Author Topic: Stefan Molyneux and the Wax Wings Affair  (Read 7359 times)

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QuestEon

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Stefan Molyneux and the Wax Wings Affair
« on: February 01, 2012, 12:20:41 AM »
The story of the very unfortunate collision between a would-be famous libertarian and actual famous libertarians, with a little Greek mythology thrown in for good measure!

Read the article here:  Stefan Molyneux and the Wax Wings Affair


Read the update here:  The Stefan Molyneux/anti-feminist flap takes flight!


Comment below!
« Last Edit: February 02, 2012, 05:28:53 PM by QuestEon »
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Owl

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    Re: Stefan Molyneux and the Wax Wings Affair
    « Reply #1 on: February 01, 2012, 09:02:47 AM »
    Stef really should have a basic understanding of feminism before attacking it. This is probably the first FDR video I've watched since 2009, and i couldn't believe what I was hearing.

    His logic is that Meryl Streep made fun of Margaret Thatcher's haircut in the 80s so feminism is terrible? Really, seriously?  :oand lumping gay rights in with socialism isn't helping much either.

    Argent

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      Re: Stefan Molyneux and the Wax Wings Affair
      « Reply #2 on: February 01, 2012, 10:57:40 AM »
      Great find!  It will be interesting to see whether Stefan will choose to acknowledge this or try to ignore it.  Do you know where this was originally posted?  I'm wondering if those at FDR are even aware of it.

      I do wish they had picked a different video to critique.  Stefan definitely seems to have a misogynist streak, and some of the views he's passing on to his members really need to be countered, but I thought this video was a softball.  You can tell from his demeanor that he had mentally defeated half the things he had to say before he had even finished saying them.  I'm guessing this was a throwaway video for him, and if he had cared more, he would have re-recorded it with all the weak stuff cut out.

      I mean, how can he in one breath say that there can never be equality between the sexes with the nuclear family model, and in the next breath talk about being the one to stay home to raise his daughter while his wife worked?  If this video had been about parenting (say, absent fathers) rather than feminism, he would have torn to shreds the argument that *women* universally need to sacrifice their careers to raise children.

      I'd like to see them take on some of his more well-reasoned material, because I know they could, but I'm not sure how many of his members can.


      QuestEon

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      Re: Stefan Molyneux and the Wax Wings Affair
      « Reply #3 on: February 01, 2012, 12:48:41 PM »
      Great find!  It will be interesting to see whether Stefan will choose to acknowledge this or try to ignore it.  Do you know where this was originally posted?  I'm wondering if those at FDR are even aware of it.
      I had a bit of an inside track on that letter. I knew it was coming although I didn't know all the signers or the exact content. So, I was able to put my article up just a few hours after it was released. Right now, it's on all of the Facebook pages of the signers, and since they are well-known/respected, it's getting liked and repeated elsewhere. Just google "An Open Letter to Stefan Molyneux and Other Anti-Feminists" (use the quotes) and you'll see that its blowing up on a bunch of sites. I suspect the backlash will be significant this time and from an audience that he has been trying to romance.

      No, I don't know if Molyneux will respond to it or how much it even bothers him (except that it might throw a monkey wrench into his plans to remold himself as a famous libertarian). I remember Cassandra once suggesting that he revels in attention irrespective of whether it's favorable or not, but I have no way of knowing if that's true.
      It isn't about winning the debate. It's about the truth.

      Thursday

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        Re: Stefan Molyneux and the Wax Wings Affair
        « Reply #4 on: February 01, 2012, 06:05:36 PM »
        On Sharon Presley's facebook alone people are coming forward to have their names added to the letter, why would a man in his position put himself under the spotlight like this? 
        I really cannot help but ask myself this question.

        QuestEon

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        Re: Stefan Molyneux and the Wax Wings Affair
        « Reply #5 on: February 01, 2012, 06:30:44 PM »
        On Sharon Presley's facebook alone people are coming forward to have their names added to the letter, why would a man in his position put himself under the spotlight like this? 
        I really cannot help but ask myself this question.


        Is that page public? Do you have the link?

        By the way, the FDR folks have started to talk about the letter. True Believers are doing damage control.  I love the way Molyneux pretends he barely knew about it...

        FDR Thread--Open Letter to Stefan Molyneux
        It isn't about winning the debate. It's about the truth.

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        Re: Stefan Molyneux and the Wax Wings Affair
        « Reply #6 on: February 01, 2012, 10:47:01 PM »
        I love the way Molyneux pretends he barely knew about it...

        FDR Thread--Open Letter to Stefan Molyneux


        I get the impression he can't even be bothered to read it, and he's just taking his understanding of it second hand. /facepalm

        Cindy

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          Re: Stefan Molyneux and the Wax Wings Affair
          « Reply #7 on: February 01, 2012, 11:45:04 PM »
          Quote
          I get the impression he can't even be bothered to read it, and he's just taking his understanding of it second hand. /facepalm
          I think that's exactly the impression he's going for.

          What I find most interesting is that not one female has responded to this thread on fdr.  Only males are weighing in on this issue.  I would be most interested to hear a fdr female's perspective on this.

          Hajnal

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          Re: Stefan Molyneux and the Wax Wings Affair
          « Reply #8 on: February 01, 2012, 11:54:23 PM »
          What I find most interesting is that not one female has responded to this thread on fdr.  Only males are weighing in on this issue.  I would be most interested to hear a fdr female's perspective on this.

          Well...I hadn't even seen this fiasco, and I was ready to leave... If I had seen it, it'd only rush me out the door sooner. He's a pretty crazy dude...

