Hey, friends. It’s dude corner here to inject some perhaps unwelcome reality into your daily intake of horoscopes and ad hominem social media “takedowns”. Feeling defensive already? That’s fine. I’m completely prepared to hear you out and engage in a good-faith exchange of ideas, but before we begin please know I’m gonna need more evidence on whatever you’re about to say.
As a citizen deeply concerned about the present state of public discourse, I’m often appalled by the discussions I see happening online. Just the other day, I saw a woman tweeting about “medical racism” in a thread devoid of confirmed facts. When I innocently popped in to request sources for her serious claims, I was viciously attacked by users crying that her thread was “a retelling of a personal experience” and “how could that have sources?” and “why are you inserting yourself into this conversation?” In other words, they had no refutation of my central point.
I’m not interested in pissing anyone off, I’m just an advocate for objective truth, and for me, that means demanding women I don’t know to produce evidence to back up their lived experiences or commentary about widely acknowledged phenomena that I could easily do my own research on. Also, I’m gonna need that evidence to come from sources that I have deemed the gatekeepers of legitimacy, and no I won’t interrogate how I make that designation. It’s common sense.
I have a curious mind. I may not be interested in questioning what motivates me to argue about certain issues or with certain people, but I am interested in questioning the motivations of, for example, dozens of women who have accused a comedian I like of sexual misconduct.
So if you can manage it without resorting to name-calling or trying to cancel me, please produce some more evidence for whatever you’re about to say. And before you even try it, I’m not sexist. I’m accusing you as an individual of being irrational, hysterical, and ruled by emotions, not women in general.
Enjoy your echo chamber! I’m off to harangue people with feminine-sounding usernames in the r/philosophy subreddit.
