Over the last year or so there has been a concerted effort by men associated with National Review to woo men into marriage. The most recent example of this is W. Bradford Wilcox and Nicholas H. Wolfinger’s February 9th article at the National Review, Hey Guys, Put a Ring on It. Back in December of 2016 National Review contributor Jim Geraghty and conservative blogger Dennis Prager created a video with the same message titled The Sexiest Man Alive. And prior to that in May of 2016 Prager and Wilcox created another video titled: Be a man. Get married.
I should start by noting that I am a happily married father and a firm believer in marriage. Marriage is not only the foundation of the family, it is given to us from God. However, I am writing to warn you that when Wilcox and the men of the National Review whisper sweet nothings to you about marriage and commitment, they are really only after one thing.
Certainly they will cheer you on when you announce your engagement, and no doubt they would heartily pat you on the back if they were at the wedding party. And of course, they will be filled with good wishes (and perhaps a bit of envy) for you on your wedding night. But what about the day after you give them what they desire in response to their flowery words of love and commitment? Will Wilcox and the men at National Review respect you in the morning?
I wish this weren’t true, but I have to warn you; no, they will not.
How can I know? You just have to look at the long string of men that came before you, men they seduced with the very same lines. Once the wedding is over, once the men of National Review have gotten what they wanted, the men who naively trusted them are discarded like yesterday’s trash. Do you really believe you will be the special one, the one they don’t toss casually away once they get what they want?
Wait. You didn’t think you were their first conquest, did you?
Consider just one of the many men who came before you, Carly Israel’s ex husband. Ms. Israel tells us at the Huffington Post that he was a kind man and an excellent father. Despite knowing that it would destroy both him and their three boys, Israel decided to divorce this good man because she was no longer happy honoring her marriage vows. Moreover, Israel is teaching other women that frivolous divorce which devastates good men and children will make a woman more moral:
You get closer to God
More troubling is that Israel’s moral message celebrating frivolous divorce is the norm. Modern women shamelessly fantasize about divorce, and publications like the Huffington Post have responded with a never ending stream of tales about wives crushing good men and innocent children on the path to moral enrichment. Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Eat Pray Love was a runaway success, and lead to a blockbuster movie by the same name. More recently Cheryl Strayed’s bestselling book about how frivolous divorce made her a better person was also made into a movie.
Not surprisingly Israel is a huge fan of Strayed, and closes her piece with a quote from her:
Go, even though you love him.
Go, even though he is kind and faithful and dear to you.
Go, even though he’s your best friend and you’re his.
Go, even though you can’t imagine your life without him.
Go, even though he adores you and your leaving will devastate him.
Go, even though your friends will be disappointed or surprised or pissed off or all three.
Go, even though you once said you would stay.
Go, even though you’re afraid of being alone.
Go, even though you’re sure no one will ever love you as well as he does.
Go, even though there is nowhere to go.
Go, even though you don’t know exactly why you can’t stay.
Go, because you want to.
Because wanting to leave is enough.
Wilcox, Geraghty, and Prager at the National Review see the culture telling women Divorce him! Divorce him! Divorce him! and their response is to tell men Put a ring on it!
Why aren’t Wilcox and the men at the National Review condemning frivolous divorce, and standing up for the good men and innocent children who are devastated by it? Why aren’t they teaching that frivolous divorce is morally wrong? If they do believe that frivolous divorce is morally wrong, they are careful not to say this publicly. In Dennis Prager’s case we know the answer, as Prager is adamant that high divorce rates are not a moral problem:
…whenever conservatives describe [moral] decline, they include the high divorce rate, along with crime and out-of-wedlock births, as a prime example. I believe conservatives are wrong here.
They aren’t arguing men should marry for reasons of sexual morality; they want men to marry because they believe that more men marrying is good for society. If that means good men are crushed in the process, so be it. Again from Prager:
…as a rule, it is far better for society to have people marry and divorce than never to marry.
What they want is more weddings, even though they know an obscenely large number of those weddings will lead to devastation for the men they are wooing. Wilcox knows it is common for fickle wives to fall out of love and destroy the family, and instead of standing up for the sanctity of marriage lectures husbands that they must work hard to be “emotionally engaged”. If Wilcox respected these men, if he cared about them, he would be outraged at the rampant injustice. But once he’s gotten what he wants from them they are out of mind, just another notch. Moreover, if he respected men considering marriage he would be forthright with them and tell them that no amount of marriage counseling or emotional availability will stop their wife from falling out of love and destroying their family.
In fact, Wilcox knows men have excellent reason to be hesitant to marry. In 2009 he wrote:
…the ill effects of divorce for adults tend to fall disproportionately on the shoulders of fathers. Since approximately two-thirds of divorces are legally initiated by women, men are more likely than women to be divorced against their will. In many cases, these men have not engaged in egregious marital misconduct such as abuse, adultery, or substance abuse. They feel mistreated by their ex-wives and by state courts that no longer take into account marital “fault” when making determinations about child custody, child support, and the division of marital property. Yet in the wake of a divorce, these men will nevertheless often lose their homes, a substantial share of their monthly incomes, and regular contact with their children. For these men, and for women caught in similar circumstances, the sting of an unjust divorce can lead to downward emotional spirals, difficulties at work, and serious deteriorations in the quality of their relationships with their children….
Yet today, in Hey Guys, Put a Ring on It Wilcox opens suggesting that men are avoiding marriage not because the system is designed to fleece them, but because they are lazy and unwilling to make sacrifices:
Marriage is not worth it. It’s not worth the financial sacrifices, the lost sexual opportunities, and the lack of freedom. All in all, it’s a ball and chain — of little benefit to any man interested in pursuing happiness and well-being. This is the view that we’ve encountered from many young men of late.
…
Six-pack Craig is right about one thing: There is no doubt that marriage requires sacrifices, and lots of them. Successful marriages require men to work harder, avoid cheating, spend less time with friends, and make a good-faith effort, day in and day out, to be emotionally present with their spouses. Many men find these sacrifices hard.
This is similar to Wilcox’s tone in The Divorce Revolution Has Bred An Army Of Woman Haters, where he dismisses men who fear divorce as misogynistic and lazy.
Wilcox sees millions of men making huge sacrifices in a system designed to destroy, not protect, their families, and complains that more men aren’t willing to do so. Wilcox clearly doesn’t respect the enormous sacrifices married men make, or he wouldn’t take them so completely for granted while casually dismissing the very real concerns of unmarried men.
The lack of respect for men who marry is displayed in many other ways, including:
- Wilcox pretends the sacrifices married men make to support their families financially are not sacrifices at all, but a benefit men receive from marriage. He calls the financial burdens men take on when marrying a “marriage premium” for men. He doesn’t respect married men’s willingness to work longer hours at more stressful jobs, so he pretends they are lucky to be able to do so.
- Wilcox pretends that the man he calls “Six Pack Craig” represent you, the average unmarried man, when he knows that Six Pack Craig instead represents the kind of men your future wife very likely spent years having no strings sex with until she and Wilcox both decided you should put a ring on it.
- Wilcox and Prager give the impression that by marrying and having children you will become respected in our culture. Yet in reality everyone from the secular left to Republicans to modern Christians holds married men, especially married fathers, in contempt.
It is my sincere hope that Dr. Wilcox and the men of National Review will turn away from their love em and leave em ways regarding men and marriage, and start treating the commitment of marriage as sacred. Old habits are hard to break, yet with God all things are possible. But until that day I can only warn you; they are only after one thing, and once they get it they won’t respect you in the morning.
Note: I will send a link to this post to Dr. Wilcox and would welcome his response.
Hat tip to readers who shared links used in this article: Heidi, Jeff, Deti, Anon, and Boxer.
Note: I will send a link to this post to Dr. Wilcox and would welcome his response.
That’s very gentlemanly of you, but I’m sure you needn’t have bothered. Brad knows where we are and that our door is always open, but he knows better than to drop by. The dismembered intellectual caracasses of others like him litter the grounds of this place and he has no desire to add to them. He knows the score. He would no more visit a manosphere blog than he would visit a biker bar in Hell’s Angels territory.
Pingback: Will Wilcox and the men of National Review respect you in the morning? | @the_arv
My aunt posted this link to her Facebook feed over the weekend:
http://foreverymom.com/marriage/enough-enough-church-stop-enabling-abusive-men-gary-thomas/
The jist of it (because I couldn’t stomach reading the whole thing) is that though God hates divorce, he hates a woman being hurt more, and the church should be just fine with women who want to leave their “abusive” husbands:
“If the cost of saving a marriage is destroying a woman, the cost is too high. God loves people more than he loves institutions.”
“This woman needs to be protected from such grotesque abuse, and if divorce is the only weapon to protect her, then the church should thank God such a weapon exists.”
“Jesus said what he said about divorce to protect women, not to imprison them.”
From what I was able to get down I saw nothing about how the church enables women to be rebellious and disrespectful towards their husbands, just twisted scripture. There was nothing about the bible indicating that a woman’s obedience toward her husband was not only her obedience to God, but also her witness to her unsaved husband!
This is supposed to make a man want to “put a ring on it”?
My aunt, and other women like her, are keen to hear a message that allows them to feel like they are being obedient to scripture while allowing them a “safety word” to use in case of emergency. In this case the word is “abuse”, which can be attributed to ANYTHING nowadays. That being said, marriage, for a man, is the equivalent of a lifelong march through a field of land mines, hoping that your next step doesn’t kill you. Or worse, leave you wounded, yet still marching forward, waiting for the next mine to explode.
I just listened to Wilcox get interviewed on the latest Art of Manliness podcast, telling everyone how beneficial it is to be married. He kicked it off with the line about married men making more money and having more assets. Then, later, when asked about what makes a successful marriage, he said one of the best indicators is men having a stable job and making a good income.
He sells a huge liability as an asset without seeing a problem.
Note: I will send a link to this post to Dr. Wilcox and would welcome his response.
Well, I’ll just head down to the store and get some marshmallows…
He sells a huge liability as an asset without seeing a problem.
Too bad he can’t be sued for fraud.
To paraphrase these people: “You men need to just suck it up and take one for the team.”
The “team” of course, being society at large. I think it’s becoming clear that White Knights are even more dangerous to men today than selfish and disrespectful women.
There was nothing about the bible indicating that a woman’s obedience toward her husband was not only her obedience to God, but also her witness to her unsaved husband!
Unconditional obedience to the Word of God is the last thing most women have any intention of practicing, as it requires their obedience to husbands, which is a non-starter (interesting hamsterbations are no doubt going to follow from some drive-by feminist who will attempt to explain why obedience of a wife to God does NOT mean obedience to her husband, using semantic and intellectual pretzelizations that would kill a professional contortionist).
@gsjockey
It is far worse. This is what they are thinking. What they are saying (to men) is:
My aunt, and other women like her…
For all men’s sake I hope your aunt is single.
I’m not even sure that NR writers are trying to get men to marry. They know that young men don’t read their crap. What’s the average age of NR readers, like 75? They write that stuff because they think it’s the kind of “traditional” conservative blowhard stuff that their milquetoast conservative readers would eat up. NR is dorky. They will never see the sexual revolution for what it is, they will never see the “hook up culture” for what it is, they will never get the dose of sexual realism that they so badly need- because *they are dorks*.
Divorced. However, I don’t know for sure if her following this line of thinking happened before or after the divorce. If before then I can certainly see where, perhaps, my uncle may have decided to duck out early when he saw the proverbial writing on the wall with all this weird mess she keeps bringing up about men oppressing and abusing women since the beginning of time. She would say she is a Christian because she studies her bible, goes to church, but that’s just between the psychology classes and “bible college” classes she takes. I’m starting to be concerned for her.
SnapperTrx
Divorced. However, I don’t know for sure if her following this line of thinking happened before or after the divorce.
Probably a bit of both. One of the men I know who has been frivorced in the last 5 years told me that his shrewish wife got notably worse when she started volunteering at some women’s center. SInce the frivorce it appears she’s gone full “all men are oppressors” public feminist, too.
“Abuse” as the magic password is a big thing now in churches, I keep seeing articles here and there in the church-related press all about the horrors of abuse that churches are hiding. It’s the usual conflation of broken bones that are never shown with mean words in private. From my slightly cynical Glasses view, now that most churches are firmly under the control of the Female Imperative the women are restless and want to double down.
Frankly, it strikes me as just another feminist fitness test. “Can we get away with this? How about this? Will you men ever tell us NO?” Unfortunately the churches are Beta factories….
Well that’s the thing, I find it very odd that she might have had this thinking before the whole divorce. They have had 11 children together and, up until the past few years, I would have said they were one of the most stable families I had known. I haven’t really asked her what the whole divorce was over, but she has relayed to me that she was ‘enabling’ her husband to be ‘abusive’ in their relationship. I’m starting to think that all her pursuing all of this psychology junk might have sparked the issue. Once you start to see everything as “abuse” then it’s easy to say your being abused.
They argue this for a few reasons I think.
One is to reinforce their own decisions. Prager remarrying multiple times. Geraghty marrying a single mother. As long as you’re married, it doesn’t matter — marriage is good, because of “correlation is not causality” reasons. So it reinforces their own decisionmaking in their own lives to always be married, no matter the wife, and no matter whether you have failed maritally before. Why would Prager possibly think divorce is a problem when he has been married three times?
A second is to support the social order. That’s a conservative idea, of course, but it’s advocated based on smoke-and-mirrors causality/correlation reasons which do more to explain who has successful marriages vs what marriage does for men who are married. It’s understandable that they support a core social institution for its social utility, but precisely because they misidentify the problems with current marriage, they also misidentify the incentives that men currently have to marry (or not), and fall back on banalities like porn and video games which, while problematic, are symptoms and not causes of the problem.
A third is the bubble factor. The NR guys live mostly in the DC, upper middle class bubble. Most of the people they know are married and very few of them are divorced. Divorce is rare in this group (less so, as we can see, in Prager’s demographic). So, to them the statistics about divorce are very theoretical — they do not doubt their veracity, but like everyone else they viscerally tend to put primary value on their own experiences, and these experiences are that marriage is almost universal and almost always not involving divorce … so they conclude, as the UMC does with respect to almost all social issues, that the problem is that more people are not like them, rather than any problem with the system in itself. This is why Wilcox is very adamant about marriage being fine as long as you’re highly educated, well-paid, have no meaningful vices, and so on … well, yes, but that means the system is built around people who already have very high success traits to begin with. I mean ANY SYSTEM works well for people with very high success traits — by definition they will find a way to succeed in any system, that is the way high success traits work. But telling people “be more successful people overall, and you’re marriages will succeed, too” isn’t advice, it’s simply admitting that the current system is really only navigable successfully by people who already have very high success traits overall to begin with. This is why there is no critique of the system in general in more than a pro forma sense — why critique it, when it works for them and their friends and neighbors? The problem therefore can’t be the system, it has to be the people who are failing at it, and therefore it’s all about their personal failings and not systemic problems. It bears noting that this perspective also meshes very naturally with a broader conservative proclivity to see these types of problems in all areas — social, economic, etc. — as being issues that concern primarily personal choices and not systemic environments, so it’s hardly surprising to see the NR cadre taking this tack, now, is it?
Dalrock,
Excellent. You may want to add the personal deconstruction of Wilcox that deti wrote up. Plus, you may want to add that Geraghty married a single mother.
To the rest,
Dalrock has provided us with Step 1. Now it is for the rest of us to channel Boxer and post this in the comments of National Review and the Twitter feeds of these cuckservatives. Bait them into doubling down. Wilcucks has already demonstrated that when he tries to rebut these facts, he just brings more exposure to red-pill ideas. Bait them into doubling down….
The “check-pants-old-golfer-republican-tradcons” won’t stop. Who reads National Review? Yeah, my dad (he’s 81). We will soon enough see this article popping up at “men’s fellowships” across the country discussing it. Older men shaking their heads in disdain, middle aged guys like myself trying to explain to them that the culture has changed, and the church is missing the boat……and we DO have the opportunity to really make an impact here. More shaking of heads, more terse lips……and myself at 47 being looked at as a “kid” who doesn’t know the ‘real business’ of being a man. The church in general still thinking they are impact / trendsetters instead of followers of the times. Implore this? Try to tell them? Deaf ears, superiority complex, and somehow Biblical Manhood being reduced to football talk, golf, sports, grandkids and how “bold” we all are for Jesus……….
SnapperTrx
I’m starting to think that all her pursuing all of this psychology junk might have sparked the issue. Once you start to see everything as “abuse” then it’s easy to say your being abused.
Women are creatures of the herd. My frivorced friend’s wife was working in some feminist center much of the day, so her “herd” there was hardline feminist. Your friend’s wife pursuing psychology pretty clearly ran into a mud puddle of Duluth Wheel feminism, to start seeing “abuse” everywhere.
But be aware, the Duluth Wheel of power basically condemns all masculine behavior. Anything that a man might do to lead his household is abuse if the woman doesn’t like it even for a moment.
Having made this decision, she can’t even for a second consider that maybe it was a poor one. So she has to double down on the thinking pattern that led her to frivorce; she’s got to get more intense about “abuse” and share that Duluth Wheel propaganda with other women, in order to construct a “herd” where she’s congruent with other women. If she can’t do that, then she’ll have some heavy duty rationization hamstering to do.
Since we may get visitors on this thread, it is important to point out that if physiognomy is real, then Bradford Wilcox has the most cuck-gamma look I have ever seen. Is this the look of a man who knows how to do well with women? Note that these are photos listed on his professional profiles :
Even his shirts are pink.
Dear Fellas:
Nicholas Wolfinger is on twitter. One can find him there, fawningly retweeting Jessica Valenti (lol – not even joking). He’s a really great guy! Go say hello to him!
Like many articles here, this one is a gold mine of links, leading to truly bizarre original sources.
I realize you’re talking about someone else, but Carly Israel wrote probably the funniest and most bizarre apologia I’ve seen in a long while, which brings up a point about female motivation. I believe feminists truly hate seeing other women happy. Given that they are miserable, they won’t rest until all the other women of the world are miserable, too. (I’m pretty sure Sunshine Mary wrote about this, back in the old days, but her article is sadly gone).
There’s really no other explanation for such bizarre, horrible, bad advice that’s constantly spewed. Leave your faithful, nice, good provider, even though it will make you sad, cuz it’s what a strong empowered wimminz would do… and you’ll get to “truly know your ex” after a messy divorce!
As for Prager, I’m shocked that he’s using anonymous sources (well, not really). I then asked the rabbi if he knew anyone well who had divorced. And, sure enough, his parents had divorced many years earlier, and he was convinced that it enabled him and his mother to become happier people This isn’t really convincing. Who is this rabbi? Can’t he speak for himself? Most serious, orthodox Jews I’ve met seemed to be very into marriage and family. Getting divorced is a shameful thing, not something I’d assume they’d take pride in.
Boxer
Dear Anon:
Liberals tend to have that soft, doughy, gayface look. It’s the most bizarre thing when you realize it consciously. I can spot them in a crowd, at this point.
Boxer
Jason
The church in general still thinking they are impact / trendsetters instead of followers of the times.
This sentence right here sums up years of comments.
Oh, I will put a ring on it alright. A ring of pearls around her neck like a necklace.
But what has often been called a ring of pearls also doubles as a ‘white picket fence’. How generous of me that I have given white picket fences to multiple women, and will grant a few more in the future…
Brad Wilcox is part of a group of Christian academics down at the University of Virginia. Others are James Davison Hunter and Josh Yates. They are embedded in the extremely hostile academic world, and so have to survive in that. All of them are very “nice” people who try to avoid stirring up trouble from the left. It’s easy to criticize from the safety our blogs, but these guys are in the line of fire. That’s not to totally excuse them. They are clearly acting in line with their personalities as well. But at least these guys face serious repercussions if they offend the wrong people.
Prager, Geraghty, French, etc., being in the political world, face less such consequences. So they are a different story.
Ayatollah1988-
Your theory is a pretty good one actually. The median age of national review reader is 66:
http://www.nationalreview.com/sites/default/files/NR_MediaKit_2014_B.pdf
@SnapperTRX
“all this weird mess she keeps bringing up about men oppressing and abusing women since the beginning of time.”
I see this often with my spouse as well. She, and many others in her networks, are convinced that beating, abuse, rape, etc. was standard fare throughout history in normal marriages. When I ask for evidence, none can be given. It’s like I’m looking at a similar propaganda that was used against midwives by the AMA and the medical profession back in the early 20th century.
When did this idea originate? Anyone have any clues?
Great work Dalrock! Funny and true at the same time.
What I would love to know is whether in his mind Six Pack Craig and Moody Artist are one and the same.
Check out Mary Wollstonecraft’s work, which has its ideological origins in the literary romanticism movement in the 18th and early 19th century. Coleridge and Wordsworth and the rest of those lake poets liked to depict women as fragile, put-upon by their dads/husbands, and naturally disadvantaged. At the same time, they were portrayed as closer to some sort of primal truth than men were, closer to nature, somehow holy.
