STITCHES FOR PAPER-CUTS
Wow, this Valizedeh shit just won’t stop. In case you don’t know, Daryush Valizadeh (aka “Roosh”) is an American writer known (but mostly unknown) for his misogyny and stupidity. In recent years he self-published more than a dozen country-specific guidebooks explaining how to pick up local women. In addition to this he also founded a men’s group called “Return of Kings” which is, well, exactly how it sounds. He’s made some noise recently and he has also, thankfully and expectedly, garnered much public criticism.
So, the other day Valizedeh announced a tour of major Canadian cities to promote “Return of Kings”. In response, social media feeds and news sites across the country exploded with the collective outrage of his seemingly countless detractors. Particularly loud and outspoken were many mayors from across the land (folks who, in order to ruffle as few feathers as possible, tend to be more or less socially and politically agnostic.) The speed, volume, and unequivocal unanimity of their critique was impressive – and, as far as I can tell, probably unprecedented.
(Now, normally I’d argue on freedom of expression grounds and highlight how protecting this man’s speech is the only thing that guarantees our right and freedom to publicly object to it. Maybe I’d cite Article 19 of the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights. I’m not going to do that this time. Instead:) I’d ask the dear mayors of Canada to please put their money where their mouth is. They want to ban someone, and his absence of followers, from their cities for saying some stupid (misogynistic, sexist, homophobic) shit. Yet nothing, not a word of what he has written or said, isn’t found in worse form, and in much greater abundance, in the weekly services and in the coveted texts found at any number of local churches, mosques, or temples. So, I would love to know, are they going to also ban church from happening this Sunday?
Just because you attend some new-age reformist house of worship doesn’t mean millions of people aren’t being preached to and having their children taught vile and bigoted nonsense. I sat in a church this Christmas and listened, with dozens of approving parishioners, to some nonsense that was at least as offensive as what’s coming out of Valizedeh. I mean, really, when Gregor Robertson talks about a “hate-based men’s group” that “promotes rape” is he talking about the Catholic church or Return of Kings? Why single out the smallest, least subscribed and virtually non-existent one over the other?
Multiple choice (and this is for 100% of your final letter grade): Who is a more repugnant and infectious blight on our society and the planet as a whole?
A) The Catholic church. (A powerful global institution with a billion followers, two millennia of political and legal domination, and the most widely distributed book in the history of publication; who, on every continent, has local chapters that apply their influence and vast resources spreading phobic, sexist, self-hating nonsense while actively seeking to further influence government and wider society with such ideas; an organization that goes into places like Haiti and Sub-Saharan Africa [the HIV/AIDS capital of the world] to actively campaign for things like genital mutilation and against things like condom use and birth control [while at the same time being fervently pro-sex and pro-reproduction]; an organization that promotes abstinence and monogamy at a time when we know beyond any reasonable doubt that abstinence and monogamy “education” are the least effective tools and that birth control and reproductive rights are, in fact, the most effective tools for combating these and, indeed, uplifting whole societies...)
B) Valizedeh. (Some random dipshit with a blog, a twitter account, and some books nobody has or will ever read?)
No, seriously, you’re more upset about the imaginary world of Valizedeh than the actual state-sanctioned, institutionalized physical and sexual abuse of the world's children by many tens of thousands of Catholic nuns and priests? Really?
Just to be specific, and refresh your memory, a 2004 report said there were still 4,400 priests and deacons in the U.S. alone who were accused of crimes against children, some with many dozens and even hundreds of charges involving horrific, life-destroying violence. And then in 2014, the United Nations – who rarely points fingers even at tyrants and psychopaths – stated clearly for the world that the Catholic Church was still more concerned with its branding, its image control, than with protecting children or aiding their known victims.
So the mayors of Canada feel that widespread bigotry and unspeakable violence is a private internal matter for Catholics, none of our business and not even worthy of comment, while a blogger nobody ever heard of causes them to overload the media with loud public objections, calls for the man’s prohibition, and the immediate expulsion of his ideas? That seems totally balanced and reasonable.
(Clearly if Valizedeh wants to spread his nonsense, and render himself immune to criticism or punishment, he only needs to get himself ordained as a man of the cloth.)
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