Reader KFG dropped this insight in last week’s post and I thought it was very relevant to something I’ve been contemplating for a while now:
As a general principle genetic fitness is always relative to the environment. A spread of genetic traits makes a species more robust, because it will have individuals better suited for survival in a greater range of environments.
There’s more than one breed of working dog because no one is “better.” Each has its specific strengths, paid for with corresponding weaknesses. A terrier is to small to hunt wolves, but you’re not going to stuff a wolfhound down a badger hole.
This was a great analogy. It’s also one of the primary reasons I believe the egalitarian equalist narrative is a deliberate lie with the hoped-for purpose of empowering people who cannot compete, or believe they have some plenary exclusion from competing in various aspects of life. One of the primary selling points of egalitarian equalism for men is the idea that they can be excluded from the Burden of Performance.
There is no such thing as ‘equality’ because life doesn’t happen in a vacuum.
The tests that a chaotic world throws at human beings is never equal or balanced in measure to our strengths to pass them. Equality, in the terms that egalitarian equalists are comfortable in defining it, implies that that every individual is equally matched in both value and utility within a totality of random challenges. Aside from this being patently false, it also demerits both strengths and weaknesses when that individual succeeds or fails at a particular challenge as a result of their individual character.
This is ironic in the sense that it provides easy, repeatable, excuses for a person’s successes or failures. If someone wins, well, we’re all equal so that person’s strengths which led to the success can be passed off as a result of assumed or circumstantial ‘privileges’ that made them better suited to their challenges – rarely is their hard work recognized, and even then, it’s colored by the overcoming of a presumed-unequal adversity that grants them ‘privilege’. If they fail, again, we’re all equal, so the failure is proof of a deficit, or a handicap, or a presumed repression of an equal person in a state of baseline equal challenge.
Individual Exceptionalism
One of the longest perpetuated cop outs (I should say paradoxes) that equalists cling to is the notion that People are People; that everyone is a unique individual (snowflake) and as such there is really no universally predictable method of testing character or knowing how a particular sex will respond to various challenges. It’s all random chance according to the individual’s socially constructed character and their capacity to be a ‘more evolved’, higher-thinking being.
On the surface this all-are-individuals notion may seem the antithesis of the ‘equality’ narrative that equalists cling to, but it is part of a cognitive dissonance all equalists struggle with. This approach is a means to standardizing individuality, so no scientific evidence that might find patterns of an evolved ‘nature’ of a person – or in our Red Pill case, a sex – can be predicted. It’s the hopeful cancellation of reams of empirical evidence that show how influential our biologies and inborn predispositions are. This ‘higher order’ individualism is always touted so the equailist mindset can claim that the exception to the rule disqualifies the overwhelmingly obvious general rule itself.
“We’re all exceptions to the rule.” – Carl Jung
“…and when we’re all special, no one will be.” – Syndrome
This fallacy is where we get the NA*ALT (not all ____ are like that) absolution of the most unflattering parts of human nature. Not All Women Are Like That is standard feminine-primary boilerplate for women and sympathizing men (White Knights) who’d rather we all ignore the aspects of female nature that shine a bad light on what are easily observable truths about their behavior and the motives behind them. The social convention relies on the idea that if there is even one individual contradiction to the generalization (always deemed an ‘overgeneralization’) then the whole idea must be wrong.
Of course, this individual exceptionality rule only applies to the concepts in which equalists have invested their egos in. When a generality proves an equalist’s ego-investment, that’s when it becomes an ‘endemic’ universal truth to their mindset. A binary over-exaggeration of this effect is the reflexive response for concepts that challenge their ego-investments. Thus, we see any and all of the (perceptually) negative aspects of masculinity (actually the totality of masculinity) painted as evidence of the endemic of ‘toxic’ masculinity as a whole. The individualist exceptionality in this instance is always ridiculed as ‘insecurity’ on the part of men even considering it.
The exceptionalism of the individual is always paired with some high-order consciousness, and/or the idea that anything that proves their ego-investment is “more evolved” – despite any evidence that proves the contrary – is proof of that this individual is a being who represents some evolutionary step forward. If you agree and support feminine-primacy it is ‘proof‘ that you are more ‘evolved’ than other men. Thus, the ‘more evolved’ status becomes a form of reward to the individual who aligns with the ideology. Conversely, the avoidance of being perceived as ‘unevolved’ serves as a form of negative reinforcement.
This is kind of ironic when you consider that the same equalist mindset that relies on the individualist exception is the same mindset that insists that everyone is the same; equal value, equal potential, equal purpose and equal ability. Again, the irony is that everything that would be used to establish the ‘unique snowflake’ ideology (so long as it contradicts innate strengths and weaknesses of an opposing ideology) is conveniently ignored in favor of blank-slate egalitarianism. There is a degree of wanting to avoid determinism (particularly biological determinism) for the individual in this blank-slate concept, but it also provides the equalist with a degree of feel-good affirmation that the individual is a product of social constructivism. So, we get the idea that gender is a social construct and, furthermore, that blank-slate individual is ‘more evolved’ to the point of redefining gender for themselves altogether. Even when that ‘individual’ is only 4 years old and hasn’t the capacity for abstract thought enough to make a determination.
