I’m sure you’ve seen all the sturm und drang over Freethought Blogs being a cesspool of bullying and thought-policing hive-mindery. Despite this, a few people outside the network have voiced their support of people inside the network, and are picking off the worst lines of argumentation that people are using to try claim that we’re dogmatic bullies who do not tolerate dissent. What catalyzed this show of support? Why no less than Paula Kirby calling us all Feminazis and Femistasi (Ophelia’s take on that nonsense).
And where the hell is Orac to shout down this particular Godwinning?
Anyway.
It’s really great to know that some fantastic writers are not letting this slide, even though they’re not personally the ones being targeted. Several of them below the fold.
Alex Gabriel writes us a fan letter and eviscerates the FtB-as-Stasi meme, shows amazing support for the key FtBloggers involved in this fight, and starts the #WeLoveFTB hashtag.
Now, clearly my opinion is just that: personal, subjective, an opinion. But for all the accusations of throwing their weight around, there’s a reason FtB has weight: it’s extremely popular. None of these people have to read it, and I’m not asking you to read it if you’re reading this. In fact, I’m not even asking you to like it.
But it’s obvious large numbers of people do like it. Over five thousand, according to Facebook. And while, contrary to some of what Paula suggested, no one who disagrees is being stopped from saying so, I think it’s time FtB-lovers sent in some support – because while it’s easy to be negative on the internet, especially on sarcasm-positive social networks like Twitter, sticking up for people is important.
tigtog of Hoyden About Town reposts a comment xe left at Ophelia’s, with this lead-in context paragraph:
In a truly rational world, it might be possible to substantively and productively explore the pros and cons of competing positions in good faith and reach a nuanced understanding and a mutually satisfying path forward. Unfortunately the “don’t give disproportionate emphasis to sexism” side has basically been hijacked by a bunch of bad faith contrarians who advocate never ever listening to women because women be lying because that’s what bitchez do amiright. These are the folks who’ve “excessively emphasised” the issue of sexist misbehaviour by continually stirring the pot, and this week a post on the FreeThoughtBlogs.com network from Justin Griffiths outlined exactly how this has been going down (mostly indirectly via contrarians’ now-I’m-using-my-reasonable-voice comments which have now been deleted). In short, for a large number of the noisiest pot-stirrers the whole meltdown is just an exercise in 4chan-style gamesmanship, where they get to bask in their supposed superior rationality as shown by the way that they can disrupt discussions and spark off flamewars by stating positions they claim not to truly hold, because they’re just making a point (that well-know close relation of JAQing Off).
And direct allies aren’t the only ones countering the “you people are bullies” memetics — Atheist Logic fisks that Kirby open letter with aplomb.
Now I don’t really have a problem with namecalling when you’re trying to make an emotional appeal. I don’t have an issue with terms like “anti-choice” or “idiot” when you’re just trying to get in a quick jab at the person you’re arguing with. But when it comes to “nazi”, can’t we at least agree that that’s a little extreme? You don’t win argument points by pointing wildly at something bad and saying “YOU’RE JUST LIKE THEM!” (complete with caps-lock). Nazis killed millions of people in an attempt to exterminate entire segments of the human population. Kirby is arguing against a group of people whose “crimes” are literally things like saying “Guys, don’t do that“, or that sexual harassment is a thing that happens sometimes. The thing about analogies is that they should scale properly. Comparing people saying words to other people killing millions is more than a little bit out-of-sync. On top of which, 99% of the time that you compare your opponent to Nazis, you’ve already lost the argument: it’s just not a point that people tend to respect.
But! (says Kirby) we’re not comparing them to actual Nazis, but rather to a general notion of Nazisim “used to simply mean ‘extremist’ or ‘obsessive’”.
And Rebecca Watson weaves together a few of the weirdest bits of anti-feminist thought from various quarters of the skeptic-and-atheist blogospheres:
[I]t just continues to amaze me that these clueless misogynists haven’t even figured out how to camouflage their hatred. Like, you assholes do know that Rush Limbaugh came up with the clever epithet “feminazi,” right? Rush Limbaugh, the guy who hates women so much that he spent hours yelling about how Sandra Fluke is literally a filthy whore because she thinks that birth control is medicine that should be covered by health insurance.
