Kenan Malik – Ramblings

I follow Kenan Malik on Twitter. Decent guy, good articles, his book on my shelf reading list. I occasionally disagree, but you really can’t come across many more honest a journalist than Kenan. One of the good ‘lefties’. A Humanist. Keen on ‘justice’.

So, he wrote an article A desire for vengeance is human but checks the pursuit of proper justice, and a good one it was too.

If I had to bet any money on who’d respond to this negatively and mistakenly, I’d have thought it’s be some of the supporters of the death penalty supporters that would like to castrate painfully and then hang draw and quarter child abusers. And it’s not as if Kenan misses the natural human sentiment of rage and vengeance that such cases arouse – that’s what his article was about, separating our baser desire for vengeance for the greater utility of justice.

But, no. what caught my eye first was a diversion into RadFem writing

Here’s Kenan’s tweet of the article, and then we’re off into RadFem land

A desire for vengeance is human but checks the pursuit of proper justice | My latest column for the Observer https://t.co/mQGCse7sGd

— Kenan Malik (@kenanmalik) January 28, 2018

https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/959005421309751296

I didn’t read the piece at first, and noted only the ‘himpathy’. Instead, I noted this tweet.

https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/959039811817439232

I read Kenan’s article again. Not a sign of him defending the abuser.

And so I thought I’d have a say too:

https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/959044988230303745

What followed for a few tweets was the usual back and forth of disagreement about what was actually in the article, until I wondered if Jo had read the article. So I simply asked.

https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/959048190258483200

And that’s when it turned to ‘mansplaining’. And what you’re going to see is a deep dive into childishness (and, for the record, that opinion is not based on their gender, but on their stupidity; for there’s plenty of male stupidity to go around too – and that’s gender equality for you).

https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/959049223844089856 https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/959068358304940035 https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/959068909298208768 https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/959069015401533440 https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/959070488264892416

OK, let’s play that game …

https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/959077009354907649 https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/959077341824724992 https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/959078224981569541 https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/959078986549792771

At which point the RadFem tweets to me:

https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/959078996972638210 https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/959081761409064960 https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/959082089323941891 https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/959085859218821120

And it’s at that point that RadFem goes quiet … at least with me.

But meanwhile … back on Jo’s response to me, Kenan tries to get some sense out of the implication that jail was being argued against:

https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/959045579639869440

Perhaps you can show me where I suggested he should not have been jailed?
— Kenan Malik (@kenanmalik) February 1, 2018

No response there, either.

Did anyone else have any luck? Anshu responds to the RadFem’s tweet of her article, which at this point I still haven’t read.

I would have to disagree with you on this.
— अंशु (@anshu) February 1, 2018

https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/959017967253114881

This reply betrays a complete and utter failure to understand basic discourse and the presentation of evidence to back up claims. Anshu had said no more than that they disagree, and had not made a claim that warrants evidence.

You might think this a simple twitter wording gone astray, except that RadFem is a writer herself, and makes a splash of it in her Twitter bio – ‘bon mots’.

Nevertheless, Anshu clarifies his disagreement, which is the same point, put in other words:

The writer is not empathising with Nassar, he is just throwing light at the judge's words to show the thinning line between justice and vengeance.
— अंशु (@anshu) February 1, 2018

https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/959029107857256448

And there you have one of the skills of RadFem on display: mind readers.

And suppose he didn't use this example but used an example where it was male judge and a female defendant, or a female judge with female defendant, or female judge and male defendant.
— अंशु (@anshu) February 1, 2018

https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/959068701277540352

But you just did, you moron! You specifically analysed the hypotheitical of the judge being a man in this case and asserted this conversation would not be happening.

Well, on second thoughts, to be fair, that’s probably true. But the reason would be (engaging my own hypotheticals) that the RadFem would not have bothered to pick up the evidence against her RadFem agenda.

And that’s the bias of RadFem for you. And, just to make sure it’s clear, Kenan responds at this point:

I cannot speak for anyone else, but i would certainly have written the same article, with the same arguments, had the judge been a man or the defendant a woman.
— Kenan Malik (@kenanmalik) February 1, 2018

https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/959071097676271616

Again, blatent accusations morph into hypotheticals when the RadFem is cornered in a lie or a smear.

You were targeting my article and implying that I would not have written the same article, or used the same arguments, had the judge had been a man, or the defendant a woman. I'm pointing out that's baloney.
— Kenan Malik (@kenanmalik) February 1, 2018

https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/959073223869718528

So how do you know I wouldn’t? I know I would because my arguments are not based on the gender identity of either the judge or the defendant.
— Kenan Malik (@kenanmalik) February 1, 2018

https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/959074565816307713

I have to say that Vonny is well out of her depth here. Is she clueless about Kenan’s credentials regarding class and identity struggles?

