Last week, while stuck in traffic, I stared at the SUV in front of me, and spotted my first Darwin fish!
"Be still my beating heart!"
Denyse O'Leary (or someone else; I can't remember) once asked (and I'm paraphrasing here): "Has anyone bothered to ask why a fish would need feet? Doesn't a fish with feet seem rather...odd...and pointless?"
Wait...Pointless, pretentious, and wrong? Yep, sounds exactly like Darwinism!
Last week, Oz Conservative expressed deep concern about "Game," but refused to condemn it.
One of his commenters, Grim, wrote...
"I am still learning to use game effectively. And yes it's annoying having to cater towards women instead developing myself into something I want to be."
Ah yes, that is quite annoying!
Jonathan Wolfe wrote...
I find these people pinning their hopes on a dating theory to save the West to be a rather funny lot...You prefer your boys with a dating technique over knowledge of the blue-prints of the civilization you think they ought to save? You might as well send a dog after a car. Once the dog catches it, it wouldn't know what the f--- to do with it...You wouldn't even be able to tell your boy why he has rights or human dignity with "Game". If anything, you've just taught him to see human beings as just another commodity.
I also wrote the following comment...
I think Anonymous wrote something very intriguing. He said, "What studying 'game' taught me was NOT an artificial set of cheat-codes to unethically trick females, but how to be more 'Male,' and in that I mean to focus just on being confident with myself, and as a consequence having a full life, in short, it was successful for me."
Anonymous is describing the main motivation for "Game: feeling more "Male." "Feeling more male" is an understandable desire to be sure. But it's an illusion to think that Game (which rests on a philosophy - Reductionism - which states that men and women are animals and that the best way to have a relationship with a woman is to treat her like an animal) is the best way to feel "male."
For example, most of us here would probably agree that "connecting with God" is a "good thing," but if a Wahabi Muslim terrorist came here and justified his faith by saying it makes him "feel connected with God," we'd say that's sweet but there's better ways of expressing your faith (like giving alms to the poor, instead of blowing up innocent civilians).
No, I'm not comparing Gamers to terrorists; I'm just saying the comment "Game makes me feel more male" - even if true - is not an argument ender.
Bottom line: There are better alternatives to Game.
Stop thinking of love, relationships, commitment and men as “goals.” Think of them as part of your overall development, and focus on developing yourself first...
When guys say all they look for are looks and sex, they’re wrong. Just dead wrong. They fall in love, and they fall hard. Most of the intelligent ones go deep, very deep...
Most men want to seem tough and macho to the world, but they crave someone whom they can be soft with, who will not reject them for having a maelstrom of emotions inside them, and who will stand by their side when things get tough.
Deep inside, whether or not we realize it, we are all just little boys and girls. We’re all trying to make sense of this messy life thing, putting on adult behaviors while the little kid is in us, wanting to really just have the freedom to play and laugh and love...We have this inner core of childishness which we must come to terms with. So love this inner child, and give yourself and the men in your life permission to play, to be ridiculous, to be free.
At the start of the debate, "The Undiscovered Jew" declares…
As a frequent poster at Darwinian right websites like the Audacious Epigone, OneSTDV and Parapundit, I want to give you a heads up that Roissy is only one segment of a new generation of young (OneSTDV is a Gen-Yer, and Audacious Epigone and myself are still in college), white, college educated, Darwin friendly, conservative bloggers the political world will have to contend with who were inspired by Steve Sailer and who closely follow public intellectuals such as Steven Pinker and Charles Murray, i.e., my fellow HBDers…
I invite you to explore HBD writings on subjects other than game because we are the new kids on the block and you will be seeing much more of us in the future as genetic science confirms the hereditarian worldview [...]
Game is just the tip of the iceberg and that you should focus your attention on us because we have the most political potential and we have the most intellectual firepower on our side.
Auster forcefully replied:
Insofar as HBD is materialist reductionist it is a disaster for mankind, for our civilization, and for conservatism. I recommend that you acquaint yourself with my writings on why the right-Darwinist and Sailerist views, while they contain some truths, are, when seen as a whole, false, inadequate to the problems we face, and deeply harmful.
To back up Auster, I sent him my essay, The Happiness of the People, which criticized Charles Murray's speech of the same name. I wrote...
In his acceptance speech, Mr. Murray correctly diagnoses the "bag of chemicals" philosophy as the source of the "Europe Syndrome," but he doesn't recognize that the syndrome can't be defeated by only treating the symptoms (in this case, rolling back the welfare state). The syndrome itself (reductionism) must be treated, as well. In some of the best unintentional comedy ever found in a political speech, Mr. Murray thinks reductionist science will help advance the conservative movement and facilitate the "happiness of the people!" Ha!
