Who Killed Adulthood In American Culture?

New York Times film critic A.O. Scott recently wrote an essay titled The Death of Adulthood in American Culture, lamenting that as the TV show Mad Men draws to a close, there are no more men like Don Draper in American culture, saying that “Tony (Soprano), Walter (White) and Don (Draper) are the last of the patriarchs.”

This slow unwinding has been the work of generations. For the most part, it has been understood — rightly in my view, and this is not really an argument I want to have right now — as a narrative of progress. A society that was exclusive and repressive is now freer and more open. But there may be other less unequivocally happy consequences. It seems that, in doing away with patriarchal authority, we have also, perhaps unwittingly, killed off all the grown-ups.

A.O. Scott is teetering on the brink of a red pill epiphany, and if he reads this article, it’ll either send him over the edge or make him run screaming in the other direction. The disgust he reflexively feels at seeing a grown man wearing flip flops is not the problem, but rather a symptom of a larger cultural shift. Why are so many men and women drawn to the masculinity of a character like Don Draper, while simultaneously shaming the beliefs and cultural conditions that create men like him? Why doesn’t anyone know what it means to be a grown-up anymore? Who killed adulthood?

What problem did adulthood solve?

When discussing the Breaking Bad spinoff Better Call Saul, creators Peter Gould and Vince Gilligan ask the question “what problem does becoming Saul solve?” The title character of Better Caul Saul is a decent man who slowly transforms into the sleazy crooked lawyer that meth dealer Walter White meets in Breaking Bad. “What problem does becoming this character solve?” is a great question, and one worth asking of other characters.

Why does Don Draper become Don Draper? What problem does becoming Don Draper solve? In fact, stepping back further, why would someone become an adult? What problem does becoming an adult solve?

Author and gender theorist Esther Vilar defines a man as someone who must work. In the past, women had the privilege of allowing their husbands to provide for them. While a woman might consider taking work, she would never assume she had to provide for her spouse. It was always him working, or both working, but never the woman as sole breadwinner.

Feminism has made us all metaphorical men. Even stable monogamous two parents families require two incomes. The modern economy caters to single women, gays, and incels. Traditional men and women who wish to create children face a hefty price to raise each child, and often cannot do so without both parents working.

In the past, becoming an adult solved the problem of family. Being an adult meant you could provide. You were a man, manhood being defined by man’s ability to care for women and children. Now, wanting to care for women makes you sexist, because you’re privileging women—or oppressing them, depending on who you asked. Becoming a patriarch was a solution to the problem of raising children. It was a division of labor. “I’ll take care of the office, baby. You stay home and watch the kids.”

Does adulthood solve any modern problem?

Now—what problem does the adulthood of Don Draper solve in modern times? I own a custom tailored suit, can mix a few good drinks, and know how to handle myself in a professional setting, but that’s never got me the job or the girl. The people I know making six figures in their twenties are tech geeks who wear hoodies and flip flops. Mark Zuckerberg is the model for young earners, not Don Draper. If you walk into a tech interview wearing any shirt with a collar, you’re out of job.

Likewise, if you want to attract a woman, model yourself after playboys like party photographer KrillWasHere or Instagram millionaire Dan Bilzerian. The model for men who want success with women is closer to clown school than traditional masculinity. I’ve seen men intentionally develop themselves as assholes and scumbags—the kind A.O. Scott might brand as misogynists—because becoming that person solved the very real problem of getting laid.

You wanna be like Don Draper? Don Draper isn’t like Don Draper. Fans of the show know that (spoilers) his name is actually Dick Whitman. He grew up in a whorehouse and assumed the identity of a fallen comrade during his military service, to take the opportunity to start a new life. Becoming Don Draper solved the very real problem of becoming a man who could have the suburban family and white picket fence. Now, it doesn’t. You want girls and money? Become a charmer, and get good with computers.

dickatwar

What do we become instead?

Before we degenerate to a mass of pickup artists and internet marketers (too late, I can hear some of you saying), lets look at another popular television character who A.O. Scott cites as epitomizing modern adulthood and masculinity: Walter White.

Vince Gilligan has said he created Walter White to show that anyone could become Scarface. Breaking Bad follows Walter’s journey from mild mannered middle school science teacher to meth kingpin. In the pilot episode, he is emasculated by his wife who harasses him over credit card bills and gives him a handjob with one hand while using her computer with the other. Over the course of the show, Walter transforms into a hardcore gangster and dealer, wins back the respect of his family, and becomes incredibly wealthy at great personal cost.

Walter White is not a traditional adult, like Don Draper. In fact, Walter began as a traditional adult. He held down two jobs, took care of his wife and disabled son, and spent his day serving his community by teaching children. Walter was a model citizen. Clearly, adulthood wasn’t working for him. Becoming the drug lord “Heisenberg” solved that problem. But who is Heisenberg as he is known in criminal circles?

White

Heisenberg, aka Walter White, is a gangster. He is ruthless. He does what it takes to get the job done and has no regard for the law, beyond not getting caught. Walter is a man of his word. He exhibits the characteristics of traditional masculinity outlined by Jack Donovan in his book The Way of Men—strength, courage, mastery, and, at times, honor. But he does not try to conform to social standards or the wishes of women. He forms a gang and begins to dominate the world outside the rules of society rather than through them.

Men will always become what they have to become in order to solve their problems. In the past, we rewarded men for becoming like Don Draper. Now, we don’t. Traditional adulthood doesn’t solve men’s problems anymore. If you want to know where adulthood is going, look at Walter White, not Don Draper.

Read More: Moden Culture Mirrors Jezebel’s Poisonous Spirit

238 thoughts on “Who Killed Adulthood In American Culture?”

  1. How did Walter White “get rewarded” ? He died on the floor of a meth lab, alone, with the only person left in the world he cared about a shattered broken drug addict.

    1. Walter White made sure that his children were well-provided for.
      He never got caught by the police.
      He killed everyone who tried to fuck him over or stood in his way.
      I’d call that huge win.

      1. Walter White is a character, that despite whatever flaws he had, resembled what American society has become today.
        What kind of a backward system do you have when insurance companies tell you it will cost you $500,000 for chemotherapy?
        When you have a political and economic system that rejects the middle class and has no sympathy whatsoever for an ordinary man’s circumstances, then you you truly realise how the system has fucked you over.
        Walter White did what he had to do. Not surprisingly, there have been many real life stories about school teachers selling meth to make ends meet. Sad world we live in today.

        1. As I watched the series I really could find little fault with how Walter White solved his problems. He didn’t try to weasel out of them or duck them. He faced them head on and in the end, he prevailed.
          I do agree that medical care is ridiculously overpriced and recent laws like 0bamacare have only made the situation worse, not better. The problem with our society though is not that the middle class has been rejected, that’s a symptom. The actual problem is too many people want something for nothing (which in itself demonstrates a lack of personal responsibility), and are all too happy to vote for politicians who will give it to them.

        2. What kind of a backward system do you have when insurance companies tell you it will cost you $500,000 for chemotherapy?

          The kind that you get on TV as plot devices.

        3. One of my teachers / mentors, who’s a wealthy and very wise self made man, often says: “Entitlement mentality is the cancer of the earth”. I totally agree with him.

    2. Walter White died because he let too much beta out. If he had just worried about himself, he would have been fine. He let feelings for others invade and eventually lost his life as a result.

      1. The beta part was when he attacked a nest of neo-Nazis and slaughtered them with a home-made machine gun, right?

      2. From the first season I was hoping he would dump his bitch wife, and start a new life somewhere else. Sadly it never happened.

  2. Feminism reinforces lack of responsibility. Which is exactly the core problem our society has. This permeates from the top executives that expect bailouts due to reckless investments down to the lowly single mom expecting government assistance.

