One of the cornerstones of red pill truth is in men coming to terms with what amounts to (in most cases) half a lifetime of feminine conditioning. It’s interesting to consider that there was a time (pre-sexual revolution) when a man wasn’t in someway socialized and acculturated in his upbringing to give deference to the feminine or to become more feminine-identifying. There are plenty of other manosphere bloggers who’ll run down in detail all of the many ways boys are now raised and educated to be what a feminine-primary world would like them to be, but at the heart of it is a presumption that boys should be raised and conditioned to be more like girls; conditioned from their earliest memories to be better providers for what women believe they will eventually want them to be as adult ‘men’.
For men who’ve become aware of this conditioning through some trauma or personal crisis that prompted him to seek answers for his condition, we call this period our blue pill days. I think it’s important to make a distinction about this time – whether or not a man is Alpha or Beta doesn’t necessarily exclude him from the consequences of a blue pill conditioning. That isn’t to say that a more natural Alpha Man can’t see the world in a red pill perspective by his own means, but rather that his feminine-primary upbringing doesn’t necessarily make a man Alpha or Beta.
The Blue Pill Alpha
I’m making this distinction because there is school of thought that being blue pill (unaware of one’s conditioning) necessitates him being more Beta. To be sure, feminine-primary conditioning would raise a boy into a more feminine-pliable man – ready to serve as the good Beta provider when a woman’s SMV declines and she’s less able to compete with her younger sexual competitors.
However, there exist more Alpha Men also conditioned to be servants of the Feminine Imperative. These men make for some of the most self-evincing White Knights you’ll ever meet and are usually the first men to “defend the honor” of the feminine and women for whom they lack a real awareness of. Binary absolutism and an upbringing steeped in feminization makes for a potent sense of self-righteousness. Blue pill Alphas live for the opportunity to defend everything their conditioning has taught them. To the blue pill Alpha all women are victims by default, all women share a common historic suffrage and any man (his sexual competitors) critical of the feminine are simply an opportunity to prove his worth to any woman in earshot who might at all find his zealousness attractive.
The Second Set of Books
On June 15th, 2011, Thomas Ball set himself on fire in front of Cheshire Superior Court in New Hampshire. While I strongly disagree with his decision to self-immolate, I understand his sentiment. In last week’s Possession, Living Tree attempted to call me to the carpet about how a man might come to the conclusion of suicide or murder once he’d become confronted with a total loss of all his personal and emotional investment in life:
But Rollo, you just justified murder as “logical”, by illustrating that insecurity is the prime motivator for this man’s life (and many others, I’d imagine). The decision may have be understandable in an empathetic sense, and he might have seen it as logical at the time, but there is nothing logical about it. You are making extreme beta-ism seem more and more like a mental disorder.
Just for the record, I’d argue that ONEitis, however extreme, is in fact a mental disorder.
I haven’t justified anything, murder or suicide, I’ve simply outlined the deductive process men use when confronting the actualized loss of their most important investment (or perceptually so) in life. They are convinced and conditioned to believe that women are playing by a set of rules and will honor the terms of those rules, only to find that after ego-investing themselves for a lifetime in the correctness and appropriateness of those rules does he discover in cruel and harsh terms that women are playing by another set of rules and wonder at how stupid he could be to have ever believed in the rules he was conditioned to expect everyone would abide by.
Suicide or murder is certainly a deductive and pragmatic end for some men, but by no means is it justified. Thomas Ball, for all of his due diligence in uncovering the ugly processes of the American divorce industry, was far more useful alive than dead in some symbolic suicide. He wasn’t the martyr he probably expected he’d be, he’s just a footnote.
For all of that, Thomas Ball and his last message to humanity serves as an excellent illustration of a man coming to terms with his own conditioning. In his message Ball makes a very important observation about his legal ordeals. He comes to understand that there are two sets of books rather than the one he’d been lead to believe that everyone understood as ‘the rules’ everyone should play by.
The confusion you have with them is you both are using different sets of books. You are using the old First Set of Books- the Constitution, the general laws or statutes and the court ruling sometime call Common Law. They are using the newer Second Set of Books. That is the collection of the policy, procedures and protocols. Once you know what set of books everyone is using, then everything they do looks logical and upright.
Ball was of course making a political statement in his account of going through the legal system and the cruel education he got in the process, but when men transition from their comfortable blue pill perspective into the harsh reality that the red pill represents, the experience is a lot like Ball discovering that the set of books (the set of rules) he’d believed everyone was using wasn’t so. Likewise, men who’ve been conditioned since birth to believe that women were using a common set of rules – a set where certain expectations and mutual exchange were understood – were in fact using their own set. Furthermore these men ‘just didn’t get it’ that they should’ve known all along that women, as well as men’s feminization conditioning, were founded in a second set of books.
In and of itself, this is a difficult lesson for young men to learn and disabuse themselves of before they’ve invested their most productive years into what their blue pill conditioning has convinced them they can expect from life and women. However, when a mature man, who’s based the better part of his life and invested his future into the hope that the first set of books is actually legitimate set is disenfranchised by the second set of books, by the actual set of rules he’s been playing with, that’s when all of the equity he believed he’d established under the first set of books counts for nothing. Literally his life (up to that point) counted for nothing.
When faced with the prospect of rebuilding himself after living so long under false pretenses, after having all he believed he was building turn up to be a lifetime of wasted effort, he’s faced with two real options. Recreate himself or destroy himself. Needless to say suicide statistics among men are a strong indication that the majority of men (Betas) simply don’t have the personal strength to recreate themselves. Thomas Ball didn’t.
There’s usually a lot of disillusionment that comes with making the transition to Red Pill awareness. I’ve written more than a few posts about the stages of grief and acceptance that come along with that transition. Guy’s get upset that what they now see was really there all along, but it’s not so much the harshness of seeing red pill dynamics in women or a feminized society play out with such predictability, it’s the loss of investment that cause the real sense of nihilism. When I wrote Anger Management, the overarching reason most men experienced what they called a righteous anger, wasn’t at how the second set of books had been dictating their lives for so long, but rather it was anger at having invested so much of themselves in the first set of books and losing that very long term investment.
The good news is you can rebuild yourself. A lot gets written about how nihilistic the red pill is, but this is for a lack of understanding that you can recreate yourself for the positive with the knowledge of both sets of rules. One common thread I see come up often on the Red Pill Reddit forum is how Game-awareness has completely destroyed a guy’s world view. I get it, I realize it’s a hard realization, but their depression is only for a lack of realizing that they can become even better in this new understanding than they were in their blue pill ignorance.
January 14th, 2014 at 10:17 pm
@ BlackPoisonSoul
Can you think of a single example of a society “turning things around?”
January 14th, 2014 at 10:25 pm
Different T – “Can you think of a single example of a society ‘turning things around?'”
Wrong question. Can you name an insurgency the ultimately failed?
January 14th, 2014 at 10:27 pm
A great number unless you somehow think that every subsequent insurgency within the society is still the same thing.
January 14th, 2014 at 10:29 pm
I can think of zero that ultimately failed. They all win eventually. Sometimes they are quickly replaced but the all get their day as the established order eventually.
January 14th, 2014 at 10:35 pm
You are likely to turn this into a argument about definition, but…
The whiskey rebellion, the slave rebellion in America, the Civil War, the Irish.
You could say that Afghan insurgency against the Taliban had basically failed previous to the US entering their war.
This list doesn’t include the Soviets, the Chinese, etc.
January 14th, 2014 at 10:38 pm
There are a great number within the Mongol Dynasty alone.
January 14th, 2014 at 10:45 pm
You’re right I would turn this in to argument about definitions, but that’s only because words mean things and clear definitions are necessary to make sure we are comparing red delicious apples to other red delicious apples.
January 14th, 2014 at 10:47 pm
This is the heart of the Fallacy of Relational Equity (which I’m sure you haven’t read yet, so once again I’ll do your fucking leg work):
http://therationalmale.com/2012/05/21/relational-equity/
This is exactly the means of the Feminine Imperative. Chivalry was a mechanism for the FI. And for as much shit as both feminists and well meaning manosphereans would disagree with me over – Feminism is simply Chivalry 2.0.
Only, with feminism the objectives of the Feminine Imperative are couched in the lies that feminism’s end are an egalitarian equality between the sexes. Chivalry (or I should say the feminized bastardization of it in Courtly Love) was couched in a societal obligation to facilitate a feminine-primary state.
Both Chivalry and Feminism’s ends have always been ensuring feminine primacy – granted through different means – but both achieve a social and psychological supremacy over the masculine while ensuring that being masculine is a liability and responsibility to the feminine.
This is the roots of the masculine Catch 22, which, once again you’ve either failed to read or failed to understand, so I’ll link it for you for the 2nd time today:
http://therationalmale.com/2011/10/18/the-honor-system/
So if men were ‘duped’ into believing in a “first set of rule’s” legitimacy, in the thinking it was their masculine due and/or masculine responsibility to invest themselves into something they believed the feminine would reward (much less appreciate) them for with intimacy or idealizations of love or an enduring legacy through family and children, which was doing the duping? Men themselves, or an overriding Feminine Imperative with the intent purpose and survival-level need of ensuring its own security and optimizing hypergamy?
