.

Her typical arc

    
Like
Like
65
 
Aug 24th, 2015 | By Ophelia Benson
Category: Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: Obsessive
Can’t speak for others, but for myself it’s because Benson is following her typical arc.
After Charlie Hebdo’s offices were attacked, and a number of their staff murdered, a fair number of people condemned the attack but claimed the cartoons were racist or at least problematic. Benson didn’t agree with the latter part, but her response was to spend months churning out posts that lionized Hebdo. That cost her a lot of friends.
This is just history repeating. She’ll probably spend years grinding on this topic, if she can, and drive away even more people. But there’s a critical difference: Hebdo was famous enough to generate a steady stream of fresh material for her. But Benson’s transphobia is pretty much set and done, there isn’t much new evidence coming in and what we have now is pretty convincing to most. Silence starves her of fresh coals to stoke the fire, and if she keeps blogging defenses it’ll just underline how hollow they are.
Meanwhile, it’s not like anything her critics have written has gone away. I know the information is still being read by fresh eyes. And I’d rather have people reading my older posts arguing Benson’s indistinguishable from a TERF than having fresh ones about her lame excuses pop up higher in the search results. I want to focus on the more important issue, here.
So exactly like. Complaining that I tend to post about the same subject often when I’m interested in it – complaining about it instead of just not reading me. Calling that “churning” and “grinding” – instead of just not reading it. Fantasizing about all the friends my evil views have cost me. (I don’t recall losing any friends over Charlie Hebdo.)
So exactly like the slime pit.

