Three words that make me stop reading your article, blogpost, comment, etc

by Henry Farrell on December 18, 2014

(1) “By”

(2) “David”

(3) “Bernstein”

That is all.

{ 241 comments }

1

Matt 12.18.14 at 12:17 am

I’m mostly with you here, though most of those were pretty good examples of “ideas” that signal team membership or else that the person isn’t going to given an argument, as opposed to making a gesture of some sort or other. (Some might be debated, but the odds are not good for an article/post/comment making too much use of most of those.)

2

The Temporary Name 12.18.14 at 12:24 am

I’m sorry, but…

3

Val 12.18.14 at 12:27 am

So funny! But I do think “feminazi” is a genuinely awful word. The only worse one (well phrase) off the top of my head is “breastfeeding nazi”:

You will breastfeed or I will put you in a concentration camp, baby!

And/or: I will exercise my right to breastfeed when my baby breastfeeding nazi demands it, even if it is in public and I cause death and destruction to thousands of innocent bystanders by showing a glimpse of my breast!

And/or: I will talk about the health benefits of breastfeeding even though it ruins the lives of mothers who don’t breastfeed, who would never have heard about them if I hadn’t exercised my nazi power of talking about things in public!

These are the commonest uses of the term, I believe.

4

Brett 12.18.14 at 12:33 am

I imagine Corey Robin would have more choice words, considering that 75% of Bernstein’s writing these days seems to be Israel apologia.

5

sharculese 12.18.14 at 12:47 am

Isn’t the fact that puffy angrydad types get indignant at the mere thought of your writing a sign of success?

6

jwl 12.18.14 at 12:54 am

One could quibble with a lot of the list, but I’ll single out mansplaining. This is a highly useful term to describe behavior one sees all around. Instead of having to state the scenario and describe it, one can say “mansplain” and everyone gets it. It’s a contribution to human flowering.

7

mattski 12.18.14 at 1:05 am

Memories of crashing the VC:

DB polluting the memory of I.F. Stone with accusations of Commie Symp or Stalin Apologist etc.

Nauseating.

8

Corey Robin 12.18.14 at 1:16 am

Maybe it’s time to revise Gore Vidal’s dictum about the three most depressing words in the English language: Joyce Carol Oates. Though Bernstein is not so much depressing as he’s, well, whatever he is.

9

J Thomas 12.18.14 at 1:59 am

#6 jwl

I’ll single out mansplaining. This is a highly useful term to describe behavior one sees all around. Instead of having to state the scenario and describe it, one can say “mansplain” and everyone gets it. It’s a contribution to human flowering.

“Communist” used to be similarly useful. Instead of paying attention to what the guy was actually saying, you could just say he was a communist and everybody would know to ignore him.

But then we ran out of communists so they had to use “liberal” the same way.

“Feminazi” also does the same thing. Once it’s clear that somebody is a feminazi, men who think in those terms know to laugh at her without taking her at all seriously.

I don’t see this stuff as part of human flowering at all. It would be better if we would actually try to understand each other.

But it isn’t easy. It tends to go like:

Person A: Look at the mansplaining fool.

Me: Wait, let’s actually listen to what he has to say. Maybe we can reach some common ground.

Person B: You women are a bunch of feminazis. You don’t understand logic so it’s no good trying to explain anything to you.

And it goes downhill from there. To get productive conversation both sides have to want to, and usually neither side wants to. And so the pejoratives from both sides have a certain accuracy. It really isn’t worth taking anything they say seriously.

Unfortunate.

10

MPAVictoria 12.18.14 at 2:10 am

Shorter J: You guys, the people calling you feminazis might have a point. You should hear them out.

11

David 12.18.14 at 2:18 am

The term ”mansplaining” seems to upset quite a few people, which I find hilarious. It is, frankly, something that happens all the time, and it is absurd to see likely mansplainers classifying it as some word that is ”beyond the pale”.

Similarly, the people who most seem to have a problem with the descriptor ”neoliberal” are those who most want to be able to posit the Democrats as being authentically social democratic and thus different from those Reaganite Republicans. Which is why the word is useful as a critique in the first place!

12

J Thomas 12.18.14 at 2:21 am

#10 MPAV

You completely and utterly missed the point. You have a talent for that. It was on purpose this time, wasn’t it?

13

David 12.18.14 at 2:22 am

In any case, ”mansplaining” is not a critique of ideas but a critique of the style of delivery of information.

14

MPAVictoria 12.18.14 at 2:27 am

“You completely and utterly missed the point. You have a talent for that. It was on purpose this time, wasn’t it?”

Yeah, sure I did J.

15

MPAVictoria 12.18.14 at 2:32 am

Mansplaining and feminazis are not two sides of the same coin. Mansplaining describes something that happens all the time. You yourself spent a large part of the recent thread on consent doing it. Where feminazis are something that was made up by right wingers to insult women who don’t want to be baby making maids for men.

That you try and equate the two terms shows that you just don’t get it.

16

jwl 12.18.14 at 2:34 am

J Thomas,

The term “mansplaining” helps to convey information quickly in precisely the same way as terms like “Bose-Einstein condensate”, “flying buttress”, and “putsch”. That is, it describes things or events that occur in the real world. Mansplaining exists, and if we are honest with each other we’ve probably all seen it in action many times. Having the term is a contribution to human flowering. The term is a description of an event.

“Feminazis”on the other hand is strictly pejorative and a description of an essential quality. Hitler believed a women’s world is her husband, her family, her children, and her home. Motherhood and subordination to men was the highest ideal. So Nazi ideology isn’t compatible with feminism. If nazi is just used to mean strict in a pejorative sense, then the term is expressing a statement that feminism is bad and strict and heartfelt feminism is worse, which is ascriptive, not descriptive, and adds no information.

One term describes a situation, the other ascribes an essential quality. They aren’t the same, and I’m surprised you equate them.

17

jwl 12.18.14 at 2:36 am

MPAVictoria and David,

Explained it faster and better than me. Should have refreshed the screen earlier.

18

MPAVictoria 12.18.14 at 2:39 am

Well jowl I would may have been faster but you said it more clearly.

So thank you.

19

MPAVictoria 12.18.14 at 2:40 am

Bah jwl I mean. Sorry that was my iPod’s autocorrect.

20

js. 12.18.14 at 4:18 am

So, one assumes that David Bernstein is neoliberal microaggressor who regularly mansplains?

21

js. 12.18.14 at 4:20 am

“Congresscritter” is fucking horrific, tho. I mean, why?

22

Tony Lynch 12.18.14 at 4:23 am

It is just something folks say.

23

cs 12.18.14 at 4:31 am

I certainly agree that mansplaining is a meaningful word in a way that feminazi isn’t. But, I think what is being claimed is that mainsplaining is being overused (or used in a situation that is different from it’s original meaning). In that context it might be similar to any other pejorative that is used to dismiss a person’s contribution to a discussion.

24

Dragon-King Wangchuck 12.18.14 at 5:00 am

Wait. Fascist is okay “in the rare instance of referring to actual Fascists” but Neoliberal is always bad. I mean sure, there’s been way too much written about TNR recently and all, but this seems kinda off.

25

Chaz 12.18.14 at 7:18 am

1) I have detested the word “mansplain” since the first time I saw it (which was not against me). It seems to just mean “speak condescendingly, while being male”. Even if men condescend to women a lot more than women do to other people, it’s a sexist word at its core. Perhaps you can rattle off a list of other stereotype-based slurs you consider to be useful and appropriate words?

Also I don’t think feminazi is a counterpart to mansplain. Bitch would be closer.

2) An “actual Fascist” with a capital F would be a member of a party that had “Fascist” in the name, which most fascist parties did not and do not. Even the effing Nazis were not “Fascists” according to Bernstein. Get a damn editor.

3) I find it weird that he’s writing a blog supposedly about legal scholarship in a mass-market US newspaper but 17% of his word crimes are about Israeli politics. However on second thought that is not as weird as the idea of a blog about legal scholarship in a mass-market US newspaper.

26

Chaz 12.18.14 at 7:26 am

Damnit, messed up on #2. Bernstein probably would call the Nazis “Fascists” but that is not correct. They are merely fascists.

27

clew 12.18.14 at 7:27 am

Chaz (1) I find `whitesplaining’ and `richsplaining’ very useful parallels — I’m conscious of mansplaining in the rôle of the toad, I ought to be conscious of the other two even though I’m then the butterfly, or the farmer.

28

Sam Dodsworth 12.18.14 at 9:17 am

Chaz@25 It seems to just mean “speak condescendingly, while being male”.

I read it as “to speak condescendingly to woman, on the assumption that she must know less than you about the topic”, which is a useful description of a particular manifestation of sexism. Or useful to me, anyway – once I had the term I could recognise it as a long-standing bad habit of mine and start trying to do better.

29

J Thomas 12.18.14 at 9:53 am

#13 David

In any case, ”mansplaining” is not a critique of ideas but a critique of the style of delivery of information.

OK. So they’re different that way.

The similarity I see, is that in one case the context is usually “Ignore her because she is a woman who has ideas you wouldn’t like anyway” while in the other case the context is “Ignore him because you won’t like his style”.

30

David (not the one upthread) 12.18.14 at 11:17 am

Henry, I hope all three of your criteria have to apply before you stop reading that article, blogpost etc?

31

Ronan(rf) 12.18.14 at 11:33 am

I don’t know who David Bernstein is but have to say I have some sympathy for his list. I guess one or two of those terms might not *always* be used as an ad hominen, but most of them are more often than not. (also interesting that he tries to make his list as non partisan as possible, except on Israel. Which isn’t really interesting so much as entirely predictable)

32

Collin Street 12.18.14 at 11:53 am

> Me: Wait, let’s actually listen to what he has to say.

See, the mistake you’re making is that, pragmatically, we can’t, or at least shouldn’t. Opportunity cost: listening to people takes time away from other things.

Fortunately, we don’t all have to listen to the same people: you can listen to Bob, and I can listen to Alice, and if Bob says anything interesting you can tell us, and if Alice says anything interesting I can tell you. Your “let’s” is “let us” which is to say, “I want you to listen too”: you can listen all you like, but you can’t really demand it of other people.

Hrm. The judgement “is a person worth listening to” has to be made — for reasons that should be obvious — without actually listening to them in detail; it’s a heuristic process, and when you use heuristics you accept the possibility [which is to say the certainty] that they’ll be in error. So your heuristic-based process needs to be designed to identify and handle the misjudgements that will be made…

… which means in context that if everyone uses different heuristics, and if everyone’s heuristics include factors for “also, if [people] recommend it it’s worth reconsidering”, most of the world’s wisdom will be available to most of the world. But for this to work the people you want to listen to have to be ignored by others, at least the first time.

So your “let’s” is pretty misguided.

33

Metatone 12.18.14 at 12:04 pm

He doesn’t like neoliberal? So what’s his word then for the Washington Consensus, etc?

34

John Quiggin 12.18.14 at 12:42 pm

I like “market liberal”, partly because it avoids confusion between the US version of “neoliberal”, represented by TNR, and the global version, represented by Thatcher.

35

Trader Joe 12.18.14 at 1:08 pm

Mansplaining – “to speak condescendingly to woman, on the assumption that she must know less than you about the topic”

A legitimate question – is always mansplaining when a man speaks to a woman as described. For example, if a man is explaining to a woman the nuances of running a 2 minute drill in football or how beer is brewed or what a carburator does – topics that a lot of men do know more than a lot of women about, would that still be mansplaining?

I get it entirely when the topic is an area of common knowledge (art, politics etc.) and its self-evident when a man is talking about an area where he probably has inferior knowledge (say, breastfeeding)…but people do know different things and most people like to share what they know and try to do so in an understandable way – maybe its all about tone. Anyway an honest question that I’ve never understood about this word, which feels a bit pejorative or at least dismissive, depending upon how and when its being used.

36

Barry 12.18.14 at 1:36 pm

Trader Joe, the meaning is when a man is explaining those things when he has no clue how much the woman knows (and in my experience, when the man doesn’t know all that much). The strongest meaning is when a man explains something about which few men know much, and almost all women know a lot. Cast your memory back to almost any thread in any blog about harassment, discrimination, and sexual aggression/rape. See how many men tell women How It Really Is.

37

Barry 12.18.14 at 1:38 pm

33
Metatone
“He doesn’t like neoliberal? So what’s his word then for the Washington Consensus, etc?”

The whole point is that ‘neoliberal’ means ‘cultrually liberal, and economically right-wing’, which has a deservedly bad stench, so neoliberals are crying ‘no fair’.

38

Sam Dodsworth 12.18.14 at 1:48 pm

Commenters grappling with the idea that they’re not entitled to an appreciative audience by virtue of their gender or beginning to walk the tricky path of “is it really mansplaining if…?” may find Rebecca Solnit’s “Men Who Explain Things To Me” helpful:

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/13/opinion/op-solnit13

It pre-dates the actual word, but is widely credited as the origin of the concept.

Men explain things to me, and to other women, whether or not they know what they’re talking about. Some men. Every woman knows what I mean. It’s the presumption that makes it hard, at times, for any woman in any field; that keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men’s unsupported overconfidence.

And now I’m going away for a bit, because this is starting to depress me.

39

Collin Street 12.18.14 at 1:53 pm

Even if men condescend to women a lot more than women do to other people, it’s a sexist word at its core.

The language used to discuss sexism cannot be sexually neutral, for reasons that should not need explaining.

40

Teachable Mo' 12.18.14 at 2:00 pm

What is the difference between mansplaining and “drivelalia factosis”?

http://www.gocomics.com/culdesac/2010/07/18/

41

J Thomas 12.18.14 at 2:03 pm

#32 Collin Street

> Me: Wait, let’s actually listen to what he has to say.

See, the mistake you’re making is that, pragmatically, we can’t, or at least shouldn’t. Opportunity cost: listening to people takes time away from other things.

When I think about it, you’re absolutely right. Why should I listen to other people? They don’t understand my needs, what advice can they have that would be useful to me? When it’s political stuff — blacks and feminists and neonazis and democrats and such, mostly what they want to talk about is what *they* want and why I should help them get what they want. What good does that do me?

