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Oct. 3, 2006 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
45:53
445 Anti-Masculinity Part 2
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Good afternoon, everybody.
It's Steph. I hope you're doing most excellently.
It is time for part two of anti-masculinity.
Excuse me for wrestling a little bit.
I'm working with a new...
Kind of approach to audio that I am going to try and use my halfway decent microphone jammed into my chest here, which I'm sure will provide an absolutely fantastic listening experience.
So let's see how that sounds at the end of all of this.
So, thank you so much for tuning in and listening again to Podcast 350 Billion.
I appreciate it.
I thank you so much.
I had sort of fallen into despair with regards to...
a minor kind of despair with regards to donations, and...
I was going to actually do a whole podcast.
You have saved yourself a whole podcast on the following topic with regards to donations.
And I hope that the philosophy that I have around donations is not necessarily entirely, you know, just me being greedy or whatever, but rather that I am...
I'm interested in donations, obviously, because I like money and I want to make some money back for the time and energy and effort that I put into the podcast.
But even more importantly for me, what donations mean is that people are willing to really take these ideas seriously.
Now, that's obviously very, very important to me, that these ideas mean something to people.
Because, you know, otherwise it's just me chatting away and you listening away and it doesn't add up to a hill of beans in a mountain slide.
So I hope that you recognize...
I was sort of thinking about this and I wasn't sure about whether to talk about it or not, but I'll just mention it very briefly.
For those of you who've been following either on the boards or on the...
The call-in shows on Sundays, one of the gentlemen who's involved with Freedom Aid Radio has gone through a process of excavating his soul from underneath the rubble and landslide of a particularly bad familial situation.
For which I think it's wonderful.
I never like to say things like, I'm proud of you, because that makes it sound hierarchical, which is not at all really what I'm about, but I'm certainly excited and thrilled to see it.
This gentleman has been quite a generous donator.
And one of the things that I would say is that the degree of freedom that he's experiencing has something to do with his hierarchy of values, how importantly he takes ideas, and it also has something to do with how much he's donated.
Whether it's to me or, you know, I sort of like to say to other podcasters with the same kind of approach, but frankly, I don't think there are any other podcasters or people out there anywhere in the media who have the same kind of approach.
Maybe there are. I haven't heard of any.
But if, as I've said before, as far as donations go, if Free Domain Radio isn't worth, or this sort of conversation isn't worth You know, 50 bucks or 100 bucks or 200 bucks for, you know, a couple of hundred podcasts and my participation on the board and my videos and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. If it's not worth that much to you, if it's not worth, you know, I don't know, a third the price of an iPod or half the price of an iPod, then your unconscious is very much going to pick up on that.
So, sort of what it is that you choose to, how it is that you choose to spend your resources is very much going to be picked up by your unconscious.
And that, of course, is going to mean that ideas aren't really going to add up too much in your life, sort of in the real world, because your hierarchy of values is pretty clear.
If you're not willing to kick in a couple of bucks, To keep something like this running, then, you know, I think the degree of freedom that you're going to achieve in your life is going to have something to do with how you organize your hierarchy of values.
And, of course, if you're broke or a student, like I had a 16-year-old gentleman write to me today saying, there's not much I can offer you in the realm of money, which is fine because he has young, healthy kidneys, which I can get a fair amount for in the black market.
So, of course, I sent him the A free-domain radio excavation spoon and instructions, garage send to Steph.
So, I mean, it doesn't have to be money, obviously.
Some people have donated time in helping me get the board up and running.
Fantastic. I massively appreciate that.
Certainly saved me from figuring out how to set up community server.
A fine product, by the way, which is humming along nicely.
I will, in fact, have to upgrade our server soon because it only comes with 10 gigs of space and with the board, which is running close to a gig now.
And all of the, we're certainly 5 gigs of podcasts, I think, something like that.
So, with all of that going in, I guess it's only one lane here.
I'm going to have to actually upgrade.
GoDaddy only has 10 gigs of space available in its configurations for Windows servers.
