Thank you both for a very interesting discussion. The question of what to do about the mess we face with the evil of feminism is critical. I agree more with Janice on this one. Imagine you were an adult at a playground with very young children. One of the kids starts bashing another child with a stick. What do you do? Do you work on compassion or empathy? NO! You take the damn stick out of the kids hand and stop the behavior. Then it is time for compassion and empathy as you seek some sort of resolution. But the compassion and empathy come second, When you see something like that you stop the behavior. At this point there is not a simple way to stop what has grown into a feminist monster. But we can clearly speak our truth and call out the hatred when we see it. If each of us did that we would likely be in a better place.
As a therapist who worked many years with the grief and trauma of both men and women I agree that grief is an important part of human maturity. Without it we are primitives in many ways. Having compassion for our enemies is important but should not become a place to hide and not take needed action.
It seems to me that gynocentrism is the underlying element here that has protected feminists from any sort of accountability and at the same time has also been the fuel for them to do what they have done. Funding crazy feminist ideas is what has happened in our world and it has happened due to the gynocentrism of men. Our idiot legislators have poured fuel on a dumpster fire and thought they were doing good deeds for women.
BTW the research has been done and it is clear that it is fathers who teach empathy. They know now that the father's limit setting is instrumental in its development.
Tom, the reason for understanding the enemy, via compassion, is so that you can take the stick out of the bully's hand. Compassion doesn't defeat accountability or speaking the truth about what is happening, it enables it. Our idiot legislators did what they did because they didn't allow themselves to feel the pain of what was happening or speak truth about it.
David, I'd find it very helpful if you (and other contributors) would provide us with definitions, or at least their own working definitions, of words such as "compassion," "empathy" and "sympathy." They're not, or once were not, synonyms. The distinctions, therefore, are worth noting. Otherwise, we're talking at cross purposes.
Paul, you're right, definitions would be helpful. As I said in my dialogue with Janice, I think empathy is the closest word to what I mean, and I am referring to the fellow-feeling one gets from identifying with the issues of the other (what compassion - common passion - used to mean but doesn't any longer). I contrast that with accountability, which is holding the other accountable for their behavior and attitudes. I see the combination of these two as representing the essence of a balanced, healthy relationship with the other. Moral polarization, on the other hand, splits empathy and accountability, as in feminism which has empathy without accountability for women and accountability without empathy for men. In other words, feminism "gets" all of the ways that women are powerless and none of the ways that they are powerful, and vice versa for men.
I counsel empathy and accountability for both men and women, which means that we "get" the ways that women and powerless AND the ways that they are powerful, and we "get" the ways that men are powerful AND the ways that they are powerless.
I don't counsel compassion for the bullies' sake, but for ours as advocates, so that we see clearly. And combining force with compassion is exactly what we must do.
Well I think bullies bast respond to being sidelined. Certainly they are emboldened by repeated success. And of course their motives are often contradictory.
Most women have experienced the "mean girls" in high school. In a general way, women can see this behavior for what it is and know how to deal with it. I think we need to do a better job convincing women to fight for men's rights and against the radical feminist. We're beginning to see that with organizations like "mothers with sons". I think they advocate for men's rights. Blogger TinMen may be right. It's a branding problem. If we can convince women the goal is not misogyny but equal rights, maybe that will make a difference.
The problem with our politicians are that they are self-serving.. If it gets them votes or benefits them in any way they will take that route. Humans have an incredible ability to make justifications... Male leaders with daughters or domineering wives are very susceptible to the pressures at home or empathy for their own. Wars have been fought, kingdoms lost and major political decisions made because of pressure from the important women in a mans life. Anyone who thinks women are the weaker sex has never been married or had daughters :-)
It was my intention to point out that radical feminist play on the cultural and biological myth that women are inherently victims. Until it's not advantageous. It's used as a way to remove all accountability. To receive preferential treatment. Throughout history it was used as a strategy to counter men's inherently greater physical strength.
I like the analogy of radical feminists as mean girls. Spot on.
Having wives or daughters doesn't justify gyno-centrism. wo-MEN are weaker in every way. However, MEN'S weakness is what pedestalizes them. King Herod could have told his wife & daughter to SHUT UP. Instead, he 'let' them incite the murder of John the Baptist.
I agree that women do do this. I think one of the reasons that it's so effective is that men line up to endulge them, and I think that you're last sentence there is indicative of this.
Mean girls engage in character assassination of others and character self promotion of themselves. It shouldn't be as effective as it is, because it's actually very easy to spot. Men however engage in the self promotion of women unfortunately to score cookie points.
Not implying that you're you're weak man or anything, but the the little nugget thrown to women to go "weaker sex my ass haha" just seems to enable mean girl behavior.
No one says stuff like this about men. No one boosts men's egos unless they've really earned it.
In your playground example, it is compassionate to stop the abusive child. You are helping him to learn how to treat people properly. It is also the golden rule of treating people how you want to be treated. If i were an abuser, I would want someone to help me realize this so I could stop and change.
Lake, I know what you mean, you mean that it is good for the child to stop the abusive child, and I agree, it is. But it's not technically compassionate in the way that I am using that word here, rather it is applying accountability.
I do find the concept "gynocentrism" persuasive. There is evidence of this all around in everyday life, such as this piece about what was a massive media event here in the UK (including speculations that somehow her husband has been abusing her with the Police having to make clear this was totally false) and a very similar case at the same time. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-13244683/Ex-detective-Nicola-Bulley-Graham-Connell-Missing-People.html The man's name unknown to a national audience until this report. One can blame "the media" for this but of course they know their audience.
"I do find the concept "gynocentrism" persuasive."
I agree, but I would argue that gynocentrism is only half the equation.
Gynocentrism is just nature's way of ensuring the resources get to women and children. Gynocentism only became a corrupting (or 'corroding') force in the post industrial/ technological age when living standards shot up.
The way I see it, the male/ female dynamic and psychology is set up for a world of scarcity, danger and mud! Now that we have electric street lights, pavements, public transport, indoor plumbing, shopping malls etc all those previously complementary and compatible 'programs' in men and women have spun completely out of control.
Men can now AFFORD to indulge women's limitless demands, which are no longer for some more sheepskins for winter, logs for the fire and a pheasant for dinner .... but for starring roles in action movies, equal representation in boardrooms and a gender role which provides maximum freedom to behave however you like with zero social obligations (he for she).
Nothing has changed, per se. It's just that western society has suddenly (in the last century) won the lottery, and now all of those male/ female gender dynamics that used to be kept in check by practical limitations (bucket, spade, horse) have had those practical limitations removed.
Indeed it is hard to imagine the grind of life that was the lot of most people until pretty recently. Most of our "heritage industry" sanitises the more distant past by really focussing on the stately homes, castles and grand religious monuments. Only occassionally does one get to see the "third world" existence my ancestors lived until two generations ago. And even the modern third world has elecricty, phones and medicine. When, in 1906, the old age pension was established here it was set at age 75, mens life expectancy was then just 52, it what overall was one of the richest lands on the planet. Intriguingly in Europe generally the smallest "gender pay gaps" are in the poorest still largely agricultural countries, because everyone has to lend a hand to everything. Unprecedentedly widespread luxury, long lives well beyond human reproductive lifespans control over fertility and you have something entirely new and something that has happened in a blink of an eye in even recorded history let alone the 100,000s years of human existence. We have "affluenza" in health and "luxury beliefs" as you say.
" Intriguingly in Europe generally the smallest "gender pay gaps" are in the poorest still largely agricultural countries, because everyone has to lend a hand to everything"
Right. But I would argue that the 'gender pay gap' is actually a measure of female privilege anyway, and NOT oppression (credit to Karen and Alison of the Honey Badgers for this observation).
It is men's enormous subsidies to women (both voluntary and involuntary via taxation) that allow women to choose lower paying jobs and earn less. For every dollar a man spends he must earn $1.23 and for every dollar a woman spends she only has to earn 77 cents of it.
As usual feminists have spun this as patriarchal oppression, and men have swallowed the bait.
Also, the gender pay gap assumes jobs only pay with money. The kinds of jobs which women tend to choose are those which pay in social opportunities, safety, comfort, fun and job satisfaction, easy commute, safety and cleanliness. That is part of the 'pay'. That form of pay only benefits the person being paid, and cannot be divided up and handed other to anyone else.
We push men into jobs which pay almost exclusively in terms of money (rather than safety, comfort, flexibility etc) because monetary pay can easily be taken from that man (taxed) and handed to women, and men can also be persuaded to hand it over to women by paying for the meal, and paying the bills. Paying men in money (converting his labour into coins) is in this sense a form of parasitism (to put the most cynical spin on it).
If we equalised pay between men and women (as feminists pretend they want), the standard of living for women would go down, not up.
The 'wage gap' is just another feminist shaming tactic (to keep men in line), not a real campaign. If it was a real cause we'd see feminists choosing high paid jobs and then spending their high earnings on men so they could afford to be florists, or children's authors or run their own pottery barn... or be stay at home dads. I think most men would enjoy such 'oppression'.
BRILLIANT! It is clear that Bolshevism is built into the legal system, seemingly everything from child support & alimony to FAKE rape claims against MALE celebrities is just an agenda to re distribute wealth from MEN to wo-MEN. On a more humorous note: I'm sure glad Elon Musk got rid of all those worthless fe-MALES with those fluff jobs at Twitter who were censoring everyone.
Gyno centrism is the WORSHIP of wo-MEN. In NO way is it biological or evolutionary. MEN being ordained as the HEAD and the wo-MAN called by God to submit, is the natural order, Gyno-centrism is NOT. Protecting those who are weaker doesn't have to be gender based.
As I see it, gynocentrism is placing the comfort, security and survival needs of women (and by extension children) above those of men. It is men sacrificing whatever is necessary (perhaps their lives) to ensure the women and children live.
This is not at odds with gender based hierarchies such as 'patriarchy'. Men can absolutely be head of the family, or head of the tribe or society and have women submitting to them left, right and centre, without this conflicting with gynocentric hard wiring.
To submit to a man in a relationship, or to submit to men generally in wider society, is to minimise your own agency and maximise your vulnerability, while maximising the man's agency and minimising his vulnerability. This places you under him, and therefore gives him RESPONSIBILITY over you.
Submission makes you more like a child, and pushes the man more into the role of parent (patriarch) as a response. I would say that submission to men is entirely compatible with gynocentrism, and is in fact a way to provoke it and maximise it.
Feminism is a form of submission (it's a male power fantasy), minus the corresponding respect, adoration and gratitude for men's gynocentric dominance and heroic sacrifices (he for she).
Feminism is wanting to exploit the natural gynocentric / patriarchal transaction between men and women, while simultaneously branding it the root of all masculine evil and female suffering! Feminism is insisting on the cabbie sitting in the back seat, while you get to sit up front, and then shouting at him to hurry up and drive you to your destination!
OK, some valid points, however I still see Gyno-centrism as IDOLATRY, the worship of wo-MEN. Protecting the weak doesn't have to be gender based. For ex. many fEMINISTS have said: "If a wo-MAN & a child are drowning, we should save the wo-MAN first" The justification being that wo-MEN can create more babies. OK, so what if the child is fe-MALE? That the fe-MALE adult is prioritized over the fe-MALE child, puts a kink in the (gyno-centrism is evolutionary thesis) exposing gyno-centrism as the WORSHIP of wo-MEN rather than preservation of the tribe.
Gyno-centrism is the WORSHIP of wo-MEN, in NO way is it evolutionary or biological. That the MAN is called to be the HEAD of the family and the wo-MAN is called to submit to her husband is the natural order of God. Exalting wo-MEN is it's own thing, separate and apart from the natural order.
Very interesting and thoughtful. However, I would propose a simpler explanation for the evils of feminism: Marxism. See Red Feminism by Kate Weigand. Extensively documented and factually written.
As I see it, Edward, suggesting that Marxism is the root behind feminism just moves the problem back one stage. One must then explain why Marxism and Communism have been so seductive to their followers, when they, like feminism, are false-to-fact in their foundations. I didn't have room to expound this in the dialogue, but I believe that the Matrisensus, the shadow of the family archetype, is the psychological source of Communism as well as identity politics, which is why they resemble each other.
Basic evidence for this thesis is found in the fact that communists create a pseudo-family by calling each other comrade, and that the communist slogan, "To each according to their needs, from each according to their abilities," describes exactly how to be in a family, but not how to be in a society. Communes organized along these principles (for example, Israeli kibbutzim) work up to a certain size, which is around 200 or so; bigger than that and they fail. That happens to be the maximum size at which we can know most of the people involved. Once we can't have a personal relationship with people, then the healthy family archetype is impossible and we fall into the Matrisensus.
