A knot of sexist logic in the Western mind

[Duncan Butlin]

henry quirk, You are right that men have been much diminished (and women much augmented) by the equality movement. Sadly, though, much of it has been men castrating themselves. I also agree our instincts are nearly always right, but I worry about their availability. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to bring our instinctive ideas into our conscious brains, so we can make rational use of them. The ‘UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women’, for example, is not informed by any second thoughts about giving women so much power. The gut reaction of any man on the spot, however, would have been ‘no way’.

I have a process for bringing instinctive thoughts into the conscious -- it’s in my ‘Talking Truthfully’ essay
(https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid= ... mZhYWQ3ODI) -- and it involves getting men and women to talk to each other as strangers. If you focus on talking truthfully, all sorts of wonderful ideas come to the surface. I have a dream that this activity could spread rapidly around the world. We would then be able to get rid of Women’s Studies without the need to match them man for woman -- just as you hope.

[Sir-Sister-of-Suck]

Sir-Sister-of-Suck, ah, I think I’m getting a glimpse of the distinction you are trying to draw. We cannot choose our relations (except our spouses, in the West), so we are liking them and preferring them for biological reasons, not rationally or out of choice

...well, still no, not quite. Regardless of why we prefer some people to others, it's almost never due to us being purely rational. So when we treat our friends better, that in itself is not a very rational desire - and it's this disregard of politics that I've been talking about, because it's pretty much 'discrimination' against someone not based on rational reasoning. Which your activism would not approve of, in the strictest sense.

So this is why I say you already disregard your activism, within some aspects of your life.

[henry quirk]

Yep.

The good news (and you may disagree): this minimizing of difference is not universal. It's largely confined to unnatural settings (where folks are crammed together [large cities], where folks are insulated [large universities]).

Certainly, a lot of this rot gets fed to less densely populated areas: even so, where folks have room, where they are more directly 'in' the world, there's a greater, more resilient, recognition of difference, and more resistance to being told what a body 'is' or 'shouid be' by self-proclaimed experts.

[Judaka]

Duncan I am aware of a lot of the criticism of the MGTOW movement which you may or may not be a part of (you'd like it if you're not) of the institution of marriage and legal problems that are unfair towards men.

I am also aware of the extreme left and their attacks on men, their equality of outcome silliness and well, their general silliness with regards to everything. Meritocracy and individual focus are obviously better solutions than collectivist thought, I hope our society can come to terms with that soon.

I mostly agree with such criticism, as I think any reasonable person with all the facts would. However your analysis of marriage dynamics is shortsighted and unreasonable, you may feel your special situation gives you insight but I don't think there's any ambiguity about how it has given you some strong biases. Women are too big of a group, if you really believe in meritocracy and individual characteristics, then perhaps such a detailed analysis of 50% of the population is unreasonable?

[Greta]

I am also aware of the extreme left and their attacks on men...

... and the extreme right and their attacks on women.

The problem lies not with "men" or "women", nor with "right" nor left", but with "extreme".

[Sir-Sister-of-Suck]

The unfair bias in divorce and custody suits (if one even exists) would probably be resolved a lot easier if these men who are worried just don't have children or get married. Or get married under a contract, or have children as a single father with a surrogate.

If you don't like a system, don't participate in it. So why did you choose to get married, Duncan? Doesn't that make you as much of a problem as these men who apparently aren't defending each other? To me these two things seem to be giving into the system in a similar way, as I'd assume you do have an issue in the marriage and custody courts.

[Judaka]

I am also aware of the extreme left and their attacks on men...

... and the extreme right and their attacks on women.

The problem lies not with "men" or "women", nor with "right" nor left", but with "extreme".

I don't think anything I said implicitly justifies the extreme right lol. The extreme right is not a threat to the West or women, people need to be realistic about things. Nonetheless, I do agree with you, neither extreme is anything less than hell on Earth and if the 20th century didn't prove that then nothing will.

