A Man's Socialism.

Hostile to any comparison between Nazism and communism, some authors have sought to find differences in motivation or behavior, beyond the supposed differences in inspiration. “A young man moving in the direction of communism,” writes Jean Daniel, “is at least living with a desire for communion. A young fascist is only fascinated by domination. That is the essential difference.

(Nazism and Communism: Evil Twins. Alain de Benoist. The Black Book of Communism)

Left wing writers like to point out that Fascism is a right wing phenomenon. Never mind the fact that a study of of the origin of Fascism shows a remarkable overlap in both ideology and participants with Socialism.  Even the term Nazi is an abbreviation of the term National Socialist, so it somewhat of a mystery to me why Fascism is considered right wing.

It is the position of this blog that the social conditions in Europe in the late 19th Century gave rise to a situation which traditionalist thinking was unable to solve. The enormous increase in population, industrialisation and lassiez faire capitalism produced a disaffected populace which sought some redress from the resultant social inequities. Most people thought the existing order wrong and there was a need to change it. Traditionalist attempts were made but  ideology which gained the most traction amongst the masses was the socialistic one.  Amongst the socialists themselves, three main streams of thought emerged on how to address the social injustices. Firstly, Parliamentary Socialism, which sought to change society through democratic takeover  of state power, and secondly, Communism and Fascism, which sought to change it through violent struggle. So, just as Protestantism and Catholicism can be thought of as two different strains of Christian thought, both Communism and Fascism need to be seen as two sects of a common underlying ideology; an ideology of the left.

The two ideologies had a lot of similarities. Both saw the group as more important than the individual, with the state being supreme. Both hated the bourgeois. Both sought the destruction of class enemies. Both saw violence as a legitimate means of social engineering and both seemed to revel in the cult of the leader. Both claimed their legitimacy as arising from acting in the interests of the people and both seemed to revel in the cult of the all powerful leader.

However, it's the differences which have always caused the most confusion,  and it's a confusion  which may lay in the fact that it is difficult to separate the two along the traditional right/left axis because of the common ideology of origin.  But the perhaps the best way to explain the differences is not along a spectrum of "Right and Left" but along the lines of sexual hierarchy; "Alpha and Beta". While I'm not the type of man to see everything through the prism of sexual biomechanics, once you start looking at things this way a lot of the pieces seem to fit quite nicely.

The Fascists were outright thugs and saw a glory in violence. They were concerned not about saving the world but about saving their own tribe. They worshiped military valour, manly struggle, competition and emphasised sexual polarity. They didn't mind a bit of inequality if it bought out the best in the tribe. Think of it like being a member in a football team. Each member wants to be a star player but the group psychology is it's us against them. We train hard, elimate the weaklings and conquer the field as brothers. It's a tailor made ideology for jocks. It's no surprise then that businessmen, soldiers, farmers and others with a strong degree of masculine autonomy would find sympathy with the cause.

 
Communism, on the other hand, wanted to save the world. It wanted to include everyone into the project. It tended to avoided  the direct conflict of the thug. Instead it chose the methods of "the bitch" working to sneakily undermine it opponents through the tried techniques of rumor, misinformation and innuendo, directly attacking them when they were isolated and weak.  It valued co-operation, equality and demphasised sexual polarity. It hated competition since no one was allowed any superiority over the other. It promised a utopian future where society would ensure that everyone is a winner.  It was an escape from the the Darwinian struggle of life and the natural pecking order. One can quite easily imagine writers, artists, public servants and others who lacked a large degree of autonomy choosing the communism/socialism cause.

And it appears that there is some scientific data showing a correlation with social conservatism and the dark triad. Though the study has its faults, I think it has a large degree of intuitive credibility. Interestingly the study study shows a far weaker link between the dark triad and economic conservatism which also fits nicely with our hypothesis*. The fact that economic values are poorly correlated with the dark triad will mean that the individuals who possess the dark triad are not necessarily to be associated with any economic position.

Therefore, if an man is an alpha male but an economic idiot, and sees the socialistic worldview as the solution to society's problems, he will find Fascism an appealing ideology. The lower down the sexual hierarchy he goes the more Communism, and then Socialism appeal. Even today the Neo Nazi's tend to be tough skinheads whilst the socialist men...... well....... you know what I mean.

In other words. Fascism is alpha socialism.  Whilst communist/parliamentary socialism is the ideology that appeals to the beta male economic illiterate.

Manboobz of the world unite!

*Arvan did a follow up study and found that liberalism is associated with antisocial personality traits on issues such as climate change and environmentalism.  With Fascism now being totally discredited perhaps those alpha individuals who would have naturally drifted to Nazism are now finding a home in the environmental movement.

** Note for those who are totally retarded and think this post is some crypto support for the Fascists, you can go to Hell.  I regard Nazism and Communism as evils and a pox a both their houses.

Taking on the Cathedral.

The innocuous looking guy to the left has just been recently voted one of Britain's greatest ever foes.

The task facing him was not inconsiderable. How do you beat the worlds greatest superpower with nothing more than a few guns toted by eager youths, a lot of local good will and nothing much else? And yet that is what he did.

Michael Collins is arguably one of the greatest commanders in history. His greatness lays not in his ultimate achievement, rather, in the obstacles he had to overcome to attain it. Obstacles that would have overwhelmed nearly all other mortal men. It was the ultimate challenge; Man vs British Empire.

Collins won.

The task facing Collins was superhuman. How do you secure cure the independence of Ireland from a stubborn British who refuse to yield it?  Collins starting position was tactically woeful. The Irish Republican cause was bedeviled from the outset, by spies, informers, splinter groups factional groups and, of course, the presence of the British Army which at that time was the world superpower. How Collins managed to overcome all of these obstacles is a matter of legend and instruction. He is considered the father of modern urban guerrilla warfare. Mao claimed to have studied his techniques.

The secret to Collin's success lay in his intelligent unconventionality. Collins never did what the enemy expected him to do,  and by outsmarting his enemy he was able to get the British out of Ireland with next to no resources.

Collins serves as a sort of example for the modern manosphere movement, a movement which appears to be gaining some notice amongst the mainstream media. Over the past few months I've noticed a gradually increasing frequency in the media words associated with the mansophere such as alpha male, neg and game. It appears the mansophere is being noticed without acknowledgement and as  the media gives the manosphere more time, sooner or later it is going to be judged by its conformity to the media's program. I suppose that some manosphere writers would welcome the free publicity that comes with media exposure. But it's a poisoned chalice. The liberal media-arts-education complex (a.k.a the Cathedral) has a cultural vision which is profoundly hostile to the underlying ethos of the manosphere. As such, its engagement with the manosphere will eventually be on hostile terms. Those who chose to take the bait (i.e media publicity) are likely to be destroyed.

It is important to recognise that the manosphere would have been impossible without the internet. The ideas which have gained prominence amongst the various factions of it are so politically incorrect and so against the mainstream grain that any airing of them would have been impossible throughout the conventional media.

The official Cathedral line is that it provides for a forum for dispassionate public debate, whereas Cathedral Operations are nothing of the sort. The Cathedral's role is that of culture management and it does it through exploiting the sheep like qualities of the people.  It manipulates public opinion so that the proletariat respond through Pavlovian conditioning in the way which it wants it to. The aim isn't to present a logical argument as it is to enforce an emotional association. For the media have long ago recognised what Jonathan Haidt has recently preached, namely ,when it comes to Joe Average, it's the emotional tail that wags the rational head and not the other way around.

