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All Training is Sacrifice

This 2016 essay has become a reader favorite, so I am republishing it on the new site today.

Don’t kill your ego. Sacrifice Yourself To Yourself.

Bruce Lee wrote that: “Punches and kicks are tools to kill the ego.” 

It sounds like mountaintop mysticism, like some far-out, far-eastern form of overdubbed, white-bearded enigmatic enlightenment. 

It’s become a training cliche. Whether you are training with weapons or weights, someone will eventually tell you that your ego is your enemy. 

The problem with that is, your ego is also — you. 

People tell you to kill your ego because they want you to get out of your own way. They want you to stop acting like you already know everything, because by seeking out training, you’ve already acknowledged on some level that you don’t know everything.They want you to leave your status or perceived status in the world behind, so that you can submit to the learning process as a student — with no chip on your shoulder and nothing to prove. 

They want you to train with humility and avoid hubris — an ancient Greek concept describing a man who overestimates his own power or status and brings himself into conflict with natural law, which is, from a mythopoetic perspective, the will of the gods. His hubris eventually leads to his downfall. In the case of training, a man’s hubris makes it more difficult for him to learn and grow as a practitioner — his hubris becomes the cause of his stasis.

Conceit, hubris, arrogance…this kind of ego-tism is only one negative connotation of the word ego, which also describes a much broader concept of self. 

“Ego” is actually a Latin word for “I,” sometimes translated as “I, myself.” 

The Twentieth Century use of “ego” in English to mean “self” stems from the psychoanalytic work of Sigmund Freud, who used the simple word “Ich,” also “I,” in German. This seems less editorial and more in keeping with the Latin “I, myself.” 

In the Freudian model, the super-ego, or Über-Ich is the ego above and beyond the self. It’s the part of the conscious and unconscious self that absorbs and processes collective identity as well as the demands and the norms of the group, culture, society — tribe.

If you train on purpose — if you train because you want to train — your training is driven by the ego. 

Voluntary training is endured in the service of the ego, with the ultimate purpose of validating the ego, increasing self worth and improving social status. You train because you believe that you are good enough to be better, and worth improving. Or perhaps you see yourself training for the sake of others, for the group, to protect them or fulfill a role you believe you are good enough and able to fulfill. If you train for honor — to be worthy of your peers, your ancestors, your gods — you train because you believe yourself to be capable of honoring them. (1) This too, is a product of your ego.  

The ego, in both the broadest and the psychoanalytic sense, describes your conscious mind. It makes up the bulk of your “I” or “Ich.” Your ego is what separates you from dust in the wind. It’s the part of your mind that is awake, sentient, self-aware. To whatever extent you are the master of your own fate and the captain of your soul, the “you” is your ego. It is your ego — inseparable from any knowable version of “you” — that perceives and processes information about the world around you, evaluates that information, and selects a direction or course of action. It is the ego that manifests will.

Men train in the service of a higher version of the self, imagined and willed into existence by the ego. Training is self-creation — becoming — not self-destruction. 

The aspects of the ego which must be destroyed or contained in training are self-imposed scripts and limitations and habits which may impede the progress of your self-development.This is a pruning of the ego — a sacrifice of old growth to stimulate new growth. 

This pruning may be painful as you clip away or brush aside cherished ideas about the talents or even perceived limitations that you believe make you special. 

People seem to take almost as much pride in the untested reasons and rationalizations they’ve dreamed up for why they can’t learn in a certain way or do a certain thing as they do in untested delusions of grandeur — especially in this slave age that prefers victims to victors. Often, their perceived limitations are like those of a boy who believes he can’t swim or doesn’t like swimming because he fell in a pool once and didn’t know what to do. 

The world is also full of men who want to tell you how much they used to lift or how fast they used to run, before they got “old” or suffered some injury that elite athletes work through all the time. “Limitless potential” is a fantasy, but most people set their own limits long before they come anywhere close to the top end of their potential. 

While some believe they can’t when they can, many others believe they could when they probably couldn’t. Millions of doughboys overestimate their ability to fight because they won an altercation in high school once — or worse, because they’ve watched a lot of videos of fights and think they “have a pretty good idea of what they’d do.” You can find them second-guessing professional fighters and quarterbacks in bars and in front of television sets all around the world. 

To truly become the kind of men who know they have the ability and the conditioning to do what these men merely believe they can do, these couch captains would have to abandon their self-authored fictions about themselves. They would have to go through a process of failing and looking stupid before they even started to look like they knew what they were doing — much less became truly capable of performing as they’ve imagined.  

To train successfully, you must be willing to sacrifice portions of your present self-concept to a future, higher version of the self created by your ego. It is your ego, god-like, that is initiating and driving the process of self-transformation and becoming. This process requires you to exchange something you have for something you want. Nothing worth anything is truly free, and everything worth having requires some kind of sacrifice. 

Instead of “killing your ego” — instead of fighting yourself — approach training as a sacrifice of a part of yourself to a higher self. 

This is the way of Odin. 

Odin is usually depicted with a missing eye, because he sacrificed one of his own eyes to the giant Mimir in order to drink from his well of wisdom. He sacrificed a portion of his superficial sight for a deeper, higher way of “seeing.” . 

In another tale, Odin disguised himself as a farmhand and labored through a growing season, doing the work of nine men to gain access to Óðrœrir, the mead of poetry and inspiration. To get the mead, the hooded wanderer eventually had to seduce the giantess Gunnlod, whose name translates roughly to “invitation to battle,” and slam her out for three nights in a row. (It must have been a rough three nights.)

Odin is perhaps best known for his self-directed ordeal hanging from the world-tree Yggdrasil, wounded by what was (presumably) his own spear. After hanging without food or drink for nine nights, the runes reveal themselves to him, and from them he gains magic and a greater understanding of the universe. 

While this scene is superficially Christ-like, and it makes sense to wonder how much Christian imagery and intent colored any of the surviving stories of pre-Christian European pagans, the stark difference here is in Odin’s motivation. 

The spirit of Odin’s ego-driven self-sacrifice is captured in the following lines from the Hávamál:

og gefinn Óðni

sjálfur sjálfum mér

a sacrifice to Odin

myself to myself

The Hávamál is known as “the sayings of the high one” — sayings attributed to Odin himself. The majority of the first 138 verses pass down practical advice for living, as if from a grandfather or a wise old king. These lines about the sacrifice of self to self are found in a distinctive portion of the text that reads as if the speaker has slipped into a trance. In this dream state, the high one recalls his initiation into the mysteries of the runes, through starved meditation, while hanging from the world tree (2):

Veit ég að ég hékk 
vindga meiði á
nætur allar níu
geiri undaður
og gefinn Óðni
sjálfur sjálfum mér
á þeim meiði
er manngi veit
hvers hann af
rótum rennur*

Við hleifi mig seldu
né við hornigi
nýsti ég niður
nam ég upp rúnir
æpandi nam
féll ég aftur þaðan		I know that I hung
 on a windy tree
for nine full nights
wounded with a spear
a sacrifice to Odin
myself to myself
on that tree
which no man knows
from what root it runs*

None made me happy with loaf
Or with horn
I looked down below
I took up the runes
Screaming I took them
And then fell down from there

Odin’s martyrdom is a self-martyrdom, done in the service of no one but himself, for reasons of his own. He sacrifices himself to reach a new level of understanding, and through that understanding becomes a higher version of himself.

Odin acknowledges that he doesn’t know everything, and instead of sitting on his throne sipping mead and marveling at his own creation, he pushes himself out of his own comfort zone and forces himself to do what he believes to be necessary to know more and become better. The Allfather could easily compare himself to other gods and humans and all of the lesser creatures, and be satisfied. But Odin doesn’t measure himself against others, he measures himself against himself.

The opposite of Odin wouldn’t be a giant or a dwarf or a man — or even the wolf who swallows him and ends his life. Odin’s opposite would be the person who tells you to “just be yourself” or to “be happy just the way you are.”

The story of Odin is a challenge and a reminder that no matter who you are or what you’ve achieved, you can do more, learn more — you can make yourself better in some way.

The practice of Odinism requires no worship of Odin with kneeling prayers.

One who practices Odinism acknowledges the worthiness — the original meaning of the Old English word, “weorðscipe” — of the Odinic ideal by embodying Odin. A man becomes Odin by acknowledging the worth of the way of one who is always seeking, always improving, always willing to sacrifice a piece of himself to become more, to become better, to do more.

All training requires some kind of sacrifice of self to self. Of something you have for something you want. Of something you want to do now for someone you want to be later. It may even be a part of you that you cling to, some idea about yourself that you’ll have to give up temporarily or permanently, because it is preventing you from becoming who your ego believes you can become.

When you’ve decided what you want to learn or what you want to do or how you want to transform yourself — work to remove the internal obstacles that are preventing you from achieving mastery or realizing that goal.

Be the loosener your own fetters.

Determine what you have that you need to give up — time, money, work, habit, comfort — and sacrifice it on the bloody altar of that vision.

When you are tempted to feel burdened or victimized by the hunger of your vision for sacrifice, remember that you are the visionary — the father of it all.

You are the god, the priest, the slaughter and the harvest.

(1) For more on training for honor, read my essay, “Train for Honor” in the collection A Sky Without Eagles.(2014)

(2) The translation is mixed and simplified, based on the comparative work done here: https://notendur.hi.is/haukurth/norse/reader/runatal.html

I’ve done my best to mimic the reconstructed Old Norse pronunciation in the recorded version on that page, albeit with my own quirks and dramatic inflections.

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Wōdanastallaz

With some help from friends, this summer I designed and built this structure dedicated to Wōdanaz, the Proto-Germanic name of the god Odin or Óðinn who appears in the Old Norse Eddas and Sagas. 

The name Óðinn is derived from the word Óðr, which has a variety of meanings having to do with the mind or soul, but also madness and possession, as well as inspiration and poetry. 

Óðr is a descendant of the Proto-Germanic word wōdaz, meaning “excited, energized, spirited, frenzied, obsessed” as well as “angry” or “furious.” Proto-Germanic is largely theoretical and unattested, as few written records of it exist, but runic inscriptions of the word Wodan have been found on various continental objects. 

Stepped back even further into reconstructed languages, the word becomes *weh₂t- in Proto-Indo-European. *Weh₂t- is likewise thought to have meant “excited, inspired, possessed” or “raging.” Proto-Indo-European is believed to be a root language spoken in the Pontic-Caspian steppe of Eastern Europe about 5,000 years ago. The language branched out to the East and West, and its descendants include most of the languages spoken in the West today, as well as Iranian languages, Sanskrit, Hindustani, and many more. Notably, a descendent of the word *weh₂t- is the Latin vātēs, which indicates a seer, oracle, prophet or poet. 

Broadly speaking, from both the etymology of his theonyms and the surviving lore concerning Odin, he represents an aspect of masculine divinity that deals with “inspired” activity. 

Creativity is always a little bit crazy. We can choose to consciously develop ideas after we have them, but inspiration itself “comes to us” from the subconscious. It bubbles up from darkness. Wōdaz is that magic moment of inspiration where we lose ourselves and slip out of time and something “overcomes” us. It is a state of transcendence. 

In more practical and everyday terms, I believe there is an overlap between the concepts of wōdaz and what Mihály Csíkszentmihályi called a “flow state.” A flow state is a peak experience when we are so focused on performing a challenging (but not overwhelming) task that we lose track of time and there is a “merging of action and awareness.” 

I have experienced what I would consider flow states while writing, working on computer-related tasks, designing, painting, lifting, exercising and sparring. For more information on flow states, I would recommend the book by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi [pronounced: Me high, Cheeks send me high].  

The best and most comprehensive overview I have ever read on Wōdanaz is a book of the same name written by Stephen Flowers, if you can get your hands on a copy. I ordered mine directly through his Facebook page. 

I have come to see Wōdanaz or Odin, the “Allfather,” as a late and particularly Germanic manifestation of an older conception of paternal divinity — the original “sky father” — who academics have conceptualized as Dyēus Ph₂ter. 

The late Germanic idea of Odin is often portrayed rather darkly, as a malevolent trickster, and Odin has become attractive as a somewhat Luciferian figure to young black metal enthusiasts who want to rebel against Christianity and Christian morality. In many cases this “darkness” itself is probably in part an effect of the Christian demonization of pre-Christian European paganism. Odin was often portrayed in a devilish or “satanic” role in European folklore, and in the late 20th Century many youthful Satanists matured into Odinists as they moved away from reaction in search of a more positive paradigm. For as long as I can remember, there has been a direct pathway from Satanism to heathenry, Asatru and Odinism. As they say, “it’s a thing.” 

However, in all of this dark imagery, some of the more Olympian aspects of the lore concerning Odin seem to get lost. This god who is always tricking giants and appearing to men in a foreboding way was also shown on a high seat overlooking the world, and overseeing a great golden hall of heroes. As in the myth concerning his acquisition of the mead of poetry from the giants — which has become one of my favorite stories about him — he is both a serpent and an eagle. He delves into darkness with a noble purpose, and emerges as a noble creature, carrying the golden mead of inspiration to share with gods and men. This transformation into an eagle is an echo of something we also see in Zeus. 

