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Nov. 3, 2015 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
12:35
Being Problematic to Stardusk
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So I stopped considering myself to be a MGTOW quite some while ago when it became overtly ideological and dogmatic.
And I think Stardusk's response to me on an offhanded comment I made in Aaron Pizzy's interview really exemplifies why I am really against any kind of rigid ideological position.
I'm just going to do this as an offhanded response because it's quite easy to see where he has mistaken what I've said because it confirms his own biases.
Now, I don't have a problem with Stardusk or anything like that.
I'm sure that his content is very good and I'm sure that his audience approves of it greatly.
It's not something I personally tend to watch, although I am subscribed to him, but that's not meant to be a comment on his content.
It's just generally not for me.
Greetings.
Now, before I proceed and actually cite the clip that I'll be addressing, let me say at the outset that I have nothing against Sargon of Akkad, either as a person or as a content producer.
I think largely that what he does is good and it's a fight worth fighting, even though I would personally find it far too tedious to cite feminist this and that constantly.
But nevertheless, I think what he's doing is a good thing.
So this is nothing personal against Sargon of the Cod.
However, before we go any further, I'd like to say I appreciate the candor of that.
I have nothing personal against Stardusk either.
During his interview with Aaron Pizzy, which I would suggest all of you watch, because it's always nice to listen to a woman who lived through various things and can testify to the past, and it was pretty good.
But during this talk with Aaron Pizzy, he made a brief statement that I think is symbolic in its fundamental flawedness, essentially, which is to say that I've talked about this before in terms of denialism.
It's very difficult, even in an anti-feminist camp, to be completely intellectually honest.
Right.
Now, this is where I start to find my objections.
I don't think that you are in a position to judge my intellectual honesty.
I'm not in a position to judge yours either.
I wouldn't say that you are being intellectually dishonest by misinterpreting what I've said.
I think that we should both be charitable and say that any mistakes that were made were made when we were operating under the best of intentions.
So let me first play the clip, and we'll talk about what's problematic with what he's saying, and of course, about the larger implications of what he's saying and basically reactions in the anti-feminist camp.
Right.
I think that when you are at a position where you can call something problematic, then you must know, that must be a signal to you, that you have so firmly entrenched yourself in an ideological position that things can be problematic.
Because the word problematic does not mean wrong.
It does not mean factually inaccurate.
It means transgressive to an ideology.
It does not mean objectively wrong.
Well, let's have a listen.
And so he suddenly found himself ousted.
And again, because in the whole custody organisation, the woman automatically has custody.
The man has to beg her for permission to see his own children.
But through no fault of his own, either.
And the thing is, one thing that annoys me about these is, I mean, like we were saying, I personally have always viewed women as human beings.
And I think that any human beings, there are certain types of people who, given the right incentives, will act on those incentives.
Because they are, well, I guess fundamentally a bit more selfish than others.
And this isn't a gendered issue.
This is just there are people like this.
Yeah.
Now, you'll note there that I didn't give any kind of numbers, not even estimates, for the type of people on the side of men or the side of women who fall into these camps.
I do not know what these numbers are.
I do not know whether women are a greater proportion of this certain kind of personality type that is happy to see the systematic advantage that they have and take advantage of it compared to men.
It might be that there are far more women who have this personality type than men.
What I'm stressing is that this personality type exists within both genders, regardless of the number of people on either side which hold it.
I don't know.
I really don't know.
It could be that men are more prone to this.
I couldn't tell you.
It could be that women are more prone to this.
I have no idea.
And so if, I mean, if you were to give men a series of systematic advantages in this way, you would have certain men who would take advantage of them.
And I think, like, the reverse is now here true.
Women who they see that they can have the advantage of the house, the kids, state funding, and, you know, the enforcement of the man's wages being sort of garnished or whatever.
And they're going to do it just because they can.
So before we carry on, again, I'm not saying how many on either side this is.
I'm just saying this does exist on both sides.
And I don't think anyone is going to contest that.
Informed amongst you can probably instantly see what's problematic with this statement, Ellen.
Honestly, Stardusk, please stop using the word problematic.
That's problematic.
Again, nothing against Sarah and Vikad as a content producer, as a person.