I think Carrie Gress, in her latest book, The End of Woman, mentions the feminine aspect of Marxism.
Btw, David, have you read anything on how dopamine works? A recent book I read, The Molecule of More, describes how dopamine highs come with socially "progressive" attitudes and behaviour. The book also touches on the causes and effects of oxytocin, the love hormone. I think such research might give a biochemical angle to your hypotheses.
Thank you both for a valuable dialogue, which I will read and read again. Just one observation I'd make. That has to do with empathy. In my experience of working in female dominated industries, and for most of that being a manager, women do not have much empathy as defined as being able to get into anothers mind/experience. If they had empathy a huge amount of sorting out fall outs and disagreements etc. wouldn't have happened and my job infinitely easier. No I think women are adept at expressing sympathy and indeed appearing to be sympathetic is a high priority. But what is actually happening is "projection" of their feelings into others. The results are a great deal of completely wrong assumptions about other people's actual feelings, what they mean by something said and done, or what actions mean. I really do think that the common assumption that empathy is a particularly female thing is quite wrong, rather it is that this belief means women are particularly prone to project into others and not take the step of asking or checking out their understanding. Sympathy is particularly important, and being seen to be sympathetic very much so. Indeed in my experience women find it nigh on impossible to follow the Christian teaching to give anonymously, even to raffle tickets or pennies in a box. And of course feminism is awash with assumptions about men and with ostentatious expressions of sympathies for women and children.
Nigel, I agree with what you describe. Real empathy is rare in women, especially under today's conditions of the Matrisensus. That's why it was only exceptional mothers historically who were able to love their children more than they themselves were loved as a child. Just as real truth-seeking is rare in men, who for the most part just go along with the cultural story, and that's why the men who historically moved our knowledge forward were also rare.
I think the rareness is where I find hope. Certainly in this country (UK) time after time surveys find the majority of both sex express very traditional aspirations. Of course the men are ignored while feminist organisations always loudly demand all these women are "educated" out of such ideas. Yet in fact in my daily life most people do indeed reflect the survey results. Whereas a relatively small number of men and women in our civil institutions are fully on board with feminism. Effectively those who went to "Oxbridge" or Russell Group Universities. Now the wheels are gradually falling off this "elite's" hold, in a very deferential society, as people look on incredulously at notions such as "trans" and multiple genders wildly divergent treatment of different groups (most notably the "asian grooming gangs") and evident direct discriminations in favour of women. There is considerable attempts to hush this disquiet and lots of handwringing about the "chasm" between those in authority and the wider public. With the supposedly "woke" younger generations far more skeptical of feminism than the supposedly conservative "boomers" I have hope that there will be a shift. In a similar way the formerly PC Scandinavian and northern european nations have made a massive change of attitude to immigration and multiculturalism, under huge pressure from their people. In short I'm hopeful. I think there is a danger to assume the outcomes, for instance the UK being Europe's leader in % of single parent/blended/chaotic "families, is what people aspired to.
I've noted that when a woman consoles another woman she often will reflexively agree with literally everything the distressed woman says. This, in my opinion, is neither compassionate nor sympathetic: It's just patronizing.
But it is the root of so much today as everything is agreed to in order to console. No matter how ridiculous or how contradictory. "Self identification" being just latest thing to be enforced in order to avoid upset.
Shackleton asks: “How does it insulate its followers from reality?”. Broadly speaking, it doesn’t: they shield themselves from reality by stopping to think where their self-interest ends. Double think and stopping thinking where one’s interest ends seem to be evolved behaviours: it is easier to convince others when the tell-tale signs of lying are absent.
For example, when you ask women about today’s feminism, most will say it has gone too far. They will also say women have great power these days, with men often having to watch their step. Sounds like empathy, right? Wrong. First, notice they did not say that this was a bad thing. Notice the quick little smile they fail to suppress when saying women have great power. When you propose that, before subjecting a man to concrete consequences such as imprisonment etc, a woman has the unpleasant duty of at least clearly communicating that she wants him to stop doing whatever it is she dislikes, they will not confirm that, even if pushed, and instead start talking about men’s responsibilities. They will then go on to re-elect parliamentarians who push such laws. All of this demonstrates that their show of empathy was just a facade.
Against such deceit, focussing on empathy with those displaying this barbaric behaviour is primarily a way of confusing the issue and thereby furthering the deceit: it leads to evasive discussions, and away from the facts and a resolution of wrongs.
Shackleton writes: “To understand your enemy you must see her not only objectively but also subjectively, as she sees herself”. However, it should not be about an enemy, but about an adversary, as defined by stances on concrete issues. And it should not be about how she sees herself, or about understanding her, but about the facts, and about fairness.
It can still be useful in discussing these issues to give the devil his due, in as far as this helps to define the issue. However, you should not allow it to be used to draw attention away from the issue at hand toward other, possibly also meritful issues. E.g., in the above example, it may be recognized that a woman may indeed feel very uncomfortable, and that a man indeed has a moral responsibility to look out for signs of that, and both are important aspects in their own right. But that is not the issue. The issue in the example is not moral culpability, but formal culpability and it’s devastating consequences. When someone has so little compassion that she tries to confuse the issue, then that should be pointed out, not empathized with.
It is also true that people can be legitimately misled by an environment that preaches only one misleading story. So tell them the specific real story. After that, they may remain misled, but will have less of an excuse.
Dutch, it is clear that individual self-interest is the basic motivating energy of the Matrisensus. In the case of the Patriarchy, when men's competence hierarchies go bad, it is the self-interest of power and privilege. In the case of the Matrisensus, when women's social networking goes wrong, it is the self-interest of virtue seeking.
It was when I observed that feminists who were told "the specific real story" almost always refused to believe it, and created obviously false rationalizations to support their wrong beliefs, that I realized something deeper must be operating, something with primal psychological roots, must be driving feminism. Later, I broadened the scope, realizing that all of identity politics was of the same ilk.
No one is the villain in their own story. Removing agency from your self perception allows your own evil deeds to be not only the fault of others but also a part of the burden you bravely bear.
Dutch, I want to respond to this comment that you wrote: "Shackleton writes: “To understand your enemy you must see her not only objectively but also subjectively, as she sees herself”. However, it should not be about an enemy, but about an adversary, as defined by stances on concrete issues. And it should not be about how she sees herself, or about understanding her, but about the facts, and about fairness."
It should indeed be about facts and about fairness - that is the masculine focus on rationality and reason, and it is important. However, my point was that this isn't enough. We should also extend ourselves to empathy for the adversary, into the subjective world as well as the objective, if we are to be able to really see creative solutions to the issues that divide us.
You imply that “masculine reason” does not empathize. However, “reason” may review all relevant aspects, including conflicting views, feelings and interests; it may then decide that it is “reasonable” to focus on a particular issue. The problem, then, with explicit expression of empathy is that it distracts from the core message, resulting in those stuck in feminist propaganda not getting the message. Empathy is fine, but don’t dilute the message.
Is the phrase 'Matrisensus, the dark side of the feminine' a fancy way of saying 'F*@King Psycho'?
Know 'thine enemy' surely means realising that the feminists thought leaders and advocates are actually psychopathic. These people are not there to be reasoned with. They are power-mad and murderous. The increasing hardships of men: loneliness, unemployment, imprisonment, suicide are all, to these women, a job well done.
All shadow archetypes are pathological. The term psychopath refers to a particular type of pathology, but the Matrisensus is a particular pattern of compulsive psycho-pathology that taps the source energy of a primal psychological pattern built into us by evolution, which is why it is so powerful to move millions in coherent, organized patterns based on what feels right to them. And agreed, from within this pattern, the sufferings of men feel appropriate, a job well done as you say.
Sadly I do not think we will ever be able to overcome the moral Polarisation. The indicators are that it is extremely doubtful that what is called Western Civilisation will survive the next 50-100 years.
The only hope is for an extremely large group of people to have an epiphany and be able to stand up to the Spin Sisters.
Phillip, I fear you may be right. I, too, am not confident that we will find a way to triumph over this pathology before it overcomes us and we lose the ability to function as a society.
I share your pessimism about the future of Western civilisation. I see it in tragic terms....Icarus burning his wings etc. Having said that, I recently posted an essay on this theme (of feminism vs reality) on my own 'stack ...and with - for me - an uncharacteristically positive slant. You might find it interesting. It starts:
"I think I may have spotted a positive trend. Now that’s not a sentence you would expect to read in Slouching Towards Bethlehem is it! Positive trend? Yes....recently (in a certain kind of feminist journalism) I keep coming across warm-hearted acknowledgements that Masculinity and Femininity are complementary polarities in any sane conception of The Good Life. An acknowledgement that the relationship between a man and a woman has the potential to be the finest fruit that life has to offer. And that when things go wrong, they are often better understood as resulting from a kind of Faustian tango between the sexes than as a simple case of one sex always doing wrong by the other........" https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/shall-we-dance
It seems to me that morality--right v. wrong, good v. evil is intrinsically polarizing: why do we want it to be inoffensive or winsome? If we had a law that said it was illegal to kill children in the womb, or enter the country illegally, and the penalties were harsh to those who broke them, we would get less of the behavior. This holds true for race or sex based quotas, bribing elected officials, mutilating children, etc. We are progressively legalizing crime and criminals, this is the heart of the matter. If we do not have the will to correct our course, we will fall--and we will fall, deservedly. It is a loving thing, a compassionate thing, to prosecute crime; to confront and stop those who are destroying our societies. Have just laws and uphold them. It seems simple enough.
Protology, agreed that having just laws and upholding them would go a long way to improve things. The question on the table is how to get people to do that.
Feminism, succinctly, is compassion without accountability for women and accountability without compassion for men. That's the polarization. The answer is compassion AND accountability for both men and women. That means adding compassion for men and accountability for women to the mix.
Perhaps, more succinctly, feminism is false compassion with no accountability for women and false accountability without compassion for men; or, if you like, feminism is no compassion and no accountability for anyone. "How do we get people to have and uphold just laws?" is tantamount to asking, "How do we get criminals to stop committing crime?" The first step would be to stop lying: stop telling feminists that there is a good side and a shadow (bad) side to feminism. The cornerstone of feminism is control over the reproductive lives of women (both men and women are heavily invested in this practice); the ability to reach down the long corridor of time and negate future human beings. We call this contraception or birth control and we all agree it is a great boon to modern society. When an unwanted human being is conceived, we extend the rights of women to negate these people and we call it abortion. Both of these practices (really one, for contraception is just an early form of abortion) are explosively violent and necessarily lead to the death of the civilization in which they are practiced, either by attrition or the invasion of other civilizations, or both as is in our case. It is like field workers going into an orange grove and destroying 80% of the fruit because they find that when harvesting the grove they get hot and tired and start to sweat. Feminism is, essentially, a rejection of productivity and its replacement with comfort, pleasure, and ease. How do we disincentivize this behavior--I can think of only one path: outlaw the behavior and use the bully pulpit to explain why. Tell feminists that they are desolators (those who depopulate the land) and that they are highly effective desolators, to the point of destroying the entire culture. We will not continue, as Western Nations, if we hold this course.
Is it too late? I don't know, I'm not God. All I know is voices. like Janice and to a lesser degree you, need to stand up and state without relief that we need to stop murdering our children; that Feminism, Marxism, Critical Theory, in actuality Modern Philosophy, is the spiritual equivalent of radio-active waste, that when stripped bare it is simply naked godlessness; and above all, that godlessness does not work precisely because godlessness does not want to work--it is lazy.
"Outlaw the behavior and use the bully pulpit to explain why" There are several things that would help if we could do them - but we lack the collective will. The Matrisensus is currently winning. Because of this, I focus on how individuals can become powerful as advocates to stand up and speak the truth, and wise enough to spot any openings that may occur and exploit them for good. Despite sustained effort, I have not yet been able to think of any way that can move against this pathology collectively. But there is hope. After all, alcoholism used to be seen as a moral failing, like feminism sees gender now. And then two self-confessed drunks started something that came to be called Alcoholics Anonymous, and they changed the framing of alcoholism from a moral problem to a disease. That ushered in a process that resulted in millions of alcoholics recovering, all over the world.
Feminism, with it's founding analysis that men oppress women, has moral polarization built in at the root, as alcoholism used to. Maybe something similar might happen to feminism, that will reframe gender relations from a moral system to a health system. That would be a huge improvement.