Of course, as Anon and others will point out, this is just a natural, inborn trait of our species. Feminism is the expression of a natural dynamic, though this period in history seemed to have the right conditions for it to be codified openly.
It would be interesting for them to show up and have an honest discussion. If they actually believe what they push then they can be reasoned with. Like ayatollah, however, I don’t think we’re the guys they’re trying to convince.
More likely, they push the prevailing view that men exist for the benefit of civilization rather than the other way around. That the way to conserve civilization is to keep the mules working at full load by hook or crook. It isn’t true, though. We didn’t build the West because God demanded statues, bridges and YouTube. We built it in order to live in comfort, prosperity and health.
…
Jason @ 1:13 pm:
“The church in general still thinking they are impact / trendsetters instead of followers of the times.”
They still are, but instead of policing the Elites’ behavior on behalf of the common man they now police the common man on behalf of the Elites. Christ is a proponent only of the former.
Hopefully Wolfinger and Wilcox can join us. I’d be interested in their rebuttals, and would be open to their being misinterpreted. I’m sure most of the civil, honorable men of Dalrock would welcome a good argument. https://twitter.com/NickWolfinger/status/833767017958158336
@Neguy
Long time readers know that for years I defended Wilcox. He is a secular academic, so his unwillingness to make a moral case against divorce was something I was inclined to spot him. And in the past he had been willing to even make cautious efforts to challenge (very limited) parts of the anti marriage feminist narrative. If you go back far enough, you can find him (weakly) challenging Sandra Tsing Loh for her Atlantic article which began with:
But some time around his throwing in with the Rolling Stone rape hoax, Wilcox changed from timidly trying to sound the alarm, to explaining that the only problem is weak men screwing feminism up.
What you are arguing is that Wilcox knows better than to blame men for the destruction of marriage, but he does it out of fear. You are saying he is not only too cowardly to speak up, but too cowardly to remain silent. I can’t argue against your premise. But if that is your defense of him, I suspect he will be as unhappy with your analysis of his position as he will be of mine.
@Scott
The median age of national review reader is 66:
Therefore clueless and close to irrelevant on this topic.
More troubling is that Israel’s moral message celebrating frivolous divorce is the norm. Modern women shamelessly fantasize about divorce, and publications like the Huffington Post have responded with a never ending stream of tales about wives crushing good men and innocent children on the path to moral enrichment. Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Eat Pray Love was a runaway success, and lead to a blockbuster movie by the same name.
Carly Israel is far from being alone in this, especially in the world of the church. If you’d care for a peek into how pathetic the state of the modern Christian woman is then consider a podcast made last year by two married (for now, at least) female staffers at the website “Christ and Pop Culture” celebrating the tenth anniversary of the publication of “Eat, Pray, Love.” Key quote from the podcast’s written introduction:
Because it might have sounded a bit tackier if they’d just subtitled it, “How you too can get closer to God by dumping your husband, spending money in foreign locales and sleeping with exotic new men.”
Podcast Link is here: https://christandpopculture.com/eat-pray-love-guidebook-for-life/
Wilcox missed his calling selling Liar Loans.
I can’t wait to man up and marry her. Just as soon as I find one who isn’t a world class slut.
Personally I don’t know, but it’s an idea that’s well set, even in Christian circles. My wife, still to this day, will swear that the apostle Paul hated women. When asked for proof she has none except the scripture, in which Paul praises a few women for their faithfulness and usefulness to the church. If she means to say that the restrictions Paul places on women as far as teaching goes, and his assertions that women are to be subject to their husbands then she is reading far more malicious things out of what is there than what is there. She, however, also suffers from previous family issues and our own. They appear to have permanently shaped her view of the bible, and she doesn’t seem interested in correcting it.
Jason: Who reads National Review? Yeah, my dad (he’s 81).
I read National Review virtually cover-to-cover from my mid-20s till I turned 41. From about 1986 to 2002. It used to be better.
I left NR when it became too Neocon, too pro-war, to pro-nation building. While at the same time going soft on gay marriage, immigration, and the social and cultural issues in general. Unlike the conservatism of Pat Buchanan.
I really liked Florence King’s “The Misanthrope’s Corner” essays in NR. Politically incorrect before the term was fashionable.
Most serious, orthodox Jews I’ve met seemed to be very into marriage and family. Getting divorced is a shameful thing, not something I’d assume they’d take pride in.
Neither Prager nor any of the other Jews of the TradCuck and neocon movements are Orthodox Jews in the strictest sense of that word. To the extent that they’re religiously observant at all, it’s in the same vein that gentile Cons claim to be Christian (read: churchian). They pay loud lip service to the ideals behind the faith, especially when it gains them followers (and thus big paychecks), but abandon any pretense of it the moment it becomes politically or economically inconvenient.
My wife, still to this day, will swear that the apostle Paul hated women.
It would be rash to use “all,” or even “most,” but I think that an inordinately large number of (self-described) Christian women feel that way about Paul, despise him for it, studiously ignore anything he has to say, and pretend that his epistles are not part of Scriptural canon.
Praeger and Wilcox will never respond to critics because they know that to do so will only reveal the weakness of their ideas and convictions. Clickbait is clickbait.
Exhibit A
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/randi-gunther/marriage-advice_b_5666990.html
Anon, was Wilcox separated at birth from California Senator Bill Monning? The guy behind California’s recent legalization of prostitution.
That last is a picture of Monning with his three Mormon wives… oops, wait, his wife and daughters. Wife’s name is Dana Kent, she’s on the left… as far away from him as possible… she refused to even hyphenate her name to his… wow. No wonder he wants legal prostitution. His marriage bed would freeze a penguin.
Couldn’t find a pic of Wilcox’s family for comparison. Rather odd for a National Marriage Project Director. Like a gym instructor who always covers his biceps.
…
Per Desteen @ 1:35 pm:
“When did this idea originate? Anyone have any clues?”
http://dilbert.com/strip/1992-02-20
Wilcox uses the stat 42% of first marriages end in divorce. So, I think the appropriate response is, always: would you get in an airplane if there’s a 42% chance of crashing?
You’ve got to be running from something pretty terrible to take those odds.
@gunner Q:
Considering the law made under-18 prostitution all but functionally legal… yeah, I see it. Though it might be fore both of them.
Woe be unto the Wilcox-pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! Ye have frivorce-scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not given them custody rights: behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jeremiah+23&version=KJV
“My wife, still to this day, will swear that the apostle Paul hated women.”
@Feeriker: “It would be rash to use “all,” or even “most,” but I think that an inordinately large number of (self-described) Christian women feel that way about Paul, despise him for it, studiously ignore anything he has to say, and pretend that his epistles are not part of Scriptural canon.”
Not really. Most modern Churchians ignore the parts where Paul talks about the role of women (submissive to their husbands, they are not to teach, they are not to have authority over men, older women are to train up younger women for marriage and motherhood, younger women are to receive instruction and training from the older women, if they have questions about what’s being said in church they’re to be quiet and ask their husbands, they’re to win over unbelieving husbands without a word and through their quiet walking out their faith). Most modern Churchians wave all that away, saying it was “limited to the particular time and circumstance in which Paul lived” and “only for the edification of the early church and no longer needed”.
Dalrock,
But some time around his throwing in with the Rolling Stone rape hoax, Wilcox changed from timidly trying to sound the alarm, to explaining that the only problem is weak men screwing feminism up.
This goes back to something we have said for a long time, which is that as misandry/’feminism’ becomes more pervasive, the majority of men who were fencesitters up to that point, will be forced to come down on one side. Fencesitting is no longer an option.
Wilcucks was a mild fencesitter who chose the blue-pill side.
Glenn Reynolds went from posting against ‘feminism’ once a week to over a dozen times a week.
Numerically, most men will jump to the blue-pill side. But they will have to keep doubling down and expending more resources just to keep the pumps going (the ‘pumps’ are the labor of blue-pill men).
Surprisingly, even a brutal divorce does not turn some 50-something men red-pill. They blame themselves, and seek advice from women about ‘what he should do better next time’. I have seen this first hand. On the flip side, some young men become red pill without having had any personal tragedy. The nature of one’s experience has little correlation with whether a man will end up blue pill or red pill
I recall listening to Prager on the radio one day where he wondered why fathers would like for their children to resemble them more than their mothers.
He never came to any conclusion, but my immediate thought was that when a man’s child looks like him in some way, then he knows his wife didn’t cheat on him.
The mere fact that Prager couldn’t reach this simple and obvious conclusion really told me where he was coming from.
“More recently Cheryl Strayed’s bestselling book about how frivolous divorce made her a better person was also made into a movie.”
Is that really her name? Strayed? STRAYED?
That’s just too good. Too good. Like Karen Swallow-Prior.
I would tend to disagree if only for this reason: Modern Christians seem to like to take perfectly understandable scripture and “expand” upon it with “wisdom and knowledge”, allowing themselves to have all the good feelings of being in line with it, while allowing themselves certain escape routes in case they need them. Much like the way many modern Christian women abhor abortion because it’s goes against Gods commandment, Thou Shalt not Murder, but they will justify it under certain self determined “horrific conditions”. This allows them to, at face value, adhere to the word, but if it ever becomes THEIR daughter who got knocked up they have their get out of scripture free card that allows them to go against their beliefs, while not letting them feel like they are going against their beliefs.
My aunt, my wife and others do the same thing with headship. A wife should be obedient and submissive, but certainly not be a doormat! God would NEVER want that! Or, marriage is till death, but a man who doesn’t allow his wife to grow in her own way and stifles her with rules expectations is crushing her God given spirit, and the Good Lord would never want for her to live that way!
That is exactly what this Gary Thomas is doing. He is saying that he LOVES marriage! He BELIEVES in marriage, but he is offering the ladies a get out of scripture free card so they can act against what they have been taught and against the crushing guilt of conviction, but still maintain the outward appearance of being obedient.
Maybe we should make these teachers aware of any local sales on discount mill stones.
Appropriate, no?
Incidentally, I saw the Wild movie, and found it less overtly feminist than I was expecting. (I actually enjoyed it — it had something of a Krakauer feel to it.) I never read her book, though. If that quoted kook-rant is not contextualized in some way, I’d say the written work is probably even worse than any of us can imagine.
Boxer
W. Bradford Wilcox is a TradCon scumbag white knight.
Fuck off.
swiftfoxmark2: The mere fact that Prager couldn’t reach this simple and obvious conclusion really told me where he was coming from.
Prager is astonishingly naive on many matters. In the 1990s, I heard him wonder about hit-and-run accidents. He was perplexed that anyone would be so immoral as to leave the scene of an accident. He saw no possible reason for it.
A caller told him that people drive off because they don’t want to be sued.
Prager was astonished. That had never occurred to him.
This is precisely why I left my last church, the pastors assertion that “certain scriptures” were only intended for the culture of the day and had no place in modern culture. Once you start to believe this you can use the knife of culture to justify cutting out all manner of scripture! Personally I don’t think a Swiss cheese gospel is a good idea when I have to stand before it’s author some day and give account for your edits.
My aunt, my wife and others do the same thing with headship. A wife should be obedient and submissive, but certainly not be a doormat! God would NEVER want that!
If your only tool is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail.
And if your only excuse to disobey your husband is abuse, then his every command looks like abuse.
OT:
Glennon Doyle Melton (now, headlined as “Glennon Doyle”) is remarrying. To soccer star Abby Wambach. Just six months after announcing her divorce from Craig Melton, too.
You can read the article, peruse the accompanying photo, and draw your own conclusions.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/soccer/abby-wambach-and-glennon-doyle-announce-engagement/ar-AAn8SNU?li=BBnbfcL
It certainly is when nearly every other woman out there, and every other man, tell you that house rules and date-nights farther than 1 week apart are abuse.
From the “Tranny’s Destruction of Women’s Sports: file: http://sportsday.dallasnews.com/high-school/high-schools/2017/02/18/transgender-teen-wins-regional-wrestling-title-despite-attempt-ban-competing?_ga=1.171598688.1925838296.1451605539
This story is confusing. A trans-teen won — her? his? — wrestling championship.
This tranny winner was born a girl, but has been taking steroids because she claims to be a boy, and is transitioning. But though she claims to be a boy, she/he? was allowed to compete against girls. So she’s a girl on steroids (claiming to be a boy, but not yet?) wrestling girls.
The girl/girl’s father sued to prevent the steroids-tranny from competing, saying it was unfair to the girl/girls on the team. But he lost.
This father stressed to emphasize his respect for the tranny he was suing:
Baudhuin also said his suit had nothing to do with Mack Beggs being a transgender male. “I respect that completely, and I think the coaches do,” Baudhuin said. “All we’re saying is she is taking something [steroids] that gives her an unfair advantage. It’s documented. It’s universal that it’s an unfair advantage.”
Incredible how National Review, constantly preaching about how businesses and individuals respond to economic incentives, cannot apply the same concept to men and marriage.
Anon: Yes, it is surprising how a man can get cucked and get taken to the cleaners by his wife and still think he owes some sort of spiritual obligation and be shamed by other men. We know men who have gotten cucked and are told that if they become better spiritual leaders reconciliation will follow.
Several years ago my wife and I attended a marriage conference to work out some conflicts. One of the couples presenting was in their early 20s, had been married about 3 years. Story was the couple got married, six months later wife wants to go on a missions trip, husband disagrees. Figuring she’s not married to a spiritual leader she goes anyway, gets knocked up and gives birth to a mixed race child. He’s counseled by his pastor and elders to forgive her and adopt the child. Husband’s dad wanted him to divorce. Now his parents don’t want to talk to him or relate to the new grandchild. Wife’s parents are thrilled, think the in-laws are racist. Husband’s conclusion was that he got good advice on how to be a man at these conferences, forgive his wife as Christ would do, and be a good provider for the new child.
The conference was very constructive. We realized our problems were pretty small compared to this idiocy and decided to never get advice from “elders” or older respected couples with no generational concept of the world as it exists today.
@Scott
The median age of national review reader is 66:
Therefore clueless and close to irrelevant on this topic.
They keep their trousers on though, belt AND suspenders, you’ve got to give them that.
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thedeti:
My wife has several of her books, probably has terminally poisoned her mind. I actually paged through one that she had got done reading and she had underlined all the parts that dealt with being submissive to your husband. Of course Melton’s view of what the Bible actually said was quite different than the plain reading of the Bible in that she was saying two things, first that this doesn’t apply if your husband is not perfect like Christ and second that it was an out dated cultural thing from ancient times and does not apply in our “enlightened” times. Typical, my wife works very hard at finding supporting evidence for what she wants rather than what the truth is, her poor little hamster has probably run his paws right off.
I wonder if Dr. Wilcox will come here to respond.
His coauthor, Nick Wolfinger, has issued this feeble Tweet.
“I’m confused. .@WilcoxNMP has condemned frivolous divorce. Also, he & I don’t always speak with one voice on marriage & divorce.”
Translated: we all know about frivorce and we don’t like it! Brad said so! And, well, don’t blame me, because he and I don’t always agree on everything!
Those readership stats for National Review appear to be for the print edition only. I suspect like many, their online readership is where it’s at now.
@Dalrock,
I don’t know for certain what Wilcox’s motives are, but there are many possible explanations.
We all know how difficult it is to unplug people from the Matrix. The blue pill and the red pill are two different ways of looking at reality. As Scott Adams might put it, we are watching completely different movies. Looking at facts will never persuade.
It’s also the case that people and truth are tribal. Wilcox’s tribe is blue pill to the max. Ours is not.
Going against the tribe and the movie that other people are watching is often super-costly. Just look at this election. Many Trump supporters have their heads down still, even after winning the election.
It’s possible that Wilcox knows the truth but won’t speak it out of fear. Or maybe something else is going on. I’m not going to defend him, but I have found myself becoming increasingly critical of these Christian leaders (in my own headspace at least). I’m trying to avoid doing that, because if they are all corrupt, where to next?
a man who doesn’t allow his wife to grow in her own way and stifles her with rules expectations is crushing her God given spirit, and the Good Lord would never want for her to live that way!
Since God allows women — and even young girls — to suffer from cancer, blindness, and all manner of crippling diseases, I don’t think God would mind adding “unhappy marriages” to women’s plates.
The Bible makes it plain — in many verses — that our lives on Earth are to be full of pain and suffering. Life on Earth is a test and a preparation. It is not meant to be pain-free.
Many women confuse Jesus with Mr. Rogers. This clip summarizes many “Christian” women’s interpretation of scripture:
The problem, you see, is that YOU understand that, and I understand that and MANY PEOPLE HERE understand that, but pastors, preachers and authors of Christian books don’t seem to understand that when it comes to women. They have turned women into the epitome of Gods creation, above the angels, above the heavens and the closest you can get to God Himself. For reference, try listening to “Priceless” by For King and Country. Have a barf bag handy, you will need it! I like For King and Country, I think they have some good songs, but I can’t stomach that one! These men tell women they shouldn’t suffer here on earth because they are holy and daughters of the king, and that they can expect to be greeted into the pearly gates with open arms merely by the fact that they are women who one day said, I believe Jesus loves me. It’s frightening and it is extremely difficult to break someone out of. I speak to my own wife repeatedly about it and she still refuses to listen. In her mind I am of no consequence to her spiritual growth. So long as she reads her bible and goes to church she can be as disobedient as she wants so long as she does it in the name of the Lord, and she thinks she’s good to go. I told her we weren’t going to be attending our church anymore, and I told her why! Wrong teaching! And not even about headship, but bad teaching overall if the pastor believes we don’t have to believe scripture because culture overrules it! Doesn’t matter. She goes anyway because “God said we have to go to church”, but “God said I have to obey my husband” does not compute.
a lot of these traditional conservative men were born and raised in comfort. they have never known true hardship. they never had to struggle to get by in life. they always had a safety net.
they presume to lecture me. I stopped paying attention years ago.
@Neguy
I have found myself becoming increasingly critical of these Christian leaders (in my own headspace at least). I’m trying to avoid doing that, because if they are all corrupt, where to next?
I don’t know if you meant to include Mr. Wilcox in this, but Dalrock indicated he is a secular academic. I know what you mean about the Christian leaders though. I have asked some of these exact questions to leaders I know personally. The thing is, they are mostly just buried in the feminine primary social (and church) order in which they were born and bred – same as me. The ones I am talking to are honorable men. They truly believe that what they are promulgating is valid. For most Christian leaders it is a disconnect rather than malfeasance, in my opinion. They do resist ideas that challenge their established views, most definitely, but I find it hard to ascribe bad motives to them while at the same time I believe they are guilty of a kind of spiritual stasis which is wrecking some homes.
When a leader performs a dramatic 180-degree turn in their thinking, it may be because there is another force tugging at them to go that way.
Perhaps the right thing to do with with Mr Prager and Mr Wilcox is to apply the principle of Qi Bono and look at their finances. If their donors are questionable, then it makes sense for them to be saying what they are.
btw for those who have not yet seen it, an expert takedown of prager u’s argument from the free male perspective.
tfm did another video ripping apart an argument by wilcox for prager u.
you will often see tradcucks pressuring men to join the military and risk death and dismemberment for a society that treats those men as disposable. they don’t really have an argument for why men would want to defend such a society tho.
NEguy
Those readership stats for National Review appear to be for the print edition only. I suspect like many, their online readership is where it’s at now.
Don’t count on it. . Jason Lee Steorts, who wrote a really meandering and nonsensical defense of homosexual “marriage” for the magazine, has been in charge of online for a while. He purged Mark Steyn. Last year during the election NRO began requiring a Facebook account to make any comment on the site. Don’t be surprised if online has been losing readership as well.
Incredible how National Review, constantly preaching about how businesses and individuals respond to economic incentives, cannot apply the same concept to men and marriage.
This is why cuckservatives are so phony, and why many of us are so unusually angry with them. . *Any* belief that they claim to have goes out the window when the prospect of groveling to a woman presents itself. Whether incentives, personal responsibility, due process, fair enforcement of contracts, you name it. In every single case, a cuckservative jumps to out-left a leftist on all male-female matters (never mind that women hate such groveling).
Every single argument that cuckservatives use to define men’s duties to society are identical to what a leftist uses to justify an 80% tax rate. Every single one. In fact, it is the same individual that they want to fleece – cuckservatives because of his gender, leftists because of his 1040. But both just want to fleece the same shrinking pool of individuals.
First off, thank you for the post, and all the comments. It’s always nice to see one’s research discussed. Indeed, there are some good comments here.
Brad always tells me not to feed the trolls, but I never follow his good advice.
First of all, why do the people on this blog feel compelled to use pseudonyms?
Second, Boxer, I retweeted Jessica Valenti all of once, and thanked her for retweeting my work. I’m pretty bipartisan in my twitter activity. You should be too. Now, if that counts as “fawning”. . .
Third, I am not a “cuck,” but an actual liberal with enough common sense to realize when someone on the other side of the political spectrum is correct about something. That accounts for my ecumenical Twitter use. It also explains why I collaborated with Brad on this post.
