Category Archives: Virtue

Virtue Signalling

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
(Luke 18:9-14 ESV)

Land linked to this tweet by Scalzi, where he shows he doesn’t understand the concept of virtue signalling.

Virtue signalling is a relatively new phrase, but the concept has been around forever; Jesus pointed it out.

Virtue signalling is not virtue, it is the pretense of virtue.  A virtuous person is virtuous because they act virtuously. A charitable man extends mercy to those around him, a generous man gives to those in need, a kind man treats his neighbours kindly, and so on.

Being virtuous generally, at least if the virtue is not one disdained by fallen culture, results in status. People look-up to virtuous people. But on the other hand virtue is hard and requires sacrifice and discipline. You are only as generous as the portion of your income you’re actually willing to give to others.

Some people try to acquire status the honest way, such as the pharisee above. They practice virtuous activities so they can show off their virtue to others. But this virtue is not real virtue.

A generous man gives to the poor because it’s the right thing to do or because he is compelled by compassion, duty, or guilt; he does so for some reason intrinsic to himself and his own character. He is generous because he is a generous person. The generous man who gives to the poor while telling those around him how generous he is, is not being virtuous. He is not displaying his own virtue, rather he is buying the status of being a generous person with his gifts.

These people status-signal by committing acts of virtue for unvirtuous reasons.

We can see this type of status-signalling clearly in corporate charity. A corporation will donate a significant sum to a charity and hold a press conference to get good PR for it, or they’ll create their own charity linking their brand to the charity and themselves to virtue.

Some status-seekers are not honest or virtuous enough to acquire virtue status the honest way. They seek the status without even committing the act that would indicate this status.

There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. Thus Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas (which means son of encouragement), a Levite, a native of Cyprus, sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles’ feet.

But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, and with his wife’s knowledge he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles’ feet. But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God.” When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last. And great fear came upon all who heard of it. The young men rose and wrapped him up and carried him out and buried him.
(Acts 4:34-37, 5:1-6 ESV)

Ananias saw that Barnabas received status by his generous gift to the early Christian community and desired that status for himself, but he suffered not just pride, but greed. He was too greedy a man to purchase fully the status he desired, so he lied before man and God about what he was giving the community. He received a just punishment for his deceitful status signalling.

Some status-seekers are too lazy or not deceitful enough to do deceitful status signalling, but are too lacking in virtue to honestly acquire status, so they go for the third form, hollow status signalling. In this form, you virtue signal by offering an easy gesture that you and everybody else knows will accomplish nothing.

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“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.

“Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
(Matthew 6:1-6 ESV)

Ideally, people would practice virtue for virtue’s sake. This is true virtue. Sadly life doesn’t work that way. We are fallen and in love with the praise of man. Everybody wants status and everybody will signal.

Honest signalling is hypocritical but a minor amount is not particularly harmful. Note that Jesus said “they have received their reward”, not that they have committed wrong (the Priest’s folly seems to be pride, rather than signalling). Honest signalling is mostly harmless when done within reason.

On a personal level, you should probably repent impure motives if you catch yourself doing this. On a societal level this is generally harmless, possibly even beneficial, assuming the virtues being signaled are themselves good.  If people do good for bad reasons, they’re still doing good. Their soul is between them and God. As well, it is often difficult to tell if someone is being genuinely virtuous or being virtuous for praise.

Generally, people seem to be fairly tolerant of honest signalling as long as it doesn’t get obnoxiously over-the-top or goes too far in its hypocrisy, and that seems the right way to approach it to me.

Deceitful signalling is bald-faced lying. This should be, and as far as I can tell usually is, condemned outright when noticed.

A lot of hollow signalling is neutral or even good. Offering condolences or prayers (rather than just simply praying) after a tragedy, even one having nothing to do with you on the other side of the world is harmless, and in many cases just showing a little bit of support is a positive. Saying “it’s nice to do nice things” is empty signalling, but its harmless and reinforces the value of virtue. Traditionally, hollow virtue signalling has been a nice social lubricant.

