There’s an intellectual war going on, and conservatives are surrendering. In elite universities all over America and Europe, incoherent and destructive ideologies are taking hold. Radical feminism, socialism, cultural relativism: these are philosophies founded on logical fallacies and barefaced dishonesty.
But they’re gaining ground...No doubt they are, if conservatives are surrendering. What Is To Be Done?
This is a field manual from the trenches, written for the average soldier. I’m no expert, but I’ve been deep in enemy territory — first at Yale and now at Oxford — for more than five years now...Trench warfare sure has changed since great-grandpa fought the Hun. He didn't have saving throws.
Our first enemy: radical feminists.He was going to start with black people, but he knows you like rap music.
A radical feminist’s standard-issue weapon is called “the patriarchy.” It’s the baseline assumption that sexism is engrained into certain societies — into American society...
To dismantle this nonsense, let’s consider what it implies. If, in their natural state, men and women were so fabulously equal, someone at some point had to establish attitudes and conventions that now insidiously subjugate women.And come on, look at the pretty dresses they wore back in the old days. Why, some of them were queens.
Instead, throughout Western history, men have struggled to liberate women from the position of physical vulnerability that would restrict their freedom in a state of nature...Women were always equal to men, and men have throughout history been trying to make women equal to men. So women are doubly equal, yet they're always bitching! Plus that 77-cents-on-the-dollar thing is bullshit, and Klavan can name two fake rapes.
Alright, private: at ease. You now have everything you need to defeat your first ideological foe. If you’re a campus conservative like me, you’ve been armed — now speak up! Radical feminism is a threadbare tapestry of irresponsible lies, and it depends on its ability to scare people who know better into silence. If you’ve got your own war stories or battle plans for taking on a radical feminist, share them in the comments. And be sure to tune in next week for the next installment of . . . The Campus Conservative’s Field Manual!I think the idea is to make anyone who falls under the sway of this yak into an insufferable pedant who spends his college years making "war" on women who think they're feminists. The odds of success are slim, and by graduation the recruit will probably have become so embittered and socially inept that he'll have nothing but the movement to cling to. Hey, it worked on Ross Douthat.
UPDATE. One for the colonel, and one for the corps: See if you can make it through this from PJ Media:
Don't look at me, I done my tour of duty. Oh, well all right:
After Elsa’ magical breakdown, she flees, and in her seclusion, she learns to use her powers responsibly. As she practices and grows more confident, she is able to make beautiful things.
Guns don’t create beautiful palaces or awesome clothing, but they do save lives and protect people.No wonder these guys all have the thousand-yard stare.
UPDATE 2. OK, grizzled vet that I am, one more from PJ Media:
Why the New Counter-Culture Should Make Strength Central to Its Identity
"Popular culture is currently at war with the notion that a man should be big and strong, because popular culture is at war with the idea of independence and self-sufficiency, and a big strong man literally embodies the concept."Mostly it's about how liberals are all pussies and conservatives should get buff and beat them up, but here's a passage of particular interest:
What if Trayvon Martin had seen George Zimmerman on that rainy night in 2012, and thought, “Damn, that guy looks kind of strong”? Facing what appeared to be a fair fight, Martin would have thought better of jumping Zimmerman. The latter wouldn’t have had cause to pull his legally owned, concealed carry pistol. Trayvon Martin wouldn’t have died that night.As it stands, since his lack of strength training forced him to kill Martin, Zimmerman's only been comfortable attacking women; maybe he should go to college (Obama will let him do it for free!) and join Spencer Klavan's howlin' commandos.
Per his bio, Klavan "studied Greek, Latin, and Theater at Yale" and is
ReplyDeletecommitted to "putting the gore, sex, and rock 'n roll back into ancient
literature,"
He must have rubbed it raw when he watched 300.
To dismantle this nonsense, let’s consider what it implies. If, in their natural state, men and women were so fabulously equal, someone at some point had to establish attitudes and conventions that now insidiously subjugate women...Instead, throughout Western history, men have struggled to liberate women from the position of physical vulnerability that would restrict their freedom in a state of nature...
ReplyDeleteWell, that's an interesting position, but history doesn't really back it up. It really comes down to two problems. First, that strict gender roles are somehow innate. It's highly unlikely that early hominids or pre-civilized human bands practiced these roles, as they needed all hands just to survive - the prospect of relegating half of those people to a passive role wouldn't have occurred to them. If you think about it, the concept of gender roles is a luxury only to be afforded by a society advanced and stable enough to meet its basic needs. That's why in pre-modern societies (medieval Europe, say), those roles were so much more prominent among the noble classes than among the commoners.
So the problem, Mr. Klavan, is that you're looking at structural gender divisions as being practical when all evidence is that they're cultural. These influences are many, and they can shift over time. Let's start with religion, the strongest force on early societies. We'll use Japan as an example. Pre-feudal Japan was governed by female-focused spiritual beliefs, and it was consequently very matriarchal. Obviously this changed over time, but even in the highly patriarchal feudal period, women held special positions in religious ceremony, such as...
...Oh, I did it again. Here I was, addressing this guy as though he were a conservative scholar interested in a serious discourse on complex social issues, as opposed to a cheap wingnut hack using those issues as an excuse for some cheesy "because liberals" one-liners. Boy, is there ever egg on my face.
What's strange about this article is that if Klavan has studied classics at Yale and Oxford, he probably is a fairly bright guy, or at least one who studies well. But that's not who we get here. He gives us a half-assed military metaphor and canned grousing over culture war perennials like feminist bulldykes who don't shave their legs.
