Summary: Here are some insights, seldom seen, essential for anyone interested in the gender wars. We sail in strange seas, without a map, without goals. Disaster is likely for America unless we do better.
“First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you.”
— Speech by union leader Nicholas Klein (1918).
Dalrock’s important comment: Game is toxic to feminism
This series has been a great primer on the topic. It has been interesting to see how you were able to use our comment exchange to walk through the concepts, blending both of our thoughts.
I don’t think that men are for the most part responding via Game and MGTOW. I think a handful of men are consciously thinking this through and opting for one or the other, but for most men I think it is more about a slow cultural drift that is rational given the new incentives.
Also, I think the most profound threat Game poses to the feminist status quo is not the risk that men will master and practice it, but the different thought processes it encourages. At the risk of oversimplifying the topic, feminism relies on a fanatical devotion to chivalry, and Game is the chivalry destroyer. This was for example Robert P. Murphy’s objection to Game in his “An Essay for Single Christian Men”.
We have a system that requires fanatical devotion to chivalry, and says that the ability to seduce women as the ultimate mark of virtue in a man. Enter Game, which teaches how to seduce women. How can you stop men from learning how to seduce women, when seducing women is your highest virtue? The KGB couldn’t have stopped such knowledge from spreading!
Even worse, you don’t have to actually learn how to seduce women to see that Game is right. This is an existential conflict for feminism.
Editor’s note.
Dalrock wrote a brilliant post expanding on this comment. Why Game is a threat to our values. It is essential reading for anyone interested in learning about the gender wars.
My reply to Dalrock
Thank you for posting these enlightening comments. I’ve learned much from them, as I’m sure readers have.
(1) “Game is the chivalry destroyer.”
I have never before seen that insight. It is beyond brilliant. To feminists, Game is toxic masculinity. It is an expression of masculinity that is literally toxic to modern feminism. To use another metaphor, using Game on feminism is like putting salt on icy roads.
(2) “I don’t think that men are for the most part responding via Game and MGTOW.”
I agree, that’s true today. But what about the future? Social trends tend to grow like bacteria, in an “S” curve. The first phase of the curve – the first stage of the counter-revolution – feels like serious growth to us. If young men turn away from marriage in the next decade, we will be on the vertical part of the “S” curve. Then women will look back at 2018 as the good old days.
(3) “I think a handful of men are consciously thinking this through”
I agree, and will state that more strongly: social changes often result not from people’s rational thought but from people reacting as a group on a “subconscious” level. First, we are pack animals (like wolves). This ability to work together made our species powerful before the inventions of fire and the wheel. Second, we are not, as some economists believe, a collection of analytical engines. We act on what we know, beyond facts and logic.
“Man is not a rational animal; he is a rationalizing animal.”
— From Robert Heinlein’s Assignment In Eternity(1953).
(1953).(4) “The KGB couldn’t have stopped such knowledge from spreading!”
Exactly! Dark knowledge consists of insights denied by society that once learned, change how one sees the world. Such as those Machiavelli gave in The Prince
As you said the KGB, with all its skill and power, could not prevent knowledge of the West’s success from spreading thru the Soviet Union — washing away its foundation.
Dark knowledge about the nature of modern women and the risks of marriage is spreading among young men. They see the revolutionary words by leading women to others: party hard with bad boys, then (when the bloom is off) settle for a nice beta provider (e.g., by Sheryl Sandberg (COO of Facebook) in her best-seller Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead
They see how many women logically play the game even more aggressively: get the party-of-her-life, marriage, and children – followed by divorce, division of community property, receipt of child support, and independence (vivid details here).
This dark knowledge is washing away the foundations of the western family system. Game and Men Going Their Own Ways are early stage reactions to this. The most common reaction is men’s decreased interest in marriage; see Dalrock’s observations below.
Nothing can stop its spread. I believe it will spread until society radically changes. This series is about that process.
Dalrock’s comment about the first sign of the counter-revolution
From the data I’ve been able to gather, nearly all white women are still able to marry. The carping we see now is based on very small numbers of women not being able to marry. …
Almost all white non-Hispanic* women still manage to marry by their late 30s early 40s, but a steadily growing minority of women are reaching their late 30s without ever marrying. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to get the same data set since 2014, so I haven’t been able to look and see how this translated for women in their early 40s. My last look at the data is here: 2014 Never Married Data. Someone on Reddit made a fascinating chart here: Percentage of US Women Who Have Never Married by Age – 1980 vs 2015.