January 14th, 2014 at 11:14 pm
I was aware of what that WSJ article was talking about. It’s pretty prevalent just by watching a little tv.
I would like to hear more personal accounts of how elementary schools are changing against boys. There’s an article, or could have been a blog, from a woman that got people a little surprised when she titled it “why I don’t want my son to be a gentleman”.
Her son asked her one day what a gentleman is. She gave him an answer and then wanted to know what it meant to him. He recounted that at school, the girls get to line up to go to the bathroom first, and other things like that. Made her think she about whether she would want a son that feels he has to default to girls just for being a girl.
I would like to hear about what other people may be seeing or hearing about in schools that they feel are giving boys a screwed up view point towards genders.
January 14th, 2014 at 11:36 pm
@Eris Re:”those who have suffered trauma and lost the use of certain parts of the body” I’ve lately been visiting an randomish old working guy (ancient, several years older than me) in a nursing home rather too irregularly. Noone else, as far as I know, outside of the nursing staff, visits him really. From a couple of strokes a decade ago, he is completely paralyzed on his left side, and not much use elsewhere as he’d be the first to say. He invariably smiles fully, a half smile, and says that he’s glad to be alive when I ask how he’s doing. “I’ve got half a mind this is the best I’ve had it in my life.” He claims to be living the dream of not having to lift a finger since he can’t lift it, a joke he pulls on every new person, asking asking them to watch as he demonstrates how he can’t lift his finger.
His one complaint, as I’ve grown closer, he confessed to me recently: He’d like to lose the dead weight left side. It feels foreign, alien, and he’d prefer to be sawn right down the middle, and can’t really understand why the doctors won’t do it. Really, he can’t understand.
Those of us with dead weight contentious wives, or so see many others’ gangrenous wives, also can’t understand. “I’ve got half a mind” is still better than having the other half in constant opposition.
January 14th, 2014 at 11:47 pm
@ Rollo
So if men were ‘duped’ into believing in a “first set of rule’s” legitimacy, in the thinking it was their masculine due and/or masculine responsibility to invest themselves into something they believed the feminine would reward (much less appreciate) them for with intimacy or idealizations of love or an enduring legacy through family and children, which was doing the duping?
Do you think it is possible you are projecting your mind, feelings, values, and experiences on these men in the past? In other words, do you think men who thought blood letting was the cure to disease, were in constant toil to bring in the crop, were nearly always half drunk considering the water was bad, and had quite likely killed multiple men in their lives were concerned with whether “the feminine would reward (much less appreciate) them for with intimacy or idealizations of love.”
I do not understand this.
January 15th, 2014 at 12:31 am
Rollo
No comment on my picture selection? I thought it was brilliant.
That guy is looking in the wrong book, you know….
January 15th, 2014 at 1:05 am
Livingtree2013: “Love cannot be manufactured, or negotiated, or contracted. It is spontaneous, and fleeting, and cannot be captured. I always say, if you knew real love even for an instant, you are one of the lucky few.”
You are confusing lust with love. The lust you are talking about is cheap and easy, unless you are a beta loser that cannot get a woman excited. If you are a bata loser, no amount of searching will find you what you describe.
Actual love is something a long-time couple has to work at, and work hard at. It requires mutual respect, and self-respect on both sides.
Mere lust wears out after 7 years or so, and ends in divorce court.
January 15th, 2014 at 1:28 am
Different T, regarding the First and Second Sets of Books and how to deal with them, see “Prisoner’s Dilemma”.
Also, given the sea changes in domestic and family law and its enforcement brought about by feminism, are you really questioning whether “reality has fundamentally changed”? Are you really stating that it is all just an “illusion” and anyone who objects is just a “whiny ass baby”?
Are you really that obtuse?
January 15th, 2014 at 4:19 am
“”There’s usually a lot of disillusionment that comes with making the transition to Red Pill awareness. I’ve written more than a few posts about the stages of grief and acceptance that come along with that transition.””
I think also there is “denial”—I didn’t want to believe or couldn’t believe that all the concepts of hypergamy and other game tenants are real.
Despite what I have learned about game and all the success I’ve had, my recent “oneitis” shook me at my core.
Inner game and addressing the co-dependence that put me in the “nice guy” category in the past emerged as themes that as a New Year’s Resolution I need to address and rid myself of.
I would sum up my co-dependence simply as “fear” of losing someone when the key to game is being secure in who you are in every situation.
January 15th, 2014 at 4:37 am
The Red Pill as its called is awesome its a tool that helps us whip women into our fruit barers n slaves!!!!!!THEY LOVE IT
January 15th, 2014 at 4:41 am
Glenn, powerful story your definitely on the right track.
My position on the 2nd set of books is that it is predicated on keeping men in an ‘infantalized’ state.
I’m not well versed in developmental psychology (haven’t thrashed it out thoroughly enough apart from reading Erikson, so I maybe out of my league here) but my overwhelming observation is that men are stuck in a pathologically arrested stage of ego development.
From the ages of 6 to 12 the last thing boys want to do is be with their mother or surrounded by older women but that is exactly what is happening through divorce, unsafe neighborhoods, fathers working long hours and education.
A boys sense of self worth and competence is being limited and restricted to pleasing his mother or other women (betahood) while his own ego development is stunted and in a constraint state of seeking female approval.
Glenn’s story shows just how long it can take for that programming to be overcome.
The feminine imperative doesn’t need a massive governmental super structure to further its aims, all it needs is for boys in their developmental stages to be in the sphere of control of women.
January 15th, 2014 at 6:35 am
@differentT “The Manosphere is considered nihilistic because it is” –
is considered this way by whom exactly? The manosphere has undoubtedly helped countless numbers of men emotionally who are suffering, be it in family courts, not able to see their children etc. who have absolutely nowhere to turn.
You fling the term “nihilism” around with all the verve of a slightly more widely-read town vicar, holding it up as if it were something that necessarily wreaks destruction on those who come into contact with it. The belief that nothing matters in the grand scheme of things does not make it hard to get down to the grocery store, nor does it emotionally anaesthetise a person as you seem to be getting at. Nihilism may lead to giving one’s own wellbeing more importance but, then again, most men are brought up to give this very little priority anyway (compared to women who have been told for decades that putting yourself first is the only thing any self-respecting woman should do) so it is normal that a feminist such as yourself, see any straying from the eyes-to-the-ground workhorse model by men as necessarily self-centred and hedonistic. In reality, the idea that nihilism will lead to getting stuck in some little self-consuming hedonistic bubble in preposterous, and furthermore the questions you have repeatedly posed about this and the “first set of books” are clearly little more than loaded questions that show little desire for a real discussion but more an attempt to portray yourself some kind of intellectual.
Perhaps you think that your last comment was an accurate portrayal of life in the past but it I would suggest that it is nothing more than the typical biased depiction of history tediously wheeled out by borg-like feminists time and again when it suits their argument to tell us how those evil men have oppressed their dear “sisters” and they throughout history.
I’m not exactly sure what your purpose is here but your increasingly lazy responses in the comments section reek of an unfaltering arrogance coupled with an almost wilful ignorance of the topics mentioned. Maybe these qualities of yours, together with your enlightened worldview, would be best served on the forums of somewhere like jezebel or radfem hub – but I think not here.
January 15th, 2014 at 8:30 am
In reality, the idea that nihilism will lead to getting stuck in some little self-consuming hedonistic bubble in preposterous,
Correct. It can also lead to some sort of buddhism. Those are the most likely outcomes.
furthermore the questions you have repeatedly posed about this and the “first set of books” are clearly little more than loaded questions that show little desire for a real discussion but more an attempt to portray yourself some kind of intellectual.
If you think “the first set of books” (and the concepts which they were developed around) are bullshit created for the feminine imperative, your only greivance is that you were too stupid disregard them earlier, correct? Why are you surprised that “society” wants to brainwash you. Remember, you do not like obligation, rights, or responsibilities.
In other words, you want to live in the jungle, but bitch about animals taking your food.
January 15th, 2014 at 8:36 am
If you want to see the second set of books…or know their rules, just read Rules for Radicals by one of those YKW.
http://www.vcn.bc.ca/citizens-handbook/rules.html
January 15th, 2014 at 9:07 am
@Johnnycomelately
The feminine imperative doesn’t need a massive governmental super structure to further its aims, all it needs is for boys in their developmental stages to be in the sphere of control of women.
Another manifestation of this phenomenon is that it creates males with “daddy issues.” That it is to say, they have never learned to differentiate between legitimate authority and illegitimate authority. This confusion leads to the glorification of “personal liberty” as the prime value in interpersonal relations.
January 15th, 2014 at 10:35 am
I think this says it all
January 15th, 2014 at 10:41 am
“Self love is not so vile a sin as self neglecting” – Henry V
January 15th, 2014 at 11:12 am
Livingtree is literally not worth responding to. She fails to read anything on this blog without projecting her own thoughts onto what people write. Whatever you write in response to her, she misreads its intended meaning into something that matches her ego-invested view of the world. Trying to explain a perspective to her is like trying to melt ice by throwing nearly-freezing water on it.
I gave you a chance LT, no longer. Until it becomes clear that you’re actually trying to understand what people are expressing here I will continue to treat you as if you’re just a troll. Until you actually open your mind to alternate perspectives, that’s exactly what you are. At this point it’s hard to believe you were ever actually curious about what men think. In fact, I should take my own advice because I believe Rollo has a post that explains why women generally don’t give a shit what men think.
