 Boom welcome back to the 21 convention 2022 of Orlando, Florida the 16-year anniversary of 21 studios and the 21 convention being held at 21 summit in Orlando Our next speaker is a returning speaker to the 21 convention at 21 summit He's been speaking at our event since 2017 including all around the world even at our event in Poland He's the author of the way of men fire in the dark and a bunch of other books, too I call the books. There's like five or six of them now the jacked on avidian universe of masculinity books On a serious note, I think jack Donovan our next speaker He's one of the best if not the best masculine philosopher I call him in the world as an author and as a thinker in terms of analyzing and reviewing masculinity across many different Another word aspects basically of human life across cultures across religions across time across history And it's very rare. You see someone do that on a deep analytical level. So jack is excellent at that I think he's the best in the world He's a creative genius when it comes to analyzing and studying this content So anyway without further ado, please. Let me welcome back to the 21 convention stage jack Donovan All right, like I said, my name is jack Donovan and I am not here to teach you how to get laid or How to talk to your girlfriend or your wife or to help you raise kids and I'm not gonna help you get rich and Now I'm definitely not gonna help you get alpha because we'll talk about that later, but I'm not even sure what that means. I can probably tell you how to get jacked in tan But that's not my job. What I'm known as as Anthony said is kind of a philosopher of masculinity So it's my job to kind of zoom out and Look at the big picture talk about words and ideas and why they matter, you know answer the big questions and One of the biggest questions I've been dealing with for like almost 15 years is what is masculinity, you know You know, like what is masculinity? You know, what what are we thinking about? When we when we say like they're the that guy is more masculine that guy, how are we evaluating that? You know, how do we differentiate between what is masculine and what is not masculine? How do we differentiate between? What is masculine and was really me? What is simply human and why do we care about it so much because we do We care about masculine a lot. We all want to be seen as being a Man as being masculine in the context of you know other men we want to be seen as a man by women And people know that we care about it. So they use it to manipulate us They try to you know, kind of spin it and sell it back to us. And so I think it's important To really think about what masculinity is what we really believe that it is So that we can evaluate all their claims when they say, you know, you know You're not a man if you don't do this You're a masculine if you don't do this if you don't do what I tell you to do if you don't buy what I tell you to buy So one of you know really understand what we think masculinity is so that we can evaluate their claims and see whether they're bullshitting us or not So back in about 2010 when I started writing and thinking and talking about masculinity And I started writing the way of men There weren't a lot of people Actually who a lot especially a lot of men who wanted to talk about what masculinity actually is You know today, we have all these podcasts. You know, we have all these, you know, YouTube videos We have all these groups that you can actually join that are concerned with hey helping you become a better man and Back then that was not the case You know back then like Jordan Peterson wasn't even a thing in like 2010 like he hadn't blown up or anything You didn't have Jocko telling you about what masculinity is and the guys who were talking about masculinity It was kind of viewed as being a little bit weird like We know what masculinity is we know when we see it, you know, if you're if you're talking about masculinity They assume that something is wrong with you that you know You were broken in some way that you needed to talk about masculinity So it was a hard thing to address with guys But that's because you know, we weren't at the point yet where you'd have national figures go in front of Congress or You know on television and say I cannot define what a man is or I cannot define what a woman is We weren't there yet We're in a place yet. We had elementary school teachers like grooming children and You know basically inducing gender confusion from the power of suggestion And we weren't at that place yet There wasn't the panic that there is now there wasn't that sense that there was a big existential crisis that there is right now People didn't see that coming, but I kind of did Now I've actually predicted a lot of things that I wish I was wrong about If you read the way of man, you're like well that that happened that thing You said was gonna happen it happened and I wish it wouldn't have happened But a lot of things did and the reason why is because I think I've studied Sex and gender and sexuality my entire life when I was in high school. I was reading cameo Pavia So I was just always been interested in this and over the years what I found that it was that I Started to realize that all the people who were experts on masculinity You know the people that you would go to you would think that you know the people who are experts on masculinity. They would be Masculine men you would think that that would be the expert on masculinity, but the people who are writing books and writing academic papers and the people that the you know the newspapers were going for comments and the people who were dealing with big regulatory agencies and you know like the psychological associations so forth The people that were experts to these people were almost uniformly far left Feminist usually radical feminist most of them were women of The women a large majority of them were probably lesbians and then you know there were some men some pretty effeminate men who were recognized as experts on masculinity and All they really did was say what the women told them to say like oh glorious dynam said that was great So I you know I've I'm really made it. I'm an expert on masculinity now and then among these experts there was also really over over represented population of Transgendered I never would know where to come transgendered man or gendered transgendered women. That's kind of confusing confusing thing but So these are the experts on masculinity people who have an axe to grind with men and masculinity and Men who hate being men so much that they want to be women and I realized that that was kind of a problem and That that was going to lead us to kind of where we are now Because those people were the people who were the experts and we're influencing society and so You know, I looked at what these people were saying and at the time and