Shame is one of the tools that Society has used to whip the unruly back in line, “since forever.” I believe it’s actually part of the dominant/submissive sort of behavior we see in ourselves and other animals, such as when the alpha wolf bares his teeth at a subordinate who tried to feed at a kill before its turn. The subordinate backs off; no fight is necessary; the signal is enough. This can be tracked up into a human family, where the thundercloud on Mommy’s brow is punishment enough for Junior’s infractions (because, early on, it had been backed with punishment enough that Junior backs down like the subordinate wolf cited above.) And for the adolescent and adult, the awareness that “Society disapproves” of some behavior can be curb enough against it, even in the absence of written and codified law.
But Society, or a person, can try to ride shame too far. On one hand, this can result in the target of shame withdrawing, pulling himself inside himself like a turtle into its shell – sometimes called “Avoidant Personality Disorder.” If you’re looking to make someone turn his efforts toward your goals, this is completely counter-productive! On the other hand, a person or class of people can build up a tolerance for shaming – so that “shame” loses its effectiveness as a tool of social control. Most importantly, you can’t shame someone who doesn’t accept your authority – but you can inspire the target of your shaming efforts to feel and express disdain, derision, ridicule, or worse toward “the shame-wielder.”
This is especially apparent when a Women’s Supremacist – whether a Gender-Raunch Slut-Shamer, a Traditional Mommy-Figure or an Authoritarian White-Knight Enabler – tries to tell a Free-Range Man how to live his life.
“Free-Range Man” is a great term, from Zed of the “Book Of Zed,” to describe the “man who walks by himself.” (I borrow that from a title in Rudyard Kipling’s “Just-So Stories” … though Kipling’s version was a Cat.) MGTOW is a good term, too, if I could figure out how to pronounce it … “MiG-Toe” works for me, even if it evokes the Mikoyan-Gurevich Design Bureau, who built so many of the Warsaw Pact fighter jets my colleagues and I tracked when I worked in the Intelligence Community. “Emm-Gee-Tee-Oh-Dubya” doesn’t pass the test. But we can all agree on the expansion, the core concept, “Men Going Their Own Way.”
Back to “shame,” though. If the target of your shaming rhetoric does subscribe to the same social constructs, and does acknowledge your authority, then yes; shaming can be effective. But it doesn’t work at all with someone who dismisses your authority, or who is following his own path toward a future different from your ideals. At the least, he dismisses you; worse, you could become the target of his scorn, his mockery, his anger, and who-knows-what-more?
Shame becomes its own worst enemy.
The problem with shame, applied to a Free-Range Man, is that it is too obvious as a blatant, indeed awkward, attempt to chase him back into “emotional bondage.” Every possible version of “shame” is obvious, predictable and definable, and the Free-Range Man has already rejected it. But that doesn’t prevent a devoted “Femmunist” – or a Traditional Feminine Demand-ist – from trying to push this free-form, self-defining peg into a restrictive, square hole.
Let’s look at a few of the categories – and the way a Free-Range Man might dismiss them. (These are taken from “The Catalogue of Anti-Male Shaming Tactics,” posted on the “Exposing Feminism” website.)
Charge of Irascibility (Code Red) = “You’re bitter!”
Have you given me anything but bitterness, on your own part?
Charge of Cowardice (Code Yellow) = “Be a man!”
For the likes of a testicle-kicker like you? Get real!!
Charge of Hypersensitivity (Code Blue) – The Crybaby Charge: “Man up! Grow out of it!”
Show me that you can “grow out of it” and “woman up” – show me that you can take responsibility for yourself and your life. Otherwise, Shut The Fuck Up.
I’m not going through the whole catalogue here. You get the point.
The point is, “shame” is the name of a failed game.
Shame, and ad-hominem attacks, straw-men and stolen concepts, are the meat-and-potatoes of feminist “discourse”. They’re intended to punish the laggards, the men who have temporarily “forgotten their place,” the men who still hope for a sniff of that Ultimate Reward that is presented as the “Goal of Manhood” – the sexual reward presented to a “Straw-Cock,” integral to the Straw Man the Women hope to shame and blame and bludgeon back into line.
The problem is this, ladies: We are not “straw men”. Neither are we homunculi, to be created and roused and manipulated by the wizardry of the Femosphere, to be defined and dialectically-materialized by the Acolytes of Femmunism.
We are Men. Free Men.
And we will no longer be defined by “shame.”
Manhood is not something for the women to define, or for pundits to define, or “Society” and its puppet-masters to define. We men, who live the definition, will not be “defined” from outside. Shaming attacks won’t convince us, won’t coerce us, won’t do anything but feed our stubborn anger. And my words here are but an echo of the discontent, the denial, the laughter and spurning and scorn of the Manosphere.
Neither you, nor your White Knights, nor anybody else, have any “right” to impose your definitions or your demands or your imperious will on a Free-Range Man, try as you will. We repudiate your authority, your efforts, your subversion and your “hurt feee-wings” on the subject of our self -definition, our choices, our intentions, our dreams and our goals.
Your shaming tactics are unwelcome here, and ineffectual.
Game Over.