So, That's going to be another joyful expense going on.
It'll be about another thousand bucks, I guess.
So, yeah, whatever you can do to help out.
I'm not dying of food starvation here, but it certainly does help me figure out where I stand in the hierarchy of values of my listeners, right?
I mean, is it... Is it just like a fun, intellectual, chit-chatty kind of conversation that doesn't really mean anything?
In which case, not that I don't mind being mildly diverting, it's just that that's not something that would cause me to put a whole load of effort in.
But if it is something that is of real importance to you, but not so much that it's worth like a cup of coffee a day or something, or every two days or three days, Then I sort of will then end up having to sort of say, well, it's in the category of mere entertainment, and that's not, you know, I'd rather write some more novels then, or, you know, something like that.
So I don't mean this to be a sort of major nag fest, and I did get two very nice donations today, for which I massively appreciate people's money and their thoughtfulness about it, so I won't continue to nag.
They've bought They've bought you some quiet.
Of course, not that it would matter if you didn't want to listen and didn't want to donate, or didn't want to listen to me asking for donations, then you just wouldn't.
You'd just turn it off, right?
That's the beauty of this particular medium.
So, let's move on to masculinity or the anti-masculinity paradigm, which sort of floated up as a topic based on this stuff that came out of the 2020 show that I saw the other day.
And... The issue that I sort of want to talk about now is this question of do you act more confidently than you feel and gain confidence through acting confident or do you wait to feel confident by working on yourself and your values?
What is the better or more rational way to approach the question of achieving or becoming confident?
Do you act it and then become it or do you Do you become it and then act it or then it's no longer acting?
That's all a very sort of important question when it comes to this kind of process or progress.
And I don't believe that it's sort of like the nature-nurture thing.
I don't think it's too, too valuable to come down solidly on either side because it seems to me most things to do with personal growth, at least in my experience, have been a lot more like an ecosystem and a lot less like a binary flip.
And so, to me, it's like one step forward than the other step, right?
You have to, at some point, confront your fears, and that is going to make you more afraid, not less afraid, but you still have to plow on, right?
So, when you're confronting your fears about, you know, being honest or open with your family or your employer or your boss, oh, that reminds me.
Somebody has posted on the board that they would like me to do some more podcasts on work, which I'm certainly happy to do, but I might need some slightly more specific examples of what it is that would be worth talking about.
I'm sure you all don't want to hear about my day in that way, so...
If you can sort of give me, either on the board or in an email, some greater ideas of what it is that you mean in that way, I would certainly appreciate that.
It would be very helpful so that I can make sure that I tailor the show to what it is that people are going to find most valuable.
So, please, if you wouldn't mind, I'd appreciate that.
So, when you begin to confront your own fears, you feel a lot more fearful, not less, right?
I mean, you feel worse before you feel better.
And then what happens is you end up in this situation where, just to get through the day, you have to surmount more fears than you did before when you were sort of...
Narcoleptically weaned off your own emotions through dissociation or bravado or whatever.
So when you do start to have this feeling that your fears are rising to the surface and so on, then you have to act more brave than you really feel when you're in sort of social or work situations.
So to me that's sort of part and parcel of it.
At the same time, at some point, you also do have to grab some assertiveness from the planet.
Even before you feel it, that can be very helpful.
And from there, you can do an enormous amount to...
To move forward with the appearance of strength or of confidence, which then gives you some more...
It works, and so you try it out, and it works, and you get more confident, which gives you a chance to try it out even further, and so on.
You get the general idea, I'm sure.
So... As far as this kind of stuff goes with women, right?
Women have, by and large, and not, of course, completely, but by and large, have been largely raised to not respect masculinity as a whole.
And as I've mentioned before, you can see this all over the media, all over the Actually, there was one example that Friends With Money, the gay guy, the guy who's supposed to be gay or whatever, actually has quite a mature outlook on things, and there is one sort of good marriage in there.
