called The Catalog of Anti-Male Shaming Tactics. Now to be frank, it seems to me that Ithskin exaggerates, by just a mite, the ripple effect of this document. Certainly, those ripples have propagated widely in limited ponds, but larger swells and riptides are growing in the surrounding ocean — and it is to these latter that we should attribute the greater pull in the general current of developments.

Briefly, a power shift is occurring, and the opposing sector is aware of it. This power shift may not have progressed very far yet, however, it is markedly underway and the signs are everywhere. Here it is proper to observe, that not all feminists are stupid. They may lack intellectual honesty and moral intelligence, but plenty of them compensate for such deficiency by their greater than average endowment of animal cunning. And so, they are aware that certain energies and certain balances are shifting to their disadvantage, and that this tendency bids fair to continue on a rising curve.

Ithskin writes:

". . . the feminists did what you'd expect any mentally ill or irrational person to do: they kept repeating the same actions expecting different results.

"The awareness of shaming tactics basically put up a wall that before allowed entry into male insecurities. And, like any good infant, neanderthal, or robot not programmed "for this contingency", (or just crazy people in general), feminists are still bashing their heads against it.

"Until recently."

Ahhh...yes! Until recently! That's the kicker. Yet it's not so much that they were being robotic, but rather that they were in denial about what was happening. They were in a double-take cognition lag, and it took them a while to catch up. That's all!

Over a time period which commenced during my recent blogging hiatus, and extended into mid-December of 2008, I was e-mailed out of the blue by no less three women purporting to be feminists. This was unprecedented, since up until then I had never heard from anybody but fellow-travellers. All of these individuals were keen to have me understand that they were not evil man-haters, that feminism is about peace and justice, that feminism works for the liberation of all people, and so on. But following that predictable spiel, they trotted out the same old clichés that I've heard a hundred times! Pretty much as Ithskin describes:

"They've stopped trying to flame you into silence, but are now attempting to "kill you with kindness". It's a tactic taught in many courses about "conflict resolution". It actually does not "resolve" the conflict, but it makes the other person (namely, you) feel like the conflict has been resolved. And if you feel like the conflict is over, well... you stop fighting. . . .

". . . She [feministgal] emailed me, seemingly in good faith, expressing an interest in my viewpoints. However, she couldn't resist the "yes, buts..." and I found the discussion about men's rights to subtly and inexorably shift to feminist discussions."

Just for the record, Feministgal was not one of the feminists who e-mailed me. At any rate, throughout my correspondence with the three, my manner was dry, a shade sardonic and occasionally tart, unfailingly honest, but otherwise courteous. After all, there is place for diplomacy when your enemy arrives under the white flag of truce. And let it be remembered that I'm the one who preaches the doctrine of negotiation. My object through all of this was pointedly not to undertake argument or debate, but simply to inform them, to tell them things — and in a way that would guide their thinking. Yet they, predictably, attempted to shift the discussion into a realm of indoctrination, proselytism, or polemic. Invariably, they spoke from the standpoint of feminist subjectivism — although I tried to make clear to them that feminism is not the world, but rather an object for the world. But this, it appears, was an abstruse point for them.

What truly sobers the opposing sector is not merely the dramas in MRA cyberspace, and certainly not the wire-drawn arguments of MRA philosophers, but rather the sum total of developments in the world at large — of which cyberspace is merely symptomatic, and merely a fraction. It is a quaint optical conceit on the part of us cyberspace MRAs that we are the totality of the NF world. We are merely a blip upon the broader picture. Yet we are an important blip, and we have important work to do — let's not forget that!

Still, we cyberspace pundits didn't START all of this; rather, "all of this" percolated into our various life zones through the various portals peculiar to those zones. It touched us, we responded, and by our actions we incremented the fund of energy and touched the lives of others who will then repeat the cycle and carry the business forward in ways we can scarcely foretell. And the energy will grow and grow — is growing, has grown — in cyberspace and far beyond. Such is the power shift.

As I stated earlier, the opposing sector is aware of this power shift. For certain it is, that they cast their eyes upon the world at large. They are not fixated on the antics of a few MRA web personalities, and it is not to our words and actions that they are chiefly reacting. No, the world at large is where they get their significant information. And yes, they see the writing on the wall!