still today what they were saying was basically that masculinity actually doesn't even exist That there is no such thing as masculinity that men don't have a nature. They're basically women that are just broken in some way you know they Talk about masculinity. Let's say myth that powerful men made up to control other men and of course women and you know They wanted to say that Because there are so many cultural differences between masculine different kinds of masculinity that you know, there was no unifying principle at all but I didn't really believe that that was true and so, you know, I started looking at you know What are the differences, you know between Masculinity different cultures but also like what are the common threads what you know pulls the whole thing together You know, what what theme would people recognize anywhere around the world? And so I realized that we needed like a universal theory of what masculinity is if we were going to be able to talk about it intelligently because if we can't talk about masculinity intelligently then Those people who can are going to do it for us So, you know, I was looking for a universal theory of masculinity Something that men of different races different religions all across the world throughout time, you know, what could they What would they agree on and that's how we got to the way of men and what I call the gang theory of masculinity Which I think is my contribution to this field Because a lot of people when they want to talk about masculinity, they think, you know It's like elk like they're you know, they're gonna fight for a mate and then that's it's like this is very simple thing but You know, if you look at human evolutionary history and evolutionary psychology and what we've been doing for most of its time on this earth you look at it and You know, we weren't living in the way that we're living now many of us, you know people live, you know, it's like Man in a cave with a woman and some children You know, that's how men actually live today. They have the house and you know wife and kids and they're in its separate little unit But you know for most of human evolutionary history if you're a dude you have a nice cave You know got this kind of hot cave woman and She has you know, you have some kids you have some resources and some six stone tools you've worked all really hard on and You have some maybe some dried meat or something like that All that needs to happen is that three other cavemen who are walking along need to see your cool shit and They're like, you know, if we were to I don't know gang up on him We could kill him Take his wife kill his kids have his cool stone tools and live in his sick cave and That's What happens, you know, like that's it's very simple math like oh three guys one guy yeah, so The only way that you can fight a gang of men is to Be part of your own You need other men around you to be part of your support system. And so that's actually how you know Human men have lived for most of our evolutionary history in these gangs of men Now people have misinterpreted my work and kind of intentionally and been like oh well The team jack says that men just lived with men off together alone. And that's not what I meant But men had to be part of this gang That did this job of protecting all the cool things inside like the stone tools and and so forth And this isn't like just a caveman thing. It's just an easy example You know so if you think about what they were actually doing it's like you have a bunch of guys and They have to go into a space Take command of it and create order within that space impose their will on that space And then they have to protect everything that's in that space From everything that is outside whether it's beasts or the weather or other tribes of men who? checking out their stuff and So everything in everything that circles what they care about you know whether it's their you know They're their wives their their children You know they're sick and grandmother You know all the other resources Everything inside that circle is what they care about and something that often gets missed that I think is really important is culture And it's not just stuff and people that they're protecting in that circle. It's the culture Because in that side that circle is the memory of your existence. You know, that's what you're actually protecting You know like all the people who have died in your tribe that you still remember You know, maybe some maybe some art maybe some drawings your language your stories your myths You know, that's also what you're protecting when you're protecting a circle and people lose track that that's actually important too Because you know if someone kind of kills you takes all your stuff all that And it races all of that. It's like you never existed And that's what actually genocide actually is like we're just gonna wipe you off the face of the earth So the job of men Was to be in this gang of men That protected this space and you know, so men have been cooperative hunters and fighters. We didn't like go in just like You know, it's not a single man activity. You don't take a take down this giant beast by yourself usually You don't fight off another tribe by yourself so men had to work together and earn the respect within that team and So that's what I think masculinity actually comes from We've spent most of our human evolutionary evolutionary history Trying to earn each other's respect to be on that team, you know, I think so that's what our values come from And I think that we're still evaluating ourselves, you know, we evaluate other men would say this is masculine This is not masculine We're still evaluating their value on that team Because we are very much the still the same animals that we've been throughout history And so I'm just gonna run through this real quick If you've read my books you've already know about the tactical virtues, but this is kind of how I break down your value to that team You know, you have four tactical virtues. I think that you need from other men When you're in this, you know perilous situation One of them is strength super easy I like to actually sometimes refer to that as might because people think it's powerlifting strength Like, you know, you've watched powerlifters sometimes, you know, they lift a lot of weight, but maybe can't run so far So, you know strength speed agility all the athletic abilities really fall into strength And those are things that are part of actually being men We have more aptitude in those areas just naturally that's part of actually being men. So it's an easy one Courage and that's that's the thing about these tactical virtues is that they prove themselves by the fact that they are They do work across cultures because in no culture in history is anyone ever said That's really weak guy over there. He is the best example of what a man is He is the