But let me just first say, I think he might have made this statement and then the charitable interpretation of this because he actually believes that.
Every statement I make is because I believe it.
If I'm wrong, then I will recount what I've said, as I'm sure all of my subscribers are well aware.
I'm happy to correct my position if my position is incorrect.
I would really appreciate it if more people could just assume I'm operating in good faith.
I don't see why I would operate in bad faith.
I don't see what I would stand to gain from it.
As opposed to more cynical reasons, such as is afraid to offend people.
I have never been afraid to offend people.
I can't even imagine where this idea has come from.
I offend people constantly.
I swear far too much.
I am without a doubt.
Well, I would consider myself the first person to leap to the attack at bad ideas and people espousing bad ideas.
I have never even given a thought to who I'd offend.
And I'm sure that the Christians in my audience are well aware of this.
Whenever I talk about religion, I have a tendency to go, well, religion is fucking nonsense.
And anyone who believes it knows they believe fucking nonsense.
I'm sure that I offend plenty of people, but I do still believe what I say.
Most ultimately.
Regardless, we know that this statement is not correct.
If it was not correct, you wouldn't have to call it problematic.
The first thing I want to point out is that when no-fault divorce went on the table, when it became an option, it was, as Aaron Pizzy herself in the video says, 74% of the people doing it were women.
And this statistic, and you can search the internet for just dozens of publications on this, but I'll put some in the low bar just in case you want to double check.
The statistic of about 70%, give or take, and there's some reduction and some increase depending on the decade, has remained consistent ever since there's been a no-fault divorce.
Meaning, since there's been no-fault divorce, 70% of the divorces have been initiated by women.
Okay?
Which is not to say, and that's the whole point, that technically and legally, no-fault divorce is not available to men.
Obviously, 30% of men still initiate divorce.
Yes, that wasn't my point.
The problem here is that divorce is, by and large, mostly initiated by women.
A majority, a great majority of divorces initiated by women.
Whilst men still have the option.
So men have the option of divorcing just as women do, and yet they don't.
So right there, this puts sort of a screw in the claim of, well, men would act in exactly the same way if given the same incentives.
We can talk about the incentives in a bit, but...
No, I think we should talk about them now, because I don't really see how you think what you have said there contradicts what I have already said.
If men had the same incentives to divorce as women, and I agree that women have all of the incentives to divorce, and men have very few incentives to divorce.
If the roles were reversed and the incentives were all in favor of men, do you honestly think that more men now I'm not saying more men than women, just more men in general, what I'm saying is a certain number of men would not continue, would not initiate divorce purely because they stand to benefit from it?
Because that's the issue here.
I'm not saying that men would divorce more than women for whatever reason.
I'm saying that more men would divorce given the incentives.
And since we do not know what the result of this hypothetical situation would actually be, since it's never actually happened, we do not know how many men would divorce if they had all of the incentives in their favor.
We know how many women initiate divorce as a percentage of overall divorces.
As you say, 74% or something like that.
We know that that's how many will do it if the incentives are all in the favor of women.
And I don't know what percentage of those are women who are simply saying, don't care.
I just can't be bothered.
I'm going to get something out of this and therefore I will.
I'm sure that there is a percentage of them, maybe a large percentage that's the case.
But I'm also sure that the fact that there are so many positive incentives in favor of women divorcing that increases the number above what it otherwise would be.
If the incentives were literally 50-50, if there was no positive incentive for either side, then I suspect the number of women initiating divorce would go down, and maybe the number of men initiating divorce would go up.
I think that that's your entire point covered.
So do let me know if I have not covered something specific, because I'm not going to go through a 25-minute video, I'm afraid.
Especially as it seems that you have just misinterpreted this fundamental point, and I think you've misinterpreted it because of your own bias and ideological position on the issue of gender politics.
So I think that's all I really have to say there.
If you want to carry on, we can do a live stream sometime.
I thought we had arranged to do one at some point, but you never got back to me about it, if I recall correctly.
Although it may well be that I never got back to you, because I do have the memory of a fish.
But my email's on the video on the front of my page.
Feel free to email me and we can arrange a talk.
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