Interviews

The Rational Male – Blog Update 2020

The Commentariat

I hate to start a post off with apologies, but I feel like I have to hash out some things with my long time readers. In the wake of all this worldwide civil unrest and amplified Cancel Culture online I thought it prudent to disable comments on this blog for a couple of weeks. As expected, the usual suspects who are still obsessed with destroying this blog, attacking my books with review bombing, and creating torrents of my books’ for pirated downloads took the opportunity to start race-baiting in my comment threads. I can only conclude that this was the beginning of an effort to plant inflammatory racial sentiments on my unmoderated discussion threads to be complained about to the authorities at my blog host to have my 9 years of Red Pill work deleted in much the same way Chateau Heartiste was last year.

I will not allow that to happen. I will not allow half a dozen adolescent haters and pathological liars to remove this blog and its 18 years of aggregate Red Pill information. Unfortunately, this necessitated the temporary closure of the comment sections on this blog until I could implement a better filter of the content, bot-spam and overt sock puppeting of user accounts. At present I’ve reverted back to the original Jetpack comment plugin that comes standard in WordPress. No bells, no whistles, but it’s security is far better than the wpDiscuz plugin I installed so commentors had a better control over editing and content. Sorry, the assholes and race-baiters have ruined that for us now. Take it up with them.

Until such time as I think the woke-mob threat is over, or the career-liars have filed for bankruptcy, the comments on this blog will be moderated until further notice. I don’t take this decision lightly. The comments on this blog have been unmoderated since the day it began. Open discussion has always been one of the core strengths of The Rational Male. When I opened this blog I knew I wanted to keep the same dedication to debate alive that SoSuave had started with. As I’ve always said about the comments, it’s a hot kitchen, stay out if you can’t take the heat. That was fine and well in an era when everyone commenting came to the table with an earnest opinion in the spirit of hashing things out. Even personal attacks could sometimes be beneficial if they sparked a novel debate. But that’s not where we’re at now. Today, adults with the maturity of 12-year-olds are using the opportunity of today’s social climate to use a forum of honest debate as a means for the politics of personal destruction. I find it the height of irony that some of the people who were railing about threats to free speech and the injustice of Social Justice Warriors just 3 years ago are the first to use their same cowardly tactics they warned about then when the opportunity for petty revenge comes along.

So, until such time as I think we can go back to an unmoderated format I will be assigning mods and being much more proactive in deleting any comment that could in anyway threaten the future of this blog. I will also actively ban any user who uses a sock-puppet account, attempts to create multiple proxy accounts, impersonates myself or another registered user, and any user who I even suspect is attempting to attack this blog. I tried to do this your way. 8-9 months ago I said fuck it and unbanned, and de-blacklisted everyone and everything. I decided to go full hands-off and let users deal with the obvious troll accounts, spammers, and ubiquitous bots in the comments. It got to be too much work to untangle the endless proxy accounts and outright liars in the commentariat. No more. That was my bad, and the predictable attacks came along as soon as the time was right.

If your account is banned now, I won’t apologize to you. You fucked up. If it comes down to you baiting other users as a threat to the viability of this blog, I choose this blog. I’m a very patient man, but I will not allow The Rational Male to go down. I distanced myself from Heartiste back in 2012 because of exactly the racial and political sentiment that defined his comment threads. You will not bring that shit here.

The Rational Male – Religion

My upcoming 4th book Religion is in the final stages of edits and I’m presently finishing the Forward and Afterword sections of the book. This book has been consuming my life for almost 3 years now. It’s the first book I’ve written virtually from scratch; meaning it’s not solely a collection of prior essays. I had every intention of publishing the book in March-April and that’s when the whole world decided to go to hell. I took the opportunity of the quarantine to revise and reedit the book. I wanted to be sure that parts of it reflected the current state of the global sexual marketplace and be relevant to a post-crisis readership. Since then it’s become clear that 2020 will be a chaotic reset for a lot of things we’ve taken for granted for a long time. I’d be lying if I said I thought the world I began writing book 4 in would necessarily be the same world that I finally published it in. This has been foremost in my mind since mid March.

I had originally asked my friend Pat Campbell to write the Forward section of Religion. I like to have a peer write the Forwards to my books and I thought Pat would do a Red Pill book on religion justice. Then, in January, Pat had his car accident, seizure and a tense ICU stay in an Oklahoma hospital. Real life is a lot different than online life, I had thought my friend would be dead or in a coma, and that really did a number on me at that time. We’d been friends and partners on his show and my YouTube channel, as well as convention speakers, for over 2 years by this time – I was aware he had the brain tumors and they were malignant the week of the accident. Pat has cancer; just like the last person I asked to write the Forward to my 3rd book, Andrew Hansen (The Private Man). Andrew’s cancer took him before he could do the Forward to Positive Masculinity and I ended up making the Forward a dedication to him and his life. Pat Campbell is one tough son of a bitch. Thus far he’s been beating the odds and I would attribute this to his stubbornness and bullheaded tenacity. That’s what makes him a badass. I will likely dedicate book 4 to him as well.