It has a variety of means at its disposal  but the main point is that when the media wants to push a certain line it does so by associating the desired message with positive feelings. On the other hand, when the media wants to ostracise  something it does it by the process of negative association. For example, when the gay marriage agenda wants to be pushed, media presentations of gay marriage will be done in such a way as to elicit positive emotions with the message. Supports will be attractive and highly articulate and socially desirable. Detractors of the gay marriage will be presented negatively. It's classic Goebbellian psych-ops.  The aim isn't to present a logical argument as it is to enforce an emotional association and thereby influence public opinion. Glee, for example, is strong on the song and dance but very little emphasis is made on the gay bar scene; the aim of the producers is to associate gayness with happiness and not disgust.

The machine exists to keep re-enforcing a certain cultural message.The machine is now so well oiled an any person wanting to take advantage of the "publicity" offered by the Cathedral soon becomes a unwitting victim of it if he does not pursue the politically correct line. The Cathedral will promise him a forum where he can get the widest audience whilst setting him up for failure in front of that same audience. The Cathedral is able to do this because, traditionally, the technical means of media dissemination was able to be tightly controlled. And by controlling the dissemination of information, it controlled the public square. Fighting it through the public square means fighting it on the terms set by the Cathedral. It's a recipe for failure.

And lets not forget what the Cathedral can actually do. It can ruin a man's reputation. Wreck his career.  Make him lose his job thus plunging him into poverty and place his marriage under enormous  strain. It can destroy his business. Alienate from his friends. Make him into a social pariah. The point is that the Cathedral is a machine that exists to support its friends and destroy its enemies, it's claim that it is a space for the exchange of ideas is merely a guise.

Michael Collins recognised that the way to take on the British Army was not to take it on directly (which would be suicidal) but to engage it on his terms. The way to fight it was unconventionally. Playing the traditional media's game is to engage it conventionally. Thus, in my opinion, the manosphere should discount any advice about courting mainstream publicity and resist it as best as it can. The aim is to engage in cultural guerrilla warfare. The medium through which this warfare must be fought is the internet, a forum where the media has virtually no control on the subject matter.

The free for all environment of the internet and its distributed nature makes "enforced" consensus extremely difficult. Ideas can't be policed easily. The Climategate story, for example, was all over the internet despite the mainstream media's efforts to quash failure to pick it up.  History will see it as a watershed event.The advantage of the internet is that everyman can potentially reach a world wide audience. Every blog post an opinion piece and every combox discussion a moderated thread. It's true, that for most bloggers and web pundits, their influence will be minimal on an individual level (though there are exceptions)  but taken in total, the manosphere can exert enormous cultural effect outside the control of the cathedral.

Another problem for the Cathedral is any attempt to take down one of web pundits instantly generates more web traffic for the pundit and his cause. This presents a problem for the cathedral. Whereas previously they could isolate an opponent and present the pundit to the public in a manner of the Cathedral's liking, it now cannot regulate what the public actually reads at pundit's site. The pundit actually gets a fair hearing.  The aim then, if media attention is inadvertently gained, is to engage the media of terms of your own choosing. Do not give a media interview, instead let the media interview you on your own blog, that way the media cannot manipulate your public image or selectively misquote you. The worst thing to do is go "live " in an environment where they control what gets said, whom you are associated with  and whom your opponents are. Roosh V's foray onto Ukrainian television was a classic example of what I'm  talking about and a close run thing.

It started normal enough where they asked me general questions and then they started bringing out "surprise guests" which completely caught me off guard. They had me thinking "How the fuck did they find these people??!" 

............I sat in the chair and had the lights on me, the audience on me, and the host and the celebrity panel and so on, I felt quite calm and just focused on answering the questions while not letting them paint me [ED] as someone I was not.

The point is that the way to attack the cathedral is to attack it from outside and on your own terms. Playing the conventional media game only makes you its pawn or its victim.

Thought for the Day.

The state can no more marry people than it can forgive sins.

A thought on Catholic Economics.

Unfortunately I've been busy moving house the last few weeks and haven't been able to devote much time to blogging. In my previous post, an annonymous commentator was critical of my support of some aspects of Protestantism, particularly its work ethic. Now I'm not sectarian, and from perspective can see various problems with Protestantism, I can also see its virtues.  Commentator anonymous said:

Their much vaunted work ethic is generally no more than glorified avarice, an attitude more worthy of Shylock than a man who calls himself a Christian. During the Ages of Faith the people were given a great many Holydays throughout the year, they not only weren't made to work, but would be guilty of sin if they did. This was much better than the frenzy of modern people who go about foaming at the mouth to get more money to buy more useless chinese-made rubbish. If they were Catholics rather than pagans, they might remember Our Blessed Lord's words "What doth it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul."

Wealthy economies are not simply made by working hard. For prosperity to ensure a whole lot of ancillary virtues must pre-exist. Things like honesty, punctuality, suppression of envy, etc must exist as well. Catholic South America is dysfunctional not because of a lack of work ethic, but because an absence of an honesty, punctuality and scientific ethic. Being Catholic does not seem to have protected the South American elite from the sin of avarice.

And wealth doesn't just give cars and big houses. It allows medical research, MRI scanners, proper sewerage, electricity that is reliable, the provision of running water, good quality food etc.

I don't have time to elaborate on this tonight but here's a good essay by a man who pretty much shares the same mind with me on  the subject.

I'll reply to comments if I can.

The Problem with Conteporary Conservatism.

I'm glad to see that Novaseeker is back to blogging. His comments, even though I disagree with some of them, are always thoughtful and worth considering and one of his recent posts got me thinking on the problems with contemporary conservatism.

From the post:

The core of the problem[Ed: with regard to conservatism] is that the underlying political philosophy of the United States finds its roots in the ideals of the Enlightenment and the French Revolutionary period.  Even though these were expressed somewhat differently in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S Constitution than they were in the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the main ideas are congruent — all men are created equal, and the highest order principles are liberty and equality.  All of our political discussions take these principles, these ends, as givens.  The “debate” between the left and the right is about the relative importance of each, how each is to be properly defined, how each is best to be realized in policy terms, how each applies in different spheres, and, above all, about the appropriate speed and timing of substantial change, but both the left and the right see themselves as champions of the principles of liberty and equality.

I partially agree with what Novaseeker is saying here but I feel that blaming the enlightenment for the problems of the modern world is a misdiagnosis of the disease: The problem is far more complex. As I see it, the reason why the conservative movement has become utterly irrelevant is because it doesn't stand for something as much it is against something. It is reactionary rather than propositional and, as such, has become a refuge for all those against the Left. Each having their own axe to grind against it but nothing else in common.

And who are these types?

Novaseeker clearly identifies a certain type that is prevalent in the conservative movement, that is, a man who dislikes change. Their conservatism is biological and their opposition to change is sentimental rather than ideological. It's the "novelty" element of the proposition that concerns them, not the proposition itself.  Movements in the wrong direction are opposed just as vigorously as movements in the right one and Liberalism is quite readily accepted as long as the poison is absorbed gradually.  These people hate the Left because its desire for perpetual novelty.

Then, of course, there are natural allies of the biological conservatives, the Traditionalists, who believe that whilst their fathers could think and solve problems,  the current generation can't. Traditionalism is really the ideology of the infallibility of the past and the irrelevance of the present. Their stance makes it impossible to adapt when situation warrants it. Unlike the biological conservatives, who will eventually accept a truthful proposition, the traditionalists refuse to.