The main problem with traditional hollow signalling was that it could be used as a replacement for doing nothing. But those who hollow signaled were likely going to do nothing anyway, and their hollow signalling was only really effecting their immediate social circles, where everybody would and could easily see what they were doing.

The problem is that social media has changed the game. Most people, a select few politicians, talking heads, celebrities, and corporations aside, were limited to hollow signalling to their own limited social circles, where it was usually harmless and often upheld the common values of those circles. Occasional holiness spirals would erupt

But social media has made it a lot easier to hollow signal and a lot more public. This has lead hollow signalling down a dark path.

The first, is that hollow signalling has combined with activism to become something called “raising awareness“. Raising awareness took hold a while back, but it was usually in support of something: a benefits concert, a charity run, a food drive, etc. The activism used to always be in addition to or in support of some form of honest signalling that at least tried to actually accomplish something, but somewhere along the line, when combined with social media, raising awareness became its own independent form of activism. Now raising awareness has infected everywhere and is often used instead of doing anything.

Hollow signalling, in the form of ‘raising awareness’, has to many become its own goal, replacing activism or other types of real action. People are deluding themselves into thinking signalling is a form of action, thinking they’re doing something when doing nothing. #Kony2012 is the ur-example of this.

The second problem is that public hollow signalling is becoming the default. Some forms of hollow signalling have always been expected by default (“my condolences on your loss”), but these have have been private. But now, ideological activists are trying to force it so that it expected that everybody, or at least everybody important/relevant, has to do some hollow signalling. The popular rainbow flags and Brett Favre were examples of this.

Finally, and relatedly, hollow signalling is being weaponized. Rather than being a social lubricant for your social circles, it is becoming politicized. There have always been holiness spirals, but those spirals usually required some action or effort and happened over periods constrained by time and distance. Now spirals are immediate and require no effort. Activists are using this to weaponize signalling, forcing people signal properly, often through the threat of job loss..

Going back to the beginning, the problem with people like Scalzi is that they have so bought into the weaponization of hollow signalling that they think that people who don’t agree with them or even point out that signalling is not action are are evil people engaging in the same type of signalling but for evil.

That’s virtue signalling in a nutshell.

Superior and Inferior

The Wright/Malcolm monarchy debate has ended. I’m late to the debate, but I’m not debating, instead I just want to comment on something Wright said and implicated a number of times:

I have never met anyone who talks like you before. Even the zany materialist Dr Andreassen, who thought himself nothing more than a meat robot, did not think himself my inferior. Quite the opposite.

Then you are a slave in spirit, if not in law. If so, there is nothing to discuss: for you are a man willing to have another decide your fate. If so again, I decree that, as a free man who outranks you, I have unilaterally decided you should enjoy, while in America, the rights for which I but not you are willing to die.

If you argue with my high handed decision, then you are either being presumptuous (as you say) or you are secretly possessed of the belief that you should be allowed to participate in the decision about your life as if you owned it, and were equal with me. But this would indicate that you believe yourself possessed of an inalienable right to equality. But If we are equals, and I am free, you are free. In which case you believe in an inalienable equality of rights. This is in directly logical conflict with the legal theory of monarchy, which holds that the civic power passes by inheritance, as a family property, down a bloodline set aside by law as superior to all others.

So merely by entering into this discussion at all, you cast doubt upon your position. Freedom is not something discussed between equals. Superiors need not discuss such matters with inferiors. The superiors merely decide. The inferiors show respect, show deference, and obey.

First, political freedom is not freedom true. Political freedom is the right of the mob to force their will upon the rest. Republicanism is only superior over democratic mob rule insofar as it is anti-democratic and explicitly hierarchical. Whether you are ruled by a king and ruled by a mob, you are still ruled, although, in the former you are ruled only by one, in the latter by all. Having laws outlining how you are ruled and a judge who “interprets” those laws, doesn’t mean you are any less ruled, it simply means you are ruled by an unelected judge rather than a king.