But for the most part, men are sort of doofuses and silly and childish, and women kind of have to put up with them, right?
This is sort of the battle of the sexes that's been raging for Lord knows how long.
Women sort of have to put up with these doofus men and roll their eyes, and men never quite do things right, men don't listen, men don't keep things tidy, men don't keep things clean, and that's all bad, right, and none of the positive aspects of masculinity.
I would say, I don't know whether this is going to be a leap of faith for you or not.
That's not for me to sort of figure out.
I can't really do that remotely or empirically, but let's just say that it is.
It certainly was for me.
Let me put something forward, a sort of a hat for you to try on, as it were, and see if it sort of fits or makes sense or shields you from a kind of glare.
And this is to all the men who are out there who are in relationships, especially those who are fathers and husbands, but even in boyfriend-girlfriend relationships.
This is sort of something I would like you to try on as a possibility, as a way of approaching things that might be helpful.
It's a three-word sentence, a three-word revolution in what we call masculinity, or what we think of as masculinity.
And the three-word sentence runs something like this.
You, my brother, you are essential.
Three little words.
That I'm going to milk into a 45-minute podcast, as usual.
Three little words. You are essential.
You are one of the keystones in the arch of the relationship.
You are the gravity that makes family physics run.
You are the sun, the wind, the moon, the rain, the stars, the skies, the clouds.
You are essential to this relationship.
Now, we don't hear a whole lot of that as men, and you, I think, need to sort of think about that.
You can sort of sink into the bath of these three little words and sit there for quite a while until you get intellectually pruny?
Oh, Well, I guess a good metaphor isn't essential, but as far as being a man goes in a relationship with a woman, with children, and so on, you are essential.
Essential. The differences that you innately have between yourself and your wife are Essential.
Men and women are a yin and a yang.
They're two sides of the same coin, without which we have no dimension.
Both masculinity and femininity are essential in the healthy raising of children.
Your children cannot flourish without you.
Your children simply cannot flourish without you.
Your wife simply cannot flourish without you.
And when I say you, I don't mean the hounded, hangdog, sloping shoulders, shuffling along, staring at the sidewalk, married guy with a list in his hand, and a wife who's going to be displeased with whatever he comes home with from the grocery store because he forgot something or got the wrong brand on something.
I don't mean that guy. I mean, because that's barely a guy.
That's barely anything. When I say you, I mean you as a man who takes pleasure in his masculinity and is secure and joyful at being a guy.
I mean, it's so bizarre.
It's not as common as it should be to be joyful and happy and secure in your contributions and proud of your participation and feeling essential To this little thing we call love and family.
To be fully confident in your contributions as a man to your family and to your wife and to your children is really not as common as it should be and I would say that overall it's quite rare.
You know, men in a lot of ways, the way that we've been sort of raised and trained in this hyper-feminized welfare state world that we live in We've been sort of raised that, you know, we're needed for sperm and money.
Kinda. And women are sort of doomed to love us.
It would be great if they didn't, but they are doomed to love us, right?
I mean, they are in the same way that a dead spirit is doomed to haunt a house.
Women are sort of doomed to haunt our hearts despite all of our deficiencies and so on and so on and so on.
And we are sort of like an insecure employee.
We feel like a cog in a larger machine called a feminine world or a womanly world.
And for a lot of men, I don't know if you've been in this situation as an employee, you know, you have a boss who never says that you do anything good and is constantly indifferent to what you do and you're constantly worried about getting fired.
And of course, you know, you then end up not asking for raises or at least asking only tentatively and withdrawing quite quickly and you don't float your resume to get better offers and you just, you feel a little bit like you're put up with.
Like it's too much effort to fire you.
It's too legally complicated to fire you.
So, you get stuff done and they maybe could probably get a better employee, but you've been around for a while and you know the business and you know the customers or you know the servers or you know the programming code or whatever.
You've become sort of embedded.
And the value that you bring is not active and day-to-day and certainly not based on the future, but it's sort of based on An accumulation of history, you know, like the same way that a ship's hull will accumulate barnacles and seaweed.