Auster replied (and posted on his website)...
Absolutely amazing. As you point out, Murray attacks the material-reductionist view that human beings are a collection of chemicals, correctly describing that view as the source of Europe's leftist, anti-human policies. And then what does he do? He turns around and endorses—as the supposed cure for this leftist anti-humanism—the same material reductionism that he just condemned. And I thought Murray was smart.
The speech is remarkable evidence for the difficulty that atheist materialist conservatives will always have in being consistent in their criticisms of leftism, because at bottom they share key leftist premises.
Indeed. But I'd like to make a few additional points...
First, I do agree with "The Undiscovered Jew" that the HBDers - at least from their perspective - have "the most political potential" while "offering a comprehensive vision of human social organization that could attract intelligent people." In that sense, Game (their philosophy applied to relationships) is - to quote TUJ again - "just the tip of the iceberg."
Yes, the HBD/Gamers are a smart, aggressive, ambitious, and self-confident bunch. They are a force to be reckoned with. And I'm sure they love to hear that.
But they may not like to hear this: The Gamers are also narrow-minded and intellectually sloppy.
These articles show - statistically and anecdotally - how my generation (age 30 and under) is spiritually impoverished while also remaining spiritually hungry.
To quote the first piece...
New research shows young Americans are dramatically less likely to go to church -- or to participate in any form of organized religion -- than their parents and grandparents [...]
Putnam says that in the past two decades, many young people began to view organized religion as a source of "intolerance and rigidity and doctrinaire political views," and therefore stopped going to church [...]
Given that today's young "nones" probably would be in church if they didn't associate religion with far-right political views, he says, new faith groups may evolve to serve them [...]
However, he says, it's possible that the current spike in young people opting out of organized religion could also prove to be an opportunity for some [...]
This "stunning" trend of young people becoming less religious could lead to America's next great burst of religious innovation.
I agree with Putnam, Campbell, Gerson, and others that the low church totals for my generation doesn't reflect a lack of spiritual passion. It just shows the lack of focus for that passion. That's one of the reasons I wrote The Mustard Seed.
A few week into this "Game" debate, I continue to believe that hunger exists. But I'm starting to realize that - at least for a growing number of young men - their hunger is over. The reductionist slime in their brains is too thick to dislodge. As a wise man once said, "They don't know what they don't know." And to that, I would add, "And they don't want to know!"
Of course, I was already aware of this phenomenon. In Chapter 10 of The Mustard Seed, Brian Raines reflects on his nihilist friend, Troy Dawkins...
I was offering Troy a chance to see the world in a new and better way – to escape the prison he had built for himself. But he didn’t care. He was strangely comfortable inside those prison walls. In fact, the only time he seemed uncomfortable was when someone opened the door, turned on the light, and offered him a chance to walk out. While Troy claimed to be an “intellectual arsonist,” the truth was the opposite: he was a moral and mental imbecile. But would he ever realize the errors of his way? Would he ever choose to change his perspective? I honestly didn’t know.
Will the Gamers ever change their perspective? I honestly don't know.
Since I thought this was out-of-line, I wrote on Mr. Mangan's site...
Dennis: I don't think Auster told you to "drop dead." And if he did, I wouldn't support it. I think he's encouraging you to see the limits of the HBD paradigm to advance the cause we all share--protecting Western civilization. In that cause, we are all allies, and we need to work together. However, in addition, it's perfectly legitimate for Auster (and others) to critique you when your judgment is flawed (as in the most recent case: the debate over "Game"). The HBD paradigm has enabled many conservatives to justify "Game" (including the Roissyite version) when common sense and critical thinking should dictate opposition. That's all. No more, no less. To quote many moms throughout history: "I criticize because I care."
Game is just the Darwinian/Nietzschean (D/N) worldview applied to women. There is great interest in Game, because it promises a solution for a specific problem a lot of frustrated young men are having. These young men are having "dawning realizations" about women via Game, and since they're having them at the hands of D/N types like Roissy, we'll soon find that Game ends up being the gateway for many of them into a D/N Right. Note how TUJ quickly switched from talking about Game to HBD [Human Bio-diversity], he seems breathlessly excited about it, and how it will provide answers for so many things. He's not a Gamer, but he's excited about Game because he sees the prospect of Game bringing in lots of young men into the D/N Right.
Any Gamer can go over to SecularRight.org and feel right at home, it's an easy transition. The meals over there are Ding Dongs, Ho Hos, and Twinkies. A starving young Gamer gobbles it all down. He doesn't want to eat at the table of Western Civilization (yet), that requires a more mature palate and wisdom about nutrition [...]