Based on his comparison of the surviving myths from various Indo-European cultures, Georges Dumézil theorized that the sovereign function of society and divinity was separated into a formal, judicial aspect and a wild, unpredictable “supernatural” aspect. In modern men’s psychology, these aspects are assigned to “king” and “magician” archetypes. These two types are not dissimilar in character to the productive exchange between the Apollonian and Dionysian as described by Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy and mentioned in my last book, A More Complete Beast. In the work of Dumézil, these two functions of divine, paternal leadership were normally separated into two opposing but complementary gods. What is particularly interesting about Odin is that he is both Apollonian and Dionysian. However, it is that wild, unpredictable and mysterious side of Odin that is highlighted in modern culture, but also in the surviving lore and even his name itself. 

What Odin illustrates for me is the principle that it is the work of the paternal figure — the work of man — to venture into darkness and chaos to bring forth wisdom, inspiration and beauty. He slips between worlds — on his eight-legged horse, whose name, Sleipnir, means “the slipper” — and brings something back. The defining story of Odin is his sacrifice of himself to discover the mystery of the runes. He hangs in darkness for 9 nights, until he takes up the runes and falls down screaming. For those who aren’t familiar, the runes are not only writing, but each symbol is also associated with some concept or larger meaning. One can employ the runes to explore these primal concepts and meditate on them, if one is so inclined. 

This structure is named the Wōdanastallaz — the stall of Wōdanaz. Neopagans sometimes call altars “stalls.” We stepped the name back into Proto-Germanic, which is part of the culture of Waldgang, my Germanic pagan sacred space in the Pacific Northwest. 

I envisioned the Wōdanastallaz as a place to encounter and explore darkness and mystery, following the Odinic example. Several small rituals have already taken place inside the building at various stages of completion. During group events, ritual ash is prepared in this building, and participants are invited inside to be ceremonially anointed.

Inspired by German Expressionism, the black structure of its external face is covered with a chaotic intersection of runes from both the Younger Futhark and the Elder Futhark. The floor is dirt, so that there is no barrier blocking a connection to the earth. There are no windows, and at night it can be made completely dark inside. The foundation was ritually blooded, and red runic inscriptions were made all over the structure before it was painted black.  

The focus point in the stallaz is a steel sun wheel with an eye in the center that I use to symbolize “solar vision” and the visionary eye of Odin, the Allfather. Another “solar vision” symbol can be found on the entrance awning, above the word Wōdanaz, spelled in runes. Various art objects, remains of sacrifices, and gifts of tribute can be found throughout the internal space. More will be added as time goes on and the space continues to evolve.

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Vulnerability Is a Synonym for Weakness

Jack Donovan Smith Rock

Whenever a man brags that he is “not afraid to be vulnerable,” I picture that scene in The Hobbit where Bilbo notices the dragon Smaug’s missing scale. 

That’s what a vulnerability is. 

“Here it is. This is how you get to my soft tissue. This is how you could ruin me, if you wanted to.” 

I’m vulnerable. We are all “vulnerable.” We are monkeys made of meat. “If you prick us, do we not bleed?” Acknowledging that you are fallible and “vulnerable” is simply recognizing reality. 

The life-loving and strong-willed response to recognizing a weakness is either to accept it and build strength in other areas, or to attempt to protect it or eliminate it. To don armor and raise ramparts. This is what one does if one wants to assert his interests in the world. 

Another survival strategy is to roll over and display that vulnerability openly. But this is not a position of strength. This is how you communicate helplessness and show that you are not a threat. It is submissive, surrendering behavior that begs for mercy and relies on the kindness of others. 

We find this endearing in creatures whom we want to help. My dog rolls over on his back because he is at home in his “safe space” and he knows that I would never hurt him, because I’ve built that trust with him. 

But then, every farmer has had to kill an animal that trusted him, so it’s never quite a sure thing. 

Men have always been the protectors of women and small children, so they naturally want to help them. When you offer your help to someone who needs it, and they graciously accept your assistance, it feels good. Men find some measure of vulnerability endearing in women, so women experience a more positive feedback loop when it comes to displaying vulnerability. 

When someone encourages a man to “be more vulnerable,” or to talk about his fears and weaknesses openly, it makes sense tactically for him to be suspicious of their motives. Those who appear to be friends often turn out to be…farmers. 

When cultish therapy groups or feminists tell men they “need” to be more vulnerable, men should ask “for me, or for you?”

As I watch various men’s improvement groups evolve, I see a lot of all-embracing affirmation language creep in from the social frames of women’s groups. Weakness is strength, obesity is healthy, ugliness is beautiful, losers are winners. “Every conceivable negative is a positive if it makes me feel good in the moment.” How magical it must be to live in a world of lies where all of your faults are re-framed as talents. I can certainly see the allure…

It is not insane to want to be identified by your strengths instead of your weaknesses. Refusing to carelessly share your problems with anyone who will listen is not the same as refusing to acknowledge that you have problems. 

Stating your problems aloud is merely catharsis. Fixating on them is poisonous. Talking about problems without discussing an action plan for overcoming them may actually prevent progress. 

A more productive approach to acknowledging a problem or a weakness is to think of yourself as an employee who is trying to increase his value in the eyes of his employer. 

If you want to advance and take on a leadership role, you don’t just go to your boss with problems. You say, “I see a problem here and here’s a plan I came up with that I think might help solve it.” 

Imagine a leader who announces to the public that, say, the economy is about to collapse, and then shrugs his shoulders and turns his palms up. He wouldn’t stay a leader long. 

Be your own leader. Take responsibility for your own life. 

If you don’t want to be your own leader, I’m sure you’ll be able to find someone willing to tell you what to do. 

Establishing any kind of relationship means opening yourself up. You give or share something, the other entity reciprocates, and if that works out, you move to the next level. 

This is how you build trust, and sooner or later you’re going to have to trust someone more than you’d trust any stranger on the street. 

But even if you trust someone, it’s better — at the very least it is better for you — if you open yourself up in the context of solving a problem, or coming up with a plan for handling or mitigating your own weaknesses. Otherwise you’re just whining (at best) or giving someone easy ammunition (at worst). And you should never be proud of your weaknesses and shortcomings. To take pride in weakness devalues pride itself. 

So, by all means, if you want to build a relationship or solve a problem, be “vulnerable” and expose a weakness. 

Build trust with someone. 

But watch out for farmers. 

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Ride In Power

Wild Hunt Illustration

The holiday season is the season of The Wild Hunt, an ancient European folklore motif that continues to manifest in the collective consciousness through the enduring story of Santa Claus — that bearded magic man from the North who rides through the air on Christmas eve, barely two days after Winter Solstice.

The theme of The Wild Hunt, or Die Wilde Jagd, was first identified by Jacob Grimm, who theorized that the recurring stories of some dread hunt or huntsman found throughout Germanic folklore were the persistent echoes of pre-Christian pagan beliefs.  

The hunters have been variously identified as dead warriors or simply the dead, and the hunt has been led by everyone from Cain to King Arthur, but Grimm believed it was Odin who originally led the hunt.

In the American West, the Wild Hunt recurred in cowboy legends that were immortalized in the song “Riders in the Sky.”

Visions of The Wild Hunt were often believed to be harbingers of doom and war, but Grimm thought that this was probably due the Christian demonization of indigenous European beliefs. 

These divinities present themselves in a twofold aspect. Either as visible to human eyes, visiting the land at some holy tide, bringing welfare and blessing, accepting gifts and offerings of the people that stream to meet them. Or floating unseen through the air, perceptible in cloudy shapes, in the roar and howl of the winds, carrying on loar, hunting or the game of ninepins, the chief employments of ancient heroes : an array which, less tied down to a definite time, explains more the natural phenomenon. I suppose the two exhibitions to be equally old, and in the myth of the wild host they constantly play into one another. The fancies about the Milky Way have shewn us how ways and waggons of the gods run in the sky as well as on the earth. With the coming of Christianity the fable could not but undergo a change. For the solemn march of gods, there now appeared a pack of horrid spectres, dashed with dark and devilish ingredients. Very likely the heathen themselves had believed that spirits of departed heroes took part in the divine procession ; the christians put into the host the unchristened dead, the drunkard, the suicide, who come before us in frightful forms of mutilation.

Jacob Grimm, Teutonic Mythology (Volume 3).

In researching this for a recent ritual at Waldgang, I was struck by the fact that in both the hunt and the lore regarding Valhalla, the valorous dead are actively engaged in joyous strife. Warriors hoped that if they were slain in battle, they would be chosen and find themselves among the other Einherjar. It was believed that in Valhalla, they would battle each other all day, and then be healed so that they could feast all night and then fight again the next day. 

This is a stark difference from those who yearn for an afterlife of rest and relaxation, of simple “happiness,” of passive communion with the divine, or even for an extinguishing end to cycles of death and rebirth. 

These noble, adventurous men dreamt of a “heaven” that promised endless adventure and lively struggle. They dreamt of man’s primal and primary occupation at the perimeter between order and chaos. They dreamt of hunting and fighting — forever and ever.

This spirit is captured by my favorite poem about the Wild Hunt, written by painter Arthur Fitger in the late Nineteenth Century. In it, Odin tells the reader to call him in the storm and the night to avoid the stifling grave and join in the wild hunting life for all eternity. 

Ruf’ mich in Sturm und Nacht
Empor, dich zu geleiten
Auf wilder Lebensjagd
Durch alle Ewigkeiten.

What we hope for in death also says something about what we want from life. 

Some dream of a heaven that promises a freedom from exertion, conflict and challenge. The reward they seek for a lifetime of struggle and suffering is an eternity of relaxation and recreation — or “oneness” with divinity. They have oriented themselves to “struggle to blank,” and they want to “rest in peace.” 

Perhaps some men feel most alive at a party or on vacation. Poolside with a margarita in hand. And while I’ll admit that sounds very nice, especially as I sit here watching the snow creep down from higher elevations, those aren’t the moments that define a man’s life. When I look back at the moments I am proud of, they are moments of creation or competition — moments of struggle and overcoming. Instants of inspiration and flow. 

It makes sense that ambitious and adventurous men who thrive on challenge and strife would dream not of eternal rest, but of an eternal ride. Of an endless adventure, engaged forever in the hunt or the fight. I have known many men like this, and in the absence of some immanent trial, they self-destruct. They don’t know what to do with themselves. Men of action need a purpose, an objective, some goal toward which they can direct their virile exuberance. 

Regarding the dead, I’ve heard men say, “rest in power.” 

Why wish them the torment of rest at all? Why not wish them a never-ending ride? 

Why not wish them, in death, the joy that they sought in life?

Why not say, “RIDE IN POWER?”

The act of riding is the most dynamic expression of the masculine principle. To ride is to seize some wild, chaotic thing and rein it in, to control it and impose your own will upon it with the loose snap of confidence and authority.

Imagine the audacious moment of the primal ride, when man first leapt on a horse and found he was able to give it direction and command that mass of muscle and breakneck speed. Imagine this moment repeated thousands of years later when men sat in the first automobiles fueled by fire, and again when they shot themselves into the sky, and again when they exploded themselves into space with the power of the sun.

This is the magic of the ride — that holy shit moment of daring and total engagement and total investment. It’s there in the hunt and the chase, it’s there in the battle, it’s there in the scrambling fight. This is the aggressive magic of men who train wolves and conquer women.

And, if I may quibble with Conan (from a wise distance), perhaps this is, truly, what is best in a man’s life. The ride.

This atavistic apparition, this dream of the wild dead hunting and fighting their way through the afterlife is a reminder to the living of what living is.

You can rest in peace if you want to, but there is more. Men become what they are when they venture out into uncertainty and assert themselves. That is how we have always been initiated — by learning to master and command chaos, in the world outside, in others, and in ourselves.

To initiate and continue this eternal becoming, to keep the wheel spinning, we must continue to seek out new challenges, new quests and quarries, and commit to that hunt. Commit to that fight.

COMMIT TO THE RIDE

Durch alle Ewigkeiten

“Wilde Jagd” – by Arthur Fitger

Wilde JagdWild Hunt
Es pfeift im Hagedorn,
Laut ächzt es in den Föhren,
Da läßt sein schmetternd Horn
Der wilde Jäger hören.

Hoch droben durch die Schlucht
Der sturmzerriss’nen Wolke
Jauchzt er in wilder Flucht
Vorbei mit seinem Volke.

Er schwingt den Eschenschaft
In erzgewalt’gen Händen,
Und Lebensüberkraft
Flammt in des Auges Bränden.

“Der du verschmäht die Rast
Des Himmels und des Grabes,
Der du begehrt die Last
Des ew’gen Wanderstabes,

Ruf’ mich in Sturm und Nacht
Empor, dich zu geleiten
Auf wilder Lebensjagd
Durch alle Ewigkeiten.

Die Seel’ erstickt in mir,
Denk’ ich der Gruft, der engen,
Und to bend möcht’ ich schier
Des Todes Fesseln sprengen.

Endlose Lebenslust,
Nein! du sollst nicht verrauchen,
Nicht elend in den Wust
Des Staubes untertauchen.

Wenn über meiner Gruft
Die Frühling
swinde pfeifen,
Wenn wirbelnd in der Luft
Die falben Blätter schweifen;

Dann bannt auch mich nicht mehr
Der dumpfe Totenhügel,
Dann jag’ auch ich daher
Auf freiem Sturmesflügel.”