Then there are the pseudo-conservatives.  The Rothbards and the Rands who champion the cause of materialism more effectively than any Marxist but who disagree with them on how to best implement the materialist Nirvana. Their disagreement with the Left is on theological subtleties rather than core dogma. They side with the conservative cause on matters of economics only but otherwise are more radical than many of the leftoids. Any call to a conservatism beyond economics is fiercely resisted by them.

Then there are the Neo-Conservatives. These are men who want a Christian-God-lite version of conservatism. These are frequently ex-communists/socialists who have seen the error of their ways but can't stomach an acceptance of a Christian conservatism for whatever personal reason. These men are conservative in their politics and economics rather than culture.

Then there are the single issue nuts of various persuasion who find common cause with the conservatives on their particular issue but are against it otherwise.

There are other groups as well but those described are enough to describe that what unifies them is a hatred of the left rather than any core commonality of the right. In fact, if the left could be totally defeated then many of these "Conservatives" would be at each others throats. The fact is that many of these Conservatives are not conservatives at all, they are leftoids in conservative clothing. They are the enemy within.

The way the left "wins" is either through implementation of its political program when it achieves outright political victory, or, by exploiting differences in "conservative" factions to their advantage. The left knows that it can side with the libertarian crowd when a pro-abortion position is required. It can side with soft-Christians when an aggressive "Social Justice" or "Peace" policy is required. It plays off one faction against the other to its advantage.

The problem with contemporary Conservatism is that being inclusive in its battle against the left, it stands for nothing. 

This is why a certain amount of ideological housekeeping is in order. It's housekeeping that is well overdue.

Traditional Dating Advice: Theory and Practice.

The other day, Dalrock linked to a commentator at Zippy's blog who was taking the manosphere to task:

…the problem is that the roissysphere stands on the shoulders of giants and claims to feel the soil beneath it’s feet. These nonsense, sloppy terms like solipsism, feminine imperative, team woman, “game” are ideas with no rigor, as imprecise as the dull minds that conjure them up.

Yet all across the roissysphere no single red pill person ever recommends learning the precise terms of the great works of the ages, instead offering a bag of bullsh&t and telling you to read the rantings of a keyboard warrior from DC.

What a hollow existence it is to work oneself into a fey mood inventing tools (which they call game) to climb a mountain only to find the mountain was already home to greater men then they, and could have used tools of higher quality if they had bothered to look.

Comments like these give me a fair of hope since they indicate the beginnings of a shift in some of the traditionalist positions on Game.  As some wag once said, when a theory is first proposed, it is denied initially, accepted gradually and finally accepted as a self-evident truth. Now it appears that some of the traditionalists, whilst still shouting at the manosphere, are claiming that the knew about hypergamy all along. Implied in this position is that if only men read the "classics" they wouldn't have to go to places like Roissy's and the reason why men are in there current predicament is because they have forgotten their heritage.  To which I reply--- bullshit.

Literature is not my strong point and I have to defer to others on the subject, particularly commentator Thursday, who over at Roissy's, in replies to two posts,  gave a good explanation of why the classics are deficient in practical advice with regard to "woman management". (Some of the comments I've taken out of chronological order but not out of context.)
Thursday comments:

I’ve posted before on my own former blog about how game insights were few and far between in classic literature.

I think a lot of it came down to a couple facts:

1. Being a provider used to matter a lot.

2. Objective social status (king, nobleman, knight, yeoman, peasant) mattered a lot.

3. Basically everything was social circle game. You would know everybody in your local community (or in you social strata if you were a higher up).

Not that game didn’t matter, but more on the margins. Who needs game when you’re a nobleman and you want to bang one of your serfs? Who needs game when you are a middle class farmer and your only chance with a girl is to convince her father you’d be a good husband? So, the game insights remained fragmentary.

and responding to GBFM:

Keep on digging, little man. Game is more than just confidence, it’s a highly specific skill set. Saying, “Act like a Homeric hero” ain’t gonna cut it.

From personal experience, given the choice between The Mystery Method and the entire Western Canon, a man who wants a pretty wife or a girlfriend had best go for The Mystery Method. Even Robert Greene who found inspirtation for his power book in Machiavelli, and for his strategy book in Sun Tzu, said that he basically had to start from scratch with his seduction book.

A lot of the canon is actually counterproductive. Dante is the king of oneitis and he has had many, many followers.

Having read most of the Canon, the most helpful works would be Madame Bovary and Casanova’s Memoirs. A sprinkle of Byron doesn’t hurt. Even Ovid advocates a kind of provider game (lots of presents):
http://www.rooshv.com/more-book-reviews-9
But that’s what worked in those days. It used to be the most efficient way to get a pretty woman was to get rich or go into a prestigious profession, so that’s what people focussed on. Duh.

In reply to Hugh G Reaction:

I’d say the attitudes that allow you to succeed with women often will allow you to succeed in other pursuits as well.

Yes and no, we’ve all known successful men who underperform with or get taken to the cleaners by women. Doing well with women is, to a certain extent, a highly specific skill set.[Ed]

Finally, to quote Thursday again:

“Just read the classics” is the traditionalist version of “Just be yourself.”

A Superior Type, taking offence at Thursday's comments pushed back:

Philistine. You are a monkey with just enough knowledge to know which books in the library to smear feces over for maximum vandalism. Yes, there are manuals for every practical need, from dating in this modern age to fixing the leak in your toilet. But the prissy assumption that proles beneath you can only absorb bullet lists and abbreviated tips is a commentary on your inferior station. The human mind responds to challenge, especially men, when they are sufficiently motivated and properly educated.

Your Vo-Tech utilitarian approach dispenses with the idea of freedom itself, positive no one can handle it because you can’t handle it. An introduction to the deep concepts of human nature liberates men from the need for the step-by-step manuals to life that you are hawking. Those who look at The Divine Comedy and see more than “oneitis” are simply freer than you. They need less specific instruction and more general wisdom, because, as I said above, it’s not rocket science to translate that knowledge, once truly gained, into working tactics applicable to any social milieu. That’s the easiest part.

I want to make a couple of comments with regard to the highlighted bits in this last comment. Firstly, it's front loaded with the liberal idea that there really is no difference in intelligence and ability between men; all that you need to do is provide enough teaching and resources and even the most stupid man will divine what to do in an appropriate circumstance given a thorough and basic theoretical knowledge about women. It's the standard liberal cure for all ills. It is refuted by science and common sense. Secondly, this is a refutation of the Ancient Greek idea of praxis--experience matters, and there is a world of difference between booksmarts and streetsmarts. Thirdly, a lot of guys do have a problem translating booksmarts into streetsmarts and they need things like bullet lists, mentorship and experience to gain mastery of the Techne of love. From the Wiki entry on Techne:

Aristotle defines techne in the following manner:

[S]ince (e.g.) building is an art [techne] and is essentially a reasoned productive state, and since there is no art that is not a state of this kind, and no state of this kind that is not an art, it follows that art is the same as a productive state that is truly reasoned. Every art is concerned with bringing something into being, and the practice of an art is the study of how to bring into being something that is capable either of being or of not being ... For it is not with things that are or come to be of necessity that art is concerned [this is the domain of episteme] nor with natural objects (because these have their origin in themselves) ... Art ... operate[s] in the sphere of the variable.^[3]

As an activity, techne is concrete, variable, and context-dependent. As one observer has argued, techne "was not concerned with the necessity and eternal a priori truths of the cosmos, nor with the a posteriori contingencies and exigencies of ethics and politics. [...] Moreover, this was a kind of knowledge associated with people who were bound to necessity. That is, techne was chiefly operative in the domestic sphere, in farming and slavery, and not in the free realm of the Greek polis."