Second, no man is free. We are born into the world the subject of our father, become the subjects of our teachers, and are always the subject of the state, be it autocratic or democratic. “Freedom” is impersonal authority rather than personal authority. The “free man” wishes to be a servant without a master. To be ruled by a constitution (manipulated by politicians and “interpreted” by judges) is still to be ruled, only it is the rule of impersonal forces set in motion by faceless elites, rather than the personal rule of a known individual. The free republican wishes to be ruled by the Star Chamber rather than the king. Base anarchy is the only true freedom, and nobody wants to live in base anarchy because it means getting brained by the stronger man who wants to eat your venison and rape your woman. (Admittedly, the stronger man might enjoy himself, at least until he is no longer the stronger man).

Third, the consent of the governed doesn’t exist. You are born into a society and indoctrinated in its ways from before you can even speak consent, let alone meaningfully understand the concept. The ideas of your fathers control your mind before you are even capable of realizing it. The liberal may respond, ‘but I rebel against the ways of my fathers’, not knowing rebellion is the way of his fathers. The consent of the governed is the consent of a women not protesting because she has inadvertently consumed rohypnol.

Fourth, republican freedom is not a sign of superiority, but inferiority. The superior man’s superiority comes from the responsibilities for the burdens of others he bears. He is free to act only insofar as others trust him to act for them. The free republican man is free because he bears no responsibility for the burdens of others, only his own. Even the inferior man is superior to the free republican man, for the inferior man bears the burdens and responsibilities entrusted him by his superior. (Of course, it need not be said, the slave is lowest of all for he does not even bear his own burdens. Even so, a slave can still be of value and worth).

The defining feature of the free man is that he rules no one as he himself is not ruled. To call oneself superior to another is to deny one’s own freedom.

Fifth, being a subject is not being a slave. A slave obeys force. A subject obeys a man, an office, and a tradition.

Sixth, being inferior to one is not being inferior to all. Kneeling before the king does not imply kneeling before Mr. Wright. Relatedly, being inferior in one aspect does not make one inferior in all. The king may kneel before the priest come mass, but the bishop kneels before the king come court.

The Left: UnTruth, Amorality, & Narcissism

Progressives are untruthful. It is not because they are “liars” per se, but rather because they don’t believe the truth exists. You can not be truthful when you do not believe truth exists; truth is necessary for truthfulness.

So it goes with morality; progressives are amoral because they don’t believe morality exists and morality has to exist for someone to be moral.

I am not calling leftists untruthful or amoral as a form of verbal attack, but as a simple empirical description. If one actually reads and listens to what leftists say, it is plain as the light of day that leftists both explicitly deny both truth and morality and/or implicitly accept this; usually the more hardcore leftists are explicit, while the useful idiots accept it implicitly.

Richard Anderson points out a recent example from a speech at a white privilege teachers conference:

“Teaching is a political act, and you can’t choose to be neutral. You are either a pawn used to perpetuate a system of oppression or you are fighting against it,” Radersma said during the session. “And if you think you are neutral, you are a pawn.”

Which implies that there is no such thing as objective truth, merely political truth. This is the mentality of a totalitarian. The writer of the above isn’t a fool, she’s a dangerous fanatic.

This is, of course, not unique. Cultural and moral relativism is rife throughout progressivism. To deny absolute truth is to deny Truth itself. TO deny an absolute morality is render morality subjective and therefore entirely meaningless.

But even denying Truth and Morality, leftists still hold to truths and moralities. Leftists believe in social truth and they will usually accept fact truth (as a concept, if not in all particulars, such as IQ), but they deny the existence of primal truth.

As I noted, Truth must be primal truth. Fact truth is empirically true, but mundane, while social truth is true but only through consensus. Primal truth is true on a deeper level; it is what is fundamentally truth.