* I broke it out this way as a quick and dirty way to avoid changing demographics from mixing in with other trends. Also, nearly all of the mainstream media figures freaking out about the lack of husband prospects are white UMC women.
My reply
“The carping we see now is based on very small numbers of women not being able to marry.”
That’s a foretaste of the future. In the past decade, increasing numbers of women were unable to marry in their fertile years. The trend is significant even if the numbers are small. The resulting loud screams of pain and rage show the importance of this trend.
My series focuses on today’s young men and women, those who are (roughly) 18-24 years old. What happens to this generation might be an inflection point in our history — if large numbers of these young men refuse to marry when their generation’s young women decide to settle.
What comes next? Will those young women in response change their dress and behavior to attract men into marriage? My wife says that many of them will be unable to do so. Previous generations of women began practicing these skills at 12 years old; she says many of them will be unable to master them at 32. If so, that generation will be train wreck.
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 6 – An expert describes the road to respect for men.
- A counter-revolution in society.
Ideas! For shopping ideas, see my recommended books and films at Amazon.
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More insights from Dalrock
- About serial monogamy: One at a time, please.
- Embracing no fault divorce is the natural result of elevating romantic love to a moral force.
- Courtly Love: The origins of cuckchivalry.
- Cowardly cisgendered men forcing heroic transgendered women to fight in their place.
Books about the new era of marriage
Men on Strike: Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream – and Why It Matters
The Privileged Sex
Forgive me for not addressing Gender wars as a specific topic, I want to look at the whole topic of America rotting from the inside.
I want to approach this in a way that is a little different (for me). Instead of talking about respect and morality I want to ask some questions of myself:
Why do you get a feeling of something being ‘not right’ when ISIS cuts the throat of a man in an orange jump suit? After all we cut many animals throats every day to eat. Is it because of the waste of good meat?
Why is there revolt at cannibalism? I sound like an Englishman who find out that French eat horses and bunny rabbits.
Why do you get a feeling that something is ‘not right’ when Yezidi women are auctioned off for sex as slaves? After all sex is a universal need, why the fuss? Is there something sacred about sex, a woman willingly giving herself?
Why do you get a feeling that something is ‘not right’ when a child of three or two is raped and then has its brains knocked out against a stone wall? Sex is sex right? Children die all the time. We have no difficulty with ripping a child out of the womb and suctioning it down the drain. Is it two years breathing fresh air that we don’t like? Is there something sacred that is violated when life is taken or is it just customary? Its ok to abort babies and euthanise the aged and decrepit but murders and rapist have another standard.
Why do we get excited and hop up and down when someone lies under oath in a court or to congress? We all lie every day. Is it the oath to a imaginary deity that people don’t even believe exists that gets us frothing?
Bringing it a little closer to home: why get upset when your wife ups and offs or your husband finds a younger firmer partner? After all did we really think that that piece of paper and promises made would do the trick?
Now, consider the girl that has just cheated on you. You met her in a pub and after a date or two you bedded her and she stayed for a while, a year or two, you shacked up together and now she has a new lover and you want to get upset? She is not tied to you by a piece of string. What made you think that you were attached to her in any way? Was it because you like the same type of beer or because you have great esoteric conversations while sitting smoking weed?
I ask the same questions when it comes to crime. Why do people get so upset when someone breaks into their houses, steals their goods and crap on the sofa?
Why do we get hot under the collar at so called injustice as if justice was something cast in concrete? Why is it taboo for Harvey Weinstein to grab the bum of an actress that has just stripped down naked and sold her body for a part in a porno movie where she will essentially be paid for sex. Where is the logic? Harvey is paying her for sex by giving her a part that he has the power to withhold. Why the fuss, she has morals that qualify her for the part she plays.
Why is there such a fuss when a pastor or politician watches porn? All they are doing is watching what is done in every bedroom around the country every day. Is it a big deal to crap on the floor in the lounge or on the dining room table in front of the guests? After all we all go to the loo at least once a day, what’s the big deal?
What I want to ask is if there are no absolutes, if there are no clear lines why pretend that there are?
We pour scorn on people that do have absolutes. We think that the bible belters are odd for trying to live according to the dictates of scripture. They are too prescriptive, exclusive, judgmental and excluding.
What I have realised is that our moral code, that code that says that is ‘‘not right’ is based on an underlying bedrock of belief that has been covered by millennia of overburden. When that bedrock is shattered then the moral code is on shaky ground.
When the underlying bedrock is non-existent the moral code is like polystyrene chips on a stormy sea. It floats and looks firm but when any weight is put onto it disappears.
