As we’ve stumbled our way to the post marriage family one of the conversations we’ve never seriously engaged at a cultural level is the evil of child support and alimony. That these things are evil should be manifest in the fact that they are the answer to the question:
How shall we organize the family without marriage?
In fairness those who detest marriage would argue that replacing marriage is a fundamentally good thing, and that therefore anything which destroys marriage is not only not evil, but good. However, even the most marriage hating radical feminist would still have to recognize that child support and alimony are the answer to the question of how to replace marriage.
For those who believe in marriage the only legitimate question is not whether child support and alimony are evil, but whether (and how often) they might at times be a necessary evil. In the not too distant past the consensus in the Christian West was that only in very rare and extreme circumstances were child support and alimony necessary evils. Husbands who abandoned their families or who were seriously abusive or serial adulterers were the kinds of extreme corner cases where the necessity of replacing marriage outweighed the evil of replacing marriage.
But either way, make no mistake; destroying families is evil, and replacing marriage is evil. Marriage is sacred, and anyone who is not a foe of marriage should approach its destruction/replacement with great trepidation. This is a grave matter, and should be treated as such. Even in the cases where the husband is acting terribly we should be extremely hesitant to step in and destroy a family, or to do anything to facilitate the destruction of that family. There is no neat and clean way to break up a family. Breaking up families isn’t like neatly amputating an offending limb; it is more like remodeling with dynamite. Honoring marriage vows can at times be very difficult, and having a rescue crew waiting in the wings to declare the marriage “over” and offer an alternative creates huge temptation for sin and the great harm to children which follows the destruction of the family.
Until around the mid 60s we treated alimony and child support as necessary evils. Women who had children out of wedlock were strongly encouraged to marry (and remain married to) the father of their child because the bastardy laws carried a strong stigma. Men or women who married and then decided honoring their marriage vows was too hard had to prove in divorce court that their case was one of the rare exceptions where destroying the family was a necessary evil. This kept divorce rare and made it clear that if such extreme measures were justified either the husband or the wife must have acted so terribly that destroying the family was the only viable option.
From necessary evil to moral imperative.
But then starting in the late sixties we reorganized our legal and social structure with the (unquestioned) assumption that replacing marriage wasn’t a necessary evil, but a moral imperative. We replaced a patchwork of bastardy laws with a declaration that legitimacy doesn’t matter. Around the same time, we ushered in no fault divorce with very strong bias towards mother custody, while leaving in place the punitive practices of child support and alimony. Suddenly child support and alimony went from necessary evil to an open bribe available to any woman who was willing to betray her husband and children.
Now we not only promise a woman cash and prizes if she will agree to betray her family, but we have created a presumption of guilt on the part of the very husband she sells out. As Lydia McGrew explains here it is misogyny to not assume that our pandemic of wife initiated divorce is proof that the men must have had it coming.
This assumption that the sin of divorce must be justified is combining with the lure of the financial reward to sin and snaring very large numbers of women. Where Christians should be defending marriage and discouraging sin, most are enthusiastic supporters of child support and stand forever ready to offer justifications for women to divorce their husbands, however flimsy. However, remaining silent about the evil of child support and alimony and encouraging frivolous divorce is not kind to women and children; it is cruelty. Yet where are the Christian leaders warning against the great temptation that child support and alimony present to women?
In our current rush to find some fault, any fault, by the husband to justify the divorcing wife we aren’t being honest that the standing offer of a cash reward for ending her marriage can’t help but cloud her judgment. Any Christian treatment of the subject should start by pointing out that in either every case or nearly every case a wife divorcing her husband is sinning gravely. Even in the case where the husband is divorcing the wife, the fact that she knows she will get a cash reward if he decides to divorce her is a huge temptation for her not to honor the Bible’s instruction to wives. From this perspective her husband’s bad behavior and the lure of financial reward are the sources of temptations to grave sin, not moral justifications to sin. In a more clear headed time this is what Christians would warn women who were considering destroying their families or even rejecting their obligations as wives. However, we don’t live in clear headed times, and even the supposed champions of the family Focus on the Family are now so vulgar as to openly teach women how to collect their 30 pieces of silver.
This poor SOB was ordered to pay:
$17,000 per month 1st 4 years
$13,000 per month next 2 years
$5,000 per month until kids turn 18
http://www.courts.state.co.us/Courts/Court_Of_Appeals/Opinion/2012/11CA2202%20&%2012CA0192-PD.pdf
Depending on which state you live in, this can cut both ways. Full disclosure, I went through a divorce recently. I discovered this site, and others like it, while searching for a way to save my marriage (originally I first found the now defunct Christian Mens Defense Network site, which led me here). My experience might be instructive to others so please allow me to elaborate.
My wife left, and briefly managed to hide my child from me (I now have him back, thanks to God and some friends who stood by me). She was assured by her friends that I would be out on the street, paying her child support and alimony, and out of her life and out of my son’s life.
Today she is paying child support to me. I am still in the house, she is renting an apartment. I got to cash out her retirement account and take 1/2 of it (which covers my attorney’s fees, amongst other things). If you are willing to take the black knight strategic and tactical approach, go all in, and if you live in the right state, sometimes a man can win.
Allow me to add as well that this will be one of those divorces which reads as “caused by the man” in the statistics even though it was initiated by my ex-wife, and I was still the defendant going into the court proceedings. This is due to the fact that I finally counter-sued on grounds of my wife conducting an adulterous affair…. and won. So, although my ex wife left and filed for divorce, and although the divorce would occur whether I counter sued or not, it will still count as a suit won by a man, bringing down the 67-75% wife caused divorce numbers. Go figure.
Sob stories are probably old around here, but I’ll share mine. After 12 years of “Christian” marriage I walked in on my SAHM wife and her own cousin (second cousins but still). Fast forward a few months she files divorce and judge orders $2250/mo spousal support. She was 31y/o. Now imagine, which is easier, earning $2250/mo or funding some sucker to marry?
I heard it was Reagan who started no-fault divorce. Doesn’t matter I guess, we are living in the end times.
In a sane society, an oath is an oath, no matter how foolishly given (Jephthah’d daughter, Catholic church I’m looking at you and your annulment process).
But we don’t live in a sane society. When you can break the marriage oath willy nilly, then no oath has meaning. (Imagine if all the men that join the military could just opt out when they realize things are not the heroic tale they expected).
Just had a look at Lydia’s piece – she actually cited LADY MACBETH as someone who could use her sexuality to push her husband on…. towards murder. And cites as a good example. WTF?!
Focus on the Beta is a program straight out of Hell. I listened a few months ago to the show where they were promoting the ‘strong willed’ Christian wife. This bitch was nothing but a self absorbed harpie justifying her own crappy behavior and disrespect to her husband. The pussy host wouldn’t call her out on any of it, pathetic!
What they hear you saying is: “We should make women and children starve.” It would never occur to them for the church to go on record as supporting custody for parent who did not file. The question of “How could a mother be corrupt?” simply does not make sense to them. One can literally watch their faces go slack as they try to process the idea.
@Okrahead,
Sorry to hear of your ordeal. Now I know why you have not been commenting for awhile.
Good to have you back.
Mine is an example of “not as bad as it could have been,” but the marriage and the family are still destroyed, the children are still separated from each other, the initiating wife is probably looking at a gloomy future — and it all happened, in significant part, because she thought there would be more cash and prizes than there actually were. She filed for divorce the first time in 2008, represented by a female attorney who had told her she’d get full custody of both minor children, long-term alimony, significant child support, and her attorney’s fees. It’s a long story, but she ended up withdrawing that divorce filing. She re-filed in 2010 with a male “Christian” attorney who apparently made similar promises. She sought full custody of our daughter, 50% custody of our son, $2,000/month in permanent alimony (we were both 50), $1600/month in child support until high school graduation (at the time, 4 years for our daughter and 5 years for our son), and at least $25,000 for her attorney’s fees. After incurring approximately $30,000 in attorney’s fees herself and causing me to incur $40,000 during 16 months of litigation, she settled for 75% custody of our daughter, 25% custody of our son (which has turned into more like 0% custody), $300/month alimony for four years, $952/month child support for our daughter for the four years, no attorney’s fees, and $244/month child support paid to me for the additional 12 months our son is in school after our daughter graduates.
Within a week of the final order, she was dating online. Within 3 weeks, she’d zeroed in on her beau — a twice-divorced man who lives 400 miles away. They were married 13 months after the final order, so she relocated, taking our daughter with her. I’m convinced that a primary reason for her rush to remarry was that she didn’t get the cash she expected out of the divorce. (She had always previously said that she did not plan to remarry and did not expect to find anyone who would be interested in her, which I expected to be true, given (if nothing else) her lifelong frigidity.) She had a decent job paying $32,000/year with good benefits, plus the $15,000/year from me for four years, but apparently that wasn’t enough. I tried to tell her both times she filed that she wasn’t going to get anything like what she seemed to be expecting. I wonder if her decision would have been different if she’d known in advance how relatively little she’d come out with. She recently complained to a judge that she “obviously” didn’t go into the divorce to get rich, since it “cost” her $30,000+ to “get” about $43,000 net. What she omitted to tell the judge was that (a) she has no intention of paying the $20,000 she still owes her two attorneys and (b) her expectations when she filed the divorce were quite different than what she ended up with.
She celebrated her one-year anniversary with her new hubby this month. I’ll be surprised if serious cracks haven’t developed by this time next year, when they’ve been without my money and have had to pay me for several months. Whenever this remarriage ends for her, she’ll be without a job (she quit so she could relocate with him), she’ll be in a place where she has no family or friends of her own, and she’ll be in her mid- to late-50’s with two failed marriages under her belt. Best guess: she’ll move to live close to (or with) our oldest son, who has been the most sympathetic to her, and will rely on him for the rest of her life. Pitiful. And unnecessary.
” Honoring marriage vows can at times be very difficult, and having a rescue crew waiting in the wings to declare the marriage “over” and offer an alternative creates huge temptation for sin and the great harm to children which follows the destruction of the family.”
Imagine if all men were guaranteed something to be waiting in the wings if ever they decided to jettison the wife. Perhaps a young live-in nanny and housekeeper with benefits.
Perhaps men need to start their own lobby group to get the government to provide these things at the wifes expense. After all, i’m sure it would be a great benefit to the children.
Y’know CC, that is not a half-bad idea. Although it’s probably not what you meant. These churchian wallet-lightening outfits should put their wet, pursed lips where they oughtta, And any Heroic Single Mom (with hero of socialist labor, motherhood red star and pioneers’ medal) be automatically granted a life stipend from the collection plate of that congregation.
And only that congregation. On account she’s dam’ well worth it, and stuff.
I’m sure the other church ladies will rally round the pot, brethren, I’mma just sure of it.
Leave the disgusting sinful uncharitable ex-husband out, to maintain the purity of the gift and that, eh? Spurn his filthy lucre.
O wait a minute ..
David, man, I think you did everything right. But ..
.. this bit made me cackle with malevolent glee.
” … (a) she has no intention of paying the $20,000 she still owes her two attorneys ..”
Too right. Only language those bastards understand.
The focus on the family article starts by saying we are not promoting divorce then uses the rest of the article to promote divorce.
What they hear you saying is: “We should make women and children starve.”
That’s right — also more generally, outside the church as well. People see this as a damage mitigation issue, not as a motivating factor driving divorce. The idea is this: well, for whatever bad reason, some marriages are going to end in divorce, and that’s sad and unfortunate, but the least we can do is make sure that, apart from the other damage suffered by everyone due to the broken family, that the lesser earning spouse and the children are “taken care of” financially.
