Monday 25 June 2012

Offbeat Cranks or Mainstream Commentators? The Men’s Movement Examined




The argument that manosphere writers merely parrot each other’s opinions and live in a conceptual bubble apart from the ‘real world’ is common currency among our opponents. David Futrelle, for example, has an obsession with anti-feminist Reddit commentators (hardly MRA titans, it has to be said) and continually claims that MRA events attract ‘two or three divorced men’.

Is he right?  How do MRA arguments stack up against research by conventional scholars? Are they a meaningful corpus of theory or mere ‘tales told by an idiot, signifying nothing’?


I have long been fascinated by the writings of Charles Murray. As well as popularizing the concept of the underclass, his negative social prognoses tangentially reflect MRA perspectives. His recent book, Coming Apart: the State of White America 1960-2000 contains a good deal of rigorous research that supports many MRA precepts. However, this interesting study also raises serious questions about other aspects of MRA thought.

In brief, Coming Apart chronicles the moral decline of the white working class. It also describes the widening divide between America’s ‘cognitive elite’ and the broad masses. By focusing on whites-only, he avoids the racial controversies that marred public reception of his earlier books.Murray broadly argues that the white working class has lost its moral compass over the past fifty years. He cites the fact that only 48% of working class whites are married in 2010, compared to 84% in 1960. By contrast, 84% of the American upper-middle class are married today compared to 90% in 1960 – a much smaller fall.

Murray argues that the upper-middle class (and above them, the new elites) are increasingly detached from the mainstream in how they eat, drink or spend their free time. For example, most Americans spend 35 hours a week watching TV – the new elite spend less than five hours a week. He also identifies a geographical distinction, too – the elite live in ‘Superzips’ denuded of all working class citizens. Common experiences define the new elite – principally, private schooling and an Ivy League education.  In short, the American experience is becoming steadily more ‘British’, sans the elaborate welfare programs and swingeing taxation.

All very interesting stuff, to be sure. What is happening to Anglo-American gender relations in this time of change?


Roissy in DC describes modern America as a ‘post-marriage’ society. Women supposedly threw off the shackles of monogamy in the late 60s in order to mate exclusively with high-status, ‘alpha’ males. This created a ‘rump’ of sexually-disenfranchised ‘gamma’ males, a group that were much rarer in the old, monogamous order.  By learning to mimic 'alpha' behaviour, however, the student of Game can confound female hypergamy and get his share of the sexual action presently monopolised by a small elite of men. In this view Marriage, traditional courtship and other monogamous institutions have fallen by the wayside and have little meaning in the 21st century. Likewise, feminism has failed – smashed on the rocks of female hypergamy.

Murray’s research, however, largely refutes this picture. Roissy seems to be describing life in the working class, not the middle class or the elite. 84% of Murray’s upper-middle class sample-citizens are firmly married, even today. Perhaps Roissy is himself working class, not the ‘alpha’ he claims to be. This is probably true of other PUA scribes, too. Most of them ply their trade in and around the student counter-culture, hardly an 'alpha' arena.

Let us move from American PUAs to the Men’s Movement proper. American MRAs broadly argue that, since the early 1960s, American Women have shunned decent males in favour of anti-social ‘alpha’ thugs. This has created a surfeit of dysfunctional, single-mother families. Such shaky kinship groups are seen as being especially damaging to boys (‘we are a generation of men who have been raised by women’), contributing to male educational failure, social anomie and the emergence of a riot-prone underclass. As with the PUA perspective, this scenario is true of the working class but not the upper or middle classes, most of whom still marry. Since the American working class only constitute about 40% of the population, it is premature to speak of ‘widespread social collapse’ in America – the decision-making, wealth producing classes remain more or less intact in terms of functional gender-relations.

Similarly, Murray’s figures refute MRA claims of a universal Marriage Strike. While working class males are indeed eschewing Marriage, this is not true of the middle class. Even if they get divorced, most middle class men seem to remarry. Besides, working class males may not be rejecting Marriage, as such – in a hypergamous culture, they may simply lack the resources to realise or maintain one.

So, in the simplest sense, the MRA world-view presents a fairly accurate picture of life in the working class – but only that class. It does not apply universally to Anglo-American society. However, the Anglobitch Thesis stacks up very well against Murray’s evidence. While the middle-classes still marry, they are increasingly marrying women from outside the Anglosphere. So while middle class marriage rates remain stable, the nature of Marriage – that is, who marries whom – is changing somewhat.

Traditionalist MRAs have long taken issue with my belief that the ethno-cultural composition of the Anglosphere will undergo dramatic change if Anglo feminism continues unchecked. However, there are now more non-Caucasian children being born in the US for the first time in history. Further, I contend that the ethnic complexion of the elite will also undergo rapid change. As more middle class males with intelligence and self-awareness marry and interbreed with non-Anglo women untainted by the Anglobitch meme, their children will come to occupy ever more elite roles.

