"The Manosphere is feminism's bastard son." - Crissa Espina
Feminism is based the envy of men, and in response the Manosphere is based on the envy of women. Not all of each is based on envy, but there is a lot of it in both.
Not all of feminism is bad, since nothing is all good or all bad. Let's say it's 98.7% bad. The Manosphere, being in some ways a needed corrective to the evils of feminism, has some good in it. Let's say about 80% of it is nonsense.
The easiest way to identify envy when when the envied is devalued when they don't deserve it. That is the lesson of the story of the Garden of Eden, which while not literally true, is figuratively true. No myth lasts thousands of years unless there is great truth to it.
The serpent attempts to being down Adam and Eve because he envies them. He is a symbol of hate, envy, feelings of humiliation, and the desire for revenge (John Milton clearly illustrated this in Paradise Lost).
These days, the serpent would either be a narcissist or a psychopath (a psychopath is the extreme form of a narcissist). These people devalue other people (turn them into things) and cover up their feelings of humiliation and envy with grandiosity.
Feminism, itself a symbol of the serpent, has attempted to destroy men because of some women's (let's say leftist/lesbian women) hate and envy of men, and who desire revenge on them because they feel they have been humiliated. Which they haven't, but there is no talking any sense with the self-righteousness and self-pity of the self-deluded. That, of course, also means men, which is why it's almost impossible to talk any sense into the Lost Boys of the Manosphere.
Some of these feminists were literally insane, such as the Jewish lesbian Shulamith Firestone, author of the worthless but dangerous The Dialectic of Sex, who died recently and spend the last few decades of her life incapacitated by schizophrenia.
Others, such as Betty Friedan, envied men because she was excruciatingly ugly. Gloria Steinem never followed any of her beliefs that she prescribed for other women, just as the "leaders" of the Manosphere don't follow what they prescribe for the deluded Lost Boys of the Manosphere. Exactly why Steinem envied men I don't know, but it's not as if I'm going to make an extended study of her hypocritical life.
There are certain self-appointed "leaders" of the Manosphere, such as narcissists like Vox Day and Roissy, who are the Manosphere's version of Friedan and Steinem. Like Friedan and Steinem, Day and Roissy will follow them into oblivion.
Because of the Manophere's envy of women, there is a attempt by some of the men in it to devalue women. For the PUA's (Pick-Up Artists) this means objectifying women - seeing them as objects merely for sex. This reducing women to objects is based on these men's feelings of humiliation and insecurity, which they cover up with attempts at power, domination and control.
The story of Cain and Abel is relevant here. Cain is humiliated, blames his problems on Abel and murders him. This is humiliation followed by revenge. Strictly speaking, it is perceived humiliation followed by the desire for revenge.
Feminists want revenge on men because they delude themselves they've been humiliated and many of the Manosphere bloggers believe they've been humiliated by women so they devalue them and want revenge on them. They want to replace shame with pride.
The purpose of feminism is to humiliate men. In response, that is why some men have come up with the concept of the Alpha (which per se doesn't exist) as an extreme reaction against feelings of helplessness, that they are a little boy, a wimp
One way to understand normal people is to look at the extremes, since extreme behavior is just normal behavior taken to the breaking point. Everyone is susceptible to humiliation and envy.
The psychiatrist James Gilligan, who spent 35 years interviewing thousands of prisoners, said he always heard the same story as to why they murdered or brutally assaulted people. What he heard, every time, was “He dissed me” or else mocked, insulted and ridiculed the prisoner’s children, wife, parents, friends.
Gilligan one day realized what he was hearing, over and over, was the story of Cain and Abel: the feeling of humiliation followed by revenge manifesting itself as murder.
Gilligan also said, "an underlying factor that is virtually always present to one degree or another is a feeling that one has to prove one’s manhood, and that the way to do that, to gain the respect that has been lost, is to commit a violent act."
This can include violent verbal attacks or devaluing people in other ways...such as seeing them as objects to be manipulated.
John Douglas, the retired FBI profiler of serial killers, and the author of several best-selling books, stated that every serial murderer he encountered was an “inadequate” type (i.e., he felt humiliated) who covered it up with grandiosity (i.e., an immense Satanic pride) and sought revenge on anyone who reminded him of those who believed caused his problems in the first place. Again, humiliation leading to murder.
Wrote Douglas in The Anatomy of Motive about one mass murder: “…this crime…[was] a kind of revenge…it was retaliation for some perceived wrong – real or imagined – perpetrated against the killer” (in another case, a teenage school shooter said, “The world has wronged me, and I could take it no more” — his pride was hurt).
Chris Stout wrote in The Psychology of Terrorism: “The first stage in the development of terrorism begins when intolerable life conditions cause suffering that produces…a malignant alteration in the personality caused by the repeated failure to respond to overwhelming trauma.” That pretty much explains the worst of the Manosphere, since the abuse of men by feminism (enforced by law) has not been addressed by society and the government.