That’s the general view. It doesn’t enter into the picture that some women are motivated for divorce by the idea of getting full physical custody over the kids (and hence de facto control, even if legal cusgtody is formally joint), hefty child support checks until the children are 23, and in some cases even spousal support, plus the house, debts being paid and the like. The idea that this could be a motive for the divorcing wife doesn’t enter the brain when people think about these issues — the rules are simply looked at as mitigators of the damage for a divorce that was going to happen for whatever reason.
Hey all,
For what it’s worth, your cases remind me of something John Ross (of Unintended Consequences fame) said. Maybe this will hope those about to go through a divorce.
Basically he had a friend whose wife was going to file for divorce, so he goes to him and says, “Hey man, for $5,000 you can ease your pain significantly and possibly come out on top.” His friend did not heed his advice and got screwed.
His advice was to find out who the best five divorce lawyers were in town and put them all on retainer. So by the time the guy’s wife would get around to filing her papers, she could not file with the lawyers that the husband already had on retainer. This way, she winds up with a not so good divorce lawyer.
Underhanded, but smart.
Imagine if all men were guaranteed something to be waiting in the wings if ever they decided to jettison the wife. Perhaps a young live-in nanny and housekeeper with benefits.
Perhaps men need to start their own lobby group to get the government to provide these things at the wife’s expense. After all, I’m sure it would be a great benefit to the children.
Oh, this has made my day.
I think most attys require at least $3000 retainer now..Might still be worth it though.
.
@Tam the Bam: “.. this bit made me cackle with malevolent glee.
” … (a) she has no intention of paying the $20,000 she still owes her two attorneys ..”
Too right. Only language those bastards understand.”
Yeah, the attorneys deserved it. Only problem is that I don’t get the same forced discount. My attorney did a good job and I have a conscience, so I’ll be paying him for a while.
Cane is correct, the faces go slack, the eyes glaze over. You may as well be standing with a sign that says “save the platypus, all the sympathetic inquiry you are going to receive. Therefore there is no advocacy angle here. As much as I disdain the concept because of how its used on so many other fronts, this is something that is in need of, and is stuck in the phase of awareness raising. No one has yet put this to music that appeals to anyone but the choir.
Frenchy
Not so fast. It doesn’t matter what lawyer she gets. There are (virtually) no “good divorce lawyers” for men, nor bad ones for women. Family law is not like the practice of any other type of law. It is glorified babysitting wrapped in some artful terms, with some paralegals to fill in some documents.
it is rare when astute law need even be practiced in a divorce case, and only when there are vast financial complexities or borderline criminal considerations. Even then, its not family lawyers who do the legal part. They collate others expertise.
That clever guy wasted a few thousand dollars and got nothing
As a homeschooler, I had to decide many years ago that I would go to jail before I would put my children in public school. Likewise, as a result of hard experience, I have had to decide that I would quit my job and either move out of state or go to jail before I contributed one penny to the destruction of my house, which she has threatened before. Perhaps this is the line in the sand. Perhaps if you went to her lawyers at the beginning and made that clear to them, they would not be so quick to take her business.
I.e., in the end, their pay depends on your cooperation.
I also have a $1 000 000 life insurance policy that I can threaten to cancel. She needs to need me.
Caspar, it all sounds great in theory. It usually looks different in reality.
I don’t pretend it’s be easy, but this is where I am, in reality, not in theory. Peter and John and Paul went to jail rather than agreeing not to preach the good news that “another is king”. Wherever you draw the line, that is where the battle is. Love you mon frere inconnu; you do a great work.
@frenchy is referring to this:
Ross-in-range:
http://web.archive.org/web/20070108014836/http://www.john-ross.net/marriage_ii.htm
6. There are lawyers that your wife must NEVER be allowed to hire. In every major city, there are a few lawyers who are tremendously expensive and tremendously effective at getting large settlements and/or awful terms in divorce cases. These are the guys that will, if they have to, convince your wife to claim you molested your own daughter. When these kinds of lawyers meet in court, the legal fees, as above, are astronomical, even if the resulting settlement isn’t. You must never allow yourself to ever face one of these people in court, especially without his counterpart on your side, and there is a very simple way to do that:
Hire all of them first.
After multiple affairs by my then wife, I gave up and saw a lawyer. One of the best divorce lawyers in the city where I then lived and a very attractive female to boot. I told her to tell me up front how long and how much it would take for me to retain custody. (this was over 20 years ago)
Without even hesitating, the lawyer told me 3 years, 20K, psychological testing for the kids, less than a 50/50 chance of retaining custody. And, the reason I would lose was because the to be ex was the “primary care giver” SAHM while yours truly worked a full time job and often a part time job to support the wife and three kids. Drugs and alcohol were grounds to retain custody but sleeping with whomever didn’t count.
I moved out the following weekend.
And waited. And took the kids away from her. I also used the threat of child support to keep the ex off my back. It’s amazing how quiet the threat of taking their money will make them.
I agree with Caspar here. Further, ex-wives-to-be and their lawyers can smell unwillingness to burn everything and go to ground.
On this note, I have felt that there is a bit of a gap in manosphere/Game resources – namely, how to arrange one’s affairs to preemptively reduce the risk of arse-and-asset stripping so that a man can have, enjoy and support a family in the marriage 2.0 legal system without worrying about divorce rape, etc.
Many rich people (asset-rich, old money, etc.) and expats already know a lot of the techniques, as they are the same as those used to avoid excessive taxation and confiscation, but I have seen little discussion about it in the manosphere, and especially the family-oriented Christian manosphere.
Good on you, Blake.
Indeed, and in stark contrast to how much fathers are willing to pay and suffer to be allowed the hope of seeing their kids once in a blue moon.
Dalrock, I discovered your blog about a month ago and have been reading it extensively, all the comments too. It’s truly an amazing blog and I am so thankful having found this while still being relatively young (i just turned 28). This is saving me headaches in the future as I was a classic blue-pill thinker and have since “found the truth.” I thank you for all that you’re doing here.
Reading everything here is just so dumbfounding to me. Everything posted on this blog makes such logical sense to me, I can’t get over how simple it is, yet how good the propaganda has worked throughout my life to not let me figure out these simple truths on my own.
All the stories here in the comments from men, I feel for their hardship and pain, I really do. It really is a crazy time we live in today. I’ve tried to talk some blue-pill red-pill stuff to some friends lately and I am truly amazed at how venomously they respond to it.
[D: Welcome.]
@ Okrahead
I’m sorry to hear that it finally came to that. I am praying for you and your son this very minute.
That FotF article was incredibly disturbing.
Breaking up families seems not to bother most Christians now, so far as I can tell, even when the husband isn’t doing anything wrong at all. But if he has done anything wrong, divorcing him isn’t just accepted, it is strongly encouraged. A Christian woman whose husband has, for example, had affairs will be pressured to divorce him, especially by Christian marriage counselors, despite the trauma that divorce will cause their children.
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How can anyone understand reality and defend marriage?
Given how fat women and kids are theses days perhaps some starvation is in order.
@BC–I made sure to stay on the good side of the child support case worker. It didn’t hurt that the case worker was male, either. No, the guy didn’t give me any breaks, but, I was honest with him up front and was never hassled whenever my job situation changed. (I was a factory worker and subject to seasonal layoffs occasionally) Whereas the ex was a vindictive PITA to the case worker. The case worker didn’t go out of his way for my ex.
@sunshinemary, if you want a real kick in the teeth, the “full gospel Christian Fellowship” my wife and I belonged to ostracized me and sided with the ex, even though they all knew about her multiple affairs, that she was pregnant with someone else’s child, and the pregnancy happened a week after I moved out.
@Dalrock
Great Post!
“”The real “manosphere” types, on the other hand, are such utterly creepy people, worse even than I had any idea when I wrote the main post, that I will have nothing whatever to do with them””…….-Lydia McGrew
L*…….I think she is trying to hurt your feelings?
“”There is an attitude I’m running into occasionally among men, even young men who have not had anything terrible done to them, and I think it’s highly, highly unfortunate. It seems to be based on this statistic one hears over and over and over again: “Women initiate x% of divorces.” Usually the statistic is 80%.””………….——-Lydia McGrew
Really?……..Truth hurts! Notice how she starts off her essay?……”It’s all men’s fault”…….Another whackjob fem-tard!
Wow. Just wow… bother the Focus article and the post by Lydia are just so unbelievable… except for the fact that I’ve seen similar all too often. Lydia’s post and subsequent responses to her own post just show she is deluded. She agrees girls should be taught to carefully screen potential spouses (a good thing I agree) and pays lip service that guys should as well but only after essentially saying that all men’s concerns about women are utterly unfounded and should be functionally ignored.
Re: divorce:
http://simulacral-legendarium.blogspot.ca/2013/07/divorce-outcomes-men-and-women.html
http://simulacral-legendarium.blogspot.ca/2013/07/re-httpdalrock.html
Men’s and women’s employment trajectories following divorce is an important issue for analysis because of the possible implications of the changes in employment characteristics on the economic well-being of divorced men and women and their children, and on their levels of dependency on the welfare state. In order to analyse the long-term effects of divorce on an individual’s salary, employment stability, and the number of jobs held, we employ a unique register-based panel data from Israel. Using longitudinal multi-level analyses and linear growth models, as well as fixed-effects models, we find that men’s monthly salary and employment stability levels suffer more than those of women following divorce. Nonetheless, our results are in line with previous research on the negative effect of divorce on women’s economic status. This is because our fixed-effects models show that, although women increase their employment stability and the number of jobs held following divorce, their earnings do not rise following marital disruption. Moreover, women usually experience a reduction in their salary growth rates. For men, our fixed-effects models suggest that their employment stability levels suffer following divorce, but that there are no substantial differences in men’s earnings or in their salary growth rates following marital disruption. These results are discussed within the theoretical frameworks of the marriage premium and the divorce penalty.
Raz-Yurovich, Liat. “Divorce penalty or divorce premium? A longitudinal analysis of the consequences of divorce for men’s and women’s economic activity.” European sociological review 29.2 (2013): 373-385.
—-
But then you also get papers like:
Madera, Adelaide. “Civil and Religious Law Concerning Divorce: The Condition of Women and Their Empowerment.” JL & Fam. Stud. 12 (2010): 365.
Divorce == empowerment. Figures.
—-
virtue (n.)
early 13c., “moral life and conduct, moral excellence,” vertu, from Anglo-French and Old French vertu, from Latin virtutem (nominative virtus) “moral strength, manliness, valor, excellence, worth,” from vir “man” (see virile).
While I have issues with my father, I’ll certainly give him credit when it’s due.
With each passing year, I hear his words from long ago echo in my mind:
“I remember a day when being called a ‘bastard’ was a dire insult.
Now, for most, it’s simply fact.”
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@ empathologism,
I think you misunderstood my post. he never did pay the $5,000. And I would disagree with you on the advice. Some lawyers are better than others and may know better how to work the law and the judge.
And the gent in question, his wife wound up getting the best divorce lawyer in the city and he got hosed.
I am always unhappy with the term evil for the word implies more than just disapproval but is somewhat akin to an ad hominem attack; thus whatever they do Nazis are evil as of course is Satan. So let me say that lawyers and those who engage in Matrimonial Law are also irredeemably evil; it is not just that they are tainted by association but maliciously and gleefully engage in tearing children from the bosom of their family. That is what they are alike. When they awake in the morning and consider the families they can ruin that very day they salivate with unconstrained pleasure. Trust me they really do. Even when they are acting for the Husband, they perversely enjoy the thought as to his hopeless position and then still charge him vast fees – by the hour or part hour – for this most succulent of pleasures.
