This is part of a series. See part 1, part 3, part 4, part 5, and part 6. Note: links will go live upon publication.

I don’t regularly and consistently read Sigma Frame or its comments anymore, so when Jack responded to “Sigma Frame Abandons the Patriarchy” with two lengthy comments on his own blog (where, unlike me, he was never censored) rather than here (where no one has ever been banned), I had no idea that he had done so. Sometimes people will email material that might be of interest to me, but Jack’s comments flew completely under everyone’s radar. Only by sheer happenstance did I even notice his two comments while I was briefly revisiting his page for another purpose.

Jack’s first comment was a direct response to my original article. I’m sure it’s interesting, but I haven’t read it yet, only briefly skimmed it. I’ll read and respond to it in my next post.

It is Jack’s second comment that really caught my attention. There it is, in glorious bold letters in the original:

Well, if that was intended to be trolling or click-bait, he sure knows how to speak my language! Am I going to take the bait, read and respond? Absolutely I am. After all, as I wrote in “Why I Do What I Do“…

…I’m in it for the feedback, whether real or imagined. So I’m going to do what I like to do from time-to-time and respond to the comment as I’m reading it for the first time. Here we go!

This is a blanket, generalized statement. So, it is self-refuting and all that. Ho hum.

I mean, sure, this is true in a plain factual, even tautological, sort of way.

On one hand, I’m way massively better at providing citations and context than the average writer. I cite so much that the biggest criticism people make is that I cite too much.

On the other hand, they also complain that I don’t cite enough.

Like Jack at Sigma Frame, they never can seem to make up their minds. I know, because I’ve asked which one I should do and I’ve never gotten a reply.

Yes, I know. It’s why I was the one who initiated the process of adding formal citations on Wikipedia—a process repeated millions of times—and why nearly every one of my posts—including this one—contains detailed citations (especially direct quotations).

I’m the citation guy. It’s kind of my thing.

Let me say this again: people complain that I provide too much context. It’s probably the number one complaint about my writing. If I listened to the writing advice that people give me, I would have to do the opposite of what Jack suggests by reducing the context.

So, Jack’s suggestion is self-refuting and all that. Again. Ho hum. Again.

Ironically (and hypocritically?), this comment I am responding to contains zero citations to any of my (or his) writings. I guess it is

“Context for thee, but not for me.”

So, self-refuting and all that. Really? Again? Well, ho hum. Again and again.

Wait, I’m confused.

No, really. I’m confused.

Do you, Dear Reader, understand what he’s talking about? Explain it to me like I’m 16.

Whatever Jack is trying to communicate with his new and improved writing style, it is clearly not working. Perhaps he should change his writing style. Again.

Is Jack trying to tell me that in order to make my writing more understandable, relevant (as if marketability matters), and transferable, I need to add more citations? Seriously? Is he completely out-of-touch with reality?

Raise your hand in the comment section if you deeply desire that I increase the amount of citations I employ. Let me know if you hate it when I post the occasional article that isn’t riddled with citations.

Anyone?

Is anyone there?

Oh, the deep, deep irony of complaining that I didn’t read something he wrote.

Jack could have actually told me that he wrote two responses to my article. I have a comment section where I read every comment. Then, I’d actually get this memo where I’m told this very thing.

Jack did a mighty fine job trying hard not to communicate to me by writing a comment that I almost never got the chance to read, but Jack’s own readers were certain to. What was the point of that, I wonder? Was it constructive criticism or something else? Like, say, marketability?

If you actually want to communicate something to someone, do you respond to someone directly… or passive(-aggressively?) elsewhere where they may not even notice?

I guess we’ll never know.^[1]

Oh, and Jack could have taken his own advice and provided the context by providing links in his comment to all the missing “memo” stuff.

That’s self-refuting… blah, blah, blah.

For readers who may not know, the reality of my interaction with Sigma Frame—described here—was one of years of mutual back-and-forth interaction. But Jack sent me off packing to my own blog, insisting that it would be far less disruptive if I just posted on my own blog. So I did!

Then, when my blog posting skyrocketed in frequency, length, and intensity, he proved discontent with me following his explicit instructions. Since then, he’s been back here to lecture me on additional other things I must do to please him. Amazing how that works, isn’t it? So, if you want to know why I don’t take his writing advice overly seriously, it’s because it’s some combination of moving the goalposts, the trojan horse, and sealioning.