    1. “Feminism reinforces lack of personal responsibility. Which is exactly the core problem our society has.”
      This; seriously, this is my number one qualm of the Anglosphere. Now, remind me to ask the Anglican Church when they’ll ordain Gwenwhyfar as its saint.

  3. Since becoming a traditional provider no longer solves a problem, or garners any rewards, why do so many men sneer at guys who “refuse to grow up” (i.e., make their own way and show no interest in becoming a provider)? Sounds like MGTOW are the smart ones.

    1. Those who would sneer at men who “refuse to grow up” beyond paying their own way at life are probably jealous.
      Feminist women are jealous of such men because the former knows the latter are not going to let themselves be their next doormats.
      Loser men are jealous of such men because they look at them and think “oh what could have been.”
      Those of who are happy with our family and relationship situation look at them and think “That’s cool that he’s doing what he wants to do and that doing so makes him happy.”

    2. They’re just blue pill. That’s all. Give em a dose of red pill, distilled down to a few simple sentences.
      Blue pill traditionalist: “When are you going to settle down and get married?”
      Red Pill Bachelor: “Why would I do that?”
      Blue piller: “LOL.”
      Red Piller: “No really, why. What is the purpose of marriage?”
      Blue piller: “LOL”
      Red Piller: “There is a good reason why you can’t even answer my question.” (Don’t let them off the hook with their dismissive escape, take them through the red pill.”
      I’ve counseled young people on their desires to marry. My first question to them is, “Why would you want to get married?” They typically have no clue. I guess it’s just what most people do, and they’re lonely, and think that marriage is the solution to loneliness. “If you can’t even answer what the purpose of marriage is, how do you expect to have a good marriage?”

  4. Great article. I do have one nit, because I work in the field:
    “If you walk into a tech interview wearing any shirt with a collar, you’re out of job.”
    That’s not true. If you want to be a code monkey, it might be true; but if you want a high status tech job (sales, customer engineering, etc), the kind that pay “100’s of thousands” you better walk into the interview in a suit that fits well and show the interviewer that you’re comfortable in that kind of attire. The money in tech, for the most part, isn’t in coding; it’s in sales (and customer interactions of any kind; if you’re an engineer that a company can drop at a Fortune 100 and know that you’re going to reflect well on them you are going to make a LOT more than the engineer who barely speaks English and is wearing jeans and a t shirt).
    The rest of the article is spot on. I’ve expressed this differently as “men have no role models” anymore but it’s pretty much the same thing. The way to make a lot of money is generally to have a relatively bullshit job in one of a few fields. Very few people get much satisfaction at work; things have gotten so complicated that there are people in many big companies who honestly, day to day, have no idea what they are doing in their job.
    Men watch TV and see bumbling idiots as their “role models”. Instead of the old days of a man being seen as the leader of the household, at best, the man is now the clown. At worst he’s a parasite on the infinitely intelligent woman and children; an idiot they keep around because they are sorry for him.
    Men like Don Draper are who we should aspire to be. Not necessarily all the cheating that he does, but, his persona, the way his wife treats him, that’s what a “man” should be, and how he should be seen in his house. Instead, Mad Men is looked at as a historical piece; women watching it and thinking “Who’d ever live like that/put up with him” while, at the same time, making a nice snail trail in their underwear thinking about Don.
    PUA is just a reaction to this. Women want men who are more and more “alpha” and, frankly, there are VERY FEW men who fall into that category (especially that are available). So, people learn the “tricks” of alpha to fool girls into a ONS or medium term relationship. Thing is, if you go long term/get married, it almost doesn’t matter anymore because the state will take any power away from you; making fucking Clint Eastwood a sniveling fool at the hands of a woman (who has the power to take everything at any time for any reason, including your children). So, of course, you get married and then the ‘gina tingles stop because she knows you’re not really the IDGAF alpha that she fell in love with.
    It’s a sad state of affairs. If you are going to get married, for the love of god, get a prenup! If nothing else, it gives you some frame (even if it wouldn’t hold up in court). If you don’t most women will quickly realize that you’re “alpha” is all bark, no bite. And then the problems start!

    1. Codemonkeys do get paid a lot. Everywhere I’ve been they’ve gotten paid more than management.
      Why ? its about 10 times harder. And you can make the next Google while dwelling in your moms basement. The best job ever.

      1. A really good coder does get paid well. But it’s rare that person writes code much on a day to day basis. They get paid well because they can see a better solution to a problem and have other people code it for them.
        Actual “hard coding” (where you have the specifications for a function and just need to implement it) is largely being offshored. The “figuring out what needs to be coded” is still onshore and is typically a good paying job.

        1. This is the bizarre aspect of the current agenda to create armies of female “coders”, which are actually just social justice scams to enrich proprieters of coding bootcamps.
          They have this fantasy that once you become a “coder” you get a nice cubicle where someone hands you coding assignments and a pat on the back for a job well done. It is a lot more competitive than that and has lousy job security. Dog groomers and cake decorators enjoy more stability in their work. The only place these “coders” can thrive is government-supported defense contracts which will pay for the fluff of project coordinators and software quality engineers and other non-jobs for women turned off by the grunt work of actual software development.
          The biggest threat to women who actually work in tech is Womyn in Tech.

        2. Really good coders seldom write new code. We simply copy and paste it from previous projects 🙂

        3. I wonder how there was even oppression of women in tech. If you can do it, you can get the job.
          That’s why they even hire new immigrants who often don’t speak English very well.

    2. you know what the saddest thing about the current state of affairs is. You can have a more honest relationship with an escort who you pay to leave than a potential girlfriend

  5. Feminism is the root of all evil. It is a disgusting poison that has destroyed so many aspects of what it means to truly be a man.
    Just yesterday, I was watching CNN and the entire segment was about women, filled with women newsanchors going on about how we need more female golfers and we need more female workers.
    Disgusting. American newsanchors are the worst kind of women I have seen and continue to make my stomach turn with their authoritative, aggressive dominance of the mainstream media, plastered all over our television screens screaming “woman run the world!”
    Feminism has killed off men becoming real men. At this point, I wouldn’t mind having a bottle of scotch and a handgun to blow my fucking head off.

    1. Why the fuck do we need more female golfers? We don’t “need” any goddamn male pro golfers, let alone female! Professional sports (particularly the non-stop consumption of it by most Americans) is a scourge on this society at all levels. It stunts the development of a dramatic number of young men, chasing a dream that very few will ever achieve (and then realizing that they wasted a good part of their youth and education on something that was a pipe dream). It also stunts the development of people who watch it, especially obsessively. Don’t watch football, go fucking PLAY FOOTBALL.
      If pro sports disappeared tomorrow, IMHO, the world would be a better place.

      1. Most societies that have ever existed placed a high priority on recreational competition events. This isn’t something that is exclusive to modern western culture.

        1. It’s exclusive to the radio/TV era though. Yes, years ago, people did go to see sports in stadiums. But they weren’t sitting on their TV and watching it; they walked to an area and were surrounded by other men watching it. Very different than the lazy fat asses spending all day Sat/Sun switching from Sportscenter to 6 different games.
          Also, in the past, “pro sports”, while something that a lot of people wanted to do, wasn’t something that paid all that well. It wasn’t ruining lives at anywhere near the rate that it does today. If you were good at baseball, you might go pro. But you wouldn’t decide not to go to school, or not to get a degree because you were good at baseball. It would be a “I’ll do this too”, in fact, a lot of pro players 100 years ago had other jobs to make ends meet. A far cry from what we have today.

        2. Upvote. i have a friend who’s dad played in the nfl in the 50’s and 60’s, for the Buffalo Bills (AFL Champs).
          During the off season he was a crossing guard in Chicago. And he paid his own way through law school during the off-seasons and eventually became a very successful attorney.
          One time he told me that the most he ever made (for the Bills) was $500 per game. They played 10 games per season back then,. While that was above the median salary of Americans at the time, he definitely wasn’t rich like today’s athletes.
          He, prior to his passing, would often comment on the obscene amounts of money paid to modern day players and refused to watch or attend games because he thought it was too commercialized.
          My friend, his son, still draws from his NFL pension to this day though, and obviously he doesn’t like hearing how shitty the FEMFL has becomne.
          I refuse to watch the FEM-F-L. Period.

