Milo Yiannopoulos – self-hating misogynist?

Milo Yiannopoulos – self-hating misogynist?

By Samuel Mack-Poole

“Come not between a dragon and his wrath.” William Shakespeare, King Lear ACT 1 Scene 1.

“I’m talking about men, darling.” Milo Yiannopoulos, The Big Questions Sunday 15^th March 2015

Although I am an avid follower of current events, and despite being a fan of the blogosphere, it was only recently that I had the misfortune to come across Miles Yiannopoulos. In spite of being a straight white male, I am proud to be a LGBT advocate. Moreover, it is an ethical stance I am honoured to campaign for, as it goes to show that humans can actually care about the rights of others, even one is not part of a disadvantaged group.

And then we have Milo Yiannopoulos.

Yes, old Milo is not content with being a self-hating homosexual, he feels forced¹ to deny equal rights to gay teachers, too. If his loathing for homosexual rights was merely self-applied, I would find it in my heart to empathise with him. After all, one could rationalise gay self-loathing as a symptom of wanting to belong to a homophobic society. However, Yiannopoulos is not content with his absurd cognitive dissonance; he is somewhat evangelistic about it, too. 

Whilst watching Newsnight, I saw Yiannopoulos propose that gay teachers should refrain from talking about their private lives to their students.  One must add a caveat here, however, for the sake of objectivity, as I am a teacher. Thus, whilst my blog may be polemical but evidence based, in this instance it is more credible (as I am speaking from a perspective of relative expertise) but also quite anecdotal in what I write in response to his lazy, imprecise and inhumane point.

Yiannopoulos’ exact words were “a teacher’s job is to be a fairly impartial conveyer of knowledge”. He also stated that he was “confused” about the “need” for teachers to “out themselves”.  He also stated that he wished to be a parent one day, and that he was “uncomfortable” with the idea that his hypothetical future children would one day find out about their teacher’s homosexuality.  This is not only illogical, it’s also extremely puzzling. Surely, if he does have children, as a self professed gay man, he shall be behoved to have that conversation prior to his children entering school?

My daughter, a beautiful and rambunctious young girl, asked me before starting school if two men could marry. My answer was yes. I wasn’t embarrassed at all. However, if she had asked her primary school teacher about this, I would hope that she would echo what I had said. Bizarrely, this shouldn’t upset Milo Yiannopoulos, as gay men and women have the legal right to marry in the UK, and by informing my daughter about this, the teacher would merely be a fairly impartial conveyer of knowledge.

He is guilty of ignoratio elenchi with regard to his opinions on teaching. Teachers are behoved to make children reflect about their ethical values, and part of this is embedded in family values. Most secondary school teachers are form tutors, and students will usually have a head of year. It is the role of the form tutor and the head of year to cater for a student’s spiritual**, moral, social, and cultural education. Every country in the world embeds their cultural DNA within the ethos of education.  As the UK is a country which has legalised gay marriage, and as gay rights are embedded in British law, every single school in the country, and I include faith schools in this, are obliged to reflect clear levels of respect for homosexuals.

Implicit within this acceptance is the human right a gay teacher has to speak of their love for their partner, or their children. I have talked to my students about my wife and my daughter, so why would it be remiss of gay teachers to do the same? By feeling forced to be absurdly reticent about their sexuality, gay teachers must feel that they are denying the essence of who they are to their students, and they must, as a consequence, feel that their lives are not equal to that of heterosexuals. Now, if Milo Yiannopolous wants to, set the record (dare I say it) straight on this topic, that is more than fine with me.

Now, to tackle the other part of the title of this piece, is Milo Yiannopoulos a misogynist? His attitude in conversation with women on the panel of The Big Questions wasn’t helpful, that’s for sure. The quote in reference to his comment at the top of this essay doesn’t, and can’t by its very nature as it is merely the written word, reflect his sneering tone when speaking. His comments were so inflammatory that Kate Smurthwaite felt incensed enough to comment that she was “tempted” to leave the show.