          QuestEon

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          Re: Stefan Molyneux and the Wax Wings Affair
          « Reply #9 on: February 02, 2012, 12:11:23 AM »
          Quote
          I get the impression he can't even be bothered to read it, and he's just taking his understanding of it second hand. /facepalm
          I think that's exactly the impression he's going for.
          I don't recall a time when Molyneux---while discussing one of his critics---has appeared to "remember" his/her name immediately.

          I remember when Danny was cordially dismembering UPB that Molyneux would always start the topic with something like "there's this guy on the board, Donny or something, and he..." Then Molyneux would go into a furious rant about him. I don't see how you can have that much anger toward someone but at the same time consider them so insignificant that you barely remember them.

          He can't do that with Dr. Presley, of course, so he pretends that there's no urgency to read the letter.

          At the same time, he remembers in great detail every slight received in college.

          I tend to think his "ignorance" of his critics isn't genuine.

          Quote from: Cindy
          What I find most interesting is that not one female has responded to this thread on fdr.  Only males are weighing in on this issue.  I would be most interested to hear a fdr female's perspective on this.

          Great point. I know that some of them have posted and commented on the letter on their own FB pages but they haven't yet taken their opinions into the lion's den...
          It isn't about winning the debate. It's about the truth.

          QuestEon

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          Re: Stefan Molyneux and the Wax Wings Affair
          « Reply #10 on: February 02, 2012, 01:34:48 AM »
          Crack in the dam. Eight posts into Page 2, a female member delivers an articulate pushback against what has so far been the boy's club response. It will be interesting to see who picks up the gauntlet.

          I've been doing site maintenance all evening and I'm too sleepy to think about this, but I think there is something here that puts a needle, if not a dagger, into Molyneux's psyche. He excoriates his mother for not giving him the ideal childhood he wanted. He claims to be focused 100% percent on saving the children. Does he believe that all moms should be stay-at-home moms (even though he knows he can't come right out and say it?) I wonder....
          It isn't about winning the debate. It's about the truth.

          virginia

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            Re: Stefan Molyneux and the Wax Wings Affair
            « Reply #11 on: February 02, 2012, 08:59:23 AM »
            He didn't forget Danny's name it's just that it's really awkward. It's spelled Danny but pronounced Donny. I know that because I actually went to high school with Danny. Coincidentally enough it was his critique of UPB that helped me to break away from FDR.
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              Re: Stefan Molyneux and the Wax Wings Affair
              « Reply #12 on: February 02, 2012, 10:57:24 AM »
              Quote
              Well...I hadn't even seen this fiasco, and I was ready to leave... If I had seen it, it'd only rush me out the door sooner. He's a pretty crazy dude...


              Those with grave doubts may be pushed over the brink but sadly those who are in deep are just jumping to his defence all the more.

              http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/03/confirmation-bias-scientific-evidence
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              QuestEon

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              Re: Stefan Molyneux and the Wax Wings Affair
              « Reply #13 on: February 02, 2012, 11:03:32 AM »
              He didn't forget Danny's name it's just that it's really awkward. It's spelled Danny but pronounced Donny. I know that because I actually went to high school with Danny. Coincidentally enough it was his critique of UPB that helped me to break away from FDR.
              Thinking it over, I may have to concede (for now) that my earlier implication (that Molyneux's "forgetting" of his critics' name is somewhat of an act) isn't something I can readily back up with evidence. That's just my recollection based on a bunch of podcast listening and it may be inaccurate. I know that Molyneux does make some effort to keep from mentioning names in his podcasts, a mild attempt at confidentiality, and perhaps that plays into what I've heard as well.

              Here's what Molyneux says about Danny's critique...

              Quote from: Molyneux
              There are people on the board, continually—and this fills my inbox, and so on—who condescend to me, right? And there was a guy, this guy who is doing this “Molyneux Project,” right? He’s very condescending, I find, right? I experience him as very condescending, and I find he just makes up whatever argument he wants and I don’t even need to be there, right?

              So, how is it that I don’t end up feeling diminished by that? Because they genuinely, really, and totally want to put me down. But it doesn’t happen for me.

              And it was in that—I don’t know if you’ve read the thread—where he just came down with some, to me, with some jaw-droppingly condescending stuff, right? I mean if Aristotle comes back to life, or Ayn Rand, they can condescend to me from here to the end of time, right? Or whatever. (Well, maybe not Rand, but certainly some of the real, you know, geniuses. Fantastic, you know, I’m at their feet, learning, blah, blah, blah.)

              I don’t know, that (laughing) you know, a young whippersnapper (laughing), a philosophy student is going to be the one to condescend to me in a way that’s going to be particularly believable, especially when I’ve seen the quality of his arguments, right?

              Sound anything like the guy you knew in high school?  :)

              I laughed when I heard that bit because I've rarely encountered anyone as courteous, or with arguments as well reasoned, as Danny.
              It isn't about winning the debate. It's about the truth.

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                Re: Stefan Molyneux and the Wax Wings Affair
                « Reply #14 on: February 02, 2012, 11:21:27 AM »
                Quote
                I mean if Aristotle comes back to life, or Ayn Rand, they can condescend to me from here to the end of time, right? Or whatever. (Well, maybe not Rand, but certainly some of the real, you know, geniuses. Fantastic, you know, I’m at their feet, learning, blah, blah, blah.)]I mean if Aristotle comes back to life, or Ayn Rand, they can condescend to me from here to the end of time, right? Or whatever. (Well, maybe not Rand, but certainly some of the real, you know, geniuses. Fantastic, you know, I’m at their feet, learning, blah, blah, blah.)


                Coz there's no-one living who's above him. Right?
                “Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.”

                (- Albert Camus)