BOTH ARE TRUE. Let me explain what intersectionalism looks from my end:
Patriarchy has given 90% of men and 100% of women a raw deal. Look at Dr. Robert Sapolski’s work with baboon troops for an excellent model of this. The bullshit dominance hierarchy that is ingrained in our ancestry leaves all women and most men physically sick and emotionally damaged, all for the sake of putting a few violently aggressive jerks on top.
The women’s movement made a fatal mistake, of identifying the enemy with ‘maleness’ instead of ‘violent dominance’. It tore down structures that made men’s lives bearable at the expense of women’s, but instead of proposing and cultivating new, nurturing structures, the narrative seems to be “you’re on your own, that’s what you get for the thousands of years of oppressive dominance!”
And meanwhile millions of men in Western society, who are constantly bombarded with images telling them what is expected of them and texts telling them that they are horrible for following those expectations, and who aren’t stupid, are desperately clamouring for some way to add meaning and emotional significance to their lives.
PUA is offering them a toxic way to reclaim a paltry sliver of the meaning that the old dominance structure gave them.
Feminism can’t even offer them THAT. All feminism can do is blame them and shame them and villainise them when they look around and take the only deal that’s being offered.
And that’s TERRIBLE, because PUA is TERRIBLE. What’s worse, a lot of PUA is going about things in a VERY methodical, scientific way—which means that it often actually WORKS, and it finds out true things about men and women. But because it was PUA culture that discovered those facts, they are tainted by association with horrifically unethical goals and values, and so the feminist culture turns away from facts that it could be using to improve itself.
I am so totally, completely on board with equality, and negotiation, and mutual respect.
I want to live in your world.
I want to negotiate a place in your world.
I am very, very lucky, in that I have a much higher than normal sense of self-awareness and drive for introspection, so that I can explain all this to you in this way. Because I feel the same need that young PUA acolytes do, very keenly. And so when these conversations come up, my urge is to get your side to understand, because your side is in a position to offer compassion and to provide a non-terrible alternative.
It appears we have the same goals. Just a few remarks to make:
It’s always tricky to draw examples from the primate family. Chimpanzees are macho-ruled bullies; bonobos are female-ruled hippies. We are more malleable than we give ourselves credit for.
Feminism is not a single, monolithic block. There are several schools and subschools, and male-hating is the practice of just a few of them.
I’m not sure what you mean by “my side.” For the record, I’m a guy.
Yes, but the specific example given was of a particular baboon tribe. Seriously, read about it or watch some videos about it. Many of the conclusions he draws are endocrine-based, so they’re well preserved across the primate line. And his study showed some startling and promising things.
Also, this is the internet, where it doesn’t matter whether you’re a guy or not unless you say so or some asshole doxes you; barring edge cases, all that matters is the words you use.
And if the male-hating schools are doing the primary evangelizing, then who are people going to get exposed to? This is memetic warfare; what matters is who gets their message out, and what effect that message has. I’m by no means accusing you of the kind of depravity I’ve seen from some of the Social Justice movement, all I’m saying is that there’s people out there who are carrying your flag and using your language and claiming to be part of your movement, and if they get to someone before you do, you’re going to have a really difficult time distancing yourself from that depravity.
That alone doesn’t prove that civilization and science weren’t developed in a hypothetical parallel universe without patriarchy. It is an evidence, but I am not sure how strong.
Generally, if we have X everywhere, it is difficult to say whether all things that happened, happened because of X, despite X, or regardless of X. Things happening “because of” should happen with greater probability, or sooner, and things happening “despite” should happen with smaller probability, or later… but if we have X for millenia, even the “later” happens eventually.
In a similar way, I have seen people attributing to Christianity everything that happened in Europe since 0 AD. Is that fair or not? Sometimes we can use China as a control group. In case of patriarchy, we don’t have such “China”. (And no, very small indigenous tribes aren’t a good control group. There are differences in population size, access to resources, etc.)
Patriarchy has given 90% of men and 100% of women a raw deal. Look at Dr. Robert Sapolski’s work with baboon troops for an excellent model of this.
Are you talking about foragers or farmers? “Patriarchy” usually refers to the latter, but your description sounds more like the former (especially given that you’re mentioning baboons).
Foragers were probably equivalent to baboons, and farming made it much worse.
In a forager tribe, when the abuse became too horrible, there was an option to leave. Farming allowed this abuse to grow astronomically. A forager alpha male couldn’t make his tribe build him a pyramid.
Foragers were probably equivalent to baboons, and farming made it much worse.
Certain people claim that traditional farmer sexual norms (lifelong monogamous marriage where only the husband worked for money) were better than the forager ways that we’re reverting to, and it’s not totally obvious they’re wrong. (IMO neither is a Pareto improvement over the other, so which one is better depends on what you mean by “better”, and in any event farmers weren’t the same everywhere. And in many places the top 0.1% of farmers behaved like foragers anyway.)
When using phrases like ‘terrible places for omegas to live’, the should-universe is the only basis of comparison unless I want to just throw up my hands, give up my something to protect, and become a moral nihilist. I wouldn’t recommend it; I’ve tried it and it’s not very fun.
Certain neoreactionaries claim otherwise, and it’s not completely obvious to me that they’re wrong. (My position is that there are tradeoffs and neither system is a Pareto improvement over the other, so which one is better depends on what you mean by ‘better’.)
Dunno about emotionally damaged, but farmers were shorter than foragers in average until the 20th century, which is probably a decent proxy for physically sick.