The leftist is stuck only with mundane empirical truths which have no moral value and no meaning and social truths which are only true and meaningful insofar as they are society makes them true and meaningful. The leftist finds himself in a nihilistic hell where his only meaning can come through the shifting social mores that surround him, yet he knows that those mores are not True, because those outside his particular social grouping deny those social truths.

From this comes the leftists need to intrude his social truths on everyone else. It is why gays need to force Christians to bake them cakes, it is why feminists need Catholics to pay for their birth control, it is why non-leftists, however milquetoast, must be purged, and why leftism must be forced throughout the globe.

He knows that his social truths are only valid insofar as they are accepted by society, so he must force society to accept them, or he renders himself, his truths, his values meaningless. But he must even go beyond his own society, for if other societies do not accept his truths, then he is rendered meaningless to the rest of the world.

Here we can see why the most virulent forms of leftism are so thoroughly narcissistic. The leftist needs others to accept his truths, accept him, or he is, in any real sense, meaningless.

By denying primal Truth, his entire value must come from the society around him. If society ever denied his value, he would lose it completely. Leftism forces its adherents into either nihilism or narcissism (or both), and most people are not psychologically equipped to stare into the nihilistic abyss.

Meanwhile, the natural narcissists find in extreme leftism an ideologically cozy way to enact their narcissism.

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In practice most progressives will usually act and espouse some level of morality (ex: most leftists would abhor murdering a child outside of the womb) and will hold to some things to be true (ex: global warming).

Here we get into the dichotomy of true leftists and useful idiots. The true leftist, such as our educator above, truly denies the existence Truth and Morality believing all truths and morality to be social truths. The useful idiots are either unable or unwilling to actually examine their cognitive dissonance with reason.

As well, not all leftists will become narcissists, as some will become nihilists, and some will either simply live with the cognitive dissonance of living as if the social truths were Truth or simply not be able to intellectually comprehend that social truth is not Truth.

Mastered

I’ve covered strength and courage, now I will cover the masculine virtue of mastery in a Christian context.

The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.

A man must work or despair. He who does not work, does not have a mission, will find himself empty and hollow. He will be consumed by desire without meaning. Anything he is given without earning will taste as ashes to him. A lack of struggle will destroy his soul.

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.

Man was created by God to work. He is meant to work and in this work, by devoting himself to it, he finds meaning.

A man finds meaning in his work, but is always presented with the futility of his actions. Ashes will return to ashes, moth and rust will destroy, and the grave takes us all in the end. Yet, however futile his work, man must persevere or despair will overtake him.

Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward.

The man of God knows his earthly works are futile, yet he works for a higher purpose, one beyond this world. Though his steel rust, his gold be stolen, and his tower lay in ruins, he knows the kingdom his work on earth is building will remain eternal. The treasures of heaven he stores up through his diligence to the Lord will be his and His Lord’s forever.

The man of God works not for himself, but for the One who made him.

And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway. (1 Corinthian 9:25-27, KJV)

Yet, working alone even for Christ is not enough.

Will a man dare to rob God?

Dare he present God with an inferior gift?

Dare he present an unacceptable sacrifice unto the Lord?

Dare he present a blemished, deformed, and stunted free will offering?

If He dare, his sacrifice will be rejected. His works will be revealed and he will suffer loss.

No, a man’s work must be without blemish, it must be superior. A man must become a master of his craft so his works will pass the test of fire, lest all he has built turn to ashes before the Almighty.

Do you see a man skillful in his work?
He will stand before kings;
he will not stand before obscure men. (Proverbs 22:29, ESV)

A man of God must become skillful, so he can stand not just before kings, but before the King of Kings.

The Lord deserves only the best; the man of God must put his whole being into his works for the Lord’s kingdom.

The godly man’s work must be worthy of honouring God, else God may not honour him.

Yet, no man’s work can be worthy. His greatest works are but filthy rags.

