John P.’s Insight Needs Much More Discussion!
Below is a point that I have heard John P. state on quite a few occasions and think it needs much more serious discussion. I also think this is one of the fundamental issues, which I call wing issues; I think must be addressed to be solve our cooperative efforts (and not left to die on the vine for it is too uncomfortable to be addressed). John P states:
One of the greatest weaknesses of the men’s movement in my view is that almost every one of us considers ourselves an “ideas man”, and believes he has the answer, if only everyone else would follow our lead. New, inspirational initiatives spring up almost weekly, while organisations with hands on experience and collective wisdom struggle for survival.
To start things off I see this Ideas without Following of John’s being a male Yin/Yang issue (which simply means it comes with both pluses and negatives). Men don’t follow other’s cult-like, as can be seen with groupies at any concert being more female than male.
So we test our leaders and their ideas more, and this is all good. Our actions are more lone wolf yes, but this means also it can’t be stopped too (for it has to many heads).
MGTOW (Males Going Their Own Way) , unlike others, accepts this and tries to say it is OK. Yet in their name and in their attempts at expansion I still see them trying to not go their own way in all areas, but are trying to bring men together to go their own way? A bit of a small conflict when compared to Kent’s “There is no truth” (which in fact is an attempt at telling everyone a truth of his own).
The negatives, to not working as closely as possible with one another, are easy to see. We really don’t need every man and women on our side (a majority at the polls) to win this, only enough men moving away from the state at the same time in all our own ways with demands that are agreeable to a majority of us, and then stubbornly not giving in until we get all the just ones agreed to by all. With the boomers retiring, and the falling birth rate, the dysfunctional system is unsustainable, but there is no assurance that what will replace it will be friendlier to men.
Therefore what is stopping us ? Please no slogans or clichés here, for anyone who has been at this has met a long list of men who have stated these and not backed them up with John.P’s long-term effort over ideas! Yes, we will be giving ideas here, but please offer give & take actions in return for others to help you with anything purposed. Please also avoid old men statements of, “I’ve been at this 50 years”; so you should listen to my ideas more. Please also avoid deconstructing or digressing the issue for some other purpose, for there are many avenues to cover other issues even on this site.
As for my last word on this, before hearing others input, we are dealing with both nature and nurture points that have stopped cooperation. If we lived on the same street, played on the same team, went to the same school and suffered the treatment of the state all at the same time (preferably when we were younger) and had let those specializing in any given area lead with different areas at different times we wouldn’t be suffering now from such disunity. There has been no give & take in deeds to earn trust between us and we have competed with others too long for reasons the new world of feminism has done nothing but increase (for it fears our unity as all rulers have from the beginning of time when men get together). The state has always worked to disperse us when we gather, whether in a gang or a justified movement bent on change.
So let it rip with give & take….
Hi Intrepid,
I am so glad you brought this subject up. I asked the same thing last night to a guy. “What is the probelm here, why can’t the men get it together like the women” and I also added “What the hell am I doing” but be reassured I have been given advice from women to stick at it.
This was the answer I was given. “Women say, I like what you are doing 40% so I will back you up.”
A man says, “I don’t like what you are doing 40% so I will do different.”
The problem as I see it is that there is no set thing to agree on 100%.
To be honest, I will never agree on taking the right from a women to abort a baby or keep a baby against a male’s voice thus I should of told all of you where to go from day two as that was Al D Rado’s post. It is never going to happen, forget it, I will fight to the death on this issue.
But then, I will overlook this small difference for something that fits my criteria. Maybe that is (finally) a good thing that women have. For we are narrow minded in that I mean we have blinkers on. It is the big picture we (women) all agree on.
We talk of the sisterhood, yet we do not all agree with the actions our sisters may take. But we are one because we are women. That over-rides everything.
Comment by julie — Thu 6th July 2006 @ 3:51 pm
Great stuff Intrepid.
Much food for thought – hopefully to be followed up with collective action, something I will give further serious consideration to myself.
At present as many will know I’m teaching children. I find it’s a marvelous way to disabuse folks of the stereotyping myths of violent manfolk which sadly feminists have propogated for many years now.
I don’t mentor any women in the workplace who appear to display an entitled lack of appreciation for male mentoring.
I now always give way on the footpath and other public places to male elders, and mostly defer to them in conversation.
I see I have become quite Confucian in this respect.
These are small everyday acts, but I suppose do make some difference.
I’m not sure if this is what you ask for, but these things spring up in my mind as I read your post. So please clarify if I seem to be off on a tangent to your request somewhere.