January 15th, 2014 at 11:18 am
“Correct. It can also lead to some sort of buddhism. Those are the most likely outcomes.” – empty assertions. Care to back it up with reasoning?
“Your only greivance is that you were too stupid disregard them earlier, correct?” – What is this nonsense? No, it is a (since subsided) surprise at their existence, a shift of perspective and a desire to share those experiences with others who have experienced the same. I am afraid, given your troll-ish nature and vacuous argumentative waffling, the only “stupid” one in this equation is you.
“Why are you surprised that “society” wants to brainwash you”
I am bothered that society “brainwashes” young boys into adopting behaviours that are ultimately detrimental to their own wellbeing – however, I am not surprised that you couldn’t care less about this.
“Remember, you do not like obligation, rights, or responsibilities.”
No one on this thread has advocated this. You equate a man seeing through and deshackling himself from the expectations placed on him by a feminised society and as such placing value on his own personal fulfilment (arguably to match that of the modern “empowered” western woman) with trampling the freedoms of those around him and thus forfeiting his own basic rights within society? Perhaps, in that case, you feel women “do not like obligation, rights, or responsibilities.” either?
“In other words, you want to live in the jungle, but bitch about animals taking your food.” – yet more babbling. With red pill awareness, it’s much less likely that someone “take your food” – that is the point. The problem is that the current popular mindset is far more toxic for men that it is for women (and in fact, dare I say, very much benefits women) and this begins in men from a young age and can have disastrous consequences (please see above).
But of course, in true feminist style you have no qualms with men and especially boys being unwittingly herded into a detrimental belief system that only benefits the opposite gender and those at the very top. Were it women and girls in that position, well now, that would very be different, wouldn’t it. Ironically your so-called arguments against that which is written about in this blog actually end up vindicating it – but I don’t expect you to pause to reflect on this before your fingers hit the keys to spout yet more nonsense.
January 15th, 2014 at 11:43 am
I’m obviously not getting the picture selection, because I fail to see the brilliance.
If I were picking a picture, I might have gone with someone digging through a cart of discarded “free” books left outside a retiring professor’s office for something to read, or perhaps someone discovering a delicate and ancient tome that has mostly blank pages.
January 15th, 2014 at 2:05 pm
Regarding the picture:
It’s nice and subtle seems to suggest even when the facade is stripped away and the truth reveled there’s still work to done. And that work is done one mind at a time.
January 15th, 2014 at 3:00 pm
Check this white knighting ala john stewart. I had to share this with the blog just to prove how real this all is right now in the media. Feminized conditioning at it’s best(worst).
http://tv.yahoo.com/news/jon-stewart-chris-christie-victim-vaginafication-america-video-143437673.html
January 15th, 2014 at 3:02 pm
Rollo, forgot to mention I gave a shout to your site to spread the word in my comment on the above article. Keep up the great work!
Feminization is quite real and has been happening since the 60’s. I like Stewart but that kind of knee jerk response just proves how feminized we have gotten. He has to pander to his audience, I get that, but this white knight schtick is old hat. He’s a typical beta male that jumps to women’s defense at every chance. Nothing Hume said here is sexist-he’s correct in that men are always under that threat of being called misogynists even for just for disagreeing with a woman. Men that are interested in delving deeper into this societal conditioning should check out some “manosphere” blogs like the rational male
January 15th, 2014 at 3:16 pm
The point, LivingTree, is that men who realize that women subvert the rules for their own interest have to process this in light of the fact that their masculinity is questioned as simultaneously not enough or totally bad. Men learn from single mother and single mother teacher and childless professor that men are oppressive instruments who bring fear and misery. Meanwhile, popular culture depicts agencies of potent male sexuality as the only “true” men. There is no shortage of self help cottage industry for women processing the fact that genetically superior vaginas are preferred on magazine covers, but men have no culturally available avenue to depict male sexuality as something more than a multimillionaire actor. If men complain about the end of chivalry, it’s because there’s nothing left for them in the void that is as easily obtainable as the crying about inequality and injustice that punctuates a woman’s narcissistic self awakening.
The irony of your statement against white knighting is that women benefitted from white-knighting males as much or more than men benefitted from mate stability. Women were shielded from war, dangerous jobs, and provided for first in times of great emergency. This “compromise” resulted in species wide safety and safety nets which are now used and depended upon by women so that they can pursue sexual gratification with abandon.
To dismiss male grievances over deception is to admit where the center or privilege lay. You couldn’t empathize with men even if you tried, and the fact that men are beginning to stop empathizing with female pathologies and align themselves with their own desires necessarily turns back the clock on female privilege provided for by white knights. When men stop paying, stop working, stop dadding up then women will have to meet men’s demands head on. It’s because this process will result in fewer entitlements to women and dare I say it, more emotional and financial pain than they want to deal with. It’s this fact that causes you concern – men who will no longer not white knight will make your life and women’s lives more difficult.
Women are becoming to men what most of them truly are: holes. This is for you to process and deal with, not a perspective men need to change.
January 15th, 2014 at 3:27 pm
DBM
To dismiss male grievances over deception is to admit where the center or privilege lay. You couldn’t empathize with men even if you tried, and the fact that men are beginning to stop empathizing with female pathologies and align themselves with their own desires necessarily turns back the clock on female privilege provided for by white knights. When men stop paying, stop working, stop dadding up then women will have to meet men’s demands head on. It’s because this process will result in fewer entitlements to women and dare I say it, more emotional and financial pain than they want to deal with. It’s this fact that causes you concern – men who will no longer not white knight will make your life and women’s lives more difficult.
Imagine LT on the good ship Titanic. No doubt she’d loudly complain about how uncomfortable her life vest is, how hard the seat in the lifeboat is, and how totally rude and self centered the men are being by choosing to drown rather than make her comfortable.
January 15th, 2014 at 3:41 pm
DifferentT: What he said was “I don’t seem to do a lot, but it takes all my time.” To me, that is the ideal. Everything that you do is done well and focused on for the duration of the experience. People rushing madly about to socialize, make money, buy things, etc. look like foolish insects on the march to hell. I have to let them go their way if they aren’t interested in alternatives, but it isn’t *my* way.
@Jeremy: The Andes crash happened six years before I was born. I brought it up as an example that might inspire male readers to see where their lives could go if they just one day started walking.
Mark refers to the Manosphere as a river. I take that to mean: you enter the stream and are carried down it. You aren’t supposed to stay in it forever. When you’ve traveled to your destination, you get out of the water and back on land. So many people flow through this place and their inner tubes are joined for a while. Some get stuck behind a rock. Others navigate the rapids more successfully.
@livingtree: What we see here are people in one phase and stage. There is a seemingly endless influx of them. But what we don’t see is what happens when people stop reading and posting or commenting. What isn’t apparent is that people do move out of this phase. But they surely do, and new members of the stasis arrive to replace them. So, as a reader of all of these comments, it is best to keep in mind that most of these people will not feel like this forever. They will flow out on paths they never report, and so it will SEEM as if there is never any growth or change. But there is.
“The only way around is through.” – Robert Frost
January 15th, 2014 at 3:44 pm
Gosh, Kate, you’re such an expert on what it is like to be a man. Maybe you could start your own blog and write up all those wonderful thoughts?
Thoughts more complex than “It works!” would be just dandy.
January 15th, 2014 at 3:56 pm
@Mark, thanks for the props and the link.
January 15th, 2014 at 4:08 pm
walawala
I would sum up my co-dependence simply as “fear” of losing someone when the key to game is being secure in who you are in every situation.
This is important, and not just for the obvious issue (oneitis, which can lead to suicide) but for more subtle reasons such as outcome independence, controlling and ultimately eliminating any fear of women, and so forth. Sometimes when I listen to younger men who come from divorced homes I hear a mixture of fear and anger about “mommy” – a fear of abandonment, and an anger as well. I’m not saying this describes you in any way. But it is interesting to me that many of the biggest AFC’s I’ve known came from houses where “mom” kicked “dad” out…and “son” had to learn to crawl on his belly to appease “mom”.
January 15th, 2014 at 4:34 pm
kay
January 15th, 2014 at 4:42 pm
Kate isn’t wrong in her comment directed at LT. But LT (deliberately) fundamentally misunderstands the points made here, so it’s misguided and almost dismissive of the blog posts that Rollo makes and the comments others make to try and explain it to her.
Also, just because red-pill understanding does move men through different “phases” of feelings about it doesn’t diminish the value in anything said here, which seemingly both Kate and LT want to believe. Women want to believe in the self-sacrifice of men just as men want to believe in the innate virtue of the feminine. Because of this, allowing men to think of themselves as able to choose otherwise is unthinkable, just as unthinkable as the beta attempting to believe that women will betray them for AFBB.
January 15th, 2014 at 4:44 pm
Mark, your link is a great illustration of this excerpt from earl’s link:
“Rule 5: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”
If this is the case these days, it hasn’t been for most of history. It would get you killed with a real weapon. But along with that came (most of the time) a sense of honour and purpose, a strong social contract, the right to pride in one’s accomplishments balanced with a sense of in-group togetherness and charity, and long stretches of peace and productivity. Not to gloss it over – a lotta bad shit went down – but some of us are not having an easy time transistioning out of that into this Brave New World.