most masculine man is that really weak guy. I mean, that's never happened Doesn't matter. You can go back 4,000 years. No one said that Same thing with courage. Has anyone ever said That coward over there That is a man that coward No, I mean, that's that's not that's not a thing and Obviously in a primal gang you would need courage from these other men Because if you're going to take risks together the guy who Decides not to take the risk at the last moment puts you all in danger mastery You really can't afford incompetence You know, I always explain mastery as competence in whatever that you need from them at that time and men respect competence And they all play different roles and I think that gets lost too You know, you don't how always have the the one guy who's an amazing warrior, dude You also have the guy who makes the bows, you know You have all the guys who do all these other jobs that are really important and men respect that and Honor is basically the idea that you care about being a man at all You know honor is a really complex topic in Western society because it got involved with religion and a whole bunch of other things but It's honor I think in its most basic form is your reputation in a group of men And what do these men think of you and your sense of honor is that you actually care what what your reputation is and That's you know, that's the that's the core of what honor is and you know It's always a bad situation when someone brings up honor Because that means that you're probably gonna do something that you don't want to do but because you want the respect You're gonna do it anyway I mean, that's kind of the base principle of honor. It's always a kind of a bad day What about your honor? Oh shit, I'm gonna have to do something stupid. All right, so that's the basics of the gang theory of masculinity that I talked about in the way of men and What I wanted to focus on for the rest of this talk is more kind of advanced concepts that I Get asked about over and over again people were like, hey, but what about this and I do have an answer for it you know, so Just submit different concepts related to the understanding of what masculinity actually is I found especially as I get older that Almost all wisdom involves the balancing of oppositional principles You know, everybody wants to be like oh if everything is this way if we go all the way that way Then everything's gonna be okay And that is almost never true Sometimes you go all the way that way and then re-correct to the middle But all the way that way is usually just as bad as all the way this way You know, I talked to I think an EMT the other day and he said he liked the word equilibrium for it because they deal a lot with that and There's another word for the body and how it handles it like homeostasis You know if you these both of these chemicals and inside you if you have too much of them They're bad, but if you have, you know, just a good balance. You're constantly trying to maintain that So one an example is individualism versus tribalism Because to be part of a tribe You have to give up a little bit of your individualism You know at some point the tribe's gonna say they're gonna outvote you and say this is what we're doing and You're like yep, this is what we're doing but you know There's a balance and that's really is the balance that we've been talking about in terms of like freedom and You know total control You know, you have to give up a little freedom to live in a civilized society You can't just do whatever you want all the time But also there is a point where that is not cool anymore like where you're being controlled too much And that you know, that's another point that I was getting to Was the idea of like masculinity and wildness versus technology and civilization You know, there's a great quote from the seem to lab the opposite of manliness isn't cowardice. It's technology and You know, basically we you know We tend to make ourselves obsolete by inventing technology to do the jobs that we do and do better make us more deadly But then we don't need we don't need you to do the job anymore, sir And we've really that's we've done to you know men generally is You know, we've outsourced Their job, you know, if their job was to be in that circle in the perimeter and protecting everything that they care about we've you know outsourced that to say police and you know, that's Then we don't do that job anymore and then we don't know what to do with ourselves and So that's you know, this constant problem that we deal with is like how much risk is Too much because complete wildness You know everybody's like I want to go back to the woods and like live like a wild man You know like throw I think only left in the woods like two years You know, it's it's not a place that you want to stay forever. I mean and you know, we created cities and civilizations for a reason That's not the optimal way of life for most men We want to be able to have art and literature and and you know, which is people forget that men created all that shit You know, we wanted to have we want to have nice things You don't want to have to look over your back all the time, you know, people were like, oh if you think, you know masculinity is about You know About being savage and so forth. You should go live in a third world country. I'm like, no, thank you I would not like to go live in a third world country Where I have to like bargain for like, you know bargain with the police and the and the gangs I think one of the guys was talking the other night about, you know, bargaining with the Tongas and so forth The Tong gangs and the triad gangs or whatever when he lived in China No, thank you. I'd prefer not to do that You know, but you do have to give a little bit of wildness up To be able to enjoy those other things. It's like, no, I'd like to sit and read a book tonight instead of keeping watch over my things you know And finally, I wanted to get to a topic If you talk about a universal definition of masculinity The thing is, is that it is universal to men That they are going to create tribes and then fight Like you can't get away from that universal truth and it's that's kind of a paradox of masculinity like This idea that we're all going to become one Really doesn't work and that's why globalism really doesn't work for men Because we need to it's our it's part of our natural group to create that tribe to create that circle to create our own culture and Basically then create rules You know for our culture in order and then other people's rules become alien and weird Other people become barbarians, you know, because they're outsiders and we don't we don't like them I mean you can do that these days on a telegram group I've been doing that recently like once you get, you know, a bunch of guys in telegram group for like, you know A few weeks now they have inside jokes that