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June 29, 2014 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
29:35
Fuck the King!
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Weary travelers of the internet.
Today I'm going to do the impossible.
I'm going to say the unsayable.
And I'm going to take a stance which fundamentally breaks the rules of interaction on the internet.
That's right, folks.
I am going to advocate feminism.
You're really not the only person advocating for feminism.
That was the most amazing feminist parody I've ever seen in my life.
The only things missing from that intro, I feel, were fedoras.
50,000 spinning fedoras hurtling through the air as the feminazis through their unreasonable demands of reproductive rights and sexual freedom.
Do you mean rights they already have?
Or could it be that that isn't the entire scope of what feminism is trying to achieve?
So in this video I'd like to talk about feminism and why I think it's a necessary component of anarchism.
I assume the Wikipedia definition of anarchism will do.
Unless you've got some sort of definition of anarchism that's akin to the feminist definition of patriarchy.
Now for a while I had some very anti-feminist views that I really don't want to repeat.
Because saying them out loud might damage the conditioning you have clearly undergone.
I spend a lot of time on the internet and there's a lot of anti-feminist sentiment on YouTube and at the time I had some pretty reactionary views in general.
So I bought into the anti-feminist viewpoint unfortunately.
Do tell us about the conditioning you had to put yourself through to finally understand feminism.
However, since adopting an anarchist way of thinking, which is I am sure in no way reactionary, I've come to the conclusion that if I'm to be an anarchist, I cannot not be a feminist.
That's really weird because feminism is very pro-hierarchy.
They just want to be at the top of that hierarchy.
And no, I'm not saying, hey, I support women's rights, give me a sticker.
It's just fairly straightforward, and there are a number of reasons why this is the case.
Yes, and they were all agreed to in the 70s when it was still relevant.
Now, name me a right women don't have that men have.
Don't worry about it, I know there aren't any.
As I've said in my previous videos, anarchism holds that social hierarchy, that is to say a form of organization where people are ranked one above another in terms of status and authority, does not justify itself.
And yet, if you were to drop a big group of people onto a desert island, hierarchies would immediately form.
They would form incredibly quickly because hierarchies get shit done.
Personally, I call that self-justification.
Unless a justification can be given, particularly by those who exercise such authority, then it should be dismantled from below and replaced with a more free and equitable relationship.
That you are going to leave wildly undefined because human beings have a tendency towards hierarchy.
Practically every mammal does.
Every social group has hierarchy.
But you know what?
No, we should just replace it with something more equitable.
Bear in mind, of course, that the form of authority that anarchists are particularly critical of is distinct from authority that's based on knowledge, competence, and reason.
Coincidentally, these are all concepts that both anarchists and feminists seem to have completely disowned.
But I'll be honest, I don't know much about anarchism.
I just know that it sounds really stupid.
So, for example, it's distinct from the authority that a good doctor has on medicine.
Rather, we're talking about sort of subordination, regimentation, and obedience.
That's what this is about.
very things that make an efficient system.
If this is what we mean by anarchism, then feminism is basically the application of an anarchist analysis towards patriarchy.
Which is just as valid as my Scientology analysis of Zeus.
Feminism holds that a form of hierarchy exists called patriarchy.
You're about to disprove patriarchy, aren't you?
In which men are vested with power and status and authority, whereas women are expected to be subservient, passive and obedient.
Precisely.
None of what you have just said is in any way reflective of reality.
50% of women aren't even married.
50% of children grow up in fatherless homes.
By any definition, there is no patriarchy.
This form of hierarchy expresses itself in numerous ways.
Through the political system, through the economic system, if only women had some money.
Through culture, through the media, and in the home, and so on.
Half of women aren't married.
Almost 40% of women have never married.
The nuclear family is almost dead.
There is no one controlling women in the home and so on.
Feminism holds that this form of hierarchy is unjust and unnecessary.
Which it would be if it wasn't non-existent.
And therefore it should be dismantled to be replaced with gender equality.
Which was exactly what happened in the 70s.
So feminism takes the same anarchist path of identifying a form of hierarchy, questioning whether or not it can be legitimized in any way, and dismantling it if it fails to meet its burden of proof.
No, no, no.
You don't get to use those words.
Those words are for sensible people who know what they mean.
How is an anarchist ever going to legitimize a hierarchy when the fundamental precept of anarchism is anti-hierarchy?
