Summary: We are changing the core values of our society without thought or care. Such as our definitions of virtue and the value of chivalry. Here Dalrock describes this revolution and a post-chivalric America.
This material in this post is old hat to most young men. They have grown up in a world in which only fools are “white knights” (women either mock or exploit them) and chivalry is for losers (women prefer bad boys). We have changed a distinguishing characteristic of western culture with little thought for the consequences. It is a revolution with few precedents in history. Only time will reveal the results.
Here Dalrock explores these intangible changes in our society, developments we can only subjectively sense and try to describe. Only time will reveal their nature.
A note about chivalry – It is a real thing, not just being nice to women. While its meaning has changed over the past thousand years, it has always been a core value in western society. As evidence that this is no longer so, see the fierce hostility to it on Wikipedia.
“Why Game is a threat to our values.“
By Dalrock.
You may have heard of a concept called “Game.” Probably you suspect that this concept poses a dire threat to our most cherished values. You are correct. Game is fundamentally incompatible with our values and erodes the foundations of our society. Even the proponents of Game agree!
Chivalry and the virtuous man.
Feminists may object to the concept of chivalry, but it is closely related to how we measure the virtue of a man. Moreover, without chivalry feminism would be ineffectual, as feminism is the belief that men are evil and naturally want to harm women, followed by pleas to men to solve all of women’s problems. I hereby dub this Dalrock’s Law of Feminism.
While chivalry is closely related to how we measure the virtue of a man, a man’s chivalry is not how we measure a man’s virtue. In our society, a man proves his virtue by his ability to seduce women. I don’t mean this merely in the sense of locker room boasting or the values of a small group of “pickup artists”. I mean this in a much more fundamental sense.
As a society, we are obsessed with generating sexual attraction in women. We see this ability as the purest test of goodness in a man. A woman’s feelings of sexual attraction are a mystical force, godlike for non-Christians, and God’s message for Christians. We can’t see how crass this is because we call it romantic love, but romantic love is far more intertwined with sexual desire than we are willing to admit. Our very concept of romantic love connoting virtue comes from the same 11th century poetry that brought us the idea of chivalry. To truly seduce a woman is to make her fall in love with you.
Generating the tingle (attraction) is an obsession with our society, and you can see it in our popular films. The Fifth Element
We believe that good things should happen to men who can generate the tingle. This is why we reserve our daughters’ most sexually attractive years as a reward for such men. Our greatest fear in doing this is that our daughters might become confused and bestow their gift of sex on the wrong (unsexy) men. Luckily there’s an app for that.
This is also why we need no-fault divorce and child support. It is important that we encourage men to settle down and become fathers, and yes it is important that children have the immense benefit of growing up with their fathers. These are good things, but when these objectives interfere with our core values, it is our core values that must prevail. What court in the land could overrule the woman’s sexuality? If she no longer tingles for the father of her children, he deserves to be ejected from his children’s lives and have a more sexy man take his place. Think of the vitriol we heap on men who dare to complain when this happens to them. They are the lowest of the low in our society, except perhaps for those most detestable men of all, the omegas who can’t attract a woman at all.
All of our sexual morality is directly anchored to the tingle. The #metoo movement doesn’t object to women trading sex to get ahead, it objects to the fact that in doing so such women are enticed into having sex with unsexy men!
What about virtue in women?
While the ability to generate sexual attraction is how we measure virtue in a man, we measure virtue in a woman by her ability to be strong and independent.
Bad women are doormats with low self-esteem who commit the cardinal sin of being untrue to themselves. Good women are strong and independent, and most of all, true to themselves. All of our moral messaging to young girls is designed to spur them to fight against the temptation to conform to someone else’s idea of what is good. In the UK the Girl Guide vow has changed over time from obeying God to be true to myself and develop my beliefs.
Every girl in the west can sing along with the moral message from Disney’s Frozen
“Be the good girl you always have to be
Conceal, don’t feel,
don’t let them know
Well now they know …
“And the fears that once controlled me
Can’t get to me at all
It’s time to see what I can do
To test the limits and break through
No right, no wrong, no rules for me,
I’m free!”
This is because we strongly believe that women deep down have a mystical gift for understanding what is truly good, which is why a woman falling in love with a man is the purest sign of his virtue.
