Anti-Feminist Provocateurs and Catholicism

Quite recently, Lacie Green has come out and said that she would like to transition her channel from a feminist and sex-positive type of atmosphere to a debate channel with anti-feminists and feminists alike, even using the quintessential symbol of anti-Feminism, the Red Pill. In some ways, many of the anti-Feminists have raised up their hands as a major victory for their cause. Divide et Impera, after all.

Ultimately, unlike the roaring joy of a thousand satisfied anti-feminists, I am not sure that anything will become of this change since she seems to still believe in the feminist values while being seemingly disturbed by a paper on transracialism being rejected by a philosophy journal. This critical event will probably not end the conflict.

The real conflict will probably continue to be raged and the continued crucifixion of feminism with it. In fact, it seems to me that besides a few isolated victories, the feminists will probably 'win' with more of their values proceeding in the dialectic since anti-feminism is not committed to anything. The more passionate narrative can easily win even when wrong.

The critical question that the Catholic community must answer is whether we can support these types of channels. Or should we rather support those who are being attacked: the feminists? Quite obviously, the answer is neither are worthy of our support nor assistance.

Feminist Channels and Pseudo-Feminists

I probably should start with the Feminist channels and explain why we cannot support them although perhaps it is rather obvious to the majority of individuals from the Catholic perspective. Obviously the whole discussion about the meaning of Feminism has left some ambiguous definitions on the table. Not necessarily because the definition of "the advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes" is controversial but because what it entails from that definition.

Now I should stop and make a clarification here, if Erika Bachiochi or any other fairly traditional Feminist(which is not an oxymoron) starts a Youtube channel then feel free to watch them. Heck, if any feminist starts a Youtube channel that is in align with Catholic Social Teaching and respects traditional family values, feel free to watch them. These are not the type of channels I would be against.

What I am talking about are essentially a combination of pseudo-Beauvoirian or Butlerian feminist channels which primarily are founded upon the principles of these philosophers. In fact, if anyone has read either philosopher, you will find that these feminists often say very similar things without any of the argumentation that Butler goes through.

Essentially these channels presuppose so much(modern interpretations of power dynamics, feminist theory, queer theory, etc) that there is no reasonable way that a journeyman in feminism understands virtually any of the theory behind it and thus arguing against them will appear as if arguing against facts. It is undoubtedly important for us to dispute the theory insofar as they are incorrect, but rarely will you find a feminist who is willing to argue the theory outside of feminist philosophers/professors.

Another issue is that due to their alignment with Transgender and other queer people, often feminism will entail implicit approval of sinful actions. Further, the implicit anti-essentialism of feminism can lead to metaphysical issues which threaten to undermine rational metaphysical discourse which obviously cannot be abandoned.

And finally, we cannot support these channels due to the narrative issues. Ultimately, ideas win out in culture because they have a better story and better storytellers. It is our job to promote our story rather than theirs, since ours is true.

Anti-Feminism and Cultural Libertarianism

It is important to make distinctions before just asserting your opinion however it seems that with near impunity the vast majority of these anti-Feminist channels are simply converted anti-Theistic channels. Now there are exceptions, in fact, if you want a good channel that has anti-feminist content but is mostly traditionalist check out The Distributist (obviously taking inspiration from GK Chesterton).

I am just going to name a few and if you are curious, you can simply look through their videos and find their anti-Theistic videos. Bearing, Armoured Skeptic, TheAmazingAtheist (obviously), Mr.Repzion, Sargon of Akkad, Undoomed, Thunderfoot, etc. I could bring up tons more.

Supporting these channels via their anti-feminist videos indirectly supports their attacks on Theism in general. Some might say that "At least they are not attacking us anymore", but this is wholly irrelevant to the fact that more ad revenue and attention they get, the more ad revenue and attention they will get to virtually all their videos which includes anti-theistic videos.

This is somewhat the rather obvious problem, any ad revenue supports people who have attacked theism which seems counter to our aims in general. However there are more grave problems with supporting these types of channels. Conceivably, there might be a reason to support a channel who has attacked theism if it was fair and reasonable. The vast majority of these channels are anything but.

Consider their general method of attack, they watch a video and attack pieces of it. Very rarely do they take their opponent seriously and never do they use the principle of charity. Ultimately being comedic is more important to them than being factually correct and taking their opponent seriously as an intellectual. Further, they always attack the bottom of the barrel. Any time they try and go higher they fail to scratch the surface of the argument(look at the hilariously sad attempt of TheAmazingAtheist to understand the 5 ways, or look at the debate between Sargon of Akkad and Kristi Winters). Straw manning the person is not uncommon either.

All these tactics are left behind from attacking the theists in the past, and this has produced a generation of people who do not take religion seriously due to the presumption that all theists are the theists that these atheistic provocateurs attacked. In combination with an intense fundamentalism, of course. However, we suffer the wrath of both effects.

Why ought we support these tactics against anyone? Comedy is a double edged sword because it allows for the distortion of the truth and while we must comedy to go on for the sake of free speech, need we support purposeful distortions of the truth for the sake of a few laughs and perhaps some inevitable conversions to anti-feminist ideals(of which we may share some)?

Conclusion

Ultimately, both of these movements are just symptoms of all modernist heresies. While some want to destroy the distinction between male and female, others want to make such a sharp distinction that it seems to reduce one to subhuman levels. We needn't accept one over the other. Nor should we support one side because they are less wrong. In truth, they are equally wrong just for different reasons.

In order for anyone to win this battle, one must be able to stay virtuous while being steadfast to the principles of the Church. We must be prepared to fight a cultural war. Anything less than this ultimately cedes grounds to these movements which are destructive to human progress and seem to be appalling to the principle of our Holy Mother Church.

The Cultural Libertarians(to borrow a term from The Distributist) are indeed wrong in more crucial way than the Feminists. The Cultural Libertarians think everything is permissible given some set of circumstances(doesn't hurt someone, gosh I need to do a blog post on why this is insane), the Feminists at least recognize that some things are just impermissible.

I hope that more of the more traditionally minded will be able to seriously grasp the problem with supporting these anti-feminists since in some ways our shares commitment to certain values is contingent upon feminists being there. Just as the temporary alliance between atheism and feminism was contingent upon religion being the scapegoat.