From your own mouth, you have presupposed that there can be no self-justification in the concept of hierarchy.
As I've said in my previous videos, anarchism holds that social hierarchy, that is to say a form of organization where people are ranked one above another in terms of status and authority, does not justify itself.
Given that hierarchies based on something as arbitrary as gender are clearly illegitimate.
We don't have a hierarchy based on gender, you fucking moron.
And we don't have one for precisely the reason you have just given.
It would be illegitimate if it existed.
Anarchists must advocate gender equality.
Who gives a fuck?
How do you think anarchism could get anywhere, could gain any kind of real traction if you are incapable of forming a fucking hierarchy?
How could it happen?
What is your method for success with anarchism?
However, let's just suppose for the sake of argument that feminism, equalism, and masculinism all make the same normative claim that gender equality ought to exist.
Why is it then that an anarchist should be a feminist rather than an equalist or a masculinist?
Well, that's easy.
To understand why this is the case, we can assess the truth value of the descriptive claims that each of these standpoints make about the existing world.
Oh, okay, well, I'm looking forward to this.
Simply put, the feminist description of gender relations that exist in the world today is simply a more accurate representation of reality than the equalist and masculinist ones.
I'm sure that's the case.
I should add though that before I go into more detail, I'm not an objective observer.
I'm a guy, and because of that, I'm going to be more likely to deny that in our society, men are in a position of illegitimate authority over women.
Sorry, are you trying to say that men have a bias towards the facts?
And don't you think your anarchism, your innate anti-hierarchical view of the world, is going to be more of a bias than to whether you are actually a man or a woman.
Being male doesn't stop you from having an incorrect view of the world.
There are plenty of male feminists.
I'm not best fit to judge this claim for the same reason that a massively wealthy CEO of a giant multinational corporation is probably not best fit to judge the claim that capitalism is based on the exploitation of workers.
Holy shit, are you serious?
In your mind, are you picturing Dickens' Christmas Carol and men as Scrooge and women as tiny fucking Tim?
This is one of the reasons why feminists will sometimes say check your privilege.
It's nothing to do with censorship or silencing people, it's just about getting people to consider their own position and how that might affect their perception of the world.
Bollocks.
Which actually makes a fair bit of sense.
Or it would if it wasn't actually about censorship.
But first off, I'd like to begin by addressing the equalist or humanist or gender egalitarian position and why I basically think it's crap.
Your head is already filled with the inflexible ideologies of feminism and anarchism and there's no more room.
Equalism in its shoulder shrugging and refusal to acknowledge any systemic form of gendered hierarchy has never ever constituted a serious social movement in the pursuit of change.
Well, since we don't live in a gender hierarchy, I'm not surprised they don't really go on about it so much.
Rather, I find that equalism plays a different role, which is that of telling the feminists off when they want people to change their behaviour too much.
Are you such a shitty anarchist as you fail to see that the feminists telling people what to do without any actual authority has put them at the top of a hierarchy which is actually invalid?
Just because the feminists want something doesn't mean they deserve to get it.
And it certainly doesn't mean they have the rights to boss other people about.
The Amazing Atheist is a classic example of this, preserving existing gender relations under the guise of equality.
Yes, because we actually live in an egalitarian society.
It's not perfect, but it's a hell of a lot better than the one the feminists are advocating for, and a hell of a lot better than anything you're advocating for.
But since you are a product of this society and do not know anything else, you don't know how bad the alternatives are.
You can't be for the rights of one or the other.
If you're truly for equality, you have to be for the rights of both.
TJ, I'm sure that your commitment to equality is sincere, but this is really just liberal bullshit.
As opposed to the anarchist feminist bullshit that you're spewing?
Frankly, I will take that kind of liberal bullshit any day above someone who wants to dismantle the state but have no active replacement and who thinks we live in a gendered hierarchy known as the patriarchy.
There's no analysis here of power concentrations.
And neither was there in yours, otherwise you'd know that there wasn't just this giant monolithic power concentration in the hands of men.
Everything's just this atomized individual injustice and there's just this refusal to consider whether there might be a pattern here or whether these injustices might all have something in common or whether there's an overarching system that's responsible.
The kind of argument that you're making here is like saying that you're not in favour of economic equality unless you advocate for the rights of the rich as well as the rights of the poor, which is bollocks.
Well, no, it's not bollocks actually, and I am the last person who would advocate for the economic rights of the rich.