Chivalry keeps our concepts of male and female virtue in harmony.
As I already noted, chivalry is what converts feminist demands into concrete action. But chivalry is also the way we reconcile the concepts of male and female virtue. Our unstated assumption is that being chivalrous is sexy. This is why Game is such a corrosive concept in our society. Game teaches that chivalry is an attraction killer, and that women are instead attracted to a host of traits that are neutral at best.
The problem is that young men now can see that Game works. This is true even though few men can master Game in practice. The men who fail at seduction can see the men who succeed. They learn the painfully truth that chivalry is an attraction killer. Making it worse, not only are young men highly motivated to have sex – but our society is ordered around the belief the ability to seduce women is the mark of virtue in a man.
Even if a man rejects Game on the grounds that premarital sex is immoral, he still has to grapple with the fact that sexiness is the mark of male virtue in our society – and most Christians agree. As Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr. (President of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) explains.
“Put most bluntly, I believe that God means for a man to be civilized, directed, and stimulated toward marital faithfulness by the fact that his wife will freely give herself to him sexually only when he presents himself as worthy of her attention and desire.”
The threat that Game poses is not that large groups of men will learn how to put it into practice. Rather it assaults young men’s belief that chivalry is sexy (atttactive to women) and therefore virtuous. Even worse, a young man need know nothing of Game to be at risk of concluding that chivalry isn’t sexy. This insight is slowly making its way through our culture.
Game is corrosive to our moral order because attempts to counter it make the corrosion worse. Lectures on the importance of chivalry will be met with ridicule, since chivalry is unsexy. Lecturing men to be unsexy for the sake of virtue will likewise fail because our very definition of male virtue is sexiness.
It will get worse from here, because as Game dissolves the moral case for chivalry it dissolves the foundation for sustaining feminism. This in turn jeopardizes the virtue of women by making it harder for women to be true to themselves. Without chivalry converting feminist theory into practice, millions of women will find it harder and harder to stop trying to be good girls and adopt a “No right, no wrong, no rules for me” attitude.
Game is destroying our most cherished values, our very concept of virtue. As a Christian all I can say is this destruction can’t happen quickly enough.
By Dalrock from his website, 16 March 2018.
Reposted with his generous permission.
———————————-
About Dalrock
He is a married man living with his wife and two kids in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. He is very interested in how the post-feminist world impacts himself and his family, and uses his blog to explore these issues. See his website. and his posts about marriage, about fatherhood, and especially these posts ….
- Modern Christian culture’s deep antipathy for fathers.
- Updated U.S. Custody and Child Support Data (2015).
- Erasing “fathers” from Scripture.
For More Information
Ideas! For shopping ideas, see my recommended books and films at Amazon. Also, see a story about our future: Ultra Violence: Tales from Venus.
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about women and the gender wars, about romance, about marriage about divorce, and especially these …
- Is a return to traditional values possible?
- Society changes as men learn the Dark Triad.
- Game is toxic to feminism.
- Red Pill knowledge is poison to marriage.
- Women unleash their rage! Beta males revolt!
- A bull elk teaches men about toxic masculinity.
- The death of romance in America.
- Fourth-wave feminism on TV, shaping a new America.
Two major books about modern marriage
The classic: Men and Marriage
Men on Strike: Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream – and Why It Matters
And sadly … dalrock just announced he is shutting the blog down.
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2020/01/22/farewell-for-now-at-least-and-thank-you/
I remember the time I got yelled at for holding the door open for a woman. I didn’t even know it was a woman, it the person behind me. Just trying to be nice because I was still waking up.
Then i started researching feminism. I have not helped a woman since then.
Sven,
A common story these days. I wonder about the results of this change, creating a world where men believe their larger size and strength need not be restrained by chivalry.
“Then I started researching feminism. I have not helped a woman since then.”
I’ve researched patriarchy. I have also experienced and witnessed some of its evil effects. I have experienced and witnessed bad treatment by individual men. Yet, I maintain good relations with a wide circle of men and I help men all the time. I advise that approach as a far happier way of being in the world.