ReplyDeleteReally the whole thing reads like a guide to how very stupid people can pick fights with moderately smart people and win. The answer, it turns out, is just to convince yourself that you won and some sympathetic onlookers will agree. Arm yourself with the Dunning-Krueger effect.
mmmm that's some good thinkology!
ReplyDeleteGood points, and what the hell is humanity's "natural state" anyway? Even chimpanzees have societies and customs of sorts. You can't separate humans from their civilizations.
ReplyDelete"Really the whole thing reads like a guide to how very stupid people can pick fights with moderately smart people and win."
ReplyDeleteIf you can stand it, check out commenter "LSBeene", who will bore you to tears blatting on about how women falsely accuse men of rape, thereby perpetuating the fallacious idea of "Rape Culture", and tell you how to crush them with geometric logic and Socratic dialogue. Jeezus... after I read that, I wished this cat had stuck to lifting weights.
"Women were always equal to men, and men have throughout history been trying to make women equal to men."
ReplyDeleteMr. Klavan? St Paul for you on line 1...
I have debated feminists many times on many subjects
ReplyDeleteAnd it always ends with the feminists bolting so they can grab an aspirin and a long nap, so I guess that means you win.
He's probably a Donald Kagan protege.
ReplyDeleteOh, for fuck's sake. From that third one:
ReplyDeletePajama Boy from the infamous 2013 Obamacare ad masterfully captures the male SJW’s hypertrophied self-righteousness and atrophied physique.
This is the problem with satire. I could picture getting drunk and writing down potential plot points on index cards; then, a week later and fully sober, sifting through those cards, hitting one reading "Conservative writers spend two years obsessing over a one-off advertising piece," and immediately discarding it. We do have to be a little plausible, right?
Klavan "studied Greek, Latin, and Theater at Yale" and is
ReplyDeletecommitted to "putting the gore, sex, and rock 'n roll back into ancient literature"
The latter because the former sends the Gaydar to eleven.
You know, the rest of us realized we were inadequate and basically left it at that.
ReplyDeleteGoing to good schools means that he's educated, which isn't quite the same thing as smart. Stupid people can use education to reach new depths of idiocy. More to the point, hacks use education to give a veneer of authority to what's otherwise a massive crock of shit. But really, this guy is at least smart enough to give his target audience exactly what they want - about all you can expect from PJM.
ReplyDeleteA radical feminist’s standard-issue weapon is called “the patriarchy.”
ReplyDeleteAmazing how he gets this exactly ass-backwards.
Radical feminism, socialism, cultural relativism: these are philosophies founded on logical fallacies and barefaced dishonesty.
Assumes facts not in evidence...
Instead, throughout Western history, men have struggled to liberate
ReplyDeletewomen from the position of physical vulnerability that would restrict
their freedom in a state of nature...
Of course, the position of physical vulnerability was usually caused by the actions of men.
In a "state of nature", a group of women would be able to hold off most predators... what leopard is going to tangle with a bunch of fire-wielding hominids?
"Popular culture is currently at war with the notion that a man should
ReplyDeletebe big and strong, because popular culture is at war with the idea of
independence and self-sufficiency, and a big strong man literally
embodies the concept."
Yeah, look at all those galley slaves employed in Mediterranean seafaring, who better embodied the idea of independence and self-sufficiency?
Well, he's either bright, or his daddy went to Yale.
ReplyDeleteOT... OOOOOT unless a Disney princess made this happen: Former Vikings punter Chris Kluwe is tonight live tweeting a reading of Breitbartian Milo Yiannopoulos's little-known book of poems, Eskimo Papoose.
ReplyDeleteThe wandering Jew with a capital F
Remembers only what wasn't:
That the midnight death
That 1939
That Kristallnacht
Was something life lacked
That's probably not from the one about the Eskimo kid. It could maybe be "Nympholepsy, Part I" or "The Cry of the Ghetto."
A radical feminist’s standard-issue weapon is called “the patriarchy.”
ReplyDeleteIt’s the baseline assumption that sexism is engrained into certain
societies — into American society...
Perish the thought!
To dismantle this nonsense, let’s consider what it implies. If, in their
natural state, men and women were so fabulously equal, someone at some
point had to establish attitudes and conventions that now insidiously
subjugate women.
Yes, curious how all those legal and physical barriers to women's equality just kind of happened without anyone establishing them. Also curious why, if women were just fabulously inferior in a state of nature, those legal and physical barriers to equality were necessary in the first place. Don't those bitches know their place?
Fun fact: Milo Yiannopoulous has appointed himself lead barnacle on the ass of #Gamergate.
ReplyDeleteAs Mark Twain put it, "Reality doesn't have to make sense".
ReplyDeleteHe's just asshurt because Obamacare isn't going away any time soon.
'Zactly, and Kluwe is Caped Defender of the Doxxed and Swatted.
ReplyDeleteAs part of that effort, he's auctioning off a dildo he was sent after he himself was doxxed, proceeds going to a shelter for transwomen, and, so far, my mother's bid it up to $400 on eBay, prompting my stepfather, who has never phoned me even once before, to leave me three voice mails today demanding to know What The Fuck Is Going On.
Like I know. I live five states away for a reason.
Went to Twitter to get the link to the eBay page and found a sort of Edrosian enterprise in progress.
Popular culture is currently at war with the notion that a man should be
ReplyDeletebig and strong, because popular culture is at war with the idea of
independence and self-sufficiency, and a big strong man literally
embodies the concept.
Read me Atlas Shrugged again, George.
it still ain't got no damn rabbits in it, ya dummy.
Oh.
Read me Atlas Shrugged again, George.
Holy shit but that PJ Media thing on George Zimmerman and doing squats is a nasty vile mess.