It whistles in the hawthorn
Loudly it creaks in the pines
There his chilling horn
The wild hunter let hear

High above through the canyon
The storm-torn cloud
Exult he in wild escape
Over with his folk

He swings the ash tree shaft
In ore like/powered hands
And strength that goes beyond life’spower
In his eyes burning fires

“Thou who refuses to rest
In heaven or grave
Thou who crave the burden
Of the eternal wanderstick

Call upon me in storm and night
Up to give you retinue
On the wild hunt of our life
Through all eternity

The soul is suffocating in me
When I think of the so tight grave
And in fury I want
To burst the fetters of death

Endless lust of life
NO! You shall not vanish like smoke in the wind
Not miserable into the heap
Of dust drowning

When over my crypt
The winds of spring whistle
When twirling in the air
Pale leaves fly

Then I wont be captivated
By the dull hill of the death
Then I hunt around
On the free wings of the storm.
  Arthur Fitger . 1840 – 1909Translation: V. from Wölfe Nordland
Night sky over Waldgang. Jack Donovan. 2019.
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EVERYTHING (AND EVERYONE) IS REDUCIBLE

Jack Donovan, Author

It was late, and I was out for a post-shift drink with a bunch of waiters in San Francisco. They had all been toiling under the tyrannical toque of some French despot. It was the 90s, before the tantruming chef became a staple of reality television, but I’d already worked for a satanic chocolatier who’d harangued every food critic in town, so I knew the routine. 

Hearing the tales of the evening’s melodramas grated on me, because I was currently working in the corporate world and interacting with polite and approachable CEOs and CFOs. No one gets away with talking to people the way that chefs do — or did, back then. Drill sergeants and dictators were probably more personable.

That night, this particular prima donna of grub plating had been cruel to someone close to me. I’d had a few and I was on a rant. 

“Who does he think he is? What is he really anyway? He’s just a fucking cook!” 

A clever waiter responded, “Everybody’s just a fucking something.” 

I’m sure I probably glared at him and continued. But that stuck with me. 

He was right. Everyone is “just a fucking something.” 

Everyone is reducible. No matter what someone has accomplished in their lives, it’s easy to recategorize them in some banal way to humble or insult them. 

I’m just some fucking blogger. A “self-published” author. Thousands of hours of careful thought and hard work can be handily dismissed by any of the slurs that occasionally pepper my inbox. 

It works for everyone. Professional athletes are just trained seals, and Navy SEALs are just fucking pawns. World class powerlifters are just glorified beasts of burden. Notre Dame is, after all, just a fucking building. Da Vinci was just a dreaming doodler. Nietzsche was crazy. George Washington was, after all, just some fucking guy who put his breeches on one leg at a time just like everyone else. 

And this French fellow who had worked his whole life to become an internationally respected chef and was at that moment a major player in the San Francisco culinary scene was…just some fucking cook. 

I was reminded of all this while reading through Meditations recently. 

“How base and putrid, every common matter is! Water, dust, and from the mixture of these bones, and all that loathsome stuff that our bodies do consist of: so subject to be infected, and corrupted. And again those other things that are so much prized and admired, as marble stones, what are they, but as it were the kernels of the earth? gold and silver, what are they, but as the more gross fæces of the earth? Thy most royal apparel, for matter, it is but as it were the hair of a silly sheep, and for colour, the very blood of a shell-fish; of this nature are all other things. Thy life itself, is some such thing too; a mere exhalation of blood: and it also, apt to be changed into some other common thing.”

— Marcus Aurelius. Meditations (Book 9, 34.)

Marcus fucking Aurelius. What a spoiled self-important brat! 

“Look at me, I write my precious little journal in Greek instead of Latin because I’m a fussy intellectual philhellene.”

It’s so easy. 

Taking a step back, this reductiveness could be useful in keeping one grounded and to help avoid being swayed too easily by the influence of fame and titles and men’s high estimations of themselves. 

Maintaining a disciplined humility and a careful distance from the seduction of power and titles is probably a very good idea when you are the Emperor of Rome. You don’t want to go full Caligula. 

To meditate, as Marcus Aurelius did, on the baseness of all things, is a useful thought experiment. It could be a tool for putting problems in perspective, and for remembering the humanity of men who have been elevated to a godlike status. Remembering that all great men were merely men can actually make them more inspiring. It renders their achievements more accessible. 

While it is true that everything is reducible, and sometimes this reduction may be useful, this leveling of all things can also get out of hand. Reduction can be untruthful. 

Gold may be the shit of the earth, as Marcus Aurelius suggested, but truthfully I’d rather be covered in gold than shit. Wouldn’t you?

Returning to that chef… truth is that I was mad about the chef’s behavior and I was lashing out. While I would contend that the achievements of chefs are somewhat overvalued simply because fine dining is associated with wealth, status and luxury, I have some level of respect for any man who has mastered a craft and risen to the top of his profession. He may have been a dick, but he actually wasn’t “just some fucking cook,” even to me. That was an intellectually dishonest remark. 

As I have gotten older, I’ve developed a habit of acknowledging the talents, accomplishments and expertise of men with whom I disagree, or who have wronged me personally. Some have found it surprising. It would be easy to completely dismiss a man based on a flaw of character that I exposed or of which our friendship was simply another casualty. But it wouldn’t be truthful, and I don’t think speaking that way demonstrates wisdom. 

I’ve had close friends lie to me, or panic and lie to others while throwing me under the bus. I’ve caught men who I trusted playing games and angles behind my back. After discovering this, I’ll have nothing to do with them personally, and if asked, I’ll tell you why we’re no longer friends. However, I refuse to dismiss their positive qualities and insist that they are given credit where it is due. I’ve even occasionally sent them business. I don’t want them in my circle of trust, but it would be petty and vindictive of me to obsess about whether or not they make a few bucks doing what they actually do well. I’m proud of this habit, and I encourage it in others. 

Either you want to maintain an ordered, hierarchical reality where you value achievement, or you don’t. 

There is a prevailing bitchiness in the Zeitgeist, motivated by ressentiment, that wants to dismantle the statuary of greatness as a comfort to mediocrity, weakness and sloth. You can feed into that by finding a way to reduce everything (and everyone) to some lowest common denominator. You can gossip and snipe and trade in clever insults. 

Or you can defiantly choose to acknowledge and honor strength and achievement and a measuring stick of good, better, best — even when it’s inconvenient. Even when you’re mad. Even when you’re not the best, or maybe not even good. 

Because if you refuse to acknowledge an ideal — there is no “good.” No “better” or “best.” Nothing to reach for. No direction. No orientation. Only fleeting comfort and sensation. Randomness and chaos. 

Only the voluptuous horror of multi-dimensional nothingness. 

I think I’ll stop there for now. 

That sounds like a good title for a future essay. 

The noble type of man regards himself as a determiner of values; he does not require to be approved of; he passes the judgment: “What is injurious to me is injurious in itself;” he knows that it is he himself only who confers honour on things; he is a creator of values.


Friedrich Nietzsche. Beyond Good and Evil

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Desperate Living

I talked to Jim Goad recently, and we joked a bit about some of the characters on America’s political fringe, as we’re both well acquainted with “both” sides. 

If you’ve never read Goad, you should. He’s a phenomenally witty writer possessed by a compulsion to mock hypocrisy wherever he sees it. It’s a sketchy racket but you never run out of material.

After we ended the call, I thought about the absurdity of it all, and texted him back to say that John Waters ought to make a film about the desperate goofballs and weirdos who populate both the far left and far right. Their comic antics are taken far too seriously by the normal people. 

As an unlikely character myself, if I step back from the worlds I’ve traveled in — from NYC nightclubs filled with gender-bending “performance artists” in giant sneakers huffing nitrous oxide to secret meetings of geriatric white nationalists held in Chinese restaurants — man there is a lot of wacky material you just couldn’t make up. Maybe someday I’ll write an autobiography. 

The movie idea stuck with me, so I came up with a pitch.

UNTITLED FILM PITCH

The story revolves around the ongoing conflicts between two camps of desperate ne’er-do-wells, both intent on changing the world through extreme political activism. 

Left Camp –

(They’re both named Sam, so you can’t assume their genders. Their birth names were Jennifer and Peter.)

SAM 1 – A white, morbidly obese purple-haired lesbian feminist who occasionally sidelines as a body-positive burlesque dancer.  She runs  her own XXX webcam business  to support her pizza problem. She’s addicted to prescription painkillers, “almost” commits suicide frequently, and is officially living on disability. 

SAM 2 – A skinny white asexual vegan punk rocker who is always between bands but really concerned about “the scene.” He has a trust fund, which allows him to do a lot of cocaine and keep his dreadlocks well-maintained. He’s bipolar, naturally, and sees several therapists. A perpetual student and campus organizer, he’s never worked a day in his life, but is a staunch union activist and imagines himself a heroic defender of the working class. 

Right Camp – 

Steve – There is only one character in the Right camp, because this guy has no friends at all. He works at a series of menial and retail jobs, and is extremely polite. He is middlingly chunky, perceptibly chinless, and has extremely tiny, delicate fingers.

At night (and on his lunch breaks on his phone) he spends his time denouncing people who he perceives to be “degenerates” — which includes almost everyone. He has a giant white board in his trailer park “war room” to keep track of his constantly changing pseudonyms and handles.

Throughout the film, he cycles through a series of extreme religious and political positions. He begins as a simple Southern Evangelical race realist, but abandons Christianity because it is “too Semitic” and becomes a staunch Odinist. After several violent encounters with former meth addicts who found Odin in prison, he studies Orthodox Christianity and starts posting “Orthodoxy or Death” online and papering the town with posters. He attempts to join an Orthodox church, but is disgusted to find that they still accept blacks. He resigns himself to an inventive combination of 14/88 esoteric Hitlerism and the private practice “Opus Dei” Catholicism. His practice consists mostly of posting memes about the true Catholic Church, the Jews, and the death of the West. 

PLOT

The running gag of the movie is the constant conflict between the right camp and the left camp, as the characters on the left camp doxx the right camp’s trailer park address and harass his employers via phone. He gets fired from Target, then Best Buy, then ends up at Walmart until the Left Camp shows up to steal boxes of Whip Its from the kitchenwares department, and Steve catches them and reports them to Loss Prevention. As they are escorted out of the store, they scream “Nazi” and “Fascist” hysterically.

Sam1 and Sam2 are quickly released and never charged, but vow to fight the fascist corporate pigs at Walmart. They set up another campaign to get Steve fired. This works, and Steve is forced to seek employment at a Chinese-owned convenience store because they are the only people who will hire him.

His online tirades shift to address the growing “Chinese threat” to the “American Way of Life,” and the film abruptly ends when the store is robbed and he is shot point-blank by a white Odinist who has relapsed and gone on a meth-fueled crime spree.

After his death is reported on the local news, Sam1 and Sam2 picket the Chinese-owned convenience store for hiring a “known racist.”

– cut. roll credits –

I think this project has real potential. 

If you make it, you should hire me as a consultant. I’m also up for a cameo — ideally in a difficult-to-film double role where I play both a Rob Halford-style leather dude and a militant Neo-Nazi who face off in a savage no-holds-barred underground amateur wrestling match.

I think this would make a lot of people happy.

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CREATIVITY & STOICISM

Jack Donovan - Waterfall

 A reader asked a me a good question the other day. Certain types of creative people draw from their personal struggles to create, and the realness in their work comes from a bare and palpable honesty about pain and weakness and heartache. There would probably only be 5-10 decent country songs if some guys hadn’t cried tears into their beers and then written songs about it. 

I have always written in the first person — I have no idea how to write fiction — so everything I write is at least partially autobiographical. I occasionally make truthful observations and give decent advice because I’d lived some life and wrestled with some problems myself. 

The question was, “how do you balance stoicism with creativity?” 

First of all, I don’t strictly consider myself a stoic. 

When I was hanging around a lot of self-described misanthropes, many seemed to be playing a game of inverse virtue signaling — “whoever hates humanity the most, wins.” It was hollow and forced and “too cool for school.” This goth pantomime didn’t communicate superiority, it revealed a lot of disillusioned idealists and souls with festering wounds.

I get the same sense from self-proclaimed stoics – if not necessarily from their foundational texts. There seems to be a running contest to see who can appear to be the least “affected.” It strikes me sometimes as being a little fake, inhuman, and lacking balance. 

So rather than stoicism proper, we’re talking about something more like emotional restraint, dignity, and the pragmatic filtering of thoughts and words to produce the best — not merely the most immediate — outcome. 

Perhaps the answer about creating with your pain has to do with the timeline. 

Early social media encouraged a real-time purging of every black mood and angry moment.  This kind of catharsis was usually a net-negative, both for the person doing the purging and for everyone reading it. It was also addicting to broadcast every sad or angry thought or feeling. A lot of people still do it. It always looks like a desperate cry for attention and no one respects someone for doing this — though if they are attractive, many will offer a shoulder to cry on. 

Instead of putting it out there in real time, process your pain and talk about it after you’ve overcome it. We often don’t understand what we are going through very well until after we’ve been through it anyway. When it’s all in the rearview mirror, you can present your suffering with insight instead of emotional panic. Or, maybe the real insight will be that you realize that you were just being a complete fucking idiot, and that no one needs to know about that. 

As I mentioned in one of the comments to that post about friendship…

“Misery loves company, but no one looks up to misery. Misery is something to look down at.”