The Lord said to Moses, “See, I have called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, to work in every craft. And behold, I have appointed with him Oholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan. And I have given to all able men ability, that they may make all that I have commanded you. (Exodus 31:1-6, ESV)

A man’s work may be unworthy, but should he devote himself to mastering his craft, the Lord will honour him. He will fill the godly man with the Spirit of God, to give him ability, the mastery, to build a holy eternal temple that will pass through the flames unscathed. The Lord will give him te ability to craft a worthy work.

With this God-ordained mastery a godly man will fulfill his purpose, he will be fruitful in his labour, multiply his works, and have dominion over the earth.

Man must master himself in spirit and in body so he can master his work, and through his work the earth.

The man who does not master himself will not master the earth and will present an inferior sacrifice to the Lord that will turn to ashes in the final test of fire.

Ashes to ashes or glory to glory.

The choice is yours to make.

Make the right choice be a master of your craft.

So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.

According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. (1 Corinthians 3:7-15, ESV)

Fearless

According to the Way of Men, the four defining masculine virtues are strength, courage, mastery, and honour. As the foundations of masculinity, I am going to link these virtues to scripture and the Christian life as a basis for Christian masculinity. Today I will focus on courage.

So have no fear of them, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. What I tell you in the dark, say in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 10:26-33, ESV)

A hallmark, the hallmark, of Christian masculinity is fearlessness.

A Christian man should have faith in God that He will meet his needs. From this faith the Christian man should develop a fearlessness to the world around him, for if God’s got your back, what else could there possibly be to worry about?

There is nothing earthly worthy of fear and of the otherworldly entities worthy of fear, one is our leader and the other has already been defeated. There is nothing to fear.

Our courage, our fearlessness is grounded in our faith in God. A Christian man who lets fear control his actions or thoughts is failing in his faith and needs to renew his faith.

The Christian beta is not nice, he is not humble, he is lacking faith. He is guided by fear.

  • He lacks confidence because he lacks the faith God is with him.
  • He is “nice” instead of honest because he lacks faith in the truth.
  • He is afraid to approach the cute girl at church because he lacks the faith God is in control.
  • He worries of other’s opinons because he lacks the faith God’s opinion is the only one that truly matters.
  • He doesn’t stand up for what he knows is right because he lacks faith in his godly convictions.
  • He is desperate because he does not have faith in God’s plan for his life.
  • He doesn’t take risks because he doesn’t have faith God will protect him.
  • He refuses to lead his wife because he doesn’t have faith in God’s plan for marriage.
  • He is afraid to chase his godly desires because he lacks faith God will provide.

These passive, beta behaviours do not come from any sort of holy motives, but from fear born out of a a lack of faith. He should have no fear for he already knows the final destiny of his soul, and all else is simply temporal detail.

The Christian man needs to replace his fear with limitless confidence born of faith.

The confidence of secular game comes from pride. The PUA has irrational self-confidence for he’s basing his confidence on his own self, which is limited. It is irrational because he thinks to highly of himself. Hence the need for the PUA to always remind himself to maintain frame. He has created an irrational bubble of self-confidence that is not based on reality. If he fails to maintain frame, the false front of his irrational self-confidence becomes clear.

The confidence of the Christian man should come from a fearlessness grounded in faith in a limitless God. Once he has it, it can never be taken away, for it is based in the reality that God is in control and His control is absolute. There are no limits to his confidence because God is limitless. His frame is unbreakable for it is fully rational and is based on the unconquerable Almighty.

The first step of developing yourself as a man is to recognize where you lack faith. Any place where you fear, you are lacking faith. So ask yourself, what do you fear? Of whom are you afraid? When do you let fear control you?

The second step is conquering your fear by developing faith. Recognize that God is in control.

Afraid of approaching that girl?

Have faith. Overcome your fear and approach her. If God means her to be yours, you can’t fail. If it doesn’t work out, God never meant her to be your wife, so it is well.

Don’t know what to say?

Have faith. If success is necessary, God will provide any words needed; simply start talking and say whatever comes to mind.

