By : Elizabeth Warren is an outspoken Democratic Senator from Massachusetts formerly occupied teaching and researching commercial law and bankruptcy. In a 2007 lecture entitled The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class,
Warren provided a detailed look at the newly dysfunctional reality of
life for those who comprise the meat in America’s class sandwich.
Today’s social, political and economic landscape reflects the trends she
presciently identified which continue to bear their bitter fruit, that
of a downward financial and aspirational spiral for families, for
America, and in all likelihood for much of Western civilization.Warren herself avoided any serious discussion of root causes, largely limiting her discussion to economic and class issues, but the interrelated impacts of feminism, no-fault (read male-fault) divorce and the steady move by women into the work force are obvious throughout her narrative.
The image of heavily indebted consumers racking up their credit cards with unpayable debt while splurging foolishly on iPads, Nikes and Cadillacs is a popular one, but inaccurate, according to Warren. Her research, using inflation-adjusted figures, compared costs for a traditional family (mom, dad, two kids) in 1971 to that same family in 2003.
Surprisingly, food, appliances, baby food, clothing, cigarettes, furniture and per-car expenses dropped, some by significant amounts, when considered as a proportion of household income. Electronics, dog food and liquor went up, but not significantly. The real increase in costs for families occurred in the five largest areas of consumer spending, items which are mandatory fixed costs for any family.
These are housing (the McMansion effect was not a factor), health, child care, taxes (due to high marginal rates on the second income) and cars (costs per car decreased, but the number of cars per family increased out of necessity).
These fixed costs rose from 50% of household income in 1971 to 75% in 2003. The modern family also had much greater (almost double) income volatility due to greatly increased odds of job loss, catastrophically expensive health issues, and divorce.
With respect to bankruptcy and the subsequent slide into the lower class, a single male with no children was least likely to go belly up, followed closely by childless single females and married couples – all hover around the 7 per 1000 rate. When children were involved, married couples faced double that rate, while single moms bankrupted at a rate of 23 per 1000 (there weren’t enough single dads in her data to form a statistically valid sample). Fifty percent of bankrupts have endured two of the big three predictors (job loss, health issue, divorce), and 20% have experienced all three.
Warren also provides significant data which shows that the costs for parents of launching their own descendants into the middle class have increased significantly through erosion of the safety net and through the transfer of costs. For example, 12 years of taxpayer-funded schooling formerly was sufficient, while at present a college degree and pre-school are mandatory, meaning 1/3 of the necessary educational cost (for those aspiring to the middle class) is a new financial responsibility for parents. Ditto the health care system, which, in addition to shifting costs away from taxpayers onto immediate family, has also become a generator of reduced income.
It’s important to note that the greatest impacts of the above shifts have been on the traditional married two-parent two-child family. Other forms of the family and individuals have experienced these shifts as well, but to a lesser extent.
In his lecture on The Collapse of Complex Societies, Dr. Joseph Tainter describes the process whereby societies solve problems through complex solutions (because it works), until the point is reached where the cumulative expense of maintaining all extant solutions overwhelms the nation’s ability to pay for them. This mechanism includes the diminishing returns on research (i.e., the ability to devise and implement new solutions) which become prevalent as the low-hanging fruit is plucked, as well as the ever-increasing military costs and currency devaluations which accompany the need to maintain the empire and pay for more and more solutions.
Sevareid’s Law, which states that “the chief source of problems is solutions” encapsulates Tainter’s work in a pithy nutshell. Senator Warren’s research provides an inadvertent glimpse into this virtuous spiral – ‘solving’ the problems of feminists through female ‘empowerment’ and the break-down of the family has helped create greater problems which necessitate more complex and less effective solutions which in turn will create further problems and an outcry for yet more solutions. Such a cycle involves ever-escalating complexity and cost, and reiterates up to the point of societal break-down. The explosion of government ‘services’ such as VAWA, ObamaCare and SNAP, not to mention America’s military budget, currently provide classic examples, and there will undoubtedly be more to come.
Perhaps the most important comment offered by Dr. Tainter is that efforts to solve problems, while ultimately leading to destruction, often are ethical and desirable. He points out that the Roman Empire would have collapsed much sooner had its rulers (most notably Diocletian) not taken steps to create complex solutions. (An interesting aside here: the only examples of sustainable, stable societies seem to be prehistoric, so, is a sustainable complex society possible?)