And lest you think she just used the term “feminazi” out of pure ignorance about what feminism is or what a Nazi is or what a Rush Limbaugh is, she actually doubled down with even more hilarious slurs, specifically created to express her individuality from Limbaugh[…]
It’s really nice to know we’re not taking this so-called-friendly fire, from people within the skeptic and atheist communities, alone. It still amazes me that the people doing the most bullying of ideas they don’t agree with, are the ones calling us bullies. Is it a case of “attack your opponent’s strengths to make them look like weaknesses”?
I mean, what is this strategy really? I’m not asking rhetorically — someone explain what these people think they’re accomplishing, please.
And all over a harassment policy campaign that we’ve basically already won.
Hmm. Maybe THAT’S it. Maybe they’re just being sore losers.
Quoth Orac:
I got raked over the coals and labeled a “bully” for saying (pointing what I considered to be a Hitler Zombie-worthy analogy) and who raked me over the coals for saying it (Ophelia Benson, the person who made the analogy, and many of her supporters). In any case, this particular blog war long ago got too nasty even for Orac, and that’s saying a lot. It reminds me of some of the epic blog throwdowns that ScienceBlogs used to be known for. Thankfully, this sort of drama has apparently moved over to FreeThoughtBlogs now. Hopefully, it will stay there.
Earlier in the thread he’d mentioned regretting coming over here and weighing in. I assumed he felt bad for jumping to conclusions, looks like I was wrong.
Gross.
scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/07/03/a-chiropractor-strikes-back/#comments
The attacks on FTB as a place given to “flame wars,” and the “hive-mind” BS, are both nothing but a right-wing propaganda campaign aimed at discrediting FTB without even looking at the substance of what’s being said here. Lots of commenters complain about “flame wars,” but NONE of them specified which FTB posts were “flame wars” as opposed to heated arguments of substance. Why no citation? Because the complainers knew they were full of shit, and any citation would bring a reader to a post where a substantive argument was at the heart of the “flames” — an argument the complainers didn’t want us to notice.
This is classic Rovian propaganda. Take it as proof that you’re making a difference, and keep up the good work.
Oh, and my opinion is not purely subjective — it’s based on observation of FTB and their predecessor, ScienceBlogs, and of the consistent behavior of right-wing propagandists, both on and off this part of the Internet.
@ Stealth Bummer–
It’s far from a groveling apology but earlier in that comment thread Orac said:
“Please, people. I really don’t want that argument metastasizing to my comment threads. I’ve already been burned badly enough by it, and I admit my massive error for every having said anything in the first place.”
I suppose one could read that as “It was a huge mistake for me to wade into this shitstorm.” full stop. But a slightly more charitable reading is also possible, in that he realizes it was stupid to nitpick that one micro-Godwin out of a bubbling vat of Godwin stew. One can hope that he took a closer look and realized that being consistent about calling out the Godwinning would demand a fuckton of time and energy that he’d rather not expend. To my ear, at least, his collective replies on the thread you referenced sound like he feels a bit sheepish about his encounter with Ophelia, which might connote some of the hoped-for regret. I dunno. I remain disappointed that people who want to stay out of the fray can’t be bothered to make one simple unambiguous statement to show they understand the issue enough to have an opinion about it, but at the same time I completely understand the reluctance to open that door and have one’s comments dominated by largely off topic (for Orac’s normal blog content) metastatic flaming.
Re the OP: Thanks for the overview on this, Jason. I’m just as baffled as Ophelia at Paula’s reaction in particular, based on how rational her writings have always been it’s just…off.
Say what you will about Deeeeeep Rifts, but I find there is great value in these sorts of reactions. I’ve always thought that ‘Atheism’ was too broad of a category under which to assemble any kind of meaningful community. We narrowed considerably after the gnu/accommodationist conflict, and we’ve narrowed even more with the debate about sexism. At the end of the day, it’s probably a net gain.
