I consider myself to be Agnostic (or, if you like, a fence-sitter) when it comes to things like religious belief: I don’t have a strong conviction towards any particular religion but at the same time don’t think that the world would be better off if religions no longer existed. People who believe that religion is the source of all human misery probably have a naïve understanding of human nature because if we weren’t killing each other over religion we’d be killing ourselves over something else. Also, the anti-religious Communist countries were not exactly Gardens of Eden where peace and brotherhood reigned supreme and arguably the belief in its cause, despite the evidence of its failings, was a religious one. 

Since I grew up in a historically Christian country I has some affinity towards Christianity more than any other religion and I have a lot of respect for the teachings and messages of the Bible. Furthermore, the influence of Christianity on the Western World from its laws, customs and language cannot be easily dismissed even though many countries in the West are now mostly secular. The human need to believe in something has not gone away with the decline of religion and many people have suggested our obsession with identity politics has come about because of the vacuum left by the decline of religious belief.

In the UK, institutions like the National Health Service (NHS) have a following that matches the devotion people once had for the Church and this was evident to me recently when there was a public show of applause for the NHS in response to the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic and the work of medical staff in managing it. People took to the streets to register their love for the NHS and those  on Twitter from both sides of the political spectrum spoke of being filled with emotion at the sight of people clapping and cheering for ‘our NHS’. In an article for Country Squire website, James Bembridge describes the religious undertones of this: “People were expected to practice this worship from home but open the windows so that others may hear, like some perverse call to prayer.” Bembridge goes on to write: “By all means praise the workers, but why extend that to the whole of the NHS? We are perhaps the only democracy that regards a government institution with this quasi-divine reverence.”

At the time I write this the UK, along with many other countries, is in lockdown to try and slow the spread of the Covid-19 virus. The police have been given more powers to restrict people’s movement and, in the case of Derbyshire police, even spy on people outside via drones. The Country Squire article also describes how the increase in the State and curbs on freedom in response to the virus have been widely accepted and how the small number of people who have questioned the government’s response and the severity of the virus have been condemned for taking an opposing point of view. Journalist Peter Hitchens is one of those who has spoken out against the rapid increase of government control to tackle the virus and a recent article he wrote in the Mail on Sunday resulted in Hitchens being mobbed on Twitter. Such a response, similar to that seen by people who preach identity politics, is reflective of the way those who questioned dogmatic and fanatically religious belief were labelled as ‘heretics’ in the past.

I’m no expert on viruses so I don’t know how dangerous the current outbreak of coronavirus is or will be but I am sceptical about the worship of national institutions like the NHS regardless of all the hard working staff who undoubtedly have done their best to treat patients with the virus. Moreover, I’m sceptical of many people’s desire to increase the size of the state to deal with the crisis. In his article Hitchens writes: “I despair that so many in the commentariat  and politics obediently accept what they are being told. I have lived long enough, and travelled far enough, to know that authority is often wrong and cannot always be trusted.” When a similar pandemic occurs in the future, regardless of if the future virus is more or less deadly than Covid-19, governments will be eager to adopt similar powers again.

It’s possible that when the Covid-19 crisis finally passes those who questioned the response towards it will face more abuse and ridicule and the NHS may take the form of a national religion to an even greater degree. If the virus is not as terrible as it is been portrayed than hopefully more people will question the government instead of making it into a national religion as well.

Veruca: Daddy, I want a golden goose

Charlie: Here we go again…

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

Unless she learnt her lesson from visiting Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, it is likely that when Veruca Salt grew up she became a Feminist. Instead of making increasing demands from her parents, she would probably have a spineless cuckolded husband who would indulge her wishes without answering back. Or maybe it would be her employers or the government who would provide her with whatever she wanted to avoid her having a temper tantrum and crying out “I want it now!” So used to having her needs met she would become even more entitled and consider any slight against her as a form of discrimination and see herself as a victim. The Feminist narrative of women being oppressed by men would resonate with Veruca as she would think about all the times Daddy didn’t give her what she wanted or at the exact time she wanted it. Anybody, and men in particular, who accused her of being spoilt, unreasonable or entitled would be branded sexist or a misogynist by Veruca and the more she was indulged the more hysterical she would become.