        3. But for cable and the mass of idiots who clad themselves in the uniforms (and accomplishments) of other men, the sport would lack the money to pay those salaries. Professional baseball was around for a long time (~100 years?) before revenue streams were sufficient to support high salaries. Before, the game was just a distraction from the stress of a manual labor economy, not at all what it is today.
          There’s an important distinction. Look at pictures of fans in the stands of baseball games from the late-19th century to the 1960s, what do you see?
          Men in suits or at least trousers/professional buttoned shirts, hats (boaters, trilby, etc.) and leather shoes. Women (later-on, as they didn’t tend to frequent games prior the 1920s) in dresses or at-least skirts.
          Now what do you see? Grown men in jerseys or t-shirts, shorts, flip-flops or sneakers, all covered in their teams logo.
          The game is no longer a distraction from life. It has become life for these kid-ults. They have invested their life’s worth in the success of their teams. See it in that light, and all professional sports become immediately disgusting to a red-pill aware man.

        4. Entertainment has a higher priority in lifestyles now. This is a natural progression when a people have limited real problems and no collective societal objectives. And wealth accumulation is nothing new for entertainers. There are Roman records of successful chariot riders becoming rich in their sport.

        5. Sports were mostly for the prep school and college boys to get some exercise and have some fun playing another school or something. The middle and lower class boys were either working or being an apprentice in some business. They sometimes played sports too as a recreation on days off but didn’t make any money for it or perhaps a few dollars for food and drinks. Towns would play other towns, or the cops would play the firemen and that’s how the pros began but it’s really fairly recently where they made any real money from it and most pros had other jobs, Olympic athletes always had other jobs or were in school.

        1. The NFL is destroying their product and alienating their traditional fan base (men) in order to desperately try to lure in female consumers. It’s a poor strategy. The female sports market is VERY limited. It will be tapped out very soon. The NFL should have been wiser, but they are chasing profits.
          They are looking for short term profits at the expense of long term growth. The NFL’s ratings have been down badly already this year.
          The male consumers who watch the NFL do not want to hear about domestic violence. They want to watch football.
          The NFL is blowing it hard. Football is football, it’s simply not as awesome as they want to make it out to be. If the environment surrounding the sport becomes too obnoxious, many men will simply walk away from it. The NFL doesn’t think this will happen, but it will. When the product starts to go down the tubes, men will find other sports options to mentally masturbate to.

        2. +1… once the Borg infests, there can be no recovery.
          The NFL will double down on stupid. I anticipate the active recruitment/creation of female coaches and multiple female referees. In the office there will be figurehead team presidents and other “public face” positions created for women (every team will be “encouraged” to have at least one or two, to be interviewed ad nauseam by women journalists and talk show hosts).

      2. I concur. I see this every year. A buncha fools getting together and acting stupid over some commercialized PC bullshit “sport.” The women that gather there all pretending to like it are all there to do what they do best…attention whore…take selfies and whatever narcissistic bullshit they can conjur up before half time. The male participants fall into 3 categories:
        1. The retard who actually cares about the players, stats, jerseys and whatever crap they sell…he buys its all…hes a sports fanatic…a true fan. A true idiot.
        2. The fool that goes along because his friends like it. He follows the teams his friends do and only cheers for what his friends care about. He really doesn’t give a fuck about sports but he doesn’t wanna be alone. Plus he thinks if he is apart of the group the girls there might give him a chance.
        3. The guy that’s there prowling…he pretends to like the sport but is there just trying to game the girls. He uses the other guys and pretends to be their friends and hes very good at faking it too. In the end he’s just leveraging his social intelligence and to manipulate the girls to like him. At any rate in any social group or group of friends this is the purpose and agenda that all males have. At least this guy is actually doing something useful. This guy I can respect.

        1. During a sporting event is one of the best times to game. The other guys are mostly distracted and the females have an attention deficit because the other men are too busy looking at man ass on TV to pay any attention to them.
          Many years ago, I met a girl at a friends house for a football game. Met her before kickoff, blew my load in her mouth in the bathroom around halftime. Probably could have fucked her on the coffee table and none of the other men there would have noticed. 😉

        2. Hockey players are excellent with women. I went to boston college, and I swear even the practice squad replacement guys had a harem.

        3. I gamble on sports a lot and have made a lot of money, so there’s that reason. But ESPN has become so bad putting fucking women all over their shows I can’t even stand to do research anymore

      3. I think that almost every kid who has the ability to play sports at a beneficial level (high school, college) watches pro sports as well.
        I definitely agree with people chasing false idols. These Derek Jeter commercials worshiping him make me sick. If the guy was in line at a pickup football, basketball, or soccer game I don’t know if I’d even pick him first. At least an Adrian Peterson can dominate any athletic activity at any level.

      4. “It stunts the development of a dramatic number of young men, chasing a dream that very few will ever achieve (and then realizing that they wasted a good part of their youth and education on something that was a pipe dream).”
        Those young men tend to occupy the lower end of the IQ spectrum either way.

      1. Apparently it does. However, I would add that they are not running it well. In fact they are pretty much running it into the ground and then 6 feet under the ground.

        1. Putting women in charge of anything ensures its downfall. Any corporation or business with women executives has had clearly bad results (Yahoo, Xerox, etc). Doctors are getting overwhelmed with patient loads because female doctors quit or go part time at like a 50% attrition rate. Theres only so much of a charade they can run with women in charge before it collapses.

        2. Very true. But this charade will go on for a long time.
          The Western World is burning through it’s real and social capital faster than a CEO’s neglected idiot drug addict son can burn through his allowance.

        3. I haven’t seen this happening although females are going to be thinking of having kids and a doctor knows better than the typical dingbat feminist that her time is limited.So they’ll probably lose a little time away from practise there but most of them are back on the job fast and then work especially after menopause.
          For some reason though the NHS seems to have a bigger problem than in the US where female doctors are dropping out at 35 at a higher rate.I don’t know the reason but the NHS generally pays for their training while in the US you’re paying on your own or have loans etc and can’t really quit.

    2. Golf? St. Andrews just accepted it’s first few female members a few days ago.They are like the governing body of world golf. There are 7 courses there and they are open to the public so it had nothing to do with that, It had to do with becoming actual members of the club, there are 2500 members worldwide and now some females are members.

    3. If not for the vulnerabilities of female nature feminism could not have taken root.
      It is an ideological monster yes and it ought to be destroyed.

  6. I’ve been impressed by more than a few authors and articles here but I think at least for me, this is the best one yet. Here is where we men are today, thanks to the leftist elitists who hold us in our grasp. I have a question for the feministas? When the SHTF and it will sooner or later, where will you find the Don Drapers, Tony Sopranos and Walter Whites when you need them the most? Forget about the fictional alpha men, where will modern day El Cid, Charles Martel and Jon Sobieski be when you need them? You’ve emasculated them or killed them off.

  7. This is fucking stupid. Not the article, just the mental gymnastics of analyzing the masculinity of TV characters. We used to have fathers, uncles and older brothers who could guide us in solving our problems. Perhaps a respected professional or two. MEN were all around us. Now what? Quit watching TV and BE a man; be an example for some kid to look up to. That’s how we get rid of feminist culture, not by analyzing bullshit TV characters on the interwebs.

    1. TV characters are meaningful since they reach a broad audience and huge percentages of boys in this country are not growing up with a two parent household so they don’t understand traditional roles.

