Lindy West Demonstrates Everything Wrong With The Quasi-Feminist Response To The Rolling Stone Rape Story
Yet another case--they're amazingly predictable at this point--of someone doubling down on the Rolling Stone rape story. There are "discrepancies" in the story (but only in scare quotes)...but this proves NOTHING!!!!11...question the story and you're a misogynist!
And then come the bizarre straw men...if you question the story, you're questioning all rape accusations...and on and on.
This is a kind of crisis point for liberals. For years they've failed to criticize the extravagances of rape crisis feminism. For example the more-or-less explicit claim that every accusation must be believed. The absurdity of such claims has always been very clear, but this case makes that absurdity more manifest. Now liberals have to decide whether they're going to put up with the bizarre and irrational attempts to argue that the Rolling Stone case illustrates absolutely nothing whatsoever about rape crisis feminism...except, perhaps that it's even truer than we imagined!!!!111...
Liberalism went a little crazy when it allowed itself to be dragged leftwards temporarily by the political correctness insanity of the '90's. That's happening again (though the culprits are the "social justice warriors"). Liberalism can either acquiesce to the insanity or it can reject it. I think this episode will be telling. If liberals don't find the moral fortitude to at least criticize the dogmatic rationalizations currently being offered by the Rolling Stone dead enders...well...that is an extremely bad sign. More than a bad sign, actually...more than merely an indication of ideological insanity...it's something closer to being constitutive of ideological insanity.
There is of course still some chance that there is something true in "Jackie"s account. We don't have the final truth on any of this yet. But, again, that isn't the issue. The issue is that many rape crisis feminists have clearly demonstrated that they do not care about the evidence. They are driven by an extremist, highly ideological theory, and it's that theory that drives their beliefs and arguments. If the facts seem to conflict with that theory, then so much worse for the facts. This is almost the definition of insanity, and if liberalism continues to allow this sort of thing to flourish unquestioned within its ranks, then that will be the end of liberalism.
Finally, it's a sign of how irrational liberalism has become that you are not allowed to make straightforward arguments like the above absent reference to the boilerplate shibboleths: rape is a terrible crime, there is too much of it, misogyny is bad, etc. Since some of the key sophistries in play involve accusing anyone who questions the orthodoxy of "rape denialism," misogyny, etc., one has to make the proper obeisances...not that that's guaranteed protection... This in itself is a worrisome thing, but that's the way it is...
And then come the bizarre straw men...if you question the story, you're questioning all rape accusations...and on and on.
This is a kind of crisis point for liberals. For years they've failed to criticize the extravagances of rape crisis feminism. For example the more-or-less explicit claim that every accusation must be believed. The absurdity of such claims has always been very clear, but this case makes that absurdity more manifest. Now liberals have to decide whether they're going to put up with the bizarre and irrational attempts to argue that the Rolling Stone case illustrates absolutely nothing whatsoever about rape crisis feminism...except, perhaps that it's even truer than we imagined!!!!111...
Liberalism went a little crazy when it allowed itself to be dragged leftwards temporarily by the political correctness insanity of the '90's. That's happening again (though the culprits are the "social justice warriors"). Liberalism can either acquiesce to the insanity or it can reject it. I think this episode will be telling. If liberals don't find the moral fortitude to at least criticize the dogmatic rationalizations currently being offered by the Rolling Stone dead enders...well...that is an extremely bad sign. More than a bad sign, actually...more than merely an indication of ideological insanity...it's something closer to being constitutive of ideological insanity.
There is of course still some chance that there is something true in "Jackie"s account. We don't have the final truth on any of this yet. But, again, that isn't the issue. The issue is that many rape crisis feminists have clearly demonstrated that they do not care about the evidence. They are driven by an extremist, highly ideological theory, and it's that theory that drives their beliefs and arguments. If the facts seem to conflict with that theory, then so much worse for the facts. This is almost the definition of insanity, and if liberalism continues to allow this sort of thing to flourish unquestioned within its ranks, then that will be the end of liberalism.
Finally, it's a sign of how irrational liberalism has become that you are not allowed to make straightforward arguments like the above absent reference to the boilerplate shibboleths: rape is a terrible crime, there is too much of it, misogyny is bad, etc. Since some of the key sophistries in play involve accusing anyone who questions the orthodoxy of "rape denialism," misogyny, etc., one has to make the proper obeisances...not that that's guaranteed protection... This in itself is a worrisome thing, but that's the way it is...
posted by Winston Smith at
8:57 AM
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