I also read a FTB-critical blog yesterday that I’d rather not name. I thought it was sour grapes more than right-wing. You see, some bloggers are much smarter and write much more important stuff than what gets written here (shit, some of the commenters here don’t even have PhDs in a hard science), yet are struggling for traffic. This is profoundly unfair. Perhaps blogging about FTB can get something going to increase the traffic.
Raging Bee’s observation that the criticisms are fuzzy, and point to no particular author, so as not to be easily disputed, was true there too.
Agreed.
I wanted to add that I love that the ‘opposition’ (or oppositions?) think that no dissent is tolerated at FtB while also thinking that there’s so much dissent here (flame wars) that the whole place is spontaneously combusting.
Note also that the awesome-even-though-not-an-atheist Ken White at Popehat has good things to say about FtB folks and condemnation for its critics.
http://www.popehat.com/2012/07/05/all-this-talk-of-harassment-is-harassing-me/
People will generally infer different things from “Sexual harassment is a serious problem” and “Sexual harassment is a problem we (should) take seriously” and there may be some misunderstanding from the much more frequent use of the former phrasing than the latter, but it’s not that hard to pay the hell attention and see that nobody is saying that our community is worse than baseline. The pushback from the cupcakes over the policies is ridiculously out of proportion. Just like the shitstorm over “guys don’t do that” was way out of proportion.
[…] quick shout out to anyone who’s coming over from Jason at Lousy Canuck! Willkommen! Bienvenue! […]
@ jenniferphillips
For whatever it is worth, it’s also my analysis.
My own reading of the Orac’s thread quoted in the 1st comment is that, for one, he doesn’t have much sympathy for anyone pulling a Godwin, and for two, he is not interested in any of his threads becoming the next 3d4k. I cannot blame him. The MRA trolls are much worse than the alt-med trolls.
And for the record, the somewhat harsh comment quoted on #1 was in answer to someone chidding Orac for daring to have said this in a previous comment:
I would call it a “simple unambiguous statement to show they understand the issue enough to have an opinion about it”.
“(shit, some of the commenters here don’t even have PhDs in a hard science)”
The horror?!
Just wondering if that was sarcasm. Not everyone without a PhD is “not smart” you know. One of the brightest new bloggers is actually a high-school drop out. Anyway, trust me, some PhD’s are shitty ass writers.
I should know. I used to work in a physics department office and one of my jobs was to proofread for the profs.
***
On topic:
I have no clue what it’s about either. I can only conjecture that it has something to do with having an emotional investment and not getting out what you thought you would get.
This can be, at times, a harsh place.
Perhaps some people think this is going to be the place where you can show up and everyone is going to think you are awesome (and everything you say is awesome) because you self-identify as a skeptic/freethinker/atheist/secularist/scientist/pastapharian/whatever and everyone just pats themselves on the back constantly for realizing homeopathy is stupid.
@11: Definitely sarcasm, from “You see,” through “…increase the traffic.”
@OP: (WARNING: What follows is mostly speculation. If I totally wrong, please do point out why, as I have not been following every discussion everywhere of this latest hate-convulsion.)
As for what they hope to accomplish, it’s probably not a conscious effort on the part of all individuals, and possibly not any, but my guess is that they’re engaged in discursive engineering. What they hope to accomplish is to perpetuate cultural misogyny (among other pro-self-privilege structures), which in turn legitimizes and normalizes misogyny-in-deed (and institutionalization of other structures of privilege). People tend to be pretty good at intuiting potential ego threats and trying to head them off (for example, a common response is self-deprecation, which presupposes and mitigates an external criticism by controlling the framing of the content i.e. the substance of the criticism). They’ll argue against things that don’t necessarily impact them directly if the logical extension of the underlying ideas might actually impact them. For example, people who don’t run around groping women at conferences are arguing against harassment policies because they recognize (possibly only subconsciously) that they may harbor some latent misogyny that DOES express itself in their actions, and if feminism is widely accepted, they will eventually be challenged on those behaviors.
