Lets clear some things up, shall we? I fear that if these are the points you intend to address, while none of them are things I didn't say, some important points are going to get buried under the trees.
Simon_Jester wrote:1) Formless states that the Alexander piece's examples of condemnation of Nice Guys are nonrepresentative, dishonest, or both. Formless subsequently makes a detailed examination of the examples.
Really, the most important thing is that these serve a larger point, i.e. Ziggy Stardust is absolutely right, and Scott Alexander's essay never proves otherwise. Because Scott Alexander defends his point dishonestly and fallaciously. Indeed he has no argument at all because the examples are misrepresented and not demonstrably representative either. Does he have any statistical evidence of what the average Feminist believes and acts? No. It might sound like a No True Scottsman to dismiss these even if his characterization were correct, but five blog posts are not definitive either.
2) Formless states that Alexander goes on to claim that the category of "misogynistic creeps who feel entitled to sex" does not exist.
3) Formless states that Alexander is apologizing "for the worst excesses of men's rights activists based on the moronic fallacy 'but feminists do it too!' "!
These are not claims, they are arguments for the above. Please learn how debate terminology works, Simon.
Also, have you actually read the essay by Alex, Simon? Because point two is literally me paraphrasing him. Seriously, let me quote him:
Jason Alexander wrote:Okay. Let’s extend our analogy with Dan from above.
It was wrong of me to say I hate poor minorities. I meant I hate Poor Minorities! Poor Minorities is a category I made up that includes only poor minorities who complain about poverty or racism.
No, wait! I can be even more charitable! A poor minority is only a Poor Minority if their compaints about poverty and racism come from a sense of entitlement. Which I get to decide after listening to them for two seconds. And If they don’t realize that they’re doing something wrong, then they’re automatically a Poor Minority.
I dedicate my blog to explaining how Poor Minorities, when they’re complaining about their difficulties with poverty or asking why some people like Paris Hilton seem to have it so easy, really just want to steal your company’s money and probably sexually molest their co-workers. And I’m not being unfair at all! Right? Because of my new definition! I know everyone I’m talking to can hear those Capital Letters. And there’s no chance whatsoever anyone will accidentally misclassify any particular poor minority as a Poor Minority. That’s crazy talk! I’m sure the “make fun of Poor Minorities” community will be diligently self-policing against that sort of thing. Because if anyone is known for their rigorous application of epistemic charity, it is the make-fun-of-Poor-Minorities community!
I’m not even sure I can dignify this with the term “motte-and-bailey fallacy”. It is a tiny Playmobil motte on a bailey the size of Russia.
And in case you don't know what the Motte and Bailey fallacy is, lets let Rationalwiki explain it for you:
Rationalwiki wrote:
1. Person A asserts [Controversial Interpretation of Viewpoint X].
2. Person B critiques [Controversial Interpretation of Viewpoint X].
3. Person A asserts that they were actually defending [Common-Sense Interpretation of Viewpoint X].
4. Person B no longer has grounds to critique Person A; Person B leaves the discussion.
5. Person A claims victory and reverts to supporting [Controversial Interpretation of Viewpoint X].
But what he either forgets or wants his readers to ignore is:
Rationalwiki wrote:What it is not
Clarifying one's views to exclude an incorrect, expansive interpretation is not a motte-and-bailey fallacy, provided that what you defend is a correct and intended interpretation of your earlier statements. The problem with the motte and bailey is that it represents a constantly shifting target: now easy, now hard.
Which is exactly what the omitted article by Feministe does! And the quoted article by XOJane, once you fill back in the omitted text. Even Jezebel consistently capitalizes the term "Nice Guy" so that it cannot be confused with its common meaning, despite the way Alex portrays the issue. The only purpose of accusing these articles of a Motte and Bailey fallicy is to discredit the entire proposal that "Nice Guys" are different from misunderstood nice guys (let alone "Good Guys" that XOJane talks about) or that they exist as a separate category. Its his entire argument.