nobody else knows And they have inside references that nobody else recognized and they're like these people they don't know anything That these outsiders they're savages You know and and you can just watch that happen It's cool But you have to realize when you look at groups of men that they're doing the thing That they're always going to do and so you have to give them space to do that and hopefully have them also not destroy the world Uh, so it's it's a weird again like balance between opposing forces and one of the things that Well, I was gonna just that's one of the reasons why in defining masculinity It's so important To separate masculinity for more morality Because as they move into these separate tribes They are going to create their own moralities, you know inevitably And they will tie because masculinity is so important to men Because they want to belong to the tribe and they want to be valued and they want to be honored by the rest of the tribe masculinity is so important To men that They will link it to their moral system And so that, you know, you'll get in this situation. Well, you have to do x y and z for you to be valued as a man And you know live up to our morality live up to our virtues worship our gods You have to do these things and anyone who doesn't You know, they are not a man and you see that all the time and I deal with this when I deal with guys of different religions and so forth You know, they'll set up something that is actually internal to their religion And it is evolved with masculinity. Well, one of the things that's come up recently is I had a guy, uh Who's really smart, but he's very catholic and I've had a couple guys make this argument that you I think I think Fosters made that as well that you I say it's that there's a difference between being a good man and being good at being a man And a lot of the religious guys will say Because God made our purpose to do To have this role as a man You actually cannot be a good man unless you are almost good good at being a man Which is a cool thing to say. I appreciate the sentiment but There's a tricky thing that happens there And there's a seed of genocide Actually in that which I just recognize it because it's normal Is that they're creating a sense of exclusive virtue Like the men who do what our people do Are right and good And they worship the correct God and the God made them the correct way and The men who do not do those things Are not fully men And therefore an abomination to God And therefore it's okay to kill them You know, there's a chain of logic that's in there always And like I said, it's normal men are going to do that That you can you know because I'm kind of an outsider. I look at it and I'm like, okay You're doing the thing and I kind of chuckle and I see okay. Well, that's that's what's happening there But I think it's just important to be aware of it And be able to talk about it intelligently and say, okay. Well, that that's that's part of what masculinity is We can put a check and balance on that Because that's what's yeah when you're dealing with human nature. That's what all you're really trying to do Is put checks and balances on things so you can maintain that sweet spot between the extremes another thing I deal with when I talk about masculinity is that No matter what they are or who they did, you know, what their job is Uh, you know men will always make masculinity about themselves. Why because they want to be seen as men And so rather than trying to become What the ideal of man is They'll be like They'll try to kind of spin it towards their direction Like I'm an engineer and I build buildings. Therefore engine, you know, masculinity is about and you know building things You know, that's the most masculine thing you can build things the most masculine thing you could do You know powerless will be like well, I live more strength. You know, I live more weight than you so therefore, you know, like that's what masculinity is I'm more of a man than you You know all these different things. I mean, I could literally make up an argument because I'm a writer and it's my job to make things sound good and convince you of things Uh, you know, I could make an argument that you know, okay, I've come up with ideas That have influenced men who have influenced other men Like so we're talking about chains of hundreds of thousands of men that I've had some influence on some way So clearly I am more masculine than all of you, but that's bullshit and that's about what masculinity is about And I think that's one of the things that I why my books ring true for a lot of guys is because it's not about me It's not about me trying to puff myself up and tell you that I am the idea of what man is It's about looking at what man is dispassionately And as objectively as we possibly can and saying, you know, well, what is it? And I said obviously masculinity is directly related to this warrior role Do we all have to have that role? Not necessarily we just have to acknowledge what it is And where it comes from where the these virtues and ideas come from and why we want to be a little bit more like that all the time And just be honest about it instead of constantly trying to shift the goalpost and be like, well, masculinity is really Just become more like me. That's what it is. You know, that's that's what dudes will always do And it's just really frustrating because a lot of guys there's a lot of guys who are advocating for masculinity Uh, you know, like and you can tell my 90 percent of what they're doing is just saying like You should be a more like a man who grew up in my exact community and has my exact prejudices about clothes and and You know men don't do this or men don't do that. It's it's all the superficial shit Rather than these these deeper these deeper ideals about, you know, like protecting this space and protecting order against chaos I also wanted to talk about masculinity and fatherhood because that becomes very confusing for a lot of people a lot of people will want to set it up so that Uh, you know, you you aren't really a man until you become a father And in primitive tribes that really wasn't the case Uh, you went through an initiation ritual and you became a man of a certain age And then you were expected to have kids obviously But that was a later part of the life cycle. That was not dependent on your manhood and If the problem with setting it up, there are a lot of problems with actually setting up masculinity and fatherhood as being the same thing one is that man, I did deliveries in Portland and I can tell you that I've seen some of the the most effeminate men in the world pushing strollers Uh, you know, like you do not have to be a masculine man at all to actually be a father You can be a very masculine father And I want to make it clear that I I really think that Fatherhood is important and we need good fathers and