Summary: As the Left’s social revolution gains momentum, a counter-revolution brews unseen in America’s back alleys where the wise and great do not go. We can only guess at the results.
“It’s called being female, this strange creature, covered in hair, pinioned between morality and hormones, governed by two brains, one above and one below. We can and should be restrained, tamed, kept under control.”
— “#MeToo and the Taboo Topic of Nature” at New York Magazine.
As the above quote shows, sexism is again trendy on the Left. It is by Andrew Sullivan, in which I replaced “male” with “female” (ignore the political labels given by the media; no conservative would write those words). He sees what is coming.
“But nature will not be eradicated. And when left-feminism denies nature’s power, ignores testosterone, and sees all this behavior as a function entirely of structural patriarchal oppression, it is going to overreach. …If most men are told that what they are deep down is, in fact, ‘problematic’ if not “toxic,” they are going to get defensive … they are going to react. So, by the way, are the countless women who do not see this kind of masculinity as toxic, who want men to be different, who are, in fact, deeply attracted to the core aggression of the human male, and contemptuous of the latest orthodoxy from Brooklyn.
“And men, especially young men in this environment, will begin to ask questions about why they are now routinely seen as a ‘problem,’ and why their sex lives are now fair game for any journalist. And because our dialogue is now so constrained, and the fact of natural sexual differences so actively suppressed by the academy and the mainstream media, they will find the truths about nature in other contexts. They will stumble across alt-right websites that deploy these truths …
“Suppress debate, ban ideas from civil conversation, and you won’t abolish these ideas. You will hand them to the worst bigots and give them credibility.”
Much of America has decided to demonize its young men rather than socialize them (this is madness), making them into the “other” — suspected as inherently evil, marginalized, derided. Many have become wayfarers. Only the military and alt-Right welcome them. Sullivan uses the future tense to describe the counter-revolution, but it has already begun.
Websites that discussed how young men can use “Game” to score have become political (e.g., Chateau Heartiste – see Wikipedia), mirroring the evolution of feminist websites a generation ago. Alt-right men’s groups like the Proud Boys recruit young men alienated from a society that tells them their masculinity is toxic. The /pol/ board on 4chan has become one of the West’s centers of creativity, with a far-right slant. 4chan-ites call themselves “anons” and describe 4chan as “weaponized autism.
Social scientists, good Leftists all (after generations of purging dissidents), are incapable of seeing this, hence the paucity of research about this phenomenon. But as the counter-revolution slowly grows signs of it leak into even the most conventional studies. Such as “Trending Towards Traditionalism? Changes in Youths’ Gender Ideology” by Joanna Pepin and David Cotter at the Council on Contemporary Families. They show data from the Monitoring the Future project, an annual survey of approximately 50,000 8th, 10th and 12th grade students.
“But a very different and surprising trend is evident in attitudes about gender dynamics in families. After becoming more egalitarian for almost twenty years, high school seniors’ thinking about a husband’s authority and divisions of labor at home has since become substantially more traditional.
- In 1976, when they were asked whether “it is usually better for everyone involved if the man is the achiever outside the home and the woman takes care of the home and family,” fewer than 30% of high school seniors disagreed.
- By 1994, disagreement with the claim that the male breadwinner–female homemaker family is the best household arrangement had almost doubled, rising to 58%.
- By 2014, however, it had fallen back to 42% — a decline of 16 percentage points since its peak in 1994.
- In 1976, a majority of high school seniors (59%) disagreed with the statement that “the husband should make all the important decisions in the family.” This rose to 71% by 1994 but fell back to 63% by 2014.”
The authors’ engage in befuddled guessing about the reasons this. They have stumbled over what might be the small start of a revolution, but do not recognize it.
How did we get here?
“Forty years ago, the Left’s fondest hope was that the sexual outlaws of stage and screen would wreck bourgeois sexual propriety beyond repair. The radicals got their wish, to a great extent. But their cultural heirs are not happy with the results …”
— “So many abusers among the liberated” by Kevin D. Williamson describes the sexual revolution and meToo at National Review. He points to the seldom-mentioned fact that a large fraction of prominent #meToo targets are from sectors dominated by the Left.
Max Weber believed that “(c)alculating reason would end up in dried-up, heartless and soulless administration of things without community-forming and sustaining values; feeling would lead to selfish indulgence in superficial pleasures; political commitment would likely foster fanaticism, and it was questionable whether there was enough value-positing energy left in man.” (From Allan Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind
For generations the Left has mindlessly chipped away at the foundations of American society. Now they have penetrated, collapsing the structure and revealing the abyss below. It is a void swirling with unnamed energies, untapped ideas. Nietzsche foresaw this moment.