Facing down your own mortality really puts things into a new perspective for a man. Most men don’t get this opportunity. I love Pat like a brother, but I get the feeling that this experience changed him significantly. I saw the same change happen in Andrew 4 years ago and I’d looked at book 3 differently because of it. I was having a similar experience with book 4, and then the pandemic hit, and then the world went batshit insane. The irony that book 4 is about the Red Pill in religious contexts isn’t lost on me here.

Religion will be a thick book. The biggest complaints I get about The Rational Male is the formatting and grammar, syntax, and yes, I know, the print book’s type size. I’ll be focusing on a 2nd edition (and a hardback version) of book one once I release Religion. However, this book will be the most bulletproof addition to the Rational Male series in terms of editing, proofing and citing sources. I’ve made a lot of effort in providing proof of concept in this book. Not that I think this will dissuade my disingenuous haters from blathering on about the validity of the sources they don’t necessarily like, but they won’t be able to say I didn’t do my due diligence. The topic of religion and making correlations to Red Pill concepts (to say nothing of evolutionary concepts) is a really dicey prospect. I’m definitely going get things wrong with the ‘true’ believers – there’s no way I can get them right without full confirmation of various beliefs – and this is another aspect of the book I have to be very careful with. And this takes time.

This is why I’ve scaled back my blog posts here. My writing time is directed wholesale towards book 4. I am doing my best to keep this blog fresh with new content, but a once a month post bothers the hell out of me. I’m also considering going to a once a week show on my YouTube channel until I’m published. That’s also something I don’t want to do, but I may need to. I’m an author first, public personality second. One blessing about the quarantine/lockdown is that my ‘real’ job liquor promo gigs have been basically nonexistent since all this began. I was starting to get new offers to do work in Vegas and then the riots happened. Back to the book.

Body Language Mastery 3

Lastly, I will again be endorsing Modern Life Dating’s upcoming program Body Language Mastery and the online community that it facilitates. Since I’ve been so invested in the new book I haven’t had the time to really do much one-on-one counseling with guys sending me requests. I honestly want to do these Skype consults, but I can only really do them as I have the opportunity. I swear, I read every one of your emails. That said, the program Jon from MLD has going is a great opportunity for guys to get this kind of advice/counseling via the weekly group chats that are part of the program. Not only do you have access to myself and guys like Rich Cooper, Rian Stone, Jon and Troy Francis, but there’s a community of dozens of guys in the group who are there to help, live in real time.

I did a 90 minute show with Jon to cover the details of this new round of the program. If you’re waiting for a counseling session with me, please consider joining July’s group and bringing your circumstances here. I will be available to you in much the same capacity, but you’ll get a lot more input from the community. The registration just opened today June 25th and it will close on midnight June 29th.

This is the registration link: Body Language Mastery 3 – July 2020

So, that’s the Rational Male update for 2020 thus far. I hope you can bear with me for just a bit longer. I’ll have a new essay incoming by Monday. Thanks.

Alpha Men

Back in July of 2019 I was approached by a Dutch documentary team from VPRO (Dutch Public TV) who asked me if I would be open to doing an interview with them. I gave them a tentative yes, but I was really hesitant to trust ANY source that looked like the mainstream media. When they said they’d be at the 21 Convention I actually cancelled on them. I no longer want any association with their lack of integrity.

The director/producer, Nordin, kept on me though. He convinced me to do the interview because the “documentary would be incomplete” without me. I was still really sketchy about doing it because I know how these things go. It’s their game and they can easily make you look like a monster or an idiot if they want to. Nordin was really upfront with me, but so were a lot of other “journalists” I’ve dealt with.

I’m glad to say my concerns were unfounded. This documentary was the first real ‘fair assessment’ of the ‘sphere that I’ve ever seen. I’m in the ranks with the likes of Dr. Warren Farrell and Hannah Rosen in this and I think they did a good job of presenting the topics fairly.

You’ll have to get past the psychotic look of Elliott Hulse on the thumbnail though 😄

Half of this is in Dutch but it’s still very watchable if you don’t speak the language. All the English speakers are subtitled in Dutch so it’s pretty good as-is. As soon as an English subtitled version is up I’ll swap out the links.

Have a look at this and tell me what you thought. My segment comes in around the 30:30 mark, but well worth a watch of the whole thing to get some context. I will likely do a longer review post of this video in the coming weeks.

State of the Manosphere 2018

Tonight at 10pm eastern my State of the Manosphere address goes live. I’ll be answering question in real time in the chat, but once this is up and on the 21 Convention You Tube channel I’ll be answering Q&A primarily on the comment thread of this post.

As I’ve mentioned in my last few posts, much of what I predicted to come for the next two years, with respect to our gender politics landscape, has come to pass far sooner than I expected. I fully expect the 2019 Super Bowl advertising to be a parade of misandrous hate directed at what the Feminine Imperative perceives as their ideological and political enemies – conventionally masculine men.

Furthermore, the scope of the APA’s guidelines about masculinity is revealing itself to be much more extensive with respect to ideological purity than any real science.

