Summary: Respect is a key battleground in the gender wars. It has been stripped from husbands and fathers, one reason young men have less interest in joining the rat race. This dialog with Dalrock breaks new ground in understanding what is happening – and our future.
Dalrock’s comment: going to the heart of the gender wars
On the subject of men acting collectively (and your future post), one change that I think will be crucial will be for men to start respecting respectability, and specifically respecting married fathers.
Ironically the habit of despising married fathers will be the hardest to shake for modern Christians. A big part of this will be resisting the temptation to make ourselves “the only real man in the room”. This also ties in with my comments above (and my post that today’s discussion spawned: Why Game is a threat to our values.) about rejecting the belief that being sexy is the hallmark of virtue for a man.
A popular belief, but quite wrong.
My reply to Dalrock
I had not realized the importance of respect as a front in the gender wars – until you pointed it out. But feminists have well understood this, and made it a focus of their programs.
Respect begins with self-respect. I my 15 years as a Boy Scout leader I saw that many fathers don’t have it. Why should they? America teaches wives and daughters that Dads are secondary in the family (certainly not decision-makers) – and sometimes dolts. Hollywood re-enforces that lesson constantly. Here are two of the latest examples.
The Incredibles 2 trailer gives us a supermom and a Dad dolt. This was a fresh theme in the 1970s. To make it fresh for 2018, they made him a stay-at-home unable to fill his wife’s shoes.
In Netflix’s “Lost in Space” reboot, the wife takes the lead. Maureen Robinson is the “fearless and brilliant aerospace engineer who makes the decision to bring her family to space for a chance at a new life on a better world.”
As you have often written, we have buried in our awareness that wives can to blow up the family at will (e.g., about the holy threatpoint). This gives them the supreme power in a marriage, since the rules of divorce disproportionately benefit them). As Frank Herbert wrote in Dune
“The power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it.”
It has taken six decades of social evolution to take us from the 1950’s “traditional” gender roles to today’s very different. That included stripping away much of the respected given to husbands and fathers. Now the second phase begins – the meToo campaign, fighting the campus rape epidemic and toxic masculinity – all these erode away the self-respect and self-confidence of men.
First steps on the long road back to self-respect for men.
“We have become the scum of the earth, the garbage of the world – right up to this moment.”
— 1 Corinthians 4:13.
Respect begins with self-respect. A man can build his self-respect by himself (just as a man can learn to use Game) — but in practice this is beyond the ability of most men. So men turn to groups to gain respect – both self-respect and respect from society. And sometimes even meaning to their members’ lives.
Examples of organizations successfully doing this abound from the past, the present, and the future. Such as the imperial British Army (recruiting the “scum of the earth,” making soldiers who were feared around the world), the US Marine Corps, the Boy Scouts, the Freikorps, the German Sturmabteilung (stormtroopers), and America’s inner city street gangs. This harsh process works, as seen how the Marines build self-respect in recruits, starting with “Welcome, worms” and ending with “Congratulations, Marines.”
As list shows, building respect is an amoral process. Groups can be socially destructive (barbarians), outright evil, socially constructive, or good. They can reflect our better natures or our dark sides.
Of course, most men young men can develop self-respect with less drastic methods than used by the military. Other organizations can accomplish this, such as civic, political, service, and (perhaps even) sports clubs. But today men have fewer such opportunities, often alienated from their true selves – isolated by the decades of decline in these organizations (as described in Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community
But that is only a temporary problem. Pack formation is hard-wired into men as a survival mechanism (part of our BIOS). It is already happening, at least on a small scale, with the rise of alt-right groups such as the Proud Boys and Identity Evropa – and radical leftist groups like Black Bloc. This shows another important fact: more extreme the pressure on young men from society, the more extreme the packs that form to push back. In my dark moments I fear that history will say that the Greatest Generation defeated fascists and the Baby Boomers created fascists.
This is somewhat true.
Dalrock’s comment: America’s lack of respect for moral men
This is an interesting way to look at respect. I agree that respect is often demanded, and that as such it depends on ability to demand – and not on morality. But if we want men to be moral, we need to respect moral men. If we want children to be raised in homes with married fathers, we need to respect married fathers. It does us no good if men gain respect by doing what is harmful to our society.