Well, but it’s useful to listen to people to help predict what they will do. Except no, most people are highly skilled at bluffing, at misrepresenting themselves, and hiding what they will do. It works better to predict people by guessing what they want, and guessing how they think they can get it. Sometimes listening can help you guess how they think the world works, but even that isn’t at all dependable.

Anyway, mostly people just repeat the same old slogans. No point listening to those again.

And people who say something new are mostly crackpots, they say things that almost nobody will agree with so they’re certainly safe to ignore.

I guess what got me thinking otherwise was an idea I picked up from liberals. I liked the idea that we could respect each other, and listen to each other, and find ways to get along. When we disagree on matters of fact, then look for ways to collect information from reality and see what the facts are. When we disagree about culture, look for ways to co-exist in peace without necessarily being too much influenced by each other. It just seemed like a good idea.

But of course it doesn’t really work that way. It is in fact a crackpot idea, except that people say it some and don’t mean it. People don’t listen to each other unless they have solid assurance they’ll like what they hear. And people don’t say what’s true for them unless they feel completely safe. (And so in my experience people are most likely to tell me the truth when they are pointing guns at me. Sad….)

OK, you’ve convinced me. It’s a beautiful dream but it isn’t going to happen.

42

Bruce Baugh 12.18.14 at 2:11 pm

I’ve seen a formulation that I like, to the effect that mansplaining happens when the man plows on with his exposition without regard for how much he actually knows about the topic, and without regard for how much the woman he’s lecturing actually knows, and without regard for her reactions. It’s the triple feature that earns it the distinctive title; likewise for whitesplaining and every other form of a ignorant, boorish person in a position of social advantage carrying on.

43

MPAVictoria 12.18.14 at 2:16 pm

““Feminazi” also does the same thing. Once it’s clear that somebody is a feminazi, men who think in those terms know to laugh at her without taking her at all seriously.”

When is it clear that someone is a “feminazi’?

44

mdc 12.18.14 at 2:16 pm

‘Mansplaining’- uselessly explaining something to someone, while obliviously assuming they know nothing about it- is a real thing. Even if it’s possible for a woman to do this, it’s perfectly natural that the conduct still be named after the gender with whom such behavior is most associated (names have to come from somewhere). Maybe someday in the emancipated future, we’ll say: “remember when one assumed that a mansplainer had to be a man?” Just like now we ignore the gendered etymology of much of our language (like, say, ‘virtue’ from ‘vir’).

45

jwl 12.18.14 at 2:21 pm

Corey,

What’s the background on Gore Vidal’s dislike for Joyce Carol Oates? Is there some epic tiff of which I am unaware, or just a general dislike for her output and themes?

46

J Thomas 12.18.14 at 2:28 pm

#43 MPAV

““Feminazi” also does the same thing. Once it’s clear that somebody is a feminazi, men who think in those terms know to laugh at her without taking her at all seriously.”

When is it clear that someone is a “feminazi’?

You’d have to ask somebody who thinks in those terms.

Sheesh.

#42 Bruce Baugh

I’ve seen a formulation that I like, to the effect that mansplaining happens when the man plows on with his exposition without regard for how much he actually knows about the topic, and without regard for how much the woman he’s lecturing actually knows, and without regard for her reactions.

Good! The other definitions sounded german to me. I’ve sometimes had conversations with germans in which they stated a position dogmatically, and then when I said “But what about this…” then they responded to that, and we’d go back and forth until we at least got it straight where the area of contention was and what facts could resolve it. It was fun. A few german women seemed particularly pleased that I was willing to play, and one complained at some length about Americans who got offended by a good argument.

But it isn’t enough to say stuff dogmatically to mansplain, you have to also ignore the other person’s responses. When they tell you why you’re wrong you just bulldoze over them.

Much better.

47

Collin Street 12.18.14 at 2:33 pm

Trader Joe, the meaning is when a man is explaining those things when he has no clue how much the woman knows (and in my experience, when the man doesn’t know all that much).

Enh. Words are fuzzy, because reality is fuzzy.

[really a word has no real meaning except in use, with the exact meaning varying case-by-case; dictionary-style definitions are kinda a pale shadow of the real word, like stuffed skins in glass cases. Which is why the heavy lifting with the OED is the usage examples, not the definitions that accompany them.]

48

Hogan 12.18.14 at 2:35 pm

mansplaining happens when the man plows on with his exposition without regard for how much he actually knows about the topic, and without regard for how much the woman he’s lecturing actually knows, and without regard for her reactions.

Especially on topics like women’s (or a woman’s) experience, or the proper way to understand and practice feminism. (“Here is my understanding of feminism, which proves that Amanda Marcotte and Jessica Valenti aren’t real feminists like me.”)

49

MPAVictoria 12.18.14 at 2:42 pm

“You’d have to ask somebody who thinks in those terms.

Sheesh.”

Great! Glad to hear you don’t think in those terms. And what, pray tell, can we expect to learn from people who DO think in those terms? We only have so many hours in a day, why should I spend the precious few I have listening to someone who calls women “feminazis”? What is to be gained?

50

Elly 12.18.14 at 2:45 pm

J Thomas, re mansplaining:
It would be better if we would actually try to understand each other.

No. You are assuming that the mansplainer has any interest whatsoever in understanding ladypeople. He does not. He is only interested in himself. He is, in fact, literally talking over the ladyperson in such a way that precludes discussion and understanding. He’s telling her how it is, regardless of whether or not she already knows “how it is.” And how could he possibly know whether or not she knows how it is, when he’s too busy talking over her to listen to her?

Basically, he’s a trolling troll, and you think us ladypeople should just shut up and listen to him? As if he were behaving reasonably? As if his input was either wanted or helpful? No. No, no, no.

51

MPAVictoria 12.18.14 at 2:47 pm

“Basically, he’s a trolling troll, and you think us ladypeople should just shut up and listen to him? As if he were behaving reasonably? As if his input was either wanted or helpful? No. No, no, no.”

+1000000

52

Andrew 12.18.14 at 3:18 pm

‘Mansplaining’ is indeed a useful term, but lately I’ve seen its use stretched to shut down discussion before it begins.

…and now I can’t find any links to the phenomenon. Dang. Oh well, carry on.

(This is close to what I’m talking about, but doesn’t use the term ‘mansplain’:)

http://induecourse.ca/how-to-close-down-a-discussion-before-it-starts/

BTW, I second the call at #45: what was the Vidal-Oates beef, anyway?

53

JimV 12.18.14 at 3:55 pm

“It’s a beautiful dream but it isn’t going to happen.”

Sad but true. Human beings just aren’t that inherently nice, even though at times they try to be. This thread illustrates that (in a very minor way). I of course am no exception. I am capable of hurting people’s feelings when I am trying to be useful.

The social rule I try to follow is to be nice to people who are nice to me and not nice to people who aren’t (yes, the Prisoner’s Dilemma strategy) but the problem is that when I am trying to be nice or at least neutral, sometimes the other person thinks I am not, and the escalation starts. No doubt this also happens with roles reversed.

54

J Thomas 12.18.14 at 4:37 pm

#50 Elly

“It would be better if we would actually try to understand each other.”

No. You are assuming that the mansplainer has any interest whatsoever in understanding ladypeople. He does not. He is only interested in himself. He is, in fact, literally talking over the ladyperson in such a way that precludes discussion and understanding.

It depends. You only find out whether people want to hear the other side when you actually present it. If you just assume from his style that he won’t listen to you, and you never contradict him, how do you know what he would have done?

Of course, you have to look at what’s in it for you. If you get nothing from persuading him, or from discussing anything with him, then better to just do whatever feels good. Turn your back and walk away, call him a pig, kick his shins, slap his face, pour a drink over his head, whatever you figure is best for yourself.

If you are a member of one defined side and he is a member of another, there’s probably no point in any sort of fraternizing.

55

Jerry Vinokurov 12.18.14 at 4:40 pm

Oh, I see, J Thomas is doing performance art where he shows us what mansplaining is by engaging in it at length.

56

J Thomas 12.18.14 at 4:42 pm

Jerry, if you have something substantive to say to me, you can see whether I respond to it.

57

Jerry Vinokurov 12.18.14 at 4:43 pm

Maybe not everything I say that mentions you is directed at you. Just a thing for you to think about.

58

MPAVictoria 12.18.14 at 4:46 pm

J I notice that you quoted the first part of what Elly said but not the second.

59

J Thomas 12.18.14 at 4:55 pm

#57 Jerry Vinokurov

Maybe not everything I say that mentions you is directed at you.

OK, if you are not talking to me but talking about me, then there is the question whether you intend insult or defamation, which are against the comments policy. Of course if you approve of performance art, no problem that you misunderstand what I’m saying.

60

Longitudinally Enabled 12.18.14 at 5:05 pm

So, my Google-fu is weak this morning, but I could swear that I’ve seen reports from MTF trans scientists in the academy who have been subjected to mansplaining post-transition by male colleagues who had regarded them as peers pre-transition.

61

gianni 12.18.14 at 5:06 pm

why would you tell people what terms trigger your ‘tune out’ response? isn’t the whole point that you hear something like ‘feminzai’ and you are like ‘great – now i know not to take this person seriously!’ and save yourself the time and effort you would spend listening to them.

so… you tell these people how to better mask their half-baked opinions to hold your attention longer? so that your time-saving heuristic is less effective?

i just don’t get it.

62

Elly 12.18.14 at 5:09 pm

Jerry Vinokurov @ 55 has it exactly correct.

63

Lynne 12.18.14 at 5:11 pm

Andrew @ 52

I followed your link and that guy is taking something away from Klein’s comment that isn’t justified.

64

MPAVictoria 12.18.14 at 5:15 pm

“I followed your link and that guy is taking something away from Klein’s comment that isn’t justified.”

Also anyone who quotes Megan “My Calculator was broken” McArdle for any reason other then to point out logical fallacies is highly suspect.

/

65

J Thomas 12.18.14 at 5:15 pm

Gianni, it might help to think of it kind of like the crips and the bloods displaying their colors.

They don’t particularly want to talk to each other. The codewords help them sort themselves out. So for example somebody who would use the term “feminazi” in the first place would not use it less knowing that people he would call feminazis will tune him out faster because of it.

Members of those two tribes do not really want to communicate with each other. They basicly want to throw poo at each other.

66

Elly 12.18.14 at 5:20 pm

J Thomas,

Who, exactly, are these “feminazis” who are flinging poo? Please feel free to submit specific examples.

67

J Thomas 12.18.14 at 5:30 pm

#63 Lynne

Andrew @ 52

I followed your link and that guy is taking something away from Klein’s comment that isn’t justified.

Agreed. He could easily be interpreted as implying that Klein is implying that mostly mansplaining propagandists have criticized her work, and she had hoped to get some actual conversation going from the only people who could actually provide decent constructive criticism, women.

But what he quoted from her did not say that at all, only that she had hoped to get more criticism from women. The rest is stuff he added, unless there’s more in the context he didn’t quote. And he implied there was not.

I’d love to hear that there was more to it, but that Maclean’s edited her answer for length or something. Is that really the sum total of her response?

Pointing out that she did get criticized by Megan McArdle was just gratuitous meanness. No, I’m certain that wasn’t what she was hoping for more of.

Klein played the gender card and he doubled, it wasn’t a great move on either side but especially not his.

68

J Thomas 12.18.14 at 5:36 pm

#66 Elly

Who, exactly, are these “feminazis” who are flinging poo? Please feel free to submit specific examples.

Elly, when you say that Jerry Vinkurov has it exactly right about me, I’m disinclined to continue with you. What’s in it for me, after all?

69

adam.smith 12.18.14 at 5:41 pm

OK, if you are not talking to me but talking about me, then there is the question whether you intend insult or defamation, which are against the comments policy.

I assume Jerry intends mockery and ridicule, which thankfully aren’t against any comments policy. In fact, given that that’s the point of Henry’s original post, I would say they’re highly appropriate here.
I’d be less generous with the “Performance Art” label, though: Men explaining why mansplaining is not a thing to women is a bit too tired of a trope to still qualify as art (though I’ll grant your performance is meticulous).

70

Charles R 12.18.14 at 5:43 pm

I don’t know about y’all, but it’s happened to me plenty of times where men or women will explain things to me I already know in a condescending way, but I’m not a woman nor passive in conversations. I am not sure the definition of ‘mansplaining’ needs to have the origination vector be exclusively men and the termination vector be exclusively women, but self-absorption and self-centeredness probably ought to be part of the definition.

It seems to me it’s more like a reflexive relationship, since the explanation seems to function less like educating the audience and rather repetition for further fixity in the thoughtlife of the explainer. Does this fit any of y’all’s ideas?

It’s reducing the audience to the bare function of simply being there to listen. If the explainer is sincerely interested in education and acquisition of knowledge in the audience, then questions or exercises assessing whether learning objectives have been met follow. If they do not, then the explanation wasn’t really for the audience’s benefit.

And that kind of reduction to mere listener is likely what we feel as the slight, the insult, or the offense as audience. We are not participating in a conversation. We are ordinary but interactive NPCs for the player character meant for momentary cultural filler as a distraction from the leveling up and grinding they have to do otherwise.

I propose this is why gamers, actors, and philosophers tend to be the most guilty of “mansplaining.” We tend to imagine individuals in scenarios only to the extent we need them to produce our work. Once a simulated world has fulfilled its narratival function, reset it and run new instances for slightly different results.

I was just mulching leaves so I blame the gas fumes for this post.

71

MPAVictoria 12.18.14 at 6:07 pm

“Who, exactly, are these “feminazis” who are flinging poo? Please feel free to submit specific examples.”

They don’t exist but J needed him for his fable about “both sides being to blame” and his act as the “last reasonable man” on the interwebs.

72

MPAVictoria 12.18.14 at 6:08 pm

Them not him.

Oops.

73

Jerry Vinokurov 12.18.14 at 6:12 pm

OK, if you are not talking to me but talking about me, then there is the question whether you intend insult or defamation, which are against the comments policy.

If I invented your posts as a parody, people would find them unbelievable. I guess art is a pale imitation of life after all.

74

Ze Kraggash 12.18.14 at 6:19 pm

‘Mansplaining’ is ad hominem, ‘feminazi’ ad feminam.