In fact, as I point out with Jezebel, when he says that no one can hear the capitalization in these terms, he is himself committing a form of equivocation between spoken language and textual communication. ALL of his examples are textual: none of them come from, say, youtube. Which means that you can in fact see when someone is capitalizing the phrase to distinguish it from its common meaning! Especially when it comes with a trademark symbol attached, which it commonly does (see
here for instance). The conventions of written English differ from spoken English, so anyone who misunderstands the meaning of "Nice Guy" as used in feminist circles and conflates it with the common term "nice guy" is either illiterate or dishonest. In Scott Alex' case, its clearly the latter.
But he goes even further:
Scott Alexander wrote:I don’t think I ever claimed to be, or felt, entitled to anything. Just wanted to know why it was that people like Henry could get five wives and I couldn’t get a single date. That was more than enough to get the “shut up you entitled rapist shitlord” cannon turned against me, with the person who was supposed to show up to give me the battery of tests to distinguish whether I was a poor minority or a Poor Minority nowhere to be seen. As a result I spent large portions of my teenage life traumatized and terrified and self-loathing and alone.
Some recent adorable Tumblr posts (1, 2) pointed out that not everyone who talks about social justice is a social justice warrior. There are also “social justice clerics, social justice rogues, social justice rangers, and social justice wizards”. Fair enough.
But there are also social justice chaotic evil undead lich necromancers.
Lets set aside that by 2014 the history of the term "Social Justice Warrior" as a bigot's weapon was well established and anyone who uses it even then had the integrity of a wet paper towel. Here he is implying that he feels personally attacked by these articles, and because he feels like he personally does not fit the bill it must be that
no one does. Never mind the point by XOJane about the actor-observer asymmetry/bias, which psychologists are not immune to. A careful reading of these blog posts proves that no one in particular is being singled out by Feministe, XOJane, or Hugo Schwyzer (who again started the conversation Feministe was participating in). Any excuse to feign offense, right? The Jezebel article and the defunct tumbler blog could be seen as singling people out, but the way he misrepresents the quotes the tumbler blog dragged up from actual OkCupid posts further cements that he is
a priori dismissing the existence of Nice Guys being something more than just sad sacks with bad relationship luck. If they say shit that is clearly misogynist, the parsimonious conclusion is that they are some form of sexist asshole. It does not matter how they got that way.
There is also the entirety of his fourth section of the essay, where he tries to find the origin of the term "Nice Guy" as used by Feminists and recasts the term. To take another quote from him:
Jason Alexander wrote:People were coming up with reasons to mock and despise men who were sad about not being in relationships years before the manosphere even existed. These reasons were being posted on top feminist blogs for years without any reference whatsoever to the manosphere, probably because the people who wrote them were unaware of its existence or couldn’t imagine what it could possibly have to do with this subject? Feminism – the movement that was doing all this with no help from the manosphere – has twenty times the eyeballs and twenty times the discourse-setting power as the manosphere. And Barry thinks this is the manosphere’s fault? On the SSC “Things Feminists Should Not Be Able To Get Away With Blaming On The Manosphere” Scale, this is right up there with the postulated link between the men’s rights movement and Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
The bolded text damns him. It indicates his opinion clearly: all Feminists were doing when they coined the term "Nice Guy" was mocking men with poor relationship histories, when he has presented no evidence for that conclusion. The sources he actually cites all indicate otherwise. We've already seen that none of them move the goalposts on their definition of a "Nice Guy."
Its also amusing that he talks about the "Manosphere" having 20 times less eyeballs than Feminist discussions, as if the Manosphere exists in a vacuum and not a society where male privilege is the norm. Its almost as if the "Nice Guy" phenomenon can exist without anyone giving it a name, or without the "Manosphere" discussing it in the same terms as Feminists do. But there I go again, finding more fallacies in his writing to comment on.
Literally half of the essay he writes is about how these poor misunderstood men could not
possibly harbor sexist attitudes
prior to being labeled "Nice Guys." Its a central claim to
his essay, not my refutation of it.
