Saturday, December 24, 2011

The Sun Rises in the East


I started writing this comment, than realized it reached post-worthy length, so here it appears, rather than where it was originally composed.


I like Susan Walsh and her blog, Hooking Up Smart.

Interesting blog, interesting perspective, unique comment section.

That being said...after reading this entire thread and it's comments, Dalrock's take on this entire conflict looks accurate to me:

Susan appears to have taken my repeated efforts to keep any disagreement from becoming personal as a sign of weakness. Instead of debate the issue, she scolded me like a dog which just soiled the carpet. She has never yet either defended her claim or withdrawn it. In place of debate, she kicks up dust and makes accusations. She wanted to make it personal; she outright insisted. So be it.

Logic has cornered Feminine emoting.

Is Frivolous Divorce Overstated in the Manosphere?

Not just no, but HELL NO.

In the face of indisputable logic, dissembling is the female's primary defense.

This is what Susan is doing here.

Saying so does not mean I am "piling on" or "attacking" her (please note the first line of this post).

I'm just pointing to the rising sun and saying - "The Sun rises in the East."

When a woman engages her emotions because she feels attacked, this is what she defaults to. I've been married for 14 years and counting now, and believe you me, I understand this perfectly.

It's a very hard earned wisdom to learn to recognize this dynamic in action between your wife and yourself. Ignorance of this nearly lead to a frivolous divorce of my own on several occasions.

All women do this when they FEEL attacked...and it's obvious that Susan feels attacked here.

Dalrock has consistently reminded her (and everyone else) that he's endeavored to keep the debate impersonal and respectful, and focused solely on the conflicting ideas:


@Susan Walsh

I’m no victim, just a realist. Dalrock has had me in front of the firing squad several times before, lol.

This only makes sense if your definition of “firing squad” is “challenged me to back up my statements in a non personal way”. I’ve gone out of my way to frame any disagreements we have as not personal, and have repeatedly asked my readers to offer you the same courtesy. I only wish you had responded in kind. This is a sphere of intellectual debate, sometimes involving strong intellectual disagreement.

That you can’t separate this from the personal suggests to me that you aren’t cut out for what you are doing. You have a worldwide platform, are mentioned in the national media, and I’m sure have thousands of hits a day on your site. Yet you want to be allowed to say whatever you want as “your own truth”, and anyone who challenges this (even while taking pains to make it non personal) is a mean man who hurt your feelings.

IMO, Susan has failed to refute Dalrock's logic and he has accurately called her out on her dissembling.

All that being said, I'm not commenting here to declare a winner.

(I still like Susan, her blog and I still endorse that others continue to read her.)

Rather, I'd like to make an observation:

This entire debate is similar to an argument between a husband and wife, in which the husband is arguing with logic and the wife is arguing with emotion.

Logic vs. Emotion = masculine frame vs. feminine frame

The thread is an excellent example of Dalrock demonstrating "married man game" in this debate.

Of course, for a happily married father in a post-feminist world, he makes it look effortless.

It's much harder for a husband who is not aware of the subtext of his logic-based argument vs. her emotion-based response frame of interaction with his wife, and mistakenly thinks that they are both discussing a point of logic.

Husbands don't like to see their wives upset or angry. When we don't know any better (take the blue pill), we seek to appease and end the emotional onslaught, even when we know we are logically correct.

This is precisely how the AMC (Average Married Chump) often finds himself "winning" an argument, but still losing it in the long run. That's because he acceded to her frame instead of reaffirming his own.

You proved your point, you were 100% correct...yet you're still sleeping on the couch.

See the similarities with this current debate?

Because Susan is generally well regarded in the manosphere (note regular manosphere commenter Clarence's vigorous defense; note once again the first thing I wrote in this comment,) and has had good will and a history of positive interactions with Dalrock and many other manosphere bloggers, Dalrock could have relented his frame and offered Susan an easy out here and not held her feet to the fire of his logic in an effort to soothe this all over.

"Can't we all just get along?"

This is the temptation husbands face with upset wives.

