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Has the Occident betrayed its young men?
I have been feeling intense abjection lately vis-à-vis my culture, and I wanted to explain why here. Much has been said about how the West treats its young men, particularly with respect to feminism and and wealth redistribution. But more and more, I have been feeling that the state of things is truly one of complete betrayal. Complete betrayal is weighty and generally seen as impossible to come back from. This is different from simply feeling that something is off.
My argument for it constituting complete betrayal starts with the following. Humans are fundamentally animals. As animals, they require resources and reproduction over everything else. The West provides a lot of distraction for its young men, that is true. It provides, certainly, a lot of education, whether they want it or not. Many such things are provided better than ever before. But at the end of the day, humans are animals and the true duty of a culture is to provide those it is loyal to with reproduction and resources, namely resources which convert to shelter, food, reproduction access, and child investment. Humans have a useful single number for all of this called money. So for a human animal, it is really about reproduction and money. Culture/society might provide young men with distraction, but does it provide a mate and an income?
I believe the situation is one of complete betrayal, because culture/society actually deeply interferes with young men getting income and reproduction, and does quite a lot to prevent it and keep young men alone and poor. This is nothing less than complete betrayal. Let me explain the specifics as to how this is done.
Sexually, every revision to law and culture in the last 100 years fit the pattern of preventing, delaying, or degrading the marriages of young men. Every prohibition that was dropped was a prohibition that served young men. This includes adultery laws and laws against divorce. Every prohibition that was strengthened is a prohibition against young men. These include prohibitions against marriage at certain ages and prohibitions against the husband's authority in the home, as well as prohibitions against having sex in many other circumstances, especially on university campuses, which in the late 20th century were the last great place for spouses to meet. On top of that, every sexually related cultural movement interferes with the reproduction of young men. LGBT is a great distraction and tells young men to have sex with each other instead of with women. Modern dating culture says have barren, temporary relationships with the opposite sex. Radical feminism teaches women to be functionally lesbian or asexual and otherwise to avoid romance with men. Taboos have been created to ostracize young men who criticize these cultural movements. It is extremely easy to imagine a culture that better serves its young men reproductively. The fact that it only ever gets worse is a sign of the betrayal.
Economically, credentialism has eaten away at the right of young men to have an income. They are now commanded to stay in school to later and later ages. When they work, the tax burden is immense; more and more money goes to foreigners, single women, and the old. Every government handout taxes young men and married men and pays out to women, children, pensioners, and foreigners. More controversially, I also believe young men are systematically underpayed when they do work, although mostly this goes to redistribute wealth to middle aged men, which young men become, so it's probably the least bad of all the problems and is best fixed by reversing the tax burden on young men from heavily taxed to becoming net receivers of welfare even while working. Credentialism also needs to be curtailed, and then younger men can build more marketable skills at younger ages, boosted their base at any given age pay insofar as the age-income correlation is meritocratic.
Young men pay taxes largely so family courts can threaten whatever marriages they do establish, instead of defending them, so that their money can go to the education system that robbed them of several years of income and work experience, so that their money can go to old retirees who set up this system, so it can go to immigrants and foreigners, so it can go to single women who won't get married, and so it can go to police who will arrest them if they ever end up breaking one of these back-breaking rules that were set up to oppress them. That's complete betrayal by culture & society.
What does complete betrayal imply? It means Western young men should never die for their country. Don't ever join the military. If you get drafted, dodge it if legally possible. Young men should never contribute to their country. Insofar as legal, enter a parasitic profession like finance and drain your country dry. They deserve it because they allow it and they hate young men anyway. Young men should leave their country; move away from the west. Start a city-state in Latin America with a charter from Honduras where young men are served and not betrayed. Go help develop a 2nd world country where young men are served and not betrayed. Pay taxes in the new country. If your old country demands taxes abroad, renounce your citizenship, because your country is a traitor.
In other words, young men are like a Jew in Christian Europe. They are hated by their neighbors, so lend to them and charge as much interest as possible. They are hated by their neighbors, so never fight invaders for them, strike a deal with them if they win. They are hated by their neighbors, so they should move between places and never settle in one place. They should demand maximal pay for minimal work, because they are hated by your neighbors. They should be a Zionist, and dream of the foundation of a new Israel. A place that does not despise them.
I appreciate feedback on this. Maybe I am overreacting or got something wrong here and the situation is not so dire. But as I have lived my life, this is the conclusion I've increasingly come to.