There are those however who consider Turkey Genocide also to be evil – largely Turkeys – but America seems to survive that as do sufficient Turkeys in readiness for next years cull.
Lawyers should be shot. Twice
My ex gets to enjoy the SNAP and welfare express now – all I had to do was leave. With all the false charges being thrown at me and the loss of my job because of them I had a choice to either not see my kids from prison or not see them from where I am now (expat with new citizenship). Those are the choices facing men. The world is a more friendly place then is the U.S. and it sure beats being a slave. You will miss your kids but you won’t see them anyway and she’ll teach them to hate you with the courts blessing. Your only asset is your freedom and they will demand you sign that away – don’t do it.
The problem with the current thinking on divorced fathers is that no matter what they do, no matter how hard they try, the are evil, horrible, and not to be trusted. They are worse than slaves and exist only to enrich others. You are GUILTY PERIOD with no way out. If you think about this though it is the ultimate freedom. If there is nothing you can do to be righteous what obligation do you have to try? If someone demands you jump your way to the moon and you can’t – you nothing to lose by simply walking away. If you can’t leave enjoy jail – I’ve been there – and its not cheap to keep you there. Break the system! “You’re a DEADBEAT!!!!” bleat the sheep… okay… be one. Embrace it. All you have to do to win is say “No I won’t” one more time than they say “Yes you will!”. The only reason they can pay those guards and keep those labor camps going is because men *agree* to being slaves. Simply stop or walk away if you can. That is the only solution.
Has anyone ever noticed that Mother’s Day is during the public school year, and Father’s Day isn’t?
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As much as I disdain the concept because of how its used on so many other fronts, this is something that is in need of, and is stuck in the phase of awareness raising. No one has yet put this to music that appeals to anyone but the choir.
The main reason I think is that the typical heralds of this message are men who are divorced, or men who are going through divorces, or blood relatives of the same. All are considered “tainted” by the church to varying degrees. Hearing a divorced man complain about family law garners no sympathy — not only that, it generates hostility, typically. Christians nearly all assume that every divorce among Christians must be due to some substantial fault by the guy, so they aren’t sympathetic for whatever a guy is going through or has gone through in a divorce. They are more sympathetic to women for a wide variety of reasons that are endlessly discussed here, ranging from tacitly accepted notions of lesser agency, the tendency to pedestalize Christian women morally which is rampant, and also just the broader social bias (which extends well beyond Christianity) which favors women by seeing them as more vulnerable, and also as having the vulnerability of having the children — very heavy social bias in favor of “womenandchildren”. So the typical guy who is going through the process or who has gone through the process isn’t going to get much sympathy at all, but mostly an attitude that he is getting his just desserts, and should accept it (even if the woman had affairs, they are presumed to be the husband’s fault, primarily, for example). And the blood relatives who may complain are also dismissed the same way a blood relative defending a criminal defendant would be.
Really, the only way this message can be received in the church is if it comes from either (1) men who are married and who have spotlessly clean hands (no skeletons in the closet, maritally) or (2) women, preferably women who have not been divorced. But these aren’t generally people who are speaking about this, because they generally do not see it as an issue. Almost all married men with clean hands look at the impacts of the divorce process on the man the way I describe in the first paragraph above. And women — well, we know the score there. The SSMs are few and far between to say the very least.
Guys have tried doing it the systematic and rational way — Baskerville wrote an extensive and detailed book on the process, replete with case citations and the like. It was ignored because … Baskerville is divorced, and so his hands are not clean, he has an axe to grind, and he should “stop whining”.
I doubt that thee attitudes are subject to being changed in any significant way in the church any time soon.
@Dalrock —
Excellent piece (as usual).
May I make a formal motion (Robert’s rules of order)
that we officially change the name of the organization, during discussions,
from
“Focus on the Family”
to
“Focus on the Hamster”
?
@ gmg
Your friends respond venomously to your red pill talk because such language is a threat to their conditioning.
If you tried to pull back the curtain that ‘Santa is not real’ to a 3 year old….they simply would NOT hear it.
The reason red pill makes sense to you is that it is steeped in logic & reason.
The facts are simply on OUR side.
@ Mark
Let her.
Right now men are generating 70% and upwards of all wealth, meaning, state expenditure is nothing but a giant redistribution from men towards women.
Furthermore, 80% of all decisions regarding consumer items are made by women, which means there is also a giant non state coerced redistribution of wealth going on.
So, her wanting to have nothing to do with us holds no power,
Even a small percentage of men opting out, does.
Ultimately she is just a small child stuffing her ears and making noise so as to not have to face the truth,.
Let her, the dice has already been cast, we will see where and how it lands.
TFH said:……
“Men never unite to…….”
YOU GOT THAT RIGHT
Most of ’em are too busy worshiping and obsessing over semi-retarded millionaires who play “games” to actually DO anything.
..
i missed the FoTF article. SSM’s mention sent me looking. That is remarkable. “Divorce is really bad ya’ll, but well, make sure you do it right or you’ll miss out on all that you have coming to you…..for doing this thing……that is not right”
It tells how she has to squeeze even his tax deduction he may get for alimony. Is that really necessary to protect woms&chils?
You know, God hates adultery. But sadly, its gonna happen. So…..make sure you get whats coming to you from it and avoid its pitfalls.
You know, God hates adultery. But sadly, its gonna happen. So…..make sure you get whats coming to you from it and avoid its pitfalls.
Maybe have a friend follow your paramour a bit, you dont want to be humping someone is is humping other folks outside of what you have already agreed to, their spouse and you….thats it….thats the limit
Maybe carry one of these HIV tests you can buy off the shelf now and test each other, then you can get the maximum pleasure in those little bursts of time allocated.
Get a burner phone from a gas station convenience store and pay cash for it.
Remember, hats and jackets, by putting them on or taking them off change your appearance quickly, as does putting on and removing glasses.
Keep a lint brush, some baby wipes, and hand sanitizer around for cleaning up and getting odors off.
Carry a travel size toothbrush, in a small dop kit.
Years later these meetings could be what shape your new marriage. When that day gets close, be sure and refer to our article on how to win in divorce.
As always, we care about your family. God Bless
Mark, where do I find those nuggets of Lydia McGrew? I searched her blog and others where she contributes and cannot find that commentary.
Dear Dalrockasaz!
Happy Thanksgiving! 🙂
I love you to death, but one small issue I have is that you report from a journalistic/documentary standpoint, without ever investigating the CAUSE of the decline in the family–the elephant in the room–the concerted attack on the family which enriches the state and central planners at the expense of the average man.
For instance, you write, “But then starting in the late sixties we reorganized our legal and social structure with the (unquestioned) assumption that replacing marriage wasn’t a necessary evil, but a moral imperative. We replaced a patchwork of bastardy laws with a declaration that legitimacy doesn’t matter. Around the same time, we ushered in no fault divorce with very strong bias towards mother custody, while leaving in place the punitive practices of child support and alimony. Suddenly child support and alimony went from necessary evil to an open bribe available to any woman who was willing to betray her husband and children.”
You write, “”But then starting in the late sixties we reorganized our legal and social structure with the (unquestioned) assumption that replacing marriage wasn’t a necessary evil, but a moral imperative.” Ummmmm no “we” didn’t. You and I, Dalrock, did not do this. And thus you ought not bear false witness against us, as bearing false witness is a sin.
You write, “Around the same time, we ushered in no fault divorce with very strong bias towards mother custody, while leaving in place the punitive practices of child support and alimony.” Ummm, no “we” didn’t!
A central plank of communism is the abolition of the family. When Communism in the Soviet Union failed, they frankfurters came over here and decided to try a new strategy. They would infilitrate the schools and churches, turn the Great Books for Men on their heads while inverting their teachings, and transform the Gospel of Christ into communism, instead of What was Meant.
That way, they could have the good Dalrocks of the world actually take credit for all the change–for the decline of the family and abolition of familial rights and Natural Rights.
When the family was destroyed and the True Spirit of Moses and Christ decimated, Dalrock would report to the flock, “O look what we have done!” ignoring the elephant in the room who had done it.
lzozlzlzlzolozozoz
Dalrock writes, “Any Christian treatment of the subject should start by pointing out that in either every case or nearly every case a wife divorcing her husband is sinning gravely.”
Yes, Christians are supposed to honor Christ and Moses.
Also, fornication, buttocckingzzgzgz, and thus “game” are also sins as the center and circumference of “game” is scoring out-of-wedlock marriage.
Within the context of marriage, there ought be no need of game, as the Law of Christ and Moses states that a women’s desire shall be not towards the serpent lsostas cockas nor dudes in furry hatsz neeging her to gain access to her anuathhoelezzo bunghzozlzoizl, but unto her husband.
Without the observance of these simple, timeless, Christian rules, it is simply not a “Christian” marriage,” but rather the mere facade of one–but another mechanism for the state to own both a man’s assets and his wife’s ass, as they deoul her during sectrlry taped neoconcthsz butctehtxtxing sesisozn zlzlzlzo while the buttehxttxual heroes are glorified and exalted in the Weekly satnddndthz zlzlzlzl.
A few posts back, Dalrock wisely advised young women of the difference between courting for sex and courting for marriage.
However, the underlying fallacy of Dalrock’s analysis was that women initiate around 75% of divorces.
As this is the case, we men are better off with women courting for sex instead of courting for marriage (divorce), as we will get more sex for far less time and money than if women court for marriage in our current legal system.
I hope that dalrock focuses on the underlying causes of the destruction of the family, rather than just thinking it can all be solved by girls simply learning how to court for marriage in-between taking nakedz nudieiz selfies and giving BJs.
If feminism has taught us anything, the family, marriage, honor, God, Christ, Moses, the Church, and Univeristy–the very soul itself–is a male invention. Thus, simply having women learn how to “court for marriage,” while having women run recreate the family, marriage, honor, God, Christ, Moses, the Church, and Univeristy in tehir own fallen, serpent-lusting image, will do little good, other than allowing more men to be raped in divorce court by women who “learned to court for marriage,” and then cashed it in for the cash and prizes which the current church/legal system awards them with.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it is high time to return to the GREAT BOOKS FOR MEN which once defined the center and circumference of the Law–our True Fathers–whom, ironically and sadly, so much of the “Manosphere” ignores. Which is exaclty the way they want it.
A Christian woman whose husband has, for example, had affairs will be pressured to divorce him, especially by Christian marriage counselors, despite the trauma that divorce will cause their children.
I’ve become convinced that the term “Christian Marriage Counselor” is the great-granddaddy of all oxymorons.
Empath @ 9:26 am on Nov 30
I’m not Mark @1:43 am on Nov 30, but in answer to your question, he is referencing this post from Lydia McGrew:
http://lydiaswebpage.blogspot.com/2012/04/rant-against-mens-rights-attitude.html
Note that the commenters on the post do NOT give her examples of “the lift” that you’ve written about before!
Dear GBFM:
I had to do a thesis on the Frankfurt School (the Frankfurters, who you mention). Your salient points get lost in some inaccuracies. Let me see if I can be of any help…
The Frankfurt School was a loose collection of people who liked the ideas not only of Marx, but also of Freud, Husserl and Heidegger. They were originally centered in Germany (hence the name “Frankfurt” school). A few of them came to the USA, but it was decades before the USSR failed. Adorno, Marcuse and Löwenthal showed up during world war two. Marcuse worked for the OSS (the original foundation upon which the CIA was built) as a translator and interrogator, during and after the war.