But ultimately, if someone has worked very hard and legitimately earned lots of money, then yes, they do have a right to that money.
So you do, if you want equality, you seem to be failing to grasp the concept of equality.
You do have to take into account both sides of the story.
Because anyone who cares about economic equality knows that the rights of workers are held against the bosses.
And it's the same principle here.
You can't just look at lots of individual injustices and say, well, that's unfair.
You have to look deeper and consider what the causes might be.
And when you look deeper and you realize the causes do not in any way align with your own ideologies, you have to throw those causes out of the window and substitute them with some bullshit causes of your own to make sure that your ideology is internally consistent.
Because otherwise, you'd have to rethink it.
And yes, men are sometimes the victims of injustice based on their gender, and this is illegitimate.
But more often than not, this is because they will fail to conform with the gender roles that are designed to keep other men in a position of power.
Bollocks.
It's not because they're being oppressed by women.
It's certainly not because of feminists.
Really?
So if, for example, we say that 90% of the homeless are male, and you say, well, why is that?
Oh, well, it's certainly not because of the feminists.
I mean, okay, well, what is the reason, though?
Oh, well, I know it's certainly not the feminists.
Okay, well, what is the reason?
Oh, well, it's because that almost all of the resources go on shelters for women.
And they go on to helping women.
And it's like, okay, well, who campaigned for that then?
Oh, feminists, actually.
The ones who overwhelmingly campaigned for that.
It's like, right, okay.
So you could actually say it was the feminists.
But since you have already started with the presupposition of it's not feminism, then you're never going to come to that conclusion, even though that's what the facts would bear out.
And now the cavalry will be deployed to tell me that not all men are misogynists.
Yes, I fucking know.
Oh, well, if we're getting so fucking angry about it, you moron, why don't you try listening?
Everything you say is a tacit implication that all men are misogynists.
And that's when feminists aren't screaming it from the rooftops.
Alright?
Don't get in the fucking pissy because people are like, look, you know, you're saying that all men are misogynists, and that's not the case.
I'm going, well, yes, I know.
It's like, well, why do you keep sounding like that is your message?
Nobody is suggesting that all men are misogynists.
Bollocks.
But simply that there is a distribution of power which is tilted in favour of men and against women.
Which flies in the face of all the evidence to the contrary.
But who gives a fuck about evidence?
It doesn't matter.
We're dealing with an ideologue for not one, but two ideologies.
This does not imply that all men are misogynists.
Responding to this claim with not all men is like saying, oh well, not all white people in 1960s Alabama were racists.
It implies nothing about the distribution of power.
And here I was thinking that you were some sort of common garden variety idiot.
But you're in fact the sort of idiot who is going to equate women's position in the modern West to a black person's position in American slavery.
I should also add that anyone describing themselves as a so-called humanist when it comes to gender politics is flat out ignoring the historic usage of the term.
Humanism refers to a specific philosophical stance that emerged during the Enlightenment that emphasizes the moral value of human beings and the role of reason and evidence in making decisions, moral or otherwise, as opposed to faith or authority as a basis for one's beliefs.
I think that your definition right there is exactly why people call themselves humanists.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with gender politics.
Reason and evidence in making decisions, this has nothing whatsoever to do with gender politics.
So it's based on faith then, isn't it, dum-dum?
Reason and evidence are the only things you should base any kind of politics on.
You fucking moron.
Everyone deserves equal rights.
Everyone deserves the equal ability to accumulate whatever power and influence they can within their lives, regardless of their gender, regardless of their sexual orientation, and so on and so forth.
I think we all agree on that.
And that's why I've taken to calling myself a universal human self-determinist.
TJ, you are no such fucking thing.
You believe in capitalism.
You believe in the state.
You believe in hierarchical structures of command and obedience which subordinate the masses to a political and economic elite.
And yet you somehow seem to think that this is compatible with a free and equitable society for everybody.
He doesn't necessarily have to think it's the ideal way of doing it, but it could be, like democracy, it's the best way we have yet tried.
Every other way is bad.
Which is why you're not proposing any other way.
Why might this be the case?
Because you're a fucking liberal.
There were leaders and there were fucking underlings and there were underlings beneath the underlings and then there was the absolute fucking crust, the shit turds stuck to the floor of their society.
We always have that.
We always do that.
Every fucking social species on the planet does it.
Wow TG, you must be really fond of the working class with that attitude.
