Sunday, May 04, 2014

Cargo Cult Manospherism

Cargo Cult, if you don't know what it is, is a phenomenon that occurred post WWII where several uncivilized, native cultures saw their South Pacific invaded by the US (and Japanese) forces who in turn would airdrop and supply these petty but militarily vital islands with supplies.  Unaware of what Western Civilization had discovered in terms of flight, physics, chemistry, etc., they thought that the precious cargo was merely a consequence of having things that looked like planes around. Naively, they built plane replicas out of bamboo and other local material in the hopes that would bring the bounty of cargo a superior culture created. 

Naturally it did not work.

And neither will Cargo Cult Manospherism.

I know of the rifts and tiffs that have occurred in the past month of the Manosphere.  Naturally, there will be disagreements and that is largely why I stay out of them.  It's like Lithuania and Latvia arguing over linguistic differences while the USSR is about to invade both.  However, at the core of these arguments is something I believe is legitimate and real and needs to be addressed.  And that is poseurs vs. real men.

I understand just what an unfair, unforgivable, and disgusting amount of lies and propaganda has been fed to men.

I understand how most western men have had their birthright stolen from them from socialism and feminism.

And I am completely sympathetic to the Herculean task every western man must take on in terms of accepting this harsh reality, reprogramming themselves, changing their life goals, and making the best of what remnant of life they have in an increasingly hostile environment.

I get it.

But in the end, your righteous and well deserved anger HAS TO progress into acceptance and becoming a real man and saying, "OK, what can we feasibly, realistically, and most efficiently do about it?  What is the best possible outcome of this newly-brought-to-my-attention situation?"

It is here the men separate from the boys and we have genuine Manospherians versus Cargo Cult Manospherism.

The real men accept reality of life and move on.  Yes, there is some element of the 6 stages of grief, but they get over it, accept it and move on.  They start working out instead of trying to further refine their "nice guy personality."  They sacrifice their diet, eating what they need to, not what they'd like.  They work harder at their jobs, while at the same time start a company on the side.  They stop sitting in front of the TV, they put down the video game controller, they stop doing what has been easy, and they take this new-found knowledge, work hard, sacrifice, and achieve something of importance, relevance and worth. 

The Cargo Cult, however, finds value, definition, and meaning in the Manosphere itself, never taking the important lessons it's uncovered and applying said lessons to improve their lives.  That takes took much effort.

Lift heavy metal objects in a mind-numbing state to increase muscle mass?

That's too boring.

Sacrifice my free time to lay the groundwork for a future company that will grant me true freedom and success in the future?

That's too hard.

Go up to multiple girls and get shot down so you develop a tough skin as well as aptitude to approach women?

My feelings might get hurt.

No, it's much better, much easier, and much too tempting to merely to cheer on what is being said on the internet, living vicariously through a shocking few real men, and say,

"YEAH!! YEAH!!!! WOMEN SUCK!!!!"

"YEAH!!! YEAH!!!  THAT'S HOW I GET GIRLS!!!!"

"YEAH!!! YEAH!!!  THAT'S HOW I"D TELL MY BOSS TO FUCK OFF!!!!!"

In the end, Cargo Cult Manospherism is nothing more than Monday morning quarter-backing.  It's keyboard jockeying.  It's criticizing military moves in a war you're comfortably watching from your home, 4,000 miles away on CNN.  It's just being a professor or academian studying the industry that would never employ you.

Another Manosphere author said it best (and I don't remember who so could somebody please let me know so I may give due credit),

"The Manosphere is not a church, it's a gym."

Or as I like to say,

"The Manosphere is a trade school, not a university."

And that is the truth.

This is not some religion you follow to have your sins forgiven.
This is not some therapist's office where you talk about your feelings and they say it's your parents' fault.
And this is not some pontificating, bloviating Ivy Tower hiring aging hippie baby boomers to spew leftist fucktarded rubbish.

This is a place where misled, disadvantaged, and otherwise crippled men come to find explanation, sanity, clarity, and truth, but above all else the tools needed to make the best of what remains of their remnant sole life on this planet.

You can sit behind a keyboard and be a bloviating professor or get your asses shot down, doing the hard work like the rest of us like real soldiers:


15 comments:

Old Broad said...

Cap, I agree that "cargo cult" is the wrong mindset. But it can be a first step for many a lost boy. E.g., he'll start to wonder why no longer being nice works so well.

Anonymous said...

Stages of grief, Cap, stages of grief.

A lot of people get stuck in the first two (denial, anger), but it's like triage - you save the ones you can, and who are willing to help themselves.

The rest are just casualties. Mourn the dead, and move on.

Anonymous said...

peer to peer police in Germany. Translate the content using Google translate or other alternative engines.
http://www.dw.de/wenn-b%C3%BCrger-polizei-spielen/a-17601053

Anonymous said...

You're right about the Cargo Cult aspects but it is just one phase of the enlightment process, that is you become aware of how much you've been lied to. You become really angry and will want to lash out. The trick is to not suppress this initial anger as I believe this anger is vital for the motivation required for you to proceed to the next set of steps, which is to channel that anger for your own self improvement.

Some of us did not discover the Man-o-sphere until very late, but if we can pass some of those lessons on to our sons, and daughters, then it will be very useful indeed.

Anonymous said...

"This is a place where misled, disadvantaged, and otherwise crippled men come to find explanation, sanity, clarity, and truth, but above all else the tools needed to make the best of what remains of their remnant sole life on this planet."


Amen.