Further, Murray fails to address the pivotal role of white, working class women in creating the new white underclass he so detests. He airily invokes ‘cultural change’ as an autonomous transformational instrument. Culture, however, changes for other, more primal reasons. Perhaps as an Anglo socon Murray cannot accept that women can create social problems. The British socon Theodore Dalrymple also falters in this regard. He tirelessly excoriates the brutish mates of lower class women but never explains their obvious preference for such men. However, allowing the Anglo female’s preference for shiftless thugs to reign unchecked is primarily responsible for the recent decline of the Anglo-American working class. This reflexive preference allows genes associated with criminality, low IQ and emotional instability to proliferate in communities afflicted by it: so in a couple of generations a proud working class becomes a degenerate underclass.



And there are other issues at work. Anglo American women are essentially misandrist – in general, they don’t like men. This attitude derives from the parent culture which, with its puritanical obsessions, reflexively vilifies men as sexual beings. The ‘trickle-down’ of libertine middle-class values began in the early seventies, weakening the twin stigmas of illegitimacy and singleness among the masses. The rise of female employment coupled with the generous expansion of a pro-female welfare state enabled lower-class women to exclude men from their lives altogether, if they wished it. Once the thug donated his sperm, he was no more welcome than the fawning ‘nice guy’ in the lower class woman’s bed. Simply put, the underclass male can provide no more than the State. The State, however, has the added advantages of not expecting regular sex, not setting behavioural boundaries for children or expecting basic personal responsibility from the woman – in short, of not being a human male. Welfare dependence is therefore a win-win situation for the lower-class female. Murray often talks about white working class males refusing to take the jobs available. He seldom mentions that most working class women reject industrious working males for the State’s financial favours.

In conclusion, a new world is unfolding around us. Murray’s research supports some aspects of the classic MRA world-view, but only in a limited way. The changes occurring are more subtle and complex and fit my own theories rather better. Anglosphere Caucasians are experiencing two things predicted by the Anglobitch Thesis: limited ethno-cultural replacement at the elite level and chronic dysfunction at the mass level. Perhaps the frantic hysteria of White Knight bigots like Tommy Fleming is fired by this realization. However, Tommy fails to grasp that the woman-worship, sexual repression and casual misandry he holds so dear has caused the social malaise he so despises. Allowing pedestalized women to act irresponsibly – the linchpin of Tommy’s White Knight philosophy – has ruined his own agenda. And the same contradiction applies to other ‘conservative’ MRAs like Angry Harry. Sadly, few Anglo-American conservatives possess the self-awareness to acknowledge this.





22 comments:

  1. Rookh:
    Excellent analysis. I wish you would go back to posting more often!

    I've always considered Socon white knights and Roissyites to be two sides of the same coin. They're both in denial about the character of Anglobitches and hoping desperately to salvage some self-esteem from them.

    Where I live (USA); this stratification among the new underclass and the new middle is becoming very clear, just by simple observation. The Amerobitches are fuelling the underclass' reproductiveness, while productive middle-class men are turning to foreign women in increasing numbers. It's also becoming more and more plain over here that the underclass is becoming increasing savage and brutalized.

    I think that might be more apparent in America because our social classes are less rigid than other parts of the Anglosphere; but I'm sure the same things are happening there as well.

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    1. *I think that might be more apparent in America because our social classes are less rigid than other parts of the Anglosphere; but I'm sure the same things are happening there as well.*

      Absolutely. Murray has visited Britain on numerous occasions, making stark predictions each time. These usually prove to be correct. One beauty was that the UK's illegitimacy rate would rise to 50% in five years - and lo and behold, it did. A great pity he cannot see the real cause of these changes - Anglo-American women. Maybe someone should tell him...

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  2. Rookh:
    OT---but for some positive feedback. As you know, this an election year in the US and a lot of men's forum have more political themes than usual over here. I've been exposing Tommy Fleming to the conservative guys, and a lot of them are stating to see him for the snake-in-the-grass that he really is.

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    1. A new type of politics is needed that promotes fiscal conservatism but rejects conservative social policy.

      Delete
  3. Good post Rookh.

    One of the things that modern western states do to gain ever more control over the citizens that elect it, is to denigrate the men by removing their opportunity to win employment:

    "Murray often talks about white working class males refusing to take the jobs available."

    This ubiquitous and evil slander, so infuriates, that I made this post to challenge it.

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    1. That is an excellent post. I recall reading about an Asian Mensan who claimed damages from various British companies for the following act of discrimination:

      He sent off various job applications as himself and got rejected every time. When he altered the name on his CV to that of a white girl, however, he got an interview for every application!

      I wonder what Futrelle's wobbling man-boobs would have to say about that?

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    2. You 'recall', do you? It might be useful if you could actually provide some proof of this case. Let's assume it did happen, isn't it more likely that it was an issue of race rather than gender discrimination? You need to stop crying wolf.

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    3. You really need to stop being an unnecessarily argumentative feminist.

      Not like that will happen though...feminists are hardly good at doing anything except wagging fingers and talking in condescending tones to the rest of us mere mortals.

      Delete
  4. Not Thomas Fleming26 June 2012 at 19:13

    I'm going to post two links Rookh and Co. may find interesting. I will try and comment more fully later on.