You have accumulated value just by sticking around.
And anyone could have done it.
Anyone who'd stuck around that long would have accumulated that kind of value to an employer.
And so you don't feel secure in your role or in your value, the value that you bring to your employer.
And, you know, for a lot of people who are employees, that is kind of how they live, right?
They go to work, they're sort of not exactly fearful every day, but they certainly don't feel valued.
They don't feel essential to the business.
They don't feel, and so they don't take risks, and they don't try out new things, and they're not bringing their whole soul to the job, and so on.
And I think that men feel this terrifically in relationships, in love relationships with women and with children.
I don't think that men feel personally and individually gotta be me and only me essential to the equation of family.
But I'm telling you, statistically, psychologically, biologically, genetically, You, my brother, are essential to your family.
Now, the question is, of course, how do you actually make that real?
Well, you just keep listening to this podcast until you blow up like Popeye and take on any doubts that people have about you.
The question, of course, is how do you make that real?
Because you've been trained to think that you're sort of an inconsequential, kind of, she wishes you were more like a woman, but she kind of needs the income and the sperm to make babies for herself, and so you sort of put up with, and she'll roll her eyes and clean up your messes, and it's just historical value that you have accumulated by being in this relationship.
And... How do you change that?
She's been brought up to believe that that is what masculinity is really all about.
God help you, you've been brought up to believe that that is what masculinity is all about.
That it's sort of like another metaphor.
Maybe this makes sense to you as well.
You're kind of like an old dog.
Like a dog that's like Six months or a year from dying.
And the dog can't guard anything.
And the dog can't play.
And the dog can't fetch. The dog just kind of drags itself around and sleeps.
And, you know, occasionally craps on the rug.
And, yeah, you know, you're...
There's a sort of residual affection from a prior time when the dog was sort of active and involved in the family life and had affection and played with the kids and so on.
So there's this kind of residual affection that's going on with regards to this old dog.
And it's not that the dog adds value now, right?
It's not like if there wasn't a dog in the family and somebody said about this dog...
Hey, you want this really old dog that's kind of dragging itself around, crapping on the rug from time to time and sleeping like 20 hours a day?
And you'd say, not really.
Think I'd like an energetic puppy that pees on the rug but has a future.
And I think too many men kind of feel like this old dog that's kind of kept around for sentimental reasons but isn't really adding any current value to the situation.
And there's a number of reasons for that, which we can sort of get into perhaps another time, depending on traffic, maybe this podcast.
But most importantly, I think the question is, how do you go about communicating that you're essential?
You know, well, put a husband shrugged and go on strike.
No, I'm kidding. Don't do that. Well, you can do whatever you want.
I don't suggest doing that. But I think that it's true that we train people how to treat us in life.
And if you sort of have doubts or questions about this, the only thing I'd suggest is the next time that you meet someone new, you know, at work or at a party or whatever, look at them with your whole being, right?
Look at, do their eyes meet you?
Do they appear confident? Are they standing upright?
You know, all of this sort of markers.
And they can be faked, but not perfectly.
Is the person that you're meeting communicating their level of self-respect to you through a variety of mechanisms?
And I would say that yes, in general.
People are... Giving to you a very strong indication of their level of self-respect.
And this is within like a half a second of meeting them.
You get a very strong sense of this.
And you can't control other people's perceptions, right?
And going to ask for respect is one of the most humiliating and ridiculous things.
Having done it myself on a couple of occasions, I found out the absolute result is the worst than never asking for it.
To... So to go and ask for respect is never going to work.
To go and demand respect is even worse.
And to act in a way that is respectful in the other person's eyes is a little bit like flailing around trying to hit a home run while blindfolded at, I was going to say the Super Bowl, which shows my knowledge of American sports, at the World Series.
That's it, at the World Series.
Yes, it's possible that you might connect once in a blue moon, but it's going to be entirely random and unreproducible, and that's not going to be the same as being a good athlete.