If you enjoyed this article on creativity and you want to become a better writer, check out this article by Ed Latimore:

How To Write Better And Be A Better Writer

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On Friendship

Jack Donovan

Elliot Hulse wrote something the other day about not showing your weakness — every questioning feeling, thought, insecurity or fear — to a woman.

He’s right, and I’d like to add that this extends to friendship. A man isn’t really your friend until he knows you and knows your life and what makes you tick. He’s probably truly a friend if he’s seen you stumble a little, and stuck around to help you up. 

If a friend thou hast | whom thou fully wilt trust,
And good from him wouldst get,
Thy thoughts with his mingle, | and gifts shalt thou make,
And fare to find him oft. 

— Hávamál 44

You are not every thought that you have. YOU are the EGO that filters your thoughts and decides which thoughts matter. Anyone who knows me knows I’m pretty much an open book, but there are limits to how much sharing is productive. No man needs to get your brain’s unfiltered livestream. It can ruin a friendship, and as someone once told me rightly when I was making that mistake, if you give every thought a voice, it can ruin you and another man’s opinion of you. 

Men can’t afford to be careless, and in the past, they were more guarded.

It’s tactically smarter, and it’s philosophically, psychologically and spiritually better for them.

Boomer feminists have been bitterly attacking the “John Wayne” ideals of their “emotionally distant” dads who fought in WWII since the late 1960s. They lure men in with a “get out of manhood free” card. The one thing they have to offer is something only the worst men want — the freedom to be weak. To luxuriate in weakness and confusion and emotional chaos. But we are men, and men create order, light — cosmos. 

Nietzsche had a quote about friendship that is worth considering here. 

Thou wouldst wear no raiment before thy friend? It is in honour of thy friend that thou showest thyself to him as thou art? But he wisheth thee to the devil on that account! He who maketh no secret of himself shocketh: so much reason have ye to fear nakedness! Aye, if ye were Gods, ye could then be ashamed of clothing! Thou canst not adorn thyself fine enough for thy friend; for thou shalt be unto him an arrow and a longing for the Superman.

— Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra

Misery loves company, but no one looks up to misery. Misery is something to look down at.

⊕ STAY SOLAR ⊕

⁣⁣

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Whose Man Are You?

It started out as a joke. An insult. 

“Whose man is this?” 

“Who is responsible for this mess of a man?” 

I don’t think I’ve laughed as hard as I laughed that night in a very long time. The same joke in endless variation, all night long, with all kinds of confused and archaic grammar. 

“Whose man are you?

“Whose mans are we?” 

“Whose phones are we?”

Good jokes are funny because there is truth in them.

I was hanging out with a handful of friends at Waldgang, meditating on the nature of Lord Ingwaz, or Freyr, or *Fraujaz, depending on which name you like best. He’s associated with nature and fertility, and the tendency with *Fraujaz is to focus on agricultural and seasonal cycles. However, Freyr — whose name means “lord” — is also associated with lordship and leadership in this world. My mind eventually turned to the concepts of lordship and leadership and fealty and “belonging.” 

“Whose man are you?,” is a crisis of modernity. Everyone wants to belong and to fit in somewhere — to find an anchor and a place and an identity. Men seek out groups of men to help them locate themselves in the universe, because that is the way we have always survived. It is in our nature to do so. 

The Way of Men is the Way of the Gang.

We feel more comfortable and less vulnerable and more at home in the world if we have some kind of close-knit group — some sense of brotherhood. 

Where there is a need, there is a market, and opportunists looking to exploit it. 

If the monkey wants a banana badly enough, it’s easy to make him dance. 

Brotherhood is a banana that every man wants. 

Sometimes it develops organically. This is probably the best and most truthful kind of brotherhood. Friendships develop over time and are tested by life, and you demand more of each other and make each other better and hold each other accountable, and eventually there is a loyalty there that you’re not willing to compromise. Those men become part of who you are. This is an informal honor group. 

Often, brotherhood is created artificially by institutions — the military, fraternal orders, gangs, clubs and so forth. A social technology has been developed, and if you observe how this is done and have the audacity to use that technology, you can indoctrinate and test and initiate men who are looking for belonging into a formal brotherhood — a formal honor group.

Formal brotherhoods are often fealties disguised as brotherhoods. Most people want to be told what to do. It’s not even fair to stigmatize that, because it is a human norm. 

Even the most self-aware followers are attached to the romance of self-determination. One of the best ways to manipulate people is to convince them that your idea was actually their idea. Pretenses of democracy and collectivism are flattering, ego-affirming fictions.

“Whose man are you?”

“We are our own men. We belong to each other.”

“Nah. That charismatic guy out in front, the leader, the one who you are copying and who you want to impress so desperately — you’re HIS men.”

That is probably a hard pill to swallow.

But there is something more honest about fealty than there is about most organizations that call themselves “brotherhoods.” 

Some guy messaged me recently, telling me I should join this group he was affiliated with. It was probably a criminal organization, though it was never named. He was really excited about it.

The new guys trying to get into those organizations always tell me that, “it’s not like you think it is.” Of course, no one ever tells the new guys how it really is until…after they sign on. 

I certainly didn’t want to get in between him and whoever had him on the line. So I told him it wasn’t my thing. 

What I wanted to tell him was that he was probably going to go to prison saying “brotherhood” while his new “brother” smiled knowingly, fingering a fresh roll of hundred dollar bills. 

But as I said, most men want to be given a purpose and told what to do. Is it wrong to give them what they want? 

This is one of the deeper ethical questions of lordship.

Most lords have always been middle managers. They held authority under someone else’s authority. 

I was listening to Jocko Willink’s book Extreme Ownership recently, and he made the point that a good leader has to find a way to “believe in the mission” so that he can convince his men to believe in the mission and get the job done effectively. To do that, Willink looked for the wisdom and benevolence in a given leader’s master plan. 

Most people want to believe that they are good and decent people. Most leaders want to be wise and benevolent leaders. Some genuinely try to do the right thing and are willing to take the heat when they don’t — which is basically what Jocko’s book preaches. 

Some leaders know they are sending men to their doom, and convince themselves — perhaps rightly, perhaps wrongly — that they are doing it for the greater good. 

Sometimes they know they are doing it to save their own asses or serve their own immediate interests. 

Sometimes they just don’t give a shit. 

There’s nothing wrong with fealty groups.

It’s an un-American concept, but American men are still men and historically this is pretty normal male behavior. 

“Whose man are you?”

“I’m HIS man!”

It’s tidy and not necessarily something to be ashamed of. Men used to ride into battle under the banners of lords and kings. It was glorious! Given the amount of loyalty and emotional investment people give to corporate sports franchises or political parties … I’m not sure how an explicit cult of personality is any worse or more laughable. 

Everyone wants to be an “alpha,” but “alpha” is a position, and a group full of “alphas” is a group with too many chiefs and not enough Indians.  Someone is almost always in charge, and when they claim they aren’t, they are usually playing a much more elaborate and disingenuous game. 

My advice here is simply, “know thyself.” 

And read the fine print. Make sure you know who you are giving your allegiance to, and why. There are benevolent leaders and exploitative leaders and leaders who are just passing through. Most are probably a combination of all of the above. 

If you’re going to offer fealty to someone or a group of people, he/they also owe you something in return. Is that lord going to protect your farm and your family in exchange for your allegiance? Is he offering something of value beyond a good feeling and a pat on the back?

It’s a reciprocal relationship.  If it’s not, you’re a voluntary slave, and you should probably move on. 

X

“maður er manns gaman” (Hávamál) and Homō hominī lupus (Latin Proverb) are both true.

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The Bill of Rights Is What Matters Now

Jack Donovan

I don’t write about politics much these days. I don’t believe anything anyone says.

Politicians are playing a game with each other, and everything they say or do is a chess move. If a politician told me that the sky was blue, I’d wonder why he wanted me to believe the sky was blue, or which politician he was trying to get to disagree with him so that he could try to make them look like an idiot.

For a few decades, reporters were classical “liberals” — the kind of people who cared about truth, freedom of information, and the free exchange of ideas. The kind of people who opposed book burning and knew the history of the First Amendment. At least, it seemed that way. Maybe more people just bought into their industry self-talk.

Today’s “news entertainers” are the used car salesmen of truth. They act like your friends and sell you whatever “truth” profits them most. I stopped watching and reading and writing about “the news” years ago, because I got tired of helping them talk up their lemons.

Most state institutions and publicly-traded corporations are run by mobile careerists without much skin in the game. They think and act in the short-term — for the quick bonus, raise, or resume bullet point. Whatever programs or innovations they promise will be left to languish as soon as they receive credit for them and turn their attention elsewhere. Everything is a hustle for rootless Nietzschean  “Last Men” navigating morally with no true North — no “thou shalts” — only an ever-changing landscape of trending moral buzzers in a great game of Operation.

Nevertheless, I’m skeptical of the view that we’re living in some kind of “end time” or cyclical inversion of all righteous values. People have always carried signs saying “the end is near.” Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn’t. Our golden perception of the past is colored by its most successful myth-makers.

I’ve heard that my secret “master plan” is Evolian but the truth is that I’m tired of hearing about the Kali Yugafrom fans of that time-traveling love child of Jordan Peterson and Dr. Strange. Maybe it’s the end of some grand historic cycle. Maybe it isn’t. Maybe it gets better. Maybe it gets much, much worse.

Practically speaking, this is a narrative choice…a question of frame. Is the narrative serving you, or are you serving the narrative?

Maybe we’re all just guys, living in time, and things were never that great for most people. Maybe it’s not so melodramatic, and we’re not that special. Maybe we’re not tiger cowboys giddy-upping though a dark age of desolation.

Let’s concentrate on the present reality – because it is all we truly know.

I see some of the same problems and dangers, right now, in this time, that you see. And I share many of the same concerns.

I often find myself in conversations with thumotic men who are looking for a cause. They want to be sent “to the front.” But the conflicts that concern them have no front. Protest marches are for the most part performance art for college girls and memelords and 20th Century political LARPers.

America is dying on the inside. Its external enemies are comparably inconsequential. The next “wall” or middle eastern adventure won’t stop the whimpering death of freedom or the progressive emasculation of men.

There is no political “cause” to join that has any legitimate potential — just a handful of doomed demagogues and hopeful trust fund tyrants frantically scrambling to scribble their names into the history books.

I respect Donald Trump as a man, and I’ll admit that I’d rather have him as captain on this sinking ship than any of the other options I’ve seen presented. However, in accordance with my 2016 prophecy, it’s become increasingly obvious that he can’t “save” America and he’s not going to “make it great again” in the way that many men wanted him to. He’s not riding a dinosaur and he’s not going to break the wheel.

Vituð ér enn – eða hvat?

I don’t want to see good men — men who have promising futures and who could still raise good kids — throw their futures and their Y chromosomes away on lost causes.

If you make war with the whole world, the whole world will make war with you. And in that scenario, frankly, I don’t like your chances. Sure, doomed causes are romantic and Germanic, but hold your horses and reign in your Todestriebe, Captain Save-a-Civilization. Odin also said that, “No good can come of a corpse.” (Hávamál 70-71)

There have always been aspiring maestros waiting in the wings, hoping to conduct the bass drums of your anger to drive the fury of their own symphonies. Take care, fellas. Make sure it’s a piece worth playing.

If you’re honest with yourself, the future of Western Civilization is probably way above your pay grade.

The best thing you can do for yourself and for the world right now is to take control of the things close to you, within your own perimeter and direct sphere of influence.

You have the power to set boundaries and set an example and control the culture within that sphere. That’s your fire to tend. Stop worrying about all of the flickering myriad fires yonder and concentrate on your own.

I’m friends with a lot of men who genuinely believe in what America represents to them. They often say, “I don’t agree with what you’re saying, but I’d fight for your right to say it.”

That demonstrates strength of character. However, it can also be a weakness. Especially when the people in question are advocating against freedom of speech.

Karl Popper wrote about an oft-quoted “paradox of tolerance…”

“If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.”

– Karl Popper

If freedom means to you, as it does to me, “live and let live, but stay the fuck off my lawn” — then you can’t in good conscience advocate the suppression of anyone’s speech.

What you can do is draw a hard line socially, in your own life, with people who do advocate censorship of opinions they don’t like.

I believe that people should be able to say, write and believe whatever they want. And I should be free to entertain their viewpoints or ignore them completely.

If you can’t be ok with that — if you’re such a bitchy, passive-aggressive little tyrant that you can’t sleep unless you can use someone else’s power to control what other people say, write and think — then we have a problem.

If you think censorship is cool, then fuck you. 

People can say and believe whatever they want, and I have no choice but to tolerate them in the world or this country — I wouldn’t want it any other way — but I don’t have to tolerate them in my life.

I don’t want to control you, but if you want to control me, then fuck you. 

I can’t control what publicly traded corporations do. Many of them (like Gillette, for instance) may be quietly acknowledging behind the scenes that trusting the marketing advice of people in the urban left affirmation bubble isn’t as profitable as they thought it would be.

But if you’re an independent contractor or small business, and you’re advertising that you want the government (or corporations) to censor ideas or ban firearms, then I’m not going to hire you for freelance work. I’m not going to patronize your business if I have another viable option.

I don’t want anything to do with people who want to target other groups of people. I’d rather be “pro” something than “anti” anything.

And if you’re pro-freedom, let us all know, because I’d rather support you. I’m just one guy with a small business and a modest income — but there are a lot more men like me than the media wants you to believe. They’re just not standing in the street screaming.