Stewart cracks me up but I wish he would turn his considerable wit on the hypocrisies of feminism, among other targets.
It may be progressive, but a society full of entitled twits loudly trying to out-ridicule one another, lay down the highest value victim trump card, subvert everyone else behind their back for personal gain, and encourage regression to the lowest common denominator? Not my idea of utopia.
January 15th, 2014 at 5:03 pm
Lots of good points in there DBM…
“masculinity is questioned as simultaneously not enough or totally bad”
profound
“this process will result in fewer entitlements to women and dare I say it, more emotional and financial pain than they want to deal with”
This is what feminists don’t seem to get. We may ride our innertubes down this here river and make a few waves, but we’re not going to make anywhere near as much whinging noise as feminism. We won’t need to. We’ll quietly step back up on the bank and move on with our lives on our own terms. Every once in awhile we might reach out a hand to a drowning brother.
The upshot of this? In the next few generations, the rug will be pulled right out from under a lotta feet…
January 15th, 2014 at 5:04 pm
Stewart has sacred cows. It is obvious in what and who he does not target. This is how you know he’s just another talking head instead of a comedian as he claims.
January 15th, 2014 at 5:05 pm
Rollo,
Another great article…your insight and thus the description of what you are explaining also is in depth and rational. I know you do get the odd “Kenneth’s” of the world, but they seem to take this so personal. I have 2 daughters, but being “red pill” doesn’t mean I’m going to look at them any less worth or inferior. In fact, being and understanding Alpha and the concept of “2 sets of Books” helps me relate and actually has enhanced my relationship with them. I have a dear friend, he still is as blue pill and beta. He keeps repeating the same old mistakes, despite being wildly successful in business. He still has no understanding of women, and every girl he meets, he opens up by saying his “sob” story about how “evil” women have hurt him. Please keep up the good work, I know you have a ton of support, as as you said, “Game is like triage…”.
January 15th, 2014 at 6:04 pm
Re: Parrado. Kudos to his will to live and all, but I never read his account, and am possibly faultily recalling from my old reading of Alive when it came out. Besides the lipstick remedies and other stuff which I didn’t find as amusing as the author hoped, I seem to recall him as an ineffective party boy just going along to get along. And the men who trekked out, the only ones who could still stagger far, had to leave primarily because they were all were rapidly declining physically and they were running out of easily chewable meat. They all had known nobody was looking, from hearing the news two months earlier. Parrado was chosen, along with Canessa and a couple more, to get the best portions to “fatten them up” or rather to not get as skinny. Their frozen “trail mix”, the most and best of what remained, was lovingly sacrificed by the weaker members, who also wore their fingers to the bone preparing their travel kit.
January 15th, 2014 at 8:32 pm
No, it is a (since subsided) surprise at their existence, a shift of perspective and a desire to share those experiences with others who have experienced the same.
This is in reference to the existence of the “masculine responsibilities” existing to facilitate the feminine imperative, correct? Again, isn’t your only grievance that you were too stupid to come to the realization before being taken advantage of? If that is not correct, what is upsetting?
I am bothered that society “brainwashes” young boys into adopting behaviours that are ultimately detrimental to their own wellbeing
Again, is your grievance that you adopted those behaviors?
You equate a man seeing through and deshackling himself from the expectations placed on him by a feminised society and as such placing value on his own personal fulfilment (arguably to match that of the modern “empowered” western woman) with trampling the freedoms of those around him and thus forfeiting his own basic rights within society?
Congrats, you realized the current society is using those obligations and responsibilities, along with denying men commensurate rights (needed to actually fulfill those obligations and responsibilities), to enforce a detrimental worldview.
The question still remains. Was the development of those obligations, rights, and responsibilities (referred to in this instance as the “first set of books”) bullshit created for the feminine imperative?
Or were those concepts related to the realities of human life?
Have those realities fundamentally changed or has an enormous amount of energy been spent creating and maintaining the illusion that those realities have changed?
This is not to suggest you turn Captain-Save-a-Ho towards a female, a state, or civilization. This is to bring up the possibility that you are throwing the baby out with the douche water. And as this comment illustrates, “arguably to match that of the modern “empowered” western woman,” willfully turning yourself into a useless female.
Perhaps, in that case, you feel women “do not like obligation, rights, or responsibilities.” either?
Of course women “do not like obligation, rights, or responsibilities.”
January 15th, 2014 at 10:05 pm
[I am bothered that society “brainwashes” young boys into adopting behaviours that are ultimately detrimental to their own wellbeing]
“Again, is your grievance that you adopted those behaviors?”
Can’t speak for whoever you’re asking that question to, but personally, yes, I am bothered that I fell for it for so long… but not only that. I’m also bothered by the knowledge that it’s occurring in such a sweeping fashion – even to the male children of who should be my “competitors” in the market – and bothered even more that there seems to be precious little admission, let alone sane explanation or contrition for it.
It’s hysteria, it IS happening, something smells off about it, and my guts tell me it points to a dark future.
January 15th, 2014 at 10:30 pm
I’m also bothered by the knowledge that it’s occurring in such a sweeping fashion – even to the male children of who should be my “competitors” in the market – and bothered even more that there seems to be precious little admission, let alone sane explanation or contrition for it.
Why would there be “contrition” for it?
None of the commenters on a “manosphere” site can even say they value things differently from those promoting it.
Again, the question still remains. Was the development of those obligations, rights, and responsibilities (referred to in this instance as the “first set of books”) bullshit created for the feminine imperative?
Or were those concepts related to the realities of human life?
Have those realities fundamentally changed or has an enormous amount of energy been spent creating and maintaining the illusion that those realities have changed?
January 15th, 2014 at 10:39 pm
If I understand different T correctly:
Men are stupid, get duped, have no reason to be angry.
If that’s true then:
Women dresses slutty, gets raped, no reason to be angry.
Grandma gets Nigerian email, conned out of life savings no reason to be angry.
Voter believes candidates promises, gets the system we have, has no reason to be angry.
Yes that makes perfect sense. They were all asking for it.
So finally when man finally has enough, kills hypergamous wife, society has no reason to be angry.
It’s all so simple.
January 15th, 2014 at 10:49 pm
Indeed, why would we expect that? That would make us victims. Sore losers. Not very gentlemanly or sportsmanlike of us. Good point. Play on
January 16th, 2014 at 12:50 am
@LivingTree – Are you really going to say that getting married isn’t a social contract? That forming a family with a woman isn’t a social contract? I also narrowed my question to you to be just about the absurdly high rate of female initiated divorces in families with young children – and you just ignored it. Like every single woman I’ve ever brought it up to. Please, if you want to have a conversation focus on just that.
The rest of my comment was a citation of how female dominance presents itself institutionally to men, and that is a violation of the social contract we have about being treated equally under the law – or is that not a social contract to you either?
I’m not complaining about my “love” not being reciprocated. I got it, romantic love was a con run on my by women to have me behave as a vassal and to shame me for wanting to bang a new nubile waif every day of the week. I’m overjoyed to be free of it and see it for the lie it always was.
As for my total experience though, there is still the issue of my daughter and two sisters turning on me in a frenzy of denigration after I was no longer a big earner and had become ill. Funny, I thought the social contract was directly implied there. With my sisters, I thought 38 years of playing father figure, subbing for a mostly absent Dad might have bought me some respect, gratitude and compassion. As for my own daughter, imagine after a lifetime of being the best Dad I knew how to be – and spending about 400k on her through college – finding out I didn’t even have the right to expect her to treat me with respect? That she felt no obligation to me, forget any legitimate affection? Having spent a lot of time with her while growing up, as best as I could as a non-custodial Dad. Never blowing her off, paying MORE than I had to. Took her down her first black diamond ski run at 7. Climbed our first multi-pitch route on rock at age 13, and took her and her friends away on nice trips. Was always there, even as I was alienated and denigrated and pushed away, never making a scene, always trying to work it out.
Yes, I call that a social contract. But you see, Dad’s don’t have to respected for merely being good Dads. We are optional. We are disposable. My daughters Mom taught her that. From my sisters and daughter I didn’t want romantic love, I just wanted some kind of balance and reciprocity. The only explanation that makes any sense to me is that they see men as disposable, as a utility. None of my male friends are like this. My brothers aren’t like this – and I’ve never played the role in their lives that I did in my sisters or daughters.
Do you know what’s even worse? You coming along and lecturing me. Taking the position that you are here to sort me out because I’m “angry”. Here’s what you don’t get. I used to be angry. Now I’m not, I’ve finally let it go. Because I see women for who they are now. Co-workers, sisters, lovers, daughters, wives – there is no difference. Their needs are what matter, not mine. Their feeling matter, not mine. Their priorities are primary, mine don’t even register. Message received. I don’t want to sign up to play the game again, I’m glad to have exited. I’m free of a huge weight and soul-crushing belief system. I don’t want chivalry back – it’s a one way street, and also is only a small part of the fem-centric society we live in.
