I didn’t want to have to write this. I really didn’t. Unlike the other conservatives I’ve skewered, Lawrence Auster is an intellectual who I admire and respect. I don’t think it is too hyperbolic to describe him as one of the wisest conservative minds writing today. Yet, on the topic of sexuality, Mr. Auster is as ignorant as the rest of the right-wing. His comment on this Dennis Mangan post concerning my manifesto could not go unanswered:
The kind of thinking on display in this thread, in which people look at the human race in terms of “alpha male” and “beta male” and talk about organizing society along those lines, is symptomatic of a social catastrophe.
This is going to hurt me far more than it’s going to hurt you. Auster complains here that individuals such as myself want to “organiz[e] society along [the] lines” of alphas and betas. Newsflash: society has already organized men into those two groups. All the writers of the Roissysphere have been doing is relaying this fact. Acknowledging reality is not the same as endorsing it, any more than my saying “the sun rises in the east” means that I WANT that to happen.
The catastrophe results from the twin developments of biological reductionism and sexual liberation, and it consists of the reduction of human beings to competitors/commodities in the sexual marketplace.
According to the link Auster left in his comment, his objection to “biological reductionism” is based on the fact that reductionists “[are] unable to articulate and defend our civilization, because [they are] unable to articulate the things that make up our civilization, such as religion, philosophy, political science, morality.” How does stating that these things sprang from a certain social and sexual configuration based on biological realities make me and others incapable of defending Western civilization? I and other bloggers have specifically stated that the unique, provider beta-centric arrangement of the West is what made it the greatest civilization in human history and set it apart from any other society that came before. What Auster denounces as “reductionism” is the only way to understand how our society came about and what we need to do to preserve it.
It’s a vision of man and society in which there is no sense of social and cultural order, no shared vision of an inherited or higher good, but just the competing desires and needs of people conceived of as biological/sexual units.
“Social and cultural order” and the “shared vision of an inherited or higher good” are not nebulous concepts that spring up out of nowhere – they arise from practical, material concerns. If you want people to give a four-letter word about society, you have to incentivize them into doing so. Why should men have a “sense of social and cultural order” when society is actively working to keep them down? If your answer to that question is “because God/society/the church/I say(s) you should,” or some variant on that, Mr. Auster, you will lose the argument – as you deserve to.
Is this really the way you see, and want to see, other human beings? Is this really the way you see, and want to see, yourself?
To paraphrase Clint Eastwood, “want’s” got nothin’ to do with it.
Can you imagine any decent society coming out of such a vision? Do you think any civilization could ever have been created or preserved on such terms?
Oooh, oooh, I have one: Western civilization. The West was created and sustained on the terms of incentivizing beta males to work for the public good. The day that those incentives stopped is the day the betas began dropping out of society and going their own way.
When you look at the world through this reductionist, Steve Saileresque lens, you’ve already given up on humanity, you’ve given up on civilization.
My manifesto outlined a plan to restore Western civilization, sir. Where’s your ideas on the subject? Like most conservative complainers, Auster is long on explanations and denunciations but short on solutions.
And even more desolating is the impact of someone like Roissy.
When Mr. Auster was first directed to Roissy’s blog a year ago, he wrote this:
The notion that the whoremaster Roissy–for that’s what he is–has anything to offer about restoring our civilization is beyond ludicrous…
I can understand someone of conservative Christian morals being offended by a graphically-written blog about sex. But even if you disagree with Roissy’s approach, his ideas on the lapse of Western civilization into African-style savagery and sexual anarchy cannot be ignored. I don’t regard his advice of having men emulate alpha males as a complete remedy for the problem, but his prognosis is much closer to the truth then Auster has ever come. Additionally, Roissy offers solutions for men who are lost in the jungle and looking for a way out. Mr. Auster offers nothing aside from arrogant moral condemnation. If you’re unable or unwilling to help men, don’t be surprised if they ignore you in favor of someone who is willing and able.
Auster also fails to consider the underlying reasons as to how a Roissy or any individual advocating hedonism could gain a wide following. Like every other conservative who opines on this issue, he attacks the symptoms without considering the causes. The causes are unrestrained female hypergamy and the weakening of the cultural institutions that constrained such hypergamy. In a world in which women instinctively gravitate to a handful of alpha males, the only option for a beta male who wants female company is to emulate alpha behavior through game. The rise of an entire subculture of blogs and websites discussing the most efficient ways to get a woman into bed is a unique facet of our modern culture and should give conservatives pause beyond their predictable “I am SO offended” kvetching.
If Lawrence Auster was just a garden-variety conservative with a head full of platitudes and a mouth full of shaming tactics, this would be the end of this post. But since I’m a reader of his, I’m well acquainted with the depth of his foolishness on human sexuality. These two posts from last May show that Auster and many of his commenters are not only uninformed on this issue, they’re “not even wrong.”
The two threads are a discussion on the predilection young women have for thugs, bad boys, and other men whom a normal society would regard as vermin, and how these women keep getting maimed or killed by these men. Aficionados of game can answer this easily: women love socially dominant men, and thugs and bad boys are socially dominant. Bingo! Problem explained. In fact, one of Auster’s commenters, Mark P., actually says this:
Regarding your post, it’s a very good article, but I think there is a simpler answer: today’s woman/girl is attracted to thuggish, violent, high-testosterone men. These are men who are usually physically powerful and attractive to a lot of other women, so the marginal value of any single woman to them is much less. Furthermore, their high-T natures put them into contact with other high-T men where violence is inevitable.
In other words, wrestle with Rottweilers, and you will get bit.
Liberalism has not so much thrown out a woman’s common sense but it has created an environment where the attributes their grandmothers looked for in a man are no longer necessary. Society has allowed women to pursue “bad boys” and “alpha” males for excitement and sexual thrills, instead of the more stable, committed and “boring” mass of men their grandmothers went for. This is why we’re seeing a gaping maw sucking down young women.
Look at some ot the pop-culture that is out there. One of the most popular movies to date is Twilight ($390 million worldwide) This is a story about a teenage girl falling in love with a vampire. This movie encapsulates everything about young women and their choices. The vampire represents the ultimate alpha male because of his superhuman strength, speed and sexual magnetism. At the same time, this superior man finds the woman unworthy because, after all, being human, she is his food. Despite this contradiction, he is somehow attracted to her in a non-foodie way and he protects her against other vampires who don’t care for this unnatural relationship. Oh … and this complete nonsense was written by a Mormon housewife and mother of three.
In the real world, women seek the love of clearly superior men who find them unworthy, resulting in the carnage we see around us. Women are putting themselves in these situations in an effort to get what they want.
I would also disagree with the idea that somehow family is the natural state of mankind. In reality, the natural state of mankind is a mother and her children (as the feminists claim). The family, instead, is the natural state of civilization. The monogamous marriage of patriarchal control and exclusive sexual access guarantees each man a woman and thus gives hima stake in the civilization around him. This reduces one major source of conflict and allows men to cooperate more easily. In fact, this exclusive sexual access is a hallmark feature of Western Civilization and a major reason why it surged ahead against the various polygamous societies of Africa and the Middle East.
What women want today is a polyandryous society that still maintains a “Sex and the City” civilization. They somehow expect to limit sexual access to the five percent of men they find attractive while the rest toil away to make life easier and more comfortable for them. It ain’t gonna happen. Ask the women of Iran, Lebanon and Afghanistan what happened to their freedom when Western feminism was overthrown.
Another comment from Mark P.:
Aggressive, powerful men stimulate a woman’s primitive instincts. Humans have only lived within civilization for 5-10 percent of their history. 90 percent of that history was spent in stone-age primitivism, a primitivism typified by transient males and by the “family” being the mother and her children. Without patriarchy and its male investment in society, it stands to reason that human reproduction was, for a good chunk of that history, based on murder and rape. The selective pressure on this existing population probably produced female offspring who would be receptive to alpha males who were very good a killing their rivals and taking their women. For 10k years, civilization has controlled this instinct, but it has not eliminated it. With civilization breaking down, this womanly instinct is now re-asserting itself.
