Yesterday, Ferdinand Bardamu was kind enough to post a very thoughtful, detailed comment to my essay, Sex, Love, and Marriage in Modern Society: The Clever Pointlessness of Game.
I’ve only become familiar with Ferdinand’s writings this week, but in the essays I’ve tackled, he comes across as a well-educated and open-minded individual. And so I’m happy to have this dialogue with him, even though we have some major disagreements about some fundamental issues.
I’ve posted clips from his comment below, along with my response to them.
FB: “I advocate game as a short-term salve and not as a long-term solution. As I and others have written, having men behave like indifferent cads will speed up society's destruction. The long-term goal is to topple the structures (no-fault divorce, alimony/child support, welfare, etc.) that making using game the only viable option for men.”
TW: I don’t understand this at all. The vast majority of people – even among ideologues like myself – do not make decisions about their personal life on a day-to-day basis with the goal of changing society. What can be the justification for allowing your life to be used as a sacrifice for social progress? And what is your definition of progress? Relatively parochial issues like welfare reform. I’m not a fan of welfare myself, but I can’t imagine any scenario where I would allow the most important thing in my life – my love of a woman – to be dictated by the hope that one day – maybe – through my actions – society will be motivated to change its welfare laws.
FB: “A popular myth is that the intellectual foundation of game is Darwinism. This is incorrect. Only the Roissysphere and Steveosphere hold to this view…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"
TW: Again, I don’t understand this. You casually dismiss the twin intellectual foundations of “Game” – which is your prerogative - but then you – as a Gamer - don’t offer an alternative foundation. Normally, I would say that is your prerogative too, but in your writings you clearly advocate Game to advance a larger social purpose. That purpose should have a clearly-stated intellectual foundation. I believe that Game’s foundation – whether you recognize it or not - is “Reductionism.” What is Reductionism, and why is it harmful to the individual and society? See Lawrence Auster’s posts here and here. At the age of 29, Reductionism holds no appeal to me. I’ve traveled that road before, and I have no interest in traveling it again.
From there, the discussion shifts to Spiritual Rationalism…
FB: “So this is your vaunted alternative to game - an elaborate version of telling young men to "just be themselves?" You'll forgive me if I think your advice is rather impractical.”
TW: Well, it’s a little more complicated than “just be yourself,” but I’ll accept that phrase for now. Let me ask you: What is impractical about being truthful to yourself and loving yourself for who you truly are? And why is it “practical” to dislike yourself and create a false persona to achieve morally questionable goals?
FB: "S.R. advances a philosophy of personal integrity (“Be good and be smart”)."
What happens in a world where virtue is punished and vice rewarded, "as our world does"?
TW: To be honest, I don’t think our world punishes virtue and rewards vice. I really don’t. It’s true the world isn’t perfect, but it’s also a place where – more often than not – happy, moral people thrive, and immoral people eventually discover (usually the hard way) that their immorality creates negative consequences.
FB: “There have to be tangible benefits to being a person with integrity (beyond what gratification the person gets from it) in order for people to follow that route.”
TW: Yes, of course. That’s why I recommend integrity. Because it has benefits.
FB: Game isn't about "casual sex," it's about making oneself attractive to women. What happens from that point forward is the man's choice.
TW: An important question: Why is it so vital for you to make yourself attractive to women? Think about it: Why are you judging yourself and basing your behavior on the opinion of other people – people who, in most cases, are expendable clods. Why can’t you find happiness within yourself? A form of happiness that depends on the popularity on others is – by definition – an unreliable form of happiness.
FB: A man needs to be physically attracted to a woman in order for a relationship to be possible. Looks matter.
TW: This is a complicated subject which I’ll tackle at a later time. For now, let me just say, yes, looks do matter, and there’s inherently nothing with that if looks are put in their proper perspective. Looks should never be the number one basis for determining whether or not you should date a woman. That’s silly. The woman you love is always beautiful. If you think I’m naïve, so be it.
FB: Game is not about lying. If anything, game allows a man to be more honest with himself, by enabling him to express his true desires.
TW: That’s not my understanding of game. I watched a few episodes of The Pickup Artist. Lying was definitely a part of the seduction, and proudly so.
FB: Getting good with women is the only way to be selective enough that you can afford to do this. Game helps you get good with women.
TW: I don’t agree - in part, for the reason I stated above. Lying doesn’t help you “get good with women” – unless by “get good” you mean having an unhappy relationship, which is the inevitable result of a relationship founded on lies.
FB: Unconditional love is a myth and an excuse people use to indulge in their worst habits. Should Charles Manson's parents have loved him unconditionally?