Mix in the anger at having been lied to and deceived about women, and I think they're especially susceptible to what Kuehnelt-Leddihn called "clear but false" ideologies.
I have also followed the game discussion with interest. It strikes me as amazing that young conservatives today think that by acting like fraternity boys of the fifties and early sixties they are going to save the West. Even those of us from that era who lived it did not believe that. In fact we knew we were behaving badly, we just did not care at that point. It is called being immature. As for the idea that bio-diversity can replace God in our lives all I can say is, nonsense.
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” - Krishnamurti
This is a good quote for all the Gamers, who - in their disgust at society's debasement - have chosen to debase themselves, instead of working to change society for the better.
Lawrence Auster, What is Faith?:"If faith has a good definition, it can't just be 'belief in the absence of evidence.' There has to have been something real there that made us believe in the first place. The problem is that spiritual things are not simply 'there,' like a physical object. We apprehend things about them, each moment we apprehend something different, or we stop apprehending anything. But the point is that there is or has been an apprehension of a reality, and we don't see it all, yet we've seen enough of it that we believe in its truth and we stay loyal to that truth. Faith is a committed relationship with something we partly see, but don't completely see. Having seen enough of it to believe that it is true, we maintain that relationship, the orientation of our selves toward that thing." Read the whole post.
Restating the Case for Human Uniqueness: "Despite the dedication of a number of primatologists, the cognitive and linguistic abilities of the great apes have never surpassed those of a two-year-old child. This is because they clearly lack the precondition for becoming human: a human genetic make-up."
Denyse O'Leary is Having an "Origin of Life" Essay Contest: "Here is the problem I have always had with accidental origin of life: It amounts to spontaneous generation. However, banishing the doctrine of spontaneous generation played a key role in modern medicine’s success. If we assume that life forms (for medical purposes, we focus on pathogens) cannot start spontaneously, then they must have been introduced...If life can be spontaneously generated, why isn’t it happening now?"
In October, a new Ayn Rand book will come out:"Almost 30 years after her death, Ayn Rand remains one of the most polarizing icons to tumble out of one of history’s most polarizing centuries. Heller’s biography promises what might well be a first: an impartial portrait—not of a revolutionary supergenius or a cultish fraud, but of a complex woman, born in Russia, who went on to create a dubiously powerful American mythology."
Ayn Rand Self-Help:"Seligman divided his psychology students so some engaged in pleasurable activities (going to the movies, eating yummy ice cream) and the others did philanthropic activities (volunteering at a soup kitchen, reading to the blind). Guess what? The happiness afterglow of the fun was nada compared to the lasting happiness of doing altruistic acts. Meaning? Doing good for others will also make you feel good -- and, according to Seligman, your highest level of feel-good...I'm betting that even if Ayn Rand and I started off a conversation disagreeing on this topic of altruism, Ayn would nonetheless be open to hearing about these modern day research studies and theories."
Terry Goodkind: He's Got the Write Stuff: "Goodkind came relatively late to the writing game, having started as an artist. But, from the moment the first words he ever wrote ('It was an odd-looking vine.') were published, his Sword of Truth series was a smashing success -- more than 10 million books sold, repeatedly hitting the top spot on the New York Times' bestseller lists....Goodkind's books are infused with the philosophy in which he deeply believes -- the objectivism of Ayn Rand that holds individual rights as key to a society that works and that encourages individuals to pursue what makes them happy."
According to an article in yesterday's Christian Post...
A new report reveals that the treatment of biological evolution in state science standards improved dramatically over the last decade. According to the National Center for Science Education, which defends the teaching of evolution in public schools, 40 U.S. states – including the District of Columbia – received satisfactory grades for the treatment of evolution in their state science standards. Only 31 states had received such grades in Lawrence S. Lerner's 2000 study Good Science, Bad Science, conducted for the Fordham Foundation.
Meanwhile, five states – Alabama, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas, and West Virginia – received an "F" and another six states received the grade of "D."
Casey Luskin has some good advice for returning students...
"[Y]ou must be careful to always think for yourself," he cautions. "Everyone wants to be 'scientifically literate,' but the Darwin lobby pressures people by redefining 'scientific literacy' to mean 'acceptance of evolution' rather than 'an independent mind who understands science and forms its own informed opinions.'"
In a way, the world is a great liar. It shows you it worships and admires money, but at the end of the day it doesn't. It says it adores fame and celebrity, but it doesn't, not really. The world admires, and wants to hold on to, and not lose, goodness. It admires virtue. At the end it gives its greatest tributes to generosity, honesty, courage, mercy, talents well used, talents that, brought into the world, make it better. That's what it really admires. That's what we talk about in eulogies, because that's what's important. We don't say, "The thing about Joe was he was rich." We say, if we can, "The thing about Joe was he took care of people" [...]