    2. Thats the problem. Our fathers, uncles and older brothers gave up raising boys to become real men. They relied on government, schools and colleges to guide us after deindustrialisation. But they did not realise how feminism was slowly starting to destroy the system.
      They should have given boys real advice about how life worked and how to prepare for a contingency plan and prevented feminism hijacking the system.
      But now feminism has corrupted everything. Boys being raised by single mothers has got to be one of the most destructive and evil things to ever happen, since this contributed towards the growing number of hipsters and metrosexuals appearing in our society, not to mention that men allow themselves to be manginas and henpecked simps.

      1. Men did not give up on raising boys to become men; they were forced out of the role at gunpoint. An example of how far it has gone is that on most airlines if there is a man sitting next to an unaccompanied minor he will be asked (forced actually) to move. The assumption of the entire society is that men are not fit to be around children as we are all pedophiles, rapist, and violent abusers. A grandfather went into a Barnes and Nobles store and was looking for a book for his grandson; a woman went to the manager because the sight of a man in an area where there were children sent her into a panic. He was ejected from the store.

        1. “An example of how far it has gone is that on most airlines if there is a
          man sitting next to an unaccompanied minor he will be asked (forced
          actually) to move.”
          This never happens. How about a specific example. Too over the top.

        2. Thats not true.
          I am a single male and sat next to an unaccompanied female minor for a whole flight.
          No one said boo. I also talked to her a bunch of times about video games and such.
          The stuff about divorce, alimony, child support, slutty women, etc is true.
          We need to keep to the truth.

  8. ” If you walk into a tech interview wearing any shirt with a collar, you’re out of job.”
    Just to be clear for anyone looking for work in tech, I’m assuming he’s being facetious. Outside of the Valley, if you look for work in tech, suit up for the interview 🙂

    1. Yup, totally agree. In fact, suit up as much as possible. A suit gives an air of confidence and/or competence and all it requires is another 5 minutes getting ready in the morning. Suits are actually pretty comfortable, the only downside to wearing them is that it’s expensive to get them cleaned all the time.
      I am often the only person in the room in a suit (when meeting with clients). It’s fine to do that; you need to make sure you don’t seem like an unapproachable prick, but it’s easier than going into a meeting sloppily dressed and trying to prove for the rest of the time that you’re competent.

    2. Suit up for ANY interview. Always look your best. A prospective employer will always judge based on appearance and grooming.

      1. True. This is also an indication of not just creating a good impression, but a sign of self respect and having standards.

  9. “Before we degenerate to a mass of pickup artists and internet marketers (too late, I can hear some of you saying)”
    Look at the bunch of us on RoK and RVF, etc and it really does seem that way.

  10. Characters like Don Draper and Walter White are admired by many men because these characters resemble what it truly means to be masculine and what a real man should be like.
    This admiration of the fictional characters also correlates to the fact that there are no real positive male role models in society anymore. I mean look at what Hollywood is coming out with. Instead of seeing more Sean Connerys, Clint Eastwoods and Arnold Schwarzneggers, we are getting Ryan Gosling, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Zac Efron and Seth Rogen.
    Makes me sick to the stomach.
    I believe admiration for these fictional characters is truly a cry from men to restore balance to a society, which has been heavily unbalanced by the destructive forces of feminism.

    1. While I enjoyed Walter White as a character I could not say I admired him. He was a mess and a fool half the time.

  11. I actually see Mad Men as feminist propaganda. The men in that show, in my view, are depicted in quite a negative fashion with their Stepford wives (according to the feminist ideology of today). The most masculine man, Don Draper is shown as being “sexist”, with all sorts of personal issues. For further proof of this, the majority of the writers are women.
    It is almost as if the aim of the show is show men how they should not be. Ironically, they have created a man that women love and men admire. It is interesting that women completely ignore his womanizing in favour of his other attributes. A commanding man.
    I don’t think feminists realise what they have created here. A blue-print of how to act with an indication that women will forgive your “indiscretions” as long as you are providing security and authority.

    1. Mad Men isn’t feminist propaganda…. it’s a peek into crazy pysche of modern women writers. Yeah, the women are feminist indoctrinated… but they don’t carry cards. So the show isn’t N.O.W talking points, but rather the crazy, politically correct, mixed message, and gender ambivalent that afflicts too many chicks of today.
      I mean is a sex possie slut filming her gang bang and then going on and on about empowerment and agency really feminist propaganda? Or just another indication of how women who have been infected by feminist are so fucked up?

      1. Its written by women. Feminism is the first thing that leapt to my mind when I started watching this show, with the forced “sexism” of the lead characters and their stereotypical wives. But in trying to create a sexist fantasy they have created the man they really desire. Its what I always say – women want a man who puts them in their place.

        1. How old are you? I didn’t see any sexism in the show and things appeared about normal to me, the wives were typical upper middle class wives.
          Some things were exaggerated a bit, like the womanising and drinking but is was a typical Ad agency back then.

        2. Lol! I’ve been watching it trying to figure out why it’s so popular. A few things stood out to me. It celebrates fat chicks, the housewives are miserable and suffering tremors, and the main guy is cheating on his doting wife with some independent pot head and a domineering woman who owns a department store.

      2. Mad Men is a punch line for the evil patriarchy. Even Barry O said it at the last state of the union.

    2. Agree. Although Don Draper is a fashionable dresser, drinker of good whiskey, and politically incorrect, 3 things most men want to be, great pains are taken to portray life in the 50s under patriarchy as miserable.

      1. The show actually began about 1961 so it was a little looser than the 50’s and in fact Don had this beatnik as a gf. Don was not politically incorrect he was just a normal man.It only seems like he wasn’t pc today due to all of the brainwashing young men have had to endure now. And btw, Don was mostly drinking Canadian Club (rye)

    3. It’s impossible to write something today about a previous era without today’s sensibilities seeping in especially if you’re a female writer who wasn’t even born at the time and brainwashed in feminism.The character of Don is actually based on my friend from prep school’s father, even his wife, Jones, looks like his mother and most of the locations like his home are the same so I pretty much can tell what is accurate and what’s not.A few scenes would have never happened back then or even today.Like the scene where Joan is at the office and her doctor fiancée comes by and you can see he’s a bit jealous because she’s talking to Don. He takes her into an empty office, throws her down on the floor and fucks her. This would never happen in a busy office where there are people outside and anyone could just walk in and just seems to me like some feminist rape fantasy.
      But you’re right, they probably set out to show how bad things were for females back then but inadvertently turned guys like Don into a sort of hero. What females are saying to fit into the current fashion and herd and what their subconscious is telling them are quite different and they let it slip out without being aware of it lol

    4. Maybe, but I’d say it’s also a good argument why being ‘sexist’ is not necessary a bad thing

  12. I am probably more Don Draper than tech geek. I can confirm that women love the Don Draper ideal. I see a lot of these guys near where I work and they definitely get the girl. If you show up to the bar wearing a hoodie and flip-flops you better be a clown because otherwise these chicks will give you no attention at all.

  13. I am not sure I would describe Walt as a man of his word. He can be a real weasel and coward at times.

  14. Part of the the reason I reject some aspects of ‘game’ and the manosphere is because I detect a sense of infantilism in the pursuits modern men engage upon … ‘The pursuit of happiness’ (closely linked to the pursuit of pussy) seems to be prioritized above all other personal interests, rather than being a subordinate category in the context of greater purpose (ones identity). If anything this is what men need to reach maturity … And then you can have all the pussy you want.
    Adulthood ceased in America decades ago. You can’t become a man in a culture that only preaches indulgence, materialism, and vanity. There’s no discipline or purpose to create personal or collective growth, just ‘enjoyment’, ‘fun’, and ‘taking it easy’ remain. No growth equals no meaning.
    Young men, if not consciously, at least intuitively, get this when they look up at their beer bellied, nfl fanatic, country club-going father. Their father isn’t going to impart any wisdom or context for his son because he is thoroughly emasculated himself.
    It’s hard to escape from the idea that the highest expressions of masculinity are tied to questions of ultimate purpose, not ‘the pursuit of happiness’. The cultural institutions which provided such context have evaporated. Many of us millennial men don’t have any respect for our boomer elders and parents because we rightly see them as devoid of character. Marriage doesn’t make sense, religion is dead, and there’s no sense of community … Just wage slavery, an imploding economy, and a zombified mass of consumers remain.

