I found out recently that many feminists are just starting into awaken from the sexual entitlement crap that men put out. I really hope everyone who reads my blog knows all this stuff, but just in case these things need to be said:
* Men don’t need to have sex. Anyone who says they do is trying to manipulate you.
* There is no such thing as “blue balls.” Anyone who tells you they are in pain because you won’t let them ejaculate inside you is trying to manipulate you.
* Erections are not painful. Anyone who says he’s in pain because of an erection you gave him is trying to manipulate you.
* Anyone who has sex with you without giving you at least one orgasm is either a lazy asshole or sexually uneducated. What the hell people, every heterosexual man should know how to give a woman an orgasm, this is basic stuff. Don’t treat it as if it’s normal, don’t ever stand for that shit.
* You do not have to have sex with a man because you made out with him. Anyone who says otherwise is a rapist.
* Men do not need pornography in order to masturbate any more than women do. Any man who tells you he needs his pornography is lying.
I don’t want to be condescending by pointing out this basic stuff out, but as an ally one of my roles is to speak loud and clear against this sort of male manipulation so I thought I should write this. Again, I really hope I’m not telling anyone anything new, but if I am, and you are in a relationship with someone who exhibits such behavior, consider it a big red flag.
You’ve got questions, I’ve got answers, part 3! Actually, it’s more like “the two same people as last time sent you a question again.” But hey, this is a small blog so…
But yea, if you have any questions, press the “Ask a question” button on the top left and I’ll do my best to answer.
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Name: travis
Comment: Hi,
Is there a connection between eugenics/transhumanism and anti-natalism?
Thanks!
That’s an interesting question. I personally have not heard of any such connection, with one exception: on Youtube I know some people have put forward transhumanism as a “less extreme” alternative to antinatalism in terms of eradicating suffering. The theory is that one day technology might get to the point where we can create new human beings who cannot experience physical or mental suffering in any way, and that this would be an adequate solution.
The obvious antinatalist reply to such a position is that suffering gives human beings a reason to live and strive, and that without it there is no more point to human existence. Without the motivation to reduce other people’s suffering, there is no reason for humans to exist at all. Such an existence would be pleasant enough, but there’s no logical reason to choose it over antinatalism.
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Name: Marco den Ouden
Comment: Some of the things on your blog interest me a great deal, others not so much. I am particularly interested in your political theories. I have thought about collecting some of your articles in a sequence and copying them into a pdf or epub document so I can read them at my leisure like a book – in an organized and sequential fashion. Would you be okay with this? Many of your articles contain links back to previous articles and involves some jumping around. Can you list ten or so links to articles that explain your philosophy in an ordered fashion so I have a good place to start and can then proceed article by article. Have you thought of collecting some of your writings into a book? Please do not include anything on feminism or anti-natalism. I agree with the former and disagree with the latter, but it is not what I am interested in reading right now. Just politics, specifically your brand of libertarian socialism.
That’s perfectly fine, I expect there are few (if any) people who are interested in every single topic I write about.
I see no problem with people collecting entries and putting them together, as long as it stays public domain. As for articles that explain my philosophy, I would recommend you look to my list of most important entries. These are the entries that I link to the most, usually because they explain some core principle about ethics or politics. There is some antinatalist stuff there, but not much.
I don’t really believe that any person who has thought about these issues can have a worldview that can be described as going from point A, to point B, to point C. Yes, there are basic principles that we base our thinking on, but often you find out about an idea, agree with it, but it takes you a while to understand how it fits in the bigger picture. The result of my thinking on that subject led me to renaming my blog, as I’ve discussed here.
Finally, I did want to point out, as I did to you by email, that it’s rather incongruous to agree with radical feminism but not with antinatalism, as both are fundamentally connected. I’ve pointed out before the connection between anti-feminism and natalism; now I would go farther and even say that we cannot have feminism without antinatalism, and we cannot have antinatalism without feminism. Those two strands of the human future are inextricably linked. The less we value procreation, the more we’ll value women, and the more we’ll value women, the less we’ll value procreation.
Just watched the Bill Nye-Ken Ham debate. Ken Ham’s main argument was that “observational science” proves Creationism right and “historical science” – i.e. anything that’s about “the past”- is automatically suspect. Bill Nye’s main argument was that the Creationist claims are extraordinary and require evidence, while our observations do tell us things which are contrary to the Bible. He also pointed out that billions of people are religious and yet disagree with Ken Ham’s cosmology.
In the Q&A, Bill Nye drove it home with his passion for science, while Ken Ham came limping to the barn with repeated assertions that the Bible has all the answers. I think Ken Ham was more focused and overall a better speaker, but Bill Nye was more on point with his replies, had the better arguments, and was more conscious of the message he was there to deliver.
From a technical standpoint, Ken Ham lost the debate by himself. His main argument is that “historical science” cannot be trusted because natural law changes. But another of his main arguments is that only God can explain the uniformity of nature, and therefore science. This is a major contradiction in his position, and destroys everything else he’s said.
In the end, I think both sides won the debate. Ken Ham won simply by having the debate actually happen, and he just slid through the actual debate without taking any risks. I would tend to agree that the debate itself was a bad idea, but Bill Nye hammered the points he was there to give and showed up Creationism’s flaws, so I think he also won.