To claim that I would not have written the article if the judge had been a man because of unconscious bias is no more plausible or acceptable than me claiming ‘You’re only criticising me because I am not white and you don't realise it because of your unconscious bias'.
— Kenan Malik (@kenanmalik) February 1, 2018

https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/959079312552013824

Oh, FFS! She really has no idea who Kenan Malik is, or she’d not be making dumb ass statements like this. But not only that, the judge is white, the abuser is white, … and he wasn’t even racist in his choice of victims. He’s an equal opportunity abuser.

This RadFem nonsense is off the rails at this point.

The profile of the RadFem @vonny_bravo:

Journalist. RadFem. Martinis, bon mots, good shoes. Writes about women & girls. @ScotNational columnist. @Guardian contributor.

We can only hope for more rationality and use of evidence in articles that aren’t as agenda driven. So, to Vonny’s article:

“Larry Nassar will die in jail. Following arguably the biggest child abuse scandal in sporting history …”

So, Vonny hasn’t heard of the UK football abuse scandals? “Writes about women & girls” – OK, maybe that’s a hint to broaden one’s horizons.

“In reporting it, too often the victim is an afterthought. The perpetrator profile, the act detailed, the woman or girl nowhere to be seen.”

I wonder if that’s because their identity is specifically protected. This was once a problem for women victims, but now this has become a problem for the falsely accused, as the recent Liam Allan, where even the police and prosecution stacked the cards against him by withholding evidence that should have seen the case thrown out long before his name became public.

And, of course, despite Vonny’s pleading, as shown in the Liam Allen case, details about the accuser are not without pertinance to the case.

“When we hear her name, it’s when a case collapses and the tabloids feast.”

Collapse? How about when they are shown to be based on lies, smears, false accusations? What about when the lying accuser at last gets some publicity? Does Vonny oppose this too?

“More often, we hear nothing unless a woman waives her right to anonymity”

So, what exactly is the complaint here? That women victims get publicity, or they don’t? Do note that the football coaching abuse scandal has male victims waving anonymity.

“She sentenced him to 175 years. A titan of a sentence, the fullest force of the law – but just one year and one month per girl when you do the maths.”

What’s she proposing? 1,750 years? 3,500 years? What point is Vonny making with the “one year and one month per girl”?

“You would think denouncing a serial paedophile would be a given in a civilised society. There’s no ambiguity about the atrocity of child abuse. And yet countless men took to the internet denounce everyone but Nassar. The girls were looking for money and attention. Aquilina was grandstanding. She was mean. The sentence was too harsh. She wears too much makeup. Where were their mothers?”

Maybe “countless *men* (no women?) took to the internet denounce everyone but Nassar” because Nassar was already denounced. Did anyone actually claim he was not guilty? After all, if there was no ambiguity.

Maybe some were curious about how he got away with it for so long. Who else was culpable – not of abuse, but of a failure of a duty of care to watch out for the girls.

Comments about the judge’s makeup were irrelevant to the case. Who exactly used that as a reason to claim Nassar’s innocence? I ask, because you can see what ‘journalist’ Vonny is doing here. She’s using spurious comments, by who knows, to form a case for the new hip term ‘himpathy’.

“Professor Kate Manne, a moral philosopher at Cornell, theorises this as “himpathy”.”

So, women don’t engage in excusing women? And when it comes to excusing men, there are an awful lot of female Trump supporters, and all the serious bad guys, like Hitler, Moa, Castro, all had their female apologists. Of course you’d expect more men and fewer women to excuse a man charged with abuse. What woman could possibly excuse him? Well, you could ask that of many religious women that seem to idolise male prophets and preachers.

“Himpathy blinkers us.”

This, in a post that was offered as response to Kenan Malik’s article on distinguishing justice and revenge, where zero support, sympathy of excuse was offered to the abuser, and not a hint of victim blaming. Blinkered is what Vonny is.

Enough of the crazy. Some sane voices:

Nice straw man argument. But let’s play this back:
You accused Kenan Malik for “himpathy” - a made up, non-existent concept of the radical 3rd wave feminist movement. I asserted that no such thing exists. You immediately concluded that my assertion was grounded in sympathy with
— 🇮🇱(((Amir Pars))) #LiveNotByLies (@AmirPars_) February 1, 2018

Kenan *because* he’s a man. You see, you have no argument or point. All you ignorant sexists have a ad hominems.
— 🇮🇱(((Amir Pars))) #LiveNotByLies (@AmirPars_) February 1, 2018

And here is that well-known misogynist and woman-hater @wmarybeard being blinded by himpathy for Larry Nassar: https://t.co/1l95E5CJuH
— Kenan Malik (@kenanmalik) February 1, 2018

If you let your ideology overcome your capacity to reason, and it prevents you simply admitting you were mistaken when accusing a particular person of something they didn’t do, and if you find you are doubling, trebling down on your position, or diverting from it entirely, then maybe you need to take some philosophy classes.

https://twitter.com/vonny_bravo/status/959067653720739841

Well, that’s a start.