Is it worthwhile to attempt to correct misconceptions about MRAs, or is it just a waste of energy?

kanuk876 · 2010-09-02T04:27:14+00:00

In the broadest scope of things... it's irrelevant. MRAs are made from first-hand experiences in society, not debate and activism.

When society stops hating and abusing men, MRAs will disappear.

If you enjoy debating people, go for it. It's a great way to practice your debate skills.

Hamakua · 2010-09-02T14:27:41+00:00

Here is the hard part. You need to understand open forums of debate, generally, the purpose is not to change the mind of the person you are debating, instead see it as an opportunity to present your case to everyone else reading the issue. Always keep this in mind while debating. How do you want to come off to those watching, as opposed to the person with whom you are arguing.

Another thing is to learn as many of the formal logical fallacies as possible and include Gish Galloping in there with them.

Try and recognize them in the opponent's message and they will provide you with an easy road-map to reducing his 5 page rant down to a half a page of issues. The other 4 pages you just point out each fallacy with a link. You remove a lot of the work (it's still a lot of work).

The last half a page you then take apart by using sources and research and articles. 1 study is worth 10 oped articles, 1 oped article (major news corp) is worth 10 blog post articles. Female talking about male issues in a positive light is worth, (unfortunately) about 5x more than a male talking about the same issue. I know this is counter intuitive to the logical fallacies above, but it's real life, sorry.

Also, don't feel like you need to counter the entire "rant", eliminate the fallacies, then concentrate on one issue that you are knowledgeable about. Start to deconstruct that issue. If the rant has multiple issues, and you don't know much about another, and the opponent tries to drag you over there simply tell them you aren't learned enough about that subject to make a valid counter, clarifying that such a position doesn't mean there is no valid counter (in the fallacies).

What happens, is your concentration on one part of the rant or claim, the deconstruction and countering one part of the argument does 2 things. 1. It reduces the amount of "work" that would need to be required to take it all down, 2. It draws scrutiny to the rest of the authors claims. If he was wrong about this, he might be wrong about other things (another fallacy, but we live in an imperfectly debated world). Also, your mature handling of the issues tends to scare away the dramatically emotional "trolls" who seek to inflame and argue using emotion. Logical debate attracts logical people, which will generally attract people who will at the very least be fair in the discussion.

tomek77 · 2010-09-02T00:12:17+00:00

Yes, absolutely, but choose your battles: I wouldn't waste too much time on a stupid blog, because:

it has no influence (too few readers)
political battles are won in the middle, don't expect to win over feminazi scum (that would be a waste of time!)

menareangrynow · 2010-09-02T06:34:29+00:00

Nemo me impune lacessit!

No one attacks me with impunity!

Don't let others lie about you. If you allow this, people will believe the lies.

2010-09-02T00:08:33+00:00

yea, its a great way to get support more support means more influence

Il128 · 2010-09-02T01:38:30+00:00

After today, I'm pretty sure there is no such thing as "an MRA."

Title	Is it worthwhile to attempt to correct misconceptions about MRAs, or is it just a waste of energy?
Author	thesmos
Upvotes	7
Comments	17
Date	September 1, 2010 11:56 PM UTC (15 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/d8g2f/is_it_worthwhile_to_attempt_to_correct/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/is-it-worthwhile-to-attempt-to-correct.1047747 https://theredarchive.com/post/1047747

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