“But in the present exhaustion of the old values, men must be brought to the abyss, terrified by their danger and nauseated by what could become of them, in order to make them aware of their responsibility for their fate. They must turn within themselves and reconstitute the conditions of their creativity in order to generate values.” (Bloom, ibid.)
The “Transvaluation” has begun, Nietzsche’s term for the revaluation of all values. Leftists have confidence that their revolution has entered the breakout phase, their glory days. Conservatives expect a counter-revolution that will put the cultural toothpaste back in the tube.
I predict that they are both wrong. From their academic fortresses, Leftists have emerged with abstruse theories to remake America. They have shattered the identities of many young men – drugged with Ritalin or other drugs during adolescence, devalued, alienated, tossed into a world in which they see little future in work or family. America’s bogus educational system and its spiritual impoverishment gives them no way to understand or respond. As individuals they retreat to their fatums, their inarticulate self — their core bios. This compels pack formation. Successful packs have a shaman, who gives the pack its values.
None can predict how this process will evolve, other than to say “expect the unexpected.” There are historical precedents beyond counting. Some very good. Some horrifically bad. We will choose our own path, each of us voting by the way we live our lives.
For more information
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about society and gender, about feminism, about romance, about marriage, about Nietzsche, about left-wing politics, and especially these…
- The feminist revolutionaries have won. Insurgents have arisen to challenge the new order. As always, they’re outlaws.
- The war of the sexes heats up: society changes as men learn the Dark Triad.
- The revolution in gender roles reshapes society in ways too disturbing to see— Allan Bloom on relationships.
- A look ahead at the New America, after the gender wars.
- The collapse of gender roles: an unseen revolution with unimaginable consequences.
- Vignettes of men and women in America, alienated from their true selves.
- A brief guide to the new war of the sexes. Both sides are 100% right.
- The Left helps bring us Weimerica, the prelude to big changes.
- Mysteries and ironies of the next new sexual revolution.
From our cultural inheritance: a guide to the coming events
Here are dark thoughts for those people who do not always color inside the lines and who believe we can step outside the chalk lines on the sidewalk: The Anti-Christ
“What is good? — All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man. What is bad? — All that proceeds from weakness. What is happiness? — The feeling that power increases, that a resistance is overcome.
“The weak and ill-constituted shall perish: first principle of our philanthropy. And one shall help them to do so. …
“I call an animal, a species, an individual depraved when it loses its instincts, when it chooses, when it prefers what is harmful to it. …My contention is that all the highest values of humanity have been emptied of this will — that the values of décadence, of nihilism, now prevail under the holiest names.”
I agree that it is not beneficial or productive for women to ignore the hormonal effects of testosterone on male behavior and pretend they don’t exist — because they do — or to somehow imply that there’s something wrong with being a man simply because he’s not a woman. However, in all fairness, some men do go too far with this and try to excuse treating women poorly by claiming that they can’t control themselves when it’s probably a bit more accurate to say that they choose not to control themselves.
This is the 21st Century, not the 19th — women are people, not merely possessions or puppets. A healthy sexual encounter is (or at least ought to be) one which both people consent to and which meets the needs of both…not one which is the result of coercion, insistence, or force. Similarly, a healthy marriage is (or ought to be) one in which both people work together for the benefit of their children — not one in which the husband “makes all the important decisions” with little or no thought for the other people involved. Unfortunately, in my experience, not everyone recognizes the fact that there is a difference between being dominant and being domineering — and women can be just as guilty of that in their own way.
bluestocking,
“some men do go too far with this”
Please, spare us such nonsense. Some women go “too far” with feminism. Ten minutes on the interest will show you that people do that.
One man, one woman and some kids isn’t “natural.” Natural would be women leading society while men fight to the death so we only have to f**k the best one.
— Ally on Tritter, 25 Jan 2018.
“a healthy marriage is …not one in which the husband “makes all the important decisions”
Do you wear a big hat when you cosplay the Pope? Do you go into fundamentalist Islamic schools and give lectures? Do you command the tides to obey your will?
Bluestocking:
I will try not to laugh at your comment, but I am snickering and failing at that right now. :-D
Point #1: It is not just “women ignoring the hormonal effects of testosterone”. It is also ignoring 6,000 years of human behavior and instinct. It is SOCIETY being designed to cater to the whims of women at the expense of men. Things like women receiving 1/7th of a man’s criminal sentence for the exact same crime; women not being prosecuted when caught making false criminal accusations; women legally allowed to divorce rape their husbands; women having preferential treatment fin hiring, college admission, and oh yes, receiving almost 90% of welfare in America today.
