Those Who Really Get It And Those Who Really Don’t

One of the things that I have noticed over the years, but haven’t really addressed in this blog, is how certain professions seem to be rather extreme in their “red pill” or “blue pill” viewpoints. By that I mean that members of this profession are rarely “in the middle” when it comes to their understanding of human nature. They either really get it, or they are completely clueless about it. The two that come to mind right away are cops and priests.

I have a few friends who are police officers, or are otherwise connected to law enforcement, plus some I know through church. And they fit this profile perfectly. There is one former cop whom I am familiar with who, to best of my knowledge, has never heard of the ‘sphere. And yet he gets women better than almost any non-Spherian I have ever met. Correct observations, correct analysis. The works.

At the same time I have encountered cops who were the biggest White Knights you would ever encounter outside works of romantic fiction. Always blame men and defend women? Check? Pretend women aren’t running wild? Check. And the list goes on. The messed up aspect of all this is that they often would make correct observations. Or at least be exposed to events which should show the truth.

With priests I have noticed the same. Some are very much attuned to “real” human nature, especially of women. And others are the biggest excusers of it that you can find.

I am curious what my readers, if there are any of you left, that is, think of all of this. What are you theories?

My own theory is that people like cops and priests, since they are exposed to the nittiest and grittiest of human behavior, can’t really ignore everything they are exposed to. They have to try and make sense of the madness of it all. But for many, the conclusions reached by a “red pill” analysis are too bitter a pill to swallow. They don’t want to accept everything that comes with a full recognition of reality. So they retreat to the mental and emotional safety that “blue pill” thinking provides. Say what you will, but that kind of mentality demands much less of a man than acknowledging the truth does. At least, that is my operative theory.

 

Incentive V. Motive Force

I recommend that my readers, if they haven’t already, read Dalrock’s two most recent posts: “Headship makes all the difference”  and “Incentives matter.” There is an important point or clarification that I think should be made here, especially with regards to the first post.

People like Gilder believe that women civilize men. Another way of putting it is that they feel that women are the motive force which pushes men to become civilized. Women push, and men are moved. This is not at all how it works.

Rather, women can act as an incentive to men to civilize. However, it is men who civilize other men. [And women too, while we are at it- but that is for another post.] And the approach used, if one wants to succeed, is always the tried and true method of the carrot and the stick.

The stick takes the form of punishment and discipline. Discipline must be taught, must be encouraged, and perhaps even beaten into a man growing up. Without it he will revert to his “factory default setting” and become a thug. [At the same time it is possible to go overboard and beat out the masculinity from a boy- in which case he doesn’t truly become a civilized man at all, as he is not a man.]

The carrot, however, can be a couple of things. Respect being one of them. Access to a good job and position in society being another. But the most powerful carrot is the promise of a woman… and with her a family. The promise of locking down a loyal woman, and the attendant sexual access that comes with it, is a powerful incentive for men. The kind of incentive which will make them endure the “stick” and become civilized.

However, as others have pointed out, that only works if the carrot is edible. When women are no longer seen as marriageable, when men no longer see them as ‘worth the effort’, then it all falls apart. Without the carrot, men won’t finish the “civilizing” process. It seems that there are two primary outcomes from this: they resist the discipline, and becomes thugs, or they  simply endure it as long as they have to and then become the so called “grass-eaters.” Either way, the fail to live up to their potential and the civilization they live in suffers for it.

This is something that used to be understood in the past. Unfortunately our society has thrown it out, along with so many other necessary bits of knowledge. As things continue to fall apart, I anticipate efforts will be made to try and address this. There might even be an effort to seek out what was lost. But I do not anticipate any actual solution happening- society won’t want to give up what it has “gained” for itself.

Trust Issues

Today’s post will tag along with my previous post, found here. It was prompted by the following comment, left by a man named Cem:

A lot of perspectives in this particular site revolve around Christianity while other RedPill venues focus on short term gains such as “bang”, “lay” etc. I want for myself to apply a moral but also sharp RedPill understanding in order to secure a marriage with a worthy girl. For religious reasons, I refrain from sex since it’s before marriage forbidden in my belief. I am Muslim and 30 y/o. That being said I study RP for more than 5 years tracing it back to the Mystery and Neill Strauss’ book, and have considerable experience of day-time pick-ups and dates. Only difference is that my efforts don’t lead to bed, as my choice. While some argue that this is not game at all, I can say that I garnered enough understanding about the ways of women (not just in intersexual dynamics but also other social areas) and that this discipline opened my naive eyes. Five years ago, I’d never have thought that taking an engaged woman home would be so easy. However, now I see every woman as a conniving covert-whores who spread their legs after enough gaming, and can’t trust any woman’s loyalty. How does a man get past this?

