Dear Miss Dewey,
I write to you in the spirit of friendly caution over your recent Washington Post article Hunter Moore is in jail, but that just means some other despicable character is “the most-hated man on the Internet” now; I also write to you as a colleague, whose writing has appeared several times in your sister-paper The Washington Times through my interviews with Danny de Gracia, including my “2013 Predictions” article where I correctly forecasted the Syria/Iran fiasco of this past summer.
Full disclosure: I consider Danny de Gracia a good friend, and a man whose sense of ethics I find admirable. My lapel pin is a gift from him, and I endorsed him in his campaign for re-election in Honolulu. However, these interviews were the cause of the friendship – not the reverse. I did not know Mr de Gracia prior to November 2012.
Hopefully that establishes my credentials; for your own sake, it’s important that you reconsider whom you are maligning when you write.
I enjoyed the thrust of your article; Hunter Moore is a new name to me, but I know far too much about Michael Crook and Fred Phelps. Vile human beings, the lot of them, and I think you’re doing humanity a service by by offering them up for ridicule. Those people don’t deserve to be addressed in philosophical debate, they deserve to be laughed at. However, I was deeply concerned by your inclusion of my colleagues in your list. It is deeply disingenuous to include names such as Matt Forney and Roosh V in that company.
I will give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume that you fell for the libellous hype which has been put out about the men; allow me to correct your misinformation.
Roosh V writes about Game – that is, how to meet women who are looking for casual sex, and get them into your bed. Perhaps you disagree with this lifestyle, but Roosh didn’t create it – he simply explains how to cope with it. We live in a society where divorce is rampant, and the sexes are in open war – a war started by the Feminists, perpetuated by the media, and enabled by women who’d rather hear pretty lies than harsh truths. To put it simply, Dewey, women are far less feminine, far less loving, and far less chaste than they were fifty years ago – they’re also far less happy, as measured by the General Social Survey.
You say that “the website ReturnofKings.com… advocates for gender roles even ’50s housewives would balk at,” but in light of our social deterioration, is this truly such a bad thing? You then highlight three RoK articles which were written tongue in cheek, and you take them out of context – completely ignoring (for instance) my recent article on self-development and Leadership. I strongly recommend you take a second look at RoK, without the hate-filled blinders on. As a journalist it is your duty to align perceptions with reality – not distort them.
Next, Matt Forney: he is a writer who draws a great deal of controversy due to his acerbic style, and his choleric personality, so it’s understandable that Jezebel and Feministing authors would react with paroxysms upon reading his material. You’re writing for the Washington Post, however, and I expect better out of you. You criticize his article The Case Against Female Self-Esteem, but did you bother to read it? It’s been widely noted that there’s a huge problem with over-inflated self-esteem, driven by the “Everybody gets a trophy!” culture. Rather than healthy self-confidence over victories won, we have narcissistic self-esteem. His article might be harsh, but its goal is to improve the well-being of women.
Furthermore, I find it ironic that you later write:
Of course, we all know that freedom of speech has its dark side, both on and off the Internet. But the problem with Internet hate, in particular, is that current law doesn’t quite protect against it — cyberstalking statutes are weak, responsibility is hard to prove, law enforcement doesn’t understand it … the list goes on.
Had you done your due-diligence and researched Matt Forney properly, you would have discovered that he has been the target of a massive amount of online bullying. He’s received comments and tweets ranging from “I hope you commit suicide,” to “I want to cut off your testicles and murder you.” All because he dared to suggest that women ought to base their self-worth on what they’ve done, rather than the mere fact that they exist.
Tell me, Miss Dewey: if it’s good for the gander, is it not good for the goose as well? Or is it only Hate Speech if it hurts the feelings of the perpetual-victim women?
ͼ-Ѻ-ͽ
As I touched on earlier, you really ought to reexamine your journalistic ethics and your personal integrity, in light of this article. You may only be covering “social media, digital culture and other online phenomena” with your writing, but nonetheless you have an obligation to the Truth.
You are in an incredibly privileged position, Miss Dewey; few writers are given a platform as prestigious as the Washington Post, and you should be taking your responsibility seriously – not just for your own ethical well-being, but for your future as a writer.
The American public is catching on to the fact that many of their newspapers have been deceiving them; that journalists are shirking their responsibility as the “Fourth Pillar of Government.” This is the primary cause of the decline of print journalism, not the Internet. Had your colleagues been performing their duty, the newspapers would still be going strong – but the Internet is allowing the truth to get out there, and people are starting to notice that most papers are so yellow that they’re turning jaundiced.
I’d also like to emphasize that your competition – us bloggers – are not a bunch of amateurs, writing in their mothers’ basements. We are professionals - we have integrity – and we are dangerous.
Perhaps you heard about the 20/20 debacle? If you haven’t, ABC’s 20/20 planned a hit-piece on the Manosphere, which was kicked off by an utterly corrupt article written by Alyssa Pry and Alexa Valiente. Myself and a few other bloggers managed to get the episode pulled on the day it was supposed to air by merely writing the truth – and as for those two young ladies, they’ve been exposed as the corrupt hypocrites they are. Within hours of publishing my articles, their twitter accounts went to private, and forevermore when they are Googled, my piece exposing their unethical activities will be appearing next to their names.
Their dishonesty served to destroy their careers, Miss Dewey; I’d hate to see this happen to you.
In closing, I’d like to say that we’re all tempted to go with the herd – Hans Christian Anderson wrote The Emperor’s New Clothes for precisely this reason. Standing up for the truth, being that lone voice speaking against the multitude, it’s a scary proposition – but that’s what you signed up for when you became a journalist. Cowardice is no excuse, Miss Dewey, nor is laziness. Either you own your words – or your words will own you.
The truth comes out eventually – and when it does, you’d better hope that you’re on the side that’s being vindicated.
Best of luck with all your endeavours, Miss Dewey, and I look forward to reading your retraction.
Sincerely,
Davis M.J. Aurini
The post An Open Letter to Caitlin Dewey About the Manosphere and Journalistic Ethics appeared first on Stares at the World.