He was so rude, so vulgar to Christine Brown-Quinn, author of Step Aside Super Woman, that he fell into a fit of immature giggling – cue a super cringe from the audience – and Kate Smurthwaite was incensed, and quite rightly, too.

It is all a terrible shame, because within Milo Yiannopoulos’ contemptuous tone were some interesting points. His cited that there had been a feminisation of education, and that this had been harmful to boys. I would have to agree with this. I think gender balance is of the highest salience, and we do have a clear issue in society when the education of primary school aged children is deemed a woman’s job. What is more masculine than having a direct impact on the future? What a curious world we live in.

Nevertheless, Yiannopoulos’ point was countered by Smurthwaite most quickly – she stated that his point about boys being prescribed Ritalin was not the fault of women, but of big pharma. Personally, I see the issue as not one or the other as I don’t favour binary logic in complex matters, but as a synthesis of both; patriarchy leading to feminism leading to a dysfunctional consequence.

To personalise this experience a little further, I became embroiled in a twitter war between Milo Yiannopolous and Smurthwaite. Again, I must confess something... I am a humanist, as is Smurthwaite. I felt that her contribution to the show was great, within the debate mentioned her, as well as he contribution to apostasy, and I tweeted her as a consequence. What I wasn’t aware of was the fact that I had opened a Pandora’s Box of hatred by making such a gesture.

Twitter is a website I dislike, but it is effective as a news source, as well as networking with likeminded individuals. I dislike it because comments come out of nowhere and seem aggressive as a result. You can also be swarmed by a well-organised bunch of trolls, not keen on intelligent debate but “yah boo” politics worthy of the plebs in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. One user, claiming to be a Christian female, actually stated “Yay Patriarchy” whilst in a debate with me.

All I can conclude from my debates on twitter is that I shouldn’t debate on twitter.

Speaking of conclusions, I should refocus this piece as the end is nigh. Whilst Milo Yiannopoulos is unquestionably guilty of self-hatred in his ardent desire to make homosexual teachers deny themselves, his attitude to women is in question. I feel uncomfortable in calling him a misogynist, as I can’t state with total certainty that he sincerely hates women. Nonetheless, his manners are in question, but I think this is merely a pompous caricature. It is one he presents as he obviously has an insatiable desire for air time. Nevertheless, his attitude on The Big Questions certainly appeared sexist, and he should reflect good and hard upon this matter. Is this really the legacy he wants to leave behind?

¹I chose my vocabulary very carefully there: I feel the word choice is exact, as opinions seemed to have been forced into his mind by a society which still proposes that homophobia is acceptable.

²This part I am not comfortable with (obviously). Faith has no place in education, and although one can be spiritual without being religious, the word has a significant resonance with those who don’t value empiricism.

Good Atheist Reads – A Review of Hitch-22 by Samuel Mack-Poole

                                   

                                Good Atheist Reads – A Review of Hitch-22

                                                    by Samuel Mack-Poole

“You’re a drink-soaked former Trotskyist popinjay.” – Galloway on Hitchens.

“Eloquent, witty, literate, intelligent, knowledgeable, brave, erudite, hard-working, honest (who could foget his skewering of Mother Teresa’s hypocrisy), arguably the most formidable debater alive today yet at the same time the most gentlemanly, Christopher Hitchens is a giant of the mind and a model of courage.” – Richard Dawkins, one year before Hitchens’ death, writing in The Guardian in 2010.

Although Hitch-22 is not his seminal piece, Hitchens’ memoirs are, quite simply, a must read for any atheist worth his or her salt. I must confess that Christopher Hitchens is my favourite of the four horsemen, so any objectivity regarding this piece shall be impossible to achieve. He is a master of the written word, and his predilection for all things literary necessitates that I have a greater commonality with his style of thinking than the other three esteemed members of the non-apocalypse.

