White knights are bad in the same way as missionaries going to far off lands are bad: you're preaching a problem that doesn't exist. Going to a tribe of people who have no concept of a Christian god or his sacrificed son, telling them to believe or they are going to suffer an eternity of pain, is a way to either corrupt the people there or have yourself labeled an idiot.
Eskimo: 'If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?'
Priest: 'No, not if you did not know.'
Eskimo: 'Then why did you tell me?'
-Annie Dillard
White knights are only slightly different. They are not going off to far lands to spread the gospel. No, no, no! They are returning to familiar lands where the old gospel has died and they are looking for battles to wage over it again. They are looking for damsels to save where there are none. Damsels that are no longer damsels but women. Women who have their own agency, their own rights, and their own paths to take in life. Women no longer need a white knight to show up and save them from their place or themselves. Yet, white knights exist... why? Why is it that the knights still travel looking for someone to save?
The new feminism is why. White knights now have a new standard to carry into battle. New feminism has women as the rulers, using the white knights to do their battles. New feminism needs only swoon and cry oppression for the army of white knights to arrive. As soon as the knights have left the ivory tower, the damsels return to their thrones. White knights are being used. Chivalry is dead and feminism killed it.
Links to a variety of views as to why one can say that chivalry is dead and that feminism is to blame:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/10648415/Chivalry-is-dead-and-feminism-is-to-blame.html
http://alphamom.com/parenting/has-feminism-killed-chivalry-and-good-old-fashioned-manners/
http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/dl-opinion/four-things-feminism-has-accidentally-ruined-20140227-33kob.html
http://elitedaily.com/dating/chivalry-dead-womans-perspective/
http://whitemaleoppressor.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/chivalry-is-dead-because-feminism-killed-it/
Debatable whether that's a bad thing or not. Focusing on the issue of chivalry alone, first and second wave feminism likely did kill it and it's not that terrible of a thing. The question I have now is whether or not we're teaching the right values to men when it comes to manners versus chivalry? Are we raising our boys to still be chivalrous, in a time when it's not needed, and seeing our boys fail to get ahead because they become exploited by opportunist females? Lofty questions that might take us down some paths some will be too scared to explore.
Back to white knights. White knights are the now the pawns in this game. New feminism needs something, so it banks on second way feminism: a woman can do it herself! So she does, but she isn't as far as she'd like. Let's take... Zoey Quinn and Depression Quest. She uses are body to get press. Nothing inherently wrong with that, it's her body, her ambition, and her choice. She gets press from game journalists for her game. People ask the journalists, "don't you think that's unethical?" Journalists deflect this question to framing it as a misogynist (sleeper cell call word!) front against Quinn. White knights amass and the Quinn battle standard, creating a thick wall between the people questioning the ethics of the journalists and the journalists themselves. Unnecessary conflict emerges, creating divisions where there needn't be any. The questions about ethics are lost in the melee of comments and replies, videos, blogs, counter-posts, and idiots with too large of a stage to handle spouting off.
Quinn's case is only an example. But look at the method: victimhood used as a way to gather support of white knights, even when there is no victimization present. (Now, that's not to say Quinn hasn't be the target of excessive slander and threats. It is important, however, to ask if playing the role of a victim after the threats has protected her from further attack from those people who look for weak targets of opportunity. There is evidence that such people exist, who do not care about the issue at hand, who look to only target weak people with slander and threats--the only gain is that of the excitement and enjoyment of doing it! Brings into question the validity of the threats being issued if they are done so because it's fun to issue threats and not because there's some end goal to be achieved if the threats are not persuasive enough.) These white knights will continue wandering around until they have a battle standard. What to do? Just like everything else in life, question it. Question their intentions, what they look to get out of the fight, what the know about the fight, what they know about the people they've been co-opted to fight with, and what would it take to change their minds.
This is an unedited rant. @nrokchi
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