These guys were, certainly, Marxists, but they weren’t pro-USSR. After the war, Löwenthal worked for Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, and was quite motivated to try and destroy the USSR through propaganda. Marcuse wrote his most famous book “One-Dimensional Man” about how Soviet communism was really evolving in the same way as capitalism, and how the USSR stamped out any authentic humanity in its subjects through ideology. Adorno, Horkheimer, and their student Habermas became quite tied to the establishment in West Germany (the non-Soviet part of Germany, which was then in an undeclared war with the Soviet East). They were Marxists in a definite philosophical sense, but they were anti-Marxist-Leninists, in other words.
It also ought to be noted that the Frankfurt school was not composed of men who were of one mind on anything. If you’ve ever read Freud, Marx or Heidegger, you’ll agree that you can get some pretty varied interpretations of them. Marcuse was thrown out of the Frankfurt School early on. Erich Fromm was a member of the Frankfurt School who was also, objectively, an “anti-Frankfurt school” theorist. Nearly all his later works denounced other members for hiding a totalitarian message in their works.
If the USA was replacing Christianity with communism, what would be happening is that churches and synagogues and cathedrals would be blowing up, and people would be forced to go to “re education” and like that. It would be a sort of Stalinist society, and that’s not what we’re in. People in our society are actually allowed to be as free as possible, and their bad choices are subsidized. (In the USSR, single moms were thrown in jail, for example, not given lots of welfare money).
So, I don’t think you’re correct. I do get your general point, mind you, and I agree with it. Ironically, a couple of members of the Frankfurt School would have liked and agreed with most of your ideas. Read Eros and Civilization (and when you’re done, read Freud’s Civilization and its Discontents). For a good starter. Critique of Instrumental Reason has an essay about capitalism devaluing the father figure. Adorno’s Negative Dialectics has some snippets about how divorce is an industry, and a perverse one at that. (Adorno was an Italian Catholic, aside from being a Marxist, and some of his stuff is really very appealing to social conservatives, believe it or not).
I think it’s important to be precise when writing (especially when criticising an author on Dalrock, as a lot of these guys are much smarter than I am) and make your good points in the most succinct and logical ways that you’re able.
As always, I wish your ladies lotsa cockas and yourself a happy holiday season and prosperous new year.
Dear Boxer,
Do you agree that the traditional family is in decline?
Do you agree that the state is growing?
Do you agree that the communistic philosophy is responsible for this?
Do you agree that the frankfurter school deconstructed the Great Books and Classics upon the university campus?
Do you agree that the Great Books and Classics no longer inform the Church and University as they once did?
Then, if you agree on all this, why do you spend so much time attacking me, and so little time fighting for the Great Books and Christ?
The reason the manosphere is failing to effect true reform is that 75% of effort is spent fighting over the width of a butt hair, and the other 25% of effort is spent in trying to shoe-horn game into Christianity, so as to keep up with all the bernankfied womenz who now define it. Sure–game can save a marriage, but that is only because you are saving a marraieg with a buttccoekekdz womenzz zlzozizlzo.
And thus, sadly, 0% of energy is left for exalting a GREAT BOOKS renaissance.
Only men can stop this. Here’s how:
No more marriage. No marrying, no attending marriages, no congratulations, no gifts, no acknowledgment.
No more cohabitation. Let women pull their own weight, pay their own bills. No more disagreements about who contributes what: the man contributes to his beautiful, spacious apartment, the women contributes to her shitty walk up.
No more joint property. Instead of marital property, the new principal is “HOOMS”:
“HANDS OFF OF MY STACK”
“HANDS OFF OF MY STUFF” (including my home)
Easy mnemonic device: “(W)hooms is it? Mine!”.
Agree and escalate: you are all strong, independent women. Pay your own rent, car payments, insurance.
We will not be cannon fodder for bullshit women’s studies theories.
Men and women are equal.
Women are liberated.
Men are equally liberated.
“My body, my choice” applies to men also. We do not drag our bodies out of bed and into the night to pay for women’s idiotic consumption and divorce porn fantasies come true.
This is a moral issue. We must say no, no, no, no and again no. Men who do are the modern day Rosa Park’s, Mahatma Ghandi’s and Martin Luther King’s.
Dear GBFM:
Interesting questions. Please see inside text:
Yessir!
If you mean “the state” in the way that Marxists mean it, as an instrument of class domination, then yes. I don’t think that objectively, at least in Britain and North America, the state is growing, since it’s going further into debt every year and becoming less and less relevant. In the way that we mean it, though, as a hegemonic apparatus that is attempting to increase its control of the regular folks, then sure.
Well, no. Communistic philosophy holds that the state will “wither away” and be replaced by guilds and voluntary associations and such. Communism is an appealing pipe dream, but it doesn’t usually work out very well.
The growth of the state, as you describe it, is in large part due to what Althusser called the “Ideological State Apparatus”. The media is part of this, as is the church (and many articles on this blog do a better job of exposing this than I could). The church is where fathers are devalued in service to the hegemonic interests of the state. The church is supposedly neutral and independent, but the state depends upon the church (the media, the banks, etc.) as something to explain to the subjects their place in this society.
Well, no. I think that was started with the lake poets and others in the “romantic” literary movement.
The Frankfurters actually wanted the Great Books brought back, their argument being that people needed mythology to be psychologically healthy. If you read “Dialectic of Enlightenment” you’ll see the downfall of the Great Books criticised. In One Dimensional Man, Marcuse (the American Frankfurter) described the downfall of the great books as one of adhesion, rather than repression. He talks about all the great classics being available in mass market paperback at the drugstore. By selling them this way, they lose all their subversive power, and are effectively subsumed as part of the dominant apparatus.
The neo-conservative critics of leftist critics of mass culture ridicule the protest against Bach as background music in the kitchen, against Plato and Hegel, Shelley and Baudelaire, Marx and Freud in the drugstore. Instead, they insist on recognition of the fact that the classics have left the mausoleum and come to life again, that people are just so much more educated. True, but coming to life as classics, they come to life as other than themselves; they are deprived of their antagonistic force, of the estrangement which was the very dimension of their truth. The intent and function of these works have thus fundamentally changed. If they once stood in contradiction to the status quo, this contradiction is now flattened out.
The full text of ODM is online at marxists dot org, if you’re interested. You should read it, because you’ll be able to argue against it much more effectively afterward. You will also be amazed to realize that this guy was on your side much more often than you might think.
So from the perspective of a dude who actually has read all the Frankfurters, I find GBFM to be one of their intellectual descendants. Doesn’t matter that you criticize them (most of the Frankfurters criticized the Frankfurt school, Fromm being the most prominent). You’re saying things they used to say, in the way they argued it should be said. (The Frankfurters were the original “trolls”… they called this tactic “the grand refusal”.)
I don’t agree with the Frankfurters on many major things. They seemed to be art snobs who hated Jazz (they were carrying on a Nietzschean tradition with this). Just because lots of people like something, doesn’t automatically mean that it’s “bad”, but anyway… I hope you read some of their work, if only to deconstruct it.
Regards, Boxer
One last thing GBFM:
I don’t mean this as an attack. I think your work is brilliant, in fact (there’s a lot in the subtext). I know there are people who don’t like you personally, whine about you and try to get you banned. I think this is silly and I am not one of these.
I do think you should read some of these social critics, because a. they said a lot of the same things you say, and b. then you will be able to argue against them much more effectively if you understand what they actually wrote.
Best, Boxer
David J, NO NO NO NO NO
You have got to prevent your ex wife sponging off your oldest son if she ever tried to do this. Please, it will totally totally wreck his life. My own mother was twice divorced and pretty much bankrupted both husbands, one whom was my father. When she ran out of money and men, she used me as a psuedo husband, paying for her upkeep while she got to run the show. And I am her only daughter !!! She had no sons or the “job” would have befallen on them. My life would have been totally ruined had I not woken up and broken free of her grip.
In answer to the “Yet where are the…?” question, I think I know what happened:
“Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.”
– Edward Abbey
The priests but not the kings got taken out according to only the first part of the plan, and so they were replaced with the king’s ersatz simulacra. (H/T Philip K. Dick)
This puts us right back where we started.
gdgm, thank you,
How does the idea that alimony and child support present a grave temptation to divorce interact with the idea that, in an ideal marriage, the woman should be financially dependant on the man? It seems like middle-class and upper middle class marriages would break less frequently, on your thesis, because the cost of divorce in terms of lost support etc outweighs the financial gains, where the woman earns as much as her husband. But I think you’ve argued in the past that a stable marriage – one where the woman can easily maintain her attraction to her husband – would involve some disparity in earning power between husband and wife, if not actual dependency of the wife on the husband. But in our current legal set-up, it seems like that imbalance is part of what presents the temptation. So how are the two to be reconciled, at least on a individual basis (ie setting aside the question whether we could change the law to remove alimony and child support while still keeping up financial dependency)? Is it safer to marry someone with a similar earning potential who in fact earns as much as you, so that there is no cash incentive to divorce, or is it better to marry someone who earns less so that the power dynamic is more favourable to a happy marriage?
>> The real “manosphere” types, on the other hand, are such utterly creepy people, worse even than I had any idea when I wrote the main post, that I will have nothing whatever to do with them””…….-Lydia McGrew
the lady doth protest too much. She’s reading this at the same time you are.
Long ago Christ stated, “Ye shall know them by their fruits.”
Witness Boxer neither quoting nor exalting Christ nor Moses nor Homer, but instead ejaculating on the greatness of Freud, Derrida, and their little group, sharing the lies his professor once gave him an A for, that really, the Frankfurters were all about the Great Books.
Witness Boxer calling upon ye to man up and read not Christ, nor Homer, nor Virgil, nor Moses, nor Mises, but the Frankfurter Deconstructionists.
Boxer is representative of the Orwellian Churchian culture. Butthext, game, deconstruction, and the Frankfurter school are Good and Holy, while all that they detested, deconstructed, and destroyed in our churches and universities–the Great Books for Men–are to be castigated, impugned, and murdered by the splitting of 1,000,000 butt-hairs by farnkfurter school fanboys such as Boxer.
Score 1,000,000 for the boxers/churchiansz/buttcocockerz–they win, hands down. Not only did they deconstruct fatherhood, but they also decocked and desouled the young men, training them to hate their very own fathers and abandon Christ and Moses–Homer and Virgil–Plato and Socrates–in favor of the Frankfurt School. The frankfurter fanboys earn their worthless, fiat degrees, funded by millions of fiat dollars, by regurgitating the lies, “Frankfurters = Pro Great Books, Freedom is Slavery, Feminism is Christian, Peace is War, Divorce is Godlike, Abortion (the murder of those who have no choice) is Pro Choice.”
I llzozlzozlzozozozozoozzozozlozizlzo all day long that I may not weep.
I was only a few days ago noting somewhere else entirely that feminism often boils down to someone screeching “Why doesn’t some man do something?”.
Remember, TFH can also stand for That’s Effing Hilarious!
I already posted this at SSM but it bears repeating here:
It’s always the same.
People quote scriptures on the heinousness of divorce, or on sexual immorality, and then use them as part of a weighted attack on men.
However; the woman’s scriptural responsibilities are rarely ever quoted; we can’t even have a serious conversation about them being realistic expectations, or of them being enforced by social or legal contract, because again, that’s a joke.