Women and their SJW Left are not only ignoring the core realities of life, they are also ignoring the core realities of what it means to be a man. No matter how much they Beta-fy and increase the estrogen levels of males using soy and chemical additives, deep inside each man is a testosterone-filled creature, repressed and yearning to breathe free.
That is why we see pathetic soy-boy Betas going on shooting rampages, from that pathetic loser shooter Cho from Virginia Tech to Nikolas Cruz. They are repressed young men, no success with women for being “too nice” or “boring Betas”, and come under non-stop attacks from a society that demeans, belittles, and represses men are a regular course of action. At some point, they snap.
Point #2: Men go too far with this? Have you seen this Tweet from this very mainstream Feminist demanding women go to Planned Parenthood if they find out they are pregnant with boys, especially male boys?
http://injusticestories.com/i-aborted-my-baby-because-it-was-a-boy/
http://dailycaller.com/2015/02/09/feminist-aborts-baby-for-being-a-boy-shocked-people-dont-approve/
Men go too far?? How about this other Feminist Jenny McDermott demanding women go out and murder random little boys on the street to “prevent it from growing up to repress women”.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2690395/unhinged-feminist-youtuber-issues-crazed-call-for-women-to-kill-all-male-babies-and-any-man-you-see-in-the-streets/
Point #3: The way you define a “healthy sexual encounter” fails to address:
1) Must end where both parties can walk away without fear of a false rape accusation.
2) Women cannot complain if they are “unfulfilled” for whatever reason that may be, since the man simply does not care about her personally at all and she does not care about him at all (you seem to be referring to an ONS as a “healthy sexual encounter”).
3) The psychological consequences of this behavior, where people lose their ability to pair bond eventually and become cynical and less concerned about others.
Point #4: When the man is the “decider” (leader) in the home, he becomes the Captain of that ship. He puts the ship (the home) and the crew (wife and kids) FIRST. Today, the wife wants to berate and Beta-fy the husband to the point he just gives up and relinquishes his responsibility to be the head of the household. The Captain consults his crew to make deicions… or do you think the Captain sails that ship alone, without aid of the staff, telling Captain what is going on inside his ship? :roll:
Finally… Male dominance is a very positive thing that modern women WANT. That is what an Alpha Male is. This “male dominance” can be used in relationships and marriage in a system called Taken In Hand (http://www.takeninhand.com/what.is.a.taken.in.hand.relationship)
This is why marriages worked in the poast and fail now. Women WANT a leader and strong man in their life, otherwise, they will stray or become unhappy. I am speaking from personal experience here.
You cannot deny the inner-workings of men and women. This is why “gender neutral” will fail and create a generation of angry children, abused by parents with this insane social experiment.
You earnestly said birds will go extinct because of feminism. These posts are becoming self-parody.
graniate,
So you have no sense of humor. You have my sympathy.
I don’t know who Ally is — I’m not her, I’m fairly certain I don’t know her, and (whether you believe it or not), i don’t agree with her. I’m not responsible for what other women choose to believe and say — that’s their responsibility, just as you are not responsible for what other men might choose to believe and say. All I can do is state what I believe based on my own experiences and observations and understanding — and even if I were to make an effort to change Ally’s mind, I have my doubts that I would succeed.
Where did i say that a healthy marriage is not one in which the husband makes all the important decisions? All I suggested is that if the husband wants to be the one who makes all the important decisions, he ought to at least take some time to consider how the other people in the family — meaning his wife and children — will be affected by those decisions. How is this unreasonable? An “important decision” which works for him might not automatically work equally well for the rest of them — the implication that the wife and child(ren) should simply go along with whatever a man decides regardless of how it might affect them implies that they’re puppets who have no right to opinions of their own. Similarly, a wife should make whatever decisions which are her prerogative to make with some thought for the needs of her husband and children in mind. Anybody — male or female — who can’t or won’t do that most likely isn’t emotionally ready to get married and most definitely isn’t ready to have children because having children is all about being responsible for another human being’s needs even at the cost of your own. A good leader is someone who makes decisions which will benefit as many of the people under his or her guidance as possible. Leading people is not the same thing as controlling them.
Bleustocking,
Your comments indicate that you’re not hearing what I’m saying.
“I don’t know who Ally is — I’m not her …i don’t agree with her. ”
That’s really missing my point.