With Friends like these, who really needs feminists... Yes lets put all young men into the bucket that makes them just animals, justify all the stereotypes that men just want to fuck and breed. The level of misandry in this post is quite high and you even have to the gall to pretend you are championing men's rights. You going around and repeating boomercon sexism: "all men are pigs that just want sex" is not revolutionary. News flash, men are people! And people want more than to just satisfy their base urges to have sex and spawn heirs.
Maybe Herbert was more prescient than he knew. We need a Gom Jabbar. Kill off all the men who's sole goal in life is to be an animal. They are holding back our species.
No, he’s mostly right. Your rendition of this is an uncharitable caricature IMO, but you can put it any way you want to. Virtually all men do want sex. Maybe not of the variety you have in mind, but they want it in some form or fashion; and the fact that they also have “other” wants, doesn’t negate those that are fundamental to their biology.
Yes men want some sex, but it's not their core driving impulse. Maybe for some hypersexual men but its a big world with a big range of libidos. Many don't want kids, some don't want partners. This convergence to "all men are just horndogs that want to pump out kids" is a weird conservative meme that refuses to adapt to contact with reality.
Well yeah, you’re essentially arguing with a meme conception of the idea, but underneath that caricature biology is still a real thing (and one that gives meaning to life incidentally).
I am using "meme" in the definition of the core metaphysical idea underlying a narrative or belief.
See this is what I disagree with. So I don't think I am arguing with a caricature based on your emphasis of it as true. Biology has given me no meaning in life. This is like saying science tells you what matters. It's wrong. Biology put us on this world but does not define the meaning of our lives.
You are satirizing a position and arguing with its caricature. If you ask most people the world over as best as it’s been approximated thus far, most of them do want it, specifically for the reasons I’ve drawn attention to.
Am I?
OP has literarily stated here That the only point of life is to make offspring and everything else is a worthless distraction.
Yeah, and he’s basically correct.
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Sex and reproduction aren't the same thing, though, and reproduction is arguably easier for men now that it's fairly straightforward to contract it out.
A surrogate costs something like $250,000, how does that compare to the historical price of a wife?
$250,000 would be the high end of a normal range for a domestic surrogacy from what I understand, with the low end being something like $60,000 if you don't go through an agency or go international.
Average cost of a wedding in the United States is about $35,000, and of course higher if international.
If you were correct that modernity was one big one way ratchet against the ability of young men to reproduce it would be illegal as well as immoral.
This is true in the US but in the rest of the anglosphere commercial surrogacy is illegal and in much of continental europe all surrogacy is banned.
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And that doesn’t change my answer either. Globally, most men want both.
I don't disagree that most men want both.
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They don't even want to breed, that's part of the problem. Porn in all its easily available varieties, 'love is love so nobody can kink-shame you', and real life relationships being tough because there's another human being with their own wants, needs, and desires in the mix who isn't there just to jump on a trampoline for you, means that sticking with the stimulation you accessed first at age ten and which warped your emerging sexuality into this particular mould is the siren song drawing them away from marriage and fatherhood.
Why is this wrong, or wronger than what you wrote?
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Because contrary to the OP's opinion most people aren't slaves to biology. Most incels could passport bro it up, or pay for sex but its not what they really want. Want people want is to be desired for who they are, they want to self actualize, they want a partner.
If women are getting out competed by 2D pixels and onlyfans models talking to you, then the blame is squarely on them. The "real-human" being problem cuts both ways. She's not going to find the romance novel dreamboat out there in the real world.
When you say “incel” in this context are you referring to the original template of a hideously, physically unattractive man or what an ordinary man is who can’t get laid because of women’s hyper inflated standards? Most men won’t date international because of high financial costs, cultural incompatibilities, no guarantee of a high payoff in your pursuit; and that situation isn’t improved for them either by your following suggestion that a man should commit crimes in order to get some. That’s about as useful as saying they could rape someone if they wanted to. A horrible suggestion as well.
I agree with you about what is at the root of these men’s desires. Men wanted to feel validated and loved as much as women do and many of them are willing to pay the cost of doing it. A man will often commit his entire life to his wife and kids doing bone crushing work, if he knows it’s making them happy and bringing them joy. It’s a pity so many women can’t see or appreciate that.
The latter-ish. The original circa 2015 definition for men who think they are the former but are mostly just average to slightly below average. But for who have certain levels of anxiety, neuroticism, autism/adhd, social anxiety, introversion and risk aversion so as to make it hard for them to find a partner.
This assumes that prostitution is legal if frowned upon.