    1. That’s a bait more cynical than the reality. There are still millions of traditional families out here, and strong communities. I can see single mom raised millennials having your view, but there are plenty who were not raised in such circumstances.
      Serious question, kind of one of my major curiosities when it comes to certain topics; do you live in flyover country?

      1. No, I have lived in Boston my entire life.
        My critique is simple; real men place purpose and ideals above pleasure. Their purpose is their pleasure. I think the consumer and hedonistic life of TV and baseball games is unmanly. That’s not a popular view and might sound elitist, but it’s how I feel.

        1. That’s rather what I thought. There’s a sickness in our major cities I’m starting to believe. Whenever I hear complaints of how shallow people are it almost always comes from an urbanite with no real face time in flyover country. Interesting.

        2. With all due respect, I think that’s a cop-out.
          The heartland does have a greater sense of community, I grant you that. But the shallowness of American life permeates there as well … H. L. Mencken I think called them the boob-geoisie.

        3. The nature of man is to work to finance leisure. The goals may change once children enter the equation but you simply cannot put your pleasure before purpose unless you are child (and your leisure is financed by someone else).

        4. H.L. Mencken was commenting on a people that no longer exist. Do I strike you as a babbling idiot?
          People unfamiliar with life outside of blue zones hold very od and funny opinions about flyover country, born from a lifetime of cultural propaganda and social reinforcement from their urban peers that us flyover types are unworthy and generally idiots. That’s a shame, but if they want to persist in this delusion, I’m happy to allow them to continue.
          There are doctors, nurses, engineers, programmers, lawyers, professors, writers and artists out here, and plenty of them. Believe the blue state propaganda if you wish however.
          Yes, we do have a sense of community. And I don’t disagree that there is some level of materialism. That said, we work hard and there is nothing wrong with enjoying the fruits of your labor in a proper context. So what that I own. Nice motorcycle, I earned it, it give me pleasure, and I harmed nobody else in acquiring it. Beats serfdom any day of the week.

        5. Well said. A man never has to apologise for enjoying what he has worked hard for. A corollary is that he does not have to apologise for being more successful than other people.

        6. My iPad is giving me shit today, My spelling and grammar is taking a major hit, heh.
          Agree entirely, the notion of the strong having to apologize for their strength and grovel at the feet of snide social reformers needs to die a horrible death.

        7. I think we’re talking past each other here, as i am an admirer of grand cultures and great men of the past.
          “To do as one likes is plebian, the noble man aspires to law and order.” – Goethe
          I despise liberals and blue states, and acknowledge that he heartland is healthier, but its still a synthetic simulacrum of sorts.

        8. What exactly did Goethe mean by that? That the pleb is irresponsible and the noble behaves himself?

        9. Who is asking whom to apologize for working hard or being successful?
          Perhaps I hit a nerve on this topic, not sure. I raised this issue with my own father and he spontaneously and defensively responded with, “so are you saying my life is pointless?”

        10. Leisure should be a means to an end though, whether that be art, literature, language, science, or whatever (beyond just dappling).
          As Goethe said, to live for sake of fucking, eating, and recreation is plebeian. That’s my point.

        11. I think that leisure is an end. Learning is a means. The point of leisure is to completely relax your mind and escape from the pressures and stresses of the world. If I have to fill my leisure with more work is that really a benefit?

        12. That arrives at the question of one’s entelechy. Goethe insinuates that the noble man aspires to responsibility, not indulgence. The pleb works for indulgence and sees responsibility to higher ideals as a burden.
          A culture led by noble men is what we need … You see this personality in great art, philosophy, and heroic deeds. I only respect men who live to actualize their purpose as such.x

        13. I went to Seattle recently, a city I used to live in just 4 years ago. I was shocked at how much worse it had gotten in that time. My girlfriend and I felt very out of place, being fit, well dressed, serious people. We agreed afterwards that we could chainsaw massacre most of the people there without a tinge of guilt.

        14. Yeah, I’ve heard similar stories from others that have hit the Left Coast. Next time the twitch to go west hits you, head to Cheyenne, a red state big city.

        15. Walk around any major city. It looks like Thunderdome out there; tatted, pierced freaks everywhere, walking around in the middle of the day with no jobs.
          Since when did EVERYONE under 30 become a strung-out junkie who is openly demonstrating that they have no future?
          It is scary out there. At least when the shooting starts, the corpses will be easier to identify via shitty tattoos.

        16. I live in Seattle and I agree. This place is a shithole. I’m moving ASAP. The feminists and Liberals can keep it.

        17. There is dumb criticism all over,north-south; coasts-middle etc but most of these people are just idiots who have never been anywhere. I’m sure that there is community in cities, suburbs or farm areas.In the country your community may be 30 sq miles while in the city it may be 3 sq blocks.
          But you’re right, many of these people are deluded and believe that Boston, LA or NYC is the centre of the world.

        18. Now once they make their own place a shithole they will move to other places to vote in policies that made their own place a shithole.

        19. This is a very late reply, but oh well.
          The “real men” as you describe them, the ones who prioritize purpose and ideals above pleasure, are not the guys who get the most/best attention from women. Like Runsonmagic says in the above article, ” The model for men who want success with women is closer to clown school than traditional masculinity.”
          People respond to incentives. If there is no incentive to display a traditional kind of masculinity, the “purpose/ideals over pleasure” kind you speak of, then guess what? Fewer and fewer men will bother manifesting that kind of masculinity, and more men will take on a “fuck it” mentality. This is part of the logic behind MGTOW.
          These days, the men who prioritize ideals and purpose over self interest usually aren’t respected or revered, and are not desired by women, at least not much. Instead they’re chewed up and spit out, and shit on.

        20. Sallust (an Ancient Roman Aristocrat) writing in about 42 BCE about
          the Catiline Conspiracy, as the Roman Republic was falling, wrote this
          about what the Republic’s society had turned into:
          “When
          wealth was once considered an honor, and glory, authority, and power
          attended on it, virtue lost her influence, poverty was thought a
          disgrace, and a life of innocence was regarded as a life of ill-nature.
          From the influence of riches, accordingly, luxury, avarice, and pride
          prevailed among the youth; they grew at
          once rapacious and prodigal; they undervalued what was their own, and
          coveted what was another’s; they set at naught modesty and continence;
          they lost all distinction between sacred and profane, and threw off all
          consideration and self-restraint.

          But the love of irregular gratification, open debauchery, and all kinds
          of luxury, had spread abroad with no less force. Men forgot their sex;
          women threw off all the restraints of modesty. To gratify appetite, they
          sought for every kind of production by land and by sea; they slept
          before there was any inclination for sleep; they no longer waited to
          feel hunger, thirst, cold, or fatigue, but anticipated them all by
          luxurious indulgence. Such propensities drove the youth, when their
          patrimonies were exhausted, to criminal practices; for their minds,
          impregnated with evil habits, could not easily abstain from gratifying
          their passions, and were thus the more inordinately devoted in every way
          to rapacity and extravagance.”
          – Gaius Sallustius Crispus Aprox
          40-44 BCE: Conspiracy of Catiline (1899 John Selby Watson, Rev. John
          Selby Watson, M.A., Ed. Translation)…

        21. Sallust (an Ancient Roman Aristocrat) writing in about 42 BCE about the Catiline Conspiracy, as the Roman Republic was falling, wrote this about what the Republic’s society had turned into:
          “When wealth was once considered an honor, and glory, authority, and power attended on it, virtue lost her influence, poverty was thought a disgrace, and a life of innocence was regarded as a life of ill-nature.
          From the influence of riches, accordingly, luxury, avarice, and pride prevailed among the youth; they grew at
          once rapacious and prodigal; they undervalued what was their own, and coveted what was another’s; they set at naught modesty and continence; they lost all distinction between sacred and profane, and threw off all consideration and self-restraint.