What surprised me about the Manosphere is the ignorance of evil. Many in it idealize psychopaths and narcissists, based on the fact they have no idea what they are. These are the Alphas, which don't really exist.
The worst of psychopaths are the sexual sadists known as serial killers. These men torture, murder and mutilate women. Some of them are cannibals and necrophiliacs.
Outwardly, these men appear to be friendly and charming and confident. Inwardly they have no conscience and no guilt. They're monsters, not human beings. They have invariably been horribly abused as children, and when adult cover up their fragile personalities with the aforementioned attempts as power, control and domination. They are incapable of love.
I recently saw on TV the late Jerry Brudos. He was laughing and making jokes and appeared to be a friendly and charming man. Yet this is a man who killed about six women before he was caught. In one case he kidnapped a young woman, strangled her, had sex with her corpse, cut off one of her feet (he had a shoe fetish), then went inside and ate dinner with his family.
He would also hang women in his garage and let them dangle for two or three days, occasionally visiting them to rape their corpses.
This is what the worst of psychopaths do. The lesser versions, such as narcissists and borderlines, still murder women, rape them, beat them, and abuse them in various ways.
Bizarrely, the Lost Boys of the Manosphere idealize psychopaths, narcissists and borderlines, referring to dangerous concepts such as the Dark Triad (narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy). Women supposedly instinctively drool after such men.
Some women do. There are also women who are serial killer groupies and also women who think when men abuse and beat them it's their fault for "making them mad."
I mentioned the concept of the Alpha. Since it means nothing it can mean anything. Some speak of them as rich, good-looking guys who get all the women. They essentially have no conscience and see women merely as objects to be seduced.
Some see Alphas as more along the lines of chivalrous men.
If you do want to use the concept of the Alpha, the seducers are the cads. They are cowards who are narcissists. They generally collapse by middle-age. I've seen it more than once.
Men who babble they are Alphas or Pick-Up Artists are not. They are men who have feelings of humiliation and envy, who feel they have been rejected and disrespected by women, so they devalue them to reduce their power ("Since I believe they have abused me my entire life I will objectify them so they so longer have any power over me").
This is why exists the old observation that all bullies are cowards. Bluster and bravado on top, disguising feelings of powerlessness and humiliation.
The good Alphas are the chivalrous men. Chivalry is based on the better warrior virtues and evolved only from Christianity.
Since there are at least two kinds of Alphas, and one concept is the exact opposite of the other, this is why the concept of the Alpha means nothing.
Why do younger men fall for this nonsense? Because they are lost and have never learned what it is to be a man. Everyone seeks meaning, importance, community and security. They seek mentors and models they believe will educate them, even if their mentors and models are self-deluded frauds and what they teach ends up to be dangerous.
The curious and ironic thing about the Dark Triad Pick-Up Artists is that they are not admirable men. They are altering their behavior and personalities merely to get laid. This means women are ruling them and telling them what to do. These men are pathetic, about which they are clueless.
This flaw in certain men was studied hundreds of years ago. The conclusion reached is that a man does not does not alter his behavior or character to merely get laid. Such men are cowards. And I have seen that, too.
There is a useful book by Waller Newell called, What is a Man: 3000 Years of Wisdom. There are some useful comments by some of the reviewers:
"Thus, many of our young men are driven by their lust rather than learning to love the beauty of women and enjoying the simple pleasure of observation. Boys find themselves full of rage, becoming aggressive and even violent instead of learning to focus their energy to set right what has been made wrong."
Exactly right.
Another reviewer wrote this:
"Manly Virtue:
"There's nothing more humiliating for a genuinely real man than to betray the code of manly honor, that once consisted of a canon of ethics called; 'manly virtue.' In Latin, vir means man, and a man of honor controlled his bodily passions and fears with fortitude, endurance and grace. Those are not virtues which most of today's men hope to acquire, nor their female partners promote, since a genuinely real man cannot be defined solely with female aspiration.
"In classical times, these virtues were Prudence, Courage; abstinence, and Justice. Being dignified, courteous, a temperate devotee to a chivalry of Justice and truth was the ultimate social aspiration for men. These virtues have no meaning unless exercised by free men and women. But it was the clear conviction of the ancients that if citizens were not raised with these virtues, to which Faith, Hope, and Charity, were added by the Christians, democracy would soon deteriorate into soft, then hard tyranny."
Cads demonstrate the Seven Deadly Vices. Chivalrous men try to live their lives by the Seven Heavenly Virtues. This is why the Alpha (sic) cannot be both at once.
The Lost Boys of the Manosphere would do better to pay attention to ancient wisdom rather than confused modern concepts.
"The PUAs and Gamers...are comprised mostly of men who bear the deepest afflictions of a fatherless culture. Abandoned to feminist governance by their male elders and bereft of masculine guidance, they have been dropped into the solipsistic void that was the only existence feminism ever could have offered them outside direct servitude. Stripped of values and consciousness and the ability to be circumspect, they have turned feral; so unable to form community or embrace brotherhood that they have shrugged off the desire for either." - Paul Elam