Ha!
No. Orac is a world class asshole. He’s a wonderful advocate for skepticism and does a lot of good work when it comes to countering suspicious medical claims. (To say nothing of the medical work and research he does.) But, no. The man is an asshole and you’re never gonna get a real apology out of an asshole of that caliber.
I’m just as baffled as Ophelia at Paula’s reaction in particular, based on how rational her writings have always been it’s just…off.
Who was it who said: Never attribute to heartfelt malice what can be as accurately attributed to a desire for page views.
Oh, that was me, just now.
Jennifer @ 4 – Hmmno, that comment of Orac’s was no kind of regret. We had an email exchange over the whole thing a few weeks ago and his last to me (which I didn’t answer) was still all “you brought this on yourself” yadda yadda and that’s the last I’ve heard from him. The guy’s an unrepentant asshole.
Well… at least someone isn’t filled with rage and hate and such.
Oops! Missed julian’s just above, so repeated it. Ah well. Yes he is.
I may or may not live under a rock but I actually hadn’t heard of Paula Kirby until this little spat broke out. I did a little research and noticed she seems to be a fairly popular atheist writer for newspapers and things. In fact, there is more than one post on Pharyngula that spoke highly of her.
I should probably say that I don’t usually keep up with atheist stuff so forgive me for not paying too much attention to FTB or frankly anything regarding “new atheism”. This drama has just been so astounding that I can’t look away. Seriously, it boggles my mind. I sit and think about what the problem is exactly and I keep coming up empty handed.
I may be asking the obvious here but what the hell happened? Why is she trying to justify comparing Nazi Germany to FTB in rant-y open letters now?
If those with more knowledge than I wish to skirt actually rehashing the drama in public drop me a line via youtube (as linked in my name). I’m dreadfully curious. I mean that literally.
Where does the ‘femistasi’ thing come from? And what does it mean? I’m trying to keep up but there are so many threads in so many places on this issue of late, I’m lost on this point.
It comes from Paula Kirby; she called me and the Skepchicks Feminazi and Femistasi on Twitter.
She used to be sane. I don’t know what happened.
“She used to be sane. I don’t know what happened.”
And this sort of hypocrisy is just one reason why more and more of us have had enough of some of the FtB-ers, not to mention the blinkered, screeching abuse that is the standard response over at Pharyngula to even the mildest disagreement with the doctrine. There are many reasonable, intelligent, open-minded sceptics who have genuine problems with the likes of Watson and Myers, and when they try to discuss these problems the instant response is abuse, belittlement, gender and even race-based slurs (privileged white male, gender traitor, mansplaining etc). It is perfectly reasonable to call this what it is: bullying, and hypocrisy.
There has been bad behaviour on both sides, but lately it has seemed to more and more of us that the worst of it is coming from some of the bigger blogs at FtB, most especially Pharyngula. We see endless concern about abusiveness towards women, and so on… and then we see abusiveness handed out in return. Worse than abusiveness – condescension, dismissiveness, flagrant exaggeration, distortion and outright straw-manning of points. It is not wildly unreasonable to suggest that the problem of harassment at atheist conferences might have been at least slightly exaggerated, or that initial assumptions about specific alleged instances of harassment have been plain wrong. Yet those who have done so – sometimes backed up with evidence of varying quality – have been subjected to tirades of abuse of the kind mentioned. If you doubt the truth of this you have not been keeping up with the nature of the comments at Pharyngula (as I say, by far the worst offender) and elsewhere. The tactic is increasingly to shout down, to refuse to discuss rationally, to hector and attempt to verbally bully into silence. Decent, reasonable people – both male and female – who are fiercely pro-women’s rights are being immediately dismissed as misogynists, MRA-ers etc. without the slightest justification. It’s vile.