ReplyDeleteHuffpo back in the day:
ReplyDeleteKokopelli's Gym in Longwood, Florida is getting big blowback for playing up its role in training George Zimmerman, currently on trial for the second degree murder of Trayvon Martin in a Florida court.
By filling out a simple "Zimmerman Training Information Request Form" on the website of Kokopelli's Gym with your name and email address, the site promises to provide details on Zimmerman's training regime after the trial is complete. Zimmerman, who has pleaded not guilty, was reportedly training in mixed martial arts (MMA).
And then Mediaite comes along with:
On Monday, Zimmerman’s Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) trainer Adam Pollock testified that Zimmerman was “soft” when he began to train at his gym, and in over a year of training, progressed to a 1 on a scale of one to ten. On Wednesday, a defense expert in physical self defense further underscored that point, testifying that Zimmerman “didn’t seem to have any” abilities in that area.
Soooooo, yah. Even if you try dipping the pretzel pseudo-logic of PJ Media into that mustard, it still tastes gross.
Got into Oxford, tho...
ReplyDeleteIsn't "studied theater at Yale" a code phrase, like "Friend of Dorothy"?
ReplyDeleteFor 20 years I've been bragging about getting accepted at Oxford, even though I couldn't ever afford it. I guess I'm going to stop doing that, now.
ReplyDelete"Popular culture is currently at war with the notion that a man should be big and strong..."
ReplyDeleteOh, so THAT explains why gyms have become abandoned hellscapes of tumble weeds and uncollected Fiji water bottles, and seats at NFL games go a'begging.
But seriously: Wm. Buckley has a lot to answer for. Ever since God and Man at Yale, any half-assed snotty-nosed toff with a thesaurus and what he fancies is an Anglophone style now offers withering critiques on the university, "culture," and whatnot based on his own high regard for himself and his proud fondness for what he can't wait to call "rock 'n' roll." Will we hear more from Master Klavan? Oh do let's.
Anglophile. Not Anglophone. Don't you hate when you make that mistake?
ReplyDeleteI dunno about you, but I have an edit function under every comment.
ReplyDeleteFacing what appeared to be a fair fight, Martin would have thought better of jumping Zimmerman
ReplyDeleteSeems weird to be citing the case of Trayvon Martin, whose size, strength, independence and self-sufficiency did not keep him alive and do not count in his favour in the eyes of conservatives, instead earning him the label of "thug".
It is almost as if the whole discussion of "Which qualities are virtues" comes with an unwritten subtext, "Only applicable to melanin-deficient males", while dark-skinned individuals are excluded from the author's concept of popular culture.
barefaced dishonesty.
ReplyDeleteReal dishonesty has a dignified masculine beard.
If, in their natural state, men and women were so fabulously equal
ReplyDeleteFABulously equal!
So Klavan is at Oxford, defending the delicate flower of traditional femininity against the scourge of Radical Feminism? He has earned the title of Gaudy Knight.
ReplyDeleteIt is sad for someone to live in the same town as the Pitt Rivers anthropology museum -- one of the world's greatest repositories of cultural diversity -- while remaining so ignorant, but perhaps he is happier that way.
Either one works!
ReplyDelete"putting the gore, sex, and rock 'n roll back into ancient
ReplyDeleteliterature,"
It is noble of Mr Klavan to come rushing to the defense of Aristophanes and Euripides and such as, but I have to wonder, whom does he imagine to be taking the gore and sex out of ancient literature? Who is staging these imagined bowlderised versions of The Eumenides without the scent of human blood?
Offer not available to Guests, which is the only commenting option when Disqust decides not to let you log into your account.
ReplyDeleteI screwed up my scholarship there by turning up to the philosophy exam tripping balls on morning-glory seeds and only getting a B-. It's hard to write cogently about Nietzsche when the desk is tilted sideways at a 45-deg angle and there is blue liquid light oozing out of the writing paper.
ReplyDeleteY'know, I never would have figured that the internet could transmit odors, but the moment I read this, there was an undeniable smell of flopsweat emanating from the Ethernet card.
ReplyDeleteStrange- this doesn't have the feel of the usual Buckley/Will/VDH "classics" scholar. Not enough pomposity and quoting of the ancients- surely at least a reference to Thermopylae would have been appropriate
ReplyDeleteImagine my delight at the concept of an Edrosian Enterprise. Launch snarkon torpedoes!
ReplyDeleteStudying classics at Yale makes that relatively easy. Especially when there is coin.
ReplyDeletePerhaps "Anglophone" was the word chosen because Klavan's blatherings only sound like English...?
ReplyDelete"We can't stay here - this exam hall is bat country!"
ReplyDeleteYeah, on the one hand, maybe he's holding back his best effort because it's PJ Media. On the other hand, maybe he's writing for PJ Media because this is his best effort.
ReplyDeleteRing ring ring ring ring ring ring Anglophone
ReplyDelete(I've been known to make that mistake too)
But Ibsen was one of those left-wing subversives who don't belong in the canon! Theodore Dalrymple says so!
ReplyDelete...based on his own high regard for himself and his proud fondness for what he can't wait to call "rock 'n' roll."
ReplyDeleteCamille Paglia also has a lot to answer for.
"Oh, and there's a Lysistrata on line 2. . ."
ReplyDelete"He looks like he can find his way backstage at the Binger Center."
ReplyDeleteKlavan: Radical feminism, socialism, cultural relativism: these are philosophies founded on logical fallacies and barefaced dishonesty.
ReplyDeleteBurns: Family, religion, friendship. These are the three demons you must slay if you wish to succeed in business.
Ok so in my day college was accused of coddling Marxism, teaching cultural materialism, and fostering anarchy. Since then the S&P is up 2100%. What's going on here?