75

Marc 12.18.14 at 6:19 pm

The fact that people here are tying themselves up in knots defining mansplaining is a clue that it’s a vague concept with a lot of ad hominum thrown in. Basically, it is frequently employed in a way designed explicitly to shut discussion down and ignore people; is it actually an improvement over “condescending”, or “insensitive”, or “ignoring the experiences of others”, for example?

76

The Temporary Name 12.18.14 at 6:25 pm

is it actually an improvement over “condescending”, or “insensitive”, or “ignoring the experiences of others”, for example?

Yes. <<<<<Male at work!

77

js. 12.18.14 at 6:25 pm

I’m starting to think that if I compiled a DB style list, it might begin with “ad hominem”.

78

PatrickinIowa 12.18.14 at 6:29 pm

Here’s what gets me to stop, “I’m not being —-ist, but I think…”

99.99% of the time, you are.

79

Elly 12.18.14 at 6:34 pm

MPAVictoria @70,

Yes, it’s pretty clear that these are strawfeminazis in J Thomas’ poo-flinging fantasy.

80

Marc 12.18.14 at 6:36 pm

Those words seem reasonable when they’re tied up with telling people not to bother to listen to someone.

I live in a country where a majority of the voters just endorsed an extremely reactionary political party. I don’t think that it’s useful (or correct) to ascribe that to their all being stupid, evil, or ignorant. So I’d like to be able to figure out what they’re thinking, which involves not dismissing anything that people on the right side of the spectrum might say without reading it.

There are certainly red flag arguments that put people into the category of “not worth engaging in” (feminzai certainly qualifies). Mansplaining isn’t in that group, but it has moved into a yellow flag territory where people end up arguing more about the word than about what it was invoked for, and that’s usually not a good sign.

81

The Temporary Name 12.18.14 at 6:47 pm

Mansplaining isn’t in that group, but it has moved into a yellow flag territory where people end up arguing more about the word than about what it was invoked for, and that’s usually not a good sign.

Reaction on this thread to it is mostly positive unless you go by word count AND I’M LOOKING AT YOU J THOMAS. In other words it’s not a big deal as a word except to those to whom it’s a big deal…and in those cases it invokes a kind of performance that helps justify the word’s existence. Which doesn’t help readability I suppose.

82

Jerry Vinokurov 12.18.14 at 6:59 pm

I live in a country where a majority of the voters just endorsed an extremely reactionary political party. I don’t think that it’s useful (or correct) to ascribe that to their all being stupid, evil, or ignorant.

What do you know, so do I. Please provide your estimation of the breakdown between stupidity, evil, and ignorance, or if those don’t suffice as explanations for electing reactionaries, feel free to explain what does.

There’s nothing terribly ambiguous about “mansplaining.” That Solnit piece is pretty detailed if you need examples, but it’s basically men talking down to women as if women were ignorant and stupid. The reason why it’s more specific than just condescension is because of the addition of the gender dynamic. I know a large number of academic women, all extremely talented and accomplished people, from whom I repeatedly hear stories of male scientists telling them How It Is and ignoring their (the women’s) actual knowledge on the subject.

The existence of the word merely crystalizes a phenomenon that obviously already exists. That a bunch of dudes are dedicated to fighting over a concept’s exact boundaries (as if concepts had such exact boundaries) in direct opposition to women just flat out saying “don’t talk to me like that,” is pretty much a direct example of how this dynamic works. This obsession with establishing a clear line around an abstract idea to the point of ignoring how that idea actually plays out in real human interaction is definitely a dude thing that I’ve noticed. Women are basically saying, “don’t disrespect me,” and your response is to find out just how close you can get to the boundary between respect and disrespect so that you can continue doing what you do with minimal change. Good effort, good job.

83

Matt 12.18.14 at 7:11 pm

Some other terms that I have learned signify “the user of this term should be ignored”:

Watermelon: in the context of protecting the environment, a pejorative conspiracy-theory term for people who support more environmental protections by government. A watermelon is green on the outside, red on the inside. A watermelon pretends to care about the environment because they want a giant all-powerful government which is obviously synonymous with communism.

Social Justice Warrior or SJW: I saw this a lot with “gamergate” but the term definitely predates it. Seems to be nearly synonymous with the older “Political Correctness Police.”

Limousine Liberal: someone who is wealthy but supports some progressive legislation because they have enough wealth to be insulated from its pernicious effects, unlike ordinary working people. Ordinary working people who support progressive legislation are not limousine liberals but moochers.

84

MPAVictoria 12.18.14 at 7:32 pm

Oh SJW is the worst. How can it be a bad thing to care about social justice?

Totally agree with you on that one.

85

Anderson 12.18.14 at 7:51 pm

Oh yes, mansplain to us why “mansplaining” is a terrible word.

86

Cian 12.18.14 at 8:00 pm

So if I’ve got J Thomas right. He’s upset that people won’t give people who refuse to give others the benefit of the doubt, (let us call them mansplainers) the benefit of the doubt.

You Crooked Timber folks – so ready to judge the judgmental.

87

J Thomas 12.18.14 at 8:23 pm

#84 MPAV

Oh SJW is the worst. How can it be a bad thing to care about social justice?

Similarly, how can it be a bad thing to be a communist and care about people getting what they need?

How can it be a bad thing to be a libertarian and care about everybody being free?

The people I’ve seen complain about SJWs were complaining about people who did not in fact do anything to promote social justice, but only singled out people who said something they disapproved of and then tried to shout them down for being bad people. As if they were some sort of Whorfians who believe that if they can just make enough people afraid to say bad words then nobody will be able to think bad thoughts.

But of course the main result is only that the people they call bad names — that they call racists or misogynists or homophobes or whatever it is this time — only call them SJWs, just about the same thing exactly. Just more namecalling.

So I figure getting called a SJW is like getting called a mansplainer. If the shoe doesn’t fit, don’t wear it.

If you aren’t actually spending a big effort deciding who the bad guys are so you can call them names, then the label doesn’t fit you.

88

J Thomas 12.18.14 at 8:52 pm

#86 Cian

So if I’ve got J Thomas right. He’s upset that people won’t give people who refuse to give others the benefit of the doubt, (let us call them mansplainers) the benefit of the doubt.

I don’t understand why it’s so hard to understand what I’m saying. It’s plain and simple. But I’m having a hard time saying it in an understandable way. Not upset, though.

I want everybody to give everybody else the benefit of the doubt enough to really try to understand what they’re saying. But I understand that isn’t going to happen.

I’m a little bothered by my hypocritical friends who say they do that and don’t. But hell, it’s not like the people who make no pretence of trying to understand anybody but their official allies are *better*.

Anyway, people have good reasons not to try to understand. For one thing, if they listened they’d probably find out they’d heard it before. Why take that chance?

For another, if they listen to people who disagree with them, they’ll probably decide that the other guy is wrong. Why listen to stuff that’s wrong?

And also, the other guy is likely to say things in an insulting way. Why listen if you’re only going to get insulted? If you don’t listen then you won’t feel insulted, which is better.

If you do listen and then you try to reply, chances are he’ll just ignore everything you say and repeat himself and be an utter boor. That’s no good, so don’t listen in the first place.

Nobody’s said this one, but just imagine that the other guy does say something you hadn’t heard before, that persuades you of something new. Maybe what you get out of it is not what he said or anything he’d agree with, but something he inspired you to think. Doesn’t matter, it’s something new. Then you have a problem. If you try to tell it to your friends and allies they’ll disagree and tell you that you’re full of shit. They might throw you out of the movement. The payoff for new ideas is not great. Better not to risk it.

So it’s perfectly reasonable that hardly anybody gives anybody else the benefit of the doubt unless they already know they agree with each other. I don’t much like it, but I can’t build up a lot of hope for more than rare exceptions.

Is that clearer?

89

Elly 12.18.14 at 9:01 pm

What you’re saying is that you don’t trust us ladypeople to figure out for ourselves when someone is mansplaining at us, so you think we should give the mansplainers our rapt attention? Nothankyou.

90

CorduroyPants 12.18.14 at 9:03 pm

And that kind of reduction to mere listener is likely what we feel as the slight, the insult, or the offense as audience. We are not participating in a conversation. We are ordinary but interactive NPCs for the player character meant for momentary cultural filler as a distraction from the leveling up and grinding they have to do otherwise.

I propose this is why gamers, actors, and philosophers tend to be the most guilty of “mansplaining.” We tend to imagine individuals in scenarios only to the extent we need them to produce our work. Once a simulated world has fulfilled its narratival function, reset it and run new instances for slightly different results.

This is great. This just let me understand in a flash why I tend to feel defensive in certain dynamics.

91

Hogan 12.18.14 at 9:06 pm

Anyway, people have good reasons not to try to understand.

You left out one–time and attention are not infinite resources. (Which actually is a good reason; you don’t really believe the ones you list are good at all. In fact, your list is a fine example of not listening to what people say because you already know what people like that say, so they’re just going to say that, so why bother listening? Just pull it out of your own head.)

92

Collin Street 12.18.14 at 9:18 pm

This obsession with establishing a clear line around an abstract idea to the point of ignoring how that idea actually plays out in real human interaction is definitely a dude thing that I’ve noticed.

It’s a fucking autism thing, is what it is.

93

The Temporary Name 12.18.14 at 9:22 pm

Oooh, THERE’S a solid ignore indicator.

94

Tyrone Slothrop 12.18.14 at 9:27 pm

J Thomas rather reminds me of Roy Belmont, though more verbose and more grammatically correct whilst simultaneously lacking Roy’s proclivity for a nice turn of phrase and proneness to exuding acidic rage within his off-kilter textual rhythms when his message just don’t seem to be getting through…

95

Anon. 12.18.14 at 9:31 pm

“Problematic”, for me. It’s short for “things I disagree with but can’t argue against”, always used by a certain flavor of blind ideologue that is very distasteful.

96

J Thomas 12.18.14 at 9:38 pm

#90 Hogan

You left out one–time and attention are not infinite resources.

Yes! That’s a good one. I shouldn’t have left that out. Collin Street wrote it.

Since we have limited time and attention, it only makes sense to spend it listening to people we know agree with us instead of people who might not. Those are the ones that give us the most benefit, after all.

97

MPAVictoria 12.18.14 at 10:02 pm

“it only makes sense to spend it listening to people we know agree with us instead of people who might not”

Oh for fuck sakes….

98

Jerry Vinokurov 12.18.14 at 10:26 pm

Oh for fuck sakes….

Forget it, MPAV, it’s Chinatown…

It’s a fucking autism thing, is what it is.

I think maybe we can talk about sexism without unnecessarily stigmatizing people with mental health issues, yes?

99

js. 12.18.14 at 10:28 pm

Imagine if J Thomas were really John Holbo’s troll persona nym. It’s not, obviously, but it makes the comments more fun if you read them like that.

100

Whidby 12.18.14 at 10:34 pm

@ Sam Dodsworth

I read it as “to speak condescendingly to woman, on the assumption that she must know less than you about the topic”

Isn’t speaking to someone with the assumption that s/he knows less than you the definition of condescending?

101

Jerry Vinokurov 12.18.14 at 10:38 pm

Imagine if J Thomas were really John Holbo’s troll persona nym. It’s not, obviously, but it makes the comments more fun if you read them like that.

Oh god, it goes all the way to the top!

102

Dean C. Rowan 12.19.14 at 12:36 am

I’m having a difficult time coming up with a reliable source for the Vidal quote about Oates. At least three versions are scattered about the Web: “saddest,” “most dispiriting,” and “most discouraging.” The latter is probably a faulty transcription of “dispiriting,” which being more pointed and precise is probably the word Vidal would have used. But everybody quotes it, nobody sources it.

103

Dean C. Rowan 12.19.14 at 12:41 am

In Vanity Fair, February 2010, Hitchens writes of Vidal: ‘Who but Gore could begin a discussion by saying that the three most dispiriting words in the English language were “Joyce Carol Oates”? In an interview, he told me that his life’s work was “making sentences.”’ One implication would be that Vidal made the comment directly to Hitchens, perhaps “in an interview,” but at the very least at the beginning of a discussion. Why otherwise would Hitchens relate that detail?

104

David 12.19.14 at 2:17 am

”I think maybe we can talk about sexism without unnecessarily stigmatizing people with mental health issues, yes?”

I’m on the spectrum, and I don’t like us either.

105

PHB 12.19.14 at 3:05 am

There are more than three words that stop me reading. There are entire subject areas.

I wish we could have a conversation about Israel without someone either pulling the ‘all opponents of Israeli policies are anti-Semites’ card or someone mouthing off some holocaust denial nonsense to prove them right.

It is almost impossible to have any reasonable conversation on terrorism. In the wake of the Peshawar massacre we had the Islamophobes claiming that only Islam motivates such actions (nope, not even close) and atheists claiming that only religion does (wrong again). Point out that old school left wing terrorists were mostly atheists from the Baader Meinhoff gang to the Tamil Tigers and they start going into denial mode.

Reading the skeptics blogs it appears that most of them believe that a skeptic is someone who demands the highest possible standards of proof and evidence before changing their mind.

106

J Thomas 12.19.14 at 3:12 am

#105 PHB

Excellent comment!

One minor quibble:

I wish we could have a conversation about Israel without someone either pulling the ‘all opponents of Israeli policies are anti-Semites’ card or someone mouthing off some holocaust denial nonsense to prove them right.

If someone did that, it wouldn’t prove them right.

107

Andrew 12.19.14 at 4:12 am

I found that link that I was thinking of earlier today, back at #52:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/10/the-conversation/379346/2/

Sarah Boxer dismisses two critiques of her essay as “lovely examples” of mansplaining. Perhaps so, but I read her response as an attempt to destroy the critiques without engaging them. Certainly the letter writers come off as condescending, but they have points to make, which Boxer glosses over, in favour of name-calling.

Of course, I have this problem with most Atlantic letter columns; whenever an author responds to critics, rather than fans, of a piece, the author, irrespective of gender, gives the verbal equivalent of a smackdown, rather than a measured reply. I suppose this is because in cases where the critic can’t be answered, like when Rick Perlstein wrote in to complain his book had been sloppily read:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/11/conversation/380796/4/

the author (Sam Tanenhaus in this case) simply chooses not to respond.

108

MPAVictoria 12.19.14 at 4:12 am

“or someone mouthing off some holocaust denial nonsense to prove them right.”