It appears that our Superior Type also needs to re-read his Aristotle. I also think it was Aquinas, in arguing the case for revelation, who stated explicit demonstration of divine truths (and for that matter other truths) was necessary since most men had neither the time nor intellectual capacity to discern these things for themselves. The idea that everyman can work these things out for himself is false. Game is not concerned with the theoretical knowledge of women but of practical aspects of dealing with them.

Thursday makes a strong case against this "traditional wisdom" type of approach.

I said it before in the other thread that while the classics have plenty to say about about how perfidious female nature can be, they have precious little insight into how to get and keep the girl. Dante famously didn’t get the girl and pined after her for 40 years. (He was also, like Plato, a fabulously inept politician.) He was also famously Milton’s first wife left him while his second was a holy terror. He also managed to thoroughly alienate his daughters. All of his vivid warnings about female malice and treachery were not enough to give him any insight as to how they should be handled in real life. So, two of the greatest writers in the Western tradition, writers steeped in the Shakespeare, the Bible and the classics were total betas in their love life.

A good analogy is politics. No doubt there is much wisdom in political writers from Plato to Aristotle to Hobbes and Burke and beyond. But all that doesn’t mean that reading those guys will make you into a good statesman. You fucking need practical knowledge on the ground on how to deal with people.[Ed] And in fact you might be a better statesman if you have some good instincts and read Steven Covey, Dale Carnegie, Robert Greene and Robert Cialdini.

Besides if reading the classics were enough, we’d see Classics majors and Shakespeare and Biblical scholars should be getting the hot chicks. I laugh at that to scorn.

Here are a few more thoughts:

1. In general, it is unwise to assume the ancients were fools and that we are so much better than them, but it is also untrue that we can never learn anything new about human nature.

2. The best game ideas come from relatively minor writers like Ovid (though he’s a bit beta), Castiglione, Casanova. The best of them are probably Byron and Flaubert.

3. I have a theory that patriarchal social structures were set up, at least in part, so that men wouldn’t have to learn game.

I don't agree with Thursday's last point but he's on the ball when it comes to understanding the problem with the Western Canon and intersexual relations. The ideas and insights from the great books were distilled in a time where a woman's ability to freely to chose a mate was severely restricted. As I have argued before on this blog, women were so disenfranchised in the past that all a man had to do was show up--and show that he was available--to have a very good chance at getting a mate. The whole culture was an affirimative action program for non-alpha males.

Thursday recognises the change that female emancipation has made, and of the increasing irrelevance the classics have with regard to practical advice on how to attract a mate.

The modern era is a kind of natural experiment to see how women behave when they don’t have to consider what kind of father/provider a man is when choosing who to mate with. It ain’t your father’s world. Sexual attraction is now the sole criteria. That is a radical change.

Here are some lyrics from Gracie Fields’ song Walter Walter to put this in perspective:[Ed: With regard to women's choices in the past]

Walter, Walter, lead me to the altar
I don’t cost much to keep in food
Walter-er, Walter, mother says you oughta
So take me while she’s in the mood

Walter, Walter, lead me to the altar
And make all me nightmares come true
Walter, Walter, lead me to the altar
It’s either the workhouse or you.

Personally, I think women evaluate there mate choices more holistically. I'd actually rephrase this by saying that the modern era is a time when "feelings" justify all actions and what we are seeing now is the raw expression of female sexuality, essentially unhindered by any type of social restraint.  What's changed now is that men have to work to be attractive because, unlike in the past, women today are free to pass over men whom they don't. It's a problem men haven't had to face before and one the Classics don't seem to give much practical advice on.

Marx and the Feminine Imperative.

Cultural Marxism is a term bandied about quite loosely in the manosphere and the imprecision in it's use causes much confusion. For some, Cultural Marxism is a term to describe the progressive leftward shift of culture, for others it's an analytic approach used to understand the world. In this latter instance, the term that really should be used is Conflict Theory (itself heavily influenced by Marxism). If you want to know why Feminists, Fat Advocates  and MRA's sound the same it's because they both explain the world with near identical variants of the same approach.

In essence, Conflict Theory posits the existence of identifiable groups who exist to exploit others for their own benefit. It's akin to the Marxist notion of the bourgeois setting up society in order to exploit the workers. Note, Conflict Theory doesn't admit the existence of any legitimate theory of social structures, seen also such structures as exploitative, hence the person who uses this approach will be profoundly anti-authoritative. Conflict theory can thus count on anyone who wants to push radical equality (Communists, Femminsts, Anarchaists, Libertarians etc) for a sympathetic hearing.

As a theory of social analysis, it's a tailor made cognitive solution for the simpleton common man in trying to understand his troubles. It absolves any responsibility for any problem because it's always someone else's fault. They after all are "oppressed." The solution to all problems involves getting rid of the oppressors and once that happens, a nirvana of happiness will ensure. When it doesn't, the task at hand is to find another group that is doing the oppressing, and thus the circle of conflict continues.

Now, the reason why I've bought this subject up, is because the term has been bandied about with respect to the phenomenon of the Feminine Imperative. Critics of the the concept of the Feminine Imperative have labeled it a product of Cultural Marxism, by which I think they mean Conflict Theory. Now, I've actually had  a hard time trying to grasp what exactly this Feminine Imperative is, so has SunshineMary, but I'm going to go with Rollo's definition of it;

For one gender to realize their sexual imperative the other must sacrifice their own [Ed] This is the root source of power the feminine imperative uses to establish its own reality as the normative one. From this flows the rules of engagement for dating / mating, operative social conventions used to maintain cognitive dominance, and laws and legalities that bind society to the benefit of the feminine. From this is derived men’s default status as the ‘disposable’ sex, while women are the protected sex. It’s this root that the imperative uses to excuse (not apologize for) the most blatant inconsistencies and atrocities of women.

In a nutshell, it's women getting what they want at the expense of men. Being an imperative, this desire for female dominance must originate from women themselves (Class Consciousness), even though women themselves may be unaware of process (False Consciousness). To quote Rollo once again:

One issue many of my critics have is that in exposing these inconsistencies, these operative social conventions and the latent purposes behind them, my writing (really most of the manosphere) seems to take on a conspiratorial tone. I can fully appreciate this, and it might shock a few readers to know that I reject much of the popularized MRA perspective in this respect. I agree with an MRA perspective in a rational analysis to a certain degree, but there is no grand conspiracy, no secret mysterious cabal pushing a negative perception of masculinity – and this is exactly why what I outline on this blog is so pervasive. There doesn’t need to be a unitary group of ‘anti-men’ bent on some melodramatic goal of world domination; because this feminized ideal is already embedded in our socialization. Fem-centrism IS our collective social consciousness.

I've got to admit, to me it appears a classic Marxist analysis of the situation and I reckon that the charge, that this understanding of the relationship between the sexes is classically Marxist in nature, stand.

The problem with this approach is that it intrinsically pits women against men and tars all women with the same brush. Now, I do think that the Feminine imperative holds true, especially for the avowed feminists, but for the average woman,  I don't think she wakes up in the morning desiring to consciously or unconsciously screw men over.