ReplyDeleteYou can make another one. Give it a fake e-mail, sign up as "bananaphone12345678," then once logged in, change your screenname & upload an avatar, voila!
ReplyDeleteJust as with racists, pretentious nits like this guy reveal their misogyny with their dismissal of huge swaths of disgruntled wimmins who make "false accusations" of rape and sexism, is revealing of his misogyny. That "those people" (feminists, blacks, muslims, et al) are "making it up" is founded in dichotomy.
ReplyDeleteAs much as it pains me, let's pretend that rape is extremely rare and/or non-existent, as these guys want to have us believe. In this fantasy "what if" scenario, there is still a common perception that women are ubiquitously discriminated against. Forget "why?" enough people would believe something that is not true, isn't it a sign that there is a societal problem with gender roles that a "falsehood" could become so pervasive? Don't these guys step back and think, "whoa, what are we doing wrong that more than half the population feels persecuted?"
Fuckers. This is why we can't have nice things. Humans are just poo-flinging, coconut-gathering monkeys, until the day we destroy ourselves. The End.
He sees a niche as the male S.E. Cupp. There's no reason to assume he's any more authentic than Sippy.
ReplyDeleteIt's time to sever the mental connection most of us have between "studied at the most prestigious schools in the world" with "bright guy". In addition to providing an environment where the smartest people of our time can do research and guide the next generation of scholars, the best colleges in the world are places where the children of the elite can party like rock stars for four years and graduate with a CV full of 'Gentleman's C's'. It's where the elite can find out which one of their kids can be trusted to do more than party away the family fortune. Learning Greek and Latin may not be easy, but being able to read the words is no guarantee of that the reader understands them. I myself can read a graduate thesis in particle physics and finish even more confused than when I opened the page.
ReplyDeleteWhat is with these guys and their ridiculous military metaphors? You know Klavan's never been in the service. For him, a college campus is the same as a free-fire zone. I guess the only battleground he wants to see is one where words get thrown around and not bullets. He may think he's being clever and witty, but to me he comes across as a deluded, pathetic, misogynist fool.
ReplyDeleteThis one for example:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopard_of_the_Central_Provinces
ReplyDelete"Popular culture is currently at war with the notion that a man should be big and strong, because popular culture is at war with the idea of
ReplyDeleteindependence and self-sufficiency, and a big strong man literally
embodies the concept."
Yeah... I guess that's why "Captain America", "Thor", the "Taken" franchise, "The Equalizer", the new James Bond movies with a buffed up Daniel Craig, the "Wolverine" series, et al, all were miserable failures at the box office. Jesus, it's getting so a young male wannabe star can't get a look unless they hit the gym with a personal trainer for a year first.
"After Elsa’ magical breakdown, she flees, and in her seclusion, she
ReplyDeletelearns to use her powers responsibly. As she practices and grows more
confident, she is able to make beautiful things."
Well, what actually happens in the story is that Elsa starts off being able to make nice things but then becomes defensive and fearful, using her powers to pre-emptively intimidate and overreacting to even the hint of a threat. She does create a pretty ice castle in her seclusion, but she also has to make a huge ugly ice monster to try to keep people out of it (unsuccessfully). Happily, she eventually comes to realise - through the example of someone else's selfless sacrifice - that fear can be overcome by love, and that she can live within society rather than retreating and taking up an armed defensive position against it. And so the land that she made inert with the indiscriminate exercise of her powers is finally restored to life and normality. I suppose you could read a message into that about guns, yes. (Then again the story would be very different if all the characters had ice-magic capabilities; the whole reason that Elsa feels hunted in the first place is that she is unique.)
Can't believe I'm analysing this. In my defence, my children have compelled me to watch Frozen about thirty times.
And to make his point, Mark Rippetoe had to first re-write the incident so that it was Trayvon Martin who "jumped" Zimmerman, not the other way around. Even the most favorable-to-Zimmerman account has Zimmerman initiating the confrontation, but of course, with the passage of time, a few minor details can get lost in a fog of revision.
ReplyDeleteReally? I thought morning glory seeds would have helped...
ReplyDeleteTribbles proliferating in the engine room, Captain.
ReplyDeleteJesus. The Klavan solider in the trenches was funny. The disgusting Trayvon bullshit just harshed the funny for me.
ReplyDeleteIs it just me or does "klaven" sound like the hooded schlub who has to launder the sheets after KKK rallies?
ReplyDeleteAs Klavan or any conservative would tell you, what you've written is all lies. They know--they have their history books written just for them. And they read those books using Isenglass and fun-house mirrors.
ReplyDeleteAnd such an original argument, too. Why, no one has ever made that point before!
ReplyDeleteThese idjits are just parroting bullshit - they went to Yale so they could be more educated-sounding followers.
And the reason she becomes defensive and fearful is because her parents tell her she is not allowed to feel any emotions because they might harm others. She is told she must hide away from everyone else or something terrible will happen, which creates enormous shame to go with the guilt she already feels for hurting Anna. And we know when Elsa mimics her parents, shaking her finger while singing, "be the good girl you always have to be," that they acted as if the magic made her bad.
ReplyDeleteYet she loved them greatly, which adds to the guilt and shame, which makes her repress herself even more. She can't even be angry with them because they die tragically young. Children are never supposed to be angry, most of all at their parents, and Elsa was never allowed to be angry at all. She must remain quiet and biddable like a child. When she rejects repression and fear her clothing changes from girlish to adult; her very walk is more loose and free.
It is no wonder that the movie and especially the song Let It Go struck such a deep chord in little girls.
Analyzing pop culture is more fun than an amusement park.