In my opinion, we have tried this since Freud and Jung and it hasn't worked. We need to jettison the mental health system and return to a moral system. AA has largely marginalized a group of people who have the responsibility to lead a productive life and are allowed to "get by" for the entirety of their working lives because they are diseased. What a horrific future we offer these people, and most of them live out horrific lives--they go where we lead them. And the journey we lead them on always ends in the same place--somewhere, back in their past, they were victims. When I was drinking too much, I was faced with two options--I could be either an alcoholic or a drunk. I chose to be a drunk. Then, I stopped getting drunk. I didn't stop drinking, I stopped getting drunk. I, actually wanted to stop drinking completely but my wife said no--she demanded that I have control over alcohol. It was one of the wisest things she has done for me.
The second thought that comes to mind is that of purpose. A moral system demands fealty to a god; a mental health system does not. To that extent, what we say is recovery is really just stasis: all dressed up with no place to go--and so, they don't go anywhere. There is a vibrant, vital life to be lived in relation to the Creator of the cosmos. I have never seen anything but dissipation and boredom outside of this. I wouldn't wish it on my enemy.
"But there is hope. After all, alcoholism used to be seen as a moral failing, like feminism sees gender now." Please explain how gender can be seen as a moral failing.
As far as alcoholism (and addiction generally) now being seen as illness rather than moral failure, I question the wisdom of seeing it that way and am not *at all* convinced that that way of thinking has made much of an impact on substance abuse except that a lot of people are now profiting from largely useless treatments for it.
Gender is now seen as a moral failing because men are seen as oppressors and perpetrators, morally bad, and women are seen as innocent victims, morally good. This is similar, in effect, to the Christian notion of original sin, except that, unlike Christianity, feminism offers no path to redemption.
Regarding the effectiveness of AA, the evidence, both anecdotal and statistical, about improved lives from the avoidance of alcohol is overwhelming. However, I do agree with you that the model, being always "in recovery" and never "recovered", is flawed.
"Gender is now seen as a moral failing because men are seen as oppressors and perpetrators, morally bad, and women are seen as innocent victims, morally good."
(forgive me jumping in here, this is such a great blog/ thread)
I'm not sure how much the new generation of progressives even care about feminism's treatise on gender (men bad/ women good). It feels like that whole debate peaked around 2014 and has now given way to a whole new conversation about gender. It feels like the whole 'battle of the sexes' has achieved its true goal of making gender a giant dumpster fire for everyone.
The new generation of progressive ideologues are not even seeking to win the 'battle of the sexes' or resolve the differences between men and women. They are now seeking to escape gender altogether.
And just as the pill/ abortion/ welfare/ daycare allowed women to escape the horrors womanhood/ motherhood... we now have new technologies which will allow young people to escape the horrors of the gender binary (or so the marketing claims).
Feminism's social construct theory has already detached gender from biology/ reproduction/ pair bonding/ parenting to the extent that many young people now don't feel part of a binary species (or a binary universe) any more. They have become fully atomised and fully configurable, thanks to an vast array of hormonal, fashion and makeup choices, neo-pronouns and sub cultures.
Social constructivism dismantled gender, and now technology is giving everyone a chance to rebuild it ('build back better'), but this time on their own terms, and not the terms dictated by nature (sexual dimorphism, the demands of reproduction etc).
While we adults continue to look for a way to reconcile men and women, and heal the split created by decades of feminist poison, the kids are being lured into a Brave New World of transhumanism (which I contend has been the unstated goal of feminism for at least the last 100 years).
The battle to reconcile the sexes, is now a battle to retain our human form and our biological function (fertility is plummeting/ pregnancy complications and dysfunction are soaring), and even to retain the principles of male and female in our culture (let alone celebrate them!)
Artificial wombs are only a decade away (so we are told). And in the mean time the youth are being offered 100 new pseudo-genders of their choosing, complete with buckets of glitter and rainbows and fashion accessories, none of which have anything to do with natural reproduction. The idea of 'abstract' genitalia is now a thing, with surgeries being proposed which do not even attempt to mimic penises or vaginas ...
And while all this is going on those two old fashioned (outdated) genders (male and female) are being quietly ushered out of the back door and bundled into the back of a van, and taken off to their retirement homes (or thrown down a well).
Let's not forget that feminists themselves are being kicked off the bus if they continue to hold to a gender binary world view. I contend that feminism (as it was) is over. It has taken society as far as it can, and has now passed the baton over to a whole new breed of gender ideologue: the gender queers and non binaries.
Only feminists who accept gender as a 100% social construct (ie a meaningless and arbitrary term) can avoid being thrown off the bus. In a recent debate with a TERF, I pointed out that she is no longer radical or welcome in the mainstream feminist movement, and that her views are now conservative in nature (as is anyone who adheres to a binary view of gender), and that she should consider herself a conservative ex feminist).
How relevant is feminism (as it was) if even feminists are being thrown off the bus and labelled 'phobes' for sticking to their old fashioned narratives about 'men' and 'women', as if such concepts are still valid?
Reading the accounts of transitioners (and detransitioners), I see a whole new take on gender which is mostly solipsistic, narcissistic, hedonistic, identity based and informed by online digital culture.
In modern post industrial cities the difference between men and women were minimised. Men and women rode the subway together, shopped together and worked in offices together. But online there is no gender at all, no physicality, no pheromones, no scent, no chemistry and no electrical charge in the air. This is where young people now live and interact. What does 'gender politics' even mean if everyone is online, and the physical realm is just a means to get from one screen to another?
The digital / social credit dystopia will make us all equally enslaved under a technocracy in a completely gender neutral way. Gender equality will finally have been achieved. Yay! Everyone gets to be a digital salve (global citizen).
"feminism offers no path to redemption."
Exactly. Nor was it ever meant to IMHO. Feminism achieved its goal of turning gender into a dysfunctional, depressing, run down slum..... and now new technology is providing a one way ticket out of there.
I certainly wasn't taking issue with the fact that alcohol is harmful, only with the idea that viewing it and treating it as disease is any more effective than just shunning and shaming alcoholics. Calling it a disease or a moral failing is just the difference between your friends and family shaming you for free and a therapist doing it for money and telling you you can't help yourself.
This is just part of a comedy routine that's on topic, but it's insightful as well as hilarious.
One of the biggest truisms in the MRM is that "women have rights and men have responsibilities."
Again, there is just no need for any new theories to explain this because patriarchy is, and always has been, gyocentric. What's inconvenient about that is merely that feminists have very successfully marketed their fictional, shadowy, systemic brand of patriarchy as misogynistic. If patriarchy was, indeed, misogynistic then feminism wouldn't be allowed even a toehold on culture.
There may be instances when that is indeed the most compassionate thing. But that same compassion then demands that you remain with him during his withdrawal process, and support him through it as he seeks ways to live that aren't dependent on the drug.
This applies to all instances, not just of drug addiction, but sexual addiction, violent crime, murder, rape, incest, larceny, et. al. This demands that we remain with him or her for the entirety of their lives always supporting, always seeking ways to live that are not dependent on violence or vice. This is the role of the church which, by the way, built Western Civilization (before we called it Western Civilization it was called Christendom).
wo-MEN'S crimes go under the radar. There's a pandemic of wo-MEN lying about rape. MANY innocent MEN ae being unjustly convicted. I would be cautious of equating the law with compassion or love. I know people in the law who told me: "The law has very LITTLE to do with justice and is more about which side can win. What if the fEMINISTS are the law??????
Joseph, you are right that there is a pandemic of women lying about rape, and that innocent men are being convicted. The law seems to me to currently be a battleground, in that it has a heritage of procedural fairness (due process, presumption of innocence, right to confront one's accuser, etc.) that still remains, even in family court which is the most distorted to favour women.) But under the influence of the Matrisensus, we no longer have attitudinal fairness, so the people involved in the process, the judges, lawyers and clerical staff - and the police - have compassion for women without accountability, and accountability for men without compassion, so they want things to come out with women being innocent and men being guilty, so that's what they try to make happen, despite the procedural fairness that is built into the institutional structures.
A good point about the "attitude". Here in the UK the 2010 Equality Act effectively means all subsequent legislation is "gender neutral" in its wording. However just as you describe the operation of the law via the many agencies involved reflects the attitude you describe. So the outcomes are manifestly not "gender neutral". The power of this is due to the sheer "taken for granted" nature of this basic gendered attitude. Even those who identify unfairness in outcomes seem unable to imagine how it could be different. Both men and women. I sometimes wonder if deep down we simply can't/won't see it because we know if men aren't held accountable and responsible, then no one is and there really is chaos.
OK David, I owe you an apology. You obviously have a grasp of what's going on, I didn't get that from your initial article. I'm going edit my comment and post an apology to you in my critique. Perhaps because you are very sophisticated, I missed that you have a grasp of what's going on. Again, my apology for being hard on you
Good point. I think I spoke to this with the sentiment, "Have just laws and uphold them," We do have a corrupt legal system, it has become criminal, in fact. None-the-less, it is the system we deserve as long as we tolerate it.
Another spirited exchange. Interesting how David is the dove and Janice the hawk when it comes to dealing with feminists. I hope you will decide to schedule another debate. You give us plenty to think about.
Really, Joseph? I show up here where some, like you, are highly critical of my ideas and insult me, and you characterize that as the behavior of a mouse?
David, I owe you an apology, and I've deleted some of my more derogatory comments. As you've explained it to me, I now see that you indeed have a grasp of what's going on. My sincere apology. Perhaps because you are more sophisticated than me, my understanding was lost in your sophistication. You have my full apology
Food for thought, definitely. I, like Janice, tend to be a little more rageful when it comes to the way most of us just stand back and let the sorry human beings that make up the feminist consortium get whatever they want.
I wonder if what you call the matrisensus isn't a somewhat misdirected attempt at explaining a phenomenon better understood as the *true* patriarchy, which is that men do the things we do, as patriarchs, for the benefit of women and children and at our own expense. It's men that make feminism even possible. Feminists' success in activism will only change when men stop empowering it. Indeed, when we stop falling all over ourselves to empower it like goofy school boys trying to score points with girls.
Agreed that men empower feminism, and that the male competence hierarchy (I reserve the word Patriarchy for the shadow of that system, when the motive is corrupted from service to personal power) is deeply committed to the benefit of women and children,
To be fair it isn't "men" so much as the men in positions of power and influence. Those "goofy schoolboys" went to a surprisingly small number of schools (many residential) and like the parallel small number of schools for precisely the similar girls, almost all single sex. And from these mainly to one of two Universities with a sprinkling of others. Certainly here it is these gilded beings who preside over our family courts, criminal courts, civil service, Universities, public and private corporations and provide the majority of our national politicians. Perhaps those years shut away in school fueled the idea females are mystical and saintly. But it is a very few men, and women, who actually have eagerly and unctuously enacted the feminist wishes. In a sense men for whom there is no real hardship in looking after women and children first because they have plenty. Unlike of course the majority of men who, without nannies, residential schools, second homes and a flat in "town" , actually make sacrifices of their interests, effort even comfort for their families. And who are far more than slightly inconvenienced by divorce etc. In this country it is blatantly obvious that "white van man", I suppose "blue collar" man, who aspires to a good job, a modest home a wife and children an annual holiday is derided in much the same way as was the case in the Victorian era, the era when women's saintly pedestal was really raised up. Not all men, but some men.
When you get right down to it, most of what we're brought up to believe is etiquette and chivalry is little more than pandering to women's desires for coddling and protection. It's built into our genes (and jeans) to suck up to women and also to compete with other men to be even more coddling and protective, which explains how women can use men against each other so easily. Little boys grow up dreaming of fighting other men for the honor and safety of women, and getting a leg over in the bargain.
Truly, a beautiful, well-reasoned, inspirational, and vastly informative dialogue. Such discussion seems as rare nowadays as it is wondrous to read. Thank you both - I find myself very much looking forward to reading David's upcoming book! 🙏❤️🌟
There is a huge problem with the Ender's Game comparison. What Ender learned, too late, was that there was a way to coexist with the Buggers. He didn't know that when he destroyed them, and, indeed, they didn't know it themselves for most of the story. In the end their goals were not, at their roots, contradictory.
This is not the case with our current conflict. The goals are, at their roots, even more contradictory than they seem on the surface.
Agreed that the current conflict is not like a war. But it is possible to separate the principle of compassion for the enemy in order to understand them subjectively as well as objectively, which Card built his whole story around, from the particular plot twists of the Ender's Game story.
I’m not quite sure how that relates to my comment. What I was saying is that in some conflicts there exists away for both parties to end up surviving. Either physically or as in this case as a philosophy.