Delusions of Gender, by Cordelia Fine, is a book that concerns itself with the central question of gender: are there really inherent behavioral differences between men and women, or are those differences all culturally constructed? As an anti-genderist, I am definitely on the “all differences are culturally constructed” side, and Fine takes that side also.
The book is divided in three main parts. Part 1 concerns itself with measured behavioral differences and studies which seek to explain them. Her central concept is that of associative memory, which creates implicit associations in our brain between concepts, such as associating a gender with stereotypical concepts such as empathy or mathematics. Fine discusses a wide variety of studies which show that, whether we are aware of them or not, our implicit associations have a profound impact on what we think about ourselves and how well we perform tasks.
Part 2 discusses the attempts to point to neuroscientific data that supposedly proves a neurological basis for gender. Fine exposes this “research” as being little more than a fallacy of insufficient sample. Finally, part 3 explores the issue of how our implicit associations form in early childhood and why attempts at “gender-neutral parenting” and other individualistic solutions must necessarily fail.
I have not so far read a lot of the anti-genderist literature so I can’t really compare this book to others on the subject, but this is one of the best non-fiction books I’ve ever read. Cordelia Fine combines startling insights into the construction of gender with a keen observational mind. I heavily recommend this book to anyone who has any interest in anti-genderism.
Seriously? If you’re planning on picketing a Day of Rememberance for Polytechnique victims because you don’t like one of the speakers for being radfem, fuck you. That is the most horrible thing I’ve heard in a long time. What the fuck is wrong with you?
For all the times they call us scum, that’s pretty fucking scummy. Natalie Reed has no respect for human life.
Part of Fiddler on the Roof that contains the musical number L’Chaim, which starts at 3:37. I will indicate time as given by the video.
The L’Chaim number in Fiddler on the Roof is composed of three phases which are rather obviously meant to be seen as such. These phases follow the classical dialectic structure:
Thesis (3:37-4:53) The Jews celebrate the announcement of Lazar’s wedding to Tzeitel, starting with singing and fluidly transitioning to dancing.
Antithesis (4:54-6:26) The Christians/outsiders sing, and then dance, a response to the thesis.
Synthesis (6:26-8:48) The Jews are assimilated into the Christian/outsider paradigm.
The cinematography, singing and dancing throughout is perfectly coordinated to construct these three phases and their meaning relative to the rest of the movie. I believe that they are actually meant to be a summation of the movie itself, and follow the general storyline: first we observe the Jewish community in relative isolation, then we observe the effects of outside intrusion (in the forms of Tevye’s daughters’ weddings as well as the threats of pogrom), then we observe the forced assimilation of the Jews as they are forced to leave their town and emigrate.
The thesis is not particularly thematically interesting, but the antithesis deserves particular examination. First, it should be noted that the Christians are all wearing very similar clothing, which brings to mind some kind of military uniform, echoing the pogroms (the lead singer also wears a military-looking cap).
5:00-5:08 This is an absolutely masterful reveal. But apart from that, we see that the Christians start off hanging back from the main dining area, but progressively move forward.
5:24 In response to the line “may we live together in peace,” Tevye answers “thank you” and starts to bow, but a fellow Jew holds him back. All through the antithesis, Tevye is held back and prevented from “fraternizing.”
5:25-5:32 The Christians begin to “advance” in earnest. Their song is friendly but their gestures and body language look vaguely menacing. At 5:39 look how the lead singer does a closed fist gesture which out of context looks aggressive.
5:45-6:26 The Christians start dancing within a circle. The cinematography no longer portrays the two groups as confronting each other, and instead makes it appear as if the Christians have completely taken over the floor, although this is not really true.
This is where the synthesis begins, and Tevye is no longer held back. The Christian bumps into him, apologizes, then holds out his hand. When Tevye has to take a decision during the movie, he always hesitates, thinks of traditions and has one-sided conversations with God. He likewise hesitates at 6:48 and looks back to his fellow Jews for advice. But no one is holding him back this time, and being happy and drunk, he takes the Christian’s hand and is taught how to dance in their style, which is actually similar to what you see at the beginning (compare the hand-slapping in 7:08-7:23 to the hand-slapping in 4:38-4:50).
Tevye provides the bridge between the self-isolated Jews and the outsiders; in the number he does so willingly because he is happy and drunk; in the movie he also represents the transition from isolation to modernity but does so unwillingly. In either case the result is the same. Lazar, on the other hand, is unwilling to participate in the dance, which corresponds to his status as the side of tradition against the other grooms who represent the “modern ways.”
If you look at the dancing in the synthesis in 8:16 on, you observe both types of dancing simultaneously, and alternating passages from both parts of the song. So the movie here is in a very obvious way telling us that this is a synthesis. At 7:43-7:50 we get another idea of a struggle or battle as lines advance and retreat with the dancing. At 8:27 the lines reform into circles, and it appears as if the Jews are dancing in a circle within a larger circle of outsiders; I think this provides a symbolism of the isolated Jewish community being surrounded by outsiders.
I think L’Chaim was intended as a microcosm of the movie as a whole, in the same way that many Broadway musicals have a ballet sequence in the middle that describes the play as a whole. It is meant both as a song with textual content and as an interpretive dance with its own conceptual content.
The Prime Directive 