Are you lowering your standards for a woman out of desperation?

Have faith. If you are meant to be married, God will provide. If you are not, marrying a low quality girl will lead to your destruction.

Are you afraid of your wife and letting her control your marriage?

Have faith in God’s plan for marriage and take your rightful place as head of the family.

No matter what you fear, remember that it is nothing next to the God who is with you.

Have faith. Be fearless.

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Know that faith is an active process, not a passive process.

When I say have faith, I do not mean you should avoid acting or wait passively. Having faith means giving yourself to action. When I say God will provide, I don’t mean you should simply let life slip by waiting. I mean that God will give you the strength to take what you need.

Many churches and Christians make the error of mistaking non-action for faith, especially in the realm of marriage. The advice to wait on the Lord to provide a spouse is horrible, possibly even sinful, when used incorrectly, as many Christians do.

Having faith that God will provide a spouse, means having the courage to act fearlessly in pursuing one. It means having the faith in God to strengthen you while you improve yourself as a man to be worthy of the wife God will provide you.

If you are a woman, having faith the Lord will provide does not mean simply praying and hoping. It means actively preparing yourself for marriage by developing your womanhood. It means actively putting yourself out there for godly men to pursue.

If you think have faith means simply waiting for God to provide, you are gravely mistaken. To fail to act is to show a lack of faith. To have faith is to act without fear:

And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets—who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated—of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.

And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect. (Hebrews 11:32-40, ESV)

Male Friendship

I came across these two discussions of the lack of friendship among males, particularly white, heterosexual males. The dearth of male friendship is a serious problem in our modern world. The average American has only 2 close friends. While, as per the Salon article above, white, heterosexual males have the fewest friends.

This lack of friendship comes from a variety of factors, but there are three specific to men. The first is the confluence of both philia and eros under the word love, and the resultant conquering of love by eros. Due to this, in our present language “manly love” might as well mean queer. Related to this is the rise of the homosexual lifestyle in popular culture.

The Slate article almost gets this:

Chalk this heart-squeezing shift up to our limiting ideals of masculinity, which define themselves in opposition to all things feminine. Friends are empathetic, affectionate, not afraid to leave their tower of self-reliance for occasional support. You know who else is like that? Women. “Being a good friend…as well as needing a good friend, is the equivalent of being girly,” Wade writes, so the boys end up opting out.

Wade doesn’t mention the rainbow elephant in the room, but I wonder whether men are less afraid of girliness here than homosexuality. In many ways, it’s a distinction without a difference, since homophobes tend to imagine gay men as effete. But if a man ever is allowed to relax his stone face, it’s around his romantic partner. Being open, communicative, vulnerable—all of these behaviors evoke love relationships. It makes a sad kind of sense that boys trying to assert their masculinity would steer clear of playing the “boyfriend” around other guys.

But as usual, they miss the mark, and make a demonstration of the third reason:

Friends are empathetic, affectionate, not afraid to leave their tower of self-reliance for occasional support. You know who else is like that? Women. “Being a good friend…as well as needing a good friend, is the equivalent of being girly,

Affectionate and empathetic? It just sounds queer.

The reason this sounds queer is these are not masculine friendships, these are feminine friendships.  (Not that the feminine mode of friendship is wrong; it’s good, but for women).

The third reason for the decline is male friendship is the colonization of the language of friendship by the feminine. The words used to describe friendships in the above articles are good examples of this: empathy, affection, intimacy, emotional support, etc. are all womanly or would be reserved for your lover; to apply these to a masculine relationship sounds gay.

If this is what friendship is painted as, of course men are going not going to have friendships. Who the hell wants to gather around in a sob circle with their male friends?

But by defining friendship as the feminine, the modern world is pushing out (has pushed out?) the ability to express male friendship through the English language.

To reestablish male friendship, we need to reestablish masculine relationships. We need to retake friendship, retake philia, retake manly love.

(Bro is a decent attempt at this, but bromance just sounds retarded and queer).