By the way, women despise weakness … they do not “tend” to it. Aggressive, even abusive, behavior, even behavior that leads to injury, is a mark of alpha-ness. Show me the bruised face of a battered woman, and I will show you the face of a woman in love.
Yes, I just wrote that women love their abusers … which is why they put themselves in the position of being killed. Lydia McGrew hints at this very fact when she references Theodore Dalrymple’s Life at the Bottom. Dalrymple noted the extensive number of female nurses and doctors that had thug boyfriends and the case of a woman who went back to her boyfriend after he treated her for a broken arm. In general, one can watch cops and see women who refuses to press charges against their abusive boyfriends, or Lifetime Movie Network shows about the woman who just “couldn’t leave her abusive husband.”
The most famous recent example of this phenomenon is Rihanna. Her physical abuse was widely publicized. And what did she do? This woman … a famous celebrity, considered by many to be one of the most beautiful women in the world, who is independently wealthy and would have no scarcity of suitors … went back to her abusive boyfriend. Only under massive public pressure did she even file charges against him. Occam’s razor: She went back because she loves him. And she loves him because he beats her.
Of course, neither Auster nor anyone else on the thread can deal with this. Auster’s response to the second comment:
I think Mark P. has taken an idea that has an element of truth it it and taken it too far. He’s treating sick behavior as though it were the norm.
In a dying society, “sick behavior” IS the norm.
So what is Auster’s explanation as to why women prefer violent men? IGNORANCE. I’m dead serious:
This isn’t about some wild attraction to dangerous and exciting men. It’s about pure insensibility, pure dullness, the quality of being tuned out from reality.
Funny that’s its only women who are drawn to physically abusive lovers. Are men not capable of stupidity? Any animal is smart enough to avoid actions that cause it pain, and yet the Western members of the female sex of the only sentient species on the planet can’t do the same.
Have you considered, Mr. Auster, that the two explanations are not mutually exclusive? Namely, that in the absence of social conditioning, women will blindly follow their genitals straight into the arms of violent dirtbags? Those men are socially dominant by dint of their nature, which is why women are drawn to them and why, when they get slapped both silly and senseless, they almost always go back to them. Tennessee Williams knew this. Auster doesn’t.
And then there’s a commenter, Ian B., who pulls out the tired “not all women are like that” card:
I think the main weakness of Mark P.’s theory is that he is presenting a dysfunctional minority subset of women as if they represented all women. We all know women who sleep around with a bunch of lazy thugs in their youth, before settling down after 30. But here’s the thing: most women don’t do this. Most marriages don’t involve the woman sticking her husband with bastard children from previous trysts. These normal relationships just don’t get as much attention, because dysfunctional train wrecks always attracts more notice.
Again, its funny how the population of badboy-chasing women is much larger than it was a hundred years ago, or even fifty years ago.
In general, women want a guy who will provide security and well-being for them and their children. This is undoubtedly biologically hardwired to a large degree. So women are attracted to signs of strength. Of course, it stands to reason that, regardless of the time period, the best protector and provider is going to be a guy who is both capable of violence when needs be (to protect his wife and children, not to use it against them), as well as a competent and invested provider. The majority of women understand this.
The welfare state and female economic emancipation have eliminated women’s need for a “provider,” leaving them free to pursue the “protector” at their leisure.
However, some women recognize certain signs of strength more than others. Some are primed to recognize primarily capacity for violence, and fail to be turned off by the fact that the guy is a no-account loser who is none-too-intelligent and likely to use violence mainly on her (an “alpha male” as Mark defines them). Most women aren’t like this, but there are enough of them that a thug type can usually find a few.
Because of the aforementioned factors, the primary factor a woman takes into consideration when considering a man is how sexy she finds him. The fact that many of these men are “no-account loser[s]” has no bearing whatsoever on this.
I don’t see why this requires positing some time in the deep past when violent, transient, no-count “alpha male” thugs were the ideal catch. Again, most women are not like this, just like most men are not like this. Mark describes himself as a “beta male” (which is a lot more common that the sorts of men he’s talking about). Does this mean we need to posit some period in the deep past when beta males were the dreamy ones? Human personality traits exist on a long continuum. I don’t see the need to posit particular scenarios in the deep past to account for each and every one of them.
Since when did the pre-1965 West count as “the deep past?”
Oh, btw, Mark suggests that these women stop dating thugs when they get older, and go after more reliable guys, because their looks are starting to fade. There may be some truth to that, but I think that the primary explanation is a lot more straightforward: It’s simply that people (both men and women) in general become wiser, less reckless, and more perceptive as they mature.
Yeah, older women are sooooooo wise, which is why when they end up single and infertile, they always blame men for their failure in the sexual marketplace.
Auster ends the thread with an attack on his favorite boogeyman, Darwinism:
So what is the truth? The truth is that there is a human nature, and that there are also classic distortions or derailments of human nature, which are best explained in Christian terms, as the result of sin. Darwinism is unable to explain them.
The inadequacy of Darwinism is also seen with regard to the behaviors being discussed in this thread. In reality, women are attracted to strong men because that is the female nature, period. Now this norm of female attraction to male strength also has its classic derailments, its excessive or negative expressions, e.g., being attracted to criminal brutes. But we don’t need Darwin for that. It is very clearly and satisfactorily explained by Aristotle in the Nichomachian Ethics.
There are other anti-Darwinists who recognize that the standard explanations for why women are attracted to certain types of men are wrong. What, precisely, is Auster’s issue?
The Fifth Horseman left this comment on this Roissy post:
I can’t believe how stupid social conservatives are. They are so occupied with issues that are done deals (abortion) or affect a very small number of people (gay marriage) that they fail to see this mortal threat to everything they claim to want to preserve. What idiocy.
A folk myth holds that while the Turks were laying siege to Constantinople, the Byzantines were busy arguing what sex angels were. Conservative intellectuals, including Lawrence Auster, are doing exactly that. In the case of Auster, his petty and pointless jihad against Darwinism blinds him to the real problem – the unrestrained female hypergamy that is silently bringing the West back into the Dark Ages. I have yet to see Auster or other conservatives inveigh against no-fault divorce, punitive alimony and child-support payments, or any of the misandrist laws and government institutions that have weakened beta men and empowered women to behave in socially destructive ways. They might as well be arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Because of conservatives’ collective ignorance on this topic, their efforts to turn back Western civilization’s decline have amounted to less than nothing. If Lawrence Auster and other like-minded right-wingers don’t get their act together, not only will society continue its descent into savagery, but future generations will curse them as idiots and fools who wasted their time on irrelevant side issues only to let the civilization they were ostensibly defending fall to pieces. I criticize them because I care.
For further reading, see Mr. Mangan’s response to Auster.
{ 75 comments… read them below or add one }
FB,
While your analysis and that of Roissy is essentially correct, the one problem I have is how the alpha & beta labels are tossed around. In this post, Novaseeker delves into this and articulates this better than I ever could. If you pay particular attention to Paul’s comments, his sentiments and Novaseeker’s reply approximate mine.
Now, having said that, I went back and glanced through a few of Roissy’s original posts; I wanted to get an idea of the course he was setting, so I went back to the beginning. Even Roissy himself says, in effect, that what he offers is a COPING MECHANISM for our sick society, nothing more. He then goes on to say that such sickness is unsustainable over the long run.
Vox Day, who’s a Christian libertarian, says that Roissy offers some valuable insights. Because he’s a Christian, he cannot endorse the sexual aspect of his theories, because it goes against fundamental, Biblical tenets which say premarital sex is a no-no. However, VD says, that once one gets beyond that, that Roissy offers some valuable insights about women, modern society, etc.; he says that Roissy’s theories answer questions that others’ theories cannot.