4) Formless states that Alexander makes ad hominem attacks against another blogger, referred to as "Barry" as I recall.
I do claim this, but it isn't in any way a central point to my argument. I only include this accusation to say that his seventh and final part of the essay contains no relevant arguments to this discussion, and thus requires no refutation.
So I expect you won't waste your time on that. It isn't a central thesis to what I am saying.
5) Formless states that Alexander is misusing the psychiatric theory of Unconditional Positive Regard, applying it in a context where it is useless or counterproductive.
In fact, this is one of the central points I am trying to make, so good job catching on to this. Its not stated outright in his essay, but the assumptions underlying his essay about how these men should be handled and how they couldn't possibly be sexists to begin with are consistent with a Rogerian/Humanistic approach to psychology. The assumption in that psychology paradigm is that human beings are fundamentally good and able to change themselves for the better. The problem is, and always has been, that there are exceptions to that rule. Carl Rogers was an optimist, and that's great! His techniques have been found quite valuable
in the therapist's office. Sometimes not even then. These men seem to suffer from an incongruence between expectation and reality, and their response to that is anti-social. Again, that requires a completely different approach to handling them which may at times be defensive (to avoid victimization) or confrontational (not necessarily hostile, but open shows of disapproval is known to sociologists and social psychologists to be a good way of reminding people of social norms). We can't change the experiences these men have had in the past, but we also can't change their dickishness by acting like it doesn't exist.
To use an analogy similar to the one Scott Alexander uses, there is a difference between someone who is hard working but can't seem to hold a job because of the unfairness of capitalism and someone who keeps getting fired because he keeps insulting his employers. It doesn't matter if the latter fellow is just as hard working, the problem with him really is internal and not external. The only way to get through to him is to tell him, look, your boss doesn't like it when you insult him. Its not enough to be a hard worker, you have to at least try to be nice with others to get what you want. Is telling someone that to their face confrontational? Technically yes, and the guy might find the experience unpleasant no matter how much you try and tell it to them softly. But its the only way he will learn
The especially juicy bit is the part where he talks about his client he calls "Henry" who has a history of domestic violence and then asks "how is it fair [that Henry can easily attract women and he couldn't as a teen]?" Which is just plain asking the wrong question. It isn't fair... that Henry
beat up five of his own wives! Shouldn't we be concerned that this guy somehow keeps getting girlfriends
who know he has a criminal history of domestic abuse? Should we really feel envy for someone like that? Fuck, I admit to being a virgin in my twenties, but that kind of person is not a role model! That's the whole point of the articles about "Nice Guys," especially the one by XOJane that he butchered. His question is super easy to answer, but brings his thesis crashing down. We should not look to Nice Guys as role models. Alex appears to think on some level, we should. Even Carl Rogers would find that sick.
Basically, what I'm saying is that Scott Alexander's arguments all stem from a narrow understanding of the world, informed only by a therapist's training when a sociological, anthropological, cognitive, and social psychological perspective is needed to fully understand the issue and address it properly. You can't narrow it down to "everybody is a victim of circumstance, but they are basically good people." I've heard from instructors in college who also do counseling that its hard to deal with these people even as a therapist, so they often end up bouncing from psychologist to psychologist. That's just the way the world works unfortunately. You can't help everyone.
6) Formless states that Alexander makes an argument that "Nice Guys" cannot exist because if they were only interested in sex, they would hire prostitutes; Formless then proceeds to respond to this at length.
I should note that this is really a sub-point to point 2. A detail. Feel free to talk about it, but do realize that it serves a larger purpose.
7) Formless states that Alexander is claiming that sex is a right; since this is manifestly untrue, Alexander is manifestly wrong.