Fourth, who gives a shit whether Brad, I, or anyone else studying this stuff is married himself or herself? If you applied that logic more generally, no one could ever study Tsarist Russia, ancient Rome… to say nothing about physics or math. I myself don’t have a personal dog in this fight. And if any of you are, say, mathematicians, and can provide incontrovertible evidence that you are, for instance, actually a polygon or a piecewise linear spline, then I’ll happily eat my words.
Fifth, Brad has condemned frivolous divorce (and its survivors) scores of times in print and elsewhere. This allegation is baseless.
Here’s a primer on marriage in the U.S.:
Approximately 85 percent of Americans will marry in their lifetimes. Most will stay married, and most of these marriages will be happy. These are incontrovertible facts backed by survey after survey.
I’m appreciative of the comments about selection versus causality. Naturally men who are happier, healthier, wealthier, and sexier are more likely to get married in the first place. Nevertheless, marriage produces some benefits that are causal: you can’t deny that having two incomes and ready access to a sex partner, for instance, aren’t direct benefits of marriage.
To tie together a couple of different comments: I’ve seen guys like this… they occupy positions of trust and leadership, and I think that in their minds they think of themselves as being on the side of the angels.
They think they’re being true to the scriptures in the face of cultural opposition. They think of themselves as more learned by reason of their theological education and experience. They think of themselves as leaders, engaging in spiritual warfare who are fighting the good fight… willing to take the hits when push comes to shove.
But many of them are jaw-droppingly naive about what’s happening all around them. We all have blind spots, but being unaware (and incurious) about trends that have swept the culture (and the church) with gale-force winds for half a century borders on wilful ignorance of material fact. And anyway, God gives discernment to those who ask (1 Corinthians 12:31), and who should be seeking it more than those who claim to expound on the Gospel?
And many of them have spent their entire lives in bubbles. Then it happens: in the words of Mike Tyson, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”
When something happens that forces them to look outside the bubble, they end up having to reconcile what they say they believe (and are willing to go to the mat to defend) with what they want to do in order to avoid the backlash that goes with standing up to the FI. Compromise begets further compromise, and before long they’re actively lashing out at the guys who say, “It says what it says. When did that stop being relevant?”
In the end, we all chose a side… and the side we chose is the one that’s consistent with our deepest convictions.
I think the term ‘Cuckservative Snake Oil’ is a good one to use when describing what Prager/Wilcucks/Geraghty are selling.
It is very Twitter-friendly, among other things, plus has two insults, which has a double-whammy effect.
@ Dalrock
Once you look at this from a purely financial perspective, it makes sense.
Wilcox and others are paid to sell marriage to young single men, no matter what the reality is. They will spin it as far they have to spin it in order to make the deal look attractive enough for young men to accept it.
As Rollo Tomassi said above, you will never get these pipers to change their tune, because you and I aren’t paying them. The best that can be done is point out the fact that they are playing the song of the sirens disguised as a love ballad – a task few have done as well as you.
Most amazing is that these guys don’t even give sound pro-marriage advice, which might actually help young dudes get into a lasting marriage. They’re all about excusing the very worst women possible, encouraging naïve young brothers to wife up the trashiest fatties, and tattooed skank-ho single moms.
The Question,
Wilcox and others are paid to sell marriage to young single men, no matter what the reality is. They will spin it as far they have to spin it in order to make the deal look attractive enough for young men to accept it.
Hence the term ‘Cuckservative Snake Oil’.
It’s important to understand that since we have reached the current level of subjectivity in all things, “marriage” has no objective meaning between almost any 2 people using the term in conversation.
“Marriage,” and now “parenting” mean whatever some number (between 1-infinity) of sentient (or semi-sentient) beings who are in some sort of relationship with each other articulate for themselves.
It is for this reason I try to only discuss “families” with folks in mind (my blog audience) who are at least close to the same definition as me.
Most of the national reviews readership do not fit that description.
I am glad you have popped in, Mr. Wolfinger. Stay for a while, please.
As far as your first question goes, I and many others use pseudonyms on the Internet because there are those who would do us harm if they identified us. Pray that you never have to deal with such attacks to your job, friends, family and self. Do not think that since you are a liberal that such things won’t happen if you make the mistake of not going along with the politically correct belief du jour. The barking dogs are progressive, but they attack all who they see step out of line. Google ‘doxxing’ for more information.
Third – we shall see, won’t we?
Fourth – it isn’t required, but is useful to have first-hand information that you experienced personally. Some people manage to ignore the evidence before them and go back for more (example: Prager) while some manage to learn from their life. Good job on that strawman, but not good enough.
Fifth – Irrelevant. If you condemned pedophiles while recommending that children should be with sex offenders, would that condemnation matter? Mr. Wilcox condemns frivorce but recommends that men charge into marriage as it stands, his condemnations matter not.
Finally, your primer is getting out of date. Perhaps you should take a look at Dalrock’s informative posts on marriage statistics. If you could hear thoughts, many men reading your last sentence laughed a bitter laugh.
I am a widower. I succeeded in keeping my marriage together. I am here because I see what is happening to my children, and will happen to my grandchildren if the direction our society is taking does not change for the better. I am a winner, and I say you are wrong.
Marriage? You gentlemen are all up in that about marriage?
Fugettabout it. Gender studies department hath spoken. Yes means yes is not good enough. It’s oppressive don’t ya know for women to even have to say “no”, its patriarchal oppression.
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2017/02/consent-is-not-enough
Have at it. @deti, go nuts.
Wilcox, and Cherlin of Johns Hopkins, in their work on marriage started off well by pointing out that marriages failed en mass the moment women started entering the labor force in droves. That took courage given the state of academia.
Where they went off was not having pushing the very obvious pro-marriage conclusion from their analysis, that women should then leave the labor force. Instead they also argue that women entering the labor force is also a good thing.
That puts them in a logical bind, if married men grow the economy because of improvements in productivity and women entering the labor force grows the economy because expands the number of people working, then the problem must be single men dropping out of the labor force instead of getting married.
Its not so much that these researchers are wrong as much as the economic framework they are using doesn’t allow them to draw a different conclusion.
Gary Becker’s description of marriage using a trade model built on comparative advantsge is probably more apt, where two people specialize in opposite activities, sell what they produce to the other party in exchange for what the spouse brings to the table.
@Nicholas H. Wolfinger
Thanks for writing back.
First of all, why do the people on this blog feel compelled to use pseudonyms?
I’m pretty sure you know why, but speaking for myself I’m just chicken. I fear the thought police. It’s OK for you, you say approved things.
Fourth, who gives a shit whether Brad, I, or anyone else studying this stuff is married himself or herself?
Human interest. Source vetting.
Most will stay married, and most of these marriages will be happy. These are incontrovertible facts backed by survey after survey.
Incontrovertible facts are some of the trickiest facts of them all. Seriously, because I don’t know, the conventional wisdom is that half of US marriages end in divorce. Is that inaccurate? Most will be happy? I guess that can mean almost anything but you can get different stories depending on who you ask, and who’s around when you do the asking.
you can’t deny that having two incomes and ready access to a sex partner, for instance, aren’t direct benefits of marriage.
It’s not at all clear that marriage equals ready access to a sex partner.
“Most will stay married, and most of these marriages will be happy.”
Oh, man. In-your-face horseshit right there. I like how you found a way to drop in ‘piecewise linear spline’ somehow to signal that a real heavyweight intellectual is in the house. So transparent.
I’ve said this before, but I feel as though this cannot be stressed enough.
The root of this entire problem is the state. Why? Because without the state, the rest is moot.
Without the state, there is no no-fault divorce, child support system, imputed income, family courts, divorce court, phony domestic violence laws, Duluth model – nothing.
Nicholas Wolfinger,
Brad always tells me not to feed the trolls, but I never follow his good advice.
Starting off with this premise is weak. You know as well as we do that the logic presented by Dalrock and the rest of us here is rock solid.
with enough common sense to realize when someone on the other side of the political spectrum is correct about something.
Except you and Brad are not on different sides of of the political spectrum. You are on the same side on all matters between men and women. The ‘women first, and men are expendable’ side. The misandric side. The reason everyone here is bashing cuckservatives and not leftists is because leftists are at least consistent. Cuckservatives are total phonies – the are hardcore feminists despite claiming not to be.
Brad has condemned frivolous divorce (and its survivors) scores of times in print and elsewhere. This allegation is baseless.
False. Dalrock has provided links to Brad’s feminist writings, and how the advice Brad gives men will have disastrous results for them.
Most will stay married, and most of these marriages will be happy. These are incontrovertible facts backed by survey after survey.
False. You don’t even know how different marriage laws are from, say, 50 years ago. Plus, you don’t even think any aspect of asset division, alimony, and child custody are unfair to men. That is why you are clueless as to why so many men are making the rational cost/benefit assessment and avoiding marriage.
Plus, your ‘85%’ is rear-view-mirror thinking that includes too many marriages from 40+ years ago that are still intact. What matters is what 20-somethings are doing now.
you can’t deny that having two incomes and ready access to a sex partner, for instance, aren’t direct benefits of marriage.
We certainly can.
For one thing, most women take the position that ‘what she earns is hers, and what he earns is also hers’.
Secondly, you seem to be unaware that women who marry at age 30 were not celibate until then, but racked up 15, 20, and 25 sexual partners before they find they can’t get the same (and then lock in a man like you into a legally binding contract).
Thirdly, you fail to see that if a women spends her youth cavorting with men more attractive than you, and then show up demanding that you pick up the tab, that makes you the lowest-ranking member of the hierarchy, despite what you may think. Why buy the cow when she gave it away to the first 20 guys for free, especially when she was younger, tighter, and a hundred pounds lighter?
You are so clueless that it is astonishing. You certainly could not rebut any of the points in Dalrock’s article.
Worst of all is that you are not a million miles from admitting that ANY laws actually incentivize women to divorce. Fortunately, more men are figuring out your scam.
Hi Nicholas:
Thank you for showing up here to defend your thesis.
This blog has its share of time wasting goons in the comment section, but the signal-to-noise ratio is actually far better here than in most similar places around the net. I attribute this to the consistent output of high-level content by the author. Most of the simpletons probably get bored reading serious posts, and head on out to look at pr0n after a short time.
That aside, you have my respect for arriving and indulging in conversation. I’m confident that the quality regulars here will appreciate your input.
Because pundits (including those who write for National Review) have a history of silencing dissent. None of us want to be fired from our jobs thanks to slanted editorials painting us as misogynists, rapists, etc..
Thanks for admitting you retweeted Jessica Valenti. I have to wonder why a supposed champion of marriage and family would promote the work of a woman who has used her bully pulpit to promote abortion, to run interference for liars who create false rape accusations (Jackie Coakley), and to call for retaliation against non-feminist (i.e. normal) women.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/07/anti-feminist-women-hobby-lobby-decision-great
As a guy who claims to be concerned about marriage and family, I would think that you would sympathize with nice family type wives and mothers, not promote the batshit crazy radical feminists who seek to attack them.
I agree with everything except your unfalsifiable claim that “most of these marriages will be happy.” How do you measure this?
I find it hard to dispute the general consensus among my peers here, who conclude that most of their marriages would be happier if they weren’t threatened with frivolous divorce, having their kids aborted without their consent, and daily facing the looming spectre of punitive lifetime alimony, should they step out of line and make their wives “unhappy.” As a fellow liberal, I don’t find any of that to be very fair or just.
Regards,
Boxer
What is telling from Nicholas Wolfinger is :
i) How weak is assertions are. If young men were not eschewing marriage, Wilcucks and Wolfinger would not be doubling down on their snake oil so fervently.
ii) Zero awareness of how some divorce laws maybe, just maybe, incentivize divorce by appealing to the less moral gender. To them, women can do no wrong, so divorce can only be the fault of the man. Hell, the threatpoint is *good*!
iii) Absurd assertions of how ‘most marriages are happy’, etc.
iv) Zero awareness that a woman who shows up for marriage at 33 is not a virgin. These cucks actually think that she was sitting at home celibate (and probably sewing or baking cookies) on her Friday and Saturday nights in her 20s.
v) Worst of all, not addressing any of Dalrock’s rock-solid points at all.
Dear Anon:
While I remain grateful to Nicholas for popping in to hang out with us tonight, I was also disappointed in this:
Note how this unfalsifiable statement was slipped in among reputable stats. Any high school graduate of average intelligence would immediately flag this sort of literary dishonesty, which means that he assumes we’re all idiots. Unfortunate, but not entirely unexpected.
Boxer
Boxer,
Note how he also asserts on Twitter that we are ‘trolls’, even though he is getting whipped in any logical analysis of the debate :
I’d say Wolfinger has minimal bragging rights, given that Wilcox can’t even muster the courage to show up and talk to us. https://twitter.com/herbiemarcuse/status/833898251132796928
Yes. Wilcuck’s inability to appear is bad, given that he has long been an acquaintance of Dalrock’s.
But the good thing about Wilcucks is that when he doubles down, he actually makes MGTOW more visible and compelling. This is because he thinks he is at the frontier of courage, but in reality, he is just about as establishment as it gets.
@Nicholas H Wolfinger
Regarding your first question about anonymity, that’s quite the double standard, don’t you think?
Every research study that I’m familiar with promises participants confidentiality. If John Doe is interviewed by a scholar about his sex life, his health, your marriage, there is NO expectation that his name would be published. Why do you think the commenters who share the good, bad and ugly of such sensitive personal issues as their marriages and divorces would be held to such a different standard?
Do you or your fellow scholars routinely publish personally identifying information about the everyday people you study? No? Then get off our backs.
Nicholas H. Wolfinger says:
What does that have to do with your response here? You are not being trolled – you are being challenged. Don’t flatter yourself by acting like you’re doing anyone a favor by condescending to respond to valid criticisms of your assertions.
Because this isn’t our job, and we face real consequences if we dox ourselves. I cannot speak for others, but like you, I’ve taught at the college and graduate level (and I can assure you it wasn’t in “family and consumer studies and sociology”), but in my world there is no tenure.
As the term in generally used around here, a “cuck” is someone who spouts the feel-good stuff that results in men being tossed into the “Family Law” wood-chipper… Like you do.
Don’t play dumb. You’re too smart for it to be believable and we’re too smart to be fooled by it. Perhaps as an academic you don’t realize that experience matters, but the kinds of hard truths found outside UMC bubbles and soft-science faculty lounges have a way of showing the weaknesses of theories better than “studies that show…” whatever idea you’re wedded to.
I’m glad to hear it… unfortunately Brad’s website seems devoid of any such condemnations. In fact, one of the articles cited on the NMP website (of which he is the director) as being one of his “recent popular writings” has the subtitle, “A new study suggests that men are more likely than women to be not “completely committed” to their partners.” Guess what? Any study that says that is demonstrably wrong. It is SO obviously wrong that it falls into the category of ideas that are “so stupid that only an intellectual could believe them”. By your own admission, women are far more likely to pull the plug on marriage than men are, yet Brad always seems to find a way to make it men’s fault. You say that Brad has condemned frivolous divorce “scores of time in print and elsewhere.” That’s fine as a concept… now if you can point out a few articles wherein Brad, or you, lays into unmarried and divorce-initiating women with the same broad brush and one-sided vigor as he and you do to single men, please insert the links. I’m sure we would all like to read them.
Here’s a primer on your primer:
The marriage rate is falling through the floor and is at historic lows. Your “85%” number is a trailing indicator that includes people like my parents, whose 60-year marriage was undertaken at a time when matrimonial laws and cultural expectations were as different from today’s as night is from day. Using demographic data (and Brad’s “Leave it to Beaver” examples) from the 1950s to convince young men (and us) that marriage today is fine-and-dandy is shoddy scholarship at best and disingenuous at worst.
I’m glad you (at least tacitly) acknowledged that you and Brad have been sloppy with correlation and causation. Perhaps your next joint project could unpack that. But the two real problems that neither of you seems willing to seriously address are, 1) unmarried women spending their 20s doing everything except preparing themselves to be decent wives and mothers, and 2) the frivolousness with which about 1/3 of married women initiate no-fault divorce, along with the positively devastating consequences to themselves and everyone around them when they do. Sure… you give a head fake to the risk, but allow me to demonstrate the fatuity of your premise. I’ll quote your own words from your article:
The first two sentences of that paragraph constitute – by -far – the single most important take-away in your entire article, yet you buried it and then minimized it. Considering the dire consequences of divorce to men and their children, a 42% failure rate is ENORMOUS. Would you get on an airplane with a known 42% chance of it crashing, even if you could somehow increase your chance of survival by a few percentage points? Also, how would you react to a constant drumbeat of “Be a real man and get on that plane” being thrown at you by people who live in a place where plane crashes are rare?
When I read Brad always tells me not to feed the trolls, but I never follow his good advice. I have to assume that he’s already decided not to support his contentions here, and is sending us that message through his collaborator. That’s particularly sad. Whenever I read a paper at a conference, I find my critics incredibly valuable. They see things that I miss, create counterexamples I should have thought of first, and give me a better picture of whatever issue it is that I’m discussing.
Hopefully Brad will reconsider.
Boxer
Lyn87 here: Gravitar has been eating my posts for the past two days…
Nicholas H. Wolfinger says:
What does that have to do with your response here? You are not being trolled – you are being challenged. Don’t flatter yourself by acting like you’re doing anyone a favor by condescending to respond to valid criticisms of your assertions.
Because this isn’t our job, and we face real consequences if we dox ourselves. I cannot speak for others, but like you, I’ve taught at the college and graduate level (and I can assure you it wasn’t in “family and consumer studies and sociology”), but in my world there is no tenure.
As the term in generally used around here, a “cuck” is someone who spouts the feel-good stuff that results in men being tossed into the “Family Law” wood-chipper… Like you do.
Don’t play dumb. You’re too smart for it to be believable and we’re too smart to be fooled by it. Perhaps as an academic you don’t realize that experience matters, but the kinds of hard truths found outside UMC bubbles and soft-science faculty lounges have a way of showing the weaknesses of theories better than “studies that show…” whatever idea you’re wedded to.
I’m glad to hear it… unfortunately Brad’s website seems devoid of any such condemnations. In fact, one of the articles cited on the NMP website (of which he is the director) as being one of his “recent popular writings” has the subtitle, “A new study suggests that men are more likely than women to be not “completely committed” to their partners.” Guess what? Any study that says that is demonstrably wrong. It is SO obviously wrong that it falls into the category of ideas that are “so stupid that only an intellectual could believe them”. By your own admission, women are far more likely to pull the plug on marriage than men are, yet Brad always seems to find a way to make it men’s fault. You say that Brad has condemned frivolous divorce “scores of time in print and elsewhere.” That’s fine as a concept… now if you can point out a few articles wherein Brad, or you, lays into unmarried and divorce-initiating women with the same broad brush and one-sided vigor as he and you do to single men, please insert the links. I’m sure we would all like to read them.
Here’s a primer on your primer:
The marriage rate is falling through the floor and is at historic lows. Your “85%” number is a trailing indicator that includes people like my parents, whose 60-year marriage was undertaken at a time when matrimonial laws and cultural expectations were as different from today’s as night is from day. Using demographic data (and Brad’s “Leave it to Beaver” examples) from the 1950s to convince young men (and us) that marriage today is fine-and-dandy is shoddy scholarship at best and disingenuous at worst.
I’m glad you (at least tacitly) acknowledged that you and Brad have been sloppy with correlation and causation. Perhaps your next joint project could unpack that. But the two real problems that neither of you seems willing to seriously address are, 1) unmarried women spending their 20s doing everything except preparing themselves to be decent wives and mothers, and 2) the frivolousness with which about 1/3 of married women initiate no-fault divorce, along with the positively devastating consequences to themselves and everyone around them when they do. Sure… you give a head fake to the risk, but allow me to demonstrate the fatuity of your premise. I’ll quote your own words from your article:
The first two sentences of that paragraph constitute – by -far – the single most important take-away in your entire article, yet you buried it and then minimized it. Considering the dire consequences of divorce to men and their children, a 42% failure rate is ENORMOUS. Would you get on an airplane with a known 42% chance of it crashing, even if you could somehow increase your chance of survival by a few percentage points? Also, how would you react to a constant drumbeat of “Be a real man and get on that plane” being thrown at you by people who live in a place where plane crashes are rare?
False. You don’t even know how different marriage laws are from, say, 50 years ago.
This the crux of it, really. These guys are stuck in 1965 (actually, more likehiding in 1965, where their assertions can’t be challenged on factual grounds). I can certainly see Brad the TradCuck taking this approach, but a self-described “liberal” like Wolfinger? That just does NOT compute.
We’re just here discussing stuff like we do. Some come here more frequently than others. That is miles away from ‘troll’ behavior and everyone knows that. Maybe, just maybe, he’s intentionally misusing a term like ‘troll’ to signal that he’s not really in this world of online/internet banter (because he’s so Ivory Towery), but he’s cool enough to know some of the terms of bread and circuses online life. But his slight misuse is enough to score points as a playful, adorable guy, but also just misused enough to signal that he’s from another place completely. Like the popular, middle-aged teacher in suburbia who drops some hip-hop slang every once in awhile to be cool and funny. Kind of ‘with it’ but not so much that he’s not also entrenched in another league of sophistication, thus the reason it’s funny and adorable and impressive.
