I was a minor figure in Canada's "feminist" literary scene in my twenties. I basically had a breakdown and ghosted the whole thing in 2020 (including deleting my Twitter and bailing on the opportunity to write a mainstream leftist book) because I guess the "woke" reaction to Covid was the final straw for me. I started reading Walt's work because of his brilliant "early puberty" essay, but quickly became a fan because I knew very little about the alt-right and started seeing parallels between it and the "woke" feminist circles I left. Both strike me as very "left-brained" ideologies, somewhat "autistic" movements (or, arguably, in the case of feminism, more "borderline", but as we discussed on your podcast I sort of agree with the argument that borderline personality disorder is a feminine presentation of autism). Walt was also kind enough to be the first person on Substack to offer to boost my platform by hosting me on his podcast -- which I listen to pretty regularly now.
I went over and read this on Regan's blog, and I've realized the problem with gender equality. Probably a few thousand conservatives in and off the Internet have figured this out already, but I don't know any of their names (so who's writing about this?)
If you make men and women equal on average in income and status, since women are still attracted to status, they go looking for a higher-status man. Since those are now much rarer, they wind up unsatisfied and writing NYT, Atlantic, and WaPo articles about how men are intimidated by strong women.
The other side is, of course, a large number of men who are too low-status to attract anyone, but it's not PC to care about them.
Plus the falling fertility rate people are starting to get worried about.
I may be misremembering but I recall a some very interesting discussions of this topic in fairly mainstream publications back in the early '10s but for the life of me cannot remember where. Around the time the Atlantic carried Hanna Rosen's "The End of Men" I vaguely recall "the Omega Male" being a fashionable topic. Trump's election a few years later seems to have prevented the conversation from developing in a useful direction until recently.
Yeah, he gave all the upper-middle- and upper-class ladies the vapors. They're now starting to realize writing off 40% of the population, and in particular the 40% of the population that starts street crime and wars, is a really bad idea.
>Yes. Would you accept this kind of behavior from identarian white, male, or heterosexual separatist, supremacist, or just plain old exclusionary advocacy groups? I don’t want to answer for Regan, but I can answer for the whole of North America when I say, it issued it’s verdict on such desires six decades ago.<
I think I pointed out the same thing. Identity fixation is always zero-sum because, by picking only one identity to obsess over, you necessarily neglect all others. The real world is always too complicated to be explained by a single identity variable, no matter how much certain people may wish that it weren't. Politics-brain causes people to latch on to this stuff when truthfully there is just no rational reason to do so, it is just a hang-up that they have for whatever reason, IMO often because they need some kind of guiding ethos in life and this is the best they could come up with.
The simple fact is that a thinking person does not identify himself as any sort of identity-obsessive, neither feminist nor white nationalist. A thinking person can recognize that some of the concerns raised about particular identities are valid and merit some discussion without going full retard and pigeonholing himself by adopting one of these monikers. Letting yourself become emotionally attached to a narrow identity-based label shows poor intellectual faculties.
The losers will continue infighting with one another over labels... purity spiralling & going off on 'Who is a grifter, who is genuine, blah blah blah'...
While those who build societies, empires & whatnot continue working, slowly but surely heralding in the New Order of Things. 😉
If people wish to give us an Entire Continent for Free... We will gladly take it 😉
... after which point we will turn it back into the Eurabian Peninsula 😉
"But feminism is not like Catholicism. There’s no pope, there’s no Catechism. No one has the authority to baptize you and no one has the power to excommunicate you."
The odd thing here is that, living in the protestant dominated Bible Belt, I have seen the exact dynamic of purity spiraling and "bad representatives driving out good" as is here described of feminism play out in a variety of religious contexts. The lack of a central organizing authority means that there really is no motivation to give up the label until it becomes toxic to those who one is trying to reach (proselytize). As such, I don't think Reagan would have any particular motivation to abandon the feminist label until it does become a hindrance to reaching the audience she wishes to. White nationalism, much like fundamentalism as labels have become tied to such obnoxious personalities that only those with similarly obnoxious personalities would not be put off by being tied to the label.
Feminism, while in many ways rooted in the same deterministic identitarianism as white nationalism, is not perceived as nearly as toxic by the American mainstream. As such, I think in her mind there is still room to rehabilitate the label. We shall see if she shall be successful.
You never said who exactly it was you wanted to be sacrificed in your reverse-prison-exchange (really sick and twisted concept btw!). Do you have some nominees?
Ok—so I don’t personally have any emotions about these people which is what makes this easy for me. For me; this would just be sacred cow stuff.
I’d probably have Sotomayor doing pushups in front of RBG’s grave in the rain on national TV.
I would probably do some kind of reality TV show where I make Oprah and Nancy Pelosi live in a mansion with 5 of the absolute oldest, meanest Holocaust survivors just complaining about the temperature and food all day. Maybe one is trying to convince them to have a threesome with him.
And lastly I have absolutely nothing bad to say about HRC and wish her family well.
I was a minor figure in Canada's "feminist" literary scene in my twenties. I basically had a breakdown and ghosted the whole thing in 2020 (including deleting my Twitter and bailing on the opportunity to write a mainstream leftist book) because I guess the "woke" reaction to Covid was the final straw for me. I started reading Walt's work because of his brilliant "early puberty" essay, but quickly became a fan because I knew very little about the alt-right and started seeing parallels between it and the "woke" feminist circles I left. Both strike me as very "left-brained" ideologies, somewhat "autistic" movements (or, arguably, in the case of feminism, more "borderline", but as we discussed on your podcast I sort of agree with the argument that borderline personality disorder is a feminine presentation of autism). Walt was also kind enough to be the first person on Substack to offer to boost my platform by hosting me on his podcast -- which I listen to pretty regularly now.