So, I would say that the first thing that you need to do is to let go of the resentment that you feel towards your wife.
I'll just use the word wife here for want of having to say significant other the whole damn time.
You need to let go of any resentment that you have for the fact that your wife is treating you with...
With less than perfect respect, let's say.
Right? You both have been kind of programmed to diminish masculinity.
That's just part of the whole...
That's the environment we live in.
That's the world that we live in.
I hate to say it because it sounds silly, but this is the kind of sexism that men go through.
And you need to let go of that resentment because your wife does not owe you respect.
Nobody owes you respect.
Nobody owes me donation money or listening to my podcast or anything like that.
So you have to let go of any resentment that you might have over not being treated with respect because the fundamental issue is that you don't respect yourself.
And that's much more fundamental than somebody else not respecting you.
As I've said a number of times before, there is no external solution to the problem of insecurity.
There's not money, there's not looks, there's not liposuction, there's not tummy tucks, there's not breast augmentation, there's not the stupid take your ass and put it on your lips situation, there's not There's not a fancy car.
There's not rock-hard Viagra-induced directions.
There's not status or career advancement.
There is no external solution to the problem of insecurity.
Insecurity arises around integrity.
And the first thing that I would suggest you need to do is to recognize that you are not insecure because your wife does not respect you.
You do not feel less than invaluable because your wife thinks that you're less than invaluable.
Your wife thinks that you're less than invaluable because you think that you're less than invaluable.
And, of course, you think that because you were trained to think that and so on and so on and so on.
I understand all of that. You can get mad at the people who trained you to believe that, your mother and your father or your teachers or the media or whoever, as you were growing up, who gave you all of those messages about your lack of essential worth as a man.
And that's fine. Get mad at all that stuff, but for heaven's sake, don't get mad at your wife.
It's not her fault. That you don't respect yourself.
She didn't invent the culture. She wasn't your parent.
She wasn't your teacher.
She didn't give you all of these messages.
It's not her fault that you don't respect yourself as a man.
You may respect yourself in other ways.
So, the first thing that you need to do is recognize and understand just based on, you know, working from the facts inward, right?
Which is what we generally try to do here.
Work from the facts inwards.
It's absolutely the case that women who are in marriages and the longer they're in, the more likely this is to be the case, are happy and content and healthy and safe and secure and so on.
And so obviously, statistically and empirically, you are essential for your wife's happiness.
You can agree with that, disagree with that, whatever you like.
I'm certainly willing to hear counter statistics.
But from everything I've ever read, having a long-term relationship in a marital situation with a husband is the best way to predict a woman's longevity and happiness and so on and so on and so on.
So you're absolutely essential from that standpoint.
As far as your children go, you're absolutely essential because if you're not around, I mean assuming you're not some drunken beater person who's probably not listening to this anyway, who's definitely not listening to this anyway, You are absolutely essential for your children's health, happiness, and future success in life.
Academic performance, future relationship happiness, all that kind of stuff.
So the first thing you need to do is to recognize that the idea that you're less than invaluable, that you're not a core and central yin and yang, a central pillar to this family, to this marriage, children are not, it doesn't matter.
The first thing you must recognize is that you are completely and totally and statistically essential and that everything that you've been told about your lack of worth, your lack of essential value, is just pure nonsense and propaganda and that you're the one who has to fix it and you have to fix it within your own mind first.
So, your wife is off the hook.
Your children are off the hook for treating you with less than perfect respect.
Because the degree of respect that you're going to get treated with is the degree of respect, A, that you treat yourself with, and B, that you treat others with.
Now, it is fundamentally disrespectful to your wife and particularly to your children to treat yourself with disrespect, to think that you are not essential and valuable to a family or to your children.
It is very disrespectful to your wife to not treat yourself with respect, to not carry yourself with respect, to not expect respect and provide respect.
Or, as we say here in the Volvo neighborhood, juice.