______________________________
(I want to give credit to a 1960s TV series, “The Name Of The Game”, for inspiring the title of this post. Its pilot episode was a TV-movie, which was entitled “Fame Is The Name Of The Game.”)
I just discovered your blog and I am really enjoying it. Very clear writing with a flair. So many have good thoughts but are not able to articulate them as well. That Zed essay that you linked to is very good also; classic Zed. I had some thoughts on shame the other day that I wrote and would like to share with you; another variable of shame to add to the equation.
We are getting so far down the rabbit hole that some of us with memories of a past time are going to be completely shocked. Once women have a liberation that is almost 100%, the lack of shame we will eventually see is going to be monumental. It´s just some remnants of the past that are maintaining the older women with some shame still, and it is the older ones that are capable of acts that would make a sailor blush.
I´m not really against the future path we are about to embrace; the last 50 or so years has been a hard pill for men to swallow, but we are about over the hump. Most men who have weathered their difficult youths in these socially tumultuous times will probably be able to fend well for themselves. Some younger men will have a hard go of it, but of course, what doesn´t kill you, makes you stronger.
Having forsaken our grand traditions, we daily see examples of equality being finally delivered to women; this will just continue until I expect maybe after another 20-30 years they are screaming for a return to these traditions? Men are capable of living in a more? barebones? existence. Women are not, but the machine that provided them their former glory looks broke to me?
If you are trying to be a traditional man in these untraditional times,your just banging your head against a wall.
I am somewhat of a sailor, so I enjoy your posts on sailing. My future sailing will probably not be as ambitious as yours, but you made me start to think about the Macgregor 19x. It´s a sweet little boat. I expect it feels alot bigger than it is? So many possibilities with the 19x. Am I right to refer to it as the 19x? I see my future sailing taking place around coastal Florida, but as an easily trailer-able boat, it wouldn´t be that big of a deal to go up to the Greatlakes or even someplace like your home waters, maybe Massachusetts. A good, comfortable boat for relatively calm days and with the bilge completely drained it can zip you back to the anchorage. They recommend a 40hp outboard for the 26x to be able to get it up on a plane. What would you recommend as a minimum hp to be able to race back to port with the 19? or for a little bit of relatively inexpensive power-boating fun? One thing that I learned from my sailing days is roller-furling would be a plus for a singlehanded sailer; any thoughts?
Again, I love your forum. You are saying things that are needed to be expressed. For so many years men´s voices were stifled, but thanks to the new technologies we are regaining our voice; the future is looking better and better.
Thank you! I appreciate your kind words, and better yet, your cogent thoughts. I have lived, myself, through most of the Feminist Mistaque; I was a schoolboy while the first rumblings were being heard in the Sixties, and feminism has done a lot to give men a rough ride ever since.
“Liberation” is no longer the cause of feminism; I doubt it was ever was more than window-dressing. The unstated goal has been women’s supremacy, women’s revenge, and the suppression and erosion of men’s rights in the family, in the courts, in the law, and in Society. What’s going on today is closer to Valerie Solanas (the SCUM Manifesto) than to Betty Friedan (The Feminine Mystique), and evidence is, it’s going to get worse and worse.
And the “shame” I’m talking about in this article is the “blaming shaming” dialectic that these women are trying to use to control men. I have a hard time imagining that the people who can orchestrate and participate in “Slut Walks” as a form of social protest could have much of any shame left within themselves, at all.
Now, as for something more cheerful – about the MacGregor 19: No, it’s not the “19x”. Roger MacGregor designed a series of different 26-foot trailer boats with sailing-optimized hulls before he came up with the idea for a high-powered “crossover boat for sail or power. The Mac 19, I suspect, was a proof of concept, which put a swing-down centerboard and his characteristic water ballast into a hull suited to a 19-foot runabout. He designed this boat to take a 40-hp engine, fitted twin rudders so this engine could be put on the centerline, and gave it enough “living room” belowdecks that it could be used for a weekend getaway machine by a small family. Sleeping below on the 19 is a lot like camping in a pup-tent, though. It worked well enough that he followed it with a 26-foot version that has stand-up headroom, a proper little galley, and a 50-horsepower rating for the outboard.
I had hank-on jibs for the Mac 19, but my Mac 26x has a Flexible Furler on the forestay. It’s a lot easier to roll up the genny, rather than going up on the foredeck to bag it, but it’s more awkward when I raise and lower the mast, and I built a special “tray” to hold it while I’m trailering the boat.
If the MacGregor 19 appeals to you, and you find one that you can buy, go for it! And have fun!
[…] has also written about shame, as it is used in feminist and chivalrist discourse, as an attempt to put men back into their box: Shame, and ad-hominem attacks, straw-men and stolen concepts, are the meat-and-potatoes of feminist […]
MGYOW or GYOW can be simply abbreviated as… GO.
That’s what l do, l go. If anyone asks for an explanation (which they dont b/c l’ve figured out how to be in a way that they dont), they may get one if they’re certain type of (go) guy. If they’re a womminz, they’re on their own.
[…] – “The New Iran“, “Modern Romance”BeijaFlor – ““Shame” is the Name of the Game“, “The End of Obligation“, “Growing Older, But Not Up“, […]