most of the problems today have to do with the fact that most guys haven't had good fathers So I'm not dumping on fatherhood at all. I'm just saying that it is not a necessary part of masculinity like you can have masculinity without it um And so that that's kind of the point of making just so we don't get confused And the other thing is like some of the most masculine men in history have have not had kids Best example in america being george washington Never fathered children. He adopted some people who were in his family. I think at some point But george washington never had children. He was an ideological father. He's a father of a country But he never had kids so If you set up, you know, you're not a real man until you have kids Then george washington was not a real man And that's really not something i'm prepared to accept and I don't think most people should either And it's also you also set up most of the men who have ever died heroically in war at 18 years old Also, we're probably not fathers So it's just a bad thing to set up But you'll see guys try to do it all the time and a lot of times it's new fathers who will do it like Well, now i'm really a man because I had a kid You know, and it's awesome. It's like I would love to have that experience. I think it's it's a good experience, but uh It's it just isn't the same thing as masculinity. It's like an add-on module is what I would describe it as And The reason why I think it's actually dangerous To equate father who with masculinity Is because there's two reasons one is There's rising infertility In the world right now. I think I read a statistic the other day like As many as 10 of couples who are trying to have a baby might not be able to conceive So you're really setting up some guys to fail You know for whatever reason we don't there are so many reasons why this could be true But if you say that you're not a man until you have kids You're setting up now 10 of the people who really want to have kids may not be able to have them So that's that's kind of a bad Thing to kind of set up in society and the other one is yeah I think there's you're creating a real social problem because I think you know if you've spent any time at these conferences you probably agree that A very large percentage of the women Who are currently of child bearing age are not marriageable They are not women who should have children And to be fair many of the men shouldn't have children either They're not set up for it. They don't have like the you know all the software ready for it They're mentally children themselves They you know there's there's a lot of people who aren't going to have kids for a lot of reasons And so if you equate masculinity with fatherhood what you're really creating is shooters You're creating a bunch of guys who feel that they're entitled to have a Wife in a house shouldn't picket fence, you know the way picket fence and the whole deal And they feel like they're entitled to have that And that society is robbing them from it, you know like For whatever reason and I think that's a lot of guys who are really in Not this room necessarily but this bigger audience are guys who you know In a situation where like maybe they're not going to be able to find a mate So if you withhold masculinity from them So you're not a man until you do this thing that you're probably not going to be able to do You create a lot of frustrated men who Are going to take it out on society In some way or other So we really just have to create other pathways for them to be men and really, you know, they don't need this piece This add on module to be men Finally, I wanted to talk about dominance Because this is something especially the space gets very confusing There's this idea that I think it crept in from the original like pickup community and And so forth that you know, there's there's two people in the world two tiny guys in the world are alphas and betas And it sets up this zero sum game Where you're either a winner or a loser And it also has a lot of guys coming up with these ideas like everything that I am if is alpha and everything I don't like is beta Which is silly You know, it's it's you know, that's not really how these hierarchies actually work You know, I think of you know, I've had the opportunity throughout my career To meet a lot of really high level guys Uh in the last 24 hours, I've had, you know, little text conversations with two guys who are currently in special operations Um I had dinner about a month ago with a former UFC heavyweight champion of the world Guys who in any room are the alphas, you know, according to these definitions And those guys don't talk like that They don't talk about like alphas and betas and so forth Because they recognize I think that human hierarchies are actually a lot more complex You know One of the reasons why the special operations guys actually really like the way of men Is because that's the world that they live in they live in these tactical teams And they howl have to work together So, you know think about this primal tribe You know like you okay, you have the tribal leader and he's calling the shots and telling you what to do but Are all the other guys in that tribe who are hunting and fighting are they all betas now because he's in charge Not really No, they it's like they all have their own role if he gets a little too, you know, like You know like apathy, uh, you know, maybe two of those guys gang up on him and he goes away uh, you know, it's Hierarchies are really flexible. Uh, you know, if you were You know, whoever is in charge changes from room to room, you know, there's rooms that I can go into where I am definitely the alpha And then there's rooms that I can go to where I'm absolutely not And most men have had that experience because there are very few men who are going to be in control of every room And if you're focused on having control of every room and dominating everyone around you, uh, It's a really kind of juvenile attitude that I don't think actually works. It doesn't work in business It doesn't work in anything else like I have to command this situation every single situation You know, there's a time and a place And it's about strategy and so, you know, I Like leadership is also not part of being masculine It is an add-on module in the way that fatherhood is There are lots of men who are really manly Like, uh, think of rough necks on an oil rig All those guys are manly as fuck. They're doing a dangerous job. They know what they're doing They will all fight you. Uh, but, uh You know, there's one guy the guy in charge. Is he the alpha and they're all betas? No And maybe they don't have this, you know, the hardware the software to really even be leaders Because I've met a lot of guys that are really masculine guys who just They don't have the skills to lead And that's okay Not everyone is born to be like a leader