TW: Ha! I don’t think they did! Which is why he became a murderer! ;) But seriously, unconditional love is not a myth. Ask most parents how they feel about their children.
FB: Who said anything about "sex with women [you] don't even like?"
TW: Roissy did. He said it specifically.
FB: If alpha males are getting all the women, then men will seek to emulate them. The only way to change this is to change the system that gives these scumbags all of the benefits.
TW: Ask yourself: Why is it so important for you “to get all the women?” Seriously. Wouldn’t it be better to just find one wonderful woman who you love and who loves you? Forgive me, but I have a hard time understanding your premises.
FB: I appreciate your post, and as an aside, I'm interested in your philosophy of "spiritual rationalism."
TW: Cool. If you haven’t already done so, check out my post, “The Philosophy of Heather Manning.” It’s the Cliff Notes version.
FB: Perhaps I’ll read your novel.
TW: It’s a good one, I assure you! ;)
Let me say again that I appreciate Ferdinand’s response, and I hope he’ll consider writing another one. It’s been educational for me. And fun. Also, I’ve put his blog, In Mala Fide, on my Blog List, and I recommend others do the same.
-Todd
NOTE: The photo above is from the Reality TV show The Pick-Up Artist. On the right is "Mystery," and on the left is one of his Average Frustrated Chumps (AFC).
NOTE: Lawrence Auster comments on this email exchange here.
**UPDATE, AUG. 24, 2009**
See the Comments section for Ferdinand's response. And click here for my reply.
7 comments:
"I don’t understand this at all. The vast majority of people – even among ideologues like myself – do not make decisions about their personal life on a day-to-day basis with the goal of changing society. What can be the justification for allowing your life to be used as a sacrifice for social progress? And what is your definition of progress?"
You know the feminist catchphrase "The personal is the political?" They had a point in that statement - a successful revolutionary movement must address the personal needs of the people it is claiming to help. Specifically, these needs must be addressed in a way that allows individuals to reap the benefits either immediately or in the near future.
Take the Chinese Civil War. The war was very regionalist, pitting wealthy urbanites (Nationalists) against the rural peasantry (Communists). Because his power base was in the cities, Chiang Kai-shek had little concern for the peasants, and his armies treated them with indifference at best and utter cruelty at worst. Mao Zedong saw this and ordered his followers to help the peasants they encountered in any way they could. If a villager needed a well dug, the Communists helped them dig it. If they needed to find a missing child, the Communists helped them search. If a village needed a schoolteacher, the Communists provided one. The Communists' goal was to alleviate the suffering of the rural poor, but simply spouting Marxism at them would not have helped on its own. By assisting the Chinese peasantry with their personal problems, Mao won their undying support - and with their support, he won the war.
This is what I am advising conservatives to do. The chief problem of our modern society is the sexual starvation of beta males (or average men, if you prefer). Denied the possibility of procreation, these men are dropping out of society and leaving it to fall apart. The long-term political goal of conservatism is to undo the governmental and social institutions that have forced these men into the shadows. Until then, however, these men need a way to sate their lusts. Game is the best way, in my opinion, to help them do this. By helping these men solve their personal problems, we can thus win their support for our political goals. Every movement needs its foot soldiers, and the "average men" are an ideal market for conservatism, but unless conservatives find a way to solve this problem, their efforts to turn back leftism are doomed to failure.
My blogging comrade (blograde?) Φ sums it up best:
"Likewise, an understanding of HBD recommends two different but not necessarily contradictory approaches to the problem of beta sexual impoverishment:
On the micro level, betas should learn game (the PUA community); and
On the macro level, we must reverse the social policies of the last 40 years (social conservatives)."
Continued...
"Relatively parochial issues like welfare reform. I’m not a fan of welfare myself, but I can’t imagine any scenario where I would allow the most important thing in my life – my love of a woman – to be dictated by the hope that one day – maybe – through my actions – society will be motivated to change its welfare laws."
Your dismissal of welfare as "parochial" is part of the problem. Welfare is a VERY big contributor to the current mess we're in. The clearest example of this is in the black ghettos. Pre-welfare, poor black women needed to marry men in order to put food on the table. With the Great Society, these same women no longer had to worry about starving, giving them free license to throw out their husbands and pursue bad boy alphas. The young boys saw this and realized that the only way to get with women was to become a violent thug. The fact that the government later passed a new law that barred households with a man from receiving welfare worsened the problem. The root of every major problem afflicting the black community is welfare - getting rid of it will be a major step in the right direction.