“Where did i say ”
Note the quote marks. You should try replying to direct quotes. It would make this a conversation, not a series of lectures from you to the void.
Larry, she is right. She is talking like a sensible woman, and what she is saying is how sensible women and successful raisers of responsible kids behave. And how women in successful marriages behave, too.
Simon,
She is lecturing, asserting her values as if she were God or perhaps the Pope.
“She is talking like a sensible woman,”
Wow. Nice to know that you can judge what sensible women think. Perhaps you can join her on the lecture tour to Mormon and fundamentalist Islamic areas. Do you believe they’re waiting to hear your definitive rulings?
Get out of your bubble. There are other cultures out there. Perhaps — who knows? — some of their values are as “good” as yours!
“if the husband wants to be the one who makes all the important decisions, he ought to at least take some time to consider how the other people in the family — meaning his wife and children — will be affected by those decisions.”
Yes. What on earth is wrong with this?
And an intelligent husband will, even if he is the one making the decisions, understand that his wife should be consulted carefully, because God help us, she may see things he does not. She may have ideas that are important to the decisions. As well, of course, as this will make for a happier marriage.
We are different from each other, and women and men see different things more clearly and more readily.
I have enjoyed this series by the way, and am reading some of the books referred to, finding them interesting, enlightening and thought provoking. Especially in the last few days Cheap Sex and also Tenured Radicals. Very interesting indeed, and thanks from bringing them to our attention.
Simon,
If it so obvious and certainly true, than all human societies must follow your advice! Q.E.D. Why bother saying it? Next up: the Sun Rises In The West!
Or — perhaps everybody doesn’t agree with you. Who knows, perhaps they might be just as smart as you — but see different facts and have different values. You will be amazed at what you will see outside the bubble.
I am not really clear about these issues in their totality, at the moment I just have somewhat disconnected thoughts and observations, and I’m adding to insight based on recent readings. So all this is rather tentative. But here are some thoughts.
Societies in which men are totally dominant seem to have to have very severe repression of women. One thinks of Saudi, the Iranian clothing police, the African and Islamic societies in which FGM is practised.
Its seems at least possible to me that the point of the fundamentalist Islamic restrictions is actually to protect women from men, and men from the consequences of having their women family members abused by other men.
There may be real biological differences under some of these cultural differences. It is, as I think an anthropologist pointed out once, curious and striking that as we move North West across Europe, the women wear less, are less controlled and more independent, go out and have friendships and work, and men fight over them less. Also the people become paler and there are more blue eyes….
I think a married man who does not consult his wife on any important decisions is an idiot. He is depriving himself of a different and potentially valuable point of view and perspective.
The age of expensive sex in the West, as in the repressive societies but rather differently, had enormous costs for men and boys of the same sort of thing that you describe today resulting from feminism, but the form it took was very different. In English boarding schools the energy devoted to sexual repression and the culture of shame and guilt in middle class society generally took a huge toll. Masturbation hysteria and shame was alive and well in England well into the late fifties.
Sexual control takes an enormous amount of energy and can have quite dire psychological consequences. Some wag said he always seduced the wives of ex public-school (in the English sense) men, because they were so starved of any human contact.
Yes, you can segregate the sexes, and you can produce considerable levels of chastity of a sort, but there is a real price. If you read some documents from the early part of the 20C you will see this realization coming to light. This is what ‘The Good Soldier’ is about, and of course it is a constant theme in D H Lawrence (not a writer I admire, but his merit for this purpose is you can see clearly the culture he was struggling with).
My own mother was an old fashioned feminist, of a kind that has probably now died out. She believed in equal pay for equal work, she thought women should be free to realize their intellectual potential to the full – she grew up in an era when to marry would mean you could no longer work in many places. And she also believed that women have a primary role in child raising, and that conditions of employment and society should take account of and facilitate that.
In short, she wanted to work, and she passionaltely wanted children, she wanted to be married, and she managed to have all three. I think she may have been slightly astonished and a bit appalled by her discoveries about the raw nature of the male animal, when she had an adolescent son in her house. But she managed to find her way through it.
I am inclined to think that the baby is being thrown out with bath water. The current day life of “friends with benefits” or repression.
I am married I work full time, my wife part time, as I earn more per hour, plus the children prefer their Mother at home ( both my son and daughter). compared to their Father.
Consultation has always been the way of better marriages, my grandfather and grandmother who lived and fought in WW1 planned things together and grandma did the “books’ , as she was better at them. She never worked once she was married, but ran the accounts and was my grandfathers rock.
Today, we need two wages in most classes of work, to pay the bills.