And some of us have had enough of it, and are refusing to be cowed by it any more. You can write as many fan letters to yourselves as you like: it doesn’t wash. More and more of us are starting to see through the facade and, often with great regret, realise that some of the FtB-ers and their regular commenters have become a problem, and a highly divisive and negative force in the “community”, such as it is. And we are now starting to call it out.
Kirby’s letter makes some very sound points, but of course, people here hone in on the one major misjudgement (the Nazi analogy) and use that as an excuse to declare her insane, thus making it unnecessary to consider the many good points made in her piece. Analogies are not the same thing as direct comparisons. Some of the behaviour from the defenders of Watson does bear some similarity to the way highly doctrinaire political groups behave. That said it was definitely a silly miscalculation on Kirby’s part to try to illustrate the point with the inflammatory Nazi analogy. It’s unfortunate that this tactical error simply allows you people to ignore the wider and more readily justified point it was trying to make and to dismiss her entire piece. But sadly, this is precisely the sort of behaviour we have come to expect.
I realise that you are never wrong and I would agree that having an equitable anti-harassment policy does no harm and may do some good.
But there was the minor problem of there being a lot of hearsay but little hard evidence and the whole thing was blown up to become a righteous crusade. Evidence is good, expecting people to place areas they aren’t in control of is a tad silly.
From my reading of Kirby’s writing the reference to stasi wasn’t that far off the mark. The stasi had informers in every block, hard evidence wasn’t required just the word of trusted informers.
Anyone objecting or requesting clarity and/or some actual evidence was default an enemy.
Believe us because we are your leaders/good people, would we lie to you? These aren’t adequate reasons for those who don’t know you.
Laden gets asked to leave FtB but it seems a number of FtB members still have his back. He is still invited onto panels at skepticon, so obviously he was asked to leave for some other reason, we’ll see how son he is considered to be recovered/cured enough to return.
@21 jackrawlinson:
If anyone asks, this right here–
“She used to be sane. I don’t know what happened.”
“And this sort of hypocrisy is just one reason why more and more of us have had enough of some of the FtB-ers, not to mention the blinkered, screeching abuse that is the standard response over at Pharyngula to even the mildest disagreement with the doctrine.”
is when I decided that, from now on, I can skip right over anything you write and never miss a thing.
A) It isn’t hypocrisy, you dolt. It’s insult.
b) You say you (and the tiny army you have in your pocket) have had enough of FtB, yet here you are. At FtB. Writing you’ve had enough.
2) Screeching abuse? What, you couldn’t find “hysterical” in your thesaurus?
You’re too nutty to read more of.
My, my. Well, I keep up with Pharyngula, and doubt the truth of this. In fact, I think you’re full of shit. (Newsflash: saying “you’re full of shit” to a commenter who’s said something foolish is not “abuse.” Now, if I founded a group in order to continually badmouth jackrawlinson and call him names, and distorted everything he said–that would be cyberabuse.)
Yes, people round these parts, especially Pharyngula, will tear you a rhetorical new one if you argue badly, or if you attempt to make assertions and accusations without backing them up. (Example of the latter: “sometimes backed up with evidence of varying quality”–hmm, such as?) We value substance over tone. I’m sure you can deal with that.
ERVites, in particular, demonstrably care nothing about tone. It’s just a convenient way for them to bash FtB.
“The problem of harassment at atheist conferences” was not exaggerated. Nobody ever claimed it was any worse–or indeed even as bad–as anywhere else. The claim was that it happened. The suggestion was to implement policies. That would have been the end of it, but for the jackrawlinsons that have a hate-on for FtB and the Skepchicks.
I love the way that people who agree with Kirby’s claim that FtB is silencing people come to FtB to post agreement with Kirby… thus proving that Kirby is lying when she goes on about silencing. How dumb do you have to be to do that?
In the case of the slimepitters and their fellow travelers, I lean towards the hypothesis that a lot of it is simple envy. PZ in particular is really popular, comparatively speaking (I mean, atheist/skeptical blogs aren’t huge, but in our little corner of the cybersphere, he’s a star.) They’re always predicting the imminent demise of Pharyngula, or of FtB, have you noticed? And I always see them pimping their own blogs or pleading with regulars here to go read them at ERV*. I suspect it just kills them that FtB and the Skepchicks have large numbers of loyal readers despite the extended temper tantrums of haters.