Comment by Stephen — Thu 6th July 2006 @ 4:01 pm
Dear Julie,
I’ll just react to your on topic issue here only. Moving women is like hearding cats(you’ll notice women like cats more than men). If your just dealing with talk, they sound with one voice almost all the time(lot’s of tag questions help this effort). Yet when they leave or go to another setting the message then changes as quickly as their emotions demand it. Moving men is like like moving bulls, if you can stop them butting heads they will stampede everything before them.
Women’s goals are the same and use emotions to get what they want. This looks like they are working as one, but it is the effeminate foxes in government that wish to keep the real threat at bay(organized men) which allows for this to continue.
When some men trust each other they will defend one another with their lives, even if they don’t support the other o%. While most women will not support each other if they agree 100%, if it means risk of unpleasent feelings or discomfort, let alone their lives.
Comment by Intrepid — Thu 6th July 2006 @ 4:13 pm
Dear Stephen,
No you are on topic. Please tell us more of Korean Confucion ideas of male cooperation, so we may use some of them, if the ring true to us and our situation.
Comment by Intrepid — Thu 6th July 2006 @ 4:18 pm
Something else I say repeatedly is that men should join and support a local group, or form one if they are in an area where none exists.
Critics who point out that sitting at home on our own behind a keyboard achieves very little are quite correct in my view. The internet is a powerful tool that wasn’t available to feminists in the 70’s, but it doesn’t reduce the need to build grass-roots co-operation and organisational structures.
I also don’t believe we will be able to successfully form effective national or internatonal organisations in the absence of strong local groups.
I think one of the areas where women tend to have an advantage over us guys is that they instinctively support each other emotionally. Guys are sometimes blind to this dynamic, but they are just as capable of caring for each other if given the encouragement and role-modeling.
Comment by JohnP — Fri 7th July 2006 @ 1:57 am
John you won’t get an argument with me on the importance of local grassroots.
As for critics who say, “Nothing or little comes from working behind a keyboard”, well like Kent’s “There is no absolute truth” they propably key it in from behind a desk themselves. So it is confused thought yet again.
Comment by Intrepid — Fri 7th July 2006 @ 3:54 pm
JP, what bugs me about this is that it results in an us and them approach to the situation. This site, which could be all about men and what men can do and think to improve the world we live in is more about women and how they rip the system off and influence the ‘femily caught’. There is no sense of people striving for equality here. They’re just out to try and improve their lot, or throw their bodies about the room.
Having said that, men are naturally competitive, which is why they don’t cooperate with each other very well and is also probably why this site is more of a slinging match than a love-in.
Intrepid,
It’s unfortunate that you picked up on that line, because its probably irrelevant to the material on that site which is mostly about emotional fitness.
Comment by New Zeal — Sat 8th July 2006 @ 9:34 am
Kent says –
“This site, which could be all about men and what men can do and think to improve the world we live in is more about women and how they rip the system off and influence the ‘femily caught’. There is no sense of people striving for equality here”.
My response.
No Kent. That’s a complete contradiction. If so many women weren’t ripping off the system and using a misguided femily caught men would have more equal rights.
Don’t believe me? Well just start a new thread asking for men to tell you if they agree with that analysis.
Whilst your at it you could also ask Wayne why he’s walking to Wellington, and all those guys signing his petition why they’re doing so.
Now I guess you could be thinking I’m so pro-male that I’ve forgotten that some women don’t get justice.
That would be wrong. I haven’t.
I’m simply choosing to put my energy where I think the greatest need is. I’d be doing as much of women if I knew 300,000 kids went to sleep each night in a household which didn’t contain mothers, if women were suiciding at the rate men are, dying as young, drug addicted, homeless, imprisoned, demonised as much, marginalised as much.
But they aren’t. Generally it’s males who need more help right now IMO.
You may disagree with that.
That’s your prerogative.
But I can tell you this. Keep pushing the profeminist line as much as you do whilst appearing relatively inured of men’s plight and I fear you will alienate yourself from the many who are waking up to the realisation that after 30 odd years of feminism in nz the pendulum has swung too far against males.
Comment by Stephen — Sun 9th July 2006 @ 3:49 am
hi-
I think there should be an international men’s movement-my thought would be that it is based on non-violence. It needs to be based on nonviolence and health issues, something that is universally needed across cultures. I think it should try to not get inot the blame game too much and try to get more models of healthy men, and what that would encompass. How to get men excited about the idea is not clear to me yet, but I think the point is well taken that we need to somehow get the idea that it is good to support other men and not see the world in terms of merely surviving or see it in terms of the survival of the fittest.
Mike
Comment by Mike — Thu 20th July 2006 @ 6:14 am
*** This posting is at least as relevant today, as when Intrepid and John first posed these questions!
Are we really doing our best to move forward constructively?
Comment by MurrayBacon — Mon 18th May 2015 @ 8:51 pm
Isn’t this a typical men to blame for all conversation.