For middle-class whites, the dominant issue is the anti-male marriage laws. Half of all marriages in this country end in divorce, and more than 2/3rd of all divorces are initiated by women, and no-fault divorce laws allow couples to split for any reason. Custody of the children goes to the woman 95 percent of the time - a woman has to be completely crazy, ala Britney Spears, in order for the man to get custody. In addition, the man will see his wages garnished for child support, and should he lose his job or otherwise fall on hard times, the government shows no mercy, labels him a "deadbeat dad," and throws him in jail.
I don't know your current relationship status, Mr. White, but let me ask you this: are you willing to get married knowing full well that there is a 50/50 chance your marriage will end in divorce, a 70 percent chance that it will be your wife who will initiate the divorce, and a near certainty that you will not only not get custody of your own children, but have your earnings taken away for child support and risk being thrown in debtors' prison should you fall on hard financial times? Maybe you're willing to play those odds, but I'm not, and neither are millions of men. I do want to get married and start a family eventually, but when I do, it won't be in America, and it won't be with an American woman. I value my life and my freedom to much to risk having them taken away.
Continued...
"Again, I don’t understand this. You casually dismiss the twin intellectual foundations of “Game” – which is your prerogative - but then you – as a Gamer - don’t offer an alternative foundation. Normally, I would say that is your prerogative too, but in your writings you clearly advocate Game to advance a larger social purpose. That purpose should have a clearly-stated intellectual foundation. I believe that Game’s foundation – whether you recognize it or not - is “Reductionism.” What is Reductionism, and why is it harmful to the individual and society? See Lawrence Auster’s posts here and here. At the age of 29, Reductionism holds no appeal to me. I’ve traveled that road before, and I have no interest in traveling it again."
Part of the problem is that there is no consensus on the foundation for game. Game is in a position similar to that of Christianity in the early days of the Roman Empire. As an underground movement, Christianity had no organized churches and no central authority to define what its main tenets were, and as a result, there were numerous heresies such as Arianism that toyed with the basic theology. The First Council of Nicaea was convened specifically to reach a consensus on what Christianity was and clear up confusion.
Game is in a similar position. As an underground movement, there is no central source or document. The various schools of game - the Roissy school, the Mystery school, etc - all agree that game works and is effective, but can't agree as to why. I imagine as game becomes more popular, we will see a "First Council of Nicaea" event to sort these issues out. My views on game are influenced by Roissy's writings, but are somewhat atypical (or at least I think so), so take them with a grain of salt, but here's what I believe.
I have no facts to support my assertions, but I would imagine that Roissy and many Roissysphere writers come from math and science backgrounds. I come from a humanities background. When I became acquainted with the seduction community, I began noticing bits and pieces of their philosophy in the works of literature I was reading. Those Byron poems I linked to are a prime example - he wrote those poems before Darwin was even born, and yet he managed to arrive at the same conclusions of the Darwinist Roissy school of game. This fascinated me, so I started doing my own research into the subject. What did I find? The principles underlying game are echoed in the literature and history of the West, going all the way back to the ancient Greeks. If you want a better idea of where I'm coming from, read Robert Greene's "The Art of Seduction." As a self-help book, it's useless, but as a study of human sexuality in Western history and culture, it is INVALUABLE.
Have you read Michel Foucault's "The History of Sexuality?" A dreadful book that gets everything wrong except for one thing it only gets half-wrong. Foucault notes the emergence of an intellectual discourse on sexuality in the time he was writing (the 1970's), when there wasn't one before. He wrongly attributed it to the Industrial Revolution. I posit that there is an emerging discourse on sexuality, but it is not the result of the Industrial Revolution, but the Sexual Revolution.
Game, in my opinion, works because its principles spring from the unconscious body of knowledge of sexuality that people had prior to the Sexual Revolution. I call it an "unconscious body of knowledge" because nobody ever wrote it down or thought about it much. Things like why women shouldn't sleep around or why they shouldn't chase men like Roissy or Ryan Jenkins didn't need to be justified intellectually - they were self-evident. Now where this knowledge sprang from is up for debate. I am sympathetic to Darwinist explanations, but Darwinism is an incomplete theory, which is why I don't criticize anti-Darwinists such as yourself or Lawrence Auster as heavily as some of my colleagues. Point is, this "unconscious body of knowledge" is time-tested and exists independently of Darwinism.
Continued...