Yeah invariably someone claims that the “Jews control the banks and the media” and the conversation goes of the rails.

109

clew 12.19.14 at 4:25 am

Charles R, that’s a lovely comment about NPCs.

Trader Joe: if a man is explaining to a woman the nuances of running a 2 minute drill in football […] would that still be mansplaining?

There’s a really narrow margin for decent conversation here: reason to believe that the adult being spoken to knows nothing about the phenomenon in question but is interested in it. *With* such evidence (e.g., “What are they doing? Why does that work?”), I don’t think it’s bad behavior of any type.

It’s ‘splainy when the ‘splainer runs over all evidence that the ‘splainee already knows the topic; my personal funny-not-funny cases are years of fellow techies earnestly introducing me to topics fundamental to our mutual job, or the project we were working on, or my degree. One of them reported to me.

110

Kiwanda 12.19.14 at 6:22 am

Pretty much this, and even more, this.

111

Sam Dodsworth 12.19.14 at 10:28 am

Charles R@70 I am not sure the definition of ‘mansplaining’ needs to have the origination vector be exclusively men and the termination vector be exclusively women

I’m sure it needs to be understood as a form of systematic sexism. So I’d agree if you mean that making it about individuals and not social structures is missing the point, but be gently unenthusiastic if you just mean “not all men”.

112

Sam Dodsworth 12.19.14 at 10:59 am

Jerry@82 Women are basically saying, “don’t disrespect me,” and your response is to find out just how close you can get to the boundary between respect and disrespect so that you can continue doing what you do with minimal change.

It’s basically a variant of “I’m not touching you”, and just as mature:

113

J Thomas 12.19.14 at 2:19 pm

#112 Sam Dodsworth

“Jerry@82 Women are basically saying, “don’t disrespect me,” and your response is to find out just how close you can get to the boundary between respect and disrespect so that you can continue doing what you do with minimal change.”

It’s basically a variant of “I’m not touching you”, and just as mature:

You responded to this and I will too. You’re both presumably males so it isn’t exactly personal me:you talk. Usually I am polite because if I respond to rudeness with more rudeness that doesn’t give an invitation to go back to discussing the topic. But just this once….

There’s an argument tactic which goes like this: The user switches from whatever has been discussed to the new topic of himself and his feelings. He feels insulted. He is of course the world expert on his own feelings and how insulted he feels, it would be the height of mansplaining to tell him how he feels. He is the only one who can say how insulted he feels. And he feels that he has the right not to be insulted. So if you play along with him, your only choice is to do whatever he tells you to do, to keep him from feeling insulted, and he will decide whether or not you did it right. And whatever the conversation was about before is gone.

Men do this some, women do it a lot more. It is an important tactic for frilly unliberated women, and some women who call themselves feminists use it with a vengeance.

Of course it isn’t just a tactic. Sometimes people really do feel insulted, and they feel the need to demand that people respect them. This is of course a weakness that their enemies can exploit, if they have enemies. I mostly don’t demand respect — I have a sense of my own worth, and people who don’t see it betray their own inadequacies. When I fail to communicate an idea I try to check how well the idea works, and if it still looks good then I look for the cultural blindspots that keep people from seeing it even as a possibility. I probably can’t or shouldn’t get people to give up their blindspots, but the better I understand how they work the better I can use them for my own purposes.

The tactic is a form of cultural imperialism. “You have to respect me. I get to decide whether you respect me. This conversation is entirely about my right to be respected and your violation of that right, and I get to decide everything important about it.”

I don’t consider that at all respectable, of course. It is not a feminist thing, it comes directly from ancient patriarch/femme dominance/submission games where sometimes the patriarch gets to be all dominating and then sometimes the femme gets to make it be all about her feelings. It has nothing to do with equality. It is an atavism.

But of course the dominant-femme response is that I don’t get to decide what’s an atavism or how things ought to go, she gets to decide that. Because she’s the one who has experience being a femme and getting dominated, so anything she says trumps anything I say.

“The more it changes, the more it’s the same thing.”

114

PHB 12.19.14 at 2:30 pm

106, 108,

I mistyped, what I intended was “or someone mouthing off some holocaust denial nonsense to ‘prove’ them right.”

There is a literature on agenda denial. When trying to defend an indefensible policy, the most effective tactic is to avoid defending it at all. Nobody has been able to give a logical rationale for the embargo on Cuba for 25 years and it was an abject failure for much longer. But supporters of Cuba’s grudge generation have been able to keep discussion of the embargo off the table by branding anyone questioning its effectiveness or sanity by accusing them of being Castro lovers.

In the case of Israel, the use of the ‘anti-Semite’ card is played as a heckler’s veto to keep discussion of Israel off the agenda. The only discussion allowed is of Palestinian atrocities and it is not permitted to point out that the likes of Dershowitz are unapologetic racists.

Fifteen years ago, Clinton tried to change policy to Cuba but was beaten back because change was unthinkable. So was gay marriage. Change in US support for Israel is equally unthinkable today. It is kept off the table by agenda denial. But as we saw this week, that is a brittle tactic and there are actors who can force any topic onto the agenda. The Pope commands no divisions but he can put normalizing US-Cuba relations on the agenda.

One of the reasons so much of US Foreign policy is dictated by what is unthinkable is that very few people in the policy circles are in the habit of thinking.

115

MPAVictoria 12.19.14 at 3:13 pm

Shorter J: “Help! Help! I am being oppressed by your demands that I take your life experiences into account!”

116

MPAVictoria 12.19.14 at 3:16 pm

“In the case of Israel, the use of the ‘anti-Semite’ card is played as a heckler’s veto to keep discussion of Israel off the agenda.”

I totally agree that this happens. I also believe that conversations about Israel on the internet tend to attract anti-Semites who actually do believe in things like the “international zionist banking conspiracy”.

These people are not helping.

117

Sam Dodsworth 12.19.14 at 3:39 pm

MPAVictoria@115

“There’s an argument tactic which goes like this: The user switches from things I agree with to things I disagree with. So if you play along with him, your only choice is to listen to things you disagree with. This is a form of cultural imperialism. Of course it isn’t just a tactic. Sometimes people really are wrong. This is of course a weakness that their enemies can exploit. I’m mostly not wrong — I have a sense of my own worth.”

118

Barry 12.19.14 at 3:40 pm

PHB: “One of the reasons so much of US Foreign policy is dictated by what is unthinkable is that very few people in the policy circles are in the habit of thinking.”

Well, the loudest voice don’t, but the method is not unthinking; it’s trying to keep us from thinking.

119

MPAVictoria 12.19.14 at 3:49 pm

@117

I liked yours better than mine.

120

Charles R 12.19.14 at 4:01 pm

Sam @ #111

But explaining mansplaination in terms of “systematic sexism” does miss the point that we’re attributing a moral problem to what amounts to a material evolution within human forms of life.

The number of humans on this planet has dramatically increased in the last hundred years. To go from two billion to seven billion is far outside what people are culturally and institutionally prepared for. All these references to whatever leftist or liberal or conservative or fascist ideal for explanation will founder if one does not understand how the human species and their various cultures are not only exceedingly young, but numerously young. And the most engaging cultural habituation for these kids (in the developed world) is playing video games, both the girls and the boys. Go to a library, and see what the little ones are doing. They are just as likely to be playing with the puzzles and stuffed animals and one another as they are to be playing Minecraft. Add on a decade and look up to the teens. What are they doing? They are also either playing Minecraft or immersing themselves in whatever new-but-same first-person virtual world, where the dominant interactions involve some medium of power-control, whether shouting at each other in dragontongue, magicking one another, swording one another, sneaking past one another, shooting one another, camping to avoid one another, you get the drift, right?

So when these kids just cross that threshold into adulthood, and join us older idiots who are used to immersing ourselves in the books of dead trees and the stories of long dead men and women, even those some of us who immerse ourselves with the communication patterns of living trees and emotionally connecting animals, those kids who are habituated to ignoring other people, flyrunning around with their tunnel focus and constant reloading and their automated keystrokes of buffs and debuffs, will continue to surprise us by how automated they are as humans. It shouldn’t surprise us, since we all grew up watching this happen politically and socially and reading 1984, which reads to me less like an indictment of European totalitarianism and one more insight into a contemporary Leviathan: the Party is a form of life, an evolutionary step for humans. We should understand that the species is evolving to become more like a swarm or a mob or a hive or a cloud—just look at all the cultural productions emphasizing not only the inevitability of zombie politics, but also the hesitant acceptance of the fact that those with eyes to see and ears to hear are already dead, since the zombies had won back in the 1990s, back when the Internet changed how humans come to occupy one another’s time.

So, maybe it is “systematic sexism” that enables men to talk down to women in a condescending way. Maybe it helps to understand the phenomenon according to a pre-established mental model of How Things Ought To Be But Aren’t. But this doesn’t explain at all why it’s certain kinds of men who do this, certain kinds of women who resist, and certain kinds of men and women who indulge in their insulated expectations of informational exchange by refusing to engage in a dialogue with other persons. In this sense, of course not all men and not all women engage in mansplaining. Isn’t this true? But you don’t like that kind of realist dismissal, because it’s closer to the mental model to understand humans as operating according to the HTOTBBA, when just looking at this thread, there’s those of us who overexplain and those of us who don’t. Don’t let yourself be automatic in your thinking, repetitive in your phrasings, to join in with the power of consolidated thinking simply on account of how we’re supposed—if we’re the right honorable sorts of educated and morally sound folks—to react to a particular phrase. There’s no crime nor shame in slowing down, thinking about things, and holding off on the responses—and certainly not when the oppositional dialectical partner needs speed and pacing to work in their favor to prevent the time needed to analyse and work through one’s own ideas.

Liberalism, leftism, conservatism, fascism: they are all undergoing an informational change of a sort that humans are not yet prepared to really grasp around them, since the big picture of how these bits of information are flowing, synchronizing, and pulsing like heartbeats is only available to those large data firms who have made it their business to collect, own, consume, and trade in that information. They already see people as collections of information, nodes in a sequence or network or graph, and the people are already acting like this, being trained at fundamental levels of consciousness through playing video games and social apps—and didn’t Socrates say that to teach people a new form of dialectic that will create new forms of politics, it’s better to do it through play?

I guess, for the short of it, is that I can agree that this or that behavior looks like it fits the model of the conventional ideas we have of sexism as systemic phenomena. I also think the global culture that’s now forming around us is very sexist in how the denuded yet constructible self—the generic human—is assumed to be male, but I attribute that to the historical circumstances of the time when this culture became a reality. If it’s a system we’re going to have to criticize, then we have to actually look as best we can to what the systems are doing and are cultivating, to what media they use for their consolidation of behaviors and material. My sense is that when we go about it this way, all the ways in which we can talk about intersectionality end up—at least for me, and I admit this is idiosyncratic, but hey we’re talking about something, right?—having to address how the system is evolving, continuing to evolve, and the cultural productions of the 20th century indicated how they’d evolve, and the cultural productions of these contemporary times show the evolution, both in the hopes and fears, are less about sex and more about the species within the species: the zombies, the swarms, the hives, the mobs, the automated and the soulless.

The lack of empathy is the defining element of the gamer. People can point to The Last of Us or whatever really dramatic story arc seems to them as indications of the artistic qualities of gaming, but I’ll point to Bejeweled, Flappy Bird, Candy Crush, retweeting, yikyaking, and liking as instances where people habituated themselves to the mindlessness of grinding at life.

And giving long explanatory responses to short comments is another instance of the same phenomena. Or, at least, sitting here in front of the computer and playing this language game of commenting feels like it.

I mean, let’s face it. After reading my comment, isn’t one good conclusion from it to get outside, read some slices of dead trees, and forget you ever took up valuable distractionary time and instead divert yourself from the inevitability of all things with a good collection of poems, or writing your own?

I’ll log off and take the answers off the air.

121

Sam Dodsworth 12.19.14 at 4:09 pm

MPAVictoria@119

I wanted to do the “feminists are the real anti-feminists” part too, but I couldn’t sustain the voice along with the argument. Maybe something like…

“It is not a feminist thing because being wrong is sexist. It comes directly from ancient patriarch/femme dominance/submission games where the patriarch is right and then sometimes the femme gets to be wrong. But of course the dominant-femme response is that I don’t get to decide who’s wrong, she gets to decide that. Because she’s the one who has evidence, so anything she says trumps anything I say.”

122

tomsk 12.19.14 at 4:52 pm

These days anyone who talks of political correctness at all except in the most fleeting terms is probably worth ignoring. But I think the worst is probably ‘sheeple’.

123

Elly 12.19.14 at 5:22 pm

@120

You are still missing the point that mansplainers are not interested in dialogue. Trying to engage some of the more egregious mansplainers can, in fact, get you hurt. For reals, yo. I do not recommend this product and/or service, if you are a ladyperson.

124

js. 12.19.14 at 5:39 pm

The first link @110 is quite good, by the way. (Not so sure about the second one tho.)

125

Lynne 12.19.14 at 6:03 pm

Just because the term “mansplainer” is sometimes misused doesn’t change the fact that often it’s the precise, perfect term for what is going on. It hasn’t outlived it’s usefulness yet.

126

J Thomas 12.19.14 at 6:28 pm

#120 Charles R

If it’s a system we’re going to have to criticize, then we have to actually look as best we can to what the systems are doing and are cultivating, to what media they use for their consolidation of behaviors and material. My sense is that when we go about it this way, all the ways in which we can talk about intersectionality end up—at least for me, and I admit this is idiosyncratic, but hey we’re talking about something, right?—having to address how the system is evolving, continuing to evolve, and the cultural productions of the 20th century indicated how they’d evolve, and the cultural productions of these contemporary times show the evolution, both in the hopes and fears, are less about sex and more about the species within the species: the zombies, the swarms, the hives, the mobs, the automated and the soulless.

Yes!

So in my experience the blogs etc that discuss things like Crooked Timber discuss, seem to have an aging population. Younger people usually tend not to be all that interested.

But yes, isn’t the game mentality seeping through the culture? I notice this more with libertarians than I do from people with older doctrines. It’s like collecting the five gems you need to win the game. They say what rules a society has to follow to be a good libertarian society, and then the argument is over. If you have any trouble in that society it means you’re not a good libertarian. I’d seen some of that from christians and others before, but doesn’t it seem happen *a lot more* with libertarians?