Margaret,
When you offer to help men, how many snarl at you “I can take care of myself” (or some equivalent)? It’s a staple reply in films, and one most guys have encountered. Quite discouraging.
In any case, the signs of gender war by women appear in the newspapers every day. Expecting men not to react is delusional.
Larry,
Of COURSE I’ve experienced rudeness from men when I have attempted kindness or an offer of assistance!!!! It is extremely threatening or “emasculating” for some men to accept help from a woman, especially if the help or kindness implies that the woman has greater power or expertise. Try getting the check some time as a woman and perhaps you will see what I mean!
It’s not the norm but it’s also not the norm for women to snarl at men who hold doors for them – movie tropes, notwithstanding.
But it’s true that many women don’t love the door opening custom (though others do) – and it might be worth asking why that should be.
Margaret, the difference is the “Christian Patriarchy” cultures under attack taught Chivalry as the highest ideal of men. This means that the core principles of that culture taught respect and protection for women.
The men who failed to uphold this reliably were NOT REWARDED by the Christian Patriarchal system though they did still tend to be in families. Many of the horror stories of the past are of the communities trying to deal with the fact that this behavior was unacceptable but difficult to resolve, especially in a marriage, without leading to what we now know of as the consequences of an entire generation of kids without complete families at the slightest hint the man is failing to live up to the highest standards set by Christian Patriarchy.
Feminism actively teaches women to be hostile to men who are nice to them.
These are not apples and oranges.
razzle,
“Feminism actively teaches women to be hostile to men who are nice to them.”
That’s fourth-wave feminism, the search for superiority. Not so the first three waves, the search for equality.
This kind of shift is commonplace in revolutions, as their intial pleasant goals are replaced by more extreme ones. This was the evolution of the French and Russian revolutions. Neither ended well for their societies.
@Razzle
“Margaret, the difference is the “Christian Patriarchy” cultures under attack taught Chivalry as the highest ideal of men. This means that the core principles of that culture taught respect and protection for women.”
Chivalry as Dalrock notes is actually anti-Christianity. Christianity without Chivalry would still embody the values of protection and treating women in human dignity “Made in the Image of God”.
But it is a serious parody of Christianity and is destructive in its own way. So much as helping to fuel the very feminism that attacks Christianity by attacking the Patriarchal family.
Notable silence in regards to Muslim misogyny comparatively speaking. Whilst lambasting the modelling of Husbands and Wives after Jesus Christ and his relationship with his people the church.
info and Razzle,
This is a common cause of confusion. In societies, labels for behavior and ideology remain fixed while their meanings change. As the Wikipedia entry for “chivalry” explains, its meaning has drastically changed during the past thousand years. This is true today for “feminism” – the first three waves were the quest for equality, the fourth the quest for superiority.
Dalrock points to a deeper phenomenon, although he does so unclearly. Neitzche called it the “eternal recurrence” – cultural patterns of the past re-emerge and repeat in new form. So it is with chivalry. It originally referred to the basics of being a knight – possessing a horse and knowing how to use it, things impossible for one of lower class. As that form of warfare became obsolete, chivalry became a parody of Christianity – entertainment for the aristocracy. At that time, peasants didn’t marry (in any sense we recognize today) – and the whole courtly love gig was another means of distinguishing the classes.
But now some of the patterns of the “courtly love” fiction have returned – but taken seriously (or used seriously) by feminists and their allies. Men’s humiliation is virtuous and deserved. Dalrock has documented this amazing phenomenon to a high degree, although it a violation of PC to mention it in the mainstream media.
I disagree. The very first wave of feminism was the pursuit of bonuses without trade-off. Despite what some of those feminists of old who now cringe at their heirs say, they never once requested more responsibility to go with their equality.
The first three waves didn’t reciprocate any new inverted equality to men. They only sought to add benefits while also hoping to retain ALL EXISTING built in expectations flowing from the masculine to the feminine.
Now, unintentionally, those first three waves wound up granting ever increasing power to the Alpha Phucks but they weren’t intending to and despite many attempts by later and later stages of feminism to counter this they just keep accidentally granting it more and more “equality”.
razzle,
“The very first wave of feminism was the pursuit of bonuses without trade-off.”
That’s not even remotely correct. The first wave of feminists were the suffragettes – seeking the right to vote. See Wikipedia.