This actually is a sub-point of the above point about misrepresentation. He literally says that love and companionship are as important as food, and that mere friendship isn't enough for some people (read: they NEED sex):
But maybe a less sarcastic response would be to point out Harry Harlow’s monkey studies. These studies [on infant macaque monkeys] – many of them so spectacularly unethical that they helped kickstart the modern lab-animals’-rights movement – included one in which monkeys were separated from their real mother and given a choice between two artifical “mothers” – a monkey-shaped piece of wire that provided milk but was cold and hard to the touch, and a soft cuddly cloth mother that provided no milk. The monkeys ended up “attaching” to the cloth mother and not the milk mother.
In other words – words that shouldn’t be surprising to anyone who has spent much time in a human body – companionship and warmth can be in some situations just as important as food and getting your more basic needs met. Friendship can meet some of that need, but for a lot of people it’s just not enough.
When your position commits you to saying “Love isn’t important to humans and we should demand people stop caring about whether or not they have it,” you need to take a really careful look in the mirror – assuming you even show up in one.
I can't read the bolded part without thinking less of him. I do not exaggerate when I say that this position, when taken to its logical conclusion, leads to rape apologism. Many of us here and in feminist circles know from hard experience.
Now, no one in the field will dispute the importance of these monkey studies, BUT these are infant monkeys we are talking about! NOT adult humans. The studies have little to do with sex, far more to do with what is now called "attachment theory." Its mostly important to developmental psychology rather than the psychology of sexuality and attraction, although we think your attachment patterns as a kid effect your relationship patterns as an adult (oh, by the way, that would also be a problem for his theory of how "Nice Guys" get radicalized, but hey). But no reputable psychologist or philosopher of law/ethics would agree with his assertion that warmth, affection and
sex are equally important as food and other basic needs. Look at
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs for a moment: love and belonging are in the
middle of the priorities list, while safety and physical needs are more urgent. In fact, everything above that in the hierarchy are things with low priority, and we don't even expect most people to reach the top of the pyramid in their lifetimes. Clearly, the safety of women trumps the need of men to be loved and validated. At least, if you subscribe to Maslow's theory. But then, even if not, why
wouldn't safety trump love? Again, no one died from being rejected or told "you can't have sex with me". But many people have had their world's turned upside down by being sexually assaulted.
So basically, he's misinterpreting the research, quote-mining his sources, and strawmanning Feminism at large. How can an honest person possibly defend this crap? Oh, right. I am assuming you are also an honest person. My mistake:
Meanwhile, there is also a significant population of guys who actually are nice, or at least are no meaner and nastier than the average person. And who are not misogynistic, in any clearly definable sense of the term. But who lack the social skills to attract a mate or are otherwise unable to do so.
Simon, there are
so many studies showing that the average person has unconscious or automatic biases, its not even funny. Racial biases, gender biases, its absolutely shocking how deep the problem of bigotry is in our society. What's more shocking is that the people who are most aware of their possible biases are also the people who score the highest on tests for unconscious bias, because of a sort of ironic processing phenomenon (don't think about pink elephants. You just thought of a pink elephant, didn't you?). What this means is, the average person who goes about their day in a funk unaware of the problems of society are also the people
most likely to contribute to the problem. These are the people who crack sexist jokes without thinking, forgetting that it could cause offense even though they know better. These are the people who find it easy to court ladies, but when asked how they do it simply give platitudes that Nice Guys misunderstand (the distinction between the "women want a Bad Boy" meme and "women want a Confident Man" reality being an easy thing to confuse, for instance). THIS, and not feminist bullying, is the most likely and parsimonious way Nice Guys and racists actually get radicalized according to all available sociological and psychological evidence. We have very little evidence to go on that there even is a rout to misogyny and racism through interactions with Feminists and minority activists, but plenty of reason to think it is a smokescreen and an excuse that these people give themselves. Its hard to believe you can possibly be so stupid, Simon. But here we are. You can put a lot of words on the screen, but can't make a meaningful point with bad data.
), on that score it’s pretty much all me. I don’t get angry at women for it because I’m not interested in having sex with a misshapen overweight 36 year old with no teeth, either.