But..... Rollo and Dalrock's highlighting of the subject did get me thinking and I think something else is happening. I do think that the effects of the feminine imperative are real but what is enabling this is not some underlying power conflict but something more complex and therefore harder to understand and tackle.

Our current Western Culture is a product of many historical influences, influences which taken together absolve women of moral responsibility (and protect them) when they act badly. What women are doing at the moment is not imposing some sort of imperative, rather, the worst elements of female-kind (and there is a hell of a lot of them) are exploiting a sort of cultural loophole to their advantage and, as such, Dalrock  is more correct than Rollo when he says that the feminine imperative "just happens".

To keep this brief, I'll just go through a few of these influences in Western thought and how they help the worst elements of womanhood escape moral culpability.

• Classical Greek thought. It taught that women were inferior beings devoid of full moral agency and hence were little more than moral children.

• This synched with traditional Christianity with the husband being the moral head of the household and the woman under his control (and therefore by implication  not fully morally responsible.)

• Puritanical Christianity which taught that flesh was bad.

• The chivalric code. It's corruption resulted in the pedestalisation of women. More importantly, if a man compelled a woman to do anything it was seen as the moral fault of a man.

• Romanticism. The theory that feelings were justified moral ends in themselves.

• Atheism. Which stripped away any moral objectivity.

• Protestantism. This is a biggie and I know I'm going to get some heat on this one. When Catholic practice becomes corrupted it becomes superstitious and idolatrous. But when Protestant practice goes bad it becomes preoccupied with being nice and non-judgmental(tolerant) instead of being good. i.e Churchianity.

• Feminism. The theory that women are victims and can do whatever they like to obtain "justice" and that morality is an instrument of oppression.

• Modern psychiatry (especially the legacy of Freud), which taught that repression of feelings was bad and that self-esteem was good.

• Modern Medicine which tends push mechanistic explanations of human behaviour and therefore negates the concept of moral agency.

So let's take our Girl Scouts at the Christmas party who do nothing to reciprocate the boy's gentlemanly behaviour.  Let's look at the strains of thought in our current culture which provide unscrupulous women with ready made excuses (and allies)to evade any moral responsibility

Any question about reciprocal behaviour can be countered along the lines of:

1)Gentlemen expect nothing in reward(Chivalry).
2) We shouldn't have to do anything for you(Feminism).

Or let's say a woman who cheats on her husband. She can draw on a whole host of cultural memes to justify herself:

(1) We were  in love (Romanticisim).
(2) Don't judge me (Churchiantiy, Atheism).
(3) He seduced me (Churchiantiy, Puritancial Christianity, Chivalry, Feminism).
(4) I was depressed (Modern Psychiatry and Medicine).

Suffering the consequence of thug loving:

(1) Low self esteem (Modern Psychiatry and Medicine).
(2)) He abused me (Chivalry, Churchianity).
(3) I didn't know what I was getting into. (Denial of moral agency:Traditional Christianity, Classical Greek Thought.  Exploitation:Feminism).

Women who write love letters to serial killers.

(1) Low self Esteem (Modern Psychiatry, Medicine).
(2) I want to save him. ( Churchianity, Traditional Christianity).

The list could go on. I really don't think there is such a thing as the feminine imperative, what I do think though, is that Western Women are privileged to enjoy moral indulgence--it's their get out of jail free card, and currently, Western Women are exploiting this phenomenon en mass to avoid moral responsibility. When a woman does something consciously dumb, rude or evil, there are many resources in Western Culture she can draw on. Sure, men can access some of these resources, and criminals frequently do, but women have far deeper pool of cultural "treasure" to get out of jail.

The other interesting things to note is that jumping to defense are ideas which come from two totally different streams of thought. For example, Atheism, with its moral relativism "meshes" nicely with churchiantiy with it's imperative "not to judge". It's like fighting a hydra.

Here is an interesting cartoon from the 40's which illustrates the get out of jail free card. Bugs, a male, has to assume a female persona in order to obtain the help of chivalrous male. As a man he could never get the assistance.

Bugs Bunny - Mississippi Hare

Vezi mai multe video din animatie

Framing this advantage as an sexual imperative, slurs the women who would not dream of using it. The woman who loves her husband would be insulted at the notion that she is planning to screw him over, and I imagine the hostility many women have to this notion of an imperative stems from this. This cultural get-out-of-jail-free card is not omnipresent but is there if a woman decides to use it. There is nothing in Western Culture stopping a woman from assuming moral responsibility for their actions, it's just that in real life women, like all the male bankers involved in the GFC, want to evade responsibility.

Western Culture is largely a male product. The loopholes that have been created in it have been created by men who thought badly and are perpetuated now by men and women who don't want things to change. By chasing an imperative that is not really there, we fail to tackle the problem that is. Conservatives have got to stop treating women like moral saints(and therefore privileged) or moral idiots(and therefore excusable) and recognise them as moral equals. The solution to female bad behaviour lays not in searching for some imaginary imperative, or in trying to assert some male version of it, but in ensuring that we cut through the bullshit and ensure female moral accountability.

A tale of two massacres.

I was going to put down some thoughts on the Newtown school massacre but felt that the subject had been covered to death by the other bloggers and my contribution wouldn't add much to the subject. Still, it did pique my interest in the subject of school shootings and Wiki has a good entry on rampage killers.  Unfortunately, these events are not that uncommon and there appears to be a long history of them. Still, two cases caught my eye which seem to well illustrate the crisis of masculinity in our current culture.

The fist case is that of the Virginia Tech Massacre.  Roissy's comments at the time were, I felt, particularly pertinent.

The killer of 32 people at Virginia Tech used a .22 caliber and a 9mm pistol.
Why wasn’t this guy rushed by anyone?  He’s calmly picking people off.  Bloodshed all around.  Imagine you’re there, trapped in that classroom.  You know you’re as good as dead if you just sit immobile like a juicy target, so you may as well lunge for him and drive your thumbs in his eyes.  You might still die, but you’ve improved your odds dramatically, especially if you go at him during a reload.  He’ll maybe get off one or two shots at you but handguns are notoriously inaccurate, especially when a person is running into your face disturbing your zen-like aiming.  You’d stand a good chance of him missing or you incurring a non-fatal flesh wound.

So a rude thought intrudes.  Engineering campus.  Nerds.  A taxonomy of guys who’ve probably run from fights their whole lives.  Total inexperience with summoning the warrior animal spirits.
There are times of crisis when brainy deliberation or pavlovian avoidance response will do a man no good.

Maybe the bullets were flying so fast, the killer so accurate (from marathon sessions of video gaming I bet), the timeframe so compressed, that in the chaos no one had an opportunity to do anything.  Well, except for this guy.

But if that’s not the case, then I’ll be uncharitable and ask…
did nerdiness cost lives?

and;

yeah, i’ve changed my thinking on this. i think passivity is a systemic problem with men in the West, [ED]not just relegated to nerds. i’m pissed that one guy was able to calmly kill 30 people without anyone at least trying to subdue him, so that colored my reaction.

i talked to a guy recently who went through nyc police training and he told me that a certain percentage of people will go into shock and do nothing in the event of a crisis. the nypd trains their recruits by having them walk around corners and get “shot” unexpectedly with harmless plastic caps. the first few times it happens the recruits stand motionless in shock.

after a few rounds of this training the recruits are able to think better on their feet and react quickly.

