Tee hee!

And you know… if they had been more up-front about it, I could almost respect it. That is to say, if JREF and Grothe had simply said that they generally support certain positions on social justice issues that are antithetical to feminism, and that they aren’t interested in being all-inclusive, then the conversation is over and everyone moves on. Hell, they could have spun it as a net positive, in that the skeptical movement is large and strong enough that JREF doesn’t need to be all things to all people.

Uh, no.

Feminism means women are people. No more, no less. Therefore, any stance antithetical to feminism means skepticism is a male-only movement, which is completely irrational, and therefore the whole movement disappears in a puff of logic.

And you know… if they had been more up-front about it, I could almost respect it. That is to say, if JREF and Grothe had simply said that they generally support certain positions on social justice issues that are antithetical to feminism, and that they aren’t interested in being all-inclusive, then the conversation is over and everyone moves on. Hell, they could have spun it as a net positive, in that the skeptical movement is large and strong enough that JREF doesn’t need to be all things to all people.

Instead, it seems to me that they want to hold that position in practice while maintaining the image of being more inclusive. In order to do so, they have been put in the position where they have to demonize and dismiss their critics for what are observations of objective truths about the public behavior of Grothe, as well as perfectly reasonable assumptions about the behind-the-scenes goings on at JREF. You FtB bloggers have to be the villains, in order to maintain the illusion that JREF is doing the right thing and doesn’t need to make any changed to make its desired image match its reality.

I’m generally anti-tone trolly, that is I generally think that tone is overrused as a direct factor of debate. Someone could say in nasty terms things they agree with and they wouldn’t blink an eye, usually. However, I do think that be it a matter of tone or content, sometimes we can make bad arguments that might not serve us best in the primary goal, that is convincing people on the fence to join our side.

I’m not convinced that the post in question is a place where this is happening, although I do think that there has been the occasional post/comment that has potentially gone to that place, although generally speaking I don’t think it stayed there for very long. (Talking about stuff on our side)

I’m also glad the libertarian angle keeps coming up too, especially based on King Libertarian Ron Paul’s statement about how workplace sexual harassment victims should quit, rather than the person harassing them facing any sanctions. That sort of nonsense is a part of why I dropped out of the JREF forums a few years ago.

I don’t see how you can possibly think that after you’ve listened to the Google hangout chat thing, so go listen to that!

And also, and again, and again and again, the issues at hand have to do with how (mostly) women are treated by fellow conference goers in this community and how conference organizers (not just TAM) handle that, and not about the reaction by women who have been harassed or bothered, or about people’s overall reactions and comments. This is the point I made near the end of the video. A lot of people who for some reason prefer to not see a problem that most people see have been spending way too much effort making sure that those who bring up issues are somehow shown to be wrong or inaccurate or are using the wrong approach, or whatever, when those accusations (against the bitchy feminists) are either minor or invalid.

Anyway, I don’t think anybody is going to accuse those two bloggers of being soft on this issue 😀

I remain convinced that some of what I would call “overreaching” is counterproductive. But in the face of the kind of eye-rolling bullshit that has provoked the “overreaching” in the first place, it is difficult for me to find much fault with Greg when he says, “I see your point but it isn’t important.”

Depending on your definition of “important”, I agree actually. I disagree that it doesn’t matter at all — while I think it doesn’t matter that much in the long view, in the short term at least I think there are missed opportunities with the way the message is being crafted by some bloggers. OTOH, if one’s patience for such things has run out, it is better to keep swinging wildly than to stop fighting altogether. Better to be in the right but occasionally unfair, rather than to retreat to a false middle.

So I stand by what I said. But I also understand if y’all are so fed up you don’t give a shit. 😀 Cheers.

I am suggesting that a male dominated society within a society (JREF/TAM within Western Culture) is blind to certain things, and has certain self-serving expectations, and smooth sailing is defined when those expectation are not interfered with by, well, by “Feminist Bitches.” Are there no conversations happening amongst (there’s that word again) JREF financiers, board members, DJ, others? Are there no emails distributed among any of the various mainly male defenders of DJ Grothe in social networking circles that say anything about anything? Is there no background discussion going on at all? Of course there are. How organized is all that? Doesn’t matter. What matters is that an important part of the culture of the skeptical movement is being threatened and JREF is one of the pillars of that culture. JREF, TAM and DJ Grothe do not need to defend the status quo, and they shouldn’t. Yet they are. After a while, that ceases, all due respect to my colleague Crommie, to be attributable to incompetence.

A fair clarification, Greg. If DJ’s attitudes reflects the mores of a community, particularly one with a libertarian bent, that makes more sense than him being a puppet of sinister forces.

I have to say that when I first heard you pounding on this I thought that you came over as someone making unsubstantiated conspiracy claims. I regarded this as dangerous because it gives the critics ammunition not only to dismiss you, but everyone else in the blast radius, such as the contributors to yesterday’s FTB conference call.

I’m glad you’ve walked this back, but fear it is both late and couched in a way that is not accessible to an audience that thrives on soundbite controversy.