In that sense, it is clear a genuine concern for the well-being of women and a desire to solve their problems, real or not, provided an impetus for some of the solutions currently in place, and will almost certainly profoundly influence the next cycle of solutions. It’s worth wondering what those solutions will be, but even more so to contemplate what problems they might bring.
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Love, hope, and MTGOW men: you are the party
“We need more female MRAs; the guys need hope.”
Or, as related to me by a female member of the MHRM, it goes something like “we need more women like you in the movement” followed by “it gives the guys hope.”
The hope referred to is that of men within this human rights movement that, someday, they might find somebody to love who both recognizes them as non-disposable human beings, and who won’t use the courts, or the police, or simply the public court of male-is-evil female-is-good to dispose of them at the first moment of advantage or convenience. It seems like an awful lot of guys, both within the men’s human rights movement and outside it, are awfully fond of women, and want to love and be loved by one who isn’t malevolent or crazy.
Yeah, that’s right: An awful lot of the supposedly woman-hating “hard core MRA types” really just want a stable, committed relationship.
But, being MHRA, they know they can’t have that. At least, not as long as they remain committed to the radical idea that men, as human beings, live in a world that treats them as disposable, and face a long list of powerful disadvantages in a society which insists they [men] are the all-powerful rulers of the world, in the same breath as men are told to be quiet, go to the back of the bus, do their duty, pay, provide, and when convenient for others, die.
Stepping outside the context of the MHRM for a moment, I saw a homeless man’s sign earlier this year which read: “all I want is to sleep under a roof, and to love and be loved, why is it so hard?”
But getting back to the idea of: “we need more female MRAs, because it gives hope to guys in the movement.”
I happen to think we need female MRAs simply because this is a human rights movement, and humans come in two standard models typically identified as “men” and “women”.
But what about giving hope to the men in this movement who, deep in their bones, want to love and be loved? What about hope for the guys who wish they could find a nice, not-crazy, not passively-predatory woman to settle down and build a family with? What can we do for them to give them some hope?
Guys, it’s time for you to put aside the desire for something that, if it ever existed, no longer does.
Sure, it’s easy to find a woman you get along with. It’s relatively easy to find somebody you like enough to move in with, sleep with, share breakfasts with and all kinds of other domestic contentments.
But the fact remains that even in a loving, trusting, functional relationship between a man and a woman, the law, the family courts, and the consensus of the entire rest of the world is that if you and she come to a serious disagreement, the world will move to protect her (the innocent victim) from you (the bad, bad, bad man).
And that means that a conventionally structured intimate relationship between a man and a woman is one in which she holds a metaphorical gun to his head every minute of every day. She has the power to dispose of him, regardless of who, or even whether, anyone in a disagreement is right or wrong.
A great many men outside the MHRM understand this, which is why we keep hearing so much about a so-called marriage strike. Despite the name it’s actually not a strike in the sense of a temporary suspension during negotiation. What we commonly call the marriage strike is actually a diaspora.
But for those men who really really wish they could meet a nice, compassionate woman like our own Karen Straughan, or Alison Tieman, or Della, or Suz, or like Dianna or Judgy Bitch, then settle down and build a life together, you gents are sadly out of luck. That thing you want does not exist.
Are there more women like Diana or Suz, or Karen, or Della or Typhon, or Judgy Bitch? Sure there are, maybe even as much as 1% of the female population. But the problem remains that in a conventionally structured intimate relationship, you are still living under the barrel of that metaphorical gun.
Some guys might even say “I wouldn’t mind, so long as it’s somebody like this or that female MRA.”
Let’s pick that apart before we swat it contemptuously aside. A woman worth being loved and trusted, who ostensibly loves you, even while she willingly participates in a “relationship” in which she is the fiat owner of the life, freedom, and continued public person as “good man” of somebody she would apparently love?
A sane and moral human being cannot be content as the jailor and owner of their partner, spouse or significant other.
If the person whom you want to love and be loved by is content to hold a metaphorical gun to your neck every minute of every day, then they are nobody you should ever have trust or affection for. Which is why conventional intimate relationships are broken, defunct, and dystopian zombie abuse-relationships, no matter how much illusion and reality denial we may indulge in.
So am I saying we should all give up on even loving or being loved?
Uhhhh, no.
I know a great many detractors and critics of the MHRM as well as the MGTOW movement would characterize it in such terms.
