Lessons from Torres Vedras for the Young Men of Britain: The Art of Intellectual Attrition

In 1810, the Duke of Wellington faced a numerically superior French force under Marshal Masséna. Rather than meeting them in a decisive, bloody pitch battle, Wellington retreated behind the Lines of Torres Vedras—a massive, sophisticated series of fortifications. He practiced a scorched-earth policy, leaving the French to starve in a wasteland while their supply lines stretched to the breaking point. Unable to breach the lines and unable to sustain themselves, the French were forced into a humiliating retreat.

For young men today forced into mandatory "anti-misogyny" or "sensitivity" workshops, there is a profound lesson here. You do not need to win a shouting match with an instructor who holds the "moral high ground" of the curriculum. Instead, you can construct your own Lines of Torres Vedras: a defensive perimeter of logic and inconvenient facts that draws the instructor into a paralyzing bog of argument. By forcing them to defend their own contradictions, you stretch their intellectual supply lines until the program collapses under its own weight.

Here are the primary points of contention—the defensive redoubts—you can use to drag an instructor into an unwinnable battle.

1.     1. The Survival Paradox (The Ukraine Gambit)

When the instructor speaks of systemic "male privilege" or the "patriarchy" as a system designed solely for male benefit, raise the issue of state-mandated sacrifice.

• The Point: Point out that in modern conflicts like the war in Ukraine, the state explicitly drafts men (aged 18-60) and forbids them from leaving the country, while women are permitted to seek safety abroad.
• The Hook: Ask why Western governments and institutions—which the instructor likely supports—unquestioningly endorse a policy that treats male lives as disposable assets and female lives as inherently worthier of protection. This forces the instructor to either defend gender-based discrimination or admit that "privilege" is a deeply flawed metric.

 2. The Reciprocity of Objectification

If the instructor warns against the "male gaze" or the objectification of women in media and pornography, pivot to the reality of social and sexual selection.

• The Point: Argue that objectification is not a one-way street. While men may focus on physical attributes, women routinely objectify men through "success objects": height, social status, and income.
• The Hook: Use data from dating apps to show that a vast majority of women filter out men based on rigid physical requirements (like the "6-foot rule") or financial brackets. Ask the instructor why a man’s desire for a specific aesthetic is "misogyny", while a woman’s requirement for a man’s height or bank balance is "empowerment" or "standards".

 3. The Intersectional Minefield

When the instructor attempts to link misogyny to broader "intersectional" issues like racism, introduce data that disrupts their unified front of victimhood.

• The Point (Preference): Note the statistical reality of dating preferences; for example, white American women are statistically the least likely group to date black men compared to other demographics.
• The Point (Homophobia): Raise the documented sociological challenges regarding homophobia within specific minority communities, such as the high rates of social conservatism and anti-LGBTQ sentiment often cited in studies of black female demographics.
• The Hook: By introducing these frictions, you force the instructor to navigate a "hierarchy of grievances". They cannot condemn one group without appearing to marginalize another. This creates an intellectual stalemate where their generalities about "oppression" fail to account for the specific biases held by the groups they claim to defend.

Conclusion: The Collapse of the Program

The goal of these methods is not to "convince" the instructor; they are often too ideologically committed to change. The goal is attrition.

By constantly steering the conversation toward these "Lines of Torres Vedras", you ensure the instructor can make no headway. They will spend the entire session chasing their own contradictions, attempting to bridge the gap between their theory and these uncomfortable realities. Like the French facing Wellington, they will find the environment increasingly hostile and their resources (time and authority) depleted. Eventually, the program will be seen for what it is: an unstable structure that cannot survive the weight of its own hypocrisy. 

The Duke of Wellington: A Master Strategist