Deuteronomy 22:20-21 – Expectation of virginity
Proverbs 31 – Expectation of personal development & character; wife, mother, entrepreneurial skills
Ephesians 5:22-24 Expectation of Submission to husbands
1 Peter 3:1-6 Expectation of respectful & modest public behavior, & respect for husbands
Titus 2:3-5 Expectation of submission to older female mentors
All the men, the American men at least, are having a good laugh reading that list.
There are actually quite a few men that would love to be married to a woman like that, and work all of their lives to support her and the family happily….but what are the chances of that being a reality?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance
Re: divorce laws.
“Alimony is a system by which, when two people make a mistake, one of them keeps paying for it.”
— Peggy Joyce
Boxer
At 12:01, were the first 3 paragraphs a CV? A kind of establishing bonifides? I cannot work it into the part where you actually sort of augment what GBFM says.
Someone mentions that its only a matter of time in any manosphere thread before Hitler is mentioned. I guess that also applies to mentions of Marx, and requisite other political philosophical ideological thinkers. the more obscure, the better.
I will not pretend to have much knowledge about all that, therefore I go to sarcasm to mask my deficit, I imagine that other readers share my affliction. I knew I should have had a more well rounded curriculum. I blame the parents, and the 60’s, and the fact that the tiny light bulb in my childhood fridge was extinguished, leaving me eating at random, the pyramid be damned. Vital nutrients went missing. Tick. Prions thrived. Thankfully all the tallow is now veg based. Nick of time.
I am qualified to talk about very few things. This is one, so I preface with the fact that I’m familiar with the authors and have their major works ready-at-hand (little Heidegerrian pun there).
That’s the funny thing about the original contention: The frankfurters, who GBFM blames for the Bernankification of society, were the original guys who criticized the Bernankification of society. I agree with GBFM’s points, just don’t think he’s fingering the right crew of catalysts.
There are a lot of people who decry the Frankfurt school. Some of the reasons are valid. The Frankfurters spent a lot of time mocking anyone who likes popular music, jazz and blues. They thought that “postmodernism” was intellectual nonsense and a sign of a weak and degenerate mind. I have a lot of problems with these positions, among others. The idea that they are responsible for the decline of the family, however, is pretty farfetched. Most notably because almost no one knows who they were, and fewer have actually read what they wrote. The Frankfurt School had some influence in postwar West Germany, but very little influence here.
Best, Boxer
Rob Fedders of No Ma’am once stated over at The Spearhead that he suspected 8oxer was a shill in the manosphere who appeared to agree with 90% of the manosphere narrative, unless someone tried to point out the role of the Frankfurt School and Cultural Marxism played in socially engineering Western society. Then 8oxer’s true colors shine through.
Note the attempted reframe on the topic of the Frankfurt School: “If the USA was replacing Christianity with communism, what would be happening is that churches and synagogues and cathedrals would be blowing up, and people would be forced to go to “re education” and like that. It would be a sort of Stalinist society, and that’s not what we’re in. People in our society are actually allowed to be as free as possible, and their bad choices are subsidized. (In the USSR, single moms were thrown in jail, for example, not given lots of welfare money).”
To quote GBFM: “lozlzolzolzolzolzolzolzol”
Talking about the Frankfurt School and neglecting to mention it’s primary focus of covert subversion of the pillars of Western culture (faith, family and community via “The Long March Through Western Institutions”) is blatantly disingenuous and intellectually dishonest. The Frankfurt Schools primary goal was to infiltrate churches, schools, government and media over the course of decades to promote cultural revolution through gradual, incremental changing of cultural norms and attitudes.
Anyone who has actually read about the history of the Frankfurt School and their plainly stated intentions to subvert Western Society with Cultural Marxism knows 8oxer is full of crap on this topic.
I have never been flamed by GBFM before. Truly, I have arrived!
I think that if you are going to talk about something, you ought to read up on what it actually is, so that you can make an informed and effective attack against whatever you disagree with.
As an aside, Derrida’s work was not respected by the Frankfurt School. Walter Benjamin (the first original Frankfurter) covered postmodernism and “deconstruction” in his work, released posthumously as *The Arcades Project*. Jürgen Habermas (the last original Frankfurter) trashed Derrida (and Foucault) as people who were merely playing “jiggery-pokery” (playing linguistic games) in Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. The Frankfurt school has very few concrete, lasting positions, but this is one of them. They were/are pragmatists and they aren’t impressed by “deconstruction”. They all thought that the linguistic turn in philosophy had been hijacked by these guys obsessed by post-structural arguments.
Best, Boxer
Dear “Anonymous”:
LOL!
I’m sure you’ll post a title and page number that sources this contention, real soon now…
Regards, Boxer
Long ago Christ stated, “Ye shall know them by their fruits.”
Witness Boxer neither quoting nor exalting Christ nor Moses nor Homer, but instead ejaculating on the greatness of Freud, Derrida, and their little group, sharing the lies his professor once gave him an A for, that really, the Frankfurters were all about the Great Books.
Witness Boxer calling upon ye to man up and read not Christ, nor Homer, nor Virgil, nor Moses, nor Mises, but the Frankfurter Deconstructionists.
Witness Boxer ignoring the decline of marriage and the family, and denying that the Frankfurt Marxists are acheiving their goal.
Witness Boxer splitting a million tiny, little butthairs on Derrida and Freud’s asses, while ignoring Christ and preaching that those who deny Christ and Moses are really for them.
The demasted, dishonoarble, unmanly Boxers are the responsible for the decline and fall of the West, as they see the decline as ascension, just as they see Freud and the Frankfurters as superior to the GReat Books for MEn.
Boxer, hope mine was taken as good natured ribbing. I like your posts, generally. Just to be clear, I’m not your peanut gallery.
Dear Empath:
I like your contributions too, and look for them.
Criticism is a good thing (now that I’m an honorary Frankfurter, I have to embrace “critical theory” lol). And none of the personal attacks people make on the internet are ever taken personally, at least by me.
Rob Fedders’ sockpuppet is a favorite of mine, for a different reason.
Anyway, on with the show!
Boxer
xxxxxxxxxxx: I’m sorry to hear about your situation. I would try to prevent her sponging off any of the kids, but they will have to make their own decisions after hearing my thoughts. It’s possible that between now and then they’ll come to firm enough judgments of their own that they’d know better than to give her free reign, but I suppose it’s more likely that their good hearts and consciences will cause them to be subject to manipulation despite her reaping the consequences of her own decisions. I’m glad you’re free.
Wife left me after I lost my business, long story. Anyways stole the kids, bla bla bla. We haven’t gone to court yet, but after reading about feminism and now red pill reinvention, I am happy to say, well I am happy she is gone now. Once the legal process is done I will have my freedom again to live my life to its full potential. The emotional cost for me has been very high, but I will never have to go through this again.
She left because she is a self professing devout Christan and she was pissed I looked at porn because she was lame in bed. It was her problem all along, not something I didn’t do/did. I have proven since that I am actually quite good in bed. Other than that and being too beta I admit, there was no reason for her to leave, which is too common. I would have still stayed with her forever regardless. I have since refused to step into another church ever, but I am still a Christian myself and I know my bible better than her or her church leaders it seems. Its sick that all of these high horsed Christin woman actually think they are not sinning when they pull this shit.
Either way my poverty is good under the circumstances. I hope to get split custody of my daughters so I can fix all of their messed up thinking. Its good they are young but they realize their mother left for no reason and against daddys wishes. Like I hold my mother accountable for frivolously divorcing my father, and thus refuse to speak with her, our kids may do the same.
I implore men to hold these cunts accountable by any means necessary. I have even advocated working lesser jobs so as not to have to fund these women any more than necessary or at all.
I loved being married otherwise and I think its WAS a good institution, but I can never in conscience recommend any man marry. It sucks but that’s the situation.
“The Frankfurt School of Social Research and the Origins of the Therapeutic State”
Here’s a good breakdown of the foundation of our skewed and unfair child support redistributionist culture:
“It is inherently unfair to take something away from people and then make them pay for it. Because the word alimony has fallen into justifiable disrepute, the courts are awarding de facto alimony under the guise of ‘child support’ by doubling or tripling (or more) the purported cost of children and ordering that amount in divorce decrees. This practice is worse than ordering unreasonable alimony because the obligation continues regardless of need until the children are emancipated.
In order to justify increased alimony/support awards, the Agriculture Dept. artificially bumped up the costs of raising children by an accounting trick called “proportional accounting,” which uses per capita costs instead of marginal costs. This scheme determines the total costs of a household, and then divides by the number of persons therein. This is illogical because the adults therein incur most of those costs with or without children, who add only marginally to the cost.”
—–
“In the early ’90s Bobby Sherrill was a Lockheed employee and divorced father working in Kuwait when Iraq invaded. Sherrill was held captive by the Iraqis for five months. Upon his return to North Carolina, he was arrested for non-payment of $1,425 in alimony/support that accrued while he was a hostage.”
—–
There’s much more…
http://www.mensdefense.org/STM_Book/ChildSupport.htm
At The Spearhead, Boxer and TFH claimed that opinions of feminist academics about Marxism somehow superseded the actual words of Marx that Rob Fedders was quoting.
If you want to know who is telling the truth, go and see Rob’s site for yourself: http://no-maam.blogspot.com/
Rob’s research is in the top center section, and the extensive and carefully collected works of others (recent and historical) are below, and in the right sidebar.
TFH, why don’t you instead talk about your past at The Spearhead, like the “proto” fixation and the season of “just wait for it”.
For those of you who are not familiar with Rob Fedders, he was “shoveling the gravel” for the Manosphere, with men like Angry Harry and Zed, from the very beginning.
Dear “eon”:
The concept of a “feminist academic” is inherently funny. I don’t believe that such a contradictory juxtaposition could exist in any other era.
My first interaction with Rob Fedders was him “outing” me of being a professor of history at Simon Fraser University. Rob subsequently put up the name and an alleged home address of the man who he declared was “me”, encouraging people to report him to the trustees of the university for being a dangerous misogynist named “Boxer” on the spearhead. This real-world harassment did nothing to me, as he didn’t ID me correctly, but it was pretty disturbing to witness, and I have a good bit of sympathy for whoever he was attempting to harass for months on end.
A few months ago, he came to Dalrock blog and stalked me around repeating this (though he has since refrained from “outing” the professor’s name and information).
Rob is, as many people know, a kook, and I’ve consistently refused to feed into his funny behavior. The fact that he’s made an enemy of TFH is not at all surprising.
For the record, I don’t think Rob is a feminist plant, as TFH and others have alleged. I think he has a great deal of “ressentiment” — which manifests as a funny rage against anyone who is more intelligent or successful than he is, or against anyone who doesn’t fall down and worship him as the “founder of the manosphere” and other such imaginary titles he seems to feel entitled to. I think he’s a little slow and probably has some personal problems. He’s vented his spleen about his sister, who is a PhD on a tenure track, which explains his problem with me and a few others. His “research” is largely a collection of better writers, archived by others, which he hosts on his blog. A lot of it is great stuff. Some is pretty banal.
I don’t dislike the man. I feel sorry for him, and I find his antics amusing, but that’s about it.
And, for the umpteenth time, if some member of the Frankfurt School made the declaration that he was going to dismantle the traditional family, it should be a cinch to point to where this was originally published. I have damn near all the major works of this group, so a title and page number will enlighten me. It might have happened (some of those frankfurters got pretty far out) but I doubt it. Rob is full of shit, ranting about things he knows nothing about, which is his usual M.O. Laughable and pathetic.