After Tim's death, the entire television media for four days told you the keys to a life well lived, the things you actually need to live life well, and without which it won't be good. Among them: taking care of those you love and letting them know they're loved, which involves self-sacrifice; holding firm to God, to your religious faith, no matter how high you rise or low you fall. This involves guts, and self-discipline, and active attention to developing and refining a conscience to whose promptings you can respond. Honoring your calling or profession by trying to do within it honorable work, which takes hard effort, and a willingness to master the ethics of your field. And enjoying life.
Men can therefore win the true prize of sexual love--namely, the sexual love of a good woman, which underneath all their posturing is what the gamers really want--by goodness, by virtue. Now, what is it to be good? It is to yearn for the Good, and to seek to participate therein, more and more. This has been well understood since long before Plato. If one's life is about the Good, then everything else will fall into place. There is no guarantee that a life in service of the Good will get you any particular goods, including those of sex; but there are never any guarantees in any case. If you want a guarantee, you've got the wrong universe. If one loves the Good, then everything else will fall into its proper order, and one will be given the best that one can get, that is also consonant with the Good. If one is oneself consonant with the Good, such goods as may then follow will suffice [...]
One must decide what one's life is about. One will lose it either way. True men, good men, have reckoned their own death, and pledged their life and its ending to the service of the Good. They do not therefore chafe under the inevitable difficulties and sacrifices of life--including long periods of celibacy, such as soldiers, hunters, and explorers must endure--but rather shoulder them manfully. They do not whine at adversity. They laugh. Thus are heroes made, however humble their predicaments, however meager their ultimate victories, and whether or not anyone recognizes them as such. These are the sort of men to whom the goodness in women, the true womanliness of women, is attracted. Women want heroes; everyone does [...]
At bottom, we all know perfectly well what is going on, for the only way to feel truly good is to be truly good.
"Evolution is a fact. Beyond reasonable doubt, beyond serious doubt, beyond sane, informed, intelligent doubt, beyond doubt evolution is a fact. The evidence for evolution is at least as strong as the evidence for the Holocaust, even allowing for eye witnesses to the Holocaust.... Evolution is a theory in the same sense as the heliocentric theory."
If Darwinian evolution is as factual as the fact that the earth orbits the sun, why would Dawkins have to say it so insistently? If he were speaking about heliocentrism, would he use the same terms in which he speaks about Darwinian evolution?...Clearly he wouldn't speak so hysterically, "protesting too much," about the earth orbiting the sun. Why? Because there's no question that the earth orbits the sun. But there is a lot of question about Darwinian evolution. And that's why when he asserts its absolute facticity he becomes openly unhinged.
I've written about Dawkins many times - usually in a critical way (see here, here, and here, for instance), but one time I praised him (see here).
Also, you many have noticed a resemblance between Dawkins and one of the characters in my book. The name similarity ain't a coincidence.
Since I already have one post mentioning V.I. Lenin today, why not another??
As I continue to debate Gamers online, I constantly hear that I've allowed Roissyism to infect my opinion of "Game" and bias me against it. To paraphrase: "Roissyism takes Game a little too far. If you can remove Roissyism from the equation, Game is a wonderful tool that can help you with women."
In fact, I see things quite differently. It seems to me that Roissyism is the logical consequence of "Game," in the same way that communism was the logical consequence of liberalism. Throughout the Bolshevik Era, liberals said that Stalinism was irrelevant to the merits of their cause; that the cause of "social justice" or "workers' rights" or "public ownership of property" could never lead to murderous tyranny. But of course it did! And that was easy to predict because the philosophical tenets of socialism (the state is the owner of your life) were defenseless once gangsters like Lenin and Stalin arrived on the scene.
Once you accept the reductionist tenets of Game, Roissyism is the logical conclusion. Once you accept that evolutionary psychology and biology are the only ways to meet women and have women fill your physical needs, its only a hop, skip, and a jump to the proud nihilism and boastful hedonism of Roissy.
Is it possible that Roissy might be the only Gamer who truly understands Game?
Also, Lenin had a cute phrase for liberals who praised Communism in practice (while remaining dutiful liberals). He called them "useful idiots."
Game is just about gaining control of women in order to have sex, not to bring them into a virtuous lifestyle, much less to re-order civilization along conservative lines. Theoretically, Game could be a tactic used by a conservative man for conservative purposes, but since the basic premise of Game is that women are genetically programmed to be slutty, he would have to apply the tactics while totally ignoring their theoretical underpinnings.