Compare this with another school shooting, this time in Bremen, in 1913. From the Wiki Entry;

At approximately 11:00 a.m. Heinz Schmidt entered St. Mary's Catholic School, armed with six to ten revolvers or Browning pistols (depending on sources) and about 1000 rounds of ammunition, which he had bought several weeks prior to the shooting. Because of the large number of rounds, the owner of the gun-shop, where Schmidt had bought his arsenal, deemed it necessary to contact police, though the incident was not found to be important and thus not investigated any further.

In the hallway on the first floor Schmidt encountered Marie Pohl, a teacher at the school, who was just stepping out of classroom 8b, and, seeing his agitated appearance, questioned him about his business at school. Without answer, Schmidt proceeded to shoot at her, barely missing her head. While Miss Pohl fled into a classroom nearby Schmidt entered room 8b, which was occupied by 65 girls, most of them being 6 or 7 years old, and immediately began firing at them. Also shooting at the children after they hid under their tables the gunman instantly killed two of them and wounded another 15. When the girls fled out of the classroom, Schmidt followed them, still shooting. While trying to escape, one of the girls fell down the stairs, broke her neck and died.

The gunman then went back and unsuccessfully tried to enter another classroom that had been locked by a teacher who had realized what had been happening. Schmidt shot at the school janitor, Butz, who attempted to apprehend him, hitting him in the face, before going upstairs where he was tackled by teacher Hubert Möllmann. When Schmidt managed to break free from Möllmann's grip he shot the teacher twice, hitting him in the stomach and shoulder, whereupon he proceeded to shoot out of a window at the children on the schoolyard, injuring five boys. The shots also wounded a roofer working nearby, who, together with his colleagues and other people alarmed by the shooting, then rushed into the school building, though as they arrived on the first floor the gunman had already been subdued by janitor Butz and a teacher named Hartlage. When Schmidt was led away by police he was met by an angry crowd outside, which beat him up and attempted to lynch him, until the police officers managed to hold the mob at bay with their sabres.

In total, Schmidt had fired 35 rounds, three girls died instantly, while two more later succumbed to their wounds – the last victim dying some time in mid-July – and 18 children, as well as three other persons were injured

At Virginia Tech in 2007, the only people who seemed to offer any resistance to the shooter were an old Guy and middle aged female teacher. Where where the young men? (Apparently a student named Henry Lee was assisting the female teacher barricade the room but no one was rushing the shooter.)

On the other hand, back in 1913, the janitor, the teachers, even the roofer working next door and his mates--who had ample time and opportunity to run away--all rushed the bastard. Butz, the janitor, even went back for seconds after being shot in the face!!  Balls of steel I tell you.

(Picture of German Reservists from 1911. Pretty much the same type of guys who would have tackled the shooter.)

Somewhere between then and now, the manhood died.

The older I get, the more convinced I am that the First World War was the dividing line between the old and modern world. 

The Peter Pan Man Boy.

In a previous post, commentator Iangobard asked if I would make a comment on Dalrock's post about the Peter Pan Manboy.

Dalrock should be commended for putting up the data and the first thing that strikes me looking at it is just how badly the under thirties are faring in the U.S. economy. It certainly confirmed our observations from when we were there a year ago.  It's not just the home of the brave and free but also the poor. The overall impression I got from my visit to the U.S was that it was a failing nation composed of a mass of good-willed people who were being overworked and badly governed.

Be that as it may, this is not a post about economics but a post on on the existence of the manboy. From a female perspective, a manboy is a man who refuses to take on the responsibility of adulthood and engage in adult behaviour.  Now before the MRA's start invading the comment section, I want to make it perfectly clear that adult behaviour does not involve marrying some burnt-out carousel rider, rather, manning up in my lexicon means having your shit together.  For those who are retarded, start here for definitional understanding.

Dalrock's data certainly does show that, across the board, men moderately outperform women in earnings capacity.  But I think focusing on earnings capacity over simplifies things and I'd like to point readers back to Roissy's Dating Market Value Test for Men, which I think is an appropriate analytical tool to use when looking a sexual market analysis. Roissy's test is more appropriate since masculinity can't simply be reduced to one parameter.

Still, if we look at the income data, it does demonstrate that there is a severe mismatch for women of higher achievement when hypergamy is taken into account.  Now, the thing to remember is that hypergamy is relative to a woman's own status, therefore,  only the men earning the same amount or more are going to be of interest to her. (All other things being equal.)

I've pulled the following chart from Dalrock's post.

Let's assume that the median income for both sexes is somewhere between the 25-40 thousand band.

Under the influence of hypergamy, a woman from this band will find 58% of all single men (these are the men on her pay scale or above) attractive. On the other hand, the pool of available women is much larger for man since a woman's income is not as important in her attractiveness. That's almost a two to one ratio in favour of the man. The problem gets worse for women the more successful they are as there are progressively less men to satisfy their hypergamous instincts.

But income is only one of the parameters of attraction. A woman's judgement of a man is based on a multivariate analysis. Other parameters such as intelligence, status and physical attractiveness matter, and there is that intangible element of "style".

Now, let's look at educational qualification as education is a rough proxy for status and intelligence.

 Percent of U.S. Adults Ages 25-29 With a Bachelor's Degree or Higher, 1969-2009

What is there to say? There are roughly 1.5 times more bachelor qualified women to men in this age group. Now its true that men still outnumber women in the professions that require really hard thinking i.e Science and Engineering, but this is irrelevant when it comes to the dating game.  What matters in the dating game is which social class/group you belong to and an education is a qualification ticket into the middle and upper classes. An industrious redneck trucker is going to need an awful lot of money to appeal to a female sociology major, since the sociology major is going to feel that, intellectually, he is beneath her and will not appeal to her hypergamic instinct. Yeah, I know there may be exceptions but this is the rule.

Now one thing we notice from the graph is that the number of men attaining a bachelor's degree has remained approximately the same since the sixties. However, given the massive expansion in education over the last fifty years it seems that women have taken the opportunities presented to them whilst men haven't. This graph is a dreadful indictment of the modern American male. Perhaps one of the reasons that so many men are unemployed is because they're to dumb (and therefore unnatractive to women) to attain the qualifications that will give them a job.

I know many MRA types have tried to explain away the discrepancy of educational rates because of affirmative action policies by educational institutions.  And they are correct, there is discrimination, but it appears to be in favour of men. So great is the gender imbalance at some of the universities that they are now actively discriminating against women in favour of lesser qualified men.

But perhaps these men have decided to opt out of the materialist cubicle jockey lifestyle and pursue a life of travel and adventure.

Nope.

This graph shows the percentage of sexes living at home with mum.

Perhaps they're spending all their time at self improvement and doing things like hitting the gym?

Yeah, sure.

I know much is made of the fatification of womanhood by the manosphere but in the U.S. it's the men who actually have a slight edge in fatness during the mating years.

Now, for those who are retarded, pointing out male failure does not equal a support of feminism and those who can't see the distinction can simply bugger off. However, an objective man, looking at the data, can't but conclude that women have fully grasped the opportunities given to them whilst the men haven't.  The data does suggest that there are a significant group of men who fit the Manboy label.

I don't rejoice in these numbers, in fact they profoundly depress me, but what depresses me even more is the both the justification and victimhood mentality that has set in to explain this state of affairs.

Some Thoughts on Christmas.

 My view of Christmas has changed as I've gotten older. When I was a young child, Christmas truly was magical. However, as I've gotten older Christmas has become more and more a burden to cope with. People, instead of becoming happier and more friendly, actually become more agitated and angry as fight their way through mobs to get that last present or ingredient. Very few people wish each other a Merry Christmas anymore and I used to think it was sales staff not wanting to offend some politically correct bastard, but now I realise is because no one really cares and everyone is going through the motions and theirs no spirit in it.

