Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin - Whose Fallacy Is It, Anyway？

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Feb. 27, 2016 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin

19:13

Whose Fallacy Is It, Anyway？

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	So I'm going to take a look at a live stream that was done between Christy Winters, my favourite social scientist, Kevin Logan, my favorite type of food, and some ginger guy who I don't know.
	And they are convinced that I use nothing but logical fallacies in my arguments against feminism.
	We're going to take a quick look at just a bit of their live stream, because I don't know.
	Whether they are this stupid on purpose.
	I really don't.
	And I think it's really worth highlighting exactly how dumb they are.
	Okay, as you can see by just the very title of this livestream, it's called Sagan of Akkad and creationists rely on logical fallacies, as if this isn't obviously the fallacy of association.
	which most people know as guilt by association.
	This is unbelievable, Christy.
	I literally don't know how to explain this any more clearly, but what you are doing is trying to make it sound like I am a creationist.
	And you literally say this, but let's have a quick watch.
	Hey there, everyone.
	It's Christy, and I am here with a really spontaneous and hopefully going to be a very original name for my channel.
	And you have a series called What Has Sargon Got Wrong Now?
	Yes, I've sort of discontinued that on the basis that I'm just going to occasionally give him a little bit of an intellectual slap.
	Kevin, are you sure that's why you've discontinued it?
	Are you sure it's not because you look like a fucking moron?
	Are you sure it's not because, I don't know, in one of the videos, you tried to take a medieval painting of Trojans fighting Amazons and represent it as women fighting on a medieval battlefield.
	I mean, I've heard you have a history degree.
	I can only assume that it's some sort of counterfeit you gained from a bazaar in the Middle East or something.
	So starting from here.
	Oh my gosh, these prepared slides.
	This is kind of how I feel about where things are in terms of the anti-feminist discourse on YouTube.
	And when I came to starting to doing my channel and learning about the breadth of anti-feminist discourse, I found it really intellectually poor.
	It's kind of like the McDonald's of food.
	You know, when academics are out there working really hard to make three course meals, people are getting up on YouTube and just feeding you oil-filled crap that's not really easy.
	Have you considered possibly that the level of discourse is being set by the people who we are responding to?
	Unless you're in agreement with Lacey Green when she says everything's problematic, and Anita Sarkeesian when she says everything's sexy.
	The thing that I try to approach, especially when I'm doing an academic piece of work, is this principle of charity, which comes from philosophy.
	And you can see where this quote comes from.
	It says, in philosophy and rhetoric, the principle of charity requires interpreting a speaker's statements to be rational, and in the case of any argument, considering its best, strongest possible interpretation.
	In its narrowest sense, the goal of this methodological principle is to avoid attributing irrationality, logical fallacies, or falsehood to the others' statements when a coherent, rational interpretation of the statements is available.
	I agree that that's exactly what we should do.
	Do you think you're going to be doing much of it in this video?
	Just out of interest.
	I mean, I don't see you being particularly charitable to someone who's attacking your religion.
	And the reason why that's important to do is because it seems like you view it that way.
	Because if you take somebody's arguments seriously and you present them the most robust that you can and take that charitable view of understanding a coherent argument that they're making, then when you come to make an argument, you have to make a much better argument in order to then explain why that view is wrong.
	And what you see on Thunderfoot's channel and what Sargon's channel and the armored skeptic response to Sue Shives is garbage.
	Great argument, Christy.
	You're really getting the hang of this.
	Oh, don't mind me.
	Just continue rebutting by calling things garbage.
	It's very convincing.
	Just garbage.
	And as a consequence, nobody actually learns anything interesting or new or even hears a decent rebuttal.
	Because what are put up are usually straw men and straw women that are then knocked down with crap arguments.
	You can't even be charitable enough to say, well, at least, I mean, they're knocking down their strawmen well.
	No, we're not even knocking down the strawmen well.
	But I find that very interesting because you say strawmen, but how exactly can one strawman someone's argument when you take the video of them talking, play it, allow them to make their argument, and then you reply to it?
	I mean, how can that be a straw man?
	How could I do that?
	I don't understand how I can take them talking and that be the misrepresentation of their position.
	Unless their position is fucking retarded and you know it and you don't want to accept that maybe that is actually what they think.
	Just something to think about.
	The whole point of this is to kind of show a serial fallacy or a serial fallacy user.
	Well, you did a great job.
	Or these kinds of, it's not just fallacies.
	But it's also the kind of tactics that I see have had watch creationists use over the decades.
	Whether it's taking a quote out of context.
	I hope you're paying attention to this, Kev.
	Or using a really biased source.
	Using a biased source is not a logical fallacy.
