Wanting to Fuse with the Ideal

"Projective identification is a phantasy of projecting the whole, or a part of, oneself into another object, taking possession of it, and attributing to the object one's own characteristics. The motives for projective identification are varied, like the wish to possess an ideal object and fuse with it; or getting into the bad object to attack or take over its assumed power; and many others; in particular it abolishes separateness." - Melanie Klein

I've spent a fair amount of time thinking about projection, which is the basis of scapegoating: projecting your problems on other people and then wanting to kill them, thinking your problems will go away (it's the basis of human sacrifice).

I've also written about fusing with the object, such as people wanting to fuse with a crowd or nation. Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn wrote about this a lot in Leftism Revisited, which is a book every thoughtful person should own.

"Projective identification" (which Kuehnelt-Leddidn wrote about) is a bit different that merely your own problems onto someone else. The "identification" is the different part.

Let's take comics, for example. The appeal of superheros is to incorporate them into yourself. That's not a bad thing.

Now let's take the Manophere. I tend to be a critic of it because there is a lot of adolescent nonsense in it. All those wannabe-"Alphas" are projectively identifying with the concept, i.e. trying to incorporate it into themselves.

The only thing I can conclude is that they didn't have much (if any) of a father and were raised by clueless women (I have seen this a lot in the last few decades.

Women delude themselves they can raise boys, claiming most have turned out fine (they haven't). Their claim is a logical fallacy known as compostion, which is thinking that if some turned out okay, then all did (assuming the part proves the whole).

My father was a bit of an idiot but he was always there. And he told me things at 12 that apparently some men don't learn until their 30s and 40s. I certainly identified with the good aspects of him and rejected the bad parts.

But the good parts far outweighed the bad parts.

The concept of an "alpha" never existed when I was a kid. In fact, we would have considered it a comic-book concept, like James Bond, or silly films like the Matt Helm ones with Dean Martin, or like the Flint films with James Coburn.

The "beta" is projecting all the bad aspects. I've run across some truly stupid beliefs. "Alphas" are valuable and "betas" are of no value. There is "alpha" and "beta" sperm and genes. Intelligence is a "beta" trait. Dionysus is an "alpha" and Apollo is a "beta."

They pulled these concepts straight out of their asses.

It appears the more projective identification exists, the more scapegoating exists. What comic book or superhero movie doesn't have a an all-bad villain onto which all problems are projected? Good cannot exist without evil. Creepy thought, but it's been noticed for thousands of years.

It's why I only identified with superheros as a child. I certainly don't these days. Just about the only people I identified with, starting when I was 12, were polymaths, probably because I can see a little bit of it in me. I know that if I was about three times as much as I am, I'd be one.

But I have never identified with ridiculous concepts such as "alpha" and "beta" and the "Dark Triad" as a good thing. They're childish concepts, only worthy of comic books.

People who truly believe in these things will never have any gratitude, just envy. And that is why Melanie Klein's most famous book is Envy and Gratitude. How can you have any gratitude to women when you consider them money-hungry whores?

A lot of the Manosphere is based on envy, just the way feminism/leftism is based on envy. In many ways it's the mirror image of feminism, and has incorporated the tactics of denigrating women as loveless hypergamous whores who are only good for sex. The Manosphere wants to bring down women, just the way certain leftist/feminist women are actively trying to bring down and destroy men.

It's why in the long run both feminism and the worst concepts of the Manosphere will fail. They appeal to the worst aspects of human nature.