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For the theoretical framework of masculine friendship we can go back to Jack Donovan’s Way of Man. Male social bonds were formed as a part of the gang. Men bonded through hunting and war parties. They bonded not through faggy emoting, but through shared action, shared virtue, shared goals, shared suffering, and shared victory. They built each other up to work together against the common foe.

Obviously, we can’t go back to the old warband model. There’s no opposing tribes to make war against anymore outside of the ghetto (at least not until the happening), and if you tried to do so, you’d go to jail. But men can attempt to rebuild the same pattern through the creation of a gang. Read the Way of Man for more on this.

We can rebuild the male friendship without the need to go murdering our neighbours. Aristotle outlined the virtuous male friendship many centuries ago:

Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in virtue; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good themselves. Now those who wish well to their friends for their sake are most truly friends; for they do this by reason of own nature and not incidentally; therefore their friendship lasts as long as they are good-and goodness is an enduring thing. And each is good without qualification and to his friend, for the good are both good without qualification and useful to each other. So too they are pleasant; for the good are pleasant both without qualification and to each other, since to each his own activities and others like them are pleasurable, and the actions of the good are the same or like. And such a friendship is as might be expected permanent, since there meet in it all the qualities that friends should have. For all friendship is for the sake of good or of pleasure-good or pleasure either in the abstract or such as will be enjoyed by him who has the friendly feeling-and is based on a certain resemblance; and to a friendship of good men all the qualities we have named belong in virtue of the nature of the friends themselves; for in the case of this kind of friendship the other qualities also are alike in both friends, and that which is good without qualification is also without qualification pleasant, and these are the most lovable qualities. Love and friendship therefore are found most and in their best form between such men.

But it is natural that such friendships should be infrequent; for such men are rare. Further, such friendship requires time and familiarity; as the proverb says, men cannot know each other till they have ‘eaten salt together’; nor can they admit each other to friendship or be friends till each has been found lovable and been trusted by each. Those who quickly show the marks of friendship to each other wish to be friends, but are not friends unless they both are lovable and know the fact; for a wish for friendship may arise quickly, but friendship does not.
…
The friendship of the good too and this alone is proof against slander; for it is not easy to trust any one talk about a man who has long been tested by oneself; and it is among good men that trust and the feeling that ‘he would never wrong me’ and all the other things that are demanded in true friendship are found. In the other kinds of friendship, however, there is nothing to prevent these evils arising. For men apply the name of friends even to those whose motive is utility, in which sense states are said to be friendly (for the alliances of states seem to aim at advantage), and to those who love each other for the sake of pleasure, in which sense children are called friends. Therefore we too ought perhaps to call such people friends, and say that there are several kinds of friendship-firstly and in the proper sense that of good men qua good, and by analogy the other kinds; for it is in virtue of something good and something akin to what is found in true friendship that they are friends, since even the pleasant is good for the lovers of pleasure. But these two kinds of friendship are not often united, nor do the same people become friends for the sake of utility and of pleasure; for things that are only incidentally connected are not often coupled together.

Barring the fact that love in this case indicates philia, but likely comes across sounding closer to eros due to our fallen language in this modern age, does this sound gay? Does it sounds womanly?

No. These are not friendships of men getting together to whine about their woes. These are friendships of men testing each other for shared virtue and working towards the mutual good.

This is manly friendship. This is what we men need to return to: a masculine view of friendship based around shared virtue and goals, rather than emotionalizing.

We need to start speaking of friendship in words that don’t sound faggy. We need to move the language of male friendship from that of a romance or an AA support-group to that of a warband. ‘Bonds of brotherhood’ and ‘shared virtue’ rather than ‘affection’ and ‘intimacy’ and ‘test’ and ‘shared suffering’ rather than ’emotional support’ and ’empathy’.

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Now the question becomes, how do we retake male friendship?

We can’t on the cultural level, other than using masculine language for male friendship to reclaim manly love and friendship from homosexuals and women.