“Oh those dreaded, how do they say it…’troll’s” (dabs corner of mouth with silk hanky)
“I bid them all adieu with a heartfelt ‘meh'” (delighted guffaws of guys who look like James Spader and Donald Sutherland)
Test.
Dalrock – you’re going to see an identical post under a different username pop up in moderation. That’s me trying to get around a technical glitch. Please just delete it.
Nicholas H. Wolfinger says:
What does that have to do with your response here? You are not being trolled – you are being challenged. Don’t flatter yourself by acting like you’re doing anyone a favor by condescending to respond to valid criticisms of your assertions.
Because this isn’t our job, and we face real consequences if we dox ourselves. I cannot speak for others, but like you, I’ve taught at the college and graduate level (and I can assure you it wasn’t in “family and consumer studies and sociology”), but in my world there is no tenure.
As the term in generally used around here, a “cuck” is someone who spouts the feel-good stuff that results in men being tossed into the “Family Law” wood-chipper… Like you do.
Don’t play dumb. You’re too smart for it to be believable and we’re too smart to be fooled by it. Perhaps as an academic you don’t realize that experience matters, but the kinds of hard truths found outside UMC bubbles and soft-science faculty lounges have a way of showing the weaknesses of theories better than “studies that show…” whatever idea you’re wedded to.
I’m glad to hear it… unfortunately Brad’s website seems devoid of any such condemnations. In fact, one of the articles cited on the NMP website (of which he is the director) as being one of his “recent popular writings” has the subtitle, “A new study suggests that men are more likely than women to be not “completely committed” to their partners.” Guess what? Any study that says that is demonstrably wrong. It is SO obviously wrong that it falls into the category of ideas that are “so stupid that only an intellectual could believe them”. By your own admission, women are far more likely to pull the plug on marriage than men are, yet Brad always seems to find a way to make it men’s fault. You say that Brad has condemned frivolous divorce “scores of time in print and elsewhere.” That’s fine as a concept… now if you can point out a few articles wherein Brad, or you, lays into unmarried and divorce-initiating women with the same broad brush and one-sided vigor as he and you do to single men, please insert the links. I’m sure we would all like to read them.
Here’s a primer on your primer:
The marriage rate is falling through the floor and is at historic lows. Your “85%” number is a trailing indicator that includes people like my parents, whose 60-year marriage was undertaken at a time when matrimonial laws and cultural expectations were as different from today’s as night is from day. Using demographic data (and Brad’s “Leave it to Beaver” examples) from the 1950s to convince young men (and us) that marriage today is fine-and-dandy is shoddy scholarship at best and disingenuous at worst.
I’m glad you (at least tacitly) acknowledged that you and Brad have been sloppy with correlation and causation. Perhaps your next joint project could unpack that. But the two real problems that neither of you seems willing to seriously address are, 1) unmarried women spending their 20s doing everything except preparing themselves to be decent wives and mothers, and 2) the frivolousness with which about 1/3 of married women initiate no-fault divorce, along with the positively devastating consequences to themselves and everyone around them when they do. Sure… you give a head fake to the risk, but allow me to demonstrate the fatuity of your premise. I’ll quote your own words from your article:
The first two sentences of that paragraph constitute – by far – the single most important take-away in your entire article, yet you buried it and then minimized it. Considering the dire consequences of divorce to men and their children, a 42% failure rate is ENORMOUS. Would you get on an airplane with a known 42% chance of it crashing, even if you could somehow increase your chance of survival by a few percentage points? Also, how would you react to a constant drumbeat of “Be a real man and get on that plane” being thrown at you by people who live in a place where plane crashes are rare?
I think a whiplash effect is imminent regarding women’s prospects of marrying anyone other than a mangina or cuckservative, given the data. Anecdotally, I have noticed :
1) Around 2000, urban women in America still married at 27 or so.
2) Around 2008, that had moved up to 32-33, entirely without anyone questioning it.
3) Now, I actually see a number of carousel riders age 38-39 finding a beta bux schlub the same age as her. So the man either does not expect children or is willing to fund her IVR (or has been brainwashed into thinking fertility window science is misogynist or something). Conversely, even the few who marry before 32 wait until 36 to have kids. It is like delaying until the last minute has been normalized.
This is a classic bubble-peaking parabola. The thin end of the wedge is not noticed, but the market is now so elastic that when the next cohort of women turn 35, there will just be too many seeking too-few non-omegas, with only omegas lining up as usual.
This trend is consistent with Dalrock’s concepts of a weakening ‘marriage signal’ and other phenomena.
“Brad always tells me not to feed the trolls…”
Ad hominem.
“First of all, why do the people on this blog feel compelled to use pseudonyms?”
Another ad hominem and also elements of a straw man.
From his site:
Nick splits his time between Northern California and Salt Lake City, Utah. He lives happily alone in both places.
Hey, Nick, if you bother to return, lemme ask you a question: what’s hypergamy, and how does it affect women’s perceptions of “attractive men”? I bet you can’t answer. Anyone who read A billion Wicked Thoughts by the founder of OKCupid could, but you can’t.
Why is that? Why is it that you social science types cannot make accurate predictions from your science, hmm?
All:
The social sciences currently are in the deep dark waters of a major replication crisis. It’s a secret that no one is supposed to talk about, I guess.
A man who wants to marry, have children, and remain married will be better off reading selected androsphere sites than anything by any social scientists. Because unlike social scientists, Pick Up Artists have clear, definable metrics of success, and many of their techniques translate to married life.
Consider that. All the PhD’s in the whole social science universe know less about garden variety female attraction than some dude who reads a couple of blogs and hits the bars for a few weeks. Seems to me that Nick and Brad should be embarassed at the very least.
But at least Brad is married. So he has some experience in the area.
Or to put it another way, Nick, if there’s 100 men and 100 women, 80 of those women will be hot for 20 of the men. What does that imply for assortive mating, which is one of the subtle underpinnings of stable marriage?
Or to ask another question, Nick: what are the odds of divorce when a virgin woman marries a man, how do those odds differ if a woman has had one sexual partner, two, etc.? This can be obtained from the GISS data so it’s not exactly secret, and being a PhD I’m sure you’ve already done the work — so what’s the answer, Nick?
The internet is bigger than you realize.
Thanks again, guys. Interesting stuff. And I partially retract one of my statements: only a small minority of the content here counts as trolling (although making fun of how Brad looks certainly counts).
First, responding to last post, I indeed ran data on premarital sex and divorce (unfortunately only for women; no male data available). Have fun with this; I had fun writing it:
http://family-studies.org/counterintuitive-trends-in-the-link-between-premarital-sex-and-marital-stability/
Second, how I post images here?
Third, since I’m new to this blog: in a few words, what’s the point or theme? Thanks.
Three point five: everyone seems to contest the idea that most marriages are happy. Every single study ever done on the topic shows that answer. You ask people if they’re happy in their marriages, they say yes. You collect detailed psychometric data, and they still say yes, happy. I look at the married people I know, and most of them are happy.
So how does everyone here think they know different? Your own experience doesn’t count as evidence of anything. Mine certainly doesn’t.
Why I decided to be a stay at home wife.
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=1042827
Nicholas Wolfinger,
Others will address you other points, but this one I must topple.
Every single study ever done on the topic shows that answer. You ask people if they’re happy in their marriages, they say yes.
If 45% of marriages end in divorce, how can that be the case?
Some Stats 101 :
45% end in divorce, hence 55% do not.
Of those 55%, if 51% are happy, that is about 28% of original marriages.
So that means that 28% of marriages are happy, another 27% are unhappy but not divorcing, and 45% are divorced. Sounds about right.
The fact that ‘most existing marriages are happy’ excludes divorces from the denominator of the equation. Just like the fraudulent claim that married men have more wealth than single men (divorced men fleeced by the system bundled into ‘single men’).
28% is pretty shitty odds. But the numbers were nuanced enough to fool you. I understand that your field is not quantitative, but this is 5th-grade level arithmetic.
_______________________________________________
You seem to have a huge mental block about recognizing what the laws around divorce are, how they are extremely rigged against men (in violation of the Constitution and a whole host of other laws around due process, asset forfeiture, contract law, debtors prisons, etc.)., and how there is an industry that profits from increasing the divorce rate.
Plus, I see no evidence that you read Dalrock’s article or understood his airtight rebuttal of snake oil being peddled.
Thank, Dalrock. This essay is important, especially for divorced fathers like myself. I loathe Wilcox and, especially, Prager. I am ashamed to admit I once listened to Prager’s radio show regularly. After my divorce, his “Male-Female” hour really pissed me off. I also remember a divorced man who called his show on a Friday – he was depressed and angry that his wife left him. Thrice married Prayer did not give a shit. After that, I never listened to Prager’s show again. I hope Prager, Wilcox, and all the other miserable mainstream cucks rot in hell.
Nick splits his time between Northern California and Salt Lake City, Utah. He lives happily alone in both places.
Wait, then why is he so hell-bent on insisting that marriage is some bonanza for men, and that none of the laws around divorce, alimony, and child custody are unfair at all?
When he still cannot marry when so many other men are smartly avoiding Marriage 2.0, that is unimpressive.
He said upthread that 85% of people marry. Half get divorce. Of the 42% that remain married, over half (so over 22% of all adults) are in a happy marriage. Hence, his position is ‘marriage works, as long as you exclude divorcees from the roster of people who are polled about whether their marriage is happy’.
Wedded Abyss is a one-page site that lists what the laws around marriage and divorce are. Nicholas seems to be unaware of these (which utterly disqualifies him from any pretense of expertise of the subject of marriage, of course).
Anon: “Plus, I see no evidence that [Wolfinger] read Dalrock’s article or understood his airtight rebuttal of snake oil being peddled.”
Wolfinger is trolling. He may have skimmed the article, but if he had any intention (or ability) to engage Dalrock’s arguments, he would have already. He’s only here to gather quotable quotes from the troglosphere.
You’re wasting your time responding to him.
When you’ve seen divorce up close, there is no going back.
Brad Wilcox and all the rest of them just need to explain why ‘if the pie is delicious and good for you, why are fewer and fewer people eating it’.
Adam Smith explained it quite nicely with his ‘invisible hand’ argument for economics, guess it just doesn’t work when it comes to marriage, eh? Lol, we all know but are dancing around the point. The benefits to marriage are not benefits anymore, they are responsibilities, he earns more because he needs to take care of a family, he works more for the same reason, he sees he’s friends less because he has to spend more time with the family and at work, he doesn’t do ‘boy’ things anymore because most of his excess wealth is now spent on more mature ‘family things’. He sticks at his job, not because he likes it or enjoys the work, but because he has to have the paycheck or he ends up divorced, living out his car and never seeing his children much at all; worse than that, he ends up in jail for the great crime of not being able to afford his imputed income charge from child support or alimony. Yep, sign up boys, great deal right there.
These are not benefits to the man, they are all benefits to women, children and society. There used to be some benefit through respect gained, status earned and frequent sex but that’s gone. Don’t pretend it is there anymore. Especially the frequent sex, a wife has no obligation to provide it, hence the husband must earn it as if she were a single gal consistently. No benefit there I’m afraid, single guy as more options, if the woman he is with won’t have sex with him, he can dump her and find another.
Brad and Nicholas have to realise they are not living in the 1950s anymore, marriage has lost its status, it has lost its permanence, it’s nothing more than a paper that comes with obligations that never end for the man and endless rights and privileges for the women.
Then they can also explain the Duluth model and get back to us, why should any man get married with that monstrosity over his head. Why should any man get married when society is quite obviously telling him he is an abusive asshole for being a husband. Remember folks, husbands are more dangerous than terrorists.
Wanna be that guy? No…. guess you’re not a man then.
Modern marriage is like men lining up to eat pies off a conveyor belt. The first pie you eat has a 42% of being poisoned, if you somehow survive that, your next pie has a 63% chance of being poisoned, if you miraculously survive that, your third pie has a 75% chance of being poisoned.
Is anyone going to listen to the fool who eats that second or third pie?
Perhaps on matters of how to survive poison but certainly not on how to choose pies or why you should eat pies.
“You’re wasting your time responding to him.”
Not at all. The responses are enlightening.
Advertising describes briefly a problem we didn’t know we had and then offers its product(s) as the solution. It works because women buy into that “logic” (letting other people tell them about problems they didn’t know they had). We are suffering today from 60 years of women being told what the problem is and then what the solution is by the advertising industry. It’s a small step for women trained in this manner to move over to believing what is said about men (the problem) and what the solution is (divorce). Nobody is winning in all of this except those who have sold the solution. The fact that the solution doesn’t exist won’t be ovbious to those who bought it for a while, if ever.
Too many women being sold the same type of guy as the solution. “Your husband’s not like our model here? Well all you have to do is let go of him and buy ours.” And, if the type of guy being sold as the solution actually exists, he does not exist in sufficient numbers to even begin to satisfy the demand. So all they have left to replace the one they jettisoned are other real, flawed men. Eewwww!
Look at the millions of women who lusted after Edward in the Twilight series. Of those millions, how many women ever, ever got their own Edward?? This would make a good sermon to be shared with women. Just focus on their lust for Edward and then present the statistical likelyhood that they will ever get an Edward of their own. (For those who don’t know, Edward was a vampire.) But that won’t ever happen. Because disabusing women of their fantasies and asking them to look squarely at reality instead is abuse of the highest order, and – as we know – abuse won’t be tolerated. It not Christlike. Like Edward is. (/s)
There´s an interesting thing in the linked Washington post article: while women initiate most of divorces, unmarried couples´ breakups are equally initiated my men and women, if their data is anything like reliable. It doesn´t seem illogical though: there´s nothing for her in the breakup but the breakup if she´s not getting any alimony and will have a hard time to get child support if the man is not cooperative.
From an atheist perspective, there is absolutely no reason to marry. It can be undone as easily as it is done, so for any practical use, the institution is dead. Since there is no guarantee of having a family when you marry any more than if you don´t marry (it´s all about choosing the right woman and being lucky enough for it to hold for a very long time), you might as well cut the crap, take a leap of faith and have kids with the woman without marrying (still a nonreligious perspective). I think that is what is behind the European trend of having children in cohabitation – the rational analysis not taking religion into account cannot reveal any advantages other than than the one day white princess ceremony show. I never quite understood the American obsession with marriage outside among atheist people (religious people seem to be much more consistent about it: it is a matter between them and God, so there is a transcending meaning).
For a religious man, it might be very interesting to to find a way to marry before God but not before state. I wonder if that can be done, but I doubt it. The state wouldn´t have that.
Dear Splashman:
Looking at the big picture: Dalrock wrote a funny article talking about how guys like Wolfinger are shamelessly dishonest, and seek to spitefully use good men for their own purposes. Wolfinger subsequently shows up to blatantly lie, over and over, in print, insulting everyone here in the process.
I think that the dialogue is a great illustration of both the poor moral character of our opponents, and of how accurate the articles on this blog tend to be.
Boxer
Dear Feminist Hater:
You’re on fire with good points today.
And sadly, when Wolfinger and Wilcox talk to young men about which pies they should eat, they actively encourage their readers to eat the most suspicious pies, making excuses for the pies that come down the line which have clearly been tampered with, encouraging men to ignore the fact that the pie they managed to grab is discolored, with outward signs of being full of rat poison.
“Don’t throw it back,” Wilcox and Wolfinger say, in unison, “take a bite of that STD-riddled fattie, with the skanky tats and the Prozac prescription… she’ll make a good wife and you’ll be happy…”
Boxer
I read Nick’s article about a woman’s premarital n-count being a factor in her propensity to initiate divorce, and most of his conclusions were defensible, if not water-tight. But he spent much of his time discussing a temporary statistical anomaly that shows that, for a certain time period, women with n=2 were slightly more likely to divorce than women with slightly higher partner counts, up to a point. That led him to write two of the most absurd things I’ve ever seen written by a PhD (emphasis added):
Leaving aside the fact that his notion of what constitutes a “(not) high divorce rate” is still absurdly high by historical standards… First, how anyone could look at the charts he used and come to the conclusion that being a serious follower of a patriarchal religion is not an important factor (perhaps the most important factor), is beyond me. Not only do he and Brad recommend regular church attendance to married men as a factor in reducing divorce risk, but he noted in the same article that virginity strongly correlates with a woman’s religious observance.
That oversight links to the second absurd thing, which is that because for a few years women with n=2 had slightly lower divorce risk than women with a few more partners, that “slightly used” was no big deal. He didn’t come right out and say that because it’s clearly wrong, but he certainly soft-pedaled it. That soft-pedaling flies in the face of his own data (and common sense) that dictates that any partner count higher than n=0 sends a woman’s divorce propensity through the roof. The risk differential between n=2 and n=3 is dwarfed by the one between n=0 and n=1 (especially if the “1” is someone other than the groom).
One important question left unasked is “Why does religious observance – which is closely linked to virginity – decrease a woman’s risk of nuking her marriage?” It’s all well-and-good to say “Go to church, young man,” (as he and Brad do) but surely even a couple of soft-science guys like them can understand that there must be a reason for the correlation. Could it possibly be that serious observance of a patriarchal religion (and let’s face it: we’re talking specifically about Christianity), makes you a better person?
But no, no , no… we can’t delve too deeply into that, because everybody knows the statistics on young women engaging in hook-up culture during the very same time they ought to be looking for husbands, preparing themselves to be wives and mothers rather than corporate drones, keeping their knees together, and going to (theologically-conservative) churches. Telling the truth here would involve saying that the sexual free-for-all most young women engage in (primarily with the same minority of men) is bad, and that society needs to regulate and stigmatize the sexual adventurism of young women to prevent them from hurting themselves and pulling civilization itself down around all of our ears.
(It’s almost like the answer was there all along. Proverbs 14:1 says, “The wise woman builds her house, But the foolish tears it down with her own hands.” One wonders why it took 3000 years for PhDs to just begin to grasp the edges of what “religious nuts” like us knew all along.)
So we get snake-oil instead. We hear about the benefits of marriage in general, when in fact the benefits of marriage only go to the minority of men who have successful marriages. What sets those successful marriages apart? If Brad and Nick hadn’t been so sloppy with correlation and causation they could have seen the answer screaming at them from their own data sets: the men who stay married tend to be the ones who chose their wives from a small-and-shrinking subset of women, and who continue to live within that same milieu for the rest of their lives.
Once we tease out the data from marriages that predate current laws and recent cultural factors, and remember that the average bride in 2010 had four sexual partners (and that’s with the very generous assumption that they were not under-reporting), and only 5% of brides were entitled to wear white to their own weddings, we’re left with a bleak picture that is completely at odds with their conclusions: their assertion that marriage is a good bet for most men.
Instead of ranting at men and denigrating the ones who choose to remain single, a couple of guys who share a bully pulpit and want to “fix” marriage should direct the vast majority of their efforts toward telling women to stop killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. That means:
1) Young women should go to churches that teach – and enforce – strong sexual boundaries.
2) Unmarried women should remain virgins until their wedding night.
3) Married women should honor their marriage vows. Not only do they wreck their own marriages when they don’t, but they add to the social acceptability of divorce and drastically increase the chances their own children will perpetuate the divorce cycle in turn.
4) The legal system should rescind no-fault divorce, and stop incentivizing women with the promise of cash-and-prizes from ex-husbands.
There are numerous other things that would help, but this is already long. It’s telling that a couple of PhDs who claim to be experts direct 95% of their efforts toward 5% of the problem, even though their own data point to women’s behavior being – by far – the single most important variable.
@ Fred Flange:
“Marriage? You gentlemen are all up in that about marriage?
“Fugettabout it. Gender studies department hath spoken. Yes means yes is not good enough. It’s oppressive don’t ya know for women to even have to say “no”, its patriarchal oppression.
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2017/02/consent-is-not-enough
“Have at it. @deti, go nuts.”
________
It’s really precious when 19 year old sophomores at Ivy Leagues hold forth like “experts” on sex, rape, marriage, etc. Second, this is just more “rape culture” BS – “teach men not to rape” BS.
Teach women to be responsible. Teach women to act responsibly. Teach women to say “no” and mean it by backing it up with firm action.
Dr. Wolfinger:
Please review the following and comment. This was originally posted at the following:
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2017/02/13/feel-the-love/#comment-227716
_________________________
Yeah. There is this false notion of the “average” guy as the six pack, in shape, surfer dude with frosted tips, living as a beach bum, but at the same time with a beach house, drives a luxury car, and has sex with all kinds of women who find him physically attractive. Wilcox is living so disconnected from reality that he thinks the “average” guy lives like Matthew McConnaughey or Brad Pitt or Elon Musk or Dan Bilzerian. Wilcox’s delusion is that the “average” guy is a pickup artist, or a grown up fratboy, living a never ending booze and babes party train.
Dr. Wilcox, let me explain to you what the “average” unmarried guy is.