The lack of empathy is the defining element of the gamer.

But isn’t it common everywhere? People have lots and lots of stories where hardy anybody had any empathy, and then some chance event calls some up in somebody. Jesus’s story of the good samaritan. Herodotus’s story of Croesus and Cyrus. Etc. People get touched by empathy seeing some special human gesture that reminds them. And those special gestures are maybe not as available while gaming?

Sure, it looks like things are changing fast and probably in unknown directions. We can guess.

127

js. 12.19.14 at 6:29 pm

@Lynne,

Yes, I totally agree with that. And to the extent that the Salon article, the one I reference in my last comment, suggests otherwise, I don’t agree with it. But it is I think pointing out a fair problem with “mansplain” being over- and mis-used. Especially when it’s applied in the context of offenses that are far worse than mansplaining itself, its use seems problematic. But yeah, I’m all for thinking that it’s a very useful word that describes a real phenomenon.

128

PHB 12.19.14 at 6:34 pm

Lynne 125,

I was in a fairly large meeting of an organization where 10% of the participants are women. The nomination committee had just appointed an all male slate for the two politburos that run it and naturally enough the women were furious.

After four women raised the ‘diversity issue’ in abstract terms without mentioning gender and got fobbed off with replies that folk from other parts of the world will have to work their way through the ranks like everyone else, I began, ‘Let me mansplain this for you’ to the men on the panel and made the same points the women had just made only this time making the gender gap clear.

This time they got the point…

Now it is easier to make an argument of that type if there isn’t a self interest issue. But there is a systematic problem in that organizations that elect all male boards ignoring all the women tend to be the sort where the argument has to be made by a man before it will be listened to.

129

Jerry Vinokurov 12.19.14 at 7:04 pm

Younger people usually tend not to be all that interested.

I’m 32. I know lots of people in my general age group who read this blog but don’t necessarily comment.

Charles R.’s comment @120 is just another slightly more bizarro version of “OLD MAN YELLS AT CLOUD/KIDS THESE DAYS.”

130

J Thomas 12.19.14 at 7:09 pm

#129 Jerry V

Charles R.’s comment @120 is just another slightly more bizarro version of “OLD MAN YELLS AT CLOUD/KIDS THESE DAYS.”

You can interpret it that way.

You can interpret anything as just a variation on something you’ve seen before and already dismissed. If that’s what you want.

131

Lynne 12.19.14 at 7:19 pm

@ js Yeah, I had an idea you’d agree. :) I was really popping in my comment because of complaints above about how women are using the term to avoid engaging with real, important points, which seem to hint that when women don’t engage with criticism, this proves they are misusing the term. I must say it annoys me, though, to see the careless use in the link you were referring to.

I’ve just begun reading Rebecca Solnit’s book Men Explain Things to Me, which is a collection of essays. The first one, which gives the book its title, was written in 2008 about an event in 2003—this is referenced above. The host is so keen to explain things to her that her friend has to try four times to tell him the book he’s raving about, that Solnit really should be aware of, was written by her.

My husband recommended this book to me and tells me that later on she discusses why she is not in fact keen on the term “mansplain” but as I say, I’ve just begun the book.

132

Lynne 12.19.14 at 7:21 pm

PHB # 128

But, but, but….that wasn’t mansplaining! I take it you are a man, and I’m glad you spoke up, but I’d love this valuable term to retain its meaning.

I think it was the Australian Dale Spender who researched group gender dynamics and found that women’s points were regularly ignored until a man made them. This was in the 1980s. I hope there has been some improvement since then….

133

Jerry Vinokurov 12.19.14 at 7:26 pm

You can interpret it that way.

You can interpret anything as just a variation on something you’ve seen before and already dismissed. If that’s what you want.

I don’t need to “interpret” it any way at all. That entire post is just complete conjecture based on… what, exactly? That kids like to play games? It’s not a serious attempt to figure out what teenagers and children are doing at all, it’s just some kind of weird fantasy.

134

The Temporary Name 12.19.14 at 7:31 pm

There are two sides to every story about the relationship between sasquatches and UFOs.

135

MPAVictoria 12.19.14 at 7:31 pm

I am 31.

/Jerry is 100% right, 0% wrong

136

js. 12.19.14 at 7:49 pm

I would have guessed that a fair number of people commenting on this site are in their 30s or so, no? I’m in my mid-late 30s myself.

137

clew 12.19.14 at 8:45 pm

Add on a decade and look up to the teens. What are they doing? They are also either playing Minecraft or immersing themselves in whatever new-but-same first-person virtual world, where the dominant interactions involve some medium of power-control, whether shouting at each other in dragontongue, magicking one another, swording one another, sneaking past one another, shooting one another, camping to avoid one another, you get the drift, right?

Mysteriously (not), you’re ignoring fanfic and its ilk (deviantart), in which the youth self-organize into creative communities that amuse, argue with, taxonomize, warn, and edit each other. I am old and square and grouchy enough to be horrified that all this happens on a substrate of pony porn, but hey, there’s also Gondal fanfic, so. The Kids are as All Right as they’ve ever been.

138

Jerry Vinokurov 12.19.14 at 10:07 pm

This is the first time I’ve heard of a moral panic around Minecraft. Let it not be said that the Guardians of Our Culture are uninventive.

139

Kiwanda 12.19.14 at 11:00 pm

@Lynne at 125

Just because the term “mansplainer” is often a precise, perfect term for what is going on doesn’t change the fact that it is more often misused, including as an empty sexist dismissal.

140

J Thomas 12.20.14 at 12:33 am

#133 Jerry V

“You can interpret it that way.”

“You can interpret anything as just a variation on something you’ve seen before and already dismissed. If that’s what you want.”

I don’t need to “interpret” it any way at all.

Agreed, you don’t need to. But you do.

That entire post is just complete conjecture based on… what, exactly? That kids like to play games?

Based on the idea that people are affected by what they do. Before there were computer games people used to speculate about how TV affected the generation that grew up with it. Lots of cartoons. Passive viewing. Everybody getting the same memes. I think there was something to it, though it’s hard to measure and hard to separate from everything else.

Now there’s more room for diversity, and yet kids get better at forming impromptu teams and cooperating well. (They’ve been good at that for basketball for a long time, though.)

My daughter doesn’t play those games a whole lot. She got into one where people kept killing her as soon as she spawned. “Daddy, they’re Russians. How do you say ‘friend’ in Russian?” “I don’t know. Try tovarisch.” She found that by amusing them she could usually get them to wait several minutes before they killed her, occasionally long enough for her to get away. This is a valuable life lesson that might be far more expensive to learn in other contexts.

This stuff is likely to make a difference. I’m not at all sure how to guess what the difference will be, but it’s worth some thought.

“Daddy, now it’s Germans killing the newbs. How do you say ‘friend’ in German?” “I don’t know. Try kamerad.”

141

J Thomas 12.20.14 at 1:15 am

#139 Kiwanda

Just because the term “mansplainer” is often a precise, perfect term for what is going on doesn’t change the fact that it is more often misused, including as an empty sexist dismissal.

This is true. And yet often it *is* a precise, perfect term for what is going on.

“It’s a floor wax *and* a dessert topping!”

142

Jerry Vinokurov 12.20.14 at 3:04 am

J Thomas, I don’t know and don’t want to pretend to know how your daughter’s particular online experience generalizes to the population at large. It sounds like she learned something and that’s great, but it’s basically orthogonal to the question of whether Minecraft is turning kids into nodes in a graph. It’s not that I don’t think new media don’t have effects, it’s just that I don’t believe that games are somehow causing a sexist lack of empathy. That lack was always there, and we’re just now more of it because on the internet anyone can be an anonymous asshole.

143

MPAVictoria 12.20.14 at 3:05 am

“a sexist lack of empathy”

Perhaps that is J’s problem! Too many video games.

144

Barry 12.20.14 at 7:20 am

Kiwanda 12.19.14 at 11:00 pm

“Just because the term “mansplainer” is often a precise, perfect term for what is going on doesn’t change the fact that it is more often misused, including as an empty sexist dismissal.”

In my experience, it’s far more often correctly than incorrectly used.

145

Lynn Gazis-Sax 12.20.14 at 7:25 am

1) I get that “neoliberal” applies to Gary Hart, The New Republic, and the Democratic Leadership Council, but I’m surprised that anyone would think it has to be applied that narrowly. I thought it was a perfectly good word to apply to people who are generally left leaning, but with an added dose of free-trade capitalism, the sort of person who votes Democrat, favors trade agreements like NAFTA, and sometimes argues that Democrats should be more sympathetic to deregulation. If I say that Matt Yglesias is more neoliberal than the bloggers at Crooked Timber, am I really applying a meaningless political insult that’s the moral equivalent of “feminazi,” and proving myself a person incapable of intelligent discourse and not worth reading?

2) My nominee for three words that will make me stop reading your article, blogpost, comment, etc. are “pussification of America.”

146

J Thomas 12.20.14 at 8:50 am

#142 Jerry V

It’s not that I don’t think new media don’t have effects, it’s just that I don’t believe that games are somehow causing a sexist lack of empathy. That lack was always there, and we’re just now more of it because on the internet anyone can be an anonymous asshole.

See, you give it a hostile reading and say there’s nothing there even while you claim there are changes. I don’t think the games cause sexist lack of empathy either. I notice that in anonymous games my daughter assumes that all the other players are male. She has no opportunity in those games to be sexist. She doesn’t play games where her voice would get her special treatment because she doesn’t like the anger. People don’t say as much when they have to type things out.

“That guy has killed me 4 times. Why does he keep killing me?”
“I don’t know.”
She approached him. “y u kill me?” “NO NK.”
“What’s nk? What’s he talking about?”
“I don’t know. Would he think you’re north korean?”
“Maybe it’s noob killing. Oh, he killed me again. I’ll ask him.”
“is nk noob-killing?” “Y, NO NK” “Why does he care about that? Noob killing is fun.”
“Maybe it’s just his game. Some people kill noobs, some people kill noob-killers.”
“i stop kill noobs. no more. friend?” “Oh, he killed me again.”
“Maybe he just likes to kill people. Can you kill him back?”
“Only about 30% of the time. Nobody wants to use my type because it has weak attacks, but it’s fast and it has two good distance attacks. It can paralyze for 5 seconds and while they’re paralyzed anybody can kill them. But he’s good.” “y u do that? I no nk” “Oh, he’s going away. Still going. He’s gone a long way.”
“Maybe he doesn’t like to talk.”

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

If you read looking for what you can get from stuff, instead of assuming there is nothing there you can get, you might get more from what you read. People don’t have to be 100% right to be worth getting stuff from.

147

J Thomas 12.20.14 at 8:58 am

#143 MPAV

“a sexist lack of empathy”

Perhaps that is J’s problem! Too many video games.

When you do this sort of thing, displaying your lack of empathy, I feel embarrassed for you.

If I was a normal person I would be hurt by your baseless attacks. But you go right ahead. You are trying to be an internet bully.

“You think we have no feelings just because we are slobs?” RA Lafferty, Space Chantey

148

Collin Street 12.20.14 at 12:48 pm

> You are trying to be an internet bully.

Mockery and embarrassment are literally the only negative-feedback tools we common users have, see; if we want you to stop doing something we have no alternative.

[which is why “don’t be mean to people on the internet” is such terrible social policy, btw; functioning communities either need extremely prompt and aggressive “official” moderation or to tolerate a degree of self-policing and peer-to-peer rule/culture reinforcement… and if you want the latter [and you want the latter] you need to give the peers the tools they need, and chief among those is the ability to mock]

149

MPAVictoria 12.20.14 at 1:02 pm

“pussification of America”

That one is right up there with ” gay agenda”.

How about islamofacists?

150

J Thomas 12.20.14 at 1:23 pm

#348 Collin Street

Mockery and embarrassment are literally the only negative-feedback tools we common users have, see; if we want you to stop doing something we have no alternative.

You could instead put your fingers in your ears and go “Mi mi mi mi I’m not listening”. But that isn’t enough. You want the kid you don’t like to stop saying things because you don’t like to hear them, so you have no choice but to try to embarrass him. There is no other way to control him because you aren’t close enough to hit him in the head.

[which is why “don’t be mean to people on the internet” is such terrible social policy, btw; functioning communities either need extremely prompt and aggressive “official” moderation or to tolerate a degree of self-policing and peer-to-peer rule/culture reinforcement… and if you want the latter [and you want the latter] you need to give the peers the tools they need, and chief among those is the ability to mock]

Ah? Because functioning communities can’t allow people to say things that the self-policers don’t want to hear?

What happens if a few mean people with strong opinions decide that they are the self-police and nobody else wants to tangle with them, then they get to control the discourse, right?

That approach probably does work well with a lot of people. There’s no telling how many people choose not to comment in places where they see people getting ridiculed, because it just does not look like a pleasant place to comment. It looks to me like the result of this approach will often be that the trolls are running the blog. Not all the trolls, of course, mostly the biggest faction. Why is this a good thing?

151

bob mcmanus 12.20.14 at 3:15 pm

145: I thought it was a perfectly good word to apply to people who are generally left leaning, but with an added dose of free-trade capitalism, the sort of person who votes Democrat, favors trade agreements like NAFTA, and sometimes argues that Democrats should be more sympathetic to deregulation.

Richard Sennett, Culture of the New Capitalism

“Today, European political scientists have labeled the United States and the United Kingdom neo-liberal regimes to indicate that in both nations a centrist political platform enabled economic development friendly to globalization, flexibility, and meritocracy”

Followers and descendants of for instance the Regulation School or Post-Fordism extend the above three aspects of neo-liberalism to personal and microsocial management, but 145’s short list could all be included under the rubric of meritocracy.

But meritocratic rankings by no means only measure productivity or achievement considered narrowly. In social groups and settings the ability to conform and reassure the others has greater merit in the short term or immediate frame. We could call these skills social or moral merits.

In such settings we reverse the cliche, and hate the sinner rather than the sin. Excruciatingly finer distinctions, gradations, micro-indications of feminism or sexism, racism or anti-racism, etc are used to locally rank and order social participants into hierarchies of moral merit, status and popularity. This is also a neo-liberalism, and something some have called a New Puritanism.