BOTH ARE TRUE. Let me explain what intersectionalism looks from my end:
Patriarchy has given 90% of men and 100% of women a raw deal. Look at Dr. Robert Sapolski’s work with baboon troops for an excellent model of this. The bullshit dominance hierarchy that is ingrained in our ancestry leaves all women and most men physically sick and emotionally damaged, all for the sake of putting a few violently aggressive jerks on top.
The women’s movement made a fatal mistake, of identifying the enemy with ‘maleness’ instead of ‘violent dominance’. It tore down structures that made men’s lives bearable at the expense of women’s, but instead of proposing and cultivating new, nurturing structures, the narrative seems to be “you’re on your own, that’s what you get for the thousands of years of oppressive dominance!”
And meanwhile millions of men in Western society, who are constantly bombarded with images telling them what is expected of them and texts telling them that they are horrible for following those expectations, and who aren’t stupid, are desperately clamouring for some way to add meaning and emotional significance to their lives.
PUA is offering them a toxic way to reclaim a paltry sliver of the meaning that the old dominance structure gave them.
Feminism can’t even offer them THAT. All feminism can do is blame them and shame them and villainise them when they look around and take the only deal that’s being offered.
And that’s TERRIBLE, because PUA is TERRIBLE. What’s worse, a lot of PUA is going about things in a VERY methodical, scientific way—which means that it often actually WORKS, and it finds out true things about men and women. But because it was PUA culture that discovered those facts, they are tainted by association with horrifically unethical goals and values, and so the feminist culture turns away from facts that it could be using to improve itself.
I am so totally, completely on board with equality, and negotiation, and mutual respect.
I want to live in your world.
I want to negotiate a place in your world.
I am very, very lucky, in that I have a much higher than normal sense of self-awareness and drive for introspection, so that I can explain all this to you in this way. Because I feel the same need that young PUA acolytes do, very keenly. And so when these conversations come up, my urge is to get your side to understand, because your side is in a position to offer compassion and to provide a non-terrible alternative.
It appears we have the same goals. Just a few remarks to make:
It’s always tricky to draw examples from the primate family. Chimpanzees are macho-ruled bullies; bonobos are female-ruled hippies. We are more malleable than we give ourselves credit for.
Feminism is not a single, monolithic block. There are several schools and subschools, and male-hating is the practice of just a few of them.
I’m not sure what you mean by “my side.” For the record, I’m a guy.
Yes, but the specific example given was of a particular baboon tribe. Seriously, read about it or watch some videos about it. Many of the conclusions he draws are endocrine-based, so they’re well preserved across the primate line. And his study showed some startling and promising things.
Also, this is the internet, where it doesn’t matter whether you’re a guy or not unless you say so or some asshole doxes you; barring edge cases, all that matters is the words you use.
And if the male-hating schools are doing the primary evangelizing, then who are people going to get exposed to? This is memetic warfare; what matters is who gets their message out, and what effect that message has. I’m by no means accusing you of the kind of depravity I’ve seen from some of the Social Justice movement, all I’m saying is that there’s people out there who are carrying your flag and using your language and claiming to be part of your movement, and if they get to someone before you do, you’re going to have a really difficult time distancing yourself from that depravity.
Would this be the same patriarchy that build civilization, developed science, etc.?
That alone doesn’t prove that civilization and science weren’t developed in a hypothetical parallel universe without patriarchy. It is an evidence, but I am not sure how strong.
Generally, if we have X everywhere, it is difficult to say whether all things that happened, happened because of X, despite X, or regardless of X. Things happening “because of” should happen with greater probability, or sooner, and things happening “despite” should happen with smaller probability, or later… but if we have X for millenia, even the “later” happens eventually.
In a similar way, I have seen people attributing to Christianity everything that happened in Europe since 0 AD. Is that fair or not? Sometimes we can use China as a control group. In case of patriarchy, we don’t have such “China”. (And no, very small indigenous tribes aren’t a good control group. There are differences in population size, access to resources, etc.)
They work as a control group if the lack of patriarchy contributed to these changes.
Are you talking about foragers or farmers? “Patriarchy” usually refers to the latter, but your description sounds more like the former (especially given that you’re mentioning baboons).
Foragers were probably equivalent to baboons, and farming made it much worse.
In a forager tribe, when the abuse became too horrible, there was an option to leave. Farming allowed this abuse to grow astronomically. A forager alpha male couldn’t make his tribe build him a pyramid.
Certain people claim that traditional farmer sexual norms (lifelong monogamous marriage where only the husband worked for money) were better than the forager ways that we’re reverting to, and it’s not totally obvious they’re wrong. (IMO neither is a Pareto improvement over the other, so which one is better depends on what you mean by “better”, and in any event farmers weren’t the same everywhere. And in many places the top 0.1% of farmers behaved like foragers anyway.)
This fits my observations and intuitions, as well.
Forager tribes are egalitarian in comparison with farmers. In an absolute sense they’re still pretty terrible places for omegas to live.
By “absolute” you seem to mean ‘relative to the should-universe’.
When using phrases like ‘terrible places for omegas to live’, the should-universe is the only basis of comparison unless I want to just throw up my hands, give up my something to protect, and become a moral nihilist. I wouldn’t recommend it; I’ve tried it and it’s not very fun.
Certain neoreactionaries claim otherwise, and it’s not completely obvious to me that they’re wrong. (My position is that there are tradeoffs and neither system is a Pareto improvement over the other, so which one is better depends on what you mean by ‘better’.)
Reality check: fail.
Dunno about emotionally damaged, but farmers were shorter than foragers in average until the 20th century, which is probably a decent proxy for physically sick.