MGTOWs are sad, pale, hairy, flabby, lonely sexless losers – who when not in their mother’s basements live in the wildness in canvas tents and caves, masturbating to internet porn and subsisting on potato peelings and ramen noodles.
That sounds pretty damned sad.
Surrounding the MHRM, and men, going their own way, there is a conception that in declaring himself a human being of equal, non-disposable human worth – a man is electing to leave, rather than join the party. He’s un-inviting himself from some significant fraction of cultural and social life.
All of that is encapsulated by the conception of the MRM, or the MGTOW movement as the sad, lonely loser.
Nothing could be further from reality. But there are two realities in play here. One of them is the “reality” of public narrative. That’s what “we” (the public) all agree, without overtly agreeing, to be real. It’s the story we all, by our silence, accept. The other reality is what an empiricist objectivist might describe as reality. This is a little more challenging, because it’s reality dependent on observation – while even this discussion of it takes place in that abstract space of an online blog; removed from the direct observation an empirically based world view requires.
As a MGTOW, you are not leaving the party. You are the party.
Does following a MGTOW path include having friendships, even intimate sexual relationships with women?
OF COURSE IT DOES!
It just means that those relationships are not patterned in a conventional format.
Does following a MGTOW path include pursuing a challenging and potentially highly paid professional career?
Um duh, yes.
It just means your reasons for such pursuit are your own, and not likely attached to the public perception of social approval, status, and group hierarchy ladder climbing.
Does following a MGTOW path mean avoiding all contact with women, or leaving the job market, or opting out of public life or society?
Aside from responding with “NO, OF COURSE IT DOESNT!” this point merits special mention. For some practising and advocating MGTOW, a flat rejection of sexual friendships, intimate relationships, economic success and of social engagement. This particular conception is understandable as a gut level reaction to populist anti-male culture and law. But this proposed path of escalating disengagement ends with a practitioner literally hiding in terror from participation in his own life.
I’ll say it again: as a MGTOW, you are not leaving the party. You ARE the party.
This is repeated because it’s one of the points repeatedly misunderstood, and misrepresented by both advocates and critics of MGTOW.
A man defining himself as human, demanding equitable treatment within his personal, professional, and legal relationships does not necessitate the universal opting-out that both critics and some advocates of MGTOW predict.
Doesn’t this posited life of poverty, solitude and lonely masturbation sound like either fear, or the threat from authoritarians when faced by the “threat” of individual male noncompliance?
Doesn’t the projected path of sexless poverty, unemployment and basement-dwelling economic parasitism sound just like something out of the venerable, but still excellent, Shaming Tactics catalog?
Are there elements of public, social, and legal life to disengage from as a Man Going His Own Way? Of course, particularly established social and legal conventions binding men to any enforceable status as lesser legal and social entities by virtue of sexual identity. Marriage, for me, springs sharply to mind here.
But does a MGTOW path include cultivating collegial as well as intimate friendships with members of our human race’s other 51%?
Yes, of course. And in a MGTOW practice, those relationships, whether long- or short-term are non-coercive, nonviolent, and based on honesty and compassion for the men and women within those relationships.
Specific details of such relationships are omitted here from this discussion for several reasons. First being the fact that the “Their Own Way” in MGTOW means whatever solutions and practices one MGTOW may employ are personal, and not prescriptive to be imposed or even outlined as some kind of “you should do what I say” manual.
The second reason being that MGTOW is activism, tackling a very large problem, and in opposition to what, for now, remains the major accepted standards of our society. The wider world is beginning to wake up to, and to seriously oppose MTGOW as a movement can learn the details after their shit has been fucked up. Because just as the culture of MGTOW is not prescriptive for men adopting it, it is also not static.
A man going his own way is defining himself, and consciously defining the terms of his relationships to the world, to friends of either sex, to education and employment. The idea of letting existing social conventions eject him from relationships, or employment, or success, in any area of life is really not going his own way. It’s simply giving in to a culture of abuse.
You are neither invited to the party, or the adventure, or the fun, nor are you disinvited. You ARE the party, and whoever refuses to treat you as a human being, rather than the disposable sub-person of the mainstream narrative: they are disinvited, and too bad for them.
This isn’t, by the way, an article designed to give men in this movement hope. Hope is for losers. This is simply a very polite correction to a false characterization driven by the fear of the opponents of this men’s human rights movement, and the subset of that movement identified as MGTOW.
Thank you for your kind attention.
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