To be an egalitarian equalist is to accept the cognitive dissonance that the individual trumps the general truth and yet simultaneously accept that the individual is just the blank-slate template of anyone else, thus negating the idea of the individual. It takes great stretches of belief to adhere to egalitarian if-then logic.
I apologize for getting into some heady stuff right out the gate here, but I think it’s vitally important that Red Pill aware men realize the self-conflicting flaw in the ideologies of post-modern equalism. Our feminine-primary social order is rife with it. They will disqualify the generalities of Red Pill awareness with individualist exceptionalism and in the next breath disqualify that premise with their investments in blank-slate egalitarianism.
This is easiest to see in Blue Pill conditioned men and women still plugged in to the Matrix, but I also see the same self-conflicting rationales among Red Pill aware men using the same process to justify personal ideology or their inability to de-pedestalize women on whole. There’s a common thread amongst well-meaning Red Pill men to want to defend the individual natures of women who align with the Blue Pill ego-investments they still cling to. All women are like that so long as those women are granola-eating, furry-armpit feminists – ‘Red Pill Women’ then become the individual (snowflake) exceptions to the otherwise general rule because they fit a different, idealized, profile.
The Inequality of Equality
I’ve stated this in many prior threads, but, I do not believe in “equality”.
I don’t believe in equality because I can objectively see that reality, our respective environments, our personal circumstances, etc. are all inherently unequal. Everyday we encounter circumstances in life which we are eminently unequalled for in our ability to address them. Likewise, there are circumstances we can easily overcome without so much as an afterthought. Whether these challenges demand or test our physical, mental, material or even spiritual capacities, the condition is the same – reality is inherently chaotic, unfair and challenging by order of degree. To presume that all individuals have equal value in light of the nature of reality is, itself, an unequal presumption. To expect sameness in the degree of competency or incompetency to meet any given challenge reality throws at us is a form of inequality. And it’s just this inequality that equalists ironically exploit.
As KFG was stating, “each dog has it’s strengths for a given task”. One dog is not as valuable as another depending on what determines a positive outcome. What equalism attempts do to – what it has the ludicrous audacity to presume – is to alter reality to fit the needs of the individual in order to make all individuals equally valuable agents. This is the ‘participation trophy’ mentality, but it is also a glaring disregard for existential reality. Which, again, contradicts the idea of individual exceptionalism; reality must be made to be equal to accommodate the existence of the equally valuable individual.
To say you don’t believe in equality is only outrageous because it offends the predominant social narrative of today. It seemingly denies the inherent value of the individual, but what is conveniently never addressed is how an environment, condition and state defines what is functionally valued for any given instance. Like the dog bred to hunt ferrets out of their warrens is not the functional equal of a dog bred to run down prey at 45 MPH. The value of the individual is only relevant to the function demanded of it.
The default misunderstanding (actually deliberate) most equalists believe is that functional worth is personal worth. I addressed this in Separating Values:
When you attempt to quantify any aspect of human ‘value’ you can expect to have your interpretations of it to be offensive to various people on the up or down side of that estimate. There is simply no escaping personal bias and the offense that comes from having one’s self-worth attacked, or even confirmed for them.
The first criticism I’ve come to expect is usually some variation about how evaluating a person’s SMV is “dehumanizing”, people are people, and have intrinsic worth beyond just the sexual. To which I’ll emphatically agree, however, this dismissal only conveniently sidesteps the realities of the sexual marketplace.
Again, sexual market value is not personal value. Personal value, your value as a human being however one subjectively defines that, is a definite component to sexual market value, but separating the two requires an often uncomfortable amount of self-analysis. And, as in Ms. Korth’s experience here, this often results in denial of very real circumstances, as well as a necessary, ego-preserving, cognitive dissonance from that reality.
Denial of sexual market valuation is a psychological insurance against women losing their controlling, sexual agency in their hypergamous choices.
This is where the appeal to emotion begins for the equalist mindset. It seems dehumanizing to even consider an individuals functional value. Human’s capacity to learn and train and practice to become proficient or excel in various functions is truly a marvel of our evolution. Brain plasticity being what it is, makes our potential for learning and overcoming our environments what separates us from other animals. We all have the potential to be more than we are in functional value, and this is the root of the emotional appeal of equalists. It’s seems so negative to presume we aren’t functional equals because we have the capacity and potential to become more functionally valuable. The appeal is one of optimism.
What this appeal ignores is the functional value of an individual in the now; the two dogs bred for different purposes. What this appeal also ignores is the ever-changing nature of reality and the challenges it presents to an individual in the now and how this defines value. What equalism cannot do is separate functional value from potential value.
Adopting a mindset that accepts complementarity between the sexes and between individuals, one that celebrates and utilizes innate strengths and talents, yet also embraces the weaknesses and compensates for them is a far healthier one that presuming baseline equivalency. Understanding the efficacy of applying strengths to weaknesses cooperatively while acknowledging we all aren’t the same damn dog will be a key to dissolving the fantasy of egalitarian equalism and create a more balanced and healthier relations between the sexes. Embracing the fact that condition, environment, reality and the challenges they pose defines our usefulness is far better than to assume any single individual could ever be a self-contained, self-sufficient island unto themselves – that is what equalism would have us believe.