The APA ruling ‘traditional’ masculinity as a psychological disorder is also proving itself to be a part of a much larger coordinated attack on who the #resistance and #MeToo believe will be their primary opposition in the coming election cycle. The Gillette agitprop video and the PETA video were only the opening salvos to build the groundwork against conventional masculinity. I’ve seen damn near every article decrying ‘toxic’ masculinity since the beginning of the new year refer to the APA guidelines as a kind of Papal bull for their believers. Expect to see more media use this as a basis for their further demonizing men as we move into the election cycle.

Speaking of which, in the first 3 weeks of 2019 we’ve also seen an almost entirely female set of candidates declare themselves as running for their party’s nomination. Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Karen Gillibrand, and a few others couldn’t wait for the clock to strike midnight on December 31st, 2018. This was also something I alluded to in our December 29th episode of The Red Man Group; a vagina will be a prerequisite for consideration for the Democratic nomination in 2020.

Anyway, those were just a few things I saw coming last Fall. Let me know what you think about this talk. A lot of convention attendees told me it was one of my best. I hope you think so too.

The Advantages of Now

As of this writing my second talk at last year’s 21 Convention is now available for free public viewing on 21 University. I worked this ‘talk’ a bit differently as you’ll see. I find that I can address what most of my readers are concerned with most in and open discussion rather than my delivering a sermon from the stage. I think I’m more comfortable with this as I’ve been aggregating information with other men in a forum style discourse for so long. My time at SoSuave really taught me the value of that back and forth exchange of information, and it’s really what led to so much of the material I’ve covered on the blog for almost 7 years now.

For the sake of clarity, this talk was the second I did and took place a day after my first, Hypergamy, Micro to Macro. I had originally intended to cover aspects of my third book, Positive Masculinity, since it had been released about 2 months prior. I had an extensive lecture all ready to go, but I decided to switch up my talk that morning. The day and night before I had gotten into at least 8 different “sub-conferences” with spontaneous groups of about a dozen guys that went on for any where between 20 minutes to an hour. It occurred to me then that the best way to address my topic would be to have an open discussion about masculinity with the guys I was talking to just a few ours before.

As much as I liked the first talk – and I still feel understanding Hypergamy in its entirety is a keystone element in understanding intersexual dynamics – I think this talk was much more personal. I’ve always felt that the Red Pill should remain ‘open source’ and be an aggregate of the experience of men from all over the world. To this end I’ll always feel that a roundtable discussion style is the best way to encourage men not just to put in their two cents, but also as the best way for men to learn. I am first a writer and then a speaker, but my speaking will always be better when a man is expressing his concerns, problems, critiques and experiences within a group of men focused on untangling Red Pill awareness. I’m always humbled when an interviewer calls me one of the Godfathers of the Red Pill, but the truth is there is no father of the Red Pill. For as much as some writers would like us to believe they fathered the manosphere, Red Pill awareness is the result of a consortium of men who came together, offered their input to the whole and made it something greater than it was before.

I got to watch both my talks before the post-production and release, and while I was reviewing them it occurred to me how fortunate this generation is to have access to such information today. I’m from a generation that didn’t have the internet when I was in my early 20s. There were no Game Gurus and the only “how to pick up girls” books we’re only available from mail order ads you found in the back of a Penthouse or Hustler magazine. I did read Why Men Are The Way They Are by Dr. Warren Farrell in 1993, but other than that book there was nothing about the nature of women that would ever be published by the major publishing houses then.

After I reviewed my video here I watched a TED talk given by Robert Greene, author of The 48 Laws of Power, and in it he recounted all of the dead end jobs and life experience he’d accrued up to around 1996 when a friend of his fronted him $30,000 to keep him going while he wrote the book. He’d always wanted to be a writer, but until the mid 2000s publishing was locked by a monopoly of a handful of ‘traditional’ publishing houses. Even the 48 Laws of Power had to get past their review processes. Now I think Robert Greene is one of the greatest minds of our time in his articulating power dynamics, I attempted to model my own writer’s voice on his example, but there was a time when anything resembling Red Pill awareness or truths that would be less than flattering to the status quo would never have seen the light of day. Print on demand and digital publishing (eBooks) wasn’t even a dream at that time, but today we take them for granted.

I never had a childhood dream of being an author, writing is just something I’ve always done as one more outlet for my creativity. I never thought I’d be a published author of one book, much less three. Nor did I imagine I’d have audio versions of them (book 3 is coming soon Sam promises). But now is the time. With digital publishing anyone can be an author so long as their ‘content’ is good.

We are living in an era in which certain things we take for granted are the only time in history that they could occur. That might sound self-evident, but think about it; our technology today is such that certain ideas that could never have been brought into popular consciousness could only be considered because of that technology. We have an advantage of now. It’s kind of humbling in a way – having witnessed the transition from a time when all of the dynamics we invested so much of ourselves in then are now made common, cheapened in some cases, and the legitimacy of having earned them is lessened as a result.