I know, you don’t get it. How could you? You won’t even take my questions or commentary seriously enough to actually even listen what what I’m saying or answer a direct question. You “know” what’s going on with me somehow and can just shame me as “angry” and diminish my complaints as a longing for “love” or some type of longing for chivalry when they are so much more substantive and broader than that. So guess what? I don’t care what you have to say. I don’t care what women think about me. I’m utterly uninterested as after a lifetime of playing by your rules, I’m done.
January 16th, 2014 at 1:31 am
@DT – I didn’t say anything about a turning around. Just a tipping point.
January 16th, 2014 at 1:58 am
@Glenn – you are starting to grasp the female MO. Ignore, deflect, bring up irrelevancies, insult, act obtuse, etc etc – until you are so tied up in knots that you become incoherent and forget what you are talking about.
Just ignore them. It’s easier on the mind, soul, and sanity.
After all, you cannot have a reasoning conversation with someone who persistently drops to the level of a 4yo saying: “I don’t like you. You stinky-poos. Nyah Nyah Nyah!”
January 16th, 2014 at 1:59 am
To begin with, no, however as they were adjusted and reshaped over time, along with the circumstances and environment within which they operate, yes. Many good functional things can be co-opted for destructive purposes after all.
Depends on what you mean by this question, it is not clear. If you are asking ‘Does playing by these rules mitigate the worst behaviour that humanity can produce, and allow for the building of civilisation?’ Then I would say, yes. However it does require that a majority be willing and invested to follow these rules in order for them to be worth the sacrifice in increased burden by adhering to them.
Well if an ideology has gone far too far and prompted one sex to abandon the first set of rules in favour of a covert second set that exclusively benefits them, without even the self awareness to recognise that that is what they have done, then I’d class that as ‘those realities have fundamentally changed’. There is a cost of course, whether or not it will all be worth it will be for future generations to muddle out.
January 16th, 2014 at 6:11 am
“Also, just because red-pill understanding does move men through different “phases” of feelings about it doesn’t diminish the value in anything said here, which seemingly both Kate and LT want to believe.”
There is a tendency for people who’ve made it in any sort of context to dismiss what and who helped get them there. So, I surely don’t intend to diminish the value of things said here. They are important and necessary. All I’m saying is there’s more beyond this, and we should remember that and not get stuck indefinitely in what should be a progression.
January 16th, 2014 at 6:43 am
How to tell whether someone is beta: the knee jerk reaction to absolutely attempt to persuade Lyingtree of anything.
The time spent churning out paragraphs of rebuttals to a dried up uterus would be better spent gaming a wet young girl.
January 16th, 2014 at 7:08 am
Men are stupid, get duped, have no reason to be angry.
If that’s true then:
Women dresses slutty, gets raped, no reason to be angry.
Grandma gets Nigerian email, conned out of life savings no reason to be angry.
Voter believes candidates promises, gets the system we have, has no reason to be angry.
If those males agree that the values used to “dupe” them were false and their response is to act like a female, yes.
If the grandma decides the world is full of cons and goes to the nursing to defraud others, yes.
If voters believe the correct way to practice politics is act like the politicians they are angry about, yes.
January 16th, 2014 at 7:16 am
@ Cylux
Thank you.
Well if an ideology has gone far too far and prompted one sex to abandon the first set of rules in favour of a covert second set that exclusively benefits them, without even the self awareness to recognise that that is what they have done, then I’d class that as ‘those realities have fundamentally changed’. There is a cost of course, whether or not it will all be worth it will be for future generations to muddle out.
By using the word “ideology” you are saying that it is the perspective, outlook, and interpretation that has changed. Whether this new “ideology” involves a more accurate understanding of reality will not be decided by someone’s opinion.
January 16th, 2014 at 7:33 am
@ Kate. You’ve mentioned several times that men need to “progress” to something else but I would be curious to know what the “more beyond this” is. It makes the assumption people involved in the manosphere have something to “get out of their system” – which admittedly is not to say that it isn’t cathartic for some.
Take the problem of single men making up 90-95% of the homeless due to society’s general unwillingness to provide any real support for them. Upon discovering this you may feel angry, but with time the emotion subsides, however, this doesn’t mean you simply forget about it; indeed, you may choose to engage in and continue to read discussions surrounding the issue – after all, apathy isn’t the mark of enlightenment.
Undoubtedly one’s views evolve and grow with time, but the idea that the manosphere and red pill viewpoint is a purely a stop-gap for angry aggrieved men (while being true in the sense that, that aspect forms a part of it), doesn’t do justice to the huge breadth of issues that are currently covered within the ever-growing “manosphere” – nor to the kind of ideas written about on this blog.
January 16th, 2014 at 9:21 am
If I’ve been blocked from commenting can you please tell me so, and why? Please advise.
January 16th, 2014 at 9:23 am
Don’t know why, I haven’t blocked you
January 16th, 2014 at 10:38 am
An entire comment disappeared, not sure why. I bet I can do it much shorter though, lol. Let me try the bulletized version.
1. LivingTree didn’t answer my direct question about the phenomena of 80%+ of divorces with young children being initiated by women, yet lectures.
2. LivingTree seems to think marriage and family formation aren’t a social contract between men and women, mothers and fathers.
3. My specific situation also included violation of any sort of reciprocal relationship with a daughter and two sisters who instead kicked me and denigrated me in horrific ways when I was down. As a father and father figure to these women, it was something I couldn’t fathom. However, understanding the female imperative and our fem-centric culture explains it all. I consider this an example of how the social contract of fatherhood is being destroyed – it’s one way street, like most male roles today.
4. LivingTree reduced my comment to longing for “love” or some return to chivalry or romance. Giggling. The truth is I’m glad to have spit the bit out of my mouth. The roles I’ve played with women – provider, protector, vassal, passive-giving Dad, fun machine – they never really made me happy either. Being other focused had me repress so much of what was important to me. Now that I’ve spit the bit out, I don’t want it back. I’ll never sign up for any of that crap again – including being a Dad. And I only wish that I’d known this all 30 years ago so I could have lived a life that was much focused on taking care of me and my needs and was informed by my priorities. Said another way, internalizing all that crap nearly destroyed me – the last thing on earth that I would want is any of it back.
Okay, not so short, but crisper and not as long. Thanks for this work, Rollo, it’s literally a lifesaver.
January 16th, 2014 at 10:58 am
Can’t wait for recess. When my ideology becomes my reality.
January 16th, 2014 at 11:01 am
@Sao Feng
That’s true. I confess I fell for the belief that someone was actually curious about another perspective, but I do that often.
January 16th, 2014 at 11:49 am
No. I am not. Ideology is more than sufficient on it’s own to modify the behaviour of those who subscribe to said ideology. Though I struggle to grasp what it is that you’re getting at.
The main problem is you have yet to explain just what the fuck you mean by “the realities of human life”, it’s a phrase that can have many meanings to many different people, and as such is quite meaningless. So until you do deign to clarify I’m afraid we will be ever groping about in the dark when trying to reply to you.
January 16th, 2014 at 12:10 pm
@Sao Feng @Jeremy –
I believe that it was RooshV who once said something along the lines of “never listen to anything she says”.
It’s so much easier than trying to explain “red” to somebody who has been blind from birth. It’s also easier than trying to teach a pig to sing: you stop wasting time, which is annoying to both you and the pig.
@GeishaKate –
Do I smell a hint of the old blame/shame/maim tactic and autoshame coming from you again?
January 16th, 2014 at 12:43 pm
1. Romantic love, i.e. infatuation, is a biological fact for males, and it does not quickly cease for males like it characteristically does for females. Men do NOT experience an internal change after a short honeymoon period. This oxytocin latching mechanism is probably nature’s way of trying to ensure that the male sticks around even after the female transfers all of her affections to the baby.
2. His romantic love for her does not make her want another baby with him. Romance, the stuff that a starry-eyed in-love man wants to naturally do, does not work as Game, period. Redpill men know this, but even redpill women will still not want to admit knowing it, because for women, you can quote me on this, panting lust is what women mean by being in love, and all women say they pant after romance. Skittles dude is one counterexample to women’s mouth noises about this, and noothgrush guy (on a J4g post) is another. What is factually true is that when a woman is in lust then tossing her some skittles or toothpaste (“He cares about my dental health!”) sends her into ecstasy.
3. So basically the only way he’s going to get another baby fairly quickly is to fall out of love with her AS SOON AS she turns him down. That way his brain lets him next her. Which, naturally makes her want another baby with him sooner. But he doesn’t care, because he’s mentally moved on.
January 16th, 2014 at 1:48 pm
Jimi Hendrix and Funkadelic.
“Stone Free”
“A woman here, a woman there
Try to keep me in a plastic cage
But they don’t realize it’s so easy to break
Oh, but sometimes I can feel my heart kinda
Running hot
That’s when I got to move
Before I get caught”
And “Hit It And Quit It.” Self explanatory :p
January 16th, 2014 at 1:55 pm
Glenn, before I answer your questions, I want you to know that after Kate posted her comment to me about this being a starting point, I deleted my notifications for new posts on this site. It became immanently clear to me that I can have no input here that will ever reach the minds of Rollo’s readers, not until they “get back on land” as she very eloquently put it.
However, I found myself missing the interaction, much to my chagrin. I came back to just read how the conversation was progressing. I read your comment, and though I don’t really want to get re-involved here, I felt that I owed you a response. I’ve been trying to prove a point here, but that’s proven futile; however, I felt your questions deserved an answer. This will be very long.