Regards, Boxer
Dear TFH:
Agreed. Who knows (or cares) about his motives? Not me. I do find it interesting to note how wide and broad the swath of men who have had such interactions with him, though.
More blood in the gutter, and me without my spoon!
Boxer
eon says:
November 30, 2013 at 9:40 pm
>>For those of you who are not familiar with Rob Fedders, he was “shoveling the gravel” for the Manosphere, with men like Angry Harry and Zed, from the very beginning.
1965? 1975? When?
Or, do you mean 20 years or more after Men’s Rights started, when you first noticed?
There has been a men’s movement since 1965 or earlier. One man came back from the Korean
War, found another man in his bed, and refused to pay a cent in c/s or alimony. After quite a while, they threw him back out of jail and left him alone. Not long ago, now in his 80’s he wrote another book for men. Now, there is a man who was shoveling gravel for a very long time. Fedders? Not so much.
@TFH
Here’s a proposal I believe is more effective than your “URLs @ Urinals campaign”:
>>> Online Breadcrumbs to the Manosphere <<<
Here's how it works:
1. Mainstream media site posts an article that toes the feminine imperative/feminist line.
2. We receive immediate notification of post by using Google Alerts to track news articles with "feminism", "man up", "marriage", "divorce", or any of several trigger words and phrases.
3. Be one of the first to comment, preferably using a solid, previously prepared comment.
4. Drop a question of the type referred to in your "Time to Expose Misandry" post (e.g. Do you know how paternity fraud affects families?)
5. Suggest that the person google a pertinent phrase to learn more (e.g. "google misandry bubble to learn more" or "search google for paternity fraud" or "google the manosphere to learn more").
The advantage of this approach as follows:
1. It cannot be stopped or co-opted by feminists or MSM lackeys
2. It uses the remaining power and reach of the MSM against feminists and manginas
3. It requires less effort than going to conferences, etc.
4. Response and feedback are almost instantaneous, no popcorn required
5. No links to manosphere sites are required so 5pam… will not be triggered
6. It's likely to be upvoted and given prominence by manospherians (and if feminists attack it, it will get more notice: "what are you afraid of?").
“Anyone who has actually read about the history of the Frankfurt School and their plainly stated intentions to subvert Western Society with Cultural Marxism knows 8oxer is full of crap on this topic.”
I don’t suppose it’ll do poor old 8oxer’s credibility much good if I contaminate him by association, but I just have to weigh in here, and say that his Idiot’s Guide upsum of (yet another) obscurantist teutonic talking-shop was, by my increasingly vague recall of what little I have bothered to read, pretty damn’ spot-on.
Get a grip, Cold Warriors, the marble-headed one wasn’t telling you what to think. He was imploring you to read the actual sources, before going off on one. Or you’ll just end up looking stupid.
C’mon, it’s mostly all been translated and stuff. They weren’t Derren Brown, you ain’t going to get hypnotized. Just a bunch of dull bald pipe-smokers in some brasserie somewheres. But yes, it is arse-puckeringly dull, and employs language codified and technicalized-ed-ed to the point of incomprehensibility, sometimes. But I suppose that’s the price of translating in all specialized disciplines. And it goes on, and on, and on. Dear God, does it go on. And then you have to read the whole bit over and over again just to try and make sense of it. But there’s the odd zinger in there. Laff out loud stuff.
I looked at it because I’d noticed it drove the cultists of the various extremely annoying and vociferous chainsmoking groupuscules current when I were a lad into spitting, literally red-faced, shrieking fury. [Y’see, the sort of girl I was interested in then found these smelly, shouty idiots glamorous and edgy, for some reason; invariably some flavor of 4th International authoritarian].
Hey up? Why did he lose his shit over what that other guy just said? Result! Must be something to this, better have a butcher’s .. gave up in the end, after years on and off in bursts, as it was making me too tired to get to work, and was pushing other stuff out of my head, Homer Simpson-style.
Important stuff, like football knowledge. Kills your smalltalk.
[Disclaimer: IANAMOAC*, just old, and Yoor’peen. And it’s just like that, that’s the way it is]
*iamnottamarxistorracommunist
Boxer hardly needs me to come to his aid, and I was most impressed with his obvious and considerable knowledge of the Frankfurters. I know less, but I have read a vast amount of Adorno (and I have never in so far as I have understood him, which is not always easy) ever come across anything wherein he attacks marriage. Indeed (if I recall correctly) he was happily married to Gretel Adorno and speaks warmly of his married parents. GBFM attempts to castigate Boxer but if he does what Boxer suggests and reads Dialectic of Enlightenment he will see that Excurses 1 thereof deals with The Odyssey and with considerable brilliance.
As it happens I am entirely with Adorno on Jazz (and let us not forget that Adorno, a composer himself, was a pupil of Alban Berg). Adorno was an old fashioned European who I like to imagine playing quartets on a Sunday afternoon in Los Angeles in the late 1940s with Schoenberg on Cello, and probably with Korngold and Waxman on Violin – other emigrees. Not that I agree with everything Adorno says, in particular I find quite hilarious in his essay Research Project on Anti-Semitism that amongst the types of people he categorises as being anti-Semitic are those who claim they like Jews! Paranoid or what.
The reality is this: that before the last century most people had never read many of GBFMs great books, because translation from the Greek or Latin was not common (although the NT is an exception) and few people could read either language. I reject as absurd the notion that there is a great list of books (for men) and as if this had been part of some pro-man project which has now been forgotten.
May I also add on the subject of great books, that this is a movable feast. If you read Montaigne you will see that the books he refers to constantly, are not on GBFM’s list. More recently English writer Arnold Bennett (whose reputation has fallen somewhat) as recently as the 1920s produced a book about what and how to read. His list includes books I have never heard of, others which no one seriously now thinks ‘great’ – such as half a dozen Walter Scott novels – and yet at the same time the omissions are glaring: where is Hume’s Treatise?
GBFM should surely add the six novels of Miss Austen to his list for there are six highly pro-marriage books.
Boxer comment shortened by me,
“It also ought to be noted that the Frankfurt school was not composed of men who were of one mind on anything. ………………………….
If the USA was replacing Christianity with communism, what would be happening is that churches and synagogues and cathedrals would be blowing up, and people would be forced to go to “re education” and like that. It would be a sort of Stalinist society, and that’s not what we’re in. People in our society are actually allowed to be as free as possible, and their bad choices are subsidized. (In the USSR, single moms were thrown in jail, for example, not given lots of welfare money).”
Boxer says ignore the Frankfurt school dangers because we don’t see the physical dynamiting of churches in the West & re-education camps. But, the Stalinists were the heavy handed dynamiters of churches. The Frankfurters are more shrewd, patient, and clever. Boxer is either naïve or deceitful here, trying to lull us into complacency by getting us to focus on the Stalinists. Classic bait & switch.
Boxer says,
“People in our society are actually allowed to be as free as possible,…”
Tell that to Germans who homeschool, the parents that refuse or just delay vaccinations, people who protest outside abortion clinics, taxpayers who refuse to pay for other peoples abortions, veterans who admit to having PTSD, etc.
More Boxer,
“…..and people would be forced to go to “re education”….
This is already happening in the West. All employees of government agencies, public universities, government contractors, many hospitals, and most Fortune 500 companies are already forced to go to Diversity Training on a frequent basis. If you don’t cooperate you get put on the “Next Layoff List”.
On the topic of children of frivorce:
Eventually, the kids tire of insane, obese, debt-laden, shopaholic mom.
An ex of mine (in her 20s, thus, worthless to mom as she was no longer title to dad’s income) needed money and asked dad. Dad gave her the other kid’s child support money for that month.
The ex asked mom for money too. “Dad didn’t give me the child support this month!!!” “Oh, he gave it to me.” (Holy smokes, a dad actually directly supporting one of his kids.)
Legal remedies are exhausted because mom owes her attorneys six-figure amounts and she’s pissed everyone off at the child support enforcement agency.
Eventually, even the most conniving of women (she once had title to a business worth millions) hits the wall in every way—and the most painful wall of all is when your daughters love daddy, but not mommy.
@Boxer
It is a waste of time telling GBFM to read a book. He hasn’t read all the books on his own list.
Don’t get me wrong – GBFM is a master of humor, and I have laughed out loud many times at his satirical poetry.
Among the books on his list (see his previous posts) is Newton’s Principia Mathematica. It is a wonderful thing to study Newtonian mechanics, but there are two problems with GBFM’s imposture. First, a knowledge of Newtonian mechanics does not make you more manly; second, Principia Mathematica is not the right book to read unless you are a historian of science or a masochist.
Among other difficulties, the book uses Newton’s own mathematical techniques rather than Leibniz’ differential calculus. Modern textbooks use the latter because it is simpler to apply and has no disadvantages.
I think the “Cultural Marxism” that people refer to is Antonio Gramsci’s ideas, expressed by Rudi Dutschke in his call for a “long march through the institutions”. I do not know whether these ideas can be attributed to the Frankfurt School.
If the USA was replacing Christianity with communism, what would be happening is that churches and synagogues and cathedrals would be blowing up, and people would be forced to go to “re education” and like that.
The state of the Russian Orthodox Church (in Russia, not ROCOR) is quite instructive. The government appears to be handing a fair amount of authority to the Church to fix the mess that is Russian society (e.g. declining birth rate). Not really surprising, since the Church has rescued countries and civilizations on a few occasions in the past.
Tell that to Germans who homeschool
I met a person from Sweden who claimed to be seeking political asylum. The reason why? They wanted to homeschool their children. There’s something fairly wrong in the world if people have to seek political asylum in North America for something as benign as homeschooling their children.
Okay, looks like a lot of countries have the same approach:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling_international_status_and_statistics
Looks like a 100,000 comments on this blog.
David J, And that it why there is no more evil act that “eating your own young”. Simply because they have been brought up to love you unconditionally and have strong emotional/psychological ties to you which make them particularly vulnerable to manipulation.
For a very long long time I felt that way and was willing to give up all hopes of love and happiness in order to feed the vanity, narcissism and complete selfishness of my mother. She even said to me many many times that I owed her my life and that she had a right to kill me if she wished ! Many women who go down this path are child abusers as well because they are not above using every conceivable weapon in their arsenal to extract what they want from their own children.
So No, I would not sit back and let your children decide for themselves whether to be manipulated by her or not. This is like doing nothing when your children are being subject to child abuse by a monster. And they are your children, no matter at what age.
David J, And no, I am not free – not completely anyway. I still have psychological problems, am not financially stable as I would like, and had my children in my late 30s and early 40s – not ideal, but I spent the best years of my life having it sucked out of me by a woman who should have prioritised my happiness over her own, but didn’t.
@ grey_whiskers:
“May I make a formal motion (Robert’s rules of order)
that we officially change the name of the organization, during discussions,
from
“Focus on the Family”
to
“Focus on the Hamster”
?”
Good one! I concur.
Boxer and TFH seem to have some sort of a weird compulsion to be bad liars.
They lie about the achievements of Rob Fedders, even though anyone can see the truth for himself simply by visiting Rob’s site. His research is rigorously documented using the actual words of the principals themselves, for example: http://no-maam.blogspot.ca/2007/03/in-their-own-words.html
Anyone who is interested in the exchanges between Rob and Boxer at The Spearhead, and the thoughts of other, can read them for himself. For example: http://www.the-spearhead.com/2012/03/29/younger-women-turning-to-domesticity/
Regarding urls@urinals, Anonymous age 68 had this to say at The Spearhead: “Let me give this idea a Triple Yawn. YYY. This was done in the 80′s, first by Bob Sides … Anyone who was an adult in the US in the 80′s heard of Bob Sides. He was everywhere. I am not saying you paid any attention, because I am well aware you didn’t. Still, if you want to give it another try, I’d say go for it. Some of this ‘repeating what didn’t work before’ is good for you.”