The sexual knowledge of our forebears was junked by 60's counterculturalists in their mad drive to destroy old ideas. I would compare what they did to the burning of the great library at Alexandria, except that what the counterculturalists did has done far more damage to the world. Nature abhors an intellectual vacuum, so feminism came flooding in to fill the gap. The claims that gender is a social construct, that men have been keeping women down for all eternity, that all sex is rape - these wrongheaded assertions have infected the government, the churches, the culture, and have caused no end of suffering for men and women.
Game is part of the emerging discourse on sexuality, the re-emergence of the "old knowledge." The first step was the advent of the seduction community, a purely pragmatic movement focused on getting unlucky men laid. The second step was the emergence of Roissy, the first writer to connect game to conservatism, human biodiversity and the decline of Western civilization. The next step, I imagine, will be the formation of an ideological movement folding the practical knowledge presented by game into the existing goals of conservatism. One of my colleagues, Beta Prime, established a new blog entitled "Beta Revolution" for this specific purpose. My own writings on this topic have attracted considerable attention (as our exchange shows), and I've only been blogging for a month!
For another example, let's take the emergence of Christian apologetics. There was no such thing as "Christian apologetics" in the Middle Ages, because the average medieval European regarded Christianity's tenets as self-evident. Beginning with the Renaissance, the science discoveries of men like Galileo and Copernicus sowed doubt into the minds of the average believer. From there, Immanuel Kant stated that God's existence could not be proven. A hundred years later, Nietzsche declared that God was dead. World War I was the straw that broke Christianity's back, and the post-war period saw the rise of prominent atheist intellectuals such as Bernard Shaw and the members of the Bloomsbury Group. It fell to writers such as C.S. Lewis to mount an intellectual defense of Christianity.
I would argue that "gamers" are in a similar position, offering "sexuality apologetics" arguing the reality of human nature against leftists and feminists. Game's mere existence as a proven method of seducing women disproves every single claim made by feminists and leftists about sexuality in the past forty years. It's the intellectual equivalent of a hydrogen bomb, and can do as much damage to the leftist cause. Therein lies the value of game to conservatives. The current ferment in the blogosphere in regards to game will likely lead to the establishment of intellectual coherency regarding its tenets.
Continued...
"What is impractical about being truthful to yourself and loving yourself for who you truly are?"
It's impractical because it's not specific. Game offers specific advice for real-world situations. The difference between what game advocates and what you advocate is the difference between giving someone wandering a thick jungle a map and a compass and giving them a pep talk - "You can do it! You can find your way out!" Pretty words, but they don't help.
That, and "loving yourself" comes across as self-evident. It's like saying that the key to a long life is breathing.
"And why is it “practical” to dislike yourself and create a false persona to achieve morally questionable goals?"
Telling people that they aren't cutting the mustard as they are and that they have to improve, as game does, is not the same as telling them to "dislike" themselves. And "morally questionable goals?" I'll quote myself on that one:
"Think of game as being like a butcher knife, which can be used to carve up meat or carve people up into meat. Does the fact that some sick individuals do the latter mean that butcher knives can only be used for that purpose?"
"Game is nothing more then a tool, with its application left up to individual use. If it seems that the loudest proponents of game are hedonists, that’s because we live in a hedonistic era, and says nothing about game itself."
"To be honest, I don’t think our world punishes virtue and rewards vice. I really don’t. It’s true the world isn’t perfect, but it’s also a place where – more often than not – happy, moral people thrive, and immoral people eventually discover (usually the hard way) that their immorality creates negative consequences."
A world in which a model citizen like George Sodini goes twenty years without a girlfriend and Scott Peterson, a guy who murdered his wife while having an affair with a pretty young thing, gets besieged daily with throngs of women offering their hands in marriage, is a world that doesn't reward virtue. Not at all. To quote myself again:
"In the past, men who played by the rules won out in the end. No more. Women of all types are spreading their legs exclusively for pick-up artists, cads, players, badboys, and other men whom a healthy society would regard as the scum of the earth. Men like George Sodini who succeed and contribute to society have only their right hands for company, while bottom-feeders are drowning in more vaj then they know what to do with. Is this just? Is this right?"
"Looks should never be the number one basis for determining whether or not you should date a woman. That’s silly. The woman you love is always beautiful. If you think I’m naïve, so be it."
It's not the sole determinant, but it's an important one. This was recognized prior to the Sexual Revolution - marriage contracts stipulated that wives had to service their husbands sexually whenever he said so, which entailed staying in shape and keeping the pounds off. "Marital rape" was an oxymoron. Of course, this was also wiped out by the feminists.
"That’s not my understanding of game. I watched a few episodes of The Pickup Artist. Lying was definitely a part of the seduction, and proudly so."
