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 -
Good write up, entertaining. I went through a similar journey but a few years before your time. My major thing was internet forums, mostly /redpill on reddit and other similar types of 'manosphere' forums.
Unfortunately what I've found is that while they get a lot of things right, those forums, and probably many of the youtubers you watched, are also drowned in cynicism and rage. To the point where they aren't quite healthy role models for young men. However, they are indeed often the only ones willing to speak truth to power, as they say. Makes for a bad mix, imo.
I used to hang out on those sites as well and it seems to me in retrospect that the Manosphere was already losing whatever relevance it had by the time Gamergate exploded. (It also happened at a time when the man/woman question itself was being shelved as a culture war issue as it was getting overshadowed by the race question. And whatever amount of energy was still present in the Manosphere in 2015, the Trump phenomenon quickly siphoned it off.) That scandal generally bewildered them because they didn't care for the gamer subculture, were either ignorant of it or looked down on it. I remember the cringy incident when a bunch of columnists of the Return of Kings site decided to launch a parallel gaming-focused website in order to publicly take a stand in the ongoing scandal. It fizzled out after a few months or so; it should have been clear from the beginning that these guys are putting on an act, as they never saw gamers as their allies, never cared for gaming as a whole and knew scarcely anything about it.
More options
Context Copy link
Drowning in cynicism is a good way to put it. The older I've got, the more I am confident a lot of the motivation to spend the effort to disseminate the Red pill's somewhat accurate read on gender dynamics is simply pure envy that women in real life can have lots of casual sex if they want and, worse, there is little punishing them if they do. There is a desperate need to seek some kind of "justice" for their actions. Vicariously delivering this is the main content of things like the "Whatever" podcast.
(I encourage people to look up how body count actually effects women's dating and relationship prospects)
It never gets more complex than that imo.
While there is certainly an element of truth to this statement, it's missing the irony that while the average woman could do this, said average woman doesn't want casual sex anywhere near as much as the men thinking this do (certainly counterexamples exist). There is a lot of comic/tragic source material in "men are annoyed that women could be having lots of casual sex (which they don't want), while women are annoyed that men keep propositioning them for casual sex (which they don't want)." Lots of jealousy to go around, and a relative dearth of happy outcomes.
That's exactly the problem. Plus, when a woman does have the same level of sexual desire as a man and sleeps around, then of course she's a cock-carousel riding slut. Men think it'd be great if women wanted sex as much as they do, but in reality they don't like that. Women think it'd be great if men were as interested in a relationship and not sex as they are, but in reality again the sensitive, always checks in at every step for affirmative consent, type is not what they want.
More options
Context Copy link
I suspect a synthesis where women are having less casual sex than a redpiller believes and more casual sex than a normie conservative man believes.
It's sort of a funny subject. Women will readily admit that they do desire casual sex as long as the circumstances are right. When pressed on the issue, they, just like men, will admit that they want to casually fuck only those whom they are not planning to marry. And this truth, for completely opposite reasons, makes both men and women angry.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I very much agree, it’s pure ressentiment in a Nietzschean sense. Envy and jealous turned rancorous and pushed into the core of a person’s psyche.
Ultimately I do think a lot of it comes from a genuine imbalance with how the sexes are treated. Also, at a more fundamental level, the core of Indo-European society and really all civilization truly is patriarchy, and the rule of the father over friendship. This religion of patriarchy was shared by not just the Mediterraneans and Christians, but by Islamic cultures, Hindu culture, Chinese, etc.
In a way, the attempted destruction of the patriarchy is a deeper and more profound attack on the core of civilized culture than angry atheists loudly decrying how evil Christianity is. The religion of the father goes back farther, and in many ways is the foundation Christianity was built upon.
Not to say there weren’t problems with patriarchy, but I think that men rightly intuit that for all of civilized history, we enjoyed a certain respect and dignity in exchange for the burdens we bear. Now we are asked to bear the same burdens, not only without the respect, but often enduring outright vitriol for being men. It’s simply not possible for many young men to hear that and not grow up pissed off, and the easiest target in this sort of situation is, sadly, women as a whole.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link