But he is now Anonymous age 71, so perhaps his memory isn’t what it used to be.
Since TFH has reverted to his old habit of unfounded attacks against Rob, I think that I will take a bit of time to write a comment that exposes and mocks him properly. I resisted doing this before, because many of his comments here have been adequate.
Rob Fedders/”eon”:
I realize you’re a masochist, and any response will lead to another three years of whining, but here you go:
But he is now Anonymous age 71, so perhaps his memory isn’t what it used to be.
He’s actually one of the most interesting guys in this corner of the web. You, in contrast, are a laughable parody of the man you imagine yourself to be. You know this yourself, which is why you can’t help but keep ranting.
As I told you, way back in 2011, when I quit responding to you originally: Come back to talk to me when you’ve accomplished something interesting or notable, or when you have something to teach me. Bizarre conspiracy theories and imagined persecution doesn’t count, nor does narcissistic whining that the rest of us don’t recognize you for the groundbreaking genius that founded the manosphere.
Regards, Boxer
“1965? 1975? When?
Or, do you mean 20 years or more after Men’s Rights started, when you first noticed? — Anonymous71
Belfort Bax was writing at the turn of the century!
Were you?
You must not have shoveled your gravel then, you arrogant fossil.
Why aren’t ANY of your OP-ed’s published online, yet you whine and sneeze like an old man all the time about your great accomplishments?
Why don’t you share some with us… rather than the “in the 1980’s I counseled men and wrote one op-ed a week which got me hate mail.”
All I see you do is run around the MRM yapping about your great accomplishments while undercutting another MRA – who you are angry with because he said it would be IRONIC if the Boomers were the first generation to suffer euthanasia after being the ones so adamant about supporting abortion on demand.
You spazzed like a woman!
How mature!
You’ve been doing this for years, you thin skinned sissy.
Seems kinda chicken dick monday night quarterback material to me.
You are kinda your own argument, aren’t you?
And yes, I am Rob, in this comment. Although, I am not eon, nor any of the other manifestations you fucking loser conspiracy theorists figure I am.
(Btw, if you call me a conspiracy theorist to discredit me, then insinuate I am a feminist plant, you are kinda contradicting yourselves on conspiracy theorists… because you actually are one!)
Fuck you, MRM.
I regret expending any effort on you at all. It was one of the biggest wastes of time in my life.
It won’t happen again.
Don’t forget to pick up your thirty pieces, Anonymous71.
Some of us have been around at least long enough to know the difference.
Pfft!
The whole crap about you being around so long merely tells me how fucked in the head you were when you had the smidgeon of infuence you 1960’s MRA’s (of which there were none) and 1970’s MRA;s (of which there were less than twenty), when you promoted fuck-heads like Iron Johh, banging drums in the wilderness.
Good GOD! You arrogant fucks! Thinking you have some wisdom to impart on us.
I’d like to kick your ass!
@Empath
http://lydiaswebpage.blogspot.com/2012/04/rant-against-mens-rights-attitude.html
>> Among the books on his list (see his previous posts) is Newton’s Principia Mathematica
Newton bragged about being a virgin on his deathbed
Opus: “The reality is this: that before the last century most people had never read many of GBFMs great books, because translation from the Greek or Latin was not common (although the NT is an exception) and few people could read either language. I reject as absurd the notion that there is a great list of books (for men) and as if this had been part of some pro-man project which has now been forgotten.”
–The reality is that, until the last century, most educated men read Greek and Latin; and those who did not, could read Homer and Vergil in Pope and Dryden, as a vast many did. Of course, Adam Smith and the Founders wrote in English; and the Bible of choice here is the KJV. Seneca was still universally famous, by Baudelaire saluted, along with Plato and Moses, as the supreme architect of Western morals.
James K: “Among the books on his list (see his previous posts) is Newton’s Principia Mathematica. It is a wonderful thing to study Newtonian mechanics, but there are two problems with GBFM’s imposture. First, a knowledge of Newtonian mechanics does not make you more manly; second, Principia Mathematica is not the right book to read unless you are a historian of science or a masochist.”
–I would be a masochist to attempt it, but Adler put Newton in his Great Books library. It wouldn’t astonish me dat da GBFM(TM) had dipped into it.
Newton’s Principia Mathematica was included because it is a rape manual, duh!
“But if we are to believe that mechanistic metaphors were a fundamental component of the explanations the new science provided, why should we believe that the gender metaphors were not? A consistent analysis would lead to the conclusion that understanding nature as a woman indifferent to or even welcoming rape was equally fundamental to the interpretations of these new conceptions of nature and inquiry. Presumably these metaphors, too, had fruitful pragmatic, methodological, and metaphysical consequences for science. In that case, why is it not as illuminating and honest to refer to Newton’s laws as ‘Newton’s rape manual’ as it is to call them ‘Newton’s mechanics’?” [Sandra Harding, The Science Question in Feminism, p. 113, 1996.]
And these are too good to omit:
“Is E=Mc² a sexed equation? Perhaps it is. Let us make the hypothesis that it is insofar as it privileges the speed of light over other speeds that are vitally necessary to us.” [Irigaray, Luce. Parler n’est jamais neutre. Éditions de Minuit. 1987. p.110. (Quoted in and translated by Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont, Intellectual Impostures, London: Profile Books, 1998, p.100.)]
“Just as typical of this school of thought is Irigaray’s thesis on fluid mechanics. Fluids, you see, have been unfairly neglected. ‘Masculine physics’ privileges rigid, solid things. Her American expositor Katherine Hayles made the mistake of re-expressing Irigaray’s thoughts in comparatively) clear language. For once, we get a reasonably unobstructed look at the emperor and, yes, he has no clothes.” [Richard Dawkins, “Postmodernism disrobed”, Nature, 9 July 1998, Vol. 394, pp. 141-143.]
“The privileging of solid over fluid mechanics, and indeed the inability of science to deal with turbulent flow at all, she attributes to the association of fluidity with femininity. Whereas men have sex organs that protrude and become rigid, women have openings that leak menstrual blood and vaginal fluids… From this perspective it is no wonder that science has not been able to arrive at a successful model for turbulence. The problem of turbulent flow cannot be solved because the conceptions of fluids (and of women) have been formulated so as necessarily to leave unarticulated remainders.” [Hayles, N. K, “Gender Encoding in Fluid Mechanics: Masculine Channels and Feminine Flows”, Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 4, pp. 16-44, (1992).]
Dalrock: “we have created a presumption of guilt on the part of the very husband she sells out. As Lydia McGrew explains here it is misogyny to not assume that our pandemic of wife initiated divorce is proof that the men must have had it coming.”
Novaseeker: “Guys have tried [calling attention to the problems in] the systematic and rational way — [Stephen] Baskerville wrote an extensive and detailed book on the process, replete with case citations and the like. It was ignored because … Baskerville is divorced, and so his hands are not clean, he has an axe to grind, and he should “stop whining”.”
This points up an important pushback phenomenon I’m seeing lately around the ‘sphere. Anyone who talks about these issues is routinely accused of “whining” and “complaining”. Women, in the main, just don’t want to hear men talking about things that don’t work well in marriage 2.0, or talking about relationship difficulties, or talking about the SMP inefficiencies. Any time a man points out something that doesn’t work or that is advantageous to a woman while being detrimental to men, the accusation arises that such concerns should not be believed or heard. That man is just whining and complaining; life isn’t fair; he needs to suck it up and deal with it; he needs to do it/suffer it for the greater good. There’s a certain amount of entitlement and fear going on here – a man figuring out that things are a lot more “fair” to her than to him threatens her hold on the reins of power, and also jeopardizes her ability to control him and the resources he generates.
We are seeing this when men talk about the inequities in the dating/mating/mate selection realm as well. When men talk about female promiscuity and how easy it is for women to get sex while men spend a decade or more in a sexual and intimacy desert, the objection is lodged that, well, you men are just jealous because you didn’t get to be one of the horses on the carousel. It’s also said that well, you men shouldn’t complain about being deprived of the opportunity to sin. A third objection is that men are complaining all the time and women are tired of hearing it because it distracts attention from the plight of some women in the sexual marketplace. Never mind that a lot of those men just wanted to meet one decent woman and didn’t want to become promiscuous; and never mind that they’re not complaining that sin wasn’t an equal opportunity for them. It’s not about who gets to be the bigger victim, either. The issue is getting people to see that there’s a problem. There are a lot of people who think the problem is men not “stepping up” and “manning up”.
This continues to be one of the prime blind spots women have when it comes to these issues: With feminism, women (and the top men who sold it to the public) just thought that men would continue doing what they always did: go to school, get jobs, and marry a woman who was done doing whatever she wanted. And some folks out there are mad that men are figuring out what’s really going on, and some of them are refusing to feed that beast.
I posted over at that Lydia woman’s blog. She’s more interested in winning an argument than in the truth. When I told her her methods and temperament didn’t exactly inspire the trust she says I should have, she pretty much just blew that part of my argument off.
She then went on to move the goal posts to make me prove statistics I didn’t collect.
frenchy says:
November 30, 2013 at 4:46 am
Sorry, I haven’t read the comments here yet, but, I too am dubious as to the claim that the quality of the divorce attorney, subject to some minimum threshold of competency, really matters all that much. Presumably judges look past all but the most egregious errors on the part of the attorneys so as to stay focused on the goal – legally ending the marriage as expeditiously as possible and making the woman in question whole.
Unless you lived in a really small jurisdiction, there are going to be dozens of competent attorneys available, and they are only going to be able to do so much with the particulars of a given case. The strategy to put several attorneys on retainer sounds good, but is wholly impractical.
FWIW, I sought recommendations from an attorney family member and got three. I chose a guy who has practiced for over thirty years in the county of filing, and routinely cross-checked his recommendations with the aforementioned family member as well as whatever research I could pull together on my own. By way of contrast, my wife used an attorney whom the clerk of courts had never heard of, who was routinely sloppy with his filings and who clearly did not explain things to her very well. In the end I got killed (at least in my estimation), but as I’ve replayed the particulars over and over, I’ve come to the realization that there was little I could have done, including having had different representation, that could have changed things much.
As I understand it, there is a fair amount of difference between states in domestic relations law, but the key issue is, at least in my state, the wide discretion given to the judges themselves. Another domestic relations attorney with whom I came into contact after my case had gotten under way told me that simply having the case heard in our county of marriage (adjacent to our county of residence) would have likely make a huge difference in the custody determination.
I’d like to hear Nova’s take on the above.
Novaseeker says:
November 30, 2013 at 7:47 am
Nova,
Truer words never spoken. There is definitely an element of ‘consider the source’ that, as you describe, causes the voices of divorced men to be discounted. While I have enjoyed considerable support from the circle of friends formerly mutually share with my wife, I really feel as though the Church failed me miserably. The RCC demands that spouses even seeking to separate obtain permission from the bishop; my pastor told me that ‘we don’t do that any more’.
I’m usually circumspect about the details of my divorce with friends as I truly believe that, despite their moral support, most don’t have the energy to really care much less act on it. Domestic relations law in the US, like many spheres of the law, is an example of moral hazard wherein the net benefits are enjoyed by a narrow few (divorce attorneys and the rest of the industry, then to a lesser extent, divorcing women, then all married women to the extent that the current state of affairs gives them the ‘threatpoint advantage’) while the costs are borne much more diffusely. Better for a reasonable happily married man to focus his limited energies on solidifying his own marriage than expending them on crusading on behalf of all men.