Veruca Salt could be seen as the mascot for modern feminism with her song ‘I Want It Now’ being an anthem for the movement. This is because many modern women arguably behave just like Veruca as they complain about increasingly unimportant things and are ‘triggered’ by any opposing point of view. Despite Western countries constantly bending over backwards to women’s (apparent) needs and concerns, some women would say with a completely straight face that a country like the United States is close to becoming like Gilead from The Handmaid’s Tale just because they despise the fact that Donald Trump is President and that many of his supporters want restrictions on abortion. This ignores the fact that women can be against abortion just like men and that women are now the dominate sex in many university campuses in addition to out-earning men in a number of professions.

One example of the triviality of modern Feminist concerns that caught my attention recently is the complaint over the line-ups of music festivals such as Glastonbury not having a 50:50 split of male and female acts.  What this has to do with people listening to and enjoying live music is anybody’s guess and the suggestion that female musicians should try harder to become headline acts would no doubt result in a massive meltdown and a probable Twitter storm that would make Veruca proud.

The #MeToo movement has also created an environment whereby an awkward attempt at flirting by a man towards a woman in a workplace could lead to his dismissal or in the worst case scenario an accusation of sexual assault as even the mildest forms of male behaviour are scrutinised with the default assumption been that males are being predatory for taking an interest in women.  If more and more women become irrational towards men objecting to this then increasingly men will start to distance themselves from women. This culture of women asserting themselves in response to a supposed chauvinistic male society is also reflected in modern films which from Captain Marvel to the new (flop) Charlie’s Angels, preach a message of ‘women rule, men drool’ which obviously will only appeal to a minority of women. The idea that there may be a backlash to all this has not been considered by most journalists who typically follow the SJW ideology.

Veruca Salts are also prominent in the other identity groups from black people to LGBT who see anybody who doesn’t support their way of thinking as racist or homophobic and will demand that something be done to anybody who voices dissent. She could also be used as an example of the Millennial generation of which I’m a part of. We are in a lot of ways the most privileged and fortunate generation of humans that has ever existed and we spend a lot of time telling others to check their privilege and don’t recognise our own. The same accusation of being spoilt has also been levelled at the Baby Boomer generation who came of age during the 1960s and were in many ways the SJWs of their time. Since the Second Wave of Feminism and other social justice movements started around this time and spawned us Millennials it’s an appropriate comparison.

Of course, at the risk of making the NAWALT argument (Not All Women Are Like That), there are plenty of women who are reasonable enough to oppose or reject Feminist talking points and are able to form healthy relationships with men. The same could be said for gay people or people of other races who would rather be judged as individuals than a member of a designated oppressed group. Whatever wave of feminism we’re currently riding on it will be interesting to see how men of my age and younger respond to the proliferation of Veruca Salts as the years go by and if there will be a backlash that will turn the tide against it. Although many men at present appear to submit to the current ideology many others don’t and their numbers are growing. Maybe more and more women will oppose the Verucas that populate the Sisterhood as well. Only time will tell.

Note: I originally wrote this for the website Male Defender in January 2019. Male Defender is now a defunct website so the article has disappeared which is why I’m reposting it here.

Within the varied groups and individuals that make up the manosphere there has been a growing divide over MGTOW or ‘Men Going Their Own Way’. This is due to MGTOW’s rejection of the traditional expectation of men to be the protector and provider of women and children and instead focus on their own needs. MGTOW is viewed by its supporters as the only sensible option in an increasingly misandric society that favours women over men in almost every situation. MGTOW argue by doing this they avoid being exploited by institutions such as the legal system that have adopted a feminist viewpoint. Critics however view MGTOW as simply the opposite of feminism which will only result in more alienation between men and women and lead to societal collapse. Some commentators have also accused MGTOW of been like a cult that attacks anybody that criticises it while men who identify as a MGTOW believe they are individuals making individual choices. One solution to this conflict is to reassess the expectations that are placed on men by societies and how they have developed over time. Men’s traditional role as a provider is important to consider when thinking about this.