Gamers think Evolution is all, so they cannot conceive of any way to engage in direct action that will change the way society is ordered. "We're just acknowledging reality," they say, instead of understanding that the direction in which Western civilization will go is currently up for grabs, and that societies change in response to the ideas that are acknowledged to be true. A true conservative would understand the power of ideas rather than claiming nothing can be done to change the Zeitgeist [...]
The claims about what women want are hopelessly over-generalized. All women want "bad boys" and other poor definitions of alpha males? I have observed a lot of women in my life. Some want overly rugged-looking men and some go for boyish looking men. Some go for the Marlboro Man Cowboy in jeans and a flannel shirt with boots, others for metrosexuals, and others for shaggy hippie types. Some put their emphasis on a man's looks, some on his money, while others go for an artistic or musical type with no money and not much prospect of making any money any time soon, and others go for the man in uniform with no concern for money. And on and on and on. The Game discussions I have read by following links from VFR have a ridiculously narrow view of what "all" women like [...]
Masculine excellence can be exhibited by men in many ways...Earn to speak in public and lead. Read and write and speak well. Be bold in the workplace. Learn to fix things. Develop excellence in some area other than your job. Don't project "I'm aimless and spending my time on TV and video games." Instead, think about the man you want to be, in terms of your character traits and abilities, and start striving to be that man. You will seem like a man exhibiting masculine drive and confidence and boldness, because you will be doing exactly that! You won't have to learn to pretend to have such traits.
JR: I'm fine with studying biology (I'm a science buff, myself), but from what I've been reading, it seems that a lot of guys are drawing the wrong conclusions from biology (as explained by "Game"), while neglecting some other very important facts about women that have very little connection to biology (the idea that EVERYTHING in life can be explained by biology is reductionist, and I am not a reductionist). I posted this on Ferdinand's website last night, but its worth repeating here. "When you say it like that, Game sounds very innocuous, even beneficial. But as conservatives, we know you can’t judge something by its intentions, you judge them by their RESULTS. I can’t speak for you, or every single person who comments here, but I’ve read enough of Game through Roissy, Ferdinand, and Mystery to know that Game does more harm than good." Why? See my post above.
If Game is to transform our society and save Western Civilization, it will have to be utilized by huge numbers of the "beta males" (as they define themselves) in order for a big impact to be made on family formation. But the success of Game depends on its being a secret, an act that the women do not realize is a charade. If the Game movement were to grow by a factor of 10 in coming years, surely magazines for young women would start running articles exposing it. I think it is also likely that Game succeeds partly by making the practitioner different from the norm, hence intriguing, mysterious, etc. But how can Game then become the norm for huge numbers of males?
It seems that the only possible success of Game can be to enable a minority of men to fly under the radar, using it while women are unsuspecting. Hence it cannot transform the whole society.
"What is to be done?" That was the question Vladimir Lenin asked in 1902. On the subject of sex and love in modern society, allow me to make a few suggestions.
As part of the discussion to Roissy's essay, Jealousy, "Vladimir" (not Lenin, I presume), asked me:
In your post, you write: “There are better alternatives to Game.” I’m curious what exactly you have in mind when you talk about these “alternatives.” I honestly have trouble imagining what it could be except either something clueless, or something that boils down to the practical application of some aspects of game that are frequently discussed in forums like this one.
This is what I wrote back...
Vladimir: You are correct that I have spent too much time exposing the flaws of Game and not enough time articulating a positive alternative. Hopefully, this post can move the conversation in a new and better direction. So what do I advocate? That’s the million-dollar question. Well, that’s hard to explain in a single blog comment, but here’s a few thoughts to get the discussion started:
First, I’m not sure how familiar you are with Objectivism, but I’m probably about 90% an Objectivist, so Ayn Rand’s philosophy in which men (and women) are encouraged to see themselves (and – if necessary – REcreate themselves) as rational, self-interested, self-confident beings with integrity has major applications for dating, marriage, and romance. As a person gradually adopts and applies Objectivism, their self-confidence increases become they realize how truly capable they are to master life (after all, everything they need to master life is inside their head – their rational mind).
As their self-confidence increases, their happiness increases, and they are more likely to attract a worthy mate (and not such a one-night stand in a bar).
But while I am 90% an Objectivist, most Objectivists wouldn’t accept me as such because I’m also a person of faith, and that extra dimension of faith bolsters the rational, moral Objectivist foundation.
