We aren't the only ones who experience this on the net...

[boston bean]

MRA Debating Tactics (Humorous, But All Too True)

(Note: they all start as, “MRA debating: …”, which I’m simply leaving out for the sake of avoiding repetition. Also, I’ve extended and embellished some of them beyond the original character length to be more precise in what I mean.)

1. Mock feminists until they’re angry, then say, “See? I told you feminists are all just angry bitches pissed off at men.” Self-fulfilling prophecies are always a good tactic.

2. Be polite, at least until your friends show up, then attack en masse to overwhelm. And don’t actually win the debate, just fight. Intellectualism is so tedious, after all, and some anti-MRM people are really quite good at it.

3. Ask for research and evidence, then dismiss it all arbitrarily with no explanation when given and say that feminists have no evidence. It doesn’t matter that feminists actually do have entire fields of research to back them up, or statistics, or experts, and that you don’t have any. If you won’t admit her evidence, it doesn’t have to matter!

4. Define patriarchy as “rule of fathers”, and then show how fathers don’t rule so you can say patriarchy isn’t real, completely avoiding any actual discussion of patriarchy as an anthropological and sociological phenomenon. Indeed, it’s best to avoid actual science and research altogether, that shit is hard to understand.

5. Wrongly accuse feminists of committing logical fallacies even when it’s apparent that you don’t have a firm grasp on propositional logic. Hope everyone won’t notice, and hope everyone assumes that logical fallacies assert the falsehood of a statement. They don’t, but if no one notices, you’re good!

6. You don’t need intellectual integrity. If one of your buddies is clearly losing a debate with a feminist, jump in and back up his arguments no matter how stupid or ineffectual they are. The more the merrier!

there are thirty examples at the link, and I recognize every single one of them.

http://eseld.tumblr.com/post/54266865213/mra-debating-tactics-humorous-but-all-too-true

[cinnabonbon]

1. Entertaining article

I recognize a lot of them too. Ugh. The first one's so prevalent on GD.

[ismnotwasm]

2. My favorites, (less seen in favor of snark)

17. Resort to metatheory, essentially committing an argumentum verbosium fallacy (a.k.a., bullshitting your way through an argument with fancy language and advanced but irrelevant concepts). In the case of agentssith, there’s always room to talk about epistemology and Wittgenstein when someone is talking about anthropological research. Why talk about patriarchy as a social and cultural concept in the sciences when you can distract people with some deep-sounding discussion about the use of words and the philosophy of knowledge? It doesn’t matter that your opponent knows that anthropology, as a science, uses an evidentialist, foundational (axiomatic) epistemology, namely the inquiry of scientific method, and that talking about epistemology is, well, totally irrelevant to talking about patriarchy in anthropology (after all, we never distract physicists by asking them to explain the epistemic status of their knowledge after they tell us they discovered the Higgs Boson, do we?). You don’t have to impress or distract her, just impress and distract everyone else so that it looks like you know more than her. Remember, when your buddies say you won because they don’t know any better, you won.

Seriously though, agentssith… way to fail hard at being a philosopher. There’s a reason why epistemologists talk about epistemology and not anthropology, you dumb bastard. Only at the level of metatheory is it appropriate to mix the two, and even then, being such a brilliant epistemologist yourself, you’re probably aware that you can just take the skeptic’s position and completely discredit the scientific method for ALL scientific research, even things as foundational as logic and metamathematics. Or maybe you didn’t know that at all, perhaps I shouldn’t be feeding you another bullshit debating tactic. And besides, I already covered the issue of resorting to metatheory in my “deny everything” tactic explanation above.

18. Another two words, another fallacy, though this time in Latin: tu quoque. Remember, if you can think of ANY example of feminists doing something questionable or even reprehensible, like when some crazy radfems talk about killing male babies or something, that makes it totally okay for you to pull the same bullshit. Two wrongs make a right… or is it that it just makes you both wrong? It’s all right, MRAs always get that shit mixed up, so your friends won’t realize your error.

I've seen paragraphs so full of shit and four syllable words at the same time, that I actually have to-- sort of--admire them. And just lately there have been examples of "woman did THIS" or that-- like it means anything in a larger social context.

The other one that's actually pretty funny is when they jump the gun on a topic, with immediate smartass bullshit (pass the popcorn) and find nobody wants to play.

[Squinch]

3. That one caught my eye too. Especially this:

"There’s a reason why epistemologists talk about epistemology and not anthropology, you dumb bastard."

[ismnotwasm]

5. ...

[redqueen]

6. I can't see them as admirable in any way, shape, or form.

They actually believe they're smart and funny. It's depressing to know people feed their egos, but... idiocracy.

[xulamaude]

4. I'd luuuv to see this crossposted in GD :)

[CTyankee]

11. So would I!

There might be some who would "recognize" themselves...ya think?

[smirkymonkey]

7. Great article!

I would also love to see this posted in GD. Just so they know we know exactly what they are doing.

[redqueen]

8. Kick for exposure

[ismnotwasm]

9. It's an interesting discussion

These attempts, not just feminist voices, but African American voices, and other people of color, GBLT voices, Jewish voices

Some of the arguments are incredibly frightening

[Squinch]

10. Kicking

[mahina]

12. very useful

Thank you!