In my rock star 20s it took 4-5 months of all of the guys in my band to scrape together enough money to pay for a 3 song demo tape (no CDs for us then) in a recording studio, and that was with us having friends in the industry. Today I can do everything that very expensive studio could on my iMac. I have tools now to create the dreams I’ve had since I was in high school, but the challenge is no long the access, but the ideas themselves. We live in an age when access to the tools and means of creation has never been greater, but the ideas, the imagination, the abstract unrefined concepts is what I think is lacking today. We can produce masterpieces of music in our homes, but today music is only getting worse.

I’ve seen videos of brilliant instrumentalist virtuosos on YouTube. Kids not older than ten playing complex pieces of music they learned and absorbed themselves online, yet few could actually create an original song with any expressiveness themselves.

We also live in an age where access to information has never been more ubiquitous. We have access to the knowledge of all human history in a device that we can put in our pocket, yet we’re still too lazy to actually use the search feature or cite an easily had source. We have a connectivity today that spans the globe, yet we readily factionalize and atomize our social networks according to ideological biases.

A lot of this disconnect from real genius, from true creativity, I want to chalk up to the constant distractions we’re bombarded with daily. It’s really the price we pay for having unlimited access to information and the tools of creation. Paraphrasing the late Chris Cornell, there are no more writers like Shakespeare because all he had was a table, a candle, a pen and some paper. Today, learning to avoid distractions and focus on a single task is an art itself, but there’s another reason for this lack of honest genius and that is we’re gradually seeing a new generation of men and women who are themselves the product of a social order that has never known a time or condition where this access didn’t exist.

I think it was Dave Grohl who said something like kids today think rock stars are generated from talent shows on TV. Even with all the easy access to creative expression there’s still this idea that the process is somehow out of their control.

So why am I freestyling this post just to introduce my next talk video? Because I want my readers to get some insight about the radical nature of the information that the Red Pill presents today. I’ve written essays about how the 1990s really represented the pinnacle of the Feminine Imperative’s social influence. This was due to the limitations of information inherent in that time. In those essays I wanted to stress just how influential the Imperative was on western culture, but more importantly just how ignorant we were of ever perceiving it then. Today, the jig is up.

The internet has exposed the influences of feminism and it’s opened up a dialog – one that the controllers of the means of it would like to censor – in which it can no longer hide its true intent. The nature of women, the mechanics of intersexual dynamics, the good, the bad and the ugly of everything the Red Pill makes us aware of is increasingly expanding. It’s expanding so much that I fear we’re reaching a point where the means to explore new ideas in the ‘sphere are being limited by the means itself.

When you watch this video, any Red Pill aware video, when you read the latest essay here or anywhere else, keep in the back of your mind that knowing this information is only possible in this time. I wrote Preventive Medicine in response to men telling me how they’d wished they’d had this information back when they were younger and didn’t know better so they could make better, informed decisions. The truth is that the information I’ve been spreading since 2002 could only be realized in this age. Some will say, “yeah, but ancient scholars (and deified psychologists) knew this stuff a long time ago”, to which I’ll say ‘no, they didn’t’. Not to the extent we do today. Not with the degree of accuracy we know now. Only now is this possible, and only later will we have an even greater understanding of the Red Pill – for better or worse.

You are fortunate to be here in the now. Some of what you’re made aware of will frustrate and anger you, some of it will depress you and some of it will bring you to that “Ah Ha!” moment. The Red Pill can enlighten you or stifle you, but you are better off knowing it now in an age where this is finally possible.

No Prescriptions

On Saturday I had a great discussion with Anthony Johnson, Rian Stone (Married Red Pill Reddit) and “Carl” from Black Label Logic. The topic was a critique of the impact Dr. Jordan Peterson is having on a society of ‘lost’ (mostly) young men and how his message is affecting this generally rudderless generation of men. It’s a little over two hours long, but from the overwhelming response on YouTube, Facebook, Reddit and other forums it’s definitely struck a nerve. As an aside here, I’m considering making this meet up video format something I may do semi-regularly (like every other week) with some of the men I consider peers in the manosphere.

You can watch this talk at your leisure, but it has taught me a few things. As I mentioned in the chat it’s next to impossible to have any disagreement or critique of people whom other’s believe are your betters. As Rollo Tomassi it’s impossible for me to be critical of any high profile guy in the sphere without the accusations of professional jealousy or sour grapes being the first reflexive response from haters. I got that, but I’ve learned the conversation is more important that trying to convince anyone of it being genuine. In fact, I think it belies a bigger problem when they are above critique.

That aside, I think it was good to finally parse where Red Pill awareness and what Peterson is advocating have some overlap and where we differ. Peterson is a fountain of hope for the ‘lost’ boys, so anything critical of his message is going to sound like it’s endorsing an “enjoy the decline” mentality. I can’t expect everyone to have read up on my own opinion about that, but the short version is that I’ve never been convinced of some inevitable decline and fall of western civilization. In other words, I think it is possible to turn the ship around; where I may differ is in how that might be done.