[Judaka]

The unfair bias in divorce and custody suits (if one even exists) would probably be resolved a lot easier if these men who are worried just don't have children or get married. Or get married under a contract, or have children as a single father with a surrogate.

If you don't like a system, don't participate in it. So why did you choose to get married, Duncan? Doesn't that make you as much of a problem as these men who apparently aren't defending each other? To me these two things seem to be giving into the system in a similar way, as I'd assume you do have an issue in the marriage and custody courts.

How on earth does that resolve the unfair bias in divorce proceedings? Any research you do on the subject will reveal there is an immense bias in the courts against men, I'm not going to give you links you can just find your own from whatever source you deem credible.

Not taking part in any long-term relationships as a result of the legislative situation or any of the MGTOW logic could be considered a fairly extreme way of thinking and not at all an obvious answer. However, insinuating that the way to remove court bias is for men to cease making families or starting long-term relationships with women so that there are no court cases where men can be prejudiced against is completely insane.

Well, I can agree that getting married under your own contract is wise advice but that's about it.

[Duncan Butlin]

Sir-Sister-of-Suck --- Oh dear, I must be being very stupid. I still do not feel I have grasped the essence of your point.

Can you explain to me whether, in your terms, you mean the same thing by my ‘politics’ and my ‘activism’? And would I sufficiently define my ‘politics’ to you if I said I was Republican, conservative, feminist, male champion, or equalist? I agree that our relationships are not governed very much by our politics, but we often strive mightily to rationalise how we treat other people.

I can see that, if I really were an equalist, I would suffer from the conflict you describe: my political morals would be telling me to treat everyone equally -- even men and women -- and this would conflict mightily with the way I actually behave. But I am not an equalist: I virtually ignore people in other countries and their wars, I pay no attention to the people who die on our roads, and I’m sexist and racist into the bargain. My activism DOES tell me to discriminate quite frequently. I can’t bear the idea of flirting with a man (to that extend I am homophobic too!), and I still go out of my way to be friendly with black people (while bearing in mind their 4 times higher level of criminality), because I think they still get a raw deal, in some ways. I don’t believe in affirmative action at a higher level, but I think it is ok on this personal level.

So my activist rules allow me to prefer friends and relations, have a Chinese ex-wife, befriend coloured people, and on occasion speak severely to misbehaving ladies in public (I’m no good at confronting men in this way). Right now I am trying to work out how to correct the lovely lady who serves in my corner shop. She is a single mother, and is very dedicated to bringing up her 11-year-old son, but I haven’t made clear to her how strongly I disapprove (she’s purposefully keeping men out of her life). By dispensing with the support of a husband, rubbishing the institutions of marriage and fatherhood, and robbing her son of a father, she is irreparably damaging him for the future. All on the average, of course -- she may actually be working a miracle -- but I don’t know her very well, so I have to treat her as average. No man should let a woman get away with boasting about such behaviour in public -- even if he hardly knows her at all.

That’s how far I go in allowing my activism to interfere with my personal life. Of course I disregard my activism very often for practical reasons -- you cannot engage everyone at full intensity, all of the time -- but I feel I am quite faithfully implementing my theoretical ideas into my daily life. I often confess my anti-feminist stance after meeting someone for only a few minutes. Is this still too inconsistent for you?

henry quirk --- Yes, I agree, the loss of sex roles varies from place to place, and, yes, cities and universities are hot-houses. Dominance can easily vary within a conversation. I have found that, if you knock down one or two of her arguments, a feminist will often switch to trying to seduce you instead! I even contradicted a butch lesbian in our shop, when she commented loudly that, “only a woman knows how to please another woman, sexually”. I said men, on the average, were better. She shouted, “you can’t say that”, and marched out of the shop in a huff, but the very next time we met she greeted me very civilly. I was so pleased, because I’d been worrying I might have offended her.