	It may well be that the information you get from this biased source is incorrect or incomplete, but that does not mean a biased source is incapable of giving you accurate information.
	And do you really think you're in a position to talk about bias?
	Or misrepresenting how carbon dating works or refusing to understand what the theory of evolution itself actually is.
	And I see all of these things going on in the anti-feminist community.
	It's weird how much carbon dating and the theory of evolution come up when refuting feminism, isn't it?
	Or maybe you're full of shit.
	I mean, one of the things you've said there is actually a logical fallacy.
	You don't seem to know the difference between a logical fallacy and a falsehood.
	And that's what this show is really going to be about, is focusing on Sargon because his... His... Beard is living rent-free inside your head?
	Don't worry, pumpkin.
	One day I'll split up in my misassumption.
	Library of opportunity is so large in this topic, but he's not the only one.
	I think it's a general problem that we're using a case study here to illuminate.
	I'm thrilled I can help.
	Anyone want to respond?
	Yeah, you mentioned using biased sources.
	I think the prime example of that, and it's again to bring it back to the core idea of him being a bit like a creationist, was when he used the American Enterprise Institute, an incredibly right-wing think tank, as his source for the definition of progressive, was it, I believe?
	Okay.
	To start with, it was the Heritage Foundation.
	And I chose them specifically because they weren't liberal.
	Specifically because I knew they would not have a progressive bias.
	I mean, they might have a bias against it, but at least I couldn't be accused of confirmation bias by using them.
	But secondly, do you guys remember what you're meant to be doing?
	You're meant to be showing how I use logical fallacies.
	You're not meant to be using the logical fallacies yourself.
	You think, well, that can't possibly be serious.
	You can't possibly think that that's an acceptable source for a definition of a left-wing cause.
	Or of anything, frankly.
	I mean, they're so obviously biased that they employ Christina Hoff Summers, for fuck's sake.
	Do you even know that you are committing an ad hominem fallacy right now?
	I mean, are you even aware of this?
	You didn't even get the right organization.
	You didn't even attempt to address whatever their argument was, whatever the statement that I took from them was.
	You've just assumed it's wrong based on the fact that they are right-wing.
	You couldn't even tell me what the definition was.
	Unbelievable.
	I mean, I feel like I'm playing in the shallow end with the special children at the moment.
	I feel like maybe I'm bullying you people.
	Maybe you're actually this retarded.
	I can't believe, Christie, you should at least be able to go, well, that's not a rebuttal of the position, is it, Kev?
	You know, that's what you should be doing.
	That's like asking a theist the definition of atheists.
	They're not going to get it right.
	You think a creationist can't tell you that an atheist is someone who doesn't believe in any kind of deities?
	Okay, I think I've figured out what the problem here is.
	I think these people have spent so long, unconsciously, I'm going to say, not deliberately, unconsciously misrepresenting everything their ideological opposition have ever done or said or any of their positions, that they think everyone else does the same thing.
	They think other people are incapable of accurately modeling their enemies' positions.
	So they think that a creationist couldn't tell you that an atheist is someone who doesn't believe in God.
	They think that the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank, is incapable of giving a definition of progressivism.
	They think that because I think they know that they are incapable, and they're projecting this onto everyone else.
	I actually have an example from Michael's video, if you guys want to see that.
	Yeah, let's do that.
	You can never get to Rollins, that's what I saw.
	It's when he was a false authority using an expert of dubious credentials or using only one opinion to sell a product idea related to the appeal.
	And just to be clear, Christy, you're going to cherry-pick one example out of a 28-minute or so video about how feminists hate men.
	The whole video is full of these things, but you're going to cherry-pick one thing because you've taken exception to it.
	Should we see exactly how you're going to go about this?
	I mean, I'm sure.
	So this is when he was showing an example of feminist writing and he cited the Scum Manifesto.
	Which, Michael, do you want to tell a little bit about what that document actually is?
	Yeah, it's kind of the rantings and ravings of a psychopathic, mentally ill feminist woman who shot who was it?
	Andy Warhol.
	Andy Warhol.
	Yeah, yeah, so I mean the fact that she's a feminist is kind of irrelevant.
	The fact that Valerie Solanis was a feminist was irrelevant to her writing the scum manifesto.
	I mean I'm happy to agree that it's irrelevant to her shooting Andy Wall, but do you honestly think the fact that she's a feminist has nothing to do with the scum manifesto?
	It's just it's that she's crazy that the scum manifesto turned out as it did.
	And we'll have a quick look at it in a second.
	I'm just going to read from the Wikipedia page because I figure that's probably been edited by feminists.
	yeah he um he was using it as an example of of how uh how feminists hate men basically um and valerie solanus is a feminist as you said I mean, the very beginning of the Wikipedia article.
	Scum Manifesto is a radical feminist manifesto by Valerie Solanis, published in 1967.
	It argues that men have ruined the world and it's up to women to fix it.
	To achieve this goal, it suggests the formation of Scum, an organization dedicated to overthrowing society and eliminating the male sex.