Take note men. When you are right, and you know it...act like it, no matter how upset she appears to get, no matter how much of a soft spot you may have for her. That is the only way you both "win" an argument.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Female hyper-sensitivity to threat (at least compared to men) is what is at work here.

We men may recognize that 'impersonal logic' is not likely to lead to personal conflict so long as certain rules are observed, but women don't appear to see this. They imagine danger in all sorts of places where men don't. They see rapists everywhere. Violence in everything. Oppressive law. They won't even risk themselves saving their own children if there is a passing man to flick the danger onto.

They will make themselves so odious that men will no longer want anything to do with them, and they will keep repeating "where are all the good men?" in order to switch attention onto men rather than themselves.

Millions of years have made them like this - there is no changing them.

But as soon as we surrender to them, we all lose. We have been losing now for decades. That is why your advice to insist on one's logic is right.

7man said...

In attempting to deny the prevalence of frivolous divorce, SW demonstrated the dynamic in women that causes it. SW would not retract the statement and admit she was wrong. The trivial matter became a big disagreement and SW escalated with every exchange.

This times 1,000 is exactly what happens in a frivolous divorce, since there is so much more at stake and the emotions run even higher. With every turn, it gets more and more difficult for the woman to admit a mistake. In marital matters, women imagine and exaggerate the problems. Then it escalates into a frivolous divorce.

Team Woman is supportive of anything a woman does or says. Another thing to consider is Abortions Lead to Divorces.

. said...

Lol!

Or you could also say that just because a woman said something that made sense yesterday, is no guarantee that she what comes out of her mouth today also makes sense.

I like the one quip from Vox's alpha blog, which went something like, "Everytime a woman says something to you, put the words 'right now I feel that' in front of them to get proper context."

Therefore when a woman says, "I will love you forever," men should translate that to become, "Right now, I feel like I will love you forever."

Women are merely children of a larger growth, after all.

Anonymous said...

"Because Susan is generally well regarded in the manosphere"

I would say "is, tending towards *was*." This latest fiasco has lost her a lot of cred in the manosphere, and a number of bloggers and other prominent commenters have said stick a fork in, they are done with her. Rollo Tomassi's "Building a Better Beta" post and others about Game 2.0 (fem-centric Game) are right on spot.

Anonymous said...

Keoni:

Like you, I will use an analogy with Dalrock as the husband and SW as the wife. This would be like if SW was having an argument with her hubby , Dalrock, and every now and then one of his friends would chime in to call her a bitch or play semantical games with her words. It's not helpful, and no matter how "right" Dalrock may turn out to be , this argument is not being conducted in a fair or rational way, despite Dalrocks personal fairness in argumentation.
In short, you can't expect rationality from anyone when you stack a debate field against them and allow for personal insults. And as for misrepresentation, CL, provides almost a classic example of that: does she REALLY believe that SW doesn't believe that the Earth orbits the Sun?

I've seen studies that argue that the purpose of debate isn't to prove a logical or factual point, but instead to position oneself in higher esteem in a group or ones ideas in a more favorible position in the human meme ecosystem. I've also seen suggestions on how to temper down the possibility of flame wars and other emotional reactions in debates: Dalrocks hands off moderation policy combined with the trolling/insulting behavior of some of his commenters are almost totally at odds with "best practices" for achieving this affect. A blog which does this right, in my opinion, is Feminist critics. They have "no pile on " rules which limit comments to a new guest (or someone the bloggers have blogged about who is attempting to respond)to like 2 in a 24 hour period, they have lightly moderated versions of threads and more heavily moderated versions of the same thread, and they have a simple rule that personal attacks are not tolerated.
I don't think things would have evolved the way they have if SW had responded to Dalrock and Dalrocks blog had rules like Feminist Critics.

Clarence

Clarence

Dalrock said...

@Clarence
In short, you can't expect rationality from anyone when you stack a debate field against them and allow for personal insults.

Susan had the option of responding in the forum which she controls, the same forum from which she made her initial challenge. If the problem is she can't back up her own challenge because some of my commenters were mean to her, she could have elected not to respond at all on my site. Note that Hawaiian Libertarian chose to share his thoughts here on his own blog. The excuse that I didn't sufficiently protect her from those who would hurt her feelings is weak. I don't believe you would be making the same excuses for a male blogger had the same situation occurred.