I do worry, though, how deeply equality has invaded intimate relationships. I believe that wives have adopted the equalist argument so effectively that they often control the man so much that he stops criticising her, however badly she behaves. I know I did in my own marriage. I believe she was longing for me to correct her, but I never did. In both private and public (feminist) spheres women are in desperate need of correction, and I believe either my essay or Men’s Studies is up to the task.

Judaka --- I wonder which of my several edicts on marriage dynamics you are objecting to? Is it my list of argument techniques?, the criticise/encourage dichotomy?, men should occasionally control women?, or perhaps my belief that if only I’d been more sexist in my own marriage it might have survived? I am a strong supporter of marriage -- especially with regards to how it supports the children -- and I apologise if I gave the wrong impression.

Perhaps you are objecting to me classifying women as a species apart? As a woman it is your mission to stop me doing any such thing (heaven forbid I might start to understand what women are up to!) -- but as a man it is my mission to prevent you from succeeding. Neither of us is ever going to win (though women are coming pretty close), so we might as well acknowledge this ‘sex war’ and enjoy the fight as much as possible.

I don’t like MGTOW at all. I don’t think a man without a woman is very effective. No man is complete until he has taken responsibility for a woman of his own, whom he occasionally needs to discipline. She, of course, will be disciplining him all the rest of the time, so he won’t win very often. I’ve been trying for over two years to write to Paul Elam, to tell him of my disapproval of MGTOW, but I cannot get it quite right yet.

Greta --- I am sure you have got the US political parties right: the republicans are more masculine, the democrats more feminine. I believe that women vote 10% more democrat than republican, so this would back that judgement up. Both parties are too extreme, I agree, but, as you know, it is feminist extremism that most concerns me.

Following on from this, Jonathan Haidt has worked out the difference in morals between the two parties, and I think they translate very well as the difference in morals between men and women (he agrees with me). Women care more about harm and fairness than men, but men also care about loyalty, authority and purity. Only when you combine the two do you get a balanced outlook.

Sir-Sister-of-Suck --- Do you not care much for marriage? You want to ameliorate divorce problems by avoiding children, or not getting married, or by becoming a single father. I believe that men and women behave much better, on average, when they are entangled in a close relationship, so I focus on reducing divorce rather than ameliorating it. In fact I want to make divorce much harder -- especially for women.

No, I did not have any real problems myself, after my wife divorced me. Not financial or custodial, anyway -- just that I’ve been miserable about it ever since, for 20 years. We got married because we wanted to stay together all our lives, prompted by moving to conservative Malaysia, where living together was frowned upon.

I fear I have given you the wrong impression. Because I criticise behaviour in difficult marriages and talk about having a difficult one myself, it sounds as if I am anti-marriage. Nothing could be further from the truth: I analyse marriage dynamics in order to strengthen them, not undermine them. I dream that the divorce rate can be brought back down below 2%, once men have enough power in society again.

Judaka --- I agree that the extreme right is no threat to women -- not quite sure where Greta is coming from. Perhaps she judges that to be anti-abortion makes one anti-women?

I agree there is an immense bias against men in the courts. I go further to claim that the laws themselves are biased. They are made preferentially against male-type misbehaviour in the public sphere, rather than female-type misbehaviour in the private sphere. This would largely account for the 20:1 male/female convict ratio.

I have no experience of getting married under a special contract, so I shall not comment.

[Sir-Sister-of-Suck]

How on earth does that resolve the unfair bias in divorce proceedings?

Because you ensure they never happen in the first place.

Any research you do on the subject will reveal there is an immense bias in the courts against men, I'm not going to give you links you can just find your own from whatever source you deem credible.

I mean, I'm aware that such a claim is often made, I've just never looked into it extensively. I don't like to assume claims that are made by activists without looking into it myself. They usually end up being false, or have justifiable reasons for why it's done.

Not taking part in any long-term relationships as a result of the legislative situation or any of the MGTOW logic could be considered a fairly extreme way of thinking and not at all an obvious answer.

I didn't say that.