He’s late 20s with some college, maybe a Bachelor’s degree. He works as a paper pusher in a cubicle, or as an apprentice or journeyman. He doesn’t live in Malibu or midtown Manhattan. He lives in Omaha or Des Moines or Indianapolis or Phoenix or Queens or the suburbs of Philly or DC or San Bernardino. His parents divorced when he was 14; he spent his high school years living with his mom, his older sister and younger brother in a 3 bedroom house his mom bought after she and his dad sold the house in the settlement. He saw his dad every other weekend; doesn’t have much of a relationship with him now.
He’s working 40 to 50 hours a week or more at a job to support himself. He has a boss riding his ass every other day. His life is deadlines and appointments and places to be for work. He has a car payment on his used Honda Accord. He has a checking account and a credit card that he takes care of himself.
He’s got a 2 bedroom walkup apartment he rents in a decent part of town. (If he lives in California, he’s barely making rent and lives with at least one roommate.) He has a couple of friends he keeps in touch with from college and a few acquaintances he meets now and then. He dates now and then, from the online service or through some friends, but nothing really great. He broke up with a girl from college a couple of years ago; he took it pretty hard and still kind of isnt’ over it. He hasn’t had sex since he had a 3 month exclusive thing last year that she ended. He has a lifetime N of 6 – composed of two relationships, one ONS, and three short termers that just didn’t work out. He has kind of a hard time meeting girls because there’s really nothing all that distinguishing about his look. He’s pretty nondescript – average height, average weight, kind of flabby, decent but not great hair. He approaches sometimes, gets rejected 95% of the time. He gets a date now and then, but it never really goes anywhere. He doesn’t really want to get married, but he probably would if the right girl came along.
Compare him to Six Pack Craig. Are we all going to believe that Six Pack Craig is an “average” guy? And are we to believe that this “average” guy I just described is going to be bedding all sorts of women all the time?
Dr. Wilcox, the “average” guy is getting NEXT TO NOTHING when it comes to women. He squats beneath incredible money and social pressures. He’s got a job to work. It kicks his ass every day. He’s slowly, one day at a time, having his soul sucked out of him. And you think this guy is living it up on a constant life of awesomely awesome awesomeness?
Let me tell you – a 95% rejection rate is NOT “awesome”. Having your soul sucked out of you through your job is NOT “awesome”. Being unable to attract women and not knowing why is not “awesome”. Being told that this is ALL your fault that some slut somewhere can’t find a man to marry her is NOT “awesome”.
Think again, Dr. Wilcox.
WordPress keeps destroying my posts before they show up (then tell me “Duplicate Post” when I try again even though its not here… Good thing I’ve taken to copying them before I hit “submit” so I can try again.
__________________
I read Nick’s article about a woman’s premarital n-count being a factor in her propensity to initiate divorce, and most of his conclusions were defensible, if not water-tight. But he spent much of his time discussing a temporary statistical anomaly that shows that, for a certain time period, women with n=2 were slightly more likely to divorce than women with slightly higher partner counts, up to a point. That led him to write two of the most absurd things I’ve ever seen written by a PhD (emphasis added):
Leaving aside the fact that his notion of what constitutes a “(not) high divorce rate” is still absurdly high by historical standards… First, how anyone could look at the charts he used and come to the conclusion that being a serious follower of a patriarchal religion is not an important factor (perhaps the most important factor), is beyond me. Not only do he and Brad recommend regular church attendance to married men as a factor in reducing divorce risk, but he noted in the same article that virginity strongly correlates with a woman’s religious observance.
That oversight links to the second absurd thing, which is that because for a few years women with n=2 had slightly lower divorce risk than women with a few more partners, that “slightly used” was no big deal. He didn’t come right out and say that because it’s clearly wrong, but he certainly soft-pedaled it. That soft-pedaling flies in the face of his own data (and common sense) that dictates that any partner count higher than n=0 sends a woman’s divorce propensity through the roof. The risk differential between n=2 and n=3 is dwarfed by the one between n=0 and n=1 (especially if the “1” is someone other than the groom).
One important question left unasked is “Why does religious observance – which is closely linked to virginity – decrease a woman’s risk of nuking her marriage?” It’s all well-and-good to say “Go to church, young man,” (as he and Brad do) but surely even a couple of soft-science guys like them can understand that there must be a reason for the correlation. Could it possibly be that serious observance of a patriarchal religion (and let’s face it: we’re talking specifically about Christianity), makes you a better person?
But no, no , no… we can’t delve too deeply into that, because everybody knows the statistics on young women engaging in hook-up culture during the very same time they ought to be looking for husbands, preparing themselves to be wives and mothers rather than corporate drones, keeping their knees together, and going to (theologically-conservative) churches. Telling the truth here would involve saying that the sexual free-for-all most young women engage in (primarily with the same minority of men) is bad, and that society needs to regulate and stigmatize the sexual adventurism of young women to prevent them from hurting themselves and pulling civilization itself down around all of our ears.
(It’s almost like the answer was there all along. Proverbs 14:1 says, “The wise woman builds her house, But the foolish tears it down with her own hands.” One wonders why it took 3000 years for PhDs to just begin to grasp the edges of what “religious nuts” like us knew all along.)
So we get snake-oil instead. We hear about the benefits of marriage in general, when in fact the benefits of marriage only go to the minority of men who have successful marriages. What sets those successful marriages apart? If Brad and Nick hadn’t been so sloppy with correlation and causation they could have seen the answer screaming at them from their own data sets: the men who stay married tend to be the ones who chose their wives from a small-and-shrinking subset of women, and who continue to live within that same milieu for the rest of their lives.
Once we tease out the data from marriages that predate current laws and recent cultural factors, and remember that the average bride in 2010 had four sexual partners (and that’s with the very generous assumption that they were not under-reporting), and only 5% of brides were entitled to wear white to their own weddings, we’re left with a bleak picture that is completely at odds with their conclusions: their assertion that marriage is a good bet for most men.
Instead of ranting at men and denigrating the ones who choose to remain single, a couple of guys who share a bully pulpit and want to “fix” marriage should direct the vast majority of their efforts toward telling women to stop killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. That means:
1) Young women should go to churches that teach – and enforce – strong sexual boundaries.
2) Unmarried women should remain virgins until their wedding night.
3) Married women should honor their marriage vows. Not only do they wreck their own marriages when they don’t, but they add to the social acceptability of divorce and drastically increase the chances their own children will perpetuate the divorce cycle in turn.
4) The legal system should rescind no-fault divorce, and stop incentivizing women with the promise of cash-and-prizes from ex-husbands.
There are numerous other things that would help, but this is already long. It’s telling that a couple of PhDs who claim to be experts direct 95% of their efforts toward 5% of the problem, even though their own data point to women’s behavior being – by far – the single most important variable.
Dr. Wolfinger:
Please also review the following and comment. This was originally posted here.
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2017/02/13/feel-the-love/#comment-227716
You can comment on these, since you are a co author on the NR piece that ran last February 9.
______________________
[Dr. Wilcox] makes his points in the videos and pieces where he extols the virtues of marriage and leans on men to get married.
Men respond with usual MGTOW responses: Marriage is a bad deal for men and here’s why, explaining in great detail how and why marriage is a bad deal for men. Plus, Dr. Wilcox, you’re not looking at what women are doing. They’re clearly and directly relating conditions on the ground for most men, something Dr. Wilcox doesn’t seem to see, safely ensconced in his ivory tower.
If Dr. Wilcox won’t hear disgruntled, bitter, young, unserious MGTOWs, then here’s a “real adult”, a lawyer from the NPO named Robert Franklin, who says pretty much the same things in less vulgar, more stilted but no less blunt and direct language.
Wilcox responds to the MGTOWs by doubling down, calling them names and accusing them of being immature woman-haters.
After that, he retreats a little, saying “yeah, divorce is a problem, a big problem. But hey, men need to reduce those risks by being nice, being “emotionally engaged”, don’t do drugs, don’t get drunk, and don’t cheat.” He completely ignores the millions of frivorced men who were emotionally engaged and did none of the “bad things” he mentioned, while simultaneously suggesting that divorce is all mens’ fault and totally within men’s power to avoid. He completely ignores women’s role in trashing their marriages. He ignores these things despite people with intimate knowledge of those conditions patiently and painstakingly explaining them to him, point by point, bit by bit, so that even a high school sophomore could understand it.
Wilcox’s last pronouncement on this is his stupidly assigning the “average” designation to “Six Pack Craig”, an unmarried 29 year old California surfer dude with six pack abs who works 20 hours a week and lives in a beach house, and who talks about the fact that he can get many more women to sleep with him living this way than he could working 50 hours a week and getting married to one woman. He points out that if he gets married, he might not get to live life the way he wants, and might not get sex. Astoundingly, Wilcox says this guy is “average”. Wilcox says this guy represents how the “average” unmarried man lives.
Wilcox paints a picture of a man living on an endless booze and babes party train, living his life like a Jersey Shore gorillahead going from Gym/Tan/Laundry by day, and hitting the bars at night to “get it in” (a reference to casual sex). He thinks the “average” guy is a cross between The Situation, Jimmy Buffett, and Elon Musk.
This is patently absurd. None of this makes any sense at all. Dr. Wilcox is hopelessly out of touch with what is really going on in American society. He has no idea what life is really like for the average single man now. He has no idea what life is really like for the married man now, nor for the divorced man.
He lives completely in the apex fallacy. He’s like most women. Six Pack Craig is what most women think the “average” man is like. Most women really do believe Ernie Engineer and Louie Lawyer and Paul Plumber and Stan Stemlord are out there slaying poon left and right, sleeping with one new girl a month, etc. This is patently ridiculous.
@Nicholas H. Wolfinger s
Asks the man with Tenure.
It is relevant because the article you and Wilcox wrote criticized men who choose not to marry as losers who aren’t willing to work hard and take risks, while minimizing the very real problems with our current system for men. The other main point of your article is that men are being foolish for not taking advantage of the great benefits of modern marriage. The very title is “Put a ring on it”. That you haven’t put a ring on it is therefore quite relevant. In tech the phrase is eat your own dog food.
More to follow as time permits.
“Approximately 85 percent of Americans will marry in their lifetimes. Most will stay married, and most of these marriages will be happy. These are incontrovertible facts backed by survey after survey.”
____________
What? No quibble with the 85% figure. As for the rest of it, you’re out to lunch. About half of those people will stay married. And SOME of them will be “happy”. “Most” of the marriages will be “happy” only if one defines “happy” as “doesn’t get legally divorced”.
Dr. Wolfinger:
Please review the following and comment. Full text at the link below:
https://www.nationalparentsorganization.org/blog/23287-brad-wilcox-do-women-contribute-to-the-decline-of-marriage
Excerpts follow:
__________________
Apart from the many important realities Brad Wilcox’s numbers conceal about men, marriage and why many don’t want to tie the knot, it is his misandry that screams out loudest from his first words through his last. More subtly, it’s misogynistic as well. Wilcox’s National Review piece is entitled “Hey Guys, Put a Ring on It,” and proceeds to extol the many benefits of marriage to men (National Review, 2/6/17).
Meanwhile, where are the women in all this? Nowhere to be found. Now, as a writer, I fully understand that he’s writing about men and to men, not women; his chosen topic intentionally omits them. I have no quibble with that. After all, every article is about what it’s about and not something else.
At the same time though, when something’s relevant to one’s topic, omitting it invites criticism, as it should. So when Wilcox tells men to “put a ring on it,” he’s assuming a lot, not only about men, but about women as well. Nowhere in his article does Wilcox mention the glaringly obvious fact that it takes two to make a marriage. For wedding bells to chime, there must be an affirmative answer to “Will you marry me?”
The point being that men aren’t solely responsible for our declining marriage rates. Women have an equal say in whether men and women marry, so if rates are going down, it’s likely that women bear at least as much of the blame as do men,……
In passing, Wilcox mentions that “Most divorces are initiated by women,” by which he must mean 70% of divorce cases are filed by women according to Margaret Brinig and Douglas Allen. But it never sinks in on him what that means. What it means is that a boatload of single men aren’t single by choice. They did “put a ring on it” and their one and only kept the ring and walked out…….
Is it just possible that single men aren’t all like Six Pack Craig, that there are plenty of responsible, hard-working adult males who’ve found out the hard way what putting a ring on it means? There are, as readers of this website know all too well. Wilcox? He’s never heard of them. They appear nowhere in either his NR article or his Prager U. video.
So what about those women? They’re absent too. And yet there are plenty of single women who could benefit from Wilcox’s wisdom on marriage and its many positive aspects……Married women, like married men, are, on average, better to do financially, have more and better sex and are healthier and happier than their single peers. So where’s the message to them? Don’t they deserve one?
…. There are about 12 million single mothers in the U.S., and over 40% of them live in poverty according to the Census Bureau. That’s double the rate for single dads. ….
But somehow, those obvious realities escape Wilcox’s notice. I suspect I know why.
We live at a time in which criticizing women is dangerous to one’s reputation. By contrast, criticizing men is all the rage…..
By contrast, much as family courts demonstrate daily, denigrating men is both acceptable and accepted. So, if there’s been a decline in marriage rates, the cultural narrative demands that it be the fault of men that can be solved simply by them putting a ring on it. Again, the notion that women might have a say in whether they get married or not finds no place in Wilcox’s many statements on the issue.
So we come to one of the most standard of all sexist tropes – men are active and women are passive. The finger on which men are supposed to put the ring dangles there passively, waiting for a man to give it purpose. The man and only the man can do such a thing. The woman can only wait and hope. …., because men have agency and women have none.
All of that is the most complete nonsense of course, but it is the underlying assumption of Wilcox’s article. Why else would he confine his message to men, when the benefits of marriage accrue to women at least as much as to men and probably more? How hard would it have been for Wilcox to have simply addressed both sexes? His piece is both misandric and misogynistic.
…
Next time, Brad, let’s hear you take on perhaps the worst aspect of our culture that keeps men from marrying and that tears them from their families and children, i.e. family courts. Let’s see you quote some of those men with the empathy they so richly deserve. Let’s see your jeremiad against the laws and courts that incentivize men to stay single and women to divorce. Until you do that and a lot more, not many people will take what you say seriously. And for good reason.
______________________
What say you, Dr. Wolfinger? Dr. Wilcox, if you’re reading this (and I know you are), what say you?
Test again. I’m having lots of problems posting to WordPress the past few days.
This is maddening… I’ll try to paste my comment in here:
________________________
I read Nick’s article about a woman’s premarital n-count being a factor in her propensity to initiate divorce, and most of his conclusions were defensible, if not water-tight. But he spent much of his time discussing a temporary statistical anomaly that shows that, for a certain time period, women with n=2 were slightly more likely to divorce than women with slightly higher partner counts, up to a point. That led him to write two of the most absurd things I’ve ever seen written by a PhD (emphasis added):
Leaving aside the fact that his notion of what constitutes a “(not) high divorce rate” is still absurdly high by historical standards… First, how anyone could look at the charts he used and come to the conclusion that being a serious follower of a patriarchal religion is not an important factor (perhaps the most important factor), is beyond me. Not only do he and Brad recommend regular church attendance to married men as a factor in reducing divorce risk, but he noted in the same article that virginity strongly correlates with a woman’s religious observance.
That oversight links to the second absurd thing, which is that because for a few years women with n=2 had slightly lower divorce risk than women with a few more partners, that “slightly used” was no big deal. He didn’t come right out and say that because it’s clearly wrong, but he certainly soft-pedaled it. That soft-pedaling flies in the face of his own data (and common sense) that dictates that any partner count higher than n=0 sends a woman’s divorce propensity through the roof. The risk differential between n=2 and n=3 is dwarfed by the one between n=0 and n=1 (especially if the “1” is someone other than the groom).
One important question left unasked is “Why does religious observance – which is closely linked to virginity – decrease a woman’s risk of nuking her marriage?” It’s all well-and-good to say “Go to church, young man,” (as he and Brad do) but surely even a couple of soft-science guys like them can understand that there must be a reason for the correlation. Could it possibly be that serious observance of a patriarchal religion (and let’s face it: we’re talking specifically about Christianity), makes you a better person?
But no, no , no… we can’t delve too deeply into that, because everybody knows the statistics on young women engaging in hook-up culture during the very same time they ought to be looking for husbands, preparing themselves to be wives and mothers rather than corporate drones, keeping their knees together, and going to (theologically-conservative) churches. Telling the truth here would involve saying that the sexual free-for-all most young women engage in (primarily with the same minority of men) is bad, and that society needs to regulate and stigmatize the sexual adventurism of young women to prevent them from hurting themselves and pulling civilization itself down around all of our ears.
(It’s almost like the answer was there all along. Proverbs 14:1 says, “The wise woman builds her house, But the foolish tears it down with her own hands.” One wonders why it took 3000 years for PhDs to just begin to grasp the edges of what “religious nuts” like us knew all along.)
So we get snake-oil instead. We hear about the benefits of marriage in general, when in fact the benefits of marriage only go to the minority of men who have successful marriages. What sets those successful marriages apart? If Brad and Nick hadn’t been so sloppy with correlation and causation they could have seen the answer screaming at them from their own data sets: the men who stay married tend to be the ones who chose their wives from a small-and-shrinking subset of women, and who continue to live within that same milieu for the rest of their lives.
Once we tease out the data from marriages that predate current laws and recent cultural factors, and remember that the average bride in 2010 had four sexual partners (and that’s with the very generous assumption that they were not under-reporting), and only 5% of brides were entitled to wear white to their own weddings, we’re left with a bleak picture that is completely at odds with their conclusions: their assertion that marriage is a good bet for most men.
Instead of ranting at men and denigrating the ones who choose to remain single, a couple of guys who share a bully pulpit and want to “fix” marriage should direct the vast majority of their efforts toward telling women to stop killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. That means:
1) Young women should go to churches that teach – and enforce – strong sexual boundaries.
2) Unmarried women should remain virgins until their wedding night.
3) Married women should honor their marriage vows. Not only do they wreck their own marriages when they don’t, but they add to the social acceptability of divorce and drastically increase the chances their own children will perpetuate the divorce cycle in turn.
4) The legal system should rescind no-fault divorce, and stop incentivizing women with the promise of cash-and-prizes from ex-husbands.
There are numerous other things that would help, but this is already long. It’s telling that a couple of PhDs who claim to be experts direct 95% of their efforts toward 5% of the problem, even though their own data point to women’s behavior being – by far – the single most important variable.
It’s really precious when 19 year old sophomores at Ivy Leagues hold forth like “experts” on sex, rape, marriage, etc. Second, this is just more “rape culture” BS – “teach men not to rape” BS.
Yes, it was a meandering article that basically said nothing other than “we wouldn’t need consent rules if men didn’t feel entitled to sex” — it’s coming close to basically making the male sex drive itself, which in its nature is the more outward/aggressive as compared to the female more inward/reactive, problematic. Women like that young fool should be careful what they wish for. A world where men have no sexual aggression is a world where there is no male sex drive, and a world where men won’t have much to do with women. That’s the “dirty little secret” that women like her don’t want to hear — men are motivated by sex. Take away that motive, and they won’t treat women *better* — they either will ignore them or treat them worse, by and large.
This obsession with unraveling the entire dance between men and women based on some pie in the sky idea of people relating to each other based on pure disembodied idealism without messy animal drives is quite unhealthy, to be honest.
I’m having the same problems. I have resorted to copying comments into Evernote, because many of them are getting eaten by WP. WP did something on the back end that has jacked the comments.
Dr. Wolfinger:
“Nick splits his time between Northern California and Salt Lake City, Utah. He lives happily alone in both places.”
I see. And you hold forth on marriage and its “happiness” based on what, exactly? You encourage men to put a ring on it based on what, exactly? How’s about YOU put a ring on it, and THEN come talk to men who ACTUALLY DID put a ring on it and then expended literally their own souls working to keep it together for their kids?
“remember that the average bride in 2010 had four sexual partners”
HAHAHAHHHAHAHAHAHA
“Most” of the marriages will be “happy” only if one defines “happy” as “doesn’t get legally divorced”.
And even then, ‘most’ only in the sense of ‘more than half’.
Drs Wilcox and Wolfinger:
What should women do to make a good marriage? What should women be doing to get high value, high quality men for marriage? How should women prepare for marriage?
Are women at all at fault for the current poor state of marriage, the high divorce rate, and the social problems we have in the West now? If so, how, specifically, are they at fault? If not, why do you think they are not at fault?
What role do women play in preparation for, formation of, sustenance of, successes of, problems in, and failures of, marriage in the West today?
I challenge Brad Wilcox to find a wife for Nicholas Wolfinger, and for them to stay married over the long term. I doubt they could manage to accomplish that.
Novaseeker,
I guess I’m not the only one with the problem, then. I might have fixed it by deleting everything from my profile. If this posts I’ll know it’s working again… for now.
thedeti,
Good point about Nick not taking his own advice. Surely a guy in his position is well-situated to land a wife… even one from the low-divorce-risk cohort. Yet… nothing. One wonders why not.
That reminds me of a guy I used to work with as a military instructor some years ago. We were part of a very small cohort of people involved in a new initiative that was trying to unscramble a problem that was undermining our ability to move the ball forward in Iraq and Afghanistan, and also getting a lot of our guys killed. There was a great deal of “make-it-up-as-we-go-along” because we were plowing new ground and the solution was proving to be both fiendishly complex and elusive.