I think Oedipus wrecked it for him.
ReplyDeleteIf by 'debating' you mean bored everyone in the room.
ReplyDelete"We were somewhere around Basel on the edge of the forest when the morning glory seeds began to take hold..."
ReplyDeleteThey just love them some Pajama Boy, don't they?
ReplyDeleteVery curious what Klavan considers "rock n' roll." Well, kinda curious. Not curious enough to read more of him.
ReplyDeleteG.W. Bush went to Yale.
ReplyDeleteFor the offspring of the elite, the primary function of schools like Yale and Harvard is to let them meet other offspring of the elite. These people do not go to Harvard or Yale to get educations--they go to compose a Roldex of connections that will serve as a mutual skid-greasing society for the rest of their lives.
Popular culture is at war with the notion of men being strong. Which explains why Cross-Fit, Parkur, Anytime Fitness, and a host of other gymns and get-ripped fads are so much in vogue right now.
ReplyDeleteThe more these asshole whine about popular culture, the more apparent it is that they're all shut-ins who haven't ventured outside in decades.
Is it even possible to embody and concept literally?
ReplyDeleteTed Nugent.
ReplyDeleteYes, either that or it's piss-poor writing. Does he mean that "a radical feminist's standard issue weapon is to blame the patriarchy"? As written, it sounds like patriarchy is on the side of the feminist.
ReplyDeleteI once played the Anglophone in a jazz band.
ReplyDeletebut remember, conservatives are the kind of people who read "Green Eggs and Ham" and miss the point.
ReplyDelete"Snark. The Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the Edrosian Enterprise. . ."
ReplyDeleteMore fun than analyzing Meegan?
ReplyDelete~
"More to the point, hacks use education to give a veneer of authority to what's otherwise a massive crock of shit."
ReplyDeleteIt's called "Brooksing".
I hate to break it to you Helmut, but these days with grade inflation, those are Gentleman's A's.
ReplyDeleteWhat. The. Fuck.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, that's... calling it poetry would be an insult to high-school creative writing journals. This book contains the line "Lycanthrope, don't Jew me down".
After some more poking around, "Donkey Punch Press" appears to be Milo's very own vanity imprint: all five books it's published were authored or edited by Yiannopolous. So maybe I shouldn't be surprised...?
I’m no expert,We can tell.
ReplyDeletebut I’ve been deep in enemy territory — first at Yale and now at OxfordStudying the classics at Yale, followed by a stint at Oxford? Yeah, way to stick it to the elites, Andy. You're bringing the system down from the inside.** (Which might actually be true, in the sense of being another mark against their reputations.) See also: Ted Cruz, brilliant Princeton and Harvard grad, and salt-of-the-earth populist who will stick it to those egghead elites and their booklarnin'. It's deja vu all over again.
**"I've been fighting against the relentless gay menace for years, deep in enemy, uh, territory ... Sorry, I lost my train of thought. Anyway, I've been roaming the gay bars and bathhouses of the world, laboring to strike back against the encroaching homosexual tide."
Odd, isn't it, that conservatives have spent the last 25 years asserting that college is nothing more than a stronghold of ultra-extreme Marxism at which young people are indoctrinated. And all of this going on while the United States has devolved into the most rapacious capitalism the world has known since the 1890s.
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing we'd have to live in a society roughly based on the Ferengi before conservatives would feel that markets are free enough and Marxism sufficiently dead.
Wasn't it McCarthy who said, "Know thy enema?"
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile at Campus Conservatives Against Radical Feminists HQ:
ReplyDeletePrivate Morrison: Private Morrison reporting from the front lines, SAH!
General Klavan: At ease Private Morrison, come to report that victory is at hand?
PM Well, no, General Klavan. I'm afraid we've had a number of setbacks.
GK Nonsense man. Surely you've been pointing out that men are their protectors.
PM Oh we have, we have! But they keep pointing to ... to ... stuh - statistics? That show the opposite.
GK Statistics? What the hell are those?
PM We're still not sure, sir. Oh it was awful. There were numbers and charts and long reports from government agencies. We tried countering with your manifesto, but it just crumbled under the onslaught.
GK Oh damn them! And damn you for being so weak. Can't you see that Radical Feminism
PM [Makes obligatory scoffing noise]
GK is a brand new threat to society and if we don't stop it now it will grind us all down until we're running around in skirts??
PM I don't suppose ... We could have ... some statistics of our own, sir?
GK [Grows agitated] Um, well. Statistics are ... they're not that easy to come by. And we don't want to stoop to their level, eh? Have you tried calling them fat an ugly?
PM Yes sir, they just laughed and ... mooned us.
GK Oh God. What about looking them straight in the eye and explaining that they're physically weaker and inferior. You did? Good. How did that go?
PM Kicked us in the balls sir. It was hours before we could even move.
There's a "white noise" joke in there somewhere.
ReplyDeleteHey! Don't give me any static!
ReplyDeleteGeorge Bush: Yale with a Harvard MBA.
ReplyDeleteI've met Oxford grad students. Perfectly bright folks, but not any smarter than your average USian grad student. More to the point, what kind of stipends do you think the Oxford Classics department is able to hand out? To me, advanced degrees in both theater and classics translate pretty directly into either "I am willing to live with six roommates until I'm forty" or "I have family money and don't give two fucks about getting a job."
ReplyDeleteExactly.
ReplyDeleteI survived Oxford (barely) but missed out on law school when I showed up for a Monday-morning interview still partly tripping and failed to answer the first question: "Why do you want to be a lawyer?"
ReplyDeleteI should like to ask this comment's mum if I may be allowed to take it out for tea.