It just occurs to me that if you don't like a system, you don't engage in that system or take steps to avoid the parts that you don't like. Personally, I think marriage shouldn't be handled by the government in the first place - although people can already choose to have a marriage like that. I'd probably have more sympathy and see your point better if marriage was a legally necessary part of life. But it's not. It's a very direct choice with very direct consequences, and these men should know what they're signing up for.

I sort of see them like the people who complain about social media all the time, while using social media incessantly. They'll usually say, 'well, I have to, there are no other options,' and that's usually when I respond, 'Yes there are, you absolute lunatic; not only are there other options, but this isn't something you have to to do in the first place.' Now unlike the free market, this isn't problem that will necessarily be worked out by people not participating in it, but it is something you won't have to worry about if you just don't participate.

[Sir-Sister-of-Suck]

In fact I want to make divorce much harder -- especially for women.

...You would have made it harder for your wife to leave you, as though you were forcing her to stay with you?

[Sir-Sister-of-Suck]

I have to say, you have a rather unintuitive, nixon-esque approach to the way that you would go about handling some of the problems you see in institutional marriage. Rather than doing away with any of the things you take issue with, you wish to do things that would ultimately make them harder to deal with, under the imperative that you think you can improve the current state of marriage.

I'm not sure where you lean on the political spectrum, but you could probably guess that I would rarely want more state-involvement in the laws that don't work. I'd probably just be encouraged to abolish those laws, altogether.

[Judaka]

Sir-Sister-of-Suck
De-facto partners still have legal proceedings and entitlements after they split and they still have custody battles if they split and have children. So no, you are either advocating against long-term relationships and having children as a solution to court biases or your proposed solution is not a solution at all.

I'm not an activist and I did just tell you to look up the claims for yourself but if you're not interested in understanding the issue that's fine. However, you don't seem to understand what you're talking about at all and if you're not interested in learning about the legal aspect of it then don't comment on it. The problem isn't marriage but the legal proceedings that occur when partners split and in the case of a custody hearing if they have children and can't agree on an arrangement themselves.

I'm not part of MGTOW and I think often MGTOW sounds really dumb except on this one issue.

Duncan
What I'm saying is that you are overgeneralising on the basis of gender, MGTOW does the same thing even if you come to different conclusions. I haven't read your full argument as this thread is way too long for me to read and it's not in your OP. However, the dynamics between men and women aren't universal and a lot of factors go into it, I may be willing to agree with some high-level analysis but when you specifically go into, for example, the alcohol consumption of men and women and the various power dynamic at play there, it's just too much focus on gender while ignoring all other factors.

[Greta]

Greta --- I am sure you have got the US political parties right: the republicans are more masculine, the democrats more feminine. I believe that women vote 10% more democrat than republican, so this would back that judgement up. Both parties are too extreme, I agree, but, as you know, it is feminist extremism that most concerns me.

Following on from this, Jonathan Haidt has worked out the difference in morals between the two parties, and I think they translate very well as the difference in morals between men and women (he agrees with me). Women care more about harm and fairness than men, but men also care about loyalty, authority and purity. Only when you combine the two do you get a balanced outlook.

The whole of politics lurched to the right in the 80s and Democrats are a strongly right wing party - they have almost no connection with left wing ideas, just seemingly a wish to temper the Republicans' extremity. Both parties largely just represent billionaires and multinationals. Do you think they would tolerate us little people paying zero tax?

Billionaires must love the gender wars - all that rebellious energy used up squabbling with each other. Meanwhile we ignore their increasing and unquestioned exploitation of the middle class via unsustainable immigration policies that push wages down - and all the while contributing an ever smaller relative percentage of tax revenue.

[Judaka]

What are you talking about Greta, the entirety of American politics has shifted to the left and most modern day liberals are called conservatives now. The Democrats are so left-leaning that Bernie "democratic socialism" Sanders almost became their presidential candidate and they elected another democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She is so far on the left that I don't think she can go any further left than she currently is. Even Hillary was deeply embedded in the left.