Anyway, the first generation of guys who’d tried to tackle it had developed some doctrine during the 1990s, and we were trying to extend and apply it in the Global War On Terror (GWOT, as we called it at the time), but nobody had really tried to apply the theory in that sort of environment. We not only had to figure it out – we also had to teach it to the guys who were going down-range to implement it. After a while the guys we initially trained started coming back from their deployments with stories about what worked and what didn’t based on hard knocks. We found that the theoretical stuff we came up with was fairly solid, but application was a lot harder than any of us thought, and we were constantly making adjustments to the curriculum based on feedback from practitioners and combat commanders.
Enter “The Guy.”
Like me (indeed all of us first-generation instructors in the early GWOT days), he had no practical experience applying what we were teaching. It was all an academic exercise for us at that point, because nobody had ever tried this before. As the area started to gain bench strength the guys we worked for wanted to rotate the returning guys with real-war experience into the program as our assistant instructors. The idea was that we would have instructor teams – one “academic” (that was us) who knew the theory inside-and-out, assisted by a “practitioner” who had taken the course and applied the theory in a combat theater. He was immediately against it on the grounds that their experience would prejudice them toward the solutions they had used in whatever corner of the war they had been assigned to, and that would undermine the generalized nature of the instruction, which was supposed to be flexible enough to apply anywhere.
We all thought he was nuts. It struck me as a rationalization for his ivory-tower mindset, as well as a good way to damage our own credibility. Everyone understood that for the first couple of years the instructors were all going to be theoreticians because nobody had any experience applying it in meat-space, but once there were guys who had studied the academics and applied them in combat, it was only natural that they should take on an increasing role in instructing subsequent generations of students. I’m out of it now, but to this day the “academics” are still the lead instructors because they have the deepest knowledge, but every one of them has a “warfighter” assisting him in class.
So when people point out the Nick isn’t married and he replies that it shouldn’t matter, he’s doing the same thing as the guy I used to work with,and he doesn’t see how it damages his credibility, or even that it does.
thedeti,
What? No quibble with the 85% figure. As for the rest of it, you’re out to lunch. About half of those people will stay married. And SOME of them will be “happy”. “Most” of the marriages will be “happy” only if one defines “happy” as “doesn’t get legally divorced”.
Remember that when he quotes the ‘most marriages are happy’ line, he OMITS divorces from this figure. So ‘most marriages are happy’ only if you don’t count people who got divorced in that number.
That is dishonest and innumerate in the extreme, by Wolfinger. That too from the man who himself has not managed to find anyone who wants to marry him. This dishonesty is shameful.
Wolfinger should live by example, and rescue one of the more damaged women he’s made a career of shilling for: overweight, multiple kids by different fathers, taken a couple of men to the divorce court already, etc.
After all, the benefits far outweigh the risks (he’s told us so himself) and as we all know, he’s better than those other men. His date-nights and little gestures will make a good wife out of that skank.
Lyn87 and Novaseeker,
I checked the spam bin and found multiple comments from both of you and a few others. I’m not sure why Askimet flagged you as spam, but I’ve unspammed them so hopefully it takes the hint.
“Modern women shamelessly fantasize about divorce, and publications like the Huffington Post have responded with a never ending stream of tales about wives crushing good men and innocent children on the path to moral enrichment.”
But would those fantasies be so alluring if TV and Hollywood hadn’t made them seem so? The arrow of causation goes from the dream weavers to women, not the other way.
Must be fun to call any criticism of your views, no matter how cogently presented, as “trolling.” I need one of those jobs….
Dalrock,
WordPress is acting really odd. The post in moderation (February 21, 2017 at 9:36 am) in which I replied to Novaseeker and thedeti ended up with an alternate screen name. If possible, could you re-label it as “Lyn87” so as to avoid confusion.
FWIW, I think I figured out how to make it stop doing that.
Thanks. It seems to be working now. Feel free to delete the duplicates.
It’s just straight-up laziness, by an establishment insider, who doesn’t want to do the work of actually backing up his own arguments. Sad!
It’s just straight-up laziness, by an establishment insider, who doesn’t want to do the work of actually backing up his own arguments. Sad!
What is really sad is that these charlatans like WIlcucks and Wolfinger have cushy sinecures from which they peddle their snake oil, while at least eight people here (notably Dalrock and Deti), who are vastly smarter and accustomed to rigorous defense of their views, make nothing and have to comment anonymously.
That’s correct. Note that even with tenure, people in academia will still be passed over for promotions and grants if they edge into crimethink. One is never really safe from retaliation. The fact that Wolfinger tries to discredit people for posting anonymously (as scoundrels like Alexander Hamilton and John Jay did) really doesn’t enhance his credibility here.
“Fourth, who gives a shit whether Brad, I, or anyone else studying this stuff is married himself or herself?” ~ Nicholas H. Wolfinger
Would you hire a 98 lb weakling who’s never touched a barbell as a strength coach?
And, yes, that’s my real name. Click on it to see the rest of it.
@Dalrock
“Go, even though you love him.
Go, even though he is kind and faithful and dear to you.
Go, even though he’s your best friend and you’re his.
Go, even though you can’t imagine your life without him.
Go, even though he adores you and your leaving will devastate him.
Go, even though your friends will be disappointed or surprised or pissed off or all three.
Go, even though you once said you would stay.
Go, even though you’re afraid of being alone.
Go, even though you’re sure no one will ever love you as well as he does.
Go, even though there is nowhere to go.
Go, even though you don’t know exactly why you can’t stay.
Go, because you want to.
Because wanting to leave is enough.”
You should add the above piece by Strayed to your blog thread about vetting women for marriage. A woman who is sympathetic to this point of view is a very high risk candidate for marriage.
I love how “happy” is considered scientific jargon in the social sciences.
He doubles down on this silly, happiness contention.
The insistence that most marriages are happy (just ask the man right in front of his wife and he’ll tell you), reminds me of an argument I had with a woman over marital obligations. She was trying to equate doing the dishes for a family of five to a man’s typical work day. My main point to her was; “Lady, we’ve done dishes ourselves. It’s not some secret knowledge you hold. WE’VE DONE DISHES TOO. It’s not that hard. We know what you’re talking about and we know that daily dishes for a family doesn’t take up the ‘better part of the day'” (which was her contention)
It’s the same thing here with Wolfinger. He overlords it and informs us that ‘most marriages are happy’.
I say; “We’ve been married. Our friends have been married. Our family members have been married. We know what marriage is and how it makes people feel. We’re here in this culture too. We see the divorce porn everywhere. We hear guys lament marriage always. We’ve had divorced friends get in our face, finger to the chest telling us that they will kill us if we get married after seeing what they’ve been through.”
Just like the lady thinking she had exclusive knowledge of mysterious dishes, Wolfinger is trying to establish himself as the only one who knows about this thing that’s always been all around us, everywhere. We know.
Anon & thedeti,
Over half the 85% figure could be as low as 43%. Take “over half” of that as happy and you get 22%. The numbers could be higher of course, but this is not impressive. The 85% figure is not necessarily good or reliable, but even taking it doesn’t make it all great. An ultimate 1/4 is a really bad chance.
I was also not into the bad stuff, though my wife claimed I was not there for her emotionally. That was her choice, another factor that is completely ignored.
We all control our own happiness. That is why some coming from horrible situations are happy while others can never get over a small bump. Holding men accountable for this happiness is not wise.
A side note: My house is slightly less neat than it was when my wife was here, but life continues without as much impact as many would credit her for. Part of the reason for this is also fighting the lack of motivation that is a big bump at this point, something I assume will change (possibly with effort) after things are final.
@Dalrock
@Nicholas H. Wolfinger
First of all, why do the people on this blog feel compelled to use pseudonyms?
Asks the man with Tenure.”
Also asking is a man who works for a magazine that “birches” dissidents opposing their agenda and tries to ostracize them in order to appear “respectable” to the Left. They’re not exactly discreet about it, either.
Your rag threw good men under the bus then, and as Dalrock shows here, it’ll do the same again and again.
no amount of marriage counseling or emotional availability will stop their wife from falling out of love and destroying their family
I am looking down the barrel at this RIGHT NOW. She is very likely to divorce me even though I am kind, faithful, and an excellent father. What do you think I’m going to tell my son about getting married? What do you think he’s going to conclude even if I don’t tell him?
I think he will have serious doubts about the message, “be a man, get married” — and certainly this is not something I could in good conscience tell him myself, not least because he is going to see that marriage did not work well for me.
Mr Wolfinger is not the first person as I recall who has come to this blog to tell us what a bunch of whining losers we all are nor the first to raise the shaming tactic of mocking our use of pseudonyms. That he should do the latter persuades me that he is but little familiar with internet blogs: That he should do the former suggests that he has no cogent counter-argument. He should know that we are not in the slightest impressed with his degree in Sociology even as we envy him his remunerative sinecure.
why do the people on this blog feel compelled to use pseudonyms?
I believe there’s a name for the logical fallacy of attacking the person rather than addressing their argument. A pseudonymous argument is no less valid for being pseudonymous.
Aw, I’m late to the debate.
Nicholas H. Wolfinger @ February 20, 2017 at 7:44 pm:
“Nevertheless, marriage produces some benefits that are causal: you can’t deny that having two incomes and ready access to a sex partner, for instance, aren’t direct benefits of marriage.”
It isn’t enough to have access to a sex partner if she is unwilling. In your opinion, Mr. Wolfinger, does marriage entitle a husband to have sex with his wife even when she doesn’t want to? If yes then how can he enforce this entitlement without committing marital rape? If no then how does marriage provide better access to a sex partner than social media-assisted hookups?
“Why would Prager possibly think divorce is a problem when he has been married three times?”
As they say, misery loves company. Joshua Harris wanted to impose his own sexual confusion and repression on others, and Prague wants other men to be taken to the cleaners too.
Wilcox and his friends at the NR have it all backwards.
They attack the symptoms but ignore the cause.
The reason young men are not going to “commit” to marriage anymore is not only because of the risks (of high miserability, sexlessness, divorce, separation from children, financial annihilation), but because the two least respected, least venerated, most ridiculed and openly derided positions in modern western society are none other than husband and father.
To suggest on the one hand that “all you single guys are lazy losers!” and then suggest “you need to put a ring on it” equates to jumping from frying pan into the fire.
Single men see what is happening above them – to their fathers and grandfathers, and what is happening to their sides – friends, co-workers, fellow students, and below them – to the sons and daughters of divorcees.
It’s as if Wilcox and the NR consider men to be wholesale idiots. They are not.
Lastly, I think their first error is assuming that young men today are seeking the approval of Christians and political conservatives in the first place. Most young men today are raised in broken homes, not intact ones. Most are not going to college and earning degrees. Most will work blue collar jobs. Most are trying not to fuck up. Most are trying to survive with some semblance of dignity in culture that pervasively despises them.
Tarl,
I am looking down the barrel at this RIGHT NOW. She is very likely to divorce me even though I am kind, faithful, and an excellent father. What do you think I’m going to tell my son about getting married? What do you think he’s going to conclude even if I don’t tell him?
If this is your problem right now, don’t mess around. Talk to Deti, Keoni Galt, and others who steered it back from the brink. There is still time, if you run the right Game.
@Novaseeker said
men are motivated by sex. Take away that motive, and they won’t treat women *better* — they either will ignore them or treat them worse, by and large.
Given that ~95% of modern women can’t cook, clean, sew, garden, ca; but are fat, loud, self-centered, lazy, tatted, ..etc and then if you take sex out as well, I’d like to ask, who wouldn’t rather have a good dog? Maybe three for those really cold nights.
Tarl:
ask dalrock for my email address if you want to discuss offlist.
Ms. Israel tells us at the Huffington Post that he was a kind man and an excellent father. Despite knowing that it would destroy both him and their three boys, Israel decided to divorce this good man because she was no longer happy honoring her marriage vows. Moreover, Israel is teaching other women that frivolous divorce which devastates good men and children will make a woman more moral:
One myth that we have to break is the myth that women care about children. In reality, it is only the father who puts the children ahead of himself. Not the mother. To women, children are just social status props.
Evidence of this is everywhere (including from the fact that the few countries where the man can divorce easily without cost still have very low divorce rates, and almost no ‘single mothers’).
Dr. Wolfinger: “First of all, why do the people on this blog feel compelled to use pseudonyms?”
Thomas Paine and Alexander Hamilton (among other founding fathers) wrote under pseudonyms. I suppose King George viewed them as odious trolls. Seems to be an American tradition. People troll your type because you have been letting the progressives et. al do it for decades out of fear. So it clearly works.
Others have already answered well on this question so I shall not belabor the point.
@Nicholas H. Wolfinger
Three point five: everyone seems to contest the idea that most marriages are happy. Every single study ever done on the topic shows that answer. You ask people if they’re happy in their marriages, they say yes. You collect detailed psychometric data, and they still say yes, happy. I look at the married people I know, and most of them are happy.
So how does everyone here think they know different? Your own experience doesn’t count as evidence of anything. Mine certainly doesn’t.
You’ve already admitted that about %42 of all first marriages end in divorce, with most of those initiated by women. That’s a failure rate of nearly half, so if I had to guess, the only way you could definitively rank these marriages as “happy” would be to ask the participants if they thought their marriages were doing well before they ultimately disintegrated, and then stick with that answer while also ignoring what their final outcome was.
If you ask me, that’s a little bit like an airline rep coming out and saying, “Folks, we all know how TWA Flight 800 ended. But you know what? Before the plane left the tarmac at JFK for that trip we took an impromptu poll of the passengers, and nearly all of them told us they were happy to be there, and that they were enjoying the trip. So now that we know that, I think it’s perfectly logical for us to say that those passengers really did have very good flight. They told us so themselves!”
The thing most people do not want to admit about why women are divorcing their husbands is precisely why they’re divorcing.
It’s not because “unhappy” or “missing out” or “need to spread my wings”.
These women are divorcing their husbands because they want to clear the way for a strong, masculine, independent man. Basically it’s because they want alpha dick. I know this is blunt, but there it is. Most of these women are leaving their husbands because they want to have sex with attractive masculine alpha men, and another shot at locking down one of those men for marriage.
The end, amen, period, full stop.
“These women are divorcing their husbands because they want to clear the way for a strong, masculine, independent man.”
That’s why Carly Israel left her husband of course. “The light had gone out in her eyes” means she wasn’t getting the tingles anymore, and this was apparently making her miserable.
She’s still a good looking woman, but she’s going to find the top tier men she craves aren’t interested committing to a single mother.
love the juxtaposition of “why are so many of you anonymous / you’re trolls” with “my singleness isn’t relevant to the discussion” and “making fun of pics of Wilcox is trolling”
you don’t get to decide when rhetoric is allowed and when the debate must be purely dialectical.
“why are so many of you pro-marriage defenders cucks?” is our version of your “why are so many of you anonymous trolls”
and in the world of rhetoric which side would you rather be on: the cucks or the anons?
go get your t-levels checked, lift some weights and read some proverbs.
thedeti,
I don’t think that was my wife’s motivation. She wants to be in control of herself and be with her 90 year old mother. She also wants me to pay for that. She may get swayed if a guy with lots of money and a lake house hits her up, but I expect solo to be her path now. She is very thin, unusual these days, so something unusual may come up.
I suspect I didn’t provide all the “perks” she was expecting being the root cause of things, though it took years to overcome the Christian prohibitions on divorce.
Tarl,
Do contact those others, but you should also look at some proactive steps. I was rather blindsided. Things were bumpy for me, but my grandparents argued a lot and I thought that was the norm. We live in a very different age today. I would bet she is on the way out, but I am a bit biased now.
Find out a good strong lawyer either way, so you are ready. You don’t want to have to pick a lawyer quickly. I was referred to a good one, but I could easily have ended up with someone of lower quality.
@Nicholas H. Wolfinger (under comment policy)
No. But you wrote an article declaring that men who don’t want to subject themselves to said law are lazy, uninformed, and unwilling to make sacrifices. Your whole response here is bizarre with this in mind. Did you already forget the article? It was only last week.
Again, bizarre given the article you coauthored last week.
I’d love to steer this back on to the topic of my original post. To get us started, which of the following do you disagree with:
1) Calling men lazy and uninformed for having legitimate concerns about the realities of modern marriage demonstrates a profound lack of respect.
2) Pretending that the financial sacrifices that married men make are not sacrifices at all, but perks, benefits married men receive shows contempt for the sacrifices of married men.
3) Conflating the respectable man you are demanding to marry a well used woman with the bad boys his future wife is spending her youth having sex with is disrespectful of respectable men.
4) Witnessing a decades long and pervasive social message to women to divorce, even if the husband is a good respectable man, and responding by telling good respectable men to quit whining and “put a ring on it” is disrespectful to respectable men.
5) Pretending that men who marry and father children in our society are respected is absurd, since the family courts are merely the formal legal expression of our view of husbands and fathers.
Find out a good strong lawyer either way, so you are ready. You don’t want to have to pick a lawyer quickly.
I have already talked to a lawyer, but am not sure how to pick a “strong one” other than word of mouth.
Again, bizarre given the article you coauthored last week.
A ‘male feminist’ is usually haphazard and inconsistent. It seems that he cannot reconcile his divorce with how much he does to support feminism, and is baffled that this is not earning him cred with women. His conclusion is that doubling down is the answer.
Add to that the fact that he wanted to burnish his resume by co-authoring with a better-known person who he thinks is on the other side of the aisle (when, in reality, they are in lockstep in terms of all feminist opinions), and Wolfinger quickly got in over his head.
When the red pill is thrust into his mouth, he gags, because it is not easy to give up decades of delusion.
Calling men lazy and uninformed for having legitimate concerns about the realities of modern marriage
So having knowledge about something that is deliberately kept secret from men is uninformed.
Observing what happens to countless other men, and deducing the cause is uninformed.
Ignoring the snake oil of men who obviously don’t do well with women is uninformed.
Remember that vastly off-base accusations tend to be projection on the part of the accuser. This is an example of that.
I am not sure on the strong one Tarl. I think I got a good one because a friend just went through this himself. Others here may have good insight on that.
@Wolfinger
So we know over 40% of marriages in divorce. What those studies to which you referred actually showed (including your your personal observations of married people) is that people are happy until they aren’t.
Suppose over 40% of planes crashed. Wouldn’t it be foolish to respond to such a crisis by making the argument that people should fly because almost all travelers currently in the air are happy?
I saw Nick’s tweet wherein he referred to us a “trolls.”
I also saw that at February 21, 2017 at 12:41 am he wrote:
When a man unfairly maligns another man he owes him an apology. When a man unfairly maligns another man in public he owes him a public apology in the same venue in which he made the original spurious charge.
What about it, Nick? You called us trolls on your Twitter account where all your followers can see it, but you only retracted it here where we can see it (and even then only partially).
Are you man enough to admit that you unfairly maligned us to your Twitter followers?
@Neguy
Yes. There is a solution though: We can let go of the things which we value above truth.
(NSFW language)
The 42% number for divorces is low. Of marriages that began post-1990 (so 27 years in), I think the divorce rate is 55%+. Plus, the intact marriage stat is boosted by immigrants from conservative cultures.
@Nicholas H. Wolfinger
A normal html tag should do it (img src=). I think this page might help: https://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_img.asp
Marriage, Christianity, and feminism are the most common topics. This post is dated but should give you the lay of the land. https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2013/05/15/what-is-the-manosphere/
I’m probably the most sympathetic person here to this argument, but I see it as a red herring, an invitation to get bogged down in studies and statistics to avoid discussing the thesis of my post. I enjoy both myself, but my point was that respectable men are being treated with incredible disrespect, not only in the article you co authored with Wilcox, but in the others mentioned.
First of all, why do the people on this blog feel compelled to use pseudonyms?”
Ahhh, the Anne Frank syndrome. “Cmon out, Anne! Why are you hiding? Only cowards hide from the Nazis!”
“@Nicholas H. Wolfinger
First of all, why do the people on this blog feel compelled to use pseudonyms?
Asks the man with Tenure.”
AMOG move – attempt to mark territory. Tragically ignorant in its arrogance given the vast gulf in manliness/character/integrity/insight between Wolfinger and the host.
He’s a clever silly.
https://medicalhypotheses.blogspot.com/2009/11/clever-sillies-why-high-iq-lack-common.html
It’s fascinating to watch when mainstreamers run into the truths found in the red pill sphere.
Everyone responds a little differently but the themes are more or less ubiquitous.
Brother Tarl:
The best way is to go down to the divorce courts on your day off and sit through a session. See if there’s anyone who seems especially competent in handling his or her case.
Note that I’ve had a ton of shit before for saying this, but I included “her” on purpose. Hire someone on merit. Don’t immediately assume that all women are useless. There are good female attorneys.
Most importantly, though, go see someone competent in your own city. Resist the urge to ask for legal advice from friends or strangers on the internet. Also: don’t take the advice that is sometimes on the manosphere to go pro se (i.e. to “represent yourself”). That has a very high potential to be a disaster. Going to court is like brain surgery. It’s not something you can do in the mirror.