Not sure why that posted all by itself. But in this case, in the conflict with feminism. It is not possible for society to continue to exist and feminism to continue to exist. One of them must destroy the other.
Agreed that the Matrisensus, of which feminism is a major manifestation, is inherently toxic and pathological, and will kill society if it goes unchecked. But it is possible for the pathology to die without its adherents doing so.
Oh, yes. I don't think we need blood in the streets. I think we need for men to man up, and women to stay home. Or, as GK Chesterton said, "All we need is for men to be men, and women women." We started by saying, "If man has a vote, then woman should have a vote," and we have ended by saying, "If a boy has a penis, then a girl should have a penis.
Like both of you, Janice and David, I’m very ambivalent about this topic. The spontaneity of what I’ve read suggests to me that I should respond spontaneously. What follow are impressions, therefore, not a carefully constructed argument.
Although I had thought anxiously since childhood about what would eventually become my special area of research—men, masculinity, maleness and misandry—it was only in 1975, when the Vietnam War ended, that I resolved to explore all this in a focused way. But not yet. I was living in New York, and the war’s implications for me, for men, were still too emotionally fraught. Even though I opposed the war and diligently read Ramparts from cover to cover every month, my reasons had nothing to do with hawks and doves or Geneva conventions. I seldom attended sit-ins, and I was very uncomfortable when I did. I agreed with these people, see, but I couldn’t stand being in the same room with them. I found them, in a word, arrogant. And they expressed not the slightest interest in what troubled me most. It wasn’t the war but the draft, which applied only to men—and to men by virtue of maleness, not masculine attitudes or aptitudes. These guys all opposed the draft, sure, but only for the most respectable political or ideological reasons—not, of course, because they felt personally threatened by regimentation and death or morally astonished by this form of sexual inequality. It wasn’t cool for men to feel personally threatened or astonished. Being cool had something to do with bravado, with knowing what was comme il faut and therefore being in control of your life. But I, being gay (though understanding almost nothing about that except feeling attracted to some people without liking them), had no sense of being in control. In 1969, I left New York and returned to Canada feeling confused and defeated.
By 1985, on the tenth anniversary of that war’s end and after rejecting several alienating professions, I realized that it was time to do what I truly needed to do: figure out what it meant to be a man, whether I liked it or not, and why. Although I’ve moved far from some of my early ideas about manhood, war is one of the few that remain central.
I mention this here, because it explains my strong sense that the war between men and women can be understood best as a primarily collective and cultural phenomenon, not a personal and emotional one (although some people, for personal reasons, really do dislike other people and therefore want to afflict them). Yes, it is a war. I’m not sure when women declared war, probably when the MeToo movement broke out and vigilantism came out of the shadows. The weapons are words, laws and public policies, not guns and bombs, but the effects are deadly. The aim is revolution, after all, not reform. The goal is to destroy society itself (and, as I’ve realized more recently, every vestige of Western civilization), not only specific combatants. Unless you’re a pacifist, the rules change in wartime—including the moral rules that govern us in peacetime. I admire and even envy pacifists, but I’m not one of them. From the perspective of men, whether they have the courage to admit it or not, this is a war of self-defense and therefore what centuries of philosophers have called a “just war.”
From there, my mind wanders to the current war in Gaza. No one would ever call me a knee-jerk defender of every Israeli policy. I’ve never even thought of myself as a Zionist. But I do think that the double standard, which so many people apply to Israel, is both contemptible and destructive. These people are not necessarily anti-Semitic in any religious or racial sense; many of them really are anti-Zionists, as they claim, but only because their secular religion (a term that I’ve defined in detail elsewhere) is anti-Westernism. But my point here is that, for me, this is a just war for Israel. I can see no good for either side that could possibly come from a victory for Hamas. Therefore, I must accept a lamentable fact of life in wartime: some people or many people, including children, will suffer and die. This means that I support Israel in fighting as long as it takes to achieve the just goal of self-defense—but the quicker the better (to mitigate suffering). I wouldn’t introduce this controversy if it were not for the fact that Janice and David have been discussing the motivation of those who oppose feminism (at least the combination of gynocentrism and misandry).
What could it mean to talk about feeling compassion for feminists? Pity, perhaps, but why compassion? That would inevitably dilute the courage that we need to defeat evil. David says that he really means empathy, not compassion. Maybe that’s better than compassion, in this context, but only f it refers to knowledge (how feminists think), not emotion. Once again, that would compromise our ability to defeat a profoundly destructive ideology. (Actually, it’s no longer one ideology but a congeries of allied ideologies. All are closely related; only the names of targets differ from one to another.) Worse, it would confuse men hopelessly. They’re still mired in notions of chivalry, which make them wonder what’s wrong with them for not instinctively rushing to defend women at all costs. (Chivalry is not universal and therefore not instinctual. In the West, it was the product of an aristocratic class and revolved around, among other things, either pity or condescension toward the powerless—including the serfs.) I think that men deserve an explanation for what’s happening to them. And I think that the explanation is not one that will, or should, leave everyone singing Kumbaya.
Peacetime is another matter. If we manage to defeat the very powerful and destructive ideology of feminism (and of wokism or anti-Westernism under its many names), that will be the time for empathy and even compassion. The defeat of ideology, after all, will leave many people on all sides ready to seek and even ask for a better way of life than rage and revenge. I can’t prove that, of course, but it’s a possibility.
I know it sounds silly, but I really can imagine the UN, at some point, resolving that men must provide humanitarian assistance to women because of the war on feminism. There would also be a lot of waffling about combatants and 'innocent' civilians if DEI (Didn't Earn It) departments, gender studies departments, etc. started getting axed.
Paul, I confess that my use of the word "compassion" is problematic. I don't know of a word that precisely defines what I mean. I mean by compassion for women that we "get" the legitimacy of women's issues, even while we recognize the illegitimacy of feminism. This difficulty with words is a pattern with me: I use "evil" without meaning it in moral terms, for instance, and I use "Patriarchy" to describe something that is relatively rare in the West, the shadow form of the male competence hierarchy, unlike most on this substack who use it the way feminists mean it, as the dominant form of male governance in the West.
I find your use of language powerful and exquisitely nuanced David, so please don’t change anything on my behalf 😉
I’m exploring Buddhist concepts and getting a lot from them. I now hear “compassion” as connection - love, ultimately - for all people WHILE ALSO accepting that they are suffering from delusions. However that’s perhaps a stretch from the everyday “social justice warrior” mindset.
Thank you and Janice for a wonderful, gracious and creative conversation. I came away with st least time hope for a brighter future for humanity. I will reread it many times, and I look forward to your book David.
Thank you very much, David. I often struggle to find the right word, but I think that the struggle is worth it, it is an expression of how much I care about finding the right word.
Thank you! Fascinating and thought provoking discussion.. David's ideas as i understand them, closely follow the teachings of Christ and Christian theology. It would probably work well to find inner peace.. From an personal perspective, a place of peace for the sake of our own wellbeing and those around us is healthy. The fact that I am a Christian also plays a role in my views. It may also help us to understand our adversary.
Their is also a place for outrage and indignation. It can be a great motivator of action in the face of fear and overwhelming odds. It is necessary to fight an adversary when you, your loved ones or your culture is threatened. Otherwise you will be swept aside like a twig in a raging river.
However, Janice makes an excellent point, this is a cultural struggle between good and evil. One of the problems we have in our society today is moral relativism. This attitude has surely caused our societal rot. Evil despots and movements wield this as an effective weapon. Margaret Thatcher had a famous quote "Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides." It leads to moral confusion and paralysis.
Our adversaries are motivated by power. They use ideological certainty and victimhood as their weapons. Playing on our emotions and inner drives that are baked into all humans. As mentioned in the article, they activate deeply held beliefs that women are weak and victims that need to be protected by society. That they have moral superiority to men. It plays on womens innate feelings of sisterhood, self-righteousness and personal power. Unfortunately creating a sense of entitlement and narcissism.
They use mens almost irresistible desire to protect women. We hear the mantra all the time about womens personal empowerment. Reinforcing some mens view of womens victimhood and the need for support. Ironically, while celebrating empowerment feminist seek to strip men of their personal power.
Its been my personal observation that liberal men are most susceptible to this. It fits well with their arrogant feelings of virtue. Some of them in the mens rights movement are doing great things for the improvement of boys/mens lives. I am grateful for this. However, it is painful to see a man pander to feminist. Regardless of the underlying purpose.
So maybe their is a place for both empathy and action using moral outrage. However, i believe at this time that more activism is called for.. I think that to overcome the issues we have discussed, it will require women to take the lead and grow the grassroots movement to the next level. Women understand and instinctively know how to socially out maneuver other women. Because they understand the tactics and general rules of the game. They can also capitalize on the same weapons the feminist use; societies empathy and desire to protect women. I greatly appreciate the women like Janice that have fought for mens rights for a long time. It must be tiring and frustrating at times.
Men of course still have their role, we can also stand shoulder to shoulder with the women who fight for mens rights and a healthier society. I think there is a quiet majority waiting for the right leadership to come along. Many see the problem but don't know what to do about it. However, people are beginning to see radical feminists for what they truly are, evil. Radical feminist are a formidable foe and dominate all aspects of our society. Its a difficult fight but necessary for the generations that follow us..
Mark, this sentence jumped out at me from your comment: "I think there is a quiet majority waiting for the right leadership to come along." I have felt this way at times, especially in Jordan Peterson lectures when I sense a vast group of people of goodwill, earnestly striving to understand and do the right thing. The right leader could indeed tap into this energy, it seems to me. But that would be a truly exceptional person, to step into that role and carry it well. Still, I hope ...
There is a blogger whose handle is "The Tin Men". You can find him on X (@TheTinMenBlog) and other platforms. He shares our frustration with lack of progress with men's rights. He comes from a marketing background and suggests we have a branding problem. An intriguing observation. I believe he is trying a new angle. I hope he finds some success.
I can't help but think about a woman approx 30 yrs ago who single-handedly created a boycott of a major corporation. It was for a commercial that showed women in a demeaning light. Then corporate lawyers and CEOs became afraid of legal and social backlash if they insulted women.
So, they started demeaning and insulting men instead. They knew that there would be little protest or lawsuits. There would be no accountability. To this day that has not changed. Unless it's about beer of course..
With Janice and others unrelenting articles and interviews; many people's perspective of feminism and men's rights are changing. People are learning about the truth. A counter to the feminist narative. It seems like acceptance of the men's rights movement has moved from the fringes to mainstream. This is progresss. As you mentioned Jordan Peterson had a role in that.
I think we need an mens rights activist group lead by someone like Bettina Arndt but in the US. Theirs a lot of downtrodden men, particularly young men, who need a purpose and want to make a positive change in men's lives. Theirs also a lot of mothers of sons, daughters of fathers and wives of husband that care about men. If we could bring these men & women together for a common cause, men's rights, it would be very powerful.
I want to publicly apologize to David for some of my over-the-top comments. As David explained things to me, I now realize he has a grasp of what's going on. What I tried to say is that I think his approach is too diplomatic. I've deleted any derogatory comments as far as I can see, and David has my FULL APOLOGY.
1. How can feminism be so powerful in controlling the culture and the narrative when it is entirely unjust and false-to-fact.
I believe the main reason is the men wanted to please the female gender. Gynocentrism is extremely powerful, partly because it is covert and secondly it exploits the male biological drive.
Thank you both for a very interesting discussion. The question of what to do about the mess we face with the evil of feminism is critical. I agree more with Janice on this one. Imagine you were an adult at a playground with very young children. One of the kids starts bashing another child with a stick. What do you do? Do you work on compassion or empathy? NO! You take the damn stick out of the kids hand and stop the behavior. Then it is time for compassion and empathy as you seek some sort of resolution. But the compassion and empathy come second, When you see something like that you stop the behavior. At this point there is not a simple way to stop what has grown into a feminist monster. But we can clearly speak our truth and call out the hatred when we see it. If each of us did that we would likely be in a better place.
As a therapist who worked many years with the grief and trauma of both men and women I agree that grief is an important part of human maturity. Without it we are primitives in many ways. Having compassion for our enemies is important but should not become a place to hide and not take needed action.
It seems to me that gynocentrism is the underlying element here that has protected feminists from any sort of accountability and at the same time has also been the fuel for them to do what they have done. Funding crazy feminist ideas is what has happened in our world and it has happened due to the gynocentrism of men. Our idiot legislators have poured fuel on a dumpster fire and thought they were doing good deeds for women.