I did what he told me to do, but it’s never going to be enough until I simply submit to his will. Hilariously, he once wrote this:

Oh, telling another man to stay in his lane on his own blog? So much for respecting another man’s patriarchal rights within his domain of authority! This is exactly the level of hypocrisy that I’ve come to expect from the self-proclaimed “Christian Patriarchy.” They can give it, but they can’t take it. Everything they do works to undermine the very thing they are supposedly working for. Hence, POSIWID.

Well, I kindly ask you, Jack, to address the issues at hand and eliminate the rampant ad hominem. What say you now?

Uh, huh. Sure. Since I have not read it, I’m going to be generous and assume that the “context” of the criticism is in the first comment, rather than the second comment containing an empty accusation without context. I’ll find out later. If my assumption is wrong, then I’ll get a good laugh at Jack shooting himself with his own gun: another self-refutation and all that.

The general context is that the regular readers of my blog, where I wrote the article on my blog, understood the context of what I was writing about, because the context was the content of my blog and my audience was the regular readers of my blog.

(On the advice of one of my readers, I no longer go out of my way to make what I write accessible to the readers at Sigma Frame, as they’ve shown that nothing I say, no matter how I word it, no matter what writing style I use, could possibly penetrate the axiomatic barriers of the beliefs of the TRUE BELIEVER.)

Regarding the specific context, do you see any of them complaining about the lack of context or ‘half-baked’ tomes? No?

My readers understand that Sharkly has billed himself right here as a hero of God’s Holy Patriarchy, but he trashes patriarchy by his own deeds. That’s hypocrisy: saying one thing and doing another. They’ve seen that take place over the past 12 months right here on this very blog. The other examples I gave (e.g. the Sigma Frame article; Dalrock; Deti’s comments; the Manosphere’s response to Joshua Harris) all emphasize this one point:

The proponents of Patriarchy actively work against Patriarchy.

Is that clear enough context?

The original premise was:

“A note to Derek for improving his writings.”

So, apparently, this idea for improving my writings is for me to stop believing what I believe and to believe whatever Jack believes instead. What a novel idea! Why didn’t I think of that?

How, precisely, is me agreeing with Jack going to improve my writing? I won’t have gained any knowledge, because most of the time Jack comments on this blog it is a hit-and-run: comment, my reply, silence. Here is the context: here, here, here, and two comments here, compared to my many unanswered responses. There is no dialogue, no debate, no room to grow. Jack is perfectly willing to tell me what I must do without listening to me when I tell him what to do.

Does that sound reciprocal to anyone?

In 2024, Jack lost audience, so something wasn’t working there. Perhaps Jack’s new writing style was to blame? I could provide some writing tips, if he’d like.

(Does Jack now blame me for the recent uptick in engagement at his site due to the discussion getting “derailed” on the topic of excommunication? No? Curious!)

The flaw in Jack’s reasoning is blaming me—the messenger—for fractiousness, when I’m not the one who created the problem in the first place. I’m not the one promoting Patriarchy and then spitting on it. I’m the one who is pointing it out. If anyone wants a solution, they could start by actually acting as if they really thought Patriarchy was important, instead of actively working to undermine it.

I’m expressly not trying to create factions and divisions. But I’m not going to act as if they don’t already exist by subscribing to fake niceness (or acting as if there is agreement when the reality is that there is very little once you dig down deep). There are plenty of blogs where people are forced to be nice lest they be banned, moderated, or chased off. This isn’t one of them.

I’ve had plenty of similar debates with people on other forums. Take my interactions with Betty both here and on Timothy F. Kauffman’s blog. Those have been great. My writing style has served me incredibly well in those interactions.

See, Betty is a Roman Catholic, just like Kentucky Gent (remember my record-breaking discussion with him?). Curiously, I don’t have any of the problems with Betty that I did with Kentucky Gent and the entrenched faction at Sigma Frame (including Roman Catholic Bardelys the Magnificent) , despite myself and my chosen topic being the common factor in both. My “style” is simply not a problem elsewhere.