In a neutral, public space that I can’t control, I’m never going to be rude or obnoxious, because that’s not how I was raised or who I am. But in my personal life, I’m done pretending to be friends with people who think it’s their job to mommy adults. I’m not going to show up at your event and smile and nod. I won’t break bread with you. The things you want are non-negotiable.

I’m done being nice to people who want to control me. It’s about time these people started feeling the cold shoulder and exclusion that they threaten everyone else with. It’s time that they felt some real pushback.

These are the kind of steps you can take to control your social environment — your own world. To tend your own fire and expand your personal influence.

A few months ago, someone pointed me to an issue of Foreign Affairs titled, “The New Nationalism.” Various authors weighed on on the good and evil and, often, the inevitability of some kind ofnationalism. If you have a nation at all, it has to have some kind of identity and purpose. A nation needs a story.

In the past, nations formed or invented a common history, usually based on shared culture and ancestry. America never really had that. Germany has a distinct culture, language and heritage with ancient roots. So does France and Sweden and Italy.

People traveled to America from all over Europe, and eventually the world, seeking freedom and opportunity. America is a frontier nation that became Empire, but what Americans share is the story of America’s founding, its guarantee of freedom and its spirit of innovation and adventure. American culture has long been meritocratic and animated by a rugged individualism — a break from the old world culture of nobility and entitlement.

A contemporary American Nationalism can’t be about race or entitlement.

But it can and should be about freedom and individual sovereignty.

America’s founders created the Bill of Rights, because they understood the danger of unchecked state power. The lived in a world where people competing religious groups spent generations murdering and trying to control each other. Actual witchhunts are part of early American history. The founders lived in a world were political imprisonment and execution was a real threat.

If you think a 21st Century state with access to drones and facial recognition technology doesn’t need to be checked and will by some miracle behave more benevolently than all of the human governments that have ever existed, you’re dangerously foolish.

The original Bill of Rights is the only thing preventing a completely Orwellian police state.

If you think you know anything about what goes on in Europe, you’re wrong, because they don’t have the same protected freedoms. Their “news” is already state-sanitized propaganda.

If you want to live in a country where people are arrested or disarmed at gunpoint for expressing an unpopular or unsanctioned viewpoint, under the auspices of “public safety” — then fuck you.

The Bill of Rights is what matters now. It’s the only thing standing between us and a corporate police state. It’s the only thing standing between the government monitoring you and controlling what you can and can’t say. Without the original Bill of Rights, America stops being free. It might as well be China.

I don’t care where you stand on most issues – you benefit from the ability to be able to express your opinions and spread information that may not be mainstream. And that only works if you’re willing to protect the speech of people who disagree with you. If you think that you’ll be able to influence a state with unchecked power, or that you’ll always be on the right side of their sanctioned “truth,” then you’re wrong.

America is a messy, diverse, divided nation. We can agree to disagree on a lot of things. The only political cause I really care about now is The Bill of Rights. I think it’s something a legitimate majority can get behind. A cause that should matter to all races and religions. As long as the integrity of the Bill of Rights remains, everything else is still up for debate.

If you’re looking for a cause or a “front” to go to, I believe that this is the front of our time. This is not a war to be fought with guns — in fact, please fucking do not. (Like most gun owners, I’d love to be in a locked room with one of these sad boy shooters.)

Start with your world. Take a stand in your own home, with the people you know. And put your money where your mouth is.

If you’re going to draw a hard line in your own life, draw it here.

These things are non-negotiable.

Photo by Grey Pines Media

THE ORIGINAL BILL OF RIGHTS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

AMENDMENT I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. 

AMENDMENT II

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. 

AMENDMENT III

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law. 

AMENDMENT IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. 

AMENDMENT V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. 

AMENDMENT VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence. 

AMENDMENT VII

In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law. 

AMENDMENT VIII

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. 

AMENDMENT IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. 

AMENDMENT X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

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Interview: 9 Questions for Edred Thorsson

 

 

If you are using the runes or practicing any form of Germanic paganism in the United States right now, you can thank Edred Thorsson — and you should. Writing under that name or his birth name, Stephen Flowers, he’s been advancing the light of what he sometimes refers to as “The Northern Dawn” since the 1970s. He’s studied and has in many cases translated and republished the works of the early 20th Century runologists that others draw from. He founded The Rune-Gild in 1980 to promote the study of the runes and has formed, served or advised several significant American pagan organizations. If you’ve said a sumbel or cast a rune or performed any kind of heathen rite, its form and content were probably influenced in some direct or indirect way by Thorsson. 

Here are a few of his books that I’d recommend to anyone interested in Germanic paganism or runology:

The Northern Dawn – A History of the Reawakening of the Germanic Spirit

History of the Rune-Gild – The Reawakening of the Gild 1980—2018

The Nine Doors of Midgard

Futhark – A Handbook of Rune Magic

Runelore: The Magic, History, and Hidden Codes of the Runes

ALU, An Advanced Guide to Operative Runology

Rune Might  – The Secret Practices of the German Rune Magicians

The Secret of the Runes by Guido von List (as translator and editor)

Thorsson’s Futhark and Runelore were two of the first books I ever read about runes. I was headed to Texas on business, and I wanted to meet “the man.” After reaching out to him through a mutual friend, I booked a table to meet him for lunch at Le Politique, a brightly-lit brasserie in downtown Austin. 

I checked in with the hostess and ordered myself a Negroni. Then I noticed a white-haired man outside on the street. He was wearing a wool alpine jacket.

“Ah…that’s the guy.” 

I went out to introduce myself. 

It immediately became clear that Edred isn’t another dour occultist who relies on spooky posturing and an empty panne velvet bag full of “hidden secrets.” He’s energetic — animated by a sense of purpose. He’s full of ideas and information — so much information — but he’s also extremely modest. I deferred to him, calling him a scholar and describing myself as a mere “popularizer,” but Edred — who does have a PhD in Medieval Studies — insisted that he was a popularizer, too. I got the sense that he’s a man who found something that he’s passionate about, and he wants to share it with anyone who has eyes and ears for it. But he also wants to make sure they get it right. 

We talked through lunch and into the beginning of the dinner shift about the business of writing, the runes, ritual, sacrifice, and the trials associated with organizing people. We talked about Jung and Nietzsche and Eliade. His observations and advice were sharp and extremely insightful. He’s been there and done a lot, but seems unexpectedly open-minded — still “seeking the mysteries.” 

I enjoyed our informal conversation too much to take notes, so the following interview was conducted via email after the fact, riffing on of some of the topics we discussed over lunch. 

JD: Your life seems to have been guided by a very clear sense of purpose, and you’ve been an extremely influential figure in a lot of people’s lives. What are some of the accomplishments that you are most proud of, and what qualities did you cultivate in yourself that helped you achieve them? 

ET: My initiatory life was begun with the hearing of the word RUNA in the summer of 1974. It would be a misunderstanding of the whole process to believe that the subsequent journey was one that was “planned” — the whole process has been rather multi-dimensional. There has been a clear sense of moving forward and seeking the goals of learning to understand the mysteries of the Germanic (and Indo-European) cultural and intellectual realm, to facilitate the (re-)development of the values of our ancestral past in the modern world and in so doing make the world a better and more vigorous place. But as to the question of the things which I have consciously cultivated in myself to achieve these goals they are these: love of learning and curiosity about the next discovery, discipline necessary to learn the hard things (e.g. learning key languages, mastering the historical and philosophical contexts for all information to have a matrix of meaning, development of a pattern of work which facilitates the production vision and the will to see the envisioned products come to fruition). Most of these things were greatly aided in my development by the years-long experience in graduate school and the instilling in me an intellectual work-ethic by my professor, Edgar Polomé. Accomplishments of which I am proud are the body of written work which I have produced, the establishment of the Rune-Gild and the earning of a Ph.D. from a major university. These are all the results of inner tools developed on an esoteric level, and are all keyed to an unwavering dedication to the imperative: reyn til rúna (“seek the mysteries”).

JD: 1974. That’s the year I was born. “Seek the mysteries” is a truly Odinic motto. Some people are naturally curious and inventive. So many more want step-by-step instructions for everything. Anything worth doing probably involves hard work and some process of personal discovery — some kind of “gnosis.”

I read your History of the Rune Gild (Arcana Europa 2019). It’s a real page-turner. One comment struck me in particular. We discussed it briefly in Austin. You wrote:

“During that year I continued to be involved with the theories and practices of magic(k) and to explore an eclectic path generally of my own making. I couldn’t give much credence to the Wiccan form of “magic” at this point because it emphasized—in accordance with its essentially religious worldview—a harmonizing of the will of the individual with the patterns of nature. I had made the essentially magical and individualistic philosophy I had experienced earlier too much a part of myself to find this very attractive.”

This seems to me a major point of philosophical difference between many approaches, religions and ideologies. Can you elaborate on what you meant by this?

ET: Among the Wiccan neo-pagans I was acquainted with the early 1970s in Austin — and this was a time when the coven I was around was rife with rumors that the might be another coven in the area! — the attitude seemed to be that one was more “advanced” measured by the degree to which one was fully in harmony with the “cycles of nature.” These cycles determined one’s mood, success and so on. At first that just seemed to strike me wrong. I had been an enthusiast for the philosophy of Anton LaVey before this, and liked to say that when I thought of “nature” I thought of a thunderbolt, not a “daisy.” I dubbed the Wiccans “daisy sniffers” in my private jargon. I would have had to admit that at that time I did not know why this was so, I did consider the idea that the pagans of old were in some sense nature worshippers to be true. It would first be under the guidance of Professor Edgar Polomé that I would learn that, as he put it one day: “The Germanic peoples were not nature worshippers.” This was not just a statement, it was the conclusion to a long set of substantiated observations about Germanic (and by extension Indo-European) attitudes toward the mind, culture and the place of these categories within nature. The mind of man not only allows, but demands that humans act in ways contrary to nature, to transcend it, not “harmonize” with it (i.e. be its thrall). We learn from nature, and we learn when and where to act in accordance with natural conditions in order to succeed on a tactical level, but our overall strategy is one that aims for freedom and independence from naturally imposed limitations. The oldest myth in regard to this is reflected in Odin’s observation of the “natural world” into which he was born, governed by Ymir, and his rejection of it. He overthrew that order, sacrificed Ymir and remade the “natural” cosmos in the form of a rational and beautiful, mind-crafted replacement— in world in which we now live.  

JD: Modern Germanic pagans have traditionally sought out “natural” environments in which to practice and perform ritual, perhaps influenced by these lines from Tacitus:

“The Germans, however, do not consider it consistent with the grandeur of celestial beings to confine the gods within walls, or to liken them to the form of any human countenance. They consecrate woods and groves, and they apply the names of deities to the abstraction which they see only in spiritual worship.”

However, later sources also describe lavish temples such as the Hof at Gamla Uppsala. 

There’s something distinctly primal about holding ritual out under the trees and the open sky around a roaring fire. I was able to purchase land to build my sacred space, Waldgang, but to get some privacy and a few acres at a reasonable price, I had to move several hours away from any urban hub. It will become increasingly difficult for pagans to organize and finance these spaces as the world gets more crowded, as cities sprawl out and real estate becomes less affordable. 

These concepts are eternal and elemental. As men continue to “transcend nature” can you imagine Germanic pagans practicing in urban spaces — or for that matter, even in space? How would you incorporate elements of this ancient practice into completely man-made spaces?

ET: The reason why natural environments, and often remote and secluded environments were seen as suitable for sacred activities are many. One they are separate from ordinary life and far away for the mundane activities of normal activities. This idea of being set apart is fundamental to the conception of the sacred, which means something separated from the ordinary. Natural settings were often chosen because of their special characteristics, a waterfall, a deep grove, a special rock formation, etc. all of which again set the place apart from the ordinary. It is in these environments that the ancients believed the holy was made manifest. Also, because festivals involving the whole tribe may require more space than could normally be accommodated in a hall or building (although extremely huge foundations of such buildings have been found in Scandinavia). The temples, such as the one mentioned at Uppsala was actually quite small and probably served as an inner sanctum for a larger holy complex in the area. All that being said, I do not see any prohibition against using elaborate temples or shrines. Religion and cult is constantly evolving. The important thing is that the sacred space is a place set apart and made special for the activities of the sacred and holy. The same observation that was made by Tacitus was also made by the Greeks and Romans about the Persians, who certainly built elaborate buildings, but whose most sacred spaces remained remote and natural regions. Conversely, the most every-day sacred space is most often just a corner of the house for a small household shrine. The holy is found in the extraordinary, and in the everyday. 

JD: You’re working on a book about re-tribalization. To begin, what does the word “tribe” mean to you? It’s become a popular buzzword for marketers, and everyone with an email list or a social media group seems to believe they have a “tribe.” What differentiates a legitimate tribe from something like that in your mind? 