          But the love of irregular gratification, open debauchery, and all kinds of luxury, had spread abroad with no less force. Men forgot their sex; women threw off all the restraints of modesty. To gratify appetite, they sought for every kind of production by land and by sea; they slept before there was any inclination for sleep; they no longer waited to feel hunger, thirst, cold, or fatigue, but anticipated them all by
          luxurious indulgence. Such propensities drove the youth, when their patrimonies were exhausted, to criminal practices; for their minds, impregnated with evil habits, could not easily abstain from gratifying their passions, and were thus the more inordinately devoted in every way
          to rapacity and extravagance.”
          – Gaius Sallustius Crispus
          Aprox 40-44 BCE: Conspiracy of Catiline (1899 John Selby Watson, Rev. John Selby Watson, M.A., Ed. Translation)

        22. It’s conservative shallowness instead of liberal shallowness. I live in Los Angeles, Mecca of the liberally shallow. I’ve never had more homicidal fantasies than while living in Los Angeles.

        23. Financial success is such a weary, troublesome topic. It is not the quintessential “fair fight” in MANY respects. Even if people start out fair, you can still have someone vastly outstrip others in terms of wealth for engaging in immoral and/or unethical practices.
          Financial worth != (does not necessarily equal) human worth. There is probably a weak correlation, certainly not a strong one.

        24. “These days, the men who prioritize ideals and purpose over self interest usually aren’t respected or revered, and are not desired by women, at least not much. Instead they’re chewed up and spit out, and shit on.”
          Yes.

      2. I hear this a great deal both online and in person, that flyover country still retains trad families and strong communities. I’ve lived most of my life all around flyover country and have lived in very rural parts therein, and I must say that the “traditional family” in these parts may retain a trad shell, but the core is just as rotten as anywhere in the Northeast.
        Believe you me, there are no Don Draper sorts frozen in amber out here. There’s a great deal of bluster, but it’s all for show. The men are servile and weak, wholly subservient to their wives/girlfriends/feminist society.
        It’s a bit like the debate on sodomite marriage. They’ll crow loud and proud about how it’s an overturning of the trad family and blah blah blah, but point out that hetero marriage is easier to get out of than a car rental agreement and that doing so is largely selfish/immoral, and they act like you want to bring back slavery.
        No, the collapse looks different in different communities, but the rot is the same. There is no longer a citadel to retreat to. Sad but true.

        1. In today’s society you do not get rewarded for being Don Draper. You get rewarded for looking like an androgynous feminist who says everything women think they want to hear. You behave like Don in the office today you will be fired so fast your head will spin.

        2. Quite so. The point is that there is no longer a place in the US where this belief/attitude is rejected. It’s the same across the board.

        3. How stand the divorce laws in the Beehive State? Or child custody laws? Though I can’t claim any personal experience in Utah, it shares similarities with other states in the West and Great Plains. It will retain the structure of father as patriarch, but the father acts more as a mule; bears a great burden of responsibility, nominally in the lead, but only goes in the direction the driver directs. It’s a form that suits this part of the country better.

        4. I just know that the family culture of Mormons is comparatively very healthy to the rest of America.
          Having children in modern America is about as smart as running your car inside of a closed garage. Your life is over. Period.
          Average price of kid 1 to 18 is 250k, average college degree costs 75k of expenditures. Multiply that by two or three and stagnant wages … Fathers become literal slaves.

        5. I never claimed that Don Draper (never seen the show, btw) lives out here.
          Yes we are under the same yoke of laws, but that doesn’t mean we are in the same overall plight. There is a scant 12% divorce rate out here in the sticks, if that. There are still good communities, traditions and events. This is not NYC and tha God above for that. Problems? Sure, no doubt, my point was that all the heavy cynics I hear tell about how bad life is “everywhere” are always from an urban/blue state.

        6. I have read (I could be wrong) that Utah does not enforce CS payments across state lines. Can anyone confirm or disprove this?

        7. Let me support that by stating my experience living and having children in a small town in Alabama. In that area over 70% of women with children were SAHM. We knew everyone in our neighborhood. We had progressive dinners at Christmas. We got together at least once a month as a community and played a dice game called Bunco. The home where we held these games rotated. Everyone knew and watched out for everyone else’s kids. You could send your kids out to play without watching them or being afraid. This was a close knit community. Let me add that it was ethnically and racially mixed. I moved north to a large metropolitan area and lost all of that. I have lived in the same house here for 7 years and the most I know of my neighbors is the first name of the elderly woman that lives next door. During the day the neighborhood is deserted. There are no small children and for a few years I was the only one with any children. There is a huge difference between small town and big town USA.

        8. Yes, small town USA is very different than the cities. Problem is, the cities have most of the population (70-80%), so, if those people aren’t breeding, it’s still going to have a huge impact on the overall reproduction of the country.
          The reason is simple; it’s ungodly expensive to have kids in a city. And it’s not a good environment for them to grow up. So, you have most of our country living in areas that aren’t conducive to having children. Sure, some people do it, but, not nearly as many (or as well, IMHO) as those who live in rural areas.
          People always point at the Mormons. Look at where most of them live (Utah). Land is CHEAP, houses are CHEAP, and it’s a safe environment to bring children up. Move that same family to NYC and watch their fertility go from 5 children to 1. You just can’t afford it in NYC; the wife has to work to make ends meet, and the kids are in constant peril because you can’t afford to live in a really good neighborhood.

        9. I live in a small town in the south and the women here are just as feminist as the women in the big city. They just cover it up with a veneer of self righteousness and are better at hiding it.

        10. Yeah, though to be fair, same is expected of women in my conservative southern baptist background, but compliance is spotty at best.

      3. In my upper class area in Conn. you don’t see much divorce, females are still having kids and young women are still pretty much the same despite any feminist brainwashing at college.They are not fat or have tattoos and sexually are pretty much the same although of course it’s not the 50’s.I have never met a rude girl and almost all of them have fathers around even if he’s at the office or on a trip and pretty much think about what he thinks of them even though as I said they may be having sex.
        Most of the problems are in the lower and a lot of the middle classes and since these are the same people who spend a lot of time watching TV I’d blame the boobtube for a lot of their vulgar behaviour.And although they may drink as much I never saw a girl passed out or puking in the street.Or have I ever heard of anyone making a rape or false rape complaint either where I am or in Manhattan.So I’m really wondering where all of this stuff is happening and where the hotspots are. Perhaps certain college towns in some areas?

        1. But not femaleism resistant women, certain traits are common to all women, it’s just their nature.Just not some toxic zombie like psychotic warped version of the world like feminism.There’s always that natural tension between men and women because they have different interests in mating which is the most important thing in nature.To me feminism is a psychosis that exceeds the normal wariness that the sexes have towards each other to the nth degree.Normal people try to maintain some sort of balance so that neither the male or female can dominate which is a natural human trait too.But to me feminism looks like some sort of out of control domination cult and the weaker you are the more you will be abused if you allow them to do whatever they choose with little opposition. if there weren’t so many pussies around these days (I don’t know how this happened) and men just told these feminists to go fuck themselves they would have no power at all.

      4. Sallust (an Ancient Roman Aristocrat) writing in about 42 BCE about
        the Catiline Conspiracy, as the Roman Republic was falling, wrote this
        about what the Republic’s society had turned into:
        “When
        wealth was once considered an honor, and glory, authority, and power
        attended on it, virtue lost her influence, poverty was thought a
        disgrace, and a life of innocence was regarded as a life of ill-nature.
        From the influence of riches, accordingly, luxury, avarice, and pride
        prevailed among the youth; they grew at
        once rapacious and prodigal; they undervalued what was their own, and
        coveted what was another’s; they set at naught modesty and continence;
        they lost all distinction between sacred and profane, and threw off all
        consideration and self-restraint.