Remember Jack’s “Divided We Fall” where Jack lamented about the division that he himself was actively causing by making demonstrably false accusations? At some point Jack has to look in the mirror and see where the problem is, what the common factor is in all of these fractious events: Jack, Sigma Frame, and the deeply divisive people who still comment there. When I’m put in other environments—not disproportionately represented by male INTJs—civility just isn’t as big of a problem.

I’d much rather take the Professor’s tome-like, poorly-formatted responses over the foul language or and judged-to-hell ad hominem I experienced regularly at Sigma Frame. Jack has commenters who have staked a reputation on their ad hominem! Remember Info’s catch-phrase? Something like “Insert_Name_Here has a complete lack of genuine faith.” Do you think that kind of commenter—who is known for their ad hominem—contributes to unity or works against it?

I’m going to take a hard pass on the “No True Scotsman” discussion. No, thank you.

The only one I’ve claimed to espouse is my wife… (that’s a joke).

Nah, I’m not exempt. If Jack has a legitimate gripe, let’s hear it. Right here. Right now. In the comments below.

On this blog, I’ve never shied away from criticism. I only ask one thing: for people to substantiate their claims and subject them to cross examination. If Jack can’t do that, then he can keep his empty accusations to himself (or on his own blog).

Is that why he didn’t respond here, because these accusations are vacuous? There also isn’t a mob here to “support” his argument. It’s hard to “win” an argument in those kinds of conditions. Very unfair.

No, I’m not calling people “doing the dirty work” hypocrites. I’m calling people who say one thing and then do another thing hypocrites, i.e. applying the definition of a word objectively.

I used the example of Dalrock, because it is easy to understand. He refused to deadname for one reason and one reason only: he didn’t want his blog to be shut down. The company that hosted his site—Wordpress—had a higher priority than the divine mandate of God to always speak the truth. For all his Saintly Mien, his ideas were contradictory, false. He said one thing, but did another. He was a hypocrite.

Strictly speaking, I’m not even calling people hypocrites, per se, because I attack ideas and not people. I was showing that specific people are hypocrites because their actions—which are their ideas—are hypocritical. Hypocrites are the necessary result of hypocrisy. It’s not about judging whether this particular instance of hypocrisy is sin, it is about accurately describing their contradictory viewpoints as expressed in their deeds. This is why I said:

Beyond posing as illustrations, the specific identity of the hypocrites is not actually important, it’s about what they preach and how we should respond to that preaching. The real purpose of mentioning Dalrock, Sharkly, and others as specific instances of hypocrites is to provide verifiable citations to support my argument. In other words, it is to provide context. That’s the very context that Jack wished I would have provided!

I could eliminate any accusation of making personal attacks by editing the article, anonymizing every name, and removing the external citations. But that would only remove context and reduce the clarity in my writing. So stay they will.

But let’s talk about self-righteousness in light of this claim:

Self-righteous individuals are characterized by their absolutely certainty and moral superiority. They believe that they are right and that anyone who disagrees is wrong by definition.

First, most self-righteous men refuse to engage in debate, as it serves no constructive purpose. They view debate as actively hostile to unity. They prefer merely to tell people what is or isn’t true. Sometimes these are the kind of men who like to censor, condemn people who want to debate ideas, or at least strongly try to minimize the role of debate to near irrelevance.

Second, other self-righteous men may choose to use a debate format as a platform to tell people what they must believe. These people take on the guise of objectivity, but their self-righteousness is revealed in that nothing that the opposing side presents can change their view. The purpose of debate is to use it as a platform for proselytizing. If it does not accomplish this goal, it may even be discarded.

Third, what about men who use debate but are not self-righteous? These men acknowledge the limitations of their own knowledge and a lack of certitude. They see debate as the means of testing their own views, as with by fire, to see what remains. Because no man can be certain that he is correct, he must rely on others to find the errors in his reasoning. It is impossible for a self-righteous man to do this.

Jack—like Bardelys the Magnificent before him—is essentially charging me with being the second man. But to make this claim, he will have to show that (1) I think everyone else is wrong; and, (2) I do not use debate as a means of refining my viewpoints and correcting my errors. But, he cannot do this for it is clearly the case that I respond to criticism as a test of my views. This includes this very article! When people point out my errors, I correct my mistakes. This is impossible for someone who is truly self-righteous: totally correct or morally superior.