All in all, this is a good post. While I have problems with the labeling that’s used in the PUA movement, the PUAs nevertheless answer questions that others cannot. For men like Mr. Auster to understand such theories != ENDORSEMENT thereof. Also, in order to solve a problem, one has to understand the cause first; if the cause is misunderstood, the solution will not work-end of story. Have a good day now…
MarkyMark
Again, most women are not like this, just like most men are not like this.
See, the 80% of sexual acts being performed by 20% of the men tells me one thing.
Most men are like that (i.e. not deemed worthy by women) but,
Most women are like that.
And the fact that women wisen up and start choosing correctly does not change the fact that they have been in numerous harems, and that their peak is over.
About women’s choice, something interesting happened this weekend.
Was out in a bar with a female friend and a male friend.
The female is pretty open with her sexuality, and she showed me the two guys that made her wet (not in these words, but it was “ooooh he is hot”.)
I gotta tell you, those were not the most assholish, or most thuggish guys in the bar. Not the most handsome or the most manly.
Simply put:
These guys that she found crazily attractive were the two dudes that would make me puke if their arm would brush against mine.
Drunk as hell. Face of an alcoholic. Eyes red.
Yea, they were not caring what other people think (trigger of attraction), but a healthy sexual being would also take other factors into account.
Not women.
the male friend must be still on shock from that experience. At least he was, for most part of the night.
Not all women are like that.
80/20.
95/5
must tell you something.
Mark
While your analysis and that of Roissy is essentially correct, the one problem I have is how the alpha & beta labels are tossed around. In this post, Novaseeker delves into this and articulates this better than I ever could. If you pay particular attention to Paul’s comments, his sentiments and Novaseeker’s reply approximate mine.
Mark, I dont know how far the alpha terminology goes, as there are different ways of describing it.
i have two descriptions;:
Alpha defined by male
and
Alpha defined by female
In the absence of social economic support, birth control etc, these two definitions coincide.
and these are the men you see in the pictures of the previous centuries.
Leaders of men, honorable men, who were also wanted by women.
Yes, you had cads also, but life was more difficult for them.
And these leaders of men may have had harems also.
Today, the alpha definition by male still stands: leader, honor, etc
The alpha definition by female has changed (maybe not even reverted to natural, as birth control is not natural, so we dont exactly know what the natural tendencies are when women are restricted by the risk of pregnancy) so that alpha means “socially dominant”, or simply “wanted by other women”.
These two different defitinions can create a problem when one is trying to define alpha.
Alpha as defined by how many women one can bed definitely fits the female definition.
@ FB,
I’m glad you wrote this. I know it must have been hard to do because of your respect for Auster, but he is off here and it needed to be said. I read Auster for a few years because of his honesty concerning NAMs and liberalism, etc. He’s much more philosophically-oriented than most others who write on the same topics. But I stopped reading him a couple years ago because of the close-mindedness he displayed in his frequent condemnations of evolutionary theory and other science. And even though he does “get” a lot of what our current problems are, and his “Path to National Suicide” is priceless, I find him to be basically unreadable because of his proclivity to, as you say, “count the number of angels of the head of a pin.”
“While your analysis and that of Roissy is essentially correct, the one problem I have is how the alpha & beta labels are tossed around. In this post, Novaseeker delves into this and articulates this better than I ever could. If you pay particular attention to Paul’s comments, his sentiments and Novaseeker’s reply approximate mine.”
I do think that the alpha-beta labels are imperfect, but I have yet to find a credible alternative to them.
“Now, having said that, I went back and glanced through a few of Roissy’s original posts; I wanted to get an idea of the course he was setting, so I went back to the beginning. Even Roissy himself says, in effect, that what he offers is a COPING MECHANISM for our sick society, nothing more. He then goes on to say that such sickness is unsustainable over the long run.”
As I believe as well. Thing is, Roissy’s advocacy of game is an important step in the right direction. My beliefs, combining game, men’s rights activism, and traditionalist conservatism, are the result of studying each movement and appropriating the smartest ideas from each.
“Vox Day, who’s a Christian libertarian, says that Roissy offers some valuable insights. Because he’s a Christian, he cannot endorse the sexual aspect of his theories, because it goes against fundamental, Biblical tenets which say premarital sex is a no-no. However, VD says, that once one gets beyond that, that Roissy offers some valuable insights about women, modern society, etc.; he says that Roissy’s theories answer questions that others’ theories cannot.”
That was my point in linking to one of Day’s posts. An intellectually lazy individual would blame Auster’s Christian beliefs for his opposition to Roissy and game theory in general. Day, however, understands the fundamental beliefs of game theory without condoning the resultant hedonism – a distinction that Auster is unable to make.
“All in all, this is a good post. While I have problems with the labeling that’s used in the PUA movement, the PUAs nevertheless answer questions that others cannot. For men like Mr. Auster to understand such theories != ENDORSEMENT thereof. Also, in order to solve a problem, one has to understand the cause first; if the cause is misunderstood, the solution will not work-end of story. Have a good day now…”
I appreciate the kind words.
“A folk myth holds that while the Turks were laying siege to Constantinople, the Byzantines were busy arguing what sex angels were.”
So did they ever find out? What are sex angels, and how can I get my hands on one?
Seriously though, this is some epic blogging that’s making me rethink my own approach. On the topic of Auster, it’s exactly arguments like his “Christian concept of sin explains uncomfortable truths better than Darwin” that will doom any attempts to tie religion to HBD conservatism in any meaningful, intelligent way.
Christianity might be the source of some great patriarchal and moral systems, but it’s a religion, and people use religious explanations to turn off their brains. “Stop signs” are what Eliezer Yudkowsky has called them. Rather than follow an argument to its logical conclusion (or rather than refute an argument with careful reasoning), just wave your hands, toss off a couple of signaling words like “sin” and “normal” and call it a day. Lazy, lazy, lazy. And dangerous.
“people use religious explanations to turn off their brains”
A few days ago, Auster hypothesized someone’s irrational behavior was possibly caused by “demon possession”. After several readers at Unqualified Reservations voiced their concern that Auster had gone off the deep end (and that they no longer would read his blog), Auster accused them of being “close-minded” and “dogmatic” for not at least considering that demon possession was one possible explanation.
“So did they ever find out? What are sex angels, and how can I get my hands on one?”
Unfortunately, angels are as anatomically impaired as Ken dolls. (See Kevin Smith’s “Dogma.” Good movie.)
Ugh.
While you lambaste Auster for not addressing topics relevant to Western decline–no-fault divorce, punitive alimony, the welfare state, female economic emancipation, and female hypergamy–the Roissysphere prognosis of societal problems does not account for their etiology. If the supplanting of the traditional West by Leftism is to be accounted for by the hitherto unprecedented assurgence of alphas and their feminist footstools–and not explicable by an ideological shift–then what use is there in resisting this tide? How can an intellectual defense be mounted against phenomenon of polyandry when the predilections of the Austers for “arguing how many angels can fit on the head of a pin” and subtle philosophical distinctions (all the more important for countering the pretensions of the Left) is laughed to scorn by biocentrists? Biocons offer no prescriptions–save ‘coping mechanisms’–as a counterpoise to this descent into “African style savagery and sexual anarchy”, notwithstanding their abhorrence thereof. By peremptorily dismissing other conservative thought, biocons then become incapable of preserving what remains worthy in the West.
FB,
Very interesting post. I’m familiar w/Auster but don’t read him often because of the broad brush way he speaks of “NAMs”. And that tends to turn me off, given the basic stance of the Conservative blogosphere, of which HBD is at least a part of.
