Not by me, but last time I talked to my parents they had to point out how warm and sunny it is by them in Atlanta.
NOM must have really stepped up their eschatological game.
Iāve flounced back, now that the candyās all distributed.
I cannot argue with this, because it accurately reflects my reality - except for the part where he claims normality. I donāt claim to represent any norm, mean, average, or extremity. I am just me, possibly but probably not unique.
And I do prefer hugging to killing, but when Iām not hugging, I do things like hunt food animals and engage in full contact combat (armed, unarmed, armored, unarmored, Iāll do any of that if thereās no hugging or killing available). Every year or so I get together with literally thousands of men and women who feel the same way, and we all fight each other at once. Itās great! But if I could choose to be both honestly appreciated and physically intimate with a woman instead, thatās a no-brainer. For me, fighting and killingās not as good as real human physical and emotional interaction. But Iād sure rather fight than argue or dig ditches, and I never have any problem finding another person whoās ready and willing to fight.
So I canāt get real offended by Adamās statement. How do I know what is and isnāt ānormal?ā How can any of us know? Fightingās historically pretty popular with men, and killingās pretty popular with those who like to eat.
I didnāt mean to imply that, and apologize. I see now you could read what I said that way, but it was not intentional.
Normally, I read the links you offer, even if they are lengthy. But when I read someone elseās analysis of Dilbert it always makes me upset, and when I read the comics or watch the show, I chuckle at the bleak, dark humor. So I eschew the former in favor of the latter. Itās just a comic strip.
Anyone who has been āhazedā understands that psychology. In my experience people who want to flip unequal systems are far more common than the type of person who can truly equalize a system. Hopefully my experience is not representative of the human normā¦
In other words, you didnāt actually look at the context, where its normality is the entire point. If you object to the gawker review provided, fine, there is Adamsās actual post. He talks about how men talk over women in meetings because they keep talking, how we have a matriarchy where access to sex is controlled by women, and how denial of sex opportunities rather than religion is how ISIS gets men to kill. When you also consider other things he says, like the one about Clinton dropping menās testosterone by taking menās building, you find a pattern.
So I donāt think you have any reason to dismiss the other people here as imagining things. Adamsās writing has been seriously and indefensibly misogynist. And now, as per the topic of the thread, he has also gone off the deep end with this election ā claiming for instance that Trumpās racism is all imaginary, because he doesnāt see any. His twitter has an amazing series of claims that so many people calling him crazy at once is proof the Clinton campaign is out to get him personally.
It really is everything being described here and more. 2016 has given us some really strange things.
Maybe youāre not disputing that, but then, what are you saying? Possibly your point was to avoid āpolitical purity testsā, but Iām not sure thatās what anybody is doing here. Certainly Iām not going to say you should never find Dilbert funny, if itās your sense of humor, just as you can still enjoy the eldritch horrors of Lovecraft. But then you can do that and still notice the authorās writing is not as nice to everyone as it is to you, right?
And if someone canāt, say if they recognize too much of his misogyny in comics like the above to enjoy them, are you really going to fault that as insisting on purity?
Scott Adams is a professional humorist, whose body of work relies on presenting caricatures of reality that are exaggerated to the point of absurdity as though that were everyday normality.
He gives you a world where dogs talk, garbagemen build time machines, and the director of Human Resources for a multinational corporation is a sadistic cat - but nobody see this as strange. Itās completely, thoroughly deadpan, and relies on gross caricatures and stereotypes.
I find this amusing. I donāt take any of it as having meaning beyond making me laugh.
I looked at what was posted here, and I canāt state definitively that it is wrong. I am giving only my perspective, and not speaking for all men, but the idea that ānormalā men are violent and likely to do incredibly stupid things if prevented from seeking love and physical affection is not controversial to me. Having this presented as a gross stereotype in typical Adams style does not offend me.