Throughout the years, I’ve been corrected on many occasions. Sometimes this is directly (e.g. someone comments on my work) and sometimes this is indirectly (e.g. I read something and discover I was wrong). Either way, I regularly update my articles to fix mistakes, and occasionally I pull down or delete posts that are irretrievably bad. This is even more comment with my comments, which are written with less editorial oversight. If I had a post as bad as Deti’s post advocating sin, I would delete it.

But, unlike the men and women who come from all walks of life (such as Gunner Q) that provide corrections, men like Jack and Sharkly almost never successfully correct me. This is either because they are unable or unwilling to refute my claims or because they are wrong. It simply never occurs to Jack that the reason I am criticizing those men is because they are actually wrong. Nor can he accept that I behave in my deeds as if, by my belief, I can and do err and do not hold all truths.

As I noted above, my style works just fine in other forums without any major difficulty. I’m able to have rational, productive discussions with people who are diametrically opposed to my own positions. The common thread with Sigma Frame is that Jack, his mob, and Radix Fidem do not engage in rational debate (and a few have explicitly expressed that they will not do so).

Jack is convinced that I think everyone must agree with me because that’s what he is insisting, not because I actually think that (I don’t). But I’m not like Jack: I’m open to considering other ideas that are not my own (e.g. see my series on the Eucharist or my series on the Trinity). I don’t require people to agree with me, only that they substantiate their claims—especially personal attacks—and subject them to analysis and critique. In other words, I insist that no one is immune to criticism.

In any case, Jack’s claim is spurious.

Now, let’s go back a bit. I said…

…but this is not always the case. You should include the high n-count men in the manosphere who love to humble-brag about how terrible their past experiences were before they saw the light, and how you should absolutely definitely not imitate their massive success with women. They are so sorry for how great it was and how amazing their attractiveness and truly epic was their prowess. I call that “doing the dirty work.”

I don’t owe Jack anything and he has no right to demand that I prove anything. He can believe whatever he wants to believe, whether it is a proof or not. If he wanted a debate, he would have debated me. If he was concerned with the truth, he would have corrected the five errors he made, or at the very least responded to them.

But, thanks for demonstrating that this retort has little or nothing to do with improving my writing. It’s all about lecturing me on how wrong I am and how I should just stop being wrong all the time.

“If only I was wrong less often, my writing would vastly improve!”

I know what my purpose for writing is. I wrote an article explaining what it is.

As noted above, the common factor in these conflicts isn’t me or this blog. My purpose for writing works just fine in other contexts.

What I write is helpful to readers, but I don’t need testimonials to sell it. It could even be helpful to Jack, if he’d allow himself to be helped by it.

Sigma Frame is not helping my readers, who are almost all castoffs from Sigma Frame. Jack is demonstrably and emphatically not helping my readers. If he wants testimonials, he can read what they have written about it over the last year or so in the comment section. They are far more critical of Sigma Frame than anything that I have written. They’ve made personal attacks.

One of the key problems with Sigma Frame is how they lambast those who disagree with them, rather than engage with and criticize the ideas they disagree with. It’s all about the people who dare disagree with them. This like what the self-righteous man does: objecting to the fact of there being a disagreement rather than addressing reason for the disagreement.

By contrast, you’ll find that —except for “Correcting Sin in the Church“—when I “lambast” on this forum, it is to harshly criticize a person’s ideas, not the person themselves. I doubt that Jack will believe me, but when I call someone a hypocrite, I have no ill will towards the person. It’s merely a reflection on the contradiction inherent between their words and their deeds, that is, their ideas. In fact, I wish them well and hope that my comment will provide insight. I understand that most people are unable to focus on ideas and not people, and so project their limitations onto me.

Take Dalrock. I understand why he cucked to his WordPress masters. It is very easy to empathize with his situation. However, whether or not he’s a good or bad person for his actions, what he did—refusing to speak truth—did not serve God. His idea—that one should cuck to secular powers over the commandments of God—is the problem here. Though Dalrock’s blog and influence fade away, his idea will always remain accursed.

Footnotes

^[1] This is not the first time this has happened. It’s an established trend, having happened multiple times.