That said, your views wrt thugs, Chris Brown etc were on point, but I noticed in your post some other fellas taking issue w/it, and admittedly so, since the very nature of “abuse” is a red flag in our time. How about a much more “respectable” example of Hypergamy Unleashed?
Anyone ever heard of these names: Bill Clinton and John Edwards?
Now, let’s add up the facts here-
Bill Clinton, considered by most pundits on both sides of the aisle to be arguably among thee smartest politicians in American history-w/a Rhodes scholarship to back that up-was a well known hound dog well before he ever took the Oval Office. Yet, not only did Hillary put up with it all those years, but when Bill Clinton was finally forced to come clean, pardon the pun, about his involvement w/Monica Lewinsky, did we hear a little peep outta the Feminist Lobby?
To ask the question, is to answer it.
That was roughly a decade ago.
Then, earlier this year, we get word that John Edwards-a handsome, hugely successful trial lawyer turned US Senator and then Presidential hopeful-had not only conducted an affair *during the Presidential campaign*, but did so while his wife was contending w/what amounts to terminal cancer(!), AND quite possibly may have had a kid outta wedlock(!!!).
Again, did we hear just one lil peep outta the Feminist Amen Corner?
Nope-in fact, if anything, feminists fell over themselves in an effort to apologize and rationalize Edwards’ tomcatting and worse-and, as if to add insult to injury, one of Pandagon’s best well known bloggers, actually WORKED FOR THE MAN’S campaign! Surely, she had to know something was going on, since Edwards’ mistress was also working for the campaign.
Yet again, silence from the Feminists.
I remember when Gingrich was raked over the coals-rightly I thought-for basically doing the same thing Edwards did, have an affair while his wife is basically dying. At least Gingrich didn’t have a Baby Mama to add insult to injury.
And Mark Sanfords’ fling looks like a blip on the screen when compared to Clinton’s pecadiloes. But neither got any love at all from the Feminists.
Bottomline-both Clinton and Edwards were good looking, and successful guys who said all the things Women wanted to hear, and they got away w/the biggest public disses to Women in recent American history because they could-American Women lusted after them. Gingrich and Sanford, in a word, weren’t “hot”.
If anyone wants to really understand the Female Psyche, you need go no further than Bill Clinton and John Edwards, either of whom today, in 2009, could call up Pussy on Demand anywhere in the Western World, not just the USA.
Believe Dat.
Maybe somebody ought to show this to Auster and ask for comment?
The Obsidian
Very well stated, indeed!
Perhaps that “someone” who would present this argument to Auster ought (rightly) to be it’s author?
I have been reading Auster for a while, and Roissy for less long, and I have to say you’re about right. Auster doesn’t get it, and I think he’s too repelled by Roissy’s louche online persona to think very carefully about what Roissy is actually saying.
I once explained the current dynamics of dating and mating to my parents… they looked like I was describing a place on mars. They simply could not comprehend how much had changed since they got married.
Auster and a lot of other older married guys simply can’t understand because they have been out of the market for so long. You don’t get it living a bubble so far removed from younger people’s lives.
btw Obsidian: When are you going to start a blog? You post insightful comments on a regular basis that would make good fodder for blog posts.
Tarl,
Your comments over at the Mangan post on this subject were nothing short of outstanding. A book could be written based on the structure of those two posts. Your comment should be repeated over and over again:
“How often have you read about some outrage du jour and asked, “Why are people putting up with this? Why don’t people do something?” The answer is because Western men have been beta-ized, neutered, and emasculated. Absolutely no other program to solve the West’s crisis can succeed until Western men start acting like men and stop acting like betas. Thus, Roissy’s solution (men should stop being beta) is a fundamental solution.”
In fact, I’ll probably be doing a post riffing off what you stated there.
I think it’s beta to write a blog.
Western Men aren’t allowed to stop acting like betas.
It’s against the law to act like a MAN.
I wanted to slap the shit out a girl the other day for tailgating me. She was acting like an out-of-control child who needed to be severely disciplined. This is something MEN used to be allowed to do. I had to stop myself when I realized how hard the law would come down on me.
IN THE WEST, IT’S AGAINST THE LAW TO BE A MAN.
Grim, you’re right about older men not understanding. My parents are divorced, but trying to explain just the problems of divorce and why its a bad idea to get married (not even including the current dynamics of dating) is completely lost on them. You know what my parents response was? They didn’t know that many divorced people besides themselves. They started listing their married friends, but you know what they all had in common? They were all OLDER THAN 60 if not 65. In other words, they as you put are in a bubble and no matter how many facts you present they never will get it.
Ferdinand,
Thanks for bringing visibility to this issue.
The reason misandry has gotten this far in America, particularly the divorce laws, is because both lefto-faggots AND social conservatives have a hand in it. Both assume that the man is usually to blame.
There is no other group in America that has so hopelessly misdiagnosed the main threat to what their most cherished objective is. Thus, in that way, they are just as much of a problem as lefto-feminists are.
Obsidian,
While I agree with the general idea of feminist ultra-hypocrisy, the example you gave is not precise :
Bottomline-both Clinton and Edwards were good looking, and successful guys who said all the things Women wanted to hear, and they got away w/the biggest public disses to Women in recent American history because they could-American Women lusted after them. Gingrich and Sanford, in a word, weren’t “hotâ€.
As we know, looks have little or nothing to do with what makes a man ‘Alpha’ or not. Virtually none of the top PUAs are good-looking guys. Sanford is arguably a better looking man than Bill Clinton, and as a Governor, is high status. He groveled like a Beta, which is why he got skewered. Democrats like Elliot Spitzer got skewered too, but feminists are far more interested in party-line partisanship than anything else. If Mark Sanford switched parties today, no feminist would ever condemn him again.
Look at how no feminist came to the defense of Carrie Prejean, when she was mistreated by Perez Hilton (the fame of whom itself show how the West is no longer worth saving). Why? Because Carrie Prejean was right-wing (even if her position is the same as about 70% of the US population).
In the VFR entry you quoted from a year ago, in which Auster was first directed to Roissy’s blog, I’m the Jacob M. who alerted him to its content.
Needless to say, my views have changed somewhat since then. I’ve learned some important things from the seduction community, and realized that they have discovered things which are essential to understanding some of the crucial problems in our society. I’ve seen that the art of seduction is morally neutral and can be used for good or evil. I still can’t really get behind Roissy’s blog, beacuse of its moral nihilism and frequent pornographic content. I don’t even read it regularly anymore; instead, it’s been useful to me primarily as a pointer to other sources, as you’ve alluded to.
I don’t think you’re giving Auster quite enough credit. I think he’s halfway there. In one of the other entries you linked, several of us recommended F. Roger Devlin to him, and he started to read him. Also, he took exception to a reader’s claim that he didn’t care about no-fault divorce. It’s unrealistic to expect a guy like him to read Roissy’s blog, what with all the graphic, pornographic descriptions of sex, including vignettes from his own bedroom, which occupy at least as much space as the social commentary. Heck, it’s almost too much for me; the only reason I was willing to keep an open mind long enough to stick around and become interested in the seduction community is that I had reached a point of such desperation for female companionship in my own personal life. I think Auster knows the issues you’re discussing are problems; he just isn’t aware of their importance relative to other problems (hence, his lack of any substantive discussion of no-fault divorce despite remarking offhand that he opposes it.)
With more F. Roger Devlin and other serious social commentators, he could come around to our point of view. Better to encourage him to read more sober writers who understand and explicate these issues, than waste time chastening him for avoiding dissolute rakes like Roissy.
