Just read the Alex Byrne piece. It is fascinating how philosophy has turned into the Spanish Inquisition and, as per usual, the main section of society suffering the consequences are lower class women. I am sure they would manage to write entire essays on why Isla Bryson is as much as of a woman as I am.
Mary Harrington made the same point about spaces and podcasts for men on Chris Williamson’s podcast. Contrapoints was given far too much time on The Witch Trials of JK Rowling, I thought, so I’d enjoy a deep dive, too, but feel sorry for anyone who’d have to watch the videos to write it..
"she compared me to Donald Trump and Posie Parker"
haha! Someone (you) should do a deep dive into Contrapoints/Breadtube - so much drama/money/irony/cosplay. And the crazy long videos are guru/IDW adjacent IMHO.
It would be so nice if there could be a proliferation of bro spaces, in person or online, that don’t involve denigration of women. The norms of these spaces have always promoted values that underlie serious maltreatment of women. I don’t think the pub days were good for women and children (that’s how prohibition got started in the US), so men having bonding time sadly doesn’t seem to help us much no matter what the modality.
There are non-alcohol-adjacent activities for men, who - in previous generations at least - tended to bond over shares hobbies and interests that didn't denigrate women at all, except to the degree that they were often too anoraky to attract them. Flying model aeroplanes, collecting stuff, restoring and maintaining various kinds of tech, growing gargantuan vegetables, are all benign forms of masculine competitiveness that make space for a lot of conversation and bonding in between the user-manual exchanges. But being in the same physical space is crucial.
The Byrne piece is very good but his paper is hilarious - as in, contains lots of witty jokes and asides, such as the embedded Sound Of Music reference to a doe being a female deer, and the comment about “the distinguished economist Deidre McLoskey--who transitioned from (the slightly less distinguished economist) Donald at age 53”.
Oof. Is it online? I can see why philosophers didn't like it. Also, if you want to see some people who argue for a living enter the comments section, I can't recommend this enough.
Also, someone turns up several dozen comments in and argues: "There is a serious and good-faith way to engage with the question “what is gender identity?”. It beings with the empirical fact that people have one.”
Yes, the paper is linked in a tweet in the Quilette piece: it's at https://philpapers.org/archive/BYRAWA.pdf . I'm literally just reading the Dailynous discussion, which is fascinating. (Suggests some of them need to sharpen up by spending more time on Twitter. 😬)
Re Toxic Masculinity, threat thereof, I was provoked into writing to the FT about it as follows, (and they kindly made it their top letter)
'In talking about male attitudes to women and sexuality, Gary Barker, president of the campaign group Equimundo, says “the trend is backward”. You don’t say. All over the world, women are being educated, taking control of their fertility, having fewer babies and finally claiming their equal rights to succeed and flourish with men — including the right to enjoy casual sex in the way men always have. No wonder the men feel threatened. I’m more concerned with the effect on girls of the constant pressure to succeed on all fronts and still do their hair, nails, make-up and clothes to please men.
Fortunately, a lot of them grow past this and realise they’re better off spending the money at the gym, which will conveniently enable them to throw across the room any boy who tries to strangle them in bed. As to role models of men who are strong, brave, kind and comfortable with their emotions, I suggest that your readers watch a few episodes of 999: What’s Your Emergency?, whose cast of paramedics any woman could be proud to bring home.'
As to Bowling Alone, it's also much harder to be rude to people to their faces. Meatspace forever.
My great grandmother used to stand at the top of the stairs with a bat to defend herself and her 8 children when husband came home from the pub, so the more I think about it the less I believe we should be nostalgic for the days when men got together in person instead of interacting on the internet. It’s all a movie we’ve seen and experienced before, constantly being re-released.
Do you suppose Contra was actually gunning for Helen Joyce? We Americans are notoriously Helen-impaired. As you've said (I think on BARpod), she's the spicier Helen. Then again, you've gone on BARpod, which is undoubtedly a transgression in itself.
No, she played a little clip of me in Witch Trials, so it was definitely me. The clip is me explaining the difference between the Orban position and the Rowling one, but Contrapoints then goes on to assert they're actually the same.
This is a meta-point, because there's no way I'd spend 2hr (or 90 mins at 1.25x) listening to someone burbling on - but might read a transcript. Someone I follow on Twitter made the point that the shift to video creates a framework where it becomes harder to check things, and so to persuade people of things that have no evidence: assertions can be made and zip past (there are no hyperlinks in video or podcasts) and you can build a case which is literally uncheckable. It's the real problem with the pivot to video (and away from text): the mouth is faster than the eye. https://twitter.com/ErrataRob/status/1580618545951821824?s=20
#6 when Dominion sued for $1.6bn it sounded ludicrously large but Fox has $4bn sitting in the bank. Reminded me of someone in the 2008 financial crisis saying 'you lose a billion here and a billion there, but pretty soon you are talking big money'...
Quick note that might be worth correcting: The Beef actor mentioned here is not the lead actor, who is Steven Yeun. David Choe, who has a supporting role on that series, is the actor and graffiti artist who made the comments about his own past sexual encounters.
Just read the Alex Byrne piece. It is fascinating how philosophy has turned into the Spanish Inquisition and, as per usual, the main section of society suffering the consequences are lower class women. I am sure they would manage to write entire essays on why Isla Bryson is as much as of a woman as I am.