When I used to work in the Emergency Dept Christmas day was always one of our busiest times of the year. Arguments, fights and stabbings amongst family members were quite common. But then again that's what happens when you bring together family members who otherwise go out of their way to avoid each other. The media like to constantly repeat that Christmas is about giving, about being with the family, about helping the poor and unfortunate and all that other shit. To a degree it is all these things and yet it isn't.

Because all that other stuff matters jack shit if you don't remember just why we celebrate it. And for you dumb bastards who want to forget I'm here to remind you that it is to celebrate the birth of Jesus. If you take this one trivial aspect away from the celebration then the day becomes another orgy of excess or sentimental banality. The Christmas magic come from the reason for the event. So instead of stuffing your face with food you don't need and giving presents to kids who have so much shit that they don't know what to do with it, how about you go to Church and bend your knee to the babe given to us by God and be thankful for His mercy. For the Master honours those who honour him.

And enough of the Seasons Greetings, Festive Tidings and especially Happy Holiday shit. All of which are an attempt to secularise an otherwise religious spirit. Grow a pair of balls and tell those who get offended by hearing Merry Christmas to fuck off. It's a time of peace and goodwill and if they can't get with the program then they can go to hell. I'm sick of the miserable bastards.

To the rest of you, a hearty Merry Christmas to you all.

The Slutification of Taylor Swift.

I suppose it was only a matter of time.

Regular readers might remember a post of mine I put up on Taylor Swift. Well, Taylor seems to have changed her image quite a bit.


Gone is the nice wholesome girl next door image that she cultivated before. She appears to want to appeal to the carousel riding crowd. I imagine that she will draw many of her fans along for the ride.

Christian men please note. Sweet Taylor is singing a song about a douchebag. Its a song about about alpha love. More precisely it's about 5 mins of alpha love.

Taylor Swifts transformation is a good example of how a man should not conflate beauty with goodness. Frequently, when it comes to women, beauty is conferred on those who are otherwise moral idiots. A good woman is not just pretty but has good character. Now go and read this post by Roosh V.

For Christian men, the pickings are mighty slim.

Morality and Economics.

Great article over at The Right Stuff by Matt Forney.  Too bad that mainstream economics, of both Left and Right persuasions, is quiet on the subject of personal morality and its link to economic prosperity. In Economics, as in personal salvation,  "Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you."

Economics is a subset of the cultural milleu. Bad culture, bad economics. It's as simple as that. 

An Officer and a Gentleman.

This week I manged to find two posts which intersected with each other quite nicely. The first, was this one over at the Daily Mail.  Now not many nice things get said about the behaviour of the Germans during WW2, and I've certainly got nothing nice to say about the Nazi's, but this story does show that honorable action was possible even in that bestial war. The Luftwaffe, at least in the early stages of the war, acted honourably. In many instances during the Battle of Britain, German pilots would circle around British airmen downed in the Channel where German rescue planes would pick them up. In other instances the British would circle. But as the war wore on, and every advantage was sought, the chivalry wore thin.

But what is interesting is looking at Stigler's motivations for not shooting down the aircraft. When joining his unit he was briefed by his commanding officer Lt Gustav Roedel,

Honour is everything here,' he had told a young Stigler before his first mission. The senior airman added: 'If I ever see or hear of you shooting at a man in a parachute, I will shoot you down myself. 'You follow the rules of war for you - not for your enemy. You fight by rules to keep your humanity. [Ed] ' His moral compass was more powerful than his need for glory. 

 'For me it would have been the same as shooting at a parachute, I just couldn't do it,' Stigler later said.

What is clear here is that his conception of honour is different to the mainstream conceptions of it. Honour, it appears to Roedel, was not a mark of social merit or standing but rather a practical code of action designed to avoid self corruption. This seems particularly relevant in light of one of Fred Reeds latest essays.

These are degenerate days. Once I breached the walls of Ilium or Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade and killed and looted and raped girls of seven in front of their parents—how they howled! Now perforce I say I do it for democracy, about which I don’t give a damn, or to end evil, though our allies are the worst tyrants we can find. Before, I could torture my captives between two slow fires, or by running a red-hot poker up their neither ends, and this in the public square for the amusement of a bored populace.

Now I water-board them, bringing them to the edge of drowning, screaming, begging, puking, yes, that does nicely, now a little more water as their minds break, and maybe I will masturbate over it later. For I am a soldier. I am dirt. I am the worst of a sorry species. ...........

For this we hold reunions. We get together in Wyoming and Tuscaloosa and Portland and remember when we were young and the war held off the boredom of life and the star shells flickered in the night sky over Happy Valley and life meant nothing but was at least intense. I hated the H&I fire over the dark forests of a puzzled Cambodia and I hate you cocksuckers living soft at home for sending us and I hate what I did and I hate what my friends did who were there, who are really my only friends. Aind I hope you one day pay, what we paid, what our victims paid and you pay it as we did. And this will bring me the only joy in my life.

Unlike most people, I regard soldiering as profession akin to the priesthood, for greater love than this no man hath. But just like the priesthood, when it goes bad, it goes bad horribly. And the problem for the soldier, particularly, is that his opprotunities to go bad mulitply in combat. Particularly, in drawn out, low grade guerrilla type of war. Which raises a particular question. How do you fight such a war and maintain your humanity? Personally, I think this is another one of the weak points in Western Culture. Our doctrine on the morality of war seems not to have moved much since the 19th Century and has created a situation where we are trying to fight guerrilla wars with battlefield assumptions that are rooted in traditional European history. This hamstrings our soldiers, who are always judged under the same conditions. On the other hand, this failure to develop a doctrine within the Christian tradition has left the door open to utilitarian modes of thinking which justify all actions in the pursuit of victory.

Dark Triads and Dark Knights: Another interesting study.

 Here is an very good and interesting article from The Scientific American.

Basically, it proves the premise of game. People with the Dark Triad are better able to present themselves in such a way to make themselves attractive. It's not their innate "Dark Triad-ness" that is attractive, in fact, the study mentions that many of these people are later avoided, rather it's their ability "to make themselves attractive" that makes them attractive.

As the authors cleverly demonstrate, it's not the ability to the those of the Dark Triad to learn modes of behaviour and dress that makes them attractive and not necessarily their innate qualities. Whilst the study did not look at it, it certainly hinted that many of those who possessed Dark Triad qualities had difficulties with long term relationships.

Which leads to another implication of the study. The reason why those of the dark triad have "success" is because their targets are predictably superficial in their assessments of them. Every time I see a Katie Piper taking some thug-luvin, I can't but help feel that there goes a woman without any long term sense or judgement.

Still, for the young Christian man looking for a mate, when you see a woman paired up with such a man, it is a sign, like a tattoo, that such a woman is not a good long term investment.  She who lives by the tingles shall die (or be disfigured) by them.  BTW, here is an example of a woman with an extraordinary good deal of common sense.

However, the research which I have presented in the last few posts demonstrates that it is difficult to have a good relationship with a woman if a man does not at least possess something which generates the "tingles" in his mate. In other words, a man needs to possess both alpha and beta qualities. But what would such a man be like? I imagine there are many permutations possible, but I've always liked Raymond Chandlers description of his ideal detective, since I believe it encapsulates the alpha/beta mix very well. I tend to think of it as the concept of the "Dark Knight": 

“In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption. It may be pure tragedy, if it is high tragedy, and it may be pity and irony, and it may be the raucous laughter of the strong man. But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.