* Until just recently that is. Apparently Nat Geo has kicked them out of ERV. The Slimepit has resurrected somewhere else.
@ Ophelia:
Blurgh, oh well. Asshole it is, then. But, just as point of clarification, is the “it” that you brought on yourself his righteous and almighty smackdown of your 1930’s Germany reference or the unrelenting torrent of MRA hate? I just want him to be sorted into the correct asshole bin 😉
@Improbable Joe:
Yeah, kind of like Thunderd00d and his followers keening and rending their clothes over THE GREAT BANNING!!!!1! while he makes rebuttal videos with open comments on free and publicly accessible websites. Comedy gold, that.
And Re: the new, nonNGSB-hosted Pit of Slyme–anyone got a reference for how that came about? “NatGeo telling Abbie that the pit goes or she does” is as likely an explanation as any, I’d just like a primary source for that assertion if possible.
Benson raked Orac over the coals? I’d like to see that.
jackrawlinson really needs to read Stephanie Zvan’s post on elisions, but I believe I’ve seen him before and something tells me he won’t.
Setar #22
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/07/05/skepchickcon-convergence/
Seymour #22
[citation needed]
Since when did FTB run Skepticon?
For someone who talks about “there being a lot of hearsay but little hard evidence”, you sure are lacking on the hard evidence…
ah, here‘s something. Abbie, most of the way down page 103 of the “Periodic Table of Swearing” comments:
there’s more blah blah about Laden, etc. in that particular comment, but the above excerpt seems to be the meat of it.
Stacy #28:
And Justicar (and, I think, a couple of the more well-known pitizens) has been making a huge show wherever the New Slimepit is brought up about how he’s not going to go there. He was even doing it on the #FTBullies hashtag.
Yeah, I totally believe that the pitizens are honestly rethinking their gendered slurs now, after using them for a year, and conveniently enough when NatGeo tells Abbie that the pit goes or she does.
Improbable Joe:
To be fair, the sort of silencing that Kirby is talking about isn’t so much outright banning as it is, as she put it, “Hysterical, bullying overreaction to dissent” and “Attempting to make it so unpleasant for anyone who dares to oppose them that others are deterred from trying it.” As for whether those two points have anything to do with this thread, or with FtB in particular, I leave you with the bromide, “If the shoe fits, wear it.”
jenniferphillips #30:
It’s inferred based on how:
1) They haven’t moved/tried to or even talked about ‘cleaning up their act’ until now
2) PZ (and possibly other FTBers) have been wondering since the official changeover to NatGeo in late May why the Slimepit has not apparently been given the same sort of “tone it down” message that caused Ed and PZ to start FTB
3) Greg Laden noted in a comment shortly after he went ‘on vacation’ that he’d (fruitlessly) attempted to contact Abbie’s school regarding the actions of the pitizens and the fact that Abbie might be maintaining the pit using her school’s computers
The timing is just too convenient, really.
I continue to be mystified by the current use of the term ‘bully’. As for Kirby in particular, she alludes to a great many faults in her Oppressed Sisterhood opus, but doesn’t give enough specifics on her grievances for anyone to challenge much of the substance. I suppose that’s one way to avoid a “hysterical, bullying overreaction”, huh?
jenniferphillips [from your Abbie quote}:
Have any of the FtBloggers written a post recently on properly defining and using words? Words like ‘-nazi’, ‘-stasi’, ‘freethought’, ‘censor’, and ‘bully’ are used by opponents of anti-harassment policies at conventions. It’s become increasingly clear to me that many of those people don’t know what those words _mean_. So it sounds like it’s dictionary time.
(it’s messed up that we have this Proper Definition Fight-oo PDF-internally *and* externally [slimepit/creationists])
jenniferphillips:
I know I found myself mystified when Ms. Benson used the word “bully” to describe Orac. It’s especially strange given the aftermath described in the quotes from Orac above.