because that's a package of skills that are like social skills really It's not about, you know, who's the strongest or who's the most courageous It's about, you know, making strategy and What does that guy say and how do I get him to get along with that guy? And how do I, you know, like change this team and manage this and get and inspire them and make them You know and get them on board with the mission It's it's all these communication skills. That's what leadership really is And and so like not all guys have that and that's okay So the idea that we all have to become, you know, the the top dog in every situation Is just really counterproductive and I think that when it's a problem in messaging when we come off that way Because a lot of the guys who are Really in charge of a lot of things that really the guys who you have to You know connect with to really make changes in the world Those guys see that they're like that's that's kid stuff Like I you know that that's kid stuff. That's level one so I think it's important to just kind of move beyond that alpha and beta framework because it's it's it's too simple And again, it's like it's not an intelligent way To talk about masculinity, you know today in the world, obviously, you know you know because you're here That there are all kinds of people who are looking to Call everything that is masculinity toxic masculinity Anything that is like legitimately masculine. They want to make it toxic And they want to kind of rob us, you know poison the well on all of our history All the awesome things that men have done throughout history All the heroic masculinity in the world You know all of our epics are really about that, you know, they want to poison the well and make those guys all bad guys and You know, that's a problem. So we really need to if if we let those people control the conversation about what masculinity is And what men should be We're going to lose So we can't come off as you know chest stumping internet trolls You know, that's that's not going to get it done because that's exactly who they want us to be The busted chest stumping internet trolls they already have arguments for that. That's already the caricature that they're making We have to be bigger than that and better than that And smarter than and then be able to talk about these things in a more nuanced and complex way Otherwise, we're just kind of as bad as they are and we're just making these little silly caricatures and You know, we we seem very unserious you know, I've I've been doing this for like 10 15 years now and You know, I don't do it To you know get rich I mean, there are a lot of guys who will just tell you hey, I can make you whatever if you just give me a load of cash um I've never been in it to get rich Uh It's definitely not the best way to get famous Uh, maybe infamous but not famous Uh, you know, I've not done it for power. Obviously. I don't really have a bunch of that um, I do this because I saw this problem and I really care about it, you know, because to me This masculine ideal This heroic masculinity that you read about in the epics you know, that's You see it in the evidence and everyday men you still see it. There are still heroic men living today Men who will you know sacrifice themselves for other people Men who will literally die for an idea You know, that's that's the most beautiful thing in the world to me and I really don't think that humanity is worth saving without it. So Thank you. That's all I have for you. All right. I can take any questions Oh, someone was moving. I thought it was a question, but anyone have anything. Uh, yeah, cool. There you go Um, so you talked about how ways of this question of what is a real man is being co-opted It seemed like by the left of like these effeminate men who are telling you what certain women want to hear. Yeah Do you see kind of on the right that it's being co-opted in Kind of like a dead-end way of like a real man is someone who Barbecues and watches sports and just kind of sits at home and maybe lifts weights or something like that It's it's co-opted by everybody That's the thing. It's like it's functionally part of Understanding what masculinity is is understanding that everyone's going to try and like make it about what they want it to make About and manipulate us You know like, you know before they were talking about all this, you know Other stuff, you know, it was used a lot in marketing, you know, there's all kinds of things marketing like, you know I love that stuff, you know, but uh, you know, like it could be pre-workout And there's a you know, this is gonna make you a man. It's gonna make you awesome And we're always being marketed to our masculinity is being sold to us in a variety of ways. Obviously There's the right the kind of like basic um Kind of boomer masculinity that you're talking about Uh, but there's also like, you know, if you don't follow your religion this religion, uh, then you're not a real man There's all kinds of things that I mean the right is famous for actually Co-opting masculinity and make it that that's kind of what they're good at Because the difference between really communism and fascism is just the narrative You know, like they're both, you know, totalitarian societies that want to like control everything that you do But just the left is like, hey, let's love each other and control everything you do And the right is like we could heroically control everything that you do, you know It's it's just it's just the pictures that they put up are a little bit different But it's they're basically the same thing. So you just have to be aware of that from all sides That everyone's going to try and take masculinity and make it about Something and that's why I think the universal theory of masculinity is really good. Well, what really is it? Rather than this product or this ideology or whatever, you know, I think that's that's why I think it's important All right, thank you. Sure So you mentioned um, globalism, um And we've seen like a decline in in masculinity Um throughout society and they're really putting pressure on Um men like not not to act like men anymore Um, what are some ways that you you would say Would be good to like that we could do as men to just stand up to this Like what's been going on right now with with all the the globalism that's just been largely forced upon um us and then I mean um Jeff Younger talked about um his story with Them transitioning his son and making him a woman. Yeah Or the caricature of a woman rather right Well, I mean that's that's a specific situation, which is terrible. Uh, but uh Generally speaking the opposite of globalism is tribalism And what they want and you know, we can talk about who they are but uh What the forces that like globalism want is for you to you know, the you see these pictures of you know, the uh The metaverse thing they want that