Rebuild respect for men to end the gender wars

Larry Kummer, Editor

8 years ago

Summary: Dalrock discusses respect as a way to end the gender wars. He breaks our dialog out of the manosphere rut onto a new and promising path to the future. It won’t be easy.

“I offer a toast to the future, the undiscovered country.”
— Klingon Chancellor Gorkon in “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country“.

Dalrock: the road to respect for men

“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.’” {My comment in this post.}

Excellent point. This is in line with what I had in mind though. I’m not begging for another man’s respect. I’m saying as leaders we need to be respectable. Part of this is being miserly with respect towards other men when due. When our daughters are old enough to seek a husband, we should not behave in the weaselly way of the culture. As in the famous Rules for dating a drill instructor’s daughter (see my rebuttal: Cartoonish chivalry, drill instructor edition).

Likewise we should exhort our pastors to respect respectability in the congregation, especially the younger men who are doing it right but just coming up. We also can lead this by respecting our own fathers and fathers in law. Not a perfect fit, but this is related: Scaring away the competition.

My reply: what leaders?

Now this dialog becomes even more interesting. We have pushed it forward to the points at which we disagree. Unsurprisingly, they concern the undiscovered country, the future. More specifically, about how men can regain their self-respect – and respect of society. Without that, I believe men will continue to withdraw from the “rat race” and no longer be the engine of American society.

(1) “I’m saying as leaders we need to be respectable.”

I agree, but it is a secondary point. More importantly, we should ask who are the leaders of America’s young men (18 – 28 years old). Do they have anyone whom they follow? Do they want leaders (i.e., to be followers)? Our youth organizations all train boys to be leaders, not followers (and do so badly).

Our recent mass protest movements – the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street – were noteworthy for their rejection of having leaders. That is one reason they were peasant protests, not effective political activism (for details see Occupy & Tea Party are alike, both saving America through cosplay).

The great theme of this series is that the counter-revolution to feminism will come in two forms. First, men refusing to marry women because the risk – benefit ratio marriage is unacceptable. Second, the more powerful counter-revolution will come from groups. Men (and women) standing together, probably asserting new values. As I briefly noted in several previous chapters (e.g., in chapter 6) that like Weimar, we probably have passed the point at which these new groups will be respectable.

(2) “Likewise we should exhort our pastors to respect respectability”

That would be useful. But I’ve been in Baptist churches in the NE and California for 30 years, and I see few 23 year old men. I’ve seen much research on church attendance by age and by gender — but never by both. I suspect that such research (it is out there) shows that young men have low participation in most American churches.

Churches still have a role in molding children and older adults. But America’s major churches have a long road ahead until they become a major force in the lives of America’s young men.

Dalrock: harsh training to create self-respect

“I believe that men give respect automatically as deserved. It begins with self-respect. This process can be accomplished by an individual, but is more commonly done by groups. The Boy Scouts, the imperial British Army (recruiting the scum of the earth, making soldiers feared around the world), the US Marine Corps, the Friekorps, the German Sturmabteilung (stormtroopers) – and perhaps the Proud Boys and Identity Evropa (I know little about the last two, but they should be watched as cutting edge phenomena).” {My comment in this post.}

The boot camp model is a fast food path to respect, and while it is suited to some purposes (e.g., quickly making Marines, forging a sports team) it hasn’t served us well in raising young men. There is a place for such methods, but not in front of the wife and children, and it shouldn’t be a never ending process. I made my case in this regard here: God’s Drill Instructors (language warning.

My reply: harsh training is a path to self-respect

This is the key point of this dialog, the transition from talking about largely futile responses to the gender revolution by men as individuals – to men responding as groups. Standing together to assert their values and their interests.

“The boot camp model is a fast food path to respect”

First, a quibble. I do not believe that is an accurate analogy.

Running a successful “boot camp” is the opposite of fast food. It is difficult, requiring trained workers. It takes time. Marine Corps boot camp is 13 weeks of intense full-time training, and is just first phase of their training. In Boy Scouts we had boys for many years, ideally six. That was not a day too long to influence their lives, and we have a low success rate.
“Boot camp” is a transformational one-time process. It is the opposite of “a never-ending process.” (IMO that is also true of Game. The idea of using Game on wives is imo delusional.)
Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts train children with the help of both mothers and fathers.

My second objection is the key to this discussion. I’m looking ahead to what might happen in the future, leaving behind thoughts about what I would like to happen. I disagree with the dream, don’t act crowd (“let’s wait till the great day when men rise up and smite their whatevers”). While I believe effective solutions are possible, I also believe we have passed the point at which nice methods will have any substantial effect – or are even feasible.

“Boot camps” are an example of effective men’s groups at work. When well-run, they forge men with self-respect and imbued with the group’s values. The harsher the environment the group faces, the more extreme the training of the “boot camp.”

Most of our existing civilian social organizations have failed under the stress of the gender revolution. Creating new ones requires herculean efforts. I expect that they will use tools like boot camps (in some form).

Conclusions

“I offer a toast to the future, the undiscovered country.”
— Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

Facts and logic are useful for planning, but action will come only from our core essence. What I call our BIOS, our core programming. Pack formation is the early stage of that process. Creation of new values will provide the power. Unless we have more luck than we deserve, this process won’t be pretty.

Much depends on the leaders that create these groups. The West is what it is because in dark times we got men like Charlemagne (the Holy Roman Empire, restoring peace, learning, and trade) and William the Conqueror (enforcing the King’s Peace with his policy of the “strong arm).

In the dark days of the 20th century Germany got Hitler, Russia got Stalin, and America got FDR. That is the harsh workings of the Great Circle of Life. The following describes its working, which applies to a society’s leaders, not just its government officials.

“Every nation gets the government it deserves.”
— Joseph-Marie, comte de Maistre (1753–1821) was a Savoyard lawyer, diplomat, and philosopher. From a letter of 27 August 1811 published in Lettres et Opuscules.