Jason:
Yeah, that’s the real kicker. Even before the campaign was successful, opposing the goal was nonsense.
I’m with you on not understanding what strategy is being employed by the opponents of anti-harassment policies (and I really wish the people referring to this whole debacle as ‘both sides’ would stop {from many of the posts I’ve seen, these are usually people who complain about tone as being an FtB weakness}. There isn’t a right side and a wrong side [or even a mostly right and mostly wrong]. Unless they want to come right out and say ‘We don’t want anti-harassment policies in place at atheist/skeptic conventions’, they don’t have a stated goal)
Setár, self-appointed Elf-Sheriff of the FreethoughtBlogs Star Chamber:
Pitizen? Nope. Apologist? In the absence of you saying for what I’m supposedly an apologist, I might as well conclude that “apologist” is a scary-sounding label that’s supposed to imply a lot but really means frak-all. (Pardon my Caprican.)
Given all that’s been said about Orac in this thread, your request for evidence seems rather bizarre. Maybe it’s because of some rather strange ideas of what bullying means. Him bluntly pointing out that Benson made a terrible over-the-top analogy related to Nazis? This is considered bullying by Ms. Benson for, well, some reason. Sara Mayhew getting piled on in her first foray into Pharyngula, even called a “lying fuckface” for, um, not lying? This isn’t bullying, according to most of the FtB crowd.
J. J. Ramsey:
So, not only is it not silencing, Kirby is describing her own behavior as well. Good to know, and thanks for displaying another aspect of my point that Kirby and her supporters are playing a giant game of projection of their(and your?) own flaws.
Improbable Joe:
Well, there’s certainly a giant game of projection. I mean, Orac’s being called a bully here, so I really shouldn’t have to say more.
“I really shouldn’t have to say more.”
But I’m sure you will anyway… keep spinning away with your nonsense as I’m sure you will while continuing to cling to your “silencing” lie. For a bunch of silenced people, you do a lot of talking in places you claim have silenced you.
Ramsey:
Yes, I can see how that would be mystifying…if you consider that comment completely outside the context of every other event of the past year, and especially the past few months, involving Ophelia. Within that context, however, I could make an argument for justified use of the word.
Would I personally consider it bullying if a noted science advocate and TAM regular were to pop into my blog in the thick of a titanic, sustained campaign of vitriol and obsessive slagging, to repeatedly rebuke me for a poorly chosen analogy, adding nothing to the main thrust of the dialogue but providing my opponents with a gift-wrapped new blunt weapon to add to their arsenal? At the very least I’d call it piling on. Lucky for me, *I* don’t get that kind of daily spew, so I don’t have to make those tough calls about exactly how to characterize such behavior without taking still more shit for my categorization.
I know you well enough from other conversations in other venues to realize that there’s nothing I can say to change your position, so I’m not going to engage you further.
J.J. Ramsey #35:
In doing this rather than providing evidence, you’ve outed yourself as a pitizen/apologist.
I seriously don’t know why I need to repeat “people who have evidence present it rather than talk about how they have it” on a skeptic blog network.
—
I still haven’t finished the New Statesman article, but the section on hate sites inspired me to write a small post. Not like I need to do much more than quote the “hate sites” section just to show how false the pitizens’/apologists’ balance is anyway.
jenniferphillips:
As for supplying “opponents with a gift-wrapped new blunt weapon to add to their arsenal,” that ship sailed when the bad analogy was made. Anyway, let’s look at what actually happened:
1) Benson’s Godwin appears in her blog post “Rebecca explains.” Orac has one post on the matter in that thread, where he calls her out bad analogy.
2) In the thread on Hallq’s blog post, “I support DJ Grothe,” Orac mentions Benson’s Godwin and ends up arguing with Benson’s supporters, and then later admitted that he probably went about rebuking Benson in the wrong way.