For most of human history resources were scarce, work was very physical and death from starvation or disease was always possible. Being able to find or generate resources would have increased the chances of surviving in this environment and men would have been better equipped to do so than women due to their superior physical strength and not having to worry about getting pregnant or miscarrying. Women, however, had an advantage in being able to carry offspring and having less eggs to men’s sperm which meant that they could be choosy with which men they mated with. As a result men would have been more successful at surviving but women would have been essential for reproduction. Therefore both men and women would have needed each other to increase their own chances of surviving and reproducing and so would have had to offer something to each other in return. In such circumstances if women had wanted to discard one man for another or try to go it alone they would have been in serious trouble.

However, while sex roles have a biological basis the world that they emerged from has changed in such a way that men’s role as provider has been taken for granted. In the modern world resources are far more abundant and most jobs available are not as physically demanding as they once were. Advances in technology and healthcare have also made the world a less risky place at least in the West which has led to a change in attitude towards the role of men as providers. In a famine, the man who provides food is a hero but when food is plentiful the man who provides it is a delivery boy. As well as this women can now choose to work full time, part time or be completely supported by a man as they no longer rely exclusively on men to earn money for them. Moreover, governments willingly provide mothers with welfare payments if there is no man around. Because of this women no longer rely on men for survival to the extent they once did but men still rely on women for reproduction.

Men’s role as provider is also viewed at the expense of their role as fathers as they are defined more by their absence working rather than their presence within families. It is often said that traditionally men went out to work while women raised the children which places mothers inside the family and fathers outside of it. As a result parenting and mothering have become almost interchangeable and there isn’t much exploration into the relationship fathers have with their children that is distinct from the mother’s. This attitude is evident in the family courts as judges typically award custody of children to mothers after a divorce in the assumption they are maintaining the family unit with the only difference being the father no longer living in the home. If a man only needs to provide, what does it matter if he doesn’t see his own children? Of course, if men only needed to be providers for women and children then fatherlessness wouldn’t have all the negative consequences we see in our societies.

A mentality of ‘provider as servant’ has developed in Western countries with men’s contributions been seen primarily as materialistic and directed towards their masters – women. Servants have to prove their worth by having somebody to work for whereas masters are able to use servants to do jobs they don’t want to do. In a similar fashion men are expected to do all the jobs women don’t want to do and be grateful for women for giving them attention or be discarded for a better option. Men are also expected to potentially sacrifice their life to protect random women if they are in danger. It doesn’t matter what or how much women demand, men are ‘real men’ if meet their every desire. Young men in particular are expected to ‘prove themselves’ to young women to get their appreciation ignoring that young women have such power over men because they are offering something in return: their youth and beauty. Feminism has encouraged women to make increasing demands of men and mainstream conservatives still expect men to meet their traditional obligations regardless of this. Many men have a servant mentality because they think that they are worthless unless they have a woman who they are working for and being chivalrous towards. As Bernard Chapin has put it, “when a woman has a need, a man must accede.”

The solution to this is neither to dismiss sex roles entirely nor simply return to the roles that were functional in the past without taking into account the current environment we live in. Instead we need to acknowledge sex differences but challenge the perceptions that have developed from them. As mentioned before the real reason men provided resources for women was not to justify their own existence to the superior female sex but because women were unable to do so themselves. Since these burdens have been partly lifted by technology men shouldn’t place their value solely on seeking female approval. In fact it wasn’t a man’s primary responsibility to provide resources for women but to provide for his children. Women were provided for if they provided something in return. The true role of men in society is to provide something that women cannot provide themselves. This originally included resources but more importantly it was men’s own masculinity. Women may now have more independence but they can’t provide masculine strengths to complement their feminine weaknesses (and vice versa for men). They cannot be fathers to their children and they cannot bring a masculine viewpoint to a situation. This means that however societies develop technologically men always have something to contribute to them.