Take THe Red Pill said...

"Who is John Galt?"

Black Poison Soul said...

Some people move on to the next stage with difficulty.

Doctor Mayhem said...

I like to say,

"The Manosphere is a STEM degree, not a Liberal Arts or Humanities program."

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater said...

But between Man as clown or Man as parasite host, what's the bloody point? Why _shouldn't_ I just do what I like, all the time, and if it leads to an early grave why care?

Mike said...

If you have never spent years roofing, bricklaying, drywalling, digging ditches, etc, then you are just a pussy.
Aaron, you are a financial consultant and a blogger, about as useless a trade as exists. You yourself make money by bloviating about the sorry state of things, and at the same time like to shame horse owners.
How many roofs have you installed? How many weeping tile drainage systems have you installed? How many woodstoves have you installed? How many video games have you played? I bet the last answer dwarfs the numbers in those previous.
I hope you have the cajones to publish my comment.

Goober said...

There’s too much “don’t do what THEY say you should do, instead, you should do what I say you should do!” in many other manosphere-related things, though, too.

If it makes a man happy to wear shorts and flip-slops, why does the manosphere turn on him like he’s a feminized tool of the feminist feminizers?

What if a guy really enjoys watching TV?

Or eating what he wants, when he wants to, within reason? (‘m not advocating being a fat-ass, but is there really a massive amount of harm in not being a chiseled Mr. universe?)

Shouldn’t the manosphere be more interested in telling men to do what they want, what makes them happy, and screw feminism (and exposing it’s lies), more than it should be a second set of finger-wagging, shaming language-using harpies for men to face down on a daily basis?

Because we get enough of that from the feminists.

In the summer, I like wearing shorts and flip flops.

According to most in the manosphere, I’m a ficking sissy boy because of that, but that fails to consider that I’ve also killed every big game animal on the North American continent except those protected by law, in a multitude of different ways (including one wounded whitetail with my knife). I’ve told my wife to fuck off on more occasion than one when she deserved it (we’ve been together now for 15 years because of it, too. I never turned into a lamentable sissy-boy and earned her contempt). I can run nearly every kind of heavy construction machinery, have a commercial driver’s license to drive everything but hazardous materials, won every fight I’ve ever been in (including one where a guy pulled a knife on me and I was unarmed), have spent weeks at a time living off the land in the wilderness, grew up on a farm, come within a heartbeat of a state championship in wrestling, build multi-million dollar construction project and close multi-million dollar deals every single day, and you want to tell me that I’m a dupe of the feminist movement because I wear shorts?

Or like to catch “Vikings” on TV on Thursday nights?

The manosphere presents a false choice – you either become a manosphere clone, living the life the way we say, doing what we do, or you are a tool of the feminist feminizers.

They fail to recognize that a real man doesn’t need their approval.

Don’t like my shorts? Suck it. I’m happy as fuck wearing them.

Don’t like my spare tire? Suck it. I don’t really give a fuck what you think. I could stomp a mudhole in your ass and walk it dry any time I see fit.

Think I’m a fool for marrying the woman I love and respect, and staying faithful to her for 15 years (and her to me?) Suck it. You only fucking wish you could find what I have. She tells me every day how awesome I am. That she loves me. She’s a good partner. A trusted confidant. You want to tell me she’s a conniving woman-child who is only out for her best interest, who will leave me the second she gets “the tickle?” Fuck you.

The folks inside the manosphere, with their shaming language and their “one-size fits all” attitude, are as destructive to men as feminists, or they will be soon, if they can’t pull their heads out of their asses and stop generalizing and assuming that every single person on Earth is exactly the same as them, and the people they’ve known.

If one more manosphere dickbag tells me that my wife is an adolescent woman-child who is just biding her time with me until she can soak me for the most money when she leaves, I’ll punch his stupid face. Sorry that you chose a woman who would do that. I didn’t.

(none of this is directed at you, Cappy, just at some in the manosphere that think men should be happy trading one judgmental, overbearing ideology for an entirely different judgmental, overbearing ideology, and be happy for it. And I’m sick of it. In case you can’t tell).

Anonymous said...

I'll boil it down further: Get the fuck up and -do something- instead of sitting on your ass. Period.

Captain Capitalism said...

Mike,

Well ahem,

3 years shovelling shit during middle school

Must have installed damn well near 20 retaining walls

Laid well over a square mile of sod

I DID in fact install my own wood burning stove

Repair my cars regularly

OH, and I cut, haul, split and stack about 2-3 chords of wood every year.

Oh, but damn Mike, you got me. I only roofed a playhouse for a friend's kid of mine.

So yeah, Im a pussy that never did real physical labor.

Cripes

Celtic Tiger Dad said...

Mike,

If you have never spent years solving math equations, creating computer algorithms, inventing products, bringing those products to market by working 80-hour weeks without seeing sunshine so some morons can build and roof the buildings you work in, then it's you that ain't a man.

While hammer-and-nail jockeys take off at five o'clock, the men of this world are still working past midnight creating it.

Anonymous said...

Goober, I love you, sir. I'm a happily married woman of 15 years, so this love is totally a platonic love, but still ... masterfully stated, sir. I salute you. And your wife.
Captain, thanks for linking to one of my posts earlier. I'm retiring from Return of Queens for a while (life got too busy), but I have long read your blog since I first stumbled onto it via Kate from Small Dead Animals. Much of your wisdom in "Worthless" will help my growing children.
Fare thee well too, sir.
D. Elmar