        But the love of irregular gratification, open debauchery, and all kinds
        of luxury, had spread abroad with no less force. Men forgot their sex;
        women threw off all the restraints of modesty. To gratify appetite, they
        sought for every kind of production by land and by sea; they slept
        before there was any inclination for sleep; they no longer waited to
        feel hunger, thirst, cold, or fatigue, but anticipated them all by
        luxurious indulgence. Such propensities drove the youth, when their
        patrimonies were exhausted, to criminal practices; for their minds,
        impregnated with evil habits, could not easily abstain from gratifying
        their passions, and were thus the more inordinately devoted in every way
        to rapacity and extravagance.”
        – Gaius Sallustius Crispus Aprox
        40-44 BCE: Conspiracy of Catiline (1899 John Selby Watson, Rev. John
        Selby Watson, M.A., Ed. Translation)

    2. Cool narrative bro, but in reality the manosphere is more concerned with how to best survive in the fucked up society in which we currently live, than it is with a decadent “happiness”. I mean most of the articles I read are about how to not get “friend zoned” or “divorce raped” ie. they are warnings or safety recommendations. Your criticism is better suited for GQ magazine.

    3. Dr Orange, would you mind terribly if I commandeered the latter half of that post for a showreel I’m doing?

    4. not ‘the pursuit of happiness’
      I guess that Jefferson shouldn’t have put that in because some loser kid in the future was going to bitch about it lol

    5. The pursuit of comfort over achievement is a pattern played out over and over with the rise and fall of civilizations, first world countries are just in the downhill phase

    6. A devastating summary, bravo! It’s hard times a comin’, though. We will look back on these days with disbelief.

    7. Dr. Orange, I am a young man who chose my career path with an overwhelming sense of purpose imbued in my ambitions. I am often incongruous in gatherings because the pursuit of knowledge, excellence, and honor are most important to me.
      I get laughed out of conversations sometimes because, while other people just look for empty banter, I try to infuse meaning, purpose, and direction.
      I’m telling you, there are good guys out there still, but they are few and far between. And, unfortunately, as some other articles on this site (and perhaps this one) have shown, such aspirations of personal character for a man are looked at dubiously or with downright disdain.
      What’s funny, is that I often have considerable respect from elders for many of these qualities that make me an anachronism in my own generation. I do not relent and give in, however, because I understand how superior my mental state of being is to many of these people.

  15. The question is, would you rather live in a country where the modal person is like Don Draper or like Walter White?

  16. pretty good piece. just sitting and thinking one day, I realized that just being just a man wasn’t good enough for me. I had to be well respected. by myself most importantly. I could never be a stiff in suit everyday. I dress too well and like fashion way too much for that. when I wake up, look in the mirror, and see a shotcaller staring back at me — that shit puts a smile on my face. im in control of my world. from that point everyone else, their expectations, and social hangups can suck a dirty dick if they don’t like me.

  17. Adulthood is only necessary when you’re building a civilization. It’s barely necessary to maintain one, and unnecessary in order to destroy one.

      1. And seemingly, this civilization (western culture) has a sincere and ardent death wish. Don’ try to save it, it is too far gone. Besides, it doesn’t want to be saved.

  18. Mad Max is another example. Yes it has the plot line of a spaghetti Western but trying to be a family man in the collapsing society lost him his family. So then he steals the interceptor and removes the scum that killed his family from the planet.
    Did that improve the world? No but there would be no franchise so you have to detach from reality at some point. In the real world, when enough scumbags are killed there are no more scumbags.

  19. Very interesting way of looking at things. Always knew that traditional adulthood isn’t “rewarded” anymore, but didn’t think of it as a way to “solve his problems” (i.e. sex, respect, etc.)

  20. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant article. I while ago it occurred to my friend and I, when we reached the same age as our Fathers when they had us, that we did not dress like them. When my father reached his late twenties, he did not ever wear sneakers, and never owned a pair of jeans. Strictly dress slacks, khakies, and dress shoes (even to play sports). Even by the mid-1970s, for many men, a polo shirt was considered “underwear” and a T-Shirt? Forget it. You simply did not wear such a thing outside your home. As I, in my mid ’30s, wear my “fake” vintage t-shirt, college baseball cap and Teva sandals, I used to lament that….damn, I am not the man my father was, until I realized that today, there is really NO PLACE for men like my father.

    1. I think it depends. If you were a blue collar worker you probably wore jeans and boots (what I wear).
      And the Fonze wore T-Shirt and jeans with his jacket and that was set in the Fifties.

      1. Yes, but The Fonze was a pop culture take on the “rebel” or “greaser”. I think the “average” was more like my parents, conservative immigrants in the late 1960s fleeing an island dictatorship and thug deathsquads. My father was one of those “..I came to this country with 3 dollars in my pocket and built a life for my family! Whats your excuse..” men. One of my uncles, an unlicensed trained-engineer with minimal English, fast talked his way into repairing hospital elevators all over NYC (I guess they didn’t check credentials in the ’60s) and put four kids through private schools. Our dads and uncles from that generation were ALPHAS in every sense of the word, and I and my cousins (the 2nd generation) with our BA’s and masters degrees always felt we could never measure up.

        1. It’s a bit like the guys who drive pick-up trucks, but never use them to haul anything.
          Look at hunters. Up until a few decades ago, hunting meant grabbing your gun and heading out in the wilderness. Now you can’t go without 50 pounds of gear from Cabelas or Bass Pro, pretty much all of it useless, clad in more camouflage than Delta Force.
          In Europe hunting remains a gentleman’s sport, and they look it. In America it’s devolved into a purchased identity for rural plebs who wear camouflage 24/7 to stand out and declare “I’m do manly things and haven’t showered in a week.” Oddly enough serving the exact opposite reason for wearing camouflage in the first place.

        1. Very good articles. I would say that the problem is not the jeans, it’s the person wearing them. For example, I often see people looking slovenly in a single breasted suit. I think if you are fat it’s double-breasted or three button three piece. Put the gut away.
          That said, if you don’t look good naked, you probably won’t look good in your clothes. And of course it doesn’t help if you are wearing cheap ill fitting jeans with a baggy t-shirt and beat up sneakers.
          Personally jeans look great on me but I am in great shape. That helps.

    2. Bravo! I couldn’t agree more. (I posted some of the following lower in the thread, but it’s applicable here)
      Look at pictures of fans in the stands of baseball games from the late-19th century to the 1960s, what do you see?
      Men in suits or at least trousers/professional buttoned shirts, hats
      (boaters, trilby, etc.) and leather shoes. Women (later-on, as they
      didn’t tend to frequent games prior the 1920s) in dresses or at-least
      skirts.
      Now what do you see? Grown men in jerseys or t-shirts,
      shorts, flip-flops or sneakers, all covered in their team’s logo. Women
      equally sloppy (and unfeminine), and glued to their cell phones. And
      they all would think it absurd to wear trousers or a dress to a game.
      Why that’s “dressing up! You’re just going to a game.”
      Same thing with flying.
      Same thing with the theatre.
      Same thing with walking out in public generally!
      It would appear putting on anything beyond a t-shirt is now considered “dressed-up,” and is probably a statement of arrogance and superiority.
      Damn hippies.