ET: Indeed, the word “tribe” is often misused, or used in a way that detracts from the original scope and power of the institution being referred to by the word. Longing for a sense of tribe is an admirable impulse and a positive one. But we should not be satisfied with half-measures when it comes to this topic. The main confusion comes in between the concepts the actual tribe (German: Stamm) and a band or company (German: Männerbund). These are the two main alternative ways of organizing, and they often work together and complement each other. A band is entered into by individuals on a voluntary basis and each band (company, order, guild, etc.) has a specific purpose or craft which it pursues. A tribe is generally entered into by families and has as its purpose the protection and promotion of the interests of the members of that tribe. Traditionally one would be born into his tribe. Other ways of entering a tribe are by marriage, adoption or blood-brotherhood. In today’s jargon bands are often called tribes. This leaves the actual idea of the tribe out in the cold. A tribe would have to be made up of people who live close to one another, who interact on a very regular basis and who are bound to help and render aid to other tribe members. Tribes cannot exist on the Internet or by mail-order. This tribal organization can and will make the lives of every individual within it richer and happier. For millennia, we were organized as tribes, only recently, with the advent of the nation state has this mode of life been forgotten. This is one of the deep roots of or discontent as a people. Re-tribalization is the subject of my new book Re-Tribalize Now!, which is a guidebook to the idea.  Re-tribalization is the best form of radical revolt against the Modern World. In is a non-violent form of rebellion, which is the only kind that is likely to succeed. If the Modern World is all about atomizing the individual, separating him from his cultural context in order to be able to manipulate him at will by marketers/politicians, then re-tribalization, by restoring the individual to his cultural roots and context in a profoundly structural way will blunt the detrimental effects of Modernization. 

JD: When we were discussing the concept of tribe over lunch, you said that ideally, being part of a tribe should make life easier and better for the people in it — not harder. Can you elaborate on what you mean by that? 

ET: Often “tribal” life might be dominated by autocratic leaders or ideologies which make hard demands on the mind and conscience of individuals. “Tribes” can become cults and then they are hard to live in for normal, healthy people. Tribe members are seen to exist to serve the “cause” or the leadership. This can describe a cult, or a fanatic political cause such as blossomed in the twentieth century. This is totally contrary to the true spirit of the tribe. A tribe should exist for the health, well-being and happiness of its tribal members. Not many should want to be part of something that makes huge demands on their freedom and productivity in order to serve some ideology. A healthy tribal existence provides things that money cannot buy: identity, solidarity and mutual loyalty. Most of the difficulties or hardships of modern life are caused by our lack of tribal life and our resultant dependence on the state— a state which increasingly does not have out best interests at heart. Not only would tribal life make the incidental difficulties easier (the car broke down, Joe will fix it) but also the great problems— alienation, isolation and loss of identity. Successful tribalism will be introduced to individuals and families gradually and in the process people will learn that life gets better and better the more they focus on their immediate environments and less on the artificial and deceptive worlds of devices and cable news.

JD: I’ve watched the beginnings of tribal culture form, and it can happen quickly — almost too quickly. Once you’ve defined a perimeter of inclusion and exclusion,  people start reading the same books and sharing the same ideas and developing a framework for reality — and a humor, it often starts with humor —  distinctive enough to alienate outsiders. 

However, maintaining a culture over the long term seems to historically require some kind of isolation. This isolation is virtually impossible to create and maintain in the interconnected modern world without some kind of authoritarian structure. Gangs are collectively complicit in criminal acts, so they can enforce boundaries through extortion and threats of violence. Extreme religious groups and male honor groups rely on threats of “shunning” to maintain boundaries and keep people invested. How do you think the tribes that you are advocating will interact successfully with the outside world, while maintaining boundaries and a sense of cultural cohesiveness? 

ET: The isolation factor you speak about is real and it is an effective aspect of forging group cohesion. Many groups do it by having beliefs that separate them from others, or a language which does so. In this day and age, such isolation has to be effected in a more subtle way. Isolation cannot be forced along. Tribes have to self-isolate because it is more practical, effective and fun to be isolated among members of one’s group than it is to mix with outsiders. That is the great challenge of the successful neo-tribalism of the future. One of the main tools in this is the implementation of what I call the Proximity Principle. Successful tribes of the future will be entirely local operations with people in the tribe living within thirty to forty miles of all other members, and mostly within a much closer proximity. If recruiting efforts are undertaken exclusively within this range, and the temptation of forming a “tribe” on Facebook or on the Internet is strictly avoided, then the social cohesion necessary for solidarity and identity to build to the level that such “self-isolation” will take place naturally and beneficially. 

JD: You’ve seen a lot of groups form and disband over the years, and I’m sure you’ve witnessed your share of bad characters and organizational drama. What qualities do you think people should look for in members of a group or tribe? What qualities should they be wary of? 

ET: Early on in the Asatru movement there were people who entered from nowhere and immediately started trying to “radicalize” the group. These were usually (but not always) suspected of being provocateurs or agents for the FBI or something. But less dramatically, people who enter the group and immediately start to try to change it should be suspect, and can in no way be good for the group. If they don’t like it, they should go elsewhere. In the runic world, I have sometimes been confronted by people who on the one hand are anxious to be recognized within the Rune-Gild, yet at the same time tell me that they have higher and more authentic rune-knowledge than I have to teach. I have to tell such individuals that they therefore do not need the Gild and they should teach their undefiled wisdom elsewhere. Usually that is the last I or anyone else ever hears of them. Generally, “disgruntled followers” always think they can do things better. If they do split off, they generally fail. When one is part of a crew on a functioning ship one cannot see all of the complexities the captain sees. Then if one finds one’s self as the captain of one’s own crew all of a sudden then the fact that there are a lot of missing pieces becomes obvious— and the new captain has no idea how to acquire these pieces. Exceptions to this split-off rule do exist. Sometimes the founders of movements have a good basic idea, but really are missing pieces of the vision that a later reformer can supply and the split-off is superior to the original. The Odinic universe, created after the destruction of the universe of Ymir, is, after all such a radical reformation of the status quo. 

JD: Along the same lines, what qualities should people look for in a leader? And what qualities should be red flags? 

ET: Some leaders seem to be ordained by the gods. They have charisma and knowledge and make their own way in the world of organizations. These are few and far between. Looking at the question from the perspective of a seeker leaders are worthy who are qualified in a world or worlds beyond their organization. Starting a group and naming yourself the grand poohbah of it is no great accomplishment. Look for leaders to be tested and certified as worthy by other parts of the world. Also, is that leader willing to relinquish power to others when appropriate or necessary. Is what is being taught or conveyed in the group 1) beneficial to life and happiness, 2) in accord with what history and tradition teaches? If so, then the leader and the group may be solid. Groups and leaders who are self-ordained, with no outside corroboration and which teaches previously unheard of ideas is probably bogus. But here as elsewhere in life, there are always exceptions. 

JD: In your introduction to The Northern Dawn, you wrote about the tendency of Westerners to seek “true” wisdom from the East — “ex oriente lux.” It’s a bourgeois cliche that’s perhaps never been more pervasive. When someone wants to “get deep” or “get spiritual” they look to India or Tibet or Japan. It’s safely exotic. Obviously they are bored with the Christian approach they grew up with, but Western culture runs so much deeper than that. There is something to be gained from most traditions and practices — some kernel of wisdom — but I can’t shake the perception that so many Eastern schools lean toward the erasure of the individual and the importance of great deeds and material accomplishments. There’s something different about the Western approach. Do you see differences between Eastern and Western approaches to life? What will men find when they look to the North, that they’ll find less of in the East?

ET: I really do not see this as an originally intrinsic East/West division. It seems to have had its origins in the East round 500 BCE with the philosophy of Buddhism which began to see the world as a place filled with suffering (Sanskrit duhkha) and that the whole point of life is to annihilate the self or ego (seen as an illusion) to avoid rebirth in this world of suffering. This is a classic case of the world-denying impulse in religion and philosophy. The Indo-European philosophy is originally a world-affirming one. This was true in Vedic India, Iran as well as among all pre-Christian, indigenous European cultures. The world was seen as a good place, and cultic practices were employed to ensure the continuation of this goodness. Christianity is itself a world-denying impulse, but it is philosophically vague in this regard. The Northward view is affirming of the world, of the individual and of the culture of the tribe or society. Our strategic problem at this point is our widespread and increasing loss of collective identity and knowledge concerning our history and mythology. We have to develop our philosophies, produce material and produce teachers of the philosophy, then educate the population with all forms of media. I have forthcoming books called Our Indo-European Heritageand Our Germanic Heritage which I see as part of this effort. The sad thing is that this self-obliteration aim of Eastern religions is coming into the West at a time when many in the West are consciously or unconsciously anxious to commit cultural suicide. This self-annihilation of the individual perfectly mirrors their collective self-hating urge to obliterate their own culture, ethnos and history. There is a lot to do and new forms of media will be the vehicle for the next phase.

For a deeper look inside the mind of a modern rune master…

 

 

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Would You Yet Know More?

The Rûna Interviews with Edred Thorsson – Edited By Ian Read and Michael Moynihan

from Arcana Europa / Gilded Books, 86 pages, ISBN 9781074360023

 

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“This Is Your Captain Speaking” – In Defense of Ego

Jack Donovan - Ozymandias

It was the Marine Corps’ birthday. I drove out to have drinks with some guys who had just wrapped up a day at the range. My salty friend “Buck” gave a buoyant but unapologetic reading of Commandant John A. Lejeune’s 1921 memorandum to the entire restaurant. I’ve never been in the military, so I looked on like a buzzed and confused anthropologist. Sometime after the snipers had punished each other with inventively sadistic tequila shots, Buck challenged the table. 

“Can anyone tell me a time when “ego” is a good thing?”

Buck is both mischievously and purposefully argumentative. He is also a genuinely decent human being and he’s surprisingly open-minded for a dude who you can barely picture without a lump of chaw in his lower lip. He went around the table, patiently hearing nods and objections.

I argued that, in the Freudian sense, the “Ego” is the rational aspect of the conscious mind. It is your Ego that makes conscious decisions and chooses to regulate your behaviors. It’s responsible for both positive and negative choices. 

If you are self-aware and acting consciously, your Ego is giving the orders. The Ego is the captain of your ship. If your Ego is “bad,” either your captain is making bad decisions, or he’s not running a tight ship. He’s allowing the primal, semi and sub-conscious desires of the “Id” take the helm. 

“Jack, I knew you’d come up with some technicality.” 

Freud actually used the German word “Ich” — meaning simply “I” — and early translators latinized “Ich” as “Ego,” which means approximately “I, myself” in Latin. The Ego is the only “Self” that you can fully know. Your Ego is…YOU. 

Buck was using Ego as many martial arts instructors do: as a synonym for arrogance, hubris, narcissism, or “egotism.” 

Both narcissism and egotism suggest a passionate desire to maintain and enhance overestimated views of oneself. This “bad,” “unhealthy,” or “unproductive” ego protects delusions of grandeur at the expense of accurate introspection and growth. It’s a floundering and vulnerable regime that relies on patriotic songs instead of learning from its competitors. 

If, in the words of Kipling, you “trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too” — then in this sense you have a healthy ego which is confident but also open to criticism and the possibility of acknowledging error or room for improvement. Not all criticism from everywhere — that’s insanity — but valid criticism from experienced,  knowledgeable or trusted sources. And perhaps the occasional gibe from the peanut gallery that rings true. 

What men generally mean when they criticize Ego is that your confidence is unbalanced by humility. The word “Ego” has become a conversational shorthand for “lack of humility” and “delusions of grandeur.” To point out that it means more than that according to the Austrian who popularized it (in translation) may seem a touch pedantic. But it doesn’t bother me because I’m a stickler or a Freudian. It bothers me because it drifts linguistically toward self-denial and mixes with a spiritual self-denial that usually wafts in from eastern philosophy and which generally smells a lot like patchouli and marijuana. 

Westerners have long been possessed by a certain neophilic orientalism that regards everything from the east as being more authentic or spiritual or “deep” — almost solely by virtue of it being exotic and non-western. Slap some Sanskrit on your strip mall yoga studio and suddenly you have more wisdom to offer than all of the Greeks and Romans combined. 

A wide variety of (mainly) eastern schools of thought seem to equate enlightenment with the acceptance of the idea that the self is an illusion. Each of their varied adherents will find some detail in this to quibble with or say that I am misrepresenting something. That’s fine. 

I’m willing to accept the notion that the self — the Ego, even — is a construction of the brain. Some kind of survival mechanism that helps us make sense of the world. The Self — or Ego — is, in some biological sense, an “illusion.” But only insofar as everything else is, too. 

We process the world through our senses. Our eyes perceive something as being a certain color because it reflects a certain wavelength of light, based on various physical properties. If we can’t perceive color, is it real? Is everything the same color? Is color even a relevant property of a thing? 

Totally deep, right? 

Like, “woah…”

I can accept the idea that the only Self that I know is in some sense an illusion — that my Ego is a hallucination of my brain — but practically speaking, I still have to interact with the world as a differentiated individual. So I’m not sure what utility there is in focusing on that idea. 

My Ego, — myself and I — work together to create and recreate this thing that we are, over and over again. To rewrite its mission and its script, to find and elaborate on its themes and make it a coherent and compelling work of art that stands on its own. 

Until it doesn’t. As a carbon-based life form, yes, I’m made of the same stuff as other living things. I will return to the earth and the darkness, and — broadly speaking — the universe, whether I like it or not. But I’m in no particular hurry. I’m connected to all things and I am part of some big picture, but I am also differentiated and singular. I am not a tree or a woodpecker. I am a man. More than a man, I am me. And this consciousness, this sense of self, this Ego — is part of my nature. 