Moving towards the work, rather than the man, I found Hitch-22 to be ruthlessly honest in some ways (he is extremely up front about his homosexual experiences in his youth during his time at private school, some which were with senior members of the Conservative Party) whilst he is positively avoidant about others (his failed marriages aren’t mentioned in any detail, if at all). It is this contradiction which best epitomises Christopher Hitchens, and this is by his own admission; this is very much the major theme of his memoirs, and it had an obvious influence on his title, too.

Whilst he doesn’t write about his children or wives, Hitchens does delve into his mother’s suicide in delicate detail. I don’t doubt that the impact of a parental suicide would be extremely crushing, and Hitchens’ doting love for his mother, whom he calls ‘Yvonne’ throughout his memoirs, is obvious.  The sheer detail of information on Hicthens’ formative years is of pronounced interest to me. All the way through the earlier chapters of Hitch-22, I could imagine a handsome young chap, precocious of intellect, challenging his teachers and peers, courting controversy in a world which was remarkably different to that we live in now¹.

What was most challenging for me to read was Hicthen’s pro-war rhetoric. Personally, at the tender age of 18, I was aghast at (what I then thought to be) an imperial war. Prior to reading Hitch-22, I had watched a video on YouTube called The Mother Of All Debates, between ‘gorgeous’ George Galloway and Christopher Hitchens, and after viewing it,  the title seemed just.  What is most interesting is that Hitchens’ position is that of an anti-totalitarian socialist, and thus he supported regime change in Iraq. His arguments aren’t inspired by anything like what his detractors like to accuse him of (in essence, supporting a neo-conservative agenda).

Having visited Iraq numerous times, Hitchens was extremely coloured by his experiences in Saddam’s dictatorship. Having seen the eradication of human rights first hand, he creates an uncomfortable case for war which, whilst not leaving me absolutely convinced, certainly has led to me re-evaluating my once staunch stance on the topic.

The unavoidable topic of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses is another major theme of his memoirs, and he writes glowingly of the most vilified writer in the Islamic world. Whilst this can come as no surprise, as Hitchens was a titanic advocate for free speech, again it is his personal experience with the fatwa which makes his arguments against its vile attack on western values all the more convincing².  Given recent events, one should heed his ominous warnings on the subject of free speech, and it is a matter which I find myself in complete agreement with old Hitch.

Furthermore, his criticism of western leaders to stand by Salman Rushdie resonated with me to a great degree. When the fiasco occurred, I was but a young boy. Although I too was somewhat precocious, and I can remember watching Rushdie on Have I Got News For You on video link, and being told by my father that he had written something offensive to a religion. I was too young to fully cognise the situation, but I do remember thinking that those who had threatened him were basically simple and barbaric. My opinion, whilst now more informed, hasn’t changed at all.

On the topic of Islamic threats to western existence, Hicthens’ experience of 9/11 is also very intimate. Although he was an international reporter for much of his life, he had an uncanny knack of being in the right place at the right time when it came to events of great consequence.  However, it was this event, more than any other, which cemented Hitchens’ thought that it was Islam, not Christianity, which was the dominant and major threat to Western free-thought. Consequently, Hitchens has no time for Western Islamic apologists, and he writes most scathingly of Chomsky on this matter.

If you watch Hitchens in many of his debates, he is never violently angry. I have watched him debate many great orators, and I have not seen him lose his cool once. Nevertheless, whilst reading Hitch-22, one can really feel his genuine rancour for the events which led to the deaths of 3000 innocent people in New York.  At risk of repeating myself, this isn’t altogether surprising. He knew people who died on that ill fated day. He lived in New York. This must have had an impact on his thought, and this really defines Hitchens as a writer, a philosopher and a human being; whilst he wasn’t always objective, he was always damned convincing.