For more, I’d recommend 2 of my essays: First, “The Philosophy of Heather Manning” which is really MY philosophy. Next is “Sex and Love in Modern Society.”Scroll to the bottom where I ask: “What is my advice to hopeless romantics?’ That provides a few more specifics about what I believe in terms of how men should behave, especially when it comes to pursuing women.
In Game and Modern Romance, Lawrence Auster reflects on Mark P.'s assessment of where we are in the debate (which you can read here).
These were my thoughts:
I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around Mark’s P.’s email.I think almost everyone who has been a part of this discussion over the last few days understands that more choices exist than just 1) “Game” and 2) “Being alone.”The question is: To what extent does Game live up its promise of being 1) a way to help men in their personal relationships with women, and 2) a way to help conservatives rebuild American culture?
Up until last week, I knew nothing of “Game.” I began my research with an open mind.Having completed my research, I feel comfortable stating that Game is not the answer because it fosters an attitude in which men objectify women, casual sex is excused or even encouraged, and as it pertains to married couples, it doesn't facilitate the emotional, spiritual connection that is the key to true happiness. Of course, knowledge is power, and it is worth knowing what makes women “tick” inside. But that’s independent of Game, which has – for whatever reason – morphed into a chauvinistic pseudo-religion among the men who preach its gospel. The bottom line is: There are better alternatives to Game.
I don't have a clever marketing term for my viewpoint, but basically, I believe that men should be confident and happy with themselves, and that eventually (maybe not instantly) that confidence and happiness will attract the right mate.
Yes, I understand that might not be what people want to hear.After all, as Mark P. points out, there are many men who are alone right now.Good men.Men who deserve happiness and fulfillment with a woman.Men who deserve families.And I sympathize with all of them.I’ve been in that situation.But Game is not the answer.The idea that one must choose between “Game” and “Being alone” is a false one.
This is a topic we're both passionate and informed about. We're both writers. We both live in DC. And we both have very different viewpoints. It would be a great opportunity for both of us. I know people in DC who have experience in setting debates up. Do you accept? I can't think of a single reason why you should say "No."
What Roissy has done is take the demented conditions of modern, hyper sexually liberated society and treat them as though they were natural. What bothers me is not Roissy himself, but the fact that so many conservatives find truth and value in him. They claim they can separate the ugly and false from the true and useful. I don't believe it. People who sign onto Roissy, who recommend his thoughts to others, are helping spread vile nihilism.
The discussion surrounding "game" is not just about extramarital sex: it contains an unseemly degree of self-pity, spite, and the ludicrous conceit that sleeping around has something to do with saving western civilization. It is as if some of these people want to stretch or break rules while having others hold their hands and tell them it's ok while they do. The first thing these guys need to learn is that MEN don't behave this way.
Novaseeker: You wrote, "Game is rather empirical – people use it because it works." Works? In what sense? In terms of having more dates with women? Sure, that makes sense. In terms of having more casual sex? Oh, certainly. In terms of increasing a man's happiness?...Err...Look, that's what I care about. The happiness of men. I honestly do not believe that Game can increase a man's happiness because it rests on a philosophic assumption that men and women are animals and that the best way to have a relationship is to treat her like an animal too. The best relationships are those in which both the man and woman are unified by shared values and interests and treat each other with utmost respect as transcendent individuals I can almost people laughing at me when I say that, but it's true. I'm a witness to it.
Whiskey: Your points are well-taken, but I'm not interested in "negging" my wife or pretending there's a chance I'll cheat on her with another woman. There's better ways to keep romance and love alive.
Novaseeker: I posted this on my own blog, but it's worth posting here, as well.
Like in many times in life, we have a problem of language...You, I, and a lot of folks here are using the same word ("Game") to refer to many different things. I am 100% in favor of helping men bolster their self-confidence around women, and teaching them "tools of the trade" to meet and date women. Perhaps that was Straus' purpose when he wrote his book. I don't know; I didn't read it. What I do know about "Game" is through my Internet research and discussions with other folks over the last few days - and they are talking about a form of "Game" in which women are casually perceived as animals, men are encouraged to be alpha dogs or perish, and the idea of true love between a man and a woman based on MUTUAL respect is considered a passe illusion. I don't know where you stand on THIS form of Game, but this is the form of Game that has drawn my attention and my sword.
Novaseeker, you wrote: "My own interest in Game is not in that vein. I realize it can be used in that vein. I do not believe that simply because it can be used in that vein, that it is therefore useless. Guns, for example, can be used to kill people, yet most conservatives don't seem to think guns are useless for other purposes." My concern with Game is based on the fact that many men seem to be using it to kill people (metaphorically speaking).
Novaseeker said...