BTW the research has been done and it is clear that it is fathers who teach empathy. They know now that the father's limit setting is instrumental in its development.
Tom, the reason for understanding the enemy, via compassion, is so that you can take the stick out of the bully's hand. Compassion doesn't defeat accountability or speaking the truth about what is happening, it enables it. Our idiot legislators did what they did because they didn't allow themselves to feel the pain of what was happening or speak truth about it.
David, I'd find it very helpful if you (and other contributors) would provide us with definitions, or at least their own working definitions, of words such as "compassion," "empathy" and "sympathy." They're not, or once were not, synonyms. The distinctions, therefore, are worth noting. Otherwise, we're talking at cross purposes.
Paul, you're right, definitions would be helpful. As I said in my dialogue with Janice, I think empathy is the closest word to what I mean, and I am referring to the fellow-feeling one gets from identifying with the issues of the other (what compassion - common passion - used to mean but doesn't any longer). I contrast that with accountability, which is holding the other accountable for their behavior and attitudes. I see the combination of these two as representing the essence of a balanced, healthy relationship with the other. Moral polarization, on the other hand, splits empathy and accountability, as in feminism which has empathy without accountability for women and accountability without empathy for men. In other words, feminism "gets" all of the ways that women are powerless and none of the ways that they are powerful, and vice versa for men.
I counsel empathy and accountability for both men and women, which means that we "get" the ways that women and powerless AND the ways that they are powerful, and we "get" the ways that men are powerful AND the ways that they are powerless.
Bullies respond to force, not to compassion. The question is whether we can combine our force with compassion.
I don't counsel compassion for the bullies' sake, but for ours as advocates, so that we see clearly. And combining force with compassion is exactly what we must do.
Hard core radical feminism is like the kiss of the vampire. Compassion for such a condition exists, but it's not for the squeamish.
https://youtu.be/EjLCTh4_hH4?si=xAluPe7H04EF52Xm
Well I think bullies bast respond to being sidelined. Certainly they are emboldened by repeated success. And of course their motives are often contradictory.
Most women have experienced the "mean girls" in high school. In a general way, women can see this behavior for what it is and know how to deal with it. I think we need to do a better job convincing women to fight for men's rights and against the radical feminist. We're beginning to see that with organizations like "mothers with sons". I think they advocate for men's rights. Blogger TinMen may be right. It's a branding problem. If we can convince women the goal is not misogyny but equal rights, maybe that will make a difference.
The problem with our politicians are that they are self-serving.. If it gets them votes or benefits them in any way they will take that route. Humans have an incredible ability to make justifications... Male leaders with daughters or domineering wives are very susceptible to the pressures at home or empathy for their own. Wars have been fought, kingdoms lost and major political decisions made because of pressure from the important women in a mans life. Anyone who thinks women are the weaker sex has never been married or had daughters :-)
It was my intention to point out that radical feminist play on the cultural and biological myth that women are inherently victims. Until it's not advantageous. It's used as a way to remove all accountability. To receive preferential treatment. Throughout history it was used as a strategy to counter men's inherently greater physical strength.
I like the analogy of radical feminists as mean girls. Spot on.
Having wives or daughters doesn't justify gyno-centrism. wo-MEN are weaker in every way. However, MEN'S weakness is what pedestalizes them. King Herod could have told his wife & daughter to SHUT UP. Instead, he 'let' them incite the murder of John the Baptist.
Agreed. There is no reason for men to encourage women to be such airheaded mean girls and yet men do it everyday.
It's buried deep in our DNA.
Women are def the weaker sex.
I agree that women do do this. I think one of the reasons that it's so effective is that men line up to endulge them, and I think that you're last sentence there is indicative of this.
Mean girls engage in character assassination of others and character self promotion of themselves. It shouldn't be as effective as it is, because it's actually very easy to spot. Men however engage in the self promotion of women unfortunately to score cookie points.
Not implying that you're you're weak man or anything, but the the little nugget thrown to women to go "weaker sex my ass haha" just seems to enable mean girl behavior.
No one says stuff like this about men. No one boosts men's egos unless they've really earned it.
In your playground example, it is compassionate to stop the abusive child. You are helping him to learn how to treat people properly. It is also the golden rule of treating people how you want to be treated. If i were an abuser, I would want someone to help me realize this so I could stop and change.
Lake, I know what you mean, you mean that it is good for the child to stop the abusive child, and I agree, it is. But it's not technically compassionate in the way that I am using that word here, rather it is applying accountability.
I do find the concept "gynocentrism" persuasive. There is evidence of this all around in everyday life, such as this piece about what was a massive media event here in the UK (including speculations that somehow her husband has been abusing her with the Police having to make clear this was totally false) and a very similar case at the same time. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-13244683/Ex-detective-Nicola-Bulley-Graham-Connell-Missing-People.html The man's name unknown to a national audience until this report. One can blame "the media" for this but of course they know their audience.
"I do find the concept "gynocentrism" persuasive."
I agree, but I would argue that gynocentrism is only half the equation.
Gynocentrism is just nature's way of ensuring the resources get to women and children. Gynocentism only became a corrupting (or 'corroding') force in the post industrial/ technological age when living standards shot up.
The way I see it, the male/ female dynamic and psychology is set up for a world of scarcity, danger and mud! Now that we have electric street lights, pavements, public transport, indoor plumbing, shopping malls etc all those previously complementary and compatible 'programs' in men and women have spun completely out of control.
Men can now AFFORD to indulge women's limitless demands, which are no longer for some more sheepskins for winter, logs for the fire and a pheasant for dinner .... but for starring roles in action movies, equal representation in boardrooms and a gender role which provides maximum freedom to behave however you like with zero social obligations (he for she).
Nothing has changed, per se. It's just that western society has suddenly (in the last century) won the lottery, and now all of those male/ female gender dynamics that used to be kept in check by practical limitations (bucket, spade, horse) have had those practical limitations removed.
Indeed it is hard to imagine the grind of life that was the lot of most people until pretty recently. Most of our "heritage industry" sanitises the more distant past by really focussing on the stately homes, castles and grand religious monuments. Only occassionally does one get to see the "third world" existence my ancestors lived until two generations ago. And even the modern third world has elecricty, phones and medicine. When, in 1906, the old age pension was established here it was set at age 75, mens life expectancy was then just 52, it what overall was one of the richest lands on the planet. Intriguingly in Europe generally the smallest "gender pay gaps" are in the poorest still largely agricultural countries, because everyone has to lend a hand to everything. Unprecedentedly widespread luxury, long lives well beyond human reproductive lifespans control over fertility and you have something entirely new and something that has happened in a blink of an eye in even recorded history let alone the 100,000s years of human existence. We have "affluenza" in health and "luxury beliefs" as you say.
" Intriguingly in Europe generally the smallest "gender pay gaps" are in the poorest still largely agricultural countries, because everyone has to lend a hand to everything"
Right. But I would argue that the 'gender pay gap' is actually a measure of female privilege anyway, and NOT oppression (credit to Karen and Alison of the Honey Badgers for this observation).
It is men's enormous subsidies to women (both voluntary and involuntary via taxation) that allow women to choose lower paying jobs and earn less. For every dollar a man spends he must earn $1.23 and for every dollar a woman spends she only has to earn 77 cents of it.
As usual feminists have spun this as patriarchal oppression, and men have swallowed the bait.
Also, the gender pay gap assumes jobs only pay with money. The kinds of jobs which women tend to choose are those which pay in social opportunities, safety, comfort, fun and job satisfaction, easy commute, safety and cleanliness. That is part of the 'pay'. That form of pay only benefits the person being paid, and cannot be divided up and handed other to anyone else.
We push men into jobs which pay almost exclusively in terms of money (rather than safety, comfort, flexibility etc) because monetary pay can easily be taken from that man (taxed) and handed to women, and men can also be persuaded to hand it over to women by paying for the meal, and paying the bills. Paying men in money (converting his labour into coins) is in this sense a form of parasitism (to put the most cynical spin on it).
If we equalised pay between men and women (as feminists pretend they want), the standard of living for women would go down, not up.
The 'wage gap' is just another feminist shaming tactic (to keep men in line), not a real campaign. If it was a real cause we'd see feminists choosing high paid jobs and then spending their high earnings on men so they could afford to be florists, or children's authors or run their own pottery barn... or be stay at home dads. I think most men would enjoy such 'oppression'.
Yes pay gaps are slippery things. Of course the smallest such gaps existed behind the Iron curtain.
BRILLIANT! It is clear that Bolshevism is built into the legal system, seemingly everything from child support & alimony to FAKE rape claims against MALE celebrities is just an agenda to re distribute wealth from MEN to wo-MEN. On a more humorous note: I'm sure glad Elon Musk got rid of all those worthless fe-MALES with those fluff jobs at Twitter who were censoring everyone.
Gyno centrism is the WORSHIP of wo-MEN. In NO way is it biological or evolutionary. MEN being ordained as the HEAD and the wo-MAN called by God to submit, is the natural order, Gyno-centrism is NOT. Protecting those who are weaker doesn't have to be gender based.
As I see it, gynocentrism is placing the comfort, security and survival needs of women (and by extension children) above those of men. It is men sacrificing whatever is necessary (perhaps their lives) to ensure the women and children live.
This is not at odds with gender based hierarchies such as 'patriarchy'. Men can absolutely be head of the family, or head of the tribe or society and have women submitting to them left, right and centre, without this conflicting with gynocentric hard wiring.
To submit to a man in a relationship, or to submit to men generally in wider society, is to minimise your own agency and maximise your vulnerability, while maximising the man's agency and minimising his vulnerability. This places you under him, and therefore gives him RESPONSIBILITY over you.
Submission makes you more like a child, and pushes the man more into the role of parent (patriarch) as a response. I would say that submission to men is entirely compatible with gynocentrism, and is in fact a way to provoke it and maximise it.
Feminism is a form of submission (it's a male power fantasy), minus the corresponding respect, adoration and gratitude for men's gynocentric dominance and heroic sacrifices (he for she).
Feminism is wanting to exploit the natural gynocentric / patriarchal transaction between men and women, while simultaneously branding it the root of all masculine evil and female suffering! Feminism is insisting on the cabbie sitting in the back seat, while you get to sit up front, and then shouting at him to hurry up and drive you to your destination!
OK, some valid points, however I still see Gyno-centrism as IDOLATRY, the worship of wo-MEN. Protecting the weak doesn't have to be gender based. For ex. many fEMINISTS have said: "If a wo-MAN & a child are drowning, we should save the wo-MAN first" The justification being that wo-MEN can create more babies. OK, so what if the child is fe-MALE? That the fe-MALE adult is prioritized over the fe-MALE child, puts a kink in the (gyno-centrism is evolutionary thesis) exposing gyno-centrism as the WORSHIP of wo-MEN rather than preservation of the tribe.
Disagree. Gynocentrism is not innate.
Protectiveneds over women is definitely innate, and gynocentrism takes advantage of this.
However, most societies were patriarchal for a reason. Respect towards successful men is as innate as protectivenesd of women.
Gyno-centrism is the WORSHIP of wo-MEN, in NO way is it evolutionary or biological. That the MAN is called to be the HEAD of the family and the wo-MAN is called to submit to her husband is the natural order of God. Exalting wo-MEN is it's own thing, separate and apart from the natural order.
Kudos to detective Neil, for seeing the bias favoring missing wo-MEN vs. missing MEN in the public eye.
We take the stick out of the feminist hand by building new institutions, such as the University of Austin.
Agree.
Austin???? I thought that was totally woke? Would love to hear more about this.
Very interesting and thoughtful. However, I would propose a simpler explanation for the evils of feminism: Marxism. See Red Feminism by Kate Weigand. Extensively documented and factually written.
As I see it, Edward, suggesting that Marxism is the root behind feminism just moves the problem back one stage. One must then explain why Marxism and Communism have been so seductive to their followers, when they, like feminism, are false-to-fact in their foundations. I didn't have room to expound this in the dialogue, but I believe that the Matrisensus, the shadow of the family archetype, is the psychological source of Communism as well as identity politics, which is why they resemble each other.
Basic evidence for this thesis is found in the fact that communists create a pseudo-family by calling each other comrade, and that the communist slogan, "To each according to their needs, from each according to their abilities," describes exactly how to be in a family, but not how to be in a society. Communes organized along these principles (for example, Israeli kibbutzim) work up to a certain size, which is around 200 or so; bigger than that and they fail. That happens to be the maximum size at which we can know most of the people involved. Once we can't have a personal relationship with people, then the healthy family archetype is impossible and we fall into the Matrisensus.