There is no utility in correct diagnosis of the malady when what the rot is symptomatic of is left ignored and unexplained. Yes, hypergamy and misandrist laws are rampant–what of it? in terms of a resolution, what the problem is at present is insignificant compared to how it came to be. The ‘what’ of it is of lesser importance than the ‘why’. I have yet to read a biocon blogger who has outlined the developmental process of the leftist politics to which they are hostile. In all fairness, this renders the biocons as inefficacious as those social conservatives who err in their eyes. They are as mere accumulators of data who do not–whether for lack of ability or inclination–point to a more pleasant political vista. Pointing at polyandry and feminism, writing reams about their pernicious characters, and then shrugging at the prospect of counteracting these insidious infestations leaves the West in no better condition. Auster and others are doubtless aware of this tendency among biocons to act in the manner of factual news reporters and not opinionated molders of policy and whose ambivalence might as well make them Leftists when it comes to reversing radicalism. How does Auster not ‘get it’ when all that biocons can do is diagnose but not cure?
A few days ago, Auster hypothesized someone’s irrational behavior was possibly caused by “demon possessionâ€. After several readers at Unqualified Reservations voiced their concern that Auster had gone off the deep end (and that they no longer would read his blog), Auster accused them of being “close-minded†and “dogmatic†for not at least considering that demon possession was one possible explanation.
“Both Satanists and Christian fundamentalists are closer to seeing the truth than most normal people. Something IS going on, but it’s not what they think. The Beast is staring out from each pair of eyes you see. Each glance in the mirror is the story of this world…” -C.S.H.
P.S. I also wanted to give props to Tarl for his work on the Mangan thread. You were really kicking ass and taking names over there, man.
So is there a chance we can make sure Auster gets to read this?
Publicly calling out and shaming Social Conservatives may be an effective strategy. If a few see the light (improbable but not impossible), that is good too.
How are both Social and Fiscal Conservatives NOT fighting against the current divorce laws? The divorce laws are not just misandric, but very left-wing in philosophy (‘no-fault’ alimony, the poorer has to be supported by the richer, etc.)
How do they NOT see the forest from the trees?
Ferdinand, thanks for doing this. Please continue to call out specific Social Conservatives. Also, write a bit more about how the current divorce laws (which get revised in secret, without any chance to vote on it, or vote for/against people who change these laws) are the antithesis of conservative principles.
If they get riled up enough, the light may dawn on a small fraction of them.
The cats out of the bag and it ain’t never going back.
TFH,
You make some very good comments that merit a response:
“Bottomline-both Clinton and Edwards were good looking, and successful guys who said all the things Women wanted to hear, and they got away w/the biggest public disses to Women in recent American history because they could-American Women lusted after them. Gingrich and Sanford, in a word, weren’t “hotâ€.”
TFH: As we know, looks have little or nothing to do with what makes a man ‘Alpha’ or not. Virtually none of the top PUAs are good-looking guys. Sanford is arguably a better looking man than Bill Clinton, and as a Governor, is high status. He groveled like a Beta, which is why he got skewered. Democrats like Elliot Spitzer got skewered too, but feminists are far more interested in party-line partisanship than anything else. If Mark Sanford switched parties today, no feminist would ever condemn him again.
O: Good point-however, we have to keep in mind that Clinton is regarded by virtually all of those very same top PUAs you referenced, as a “natural Alpha” and had, in addition to status and good looks, the *traits* associated w/Alphaness, which includes his denial of being involved w/Lewinsky, and then when caught his equivocating on the matter. Sanford on the other hand had no such Alpha traits in evidence, if anything, his sniveling press conference just made him look very, very weak.
Moreover, I would challenge the partyline/feminist thing w/two words: Ronald Reagan. He was a good looking Man, even in his later years, and unapologetically divorced his first wife before Nancy came along, and I cannot recall feminists ever savaging him the way they did Gingrich or Sanford. And if you notice, Reagan also had “natural Alpha” traits-look at how he pawned both Carter and Mondale in the debates for example, the way he handled Gorbachev, etc, et al. In fact, I would argue that Reagan had far and away more natural Alphaness than the Kennedys combined.
TFH: Look at how no feminist came to the defense of Carrie Prejean, when she was mistreated by Perez Hilton (the fame of whom itself show how the West is no longer worth saving). Why? Because Carrie Prejean was right-wing (even if her position is the same as about 70% of the US population).
O: I also suspect it was because CJ was a very, very good looking Woman; in other words, she was “Sarah Palined”.
Oh, and if Grim’s reading along, if all goes well the blog will be up and running sometime this Fall. Inshallah. ;)
The Obsidian
Wrote a related post:
Inevitable Doom of Human Civilizations
It’s not so much that, I think, but rather that the West may very well be, in reality, beyond being preserved. The philosophical conservatives have lost the debate, as a practical matter, as a casual look around us clearly indicates. That intellectual train has left the station, and there is no going back at this stage. All the conservatives can do at this point is slow the train down — they can’t stop it entirely or turn it around. Conservatives were prominent in US government for almost 30 years from 1980-2008, and in that period feminism and the related social catastrophe proceeded apace, aided and abetted by conservatives themselves, and actually picked up steam. The Roisysphere and the biocentrists are merely people who are realists about the current situation, and ones who are offering men in particular usable coping mechanisms.
Absolutely, Grim. My mother (79 now) is still in the “most women are looking for nice men who are good providers” mode of thinking. When I explain to her that, no, women are providing for themselves and are looking for sexual and emotional excitement when they select men, she refuses to believe me. I think the reason for that is that the change is, in fact, so radical from what she grew up with in the 40s and 50s that it truly is like living on a different planet.
Again, as I pointed out above, there is no ideological cure. You’ve lost. The train has left the station. All you can do now is slow it down.
Sound like defeatism? Not in the least. It’s realism. The ugly truth is that ideological conservatives — who have had their “aye” in the government over the past 30 years — have done nothing but further the feminist agenda and the attendant social catastrophe. Why? Because they are powerless amidst the protean strength of what was unleashed in the 60s and 70s — nothing less than the pure, raw, unrestrained force of completely unregulated and (with the consequences unnaturally removed via abortion and contraception) female sexuality. That protean force is simply much, much more powerful than any ideology, including the feminist one which unleashed it. Many second wave feminists would be appalled at the current sexual culture, and many have written about how they are — but they, too, are powerless to stop it. They created a Frankenstein, and that Frankenstein is stronger than any political ideology.
Gone as the intellectual train may be, biocons have a marked inability to articulate the process that fueled it and sped it onwards while also having the temerity to denounce other conservatives for getting the remedy for the current malaise wrong. If philosophical conservatives lost the debate, why do so many in the steveosphere disposed towards conservatism? If conservatism’s philosophical integrity was battered and beaten beyond repair, how is it that so many hearken back to its precepts? If Leftists and Neocons totally triumphed, would not these very blogs be non-existent since all would unabashedly subscribe to radicalism? I still think it is worthy to examine the ideologies, intellectual arguments, and cultures that set us on this course. Philosophical conservatives at least have recourse to this approach and can refute the Left’s pretensions; biocons can only point at the decline with disgust, which is salutary but no cause for them to claim philosophical conservatism as vacuous.
Why is the solution to the West’s crumbling social dynamic offered by the seduction community always so female-centric? “Women are now looking for this, so we must learn to give it to them.” Human societies are patriarchal, necessarily so. If the root of the problem is female hypergamy, women’s economic/sexual independence, isn’t that really the same thing as saying, given the fundamental patriachal nature of human society, that men are the root of the problem by having allowed this to happen? And thus, the solution isn’t for “beta” males to learn to be “alpha” but for men to collectively undo what we permitted to happen. Men set the standards in society, it is men who ultimately decide what’s acceptable behavior and what isn’t from both men and women.
Men set the standards in society, it is men who ultimately decide what’s acceptable behavior and what isn’t from both men and women.