33 Responses to “Her typical arc”

  • #1
    Hah. Hornbeck could not “just ignore you” and “move on” , he’s positively obsessed with you.
    Such a double standard, too. We must accept their every solemn proclamation about gender, but Hornbeck refuses to accept the statement of the biggest anti-racism organization in France that Hebdo is not a racist magazine. Good riddance to that lot.
  • #2
    Yep. Exactly that. And totally unaware of it. Christ, they’re pathetic.
  • #3
    Ophelia:
    I don’t recall losing any friends over Charlie Hebdo.
    And MrFancyPants:
    Hornbeck refuses to accept the statement of the biggest anti-racism organization in France that Hebdo is not a racist magazine.
    What, you want facts? Actual facts? Facts that don’t in any way support the narrative they’re trying to tell? Facts that wouldn’t echo at all in that chamber? C’mon, why would they stick to the facts? Facts get in the way of their fictions.
  • #4
    I note that a couple comments up, anteprepro offers the novel assessment that Ophelia has thrown all of FtB under a bus.
  • #5
    Ah, that’s a good word. Almost up there with Schadenfreude.
  • #6
    Jennifer Chavez
    “But Benson’s transphobia is pretty much set and done, there isn’t much new evidence coming in and what we have now is pretty convincing to most.”
    Way to beg the question, declare victory, and move on.
    This kind of mother effing bullshit is the reason I have and never will fit in with the “cool kids.” I’m seeing a bunch of happy smiling photos of people at the secular women works conference, and all I can think is that I want to punch several of them very hard in the face.
  • #7
    Chris, your comments have a bit more bite than I remember from your brief stint at Pharyngula. I quite like it, so as long as you’re happy I’m happy!
    I can understand some people on the other side of this being hurt (they are entitled to their feelings). I can understand them deciding they didn’t want to associate with you/us and stating why. Obviously I disagree with their conclusion, but then I’m not standing in their shoes.
    What I don’t understand, from people committed to progressive SJW rational atheistic thought (as I presume most/many of the FTB/B&W readership are) is insisting on the rights of one group to declare a fixed interpretation of gender on another groups (represented by a woman) right to examine gender in minute detail. nor do i understand their acceptance of Christianity bashing in even the most piss weak way, while describing any criticism of Islam (and particularly the extremist conservative theocracy interpretation of it) as islamophobic and racist.
    Fremdschämen indeed.
  • #8
    I don’t really know who H.J. Hornbeck is and the most that I’ve read from him was an article linked on B&W where he links TERF’s transphobia with lesbians being unhappy about sharing their prime pussy-hunting grounds with people who have penises. I read the article a couple of times, waiting for the punchline. There was no punchline. Then I read the comments, waiting for the outrage. No was no outrage.
    Ergo, I don’t care what he has to say about anything and I don’t trust the social justice cred of the people who agreed with him.
    If your trans activism comes at the expense of other oppressed groups or minorities, while you demand that all other oppressed groups support the struggle of trans people, then you can fuck right off. The people on Jason’s thread aren’t guilty of being PC. They are guilty of hypocrisy. And there is nothing progressive about that.
  • #9
    @ 5 Ophelia Benson
    Did someone says schadenfreude?
    (Hornbeck’s such a charmer.)
  • #10
    Re: ‘It’s funny how exactly like the slime pit they sound’…
    For some I might be so kind as to say Nietzsche is right about a few things, here and there, after all. That thing about fighting monsters is actually one of them. I’ve felt rather painfully for some time there’s much truth in it (if I’m not just blaming that for my own occasional monsterisms–this is left as an exercise &c.).
    For some I might. In this particular case, yeah, may be a bit too charitable.
    And yeah, that Fremdschämen, that’s a good word. What is it with the German language and these scary perfect words, anyway? Anyway, I get that bad sometimes. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned somewhere, I never really could watch The Office for exactly that reaction. Rarely found it funny so much as painfully sad.
    I may have to stop reading the ‘obsessive’ tagged stuff here for a bit, for the same reason, if it keeps up.
    And yes, that’s what happened. Under the bus, it was. Or… oooh! Let’s do another metaphor! She was supposed to stay in the house while you burned it down around her. Also apologize for making you do it. How dare she.
    I expect it may go on. The costlier it proves, the more it will need justification.
  • #11
    I posted a reply to the poster known as “Hj Hornbeck.” That Charlie Hebdo paragraph is just baffling to me in its ignorance, and any person who recognizes that must, I believe, find Hornbeck’s further utterances worthy of a lot of skepticism.
  • #12
    What astonishes me is their certitude. They are convinced that all of their views & opinions are the only true and just and correct ones. That’s not anything even approaching an intellectually honest way of thinking, and it makes disagreement impossible, on anything. I don’t think that these people are bad people, but to people like Hornbeck, anyone commenting here is evil incarnate, beyond redemption, and—probably, given the general acceptance of Alex Gabriel in those circles—people whose eventual deaths will be a Good Thing. It’s a bizarre, illiberal, anti-intellectual worldview.
    Perhaps I’m exaggerating, and painting them with too broad of a brush, and being unfair. It wouldn’t be the first time that I’ve done such a thing, although I at least now realize that I might be doing it again. The extreme and utterly shocking reactions of people with whom I had been on good terms for years on twitter and other social media is depressing. I see a vicious mob mentality that, as Ophelia rightly points out, is nearly exactly like the campaign of viciousness and harassment that the pitters have been carrying on for, what, five years now? I suppose that the FtB folks in question (not all of them, obviously, as Taslima is not taking part in this nonsense, among others) have simply moved to counterbalance the Pit with equal but opposite fury.