I will conclude by stating that he wrote much of Hitch-22 whilst suffering from oesophageal cancer.  Although he was staring into the abyss, he carried on, whilst not quite as normal, but bravely and authentically. As such, I recommend this book whole-heartedly; it is touching and stimulating, emotional and logical, political and philosophical, polemical and balanced.  Whilst that last sentence seems to be very contradictory, it encapsulates the mind of a man who was a genius. What is more, much like the man, Hitch-22 is dripping in enigma. Will you take a tumble down the rabbit hole, too?

¹Just  think that when he was born, in 1949, Hitchens was to grow up a world where Britain was about to relinquish its power on the world stage, where mobile phones wouldn’t exist for another forty years, and where homosexuality was still illegal under UK law.

²I can imagine if Hitchens was still alive, he would be sipping a brandy and smoking cigarettes whilst delivering acerbic attacks on the religion of peace, and feeling completely vindicated in doing so.

Something real by Samuel Mack-Poole

Something Real:

By Samuel Mack-Poole

Sometimes I just want to accept the rush of energy,
Allow it to flow through me like a symphony, in synchrony with my (half-realised) epiphany.
Oh yes, I note it down in my poetical diary!

I let my pen dance across the paper, with no control, allowing my mind to express my soul.
My sole aim is to gain fame again and again, to actualise my many goals.
If there’s no rhyme or reason to my rhyme or reason, I feel like I’ve committed poetical treason,
As if I’ve worn a coat in the summer, boiling away in the wrong season.

I just feel the aural appeal is something that instills a sense thrill if applied with skill.
I feel like rhymes can kill, if they hit on something that’s really the real deal.

Sometimes I am frightened that my writing isn’t too exciting.
Like I regurgitate fake lines, like a dull star that no longer shines.
If no one listens, I feel like I’m a piece of gold that doesn’t glisten,
Doesn’t glitter, a striker who never scores, missing sitters,
Like I’m not fit to spit bars, like my lyrics are dead, sped, done, on the run,
Limply shot from a malfunctioning gun, a broken web improperly spun,
Shunned like a lustful nun, a terrible bore; no longer fun.

But like a boxer, I use my fear to inspire rhymes to delicate ears.
So, when the moment nears, I can induce an audience to tears,
Laughs and bitter smiles, my thoughts, not caught short but inspiring, of course.
I want my poetry to be literary sauce, shake some people’s poet on it in due course.

To be quoted shall allow my ego to be bloated, so my rhymes are not only sugar coated,
But the very sugar that coats a child’s imagination away from educational stagnation.
I want my rhymes to open minds, I hope you’ll find that will happen in time.
To be celebrated, it’ll allow me to be emancipated, free from restraint, a poetical saint,
Fast, faster, super sonic, shooting stars, racing cars, high tempo, rising to a loud crescendo!
The pendulum has swung, the momentum will stun, the frantic pace and rhythm of poetry wins the race, faster than the speed of light, causing caustic fright, in spite of the fact they’re not written out of spite.

Harness that plenty, that energy of the twenty twenty to the power of infinity, escape the shadow of your sin city, of self-pity and celebrate and eat cake and have it, too, for my poetry is about celebrating you!
Yes, you, that very you who made me me, so when the bell tolls, I know it’s for a part of me because you’re a portion of my identity.

Enjoy, yes enjoy these words, smile all the while, let’s raise the mood, and reconcile!
Yes reconcile your adult self with your inner child, your inner teen, young, bushy tailed and full of dreams! Ignorant, innocent, unaware that life isn’t all it seems.

Poesis, the art of making, but what kind of poetical cake are we baking?
I’ll have catharsis and pathos, mixed with absurdity and chaos, like a man in a pink suit in the middle of Lagos.
You might think that last line was a cheap rhyme, but you didn’t listen to the rhyme about life not being what it seems, because the pink suited man is the haters gonna hate internet meme!
Give me a paper and pen, and I’ll do it again, turn the world upside down, and put humpty together again.
Unfettered, never bettered, unshackled away from mocking cackles, nurse your mind, your imagination, put pen to paper and glorify your literary creation!