    "The problem is that a working class job does not suffice to marry a working class woman, so working class men have no incentive to get working class jobs. Woman always marry up, and Uncle Sam the Big Pimp is higher status than a working class husband. Wives of upper class men are well behaved provided that they are slightly less upper class than their husbands, because Uncle Sam the Big Pimp is lower status than an upper class husband. Upper class career women, in particular lawyers are deadly, because they cannot marry men who are even higher status than themselves, so instead bang musicians, thugs, and sportsmen. As a result, they fail to marry or reproduce."

    http://blog.jim.com/culture/murray-on-the-decline-of-marriage.html

    "In short, the American dream of a home and family through honest labor is now far out of reach for an increasing number of low-status men. Under these circumstances, what is such a man to do with his life? I’d say an unconstrained bachelor existence with plenty of time for amusements looks very much like a rational choice. The male commentariat may make you out to be a bum, but that sure beats years of performing all the hard work traditionally required to support a family and then not getting the family."

    http://www.toqonline.com/blog/elite-and-underclass/

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  5. Rookh:
    'A new type of politics is needed that promotes fiscal conservatism but rejects social conservative policy'.

    Judging by some of the responses I've heard, a lot of younger American conservatives are coming around to that viewpoint. One described Fleming as an 'out-of-touch buffoon' and another as 'an ideological dinosaur.' I'm seeing very little support for him among conservative MRAs, the more they really get exposed to what he's promoting.

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  6. NotFleming:
    I think that another component of it is that Anglo feminism has warped the typical female's perception on 'marrying up'.

    Women believe that they are superior to men simply by a special entitlement of their gender. The result is that they actually tend to pursue men who are WORSE than themselves---because as long as they maintain their power, that becomes 'marrying up' by feminism's inverted logic.

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  7. In the film Hangover II the groom and his pals get blackout drunk (once again), and he winds up getting jugged in the butt by a male-to-female tranny. They both come at the same time. Isn't that just precious. And soooo entertaining too!
    How much of this is caused by feminist white women, and how much is the result of capitalism gone wild? Anything for a buck. Just beat out your competition at all costs and by all means.
    Yes, we do have an american version of "the landed aristocracy" ... don't ever doubt that.

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  8. Salos:
    Anglobitches salviate at the thought of men being raped by other men.

    Behind their veneer of sluttiness, most of them are frigid and unable to have a sexual relationship with any man whom they can't despise as an inferior.

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  9. I admit that Dyspareunia and Vaginismus are not diagnosed as often as they should be, and these conditions can be major contributors to frigidity. You got a problem with that?

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  10. Your link to Troll Kingdom takes you to a site called Celebrity Universe. You may want to check all of your Favorite links.

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  11. Esther:
    You women are never without your 'issues' are you? LOL I would think that a frigid female might want to check-up. But too many of you don't notice minor things like frigidity...

    Sort of like the 'obesity epidemic'. You can't help that, either, right? LOL

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    1. Oooooooooooooooooh, there's that 'frigid' word again. It's what ugly fat men call women who won't have sex with them. That word only reflects badly on the cretin who utters it. It says a lot about your sexual failings! I'll bet you encounter a lot of frigid women.

      Delete
    2. Anon14:58

      Fuck off cunt. This site is for men only, not for you wretched, accursed creatures (women).

      So fuck off before i rape and ritually murder you, whore.

      Delete
  12. Anon1458:
    Ummm...how do you know I'm a fat, ugly guy? That wouldn't be 'stereotyping' or 'objectification' would it? LOLLLL

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  13. I'm thinking guys can be frigid too. Afraid someone is going to take a bite out of their sausage, if you get my drift.

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  14. Robingold:
    Granted, continual exposure to Anglosphere females could kill a man's sexual desire. But there are real women in non-feminist cultures for the men who still have drive.

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  15. Excellent and interesting essay.

    I suspect that the situation in America is somewhat different to that in Britain; at least my reading of the predominantly American Androsphere leads me to suppose that is so, in that America's greater wealth and more pernicious legal system only exacerbates female hypergamy. Most of my (middle-class) friends are and remain married: most are married to foreign-born women. I lost patience with the Anglo-Bitch over twenty years ago (they were always too good for you and constantly over-rated both their desirability - why date someone who treats you as if you vere between being a sexual criminal on the one hand and no more than an emotional tampon on the other? - and their marriagability) and have consciously avoided them ever since - but whenever I have temporarily forgotten my resolve have always regretted doing so. That this should be so, suggests to me that the white middle-class woman must go the way of the Dodo, however, in the meanwhile there are, sadly, too many white-knights (the police, the judiciary - men generally) who prop up these self-absorbed unpleasant women.

    The phenomena of (white middle-class) Lesbians frequently with children (presumably from sperm donors?) demanding to be treated as 'normal' whilst by their behaviour implicitly belittling men and the rise of the promiscuous empowered thirty or more-something unmarried woman who regards any interest you may show as a breach of her 'civil rights' whilst giving it up to any bad-boy, or thug or gigolo is the result of this anglo-pedestalising.

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