There’s a problem and we should get together and fix it.
But no one sees that women are behaving destructively or believe they are not allowed to see this.
This is what Feminists want so we have to solve the problem with this as a starting point.
Comment by Boonie — Mon 17th June 2019 @ 1:12 pm
”
Critics who point out that sitting at home on our own behind a keyboard achieves very little are quite correct in my view. The internet is a powerful tool that wasn’t available to feminists in the 70’s, but it doesn’t reduce the need to build grass-roots co-operation and organisational structures.
”
I would look at this from a communications point of view. A form of internet has always existed.
Pre Egypt is was word of mouth.
Egypt Greece Rome it moved to letter books libraries.
Rome fell apart and it was ‘basically’ back to word of mouth until the printing press.
Then slowly photography, telegram, telephone.
(Leave radio and television out of this)
By the 1970s
Feminists used the telephone as a weapon to organize, pretty much back to verbal communication not so much written.
Then the internet arrived and back to written communication.
Is there a bit of a fallacy here that the Internet is actually something especially different?
Keyboard warriors have nothing to contribute, because we have to mirror feminist tactics and use verbal communication to solve this.
In this post the verbal problem in the room moved to a written version here.
That doesn’t make the internet a powerful tool.
Yes, I agree it is not only potentially powerful but potentially dangerous and there will be lots of books written about that.
Whether we are in a room or on this page it is question of whether we have the skills to participate.
I would suggest the skill level of participation is much higher in written communication than verbal communication, and it’s much harder to remove attention-seeking, disruption, misinformation, and misunderstanding from the written environment.
And this in a way is the point I’m trying to make about Warren Farrell.
Does his written diologue support his verbal diologue. Should we then take his verbal diologue and repeat it?
In the stable mindset that existed in NZ up to the 1970s we didn’t really have to deal with this issue.
It is now an environment where it is so easy for us to distribute or repeat fallacy and for our language to become confused. Our understandings become confused, our outcomes also become confused.
Comment by Downunder — Mon 17th June 2019 @ 1:54 pm
#11 Dear Boonie, I agree “But no one sees that women are behaving destructively or believe they are not allowed to see this.”
But when it comes to action, we cannot control what others do, we can only make our own decisions about what we want to do.
Downunder, I have never said that Warren Farrell offers all solutions. I have just said that he offers some ideas that are useful and valuable to understand. I have never said that all of his ideas are useful.
Oh for clarity.
Comment by Murray Bacon — Mon 17th June 2019 @ 2:25 pm
@13 what I started to see in the site was a combination of panic/post/link/comment/repeat.
Let’s have a combined panic.
Then there’s the link to (this is worth a read) and I’m guilty of this to a degree as well but I do try and add my concerns or reasons for linking.
Part of this is our own tribalism.
Farrell, says we need empathy. Triassic, empathy is the problem. ( for example )
This is why I put the social media post up the other day suggesting that rather than necessarily a return to verbal only communition we would find groups outside of that main social media.
There’s a problem there with social media behaviour which isn’t constructive to resolution.
What we’re struggling with here, I think is a combination of written paticipation in a free speech environment.
I don’t think that needs to change … we need to see how to lead that, and make that work in a written environment.
It’s always going to be subject to someone running into the room saying I’ve just been fucked over, I have a political motivation to disrupt you, this is best way I can find to amuse myself.
From that point of view how do we use the internet to make this site a powerful tool?
Perhaps there is a moderator’s bias to only link to verbal groups, whereas other people have said we can’t handle the disruption we’re going elsewhere for this specific written purpose, then in that tribalism they then become disconnected.
How does the internet become a powerful tool for us?
How do we get over the fear of written participation?
It wouldn’t be the first time in history writers have had to deal with persecution.
Comment by Downunder — Mon 17th June 2019 @ 3:45 pm
A campaign is required… is’nt it?
Comment by mama — Mon 17th June 2019 @ 4:21 pm
Military or Civil?
Comment by Boonie — Mon 17th June 2019 @ 4:35 pm
A one for all, all in muster.
Comment by mama — Mon 17th June 2019 @ 4:43 pm
A muster Mister?
Comment by mama — Mon 17th June 2019 @ 4:44 pm
Well, if you’re in charge of the venue could you make sure it has wheel chair and hospital bed access.
Comment by Evan Myers — Mon 17th June 2019 @ 5:45 pm
Do you think we should go LOTR style and muster the tribal dead?
Comment by Evan Myers — Mon 17th June 2019 @ 5:50 pm
No,…,Wild wild horses, “the kind that can’t drag you away”,…” obviously “…
Comment by mama — Mon 17th June 2019 @ 10:04 pm