"Lying doesn’t help you “get good with women” – unless by “get good” you mean having an unhappy relationship, which is the inevitable result of a relationship founded on lies."
Watching a few episodes of a show about pickup doesn't make you an expert on game, anymore then reading a few chapters of Genesis makes you an expert on the Bible. See my above comments on game being a tool.
"Ha! I don’t think they did! Which is why he became a murderer! ;) But seriously, unconditional love is not a myth. Ask most parents how they feel about their children."
Lots of people believe all sorts of kooky things, like that Saddam Hussein caused 9/11 - doesn't make them true. The difference between parents who love their children unconditionally and parents who don't is that the children of the former grow up to be drug addicts, criminals, college dropouts, and wastrels. If you love someone, the best thing you can do for them is love them conditionally - it sets a standard that they will hold themselves to. Otherwise, they'll end up failing you, and YOU'LL be unhappy.
"Roissy did. He said it specifically."
Well, I disagree with him, for already stated reasons.
"Ask yourself: Why is it so important for you “to get all the women?” Seriously. Wouldn’t it be better to just find one wonderful woman who you love and who loves you? Forgive me, but I have a hard time understanding your premises."
It's not about "getting all the women," it's about getting A woman. The drive of all living beings, including humans, is to procreate. Without that drive, we'd have died out ages ago.
Men will do anything to win the love of a woman - this motif is so burned into our culture that it's past the point of being a cliche. Off the top of my head - "The Importance of Being Earnest," in which Algernon and Jack go so far as to change their names to win the hearts of the women they love. if women demand that men marry them in order to win their love, then that's what men will do. If women exclusively reward scumbags, non-scumbag men will emulate them just to get a foot in the door. I'll direct you to my colleague Whiskey, who has written extensively on this issue. Theodore Dalrymple's "Life at the Bottom," which informs Whiskey's thought as well as my own, is also worth a read. Incentives matter, and right now, the configuration of society rewards men to be like Ryan Jenkins. If you don't like this, you need to start working on a plan to kill the underlying causes. See my manifesto for an outline of I think this should be done. Even if you don't agree with me, I suggest you hang around and pay attention to the Roissysphere - the current blog furor over game suggests this thing has serious legs.
A couple of other points:
I forgot to address this in my previous response, but you wrote:
"Love is a beautiful thing. Someone should tell Roissy."
I'm not terribly interested in arguing Roissy's positions - he can do that himself - but I will say this; love is a crucial component of a man's sexual satisfaction. Roissy has stated this before, and I agree with him. I would characterize the hierarchy of ideal male romantic satisfaction like this, in order from most satisfying to least:
long-term relationship (including marriage)
fling
one-night stand
soliciting a hooker
masturbation
Finally, Todd, both you and Lawrence Auster have characterized me as a "reductionist." That label is not wholly inaccurate, but I believe your aversion to reductionism is misplaced. I read your piece on why you turned away from reductionism, and your reaction to it is akin to a former alcoholic campaigning for the government to ban alcohol - indulging in it excessively is bad for you, but that doesn't make IT bad, it just makes excessive indulgence of it bad. Reductionism in moderate doses is necessary to understand the world around us. Have you ever baked a cake or cooked any sort of recipe? Then you've engaged in a mild form of reductionism. You can't comprehend anything, including human societies, without considering the disparate parts that make up the whole.
Anti-reductionists such as Mr. Auster claim that "reductionists [are] unable to articulate and defend our civilization, because [they are] unable to articulate the things that make up our civilization, such as religion, philosophy, political science, morality," but I've never heard Auster or anyone else of his persuasion offer a satisfactory alternative explanation as to WHERE all of those things came from. If "reductionism" doesn't explain the West's uniqueness and ascension to glory, then what does? Geographical accident (the Jared Diamond/leftist view of the world)? Dumb luck? The will of God? Much like a cake is made from specific ingredients, so the West and other civilizations were created from a convergence of factors. Identifying the particular mix that made the West is key to saving it. If Auster is too recalcitrant to realize this, then frankly, he's useless.
Part of the reason I'm writing this, Todd, is because I think you're a smart guy and I can get through to you. You said you were 29? I'm a bit younger. We've grown up in the same degenerate cultural milieu, and the comment you sent to View from the Right shows that you're aware of the factors that have made our society the way it is. I'm doing this because I don't want the greatest civilization in all of human history to collapse because the people who were supposed to be manning the guard towers were looking in the wrong direction, allowing the barbarians to sack the town square.
Best of luck to you.
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