But you can do some things on a personal level. Start a gang.

First, you need to find some good men. If you’ve got some good, reliable friends already, that’s excellent. If you don’t, look through your church, your activities, your social groups, and find men of good character and virtue with whom to bond.

Try to avoid half-men, scalzified weiners, psychological eunuchs, pc nutjobs, those lacking virtue, emos,the easily offended, and the like.

Second, start some specifically manly activities together; exclude women from these activities. Some good ones are hunting, fishing, camping, shooting, poker, gaming, etc.

Third, when at these activities talk, but not just of girls, video games, and beer; talk of deeper things. Don’t get all emotional about it, but talk of philosophy, religion, metaphysics, goals, ambitions, virtue, politics,

Once you’ve gotten close to some men, you can talk of emotional things. Again, don’t get all sobby and faggy about it, but there’s nothing out of place with a matter-of-fact discussion of emotions that may be afflicting you once a close enough bond has been formed.

The goal is to build a solid group of men who have your back and whose back you have.

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As for myself, some of us our in a book club; when my choice of book comes it will be the Way of Man, to help put the idea of forming a gang in explicit turns in my social circles. I already have a couple solid guys I’ve been friends with for over a decade and whom I’m close to. This will form the core of the gang and there’re others whom could be a part. Over the summer I tried to arrange days in the woods shooting to move some of my friends towards a more warband-esque grouping; it never turned out, but one of the core is planning to buy a gun and the other really wants to but hasn’t been able to on the planned days; others have expressed interest in shooting as well. So come spring, I should be able to get some days in the woods going, and maybe even convince a few to hunt with me next fall. But beside that, we’ve started fishing over summer, we go camping once a year, and we game regularly. So things look well in that respect.

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So, go an do likewise. Read the Way of Man to develop an idea of masculine friendship, make some solid male friendships, and try to make those male friendships you do have into a stronger, deeper bond. Form your own gang, your own warband.

For friendship is important, and every man needs his comrades-in-arms.

Response to the 70’s Show Dude

I’ve come across this video a number of places now, most recently at Sis’. It annoyed me the first time I watched it out of curiousity, but I ignored it. But it keeps coming up, so now I want to say a couple words on the great philosophical musings of the guy who played a stoner on that show about the 70’s:

He makes three points (starting at about 2 mins in). The first and third points are unoriginal but good, opportunity comes from hard work and  build your own life, but everybody is ignoring those two. The one point everybody is focusing on is # 2:

The sexiest thing in the world is being really smart, thoughtful, and generous.  Everything else is crap, I promise you.  It’s just crap that people try to sell to you to make you feel like less, so don’t buy it!”

The first objection is that it is simply not true.

Intelligence is not sexy. If being smart was sexy, awkward nerds would would get the hot girls, engineers would be rolling in poon, Stephen Hawking would dominate People’s Sexiest Men, and porn videos would be indistinguishable from Khan’s Academy. We all know how true that is. (Protip: It’s not). Likewise, being thoughtful and generous are not sexy. Saying otherwise is just deluding the gullible.

Just because something is good, does not mean it is sexy.

But the bigger problem is not the untrue conflation of intelligence and sexiness, that’s the type of relatively minor white lie which our society so does love.

The bigger problem is that to the punked stoner sexiness is the goal of intelligence. The axiom of point #2 is a basic assumption shared by stoner dude, his screaming, teenage fans, and everybody throwing this video around is that sexiness is the the primary goal one should aspire to.

Intelligence is not lauded because it advances civilization. It is not lauded for the glory of God, or even the glory of man. It is not lauded for the good it may bring others. It is not lauded as tool for finding and acquiring virtue.

No we should not be virtuous for virtue’s sake or the greater good. We should not expand our capabilities for the betterment of man. No, you should be intelligent because it will engorge Jimmy’s dick and will make Janey tingle.

Welcome to the new hedonism, where aspiring to be a sex object is inspirational.