So, it's not your fault that you don't look at yourself with maximum respect, but it is your responsibility now We all were raised with nonsense and we all have to carve and shuck our way out of this crap hole of cultural ridiculousness and our histories.
And we need to get mad at what happened in the past, but we sure as heck, much more importantly, need to commit to something different in the future.
The whole point of philosophy is to get real emotionally, to get authentic emotionally, and then to free yourself from the past by working through those emotions and then having a different approach and perspective to the and then to free yourself from the past by working through The way that you can do that is to sort of look in the mirror.
I know this sounds ridiculous, and it sounds like, you know, it's Stuart Little, or whatever his name was, the, uh, I'm strong enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darn it, people just like me.
But, uh, Stuart Little, I think, no, that's the mouse.
Anyway, some damn thing. Stuart Smiley.
Smiley. Smiley. Something like that.
Anyway. I know it sounds ridiculous, but you kind of need to look at yourself in the mirror as a man and say, I am essential.
I am essential.
I am a core of my family.
I'm the core. I mean, obviously your wife's a core, but that's her business to manage.
I'm the core of this family.
And it is essential.
Everything that I bring, everything that I can bring as a man Not just a human being with two legs and two arms, but as a man.
I'm going to break in a Muddy Waters song now, right?
Manish boy. But as a man, it's essential what I bring.
Not as somebody whom my wife wishes was more like a woman.
But as a man, what I bring is essential.
And it's not something to be ashamed of, it's something to be brought with pride and joy to the table.
And it's up to you to believe that.
And not to believe it like faith, like will, like just made-up stuff, but to believe it like it's real, it's true, and go look at the statistics if you have any questions about it.
So it's absolutely up to you to recognize and understand this essential fact that your natural-born masculinity is essential to your family.
And that there's little point or value in being a husband or a father or, you know, within certain connotations, even the son.
If you don't recognize and respect The inherent value that your masculinity brings to the table.
And I don't mean cartoony masculinity like, I'm a marine, son!
Or, you know, being a tough guy or, you know, whatever.
Being a stone-cold emotional statue.
I mean, that's all cartoony masculinity.
That's not real masculinity, which is, you know, tender and caring and strong and self-respecting and emotionally available.
I hate that phrase, but however you want to call it.
Rich and deep with feeling.
And proud of the differences between men and women.
Proud of being different from a woman.
I mean, I know this sounds ridiculous to even say.
And I'm going to say some stuff here that women should stop listening to, but I think it's important to say nonetheless.
I am proud of the fact that I don't know nearly as well as my wife does how to run a household.
I am proud of the fact that my wife remembers my friend's birthdays and I don't.
I am proud of the fact that I would never imagine picking up a poinsettia or another kind of plant or flower to bring over to someone's house when I'm invited there for dinner.
I'm proud of the fact that that would never cross my mind.
And I'm proud of the fact that it crosses my wife's mind.
I'm joyful at the fact that it crosses my wife's mind.
And I'm totally proud of the fact that it never crosses my mind.
Because we're guys!
That's not what we do!
We break in couches.
So it's important to be proud of these things.
Be proud of being different from a woman because that's ridiculous to want to be the same and to look at the difference as something that is not a positive and productive thing.
Be proud of the fact that you don't want to stop and ask for directions.
That's a guy thing!
Be proud of your desire to grip the remote in a deaf hand that a crowbar and a cattle prod would be required to get it off.
Be proud, even, of wanting to look at an attractive woman.
That's what guys do. It doesn't have anything to do with faithfulness.
Christine and I, definitely, she will point out attractive women to me.
She's confident that I find her the sexiest and most beautiful woman on the planet, which of course I do.
But be proud. Don't hide it.
If a woman passes by, don't sort of do that thing where you're behind your sunglasses looking off to one side.
If you find pornography sexually stimulating, as guys tend to, and women are all like, oh no, that's bad.
But of course, women in fact do find it sexually stimulating.
They're just not allowed to talk about it.
Be proud of that!
It's what's called being a guy.