I think Carrie Gress, in her latest book, The End of Woman, mentions the feminine aspect of Marxism.
Btw, David, have you read anything on how dopamine works? A recent book I read, The Molecule of More, describes how dopamine highs come with socially "progressive" attitudes and behaviour. The book also touches on the causes and effects of oxytocin, the love hormone. I think such research might give a biochemical angle to your hypotheses.
That sounds very interesting, I'll check it out. Thank you.
Gress is great! Here's a link to an interview Janice and I did with Carrie Gress a while back. https://menaregood.substack.com/p/the-end-of-woman-how-smashing-the
>>I really like the analysis of Reacher versus Columbo
Keeping in mind there was also Dirty Harry.
I looked it up, and Columbo and Dirty Harry were both 1971
Thank you both for a valuable dialogue, which I will read and read again. Just one observation I'd make. That has to do with empathy. In my experience of working in female dominated industries, and for most of that being a manager, women do not have much empathy as defined as being able to get into anothers mind/experience. If they had empathy a huge amount of sorting out fall outs and disagreements etc. wouldn't have happened and my job infinitely easier. No I think women are adept at expressing sympathy and indeed appearing to be sympathetic is a high priority. But what is actually happening is "projection" of their feelings into others. The results are a great deal of completely wrong assumptions about other people's actual feelings, what they mean by something said and done, or what actions mean. I really do think that the common assumption that empathy is a particularly female thing is quite wrong, rather it is that this belief means women are particularly prone to project into others and not take the step of asking or checking out their understanding. Sympathy is particularly important, and being seen to be sympathetic very much so. Indeed in my experience women find it nigh on impossible to follow the Christian teaching to give anonymously, even to raffle tickets or pennies in a box. And of course feminism is awash with assumptions about men and with ostentatious expressions of sympathies for women and children.
Nigel, I agree with what you describe. Real empathy is rare in women, especially under today's conditions of the Matrisensus. That's why it was only exceptional mothers historically who were able to love their children more than they themselves were loved as a child. Just as real truth-seeking is rare in men, who for the most part just go along with the cultural story, and that's why the men who historically moved our knowledge forward were also rare.
I think the rareness is where I find hope. Certainly in this country (UK) time after time surveys find the majority of both sex express very traditional aspirations. Of course the men are ignored while feminist organisations always loudly demand all these women are "educated" out of such ideas. Yet in fact in my daily life most people do indeed reflect the survey results. Whereas a relatively small number of men and women in our civil institutions are fully on board with feminism. Effectively those who went to "Oxbridge" or Russell Group Universities. Now the wheels are gradually falling off this "elite's" hold, in a very deferential society, as people look on incredulously at notions such as "trans" and multiple genders wildly divergent treatment of different groups (most notably the "asian grooming gangs") and evident direct discriminations in favour of women. There is considerable attempts to hush this disquiet and lots of handwringing about the "chasm" between those in authority and the wider public. With the supposedly "woke" younger generations far more skeptical of feminism than the supposedly conservative "boomers" I have hope that there will be a shift. In a similar way the formerly PC Scandinavian and northern european nations have made a massive change of attitude to immigration and multiculturalism, under huge pressure from their people. In short I'm hopeful. I think there is a danger to assume the outcomes, for instance the UK being Europe's leader in % of single parent/blended/chaotic "families, is what people aspired to.
I've noted that when a woman consoles another woman she often will reflexively agree with literally everything the distressed woman says. This, in my opinion, is neither compassionate nor sympathetic: It's just patronizing.
https://youtu.be/XHnAM6xb18I?si=7ViFepySKHGIRVRb
But it is the root of so much today as everything is agreed to in order to console. No matter how ridiculous or how contradictory. "Self identification" being just latest thing to be enforced in order to avoid upset.
Shackleton asks: “How does it insulate its followers from reality?”. Broadly speaking, it doesn’t: they shield themselves from reality by stopping to think where their self-interest ends. Double think and stopping thinking where one’s interest ends seem to be evolved behaviours: it is easier to convince others when the tell-tale signs of lying are absent.
For example, when you ask women about today’s feminism, most will say it has gone too far. They will also say women have great power these days, with men often having to watch their step. Sounds like empathy, right? Wrong. First, notice they did not say that this was a bad thing. Notice the quick little smile they fail to suppress when saying women have great power. When you propose that, before subjecting a man to concrete consequences such as imprisonment etc, a woman has the unpleasant duty of at least clearly communicating that she wants him to stop doing whatever it is she dislikes, they will not confirm that, even if pushed, and instead start talking about men’s responsibilities. They will then go on to re-elect parliamentarians who push such laws. All of this demonstrates that their show of empathy was just a facade.
Against such deceit, focussing on empathy with those displaying this barbaric behaviour is primarily a way of confusing the issue and thereby furthering the deceit: it leads to evasive discussions, and away from the facts and a resolution of wrongs.
Shackleton writes: “To understand your enemy you must see her not only objectively but also subjectively, as she sees herself”. However, it should not be about an enemy, but about an adversary, as defined by stances on concrete issues. And it should not be about how she sees herself, or about understanding her, but about the facts, and about fairness.
It can still be useful in discussing these issues to give the devil his due, in as far as this helps to define the issue. However, you should not allow it to be used to draw attention away from the issue at hand toward other, possibly also meritful issues. E.g., in the above example, it may be recognized that a woman may indeed feel very uncomfortable, and that a man indeed has a moral responsibility to look out for signs of that, and both are important aspects in their own right. But that is not the issue. The issue in the example is not moral culpability, but formal culpability and it’s devastating consequences. When someone has so little compassion that she tries to confuse the issue, then that should be pointed out, not empathized with.
It is also true that people can be legitimately misled by an environment that preaches only one misleading story. So tell them the specific real story. After that, they may remain misled, but will have less of an excuse.
Dutch, it is clear that individual self-interest is the basic motivating energy of the Matrisensus. In the case of the Patriarchy, when men's competence hierarchies go bad, it is the self-interest of power and privilege. In the case of the Matrisensus, when women's social networking goes wrong, it is the self-interest of virtue seeking.
It was when I observed that feminists who were told "the specific real story" almost always refused to believe it, and created obviously false rationalizations to support their wrong beliefs, that I realized something deeper must be operating, something with primal psychological roots, must be driving feminism. Later, I broadened the scope, realizing that all of identity politics was of the same ilk.
No one is the villain in their own story. Removing agency from your self perception allows your own evil deeds to be not only the fault of others but also a part of the burden you bravely bear.
Dutch, I want to respond to this comment that you wrote: "Shackleton writes: “To understand your enemy you must see her not only objectively but also subjectively, as she sees herself”. However, it should not be about an enemy, but about an adversary, as defined by stances on concrete issues. And it should not be about how she sees herself, or about understanding her, but about the facts, and about fairness."
It should indeed be about facts and about fairness - that is the masculine focus on rationality and reason, and it is important. However, my point was that this isn't enough. We should also extend ourselves to empathy for the adversary, into the subjective world as well as the objective, if we are to be able to really see creative solutions to the issues that divide us.
You imply that “masculine reason” does not empathize. However, “reason” may review all relevant aspects, including conflicting views, feelings and interests; it may then decide that it is “reasonable” to focus on a particular issue. The problem, then, with explicit expression of empathy is that it distracts from the core message, resulting in those stuck in feminist propaganda not getting the message. Empathy is fine, but don’t dilute the message.
AGREED. Trad con/traditional wo-MEN are just as misandrist as fEMINISTS!
Dutch, substack allows you to edit your comments in order to insert such corrections into the original.
Found it, thanks.
Is the phrase 'Matrisensus, the dark side of the feminine' a fancy way of saying 'F*@King Psycho'?
Know 'thine enemy' surely means realising that the feminists thought leaders and advocates are actually psychopathic. These people are not there to be reasoned with. They are power-mad and murderous. The increasing hardships of men: loneliness, unemployment, imprisonment, suicide are all, to these women, a job well done.
All shadow archetypes are pathological. The term psychopath refers to a particular type of pathology, but the Matrisensus is a particular pattern of compulsive psycho-pathology that taps the source energy of a primal psychological pattern built into us by evolution, which is why it is so powerful to move millions in coherent, organized patterns based on what feels right to them. And agreed, from within this pattern, the sufferings of men feel appropriate, a job well done as you say.
Sadly I do not think we will ever be able to overcome the moral Polarisation. The indicators are that it is extremely doubtful that what is called Western Civilisation will survive the next 50-100 years.
The only hope is for an extremely large group of people to have an epiphany and be able to stand up to the Spin Sisters.
Phillip, I fear you may be right. I, too, am not confident that we will find a way to triumph over this pathology before it overcomes us and we lose the ability to function as a society.
I share your pessimism about the future of Western civilisation. I see it in tragic terms....Icarus burning his wings etc. Having said that, I recently posted an essay on this theme (of feminism vs reality) on my own 'stack ...and with - for me - an uncharacteristically positive slant. You might find it interesting. It starts:
"I think I may have spotted a positive trend. Now that’s not a sentence you would expect to read in Slouching Towards Bethlehem is it! Positive trend? Yes....recently (in a certain kind of feminist journalism) I keep coming across warm-hearted acknowledgements that Masculinity and Femininity are complementary polarities in any sane conception of The Good Life. An acknowledgement that the relationship between a man and a woman has the potential to be the finest fruit that life has to offer. And that when things go wrong, they are often better understood as resulting from a kind of Faustian tango between the sexes than as a simple case of one sex always doing wrong by the other........" https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/shall-we-dance
It seems to me that morality--right v. wrong, good v. evil is intrinsically polarizing: why do we want it to be inoffensive or winsome? If we had a law that said it was illegal to kill children in the womb, or enter the country illegally, and the penalties were harsh to those who broke them, we would get less of the behavior. This holds true for race or sex based quotas, bribing elected officials, mutilating children, etc. We are progressively legalizing crime and criminals, this is the heart of the matter. If we do not have the will to correct our course, we will fall--and we will fall, deservedly. It is a loving thing, a compassionate thing, to prosecute crime; to confront and stop those who are destroying our societies. Have just laws and uphold them. It seems simple enough.
Protology, agreed that having just laws and upholding them would go a long way to improve things. The question on the table is how to get people to do that.
Feminism, succinctly, is compassion without accountability for women and accountability without compassion for men. That's the polarization. The answer is compassion AND accountability for both men and women. That means adding compassion for men and accountability for women to the mix.
Perhaps, more succinctly, feminism is false compassion with no accountability for women and false accountability without compassion for men; or, if you like, feminism is no compassion and no accountability for anyone. "How do we get people to have and uphold just laws?" is tantamount to asking, "How do we get criminals to stop committing crime?" The first step would be to stop lying: stop telling feminists that there is a good side and a shadow (bad) side to feminism. The cornerstone of feminism is control over the reproductive lives of women (both men and women are heavily invested in this practice); the ability to reach down the long corridor of time and negate future human beings. We call this contraception or birth control and we all agree it is a great boon to modern society. When an unwanted human being is conceived, we extend the rights of women to negate these people and we call it abortion. Both of these practices (really one, for contraception is just an early form of abortion) are explosively violent and necessarily lead to the death of the civilization in which they are practiced, either by attrition or the invasion of other civilizations, or both as is in our case. It is like field workers going into an orange grove and destroying 80% of the fruit because they find that when harvesting the grove they get hot and tired and start to sweat. Feminism is, essentially, a rejection of productivity and its replacement with comfort, pleasure, and ease. How do we disincentivize this behavior--I can think of only one path: outlaw the behavior and use the bully pulpit to explain why. Tell feminists that they are desolators (those who depopulate the land) and that they are highly effective desolators, to the point of destroying the entire culture. We will not continue, as Western Nations, if we hold this course.
Is it too late? I don't know, I'm not God. All I know is voices. like Janice and to a lesser degree you, need to stand up and state without relief that we need to stop murdering our children; that Feminism, Marxism, Critical Theory, in actuality Modern Philosophy, is the spiritual equivalent of radio-active waste, that when stripped bare it is simply naked godlessness; and above all, that godlessness does not work precisely because godlessness does not want to work--it is lazy.
Brass tacks are always the best place to start.
"Outlaw the behavior and use the bully pulpit to explain why" There are several things that would help if we could do them - but we lack the collective will. The Matrisensus is currently winning. Because of this, I focus on how individuals can become powerful as advocates to stand up and speak the truth, and wise enough to spot any openings that may occur and exploit them for good. Despite sustained effort, I have not yet been able to think of any way that can move against this pathology collectively. But there is hope. After all, alcoholism used to be seen as a moral failing, like feminism sees gender now. And then two self-confessed drunks started something that came to be called Alcoholics Anonymous, and they changed the framing of alcoholism from a moral problem to a disease. That ushered in a process that resulted in millions of alcoholics recovering, all over the world.