No, but Scott Adams has always been very considerate and nice to me (even though I have only dealt with him via the Internet, just as I have only dealt with you that way) and Iām not going to sit silent while everyone else says heās Beelzebub. Heās a comic writer, and I am not the kind of person who attacks soap opera stars because I think the characters they play are real.
Iād also speak up for you, if the situation were similar. Consider me the Loyal Opposition.
I think he must be trolling. I mean, most of the stuff heās saying these days is just so over the top.
Thatās because unlike institutional sexism, sadistic cats in charge of HR departments donāt actually exist in the real world. Your argument seems to boil down to āScott Adams has always been nice to me, a man, so I donāt understand why you, a woman, are accusing him of being a misogynist just because heās said all of these unkind and discriminatory things about women, both in his comic and on his blog.ā
Thereās a part in American Splendor where Joyce Pekar says in response to Harvey saying doom & gloom is just his perspective on life and Joyce says: āAnd see, I thought I was marrying somebody with a sense of humor.ā - I think of this quote a lot these days when I think about Scott Adams. And I really feel like Joyce Pekarā¦
So you believe the āScott Adamsā who blogs is also a comic creation of Scott Adams the writer?
(a satire, perhaps?)
This here is the shit that got @shaddack banned, isnāt it?
@shaddack wasnāt talking about hunting for food, and neither is Scott Adams.
I agree.
I believed that before people started calling him a monster a jerk with terrible views on women, and I believe it still. Itās his job, the source of his income. Like Colbert, he gives us an exaggeration and distortion of his real character, I imagine.
Does anyone else remember alt.pave.the.earth or alt.chrome.the.moon? I enjoyed those, too.
Edit: Correction from @Phrenological accepted.
Edit: also @Melizmatic
Being an insufferable dickhead ā being a āmonster.ā
Spin it anyway you like; in many peopleās opinions, dude is a dick.
Well, thank you, but I actually hope you wouldnāt. I mean, speaking up for any good qualities you may have noticed, I would be grateful. But not the Trump-Pence approach where you pretend I donāt say things I say or at least I never meant anything I meant. That is to nobodyās credit. Not me, not you, not your audience.
People often call satire to excuse things like misogyny, but itās not satire to say what you mean in a humorous way. I really donāt see any indication he is like Colbert, making fun of things he doesnāt really intend, either in the works posted here or anything else Iāve read from him. When challenged he generally seems to insist on his wisdom. If itās parody, itās unusually poor, because I know he can be funny. But there comes a point where pretending to be an ass is just being an ass.
There are people who really do believe the kinds of misogyny, double standards, and conspiracies laid out here. I think a lot of posters here have experience with them, and so far, the only reason I can think to claim Adams isnāt among them is because you trust him more than you trust everyone else to recognize them. I hope your experience with him justifies it.
To add to your point, saying āitās just a comicā negates the long term psychological impact pop culture has on society at large.
āBut but, canāt you see?! He was NICE to me!ā
What? He means every word of it.
It helps to not caricature what other people say in your rush to minimize the legitimately shitty things he says. Heās a jerk with terrible views on women. Heās not a monster, but he looks up to them because heās an authoritarian and seeks out āmanly menā because he is frightened by strong women.
For serious. If what Adams is saying is āover the topā, then how does one characterize the even-more-extreme stuff being spouted by non-celebrity MRAs? Star-Trek-esque āblow out the instruments in a shower of sparksā off-the-scale? We Hunted The Mammoth is only tolerable to read because David Futrelle manages to give the Alt-Right/MRA/deplorables/etcās horrible viewpoints a good sarcastic lambasting in his posts where he takes them to pieces, and Adams is tame compared to many that Futrelle takes to task.
Problem is, a good trolley makes it just believable enough that you fall for it. I guess heās got a lot of people but heās crossed the line for me.
But unlike Colbert, he pulls this kind of shit a lot and then always falls weakly back on some variation of āooh, I wanted to provoke this reaction; it was just a social experiment; only someone as intelligent as myself could understand what I really meantā etc etc.
Satire needs to have a point, not just be the half-hearted whining of a comic writer.