This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Just to make a general observation about the gender war as a followup to my comment on the Promise Keepers organization:
I think we can generally observe is that women’s main complaint about men is that desirable hetero men are unwilling to exclusively commit. If we accept this, we can also see that this is actually two complaints rolled into one. 1. The men that are willing to commit are undesirable (icky, clingy, lame, “chopped”, entitled, toxic, porn-addled, skinny fat etc.). 2. The men that are desirable are unwilling to commit. (On a tangent I’d argue that most of the lipstick feminist complaints made in the mainstream media by middle-class women about men in general do usually boil down to the rather similar complaint that 34-37-year-old successful, well-paid, charismatic, tall, ambitious etc. urban men are in no rush to marry 31-34-year-old college-educated middle-class office worker women.)
If we look at this logically, to the extent that it even makes sense to try doing so (which is a valid question in itself), there are two potential remedies for this problem. 1. Focus on the undesirable men that are willing to commit and somehow transform them into desirable men i.e. alphaize the betas 2. Focus on the desirable men and incentivize them to commit i.e. betaize the alphas.
Now I don’t know about you but to me it seems self-evident that #2 has more potential for success no matter how you look at it and yet virtually everyone who makes any sort of recommendations regarding this entire issue (and that does not only include Red Pillers) is promoting #1. No, really – I’ve never seen anyone advocate for #2, not even the Promise Keepers or, for that matter, any other similar group that does not claim to be feminist and is at the same time pushing the nebulous concept of a new positive masculinity.
Am I seeing things that are not there or is this really not the case? Because as far as I can tell, it is. It seems like there is a general unspoken consensus in society that trying to compel sexually successful men to commit to women is a completely impossible, pie-in-the-sky idea that deserves no attention at all; that, in other words, expecting modern women to elicit commitment from the men they are attracted to is laughable lunacy.
Maybe we'll have to go back to formal dances or something instead of dating apps at some point. It doesn't seem to be working out. Especially, most men don't look very good in photographs. Women like the way men flirt or smell or pursue physical activities or talk as much as how they look in photos.
It does seem like some otherwise perfectly nice and friendly women I've known have broken up with men after what seems to me like a long period of time, perhaps a year, for reasons that seem very petty. It's not socially appropriate to say to the woman: is that really what happened? That sounds very petty. It seems like an error, I suppose in the future their bloodlines will die out, and be replaced whether through culture or nature with people who descended from less petty women, but that is of course no consolation in the moment for the men they broke up with.
Absolutely seeing this trend. It's happened to me and many of my male friends and acquaintances. Best friend's wife of 15 years left out of the blue, zero reasons given aside from a comment of "you're too negative". Another friend's wife decided she was a lesbian, having been married to a him for 10+ years. I was engaged to be married and the woman decided she wasn't attracted to me, after being together for years.
Fundamentally, I think there is a "Netflix" mindset going on. Like how you turn on Netflix, scroll through the shows and maybe something catches your eye for a minute so you watch the intro. But then the actors or soundtrack kind of annoys you or whatever, so you just go back to scrolling for another show. This has permeated the culture. We are all about quick dopamine reward. Our media consumption is short form, endlessly scrolling, outrageous by necessity. Women feel this in particular as massive consumers of social media, and they are also fed vastly different content on these platforms than men. They're validated endlessly and gassed up. They are told, and they know, they can get a man at any moment, and so they seek the neurochemical hit and then discard quickly as soon as it becomes real, in search of the next hit.
It's fundamentally broken. I'm a 36 year old man, have been in several long term relationships, most recent one ended a while back after she became physically abusive to me. I started dating earlier this year and it's been disgusting. I used to want a wife and a family but I have given up on that dream.
Therein lies the paradox of commitment.
By committing, a man is signaling that she is the best that he can do, in which case she may be subconsciously wondering if she can do better. This is especially pertinent now more than ever, when she can easily get attention from better looking or (perceived to be) higher status men on social media and/or OLD—if she doesn't already have such men giving her likes on social media and sliding into her DMs.
When she perceives that she's his only option, she may start to lose attraction for him and start getting the ick. In contrast—prior to commitment—there are tailwinds from female mate-choice copying in tingle induction, when he's still seeing other women or she's under the impression that he might be. As one chick put it, "im glad he doesn’t have hoes but why does he not have hoes??? am i fighting for a spot no one wants??!!"
You can have a family without a wife, even without spraying and praying. Egg donor + surrogacy costs only a few tens of thousands to a couple hundred thousand USD, depending on your location and your willingness to use a foreign surrogate. If you're white-collar-coded, people might seethe at you for cheating at life by having a child or children without getting gatekept by the step of marrying a woman, but haters gonna hate.
I am skeptical about the thought of raising a child without a mother in the home.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link