ReplyDeleteHe was a two-time (at least) legacy: Prescott and George H.W. were both Yalies.
ReplyDeleteAlso there don't appear to be any women other than feminists in these universes/universities. So these guys are basically hectoring and lecturing the only possible dates they could ever get and treating them like hostile forces to be triumphed over. Maybe it works as a debating technique but "I sure showed you how dumb you are" isn't really a great dating gambit.
ReplyDeleteOver at The Return of the Kings (RooshV's PUA site) Roosh has written an amazing cri de dick (presuming dick isn't feminine in which case pardon my french and put it down as cri du dick) on the level of Kim du Toit's "The Pussyfication of the American Male." Its something like "The Commodification of the Pussy" or "The PUA artist is the N** of the world." http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2015/01/14/roosh-v-warns-pussy-inflation-is-starting-to-force-men-out-of-the-market/ "Pussy Inflation is Starting To force Men Out of the Market."
My sense of Klaven is that he's jumping on the RooshV bandwagon and attempting to construct an intellectual version of a PUA site or an MRA site without realizing that his readers are actually dumb enough to be looking for actual pickup tips not merely tips on how to ankle bite and run.
Also: is he getting a Ph.D. or an MA, because MA's in England are notoriously easy to get. If you have the money to support yourself they basically give you one for showing up.
ReplyDeleteThe stupidest person I met while teaching (briefly) at Yale where I was a grad student and then a lecturer was from New Money--new Florida money. Her father owned a Kinko's franchise. She was literally dumber than a box of rocks. The middle class or (few) working class kids were really smart. And the true upper class kids were also incredibly smart and driven although perhaps the majority of their hard work had been done at their prep schools since once you got to Yale (or Harvard) you knew you couldn't be thrown out merely for coasting.
ReplyDeleteYou dodged a bullet, son.
ReplyDelete"For the offspring of the elite, the primary function of schools like Yale and Harvard is to let them meet other offspring of the elite."
ReplyDeleteThat, and to reinforce an unmerited sense of superiority and thus a justification to exploit.
Well, he did attend Yale. So he's at least seen New Haven, CT, parts of which are not advisable places for idiot WASPs to linger in. (An acquaintance went outside one morning and found a bullet hole in her car during her stint there.) So color me unsurprised that he'd rather threaten women who will be too well-mannered to treat him the way he deserves.
ReplyDeleteIs that like the Batphone for pretentious assholes?
ReplyDeleteLOL. L Ess Be En?
ReplyDeleteIt's is suspiciously close to 'klavern".
ReplyDelete"Men have struggled to liberate women from the position of physical vulnerability that would restrict their freedom in a state of nature..."
ReplyDeleteIf I may translate--gentlemen, I do speak Jive--he means "we gave them laws and we let them use guns to even things up with the brutes in the streets." For a guy who has studied the classics he might have grasped that the "laws" enabled men to rule over women--that's the fucking definition of patriarchy---because the family and specifically the patriarchal family was the place where father = king and lawmaker. The right, duty, and ability of the father to mete out punishment and even death to women, some junior men, children, and servants/slaves is what makes any notion of "liberation from physical vulnerability" absurd. And you can see that even where modern American women are armed and occasionally shoot at or near their abusive spouses. While men use guns to even up the odds (The Colt Peacemaker) and get away with it underFlorida's Stand Your Ground Laws women who do so get 20 years for attempted murder or firing off a gun near a minor child or any other reason the authorities can find.
I thought an Edrosian Enterprise would be more, you know, Swiftian maybe crossed with the Algonqian table.
ReplyDeletePoor Roosh. He's got to wipe his own ass before even the low-quality pussy will consider him. Tyranny!
ReplyDeleteNo the far right has been arguing that Trayvon jumped Zimmerman for quite a while--even throwing in the jiu jitsu like move arguing that poor Trayvon, being stalked by a fat old white dude, was reacting with homophobic panic making his "attack" on Zimmerman an anti gay hate crime. No: I am not making this up.
ReplyDeleteI can never tell the difference between Andrew Klavan and Spencer Klavan.
ReplyDeleteIs there one?
Are they a couple?
More like, thinking of all the clever things he would have said if he had thought of them at the time.
ReplyDeleteAssuming the conversation took place at all.
Spencer Klavan has never served in the military. Kinda makes you wonder what privates he's talking to.
ReplyDeleteNew Haven is famously unfriendly to women/female graduate students with warnings of rapes and violence pretty much endemic. To imagine that this is all the product of "take back the night" marches rather than the impetus for on campus feminist agitation implies a mind that is shuttered, locked, bolted, and barred against reality.
ReplyDeleteMuch as I hated the movie (from a feminist perspective) this analysis is spot on.
ReplyDeletePerhaps his stupidity is why he's running.
ReplyDeleteNo static at all.
ReplyDeleteWielding a mighty sword...swinging a big stick...backing up other men in the fight...closely following my heroes...keeping the balls in play.... Hey, sports and war metaphors really work here.
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking more along the lines of Cliff Claven, another idiot know-it-all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuKwpkUNNrA
ReplyDeleteNaughty!
ReplyDeleteI want to put the fun back in fanatic. McArdle is (self-imposed) duty, not fun.
ReplyDeleteSpot on.
ReplyDelete...so Anglophony then?
ReplyDelete(more spoilers) I absolutely loved it. Authoritarian parents that drove one daughter into emotional exile and left the other so desperate for love that she threw herself at the first guy she met. Who was a heel who took advantage of her and despised her for her neediness.
ReplyDeleteAnd the way Elsa grew up when she rejected the authoritarian control of others, and how her magic can be seen as her feminine power, her emotional power, her strength as a person, all of which authoritarian parents also repress.