For the record here I want to say that I have a great respect for Dr. Peterson. I think he’s what the sphere has needed for a while and I think he fits the role of ‘champion’ that a generation of young men have wanted to place on someone. Ideologically I agree with about 85-90% of what he advocates and there’s no doubt that he’s got definite skin in the game. In fact I really hate it when people use that as some catch phrase to disqualify men today. As a man we all have skin in the game now. How much and to what degree may be debatable, but we all live in a feminine-primary social order and as such we all have a lot to risk whether we acknowledge this or not.

Where I differ with Peterson is in his very Trad-Con solutions to turning the ship around. I wasn’t shocked to see him endorsed in videos for Prager University. In some ways what he proposes resonates with young men looking for a direction because their fathers and generations of Blue Pill men haven’t been able to deliver a way out of Hell for them. I go into this in more detail in our talk here, but here are some of my issues with Peterson’s take on things:

• Life is suffering and sacrifice: In every video I’ve watched Dr. Peterson’s founding (zen-like) premise is that life is suffering and the best men can do is to find ways to minimize that suffering. Men (and I’ve yet to see a video addressing women) must sacrifice parts or all of themselves in order to qualify for “genuine” manhood. The degree of that self-sacrifice is relative to how high a status that man can achieve.

I fundamentally disagree with this premise though I do understand why it’s so appealing to a ‘lost generation’ of young men. From my own perspective, life is based on a perpetual discontent, but how a man deals with that discontent – creatively or destructively – is the measure of him. Furthermore, I would argue that women fundamentally lack the capacity to appreciate the sacrifices men make in order to facilitate their reality.

• Blue Pill conditioning seems to define his perspective of women: Essentially the archetype he has for women was formed for him as a 7 year old boy when he first developed a soul-mate ONEitis for his wife. His reluctance to acknowledge the Alpha Fucks side of women’s Hypergamy in any video (beyond his repeated use of 50 Shades of Grey as a humorous example) leads me to the impression that he defaults to women as innately ‘good’ and above too much criticism. As such he focuses almost entirely on the good provider / parental investment / Beta need side of Hypergamy. This is unsurprising as it follows the same Trad-Con interpretations of women being “closer to God than men” and men must qualify themselves, and sacrifice themselves for women’s (wives) intimate approval. Dalrock has covered this dynamic among male “complementarian” Christian leaders quite extensively.

• Sacrifice of men is a parallel to men’s disposability: Men will blow themselves up for pussy. From what I gather from his talks Peterson endorses male disposability as a form of Honor. He seems to play on the ‘Man Up / Shut Up’ dynamic I talked about in The Honor System. What ever aspect of maleness that serves the feminine purpose is a man’s masculine responsibility, yet any aspect that disagrees with feminine primacy is labeled Patriarchy and Misogyny. I’m not suggesting Peterson is accusing men of Patriarchy or Misogyny, rather, like most Trad-Cons, it’s a question of living up to one’s duty as a man in his disposability and his usefulness in that sacrifice.

• “Get your shit together” is also a plea for sacrifice: If a man is less valuable his sacrifice is less meaningful. No one cares about mediocre / average men’s sacrifices, but if a man accepts that he is to improve himself it is so that his sacrifice is more appreciated and important. Thus, the comparisons to Christ’s sacrifice as being the ultimate expression of sacrifice and meaning which Peterson uses in his dissertations on manhood and the Bible. My issue here is that women and a feminine-primary social order lack a capacity to appreciate the sacrifices men make because these are taken-for-granted expectations of what a man just “ought to do”.

• Peterson is egalitarian to a fault: The mantra may be for men to sack up and make something of themselves, but this is couched in an egalitarian equalism that’s prevalent today. If I had one question to ask Jordan it would be this; is there a dominance hierarchy in a healthy LTR or marriage? I don’t know for certain. My guess is he would say it passes back and forth between a husband and wife which is to say he falls back on an egalitarian ideal. However, outside the family structure he acknowledges that men and women in a state of egalitarianism choose to adopt traditional gender roles (I think he gave the same example as was covered here).

• Dr. Peterson regularly resorts to shaming language with men, rarely does he do the same with women: This may be a simple question of his delivery, but Peterson is always harder on men than he is with women. In so doing he adopts the AMOGing of only men techniques that a pastor like Mark Driscoll uses from the pulpit. Inso doing he pedestalizes women and absolves them of any consequences of their Hypergamous choices by imploring men to “man up and marry those sluts“. In essence the sacrificial nature of men becomes one that is necessary for the continuance of ‘family’ and western culture in spite of women. I also see how this plays into the idea of women lacking any moral agency, personal responsibility and wiping the bad behavior of women off on the men who have allowed this to happen. Once again it comes back to the hypoagency of women.

• Peterson believes that desire can be negotiated: This is my biggest problem with Peterson’s approach to women. This undoubtedly comes from his being a clinical psychologist, but like most therapists he defaults to the idea that genuine desire can be motivated by a process of negotiation. If there is one example of his lack of experience with women it is this belief. In several of his interviews and podcasts he makes reference to appealing to women’s reason and negotiating terms for acceptable behavior (always a man’s behavior) in exchange for intimacy and/or a stress-free marriage. This is the egalitarian, Oprah Approved, male-sublimated means to achieving transactional intimacy.