To begin with, I am glad to see my readers come from a variety of backgrounds. Different perspectives add a lot to the blog.

A few thoughts came to my mind after reading Cem’s comment. The first was that it was interesting to see a Muslim back up the writings/reports of secular, Christian and Jewish men (I don’t know of any major ‘spherian’s who are Muslim, if one is let me know in the comments below. The second was to note that Muslim men can, just like Christian men, choose to learn without giving into sin. The final bit was that distrust of women is universal- which really shouldn’t have been as surprising to me as it was. But enough about all that. What I want to talk about is this part here:

However, now I see every woman as a conniving covert-whores who spread their legs after enough gaming, and can’t trust any woman’s loyalty. How does a man get past this?

This is tough. Real tough. It doesn’t matter what your faith tradition is, women are still women. And when they are allowed to act as they are in the West, the vast majority will choose to use that liberty for license. That is the thing about the modern era: we have allowed women to act like they’ve always wanted to act throughout history. Women haven’t really changed, or at least, their nature hasn’t. What has changed is the social environment in which they find themselves.

This is my fancy way of saying this simple and ugly truth: Women weren’t really any more trustworthy in the past than they are now. My previous post showed some examples of 2000 year old+ thought on how far you could trust women to keep their legs shut.

So how do you deal with it? Well, here is my advice to Cem, and to other men who worry about trusting women.

• The possibility of betrayal is part of the human condition. Only God is trustworthy, everyone else can betray you and one shouldn’t be surprised to find oneself betrayed. Family, friends… it can be anyone. Accept it, and don’t let fear of it get you down. Instead vow to be stronger than your fear.
• Not every woman is a harlot. There have always been some who have showed restraint, whether in permissive cultures or restrictive ones. Even today some women don’t sleep around. The goal of any man intending to marry is to look for those women. And don’t marry if you don’t find one.
• You can reduce the chances of betrayal by being in an environment which discourages and penalizes such behavior. Stack the deck in your favor by leveraging whatever you can against her betraying you.

Will this resolve the uncertainty forever? No. But it will help give some peace of mind. The truth is that this world will always carry with it risks and disappointments. That cannot be stopped. Instead we must do what we can to get the odds in our favor.

Toxic Femininity

These days we hear plenty about so called “Toxic Masculinity.” The phrase is naturally enough a ruse- the whole point of it is to tar all masculinity as toxic. Its goal is nothing more and nothing less than to eradicate all signs of masculinity from the public sphere.

Rather than go into a full on rebuttal of this distorted thinking, I want to take a different tack today. I want to talk about the possibility of a “Toxic Femininity.”

What would such a thing be? What would it look like? How would it manifest?

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As Dalrock and many others have pointed out for years, there is a massive wave of female rebellion going on in the West. Such a rebellion has likely not been seen in all of recorded history. And this rebellion is manifesting itself in some truly ugly ways.

What I want to explore is which feminine behaviors have become toxic in the west today as a result of that rebellion. And I hope that my readers can chip in and help out too. There is a lot of truth to the old saying that many hands make light work. So hopefully my readers will offer their thoughts in the comments below.

The way I see it, there are a few steps to all of this. They are:

• Identify what constitutes female nature
• Determine those parts of female nature which either are, or can be, destructive if left unchecked
• Identify which of those are now running rampant in the West today

Some things are easy enough to identify- hypergamy, for example, is a major and obvious one. But there is more to be found. I’ve written other posts before which have covered some of these behaviors, but I want this post to be a sort of compilation of all of them. A go-to resource in the future, if you will. Hopefully it will be useful to more people than just myself.

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Examples of Toxic Femininity:

Hypergamy-

[To be updated as time passes]

 

How Hard Is It To Miss The Point?

This post is a response to Dalrock’s latest, Missing the point is hard work. In that post Dalrock pokes fun at a certain Trevin Wax of the Gospel Coalition. Mr Wax apparently was stupefied as to why young girls were taking Frozen and its song “Let it Go” as encouragement to be immoral. He was expecting a toxic message, seemingly found a decent message, and yet the toxic message seems to seep through. How can this be?

Well, let me be the Devil’s Advocate for Mr. Wax.

You see, I think the key is understanding levels of communication. As an adult Mr. Wax is picking up the (apparent) deeper message of the story. Namely that “letting go” is a disaster of an idea. This deeper message is not surface level- it requires analysis. Maybe not a lot, but analysis nonetheless. And it also requires a certain level of critical viewing skill as well. Guess what kids don’t have? Yeah, that.

The problem is that the toxic message is surface level. This is what children are picking up- especially through the music. The song celebrates rebellion, and all its accompanying sins. That is what the children listen to, that is what they sing, and that is what they memorize. They don’t do any of that for the deeper messages of the story (which I assume are present).