First, if you think I meant by my comments on chivalry that you (or anyone here) WANTS chivalry back, you’d be incorrect. I thought I was pretty clear that my intention was to tell you that whether you long for it or not (which clearly, some here do), it is your operating system, and it is that operating system that the people who DO NOT have it as theirs will continue to find creative ways to exploit (yes, that does include, but is not exclusive to, certain women, usually the type of women who push for marriage) so long as you still have it operating. I hope to write on this topic in great detail (elsewhere), because I think it really affects us all quite profoundly, and is highly relevant to all of your concerns.
Second, yes, getting married is a social contract (at least, that’s how I see it anyway). I don’t disagree with you, and I don’t think anyone responsible would (and yes, I fully appreciate that responsibility is a lost art), however it’s the TERMS of the contract that I’m repeatedly talking about here, and getting nowhere by any means. The TERMS of the contract are poorly understood. I work in construction, and I write contract scopes of work every single day, and believe me, if anyone understands the problems that arise from poorly worded contracts/tenders, it would be me. Entering into a poorly formed contract exposes you to a great deal of risk. And since not every person’s needs are identical, it is a foolhardy assumption to make that the terms of the contract will be identical for every marriage.
Why do we take such pains to write properly formed legal contracts when it has to do with money, but act so recklessly when it comes to marriage, the most costly thing we could ever do? This I will never understand.
Third, the subject of obligations has come up in your conversation – this is extremely relevant to the matter at hand, and may be the very source of our disagreement. Is it an obligation to remain in a marriage with someone who does not meet your expectations? With someone who you have no respect for? With someone who has no respect for you? Is it an obligation to respect your husband because he pays the bills, or your wife because she bore your children?
If you said yes to any one of these questions, I believe I see where our disagreement lies.
Fourth – trigger warning: statistics – current stats on female-initiated divorce (in Canada) show that 66% of marriages are initiated by women. I can’t find accurate stats showing the rate in the US, but the opinion pieces on it state somewhere around 70% too. That is an average of 2:1. Not quite alarming or absurdly high… I do hope you can be objective about that, however it is still disproportionate.
There has been much discussion as to “Why This Is So” among internet bloggers’, and the reasoning behind their opinions is usually spotty at best. I have my own opinion though, which needs some research before I can stand by it fully, but I present it to you now because it is RELEVANT to this topic.
I believe, based on four decades of “scientific observation” (said tongue in cheek) of the human race, that it is a peculiarly male trait that I refer to as “fate acceptance”. That is to say, males are fanatically obsessed with economic progress, but generally they have a self-defeating proclivity to accept things as they are in the social realm.
There are so very many arenas where this is plainly evident, but no more so than in bad marriages, particularly in the western world. Women, believe it or not, are considerably less willing to accept things that are failing in the social realm. I see much evidence that men nearly always believe in fate (which could be re-stated as “accepting the consequences of your actions”), whereas women nearly always believe in free will (which could be re-stated as “creating one’s own life”).
Whether the outcome of this is positive or a negative, I’m not going to discuss at this time. Just know that honestly, if I had one wish, it would be that men will take action on this matter, and soon, because female-initiated social change is getting a bit one-sided – wouldn’t you agree?
My only concern is that male-initiated change, judging from the comments on this forum, might be horrifyingly detrimental to women. I hope I’m just being paranoid here.
Fifth – are you saying that being treated equally under the law is a social contract? Since fucking when has the application of law EVER been equal??? I would genuinely LOVE it if it were, but it is not, nor has it ever been. If you try and tell me that its always been in favor of women, I’m going to find you and punch you in the face repeatedly.
If part of your mission is to make every application of the law more equal, then I will stand behind you in this fight with 100% of my influence, whatever that may be.
Sixth – romantic love a con run by women….hmm. Well, maybe. I don’t think I’m prepared to dispute that at this point in time. I do see much evidence that they are certainly using it to their advantage. However, whether or not it was INTENDED as a deliberate scheme to make men into our servants is a point I will always take a strong opposition to, because I can see that comment for what it is – you feel burned, as most of your cohorts here do, and quite understandably, so you are not seeing this clearly. But that is totally understandable, and I’m not going to stand in your way at this point of grieving your loss and rebuilding your strength. I promise.
Just suffice it to say that I am routinely surprised that any man wants to recklessly partake in the institution of marriage in its current state of false expectation, just as I’m surprised that any woman who has the moral indignity to call herself a feminist would want to either.
January 16th, 2014 at 2:24 pm
Also, before I go, I wanted to link this article here for you to chew on.
http://postmasculine.com/the-three-loves
By all means, Mark’s description of three-fold love is nothing new. It is old-testament old, in fact. But he has a modern take on it, with a psychological component that I find thought-provoking.
I particularly like this statement, “Commitment is when the passion of Love Two persists to the point that it’s unconditional. Couples that are in Love Two and not Love Three will often feel great until something happens: he loses his job, she has a miscarriage, he starts drinking, etc. Commitment is when you emotionally accept and love the other person’s flaws as much as their strengths.”
I find it interesting that, in spite of the fact that nearly every adult in North America will, at some point, marry, “commitment,” Mark believes, “occurs rarely in life.” Doesn’t that point, in and of itself, explain a few things?
Commitment is not merely about staying together no matter what, it is about “emotionally accepting and loving the other person’s flaws.” I think he’s spot on here. Do we actually do that with each other? I’ve never (until recently) been with a man who accepted my flaws. I don’t know many women, or men, married or otherwise, who could honestly say that they have either. The relationship may stay together in light of a life-changing situation, but it breaks in response to judgement, and judgement is virtually impossible to get past without some kind of intervention, which most of the time we are unwilling to accept.
January 16th, 2014 at 2:34 pm
http://www.experienceproject.com/stories/Am-Afraid-Of-Being-Single-Forever/3516980
January 16th, 2014 at 3:07 pm
@Softek, Pearl Jam “Better man”. No matter the inspiration, can’t find a better song about hypergamy and alpha widowhood, even when her alpha was him when she was in her honeymoon infatuation.
Waitin’, watchin’ the clock, it’s four o’clock, it’s got to stop
Tell him, take no more, she practices her speech
As he opens the door, she rolls over
Pretends to sleep as he looks her over
She lies and says she’s in love with him, can’t find a better man
She dreams in color, she dreams in red, can’t find a better man
Can’t find a better man
Can’t find a better man, oh
Talkin’ to herself, there’s no one else who needs to know
She tells herself, oh
Memories back when she was bold and strong
And waiting for the world to come along
Swears she knew it, now she swears he’s gone
She lies and says she’s in love with him, can’t find a better man
She dreams in color, she dreams in red, can’t find a better man
She lies and says she still loves him, can’t find a better man
She dreams in color, she dreams in red, can’t find a better man
Can’t find a better man
Can’t find a better man, yeah
She loved him, yeah, she don’t want to leave this way
She feeds him, yeah, that’s why she’ll be back again
Can’t find a better man
Can’t find a better man
Can’t find a better man
Can’t find a better man
January 16th, 2014 at 3:42 pm
Now a woman, Lord, is like a young bird
And the tall oak tree is a young man’s heart
Among its boughs you’ll find her nesting
When the nights are cool, she is warm and dry
Your coat of green it will protect her
Her wings will grow, your love will too
But all too soon your mighty branches
Will cease to hold her, and she will fly from you
from Gordon Lightfoot’s The Way I Feel
January 16th, 2014 at 3:44 pm
@ Living Tree – “Trigger Warning: Statistics” – How obnoxious of you. And of course you cite overall stats which are 70%, meaning women initiate divorce 2.3 times more frequently than men do – that should be alarming in and of itself and make you wonder why entertainment media overwhelmingly presents women’s as victims of divorce when that’s clearly the exception, not the rule. Use Google more effectively. When there are children and the women is still in childbearing years, the stats are that it’s over 80% of the time initiated by women. In fact, men rarely initiate divorce when young children are involved. I’m not your research assistant, a few careful searches will reveal this is correct.
Your bottom line is that you reject everything I say. And you just babble back a bunch of BS you’ve made up in your head. Just one example. You go histrionic over my claims that people should be treated equally under the law, discarding that this is part of our social construct with your subjective observations and casuistic “reasoning”. That is an absurd way to argue this point. We have norms called laws that while may be enforced imperfectly, should not inherently treat men and women unequally, in the “word” of the law. Yet we do. And of course, if you want to talk about the application of law, it’s a fact that women get 60% of the time men get for breaking the same laws when sentenced.
I’m done now. You demonstrate what I’m speaking of. I get it, you don’t care what I have to say. You still have yet to acknowledge that even your incorrect 2:1 is shows a strong trend in women to break the most solemn agreement women and men make to each other or understand why men might feel poorly served by this. You seem to miss the 2:1 means women are twice as likely to initiate divorce and the fact is that when they are of child bearing age with young children in the home, they are more than 4 times more likely to initiate than men. Tou just gloss over it with some pablum about your sense of what women will tolerate and men will and men’s obsession with economic achievement.
Please don’t respond. The best part of this awakening is that I just don’t care what you think anymore. Moving on now…
January 16th, 2014 at 4:08 pm
And you made mine Glenn, you completely missed the point. Good luck.