152

J. Parnell Thomas 12.20.14 at 3:52 pm

I just thought neo-liberal referred to an older use of “liberal,” which has nothing to do with voting Democrat or whatever.

I was just thinking about a history of Latin America I read, in which the “conservatives” were those who supported the power of the Church and the monarchy, and the “liberals” supported the power of business interests. Modern liberalism just wasn’t a thing.

153

adam.smith 12.20.14 at 3:56 pm

What happens if a few mean people with strong opinions decide that they are the self-police and nobody else wants to tangle with them, then they get to control the discourse, right?

That’s your confusion right there. What Collin describes is a community, not a society. If a particular community is dominated and policed by a bunch of assholes, the non-assholy people can just go somewhere else. If I go to a party and I don’t like the people there–maybe they’re all men’s rights activists complaining that everyone is accusing them of mansplaining all the time–I leave. If one such guy comes to my party, me and my friends will quickly make it clear to him that that type of crap isn’t welcome and he can shut up or leave. That’s exactly what’s going on here: You’re saying stupid crap and people are doing the online version of telling you that.
If you don’t like being ridiculed, the Internet is a large place. The cost of going somewhere else is low. There are many, many places where anti-feminist, anti-“PC” etc. arguments are not just tolerated but welcomed. If you enjoy somewhat leftist politics with the right to say all types of ignorant sexist stuff and still be taken seriously, “rationalist” webpages like slatestarcodex linked to above would seem to be just the right place.

154

Lynne 12.20.14 at 3:57 pm

Reading Solnit’s book, came across this, in the context of men talking over and down to women on topics about which the women may know more than they do:

“Most women fight wars on two fronts, one for whatever the putative topic is and one simply for the right to speak, to have ideas, to be acknowledged to be in possession of facts and truths…”

When a man complains that a woman who accuses him of mansplaining won’t “engage with him” on the topic at hand I suspect often the woman is waging war on the other front.

155

J. Parnell Thomas 12.20.14 at 4:03 pm

…continuing from my last comment, now I’m thinking about the way “liberalize” gets used nowadays, which doesn’t have much to do with FDR liberalism either.

156

mattski 12.20.14 at 4:10 pm

If you enjoy somewhat leftist politics with the right to say all types of ignorant sexist stuff and still be taken seriously

WA-BAM!

157

J Thomas 12.20.14 at 4:13 pm

#153 adam.smith

If I go to a party and I don’t like the people there–maybe they’re all men’s rights activists complaining that everyone is accusing them of mansplaining all the time–I leave. If one such guy comes to my party, me and my friends will quickly make it clear to him that that type of crap isn’t welcome and he can shut up or leave. That’s exactly what’s going on here: You’re saying stupid crap and people are doing the online version of telling you that.

That’s an interesting point of view. I’ll think about that.

If you enjoy somewhat leftist politics with the right to say all types of ignorant sexist stuff and still be taken seriously, “rationalist” webpages like slatestarcodex linked to above would seem to be just the right place.

Thank you for the tip. I will look into it.

158

bob mcmanus 12.20.14 at 4:44 pm

The hyperbolic exaggeration of minor transgressions, impolitic phrasings and/ or social slips into mortal sins and exiling offenses may be precisely what indicates a community of prigs, martinets and Puritans.

159

Ze Kraggash 12.20.14 at 4:45 pm

adam.smith, but this is not your place. You are bullying someone at a (more or less) public square. Why don’t you go away? Wouldn’t it make more sense for you and your assholes-friends (your words, not mine) to organize your own private party and keep it as pure as your hearts desire?

160

bob mcmanus 12.20.14 at 4:54 pm

I have never been nor know where to find MRA discourse but if you like I could try to quote extensively from those comment sections to see if J Thomas interrogating “mansplaining” in a civil manner quite reaches those depths.

I do take your criticism of JT seriously, and find y’all frightening.

161

J Thomas 12.20.14 at 5:15 pm

#154 Lynne

“Most women fight wars on two fronts, one for whatever the putative topic is and one simply for the right to speak, to have ideas, to be acknowledged to be in possession of facts and truths…”

That looks plausible. It seems to fit my experience.

When a man complains that a woman who accuses him of mansplaining won’t “engage with him” on the topic at hand I suspect often the woman is waging war on the other front.

Yes. But consider — the way you use the right to speak and have ideas, is to go ahead and speak and have ideas. That’s how you do it. If you let people stop you, then you have given up that right. If you speak on a moderated blog and you get censored, then you don’t have that right after all — on that blog. But wherever you do have the right, you can speak unless things inside your own head stop you. All it takes is to go ahead and do it, if your own previous training doesn’t stop you.

The right to be acknowledged, that’s harder. If you speak your piece and people don’t acknowledge you, you can either accept that or else go some other place where you feel more acknowledged. There is no such right, and you won’t get it by demanding it.

People might choose to consider your ideas, if you present the ideas. You can’t make them think. You can’t make them agree with you. And you have to actually say what you mean, because if you spend all your time fighting for the right to do it….

You can’t force people to respect you, unless it’s the respect they would give a rattlesnake or a grizzly bear.

Women who have been oppressed but have never before had the chance to do the oppressing might not get this easily. Maybe they don’t feel acknowledged unless everybody pretends to agree with them about everything. It might take experience to get past that.

Oh well.

If a man can resist the influences of his townsfolk, if he can cut free
from the tyranny of neighborhood gossip, the world has no terrors for
him; there is no second inquisition.
-John Jay Chapman

I found this at the beginning of a novelette “The Second Inquisition” by the great feminist writer Joanna Russ. The wording is dated; Chapman died in 1933. But of course it applies to women.

162

MPAVictoria 12.20.14 at 5:32 pm

“prigs, martinets and Puritans.”

A little rich coming from a guy who gets worked up about people calling him by his first name….

“You are bullying someone at a (more or less) public square. Why don’t you go away? Wouldn’t it make more sense for you and your assholes-friends (your words, not mine) to organize your own private party and keep it as pure as your hearts desire?”

How exactly is J being bullied? He is posting comments basically saying that all the people here disagreeing with him are just overly sensitive idiots who are not perceptive enough to realize when they are being talked down to. Then when he is called on that he claims that he is being abused. This is ridiculous.

If you go somewhere and say something offensive you should not play the victim when other people call you on it. It is not like this is his first day posting here.

163

MPAVictoria 12.20.14 at 5:35 pm

“I do take your criticism of JT seriously, and find y’all frightening.”

Boo!

/did I make you jump bob?

164

bob mcmanus 12.20.14 at 6:04 pm

“A little rich coming from a guy who gets worked up about people calling him by his first name….”

The advocacy of certain aspects of New York Times house style is intended to erase and disguise distinctions rather than to highlight and enforce distinctions, to be inclusive rather than exclusive. Note that the comments above refer to “Bernstein” rather than “David.” Corey Robin referring to “Jill” rather than “Lapore” did not increase my confidence in Robin’s objective assessment of her work and ideas.

And Holbo may get me “worked up”, but I am getting better.

165

MPAVictoria 12.20.14 at 6:10 pm

Sure sure, we are the prigs bob….

166

Lynne 12.20.14 at 7:12 pm

@ J. Thomas # 61

“Yes. But consider — the way you use the right to speak and have ideas, is to go ahead and speak and have ideas. That’s how you do it. If you let people stop you, then you have given up that right. If you speak on a moderated blog and you get censored, then you don’t have that right after all — on that blog. But wherever you do have the right, you can speak unless things inside your own head stop you. All it takes is to go ahead and do it, if your own previous training doesn’t stop you.”

In that whole long thread about consent women spoke and were ignored or talked over. So yes, getting the acknowledgement is harder.

Feminist groups are famous for getting bogged down in the process, to the detriment of getting decisions made. It is a hazard of taking the process seriously. But the process is important. “Mansplaining” is shorthand for a specific type of process that is problematic.

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Lynne 12.20.14 at 7:14 pm

Shorter me at 166: Just going ahead and speaking and having ideas doesn’t gain you much if you aren’t heard. It’s like talking in an empty room.

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geo 12.20.14 at 7:46 pm

Bob M @158: The hyperbolic exaggeration of minor transgressions, impolitic phrasings and/ or social slips into mortal sins and exiling offenses may be precisely what indicates a community of prigs, martinets and Puritans.

I haven’t been following this thread and therefore don’t know which commenters this is meant to apply to and whether the implied criticism of them is accurate. I’d just like to acknowledge that it’s the most elegant sentence by Bob McManus that I can ever remember reading. McManus-san, if you always wrote like this, you might still antagonize (nearly) everyone, but you would no longer mystify anyone.

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J Thomas 12.20.14 at 7:51 pm

#162 MPAV

How exactly is J being bullied?

Do you somehow deny that you’re attempting that? adam.smith makes no bones about it. If I’m not the kind of commenter he likes, he wants me to go somewhere that people like me are more welcome.

He is posting comments basically saying that all the people here disagreeing with him are just overly sensitive idiots who are not perceptive enough to realize when they are being talked down to.

I deny that I have said this. You are reading that in. But now that you tell me how you’re reading me, your hostility makes a lot more sense. It’s perfectly understandable that if I said you were an over-sensitive idiot that you would drop everything else from that point on and spend your efforts trying to insult me.

Then when he is called on that he claims that he is being abused.

Is this anything like the argument about enhanced interrogation, where they argue that they want to give people such bad experiences that they have no choice but to tell their secrets, but it isn’t torture? You want to embarrass me so much that I go away, but it isn’t abuse? ;-)

This is ridiculous.

Yes, agreed.

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Plume 12.20.14 at 7:53 pm

That is nicely phrased. There is music there, and wings!!

And like you, Geo, I haven’t followed the back and forth here, either. But that sentence is nicely done. I think Belle Waring would agree, too.

171

MPAVictoria 12.20.14 at 8:11 pm

“I deny that I have said this.”

Ha! J you need to reread this thread. Start with your comment at 113.

“Do you somehow deny that you’re attempting that?”
To bully you? Yes I deny it. Mocking you for saying sexist and stupid things is not bullying.

172

MPAVictoria 12.20.14 at 8:16 pm

Also I think it is highly ironic that by claiming to be bullied you are doing exactly why you accuse women of doing when they use the term mansplaining.

173

mattski 12.20.14 at 8:17 pm

Ze Kraggash @ 159 to adam.smith

Why don’t you go away?

Weren’t you–Ze Kraggash–previously banned here under another name?

174

Collin Street 12.20.14 at 8:41 pm

JT, arguing for a society free of control mechanisms is arguing for a society of impunity. If you want to do anything to shape the behaviour of others — including behaviours like “don’t shape the behaviour of others in [this way], like by mocking people” — you’re going to need tools; arguing against mockery a-priori is basically a form of hardline pacifism, with all the “what about the arseholes” problem that hardline pacifism runs into.

[and also of course if you aren’t a pacifist, if you accept the occasional legitimacy of hitting people with things until their bodies stop working, it’s really hard to come up with any sort of reasonable justification for “but you can’t make them look silly”.]

175

Matt 12.20.14 at 8:45 pm

I would like to second or third pussification, gay agenda, and islamofascist as clear warning signs that someone isn’t worth reading further or debating. Also watch out for Eurabia and Londonistan.

176

MPAVictoria 12.20.14 at 8:48 pm

“Londonistan.”

Oh god is that a real thing?

177

Plume 12.20.14 at 8:53 pm

How about Fauxcohontas?

I stop reading after I see that in reference to Elizabeth Warren.

And “thugs” in place of unarmed black teens who are gunned down by police.

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MPAVictoria 12.20.14 at 8:57 pm

The “Thugs” one is truly awful. It is dog whistling by shouting.

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J Thomas 12.20.14 at 9:01 pm

#166 Lynne

In that whole long thread about consent women spoke and were ignored or talked over.

Would you be interested in going back over that and comparing details? I didn’t see it that way at all, and what happened is laid out there, still available. I might get a better idea how you think about it. Perhaps we could do it some other place entirely where it didn’t get in the way here. If you feel like the rewards wouldn’t be worth the cost I won’t take offense.

So yes, getting the acknowledgement is harder.

Yes, definitely. I was involved in that discussion some, and I remember I replied to a lot of women’s comments. I got a lot of ideas I was interested in from things women said. But quoting them and taking their ideas in new directions may not be what they thought of as acknowledgement.

Feminist groups are famous for getting bogged down in the process, to the detriment of getting decisions made. It is a hazard of taking the process seriously. But the process is important.

It’s particularly important when the intention is to reach an agreement to get tangible results. Then it’s important to have a process that lets people understand just what it is they are agreeing to do. If you get an agreement but not mutual understanding, what good is it?

But in this particular topic, my understanding is that it started with a list of words or phrases that told people to cut their losses, the conversation was not going to go anywhere worth going. “Mansplaining” was on the list. This could be interpreted as an attack on feminists, that when they said the word it meant they were not going to say anything worth listening to. But then when the meaning of the word got clear, the meaning of “mansplaining” is basicly “Cut our losses, this guy is not going to have a conversation worth having”.

Does that make sense? “He’s mansplaining, time to pack up and go home.” “She said he’s mansplaining, time to pack up and go home.” Not such an insult in that context, is it?

If there’s some sort of tangible result you’d like to get out of the topic, you could say what it is and see what it would take to get it. As it is, the majority of the posts with women’s names (plus MPAV who I think of as female though somebody else denied it) have been about me.

Just going ahead and speaking and having ideas doesn’t gain you much if you aren’t heard. It’s like talking in an empty room.

You women have given me a whole lot of attention. It would be flattering if it wasn’t so hostile. If you have ideas you want to express, wouldn’t it make more sense to express them and ignore me? Maybe I’d be the one talking in an empty room.

I’ve been getting that on some other topics. I talk about how control theory ought to apply to economics, and the EEs who design feedback circuits might have something to say about how easy it is to get them to do just what they ought to. People who’re talking about EMH ignore me. I point out examples from biology, predator-prey relations usually fall into limit cycles, and when it gets more complicated it tends toward chaos. They ignore me. I point out methods from ecology that could be applied to economics. They ignore me. I don’t post on those topics nearly as much as I have here. Does your empathy give you any clues about that?