More and more every day, groups and individuals across the spectrum of what you might call activism are acting or speaking out against the femplex. Reform movements of all kinds are springing to life: father's rights, family law reform, anti-IMBRA, "fix VAWA!" — these are growing and spreading. Organizations — even tax-exempt ones — are coming into existence. Pro-male political parties are forming in Europe. F4J in one incarnation or another is still slogging away in England, and getting active in North America too! Big street demonstrations are occurring in India of all places! New Zealand is a land of zeal! A powerful movement is afoot to create an 'International Men's Day'! Counter-feminist videos are a booming business on YouTube! Angry male voices are overwhelming the comment threads and letter columns and pushing feminist voices to the margin — the upsurge in the last year alone has been dramatic! Yes the signs are everywhere if you just look — and I won't even attempt to list the more subtle ones.

Against such a background, more and more feminists are acting conciliatory, and playing the game of rhetorical tokenism. They see, perhaps even more clearly than we MRAs, what is coming down the pike. And they sense that the day is not far distant when they'll be busier than a three-legged cat in a sandbox with all the new complications. Ithskin again:

"Feminists are begining to tokenize ("we care about men's issues, see, we posted 1 article!"), then apologize ("we're sorry that so many of the 'bad feminists' have jaded you and turned you against feminism.") and then attempt to assimilate you into the Femiborg: "Instead of fighting each other, I think it's time we teamed up to address these issues.""

A closely related tactic is sometimes employed , wherein a feminist will attempt to broaden the available target area by pulling all manner of "polcor-progressive" issues into the conversation — even if these aren't directly related to feminism or men's grievances. Words like "privilege", "hegemony" or even "intersectionality" might occasionally get tossed around. The feminist will typically stress the importance of "positive, constructive goals", in order to invalidate the often angry and negative political focus of the average MRA. This maneuver — aside from humoring and patronizing you — is meant to secure the hegemony of feminist discourse, by re-directing your attention to matters that lie within their zone of guidance and reindoctrination. In a word, the femborg.

But to draw an analogy from history: the feminists, like the ancient Romans, are troubled by growing barbarian incursions into their empire. And their strategy shall be, to assimilate the barbarians as "federated allies" in order to preserve that empire. History will be the eventual judge for feminism, as regards the workability of such a plan. But history has long since handed down the verdict for Rome, as we are well aware.

I will leave you with this parting thought: Feminism will earn my respect when, and only when, it learns to smell its own shit. But that will never happen, because then feminism would no longer BE feminism.
.............................................................................

Here's a little something extra:

ithacamenrights.blogspot.com/2009/01/more-rape-madness.html

What's interesting is the comment thread following the post. The entry by Feministgal is quite revealing, I think. ;)

Feminist Guilt

For distribution anywhere and everywhere, on the web or off.

Now, you might ask, "what guilt are you specifically talking about? Guilt for what? Guilt about what?

And I would say "who the hell cares?" It suffices to instill the vague, abstract suggestion that they are "guilty", and in this manner gradually poison the mental environment against them, the very same way that they have always treated US!!

Make it cling and burn like psychic napalm.

Juxtapose the word feminist and the word guilt, and let the power of suggestion take over from there. Get the world used to the bare idea that feminism might be guilty of something. And in time, gradually, information will trickle in to fill the blank.

But for now, we are farmers preparing the soil for the seeds that will be planted. This is psy-ops. . .

Now try to imagine how it would play, if they attempted to counterstrike with the phrase NON-FEMINIST GUILT. . .

Forget it! That won't work. It is futile. You will never convince the world at large that non-feminists are "guilty" of anything. The concept is a dud. A damp squib. A non-starter. It simply does not resonate.

Because plenty of people know perfectly well, in the obscure corners of their minds, that feminism is guilty as hell. All they need is to be reminded of this.

Feminist Guilt! Ahh...yes! That has a ring to it!

They are All Alike, Because They are All Feminists

Do I tar all feminists with the same brush? Yes, verily I do that.

Why? Because they are all feminists. By this I mean, that they are all participants in the thing known as feminism. I cannot suppose it otherwise: if they call themselves feminists, then I must assume that they participate in feminism.

Now, I happen to view the term feminism in a pejorative light. That is my political standpoint, and I don't gainsay it. Thus, to be a participant in feminism is, by my assessment, to be a participant in something dishonorable—and my assessment operates clear across the board, embracing the full spectrum of persons who call themselves feminist. If you call yourself a feminist, then you are by definition a participant in feminism and therefore a participant in something dishonorable.