And it's essential. If family obligations are becoming overwhelming and you don't feel like going to another goddamn family dinner, say so!
Without guilt, say no.
I don't want to go and I don't think we should go.
I'm sick and tired of these people and I want to spend time with you.
And I want to spend time with the kids.
I don't want to go to another bar mitzvah.
I don't want to go to another goddamn christening.
I'm sick and tired of this stuff.
I don't care whose aunt's birthday it is.
We're not going. I don't care.
I want to spend time with my family.
I don't want to keep running around spending time with everybody else's family.
I want to spend time with my family.
And, of course, you can't order anyone around, but be proud of that.
And your wife's going to feel bad, and your wife's going to feel like, well, we should go, and they'll talk about us, and we'll be judged as bad, and we'll be looked on as cheap, and blah, blah, blah, and let her have those sentiments.
She should be very happy about having those sentiments, because she's a woman, and that's what women do, is worry about extended relationships, and that's great.
It's wonderful. Vive la différence, right?
Enjoy it. Relish it.
And enjoy and relish the fact that you are absolutely needed to put boundaries around your family in terms of social obligations.
Because your wife will get, naturally, that's what women do.
There's nothing wrong with it. It's beautiful.
They get hoovered into every social obligation known to mankind.
And guys are the ones who say, no, we're going to stop.
That's enough. That's enough.
That's what we do. It's what we do.
And be proud of that.
that and be happy about it.
And if you don't feel like cleaning the house on a Saturday but you want to go and play some golf, I know this is dangerous territory.
I'm telling you, be proud of that too.
Because it's important.
It's important.
I'm not saying be selfish and do everything for yourself.
I don't need to tell you that.
I don't need to tell you to not be selfish.
It's okay. We're going to live. I don't know if you heard that horn.
It's okay. You're not going to be selfish because masculinity is not about being selfish in the sort of negatively connoted sense of the word.
Because when you take freedoms as a man, you give freedoms to your wife.
When you say, no, I want to go and play golf.
I don't want to go to your mother's.
That's wonderful. Don't go and don't feel guilty.
And yes, your wife is going to try and make you come because she doesn't want to have her mother say, oh, where's your husband?
Yeah, so that's fine.
Let her. There's no problem with that.
Let her try, but just don't go.
Because what happens is then your wife becomes a little bit more free herself, right?
In taking freedoms, we give freedoms in intimate relationships.
And if you feel like making love rather than doing the dishes, then say, hey, let's not do the dishes.
Let's make love. I'll do the dishes later.
Let's go make love. And if your wife is having trouble making that leap, if she's all stressed, I got to do the dishes and blah, blah, blah, let her have that.
But be free to express your desires.
I mean, I'm not even going to get into the stuff in the bedroom because that's pretty personal stuff.
But whatever you want, ask for it.
Do it. It'll liberate your wife as well.
Men are about liberation from fantasy.
This is what we were talking about this morning.
This is what... is not liked by power structures.
Masculinity, if properly exercised, will raise anarcho-capitalists in about two generations.
If we stop being embarrassed about the impulses, drives, desires, and identities called being a guy, being men, if we stop being embarrassed about all this kind of stuff and just let it flow and let it be free and enjoy being men, then sure, yeah, we'll blow away the welfare state in about two generations.
Lack of artificial obligations, lack of respect for artificial obligations is a fundamental defining factor of masculinity.
And it's a beautiful, wonderful, soul-regenerating, culture-refreshing, humankind-advancing trait that men have.
So enjoy it.
Be proud of it.
Respect those impulses.
Anything that you feel that is different from what a woman feels is not wrong, but perfectly, juicily, wonderfully right.
And of course your wife, because of the propaganda she's been raised with, is going to try and turn you into a kind of woman with a penis.
A hermaphrodite.
And that's just the nature of what she's been programmed to do.
And you don't need to fight her on it.
You just need to say no. If you want to go shoe shopping, I want to go to Radio Shack.
I want to go to Best Buy. I don't even want to go.
I want to stay home, watch sports, and scratch myself.