….The host is so keen to explain things to her that her friend has to try four times to tell him the book he’s raving about, that Solnit really should be aware of, was written by her.

When that sort of thing happens to me, I feel good. He isn’t telling me it’s good because he wants to flatter me, he actually does like it. Then it turns out he hasn’t actually read it and doesn’t understand. Oh well, at least he’s heard of it favorably. Could be worse.

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J Thomas 12.20.14 at 9:13 pm

#174 Collin Street

JT, arguing for a society free of control mechanisms is arguing for a society of impunity. If you want to do anything to shape the behaviour of others — including behaviours like “don’t shape the behaviour of others in [this way], like by mocking people” — you’re going to need tools

I’m not making that argument in general. I’m making that argument here.

If you look up at the top of the page, there’s a tab marked “Comments Policy”. Among other things it says:

We welcome comments from readers on posts, but you do so as guests in our private space. Concepts of ‘censorship’ are not applicable. If your comments are blatantly racist, sexist or homophobic we will delete them and ban you from the site. The same goes for comments which are personally defamatory or insulting or which seek to derail a thread through provocation of one kind or another.

You are a guest. It is not your place to operate the control mechanisms. You can argue if you want that when you mock people with the intention of driving them away from CT that you are not in fact insulting them.

But your argument is for the official moderators and not for me. If the moderators don’t mind you mocking other guests to the point they go away, because you want to shape the behavior of other guests, then that’s their business and not mine.

Perhaps it might be polite for you to send the moderators an email explaining your intentions and your methods so they can tell you they welcome your participation in this.

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Lynne 12.20.14 at 9:25 pm

J. Thomas:
“Does that make sense? “He’s mansplaining, time to pack up and go home.” “She said he’s mansplaining, time to pack up and go home.” Not such an insult in that context, is it?”

I actually took it that any mention of mansplaining sent the guy running, as though the concept were anathema to him, but I’m not interested enough to go back and check now. I was more interested in discussing the term here.

“You women have given me a whole lot of attention. It would be flattering if it wasn’t so hostile. If you have ideas you want to express, wouldn’t it make more sense to express them and ignore me? Maybe I’d be the one talking in an empty room.”

I hardly know what to say to this. I’ve posted to you twice in this thread, it’s true. Not hostilely, I don’t think, but maybe it came across that way. I’ve expressed the ideas I wanted to express.

{shrug}

No, thank you but I don’t want to go back through that consent thread. Once was enough. To me you come across as well-meaning, even when I think you are missing the point and I take this as an honest, kindly-meant offer. But no, thank you.

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J Thomas 12.20.14 at 9:34 pm

#181 Lynne

“Does that make sense? “He’s mansplaining, time to pack up and go home.” “She said he’s mansplaining, time to pack up and go home.” Not such an insult in that context, is it?”

I actually took it that any mention of mansplaining sent the guy running, as though the concept were anathema to him, but I’m not interested enough to go back and check now.

Say some guy is mansplaining. The women know that he has no interest in actual conversation and any interaction with him can only involve listening to him and not getting any listening in return. Should they not run? Actual mansplaining might as well be anathema, right?

And if they say he’s mansplaining, what’s the chance that a decent conversation will result? If they’re right, zero chance. If they are wrong but they are convinced they’re right, still zero chance. Should he not run?

It looks to me like a signal to run in both cases.

If they both agree that a conversation is not going to happen, and it’s time to run, is it important whether they agree about whose fault it is? ;-)

183

Collin Street 12.20.14 at 9:58 pm

But, JT… “it’s not your place to control or shape the actions of others” is said as part of a deliberate effort by you, a non-moderator/private-person, to shape or control the actions of others.

[in fact there’s a substantial literature about community-building — of which I have read very little, tbh — which goes into some substantial detail about the role of individual non-official actors in building and reinforcing norms. “Leave it to the moderators” doesn’t actually work very well, real-world, because the moderator toolkit isn’t well-suited to handling low-level problems. Same reason we don’t arrest people for drinking more wine than they brought to the party, say.]

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J Thomas 12.20.14 at 10:19 pm

#183 Collin Street

But, JT… “it’s not your place to control or shape the actions of others” is said as part of a deliberate effort by you, a non-moderator/private-person, to shape or control the actions of others.

I can’t agree that it’s immoral for us to say anything that might influence each other’s opinions. But the moderators have urged us not to insult each other, while you want to follow a policy of intentionally mocking people.

If I can persuade you to be polite, then I think that’s a good thing. If not, it’s between you and the moderators — not my problem.

You can tell them that you are doing essential community-building work by your attempts to insult other guests enough that they never come back. If they agree, maybe they’ll give you an official title. And a fancy hat.

185

J. Parnell Thomas 12.20.14 at 10:38 pm

There’s a certain social media site that I frequent with another one of my super-ultra-secret pseudonyms, where anyone can flag, and thus delete, any comment by anyone at any time. One can then appeal the flagging, whereupon the appeal will be denied almost immediately as a matter of course. Not the worst system in the world, actually.

186

Tyrone Slothrop 12.20.14 at 10:43 pm

But the moderators have urged us not to insult each other

I believe that rule is ofttimes held in abeyance when an interlocutor is deemed to be arguing in bad faith—ie, from a right-wing/insufficiently leftish position*.

*Though, with that said, being too left can set you up for some serious shin-whackery to boot. What it gets down to is that Peeps love them some insults.

187

adam.smith 12.20.14 at 11:00 pm

I urge you to revisit Henry’s actual post. What do you think is a better description of its content?
a) politely voiced substantive disagreement with David Bernstein
b) ridicule of the stupid stuff David Bernstein writes

In turn, which types of contributions would you say are more in the spirit of the original post?
a) politely voiced arguments about how maybe David Bernstein totally has a point
b) ridicule of a)

188

J. Parnell Thomas 12.20.14 at 11:35 pm

Now I’m thinking that a possibly effective alternative system might be to give every commenter the ability to administer an electric shock to any other commenter at any time. The shockee would not be notified of the source of the shock unless the shocker decided to notify him via comments; however every participant would have the option of permanently banning himself at any time.

189

J. Parnell Thomas 12.20.14 at 11:36 pm

Sorry, I guess that should have been “him or her.”

190

MPAVictoria 12.20.14 at 11:42 pm

“however every participant would have the option of permanently banning himself at any time.”

*hovers finger over shock button

“Sorry, I guess that should have been “him or her.””

*grudgingly lowers finger.

191

J. Parnell Thomas 12.20.14 at 11:45 pm

The system may need a little tweaking.

192

MPAVictoria 12.20.14 at 11:48 pm

Yeah I probably would have shocked J Thomas into a coma already so I probably cannot be trusted.

193

MPAVictoria 12.20.14 at 11:58 pm

Just to be clear the above was a joke.

194

J. Parnell Thomas 12.20.14 at 11:58 pm

Thinking about it… I think it would be better to have an automatic notification in comments of who shocked whom.

195

J. Parnell Thomas 12.21.14 at 12:02 am

And you could have set period of time after an individual delivered a shock before he would be allowed to administer another one; however there would be no limit on how often an individual could receive shocks.

196

J. Parnell Thomas 12.21.14 at 12:10 am

Of course, there’s likely be that one odd participant who is most effectively punished by denying shocks to her or him.

197

J Thomas 12.21.14 at 12:31 am

#191 J P Thomas

The system may need a little tweaking.

You need a big effort to deter cheaters. Your electric probe could have a galvanometer to detect if it’s probably touching skin. But a certain amount of experimentation with salt-water-filled balloons with some sort of conductive layer on the outside might pay off pretty quick. If not there are people who could arrange that you instead shock their dog or little sister.

Maybe require a webcam to record them getting shocked? Compress the images and if they’re too similar the compression algorithm will point it out, in case they set up a closed loop. But then, richer commenters could hire somebody to take their shocks unless their photos are already public. But it might be cheaper to just bribe the moderators. While I am honest and would not engage in either scam, I think if I was going to do something like that I’d charge less to fake the records that somebody got shocked, than to take electric shocks for X hours a day myself. On the other hand you might find poor people willing to be shocked for a pittance.

Maybe you could only be shocked while you were posting. So people would read, and think, and read, and think, and then they start their comment and type as fast as they can.

But imagine somebody who posted something real inflammatory a week ago and then went away, and now he’s back. He starts a comment and a weeks’ worth of shocks come at him, at random times but pretty close together. He might get distracted!

Probably for awhile you could fund the site with the videos of people trying to comment and getting shocked. It would surely get a lot of publicity.

198

Phenomenal cat 12.21.14 at 1:28 am

Solid ideas Parnell, but I think mpa, jerry, collin and all the rest should organize a purity ball and totally not invite j Thomas.

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J. Parnell Thomas 12.21.14 at 1:58 am

I think that a keyboard cam might be better for checking compliance. Although it would presumably be less useful as a source of funding, it would be preferable for those who tend to surf the web butt naked, as I am now, but wouldn’t necessarily object to a jolt now and then.

200

J. Parnell Thomas 12.21.14 at 2:13 am

But I suppose there’s always a way around these things, if you’re really determined.

201

adam.smith 12.21.14 at 2:30 am

but I think mpa, jerry, collin and all the rest should organize a purity ball and totally not invite j Thomas.

It’s every year on winter solstice. If you didn’t get an invite, I’d worry.

202

MPAVictoria 12.21.14 at 2:52 am

Shhh Adam, don’t give it away…

203

stevenjohnson 12.21.14 at 3:40 am

Mansplaining: Twice as many people aren’t interested in what I have to say.

Obviously, the crusade against mansplaining is depressing. Still isn’t an outrage.

204

Consumatopia 12.21.14 at 4:36 am

“It would be better if we would actually try to understand each other.”

Who should I spend less time listening to so that I have more time to try to understand mansplainers? Are you really sure that, of the world’s seven billion people, that mansplainers are the ones who deserve a larger share of my attention? Or a larger share of anyone’s attention?

205

J Thomas 12.21.14 at 8:48 am

#203 Consumatopia

“It would be better if we would actually try to understand each other.”

Who should I spend less time listening to so that I have more time to try to understand mansplainers? Are you really sure that, of the world’s seven billion people, that mansplainers are the ones who deserve a larger share of my attention? Or a larger share of anyone’s attention?

I didn’t answer that question the last three times it got asked because it looked like an inflammatory thing, but what the hell.

Imagine an out-and-out racist who says “Look, there’s only so much stuff to go around. So if we don’t keep the blacks poor, who should we keep poor instead?” It’s the same argument in a different context.

Doesn’t it make sense that the people for me to try to understand are the particular ones I discriminate against?

Well, but they don’t try to understand me. They discriminated against me first.
Yes, but who’s going to make the first move at understanding?

Why should I be friends with people who do evil things? They don’t want to be friends with me.
The goal isn’t to be friends with them. The goal is to understand them.

No matter what I do they’re going to insist that I don’t understand because I’m a man (or a feminazi or whatever) and they’ll just keep jerking me around.
The goal isn’t to get them to agree you understand them. The goal is to understand them.

I’m supposed to understand and forgive and we live together in peace and happiness when they haven’t changed at all?
No, you’re better off when you understand them.

I understand them plenty already. There’s nothing more to understand.
OK then. But maybe look for something more?

206

novakant 12.21.14 at 12:19 pm

Here is Solnit’s take on the word:

Young women subsequently added the word “ mansplaining ” to the lexicon. Though I hasten to add that the essay makes it clear mansplaining is not a universal flaw of the gender, just the intersection between overconfidence and cluelessness where some portion of that gender gets stuck.

So it’s not like she wholeheartedly embraces the expression, rather she feels the need to clarify because the expression is potentially misleading as it is referencing the male gender as a whole.

207

Lynne 12.21.14 at 1:30 pm

Novakant, that’s right; the expression isn’t self-explanatory. When it’s used to reference all men all the time it is being misused.

208

Consumatopia 12.21.14 at 2:32 pm

“I didn’t answer that question the last three times it got asked because it looked like an inflammatory thing, but what the hell.”

It’s an honest question that you refuse to answer honestly. Instead, you just waste time attributing imaginary positions to people (like you spent most of your last post doing.)

Imagine an out-and-out racist who says “Look, there’s only so much stuff to go around. So if we don’t keep the blacks poor, who should we keep poor instead?” It’s the same argument in a different context.

No, it isn’t. Because the mansplainers aren’t poor, either in money or in attention received. Even if I’m not paying attention to them (though, unfortunately, my engagement here proves that I do), clearly someone is paying attention to them, or they wouldn’t feel the sense of entitlement that is a necessary condition for mansplaining.

Your argument is the same as those who argue that progressive income taxes are “discrimination”. Actually, it’s worse than that. It’s like a rich person showed up at a charity and insisted that they should be given money because people should treat each other with compassion and generosity. And so we should, but tell me, who should have less so that the rich can have more? Who should we listen to less so that the already-listened-to, the mansplainers, can be listened to more? As a progressive, any time I propose income redistribution, I have to explain who I’m taking money from. So, since you are proposing redistribution of attention, who are you saying we should pay less attention to?

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J. Parnell Thomas 12.21.14 at 3:00 pm

I’m just testing to see the time that’s given for this comment.

210

J. Parnell Thomas 12.21.14 at 3:02 pm

Greenwich Mean Time apparently.

211

J Thomas 12.21.14 at 3:12 pm

#207 Consumatopia

“Imagine an out-and-out racist who says “Look, there’s only so much stuff to go around. So if we don’t keep the blacks poor, who should we keep poor instead?” It’s the same argument in a different context.”

No, it isn’t. Because the mansplainers aren’t poor, either in money or in attention received. … clearly someone is paying attention to them, or they wouldn’t feel the sense of entitlement that is a necessary condition for mansplaining.

I see! So you figure that people only have the confidence to talk when they have been paid lots of attention before! It would follow that people who feel they haven’t had attention before will tend not to speak up unless they are sure they will get attention, and will tend to start out too insecure to speak at all. But then if they begin to gain security they will demand attention as their right!

I can imagine it goes that way for a lot of people. And yet surely we all know that it isn’t like that for everybody. There are people who doggedly continue even when they get no positive attention, or even when they get none at all. Surely you have seen that. Do you think it is only people doing that who got so much attention in the past that they have enormous reserves of confidence to slowly drain away now?