On this last point, thank you Dalrock, for stepping into the line of fire.
>>But he is now Anonymous age 71, so perhaps his memory isn’t what it used to be.
My memory is fine. We had those stickers and put them in different places, not always in the urinal. We especially enjoyed putting them where dearies could read them. On feminist posters put out by the company (“report sex harassment, etc.”) was optimum.
Edwin Calais says:
December 1, 2013 at 9:39 pm
>>Belfort Bax was writing at the turn of the century!
>>Were you?
>>You must not have shoveled your gravel then, you arrogant fossil.
>>Why aren’t ANY of your OP-ed’s published online, yet you whine and sneeze like an old man all the time about your great accomplishments?
Etcetera, etcetera. I have written that in the USA men are hated, but none more than old men. Even old men hate old men. Perfect example.
I have stated the exact reason I write about what my generation did. Most of you believe my generation did exactly nothing, then work hard to repeat that which has never worked. Before you do ANYTHING, you need to find out what happened in the past, and why it didn’t work. Even for that I am cursed out. Another Destroyer at work.
>>I regret expending any effort on you at all. It was one of the biggest wastes of time in my life.
>>It won’t happen again.
Thank you.
>>Why aren’t ANY of your OP-ed’s published online, yet you whine and sneeze like an old man all the time about your great accomplishments?
I have written hundreds of thousands of words online, and I have also printed some of my old op-eds online. But, I am fussy about where I will print them. Why should I share them here where I have encountered some of the most vicious personal attacks (such as this one by you snf and others) of my 35 years as a public activist? I put them in places, such as the 4 boards I moderate, where you will last about ten seconds with the sort of vicious attacks you produced here. Because we ban people who engage in hostile personal attacks such as yours.
People like you are essentially non-events.
This does show the Catch-22 men of my generation face. If we remain silent while we are crucified for doing nothing, the lies about my generation continue, and the younger men continue to repeat the same failed programs.
If we report what we did, which was considerable, we are called braggarts and wind-bags. Sort of like divorce court. Lose-lose, right?
I knocked off to drive downtown to buy real Mexican sour cream, which is actually unbelievably sweet.
As I drove, I was thinking back. In 1997, when I first got Internet, I searched for my own legal name. In those days, it was hotbot, not Google.
I found nearly 200 hits, almost all mine, part of them about life in Mexico. No, I didn’t put them online myself. I had written considerably on the newsletters which were the mode of communication for MRA/FRA’s before Internet.
As other MRA/FRA men came online, they simply took my best writings from the newsletters and typed them online. It was eerie seeing my stuff from years before, online.
When I got back from my sour cream run today, I Googled for my legal name. Now, there are 2.4 million hits. Men with my same name, well, there’s a law school prof; father and son doctors, and a real estate tycoon who has a separate page for each house for sale. And, a lot of men with the same name I had not heard of until today.
Which means the same pages may be there, I don’t know. But, with 2.4 million hits, it is hard to find them. My first writing in search was from 1997, (I didn’t write it then, it was posted then) a men’s rights newsletter, and it was on page 5 of the hits.
So, twenty years after stopping public activism, I can still see my writings from the 80’s and 90’s online.The ones my latest enemy says are not online.
When I started writing on the manosphere, I started anonymously, though before that I had always put my legal name at the bottom of everything I wrote.
At first, it was to protect me from feminist evils. For example California tells women drawing welfare they must identify the father. So, they put in some name, maybe even a made up name. CSRU looks around for someone with a similar name, and sends them a letter, no receipt required. If the man doesn’t get it, he is still considered served.
If the victim, non-father, does not respond within 30 days, as if for example he moved three years earlier, they get a judge to sign a default child support order. And, under the Bradley Amendment he cannot ever have that “debt” “forgiven” (like it’s a sin.)
Since I spend most of my year in Mexico, and my family here refuses to open all mail, it would be a slam dunk to give my name and community to a pregnant woman, or women, and I would be financially destroyed, even if I never spent more than one plane transfer in the State of California.
Later, it became obvious that I needed to protect myself from other MRA’s even more than feminists, as will be obvious to anyone who has observed the vicious personal attacks against me on this very blog.
MEN, NOT WOMEN, ARE THE ENEMY IN GENDER POLITICS.
I also do not use the same i.d. everywhere. Most of my serious writing is done under other pseudonyms. And, it is done on member only forums where vicious Destroyers can be kept away.
Does any rational person actually believe I should link my other names and the boards I moderate, so these Destroyers can attack me there?
Telling Dalrock he must write under his own name, is a little bit of everything stupid and ignorant, if not deliberate malfeasance.
Let me review here. Ever since the manosphere became volatile on the Web, just a few years ago, I have read and read insults directed at my generation, calling my generation every name in the book, because we were lazy and cowards, did nothing to stand up against feminism, etc. Lies! Lies! Well, technically, not lies. More like blissful stupid ignorance.
Even someone as dumb as a rock should realize the press has never covered men’s issues, unless they can use it to discredit the evil male. So, why do you guys assume since you read nothing in the MSM that we did nothing? Not real smart.
After while I had enough of the insults, and started telling what my generation did. Since I was one of the more active MRA/FRA’s of my generation (not the most, but one of the more active) I simply told what I had done. I did more than average, in quantity, but the things I did were normal things for the activists of my generation.
And, for that I am viciously attacked for bragging and conceit. Where do destroyers come from? When they were kids, they went to the beach and ran through sand castles other kids were making, to deliberately destroy them. Appropriate training for destroying male activists, of course.
My generation did a lot or work in male activism, but we gained nothing. Because more women vote than men, and English speaking women are essentially clinically insane. So, you cannot talk to them.
Your generation IS gaining something by MGTOW methods. This involves more than one sort of activity. But, when men refuse to marry and build families and pay large amounts of taxes, not only does it get attention to the mistreatment of men. It also involves no leaders; no visible targets; no one to file false DV or sex abuse charges against. No one to file false child support requirements against. No one to kill by “suicides” or “accidents”. A headless monster. And, no one for other men to attack.
ACTIVISM ONLY WORKS WELL IF YOU CONVINCE MEN TO GTOW. There is no gain politically. But, each man you convince to not marry, is one man rescued from the marriage/divorce monsters. And, one more woman who might stop and think.
As I said, my generation is both accused of doing nothing, and accused of arrogance and conceit when we correct the record. If there is anyone here who has actually DONE ANYTHING, other than write on anonymous boards and blog comment sections, FOR GOODNESS SAKES TELL US ABOUT IT. Do not “out” yourself. Just name the facts; not the location. You should be proud of anything you did. Such as picket court houses; visit with the governor of your state; meet with the regional director of CSRU; supply free counseling to victims of the Divorce Industry.
I see where some men have fallen for the disposable male concept so valued by misandrists. So, men aren’t expected to ever be told, “Good job, fella'” Never supposed to speak up in your own defense when you entire generation is accused of doing nothing at all to stop feminist evils. Keep your mouth shut, which lets the Destroyers seem so much more productive, without actually doing anything but destroying.
I for one don’t buy it. I am not ashamed of my 20 hours a week for ten years, and hundreds of op-eds to newspapers and magazines all over the US, Why should I be? And, wherever men accuse my generation of doing nothing, I will be there correcting the record. You need to base anything you do on what was done in the past, and you need to know why it didn’t work then, and why it won’t work now.
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By and large, women will not stop and think.
When a woman sees a man recoil from her bossy, brash, uncouth mannerisms, she doesn’t see that she’s not attractive. She sees that he’s not man enough to handle her. When a woman tries to find a “normal” man, what she’s actually looking for is an attractive high status man. When a woman asks “where have all the good men gone”, she isn’t looking for good men.
By our standards, that’s just not true thought. It’s solipsistic rationalization. Women are certainly capable of more, but in our culture, women just don’t get much practice.
I think woman get very much practice at what they are capable of. They have been one of the biggest contributors of the destruction of western society, feminism, abortion, rebellion to Gods word, controlling of men, overbearing, unfeminine, bad lovers, the list can go on and on.
Look at the Jenny Erickson, a controlling harpy, who has hit the wall judging by her looks, nuked her family out of selfishness and pride and is leading other woman down the same path. Its sickening.
I am about equal human rights, but past generation controlled the females. We get that control back as men, we start to fix the problem. Game, attraction, being alpha is a start.
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Bill could let men sever child support with DNA test results
http://www.theolympian.com/2014/01/20/2940771/bill-could-let-men-sever-paternity.html
“This system is unjust,” Evans told members of the committee. “The current laws have legalized my indentured slavery to this woman.”
Oh, gawd:
Some committee members questioned the wisdom of letting parents bow out of parenthood at any point in a child’s life. Sen. Adam Kline, D-Seattle, said that if a 7-year-old child has grown up calling someone Dad, it could be damaging to the child if that person simply disappears. A man can be a child’s “psychological parent” even if he and the child are not biologically related, Kline said.
“Have you considered the difference this makes to the child as opposed to the difference this makes to the father?” Kline asked Angel.
The family law section of the Washington State Bar Association is opposing the bill on similar grounds, attorney Rick Bartholomew testified Monday. Also opposing the bill were Equal Rights Washington and Legal Voice, a women’s rights group based in Seattle.
“This bill could result (in a child) losing someone they’ve known as a parent for long time,” said David Ward of Legal Voice, adding: “We do not look solely to biology to determine if someone is a parent in Washington.”
@ Carlos,
“This bill could result (in a child) losing someone they’ve known as a parent for long time,” said David Ward of Legal Voice, adding: “We do not look solely to biology to determine if someone is a parent in Washington.”
Divorce casues children to lose parents (fathers) every day. The courts & legislators have NO problem whatsoever with splitting up a family. Let’s consider that a ‘straw man’ argument.
The latter half of the quote is just Dalrock’s ‘Gift Tranformed into a Debt’ brought to life.
Any man extending a better life to a child that is NOT his is a GIFT. Women want it to be a DEBT. “YOU OWE ME!” they declare on the way out the door.
Hogwash, bullshit, and utter crap. That is a woman’s montra.
@Casey,
Yep.
The rest of the article is also interesting to read, and not just for the fact that the one proposing the bill favoring these duped men is a female legislator, and all the legislators and lobbyists quoted in the article as opposing allowing a man who is NOT THE FATHER to “escape” his “obligations” AS THE FATHER, are, nominally and anatomically at least, all men. It is also interesting for what it has to say about the current law:
“Current law in Washington generally only gives fathers four years to challenge a child’s parentage, and assumes a man is the father if he was married to the child’s mother close to the child’s birth date.” (The current law does refer to “the probable time of conception” rather than “the child’s birth date”, and to “cohabitation” and “sexual intercourse” rather than “marriage” [never mentioned in the law]. Reporters! Geez.)
and it is also interesting also for the provisions of the proposed law, among them:
“Senate Bill 5997 would also forbid judges from denying a man’s request for a DNA test on the grounds that it could hurt the child. The measure would instead establish that genetic paternity testing is always in the child’s best interest”.
Anyone interested enough in watching the whole hearing can see it in the first 32 minutes of this link: http://www.tvw.org/index.php?option=com_tvwplayer&eventID=2014010086
The text of the bill can be had at: http://apps.leg.wa.gov/documents/billdocs/2013-14/Pdf/Bills/Senate%20Bills/5997.pdf
The link to the full article is a couple posts back.
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