As you might guess, I strongly disagree with negotiating intimacy. You cannot negotiate genuine desire. You can obligate a woman to fuck you (now called rape) via negotiation, but you cannot organically inspire genuine desire in a woman. This has always been my main point of contention with the marriage counseling trade for a long time.

What is the Red Pill version of “man-up”?

I had a commenter ask me this in the last comment thread. I think there’s two sides to this question. First, I think there’s a need to keep the Red Pill (in the intersexual sense) as close to an objectivist purpose as possible. That means Red Pill awareness is the result of a continuing praxeology.

I’ve locked horns with a few Red Pill guys recently who seem to think that ‘Red Pill’ is an ideology and it’s just the counter revolt to feminism; basically it is feminism for men. I think that does a huge disservice to everything and everyone that’s brought us to where we are today in Red Pill awareness and all of the work and personal risk that was put on the line to explore what we know as Red Pill awareness now. Not only that it casually devalues the effort and work that’s continuing right now.

Critics and feminists alike want to draw parallels in the manosphere to whatever (fictitious) wave of feminism they think applies to whatever the Men’s Rights Movement is calling Red Pill at the moment. Believing that Red Pill is an ideology is one more casualty of how the term / brand has been bastardized by other ideologies who’ve never had any business referring to themselves as “red pill”.

Presuming Red Pill is just an ideology is juvenile, and unsurprisingly it’s an opinion of some underexperienced men in the manosphere who want for simplistic answers. They don’t want to think about what Red Pill awareness implies on a larger social scale. They want a flag to wave and an easy to understand ideology so they can stick it to their feminist enemies. I get it. They want Red Pill (however they define it) to be that ideology, but to me, I think, and I’ve always said it, the Red Pill needs to remain fundamentally apolitical, areligious and amoral to ensure that it stays true to understanding truth. It needs to remain true to being an aggregate of men’s collected experiences with intersexual dynamics.

What these guys want is a meaning to that truth, but that’s not the Red Pill. Meaning is what men will apply to that truth according to their individual needs, situations and circumstances. This is why Peterson and probably some more personalities to follow him will be popular in the future; they prioritize meaning above truth. If you listen to the first podcast of Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson they spend the entire time trying to come to an agreed measure of truth between the two of them so they can move on (in the second podcast) to what is meaning.

You want to know why I don’t do prescriptions on The Rational Male? Because we disempower ourselves when we follow someone else’s path and not our own.

There is a deep need in almost all people to improve or ‘fix’ ourselves in some way. I’ve written essays about it; discontent is is the human condition. That in no way means that life is suffering as per the Peterson (Zen) doctrine, but it is man’s condition to never be satisfied with even the greatest of accomplishments. That is what put us at the top of the species contest on this planet. You can be constructively or destructively discontent, but when you tell me that life is suffering and the only way to lessen that suffering (never to solve it of course) is to sacrifice my way to a better life all that says to me is that you’re out of ideas for a creative solution and you’re all-in on the destructive methods. Either that or you’ll continue naval gazing.

Fuck that.

So, the Red Pill needs to remain a praxeology and it ought to always resist being force-fit into an ideology because it’s always some ideological hack who wants to claim the truth it reveals as proof of his own purpose. The Red Pill has to remain an open source aggregate of men’s experiences. That’s why we’re still here today in spite of the Rooshs who said it would die out 3 years ago – it’s open source and decentralized information.

Now, to the second point, what does ‘Man up’ mean in the Red Pill context? I think this is really for the individual to decide, but I’d say that it would involve a man utilizing and internalizing the awareness the Red Pill represents to him and improving his life with it. In the Safety Net post’s comment thread there are hundreds of examples of how men saved their own lives, often literally. How the Red Pill truth reached them and then manifested in their lives is highly individual. I mentioned the need for a dissociation with ideology because that usually means aligning oneself with the expectations of someone else’s version of truth, not the objective (or as objective as we can make it) truth of the Red Pill.

When I hear ‘man-up’, I identify the context only as derogatory… is there any other definition which is not?

It should, because in almost all contexts imploring a guy to “Man Up” is following someone else’s path, not your own. This is what I mean when I say that I’m not in the business of creating better men, I’m in the business of men making themselves better men. And in today’s world of men seeking direction there is no shortage of personalities who’d like nothing more than to profit from selling men on their paths.

If there is a definition of ‘manning up’ in a Red Pill sense it is living a better way than your previous life that was informed by the falsehoods of your Blue Pill conditioning. Manning up Red Pill is killing off that old Blue Pill-created persona and killing off the false idealisms it taught you. It’s understanding and internalizing that those lies made you a less authentic person because the Blue Pill is firmly an ideology, but one that wears the mask of freedom or choice or individualism. If self-improvement in a Red Pill sense entail some basic tenets, one is that a man cuts himself away from that old Blue Pill paradigm and rebuilds a better life for himself based on a real understanding of intersexual truth on the personal, social and political scales.

Manning up Red Pill begins with rejecting the lies of egalitarian equalism and a commitment to real objective understanding of intersexual dynamics.