	I can see why you're stumbling over justifying any It just doesn't illustrate that at all, because the fact that she's a feminist is just completely irrelevant to the situation that she the fact that she's a feminist is irrelevant to the situation of her writing a radical feminist manifesto is.
	Is this the hill you're gonna die on?
	Because that's a fucking retarded statement, mate.
	I mean, why don't I just click to the oh influence the manifesto according to Leon?
	I don't know who that is, but they're being cited as an authority.
	I mean, maybe you want to tell me they're not a real feminist as well?
	It's not a fallacy when you do.
	It is no?
	So the manifesto is notorious and influential and was one of the earliest and most radical tracts produced by the various strands of the American women's liberation movement.
	By 1969, it had become a kind of bible for cell 16 in Boston.
	According to a 2012 article by Arthur Goldwag on the Southern Poverty Southern Poverty LAW Center, hate watch blog, Solanis continues to be much read and quoted in some feminist circles.
	Whether the manifesto should be considered a feminist classic is challenged by Hella, because the manifesto rejected a hierarchy of greatness.
	But she said it remains an influential feminist text.
	Let's assume that her being a feminist is incidental, so it's not a radical feminist manifesto about wiping out all men.
	It's just a radical manifesto to wipe out all men, just ideologically neutral just, but empirical probably.
	Uh, why would feminists decide to be influenced by the ravings of a lunatic?
	Just out of interest, I?
	I don't know why you would, why you would uh think that that isn't something that when people see it and they do see it they wouldn't think, wow, feminism's fucking awful, and so are its apologists.
	She was kind of Of crazy and Heather's weird thing about Andy Warhol and so she shot him.
	I don't know if you know the full situation about the whole Andy Warhol.
	What's the matter?
	Google broken?
	It wasn't Simone de Beauvoir that he decided to pick up and look at.
	Well, that's because Simone de Beauvoir didn't write the radical feminist manifesto demanding all men be killed.
	But I like the way that you're incriminating other crazy, influential radical feminists.
	Yeah.
	Well, it does this all the time.
	And I think, again, as you mentioned earlier, it's rampant across the kind of anti-feminist, the sort of mano-sphere, as it were, that they'll use specific examples of extreme feminists.
	I'm not going to say they're not feminists.
	I'm not going to know Drew Scotsman.
	Well done, potato man.
	You are the only person in this entire Hangout who's failed to use a logical fallacy.
	Just well done.
	I'm genuinely impressed.
	I mean, the ginger guy was on the verge of saying no true feminist.
	But you, Kev, very well done.
	Yes, she is a crazy feminist.
	When people hear this, they look at her and go, wow, that's crazy.
	And then people like yourself go, hey, I'm a feminist.
	And people go, why?
	I'm pretty sure they have to accept that they define themselves that way.
	Fine.
	But they're not absolutely typical of your average feminist.
	They don't represent even the majority of people, let alone many people at all.
	And now we come to the point where what you want and what happens diverge.
	I didn't say that she was some sort of elected representative of feminism.
	I said this kind of shit is what people see and associate with feminism.
	So whether you think that they are representative of you or not, this is still what people think.
	Remember, the video you're criticizing is called Why Do People Hate Feminism?
	Idiots.
	But the thing is, it may actually be that it has been quite influential.
	I mean, like, I'm reading the Wikipedia article here that the manifesto was influential in the spread of women's culture and lesbian separatism and credited with the beginning of the anti-pornography movement.
	Now, lesbian separatism isn't a small thing.
	I mean, you know, oh, Belle Hooks is a bit that way, isn't she?
	As well as Julie Bindle and others, and then the anti-pornography movement.
	Are we talking like Emma Watson by any chance?
	Are we talking Anita Sarkeesian by any chance?
	It sounds to me like you don't really understand the roots of your own fucking movement.
	So the obvious one they always bring up is Chanty Binks or one of those kind of characters and they'll use that clip of him shouting as if that's, I've never met a feminist who's ever done that.
	This is called an anecdotal fallacy, Kev.
	Has someone baked your head and then mashed it and then filled it with butter and eaten it?
	Because that sounds delicious.
	Just because you have never met anyone who does this doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
	Just look at Milo and Ben Shapiro's tour around American universities at the moment.
	Constant, constant protests, fire alarms, all this sort of nonsense.
	This is not unusual.
	Go and ask Janice Fiamenko, I think that's how you pronounce the name, how her lectures go.
	I mean, just the idea that you think this isn't representative of feminism is absurd.
	And it's actually kind of making me angry because I don't think you're that thick, Kev.
	But what do I know?
	You're the one talking.
	There are a few filmed examples and you can show them on a loop over and over again, guys.
	It doesn't prove anything.
	Okay, that really did cheer me up.
	Video evidence doesn't prove anything.
	But your anecdotal, I've never met any feminists who do this, does.
	Brilliant.
	So, I'm going to leave it here because I could probably go on, but this will take all night.
	I've had enough of a laugh, I think.
	Christy, baby, if you want to talk about feminism, you know where I am.
	You can contact me on Twitter anytime.

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