Accordingly, the tar from the tarbrush is itself the binding element that links you (dishonorably) to the broad endeavor. And yet . . . that is a misleading metaphor, because in fact the "tar" was present from the very inception! No so-called brush has put it there; it was inherent to the nature of the thing all along!

And what is the nature of the thing? It is this: that feminism is grounded upon an archetypal system of manichean dualism—a moral template in which women are the wellspring of good and men the wellspring of evil. (Any apparent reversal of roles in a given case is explained away as "self-defense" on the part of women! )

From this manichean paradigm, certain formative factors emerge.

Firstly: the idea that "anything which is of use to women is good"—a conclusion that generates one-sided advocacy for women's interests, but scant consideration for men's interests since men are implicitly the "bad" side of the duality.

Secondly: the all-pervading drive for female supremacy—rationalized in terms of the "female equals good" formulation, and embodying as a natural consequence the depreciation of men and things male. Such depreciation necessarily draws upon the element of personal disaffection toward males—it cannot exclude this element.

To summarize, feminism combines one-sided advocacy for women (who are deemed worthy of this) with disaffection toward males (who are felt to deserve this). The only possible outcome of an ideology thus formulated is, that the world will grow steadily more poisonous for the male half of the species.

So if you are truly a cognizant person, you ought to stop calling yourself a "feminist". You shouldn't bother explaining what "kind" of feminist you are, and why your style of feminism is the pure and noble kind as against the nasty, man-hating kind. That won't fly. People's eyes will glaze over and they won't have the patience to listen. Nor should they even be requested to do so—they are living their own busy lives and oughtn't be compelled to tangle their brains with such mental flotsam and seaweed. One oughtn't draw them (by force OR by guile!) into the hegemonic intellectual vortex of the feminist world-view. They have no moral duty to think in feminist or even femplexic categories, or to decipher your behavior (however obliquely) within the framework required by such categories. As a courtesy to them, why not simply forsake the word "feminism" altogether? This is not only a courtesy to them but a service to yourself, for you will no longer incur their not-unwarranted suspicions, and you will no longer be living on the defensive. Think what a blessing that will be!

Really, it is far easier and more logical to chuck 'feminist' as a self- descriptor. This affords a rapid exit from the maze, and grants all of us a breath of fresh air and a fresh start. Very often, when a poem or painting isn't working, the most sensible plan is to wad it up and fling it in the garbage. Then start with a new sheet and a new inspiration.

I have argued that feminism is, in a critical way, monolithic, given that those who align with it are effectively tainted or compromised by default owing to their choice of self-descriptors. I mean that their choice involves them, wittingly or unwittingly, in a system of cultural energy which upholds a dishonorable paradigm. This paradigm, as I have explained, is manichean—cast in the model of "man equals bad and woman equals good". And as I have suggested, the consequence of this paradigm is that feminism, as a movement and as an ideology, cannot be distinguished from an elemental disaffection toward males which lies at its core. Feminism, as it were, hollows out a central place for man-hating, and this rancid smell contaminates every dimension of whatever still survives.

I have heard the question put by some, whether demonization of men is the GOAL of feminism, or merely an unfortunate by-product of ill-considered policies along the way. For an example, let us consider the issue of rape. Do feminists simply use rape as a handy way to demonize men, or are they driven by an authentic concern with the issue as such, and by an honest feeling for the victims of such a crime?

Anti-rape campaigning, whatever the motivation of any individual participant, DOES, in pragmatic fact, shine a prejudicial spotlight upon men and maleness. It brings an inordinate degree of attention to bear upon the male population generally, and that attention is not, to my reckoning, of a laudatory character. It is rather of an adverse and demonizing character—who can dispute this?

Under these circumstances, individual motivation pales to a graytone in the background. It is not truly the significant thing, not the thing that weighs effectively in the algebra of political occurrence. For feminism, as a movement and as an ideology, sets the structural bearing load on whatever depreciates men and maleness—THAT is the thing which weighs effectively! And such depreciation is the living heart of female supremacism. Logically then, it is also the living heart of any plan which proposes to establish female supremacy as a living reality.

And feminism, preeminently, is such a plan. Feminism swirls around female supremacism, female supremacism swirls around depreciation of men, and depreciation of men swirls around raw primeval man-hating . Pluck these gravitating nodes from the vortex and you will see the vortex grow sluggish, fade away, and become indistinguishable from the surrounding energy field.