They were in many ways quite different from later waves of feminists. Many were “militant” – aka violent terrorists. From the Wikipedia entry.
Later waves of feminism more effectively appealed to men using non-violent means, and score successes on a far greater scale.
Razzle,
Thank you for your interesting comments. The supposed “respect” afforded to women under chivalry may indeed have been an improvement over how women were treated at the time chivalry became an ideal. But it is impossible to view chivalry as embodying “respect” in an absolute sense because it has never involved any kind of sharing of power with women in society or even within our own homes (notwithstanding the rule of certain outstanding queens).
Indeed, if anything, vocations of chivalry in modern society generally embody a support for traditional gender roles that place women in a subordinate role. It’s a form of paternalism. It’s also a kind of cute “gotcha” directed at feminists – “What’s wrong with you not wanting us to be nice to you while we put you in your place?” That is why many women often react negatively to the idea. Are feminists hostile to the men who are nice to them – or is that niceness perhaps not always so nice?
Info,
You ask why mysogyny in the Islamic world is not called out as much as mysogyny in the Christian world. The answer is that it absolutely is – you just don’t hear about it as much because our society is predominantly Christian or of Christian heritage. Interestingly, non-feminist Muslims use the same defenses that appear in this thread – i.e. that Islam represented a significant improvement in women’s station compared to the past, and that Muslims protect and venerate women (obviously not in a way that involves actual power sharing, however).
Razzle,
You say that feminists ” never once requested more responsibility to go with their equality.” That’s straight up false.
Fighting our way into all aspects of the labor force meant having to perform in a variety of difficult and stressful jobs. Alimony has changed to reflect that most women are now able to earn a decent income. We share the burden of supporting our families – often while also performing most of the childcare and household responsibilities. The criminal law has changed to recognize that a woman’s seduction of an underage boy is a crime just as much as the other way around. Girls and women have sued to be permitted to register for the selective service. We have more female public figures in politics and business -and they are subject to the same, if not more, criticism and accountability.
Feminism is all about wanting to break away from the stultifying paternalism in which women did had neither responsibility nor a voice.
@Larry:
“The first wave of feminists were the suffragettes – seeking the right to vote.”
Seeking the right to vote (when even many men couldn’t by the way) without a conversation about taking on the inherent cultural burdens and as a whole as a gender reliably performing equally with the men who WERE rewarded for doing so… is seeking a bonus while also assuming you will still get all the inherent cultural privileges of NOT being masculine.
Remember, there were women involved in how the state was run long before voting was granted to every female just for being female. They took the mantle of responsibility and represented their gender well.
The demand to vote “because gender” is what kick started this shit show.
@MARGARET
“Feminism is all about wanting to break away from the stultifying paternalism in which women did had neither responsibility nor a voice.”
Women were exercising responsibility and voice for millennia before feminism got involved. Businesses, monarchs, legislators, whatever.
I find your dismissal of the people who came before you, particularly the women, the paternalistic attitude.
Without your feminism all these poor weak women would be left vulnerable.
Or maybe, MOST WOMEN through all time and well into the future don’t want, enjoy, thrive, grow, feel satisfied, or seek to live according to the minority of feminists that are trying to be boys that people will still jump to defend without question if she and a guy get too heated in their conversation without hearing the conversation.
Razzle,
Yes, women have often found ways to thrive in various times and places even as second class citizens. It doesn’t change the fact that they were still second class citizens. Stating the bare facts is not disrespectful in any way to the women involved.
You are being disingenuous. Stating the political reality women faced in past eras is not disrespectful to those women. You think it is somehow more respectful to pretend they were equal citizens when the laws and cultural norms clearly mandated that they weren’t? A 19th century businesswoman without the vote may have found ways to thrive economically – but she still didn’t have the vote. And I might add she was subject to all sorts of laws and cultural norms that placed her at a disadvantage in a variety of ways. Pointing that out in no way implies any weakness on her part.
Your comments also seem contradictory. On the one hand, you seem to say women were contributing in all sorts of ways to society before feminism but on the other hand, you say that women were granted the vote without establishing that they had contributed enough to earn it. So in your view, women were kinda contributing but not enough to deserve the vote? Is that it?
