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Why I do not approve of the new egalitarian "MRA"

Demonspawn

March 5, 2014

0 upvotes

The new "MRA" has been taken over by egalitarianism and has become an ideology rather than any kind of a reality based movement. The things egalitarianism suggests will have an end result of detriment for men, because egalitarianism is feminism 2.0: it will end up at the same place (female supremacy) based on the same argument (equality) based on the same flaw (not understanding the differences between men and women).

To understand what an ideology is, I suggest the following quote:

Since most people can’t pronounce ideology, much less define it, a brief definition is in order: any prescriptive values system, in contrast to deductive value systems. A prescriptive value system tells you what you should do; a deductive one tries to figure out reality, and tell you what will happen if you do x, y or z, and thus points out what an optimal course of action is. (from here)

Because the new MRA is an ideology, it doesn't consider the results of it's goals of egalitarianism. It just sees "equality" as "right" and doesn't consider anything past that. Instead, the MRM needs to start considering the logical consequences of it's desires to see the results.

There are no universal goods, even equality. Everything has a cost. If you can't name the detriments of equality, then you are not making a cost/benefit analysis of your desired path and instead are just following popular opinion mindlessly. "Equality" isn't a goal, at best it's a path. But what is it a path towards?

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Post Information

Title	Why I do not approve of the new egalitarian "MRA"
Author	Demonspawn
Upvotes	0
Comments	87
Date	March 5, 2014 2:45 PM UTC (12 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1zmmbs/why_i_do_not_approve_of_the_new_egalitarian_mra/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/why-i-do-not-approve-of-the-new-egalitarian-mra.1003140 https://theredarchive.com/post/1003140

Comments

[–]thelordxl 13 points14 points15 points 12 years ago (12 children) | Copy Link

[+]Demonspawn[S] -6 points-5 points-4 points 12 years ago (11 children) | Copy Link

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[–]Hamakua -1 points0 points1 point 12 years ago (17 children) | Copy Link

[–]ignatiusloyola 1 point2 points3 points 12 years ago (16 children) | Copy Link

The argument of egalitarianism is not that men and women are biologically equal, or that biology doesn't play an effect. It is rather that biology is not the only factor, and that men and women each have the potential to similarly achieve in different aspects of life. Thus, they should not be restricted in their life choices based on their gender.

After that, trends that result from biological factors are simply natural and uninteresting.

Egalitarianism seeks legal equality and equal treatment and opportunity by public service/government, to within reason that each gender may have different needs (biologically). But the goal should be that these needs are met with similar priorities.

Most egalitarians are likely liberal or socially minded individuals. Thus, there will be some bleed over from those philosophies, but should not be conflated with egalitarianism unless the conflater is intentionally being manipulative and demagogic. Such philosophies see social programs as beneficial to a society, as they reduce the effect of wealth gaps and prevent individuals from manipulating others for their own gain. Individuals should be allowed to achieve as they can in their life, but should be given an equal opportunity to achieve, independent of the station of their parents. Similarly, a person's life should not be measured in terms of their wealth. These are the arguments behind socialized health care, socialized education, and socialized welfare.

Most people by now have realized that purely capitalist notions are easily manipulated and these effects need to be mitigated by a public system, whereby the society agrees to give up a portion of their own freedoms to prevent individuals from taking advantage of them. They are not forced to be a part of that society, and thus it is a choice that each individual makes. They are free to move somewhere else.

But that is getting off track, because that is independent of egalitarianism.

[–]Hamakua -4 points-3 points-2 points 12 years ago (9 children) | Copy Link

I simply don't trust most of the things that come out of the mouths of "natural born" egalitarians. While your intentions might both be good and objectively equal, most egalitarians I have seen and read are marginal refugees trying to distance themselves from the sour smell and taste feminism is increasingly being recognized for.

But that's the thing, this is how first and second wave feminism started, with the noblest of intentions, but it didn't get the majority of it's power until it started embracing through proxies radicalism and appeals to emotion. VAWA didn't get passed using objectivity and rational thought. The breast cancer charity industry wasn't a balanced check of weights and measures of who needs the most help.

All of these same things will persist and exist within most of the egalitarian movement because most egalitarians I read/see are indistinguishable from the "2nd year" feminist of a decade ago. The only thing they do differently now is look up the widely viewed negatives of modern day feminism and addendum in a refutation of solely that aspect of feminism.

