So first she accused me of not being open to discussion, then she ambiguously accepted my invitation to discuss. Then she didn't come have a discussion.
I'm not surprised. It's sad and pathetic though. Someone who is unwilling to discuss uses accusing other people of being closed to discussion as one of her main tactics.
I was going to follow up after a week and give her the benefit of the doubt, but I noticed her tweets were gone. Her Twitter page is now private. This hid all her tweets from the discussion above. Maybe she was embarrassed. Fortunately I had screenshots which preserve the record of her irrationality.
Although she won't listen, I still wanted to share a few of my thoughts on the subject. Some of the things I would have told her, if she was open to discussion.
The point was not to defend fat shaming. I think fat shaming and fat-shamer shaming are both bad. (I do not think all criticism of fatness is fat-shaming though! There are legitimate criticisms of being fat, both in terms of health and beauty.)
I value diversity of thought and opinion. I think most feminists do not.
Roosh is an asshole (so what?). I only followed him on Twitter recently and already complained about several of his tweets to my friends. He's interesting though for being willing to say some unpopular things, some of which have truth to them. Unpopular truths are very valuable, even if someone isn't right about 100% of everything. Also I don't think he's trying to be mean and hurt people, whereas many feminists seem to actually want to hurt their opponents.
I think PUA has a lot of good points. I particularly like Mystery. I read some of his old Usenet posts, watched his TV show, and watched some of his PUA training DVDs, so I'm familiar with his ideas. This certainly doesn't mean I automatically like everything else vaguely in the same genre as PUA.
I often follow people on Twitter to see if I like them, and I'm very willing to unfollow. I was (and still am) giving Roosh a chance – he's in the undecided category. In general, I've noticed I find the anti-feminist Manosphere type people insufficiently PUA and dislike that. Plus they can be mean. PUA isn't mean! But on the other hand, there's a million things wrong with feminists, so sometimes I do agree with anti-feminists.
Anyway I think diversity of thought is a good thing. There are mistakes being made on both sides, so attacking Roosh and shutting him up isn't the solution. Feminists should try harder to get their own house in order.
And also, insulting Roosh won't shut him up. He retweets people flaming him. He likes the attention. He likes that people are reacting to him. The strategy of irrationally flaming him is only going to make him more confident that the feminist side is stupid, and he'll have fun with it. He won't be hurt.
Strategically, giving Roosh more stuff he likes to retweet is not how you fight him. That's absurd.
And shaming people is not how to deal with shaming. If you think shaming is bad, don't do it. Being inconsistent and contradictory is the wrong approach. Look at this deleted tweet by another feminist:
In their (purported) crusade against meanness, they can sure be mean.
Shaming and being mean also isn't truth-seeking rational argument.
I realize they've found being really mean works well to bully some other people. But it's absolutely not going to work on Roosh, who enjoys it when his opponents act like this. So it's inconsistent and it's terrible tactics.
I have plenty more to say on this if any feminists actually want to have a discussion. How about you join my discussion group and say hi, and we can talk about it? Any takers?
Messages (3)
shoe0nhead answers a question from a feminist
http://youtu.be/IvZlnus_OIE?t=4m6s
>> Anti-feminists often take up the most extreme or the weakest feminist position they can find or they just straight-up misrepresent the feminist position is. Instead, why not take up the strongest, most robust feminist argument you can find, and really challenge yourself?
> It might be because the stronger feminist positions, like freedom for women in Saudi Arabia and places like that and like female genital mutilation, we don't disagree with.
> And shaming people is not how to deal with shaming. If you think shaming is bad, don't do it. Being inconsistent and contradictory is the wrong approach.
Why wouldn't shaming fat shamers count as self-defense? The same as killing a murderer would not be wrong? Honestly asking.
fat shaming isn't violence. so defense like against murderers is really confused.
counter-shaming is mean and often ineffective. people like it because it helps them not be defensive (which is important) but there's much better ways. e.g. instead of shaming them, say they are being irrational and that their shaming is mean. make criticisms that are true instead of just trying your best to hurt people with words.