Feminism, with it's founding analysis that men oppress women, has moral polarization built in at the root, as alcoholism used to. Maybe something similar might happen to feminism, that will reframe gender relations from a moral system to a health system. That would be a huge improvement.
In my opinion, we have tried this since Freud and Jung and it hasn't worked. We need to jettison the mental health system and return to a moral system. AA has largely marginalized a group of people who have the responsibility to lead a productive life and are allowed to "get by" for the entirety of their working lives because they are diseased. What a horrific future we offer these people, and most of them live out horrific lives--they go where we lead them. And the journey we lead them on always ends in the same place--somewhere, back in their past, they were victims. When I was drinking too much, I was faced with two options--I could be either an alcoholic or a drunk. I chose to be a drunk. Then, I stopped getting drunk. I didn't stop drinking, I stopped getting drunk. I, actually wanted to stop drinking completely but my wife said no--she demanded that I have control over alcohol. It was one of the wisest things she has done for me.
The second thought that comes to mind is that of purpose. A moral system demands fealty to a god; a mental health system does not. To that extent, what we say is recovery is really just stasis: all dressed up with no place to go--and so, they don't go anywhere. There is a vibrant, vital life to be lived in relation to the Creator of the cosmos. I have never seen anything but dissipation and boredom outside of this. I wouldn't wish it on my enemy.
"But there is hope. After all, alcoholism used to be seen as a moral failing, like feminism sees gender now." Please explain how gender can be seen as a moral failing.
As far as alcoholism (and addiction generally) now being seen as illness rather than moral failure, I question the wisdom of seeing it that way and am not *at all* convinced that that way of thinking has made much of an impact on substance abuse except that a lot of people are now profiting from largely useless treatments for it.
Gender is now seen as a moral failing because men are seen as oppressors and perpetrators, morally bad, and women are seen as innocent victims, morally good. This is similar, in effect, to the Christian notion of original sin, except that, unlike Christianity, feminism offers no path to redemption.
Regarding the effectiveness of AA, the evidence, both anecdotal and statistical, about improved lives from the avoidance of alcohol is overwhelming. However, I do agree with you that the model, being always "in recovery" and never "recovered", is flawed.
"Gender is now seen as a moral failing because men are seen as oppressors and perpetrators, morally bad, and women are seen as innocent victims, morally good."
(forgive me jumping in here, this is such a great blog/ thread)
I'm not sure how much the new generation of progressives even care about feminism's treatise on gender (men bad/ women good). It feels like that whole debate peaked around 2014 and has now given way to a whole new conversation about gender. It feels like the whole 'battle of the sexes' has achieved its true goal of making gender a giant dumpster fire for everyone.
The new generation of progressive ideologues are not even seeking to win the 'battle of the sexes' or resolve the differences between men and women. They are now seeking to escape gender altogether.
And just as the pill/ abortion/ welfare/ daycare allowed women to escape the horrors womanhood/ motherhood... we now have new technologies which will allow young people to escape the horrors of the gender binary (or so the marketing claims).
Feminism's social construct theory has already detached gender from biology/ reproduction/ pair bonding/ parenting to the extent that many young people now don't feel part of a binary species (or a binary universe) any more. They have become fully atomised and fully configurable, thanks to an vast array of hormonal, fashion and makeup choices, neo-pronouns and sub cultures.
Social constructivism dismantled gender, and now technology is giving everyone a chance to rebuild it ('build back better'), but this time on their own terms, and not the terms dictated by nature (sexual dimorphism, the demands of reproduction etc).
While we adults continue to look for a way to reconcile men and women, and heal the split created by decades of feminist poison, the kids are being lured into a Brave New World of transhumanism (which I contend has been the unstated goal of feminism for at least the last 100 years).
The battle to reconcile the sexes, is now a battle to retain our human form and our biological function (fertility is plummeting/ pregnancy complications and dysfunction are soaring), and even to retain the principles of male and female in our culture (let alone celebrate them!)
Artificial wombs are only a decade away (so we are told). And in the mean time the youth are being offered 100 new pseudo-genders of their choosing, complete with buckets of glitter and rainbows and fashion accessories, none of which have anything to do with natural reproduction. The idea of 'abstract' genitalia is now a thing, with surgeries being proposed which do not even attempt to mimic penises or vaginas ...
And while all this is going on those two old fashioned (outdated) genders (male and female) are being quietly ushered out of the back door and bundled into the back of a van, and taken off to their retirement homes (or thrown down a well).
Let's not forget that feminists themselves are being kicked off the bus if they continue to hold to a gender binary world view. I contend that feminism (as it was) is over. It has taken society as far as it can, and has now passed the baton over to a whole new breed of gender ideologue: the gender queers and non binaries.
Only feminists who accept gender as a 100% social construct (ie a meaningless and arbitrary term) can avoid being thrown off the bus. In a recent debate with a TERF, I pointed out that she is no longer radical or welcome in the mainstream feminist movement, and that her views are now conservative in nature (as is anyone who adheres to a binary view of gender), and that she should consider herself a conservative ex feminist).
How relevant is feminism (as it was) if even feminists are being thrown off the bus and labelled 'phobes' for sticking to their old fashioned narratives about 'men' and 'women', as if such concepts are still valid?
Reading the accounts of transitioners (and detransitioners), I see a whole new take on gender which is mostly solipsistic, narcissistic, hedonistic, identity based and informed by online digital culture.
In modern post industrial cities the difference between men and women were minimised. Men and women rode the subway together, shopped together and worked in offices together. But online there is no gender at all, no physicality, no pheromones, no scent, no chemistry and no electrical charge in the air. This is where young people now live and interact. What does 'gender politics' even mean if everyone is online, and the physical realm is just a means to get from one screen to another?
The digital / social credit dystopia will make us all equally enslaved under a technocracy in a completely gender neutral way. Gender equality will finally have been achieved. Yay! Everyone gets to be a digital salve (global citizen).
"feminism offers no path to redemption."
Exactly. Nor was it ever meant to IMHO. Feminism achieved its goal of turning gender into a dysfunctional, depressing, run down slum..... and now new technology is providing a one way ticket out of there.
I certainly wasn't taking issue with the fact that alcohol is harmful, only with the idea that viewing it and treating it as disease is any more effective than just shunning and shaming alcoholics. Calling it a disease or a moral failing is just the difference between your friends and family shaming you for free and a therapist doing it for money and telling you you can't help yourself.
This is just part of a comedy routine that's on topic, but it's insightful as well as hilarious.
https://youtu.be/4txNz25Ht9o?si=u1XpaupIbdKvP4Wp
One of the biggest truisms in the MRM is that "women have rights and men have responsibilities."
Again, there is just no need for any new theories to explain this because patriarchy is, and always has been, gyocentric. What's inconvenient about that is merely that feminists have very successfully marketed their fictional, shadowy, systemic brand of patriarchy as misogynistic. If patriarchy was, indeed, misogynistic then feminism wouldn't be allowed even a toehold on culture.
The most compassionate thing you can do for a heroin addict is to take away his heroin.
There may be instances when that is indeed the most compassionate thing. But that same compassion then demands that you remain with him during his withdrawal process, and support him through it as he seeks ways to live that aren't dependent on the drug.
I agree with this, with a few minor tweeks:
This applies to all instances, not just of drug addiction, but sexual addiction, violent crime, murder, rape, incest, larceny, et. al. This demands that we remain with him or her for the entirety of their lives always supporting, always seeking ways to live that are not dependent on violence or vice. This is the role of the church which, by the way, built Western Civilization (before we called it Western Civilization it was called Christendom).
wo-MEN'S crimes go under the radar. There's a pandemic of wo-MEN lying about rape. MANY innocent MEN ae being unjustly convicted. I would be cautious of equating the law with compassion or love. I know people in the law who told me: "The law has very LITTLE to do with justice and is more about which side can win. What if the fEMINISTS are the law??????
Joseph, you are right that there is a pandemic of women lying about rape, and that innocent men are being convicted. The law seems to me to currently be a battleground, in that it has a heritage of procedural fairness (due process, presumption of innocence, right to confront one's accuser, etc.) that still remains, even in family court which is the most distorted to favour women.) But under the influence of the Matrisensus, we no longer have attitudinal fairness, so the people involved in the process, the judges, lawyers and clerical staff - and the police - have compassion for women without accountability, and accountability for men without compassion, so they want things to come out with women being innocent and men being guilty, so that's what they try to make happen, despite the procedural fairness that is built into the institutional structures.
A good point about the "attitude". Here in the UK the 2010 Equality Act effectively means all subsequent legislation is "gender neutral" in its wording. However just as you describe the operation of the law via the many agencies involved reflects the attitude you describe. So the outcomes are manifestly not "gender neutral". The power of this is due to the sheer "taken for granted" nature of this basic gendered attitude. Even those who identify unfairness in outcomes seem unable to imagine how it could be different. Both men and women. I sometimes wonder if deep down we simply can't/won't see it because we know if men aren't held accountable and responsible, then no one is and there really is chaos.
OK David, I owe you an apology. You obviously have a grasp of what's going on, I didn't get that from your initial article. I'm going edit my comment and post an apology to you in my critique. Perhaps because you are very sophisticated, I missed that you have a grasp of what's going on. Again, my apology for being hard on you
Thank you, Joseph. I appreciate and admire your willingness to revise your position as a result of new evidence. Well done.
Good point. I think I spoke to this with the sentiment, "Have just laws and uphold them," We do have a corrupt legal system, it has become criminal, in fact. None-the-less, it is the system we deserve as long as we tolerate it.
I owe David an apology, he obviously does grasp what's going on, I simply missed that in the sophistication of his writings.
Another spirited exchange. Interesting how David is the dove and Janice the hawk when it comes to dealing with feminists. I hope you will decide to schedule another debate. You give us plenty to think about.
Really, Joseph? I show up here where some, like you, are highly critical of my ideas and insult me, and you characterize that as the behavior of a mouse?
David, I owe you an apology, and I've deleted some of my more derogatory comments. As you've explained it to me, I now see that you indeed have a grasp of what's going on. My sincere apology. Perhaps because you are more sophisticated than me, my understanding was lost in your sophistication. You have my full apology
Food for thought, definitely. I, like Janice, tend to be a little more rageful when it comes to the way most of us just stand back and let the sorry human beings that make up the feminist consortium get whatever they want.
I wonder if what you call the matrisensus isn't a somewhat misdirected attempt at explaining a phenomenon better understood as the *true* patriarchy, which is that men do the things we do, as patriarchs, for the benefit of women and children and at our own expense. It's men that make feminism even possible. Feminists' success in activism will only change when men stop empowering it. Indeed, when we stop falling all over ourselves to empower it like goofy school boys trying to score points with girls.
Agreed that men empower feminism, and that the male competence hierarchy (I reserve the word Patriarchy for the shadow of that system, when the motive is corrupted from service to personal power) is deeply committed to the benefit of women and children,
To be fair it isn't "men" so much as the men in positions of power and influence. Those "goofy schoolboys" went to a surprisingly small number of schools (many residential) and like the parallel small number of schools for precisely the similar girls, almost all single sex. And from these mainly to one of two Universities with a sprinkling of others. Certainly here it is these gilded beings who preside over our family courts, criminal courts, civil service, Universities, public and private corporations and provide the majority of our national politicians. Perhaps those years shut away in school fueled the idea females are mystical and saintly. But it is a very few men, and women, who actually have eagerly and unctuously enacted the feminist wishes. In a sense men for whom there is no real hardship in looking after women and children first because they have plenty. Unlike of course the majority of men who, without nannies, residential schools, second homes and a flat in "town" , actually make sacrifices of their interests, effort even comfort for their families. And who are far more than slightly inconvenienced by divorce etc. In this country it is blatantly obvious that "white van man", I suppose "blue collar" man, who aspires to a good job, a modest home a wife and children an annual holiday is derided in much the same way as was the case in the Victorian era, the era when women's saintly pedestal was really raised up. Not all men, but some men.
No, it's damned near all men.
When you get right down to it, most of what we're brought up to believe is etiquette and chivalry is little more than pandering to women's desires for coddling and protection. It's built into our genes (and jeans) to suck up to women and also to compete with other men to be even more coddling and protective, which explains how women can use men against each other so easily. Little boys grow up dreaming of fighting other men for the honor and safety of women, and getting a leg over in the bargain.