My concern with Game is based in the fact that many men seem to be using it to kill people (metaphorically speaking).
Then we should ban guns, pornography, alcohol and so on. Game is a neutral tool. It can be used for mischief or for benefit. Like many other things.
Todd White said...
Novaseeker: Is there any chance you and your friends can reply to what I WROTE, instead of projecting onto me? When did I say we should ban Game? My position is that there are better alternatives to Game. This religion of Game - and yes, I'm starting to think it's a religion based on the impassioned way some people are talking about it - is, in most cases, not helpful to men or women.
One STDV: Whether on purpose or not, you raise an interesting issue. You casually state, "many betas would be fully satisfied with 3-5 sexual partners/year (a reasonable sum for an average Gamer). Game gives betas the tools to avoid marriage and reproduction." In my discussion with Gamers, they insist to me that Game is NOT about getting laid. But it sounds like it is. What value does Game have for men who want a successful, happy marriage?
I'm sure I'm not the first person to notice that about 90% of popular culture is a cesspool. But how bad is it? And what does it have to do with "Game?"
Last week, Peter Suderman deconstructed the love that many women have for Don Draper, a character on the hit TV show Mad Men.
Draper isn't sexy so much because he's a cad or a lout or a sexist; he's sexy because he's a fictionalized, idealized fantasy of an iconic form of masculinity.
Draper's womanizing and crude beliefs aren't what make him appealing so much as his impeccable suits -- always carefully pressed and form fitting -- and his posed cigarette smoking, his immaculately lit surroundings and the elegant way he holds a glass of scotch. As a fictional dreamboat, Draper never has to participate in the unsexy realities of life: He doesn't change diapers, or use the restroom, or spill coffee on his shirt on the way to work. Thanks to a team of screenwriters, he always has the right words to say, or not say, and those around him always provide him with opportunities for pregnant pauses and dramatic silences. We never see Draper except when he's at his most posed and perfect.
Your average cheating, borderline alcoholic sexist doesn't have these luxuries, and thus isn't nearly as charming or magnetic. Draper, on the other hand, is sexy and cool because he doesn't have to deal with any of the real world's un-sexy, un-cool realities. In other words, he's a product of TV's image-making process -- deeply and truly attractive, but in large part because he's made to be.
What does this have to do with Game? Well, for many young men, pornography (and especially Internet porn) is ubiquitous. Without getting into a long debate as to whether porn is moral or immoral, can we at least consider the possibility that porn may have distorted our opinions of women (in the same way Mad Men - and other shows - distort the opinion of men)?
Over time, porn may hinder a man's ability to distinguish between what's real and isn't real. We may begin to think it's normal for beautiful women to throw themselves at "the boy next door" (obviously the target for most porn) and fulfill his sexual desires. And that's where Game comes in. The proponents of Game are tapping into an anxiety felt in the hearts of many young men. The message is, "If your life isn't regularly filled with scenes from a 2-minute Internet porn clip, then there's something wrong with you. You need Game. And we can help."
Chlamydia Helps Young Men Feel More Manly:“Young men who contract sexually transmitted diseases often view their afflictions as an affirmation of their manhood, a new Swedish study shows…With other male friends slapping on the shoulders and offering encouraging comments about 'success with the ladies,' young men who contract diseases such as chlamydia or genital warts can come to view their infection as a badge of honour, rather than a serious health problem.”
As the "Game over Game" continues, one thought repeatedly enters my mind: If I ever worried that my character Troy Dawkins came across as unrealistic - that readers wouldn't believe that a man could be so disrespectful towards women and so nihilistic towards life - and also be loved for those VERY reasons - than that worry has been put to rest. Roissy, thy name is Troy Dawkins. And it sounds like the spirit of Troy lives on in many others.
These kids feel that they have their hands on the truth, the truth that no humans before them have ever seen--the truth of female sexuality. They lay great stress on the idea that social conservatives are on the wrong side, because the "SoCons," as they call them, see men as beasts and women as refined beings whose job it is to civilize the men. Now it's true that such a view is fairly common among today's social conservatives and Christians, and I agree with the Gamers that it is a sentimental and destructive delusion. But what the Gamers don't see is that the Christianity they are accusing of naivete on this score is the contemporary, emotion-based brand of evangelical Christianity… They don't seem to be aware that historical Christianity and conservatism put human sinfulness first and foremost in its picture of human nature--including an understanding of female sexuality in its evil aspects [...]
