"Geometric logic"

They were all out to get him, but he proved them all wrong by geometric logic:



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Auster's exit from the big thread

The big thread over at Gates of Vienna was a really good discussion. With a wide range of people participating, including people who do not regularly comment at GoV. Me, Zenster and Erich were the ones at the core of the debate, upholding the main theme in the spirit of Westerner's article. The exchanges between the three of us is an example of when a debate is at its absolute best, each of us starting from different positions, thrashing over the problem until the point where we reached a general consensus on the main issues. A debate cannot be more constructive than that, and in this case about a highly important issue. Quite as in other team sports it requires that you keep the mental focus at the ball, and that you are not a thin-skinned person.

There were also several other people involved in this main discussion, of course. And there were also several different side tracks. One such side track was the exchange between Lawrence Auster and Baron Bodissey, which was developing well until at some point Auster was offended by something the Baron had written, halted the discussion and started to send several emails to the Baron demanding that he retracted the comment -- a comment that was not directed to Auster but that Auster felt could have been interpreted as being directed at him. The Baron eventually posted a clarification, but this side discussion was already derailed and never got back on track.

Instead Auster took up his attacks on Zenster. He spends five posts dedicated just for moral hissy fits and personalities on Zenster. The exchange did not move the discussion forward an inch. At this point Auster and his approach had been criticized by several interlocutors, and he decided to deem this whole discussion thread unworthy of him, and drop out. And since then he's continued his own "meta"-discussion over at his site.

I get the impression that Auster does not feel comfortable about the way he opted out of the discussion; that he doesn't feel that he managed to make his withdrawal look valid. The reason for this impression is how he has since posted 6-7 articles at his blog, groping for an angle to frame the whole thing to make his behaviour look valid; mainly different attempts at framing GoV as something objectionable in the eyes of the VFR readers. In a process eventually leading up to a point where he actually shows regret; something so unusual that it supports my impression of him feeling uncomfortable about how he handled this thing.

Auster main approach in framing the GoV community, with some help of his most zealous follower Adela G., has been in using expressions as:

• whacked-out liberal cranks
• "conservatives" who embrace moral liberationism
• loyal denizens of the contemporary liberal pop culture
• [like] the junk posted at Huffington Post or Daily Kos

USorThem described well the problem with this approach of Auster, and how it alienates many good people, who would otherwise be glad to call him an ally. (Read more about it here).

Henrik R Clausen made a more penetrating analysis of Auster spin method in this particular case: "Auster moves from the atypical sample to a judgment of not only the poster, of the entire GoV community, and even of GoV as such."

I will bring up these atypical cases in my following posts on this topic, and show how Auster uses them not only to paint GoV as a haunt of liberal cranks, but in groping for grips from other angles in order to put GoV in a negative light, in an attempt to make his own behaviour look valid. Read further...

Lawrence Auster and his ten little niggers

Auster is alienating what could and should be his allies, one by one. Geza comments about it here:

I saw this post by UsorThem and I think it sums up Auster perfectly:

"Mr Auster, I spend considerable time trying to persuade others to come around to your views on Separationism. I was booted from LGF while trying to discuss the need for muslim immigration and deportation because I believe it is the best solution to the global jihad. When I spend time at other anti-jihad websites it includes time spent convincing others to come around to the Separationist viewpoint. Your knack for pissing off almost everyone who means anything in this movement makes that chore much more difficult. But who am I to tell Lawrence Auster to cool his jets.

I see you through your own writings, no one elses. If anyone is being reckless it is you. Do I really need to go thru VFR to count and list the number of persons you have attacked without provocation. You have alienated many good people, who would otherwise be glad to call you an ally, with your writings about their hypocrisies and dishonesty, and cowardliness. That, sir, is foolish and reckless."

How prickly do you have to be to get people who are with you ideologically to turn on you? Don't you also find it ironic how Auster thinks Spencer has enough time to write articles about aspects of the Islam issue that interest Auster, yet Auster doesn't have the time to read UsorThem's serious email or even respond to Zenster's mini-survey? His personal vindictiveness and arrogance is what turns off even his most devoted followers. This is what happened with Vanishing American and John Savage.

Vanishing American's writing style was criticized at VFR and she became upset about it, and in my opinion,a little too upset. Auster clearly knew this but he could not leave it alone, he had to flog the dead horse until he could prove that his readers were right and VA was just being emotional. Likewise, John Savage, who was pretty much a faithful VFR contributor (read his posts before the whole Tanstaafl drama) became frustrated with Auster for not answering him about a question about American blacks. I believe the question was related to Separationism and how Auster favoured Separationism for Muslims but not American blacks. According to Savage, Auster was ignoring his question for a while and he had to keep resubmitting it until he got some type of response. Auster responded by dismissing his question and affirming that he is a "moral racialist", whatever that means. Savage is a smart guy and although I do not agree with him on quite a bit (he is a traditionalist but not of the Austerian variety), but his question deserved a fair hearing and it didn't receive one. However, quite recently, another contributor asked a similar question at VFR (Radical Thoughts on Race) and it received its own thread.

Auster lost two devoted allies because he simply could not drop a tiny controversy nor did he have the manners to respond to a challenging question from a devoted reader. Why did this happen? With Vanishing American, Auster had to prove that he was right no matter how trivial the battle and with John Savage, he found a huge contradiction in Austerian traditionalism which is a big no no. Auster doesn't like being reminded of how undeveloped his traditionalist ideology really is and when someone points it out, he becomes irate and drops the dialogue.

Not only does Auster make sure to burn his bridges completely with every possible pundit with an anti-Jihad stance, such as Melanie Phillips, Horowitz, Spencer, Pipes, Steyn, etc. But Auster has also made sure to alienate his former allies among smaller bloggers: Vanishing American, John Savage, USorThem, David Yerushalmi, and little me of course, etc. It's like in Agatha Christie's famous book Ten Little Niggers; they are disappearing one by one. Surely Auster still has readers left sending him interesting emails. But does he have any blogger left who is still his ally? That is not just a reader applauding him, but an opinion maker forming his own opinions? I cannot think of anyone, can you?

And soon there were none...

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