thing on your head Where you sit alone in a dirty room in your underwear and you just have this like, you know You're plugged in all the time you have no friends and you're connected to no one and your food is probably delivered by like, you know Like uber eats or something And uh, you know, it comes out of your bank account. You're not allowed to say anything And that's the ideal because that's the perfectly controlled human Getting your box, you know, whatever they they always say like, you know, getting your pot and eat the bugs Uh, you know, that's that's what they want. And so the opposite of that is to have a network of People and focus on actually like like things like this where you're actually getting together with actual other men and having conversations Uh, you know, historically, they don't like men to organize in groups because they make trouble You know, they assert their own will and that's that's a problem So, you know, they that's why they broke so many the old, uh, You know men's organizations is that, you know, men were in these organizations together And uh, women, you know infiltrated them and then, you know sued them and whatever And so they'd have to open up membership to women because they didn't want men Making decisions by themselves Uh, so the best thing that you can do to counter globalism on a personal scale because you know, that's a billionaire conversation to like Let's fight globalism But on a personal scale what you do is actually create a network of friends And that's really hard for most men in modern life if you especially if you moved Uh away from like where you grew up You have actually have a network of men around you who you can You know depend on and that's why a lot of people are turning to these kind of online groups It's like I started one recently myself Uh, and there are tons of them that are really actually very good that I would recommend Uh that guys have a connection to someone that they're traveling to meet these other guys and they're exchanging ideas and and uh And they have a real connection to these guys a lot of them have groups that uh, you know groups within the groups Where they actually really know each other and know each other's problems and can I help each other through them And having some kind of sport network, you know ideally locally, but even globally is you know a That's the best thing you can do to counter that and you know, that's a that's a big job I mean I move around a lot You know I just moved to arizona a little while ago and I specifically moved I I knew the black belt that I was going to train under And because he's a friend of mine and I knew him for a few years And uh, I specifically moved within six minutes of his gym so that I would go to the gym more often So that I would actually have friends Because that's you know, where else are you going to talk to I'm self-employed. I could sit I could sit alone all day You know like uh, that's where you meet guys. That's where you talk to guys You have to get out in a situation where you're talking to other guys because that's where your your network is going to come from And so that's a challenge I think for most guys and if they can get there they're going to be way ahead of a lot of other guys Because a lot of guys literally in adult life don't have any friends at all A while back Alexander Cortes had this post on instagram where he talked about the idea of ghost mentors and I'm pretty sure I don't speak only for myself when I say that you've been a ghost mentor for thousands if not millions So I just want to thank you for that Thank you the question that I have is What do you think of vox day's socio sexual hierarchy? And do you see it as a viable alternative to the simplistic alpha versus beta model that we've had so far So who's socio sexual? Uh, so the whole idea of alphas betas sigmas deltas gammas and omegas right um, you know, I haven't done a lot of research in that specifically because yeah There's a thing about being in a category that you know like so many guys want to be a sigma males Because that means you get to be an alpha, but then like don't have to have any friends So many of those guys want to be sigma males because they lean into that and we actually had a you know That we were all kind of associated with we had one that wanted to be a sigma male and then did bad things but uh I think that you know once you categorize yourself in a certain way Then that becomes part of your narrative and your story like i'm this kind of guy and I can never be another kind of guy So, you know Systems are always helpful for understanding, you know humanity but uh, you know if you Invest too much of them the system can actually kind of control you So I think you know It's a useful model to maybe look at some problems and so forth I know anthony how we're talking about a gamma male that we know Recently and that he probably fits the profile of what that is but You know, I think you know that that can be a little bit limiting but Hey, I want to say i've been a huge fan of you for quite some time now And I have found your four tactical virtues to be spot on Something I've noticed though is the expression of those virtues does vary from sub subgroup to subgroup I think the most uh the most Somewhat recent example of our history is overseas It would be considered within their honor subtext for certain groups to strap suicide vests to women and send them at convoys Whereas other cultures would disagree so on that using that as kind of the segue. How would you reconcile? Knowing that the four tactical virtues at a meta level are correct Within different tribal groups The expression of honor or mastery or courage is somewhat different from say your conventional upbringing or history with it um That's quite sure. I understand the question, but like uh, basically obviously As I said, that's a moral difference. You know, whether the tribe thinks it's morally okay to do that And a lot of you know, if you feel like you're in an existential crisis um You know the by all means necessary is what they're doing and you know, like a lot of those tribes I think from what I understand I not that I'm not a specialist in that area at all but They feel like they're in an existential crisis and like this great battle That they're in so like they're operating by all means necessary Whereas, you know, we have a comfortable society We don't feel like we're in an existential threat like everything's going to be okay So, you know, we're a little bit more measured in the way we handle things if we thought that like Everyone I'm going to care about And everything my entire society is going to be wiped out tomorrow We might do some bad things, you know, and that's generally historically we have I mean, I don't like to use the weed in attach it to like people who I've never met who were born like 200 years before me