The detective in this kind of story must be such a man. He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor -- by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world. I do not care much about his private life; he is neither a eunuch nor a satyr; I think he might seduce a duchess and I am quite sure he would not spoil a virgin; if he is a man of honor in one thing, he is that in all things.

He is a relatively poor man, or he would not be a detective at all. He is a common man or he could not go among common people. He has a sense of character, or he would not know his job. He will take no man's money dishonestly and no man's insolence without due and dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him. He talks as the man of his age talks -- that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness.

The story is the man's adventure in search of a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. He has a range of awareness that startles you, but it belongs to him by right, because it belongs to the world he lives in. If there were enough like him, the world would be a very safe place to live in, without becoming too dull to be worth living in. ”

― Raymond Chandler, The Simple Art of Murder

Chandler really knows how to mix the alpha and beta just right.
 

You can lead a horse to water.*

A while ago, Roissy linked to a study which showed that disgust seems to be diminished when people are sexually aroused. The study was part authored by Charmaine Borg, who is a researcher with an interest in sexual dysfunction. Her main area of interest seems to be in trying to elucidate the mechanisms of vaginismus and dyspareunia in the hope of find an effective treatment for the conditions.  Her research findings suggest that these two conditions are strongly linked to the disgust response. Apparently, there has been very little research into the disgust mechanism, so she is really paving some new ground. However if some of her preliminary finds are anything to go by, I feel that her research will have profound implications in our understanding of intersexual dynamics. Particularly the traditionalist understanding of sexual interaction.

The traditonalist "romantic" model of sexual interaction saw sex activity as an endpoint after a period of escalating romantic involvement. Essentially, a man "niced" his way into a woman's pants. Having sex for purely "physical" reasons was seen as a form of debased behaviour and hence aspects the sexual dynamic which emphasised a partners physical characteristics were downplayed or censured amongst polite society. There was a strong anti-carnal nature to our understanding of sexual love. Keep that thought.

Back to Ms Borg's research.

More interesting than her disgust study is this one, which is hot of the presses (Only have the abstract). In this experiment, women were divided into two groups; those who had positive emotional associations with sex and those who didn't. Explicitly erotic images were then shown to both groups of women whilst they underwent functional MRI scanning. The interesting finding in this study was than in both groups of women, brain activation patterns akin to that seen in disgust were activated, with the strongest activation being in those who were sex negative. The authors felt that a woman's sexual memory modulated the disgust response. In other words, women with a good experience of sex were able to modulate their disgust response more effectively than those with negative memory.

This is actually a groundbreaking experiment on two levels. Firstly, it seems to demonstrate a  default disgust-mediated inhibitory mechanism to female sexuality. Unlike men, who are good-to-go,  women it appears are in a "switched-off " mode through a disgust mediated mechanism. It's this default hard-wired bias which probably explains why there is no equivalent to the raw-sex-gay-bar scene amongst women.  All other things being equal, women are wired to find raw-anonymous-sex disgusting.

Secondly, the research seems to provide evidence to support Baumeister's erotic plasticity hypothesis by demonstrating that modulation of disgust response is possible. In fact, Borg et al have done some research which hints at cultural factors also being able to modulate this response. In this small study, Borg was able to demonstrate a link between conservative moral values and sexual dysfunction. If you encourage prudery you're going to get asexual women, as sexual puritanism re-enforces the disgust response.


Now, this research is interesting in how it intersects with traditional conceptions of sexuality and marriage.

Traditional conceptions of love placed a strong emphasis on romantic love and de-emphasised the carnal nature of the sexual dynamic. Christian writers placed particular emphasis on duties towards each other and of the need to render the marital debt owed to each other. Wives were told to submit to their husbands.  Fair enough.

But what happens when a good Christian wife, out of wifely duty, has sex with a husband she finds unarousing? Her "hard wired" neural circuitry is bound to find the experience disgusting. (Aspergoids: she has no choice in the matter).  If she does it enough times, a conditioned response sets in and the wife is involuntarily put off sex. Add a puritanical cultural environment, and you have a great mechanism for killing off sexual intimacy and encouraging extra marital liaisons. Who would have thought?

For those who are interested, an appropriate Victorian cautionary tale.

*I know it's not a horse but I liked the picture.

I'm calling it Koreogamy.

As mentioned in my previous post, there really is no convenient term to describe object of male desire. Considering the suggestions made in the previous post, I've decided that Elusive Wapiti's suggestion is the most appropriate.  Hence, Koreogamy will be term I'll use to describe the quiddity of male sexual desire.  Kore being Ancient Greek for maiden (Young woman). If anyone has any objections speak up. Perhaps the Dark Lord will confer his blessing on the term.

Thanks to EW for the suggestion. BTW, he has a good essay on the topic over at The Spearhead.

Femogamy: A New Term for the Manosphere.

Everyone who has spent any time amongst the Manosphere blogs is by now familiar with the term hypergamy: the desire for women to marry up. Unfortunately, as far as I'm aware, there doesn't appear to be a similar term for the equivalent male urge: the desire to marry more attractive, feminine women, i.e. younger, hotter, tighter. This is an unfortunate omission which tends to stymy a good  understanding of the human libido and relationship dynamics. Many manosphere commentators, especially the MRA crowd, fail to understand that female hypergamy is a natural instinct and not some perverted moral choice.

The reason I bring this up is because there has been an interesting discussion going on over here which seems to illustrate quite clearly the categorical error made by many manosphere commentators. They can't seem to recognise that, when it comes to the human libido, the hypergamous impulse in women is equivalent to the (femogamous?)  impulse in men.  There may be better words to describe the impulse out there,  and I'm all open to suggestions, but I think this omission of a name for male-specific sexual desire confuses the situation, especially amongst weaker minds.

Weaker minds, I feel, make a category error when dealing with hypergamy, attributing to it a moral dimension which really isn't there.  Hypergamy is the natural object of female sexuality. It's not a choice, and therefore devoid of a moral dimension, but a hard wired instinct.  It's what women involuntarily feel in the presence of a suitable male. Women have about as much choice about their hypergamous natures as men do about their femogamous ones. It's a fact of life and getting angry about it is about as idiotic as getting angry about the orbital motion of the planets or the unfairness of Plank's constant. How a woman chooses to act on those feelings confer a moral dimension to them, but the fact of being attracted to alpha males is morally neutral.

In many ways the men complaining against hypergamy are akin to the "fat acceptance" crowd and their logic, when complaining about male femogamy.  The fatties are constantly harping on about how there is something wrong with men for preferring thinner women. The MRA/MGTOW crowd are constantly asserting that there is something wrong with women for preferring higher status males. Both loser groups, being the neglected victims of natural human desires, want to punish or constrain normal people from having them. Social engineering is the preferred vehicle.

One of the big tenets of conservative thought is of accepting the reality of human nature.  Conservatives believe that you can't socially engineer it to your pleasure; that intellectual error belongs to the Left.  And if you think about this a bit more deeply, you'll see then that the anti-hypergamy crowd aren't conservative in any sense at all, rather, their thought process is fundamentally radical, more akin to the left, in their understanding of human nature.  That's why there is an overlap between traditionalist "romantic" understandings of women and feminism.

If anyone has a better name for the concept I'd be glad to hear from them.