Don't be any more stupid than you have to be.
It is really not about his opinion of the working classes.
It is about what inevitably happens to the working classes.
Because I've got a secret for you.
Not everyone is equal.
That's right.
Some people are more intelligent than other people.
In fact, I would actually classify you as a moderately intelligent person, which is why I can only assume it is your youth and lack of experience of the world that has allowed you to take on two stupid ideologies.
I suppose I'd better revoke my IWW union membership and learn to know my place.
Try reconciling unquestioning support for authoritarian structures of social domination with the belief that people should be free to determine their own lives.
Maybe you should just check your fucking privilege.
That's what I call cognitive dissonance.
With reason and evidence in making decisions, this has nothing whatsoever to do with gender politics.
That tangent aside, what's called gender egalitarianism is a complete sham.
And so's the men's rights movement.
MRAs do not care about equality.
The idea that the power distribution in our society is somehow tilted in favor of women and against men is just flatly inconsistent with reality.
You have not even made an unsubstantiated supporting argument.
You have just said it.
And you have said it again.
And you've said it a third time.
And now in your mind, it has become a fact.
Whereas I have actually made arguments as to why it's not the case.
I have given you some kind of proof.
You are just saying things.
And like before, I'm going to tell you what that is.
Bollocks.
Even in the wonderful enlightened Western world, before you jump down my throat about that.
A study by Lane Kenworthy and Melissa Malami found that in 1998, in 146 countries around the world, not one of them had a majority of women in political office.
And the only reason for that, the only possible reason that could possibly be conceived of is that men are oppressing them.
It couldn't be anything else at all, could it?
And just to be clear, I don't think that trying to get women a seat at the table in the government or having more female catalysts is really the answer.
I think these institutions are inherently oppressive in and of themselves, and they should be smashed.
And replace it with what?
That's why I take the anarcho-feminist position that so long as some women are rich and some women are poor, there can be no women's liberation.
Holy shit, that is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard in my life.
Because women are free to make their own choices, and not all women are born equal, some women have a different outcome from that equality to other women who have a worse outcome to that equality, therefore women are oppressed.
And the same goes for other systems of oppression.
But seriously, if all of the centers of political power just so happen to be occupied by men, and that's not reflective of a patriarchal society, they are not all occupied by men.
And even if they were, it doesn't necessarily mean it's a patriarchal society.
Then I don't know what is.
Evidently, but there is clearly a lot you do not know.
A patriarchal society would have it codified in law that women could not hold political office, could not accumulate wealth and probably not own property.
Women probably wouldn't have freedom of movement and they certainly would never have the right to own the children.
Now, since they have all of those things in the modern enlightened West that you are so quick to decry, one can only conclude this is not a patriarchy.
And of course, whenever you try to talk about patriarchy, people will just try and use class as a red herring, like this for example.
When it comes to the distribution of power, you're gonna find that it's always been the rich have power and the poor don't.
Not the men have power and the women don't.
But this is a completely false dichotomy because the two positions are jointly consistent.
Both of these claims can be true at the same time.
And in fact, they are.
They can be true at the same time, but they're not because there are women with money and power.
I am baffled as to how you can say there are no rich and powerful women in the world.
That is the only way what you are saying is true and that is not in itself factual.
Therefore, what you're saying is fucking nonsense.
Our society is dominated by rich men.
Rich white men.
Rich straight white men.
There are also rich women.
Rich straight women.
Rich straight white women.
Which, my god, in a country full of straight white people who are the overwhelming majority, how could that have happened, you fuck nut?
Rich, cisgendered straight white men.
Able-bodied, rich, cisgendered straight white men, and so on and so forth.
Idiot.
All of these hierarchies can and do overlap and intersect with one another.
These are not hierarchies, they are categories.
People talk about cis male privilege, for example.
They aren't suggesting that if you're a cis male, you must automatically be totally free from all other forms of oppression.
On the contrary, if you're a cisgendered gay man, then you're oppressed on the grounds of your sexual orientation.
Do they have to sit at the back of the bus?
Are they not allowed their own drinking fountains?
Are they not allowed out in public without a man or a woman or whatever?
Are they not allowed in government?
Are they not allowed to accumulate wealth or property?
What oppression are they facing?
If you're a cisgendered working class man, you're oppressed on the grounds of your economic position and so on.