And the troll's song which said people aren't and don't have to be perfect but you can't change a man because people don't really change. And "people make bad choices 'cause they're mad or scared or stressed."
So many psychological goodies!
Another shining example of the puissantification of the (privileged, RW) American male.
ReplyDeleteI knew the name was familiar. Spot on.
ReplyDeleteBlotchy-faced Jeebus shitweasel is persecuted:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/unc-wrestling-coach-blames-man-hating-feminists-lack-of-christian-values-for-sons-rape-charge/
Klavarn does a great job of highlighting how easy it is to be a neocon hack. They've been screaming about the campus radfemenace that will turn dicks into daisies since women were allowed to attend college.
ReplyDeleteBut Klavan trots it out as if he just now discovered the campus radfemenace and the sympathetic readers will shudder with horror and rage at the campus radfemenace as if they haven't heard about it 50 times before.
The only battleground he wants to see is one where the only enemy is a bunch of headless strawwomen that have been carefully wrapped in several layers of cotton batting so there is no chance a blade of straw might give him a scratch.
ReplyDeleteI ... see what you did there. Poor joke, ass. Ta!
ReplyDeleteHalf the people are below average and they need representation too.
ReplyDeleteObligatory:
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/mScdJURKGWM
My money is on Air Supply.
ReplyDelete"Spencer Klavan"? More like "Cliff Clavin," amirite? What an ignorant moron...where do these people come from?
ReplyDeleteImagine him holding a flashlight under his chin while telling the tale to the open mouthed campers.
ReplyDelete"all over America and Europe, incoherent and destructive ideologies are taking hold" That's no way to talk about the rise of nationalist/nativist/teaparty dickwads (It's always projection with these guys).
ReplyDelete"it sounds like patriarchy is on the side of the feminist." Well, it IS. Since "the patriarchy" doesn't actually exist except as a weapon for feminists, it makes sense to say that (if you're a goddamned idiot like Klavan).
ReplyDeleteEFFFFFFFF.......EMMMMMMM!
ReplyDeleteI don't know about rock and roll, but ancient literature is not exactly wanting for gore and sex, the Bible included.
ReplyDeleteYou know you are in for 20 minutes of self-serving dumb when the lone conservative at the dinner party begins "In the state of nature, you see..." Guess what, it's 2015. I'm going to go ahead and call the domestic arrangements of 40,000 years ago not relevant.
ReplyDeleteSo, Klavan, that means I'm gonna cut you off right away to ask: What do you want the world to look like in 2115? Nevermind the Bronze Age -- let's even forget what a mess you think we're in right now. I want to hear: What do you want gender to mean in 100 years? We can each give an answer, and interrogate each other about it until we have outlined very clear visions of how people should live three generations from now. I think that will be more interesting! And then, we'll talk about what we might do in our lives to get the species there.
Now, I don't know what you'll pitch as your ideal gender future, but whatever it is, I'm pretty sure that the path to it won't be paved with coaching boys to feel justified in their resentment of all the pussy they're not getting.
Unless this is an attempt at making a "Blacks are the REAL racists" type of argument. "Women are the REAL patriarchy because, um, well, hurrr, HEY! Look! Over there! It's something else!"
ReplyDelete"And the laughing, sir. The laughing as our egos lay dying on the ground. It was horrible!"
ReplyDeleteAnd much to his dismay, they won't place that aspirin between their knees.
ReplyDeleteI actually missed that one, but the "Radical feminism is a threadbare tapestry of irresponsible lies" statement is pretty majestic. What are the responsible lies?
ReplyDeleteWhat are the responsible lies?
ReplyDeleteTax cuts for the wealthy generate jobs.
Regulation kills industry.
The poor have it easy.
"... for tonight we fap in hell!"
ReplyDeleteApparently they don't teach The Iliad as part of the classics any more. There's enough gore in that to overflow a slaughterhouse.
ReplyDeleteI'm all out of love for this comment.
ReplyDelete"Or at least Mom's basement!"
ReplyDeleteI didn't realize that Trayvon Martin jumped poor George Zimmerman.
ReplyDeleteOh wait, he didn't.
What is with these crazy revisionists? How pathetic and desperate do you have to be to make shit like this up?
I think Klavan prefers the "I'm right, you're wrong. So there!" school of argument.
ReplyDeleteDon't make me tell again about the girls in my high school who "partied with Air Supply" when they played at the local college.
ReplyDeleteThose helmets won't polish themselves.
ReplyDeleteThe Frozen thing - I actually understand where they're coming from. Frozen has a very obvious theme of "empowerment". Gun nuts feel weak and powerless when they don't have their arsenals - their arsenals are what give them a feeling of empowerment. So emotionally it's the closest connection a gun nut is going to be able to make with the film's theme.
ReplyDeleteI'm actually somewhat impressed that the author got that close to understanding the film - usually these excursions into conservative readings of obviously non-conservative pop culture end up far, far worse.
You rippa deese, you darna dem yourself.
ReplyDeleteMen dominating women and keeping them in caves to in order to protect them from saber toothed tigers.
ReplyDeleteSee under "Mountain King, hall of".
ReplyDeleteWe can't let this Aeschylus out of control.
ReplyDeleteIt reminds me of "mlayven!", the exclamation of choice for Professor Frink.
ReplyDeleteToo bad the Kochs made some insipid ad right after that with a conservative millennial just as shrimpy/doofy as Pajama Boy.
ReplyDeleteI look on it as a tribute to the quality of the acid available in London in 1972.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to think that as Aussies there'd be some hope for them.