It is worth looking at the bedrock and not worrying about the moral and ethical relativity that it floats on.
Apologies for the long drol. I am up half the night…
What the devil is “Game?”
Philip,
The definition of Game is given in part two of this series (this is part 6): Men find their own solutions to the gender wars.
When seeking the definition of modern jargon, turn to the Urban Dictionary. It has a long and detailed definition; here is the opening.
The mistake so many make in conflict, is they fail to anticipate that the other side will react to protect themselves from new tactics.
One example that comes to mind is when those who raise taxes on individuals and corporations are always surprised that revenues often fall short of what they expected. They often fail to anticipate that those being taxed more, are going make adjustments to protect themselves.
The “feminists” think they are the only ones who can change the rules?
amirlack,
“The mistake so many make in conflict, is they fail to anticipate that the other side will react to protect themselves from new tactics.”
Exactly. As is said often in these posts – “there is always a counter-revolution.”
But men make the exact same mistake. How many articles in the manosphere discuss women’s response to the rise of Game and MGTOW? See chapter 4 of this series: Discussing women’s responses to men’s solutions.
Thoughtful post. The one piece of data that still does not mesh with much of this and especially the link on women’s sexual strategies is that divorce for educated people is still pretty low. In the lower classes things are already a disaster and have often forgone marriage but none of them are marrying people with 6 figure incomes. The majority of people still manage to get married and stay married. Given what is happening and what we see in Europe we will probably not reach a higher divorce rate we will just transition to a culture where most people never get married.
Kevin said:
The one piece of data that still does not mesh with much of this and especially the link on women’s sexual strategies is that divorce for educated people is still pretty low.
The upper middle class is in the “sweet spot” where divorce for the woman means a huge decline in her standard of living. She also has the prospect of social ostracism to deal with since her peers won’t tolerate the presence of an interloper who could remove their own meal ticket. As Fred Reed once put it – “Four’s company, three’s a triangle”. So the low divorce rate there is the exception that proves the rule.
Kevin,
(1) “The one piece of data that still does not mesh with much of this …that divorce for educated people is still pretty low.”
First, perhaps we define “low” differently. Solid data on this is rare, because large samples are needed to see divorce rates by cohort and income. Thirty percent isn’t “low” to me. The Census’ longitudinal data is the only source I trust: “Marriage and divorce: patterns by gender, race, and educational attainment.”
Second, divorce is not the key point. Marriage rates are the key factor to watch. They are falling slowly. Esp watch the generation now 18-23.
(2) “The majority of people still manage to get married and stay married.”
This post says exactly that. But that’s not the point. This series of posts looks to the future, not the past.
How many articles in the manosphere discuss women’s response to the rise of Game and MGTOW?
I’ve seen a few hint at it, although not always in the canonical manosphere. Hacker and blogger Eric Raymond wrote a fascinating article about 5 years ago The true meaning of moral panics. His conclusion that women don’t react well to decline in sexual leverage is hard to argue against. False rape accusations, #metoo, and more draconian anti-male laws aren’t likely to bring men back to the plantation.
It’s probably too late already. The damage from inverting the population pyramid in places like Japan, China, and Germany may be irreversible. The U.S. still has a chance, but it would take continued immigration or an abortion ban. We need way more than a trend reversal. Even if women decide to get married young, they still need to have more babies.
ramman,
(1) “The damage from inverting the population pyramid in places like Japan, China, and Germany may be irreversible.”
You think China and Japan need still more people? Wow. No comment needed.
(2) “We need way more than a trend reversal. Even if women decide to get married young, they still need to have more babies.”
That’s typical conventional wisdom, eyes firmly on the past. IMO that’s quote mad. First, a smaller population will solve many of our ecological problems. We’re on track to a world of ten or twelve billion people. Sustaining them at a high level of prosperity is probably impossible with our current level of tech. Second, we have begun a new industrial revolution — almost certain to result in massive destruction of jobs. Even economists (among the most backward-looking of social scientists) have begun to see this. We need small populations, whom we can intensely educate. Japan is the model of a successful future state.
I could not disagree more. “Game” aside from being a fraud is in no way opposed to feminism. Feminists want men to protect women from crime, to give women business opportunities (paging Elizabeth Holmes), and to make STEM fields more welcoming to women, and by the same token they welcome men working to make themselves more attractive to women. I have had feminists tell me “you just need to get some Game and get a date so you won’t be so bitter.” If I’m lying I’m dying.
