Scott Adams (Dilbert) asked his readers to suggest a topic, and they overwhelmingly suggested that he write about Men’s Rights — which led him to write a piece embracing the Men’s Rights viewpoint before calling them a bunch of pussies. He does write comedy, after all.
This didn’t end well:
The short answer is that I write material for a specific sort of audience. And when the piece on Men’s Rights drew too much attention from outside my normal reading circle, it changed the meaning. Communication becomes distorted when you take it out of context, even if you don’t change a word of the text. I image that you are dubious about this. It’s hard to believe this sort of thing if you don’t write for a living and see how often it happens. I’ll explain.
[...]
Contrast my style of blogging to the most common styles, which include advocacy for some interest group or another, punditry, advice, and information. Now imagine moving my writing from the context of this blog to the context of an advocacy blog. You can see the problem. Men thought I was attacking men, and women thought I was attacking women. The message changed when the context changed. I saw that developing, so I took down the post.
[...]
I confess that I misjudged the degree of excitement this would generate. Indeed, the big fuss didn’t happen for over three weeks. I also didn’t predict that critics would reprint the post one component at a time so they could dissect it, which has the fascinating effect of changing the humorous tone to something hideous. Humor requires flow and timing. A frog isn’t much of a frog after you dissect it.Then the secondary effect kicked in, like the famous game of telephone. The second wave of critics got their meaning partly from the dissected post and partly by reading the wildly misleading paraphrasing of other critics. By this point the thing gained a whole new meaning.
Next came the labeling. Once the piece had been reprinted on feminist blogs, the “with us or against us” instinct took over. I clearly wasn’t supporting every element of the Feminist movement, and therefore I was presumed an enemy and labeled a misogynist. I was also labeled an asshole, which I have come to understand is a synonym for male.
Emotions about the piece were running high. When humans get emotional (yes, including men), our critical thinking skills shut down. In this case, the original post on Men’s Rights became literally incomprehensible to anyone who had a dog in the fight.
I know from experience that trying to clarify my opinion always turns into “He’s trying to backpedal because we caught him! Ha!” People don’t change opinions just because new information comes in. They interpret the new information as confirmation of their existing opinion.
He summarizes his view:
You can’t expect to have a rational discussion on any topic that has an emotional charge. Emotion pushes out reason. That is true for all humans, including children, men, women, and people in every range of mental ability. The path of least resistance is to walk away from that sort of fight. Men generally prefer the path of least resistance. The exception is when men irrationally debate with other men. That’s a type of sport. No one expects opinions to be changed as a result.
Are women more emotional than men? I’m not sure how you measure that sort of thing. On the emotional scoreboard, does one person’s anger equal another person’s excitement? All I know for sure is that the Men’s Rights group I poked with a stick has some irritable dudes.
He ends with his original essay.