There is no warrant to call male demonization a "by-product" of feminism. Such a description cannot be creditably upheld. It is no by-product, or even a "product" of any kind at all: it is rather an essential item of stock-in-trade, lacking which feminism's work would never get underway.

So again, is the demonization of men a "goal" of feminism? By that I mean, is it intended to be accomplished? I can best answer this by inverting the query: Given that feminism cannot exist independently of a demonizing mindset, and given that feminism would be pointless if not reinforced by continual validation of such a mindset, how is it possible to distinguish such a mindset (with its continual need for validation), from a fixed and continual state of intention? In other words, how is it possible to distinguish it from a GOAL?

And the goal is what? To validate a demonizing mindset, yes?

Very well. So if you wish to validate a demonizing mindset you must do what, precisely?

Demonize? Or NOT demonize?

Clearly, you must demonize. . .

Demonization is an active process, like a fire in need of stoking. Anybody who wishes to do so may attempt to persuade me that demonization does not require further demonization in order to sustain itself. Would you care to inform me that demonization is not a GOAL of demonization?

I consider the case closed. Demonization is a form of perpetual revolution, and being such, it can neither stand still nor live without grasping for something external to itself.

We may allow that some feminists are sincere campaigners for particular issues that involve equity, but the CORE of feminism as a movement and as an ideology, is female supremacism— and demonization of men and all things male is key to the feminist propaganda effort in this realm. Such demonization is central to the feminist endeavor as a whole. And that endeavor is to advance female supremacy—the ascendancy of female power over male in all areas of life. This is undertaken deceitfully in the name of 'equality'.

If you are a feminist with good intentions, the very best you can say for yourself, is that you are a patsy. And being a patsy will not spare you the tarbrush. If anything, it earns you an extra coating.

You are also confusing the issue by muddying the semantic waters—for that is exactly what the word feminist does. Feminism—the rotten core of it, I mean—needs to be morally invalidated. And that requires giving it consistent NAME, and placing a moral onus upon that name. A stench. A taboo.

In Germany nowadays, not many people would dream of calling themselves "National Socialists". Some few might honestly believe there is a "good" National Socialism, and they might be eager in their heart of hearts to set their case before the world, BUT . . . they wouldn't dream of actually trying this. It would be grossly improper and stupid of them, and moreover there are iron sanctions in Germany against anybody reviving the name of 'National Socialism' . Feminism, in my opinion, needs to be laid under a similar kind of interdiction.

In the long run, it is a moot question whether feminism demonizes men as a GOAL, or for some other reason. It is a matter of small consequence to those on the receiving end, and besides, feminism could not operate effectively if it didn't demonize men. Suffice to say that it is integral to feminism's collective organic purpose to do so, quite independently of individual motivations. Individuals who feed feminism's collective energy—be it only by supporting feminism in name—are complicit in that organic purpose because they assist the organism to function and to grow. Such people are generating a smokescreen around feminism's malignant core, and in the end we can't be bothered to untangle the riddles they inflict upon us: these only waste our time and energy, and strengthen what we desire to overthrow.

There is no good feminism versus bad feminism; there is only bad feminism versus less bad feminism. The so-called nice feminists are patsies spreading asphalt on the devil's driveway.

Our endeavor is to isolate the malignant core. If therefore you identify as feminist, you are interfering with our purpose by muddying the semantic waters. By even granting feminism THAT level of legitimation, you are extending its lease on life—effectively telling the world that your sentimental addiction to a mere word takes priority over more urgent considerations. This stalls for time and postpones the issue. It is distractionary, it scatters red herrings, it generates speed bumps. All of this makes feminism stronger—and to do so is especially remiss when the logical alternative lies within easy reach, namely, to discard the word feminism altogether.

Go and READ This! I Mean it!

Damn! I hate it (and yet I love it!) when somebody steals the words right out of my brain and says what I have been fumbling to say for oh-so-long, and says it ten times more cogently, and more eloquently than I could ever hope to do!

"So what does that mean for men who are not among the fortunate few? Are we destined to be lowly peons shoveling muck out of gutters? For many of us, our fate could be worse than that. Gutter cleaning pays fairly well, at least according to the last bill I saw for that service. The future certainly does look grim, but could there be anything redeeming about our new status as disposable goods? Yes, there could, but only when we learn to accept and finally embrace it. . . .