  • #13
    Lady Mondegreen
    So you’ll continue to host conversations on the subject (conversations a helluva lot more interesting than any of the utterly predictable shibboleths they have to offer)–
    –And they’ll ignore that conversation, secure in their righteousness, repeat themselves endlessly, and continue attacking you and justifying themselves.
    Yup. “Typical arc” indeed, Thibeault.
  • #14
    But Lady Mondegreen, that’s not all they do! They mock movies, too.
  • #15
    @Jennifer reminded me, I contributed to a fundraiser of some sort for Secular Women Work, way back when, and I got the T-shirt not long ago. I wore it (perhaps a gutsy thing for a guy in Alabama to do) for the first time a few days ago. I was thinking about who was involved in putting it together. It’s probably a worthwhile conference, but the people have turned me off so much, I think I won’t bother wearing the shirt right now. I’ve also dropped a few blogs; probably something I needed to do for reasons of time, anyway.
  • #16
    While I didn’t lose any *friends* over Charlie Hebdo, I did lose some *FaceBork friends*. I wonder if they confuse the two :)
  • #17
    Pretty sure I said this in another thread, but HJ Hjornbeck distinguished themselves to me with a comment directed at PZ Myers that read (cue sinister voice, also possible slight paraphrase, I deleted the bookmark recently):
    You don’t want a transphobe posting at FTB, do you?
    … in the midst of everyone saying but no! Nobody’s trying to kick OB off FTB!
  • #19
    @ SC: Jehovah, Shiva, and Thor, I’d forgotten that thread, despite commenting in it at the time!
  • #20
    Chris Clarke@4:
    I studied German for 10 years, and lived in Germany, and never encountered that term. Thank you for being such a perpetual source of education and amusement, even for those of us (like me) who assume that we know it all!
  • #21
    Thrown FtB under a bus indeed! They were the ones driving it… I guess the PZ and Mano show with occasional guest stars is ok, but they’re the ones that decided to destroy the network.
  • #22
    Might eventually appear at Lousy Canuck:
    “Seven of Mine,
    Please see here andhere.”
  • #23
    Salty Current:
    Your blog posts were really helpful in fleshing out my understanding of Charlie Hebdo, and all it is and means.
    Thank you!!!!
  • #24
    Excuse, me, “have been and continue to be” is better language.
  • #25
    That isn’t helpful, Theoderic. The network there is not “destroyed”, nor could it be. And your comment is typical of pitters.
  • #26
    I keep wondering if “set and done” is supposed to mean said and done or if they are using a novel and slightly unclear expression.
    I also wonder why write the damn foolish article about how much you post about people attacking you if not to be a fresh attack for you to talk about? I mean, if they want you to be out of material, maybe stop?
  • #27
    Samantha Vimes @ 26
    >> “I keep wondering if “set and done” is supposed to mean said and done”
    That leapt right out at me, and the weird expression almost distracted from the dishonesty of the claim. I thought maybe it was a distorted “set in stone”. I may read too much into that kind of idiom-garbling, but I tend to see it as evidence that I may be reading someone who doesn’t read, listen or think as carefully as they might. (Often accompanied by blustery assertions of absolute certain knowledge.)
  • #28
    I mean, if they want you to be out of material, maybe stop?
    They have to get the last word. That’s the deal. They have to be the final word on the subject so that they can declare themselves the WINNER, WINNER, CHICKEN DINNER!
    I can’t believe anyone still thinks Charlie Hebdo was racist/sexist/homophobic. People who understand Colbert’s satire but don’t understand Hebdo make me laugh. I didn’t realize that Hornbeck was part of that group but it certainly explains his other failures of analysis. Colbert’s satire is understandable to Hornbeck because he understands the context of the caricature that Colbert presents. Learn to read French, learn about French political culture and then we’ll talk.
    But let’s talk quickly about being an ally – If you’re going to claim that the cover featuring French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira is racist, even though Taubira denies that it is, speaks in support of the publication, eulogizes of one of the slain artists at his funeral and attends the funeral of the artist who drew the cartoon in question, then you are not a good ally.
  • #29
    @Jennifer Chavez
    “Way to beg the question, declare victory, and move on.”
    It’s begging questions about questions, which is the sort of thing Ophelia complained about in the first place.
    I think we can all agree that Ophelia is evil so we already know the answers to the questions she asked and if those answers are questions, we already know the answers to those.
    Aren’t you all glad you didn’t learn a single thing reading this post?
  • #30
    oh, sarcasm tags, of course. Paste them in yourself.
  • #31
    There’s a (quasi?)-linguistic term for “when all is set and done”: it is an eggcorn.
  • #33
    Until this moment I thought mondegreens only applied to verse, so I suppose I *have* learned something from this thread in the end!

Leave a Comment

Subscribe without commenting
.
All posts and comments are © their respective authors. | Powered by WordPress
ShareThis Copy and Paste
SECURITY WARNING: Please treat the URL above as you would your password and do not share it with anyone. See the Facebook Help Center for more information.
SECURITY WARNING: Please treat the URL above as you would your password and do not share it with anyone. See the Facebook Help Center for more information.
0%
 
10%
 
20%
 
30%
 
40%
 
50%
 
60%
 
70%
 
80%
 
90%
 
100%