Yes--openminded people unite. I wouldn't have compared Regan to Walt or Hanania if I didn't respect her. I respect both of them.
she and I actually have quite a bit in common
- finance -> writing
- use AI art in thumbnails as promotional vector (and actually put significant effort into creating engaging imagery)
- enjoy the company of Indians
- place great moral import on (v different) rules of social etiquette
- oversensitive to criticism and kind of enchanted with ourselves, but in a charming way helpful for branding
It was this similarity that made us such great foils!
I think I've seen her cross my feed but haven't checked out her work (or Hanania's, for that matter). I should :-)
I went over and read this on Regan's blog, and I've realized the problem with gender equality. Probably a few thousand conservatives in and off the Internet have figured this out already, but I don't know any of their names (so who's writing about this?)
If you make men and women equal on average in income and status, since women are still attracted to status, they go looking for a higher-status man. Since those are now much rarer, they wind up unsatisfied and writing NYT, Atlantic, and WaPo articles about how men are intimidated by strong women.
The other side is, of course, a large number of men who are too low-status to attract anyone, but it's not PC to care about them.
Plus the falling fertility rate people are starting to get worried about.
I may be misremembering but I recall a some very interesting discussions of this topic in fairly mainstream publications back in the early '10s but for the life of me cannot remember where. Around the time the Atlantic carried Hanna Rosen's "The End of Men" I vaguely recall "the Omega Male" being a fashionable topic. Trump's election a few years later seems to have prevented the conversation from developing in a useful direction until recently.
Yeah, he gave all the upper-middle- and upper-class ladies the vapors. They're now starting to realize writing off 40% of the population, and in particular the 40% of the population that starts street crime and wars, is a really bad idea.
>Yes. Would you accept this kind of behavior from identarian white, male, or heterosexual separatist, supremacist, or just plain old exclusionary advocacy groups? I don’t want to answer for Regan, but I can answer for the whole of North America when I say, it issued it’s verdict on such desires six decades ago.<
I think I pointed out the same thing. Identity fixation is always zero-sum because, by picking only one identity to obsess over, you necessarily neglect all others. The real world is always too complicated to be explained by a single identity variable, no matter how much certain people may wish that it weren't. Politics-brain causes people to latch on to this stuff when truthfully there is just no rational reason to do so, it is just a hang-up that they have for whatever reason, IMO often because they need some kind of guiding ethos in life and this is the best they could come up with.
The simple fact is that a thinking person does not identify himself as any sort of identity-obsessive, neither feminist nor white nationalist. A thinking person can recognize that some of the concerns raised about particular identities are valid and merit some discussion without going full retard and pigeonholing himself by adopting one of these monikers. Letting yourself become emotionally attached to a narrow identity-based label shows poor intellectual faculties.
Identitarianism is really useful for the sorts of fights over territory humans have had for a while, which is (probably) why it persists.
If you're trying to live together in the same society it's a problem.
There are Winners & losers in life.
The losers will continue infighting with one another over labels... purity spiralling & going off on 'Who is a grifter, who is genuine, blah blah blah'...
While those who build societies, empires & whatnot continue working, slowly but surely heralding in the New Order of Things. 😉
If people wish to give us an Entire Continent for Free... We will gladly take it 😉
... after which point we will turn it back into the Eurabian Peninsula 😉
Thank You Very Much! 😘
"But feminism is not like Catholicism. There’s no pope, there’s no Catechism. No one has the authority to baptize you and no one has the power to excommunicate you."
The odd thing here is that, living in the protestant dominated Bible Belt, I have seen the exact dynamic of purity spiraling and "bad representatives driving out good" as is here described of feminism play out in a variety of religious contexts. The lack of a central organizing authority means that there really is no motivation to give up the label until it becomes toxic to those who one is trying to reach (proselytize). As such, I don't think Reagan would have any particular motivation to abandon the feminist label until it does become a hindrance to reaching the audience she wishes to. White nationalism, much like fundamentalism as labels have become tied to such obnoxious personalities that only those with similarly obnoxious personalities would not be put off by being tied to the label.
Feminism, while in many ways rooted in the same deterministic identitarianism as white nationalism, is not perceived as nearly as toxic by the American mainstream. As such, I think in her mind there is still room to rehabilitate the label. We shall see if she shall be successful.
You never said who exactly it was you wanted to be sacrificed in your reverse-prison-exchange (really sick and twisted concept btw!). Do you have some nominees?
Ok—so I don’t personally have any emotions about these people which is what makes this easy for me. For me; this would just be sacred cow stuff.
I’d probably have Sotomayor doing pushups in front of RBG’s grave in the rain on national TV.
I would probably do some kind of reality TV show where I make Oprah and Nancy Pelosi live in a mansion with 5 of the absolute oldest, meanest Holocaust survivors just complaining about the temperature and food all day. Maybe one is trying to convince them to have a threesome with him.
And lastly I have absolutely nothing bad to say about HRC and wish her family well.
Well done mate. I used to listen to him in high school with friends so there goes I was happy to see him come back!
I read none of this.
The overwhelming feeling I get reading substack content anymore is, “how the fuck do you people have the time to write all this stuff.”
Just word words words. You don’t can’t paid by the word.
If you can’t be more precise I assume you have nothing to say.