Because if you do everything with your wife, then she'll end up trying to turn you into a girlfriend, and neither of you are going to end up happy that way.
So if you're free, but you have to recognize the argument for morality.
All freedoms are reciprocal.
So if you're free to go and play golf when your mom goes to her mom's with the kids, then of course she's free to take a spa day and leave the kids with you.
You take freedom. Taking freedom is giving freedom in personal relationships.
And men who feel guilty or bad about being men and feel that they have to conform with every expectations of their wife are enslaving both women and men and children.
Which is terrible.
Men are about liberation, are about a lack of respect for cultural authorities and familial authorities.
Why do you think it's called the Founding Fathers?
It's not the Founding Mothers.
Why is it that 99.99% of libertarians and anarcho-capitalists are men?
Let's enjoy it.
Let's revel in it. Let's love being men.
And love women for what they do as well.
But don't surrender an inch.
So to speak, of your masculinity to a woman's expectations and the woman's cultural prejudice that she's been inculcated with about women are right, women the standard called femininity is right and good and moral and noble and perfect and to the degree to which men deviate from women's expectations and preferences is the degree to which men are broken and wrong That's just her cultural preference.
It's what she's programmed to do.
And she's not going to be able to stop it, for heaven's sakes.
She's like acting a politician to give up his political post and become an anarchist.
It's not going to happen.
She's not going to be able to define for you what masculinity is and she sure as hell isn't going to be able to respect masculinity unless you show her some of the value of masculinity.
Right?
And that means liberation from artificial constraints, liberation from sentimentality, liberation from frankly the bullying of other women.
This is what's so funny about this 2020 show, that they talk all about how women, good little girls, oh, they all just play so nicely together, and they're all so good about sharing, and they're all so good at negotiation, because their language is so great, you see.
And little girls never come home crying because they've been ostracized, because other little girls are cowardly spreading stories behind their back.
Rather than confronting them openly in the manner of boys, our boys will have a fight and then get on with their friendship.
But girls will poison the sea and watch their friendship fishes float to the surface.
Because there's nothing wrong with that kind of passive aggression.
That's never destructive.
Never being able to face your accuser in an open court.
Oh, that's never harmful. So, I just say, look in the mirror.
You are essential. There can be no family joys without your freedom.
The freedom and the love and the self-respect that you have about being a man.
And your differences from women.
And love and respect the differences that women have.
It's wonderful that women know how to sort laundry.
I mean, maybe this is in general, certainly been my experience as women.
It's wonderful that women know how to run a household.
It's beautiful. And it's beautiful that men don't.
It's beautiful that women know what presents to get, which friends on which occasions.
That's beautiful. It's also beautiful that science and capitalism exist.
That's what's so funny about these women who are upset with their boys not obeying them because they're authority figures, but that very disobeying of authority figures, as I mentioned this morning, created things like science and hospitals and epidurals and birthing centers so that women don't die in childbirth.
They don't recognize that one of the main reasons they're alive and have such pleasurable lives is because their little boys don't listen to them.
It's just what women don't understand.
And that's what men sort of have to teach them.
So, forgive me for overgeneralizing or for generalizing in general, but I hope that you understand that I do this because I'm passionately wed to the idea that men and women are the ultimate partners and the ultimate team that makes the world a joyous place.
And what's seriously lacking in the world these days is men who love and enjoy and relish and revel in Their own masculinity.
That, I think, is seriously, seriously lacking.
And the lack of it is causing enormous problems in both family situations in terms of husband and wife and in terms of children as well.
So I hope that this gives you some possibilities for being able to look into your own heart as a man and recognize that you are essential.
That there can be no joy in the family without you.
That you are essential. And through that, you can really take joy and pleasure in your own masculinity, take joy and pleasure in the differences that you have from your wife, and I think teach your children something quite important about liberty and joy in one's own identity.
This will be something that will have a very strong effect on your daughters and an even stronger effect on your sons.
Thank you so much for listening.
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