Ask most "egalitarians", with no context given, which do they think is more just, equality of outcome or equality of opportunity? At best you will get most to say "a little of both" with a larger proportion falling squarely on the side of outcome over the number who would fall on the side of opportunity.

Most of egalitarianism is in lock step with socialism. I am not opposed to socialism, I actually think it is going to be an important stepping stone for humanity in the future, but it is directly counter to what the MRM was born from (opportunity instead of outcome) and in direct alignment with one of the cornerstones of feminism, namely, appeals to emotion also known as empathy.

I am not saying that these are bad things or things that society doesn't require, but "Egalitarianism" is incompatible with the MRM and any MRA who thinks otherwise is abandoning the core problems that MRM organically formed to counter.

What I see when I read literature written by "the average" egalitarian is a heavily culled view based on first wave feminism with gender neutral language so it can't be picked apart. What I don't see when I read Egalitarians is any sort of healthy introspection of how they might be wrong, or how a particular political position or policy track might backfire.

Further, egalitarianism, on the political policy moving front anyway suffers greatly from argument to moderation.

If they didn't state it at the outset, most egalitarians that post on /r/MR would be seen as concern trolls.

[–]ignatiusloyola 2 points3 points4 points 12 years ago (7 children) | Copy Link

[–]Hamakua 0 points1 point2 points 12 years ago (3 children) | Copy Link

I don't see a refutation there and implying that the choice is only between the above three is disingenuous.

As it pertains to gender politics and it's wider influence on public policy making, barring any other "choices", what attention to men's rights has brought is far better than folding the momentum into an egalitarian movement. If that were to happen we would quickly find ourselves back in the corner waiting for table scraps a-la "Feminism helps men too".

I think you are projecting your own motivations and ideals (noble ones) onto a relatively popular movement that does not share those motivations or ideals but is being polite not to tell you as it likes your support.

Just because the MRM more often than not has its goals aligning with egalitarianism does not mean they both want the same thing. This will become painfully apparent when you see internal push-back over certain privileges one gender has over another, in law by way of some truly empathetic justification.

Folding the MRM into egalitarianism removes its ability later to stop and exclaim "Wait, hold on, that's bullshit and here is why" as all the voices and even the internal debates get lost in a sea of "old ideals rebranded".

My solution? Fine, rally with the Egalitarian voting block when it suits the MRM's purpose, but reserve the right to tell them to go to hell when they finally take a turn against the core issues because [Reasons].

Also, I don't mind and even look forward to being wrong.

[–]ignatiusloyola 1 point2 points3 points 12 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

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[–]Demonspawn[S] -4 points-3 points-2 points 12 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]autowikibot 0 points1 point2 points 12 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

Argument to moderation:

Argument to moderation (Latin: argumentum ad temperantiam; also known as [argument from] middle ground, false compromise, gray fallacy and the golden mean fallacy) is an informal fallacy which asserts that the truth can be found as a compromise between two opposite positions. This fallacy's opposite is the false dilemma.

As Vladimir Bukovsky puts it, the middle ground between the Big Lie of Soviet propaganda and the truth is a lie, and one should not be looking for a middle ground between disinformation and information. According to him, people from the Western pluralistic civilization are more prone to this fallacy because they are used to resolving problems by making compromises and accepting alternative interpretations, unlike Russians who are looking for the absolute truth.

An individual demonstrating this false compromise fallacy implies that the positions being considered represent extremes of a continuum of opinions, and that such extremes are always wrong, and the middle ground is always correct. This is not always the case. Sometimes only X or Y is acceptable, with no middle ground possible. Additionally, the middle ground fallacy allows any position to be invalidated, even those that have been reached by previous applications of the same method; all one must do is present yet another, radically opposed position, and the middle-ground compromise will be forced closer to that position. In politics, this is part of the basis behind Overton window theory.

^Interesting: ^False ^dilemma ^| ^Compromise

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[–]Demonspawn[S] -5 points-4 points-3 points 12 years ago (5 children) | Copy Link

[–]ignatiusloyola 4 points5 points6 points 12 years ago (4 children) | Copy Link

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[–]Demonspawn[S] -1 points0 points1 point 12 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

[–]ignatiusloyola 0 points1 point2 points 12 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

How do you plan to do what has never been done in the history of the world?

Much like I would respond to a Christian arguing that God is the creator of the universe because science doesn't have an answer to the question "what caused the big bang?", I will say to you, "THAT IS WHAT WE ARE TRYING TO FIND OUT!"