I like to hunt, I hunt with a couple of guys and enjoy the male friendship, my wife likes Tennis and watches it with some girlfriends; We plan together. My Father once told me the only way to think of marriage is like a row boat drifting from the shore to ever deeper water. If you pull on the oars together you have a steady journey, if you go in different directions the ride is not comfortable. In time you learn to pull together or if you don’t, get out the boat early and try to get to shore and start again. The swim back will be cold and hard, so don’t do it unless the ride is getting too rough. My father had taken that leap in the water and started again, as have I.
I think you missed a third major place radical Islam. We are seeing the rise in Indonesia with the current election, and quotes like never let an infidel rule over you.
I think families need to learn to pull together as Alt Right and Islam are in a head on clash, with as Jo’Burgh shows a world running out of water and other resources.
Stuart,
Thanks for sharing your perspective from Indonesia! Note, however, that this website is about conditions in America (except for articles stating otherwise). We don’t presume that what we see here applies to the rest of the world!
“I think you missed a third major place radical Islam. We are seeing the rise in Indonesia with the current election, and quotes like never let an infidel rule over you.”
I’m sure you’re correct. It is not, however, big in the US. My guess is that it will not become big in the US (unless we allow in massive numbers of Islamic migrants, as the Left would like to). Our culture is a universal solvent.
“Alt Right and Islam are in a head on clash”
The rise of an explicitly nationalist, ethnic, pro-Christian alt-Right is the almost inevitable result of EU elites’ attempt to radically change their people’s culture — without consent. I don’t know if that clash is appearing outside Europe. It’s an interesting question.
“with as Jo’Burgh shows a world running out of water and other resources.”
We are not “running out” of any resources. Population and economic growth have increased the demand for some resources (e.g., fresh water) above the supply. Mis-management is making this worse in many nations (esp less developed nations). There are solutions (e.g., see how Israel manages its water), but they require more social cohesion and political skill than many nations have. This problem will grow worse at population grows to its peak in the mid-21st century (probably followed by a long slow decline, as the collapse in fertility takes hold).
I hear that great things can have small beginnings, but things like Red Pill and 4chan strike me more as men adapting to a broken society than an actual counterrevolution, or a real attempt at reform. They have no power and they hold no ground. They say despair is sin, but I find it hard to be the least bit optimistic about this. This country’s disaffected young men may crystallize into a Movement, but I’m afraid it’s later than most people think, and I’m not sure who;s going to lead it.
Or I could be too pessimistic. Maybe I’m like Berchtold, the foreign minister of Austria-Hungary, who, when warned that a war might provoke revolution said “And who will lead this revolution? Mr. Bronstein sitting over there at the Cafe Central?”
The Man,
“like Red Pill and 4chan strike me more as men adapting to a broken society than an actual counterrevolution, or a real attempt at reform.”
Problem recognition is the first and most difficult step in the process. Taking the first steps to act is a close second in difficulty. As this post describes, that’s already happening. The rest will happen, just like a ball tossed off a cliff will continue to fall. Success, let alone pleasant success, is of course not guaranteed.
“I’m not sure who;s going to lead it.”
Movements automatically produce leaders. That is in humanity’s core program, our BIOS (so to speak). The difference between successful societies and failed states is the nature of the leaders. During the existential crisis of the Great Depression the US got FDR and Germany got Hitler. Their solutions were somewhat similar (initially) — see Wolfgang Schivelbusch’s Three New Deals.
“Maybe I’m like Berchtold”
That is a good example. Count Leopold Berchtold was born in 1862. He died during WWII. When the dust settled after WWII, Hungary was a radically different society than the one he was born in — socially, economically, and politically. Revolutions come, often unexpected and in the night. One has to listen carefully to hear their early signs.
“The rise of an explicitly nationalist, ethnic, pro-Christian alt-Right is the almost inevitable result of EU elites’ attempt to radically change their people’s culture — without consent. I don’t know if that clash is appearing outside Europe. It’s an interesting question.”
India ? Since the 8th century, resulting in the biggest genocide in history of mankind.
Conan,
“Since the 8th century, resulting in the biggest genocide in history of mankind.”
And how is that similar to the modern alt-Right movement. That’s the equivalent of saying the modern Left is similar to that of Stalin and Mao, who produced the two biggest genocides (in absolute numbers) in history.
Tying modern phenomena to previous extreme regimes to discredit them is an old game, tossing chaff into the discussion.
Islam. You may not like it but Islam’s strength is why it will survive as Christianity declines
Deepthought,
Yes, that pretty much says it all.