Also, if you want to say women were just given the vote “because gender,” surely men being given the vote based on their gender happened first.
Razzle,
You refer in the comments to the “minority of feminists that are trying to be boys.” Are you referring to trans people here? I don’t see how the trans issue is relevant? Yes, you are right. Most women, including this one, don’t want to be boys.
@Margaret
Most men alive in the past were 2nd class, 3rd class, 4th class, underclass citizens too.
Most of those men had as their daily priority, making life more comfortable for a woman.
To just blanket assign women “2nd class” status is a paternalistic attitude. To dismiss the ability of a top 10%er woman to guide events affecting massive populations through a pliable man is a paternalistic attitude.
The point I’m making, is that at NO TIME, did the requests for extra involvement (voting, whatever) include an assumption that existing cultural protections and bonuses would be dropped.
You over-rate voting, because a DUDE told you it was more important than every other power creation granted you for thousands of years to participate and direct where humanity went. If one vote in a process proven to be broken out of a million matters, one mother focused entirely on her family out of a million matters more.
razzle,
“Most men alive in the past were 2nd class, 3rd class, 4th class, underclass citizens too.”
That is an important point, one delusionally ignored in much feminist literature. In most past societies in the West – and to some extent everywhere – the average people lived so close to the edge that the difference between men and women was how they suffered. To speak of privilege under such circumstances is nutty. Fictional history. Agitprop.
Razzle and Larry,
You are both quite right that most men throughout history have been 2nd, 3rd, and 4th class citizens, and even slaves (as have most women). But what you are not noticing is that women have inevitably been secondary to the men in their demographic. There were women in the ruling class but they were generally subordinate to the men of the ruling class. Likewise, women in the working class were subordinate to their husbands in the working class. And on and on.
Now that’s not to say that there have been DISADVANTAGES to being male. Being used as canon fodder in wars would be a big one. But that’s not quite the same thing as being secondary in status. Men have generally always had more power and authority than their women, even if they also suffered major disadvantages.
Larry argues that concern for the disadvantages men face is absent from feminist literature. I doubt that’s true at all. Feminists have often recognized the way patriarchy harms men. In any case, it is not fair to consider the issue by looking at feminists AS feminists. The term “feminism” itself implies a special concern for women’s rights. But when you look at what feminists actually do and say when they aren’t being specifically identified as feminists, you see that feminists have an extremely strong track record of being at the forefront of fighting injustices faced by men, as well as women Feminists were heavily involved in the abolitionist movement, the anti-lynching movement (lynching being a crime most often perpetrated against black men), the civil rights movement, the ’60s movement to fight the draft (an issue that affected ONLY men directly), the labor movement, and the prison reform movement. In fact, the second wave of feminism arose directly out of student movements opposed to the Vietnam War and the draft.
And Razzle, as for your claim that some DUDE made me overrate voting, I wonder who that dude was and if that dude was also misleading the African-American men who also clamored for the vote in the 19th century and for equal voting rights in the 20th century?
Razzle,
I also never said that voting was “more important than every power creation granted [me] for thousands of years to participate and direct where humanity went,” whatever that means. I just said it’s important. There may be other rights that are equally important or more so – but you would certainly have to pry my right to vote out of my cold dead hands, even if it is an idea some random, unnamed dude gave me. (NOTE: Why would it matter if the idea did come from said dude? I accept good ideas from whatever sources I can find them and yes, you dudes often come up with some good stuff! Thank you, dudes! )
@MARGARET
It’s been a good chat, thank you.
“But what you are not noticing is that women have inevitably been secondary to the men in their demographic.”
What you are not noticing is that women have always been provided free access to resources and protection that were not granted to most men. There was/is/always will be a duality to the 1st/2nd class nature of the relationship among men and women in the same economic classes.
There were privileges women in the underclass had that men did not. It doesn’t mean it was awesome being an underclass woman. It doesn’t mean women had equal access to direct on paper power with underclass men.
The point… again… is first wave feminism sought to gain access to “masculine benefits” (aka assertive influence over the world via direct application of force… of which the vote is the most passive first stage) without shedding ANY feminine benefits NOR granting men additional liberty from their historical responsibility.