If men are aware of this they can avoid having a servant mentality and instead adopt a ‘provider as master’ mentality. This mentality comes from the knowledge that men have far more worth than whether they are capable of meeting female demands. It does not mean wanting to rule over women but thinking like a master rather than a servant. Much like a doctor or a teacher a master in a relationship provides for the other person something they cannot obtain themselves and so can make demands for his service. A master can also stand alone and feel worthy in himself and not be defined by serving others. A master does not view a woman as a superior who he must placate and so can make judgements about them without fearing rejection. A master can therefore defend himself knowing he has worth and not fall apart when he is shamed for not wanting to be a servant.

If more men thought this way they would be less likely to simply accept the unreasonable behaviour of women and we could make changes to society that would make MGTOW less of a viable option. Although MGTOW could be viewed as rejecting marriage and children I believe it is primarily to reject the ‘provider as servant mentality’ I have laid out.

There is a belief in Western countries today that men have to change so that many of the problems of society such as crime, sexual exploitation and violence can be alleviated.  Masculinity, according to most social and political commentators, is the source of these issues so it has to be modified in order to stop them occurring and make it better fit in with the brave new world of gender fluidity and self-expression. Challenging so-called ‘toxic masculinity’ will also purportedly allow us to achieve the promised land of ‘equality’ where everybody is exactly the same and no group is a victim or victimiser of another group.

In order for this to happen we have to adopt the viewpoint that certain groups of people have power and privilege over other groups. For feminists, this is the idea that men have power over women and that there needs to be a levelling of the playing field. However, despite these claims that women continue to be disadvantaged by this power imbalance, feminism has had an enormous influence in academia, the media and the government. Organisations and institutions now engage in a huge amount of effort to criticise masculinity and its apparent cause in violence against women or male dominance in areas of power such as business and politics.

One example that shows how feminist ideology now dominates contemporary thinking is in the guidelines published by the American Psychological Association (APA) in early 2019 to help psychologists deal with men and boys. Like everything that relates to masculinity in modern times the guidelines weren’t wholly positive about it. According to their research: “traditional masculinity – marked by stoicism, competiveness, dominance and aggression – is, on the whole, harmful.” Although one psychologist, Ryon McDermott from the University of South Alabama, acknowledges: “In certain circumstances, traits like stoicism and self-sacrifice can be absolutely crucial” he also states: “the same tough demeanour that might save a soldier’s life in a war zone can destroy it at home with a romantic partner or child.” The bias of the APA to not just feminism but other areas of identity politics is revealing in the guidelines which states: “dominant masculinity was historically predicated on the exclusion of men who were not White, heterosexual, cisgender, able-bodied, and privileged.”

Another example that happened around the same time as the publication of the APA guidelines was the release of Gillette’s now infamous commercial ‘The Best Men Can Be’.  In this video there is mention of bullying, sexual harassment and toxic masculinity whilst a narrator tells us: “we can’t hide from it, it’s been going on far too long.” A pair of boys are shown wrestling with each other while a line of men with their arms crossed state “boys will be boys” and stand behind barbecue grills for some reason.  “Men need to hold other men accountable” the narrator tells us as one man goes to approach a woman walking past before another man stops him saying “Not cool, not cool.”  Men need to “say the right thing, to act the right way” and although some men do this the narrator says “some is not enough.” Unsurprisingly, the response to the video was largely negative and at the time of writing the video has 1.5 million dislikes to 806,000 likes.

This relentless criticism of masculinity can also be seen if you search for ‘masculinity’ in Google News.  Inevitably you will find articles talking about the need for a supposed ‘new’ masculinity to defeat the dreaded ‘toxic’ one. The belief that masculinity can be changed so easily reflects the feminist idea of gender being a spectrum or a social construct and that if boys were taught to behave like girls then there wouldn’t be any problems. As many others have pointed out, there are biological and psychological differences between men and women that have emerged through our different evolutionary pressures which explains why there are distinctive male and female behaviours. Unless people have a few million years to spare, this isn’t going to change any time soon. Fortunately, there are a lot of people who are against this attack on men and masculinity in addition to the ideology that states there’s no differences between men and women. Unfortunately, it is also common for people who defend men and masculinity to assert that men can be a problem but they just need to channel their behaviour to be productive members of society.

