Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Victory!

In the fight for a return to decent, sensible Catholic blogging.  So Mark Shea, who is quite the fan of Simcha Fisher, linked to a post of hers attacking - nay, assaulting - the website Pewsitters.  Now Pewsitters is obviously a very conservative Catholic site.  Perhaps traditionalists.  Maybe, as they say, Reactionary.  I don't know.  Don't visit it much myself.

Anyway, apparently Pewsitters posted a story about the young girls kidnapped by Boko Haram, in which they say they were raped.  Or admit.  Or confess.  Or whatever.  Pewsitter used the word 'admitted'.  FWIW, I wouldn't have thought twice of it.  They admitted.  They revealed what everyone feared.

Ms. Fisher went ballistic.  She unloaded with 'both barrels.'  Go to hell Pewsitters!  We know your odious hearts!   Mark joined in, praising Simcha and casting venom and loathing as well, explaining that they were in the same camp as those barbaric third world types who still feel a woman raped deserves to be blamed for having sex, even when raped.

The problem?  (I was the first to comment)  Not being a linguist, it didn't seem to me to follow there was only one way to interpret the word 'admitted', on which the entire broadside from Ms. Fisher and Mark relied.  And as such, I reminded everyone that the Catechism is pretty clear how we're supposed to approach others when in comes to interpreting things they've said.

I was quickly answered and accused of hurting my own extensive criticisms of Mark's posts and being some referee apparently.  But soon, a strange thing happened.  Even folks who don't care for Pewsitters began to scratch their heads and say, "You know, the word "admitted" might mean many things, and it could easily mean something not at all bad in this context."  A couple diehards, mostly progressive commenters on Mark's site tried to stem the tide, accusing some of being Francis haters or trying to split hairs, but more and more those posting reactions were a bit disturbed by this.  For Mark and Simcha's hatred was palpable.  Her contempt and loathing of those at the site was clear.  And yet, it was based upon something that, to be honest, I could have read twenty times and never, even with Pewsitter's other posts I looked up, concluded they were suggesting these poor girls were guilty for being raped.

The good news?  Mark pulled the post.  There's still hope.  I admit I'm not a fan of Ms. Fisher.  I'm sure she's a fine person.  But as a blogger, she spends quite a bit of time lamenting the age old lament of those other believers.  And she has no problem casting the most vile verbal assaults and accusations and labels at those she disagrees with on such things as politics, women's rights, fashion, art, you name it.  To be honest, it reminds me of caricatures of old time fundamentalists, albeit with a prolife feminist slant.  Since Mark first began praising her and her blog years ago, I've noticed a long change into what things are now.  Maybe he's just easily influenced.  I noticed a change after he began reading Leah Libresco's blog, and some others, too.  I don't know.

But in any event, he did the right thing.  This was a flat out grievous accusation, a horrid - and unless it's true, slanderous - attack on fellow believers.  Mark was right to remove his post.  I pray he does a better job avoiding such posts in the future.  Whether Ms. Fisher concedes the same and either removes the post or apologizes, we'll have to see.  But for now, at least one right thing has been done.  Kudos to Mark.  May this be the beginning of better and more careful posting in the future.

UPDATE: Sigh.  Mark reposted this.  I had hoped it was removed.  But Mark reposted with what could only be seen as a very, very slight apology.  Essentially an apology that says 'because some charitable readers insit I've judged falsely, I will officially apologize to those odious reprobates at Pewsitter.'  I did what I seldom do, and that's tell Mark about what I think about his blog on the thread.  We'll see.  Keep praying is my opinion.  Perhaps it's Mark being on Patheos.  I don't know.  I just know, as I said in my comment, that Mark's blog has become everything he used to warn against.  And that's never a good sign.

I've copied Ms. Fisher's post in case she does remove it, simply as a point of reference:





"Schoolgirl “admits” being raped?
“Admits?”
I clicked on the link, and that’s what the headline says in the original article, too. I’d say Pewsitter was just unthinkingly reproducing the headline and bears no responsibility for the outrageous implications of that word, but anyone who’s been on Pewsitter’s vast and trackless bad side knows that they routinely make up headlines that suggest whatever they want to suggest. “Admits” is the word they liked.
The hell with them."

5 comments:

  1. I also described recently how I've noticed that Mark has developed a habit of angrily sounding off on articles and people without having read them at all. I think his liberal friends pass him things, with their liberal spin, and he just flies off the handle and reposts it without thinking, since he just "knows" it's true based on his ugly confirmation bias against conservatives.

    It's most apparent on Facebook (and there are many other examples I can think of besides the two I mentioned in that comment), but you see it sometimes on his blog too.