Chivalry is a red herring. “Game” similarly teaches a man to make women the center of his reality, and to change anything about himself that is not appealing to them. Whether those changes make the man happier with himself are immaterial.
And, of course, all of this assumes that “negging” and “sarging” and other crap actually works. I’ve seen zero evidence that it does. Whenever I manage to corner a practitioner of this snake oil, they say something like “if I talk to 100 women, 20 of them give me their phone number and 5 of those go out with me.” As if that is a rate of success to brag about. How much would you pay for a headache medicine that had a 5% chance of stopping your headache?
You’re conflating pickup artistry with Game.
They’re not the same thing. Game has applications in pickup; and in fact pickup was the first to use it. But Game also applies to all human relationships in all arenas.
PAT,
(1) That’s the weirdest description of game I’ve ever seen.
(2) “Feminists want men to protect women from crime,”
I suggest you go to a NOW meeting and tell them that, or a women’s studies course. Good luck with that.
(3) “I’ve seen zero evidence that it does.”
Well, since you say so — everybody using it is certainly wrong. Are you speaking ex cathedra or vox dei?
PS–who is the “expert” providing “insight” on picking up women? Dalrock bills himself as a “happily married father”, and good for him for accomplishing that, but that doesn’t make him an expert on picking up women.
PAT,
“doesn’t make him an expert on picking up women.’
That’s an odd comment, since this series gives zero advice about how to pick up women.
ODE TO A TRADCON URGING MARRIAGE TO HIS HARLOT OFFSPRING..
What can ye say to Johnny?
Johnny canna stay..
Ye said it would be well and good
If only we would pray
Ye said if we were men enough
Ye said it could be right
Ye said if we chose well this time
Ye said we lacked the sight
Well now the cradle’s ashes
And now the whore will rule
Well now ye call us fascist
Ye say unlearned fool..
But now I have the right of it…
And now I hold the steel..
You can beg and plead and cry and bleed
And n’er will it be enough.
Do not look for angels, you traded them for whores..
Do not look for charity, tis justice wanted more..
Every flaw a harlot has, every ill deed of her kind
Is reckoned to her personally, forever deemed her mind.
Ask not why whores go lacking, old man..
Ask not why harlot-princess cries..
We only hope you watch them starve..
..and suffer ‘er you die.
Larry, imo your responses to Dalrock’s excellent insight continue to be informational and well thought out. Thank you for them.
This has been a fantastic series.
New first time visitor but came here from TRM and Dalrock.
Another harbinger of the counter revolution. Toys R Us is making excuses for why they failed (too over-leveraged, more long term debt than short term income can cover, like most big box retail chains). But the reason they assert, if true, sure is interesting!
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/watch/toys-r-us-blames-bankruptcy-on-millennials-not-having-kids/vi-BBKqTA9
(Yes my ever-changing moniker is a nod to the original GBFM, who it seems has returned from the portal of Yog Sothoth)
I would like to address some of the certainty of doom that I read by mega 18 March 2018 at 2:35 pm https://fabiusmaximus.com/2018/03/18/dalrock-respect-key-battleground-in-gender-wars/#comments and in this post by ramman3000 19 March 2018 at 10:19 am.
Humans are really good at avoiding catastrophe, and doomsayers are almost always wrong. I am not saying that mega and ramman3000 will be wrong. I want to explore why it is unlikely.
I want to use a modified pareto, evolutionary dynamics and social dynamics to show that even though I think we are in the exponential rise on the S curve, the S curve could be exponentially driven back to its former state. The primary assumption is that men and women are exactly alike, only different. In this case, the Gamers and Breeders I am talking about are both male and female except for the 3rd order effect, since the tribes that the males will be joining will be the ones with desirable females.
The first order effect: where we assume that Breeders average about 4 children and Gamers average supplying about half of that. This is conservative for Gamers since the total is about 2.3 in USA. Breeders median should be about 4. For simplicity we will carry this out with the assumption Gamers and Breeders children keep the same reproductive rate. We will start with Gamers at 75% and Breeders at 25%, and will supply total population replacement. Assume no overlap in time of child bearing across the generations.In three generations Breeders will be about 75% and Gamers about 25%.
Second order effect: we assume that menopause will remain the same. We assume that the trend of Gamers getting older for the first kid will continue. We assume that in order to have more kids that the Breeders will have to start much earlier especially those who have 6 or more children. In this case we will assume that the Breeders will get in 3 generations to the Gamers two. In this case, in 2 Gamers’ generations, they will be down to about 30%. For those not familiar, this is why delaying children is as much as, or more than reducing the number of children for figuring population expectations. I have seen the number of children cited as a reason. Has anybody seen an accounting on what the effect of having children later has had on population replacement? This knowledge of generational impact is 101 for biological studies of populations.