 

Masculine by Design Interview

If you’re a regular reader here you probably know that I’ll be giving two talks in Orlando, Florida this week at the 21 Convention with my fellow Red Pill alumni Christian McQueen, Goldmund, Tanner Guzy and so many more guys from the manosphere. I do have plans to do some quick hit Periscope feeds to and at the event so check my Twitter for updates.

Furthermore, in the interests of fairness and objectivity, I will be doing a no-punches-pulled review of the convention is a similar fashion to the one I did for the Man in Demand Conference I did in Vegas two years ago. As I’ve related in a few prior posts and some live interviews, I was reluctant to accept a speaking spot for the 21 Convention because I felt that it had a reputation for toeing the Purple Pill line for much of its years of existence. I’m happy to say that, with a few exceptions’ the lineup this year is far more ‘red’ than this conference has ever been.

There’s a lot more to the reasons why Anthony Johnson, the convention founder and organizer, has made this shift. Primarily it’s been his experience with what any guy with a peripheral Red Pill Lens would’ve seen as a high-functioning BPD woman who was his unofficial wife. If you want more information on this experience you can see his seminar talk about exactly this here.

As a result of this, and consequently digging into my books and blog material, his true unplugging has given him a new Red Pill awareness. In the interests of full disclosure, I’ve had a fairly regular correspondence with Anthony about his unplugging and have counseled him through some of my own material. This really prompted a new perspective for him and this is manifesting itself in his drawing more Red Pill speakers to this convention than I think have ever been assembled in one place.

That said, I would be remiss if I didn’t pass this whole conference through the same level of scrutiny that I gave the Man in Demand conference. So, I’ll be doing some quick hit updates throughout this and next week’s blog posts and highlight the best and not-so-best parts of the convention as things transpire, and then summing things up at the end of it all. Be sure to follow me on Twitter for updates, high-lights and some Periscope videos too. The hashtag for the convention is #21Con.

In the meantime,…

I took some time away from my talk preparations to do an interview with Craig James from Masculine By Design to discuss the main aspects of my third book Positive Masculinity as well as some general Red Pill discussion. Craig is starting to make a name for himself as a manosphere podcaster now, filling the unfortunate vacuum left by the departure of Mark Baxter from his own show. Craig primarily focuses on married Red Pill issues and parenting. I probably don’t align perfectly with his perspective on a few things, but on whole he’s got a solid Red Pill blog and podcast that I think will only gain more traction in the manosphere and particularly among more mature men and the “awakened-while-married” set of Red Pill readers.

Do check it out. We went for a bit over two hours and I’m sure you’ll enjoy the discourse. Much of what we discuss will be key aspects of my second 21 Convention talk on Positive Masculinity.

But wait, there’s more,…

And finally, I also did about a two and a half hour interview with the Hanging Chads podcast. This was a great interview as well and much more casual and fun than most of the interviews I’ve done. Be warned, they have a political bent to their material, but the material we covered was Red Pill from an intersexual dynamics perspective (as you might expect from me). The audio wont drop until Thursday, but check back here or there when it does. I’ll update this post when it goes live.

So, there you have it. If I’m meeting you for the first or second time at the convention, please, come up and introduce yourself. There’s a lot going on at this event outside the talks themselves so there’ll be plenty of time and opportunity to pick my brain while we’re there. And yes, I’ll see about getting some candid video of the dinners and social meet ups too. Watch this space.

See you in Orlando!

Interview with Mark Baxter

 

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http://realmarkbaxter.com/2017/06/29/029-rollo-tomassi/

Last week I had an almost two and a half hour talk with Mark Baxter. This is the third time I’ve been on with Mark; once with Ed Latimore and again with Carl from Black Label Logic, but this time it’s just the both of us. I was on the road for this one, but I made sure I set aside plenty of time and a quiet room so the audio is much better than some other interviews I’ve done. We covered a lot of material. There’s so much packed into this show, one listen probably won’t be enough.

We start the show covering the Red Pill and morality, work our way through male and female sexual strategies, and close out with a big section on red pill parenting. I can tell Mark is a practiced interviewer. He’s always prepared with good questions and followups to them so he really gets the best from the guys he talks with. If you listen to his other podcasts you’ll know what makes him good.

Also, Mark’s podcast is primarily directed at the personalities in the manosphere. He’s a good guy with a great Red Pill story (and a very ‘grounded’ Red Pill blog I might add). He’s doing what I think is very much needed work in the ‘sphere. So, have a listen, let me know what you think. As always, the comment section is wide open for discussion on anything we covered.

The 21 Convention

As of this writing we’re two days away from another price increase for the 21 Convention. Since my last update the line up of speakers just keeps getting longer and better. You already know Jack Donovan has confirmed, but newly confirmed speakers now include Ivan Throne from Dark Triad Man and The Family Alpha. As if that weren’t enough, Alan Roger Currie from Mode One is also on the bill now. As you can see the convention is shaping up to be a real Red Pill summit this year. I’ve got to admit I had no inkling that this gathering would snowball into what it’s become. I can’t say for sure, because I think the line up is reaching the maximum, but there may be one or two more influential Red Pill speakers added before we get to the end of August.