ReplyDeleteSand in the WET I presume.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if he was the kind of larval-stage MRA who took every Women's Studies class just to provide a "reasonable" viewpoint.
ReplyDeleteAnd wound up proving the need for feminism every time he opened his mouth.
Parrot the bullshit.
ReplyDeleteBullshit the parrots.
Ya feed the rats to the cats and the cats to the rats.
George W. Bush went to Yale, and he didn't learn a damn thing.
ReplyDeleteThe engines are powered by Goldberg's farts. Diflatulence crystals, if you will.
ReplyDeleteGive this a try: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-klavan-cicero-john-adams-millennial-activism-20141006-story.html
ReplyDeletePomposity, Cicero, AND conservative batshittery all delivered in a trying-too-hard-to-be-hip writing style.
Actually, I think they're father and son. At least Spencer is listed as Andrew's kid on Andrew's imdb page.
ReplyDeleteThis guy "studied Greek, Latin, and Theater at Yale." Meaning what...Yale had some kind of community theater workshop or something that he sat in on?
ReplyDeleteSince I haven't mentioned it in awhile, here's the dildogun prototype:
ReplyDeleteSpencerite Klavern.
ReplyDeleteOnce again, someone's confusing human nature with human nurture.
ReplyDeleteI think it was in Tolkien's signature libertarian work, Lord of the Things.
ReplyDelete"You'll flood the whole compartment!"
ReplyDeleteHmmmm.......Is that a squirt gun?
ReplyDeleteOh, they were a pretty fair band until their voices changed.
ReplyDeleteI didn't graduate from college with my matriculating class (darn that pesky draft), but my brother entered the same school in the year I would have graduated, 1969, and he had the yearbook. Now, this was a liberal arts, land-grant public school, at a time when the influence of the so-called New Left was probably at its peak, but when I did an inventory of my graduating class' degrees, 55% had business or business-related majors (economics, marketing, management, etc.). So, it's not exactly as if business training was ever threatened by Marxism, or socialism, or liberalism, for that matter.
ReplyDeleteWhat irks the living shit out of the right wing is that such things as the humanities are taught at all. They want right-wing ideology to be exclusively taught. In their worldview, there's no room for anything that's not in accordance with whatever insanity dominates their tribe at the moment. It works a lot the way faith is perceived by religious fundamentalists (no accident there), in that anything that prompts questions about the faith is a threat to it.
Deep down, they've always been book-burners, and probably always will be.
There are stupid, non-legacy admits clogging up every big name uni in the country. True, a lot of them have excessively rich parents but they're in there.
ReplyDeleteI love you, Smut, and I am *so* stealing "snarkon torpedoes." Just so you know. Oh, and drop by my next quotes post. <3
ReplyDelete"Studied Greek" sounds a little...backward-thinking, IYKWIMAITYD.
ReplyDeleteAlso: Which Yale? Yoliet?
ReplyDeleteOh, yes, we see that striving for equality in virtually every version of Genesis, where women are only incidentally convicted of the creation of original sin, in every Abrahamic religion, where patriarchy is indifferently enforced by civil law, and as recently as in 17th century America, where it was just a statistical accident that only women were strapped to the ducking stool as witches and in that and future centuries were denied suffrage because, well, just because.
ReplyDeleteA liar and a moron with an Ivy League education is still a liar and a moron (cf, George W. Bush), just with better credentials.
"What is with these guys and their ridiculous military metaphors?"
ReplyDeleteThis one has been beaten well past the point of death, but, especially when the miscreant declares "war" on feminism, or Marxism, or multiculturalism, or any of the other anti-fascist isms, and embellishes his arguments with military melodrama, one can be pretty sure that the underlying cause is a small, limp dick accompanied by a small, limp mind.
Not a hair trigger I hope.
ReplyDeleteI sentence this comment to 20 years of boredom.
ReplyDeleteTaking that dudes' advice is a good way to ensure that you'll die a virgin.
ReplyDeleteSmall change got rained on by his own .38
ReplyDeleteHaving bought one, myownself, I would attest to truth in that notoriety.
ReplyDeleteFrozen, Brave and Tangled are a different breed of Disney princess movies. Frozen was co-produced, co-directed and co-written by women.
ReplyDeleteTangled shows the complex relationship Rapunzel has with the woman she thinks is her mother. The witch exploits Rapunzel to remain young, keeping her isolated and using guilt and threats to withdraw love to gain obedience. When Rapunzel finally gets away she's torn between elation at her freedom and guilt that she abandoned her "mother."
Brave is about Merida's relationship with her mother and Merida's desire to make her own choices and lead her own life while her mother was trying to train her to lead her clan.
For chrissakes, they've got the Congress to represent them; ain't that enough?
ReplyDeleteIt's bros before prose, man. Or Ho's.
ReplyDeleteI would say it's more
ReplyDelete"Whoa! What are doing wrong that someone thinks we should care about what some group of inconsequential sandpits thinks they experience"
pissants is apparently not a word in Microsoft's America, so I chose my favorite suggested replacement -- sandpits
Not even Dante could devise a bizarre fetish ring of the Inferno suitable to allow Paglia to atone for her hackneyed, contrarian sins.
ReplyDeleteOffered without comment.
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/3l4g5QWEgVI
Does it come in a goyim version?
ReplyDeleteDude, our conservatives are so used to arguing from conclusions that it's the only way they can think anymore. These are people who think that if they find that magic Kenyan birth certificate they can have a six-year do-over with John McCain. Zimmerman could have shot a black toddler in the back from thirty feet away and they'd find a way to justify it.
ReplyDeleteMaybe we should make one for him.
ReplyDelete~
Yes. A short and curly one.
ReplyDelete