January 16th, 2014 at 4:18 pm
A Livingtree Translation:
You see Glenn it’s all your fault even when it isn’t. Fuck off.
January 16th, 2014 at 4:35 pm
@ Badpainter – Made me break out in a giggle with that one. 11 months since I took the RedPill and still am learning lots. I see her entire commentary as given by her unconscious embrace of the female imperative. Reading her comments is like watching a bug under a magnifying glass. I did make the mistake of trying to engage her, and I do that less and less these days. I still at times am overtaken by denial, in that I reflexively want to think that I can get through. Lol, “one-itis” at work.
I feel a lightness and joy with all this now though. Spitting the bit out is truly liberating. Embracing positive masculinity doesn’t come so automagically to an old guy like me though – 51 so I have lots of inertia to overcome. But I’d much rather take this on than continue on as I was. It’s like night and day. Thanks again to all the men here and to Rollo, without you all I’d be suffering and desolate.
January 16th, 2014 at 4:41 pm
I’d lay it out more along the lines that men are taught from birth “women and children first!”, whereas women are taught “get to the lifeboat!”.
January 16th, 2014 at 4:44 pm
Glenn, it’s best to read her as satire, you know, for entertainment purposes only.
I found the the redpill about 8 months ago, really very liberating. I am glad to discover the why and wherefore of 20 years of thinking that there’s something wrong with the world and also finding out it’s not my fault.
January 16th, 2014 at 4:51 pm
The moment when a blue pill man finds out the truth and that his efforts in the world have been for naught is a truly dangerous moment. I know.
I was a high-achiever, good corporate job and prosperous. I married and loved a woman who, after 10 years, left me, after destroying our home. She told me I had wronged her and been a bad husband. My crime was that after supporting her and subsidizing her (failed) businesses for ten years I asked her to get a job and make a real contribution to our financial life,
When she left I was on the alert for oneitis and guarded against it. But what I was not prepared for was the despair. To look back on ten years of working for and loving this women, to find my life in ruins. I was ten years older, in considerable debt (buying her affection mostly) and faced with the certainty that she would take most of my remaining assets in the divorce.
Faced with being ten years older and obliged to rebuild my life from scratch, I collapsed into an angry catatonia, spiralling down into ill-health, joblessness and financial disorder. I no longer knew who I was.
I slowly became red-pill and have been rebuilding myself, but it has been tough. There were times when I did not have the motivation to make a cup of coffee. Everything that I have read here and at Chateau Heartiste has helped me. Sometimes Rollo’s writing’s gave me the millimetre of emotional lift that kept me from going under.
I now work from my own set of books, scary as it often feels.
January 16th, 2014 at 5:31 pm
I don’t disagree with you, eris. I recently made the statement that picking up chicks is the least of the manosphere’s focuses.
The only shame involved, BPS, is that it would be a shame if people viewed red pill knowledge as the end of life rather than the beginning. Mental breakdown is caused by the crash of a person’s worldview (THIS WASN’T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN- TO ME!) Its debilitating. So, when you figure out why things happened (what you did, what other people did) and it all makes sense, you are actually in a better place than you were before. Now you know the rules: the set of books, as it were. You are now in the position to make better decisions. But, someone like the man who lit himself on fire, only saw the death and not the new life. Its tragic!
I’m not going to put people down for their struggle. Far from it! I want to *help* people through it! Let them know it isn’t going to last forever if you keep moving, if you keep living, if you keep trying. Know that the pain and suffering you are currently experiencing will be looked upon as a blessing in the future. That this isn’t going to last forever. That you’re going to be better when its over. Don’t wallow: keep muddling through. It’ll take years. You’ll get there if you keep after it.
The “more beyond this” could be anything. It could be many different things to many different people. I’m not done learning, growing, or developing. One of the things about formal education is that it has endpoints. You earn your degree. In real life, you don’t have caps on learning. Its a continuous, lifetime process. So where you could end up is anybody’s guess. At some points, you may not want to know anymore. Then its time to reap the rewards of your knowledge until such time as it’s back to the drawing board: learn about a new religion, take up a new hobby, take a new approach to your job, etc.
Don’t run from things, but don’t stand in place too long. Like your grandmother told you when you made a frowny face: your face will get stuck that way.
January 16th, 2014 at 7:20 pm
I don’t have any particular point in mind with sharing this. Leaving it open-ended. It’s a quote I like a lot, and I think it’s appropriate here as food for thought:
~*~*~*~*~*
Although the phrase “genetic epistemology” was coined by Jean Piaget, a major philosophical and scientific theme of the 20th century has been the idea that the “forms” of knowledge, for perceiving space, or logical relations, or language patterns, are derived from our genes, and that they are somehow built into the arrangement of our brain cells so that we spontaneously think in certain ways, and don’t have the capacity to transcend the nature of our inherited brain.
…
The only thing wrong with the idea of innate knowledge is that people use it to tell us what we can’t know, in other words, to rationalize stupidity. Of course, they wouldn’t like to phrase it that way, because they consider their “genetic epistemology of symbolic forms” to be the essence and the totality of intelligence, and that people who allow their thoughts to be structured entirely by experience are just confused.
~Ray Peat, from the article “Intuitive knowledge and its development”
January 16th, 2014 at 8:10 pm
I’d lay it out more along the lines that men are taught from birth “women and children first!”, whereas women are taught “get to the lifeboat!”.
Next time in class Different T will have a question about whether accepting those teachings is the source of your anger.
I believe, based on four decades of “scientific observation” (said tongue in cheek) of the human race, that it is a peculiarly male trait that I refer to as “fate acceptance”. That is to say, males are fanatically obsessed with economic progress, but generally they have a self-defeating proclivity to accept things as they are in the social realm.
There are so very many arenas where this is plainly evident, but no more so than in bad marriages, particularly in the western world. Women, believe it or not, are considerably less willing to accept things that are failing in the social realm. I see much evidence that men nearly always believe in fate (which could be re-stated as “accepting the consequences of your actions”), whereas women nearly always believe in free will (which could be re-stated as “creating one’s own life”).
When there is no need for the lifeboat, there will be much free will. When the iceberg hits, the seats on the lifeboat become somebody’s fate. Maybe that was the point, men will go along with that proving accepting it as fate. But I don’t agree that men detrimentally accept things as they are socially. They realize that not everything works out in their favor, because of free will in other people.(insert sports analogy to your liking)
Whereas women can see things not working out in their favor as an unknown edit to the ending of a screenplay that needs to be corrected.
Should’ve listed what these other arenas you see the fate acceptance that’s so prevalent.
January 16th, 2014 at 8:26 pm
No. I am not. Ideology is more than sufficient on it’s own to modify the behaviour of those who subscribe to said ideology.
Though I struggle to grasp what it is that you’re getting at.
The main problem is you have yet to explain just what the fuck you mean by “the realities of human life”, it’s a phrase that can have many meanings to many different people, and as such is quite meaningless. So until you do deign to clarify I’m afraid we will be ever groping about in the dark when trying to reply to you.
Understood and you are correct. Apologies.
I am unsure how to communicate the scope of what “the realities of human life” regards.
You can start by thinking about a baby. A baby simply is someone’s responsibility, otherwise it becomes a dead pile of flesh.
Other key components would be the nature of consciousness and the nature of experience.
The path I took largely involved understanding why equality is incomprehensible. Meaning, if any means you could imagine where available to create “equality,” it would not work. It is literally incomprehensible.
January 16th, 2014 at 9:57 pm
@Kate – I want to be respectful because I think you are actually trying to help and may have history on this site that I’m unaware of. So, let me just say it plainly. In your last comment you were observing that there is something beyond just embracing the new view afforded one by taking the red pill. You went to pains to make clear you were sympathetic or something to what men are going through etc.
First off, it’s a bit patronizing. At 51, having done 15 years of therapy for other issues (childhood abuse, very serious with PTSD onset at age 7), studied philosophy and psychology and having explored many aspects of my inner world, I find it a bit presumptuous to be talked to like that. It also seems innately “psychologized”. For me, and again my whole purpose in this exercise is my freedom, I feel like I’ve been conned and played and betrayed by women. But due to the nature of these deceptions I’m also not angry because the nature of fem-centric society is that it privileges women to not really give much weight to men’s experiences. I’m not “working something out” – I’m facing the facts. The other consequence of this realization is that I just don’t take women seriously as fully morally responsible human beings anymore. Like dealing with children, I don’t get angry at them when they are deceptive, selfish and irresponsible. But I don’t take them seriously.
I also think your entire posture reeks of female imperative. I don’t get why you believe that you have such great insight to offer. ‘Continuous learning’ and us all evolving, I mean, I hope you don’t think it too unkind when I tell you that such observations are at best trite. It also seems that you believe you understand what it’s like to labor as I and many men have for so many years under these conditions. I wonder if you can imagine the years of self sacrifice? The endless late nights and early mornings working like a madman. The biting of the tongue, the walking on eggshells, the endless attempts to deal with women as though they actually care about men’s lives in the way that I cared about theirs. Or what it feels like to have a woman you promised to stay with for the rest of your life and worked so hard to provide for and have a child with just kick you to the curb and move in another man to play father? To steal from you the thing you have been taught to value more than your own life? Your family. There is so much more to the desolation and degradation of it all that it’s really hard to even put it into words.