From how masculinity is described you would be forgiven for thinking that most men are in a constant state of rage and drag their knuckles on the floor and will act violently at any opportunity. It is true that most extreme behaviours and violence are predominantly caused by men but this only represents a tiny minority of all men. Similarly, it is important to channel the aggressive behaviour of men and boys but there is never a suggestion that women need to channel their own behaviour for the benefit of society as well. This is because it would be viewed as misogynistic. There is a great reluctance to talk about women behaving badly which happens more often than people would like to think. This has been exacerbated by societies consistently presenting women as victims and men as perpetrators. To quote the men’s rights activist Glen Poole: “society thinks women have problems whereas men are problems.”

Most people who speak out against the feminist and social justice warrior assault on masculinity focus on the denial of sex differences but don’t focus on this perception of seeing men always as bad and women always as good. I call this the ‘masculinity strawman’ as it presents an overly simplistic view of how men and boys behave which makes it easier for feminists and SJWs to tear down. A better response to attacks on male behaviour would be to point out that women are human and therefore flawed just like men.

Seeing as this is my first blog post it is appropriate that I write about what this blog will be about and why I’ve chosen to start it.

Since 2013 I have been following political commentary online that primarily focuses on men’s issues and challenges the commonly held narrative of identity politics – i.e. women, gay people, black people, etc. are oppressed and straight white males are the ones who are oppressing them. Whilst issues that affect these supposedly victimised groups are given a fair hearing in society, many issues relating to men such as false rape accusations, domestic violence and family court bias are often ignored by the mainstream media and the public. This has created the illusion that men have privilege that they constantly need to check. The main purpose of this blog is to counter this idea and the whole ideology of identity politics itself.

I am fortunate that I have never suffered from the consequences of political correctness in my own life but I realised that what I was watching and listening to made sense when seeing what was happening to Western countries. I didn’t have that many strong political views before I started on this journey but after watching countless videos and reading numerous books I now have a keen interest in politics and following the ideological conflict between what could be classed as ordinary people with common sense opposing the ‘woke’ social justice warriors that populate education, politics and the media.

The metaphor of the red pill from The Matrix movies is a good description of what happened to me and many other people who were initially ‘blue-pilled’ for most of our lives and then discovered that much of what we were taught throughout our upbringing about identity politics was either inaccurate or a downright lie. My own ‘red-pilling’ came from stumbling upon the videos of YouTube channels such as ManWomanMyth and Chapin’s Inferno (both these channels, sadly, no longer exist). Another film by the Wachowski Brothers (interestingly now Sisters after both came out as transgender) that I think describes my ‘red pill moment’ is V for Vendetta. One scene in particular that stands out is when the character V places domino-sized pieces on the floor and knocks them over to create a ‘V’ image whilst the police detective character describes his revelation about everything being connected. It made me think of things I had seen and heard before I became ‘red-pilled’ and how everything seemed to come together to permanently alter my thinking.

Like everybody else, I have my own take on what I’ve seen and what I think about it and for a long time I considered starting a YouTube channel to get my thoughts across. However, I have been put off from making videos by the increasingly censorious nature of YouTube demonetising or banning content creators on their platform for going against conventional thinking. Also, I think I am better at expressing myself through writing which is why I had subsequently considered writing a book about problems affecting men. Nevertheless, I realised that it would be a waste of time to write and publish something that hardly anyone would read.

I gave up on my book idea but the desire to convey what I am thinking into words has not gone away. George Orwell understood one reason why certain people desire to express themselves through writing in his essay Why I Write many years ago: “Sheer egoism. Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death…It is humbug to pretend this is not a motive, and a strong one”. This is why I eventually decided to create this blog so that I could comment on these issues and see if what I write will resonate with other people. I cannot claim that what I put on here will be as smart, interesting or have the same level of insight as George Orwell’s writing of course.

Whether people will be interested in reading what I write is something I’ll have to find out as I’m aware that I would get a bigger audience producing videos than writing blogs. I could just be writing to myself but I think doing this will help me to understand my own viewpoint better. The increasing polarisation of politics across the Western world means that there will be plenty for me to write and comment on in the coming months and years if I continue to write here so I am excited to see what directions this blog will take in the future.

All of this is just a long winded way of saying welcome to my blog.

MM