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Pornography is a symptom of the problem. Men often go to porn because they can’t get it normally. And it’s not to say men aren’t willing to work for it. If you want to get to the apple, you’ve got to climb the tree. But if someone comes along and tells me I have to climb the Eiffel Tower to get it, I’m going to ignore them.
I'm inclined to think it's both a cause and a symptom. There are observable issues that can be directly linked to widespread pornography use, including porn-induced erectile dysfunction.
Men go to porn because it's easier than dealing with a real woman, men also have more difficulty doing what has to be done to get a woman because of porn.
This is by no means intended to imply that modern women don't have their own major issues going on.
I think you’re both right. Porn has a lot of social and sexual downsides, which we find hard to talk about, because they’re squeezed between feminist critiques of porn (which don’t really care about practical effects on male sexuality unless they can be marshaled for critiques of objectification), religious critiques of porn (for which any objective problems are post hoc evidence for a position already held), feminist arguments in favor of porn (in which case male sexual consequences are almost irrelevant), and general male liberal arguments in favor of porn (for which any sort of critique registers as one of the above, and thus dismissed).
Porn-induced is a strong word, but certainly porn-exacerbated sexual problems when encountering a real woman are real and serious. As is what the nofappers talk about with escalating pornographic taboos, where the attraction to normal vanilla content becomes exhausted by the massive overflow of sexual novelty available in porn, leading to attraction to more taboo kink content to get off, leading to exhaustion of attraction to taboo kink content, leading to more taboo kink content just to get the same arousal…
It’s not hard to meet men who’ve never touched a person’s genitals before but their entire sexuality is organized around complex kink structures. And you can’t run before you can walk, so the young pornbrained guys are unable to comprehend vanilla sex experientially.
That said, I think tretiak is right that young guys feel like they have narrow options in terms of sex. And I’m not actually convinced that men are using porn instead of meeting women, as I think men’s desire for companionship is much more complex than just locate nearest vagina. They use porn to get off, but of course the emotional longing and the desire for intimacy and the want for someone to hold on cold winter nights still remains.
Where porn damages sexuality becomes prevalent much later, if they do meet a woman they like, where they realize they’ve seen a thousand women have sex with men, but don’t know the first thing about what they’re doing.
Introversion has something to do with it, and the internet in general, but this affects both genders, and the flip side of the young men playing video games instead of touching grass are the young women scrolling TikTok instead of touching grass. I’ve met women like that. They’re often very dateable, especially if you’re an introvert. But unless you get very lucky, you’re not going to meet them.
What your argument seems to suggest is that men aren’t meeting women as much because their hunger is satisfied by porn, but I’m not at all convinced that lonely men are that way because they’re not hungry enough. But the young men we’re talking about are simultaneously ashamed, inexperienced, overexposed, under-touched, desperate for intimacy, terrified of humiliation, and living inside a culture that offers him infinite simulacra and few bridges to reality.
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Addiction or misuse of anything will always lead to problems. The solutions that would best stymie its consumption aren’t likely to materialize because of the ideology of personal choice that dominates western social life. They do often go to it because it’s easy on occasion, yes that’s true. But most of the time it’s because they’re lacking in opportunity.
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If you had actually properly read Dune, you'd know the only way out is through. Supermen like Paul are the result of eugenics. They were bred from animals. Nietzsche talks about this. Placed in its proper context, you are rejecting animal life for something lower: no life at all. You will never be a pneumatic. What do you want other than reproduction, to sit around high and distracted? That's your only other option.
That's just silly.
There's still art and culture, and science for men and women of leisure to create and experience.
All of Shakespeare's descendants died out in the 17th century, do you believe that his contributions to art aren't a good enough legacy to leave behind? Or Newton and Washington, who had no biological children, and yet I challenge you to find two men who made more of a lasting impact on the world.
As far as we know Jesus of Nazareth had no biological children, and look at his impact on history. And Julius Ceasar's two confirmed biological children, Julia and Caesarion had far less impact on history than his adopted son. Who was a bigger legacy for Socrates, Plato or his biological children Lamprocles, Sophroniscus, and Menexenus?
Eugenics is all well and good in the long run, and I don't think most people really objects to voluntary eugenics to remove genetically influenced diseases from the population. But I think even when you have two aristocratic people of "good stock" you're often going to get a Commodus, historically speaking. Dune is partially fantasy, because the kind of organization and longevity needed to pull off a multigeneration eugenics program on that scale would tend to make the actual people being produced kind of redundant.