This is why Disney and similar products are so insidious. An adult watching them might think that the message of the story is ok- that it teaches that being rebellious and selfish and whatnot is a bad idea, and will leader to disaster. But the children are getting an entirely different message- one that is reverberated again and again, especially thanks to music.

Is all of this obvious- well, to some degree. But I suspect many miss it. A singular problem that I have noticed in my life is that many adults have forgotten what it is like to be a child. Especially parents. This only contributes to their often foolish behavior as parents. I suspect that some of this is going on as well.

But whatever else, this is how people “miss it.” It doesn’t even require willful blindness- just a healthy dose of folly and a lack of perception. And unfortunately those are in abundant supply these days.

When Compassion Becomes Divorced From Reality

Reader Michael K alerted me to this this article yesterday, and I thought it was worth remarking on. The tagline is “Beware of false compassion in implementing Amoris Laetitia.” Its not long, but I won’t quote the whole piece. Instead, here is the relevant section:

Maybe my experience is atypical. But I doubt it. Statistically speaking, men are more likely than women to remarry after a divorce. And that’s just one way in which men typically fare better than women after the breakdown of a marriage. Divorced woman are disproportionately likely to have financial problems, health problems, emotional problems. In a word, they are apt to be women in need.

If Catholic pastors adopt a more open attitude toward divorce, along the lines suggested by Amoris Laetitia, will that attitude benefit the people most in need? As a practical matter, if pastors make a special point of welcoming divorced-and-remarried Catholics, will the benefits flow to the spouses who are abandoned, or to those who abandoned them?

Since the publication of Amoris Laetitia, much has been written about women who have been abandoned by one man and subsequently formed a new union with another. For every wife who is cruelly abandoned, there is a husband who cruelly abandoned her. He, too, might feel more comfortable if the Church relaxes her traditional insistence on the permanence of the marriage bond. Should he?

…

If women typically suffer more than men after a divorce, the children of a broken home often suffer even more. What sort of message do those children receive, when they see their father, who deserted them to live with another woman, sitting in the front pew with his attractive new partner, while they huddle in the back with their mother, all dressed in second-hand clothes?

Anyone notice a possible problem with what he said?

Well, lets start with the fact that the author mentions some statistics about divorce. Specifically, about who does better afterwards. But then he stops there. No further statistics come into play. Which is a pity. Because if they were, it would help show the error in his argument.

Because from there he essentially makes the argument that men are the primary beneficiaries in divorce, and thus are responsible for the problem.  In other words, all the blame falls on them. There is this implicit assumption throughout that men instigate divorce more than women. We know this isn’t true; in fact the complete opposite is the case. Women initiate most divorces.

Furthermore, look at that final sentence. Does anyone else find that, well, questionable? I mean, has the author ever heard of child support? The truth is usually the opposite- it is the mom who enjoying her ex-husbands income, while he is making do with less- living in a smaller apartment, driving an old car and struggling with finances. Of course, not always; but there are always exceptions.

Also consider this: if mom makes the poor decision re: divorce, why shouldn’t we expect her to make other poor decisions? Decisions which end up with her in a bad financial state? Poor decision makers have a habit of making poor decisions. That is common sense- which we all know is anything but common.

This is just another example of a classic white knight in action. [If I was Rollo I would probably insert here some comment about how this Catholic is saying that loosening the  Catholic approach to the divorce should be rejected because it interferes with the feminine imperative.] Compassion is a good thing. But we must not divorce compassion from reality, else wise we end up doing more evil than good. In this case, it would be poisoning the argument against AL by using faulty examples of where it fails Catholic teaching.

Power And Control

Zippy has a new post up which demands a follow-up: With great power comes great incontinence. Short and to the point, I am tempted to repeat all of it. Instead I will merely quote what I see as the key parts. They are:

 

• The most primal power of men is violence

• The most primal power of women is sex

• [O]ur society is willing to punish crimes of violence but is not willing to punish crimes of sex

I think it should be readily apparent to all my readers, but I will repeat it all the same-

Society and Civilization can only exist when there are structures in place which control the base, primal natures of human beings. Failure to control that primal nature leads to savagery in the end, and that means chaos. Towards that end, the building and the maintenance of civilization requires that the primal nature of both men and women alike must be strictly controlled and regulated.

For men our most primal power is violence. Thus, to control our primal nature requires the strict regulation of male violent tendencies. Fail to do so, and you have disorder.

For women, their most primal power is sex. Thus, to control their primal nature requires the strict regulation of female sexual tendencies. Fail to do so, and you have disorder.