"Accepting such a great loss of security, confidence and trust is a very difficult thing to do, but it is profoundly liberating. Whereas before one was shackled to deceit and resentment, now the fetters are broken, the cell door opens, and suddenly the world is revealed. Feelings of guilt, inadequacy, anger, envy and disappointment dissipate in the open air; ought gives way to is. When one arrives at this state of mind, all of the countless obligations, worries and responsibilities lose their sting. It becomes clear that reality - the way things are - is our only true master. We owe no debt to anything or anyone else. . . .

"Without the shock of betrayal and loss, we might have plodded along forever, devolving into something akin to oxen, fit only for heavy burdens and the whip. But that will not happen now. The deal we’ve got is clearly rotten, and there’s no good reason to haul that load. . . . ."

Go here to read the essay in its entirety: http://tinyurl.com/7f239c

This would also be a good time to read (or re-read) the following on CF:
http://tinyurl.com/645hbh and http://tinyurl.com/8tk995

Finally, please note that I lifted the latest Todd Goldman dreck (above) from a cool blog which I have only recently discovered. It is called "Porky's Place", and I learned about this website because Porky himself left a comment on my secondary blog 'WDLT'. But here is Porky's web address:

http://porkysplace.blogspot.com/

Now: go, and find your mountain top!

Post2Hugo

I am in the midst of working on other things, but I thought I would toss this little morsel to all of you snapping piranhas out there in the dark waters of cyberspace, demanding to be fed! ;-)

I stumbled upon this item while I was digging through forgotten folders on my computer. It was in a text file, and appears to have been a comment which I posted on Hugo Schwyzer's blog way, way back in the dusty past. I can only faintly remember this, and I think that it dates to my pre-blogging days!

The file was titled 'Post2Hugo', and I must have saved it as per my usual modus operandi when I am posting comments on other people's websites. I keep such items for sentimental reasons of course, but also because I may want to exhibit them later and say "look what Joe Blow didn't let through moderation on his blog! Well here it is, you get to read it anyway!!"

I also save such items for their intrinsic value, since I am often inspired by the heat of the moment when I compose them, and they are often pretty decent material. The following is a case in point. It was evidently posted to a thread where a certain news story was under discussion—exactly which story I cannot say, although I think it might have been the one about the retired NYC doctor who committed a spectacular arson/suicide when he was apparently getting shafted in a divorce settlement. (He set fire to his Manhattan brownstone flat.)

I share the following because the points it makes are damned important— and central, and pivotal—and because it summarizes those points rather well. And no, Schwyzer did NOT let it through moderation. At least not so far as my quick Google query could reveal:

Regarding what DaveTheRave said: Quite so! Steals the words straight out of my mouth. But still, I'd like to add a bit.

The feminist modus operandi is to throw a SPOTLIGHT upon episodes of malfeasance by males, the more spectacular the better. And if there is a titillating sexual aspect to it, that's the best of all!

The motivation behind this policy is both anti-male, and political. Let me put that plainly; the purpose is to collectively blacken the name of MEN, to harm MEN as a group, to injure MEN as a group, to poison the well of opinion against MEN as a group... and all for the central purpose of justifying further political action against MEN as a group.

An incident of spectacular male villainy (or even buffoonery!) surfaces in the news, and the feminists are all over it like flies on sh~t! They can never treat the episode sui generis, oh heavens no! It is always a morality tale about men in the abstract. In so behaving, feminists show themselves activated by base considerations.

They are also pouring gasoline upon the flames of the present gender crisis, which is unwise in my opinion.

Regarding the news story under discussion, my own position is very simply that a crime has been committed, that the accused (if he were still alive) would be entitled to due process like any other citizen, and that if found guilty by proper standards of evidence ought to recieve a sentence fitting his transgression. I offer NO excuses, NO justifications for what he did. I will undertake NO spin-doctoring of a political nature in this case or any similar case. I will take the plain-vanilla, Joe Friday facts exactly as they are, because....well, I'm a Joe Friday kinda guy, I reckon! ;)

I would expect others to do the same. And if they fail in this, I would take them severely to task for it. The ball is in THEIR court. The onus is on THEM specifically. I sincerely hope they will straighten up and fly right. If they don't, then a worsening gender crisis will be one of the PREDICTABLE consequences.