But also, I think that eugenics is the retreat of the lazy and unexceptional. Unless you have produced a master work or an empire that will long outlive you, how lame is it to be proud that you have "good genes" with nothing to actually back it up? Go out and prove you have great genes, and give us another great man of history to look up to!
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Maybe you need to go re-read both Dune and Nietzsche. The whole point of the Bene Gesserit Gom Jabbar is to weed out people who are slaves to their instincts because the power of the Kwisatz Haderach in such an animal would be an active detriment to the species. Treating people as animals is what Leto II did but he is the main villain in the series, by far. Herbert does not make that subtle. Leto II at least has a semi-noble goal. But nothing of what you are doing is eugenics, there is no noble goal in labeling all men as animals who are slaves to their biology. Nietzsche likewise does not have kind things to say about men who could not command themselves, who were slaves to their desires. I would take it a step farther and say that someone who is a slave to their desires is an untermensch.
This post's base premise is that all men are just rutting beasts shackled to the brute primordiality of their biology and the o-so-evil society that won't allow these poor beasts of burdens to do what they were made for. Yeah... tell me you hate men without telling me you hate men. Apparently the feminists have you so Manchurian candidate-ed that you don't even know which way is up.
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Sexual access dominates a huge portion of the mindshare of men, especially young men. Obviously it's not the only thing they care about, but it's a huge aspect of their lives. I don't think this post reduces men unfairly in that way. And this post is correct that the sexual marketplace has gotten much worse for the average man, though I'd chalk that up more to how much more efficient the internet has made sorting, although feminists certainly haven't helped things with their occasionally insane demands.
It does. I wonder, though, how much of it is actually a desire for sex and how much of it is a desire for the good ego feelings and positive feedback from one's peers that having a lot of sex with attractive women brings. I think the main reason why male incels suffer is not because they lack sex, it is because they feel like losers and failed men.
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I suppose I have aged out of being a "young man" but just barely, less than a couple years at this point depending on the cutoff range you have in mind. It was never a massive aspect of my life. And it wasn't some massive aspect of my very diverse set of friends either. And I changed several big cities in my 20s. Oh there were a couple that were more interested in getting laid but it wasn't about sex, it was about being wanted. I agree that the dating marketplace has gotten worse for the average man. I just don't agree that the average man is super interested in sex that it "dominates" their mind.
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The negative changes in social mores preempted the explosion of the Internet and certainly social media and online dating. The mortal wound had already been fired much earlier than that. The collapse in standards and norms of decent behavior paved the way for opportunistic moral scavenging of all varieties. Add to that the fact that a large share of women were allowed to abscond from their social position in relation to everyone else that requires “responsibility,” and allows them to treat relationships like it’s some kind of “game” for narcissists to fool around with.
And now both men and women are in a position today where no one knows what to do or how to do it because they all rebelled against the life scripts they were given and smashed it into a thousand pieces. No one trusts anyone. And you can see it in ways otherwise decent people reduce themselves to the tactics of manipulators to make any kind of social progress with someone, because it’s all they know now.
You can observe it quite easily and see manipulators from a mile away if you’re paying attention. Once a manipulator can pinpoint what you’re susceptible to (which they register as a “weak point” in their minds) they will use it against you. If you’re a decent man or woman today and your perceived “weak point” is to be decent and compassionate towards others; they won’t truly be your friend but will happily use the term so they can use the title of your relationship so they can pressure you into assuming they’re entitled to exploit you. Your “friendship” in that regard is simply a term used to get you to drop your guard. I don’t believe in conditional friendship. Put in work or get out of my face. I deal with this somewhat frequently at work. I know who my friends are and who my “friends” are.
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Apparently if you tell an animal from the species known for its intelligence that it's actually being helped by being neutered, even though that animal can look around nature and read Darwin and everything, many animals from that species will fall for the trick in a way a dumber animal never would. What is the purpose of intelligence at that point? We might as well all be ants, then we will be immune from feminism at least.
Michael Shermer wrote in a chapter of one of his books why intelligent people believe weird things, and the short answer to that was they’re better at rationalizing beliefs they’ve arrived at for non-smart reasons. I’ve come across arguments before for all kinds of interesting positions and it felt strange processing the logical structure of it, because it’s clear to me that the conclusion is false or mistaken, but it isn’t entirely clear at any single point what’s wrong with it. The quote falsely attributed to Tertullian in defense of Christianity, “Credo quia absurdum,” (“It is to be believed because it is absurd.” Who would invent something so off the wall?) is once such instance when I sometimes reflect on it.
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