Once you settle on an attorney, do exactly as s/he says, even if it seems counterintuitive.
Good luck bro.
Boxer
Dalrock says:
February 21, 2017 at 2:13 pm
On the whole, I would have to file Dr. Wolfinger’s visit here under “unproductive.” Not exactly demonstrating the ideals of intellectual rigor.
Well this is interesting: on the last day of 2015 The Sun published an article by Professor Wolfinger which showed that the best age to marry and so as to avoid divorce which thereafter rises exponentially was in ones mid-twenties and that thereafter the risk of Divorce rises. Professor Wolfinger is predictably a self-acknowledged liberal, Trump-hater and queer marriage proponent, but I would say he is now of an age when were he to marry the risk of Divorce would be higher than had he married in his mid-twenties. Not that he wants to marry or perhaps no one has asked him yet. Should he ever feel the need to give up the day-job his luxuraint ringlets would suggest a successful career as male stripper.
Still no apology some twenty hours after posting on Twitter for his Trolls slur.
And not that it matters, but the men who post anonymously here do so for a variety of reasons, which they have already shared. But it doesn’t make the truth if they are saying any less true.
In my case, roll over my gravatar. Click on my name. That will take you to my site.
That’s me. I am a real life clinical psychologist and my writings and ideas are WAY off the American Psychological Associations LGBTQIXYZ, safe-space, social justice bullshit approved reservation.
Drop by anytime.
@Novaseeker
I believe “the entire dance between men and women” has already been unraveled. While I still have that primal, aggressive, assertive motivation for sex, having experienced what I’ve experienced, I have zero desire to become involved with women, or a woman; to “do the dance.” Porn and my right hand are my best friends.
In fact, when I witness an apparently healthy family doing their thing, or a nubile young couple just starting out, I truly do marvel that any semblance of a “dance between men and women” still exists. But then appearances are deceiving.
Wolfinger didn’t bother to read or respond to Dalrock’s original post. He still hasn’t, even though he visited (at least) twice.
He’s not interested in meaningful debate. He wants to scoop up the worst of the comments and describe them as “typical reaction.”
C’mon.
BillyS
Part of the reason for this is also fighting the lack of motivation that is a big bump at this point, something I assume will change (possibly with effort) after things are final.
Are you walking every day? 30 minutes per day, every day rain or shine, will do a lot of good for you. The mind / body connection is a lot more complicated than most doctors realize.
Also stand up straight, it helps morale. Seriously.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/01/31/standing-straight-could-help-symptoms-depression-study/
There is a direct nerve-line link between the muscles that make up what is called the “core” and the amygdala in the brain, which is part of the fight-freeze-flight system. So maybe standing up straight signals the threat detection system “I’m good. No threats here”, helping with mental state.
Whatever the reason, posture makes a difference in mindset and even in circulating testosterone.
Keep up your good work, BillyS.
Funny you should mention that. Some time in the early 1990s I was writing for a tiny publication that had, perhaps, 500 readers. I wasn’t being paid – it was a labor of love for a cause I supported. One of those readers was conducting an ongoing correspondence with none other than one William F. Buckley – founder of National Review and the brains behind “Birching.” I have no idea how they knew each other, and I never met either one of them myself. I used to read NR every month, and was certainly surprised one day to find my own words being quoted in the personal column that Mister Buckley wrote for each edition.
Apparently my reader had sent him a copy of my work during their ongoing discussion (back when such things took place with paper envelopes and snail-mail), and WFB took issue with something I had written, as I was not statist enough for his tastes. He quoted me at paragraph length and proceeded to say that he disagreed with my assertion. Fair enough… but what he did NOT do was credit me by name, although I wrote under my own byline, so he certainly knew who I was.
I thought about that for a few minutes and then it dawned on me that he declined to do so because by doing so he would have been journalistically obliged to allow me a chance for rebuttal in the same venue (National Review), and since his pro-big-government position was both untenable on its merits and distasteful to many of his readers had they seen the arguments for the other side, he took the easy way out by quoting me without crediting me by name.
It’s a variation of what Nick did: broadcast our “troll” status to his followers, then when every one of his points got systematically dismantled here he went silent, while pretending that our use of usernames is somehow indicative of something sinister. What difference does it make if he knows our names, anyway? Oscar has gone on record with his real name and his credentials: will Nick and National Review allow him to offer a rebuttal in any forum they control? Of course not.
Novaseeker on the Princetonian article by some teenaged girl:
Yes, it was a meandering article that basically said nothing other than “we wouldn’t need consent rules if men didn’t feel entitled to sex” —
Reading her name we learn her family is from India. Whether she’s 1st generation or not, that culture has a long tradition of arranged marriages in the upper castes, so it is possible that she’s just offended by the way American men act, even now. Ladle the usual female entitlement courtesy of Blue Pill parents and pervasive feminism, the result is not a surprise.
This obsession with unraveling the entire dance between men and women based on some pie in the sky idea of people relating to each other based on pure disembodied idealism without messy animal drives is quite unhealthy, to be honest.
Just have an attractive, Alpha man all ready to step in the doorway when she’s ready for him, and let all other men stay away from her until then. Is deep fried ice really all that much to ask for?
Her top 10% man, when she wants him?
More seriously, the ongoing campaign to criminalize the existence of men will end one way or another. Either enough men will become clear-sighted to put an end to it, or most men will be pushed into a corner where they are condemned no matter what they do. The latter option will not turn out well for anyone.
Scott
It’s fascinating to watch when mainstreamers run into the truths found in the red pill sphere.
Everyone responds a little differently but the themes are more or less ubiquitous.
“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.” — Attributed to both H.L. Mencken and Winston Churchill
It’s easy, really. It was not about debating other people. It’s only a kind of virtue signaling.
I am an European living in Central America for the last 20 years. From time to time, I meet a fellow countryman/countrywoman who has moved here to work for a NGO. They usually have big salaries (which they wouldn’t be able to get back home), good houses and good cars. They live a luxurious lifestyle, although they are only middle class in Europe.
Then, when they are back home, they brag endlessly about how they have suffered and sacrificed themselves in such a dangerous and poor country only to fight the good fight and help poor people. This gives them status among their acquaintances, who imagine the situation in developing countries much worse than it is (if you have money, you can live here very well).
This Nicholas guy came here and wrote a couple of comments. Now he can brag in Twitter that he has been “debating” with dangerous “trolls” (their acquaintances imagine them as worse than Hitler) and has fought the good fight against the dangerous alt-right only to help women and advance progress. This gives him status among brainless liberals and progressives that have swallow the narrative hook, line and sinker.
“For a religious man, it might be very interesting to to find a way to marry before God but not before state. I wonder if that can be done, but I doubt it. The state wouldn´t have that.”
For the Religious man, the state does not need to be involved. The state has no power to dictate marriage and they aren’t needed to legitimize it UNLESS the man doesn’t actually believe that God is enough.
What would be interesting is if a man could claim to be married before God, and yet be able to STOP the state from imposing their definition of marriage on him…..ie by calling it “commonlaw” etc.
@Tarl
If she is on the way out……..Be VERY careful about being baited. Those that “loved” us, know all of the buttons to push now. She know your actions and reactions. Some women will bait you into doing something stupid. Knowingly or not. Be on the lookout and KEEP YOUR HEAD! I know it is incredibly difficult. I was not so smart and have only narrowly avoided falling into the pit.
@BillyS
Keep on Plugging Buddy. I am in the same boat as you. It sucks.
Thank you to Dalrock and others.
@Hose_B:
There are ways. Weirdly enough because of the Civil Union laws. Everything else can be replicated that comes with “Marriage” from a legal situation, minus about two things. But even those aren’t normally much of an issue.
If you’re around here and looking to get married, get in touch with a lawyer and lay out how to do it in your State.
Woot! You da Man, Dalrock. Awesome post.
I’m glad you’re all out of bubblegum. :^)
@AR
I don’t know why, but I just have an uncanny idea that “the ongoing campaign to criminalize the existence of men” will end up with most men “pushed into a corner where they are condemned no matter what they do”. All indicators point in that direction. Seems to be the case already, actually. The few men not already in that corner are either just hanging on by the skin of their teeth, or are those 10 to 20% of so-called “Alpha” men, who are apparently impervious to the wider culture.
@ Hose_B
Totally agree on being on guard for the “baiting” tactics. Here in Australia, a married couple must be separated for one year continuously, before they qualify for divorce. Reunite for any period of time during that one year, and the clock resets. Just prior to the one year mark, my (now) ex-wife put on a crocodile-tear sob-story during our family-court-ordered “relationship mediation” that she and my two sons desperately desired that her husband and their father return to “the family”. Although I quickly rejected (in my mind) her appeal as the balderdash that it really was, I nonetheless returned, because…’well, just maybe.’ She knew the precise emotional buttons to press. She spent 2 weeks making an obvious, conscious effort, then quickly returned to her old ways. In our seven years from marriage to ‘decree absolute’ of the divorce, there were 3 separations and 2 reunions, with the third separation being final. The whole time I blamed myself for not being able to hold it together. I knew nothing then of the Red Pill and my actual powerlessness to hold it together, but quickly found out…the hard way.
Dalrock,
In the title of this article, you may want to consider putting the full name ‘W. Bradford Wilcox’ rather than just ‘Wilcox’. That would enable this article to get more precise search engine optimization.
“Marry Him and Be Submissive – One Italian Wife’s Countercultural Message to Women”
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=1042994
Snowy,
I don’t know why, but I just have an uncanny idea that “the ongoing campaign to criminalize the existence of men” will end up with most men “pushed into a corner where they are condemned no matter what they do”.
There is considerable evidence that any democracy devolves into this state over time, as when women gain the right to vote, they ruthlessly vote for an outcome like what you described. This is because since women are the scarcer reproductive resource, the bottom 80% of men seem to be of no value whatsoever. Hence, they do not even deserve human rights.
Of course, the men who give women tingles are not the ones who built civilization. A case can thus be made that the brain-gina interface possessed by women is obsolete.
@Anon
Yes, giving women the right to vote was the beginning of the end for men. It must have been a completely different world for men prior to that; a world I’ll never know. I do wonder sometimes how much collective shit men can take. A lot, but there must be a tipping point? MGTOW monk has become my response, though I’m not sure if pr0n combined with one’s right hand counts as monk.
Dr. Wolfinger is not married.
From:
http://www.nicholaswolfinger.com/
Nick splits his time between Northern California and Salt Lake City, Utah. He lives happily alone in both places. Follow him on Twitter at @NickWolfinger.
If you read upthread, he admits that he was married at least once, and has been divorced. This leads his readers to one, or both, of two conclusions:
1. He married a woman who did not take her commitments seriously. After she ran him through the divorce courts, he decided to make a career out of lying to other men, like his younger self.
2. He is a man who did not take his commitments seriously, and frivolously divorced his wife.
Either way, his moral character and judgment are rendered up as extremely suspicious. With his history, he doesn’t present as a man who should be giving other men advice on how to live their lives.
Boxer
@Tarl do you know who her boyfriend is yet? If so, expose him to his wife/gf.
Sort of related. Enjoy:
http://www.gocomics.com/lastkiss/2017/02/22
Detour for this morning.
https://americandadweb.wordpress.com/2017/02/22/its-a-nice-to-place-to-visit/
Looks like Wolfinger isn’t interested in a debate. Show up, demand our ID, tell us that what we see ain’t so, brief anklebite on a different thread. Gutless tenured cockroach. I endure more opposition during a bowel movement.
“A case can thus be made that the brain-gina interface possessed by women is obsolete.”
Yeah. It never ceases to amaze me that no matter how low a man goes into drugs, crime, alcoholism, laziness or whatever form of degeneracy, he will never be without female companionship.
Meanwhile, the Christian accountant who jogs and eats well…good luck buddy. Everyone knows that story and it’s not any kind of fresh new take but it’s so egregious these days that it’s no longer ‘hindbrain’ stuff. It’s something far more degenerated. It’s a suicidal mechanism in societal terms. All the PUA’s, for all their lingo, are basically instructing young men to mimic degeneracy for the most part. Imagine a smart, switched on 11 year old boy. He would fear being seen as a ‘good kid’ with the same intensity that kids used to fear being seen as physically weak or cowardly. He would already know that he’s slipping into loser category if he wins that spelling bee. Can you imagine how much of a social kiss of death it is to become an Eagle Scout these days? No boobs for the Eagle Scout. And that kind of thing means an awful lot to teenagers. The hormones are maddening. No wonder boys are struggling in school; they’re all trying to pull of the ‘bad boy/moody loser’ thing like guys used to try to actually win.
re: the Happy Marriage statistics…
http://www.gocomics.com/lastkiss/2009/02/20
Leiff,
That sounds like the joke I heard a while back.
A bunch of married couples were lined up in heaven. Saint Peter said for all the husbands who ruled their homes to step over to the right. Only one man did so. He was asked what he did and he said he only moved because his wife told him to move.
Typical of many in the church today, unfortunately. They may joke about it, but I have yet to hear a preacher really cover the implications of this attitude.
Sadder still is that this culture wide and decades long hen-pecked life has no payoff at all. There’s no reason for it 97 times out of a 100, given the slovenliness of the women and the sexlessness of most marriages. Spending Sunday afternoon honeydoing for a Sofia Vergara lookalike as she wobbles around in her heels shopping for curtains, well, okay. Not ideal, still hen-pecked, but at least there is a payoff. Running around and giving over your already minimal free-time checking off a list of honeydo’s for a growling fat girl. C’mon. How low does a guy have to go? Then again, he’s not doing it for the fattie as much as he’s doing it to stave off the gov’t violence-backed repercussions of divorce
Does Dalrock have a seminal post on the modern church being poison? I was told he did.
So are women evolving to become literally allergic to betas?
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2017/02/15/wife-who-is-allergic-to-husband-faints-in-new-home-built-for-her.html
“allergic to everything, including her husband” = “I am not sexually attracted to you”
That allergy thing is no joke. My wife was allergic to me for a period of time when we were still newlyweds, and we went to numerous doctors before we figured it out. It wasn’t nearly as severe as the case of the woman in the article, and it’s not an issue any more, but being physically allergic to another person does happen… and it sucks.
Yeah, that article sounds like the real thing. It’s hard to fake anaphylactic shock and a poor trick to score a divorce.
Dr. Afrin? Seriously? *Checks* Okay, he’s real too. I use the Afrin nasal spray for SCUBA and wondered about a allergy specialist with that name, but he’s a hematologist. If her problems are showing up under a microscope then they’re real.
SnapperTrx says:
February 20, 2017 at 12:59 pm
” I’m starting to think that all her pursuing all of this psychology junk might have sparked the issue. Once you start to see everything as “abuse” then it’s easy to say your being abused.”
My ex is miserable at work…she returned to the workforce after frivorcing me 4 years ago. I expressed sympathy and told her that I never told her even a fraction of the stress I’d endured at work while we were married, that I viewed that as part of providing a nice life for her. Minor vindication but every bit helps.
Also, trxsnapper, your comment about the lifelong minefield is poetry. I walked some beautiful countryside with the ex before stepping on a landmine. Some of my friends are still walking beautiful landscapes, and they think, as I did, that luck = skill.
That Strayed quote is among the most evil things I’ve read in the past decade… and I read the NYT and even WaPo and Huffington Post (at times).
I’ve read it a few times now. It’s remarkable. Substatively ridiculous but coupled with the somber tone of received wisdom. Thoroughly malicious.
OT, but we’re well over 100 comments for this thread, so maybe it’s OK for me to post it here. I just reactivated my facebook account for about 20 minutes, because I wanted to see if there were any new pictures of my niece up, but instead, I got to see my brother’s newest anti-Trump post and a family friend (a woman)’s post to “fathers of sons” in which she gladly shared this story http://en.newsner.com/no-one-understands-why-dad-sends-ex-wife-roses-then-he-reveals-the-incredible-truth/about/family like it was such a great thing and like this guy is such a great role model for men. This long-time friend routinely shares those kinds of articles and blog entries.
Anyway, I started to respond to both my brother and my friend’s posts, but keeping my replies up there would require leaving my facebook account open, and I’m not inclined to do that, because I hate facebook. Nevertheless, I do hate seeing people I care about being so misled. Do and of you guys find any value in trying to set family and friends straight through online communication? It usually seems like a lost cause to me, but we’re also not likely to ever discuss these kinds of things in person.
There are two things breathtakingly silly about the ‘why are you anonymous’ squeak :
1) When someone thinks they are controversial, but in reality are so embedded into the establishment that they don’t realize it, such absurdity leaks out of their mouths.
2) Plenty of red-pill people use their real names, and some of them are women too. Mike Cernovich, Daryush Valizadeh, Bill Price, Carey Roberts, Mark Rudov, Paul Elam, Helen Smith, Karen Straughan, Andrea Hardie, etc. So that issue is not valid and just a cowardly copout from this confused mangina Wolfinger..
@Dalrock,
Your blog, and the “unauthorized” conversation it hosts, got noticed, and interesting discussion that follow.
h/t
@anon
It matters not which blog you read or where you comment, the convention is that comments are posted with a pseudonym*. This is as true of The Daily Mail or Daily Telegraph or the now defunct BBC websites (as mainstream as one can get) as it is of blogs not yet inside the Overton window. The exception to the rule is where the commenter is otherwise known to the public. To comment using ones at birth assigned name reads like prentension, as if one should take more notice of the comment not by reason of its content but by reason of who is writing. As I indicated above Wolfinger’s failure to grasp this and to attempt to shame those who comment here (entirely irrelevant to his comment) is yet another fail for tenured academia. If there were such a face-palm emoticon I would be adding it now.
* It is also a convention that one does not post using multiple pseudonyms – although one might at some point change ones pseudonym. It might also be added the pseudonyms are often more easily memorable than ones common name. How often would confusion arise where as so often happens so many have the same Christian name – is that not one of the reasons people acquire nicknames. One might have thought a sociologist like Wolfinger would have understood this instinctively but…
Just to continue: the problem with first names is presumably one of the reasons that at school – at least the one I attended, your experience may differ – one only ever used surnames, the use of Christian names can be very gay and you certainly do not want that in an all male school. The only duplicate surnames being of brothers who were thus further distinguished by the attribution of Major and Minor. Pseudonyms are somewhere between a nickname and a surname.
There are of course problems of doxing and having once experienced that have no intention of aiming for a repeat and all I had done was relay my miserable experience of the National Health Service but on a non-Overton window website. No thanks.
Opus Major
Opus,
Good point about the tenured Mr. Wolfinger pontificating from the geographical center of the Overton Window under his real name, then pretending that there’s something untoward about the fact that we “little people” – who tell the hard truths that guys like him either can’t see or won’t see – just use usernames among ourselves.
In the military, the only time I wore body armor was when I was going somewhere where someone might shoot at me. But a guy like Wolfinger, who is in exactly zero danger of drawing fire from anyone who might do him real harm due to his words, is not likely to understand that engaging in ideological battle against the current zeitgeist is not a parlor game. He’s not calling out the kind of people who would actively seek to destroy him. As Brother Boxer noted and he admitted, he makes kissy-kissy with both Jessica Valenti and Brad Wilcox, so he’s occupying the safest of safe spaces. It takes some nerve to sit in an office in the Pentagon and accuse the guys in Helmand Province of being cowards because they’re wearing Kevlar and you’re not.
Nope… he just came here to stir things up and probably (in his mind) “set us straight.” It might also have been a bit of virtue signaling to his lemmings for him to be seen “battling the trolls,” but when he got his ass handed to him (because he doesn’t control the forum here) he ran like a scared rabbit.
@Lyn87
LMAO
Definitely virtue signaling – have you seen his Twitter! What I say is ‘we don’t want the puppet, give us the puppet-master’ that is to say Wilcox. His dismissal of Dalrock’s essay (and more specifically those who comment here as Trolls) only suggests to me that he knows that his arse will be handed to him on a plate, an experience he is neither used to nor understandably keen to experience. If that video is anything to go by the only opposition he ever has (which is to say none) are the bored nineteen year old undergraduates who yawn through his seminar – as you can see from the video at about the thirty-three minute mark.
Boxer-
I do not have a twitter page. If you want to share this wherever, feel free.
https://americandadweb.wordpress.com/2017/02/23/what-they-dont-see/
Twitter “account” got to get with it.
From his Twitter feed, Wolfinger is a hardcore liberal/radical. Favors continuing Obamacare, favors a $15 federal minimum wage, promotes an Arizona gubernatorial candidate who supports polyamory and notes that AZ has the first openly bisexual congressman. Yay.
@thedeti:
Nice markers of insanity, those policy positions.