But a more fundamental flaw than their cultural and historical ignorance and their ideological arrogance is their biological reductionism and determinism. Thus they treat the female attraction to dangerous and irresponsible men…as a fundamental and unchangeable truth of existenceon which society must be built, not realizing that this "truth" is itself the result of contingent cultural factors. In Christian terms, it would be like translating the idea that "man is inclined to evil but capable of good," into "man is biologically determined to be evil." Of course, some things are biologically determined; but the Gamers seem to think that everything is biologically determined.
I'll quote some comments from In Mala Fide to give a flavor of the discussion.
A commenter named Rum wrote:
Saving Western Civilization is still the ultimate Right Thing to Do, it is just that this will have to be done without putting women on much of a pedestal, and with the awareness that most womens' deepest sexual instincts are no different than a chimp's--they only want to mate with elite males and will hook up with ordinary nice guys if they have no choice. The hind-brain-vagina connection always lights up brightest in response to the type of man that is unlikely to be an ideal, stable provider.
To which I replied:
If you think that this is true, and if you think that speaking about human beings in this way can be the basis of any politics at all, let alone of some alliance between bio-cons and social conservatives, let alone of saving Western civilization, you're living in a fantasy.
Look at what you're saying. You're saying that the way to save Western civilization is to regard women as the equivalents of chimpanzees.
The Beta Revolution errs in assuming these betas will act in the manner which supports societal reform and not in the manner that motivated them to pursue Game in the first place. With the success of Game, their sexual desire and confidence will only increase, making them increasingly unlikely to settle down with a rapidly aging baby-maker. Thus, the Beta Revolution ultimately fails because it converts a class of productive men potentially satisfied with a traditional family existence into a cohort of productive men who shirk the duties of stability and reproduction. The Beta Revolution will depress the reproduction of betas by inviting them into a world of sexual gratification and excess. Thus, the beta foundation of society will reproduce even less and the proposed solution fails.
“The Mystery-Neil Strauss conception of game, the view that is by far the most popular, bases its precepts on a quack pseudoscience called “neuro-linguistic programming."
This is not entirely true. In his book “The Mystery Method,” Mystery says that the philosophical basis of game is biology. He states that women are attracted to men who the women’s instincts indicate have high “S+R value,” survival and replication value. I don’t know whether he mentions Darwin by name, but his statement that women are attracted to men based on their biologically programmed antennae for replication value is clearly Darwinian in ethic.
You are giving NLP more credit than it deserves as the historical basis for game. NLP proved that women had certain attraction switches that could be turned on through words and behaviors. This truth caused Mystery to do a trial and error study of female attraction, using himself as the test subject. What he came up with was largely the Evo-Psych based theory we see today.
There is an element of truth in Roissy's advice...But it's mixed up with something false and negative. To say that men need to be strong, that they need to be the leader in the relationship, and that that is what women want, is not the same thing as the deliberate manipulation that Roissy counsels. What he says is not good. The badness of Roissy simply radiates from everything he writes. And frankly, not intending disrespect to anyone, I feel that people who do not see this about Roissy have gone astray.
Evil always comes mixed with good, otherwise it would have no power to attract. So Roissy offers some things that seem helpful. But (1) Roissy is evil; and (2) whatever truly valid element there is in Roissy's advice could be found and practiced without Roissy and his baggage.
The men asserting that they can't find wives because the women "don't want nice guys" are engaging in self-justification and/or self-delusion. What is actually happening is that the women whom they consider sufficiently attractive to pursue don't find them sufficiently attractive and/or interesting in return. Women who fail to measure up to their standards of beauty won't get the time of day from these "nice guys."
Roissy's purpose is not to exalt readers with truth, but rather--like a successful pornographer--to foment anger and misogyny in men who want to luxuriate in their sexual frustration. Like all propaganda, his message is based on partial truth, but he also slanders and denigrates all women for effect. In fact, there are plenty of good women out there...For any refined man, hedonism is nihilistic despair, and as such, has nothing to do with saving Western civilization. In fact, it is just another exponent of its decline.
Even apart from the sophomoric, ludicrous notion that the Game could ever be the driving force to produce a higher civilization, it doesn't take profound insight to see that it will eventually prove to be destructive on the personal level for everyone involved in it. And it is the women in such relationships who will first come to realize just how distasteful and unacceptable a counterfeit it really is. For a woman's strongest desires--to feel specially loved and cherished and to have the deepest possible emotional connection to her mate--are exactly what Roissy's desperate, addicted, game-playing "lost boys" will be constitutionally incapable of fulfilling.
Game is an excuse for sinful behavior under the pretense of altering or undermining the current sexual license that prevails in our society. As we know, it is in our nature to use any justification we might devise in order to fulfill our own desires as well as to justify why we should not be adhering to moral principles. Game is nothing less than arrant evil in disguise.