Actually I don’t think It’s quite that simple. Women have set the boundaries of their own sexuality long before second wave feminism. Women were primarily the ones who slut shamed, the ones who taught their daughters and grand-daughters how to behave sexually and so on. In the places on earth where FGM is practiced, it is a tradition among *women* to do so. Exercising sexual restraint benefits women in a situation where a lot of women do not wish to become promiscuous, because a rampant increase in promiscuity lowers the value of sex (the price, if you will) for all women. What has happened in our culture, by contrast, is that the culture of women places a much higher emphasis on female sexual fulfillment, in and of itself, than it does on keeping the price of sex relatively high. As a result, women are deploying sexual access to compete with each other in the often futile attempt to gain a commitment from the same small number of alpha males that they are competing over. That hurts women, seen in a rational light — but we are not dealing with rationality here, but a culture which places sexual gratification as the highest value (or close to it) for women, combined with the typical wishful thinking that “I will be the woman to make him commit”.
men are the root of the problem by having allowed this to happen? And thus, the solution isn’t for “beta†males to learn to be “alpha†but for men to collectively undo what we permitted to happen.
In order to do that, you’d need to take away female suffrage. I don’t see that happening anytime soon, do you?
Novaseeker,
You may be right to a certain extent about women self-regulating their behavior in years past, but doesn’t this claim contradict the seduction community’s iron law that women are amoral? Besides, I’d contend that whatever self-regulation was in fact taking place, was taking place under the watchful eye of the ultimate arbiters, society’s men.
You say:
“In order to do that, you’d need to take away female suffrage. I don’t see that happening anytime soon, do you?”
Well, ending muslim immigration isn’t going to happen soon but real conservatives talk about it all the time and understand that the Islam problem cannot be solved in any real way without doing so. The seduction community is fond of saying over and over that the root problem is female economic/sexual independence and so if these alpha males PUA world were truly brave and objective thinkers then they’d the see the obvious solution is to roll back female economic/sexual independence rather than accomodate ourselves to it and enable the destruction of civilization.
A further thought: If the Western world is filling up quickly with these hapless, sexually frustrated beta males then it should be easy to build a large enough political coalition to effect these changes.
Every society gets the government it deserves.
I don’t think Roissy disagrees with the root cause being female sexual and economic independence, Andrew, but he thinks — and I agree with him on this — that as a practical matter “rolling back” these things is not feasible. You would need women to play ball politically, and as a practical matter, that isn’t going to happen. Women are not going to vote in support of these rollbacks.
Forming a political coalition against them is rather unlikely as well. Why? Because men are divided on these issues — riven with division, in fact, as threads like this one demonstrate. This is also the reason why the so-called men’s rights movement has never really gotten off the ground — men are divided on these issues, and will likely *always* be divided on issues that concern men/women, to a much, much greater degree than women are.
So it’s against that backdrop that Game comes into view and people like Roissy become popular. Sure, you can argue that people like Roissy should pour their efforts into political activism for changes that rollback these destructive forces, but do you seriously think feminism can be politically rolled back at this stage? I don’t. As a result, I really don’t see any alternative that is realistic beyond letting the civilization collapse under its own weight, and be ready to try to direct the aftermath. With women having the vote, those kinds of rollbacks will not happen in the political arena at least.
Why is the solution to the West’s crumbling social dynamic offered by the seduction community always so female-centric?
Because, the seduction community doesn’t offer a solution to the West’s crumbling social dynamic. They offer a solution to the problem of how to get laid.
Roissy != the seduction community. It’s understandable that Sailerites/HBDers have taken an interest in Roissy’s blog, but they keep making this mistake of thinking that he is representative of the seduction community. He’s not. The seduction community has almost nothing to say about feminism, no fault divorce, anti-male family law, and the changes these have wrought in society, and it’s not concerned with saving Western Civilization. It’s concerned with men learning how to get women attracted to them. Period.
I’ve said it many times before: if you want to understand the seduction community, you need to read sources other than Roissy. He’s a fringe member and it’s very much non-mainstream-seduction-community to connect the teachings of pickup to the issues discussed on this blog. Mystery, Neil Strauss, David DeAngelo, Tyler Durden, and the rest of them are all very interesting, but they don’t concern themselves with these issues.
Novaseeker,
If you’ve already given up, why do you bother keeping score? Do you really expect us to allow the silly contingent of our women (a growing portion) to stand between us and the restoration of our civilization? Is that acting “alpha”? I’m sorry, but I cannot go there. In your conception of the situation, it is women who form a unified, organized phalanx of resistance and the men who form a squabbling, wandering, amorphous blob easily divided and defeated (sounds beta to me). I cannot agree, the history of civilization says differently. This is why I say the seduction community leads to a black hole of despair and nihilism, notwithstanding their understanding of certain aspects of female physchology. This is why I say someone like Roissy ultimately has no solution to our crisis but someone like Lawrence Auster does.
“With more F. Roger Devlin and other serious social commentators, he could come around to our point of view. Better to encourage him to read more sober writers who understand and explicate these issues, than waste time chastening him for avoiding dissolute rakes like Roissy.”
Never hurts to nudge a guy in the right direction.
Hermes,
Thanks, you are correct. I’ve been using Roissy and seduction community interchangeably. I suppose my real target are those who think Roissy and the seduction community offer real solutions, and that includes Roissy. I can’t countenance that.
Andrew –
I’ll be waiting to cheer you guys on when it happens, but I don’t expect there will ever be anything to actually cheer on.
Go ahead and tilt at your windmills. I have not heard one realistic, politically achievable thing from the mouths of conservatives on any of these issues. But go ahead and surprise me.
novaseeker,
Political change is necessarily contingent upon a people’s belief in the possibility of change. I don’t what know what else to say.
Why are you complaining about this supposed societal descent into savagery? That’s what I just don’t get.
The antidote to the descent into African-style savagery is for non-savage men to brutally and sadistically suppress avatars of that savagery, which, primarily means the offspring of those men.
Women always end up following a male leader, although there is no one absolute definition of male leadership. If the current crop of what is defined as beta where brutally suppressing the thugs, and I’m talking about what Caesar did to the pirates, public torture, crucifixion, forced abortions of their seed, etc. then you’d be re-establishing and redefining alphaness.
The trump card of today’s beta is the ability to cooperate and restrain the instincts enough to conquer the enemy.
Shawty want a thug! Redefine what thus is, be the thug, just in a radically different way.
I’ll be there.
Either you don’t understand Roissy’s purpose or you’re being disingenuous. The premise of Roissy’s blog, and he has stated this repeatedly, is that his advice is meant as a means of dealing with the situation the way it is, and not as it should be.
In a world where men are increasingly at women’s mercy–in the dating market, on the job, in legal matters–the appropriate response, according to Roissy, is to regard them only as sexual instruments and nothing more. No affection, no commitment.
Again, this is not the way he (or I) would prefer things to be, but it is the only way to make the best of a bad situation. As one of his commenters once put it, sick advice for a sick society.
No, that’s not the way it will happen (and I have had this argument with Whiskey elsewhere). There simply won’t be a men’s political movement because those who would participate in it would be shamed (“you can’t get laid”, etc.) and men are trained to, well, take it like a man without complaining.
The fact that any individual man can’t get laid is, in fact, his own problem (as it was mine for many years). The fact that large numbers of men are not getting any is the deliberate result of public policy choice made by loud women, but it will never be recognized.
Eventually patriarchy will be re-established as the cuntified society dies out and is replaced by those groups far more likely to circumscribe the choices cunt are allowed to make in their lives–Muslims and Mormons.
One of the things people miss out on with this stuff: it’s all happened before in human history. It certainly happened in Rome and Persia. There should be an article in Taki’s mag about this soon.
One of the amusing scenarios is that it is the patriarchal barbarians who generally win. I’m guessing in North America that will be the Mormons. They also have the most guns and survival gear.