I believe that respect is a stronger motivator for men than sex, and obviously sex is a huge motivator. Moreover, our anti-married father family courts are, I would argue, the formal legal codification of lack of respect. I believe this is the most powerful message that we are sending young men, and is in turn driving the drift we discussed above.
The problem I see is that two parallel forces conspired to strip married fathers of respect, and both were due to envy. First, feminism is animated by envy of men, especially the status of men. Second and most importantly, there is the status of the “patriarchy”.
That feminism conspires to strip the patriarchy of respect is obvious. What is less obvious is the conspiracy of the patriarchy itself to rob married fathers of respect. This occurs when higher status men (pastors, fathers of adult daughters, etc.) envy the respect of married fathers who are lower in the chain (e.g., young fathers in the congregation). This envy is rooted in a desire to have all of the young women focusing on themselves, not on their worthless young husbands (or prospective husbands).
If men are to band together to make improvements, calling out this despicable envy and respecting respectability needs to be a priority.
My reply
These are deep waters, discussing complex social dynamics. You are exploring the depths of the gender wars.
(1) “I agree that respect is often demanded”
Demanding respect is one thing. Getting it is another. I believe the time in far away when men can demand and get respect from society. I believe that the steps that will bring that about will be difficult and harsh. But more on that another day.
(2) “But if we want men to be moral, we need to respect moral men.”
Yes, but I believe that will be a result of other changes. We need to assert values. That’s why I believe your new post, Why Game is a threat to our values, was among your best and most important you have ever written. Values are the battleground for the gender wars.
Values are a social construct, hence my emphasis on group action. They are a flag which one or men raise. They become significant if they attract others. We see that at work today with the rise of Islam in Europe and America. Muslims have compelled respect for values which are in opposition to those of the societies to they have migrated. This is what we must do as well.
(3) “{O}ur anti married father family courts are I would argue the formal legal codification of lack of respect.”
I agree. Operationally they are the effect that is caused by our society’s lack of respect for fathers. Until that respect is restored, reform of the family courts is a quixotic quest.
(4) “The problem I see is that two parallel forces conspired to strip married fathers of respect …Feminism conspires…”
As an analyst, I agree. But analytical insights are often poisonous. By portraying men as victims we are acting like girls. That will not help us. We would be better off looking in the mirror and saying “we’ve been weak, and that stops today.”
Of course, that is un-American (as least, in terms of today’s therapeutic value system). Which is why I believe that groups will emerge that allow men to join — admit that they are weak — and transform themselves to strong men.
(5) “If men are to band together to make improvements, calling out this despicable envy and respecting respectability needs to be a priority.”
Exactly! That will be one effect produced by something which causes men to regain their self-respect. But let us not assume that things will get better soon.
“Remember, night is always coming.”
— Said by the great god Ra in Gods Of Egypt.
Coming tomorrow: Dalrock explains that Game is toxic to feminism.
See the other posts in this series
- A return to traditional values.
- Men finding individual solutions.
- Part 1 – An expert discusses individual solutions.
- Part 2 – Discussing women’s responses to men’s solutions.
- Part 3 – An expert sees wonders ahead!
- Part 4 – An expert: respect is a key battleground in the gender wars.
- Part 5 – An expert’s insight: Game is toxic to feminism.
- Part 5 – Rebuilding men’s self-respect is a solution to the gender wars.
- A counter-revolution in society.
More insights from Dalrock about respect
- Disrespecting respectability, dishonoring the honorable.
- We need to focus on respect instead of fairness.
- Tony Katz is too stingy to pay respect.
- No respect.
For More Information
Ideas! For shopping ideas, see my recommended books and films at Amazon.
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about society and gender issues, about feminism, about marriage, and especially these about the counter-revolution…
- 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.
- As the Left’s social revolution wins victories, a revolt begins.
- The coming crash as men and women go their own way.
- MeToo discovers that there is always a counterrevolution.
- The patriarchy built this city and will return after it dies — an article by Phillip Longman in Foreign Policy.