But you know, like historically like westerners have done some messed up shit You know, like we used to defend castles with boiling oil and shit You know, like there's in all kinds of tortures and all kinds of crazy stuff So, you know, it's just about what What are you willing to do for the result and what are the consequences of not doing it? I think it's and you know, we obviously we all have different opinions on what that would be in a situation based on how we were raised And that's why I said, you know, like that's why I think that you know separating masculine morality is so important Because I'm not going to say that those guys who do that things aren't men because they are considered men by their tribe Uh, they might be man. I mean like personally perfect example is that like I'm super uncomfortable with cultures that fuck up dogs like that's I love my dogs and like when I I cannot imagine Like eating a dog or like like just abusing a dog for no reason and to me That's like on the verge of like I'm okay with genociding that guy, you know but uh Because that's part of my cultural morality, but they've they've grown up like oh those are the eating dogs They're down the street. They're the dogs that we eat and so that's totally normal to them So that's why I think it's important to just like they're still men and they still do a thing that I don't like them to do But that doesn't mean that they're not men and that's I think the important thing to consider Cool anybody else? Oh, I do have one cool. Yeah, I just want to say uh great speech. That was pretty pretty good. Um My question is um for so long in history Uh the battles that men fight have been kind of existential like external type battles And now in modern times, uh, most of the battles are kind of ideological and internal So I guess my question is You know, what what kind of battles are we As men to be fighting What kind of battles do you see that need to be fought? I guess Well, I mean never say never As far as like actual battles, I don't like to over send a metaphor is battle because at a certain level You get to like this level of being ridiculous Like everything is a war at like, you know like war on poverty war on like everything And uh, you know like everybody is a warrior, you know my warrior because I made it through the morning Yeah, you know like I'm a warrior because I did this great yoga class Uh, you know, it's there there's a whole kind of bastardization Of all those terms and I like to reserve them like you're not a hero Because you didn't eat a Snickers today Uh, you know, like you're a hero because you like risk your life to save somebody I like to keep those things being specifically what they are Uh, so I don't like to work send the metaphor of battle at all for that reason, but In terms of like And I I've been often saying recently Uh, whatever you think of like whatever's happening in Ukraine, which I don't even really know Because I don't believe anybody anymore about anything Uh, whatever you think is happening there Those people thought they lived in a civilized society Uh, where they weren't going to have to pick up guns and go to war Anytime soon and they weren't going to need any of the tactical virtues and they wouldn't have to do any of these things And surprise they do So To answer that part of question, maybe the battle isn't over Uh, you know, we saw a lot of people from riots and all kinds of things that are happening around the world We may still be in situations where we need all these things Uh, you know, actually like 10 years ago was a lot easier to argue like Everything's moving to a place where we're going to be perfectly civilized But now I think it's easy to see how things can come apart Um, so and then as far as like the battles when that's not happening Uh, you know, I've talked about it. I think in the way of men, but like, you know, sports are a metaphor for battle That's what they give men to do When they're not killing each other Uh, yeah, so You know in kind of a fun way. That's what men do is play sports. Uh, but uh I know you're actually probably talking more about psychological Um Battles and what we have to do You know just to overcome the kind of struggles of modern society and that's one of the things I've talked about a lot with kind of my Direction on uh, you know staying solar and so forth is that there's this problem with resentment I think is the biggest battle now that we would have to face is that the niching cost concept of resentment that, uh, you know, like Things aren't the way that they should be and they're oppressing us from the top And we will never be happy until we've overcome those evil people And and uh, you know like they need to perish and it's this vengeful fantasy that you get involved in and uh, that's It's always pretty destructive It's like yes, there are people doing bad things And it's okay to acknowledge that, you know, because there are guys I know who would take go the opposite way with it and to be like I'm gonna ignore all problems in the world And now I'm happy And I don't think that that's the right way either You know at some point george washington it was like You know no And uh, and you have to actually do that, you know at some point So you have to be aware of things and actually like take things seriously But at the same time You can't take everything seriously in that way, you know, you have to you actually like and Realize you just kind of wait and see with a lot of things And I think that rather than you know getting this mindset of you know, like It's almost like the satanic mindset Um, you know, which I use in a weird way and it confuses a lot of people But you know, it's just this idea that you know, we live in this kind of society that you know hates god So then people like, you know Hold up a cross and that's kind of satanic in the way they're doing it too like uh, like uh, like i'm gonna I'm doing this to make other people mad. I guess is what i'm getting at to be oppositional for the sake of being oppositional And because you're mad at these other people You do something to just offend them. You basically become a troll Uh, you know, like i'm just gonna just push some buttons and fuck with you, you know, because i'm bad And I think that that's a real temptation for a lot of men that they have to deal with because you're sitting online And you just want to mess with people you know like that that you who are saying the wrong things or whatever And I think it's harder because you don't get as much attention for it, but to take a higher path And actually focus on what you think is good And work towards that And the way that you want to behave and work towards that Rather than being constantly Angry about other things that are beyond your control But anyway, I think I have 19 seconds left. So I think that's actually a good place to call it quits