I don’t think any woman can even come close to understanding how awful this all really is. Once you let go of the betrayal and anger and sadness, and see the world for what it is there is real freedom and liberation. I’m at that point, no longer even angry at my ex or other women. But there is no forgetting or even forgiveness in me for a bit of it. Only wisdom and the hardheaded pragmatism that was criticized earlier in this stream as men not longing for change in the way women do, or some other such tripe.
I’m trying not unduly mean or nasty, but can you see my point?
January 16th, 2014 at 10:00 pm
LT’s exit was as closed-minded as her entrance. Apparently we’re all retarded for not having let her use the manosphere to totally reframe everything in the manosphere to align with her ego-invested views of the world.
January 16th, 2014 at 10:27 pm
LT had to leave because the bridge called and needed her scare some goats.
January 16th, 2014 at 11:06 pm
Good looks like I do not need to hire a bunch of thugs to kidnap LT and transport the woman to Afghanistan.
January 16th, 2014 at 11:25 pm
Sending LT to Afghanistan is using WMD, I don’t think that the Afghani’s deserve that cruel and unusual punishment.
January 17th, 2014 at 1:35 am
rotting stump—-victimize the victim, worship credentialism, play the statistics when they’re convienient game, dodge responsibility….claim historic oppression…….spin hamster spin……standard…..predictable…..average….thoughtless
again, you are the PERFECT example of everything wrong…
rollo—you are becoming internet famous enough to begin attracting groupies….
and unfortunately they seem to be lower caliber than the local indie metal band pulls…..(yuk)
this ding-bat is actually making the once interesting comments unreadible……
this isnt sparing to demonstrate fitness ability and control…..you have that and we know it….
its shadow boxing…….your opponent is an empty nothing
Over and Out
January 17th, 2014 at 2:25 am
Someone’s responsibility? No. A mother and father’s responsibility yes, an extended family’s responsibility, more than likely, but biologically speaking responsibility for, ends there. Other people may elect to be responsible for a baby for whatever motivation drives them, but in stark genetic terms I am no more responsible in ensuring your genetic legacy is continued as you are for mine.
Now you might bring up that we are generally hardwired to look after and save babies should we come across them in distress, and I would not dispute that, but what I would note is that religion and ideology saw the conquistadors bashing open the skulls of native infants after having baptised them, in order to ensure that their souls reached heaven since a lifetime of ‘sin’ among the godless natives would have condemned them to hell. Point being that our ‘biological hardwiring’ can be overwritten or re-purposed by ideology.
Vague point is vague.
Depends on how you define equality really. I define it as ‘equal under the law’, one strident feminist, commenting on the cathedral assault in Argentina, praised the women for their violent behaviour, and when I prompted her to reverse the sexes in that situation and see if she still found it to be an acceptable turn of events, decided instead to tell me to fuck off and die and revealingly said “there will never be equality between men and women, until a man gives birth”, which engenders the idea that what she regarded as ‘equality’ was considerably different to my own. If that notion is shared among feminists in general, then very clearly if they believe equality to be impossible, then their goal can only be supremacy.
January 17th, 2014 at 7:13 am
@Glenn: Of course, I do. And the reason I do is that I’ve experienced some of the things you’ve described (though not all). I apologize for sounding patronizing. I am not sure I have much to offer the over 50 crowd. At 35, I’ve had more experiences that I should, but that’s still a big gap. I’m off to work even though I should be staying at home sick. Hey, its what responsible, working people do. Its what I’ve been doing all my life.
January 17th, 2014 at 7:26 am
@ Cylux
Your post is informative.
A baby simply is someone’s responsibility, otherwise it becomes a dead pile of flesh.
The statement is correct. You then projected some sort of judgement about who you think should be responsible.
Vague point is vague.
The concepts are not vague, they are abstract.
Depends on how you define equality really.
“state of being equal: rights, treatment, quantity, or value equal to all others in a specific group ”
At some point you may realize that these manosphere sites are currently just as much a part of a rebellion against order among people as their so called enemies. It is understandable as these males are understandably jaded by the use of authority and social pressure in their past. However, the response of “overwriting or re-purposing by ideology” their ability to serve is very similar to a young female who, after being molested, purposely gains weight or similar so males will find her unattractive. Fortunately for the these disordered males, there are plenty of fatty-fuckers who will whisper sweet nothings in their ear and give their life a purpose, if only for fleeting moments.
January 17th, 2014 at 7:41 am
@cylux the “well, you men aren’t lumbered with childbearing” seems to be something that women and feminists will use over and over again as a justification of whatever – sometimes I goggle at the level of cognitive dissonance that some of these types are content to entertain.
@Glenn. I also felt there was an subtly patronising tone to her response –
rather than share any experience of her own, she simply tries to quantify experiences that she has little idea of and offer disapproval dressed up as self help advice where it wasn’t solicited. As I read through the posts from the few women commenters here, I wonder if guys ever do this kind of thing on women’s blogs. Should they try it, I suspect the response would be far less civil than that which LT, Kate and DT get here and, ultimately I wonder if men just don’t have the innate solipsism (or interest) to try it.
Nothing will seemingly deter women from trying to define the male experience for them and in a way that suits themselves – it is in the female nature to come into men’s discussions and start placing a female frame over everything – akin to the way a woman will try to revamp a man’s wardrobe and lifestyle habits the moment she emotionally invests in him – only to feel resentment later down the line that he actually let her get away with it.
January 17th, 2014 at 8:22 am
Erie- “Nothing will seemingly deter women from trying to define the male experience for them and in a way that suits themselves – it is in the female nature to come into men’s discussions and start placing a female frame over everything – akin to the way a woman will try to revamp a man’s wardrobe and lifestyle habits the moment she emotionally invests in him – only to feel resentment later down the line that he actually let her get away with it.”
Much like what happened to old school all male social fraternities, and civic organizations. The girls not being content (are they ever?) with the ladies auxiliary demand full membership in the Loyal Order Of Water Buffalos, mostly because they are by nature nosy.
After gaining admission with the help of weak men they discover it’s not as much fun as expected. So when the right clique of sassy broads coalesces they begin to change the organization for the “benefit” of ALL of the members. Men start to skip meetings, the traditional old guard of men quit or die. New men fail to join up. Soon a once vital civic/social organization is selling the lodge, giving to only FI approved charities, and membership is now composed entirely of sassy broads and their gelding husbands.
Organization dies of lack interest in 1993. In 2013 concern trolls start writing columns and blogs about the sad death of civil society all asking what happened to the once proud and vibrant Loyal Order Of Water Buffalos. Must be moden men have become selfish and anti-social over the last 40 years.
January 17th, 2014 at 8:47 am
The club in my city recently had a vote to amend its by-laws to be more “family friendly.”
The amendments were as follows.
1. Change the wording from “spouse” to “partner.” The state doesn’t allow gay marriage.
2. Extend membership rights to all “partners.”
3. Grant the surviving “partner” whatever level of rights the decedent had achieved, including retroactive granting of said rights.
Again, the preamble said these changes were to make the club more “family friendly.” No mention of homosexuality was included. No mention of the members whom these amendments would affect.
January 17th, 2014 at 9:00 am
And this how a free society dies.
Civic life is killed off one club, lodge, or church at time ultimately leaving behind organizations that are strictly political and centered around state action. Any sense of community is erased and every issue abstracted and perverted into some form of rent seeking.
January 17th, 2014 at 9:04 am
“perverted into some form of rent seeking.”
Many, if not the majority, of the members are wealthy, intelligent, and progressive. They are in positions of profiting from this “state action.” Whether they rose to those positions because of their progressive beliefs, or their progressive beliefs are a result of their positions is unknown.
January 17th, 2014 at 9:10 am
Mais bien sur!
Rich people are rent seekers
Poor people are rent payers
January 17th, 2014 at 9:11 am
I did not say all of them were.
January 17th, 2014 at 9:15 am
“After gaining admission with the help of weak men they discover it’s not as much fun as expected. So when the right clique of sassy broads coalesces they begin to change the organization for the “benefit” of ALL of the members. Men start to skip meetings, the traditional old guard of men quit or die.”
This is why, while I understand where Sao-feng is coming from when he says that only betas argue churn out arguments to those that women make, I do, however, wonder whether, as long as it’s perceived as “beta” to turn round and say “Actually, what you just said is completely wrong, and here’s why… – now stop making it all about you” whenever a female kindly offers to reframe the issue for you, the same cycle will continue.
On the macro, men get together to to discuss things that matter to them, women come in, and men eventually disperse; and on the micro – a man has interests in all kinds of diverse areas and his living space reflects this – a woman comes in, and man gets relegated to the garage.
January 17th, 2014 at 9:26 am
@Badpainter 8:22 Your exquisite rendering of civic Life In These United States sent shivers down my spine, and not in a good way. Goosebumps of horror, not thrill.
January 17th, 2014 at 9:26 am
Actually, what you just said is completely wrong, and here’s why… – now stop making it all about you” whenever a female kindly offers to reframe the issue for you, the same cycle will continue.
In that spirit…
Rich people are rent seekers
Poor people are rent payers
This comment betrays a poor ability to differentiate between those seeking rent and those paying rent.