I’m guessing in North America that will be the Mormons. They also have the most guns and survival gear.
hmm.
patriarchal barbarians usually play offense, though. if the mormons only play defense, they may not be able to deal with more spirited incursions.
on the other hand, pure fecundity may be sufficient to guarantee the mormons’ role as a major player on the world stage for eons to come.
I cannot agree, the history of civilization says differently.
wrong.
the history of civilization – or, more properly, the history of de-civilization – clearly points antiparallel to the direction in which you’re facing.
throughout ALL known historical examples, the societal empowerment has led to a uniformly downward trajectory, which has ceased only at the point where that female-empowered society was extinguished by another society that had the sense to keep women (and men) in their proper places.
no society has ever recovered from empowering its women.
not one.
think about it.
i meant “the societal empowerment of women“
Conservatives were prominent in US government for almost 30 years from 1980-2008, and in that period feminism and the related social catastrophe proceeded apace, aided and abetted by conservatives themselves, and actually picked up steam.
I don’t agree. Conservatives had a brief period of prominence in the early 1980s, but have not had any meaningful policy influence since then. The “conservatives” who have been prominent in the USG since 1980 have largely been interested in national security and economic issues, not gender relations, which have been completely conceded to the liberals.
What ideological conservatives, and what positions did they hold?
I don’t think any of the “conservatives” who have held office in the past 30 years have had “gender relations” as their portfolio. They’ve always been focused on “more important” things. I am doubtful that anyone could get elected, or confirmed by the Senate, if they announced that their goal was to reverse the social pathologies that feminism has inflicted on us since the 1960s. Nothing would mobilize an army of enraged liberals faster than such an announcement, and conservative support would be lackluster.
I am doubtful that anyone could get elected, or confirmed by the Senate, if they announced that their goal was to reverse the social pathologies that feminism has inflicted on us since the 1960s.
definitely no white person.
and, yeah, of course they wouldn’t be confirmed if they explicitly announced such a goal, just as no feminist would be confirmed if she explicitly announced that her goal was to steal all of men’s power, influence, and wealth and transfer it to women.
this is as obvious as the day is long.
it would have to be done stealthily. just as the decidedly un-equal ideology of feminism has gained ground under the doublespeak of “equality”, the reactionary policies of which you speak would have to be cloaked in some sort of silver-tongued disguise.
also, it’s possible that a very charismatic black or latino candidate could successfully run for office on such a platform.
this is america, where race trumps everything else. a black man with the views of thomas sowell and the magnetism of barack obama could easily make large strides in the right direction.
But Tarl, that is the point. There were conservatives in power during that period. Reagan/Bush 41 80-92, then Buh 43 2000-2008, Congress from 1995-2002 and so on. I am well aware that they have conceded the floor on gender relations — that’s my point. You know as well as I do why they did so: attacking feminism in political terms is a death sentence. But you can’t pretend that conservatives have not had their political “aye” in the last 30 years — that’s just rewriting history.
We’re kind of saying the same thing in different ways, I think.
Conservatives have had no impact at all on the feminist freight train. I do not think this is because they would not like to — articles aplenty have been written about it in conservative publications throughout the last 30 years. There has not been the political will, however, for conservatives to do anything, in practical terms, because of the fact that it is not politically feasible in the least.
As a result of that, conservatism is not particularly relevant as a political voice on these issues — sad to say, but it’s true. The feminists have consolidated their revolution. At this point upending it would require nothing short of a counter-revolution, and there is certainly no appetite for that, not least among conservatives, who tend to shy away from such concepts as revolution to begin with.
So in theory would this be possible? Sure. But in practice? Extremely unlikely. For the conservatives to take on the aftermath of feminism (other than a few key areas like abortion which they can use to motivate their base) as a priority political issue would require a social change to support that — otherwise it’s political suicide. And frankly there isn’t consensus among conservatives about the legacy of feminism. Many conservative women embrace quite a few feminist values while criticizing others. And other conservatives support, perhaps unwittingly, feminist ideas when they support the system of chivalry and women-biased family laws and so on based on traditionalism (the feminists have run circles around them in this regard, very deftly using conservative support for some of their own female-biased positions, knowing chivalrous conservatives will support the same ideas).
Again, show me conservatives who are viable politically who have taken on these issues in any meaningful way.
Yup.
The critical source on this is J.D. Unwin’s “Sex and Culture”.
sestamibi,
you say:
“Again, this is not the way he (or I) would prefer things to be,”
I don’t believe this. Roissy seems perfectly content with things as they are. There is no aching in his tone, only sinister joy over his exploits.
“The premise of Roissy’s blog, and he has stated this repeatedly, is that his advice is meant as a means of dealing with the situation the way it is, and not as it should be. ”
Roissy’s blog has in his banner section the sentence: “Where pretty lies perish.” Roissy’s blog is thus from the very beginning presented as a portal of truth yet he despairs of the West, declaring plainly over and over that decline is inevitable. This is a lie. He’s constantly advising what men SHOULD do and thus can’t claim to be abstaining from making normative statements about the way things should be. He wants us to give in and accommodate ourselves to the situation. He is thus a cancer on the West and civilization.
sestamibi,
You’ve already given up. Why do insist on trying to spread your despair? You think Western men don’t have it in them to resist and overcome? The men who are the progeny of the greatest civilization builders in history? Beta.
johnny five,
When I said that history says differently I was challenging novaseeker’s characterization that women, rather than men, are the primary force that moves civilizations. It is men who fight for, build and maintain civilization providing an environment for our women to bear and rear our children upon whom we can pass on our traditions and culture. Men are the ultimate arbiters of society, this was my point.
Concrete hows and wherefores rather than wish thinking, Andrew.
Physically assaulting someone for tailgating you is thuggish behavior. Do you not get this? This blog is for NON-THUGS.
If your definition of “being a man” is being able to treat women like a rented mule, you may want to try your luck with the Taliban. I hear they’re hiring…
You have to think it before you can do it. The doing is the just the details. Nevertheless, start small. Get your own house in order first, then worry about your family and neighbors and so on.
Those who oppose Auster, in this and the related current threads, take the basic position that the secular, liberal, libertine worldview that has caused women to behave like whores is a cosmic given, as unchangeable as the rotation of the Earth. This (allegedly) being so, they counsel beta males to “game†the system, i.e. manipulate women into bed. Since one cannot “game†a woman into traditional virtue and traditional marriage, “getting some†is the best that one can hope for.
Maybe in the short term, but shouldn’t real conservatives set their sights higher? After all, the founding fathers of the contemporary secular liberal order faced an entrenched conservative order even more formidable than today’s liberal status quo; in the old days, heretics and traitors were formally ostracized or killed. And yet, beginning in the aftermath of the Wars of the Reformation, liberalism waged a successful, more than three-hundred-year long campaign to take over Western Civilization.
Consider: within the lifetimes of many of you reading these words, it would have been considered absurd that one day, most people would voluntarily submit to racial quotas, the glorification of homosexuality, environmentalism leading to restrictions on consumption, and the rest of the liberal order. One hundred years ago, the establishment of the current Empire of Liberalism would have seemed as absurd as the restoration of traditional society currently seems to the “GameCons.†But since the former happened, the latter is certainly possible.
And consider: The GameCons also counsel that we fight against the laws that maintain the current unjust sexual order. Well and good, but how will these laws be overturned unless the thinking that maintains them in place is overthrown from its position of authority over society? And how will this thinking be overthrown unless conservatives oppose it in the arena of intellectual combat? And how will conservatives enter the arena unless they begin by being fully convinced, in their own minds, that the current order is false? This last is the real meaning of Auster’s controversial counsel:
…that we say NO to the prevailing values of the liberal order and that we keep saying no, that we never accept them inwardly, even while recognizing the fact that they exercise effective control over society at present and that we may need to accommodate ourselves to them to a certain degree in our external interactions with society.