    This case is one example. It's very unlikely that he actually read the article in question, based on his reaction. Simcha said the title was blaming rape victims, and that fits with what he wants to believe about conservatives, so that's all he needed to shoot off.

    Another example would be that time he made a fool of himself by gullibly falling for that hoax letter about the "Dark Enlightenment meeting." He'd read an article by a liberal "exposing" the "Dark Enlightenment movement," and decided that it was a real thing since it confirmed his desire to believe that conservatives are a bunch of crypto-racists. That hit piece comprised literally *all* of what he "knew" about the so-called "Dark Enlightenment movement," because he'd never actually read anything by any of the people "exposed" in it, and so was sounding off in almost total ignorance. The hoaxer apparently realized that, which made it easy for him to make up pretty much anything and have Mark buy into it (which is unfortunate, because there is *some* fairly odious stuff coming from *some* of the quarters labelled "Dark Enlightenment" by the article which Christians should be on guard against, and it does no good for them to discredit themselves gratuitously).

    Like you, I wonder what's gotten into him. Could be that he's just easily influenced, as you say, but it seems like he's only easily influenced by liberals, so it may be that he's sought them out as much as been influenced by them. It may be that his resentment over conservative support for waterboarding sparked a chain reaction of anger against conservatives and questioning of political stance that has now snowballed into complete derangement and loss of perspective. It could be serious personal problems at home. Part of me wonders if there isn't some serious mental health issue involved, given how weird and extreme his behavior has gotten in some cases.

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  2. Yeah. I don't know. I just know it isn't the Mark Shea I first met when I began visiting his blog. For instance, back in the day, personal insults or accusations would get you banned, but not content of a post. Today, I've been called things and accused of things that make my head spin, while others have been banned simply because Mark disagreed with them.

    It's worth noting that most (not all, but most) of his early readers have long moved on. Back in the day, the content of the comments was intimidating. Whatever their views, it was like a doctoral seminar. It took me over a year to pluck up the courage to post. Now, many of the comments are just straight loony.

    I mean, Dan C? Has anyone read some of what he says? But Mark hangs on his every word, and comes out swinging when people call Dan on something. Dan being one of the most partisan bloggers I've seen. Yet despite Mark's disdain for 'tribalism', Mark celebrates him time and again.

    I think you're onto something with the torture debacle. I think that, Harry Potter backlashes (which, since I've gotten through the series, at least on a moral level have some credibility), arguments over the A-Bombs, and just the general collapse of common sense during the Bush years sent Mark spiraling. Mark who is a very emotionally driven person who has always flirted with the theater/non-conformist crowd.

    As his moorings to conservative views were cut, he was increasingly drawn into those like Simcha, some of his actor friends, and others who hold to Church teaching, but are definitely hostile toward conservative views. Then he went Patheos, and there was definitely a change, almost over night.

    The more he lashed out at Conservatives, the more it fed those who were glad to see him do it, and the more they continued to feed him. Let's face it, he gets all his information about FOX from Jon Stewart. That's like getting you knowledge of Jewish customs from Goebbels.

    For whatever reason, Mark considers himself a conservative, and presents himself as such. And it isn't that he just embraced all liberal ideals. He still opposes abortion. He still believes in the Real Presence. He still rejects our modern porn culture. Many liberal Catholics do. But it's noteworthy that he only opposes gay marriage (not homosexuality in itself), is much more open to socialist theories, and the most telling of all, is willing to look the other way when he admires liberals who do promote such things (Stewart), while not giving anyone to the Right of center a break on anything.

    I couldn't begin to guess why. I just know I stopped recommending his blog several years ago. Now I just come back hoping that something will snap.

    But then, Mark also prides himself on obedience to the Church and especially the Vatican and Pope. It's not hard to see that the Church has slid a little to the Left in recent years, and that too could put him in a a position of jumping over as he has done.

    And perhaps, because for whatever reason he still wants to be Joe Conservative, it creates a tremendous stress and pressure. One that drives us readers nuts, one that his liberal followers are happy to encourage, and one that could perhaps create tension within his own thinking. I'd need to know more to speculate much further, but it's not hard to see that Mark's has become one of the least credible blogs I know, and that's a sad thing to say, given the quality and substance it used to have years ago.

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  3. Oh and is it me or does it seem like he got WORSE after his big mea culpa awhile back?

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  4. Oh yeah. Each time he posts an apology, I hope this is it, now he's going back to the way it was. Not that I always agreed with him in the day, but it was a different blog. One that I was proud to send people to who were wondering about the Catholic Faith. Now? Not even a consideration.

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