A tree wants — insofar as it is able to want — to be the biggest and fullest tree it can be. It is shaped and stifled by environmental factors that promote or limit its growth. It may be surrounded by rocks and attacked by insects and parasites, it may weather storms and droughts, but it is a living thing struggling to live and it will do everything it can to become the most magnificent manifestation of its potential that it can. 

Of course, there is no part of your brain called “Ego.” Freud’s structural model of the mind is just that — a model for thinking about thinking. It is an intellectual tool — a technology. As with all tools, its value is tied to its utility. Philosophies and religions are all technologies.

Focusing on the inevitable dissolution of my Self or Ego may be appropriate in hospice, but I question its utility for living life. 

If you choose a path, make sure it is taking you somewhere that you want to go. Are you seeking your own truth, or some unknowable objective truth about the mind and the meaning of life, or are you seeking a truth to submit to? Are you looking for something useful or are you looking for something or someone to follow? Are you looking for a set of rules or some comfort?

While I struggle to see how useful becoming one with the universe and focusing on the illusory nature of reality is useful to the individual in a practical sense, I so see why someone in a position of power would promote it. The erasure of identity lends itself to a broad —and today, globalist — collectivism. It taps into our Dionysian desire to disappear into the darkness of collective (un)consciousness. To speak with the same voice and think with the same mind.

Like Littlefinger, “Sometimes when I try to understand a person’s motives I play a little game. I assume the worst. What’s the worst reason they could possibly have for saying what they say and doing what they do?”

If you’re not real and not important, if your goal is disappearance, then why does anything matter? It seems like a pretty good way to get people to accept simpler lives, and to be happier with less opportunity. It seems like a pretty good way to control people and convince them to accept the fate you’ve chosen for them. It seems like a good way to get people to accept your authority. Why not? What difference does it make? 

It makes one wonder if these leaders really practice, in their hearts, the same religion they proscribe to their people. I tend to doubt it. Why would you assume that the leader who wants you to kill your Ego is altruistic? 

I’m not saying that Gautama Buddha Manson-family mind-fucked generations of millions, but I’m not saying he didn’t.

“Say my name, say my name…”

It is possible that…the man who wants you to forget your Ego may also want you to remember his own… 

Maybe you’re ok with that. Maybe that’s what you want — to fall into a thing and give it control and let it shape you. To become one of the king’s men and ride one of his horses. 

Maybe it’s not. Either way, that’s none of my business. 

That’s for your Ego to decide. 

In Freud’s model, the Ego never really goes away — it simply chooses to repress thoughts and urges that do not conform to its aspirational “Ego Ideal” or which have been deemed unacceptable within its social environment.

I haven’t read Ayn Rand’s Anthem since I was a teenager, but kicking this problem around took me back to the communist dystopia she created, wherein the characters were limited to plural pronouns, like “we,” “our” and “they,” and men had names like “Equality 7-2521.” The protagonist, rebels and eventually discovers a book from “The Unmentionable Times.” In that book, he encounters, for the first time in his life, the word “I.” Recognizing his individuality, he decides to give himself the name Prometheus.

At first, man was enslaved by the gods. But he broke their chains. Then he was enslaved by the kings. But he broke their chains. He was enslaved by his birth, by his kin, by his race. But he broke their chains. He declared to all his brothers that a man has rights which neither god nor king nor other men can take away from him, no matter what their number, for his is the right of man, and there is no right on earth above this right. And he stood on the threshold of the freedom for which the blood of the centuries behind him had been spilled.

But then he gave up all he had won, and fell lower than his savage beginning.

What brought it to pass? What disaster took their reason away from men? What whip lashed them to their knees in shame and submission? The worship of the word “We.”

When men accepted that worship, the structure of centuries collapsed about them, the structure whose every beam had come from the thought of some one man, each in his day down the ages, from the depth of some one spirit, such spirit as existed but for its own sake. Those men who survived those eager to obey, eager to live for one another, since they had nothing else to vindicate them–those men could neither carry on, nor preserve what they had received. Thus did all thought, all science, all wisdom perish on earth.

What Rand suggests here is that the desire to realize one’s individual potential and to be recognized for it actually drives competition, discovery and innovation. The daring men who discovered continents and planted flags on the North and South poles all wanted to make names for themselves. They were competing to be the known and remembered as the first and the best. This competition to be known and esteemed has driven invention and cured diseases. Before the art world lurched toward a dreary and hypocritical communism, most of the great paintings were signed. Rembrandt and Da Vinci call out from the grave, saying “recognize that I did this!” You know that Dali and Picasso wanted you to remember their names! They would have told you themselves! What man would break his own bones shouldering 800, 900, or 1000 pounds if no one would ever know he did it?

Keep your quizzical kōans and subservient mantras and send me men, send me EGOs who would die to get their names up on the board of life! I want a world where men still want to DO DEEDS and be remembered for them.

Cattle die, and kinsmen die,

And so one dies one’s self;

But a noble name will never die,

If good renown one gets.

Cattle die, and kinsmen die,

And so one dies one’s self;

One thing now that never dies,

The fame of a dead man’s deeds.

— Hávamál

It’s a manly concern — to want to piss on trees and wipe your dick on the drapes. To inseminate the world. To leave evidence of your existence. To claim mountains and build monuments. To become Ozymandias, booming from the grave: “Look upon my works, ye mighty and despair!”

The sands of time may wipe away all of these works, and someday the sun will swallow the Earth, but if I’m going to be here, I’m going to be here and I’m going to keep trying to write my Ego’s name on the world. I’m not here merely for the experience. That’s a participation trophy. If you’re into that, that’s cute, but I’m here to make a mark.

As Rand observed, it is this Ego — this Ego in competition with other Egos — that in many cases pushes us to invent and overcome and break the shackles of our minds and bodies. The Ego motivates. It is this Ego, this I, this ME who says — who insists — “I AM somebody,” “I AM worth something,” “I have an idea,” “I want to be heard,” “I want to be free.”

That’s when Ego is a good thing.

And here, over the portals of my fort, I shall cut in the stone the word which is to be my beacon and my banner. The word which will not die, should we all perish in battle. The word which can never die on this earth, for it is the heart of it and the meaning and the glory.

The sacred word:

EGO

— Ayn Rand, Anthem

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Recreation vs. Re-Creation

Re-Creation - Jack Donovan

I wrote this a couple of years ago, in response to discussions I was having with someone I was mentoring. It is one aspect of what the ouroboros (the ancient symbol depicting the serpent that eats itself) has come to mean to me personally — applied as an approach to living a creative life, and life-as-art. 

RECREATION AND THE STRUGGLE TO BLANK

Men of this age, in this Empire of Nothing, have been trained to work for the end.

The weekend, the end of work, the end of life.

Like prisoners who have been promised an hour in the yard, men have been promised that in return for five days of work, they will be released from employment to enjoy two days of “free time.” At work, they must do what the company wants them to do and take care not to say anything that the company has deemed inappropriate. During these two days, celebrated in America as “the weekend,” working men are encouraged to “relax.” They are “free” to be “who they really are”—though increasingly even this time is monitored by employers and potential employers for signs of undesirable habits or viewpoints. Workers describe themselves by listing the kinds of leisure activities they prefer, as well as the foods, beverages and entertainment products they choose to consume when they are permitted to “relax.” Their identities — their very lives — are defined almost entirely by recreational choices.

Beyond the weekend, men have been taught to work for vacations, and eventually, retirement — the big weekend granted to workers when they have reached the end of their useful working years.

This plebeian end-orientation is complemented by afterlife-oriented religions. What is it that people expect to do in Heaven anyway? Isn’t it a pleasant, white “blank?” A softly lit question mark? An eternal happiness in stasis? A measured, consistent drip of your favorite endorphins? Those who view life as suffering see death as a reward — a forever weekend — a time when they can finally “relax” and end the suffering of living.

This is the sprit of the age, this linear “struggle to blank.” Men have been trained to struggle to an end, and at the end, they are permitted to “relax.” The word relax comes from a root that means to loosen. In his struggle to relax, man merely seeks a little slack in his bondage and a break from his chores. Recreation is his reward for work.

RE-CREATION AND THE STRUGGLE TO STRUGGLE

The Noble Beast seeks not recreation, but RE-CREATION!

The great man’s recreational preferences are the least notable, the least interesting things about him. What kind of wine did Caesar drink? Who cares?! It’s merely amusing trivia — a tiny, forgettable detail set against the grand scale of his life story.

The master creates! He is known by his works, not his pastimes. His life is not suffering! The Noble Beast is glad to be alive. He is glad to be able to exert his strength and will and intellect. He is pleased to be able to continue to create again and again. The Noble Beast doesn’t want to relax, he wants to keep becoming, to keep making himself anew.

When a man is forced to work, he looks forward to a slackening of bonds and a break from the whip.

When a man forces himself to work, he works to realize a vision, but during the process more visions reveal themselves to him, so he finds himself working not toward an end of work, but toward the next beginning—to get to “what’s next.”

The creative man is a self-turning wheel, a self-consuming serpent — an ouroboros — gnawing away at his own flesh to feed his own growth. The creative beast seeks no end. He consumes the end, over and over again in a continual process of generation and becoming. He digests life inch by inch, and with childlike exuberance, he says YES to himself and chews ever forward.

Artwork by Rotten Fantom
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The Joy of Thor

(Click here to download the audio version.)

The primary role of Thor is the primary, evolutionary role of all men — to protect the perimeter inhabited by his people and to do battle with chaotic forces that threaten its order, prosperity and continuity. 

It is only when that zone of security has been established and maintained that any of the civilized joys of life can develop and be experienced in their fullness. Without security, there is no art, no love, no higher learning — only anxiety and the struggle to survive. 

Thor is a guardian — protector of Asgard, of sailing ships, of crops and the common folk. In Dumézil’s tripartite ordering of Indo-European societies, he is a manifestation of the warrior archetype. He is the hammer of the gods and the people — the juggernaut of the Kshatriya — a crushing force set loose on malevolent jötnar and all encroaching forces of chaos and disorder. 

In the words of Longfellow, his “eyes are lightning” and his name means “thunder,” with an origin reaching through the Proto-Germanic “Þunraz” all the way to the

Proto-Indo-European tongue of the steppe.  

To fight and protect — this is the role of Thor. He is a warrior. That is his job and his duty. 

But what does it feel like — to experience being thunder? What does it feel like to be a terrible rumble in the sky that seems to shake the very earth? 

It sounds like it feels pretty good.  It sounds like it feels like power and winning. 

Nietzsche wrote that, “…a living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength…” 

This is the joy of Thor, of being Thor, of being the personification of thunder itself. To have strength and exert it — to use it. To bring the BOOM. 

This isn’t Thor’s duty or his higher purpose, it is simply what he is and what he does. In the stories about Thor, he is always revving his engines, looking for a reason to do what he really wants to do and to be what he really is. He’s chomping at the bit, waiting for an opportunity to become Þunraz. And when the god of thunder becomes thunder, I imagine the corner of his grimace turns upward just a bit. 

Because it feels good to exert strength. Because it feels good to BE thunder. 

One might call the gods projections, or mysteries, or eternal truths. In some sense, they represent aspects of ourselves. They are pieces of human nature. 

Strength is one of the defining characteristics of Thor, and it is also one of the defining characteristics of men. Greater average strength is one of the qualities that distinguishes men from women. All men are not stronger than all women, but most men are stronger than most women. Strength differentiates men, and greater strength helped us to perform our differentiated role and responsibility throughout the majority of our evolutionary history. Men needed to be stronger to protect their territories and the more vulnerable members of their tribes and families. 

But this strength, this virile potentiality, is also part of what we are. Having and using this greater strength is a joy in the way expressing any of one’s talents can bring great satisfaction. In the way that an artist fulfills his potential in painting the best painting he is able to paint, or a mother is fulfilled when she puts everything she has into raising and nurturing a child to the best of her ability, a man fulfills an aspect of his potential when he discharges his strength. He becomes more of what he is, and there is a magnificent joy in that becoming. 

Several years ago, I wrote that I “train for honor.” 

I was looking for a higher reason — beyond mere narcissism or physical maintenance — some greater purpose for training. It has always been the job of men to be strong and to demonstrate that strength, and in an age where weakness is encouraged and even celebrated, I considered strength training of any kind to be a revolt against the modern world. I wrote that I trained to be worthy enough to carry water for my barbarian fathers — for men who lived harder lives in a harder world. That I trained to avoid being a living, breathing embarrassment to their memory. I wrote that training for honor meant training to earn the respect and admiration of my spiritual peers and the men who I myself admired as exemplars of masculinity and the tactical virtues. 

It is important — even defiant in this rootless age — to express this kind of commitment to the memory of your ancestors. In this emasculated era where even the word “honor” — when employed solemnly and seriously in its traditional patriarchal sense — has become socially taboo, to show a commitment to earning and maintaining your reputation within an exclusive group of men is absolutely radical. Today, I do train to be an example to men in my circle, to earn and reaffirm their respect and esteem, and at the very least, to avoid embarrassing them or making them look weak by association. Training to honor your peers and to honor the memory of your stronger forebears are both high, purposeful and significant motivations for any kind of self-improvement. And, if you recognize yourself to be in your own honest and self-aware estimation that “Exhibit A” of modern male weakness and dissolution, these are probably the best reasons to begin training, and begin training hard. If you have been training for a long time and you are thinking about stopping your training to rest on your laurels and regale eye-rolling youths with stories of how strong you used to be — about how much you benched in 2003 — these are probably the best reasons to keep training. Until you fucking die. 