Just because we don't have an answer now, doesn't mean we drop what we are doing and accept a different answer, especially one that has a shitload of baggage that comes along with it.

The goal of philosophy and study is to find solutions and create knowledge and understanding. It is perfectly acceptable to say, "I don't know, but I am trying to find out." I would praise someone with that view point over someone who says, "I know the answer, and I don't give a shit about all the criticisms of it."

[–]Demonspawn[S] -2 points-1 points0 points 12 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

I would praise someone with that view point over someone who says, "I know the answer, and I don't give a shit about all the criticisms of it."

But this is what you are telling me. You know the answer (equality) and you don't give a shit about the criticisms of it.

Much like I would respond to a Christian arguing that God is the creator of the universe because science doesn't have an answer to the question "what caused the big bang?", I will say to you, "THAT IS WHAT WE ARE TRYING TO FIND OUT!"

But your answer isn't "we are trying to find out" your answer is "we don't know, but let's act like we've figured out how already!"

Just because we don't have an answer now, doesn't mean we drop what we are doing and accept a different answer, especially one that has a shitload of baggage that comes along with it.

No, instead you are going to continue down a path that is creating even more baggage and ignore any demonstration that the path is wrong.

[–][deleted] -3 points-2 points-1 points 12 years ago* (2 children) | Copy Link

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[–]Demonspawn[S] -5 points-4 points-3 points 12 years ago (16 children) | Copy Link

Why do you believe that only men should be allowed to vote?

Because men pay the majority of taxes. Allowing women's suffrage is giving a 55% controlling interest to a group that only supplies 1/4 to 1/3 of the taxes being controlled. On top of that, the results of women's suffrage increase taxes, increase the size of government, lead to gun control, increases government intrusion into personal lives as direct effects. then there's the secondary effects from those that destabilize society even further.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/x737rhv91438554j/

Abstract: In this paper we test the hypothesis that extensions of the voting franchise to include lower income people lead to growth in government, especially growth in redistribution expenditures. The empirical analysis takes advantage of the natural experiment provided by Switzerland''s extension of the franchise to women in 1971. Women''s suffrage represents an institutional change with potentially significant implications for the positioning of the decisive voter. For various reasons, the decisive voter is more likely to favor increases in governmental social welfare spending following the enfranchisement of women. Evidence indicates that this extension of voting rights increased Swiss social welfare spending by 28% and increased the overall size of the Swiss government.

http://johnrlott.tripod.com/op-eds/WashTimesWomensSuff112707.html

http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~iversen/PDFfiles/LottKenny.pdf

Excerpt: Academics have long pondered why the government started growing precisely when it did. The federal government, aside from periods of wartime, consumed about 2 percent to 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) up until World War I. It was the first war that the government spending didn't go all the way back down to its pre-war levels, and then, in the 1920s, non-military federal spending began steadily climbing. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal — often viewed as the genesis of big government — really just continued an earlier trend. What changed before Roosevelt came to power that explains the growth of government? The answer is women's suffrage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_gender_gap

* Increased role of government * U.S. military intervention * Healthcare and welfare * Firearms restrictions * Affirmative action to achieve racial equality

Who suffers more under more government role? Men.

Who fights the battles when the US Military intervenes? Men.

Who pays the majority of taxes to fund healthcare and welfare? Men.

Women's suffrage is a classic example of a moral hazard. Women get the rights, men get the responsibility to pay for women's rights.

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points8 points 12 years ago (10 children) | Copy Link

[+]Demonspawn[S] -8 points-7 points-6 points 12 years ago (9 children) | Copy Link

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[–]Demonspawn[S] -3 points-2 points-1 points 12 years ago (12 children) | Copy Link

You are both very invested in gender essentialism.

Yes, but on opposite ends. Theirs is that gender made women weaker, so women need step stools and special privilege. Mine is that men and women are different, so we should quit treating them the same and instead follow natural law that has worked successfully for thousands of years.

In fact, every time we've attempted equality, well....

What price are you willing to pay for "equality"? (legal download, book is out of copyright).

"Unwin analyzes 80 primitive cultures and a number of past empires and finds that, without exception, the level of advancement or decline of all cultures is directly tied to the level of regulation of female sexuality. His historical examples include the Sumerians, Babylonians, Athenians, Romans, Teutons, and Anglo-Saxons (600s - 900s), and English (1500s - 1900s). In every example, these cultures began to rise when women were required to be virgins at marriage and to be monogamous for life. All of these cultures began to decline when women were given rights, were not required to be virgins at marriage, when divorce was common, and marriage was in decline."