The problem right now is what Zippy notes- we regulate violence extensively, but not sexuality. The result is that women are now the primary source of disorder in the “Civilized West.” This will not change until sexuality is regulated with the same fierceness as violence is.

Unfortunately, what we see now is that efforts are being made to double down on the regulation of the male capacity for violence. And further efforts are being made to double down on the deregulation of female sexual tendencies. Rollo has a new post  where this is discussed in the context of The War on Paternity. While most previous efforts to ensure paternity in the past have been dismantled, new technology has changed the field. DNA testing means that a man really can be certain, for the first time in history, that a child is truly his. That naturally conflicts with female sexual power. Thus, it has to go. Hence we are seeing increased efforts to limit when paternity testing can take place, and when it can be used to change a man’s situation (legally, at least).

I have some more thoughts I may add to this post as I develop them. In the meantime feel free to comment below.

Just How Universal Is the 80/20 Rule?

Deep Strength had a post up a few weeks ago where he looked at how Tinder reaffirmed the 80/20 rule. The post is short, so go there to read it in full. I was not surprised by this result, in fact I would have predicted it if asked given the OKCupid numbers.  What led me to create this separate post is the following comment by Deep Strength:

The ‘most attractive’ men have a disproportionate amount of female attention and can pretty much pick and choose who to bang (if secular) or to marry (if Christian).

I happen to agree with that statement. But it got me thinking about the assumptions involved in it. What I would like to know is this:

Is the 80/20 rule truly universal? That is, does it apply to every “market?”

Tinder and OKCupid are specific markets. They cater to specific (and somewhat different) crowds. Those crows would be secular in nature, and with Tinder especially, focused on those looking for casual sex. So I would expect people to argue that the numbers apply only to those markets.

But my own experiences back up the 80/20 rule. I see which men in Christian (specifically Catholic) circles the women crush on. And it is the same handful of men. I hear this same thing from other Christian men- especially here on the sphere.

Everything leads me to believe that the rule is universal one, and doesn’t depend on the particular market in question. I invite my readers to offer their own take on this. Am a right? Wrong? Somewhere in between?

 

An Inquiry About Love

I am hoping that my Christian, and Catholic/Orthodox in particular, readers will do me a favor here. I have something I want to try and nail down, and could use help.

You see, something which is not uncommon to run across is a variation of the following notion:

Women love more than men.

Sometimes it is as simple as that. Other times you will see it as “wives love more than husbands.” Or “mothers love more than fathers.” And so on.

The point being, it is all an example of the above idea that women are more loving. Nevermind what particular notion/definition of love is intended.

What I am asking from my everyone is if there is any scripture which justifies this notion. Anything at all, please mention in the comments. And for my Catholic/Orthodox readers, are there any writings of the Church Fathers or saints which say something along these lines?

I am quite curious about this. My gut tells me this is a modern notion, something which has appeared since “Chivalry” in the west was perverted. [If I was Rollo I might say something along the lines of “feminine primacy socialization” or the like] However, I might be wrong. So I’m asking for your help here. Anything you find, just leave in the comments.

A Lofty Double Standard

Vox over at Alpha Game has a great new post up today. Post being a somewhat loose term, as it is just an image. But as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. And boy does this 1k worth of words say a lot:

 

I have seen and heard women be vicious about a lot of things. But without a doubt my experience has been that women are the most consistently savage when it comes to critiquing a man’s height. If you are of below average height… lets just say this: most women these days wouldn’t care if the average guy lived or died- but if you are short, well, many would rather you were dead.

Fortunately I’m not below average in height, much less short. But I have a lot of sympathy for men who are. A man needs to bring a lot more to the table to compete in the present SMP/MMP if his height is lacking.

Short Digression: One of the critiques aimed at my LAMPS/PSALM model was that there was no real place for height. I lumped it in with Looks, but given how much value women place in height, that moves Looks up way ahead of where I normally allocate its value. A few commenters have suggested I add Height as a separate attribute, and part of me is tempted. It is just that Looks is where it would fit naturally. Of course, in the simplified “APE” model it fits better into Appearance overall.

That aside done with, the response of the guy in that chat was the right one. There is a huge double standard out there when it comes to height. Women, for all their talk about not judging by appearance, will judge men unmercifully on that particular trait. And of course they blow up if men try and flip the tables on them. Imagine if that guy above had started by asking the woman’s weight. It would be the 4th of July. But her asking his height? Totally acceptable- or at least seen that way.

I am curious if any of my readers have been involved in conversations, discussions, debates, arguments where this particular topic has come up. If so, I would ask them to talk about how it all went. I don’t recall having been in one myself, so I am curious what would be said. And of course, I would like to prepare myself for that argument ahead of time too. So comment away if you have anything to add.