Your argument is the same as those who argue that progressive income taxes are “discrimination”.

I see that I did not make my point clearly. The purpose of understanding people is not so they will feel loved and admired and have the confidence to say more. The purpose is to understand people you don’t understand. For that, the people you do well to pay attention to are people you don’t understand.

And who do you not understand? The people you have put simplistic labels on, the people you say are bad people who don’t deserve whatever it is you think they don’t deserve, that you think you already know all about — those people are good candidates.

I don’t recommend it for their sake, I recommend it for your sake. People who are being discriminatory consistently make the sort of argument you are making. “Poor black people deserve to be poor because they’re lazy. If they want more money they should get up and work for it.” “Women who have been trained by society to be passive should just go out and actively grab the status they want. Don’t whine that society doesn’t hand out high status to all women.” Etc. People are talented at coming up with reasons why others deserve to be discriminated against. You don’t want to be like those people, do you?

So, since you are proposing redistribution of attention, who are you saying we should pay less attention to?

This is just a suggestion, of course you have the right to live your life however you want. If you’re comfortable with what you’re already doing, that’s something. There’s a lot to be said for comfort. But — just as a suggestion — you might pay less attention to people who already agree with you and who tell you comfortable things you’ve already heard, and pay more attention to things you haven’t heard before, or possibly new ways to think about things you have heard before.

I don’t suggest that you listen to the same old things you disagree with, and keep disagreeing with them the same old way. (Unless you enjoy doing that, and want to do it for the pleasure.) There’s no big virtue in doing the same old things over again that got you nothing much the first time. And I’m sure you don’t want to try agreeing with stuff that you in fact think is stupid, just to “understand” stupid people who think stupid things. You don’t need to make people you disagree with feel all comfy and nice so they’ll talk more.

But when you get a better sense about the people that you have been looking down on, that’s good for you.

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Consumatopia 12.21.14 at 4:52 pm

I see! So you figure that people only have the confidence to talk when they have been paid lots of attention before!

Wrong. That’s not what I said. You are really terrible at understanding people. You need to listen more.

Mansplaining is not just having the confidence to talk, it’s the entitlement required to talk over others.

“The purpose of understanding people is not so they will feel loved and admired and have the confidence to say more. The purpose is to understand people you don’t understand. For that, the people you do well to pay attention to are people you don’t understand. ”

Then I shouldn’t spend another moment trying to understand a Westerner, I should learn the most exotic foreign language and try to understand someone in the furthest culture from my own. As a white, male, cis, former conservative, English-speaking American who still has plenty of conservative friends and family, I assure you that American mansplainers are not the people I understand least. If you disagree, that’s only because you don’t understand me.

No person has time to understand all of the world’s seven billion people. So we need a division of labor. I, as an individual, should try to understand those who least likely to be understood by everyone else. That is the strategy that is consistent with maximizing global understanding of other people. That means I should look to the underprivileged, not to the powerful, who have plenty of resources to make themselves understood.

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J Thomas 12.21.14 at 5:34 pm

#211 Consumatopia

“I see! So you figure that people only have the confidence to talk when they have been paid lots of attention before!”

Wrong. That’s not what I said. You are really terrible at understanding people. You need to listen more.

Mansplaining is not just having the confidence to talk, it’s the entitlement required to talk over others.

I’ve probably misunderstood you. How does somebody talk over others on a blog, where anybody can post at any time? There is no way to interrupt, unless somebody is between explanatory posts and then chooses to follow up what you say instead of what they were saying.

“The purpose is to understand people you don’t understand. For that, the people you do well to pay attention to are people you don’t understand.“

Then I shouldn’t spend another moment trying to understand a Westerner, I should learn the most exotic foreign language and try to understand someone in the furthest culture from my own.

That’s certainly a possibility. Particularly if you are a professional anthropologist and can get the funding. If your time or funds are limited you might try it with people closer to home, that you occasionally interact with.

As a white, male, cis, former conservative, English-speaking American who still has plenty of conservative friends and family, I assure you that American mansplainers are not the people I understand least.

That makes sense. So it sounds like you were one of them, and then you created a new identity for yourself. You feel like you understand the old one from the inside and you want to stay away from it, not let hold habits revive. Good going!

I suspected you might not understand them that well because it looked like you were confusing me with them, which would be hard to do for somebody who did understand them. But maybe you were not confused and only hoped to insult me that way? That would make sense too. Sometimes it’s hard to express satire or sarcasm in print over the net.

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Hogan 12.21.14 at 7:23 pm

Mockery and insult/defamation are not the same thing.

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J. Parnell Thomas 12.21.14 at 7:57 pm

Insult and defamation are not the same thing. Mockery and insult are pretty close.

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J. Parnell Thomas 12.21.14 at 8:01 pm

In the analog world, mockery and insults will likely result in your being told to fuck off.

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Consumatopia 12.21.14 at 10:33 pm

“it looked like you were confusing me with them”

I don’t think you’re a conservative or anti-feminist, and I like some of your posts in other threads, but I do think that some of your behavior here is mansplaining.

Note: I don’t claim that my own past behavior on CT or comment threads generally is free of mansplaining.

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J Thomas 12.21.14 at 10:34 pm

#153 adam.smith

You suggested that I look at slatestarcodex. So far I like it.
http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/
Here’s one where he says we get controversy by picking examples where people will split more or less evenly. So for example there are lots of black men killed by police for no reason, and the one they picked to argue about was one who was accused of recently robbing someplace. He claims a disproportionate fraction of widely-publicized rape cases get dismissed, and he thinks it’s because the ones that get publicity are weaker cases that people can argue about, rather than obvious cases where there’s no possible defense. To get a lot of attention you need two sides, so they don’t choose cases that are good for making the original point. It makes sense.

But sooo many words!

Thank you for the tip. It looks interesting. I haven’t found out yet who these people think is subhuman and not worthy to talk to them, but from a few scattered comments I expect it will be people who take moral stands based on their feelings.

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J. Parnell Thomas 12.21.14 at 11:00 pm

Bye!

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J Thomas 12.21.14 at 11:17 pm

#216 Consumatopia

“it looked like you were confusing me with them”

I don’t think you’re a conservative or anti-feminist, and I like some of your posts in other threads, but I do think that some of your behavior here is mansplaining.

Note: I don’t claim that my own past behavior on CT or comment threads generally is free of mansplaining.

I find if I try to put things together and see who disagrees, I learn more. Maybe people will be offended that a newbie is saying stupid things, but I’ve noticed they tend to get more offended when they don’t actually know what they’re talking about. When I put it together in ways that make sense and then people who really understand tell me why it doesn’t make sense after all, it can reveal things that otherwise might not come up. I don’t mind a little harassment when it gets good results.

But then, in the current Marx thread I got the impression that the Marxists didn’t like me doing mickey-mouse stuff about Marx since they knew so much more, while the anti-Marxists didn’t like it that I doubted some of their “everybody knows” dogmas. So I had some conversations with some other newbies and didn’t do much. But I did get that there probably are not many teaching computer simulation models of Marxist-mode economies. When I asked about it twice, nobody responded at all. Not once. Those experts would have known about it if there were. Someday I might make some myself. It’s a lot easier to show what you really mean when you have an explicit model than when it’s just handwaving with human language.

Sometimes people have incompatible styles. It just happens. I think it isn’t a bad thing to put up models that get shot down. But if people think you’re so confident that you’ll ignore them so they don’t say anything, that’s a waste.

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Lynne 12.21.14 at 11:50 pm

Consumatopia @216 I thought from your handle that you were a woman.

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Consumatopia 12.22.14 at 12:09 am

Oh! Sorry, I didn’t intend to mislead. It’s supposed to suggest a Utopia of Consumers or some sort of joke I thought was ironic more than a decade ago. It’s a bit awkward now.

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J Thomas 12.22.14 at 12:41 am

A couple of times I’ve written it Cosmotopia and then noticed and corrected it, not wanting to offend. It feels more natural on my keyboard that way.

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Lynne 12.22.14 at 12:55 am

Consumatopia, glad you decloaked. :)

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Collin Street 12.22.14 at 1:25 am

> How does somebody talk over others on a blog, where anybody can post at any time?

The issue is one of not-getting-heard. You — and I mean the second-person pronoun here, not the generic — might prevent people from being heard by interrupting them when they’re speaking, or by physically holding your hands over their mouths, but you can also do it by posting frequently to a web forum, so that even though people have the physical opportunity to write stuff, the value of that opportunity is diminished by the increased percentage of the communications channel you’ve taken up by your frequent, lengthy postings and the diminuation of the eyeball exposure that your frequent postings subject their less-frequent ones to.

“talking over” is somewhat metaphorical, but only very slightly.

You need to post less, because you need to leave space for other people to say things that get read. Discussion forums don’t work exactly like face-to-face conversations, but you’d be surprised [evidently] at what does get carried over.

I don’t think you should respond to this post: there’s not a lot of reasonable questions you might want to ask, and I want you to get in the habit of not always being the person who answers. Take it as a challenge, even: if you respond, you lose!

[if you _do_ have questions, sit on them! It’s unlikely they’ll matter, and even if they do it’s extremely unlikely that you’ll need the answers any time soon, before you’ve had a chance to think them through yourself [preferable] or run into another situation with another opportunity for explanation/assistance. But ideally you need to get yourself in a position where you don’t need people telling you stuff like this]

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Brett Bellmore 12.22.14 at 11:36 am

J, thanks for the Toxoplasma of rage link. Between that, and a group identity test, I think it does explain why the robber instead of the innocent guy became the cause célèbre.

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MPAVictoria 12.22.14 at 2:39 pm

Personally I think Elly at 89 pretty much summed up J. Thomas’s contribution to this thread.

“What you’re saying is that you don’t trust us ladypeople to figure out for ourselves when someone is mansplaining at us, so you think we should give the mansplainers our rapt attention? Nothankyou.”

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Brett Bellmore 12.22.14 at 2:51 pm

I don’t think we can trust women to have exclusive authority to decide when a man is “mansplaining”, any more than we can trust men to have exclusive authority to decide when women are “just being hormonal”. There’s a thread in feminism, unfortunately, which is more about establishing female privilege, than getting rid of privilege.

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MPAVictoria 12.22.14 at 2:53 pm

“I don’t think we can trust women to have exclusive authority to decide when a man is “mansplaining”, any more than we can trust men to have exclusive authority to decide when women are “just being hormonal”. There’s a thread in feminism, unfortunately, which is more about establishing female privilege, than getting rid of privilege.”

Brett you are the very last person who I would EVER take advice from on Feminism.

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Lynne 12.22.14 at 3:01 pm

>>I don’t think we can trust women to have exclusive authority to decide when a man is “mansplaining” “<<

I'm sure you don't.

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Brett Bellmore 12.22.14 at 3:02 pm

That’s fine, but are you going to deny that, for instance, the push to abolish the presumption of innocence in rape cases looks to a man like the creation of female privilege?

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MPAVictoria 12.22.14 at 3:06 pm

“That’s fine, but are you going to deny that, for instance, the push to abolish the presumption of innocence in rape cases looks to a man like the creation of female privilege?”

Nope. Not engaging. Sorry.

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Brett Bellmore 12.22.14 at 3:07 pm

I wouldn’t expect you to. Wrong number of “t”s in my name for you to think I’m worth engaging.

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J Thomas 12.22.14 at 3:09 pm

#227 MPAV

Personally I think Elly at 89 pretty much summed up J. Thomas’s contribution to this thread.

If you don’t want me to respond to you, it helps if you don’t continue the bashing.

I’ve had a sense for some time that you really do enjoy responding to me. Just something about the way you do it….

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MPAVictoria 12.22.14 at 3:19 pm

“If you don’t want me to respond to you, it helps if you don’t continue the bashing.”

I don’t believe I ever said I didn’t want you to respond. Plus, I am not sure that quote is “bashing”.

“I’ve had a sense for some time that you really do enjoy responding to me. Just something about the way you do it….”

We all have our hobbies don’t we? ;-)

More seriously, you seem like a nice enough guy and that one day you might actually get what people are saying. So I keep trying and living in hope.

Just one thing to consider, does it effect your opinion at all that none of the (identified) female commenters in the thread agree with you? Isn’t it possible that they are trying to tell you something about their life experience? Something that you wouldn’t know about?

Think on it J.

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Plume 12.22.14 at 3:27 pm

I don’t see any “feminist” claiming they should have the exclusive right to determine “mansplaining.” Strikes me as a convenient straw man. But it is pretty logical that we would weight the perspective of the victim far more than the victimizer. Far more.

Which is also why it makes no sense to set up two instances of mansplaining as if those are mirrors that cancel each other out. In both cases, the guy is expecting more weight for his view than the victim.

It’s kinda like the call for “fair and balanced.” If the two sides of the debate are flat earthers and those who actually understand science, weighting the two sides equally actually, ironically, creates an imbalance in favor of the flat earthers. Their view should carry zero weight. Not just as much as the other side.

It’s also kinda like saying, “Wait a second. Yes, we saw the brutal beating. We know the much bigger guy was on top beating the shit out of the little guy. But, let’s give bigger guy an equal say in the matter. If he says he wasn’t doing anything wrong, we have to accept that — to be fair.”

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Brett Bellmore 12.22.14 at 3:37 pm

“But it is pretty logical that we would weight the perspective of the victim far more than the victimizer.”

But, that requires knowing in advance that the putative “victim” really IS a victim, and the putative “victimizer” really is a victimizer. Which is to say, it seems pretty logical because it involves planting the conclusion in among the premises.

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afeman 12.22.14 at 3:38 pm

applesauce

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tomsk 12.22.14 at 4:07 pm

This thread is further proof that sufficiently advanced blather is indistinguishable from trolling.

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J Thomas 12.22.14 at 4:25 pm

#237 BB

But, that requires knowing in advance that the putative “victim” really IS a victim, and the putative “victimizer” really is a victimizer.

“You can keep doing that forever. The dog is never going to move.”
―Jack Sparrow

Seriously.

It is hard to get a man to understand something, when his sanity depends on him not understanding it.

That’s true for women too.

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J Thomas 12.22.14 at 4:26 pm

OK, applesauce.

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