“he makes kissy-kissy with both Jessica Valenti and Brad Wilcox,”
I wonder if we’ll start to see more of that; a natural bond between virulent feminism and trad-cuckery. I know the similarities are already well-known, but I wonder if the two sides will start to recognize themselves what has been a kind of unknown bond (at least for them). They will become chummy and not by coincidence. In this case, Wolfinger is the link but there might not need to be a mediator soon. Just a shared disdain for white boys. Feminists just hate white males and trad-cons hate white males who step off the plantation but soon it will just meld. Pretty soon (if not now) feminists will need a scapegoat for their misery once it is confirmed that pussyhat rage/spinsterhood doesn’t work. Trad-cucks hate their miserable lives with an aging bitch but don’t have the nads to ever leave. In both cases, venting on red pill/often single white males will really work for them both.
What an apostasy National Review has become. I used to read William F. Buckley regularly and still agree with much of his earlier writings, but he lost control over at NR when the boat lift came over from the Democrat party in the mid to late seventies, read : “Neo-con insurgency”. These were just Democrat re-treads that were free-lovers in the sixties. Pat Buchanan called it right on NR years ago.
This post is a mess. This post is good rhetoric but in some ways also messy nonsense.
When I promote one thing you cannot necessarily infer additional information about my other thoughts or motives.
Wilcox promotes marriage. This does not infer that Wilcox is calous about divorce. You are imputing motives and beliefs for Wilcox that are simply not supported by his words and actions. It’s a good way to frame someone and poisen well but it’s not good for communication. The diversion into frivolous divorce to taint by association is also gibberish.
Wilcox is not you. He thinks marriage is worth promoting and does not think he is selling men out. The majority of men will not be divorced and if you review data on marriage some mens prospective risk of divorce is tiny. Wilcox sees it as nothing ventured nothing gained after he has assessed the risks of divorce and his knowledge that it will not occur for the majority of men. He thinks different thoughts. He does not approach the problem the same as you then decide to be deceptive.
“Wilcox pretends”. What evidence do you have he is pretending because he describes marriage benefits differently. This is “Bush lied” level nonsense.
If you are married and have children you will be respected by other men, other women, and the people in your community. If you want respect from Hollywood and the culture at large you are barking up the wrong tree being Christian anyway. They respect nothing good and getting their respect is crazy.
I think getting married these days is risky and would be hesitant to do it if your calculated probability is high or you just cannot justify the risk. But this post is just a mess of accusations to make your point.
Full disclosure: the personal degree of separation between me and Wilcox is 2, a close friend of mine is a close friend of his.
Kevin,
Thanks for stopping by. You are wrong on many fronts.
1) Wilcox goes to great lengths to say that if divorce happens, it is the man’s fault, and the way to avoid divorce is to appease the wife more (this is the worst possible advice).
2) Wilcox cannot claim to be an advocate of marriage, when he refuses to see (or sees and decides to pretend he didn’t see) what the real reasons are for men avoiding marriage. He is selling snake oil by concealing/misrepresenting the risk.
3) You claim he ‘describes marriage differently’. When one objectively misrepresents the risks and conceals important details from his target audience, he is engaging in deception.
4) Wilcox’s own life story, extreme lack of knowledge of female attraction (his wife’s sister coached him because he had difficulty escalating), other details discussed paint him as a snake oil salesman.
Even The Economist, a left-wing publication, pointed out Wilcox’s hypocrisy in that Wilcox would never tell a woman to marry if she did not want to, but is telling men to do exactly that. That is the least courageous position possible among those who wish to ‘save marriage’.
Wilcox “describes marriage differently” the way a recruiter for the Army would “describe military service differently” by selling you on the chance to wear spiffy uniforms, travel the world, and work with cool equipment, and conveniently omitting all that nasty stuff about possibly getting shot, blown up, or losing limbs.
After all, not that many people who serve in the military actually die, right? So it’s totally reasonable to completely ignore the risks and berate those who don’t serve as though they’re cowards imagining risk where it doesn’t really exist.
This is the kind of fuckery that just pisses everyone off. He is callous over divorce. How can you promote marriage whilst not painstakingly outlining the pitfalls of the arrangement? This is probably one of the most important decisions a man can make in his entire life. That makes him callous for not taking divorce as seriously as he takes his promotion of marriage. He knows how bad divorce can be for men, leading to huge suicide rates for divorced men, but continues to promote marriage it without a care in the world.
You, nor he, have ever explained how men working more, making more money, spending less time with friends and generally having to kowtow to a woman make a man’s life better, enough with the bull. Those are not benefits to a man because the extra money he makes goes to the family and society, the extra time he works is lost time he could have been spending doing something he loves. He works more because he must now fund the lifestyle his family has become accustomed to.
It’s not gibberish… it’s common sense. When someone promotes an activity, the obvious, I mean grade school shit here, is to also lay out the pitfalls and explain them, not to merely whisper them and continue as if they don’t exist.
Sure, the majority won’t but the majority of those that survive will be living under the sword of Damocles, getting threatened with divorce, ala Geraghty style. Sounds fun, not! Furthermore, it is 42% of first marriages, all of those end up in divorce. 58% don’t.. Those are not good odds. Even worse when you consider second and third marriage. A man doesn’t come back well after a divorce. Just keep covering for him though, he won’t deal with that shit sandwich.
The risk is not tiny. It’s a 42% risk. Stop lying.
Explain how working longer, harder and taking more risks is a benefit to the man when society and their family get the benefit, please. Those are responsibilities, not benefits. He’s pretending they are when they are provably not.
Who cares about Hollywood? This shaming and lack of respect for fathers, is from the Christian culture all around you. From shitting on men on Father’s day, to scolding men for not protecting the Christian women has they go on nights out with douche bags. It’s removing the responsibilities of the actions of woman and putting them on innocent men, done by the Church, not Hollywood.
If Brad Wilcox was only promoting marriage and letting men decide for themselves, there would not be a word, one single word, in his screed shaming them for not doing so for the benefits would be obvious to see. If he truly thought marriage were a benefit to a man, he would let the natural benefits flow and men would decide to marry on their own accord. He would not shame them when they have decided not to marry due to fears of divorce, he would acknowledge that and leave them be. He cannot, for his salary is tied to him making money off people buying into his shit. He’s promoting marriage because society needs men to get married, to make more money, work longer hours and spend less time with friends and less time having fun, in order for society to run efficiently. That’s what this is all about. Money.
Someone has to pay the bills. No one is buying this shit anymore, just be fucking honest.
I would also argue that the source article’s handle on the data is ridiculous. Sure, it could be that being in various favorable demographic groups reduces your odds of divorce. Or it could be that the kind of people who would be in those groups are less likely to get divorced. There’s no reason to assume that being in those groups causes lower divorce rates. In that (much likelier scenario) entering one of those groups is unlikely to decrease your odds of divorce; they’re probably set in large part by your previous circumstances.
Similarly, the people who are single are less happy than the married guys, and less likely to be depressed and various other bad things — sure, but they certainly haven’t demonstrated that marriage caused that. The guys who have their lives together are more likely to be in a position to get married if they want to. The single group is going to include tons of people who just aren’t able to get married but want to, in which case they will probably be unhappy. Being married is not an option for them (at least without major changes). Those categories are far from apples-to-apples.
On top of that he totally omits the happiness stats for divorced men, because he wants to put a pleasant face on the fact that a) it’s more likely than not that you’ll be unhappy as a married man, and b) it’s nearly certain you’ll be unhappy if you get divorced, which is also close to 50% odds. If you add around 45% of marriages that failed, thus making men unhappy, plus 57% of those that are unhappy but haven’t ended in divorce (yet), you have ~75% of men who marry who end up unhappy with their lives, compared with 80% of single guys, a significant portion of which will be losers. If you’re a successful and non-mentally-ill man your odds would almost certainly be better single based even on the stats given in the article.
I don’t think the self-reported happiness stat is the end-all be-all but they’re being pretty dishonest about how they present the data. I think most people would agree that it’s better to be single and at least have the option of finding a fulfilling relationship than to be stuck in an unhappy marriage or be divorced by your wife and have your kids, stuff and income taken away by the state.
Another infuriating element of Wilcox and Wolfinger’s dishonest article is the way it basically states that if a man just works hard and loves his wife the right way and “lean[s] into relationships with family” then everything will almost certainly be alright. This is something that’s so trite and dishonest that I’m pretty sure it’s where Dalrock gets some of his insulting tone for articles like this, because:
1. It’s not true. It wouldn’t matter if you were the greatest father and husband in the world, your wife could divorce you and take half your stuff and take your kids tomorrow and there’s nothing you could do about it. It’s happened over and over and over. The entire system is designed to facilitate it. Would you sign up for any other contract or arrangement where you might moderately benefit (assuming most of the categories Wilcox and Wolfinger describe are actually benefits and not gifts or responsibilities of the man, which they mostly aren’t) but there’s a 42% chance you’d lose half of everything you’ve ever worked for, and your children? Would you sign up for that? Would you encourage someone else to do so and minimize the risk?
2. What if it doesn’t? Will Wilcox or Wolfinger be on your side? The hell they will. They’ll be denouncing you along with whatever slanderous accusation your wife makes about “not growing up” and “not taking responsibility” and “not being emotionally available” and being “emotionally abusive” because you didn’t do everything she said. Since they’ve already said that you can reduce your risks by doing various things, well, you must not have done those things hard enough. Try harder next time! They won’t have anything to say to the treacherous women who broke their sacred vows and betrayed the men who loved and supported them.
3. The idea that if a woman betrays you it’s automatically your fault is absurd, especially for a Christian. Adam and Eve betrayed God’s trust. So either his leadership wasn’t good enough and it’s his fault, or this argument is BS.
4. If these two jokers wanted more marriage then they would care about the incredible number of treacherous, perjuring women, and would focus on improving incentives to reduce the likelihood that they would benefit from betraying their husbands, as well as social shaming to ensure that they’re looked down on as the scum they are until they repent. This is clearly the actual problem, even from reading between the lines in their article. But they don’t care about this. Their focus is on convincing more men to play Russian roulette, not on trying to unload the chambers.
Wilcox promotes marriage. ….on feminist terms.
What sort of ‘advocacy’ is that?
“Even the Devil can quote Scripture for his purpose.”
@Melmoth
I wonder if we’ll start to see more of that; a natural bond between virulent feminism and trad-cuckery. I know the similarities are already well-known, but I wonder if the two sides will start to recognize themselves what has been a kind of unknown bond (at least for them). They will become chummy and not by coincidence.
You’re probably right about this, and it’s not just not just with feminist issues. For a real-life demonstration, you can just look at the modern-day version of the SBC. It used to be that the big issues they hammered hardest directly tied into their scriptures and traditions; They emphasized fidelity to an inerrant Bible, the importance of holy living, and missions work to take the gospel to unreached sections of the world. But visit their web sites or talk to their leaders today and you’re most likely to hear about . . . . racial reconciliation. Or refugee resettlement. Or equality of women in the church. At some point, you start to realize that just about all of the “moral goods” that they’re willing to publicly advocate for are the ones that will earn them a few hosannas when they’re outside of the church. My only explanation for why is to suggest that the executives running the Christian religion got tired of taking a public beating for calling out sins that the outside cultures were quite fond of. Eventually, they seem to have decided that the best way forward was to find “common ground” with those who opposed them, and devote the lion’s share of their time and attention to those matters. So feminists don’t like domestic violence? Hey, we don’t like domestic violence either! Government doesn’t like men who won’t get a job and fill the tax coffers, or marry and produce new taxpayers? Hey, we’re against sloth, so we can join with you on that! Never Trump! Look at how much we have in common! LOVE US!!!
While I’m not big on the use of Martin Luther as a Christian ideal, he did have one line that was remarkably prescient as well as pretty damning when you consider the modern church:
Eidolon-
Well written stuff. Its good to “see” you. I haven’t run into you on the boards lately. You were one of my favorite commenters when I had the courtship pledge up. Take care.
Thanks Scott. I was disappointed when your old site went down.
It wasn’t because of anything I said, was it? I think I had about the last comment, I was hoping it didn’t have anything to do with me.
No, contrary to some of the rumors, The Courtship Site went down because the host company basically had a server crash, No back up, nothing. I was really bummed.
The other two–Western Philosophy and Eastern Faith, and Morally Contextualized Romance had simply run their course. I had nothing else to say on those topics. I have saved every post from those, for my kids mostly. When I am dead and gone, I want them to understand why I participated in this culture the way I did, and what my rationale for raising them this way was. They can critique it if they want, but at least they will understand what happened. Others have written me and asked for copies of certain posts.
I would agree with Wilcox on the value of marriage and the risk of divorce if most women these days were like June Cleaver . . . but they are not! That point is the size of a Mack truck and one I am sure he notices, but still refuses to address it. He should have qualified the whole damn article by saying, if you don’t marry a re-tread whore and find a God fearing woman with June Cleaver like qualities, then marriage is a good investment and low risk. He didn’t however, because most of what passes as nubile women these days (in and out of church) are a bunch of re-tread whores!!!
@Darwinian Armenian,
It could easily be a situation of “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Plus, both sides benefit. Even the feminists might realize that sooner or later they have to be more than just purely incoherent pussyhat rage against males in general. A partnership with trad-con males give them an alibi of sorts in culture war mud-slinging. When feminism is accused of being anti-male they can trot out their new beta-cuck friends and be like “Whaddya mean? Wilcox agrees with us.” The trad-cons will simply thrive on any and all contact with females given their dead-bed beta lives. You think they’ll turn down a ‘free the nipple’ rally with their new comrades? Self-interested white males who sussed out the lack of incentives of blue pill America will be their common piñata.
@Melmoth, Darwinian Arminian: Traditional Conservatives have served feminism for years.
Trad Cons are very often big White Knights, so they are always quick to give women the benefit of the doubt, no matter what. Look at any church with one or more babymommas attending in good standing, you can be sure some TradCon church leader just beams at them every Sunday.
Plenty of TradCons helped pass VAWA back in the 90’s, because who could possibly get in the way of “stop violence against women”? Now in fairness, a few self-styeld Traditional Conservatives did get up and testify against VAWA the last time it came up for renewal, so perhaps some of them have been burned often enough they’ve figured something out.
In general, though, TradCons have been willing to be sock puppets for feminism for 40 years.
Nothing new if the younger ones, the 40-year-olds, buy into the same foolishness.
I’m sure Geraghty and others at NRO consider themselves to be both conservative and traditional; that whole “Ward Cleaver Stud” gag reeks of TradConism.
“Man UP and marry that slut!” is one of the TradCon mottos, it fits in well with feminist slutwalks.
Dear Kevin:
It’s late, and you’ve been run through the Feminist Hater / Anon gauntlet (they’re better at this than I am on the average day.
It’s not, actually. It’s simultaneously spare, funny, and well-sourced. The author of this blog reminds me, in a number of ways, of some of the better 20th century polemicists: Bertrand Russell, Christopher Hitchens… those guys. I don’t know if he’s a professional writer, but he’s very good.
These aren’t conjectures and the author isn’t projecting. He’s sourced everything and consistently paraphrases in context. Sure, he’s sarcastic, but he’s not dishonest.
You seem like a nice guy. I’d strongly encourage you to backtrack through the linked material, and read the primary sources. They aren’t misquoted (though they are certainly hard to believe, in many cases).
Regards,
Boxer
This reminds me of an ad for the Navy in the 1980s and a SNL spoof of that ad. I don’t recall all the specifics (except that letting SNL record the spoof cost the captain his job), but the ad emphasized the fun parts about seeing the world. The SNL spoof focused on the drudgery that is far more a part of the process. Thus the spoof was far more accurate in reality.
That is much like the discussions in this area. Many blue pill people present the normal ad, only highlighting good parts, some of which are not even really accurate. Red pill people emphasize the realities. Unfortunately, it is not a laughing matter, but I am sure signing up for the Navy ad view was not a laughing matter either, once reality hit.
That is not true in many cases. A strong man is often looked down upon, even by other men, because he is too controlling in their mind. No one factors in how hard the children (or even the wife) were to lead.
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So here’s what Wilcox and Wolfinger are really saying in response to men’s concerns:
1) 42% of marriages end in divorce, majority of them filed by women: So what, man up and get married
2) Women these days are more promiscuous than ever and that makes them unsuitable for marriage: So what, man up and marry that slut
3) Women are fatter now than they’ve been: so what, man up and marry that fatty
4) Too many women are single moms: so what, man up and marry that single mom (Geraghty
did and it turned out alright)
Wilcox, Wolfinger, and the rest of their ilk just want men to get married for the sake of being married and they really don’t care if the marriage lasts for life or if the men are happy in the marriage. If his wife leaves him and files for divorce, their attitude is oh well these things happen.
Off-topic, but not by much: Christina El Moussa of “Flip or Flop” fame on HGTV– no husband, no show, no boyfriend (they just broke up) and unhappy kids who’ll hate her for trying to trade Daddy up for somethin’ better because he got sick. (Gee, ain’t hypergamy great, girls?)
“‘Flip or Flop’ star Christina El Moussa Splits from Contractor Gary Anderson,” by Peter Sblendorio, NY Daily News, 22 Feb 2017
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/christina-el-moussa-splits-contractor-gary-anderson-article-1.2979102
My first response to any post about ‘ohnoes PORN! EVERYWHERE!’ is to ask why they don’t look into frivolous divorce and it’s consequences. And every single time there’s the responses of, “…you’re just defending your porn addiction.” Almost like frivolous divorce has been, how was it put? Swept under the rug? They can’t even address the taboo topic of women screwing things up, when the whole point of porn virtue signaling is to provide the red herring that distracts anyone from noticing women’s contribution to the dung heap.
And when you see it for what it is, it’s hard not to simply troll every attempted virtue signaling regarding porn. The world would be just fine without porn, but the world doesn’t need another moment of virtue signaling, it hasn’t simply gone out of fashion, it’s not even charmingly kitsch anymore.
My first response to any post about ‘ohnoes PORN! EVERYWHERE!’ is to ask why they don’t look into frivolous divorce and it’s consequences.
Especially when women’s infotainments are stuffed full of Eat Betray Lust aka Divorce Porn.
It is unfortunate that it is very hard to discuss porn. If you agree with the jihad against it you must be hip deep in it, right?
It is much more nuanced than that, but talking about it opens you to charges, or worse. This keeps people, especially Christians, from understanding all the issues involved.
That should say “if you disagree with the jihad against it.”
In short, celebration of more of the same:
@BillyS:
SJWs are the descendants of the Moralists among the Christians, just less virtue signaling “for God”. So one needs to be prepared for the same tactics, just with a Christian glaze.
@SnapperTRX,
“My aunt posted this link to her Facebook feed over the weekend:
http://foreverymom.com/marriage/enough-enough-church-stop-enabling-abusive-men-gary-thomas/”
I noticed that article was by Gary Thomas. Gary has written a bunch of books on Christian Marriage. I was perusing his books at Amazon and I came upon one where he encourages wives to mold and shape the soul of their husband.
Surely, he must have one for husbands where he encourages them to mold and shape the soul of their wives. After all, Christian husbands are supposed to lead their families, wash their wife with the Word, and answer their wife’s spiritual questions at home. I did not find a corresponding book for men. I also looked at his website and found nothing. I even searched his website, crickets. Now maybe he wrote a book like that and it is out of print.
Maybe Rollo is correct about churchians embracing the Female Imperitive……
http://www.garythomas.com/?s=shape+the+souls+of+their+wives
I’ve been trying to explain ideas related to this blog to a couple men who are counselors at my church. On one hand, they will agree that men have gotten softer than anytime in history, but then they talk like there are strong, abusive men lurking around every corner. I want them to show me one of these men that they find abusive, let alone, slightly errors on the side of being too stern rather than too soft. Do passive cowards feel better about themselves when they tell their small groups that they need to stop being so harsh to their wives?
Wood Chipper,
The problem is that a few bad apple men do exist, so they are used to trash the men just trying to carry out their Biblical roles. Many also fail to realize that the women who were victims to such men ignored the warning signs about those men as well.
The above is yours truly giving my toastmasters speech on the destruction of marriage.
Just harmlessly handing out red pills at the office.
IBB:
I’m blogging this. I hope that’s OK. Excellent bro.
Boxer
go for it. Folks, leave comments at youtube.
Yes. Good job IBB!
Thank you Bee!
Everyone of my friends and family that watched it are all giving me constructive feedback in email. One of them posted at youtube. They don’t all agree with the point (have different opinions) but they loved the delivery.
All this reminds me, whatever happened to Steven Baskerville?
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“I should start by noting that I am a happily married father and a firm believer in marriage. Marriage is not only the foundation of the family, it is given to us from God.”
What a strange statement for Dalrock to make.
As we all know, in part because this blog had demonstrated it over and over again, marriage, as conceived, practiced and enforced in modern day America and much of the rest of the western world, is not the foundation of healthy families, nor is it in very much like what the Bible calls marriage. Thus, if Dalrock is happily married, it is only because he has been lucky enough not to have been put through the divorce wringer by his wife. And no one who has read this blog for very long would believe that he is not a “firm believer” in what passes for marriage these days.
Ironically, with this statement, Dalrock is guilty of the very thing he is criticizing the NR for doing — romanticizing marriage to make it attractive to men.
Oh well, even the best of us (and Dalrock is one of the best) slip up every now and then.
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