But the truth for me today is that I like training. In fact, I love training. It’s actually my favorite thing to do and the hours I spend in the gym are usually the best and happiest hours of my day. I don’t have to force myself to train. I have to force myself to do things that make me money so that I can keep training. 

The possibility of shame and dishonor is a powerful motivator. The possibility of disappointing men who I respect and men who respect me and men who look up to me in some way is a powerful motivator. And yes, the disgraceful prospect of being the withering, ignoble end of a line of stronger and harder men should get your ass into the gym.

Shame and dishonor are negative motivators. And they work. But they are tolerances. Baselines. Your back against a wall covered in spikes.

The attainment of honor is a positive motivator. Self-improvement, self-creation, self-revelation and becoming the best version of myself that I can be at any given time — those are positive motivators. 

 At this point in my life, I want positive motivators. 

I want to do things because I am passionate about them, because I love doing them, because they give me a sense of fulfillment. I train because I love being strong. I love feeling strong. I train because I want to be mighty and beautiful and because I believe that it is good and RIGHT to be mighty and beautiful. I train because — like every righteous living beast — I want to discharge my strength as hard as I can for as long as I can. 

When I walk into a gym I want to train for no one else and compared to no one else. 

I want to train because I’m alive and I want to feel alive. 

Because I’m a man and it feels good to be a man. 

Because I’m strong and it feels good to be strong. 

Because I want that one moment every day when I am fucking THUNDER. 

Because I want to know and feel the JOY OF THOR. 

!:ÞUNRAZ:!

THE CHALLENGE OF THOR

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I am the God Thor,
I am the War God,
I am the Thunderer!
Here in my Northland,
My fastness and fortress,
Reign I forever!
Here amid icebergs
Rule I the nations;
This is my hammer,
Miölner the mighty;
Giants and sorcerers
Cannot withstand it!

These are the gauntlets
Wherewith I wield it,
And hurl it afar off;
This is my girdle;
Whenever I brace it,
Strength is redoubled!

The light thou beholdest
Stream through the heavens,
In flashes of crimson,
Is but my red beard
Blown by the night-wind,
Affrighting the nations!
Jove is my brother;
Mine eyes are the lightning;
The wheels of my chariot
Roll in the thunder,
The blows of my hammer
Ring in the earthquake!

Force rules the world still,
Has ruled it, shall rule it;
Meekness is weakness,
Strength is triumphant,
Over the whole earth
Still is it Thor’s Day!

Thou art a God too,
O Galilean!
And thus singled-handed
Unto the combat,
Gauntlet or Gospel,
Here I defy thee!

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The APA is a Feminist, Partisan Organization

If three members of the communist party peer-reviewed an analysis of capitalism, written by another member of the communist party, would you consider that analysis to be “scientific” or “objective”?

The American Psychological Association recently announced that “traditional masculinity” — or as I prefer to call it, masculinity — is psychologically “harmful.” 

They claim that this designation is based on 40 years of peer-reviewed “research,” but in fact it is based on 40 years of people with the same philosophical and political bias repeating and affirming their beliefs back and forth to each other in a closed circle in which dissent is routinely dismissed or punished. 

There’s no reason why one would expect a group of communists to produce an unbiased analysis of capitalism, and there’s no reason that one would expect a group dominated by women and avowed feminist activists and intellectuals to produce an unbiased analysis of masculinity. Their agenda is open, and Ryon McDermott, who helped develop these guidelines, proclaimed in the announcement that his goal was to “change the world” by “changing men.” 

That’s crucial. The objective of the APA isn’t to help men better navigate the challenges of being what they are, but to change them completely. 

The APA’s membership is 58% female, and upwards of 75% of the graduate students in psychology are female. While men hold many of the industry’s highest honors and highest paying jobs, there is clearly a massive feminine bias in the profession’s growing base. 

Ronald F. Levant, the co-editor of the report and former president of the APA, is himself a feminist activist, having edited several books on “new masculinities” which steer men into the service of the feminist agenda. 

This field of “masculinities” was pioneered by a transsexual, Raewyn “Bob” Connell — a guy who hated men and hated being a man so much that he decided to become a woman. Bob and the APA report both distinguish “traditional masculinity” — characterized in their words by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression — from the “masculinities” of males who have “more flexible gender attitudes.” 

As I wrote in The Way of Men, when you strip away the ever-shifting details of culture and separate masculinity from morality, the basic features of masculinity remain essentially the same. They are directly related to biological differences between men and women, and the evolutionary roles of men and women. 

Men are on average physically stronger than women — there’s nothing cultural about that fact — and men who were stronger than other men have always and everywhere been regarded as being more masculine. Men are on average less risk averse than women — and decreased risk aversion is a known effect of higher testosterone. Men have always and everywhere been expected to show less fear and display more courage. This also makes a lot of sense in the big picture, because nature gambles with men. Men are more expendable — because sperm is a lot more plentiful than eggs, and one industrious man can impregnate thousands of women. (See also: Genghis Khan) Men have always competed with each other, not merely for women, but for the esteem of male honor groups. Being esteemed by the right group of men often makes a man more desirable to women — an aspect of human social dynamics often missed by evolutionary psychologists who are maybe a bit too used to observing patterns of competition and display in less socially complex animals. 

If you review the greatest and earliest works of human literature, from the Epic of Gilgamesh to the Greek tragedies and myths and poems the same familiar distinctions between masculine and feminine characteristics are there. If you look at Chinese concepts of Yin and Yang and the differentiation between the sexes in myth and culture and art from around the world, if you read about alchemy and Jungian psychology, the same themes emerge. There is polarity of gender defined by the biological and behavioral extremes of difference between the sexes. 

The approach of “masculinities” studies is to emasculate men and empower women by undermining that masculine/feminine polarity to the extent that no hierarchy of masculine — no scale of what is more or less masculine behavior or physicality — is conceivable to males and females indoctrinated with this ideology. From this dubious and unconvincing perspective, there is no “more” or “less” masculine behavior. Anyone who calls anything they do “masculine” must be accepted as having “one of many masculinities” — from a woman on testosterone with a short haircut who seeks status and affirmation by claiming to be the first man to give birth,  to a mincing drag queen who claims that his “masculinity” is hierarchically equal to the masculinity of a combat veteran. There are strange and rare exceptions —like transsexual combat veterans — but the tendency to redefine words and general rules by the exceptions and outliers is itself a feminine-empathic characteristic.  The eternal polarities of masculine and feminine don’t need to be redefined by outliers and anomalies unless you live in constant fear of hurting someone’s feelings or failing to sufficiently affirm their delusions. The masculine mind is comfortable with treating exceptions as exceptions, because men are solar in nature and appreciate order. The feminine urge wants everything to be equal and the same as it hugs the world back into an amniotic void of comfort and darkness. 

It is easiest to assess the bias of the APA when comparing its positions on “transsexuality” or “gender dysphoria” to its guidelines on “traditional” masculinity. The APA wants to help you if you want to cut your balls off, or let a woman keep them in her purse, but if you want to keep your balls and act like you have a pair, they consider it a “problem” that needs to be corrected.

On two levels, they’re correct.

If your goal is to create society of 50% gray, genderless, skinny-fat slave worms to promote a some chimerical fantasy of “social equality,” then, yes, “traditional” masculinity is a problem. Men who want to be men are “in the way.” And feminist radicals have always known it. They’ve been infiltrating and subverting any and all male honor groups and stigmatizing masculinity and male heterosexuality to that end for decades. Their agenda isn’t hidden and never has been. For a thorough examination of the stock feminist positions on masculinity, read my free book No Man’s Land. There’s nothing stated in the announcement by the APA that feminists haven’t been pushing since the 1970s. It’s all the same, right down to the awkwardly out-of-touch reference to John Wayne that quickly reveals someone who is either repeating dogma by rote or a geriatric Boomer who still hasn’t worked out those “greatest generation” daddy issues. 

There are no “new” findings here — merely feminist partisans designing “studies” which are “peer-reviewed” by other feminist partisans — and a lot of data points cherry-picked to support the anti-masculine and anti-male philosophy dreamed up by a bunch of spoiled, sheltered and utterly petulant university students way back in the summer of love.

The extent to which these people are either brazen or completely blinded by bias is evident in their laughable “discoveries.”  The APA informs us that “Research led by Omar Yousaf, PhD, found that men who bought into traditional notions of masculinity were more negative about seeking mental health services than those with more flexible gender attitudes.” A research grant is hardly required to figure out  that men are wary about seeking help from people who openly despise them and all of their values. The perception that psychologists will generally take a woman’s perspective on any issue is not new. And certainly this will now become a self-fulfilling prophecy and it will be backed up triumphantly with more “evidence.” Why would any masculine man trust these people with a simple questionnaire, much less let them mess around with his head? I certainly wouldn’t. There’s absolutely no reason to believe these partisans have any interest in helping men to do anything but conform to their agenda. 

In the context of a culture ruled by these loud and chinless “social justice warriors,” as I wrote recently in A More Complete Beast, a man who wants to be more masculine instead of going with the genderless flow is actually going have a rough time. By choosing a masculine path in a world that not only fails to demand it, but — as evidenced by these guidelines themselves —actively denounces that path, he’s setting himself up for hardship and ostracism from many otherwise desirable social circles. He’s taking up a sort of proud paganism in a Christian world, and may be subject to all sorts of inquisitions and torments. So, in the sense that living a masculine life in an emasculated world is going to get you into trouble sometimes, yeah, I guess you could say that it’s “unhealthy” or “problematic.” Choosing to live a masculine life is not the path of least resistance, but then it never has been. 

I no longer find it necessary to comment every time some feminist blogger or columnist or actor makes some outrageous statement about “toxic masculinity.” I don’t follow the news.  “The daily outrage” is dishonest and pornographic to the extent that it is also generally absurd. And it’s all social gossip about people who I don’t want to know. 

However, I have seen many men dismiss these guidelines with a laugh, and in this particular case, I believe it is important to acknowledge how harmful these guidelines will actually be for men. Because of the assumed authority of this group and the positions of power over men’s lives that many of its partisan members hold, this isn’t one of those announcements to laugh off. 

To begin with, these guidelines will be cited as being authoritative by “mainstream” feminist writers and people who aren’t woke enough to recognize the agenda and bias at work here. Guidelines and statements made by a major organization like the APA are given an undeserved weight of truth and accuracy by normal rubes. And for this reason, these guidelines pathologizing masculinity will also be used as rationales for passing anti-male laws, funding anti-male programs, and funding programs to further indoctrinate young men into spineless and testicle-free feminist servitude. 

What’s more, members of the APA and professionals who follow their guidelines will use them to recommend the drugging, punishment and exclusion of male students who exhibit masculine behaviors or attitudes. These guidelines will be used by “expert” witnesses and psychological evaluators and counselors and parole officers working in the legal system. Men will go to jail and stay there longer because of these guidelines. They will probably also be used to separate men from their children during divorces. In many states, laws are in place or have been proposed to prevent men from owning or purchasing guns if someone — often almost anyone and with very little evidence — suggests that they might be mentally “troubled” in some way. I think it’s fair to say that 95% of the male members of the NRA “suffer” from some form of “traditional” masculinity. Any guesses on the percentage of the majority female, majority progressive APA that is anti-2nd Amendment? 

One of the worst problems I see among pro-masculinity advocates is the tendency to take the stated mission of these professional organizations at face value and assume that they are arguing in good faith. They call on these organizations to “listen to reason” or take other viewpoints into consideration. 

Fellas, you’re not going to change the APA. It’s not that they haven’t heard what you have to say before — it’s that they are ideologically opposed to everything you stand for and absolutely do not care if you agree with them. The McDermotts of the world don’t want to work with you or hear what you have to say. They want to change you. 

These organizations will continue to advocate for the stigmatization and abuse of men and boys who do not conform to their worldview. They are politically and ideologically biased, and they believe that what they are doing is good and right. 

If you disagree with them, the only worthwhile strategy for dealing with them is to discredit and undermine them by exposing that bias and ideology. Show the people what the wizard behind the curtain is all about. We no longer live in a homogenous society where we can expect these large accrediting organizations or the media to serve “the greater good.” I frankly doubt if that was ever anything but a pleasant fiction. 

The solution is to support outlets and institutions that are biased in the favor of an ideology that you can support. Or better yet, build them. 

All of the power of the APA or an “institution” like the NYT comes from the popular assumption that they are conducting some kind of “science” or reporting “objectively.” They’re not. Call them out for what they are: cheerleaders for a different team. 

They disagree with you and that’s OK. Don’t ask beg them to change. Disagree harder. 

When it comes to discussions of human nature, objectivity is a lie. Ideology is normal. Bias is the rule. People have different ideas about what is good and right. Dispense with this laughable children’s story that says “we’re all in this together.” We are all stuck on this planet, sure, but everyone is not on your team.

They never have been, and they never will be.

The way forward is to encourage competing companies and organizations to come out with counterstatements and to take opposing positions. There is a market here that is being underserved, insulted and alienated. The solution is not to threaten Gillette or the APA with some sort of boycott. They’ve already picked their side. Seek out and empower competing entities that don’t despise men.  

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