As a Christmas gift I gave my ex-wife (who is an avid sailor like myself) the DVD of "All Is Lost", a well-crafted piece of cinema about a man alone on a boat. It's a great movie for those who love sailing, but I had forgotten one thing when I gave it to her: she's a woman, and this is a movie with no relationships at all in it. I should have known she wouldn't enjoy it.
It's a truism in the manosphere that men are interested in things and ideas, but women are only interested in the social world.
That is, men are engaged with ideas and abstractions, and have passions for things which only peripherally involve the social hierarchy. Men create art, music, science, technology, are fascinated by philosophy and systematisation, appreciate beauty for its own sake, and solve problems. Whereas women's experience of the world is mediated through other people. They need to be part of a group, and are at all times concerned with what others think of them. They fall into the frame of the strongest leader, or the media narrative, and are constantly anxious and seeking reassurance that they are a valued part of a tribe.
I have always agreed with this, but the more I think about it, the more it seems an absolute truth. Men are also concerned with status in the pecking order, group membership, etc, but the strongest and most intelligent, the ones that drive society, create their own new frame and new paradigms. Some of them are willing to become outcasts or even celibate rejects, in order to follow their inner light.
I don't see this at all with women. Where are the women of past and present obsessed with their pursuit of art and science? Where are the women who contemplate the wonders of nature or our cultural heritage? When I look at the art of Vermeer, I'm moved in a strange way by the colors and textures. Women on the other hand seem only to want to know who exactly the girl with the pearl earring was and whether Vermeer married her.
Which women do you know that are "going their own way", blazing a trail, engaging with the universe and the world of ideas without concern for social status? Tell us about the exceptions. They have to be out there.
It's a truism in the manosphere that men are interested in things and ideas, but women are only interested in the social world.
That is, men are engaged with ideas and abstractions, and have passions for things which only peripherally involve the social hierarchy. Men create art, music, science, technology, are fascinated by philosophy and systematisation, appreciate beauty for its own sake, and solve problems. Whereas women's experience of the world is mediated through other people. They need to be part of a group, and are at all times concerned with what others think of them. They fall into the frame of the strongest leader, or the media narrative, and are constantly anxious and seeking reassurance that they are a valued part of a tribe.
I have always agreed with this, but the more I think about it, the more it seems an absolute truth. Men are also concerned with status in the pecking order, group membership, etc, but the strongest and most intelligent, the ones that drive society, create their own new frame and new paradigms. Some of them are willing to become outcasts or even celibate rejects, in order to follow their inner light.
I don't see this at all with women. Where are the women of past and present obsessed with their pursuit of art and science? Where are the women who contemplate the wonders of nature or our cultural heritage? When I look at the art of Vermeer, I'm moved in a strange way by the colors and textures. Women on the other hand seem only to want to know who exactly the girl with the pearl earring was and whether Vermeer married her.
Which women do you know that are "going their own way", blazing a trail, engaging with the universe and the world of ideas without concern for social status? Tell us about the exceptions. They have to be out there.
Dr Johnson rumbles with the RawGod. And lives to regret it.