Anonymous said...

Dalrock:

You might consider how many times and over how long a period I've been posting on Feminist Critics as compared to your blog.

There's a reason for that, and it's not that your blog is particularly bad. I certainly post on your blog more than The Spearhead for instance. I find some blogs tolerable places for debate and other places not. I've also been to feminist places all over the web for more than 13 years now. I've been on the end of personal pile on like that far more than one time, Dalrock. So I dare say you are wrong - I'd defend anyone in a similar situation.


Clarence

Kathy Farrelly said...

"Dalrocks hands off moderation policy combined with the trolling/insulting behavior of some of his commenters are almost totally at odds with "best practices" for achieving this affect."

Ah, no Clarence, you are wrong there mate.. Dalrock does indeed moderate comments. I have been in comment moderation for months and months. Not that I care, but as I got to eventually say over at his blog he is not consistent. Does not treat all commenters the same.. He has his (male) favourites. More often than not I have often noticed how he misinterprets quite a few women's motives and intentions..(mine as well)

He is afraid that I will stir up trouble over at his blog. However he lets go some of the most nastiest comments from people such as TFH, Greyghost(who gets pissed as a parrot and is all over the shop) Remaxd as well.(to name a few) And what a low life that guy is.. Not a peep out of Dalrock. Lol..

If I had made such nasty comments about male commenters there I would be taken to task over it.. Dalrock is playing for team man.. Fair enough, his prerogative, but the sanctimonious way in which he conducts himself makes me believe that he is indeed a hypocrite.

There are over 450 million English Speaking blogs.. A blog is just a place to exchange ideas and shoot the breeze. Dalrock however seems to have set himself up as judge and jury..What for? It's just a blog..Some people have never even heard of blogs before.. Lol..

Dalrock,puts far too much substance on some innocuous comment made by Walsh in response to a male commenter over at her blog. In short, as I told him, he "made a mountain out of a molehill"

That he makes Walsh a focus of a post makes me suspicious that what he is really after is a big increase in blog traffic.

I have seen him do this sort of thing before.

Too full of his own self importance..

I've had disagreements with Walsh before, but I believe she strives to be as fair as possible, even though she too is playing for her own team... team woman..

Dalrock however turns a blind eye to his favs. I've seen Walsh castigate female commenters for being out of line.. Not so Dalrock with the male commenters.

Anyway I have decided to give his blog the flick.. There won't be a 5th time old China.

Plenty more blogs in the sea. ;)

Anonymous said...

"All women do this when they FEEL attacked...and it's obvious that Susan feels attacked here."

And it's not just Dalrock. She lashed out at both FFY and Riv when they disagreed with her advice to "Richard" a few weeks back. Both of them prefaced their disagreements with respectful words for Susan, but she still went apeshit, as if they'd called her a dirty whore.... when all they did was offer their respective takes on "Richard's" situation, which happened to be different from hers.

Anonymous said...

Kathy, by your own count, you've "given Dalrock's blog the flick" 4 times already.

I think you should be honest with yourself and just admit that you find him irresistible as a blogger.

Game does that to chicks- your infatuation with him is nothing to be ashamed of.

E said...

SW may be one of the better women in the bloggersphere, but she is still a women.

Anonymous said...

Always the way.

As soon as women join a discussion, it's not so much what you say, but how you say it.

If you fall for it, they take over.

Anonymous said...

No, they use "how you said it" as an excuse to object to and shut down everything a man says. Virtually all women default to playing for Team Woman against any and all men.

Hayden Tompkins said...

Anger is an emotion, too.

I am not asserting that men and women are identical in the approach to discussion/argumentation; however, many people who identify women as emotional (usually indicating crying, histrionics, etc.) forget that men are often equally emotional.

I can't tell you how many political "discussions" between men I've seen devolve into anger fueled confrontations.

Your analysis seems accurate in this instance but I would caution against the men = logical; women = emotional ideation.