Letters to the Editor
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Reply to Nick
Hey, Nick. I imagine we disagree about who gets to poke fun of whom. I believe anyone who subscribes to identity politics should be prepared to be caricatured based on that identity. That includes pretty much every configuration of race, gender, height, weight, sexual preference, nationality, culture, and political alignment I can think of.
Intent is often neglected or de-emphasized in claims of discrimination/prejudice, because it's awfully inconvenient to stop and consider whether someone is speaking literally or ironically/jokingly. It's much easier to scream "racist" or "misogynist," become indignant, and move on to the next offense.
I have your standard multi-racial/ethnic group of friends, all of us in our mid-to-late twenties, and we refer in jest to one another by all manner of racially/culturally derogatory term. It's pretty easy to make the distinction between sincere and insincere comments. In general, in everyday life, if there's a question in my mind as to whether someone is serious or not, I give them the benefit of the doubt.
Cheers,
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Responsibility
Reading this interview, I was all ready to dismiss "Maddox" as a lucky idiot with no real malicious intent. But when I read his justifications for insulting women... it really made me angry. Not only the ridiculous idea that the repression of women worldwide for thousands of years amounts to "not having the right to vote," but also the naive certainty that he has only the best of intentions, which no one could possibly misinterpret. He even contradicted himself by stating that people take Ann Coulter's word "as gospel," but people understand that he's "just kidding." A few sentences later, he's talking about the militiamen who have soldiers ready to do his bidding.
He's saying he has no influence? Oh, there it is at the end of the interview... he thinks it's better for him to "command" legions of fans because, unlike Ann Coulter, he really has everyone's best interests at heart. Unfortunately, once your message is put on the page, you lose all control over how people will interpret it. And when you're spewing ignorant, hateful messages in a public forum, it's just plain stupid to think nothing bad could come of it. He says Coulter isn't "acting responsibly" with the public voice she has-- I challenge him to explain how his own writing could be described as "responsible." This guy is certainly free to say whatever he wants-- but I wish he would spend some time thinking about what a truly responsible public voice might say.
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Manliness in a book
While I may be misinterpreting Mr. Maddox, I believe he was incorrect when he said ...before mine there was only one book that was even remotely like it, called the "Big Damn Book of Manliness"
As a student of gender history, I think manliness has actually gotten a fair amount of popular press in the past 20 years. I'd expect this surge is the natural consequence of the change in our viewpoint: we're starting to examine men as a cultural group instead of the default for all humans.
I'm not sure how, with all his research, Maddox missed Fire in the Belly, Iron John, or that great blockbuster, Fire in the John.
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Daring stuff, huh?
Look, I'm sure this Maddox character is fun at parties when he gets a couple of beers in him, but what really hits me about this sort of schtick is its utter shallowness. Maddox is just another in a long line of faux-hipster crypto-rightist wannabees, a not-so-fine tradition that includes noted sourpusses like Jim Goad and Steve Albini. These cultural critics share a few defnining traits: loud mouths, caustic wits, chips on their shoulders the size of a Civic, and, perhaps most importantly, a stunning ignorance of cultural or political trends outside their tiny, media-saturated experience. Oh, and they all seem to think they're originals, God's gifts to honest, no-nonsense journalism. Is Maddox funny? Yeah, probably, but I'm not going to give him my encouragement.
Why? Well, he's white, he's male, he earns a decent living and damnit, ladies, he's not gonna take it any more! What's got him down? "Political Correctness," a minor, campus-borne pseudo-intellectual trendlet that died out in the early nineties and has been kept alive by the Right as a bogeyman ever since. The fact that you can't joke about "bitches" and "fags" without hearing the bitches and the fags complain about it these days. These aren't particularly intimidating enemies, but the fact that Maddox feels compelled to rant on about this sort of thing for years on end suggests that, well, he doesn't know what he's talking about. As does his willingness to discuss "feminism" in the past tense. Things have changed for the better since the social revolutions of the sixties, and, to be fair, Maddox is smart enough to admit this, but probably not so much that the Powers That Be need a champion, an "underdog" like Maddox to take up their cause against all those scary femininsts and hippie peacenik types, who, the last time I checked, couldn't win a presidential election to save their lives. Come to think of it, the feminist movement has so far failed to achieve a society in which gender parity is a reality. Actually, it also occurs to me that George W. Bush is president, we are a country at war, and whatever liberal values Americans might have once considered essential to their character are in full retreat. Obviously, the hippies and the feminists still need a good talking to, and Maddox is the man to give it to them. There's a word for this kind of viewpiont, and that word is "reactionary."
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Hey Monk
Monk, you seem like you're on the right track, but it's not your fault that you're not old enough yet to understand that irony is not the end of the analysis. 20-something, eh? Fine. In 20-something or so more years, you'll probably get it.
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Smug humorless Salonistas
Maddox will never be able to pass your left-wing purity tests and you'll never be able to appreciate great art or humor because of your dogmatism.
Satire doesn't answer to you- it answers to no-one.
Why are we laughing? We're laughing at you.