3rd order effect: we assume the pareto discussion by mega is correct. At this point Betas and nominal Alpha Gamers being out competed will start joining the Breeders since it will give them a chance to get what they want. Especially MGTOW. The movement of primate “loners” joining different tribes has been extensively studied. Also, note how that a good assumption is that MGTOW Betas and newly out competed Alphas who sought monetary advantage will be able to seek good females at a young age because of the secondary effect. Thus when we look at the real total population, it also indicates that in the right circumstances, the first and second order effects will encourage the disenfranchised to join a game that offers them winning chances.
E/FM: this recent series has been very good. In both the asymmetrical payoffs of marriage/dating and the “tactics” of male behavior (game)
The tactics are “of the devil” but I have also learned that I am still an animal.
Is it ironic that there are 3 middle age women down the bar tonight and I am watching UFC reruns on the TV?
And posting to FMB of course.
Change like bankruptcy happens slow then quickly.
As the birth rate declines in the working population, and the “new people” don’t get professional wages or even jobs, there will be a decline in tax revenue, just as debt and the retirement wave hits hardest. At this point social tension will be just become toxic and that is not so many years away.
This societal change will snowball and grow, until it hits the stoppers and then where it goes no one knows, left, right up in external wars or down into civil wars, none look that pretty.
The people have voted in a way the government doesn’t like, so in the interests of continuity and harmony the government has elected a new people who are coming over in droves now. Let’s hope they (the new people) like the government, but from what I see they like it even less.
China, Japan, Germany and Italy are all front runners and we are just a few years behind.
Watching with dread,
“As the birth rate declines in the working population, and the “new people” don’t get professional wages or even jobs, there will be a decline in tax revenue,”
Such confident projections are almost always wrong because they look at one change and ignore all the other things happening.
In this case, it ignores the new industrial revolution that is now beginning. That has the promise of dramatic increases in productivity, just as the previous industrial revolutions did. See the many posts about it here.
Anyway, this is way off topic. Let’s stick to the topic of the post.
Feminism is an expensive luxury that only first-world societies can afford. One front in the gender wars you haven’t covered yet is first-worlders breaking out of the system by finding second- or third-world spouses. Old women do this a lot, to the refrain of “My Mohammad is different!!”, i.e. not milking her for cash and a green card like all the others.
On the other side, first-world men sometimes find decent women overseas, as I did. Feminists seem not to like this, and they cracked down on it with IMBRA, which requires US-based matchmaking services to send foreign users a copy of each American’s criminal record, and places a two-per-lifetime limit on fiancee visas unless you get a “waiver”. What does that mean, that I can only have two Natashas but an old hag can get waivers for unlimited Mohammads?
You can of course escape these and any future restrictions by moving to her country and starting a family there, unless your passport has been revoked for unpaid child support. As ever-larger swathes of the country come to resemble Detroit, this may become the preferred option.
” social changes often result not from people’s rational thought but from people reacting as a group on a “subconscious” level.”
This succinctly sums up our current situation and indeed all situations across the millennia. So I wonder how you two can advocate for “banding together” or driving any kind of change through organizing, analysis, strategies or whatever. None of those will change things on the grand scale.
Only one thing will change the situation and how the masses collectively behave: that is the demographics, to some extent racial, but definitely the sex ratio demographics.
Burner,
Are you kidding? History overflows with such successes. See my reply to your previous comment.
Your comment is, however, the most typical reply to my comments about the need for social reform: defeatism and preemptive surrender. Which is why we are in this hole. I have faith that such as you eventually be pushed aside by those willing to act to defend America.
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MGTOW is the defining factor. As more men remain single, we will simply see a change in social structure. The question will be …will men give up their sperm even if women want to take 100 percent responsibility for the child. I am betting against it. Time is the real test. With sexbots on the way, the competition will be interesting to watch between women and technology.
TP,
I agree, sort of. Men will be willing to have fun with girls. That’s biology. But marriage — or having kids (in the modern age) is a choice, made in a social context. A swing of even 20% in the fraction of men willing to marry or have kids would shake our society to the bones.
“Time is the real test. With sexbots on the way, the competition will be interesting to watch between women and technology.”
Well said. With cheap high res porn and intense video games, the competition might already have begun.