[end of excerpt]
Conservatives, therefore, ought to fight for (or at least support) the restoration of proper morality and social ethics. And, conversely, conservatives who deride the hope of this restoration may actually be liberals posing as conservatives.
This discussion reminds me of the remarks Hayek makes about conservatism in his essay “Why I am Not A Conservative”. Therein he remarks quite well that conservatism is good at slowing the pace of change but rather poor at effecting change itself, being a perspective that views radical changes as problematic. I realize that since Hayek wrote that essay, conservatism has morphed into several varieties, including some varieties that embrace radical change, provided such change is restorationist in nature. However, the success of this, other than in terms of incremental reforms, has been quite limited when compared with the success of the liberal juggernaut. I think that is, in part, because conservatism doesn’t offer a vision of the future, but merely the idea of restoring the past. That will always appeal to people who are not beneficiaries of the current social order, or who feel that the changes that happened in the last several decades are detrimental to themselves or perhaps more generally, but in very general terms, a restorationist programme holds a limited appeal to the broader public absent substantial social mayhem (e.g., Weimar Germany).
So while it’s possible that conservative intellectuals could, in a few centuries, turn the tide the way liberals did over the past few centuries, I would submit that the pace of change today is so much greater, that this timeframe is no longer available. And the suggestion that generations of men should become de facto martyrs to the cause of conservative restorationism is similarly unrealistic. It just doesn’t hold that much attraction to people for them to sacrifice their lives (sexually, relationally and so on, because that is what is being asked) for some rather uncertain future victory. In fact, that appeal sounds more like a religious one than anything else.
This is probably why I agree more with Hayek’s views than with those of many contemporary conservatives. I don’t really see restorationism as a way out of the mess we are in. I’m not sure that there is a way out of the mess we are in, that is realistic at least, but if there is indeed one it probably lies in some form of open-ness to organic change (and not state directed change) rather than a restoration of the values prior to circa 1960.
Think of it not as returning to the past but as returning to eternal truths that happened to be generally acknowledged in the past and were forgotten.
I totally disagree that Bush 41 or 43 were conservatives – especially #43. They were hawkish neocons on national security, but neither one had a notably “conservative” foreign policy. Just the opposite! What’s “conservative” about crazy nation building efforts in “nations” like Iraq and Afghanistan that have never truly been nations? On social issues they were not conservative at all. The most you could say is they were slightly less liberal than Dukakis, Gore, or Kerry would have been. Those two guys were classic liberal Republicans who learned how to make conservative noises in order to get elected, but had no idea what conservative principles truly were, and had no intention of following them anyway.
Reagan was a true conservative himself, but was hamstrung by the liberal Republican Eastern Establishment types within his administration. His main focus was the Cold War and the economy in any event, and thus he didn’t have much extra juice left for social issues. If he had, then the liberals in Congress would have shut him down anyway.
“he wants us to give in”
Oh come on. Roissy wants us to face reality, not accept it. He wants us to deal with an evil and corrupt society ruled by people who hate and despise us, and seek to harm us, and destroy all that was good in Western Civilization, by withdrawing our support from it and acting for ourselves.
That the present social order is not saveable is demonstrated by the fact that you guys are not proposing to save it.
“Sex and Culture” observes reality – and then attempts to put a politically correct spin on it.
The observation contained in “sex and culture” (not the spin) is that civilizations were built by the sons of women who were severely constrained to ensure that they only had sex with one man, their husband, and that husband, who might have many mistresses, generally had only one wife.
An alternative theory explaining the same phenomenon is that civilization is built by men for their sons – but only if they are confident in the paternity of their sons and not otherwise.
Thus once women are sexually liberated, you can never have a movement capable of preserving civilization or building for the future. Collapse ensues.
Possibly this problem might be remedied by linking marriage laws to mandatory paternity check. Babies that are alleged to be the responsibility of some male, either explicitly, or implicitly in that the woman declares herself to be married, are tested for paternity at birth, and if paternity is incorrect, or the test is refused by the woman, or the woman declares herself unmarried rather than take the test, the marriage is void, is considered never to have existed, and all assets of the marriage are assets of the husband, and the husband has no obligations, and is considered never to have had obligations.
We might *then* find ourselves in a society where men cared to build and preserve civilization.
That could be a part of it, but the other part is divorce law. Even where biological paternity is secure, laws which permit mothers to abscond with the children for no reason de facto undermine fatherhood and men’s connection to their children, encouraging them to invest less in themselves, the children and the society as a whole. Paternity is one part of the equation, while easy divorce on overwhelmingly mother-friendly, anti-father terms, is the other.
This closing paragraph should be quoted widely :
“I have yet to see Auster or other conservatives inveigh against no-fault divorce, punitive alimony and child-support payments, or any of the misandrist laws and government institutions that have weakened beta men and empowered women to behave in socially destructive ways. They might as well be arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Because of conservatives’ collective ignorance on this topic, their efforts to turn back Western civilization’s decline have amounted to less than nothing. If Lawrence Auster and other like-minded right-wingers don’t get their act together, not only will society continue its descent into savagery, but future generations will curse them as idiots and fools who wasted their time on irrelevant side issues only to let the civilization they were ostensibly defending fall to pieces. I criticize them because I care.”
“but future generations will curse them as idiots and fools who wasted their time on irrelevant side issues only to let the civilization they were ostensibly defending fall to pieces. ”
Future generations……AND contemporary Futurists.
Thanks to feminism, women are only good for being sperm receptacles, if not dumpsters. Otherwise, I regard them as potential enemies and competitors. Any deeper relationship with women other than perhaps your blood kin is impossible without putting one’s freedom, livelihood even life in jeopardy.
Lawrence Auster, this mongrelized gargoyle, is an utter fraud, a dissembling hypocrite. This most sophistical of sophists, is a complete ignoramus in scientific matters whose arrogance is truly astonishing. He’s nothing but logic-chopping hustler. This logomach employs the most childish word-games conceivable; a bare-faced and unworthy swindle and, his hidden motivation is almost childishly transparent.
“his hidden motivation is almost childishly transparent.”
Articles of interest for conservatives at VFR, are mainly from other magazines and only serve as window-dressing, camouflaging his pro-Israel postings and his anti-Semitism rantings.
I wish Larry would stick to Islam and muslims, a subject on which his pronouncements are of popish infallibility. Everything else he’s foolish enough to venture an opinion on make him sound like Crazy’s older brother.
[I]t’s public knowledge what his kryptonite is.
Here’s a respected early C20th political journalist – Charles Whibley – from my neck of the woods (Britain) giving an additional perspective on the issue that Auster and his acolytes have so eagerly raised, viz which unfit minorities should be disenfranchised: ‘Now, genius is rarely found among the Jews, who, appreciative of the works of others, and often good executants, are seldom artists or capable of creative work. Above all, they may rarely be trusted with the work of governing. Having no country of their own they seldom comprehend the meaning of the word ‘patriotism’ and they remain all the world over a dangerous imperium in imperio, finding their friends not in the country of their adoption, but wherever abroad Jewry is most strongly entrenched. For this reason it would be well if by a common rule Jews were excluded from the privilege of government. Their international minds prevent them from loyal service, and the habit of centuries compels them to convert all policies into the terms of money.’ Oh, Larry, Larry: will you be forever playing with a double-edged sword? (…)
It’s only Auster’s very sound take on Islam and Islamics that has prevented me from concluding that he’s as mad as a hatter and blogging from an asylum.
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If he’s true to his traditionalist conservative vision, I think he’d have to agree that America today would be more to his liking if one could erase the cultural influence of all those Jewish leftists. Of course, under that scenario, Auster himself wouldn’t be here; his immigrant grandparents would’ve been locked out.
http://undercoverblackman.blogspot.com/2007/07/lawrence-auster-americas-boldest.html
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