That’s why I see fourth wave feminism as the purest distillation so far of what the first wave really was.
@MARGARET
“And Razzle, as for your claim that some DUDE made me overrate voting, I wonder who that dude was and if that dude was also misleading the African-American men who also clamored for the vote in the 19th century and for equal voting rights in the 20th century?”
Razzle,
I am sorry I got caught up in things yesterday and didn’t have a chance to read and acknowledge your reply.
Women have always been provided free access to resources and protection? Well, I would say not at all with respect to resources. Consider hunter-gatherer tribes and farming communities where everyone contributes to feeding and clothing the group. And generally, any access to resources has not been “free.” Recall that women undergo the dangerous (yes, even now at times) business of having babies and have historically done plenty of toil.
I also don’t agree that no feminine benefits have been shed. I have the benefits of being a professional in a traditionally male field, but I also have the same stresses and responsibilities. No one is providing for me. And those protecting me are those who have been hired to do so from the pooled resources of the community to which I have contributed.
I am not in a place where I can view the video but will try to do so this weekend.
Sven,
“Then i started researching feminism. I have not helped a woman since then.”
This two-time loser to feminism still holds the door open for women. A bad habit I suppose, upbringing in the days of old when men were bold.
Larry,
You just re-published an article that states: “. . . feminism is the belief that men are evil and naturally want to harm women, followed by pleas to men to solve all of women’s problems.”
Yet, you objected vociferously to my use of the term “anti-feminist” to describe this blog. Why don’t you want to own your stance on this topic?
Margaret,
We publish materials from a wide range of perspectives, as I pointed out when you last said that. Odd that you don’t see it. But that’s common: people see only what they want to see. See the Our Politics page for many more examples of comments just like yours, going back to our opening. They’re funny, to non-ideologues.
I don’t see any discussion of feminism on that page. But I will keep reading with an eye out for pro-feminist pieces!
For a rather different take on feminism from a female perspective – “The Philosophy of Motherhood -deep thinking femininity” is one of the few sites that genuinely celebrates the female, womanhood and motherhood – and the masculine and fatherhood.
https://philosophyofmotherhood.com/
“You don’t change the world by going and waving signs at people that you have defined as more evil than you. The probability that they are more evil than you is actually quite low because evil though they may be, you are in the same boat. If you have divided the world up conveniently so you can define the oppressor and oppressed and you are in the positive category, then the probability that you are part of the solution and not part of the problem is zero.”
Jordan Peterson
So what is the male equivalent of “feminism”?
Nik,
“So what is the male equivalent of “feminism”?”
What is feminism? Waves one through three were about the quest for equality; the fourth wave is the question for supremacy.
Patriarchy in the West was a system of differentiated gender roles, and so has no equivalent in any feminism. The Mens Rights movement (which barely exists) is the equivalent of feminism waves 1-3, trying to restore equality to our system.
I can’t think of an equivalent in Western culture for 4th wave feminism. Perhaps something in Indian or Chinese culture?
Stolen from the local. I’m with the lone man…
Women’s march experiences (letter)
About 20 women, men and children participated in a small women’s march between 10 and 11 a.m. Jan. 18 in Mount Gretna.We marched, sometimes chanting “This is what democracy looks like” and sometimes singing “This land is my land” or “We shall overcome.”One sign stated “Hope not Hate.” Another was “Make Our Planet Great Again.” One urged “With liberty and justice for all.” A few favored impeachment, one lamented the negative character of our president, and an old Hillary Clinton sign questioned if rejecting her had yielded a better circumstance. Income inequality was another topic.Passersby sometimes interacted with our group — tooting, waving, stopping to talk. Two, unfortunately, were quite unpleasant.A woman in a car belligerently berated one of us after questioning why we marched. A lone man asserted that men are abused; he clearly does not like women and made hateful claims about Hillary Clinton that have been debunked. He doubled back threateningly, declaring that Democrats are evil, despicable people.Trump’s America seems to be accepting not only lying, conspiracy theories, corruption, obstruction of justice, interference by foreign actors and mob-like tactics, but also nasty, threatening attacks on those with whom they disagree. That is the example he gives us every day.
Alicia Black-Kirby
Manheim