Mary Harrington made the same point about spaces and podcasts for men on Chris Williamson’s podcast. Contrapoints was given far too much time on The Witch Trials of JK Rowling, I thought, so I’d enjoy a deep dive, too, but feel sorry for anyone who’d have to watch the videos to write it..
"she compared me to Donald Trump and Posie Parker"
haha! Someone (you) should do a deep dive into Contrapoints/Breadtube - so much drama/money/irony/cosplay. And the crazy long videos are guru/IDW adjacent IMHO.
It would be so nice if there could be a proliferation of bro spaces, in person or online, that don’t involve denigration of women. The norms of these spaces have always promoted values that underlie serious maltreatment of women. I don’t think the pub days were good for women and children (that’s how prohibition got started in the US), so men having bonding time sadly doesn’t seem to help us much no matter what the modality.
There are non-alcohol-adjacent activities for men, who - in previous generations at least - tended to bond over shares hobbies and interests that didn't denigrate women at all, except to the degree that they were often too anoraky to attract them. Flying model aeroplanes, collecting stuff, restoring and maintaining various kinds of tech, growing gargantuan vegetables, are all benign forms of masculine competitiveness that make space for a lot of conversation and bonding in between the user-manual exchanges. But being in the same physical space is crucial.
The Byrne piece is very good but his paper is hilarious - as in, contains lots of witty jokes and asides, such as the embedded Sound Of Music reference to a doe being a female deer, and the comment about “the distinguished economist Deidre McLoskey--who transitioned from (the slightly less distinguished economist) Donald at age 53”.
Oof. Is it online? I can see why philosophers didn't like it. Also, if you want to see some people who argue for a living enter the comments section, I can't recommend this enough.
https://dailynous.com/2023/04/21/what-its-like-to-be-a-philosopher-with-unpopular-views-on-a-controversial-subject/
Also, someone turns up several dozen comments in and argues: "There is a serious and good-faith way to engage with the question “what is gender identity?”. It beings with the empirical fact that people have one.”
Yes, the paper is linked in a tweet in the Quilette piece: it's at https://philpapers.org/archive/BYRAWA.pdf . I'm literally just reading the Dailynous discussion, which is fascinating. (Suggests some of them need to sharpen up by spending more time on Twitter. 😬)
I think I'd characterise it as "some people who argue for a living, and some who just argue, badly". That "empirical fact" person really is the worst.
Re Toxic Masculinity, threat thereof, I was provoked into writing to the FT about it as follows, (and they kindly made it their top letter)
'In talking about male attitudes to women and sexuality, Gary Barker, president of the campaign group Equimundo, says “the trend is backward”. You don’t say. All over the world, women are being educated, taking control of their fertility, having fewer babies and finally claiming their equal rights to succeed and flourish with men — including the right to enjoy casual sex in the way men always have. No wonder the men feel threatened. I’m more concerned with the effect on girls of the constant pressure to succeed on all fronts and still do their hair, nails, make-up and clothes to please men.
Fortunately, a lot of them grow past this and realise they’re better off spending the money at the gym, which will conveniently enable them to throw across the room any boy who tries to strangle them in bed. As to role models of men who are strong, brave, kind and comfortable with their emotions, I suggest that your readers watch a few episodes of 999: What’s Your Emergency?, whose cast of paramedics any woman could be proud to bring home.'
As to Bowling Alone, it's also much harder to be rude to people to their faces. Meatspace forever.
My great grandmother used to stand at the top of the stairs with a bat to defend herself and her 8 children when husband came home from the pub, so the more I think about it the less I believe we should be nostalgic for the days when men got together in person instead of interacting on the internet. It’s all a movie we’ve seen and experienced before, constantly being re-released.
Do you suppose Contra was actually gunning for Helen Joyce? We Americans are notoriously Helen-impaired. As you've said (I think on BARpod), she's the spicier Helen. Then again, you've gone on BARpod, which is undoubtedly a transgression in itself.
No, she played a little clip of me in Witch Trials, so it was definitely me. The clip is me explaining the difference between the Orban position and the Rowling one, but Contrapoints then goes on to assert they're actually the same.
This is a meta-point, because there's no way I'd spend 2hr (or 90 mins at 1.25x) listening to someone burbling on - but might read a transcript. Someone I follow on Twitter made the point that the shift to video creates a framework where it becomes harder to check things, and so to persuade people of things that have no evidence: assertions can be made and zip past (there are no hyperlinks in video or podcasts) and you can build a case which is literally uncheckable. It's the real problem with the pivot to video (and away from text): the mouth is faster than the eye. https://twitter.com/ErrataRob/status/1580618545951821824?s=20
This is why offline transcription tools such as those based on OpenAI's Whisper model are becoming indispensable. Download the video, convert the audio, transcribe, or these steps are all done for you by tools like MacWhisper. https://www.computerworld.com/article/3688229/openai-based-macwhisper-could-meet-all-your-transcription-needs.html
#6 when Dominion sued for $1.6bn it sounded ludicrously large but Fox has $4bn sitting in the bank. Reminded me of someone in the 2008 financial crisis saying 'you lose a billion here and a billion there, but pretty soon you are talking big money'...
Right, my colleague David argued that it was essentially a tax on doing business (in a way that would strangle the challenge from Newsmax and OANN).
Quick note that might be worth correcting: The Beef actor mentioned here is not the lead actor, who is Steven Yeun. David Choe, who has a supporting role on that series, is the actor and graffiti artist who made the comments about his own past sexual encounters.
Thanks Heather -- I agree that's bad wording, and have updated the post!