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point2 points 12 years ago* (11 children) | Copy Link

[–]Demonspawn[S] 0 points1 point2 points 12 years ago (10 children) | Copy Link

You want the world to run the same way their theories say the world runs.

That's not the question. The question is: does the world run the say way their theories say it runs?

You missed the point of the whole OP: It's not about "want" or "ought"... it's about "IS". You seem to think I "want" the world to run some way. I don't. That's an ideology. What I do is recognize "The world runs this way, so if we do X, Y will happen."

The unwin study would be regarded as poor and very biased these days

Dashing rebuttal.

and most jobs can be done by women so requirements of virginity and so on are irrelevant today.

But most jobs are not done by women. And jobs of consequence are even less done by women. Women with college educations drop out of the full-time workforce at a rate of 50% by ten years.

Again: you're discussing Ought while I'm discussing Is.

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You're done because you're wrong and you know it.

Equity: An equity investment generally refers to the buying and holding of shares of stock on a stock market by individuals and firms in anticipation of income from dividends and capital gains, as the value of the stock rises. Typically equity holders receive voting rights, meaning that they can vote on candidates for the board of directors (shown on a proxy statement received by the investor) as well as certain major transactions, and residual rights, meaning that they share the company's profits, as well as recover some of the company's assets in the event that it folds, although they generally have the lowest priority in recovering their investment. It may also refer to the acquisition of equity (ownership) participation in a private (unlisted) company or a startup company. When the investment is in infant companies, it is referred to as venture capital investing and is generally regarded as a higher risk than investment in listed going-concern situations.

Equality: Everyone gets an equal vote.

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points6 points 12 years ago (4 children) | Copy Link

[–]Demonspawn[S] -3 points-2 points-1 points 12 years ago (3 children) | Copy Link

[–]autowikibot 0 points1 point2 points 12 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

Equity theory:

Equity theory is a theory that attempts to explain relational satisfaction in terms of perceptions of fair/unfair distributions of resources within interpersonal relationships. Considered one of the justice theories, equity theory was first developed in 1963 by John Stacey Adams, a workplace and behavioral psychologist, who asserted that employees seek to maintain equity between the inputs that they bring to a job and the outcomes that they receive from it against the perceived inputs and outcomes of others (Adams, 1965). The belief is that people value fair treatment which causes them to be motivated to keep the fairness maintained within the relationships of their co-workers and the organization. The structure of equity in the workplace is based on the ratio of inputs to outcomes. Inputs are the contributions made by the employee for the organization.

^Interesting: ^Trapped ^equity ^theory ^| ^{Organizational} ^justice ^| ^Social ^exchange ^theory ^| ^Job ^satisfaction

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[–]Bartab 0 points1 point2 points 12 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

[–]autowikibot 0 points1 point2 points 12 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

Equity (legal concept):

In jurisdictions following the English common law, equity is the set of legal principles that supplement strict rules of law where their application would operate harshly. In civil legal systems, broad "general clauses" allow judges to have similar leeway in applying the code.

Equity is commonly said to "mitigate the rigor of common law", allowing courts to use their discretion and apply justice in accordance with natural law. In practice, modern equity is limited by substantive and procedural rules, and English and Australian legal writers tend to focus on technical aspects of equity. Twelve "vague ethical statements", known as the Maxims of equity, guide equity's application, and an additional five can be added.

A historical criticism of equity while it developed was that it lacked fixed rules, with the Lord Chancellor occasionally judging in the main according to his conscience. The rules of equity later lost much of their flexibility, and from the 17th century onwards equity was rapidly consolidated into a system of precedents much like its common-law cousin.

Image ⁱ - The Court of Chancery, London, in the early 19th century

^Interesting: ^Common ^law ^| ^Law ^| ^Lex ^mercatoria

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I can determine that women do not remain homeless for any appreciable period of time. At first approach to a homeless shelter they will get forwarded to permanent assistance.

More accurately, you can say it about the homeless in the area that you work. And that's if I give you the benefit of the doubt in regards to your ability to know their situation, something you denied to me. My experience has been different than yours; I'm seeing both genders getting assistance, and both getting help to find permanent housing. I guess my area doesn't suck.

"No homeless women" wasn't my position.

And yet that was the item in contention when you joined the conversation.

Is this an argument? Begging is a lucrative business.

I never said it wasn't. But since the topic was not about whether or not people who are well-off beg, it's a straw man.

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