3) In the Benson’s blog post “Degodwinization,” she admits that Orac had a point, In the thread of that post, we have Benson’s supporters jumping to the conclusion that Orac sees her as a political enemy because, uh, he thought she said something offensive and out of line? Orac posts a single conciliatory comment praising her for coming around in spite of how poorly he pointed out the error. When Orac finishes off the post with
this somehow gets interpreted as him pressuring Benson not to go to TAM, rather than, y’know, hoping that she’ll meet him at TAM and maybe find that he’s not as bad as she thinks he is. (Does Benson seriously think that Orac wants to be seen as an “asshole”? Really?)
4) In the post “I did not compare TAM to Nazi Germany,” Benson takes back her previous admission. Orac calls her on it, saying “Seriously, Ophelia. I thought that, even though it was fairly clear that you and some of your commenters think I’m an asshole, you admirably had been able to get past that an understand why your original remark was offensive. That’s why I let the issue drop.” Now Benson’s raised the dropped issue, and Orac understandably responds. This is also the post where one supporter falsely claims that “until now he also didn’t get involved in calling people out for bad (and ridiculous) analogies and gratitious godwining,” another accuses him of attempting to “derail and intimidate,” and Benson herself accuses Orac of bullying and insinuates that Orac has something against “uppity women.”
The case that Orac badgered Benson is anemic, and he’s not hurling abuse or making insinuations. On the side of Benson and her supporters, we have people making poorly substantiated or false claims, and we have repeated taunts of “Paging Orac” after it has already been made clear that Benson’s blog is a hostile environment for him. And Orac’s the one being called a bully?
“Him [Orac] bluntly pointing out that Benson made a terrible over-the-top analogy related to Nazis…”
Benson compared women being blamed for making things worse by complaining about misogyny and harassment with Jews being blamed for the rise in anti-Semitism because they complained about it in pre-war Germany. No comparing anyone to actual Nazis, just a look at how vilified minorities are often blamed for making things worse by complaining about being vilified. And Benson admitted it *was* an over-the-top thing to say and withdrew her comment. She saw that it was wrong and corrected it. Like a reasonable person would. People seem to conveniently forget that part.
But I see no problem personally in seeing some parallels in racism/sexism/anti-semitism, per se (and I’m NOT speaking for Ophelia or anyone else, just my opinion). Unless you count the medieval witch-hunting in Europe where women were seen as inherently evil and satanic and more prone to witchcraft due to their inferior natures, and were then hideously tortured into ‘confessions’ and burned alive at the stake for it (just read the Malleus Maleficarum if you have the time and stomach for it) there was no Holocaust that resulted due to the hatred of women.
But people latched onto that comment and accused her of saying TAM is just like Nazi Germany, which she never said.
People are just wondering why Orac singled out Ophelia but let Paula get a pass when she called Ophelia and other people on FTBs comparable to Nazis and worse than East German Stasis (and she knows they are worse because she lived there). Kirby never apologized for that, just doubled down and called anyone who disagreed with her a bully.
GMM:
And then uncorrected it.
GMM:
Citation needed.
GMM:
Offhand, I doubt that Paula Kirby was even on his radar at the time. Given that Benson and her supporters, as well as others on FtB, have driven him away, there’s no reason to expect him to do anyone on FtB the favor of commenting on the nine-thousandteenth person who has used the term “feminazi.”
GMM:
Yes, she did, and that wrong is on her head, not Orac’s. Again, FtB bloggers and commenters burned the bridge to Orac. Expecting Orac to wade into the fight between them and Kirby after that is pretty foolish.
GMM:
Citation needed.
@J. J. Ramsey:
FtB bloggers “drove Orac away?” How?
GMM:
and called anyone who disagreed with her a bully.
“Citation needed.”
Check out the hashtag she started on twitter called #FTBullies.
“If you are sick of the #FTBullies, it is safe to speak up – YOU ARE NOT ALONE. And if you don’t speak up, who will?” – P. Kirby
Then read all her tweets on the subject. 😉
Paula Kirby didn’t start it, but she’s sure been using it pretty enthusiastically.