Truly, a beautiful, well-reasoned, inspirational, and vastly informative dialogue. Such discussion seems as rare nowadays as it is wondrous to read. Thank you both - I find myself very much looking forward to reading David's upcoming book! 🙏❤️🌟
There is a huge problem with the Ender's Game comparison. What Ender learned, too late, was that there was a way to coexist with the Buggers. He didn't know that when he destroyed them, and, indeed, they didn't know it themselves for most of the story. In the end their goals were not, at their roots, contradictory.
This is not the case with our current conflict. The goals are, at their roots, even more contradictory than they seem on the surface.
Agreed that the current conflict is not like a war. But it is possible to separate the principle of compassion for the enemy in order to understand them subjectively as well as objectively, which Card built his whole story around, from the particular plot twists of the Ender's Game story.
I’m not quite sure how that relates to my comment. What I was saying is that in some conflicts there exists away for both parties to end up surviving. Either physically or as in this case as a philosophy.
Not sure why that posted all by itself. But in this case, in the conflict with feminism. It is not possible for society to continue to exist and feminism to continue to exist. One of them must destroy the other.
Agreed that the Matrisensus, of which feminism is a major manifestation, is inherently toxic and pathological, and will kill society if it goes unchecked. But it is possible for the pathology to die without its adherents doing so.
Oh, yes. I don't think we need blood in the streets. I think we need for men to man up, and women to stay home. Or, as GK Chesterton said, "All we need is for men to be men, and women women." We started by saying, "If man has a vote, then woman should have a vote," and we have ended by saying, "If a boy has a penis, then a girl should have a penis.
I have offered my penis to many women who didn't seem the least bit interested in having one even for a minute and a half.
Well, the real hardcore adherents aren't exactly cranking out loads of little baby feminazis, anyway.
Like both of you, Janice and David, I’m very ambivalent about this topic. The spontaneity of what I’ve read suggests to me that I should respond spontaneously. What follow are impressions, therefore, not a carefully constructed argument.
Although I had thought anxiously since childhood about what would eventually become my special area of research—men, masculinity, maleness and misandry—it was only in 1975, when the Vietnam War ended, that I resolved to explore all this in a focused way. But not yet. I was living in New York, and the war’s implications for me, for men, were still too emotionally fraught. Even though I opposed the war and diligently read Ramparts from cover to cover every month, my reasons had nothing to do with hawks and doves or Geneva conventions. I seldom attended sit-ins, and I was very uncomfortable when I did. I agreed with these people, see, but I couldn’t stand being in the same room with them. I found them, in a word, arrogant. And they expressed not the slightest interest in what troubled me most. It wasn’t the war but the draft, which applied only to men—and to men by virtue of maleness, not masculine attitudes or aptitudes. These guys all opposed the draft, sure, but only for the most respectable political or ideological reasons—not, of course, because they felt personally threatened by regimentation and death or morally astonished by this form of sexual inequality. It wasn’t cool for men to feel personally threatened or astonished. Being cool had something to do with bravado, with knowing what was comme il faut and therefore being in control of your life. But I, being gay (though understanding almost nothing about that except feeling attracted to some people without liking them), had no sense of being in control. In 1969, I left New York and returned to Canada feeling confused and defeated.
By 1985, on the tenth anniversary of that war’s end and after rejecting several alienating professions, I realized that it was time to do what I truly needed to do: figure out what it meant to be a man, whether I liked it or not, and why. Although I’ve moved far from some of my early ideas about manhood, war is one of the few that remain central.
I mention this here, because it explains my strong sense that the war between men and women can be understood best as a primarily collective and cultural phenomenon, not a personal and emotional one (although some people, for personal reasons, really do dislike other people and therefore want to afflict them). Yes, it is a war. I’m not sure when women declared war, probably when the MeToo movement broke out and vigilantism came out of the shadows. The weapons are words, laws and public policies, not guns and bombs, but the effects are deadly. The aim is revolution, after all, not reform. The goal is to destroy society itself (and, as I’ve realized more recently, every vestige of Western civilization), not only specific combatants. Unless you’re a pacifist, the rules change in wartime—including the moral rules that govern us in peacetime. I admire and even envy pacifists, but I’m not one of them. From the perspective of men, whether they have the courage to admit it or not, this is a war of self-defense and therefore what centuries of philosophers have called a “just war.”
From there, my mind wanders to the current war in Gaza. No one would ever call me a knee-jerk defender of every Israeli policy. I’ve never even thought of myself as a Zionist. But I do think that the double standard, which so many people apply to Israel, is both contemptible and destructive. These people are not necessarily anti-Semitic in any religious or racial sense; many of them really are anti-Zionists, as they claim, but only because their secular religion (a term that I’ve defined in detail elsewhere) is anti-Westernism. But my point here is that, for me, this is a just war for Israel. I can see no good for either side that could possibly come from a victory for Hamas. Therefore, I must accept a lamentable fact of life in wartime: some people or many people, including children, will suffer and die. This means that I support Israel in fighting as long as it takes to achieve the just goal of self-defense—but the quicker the better (to mitigate suffering). I wouldn’t introduce this controversy if it were not for the fact that Janice and David have been discussing the motivation of those who oppose feminism (at least the combination of gynocentrism and misandry).
What could it mean to talk about feeling compassion for feminists? Pity, perhaps, but why compassion? That would inevitably dilute the courage that we need to defeat evil. David says that he really means empathy, not compassion. Maybe that’s better than compassion, in this context, but only f it refers to knowledge (how feminists think), not emotion. Once again, that would compromise our ability to defeat a profoundly destructive ideology. (Actually, it’s no longer one ideology but a congeries of allied ideologies. All are closely related; only the names of targets differ from one to another.) Worse, it would confuse men hopelessly. They’re still mired in notions of chivalry, which make them wonder what’s wrong with them for not instinctively rushing to defend women at all costs. (Chivalry is not universal and therefore not instinctual. In the West, it was the product of an aristocratic class and revolved around, among other things, either pity or condescension toward the powerless—including the serfs.) I think that men deserve an explanation for what’s happening to them. And I think that the explanation is not one that will, or should, leave everyone singing Kumbaya.
Peacetime is another matter. If we manage to defeat the very powerful and destructive ideology of feminism (and of wokism or anti-Westernism under its many names), that will be the time for empathy and even compassion. The defeat of ideology, after all, will leave many people on all sides ready to seek and even ask for a better way of life than rage and revenge. I can’t prove that, of course, but it’s a possibility.
I know it sounds silly, but I really can imagine the UN, at some point, resolving that men must provide humanitarian assistance to women because of the war on feminism. There would also be a lot of waffling about combatants and 'innocent' civilians if DEI (Didn't Earn It) departments, gender studies departments, etc. started getting axed.
Absolutely that could happen!
Paul, I confess that my use of the word "compassion" is problematic. I don't know of a word that precisely defines what I mean. I mean by compassion for women that we "get" the legitimacy of women's issues, even while we recognize the illegitimacy of feminism. This difficulty with words is a pattern with me: I use "evil" without meaning it in moral terms, for instance, and I use "Patriarchy" to describe something that is relatively rare in the West, the shadow form of the male competence hierarchy, unlike most on this substack who use it the way feminists mean it, as the dominant form of male governance in the West.
I find your use of language powerful and exquisitely nuanced David, so please don’t change anything on my behalf 😉
I’m exploring Buddhist concepts and getting a lot from them. I now hear “compassion” as connection - love, ultimately - for all people WHILE ALSO accepting that they are suffering from delusions. However that’s perhaps a stretch from the everyday “social justice warrior” mindset.
Thank you and Janice for a wonderful, gracious and creative conversation. I came away with st least time hope for a brighter future for humanity. I will reread it many times, and I look forward to your book David.
Thank you very much, David. I often struggle to find the right word, but I think that the struggle is worth it, it is an expression of how much I care about finding the right word.
Thank you! Fascinating and thought provoking discussion.. David's ideas as i understand them, closely follow the teachings of Christ and Christian theology. It would probably work well to find inner peace.. From an personal perspective, a place of peace for the sake of our own wellbeing and those around us is healthy. The fact that I am a Christian also plays a role in my views. It may also help us to understand our adversary.
Their is also a place for outrage and indignation. It can be a great motivator of action in the face of fear and overwhelming odds. It is necessary to fight an adversary when you, your loved ones or your culture is threatened. Otherwise you will be swept aside like a twig in a raging river.
However, Janice makes an excellent point, this is a cultural struggle between good and evil. One of the problems we have in our society today is moral relativism. This attitude has surely caused our societal rot. Evil despots and movements wield this as an effective weapon. Margaret Thatcher had a famous quote "Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides." It leads to moral confusion and paralysis.
Our adversaries are motivated by power. They use ideological certainty and victimhood as their weapons. Playing on our emotions and inner drives that are baked into all humans. As mentioned in the article, they activate deeply held beliefs that women are weak and victims that need to be protected by society. That they have moral superiority to men. It plays on womens innate feelings of sisterhood, self-righteousness and personal power. Unfortunately creating a sense of entitlement and narcissism.
They use mens almost irresistible desire to protect women. We hear the mantra all the time about womens personal empowerment. Reinforcing some mens view of womens victimhood and the need for support. Ironically, while celebrating empowerment feminist seek to strip men of their personal power.
Its been my personal observation that liberal men are most susceptible to this. It fits well with their arrogant feelings of virtue. Some of them in the mens rights movement are doing great things for the improvement of boys/mens lives. I am grateful for this. However, it is painful to see a man pander to feminist. Regardless of the underlying purpose.
So maybe their is a place for both empathy and action using moral outrage. However, i believe at this time that more activism is called for.. I think that to overcome the issues we have discussed, it will require women to take the lead and grow the grassroots movement to the next level. Women understand and instinctively know how to socially out maneuver other women. Because they understand the tactics and general rules of the game. They can also capitalize on the same weapons the feminist use; societies empathy and desire to protect women. I greatly appreciate the women like Janice that have fought for mens rights for a long time. It must be tiring and frustrating at times.
Men of course still have their role, we can also stand shoulder to shoulder with the women who fight for mens rights and a healthier society. I think there is a quiet majority waiting for the right leadership to come along. Many see the problem but don't know what to do about it. However, people are beginning to see radical feminists for what they truly are, evil. Radical feminist are a formidable foe and dominate all aspects of our society. Its a difficult fight but necessary for the generations that follow us..
Mark, this sentence jumped out at me from your comment: "I think there is a quiet majority waiting for the right leadership to come along." I have felt this way at times, especially in Jordan Peterson lectures when I sense a vast group of people of goodwill, earnestly striving to understand and do the right thing. The right leader could indeed tap into this energy, it seems to me. But that would be a truly exceptional person, to step into that role and carry it well. Still, I hope ...
There is a blogger whose handle is "The Tin Men". You can find him on X (@TheTinMenBlog) and other platforms. He shares our frustration with lack of progress with men's rights. He comes from a marketing background and suggests we have a branding problem. An intriguing observation. I believe he is trying a new angle. I hope he finds some success.
I can't help but think about a woman approx 30 yrs ago who single-handedly created a boycott of a major corporation. It was for a commercial that showed women in a demeaning light. Then corporate lawyers and CEOs became afraid of legal and social backlash if they insulted women.
So, they started demeaning and insulting men instead. They knew that there would be little protest or lawsuits. There would be no accountability. To this day that has not changed. Unless it's about beer of course..
With Janice and others unrelenting articles and interviews; many people's perspective of feminism and men's rights are changing. People are learning about the truth. A counter to the feminist narative. It seems like acceptance of the men's rights movement has moved from the fringes to mainstream. This is progresss. As you mentioned Jordan Peterson had a role in that.
I think we need an mens rights activist group lead by someone like Bettina Arndt but in the US. Theirs a lot of downtrodden men, particularly young men, who need a purpose and want to make a positive change in men's lives. Theirs also a lot of mothers of sons, daughters of fathers and wives of husband that care about men. If we could bring these men & women together for a common cause, men's rights, it would be very powerful.
I want to publicly apologize to David for some of my over-the-top comments. As David explained things to me, I now realize he has a grasp of what's going on. What I tried to say is that I think his approach is too diplomatic. I've deleted any derogatory comments as far as I can see, and David has my FULL APOLOGY.
1. How can feminism be so powerful in controlling the culture and the narrative when it is entirely unjust and false-to-fact.
I believe the main reason is the men wanted to please the female gender. Gynocentrism is extremely powerful, partly because it is covert and secondly it exploits the male biological drive.