Nobody is suggesting that if you're a cisgendered man, that you are not subject to any other system of oppression at all.
No, what they are saying is being a cisgendered white man supersedes all other forms of oppression.
No, all they're saying is that you are not subjected to systematic oppression specifically on the grounds of your gender identity.
And reality still doesn't bear that out.
But nevertheless, the MRAs and the so-called equalists will continue to misrepresent the feminist position because hey, it's much easier to build up a straw argument, knock that down and pretend that you've addressed your opponent's position than it is to actually address your opponent's position.
I don't think you have any idea of the depth of irony of what you've just said.
People continue to act as though feminism is not relevant in the Western world, despite the very real problems that women in the West face on a regular basis.
See, it really depends whether you define being asked out for coffee in an elevator as a problem.
I personally don't.
I actually think it's utterly inconsequential and fucking pathetic.
But please feel free to consider it as big a problem as you like.
There was also the one about two guys making a dick joke at a tech conference.
That got one of them fired.
That was definitely a need for feminism.
It was a big problem for feminists.
Do you see where I'm going with this?
What about the colour of the toy aisles in Toys R Us?
My god, one of them's blue and one of them's pink!
So many problems.
A study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology found that both men and women perceive women as a mishmash of sexual parts, whereas men are perceived as being full people.
Bollocks.
What kind of unscientific terminology is full people?
Define it.
Prove that men and women don't see women as full people.
This is nonsense.
These are the sort of pseudo-scientific bullshit studies feminist organizations come out with.
Bullshit.
I mean, who would even commission such a stupid study?
A study at Washington State University also found that men who read magazines which sexually objectify women are less likely to respect sexual boundaries.
Bollocks.
What's respecting boundaries?
How do you define that?
Because anyone could define it however they like.
Oh, I got switch raped the other day.
He wasn't respectful of my boundaries.
Sexual objectification exists as a real problem in our society.
Bollocks, you know what?
It doesn't matter.
You've used enough of these weasel phrases and catechisms to just keep going.
Yeah, no, it totally does, because you say it does.
And it has negative consequences towards the sexual freedom of women.
Which is amazing, given that women have complete and total sexual freedom in the West.
A society that apparently sexually objectifies women.
And if you have half the population that are being treated like they're objects rather than people, that's a serious issue that needs to be addressed.
Yeah, if that were the case, that would need to be addressed.
It's not the case, so we won't address it.
Not just if you're an anarchist, but just as a matter of general human decency.
And with all of the evidence in mind, I think it's almost impossible to deny that women are oppressed in our society.
All of the evidence is indeed in your mind.
None of it is in reality.
I have yet to see any evidence from you at all.
All you have produced is, well, women aren't the majority of people in government.
Oh, well, that's definitely oppression.
That's definitely oppression.
There can't be any other reason.
Definitely oppression.
If you're an anarchist, by which I mean that you constantly apply this process of identifying, challenging and dismantling illegitimate authority, and you're aware that this form of hierarchy exists, I don't see how you couldn't be a feminist.
You haven't dismantled shit and you never will.
Either you A aren't aware that this form of hierarchy exists, B are aware that it exists, but you feel that it's justified, and good luck defending that position by the way, or C you are aware that it exists, but you want to briefly suspend your critical attitude towards hierarchy and pretend that it doesn't for little to no logical reason whatsoever.
Or D, you actually have lived in the real world.
You have actually seen the statistics.
You have actually applied Occam's razor.
It's B, isn't it?
And that just sounds like denialism.
Patriarchy furthers other illegitimate systems of oppression as well.
For example, if you have a population of people that are raised in patriarchal families where they're just socialized into mindlessly obeying the father all of the time, then they're going to be far more likely to accept the idea that there has to be some ruling power overseeing society all the time from above.
All of these people live in the 1950s.
50% of kids don't have a father figure.
Right?
In 2011, London was on fire because of fatherless chav kiddies who are running wild going, oh, now we're going to be in charge for the night and start burning things down because they don't have any discipline or hierarchical order.
You are not living in the same world everyone else is.
Not to mention the fact that capitalists make a shit ton of money out of gendered marketing and so on.
Not only is patriarchy illegitimate in and of itself, but it also furthers other illegitimate systems of oppression that are also opposed by anarchists.
And with all of this in mind, any consistent and informed anarchist has no excuse not to be a feminist.
And that is why feminism is a necessary component of anarchism.
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