Myself, I’ll be doing two talks for this event. I also wanted to take a moment to thank all the guys who’ve already reserved their spots to come out to see me. I understand the investment and I’m humbled that so many guys have purchased tickets, arranged travel and reserved rooms for the weekend. I want to sincerely thank you for that. I had some real reservations about speaking at this convention, but the level of interest and commitment you’ve already shown, as well as the incredible line up of speakers that have confirmed, I’m much more confident about this summit being something memorable and valuable for all attending. Thank you.

Also, Anthony Johnson informs me that the $400 Early Bird sale is being extended to July 2nd. So, if you’re still on the fence about seeing this incredible line up of speakers now’s the time to pull the trigger. For more information on this event see my blog post about it here. Tickets can be purchased here or click the banner above. You can also hear my interview with Anthony about the convention and many other topics here.

The Rational Male – Positive Masculinity

Just an update on my upcoming third book; the third edit of the first draft is now at Createspace and I’m awaiting the 2nd proof of the physical (print) copy. The book weighs in at over 300 pages – comparable to the first book – and I’ve taken into account all the suggestions readers have given me. The text is larger, the book is more organized, and I’m working with a professional editor to make sure it’s the best it can possibly be. Needless to say, being a professional designer, I’ve personally done the print book layout myself. I’ve also added a dedication forward to The Private Man for this edition.

Once I’ve approved the final draft I’ll be sending the manuscript off for digital conversion and then it will be available to the public. I expect this will be sometime towards the middle to end of this (July) month. So, thank you for being patient, but I want to make sure this is a great read for you.

I’ve been on the road this last week for work. Summer is always hectic for what I do professionally, but I will have new essay I wrote on the road up tomorrow.

Thanks for reading.

Rollo

Interview with Obsidian & Special Announcement

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Last Friday I had the opportunity to return to Obsidian’s blogtalk radio show. It’s been a while since I’ve been on live with O and Allan Roger Currie and it’s always enjoyable, especially when it’s a call-in show. I really think Obsidian fills a very vital role in serving the African-American community by marrying Red Pill awareness to Black culture. One of the aspects of Red Pill awareness that I believe is very profound is that it’s not limited to one culture, age demographic, ethnicity, religious or political affiliation. The Red Pill and understanding intersexual dynamics are universal, and yet it’s never a one-size-fits-all proposition. That’s one of the greatest strengths of the Red Pill community – the manosphere at large – it’s open to all men from all walks of life to contribute their experiences to. It’s also my belief that this ‘open source’ nature of Red Pill awareness should also be protected from elements that would seek to limit it in the scope of race, creed or religious/political stripe.

Simultaneously, this open source nature is also something that frightens Blue Pill believers locked into our feminine-primary social order. The fact that this community is so broad in terms of demographics and socioeconomic levels of the men who seek and find it is something that really threatens the ego-investments of people still trapped in the Matrix of the Village. We discussed this at length in this interview. It’s interesting to me how fluidly Red Pill detractors will reinvent their rationales to the same, very old, debates we’ve been hashing out for years.

We covered a lot of material in this interview, and by that I mean stuff I don’t generally get asked about. The show I’ve linked here is actually 2 hours of what went on for a 3 hour discussion. The first 2 are free of course, but if you want to get the bonus hour Obsidian requires a membership subscription. As I was saying, this show is primarily aimed at a Black audience, and I’m proud to say The Rational Male has an extensive following Black men. It’s always enjoyable to me to get feedback from men in cultures I may not have a foot in. The trials and solutions may be in a different context, but the understanding is very much Red Pill.

So, have  listen here (link in the picture too) and let me know what you think in the comments.

Jack Donovan confirmed for the 21 Convention!

Things at the 21 Convention are getting real interesting lately. Due to scheduling problems (I believe due to his boxing training) Ed Latimore will regrettably not be able to join us in Orlando. I’m understandably bummed about this, but to offset this news we have had another Red Pill heavy hitter who’s just confirmed he’ll be speaking.

Jack Donovan will be a featured speaker this year!

I figure most of my readers know who Jack is, but for those who don’t he’s the author of The Way of Men, Becoming a Barbarian and A Sky Without Eagles and the proprietor of Masculinity and Tribalism.

You can read Jack’s announcement here. This addition really makes this convention a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to attend what’s being called a ‘Red Pill Summit’ now. Myself, Jack, Goldmund, Christian McQueen, Tanner Guzzy, Anthony Johnson, Stonepimpletilists (Married Red Pill sub-red), Ross Jefferies and so many more are going to make this convention something to remember.

Anthony’s informed me that we’re down to the last 45 tickets already. Right now the price for the 4 day event is $999, however this will increase to $1099 beginning June 1st, so if you’ve been on the fence about attending – and maybe Jack’s inclusion decides it for you – now’s a good time to make your travel plans.

You can learn more about the convention from my original post here. And you can always listen to the podcast I did recently with Anthony here.

Feel free to leave and questions or comments about the convention in this comment thread too.