    3. Yes. I have never watched Mad Men but the clothing issue still had me interested in this article. Somewhere in the manosphere was a writer/sociologist mentioned who brought up the ‘sneaker’ issue. Sneakers are shoes for children to play in but grown men starting wearing them too, thus the decline in behavior, frame etc. It starts with the feet? Maybe that’s too maudlin or maybe not. I live in Asia and just started to dress myself a year ago in real clothing. I wasn’t a slob before but was typical jeans/flannel/sweater/khaki rockport loafers casual. Decent for an American. Not ridiculous but not a man either. Stepping out in a tie, blazer and oxfords is absolutely life altering. Maybe for corporate types who have always dressed this way there is no epiphany, but to make the shift has, for me, been a huge thing. It’s fun too and very satisfying, though expensive. Now here’s the problem;
      Step out to a social outing in most US towns while wearing a blazer, silk toe and full grain leather oxfords and you will be seen as eccentric, if not a flaming homosexual. I’m single and I know already that to head back to my hometown with my new garb on would be laughably inappropriate. I’m not talking about Miami Vice flamboyance or swishy scarves etc. I’m talking decent masculine attire from two generations ago. I’m sure Manhattan, Boston, Chicago professional districts would have their fashion (maybe not even there) but if you want to move to small town America and live/dress as a man from the forties, I wonder if you would be simply ostracized. I want to retire to Italy for this very reason. I want to dress myself as a man daily. Although I’m in Asia, I still see a couple dozen Westerners on any given day. In certain neighborhoods it would be up around a hundred. A lot of twenty somethings. 90% of them are seriously wearing clothing fit for a day of garage painting. Shitty clothes leads to shitty behavior, shitty thoughts. I really believe that.

      1. A man can’t dress well in these parts unless he is willing to draw attention, and that has its own problems.

  21. Mr. Scott is trying to have his cake and eat it.
    That he needs to kneel and kiss the PC ring before questioning a carefully selected
    subset of Cultural Marxism’s outcomes is telling; if he doesn’t, he won’t be working at the NYT long.
    I’ve got no patience for these fence-sitters, and no interest in their exquisitely cautious straddles.

  22. I think one of the funniest parallels by bringing up Walter White in this conversation is that White represents an adult who just about had enough of how the system worked.
    if you look back into White’s story, you’ll realize that he had been cheated out of his share of a company that he started with another individual, was reduced to teaching high school students, and those same students harassed him at his after school job at the carwash. Then he finds out that he has cancer. At that point, after realizing that making and selling meth had a lot of great promise in making wealth, white goes forward with becoming Heisenberg.
    what we see afterwards is a man’s descent by rejecting a culture that created his alter ego. He spent his entire life doing the right thing and now at the end of his life, he was going to take the prize for all the good things he’s done while using all the bad things he’s done to obtain it. The very sad part about this, is that he will be treated like a criminal with nobody questioning is the why he decided to become a criminal.
    looking at White’s story, it’s almost like the opposite of all of feminism. Feminists do the wrong thing because it gives them power. And then they get all of the credit, all of the prizes, and get no punishment in turn, whereas the men in our society do all of the honest work and get none of the gain.it may not have been feminist ideals themselves that Walter White was rebelling against, but he definitely knew the system was rigged. To an extent, he knew this was the only way to be able to get back what he was so desperately earned.

    1. Let me just correct one thing here. Walter was not really cheated. You find out more about him as the show progresses. Towards the end Jesse wanted to get out of the business saying they have enough money but Walt says that he wants to build an Empire.He tells Jesse a story and I guess he was some sort of scientist at perhaps Los Alamos when he was not able to go in as partners with the others because he didn’t have the $500 and had to pay his rent.I think that he was already married and had that crippled son.So he was pretty bitter that he lost out when the co. became big and all for what was a small amount of money. Probably being married was a factor because a young guy would have just used the money for the co. and the hell with paying the rent.

  23. What killed adulthood. In short feminism. . Women destroyed any incentives that men had to be men like their fathers and grandfather’s were. . If women prefer to date and sex it up with thugs. Go for it, but most men don’t want left overs or to raise another man’s kids. . From TV, to the legal system, to parental rights etc men have gotten the message. It’s a woman’s world now. Women have most of the power. . Why slave just to pay more in taxes and get a woman who weighs the average female weight of 170 pounds? Why work hard just to support a hypergamous females who divorces you to steal half you assets? There is zero incentive to be a man like our father’s or grandfather’s. . Work twice as hard just to marry a fat girl with three kids from three different men. . Lol no thanks.

    1. “Why slave just to pay more in taxes and get a woman who weighs the average female weight of 170 pounds?”
      I just threw up in my mouth. Again, since this was the topic of discussion on another board yesterday and someone posted a picture of the “average” woman. I’m still trying to remove that my head. Especially when it means that 1/2 the guys out there are married/dating/fucking someone LESS ATTRACTIVE. Holy fucking hell.

      1. Sure, but think about the “average” male. He’s got man-boobs, no real hobbies or interests, studied some bullshit liberal arts at some mediocre college (if he went at all) and spends his time playing video games and watching TV…he doesn’t deserve anything better.

    2. The sad part is seeing your friends desperately marry leftovers who have had more cocks in them than brain cells.

        1. You shouldn’t. Don’t be scared to talk to them about this. If they are really your friends, you should be concerned with the compelling argument against their marriage.

    3. Feminism or no feminism, many women want to settle down and be married.
      No, the main problem with immature guys is they love being immature. They wanna be 17 forever listening to youth music and playing video games forever.
      The success of TWILIGHT shows that lots of young girls adore guys with values and grace.

      1. Sure they want to settle down and get married…after ten years whoring around and treating most men like shit. Then they snag some clueless simp to provide security so that she can squeeze out a few kids before she fully smacks into the broad side of an ugly stick. And you blame young men for not wanting to be either another dick in her cock parade, nor to be the pastel wearing schlub she deigns to allow to support her?
        For shame sir.

        1. Replying to chicks is prohibited:
          ”Women and homosexuals are prohibited from commenting here. They will
          be immediately banned, and anyone who replies to them will also be
          banned.”

          About

        2. That’s a dumb rule, and Ive never seen it enforced. Are we really so afraid of the enemy’s propaganda? Let any chick spew her feminist drivel…I will dissect it more ruthlessly than a science class frog.

        3. To tell if it is a chick or a man. check the person’s profile picture and put that first name of that 1st person into google or wikipedia. This will help identify if that person has a male or female given name.

        4. Sometimes the name isn’t really who they are, but what they say gives them away. I know a few females in our sphere who write under male names. Their agenda is so strong you will know lol

      2. You prove my point. Why won’t these men step up. . Why are men going against their biology and not having. families? Here is a hint. The product aka women are not worth the effort.

      3. I call BS. Few women under 30 are at all interested in settling down with marriage. Under 30 the women want to have “fun”; which means exploiting men for entertainment purposes. I have 4 sons from 20 to 35 and I have heard their war stories. Approaching 30 most women want to get married; however, in the US they absolutely do not want to be married. They want their special day with $30,000 spent on celebrating the wonderfulness of them. The groom could be a cardboard cutout for all they care. Then they get their one or two kids and jettison the marriage, because you know boredom. Of course they still expect to be taken care of by the boob they divorced. That is not marriage it is parasitism.

        1. “The groom could be a cardboard cutout for all they care.”
          Hilarious, and so incredibly true.

        2. Agreed, agreed and then some. What I don’t understand is how American men can keep going on supporting their government and society? Waving these flags around as if this society is worth two shits outside of making a few bucks. Are men here this stupid or are they masochists for punishment?

        3. “Are men here this stupid or are they masochists for punishment?”
          It’s a combination of both.

      4. Too much emotion in this post. If you strip marriage of all the fancy frill conjured up by the romantically inclined( colloquially known as idiots) then what you have left is a legally binding contract. The terms of this contract are rather peculiar. It is a set of laws designed to discourage men from entering into such a contract. It makes it hard to blame men for not wanting to get married. I, for instance, can’t do it with a straight face anymore. It’s just too fucking funny.

    4. Great comment! Everytime I see a man get married, my first thought is he’s getting someone’s leftovers. I just read that your average college girl will have a minimum of 50 sex partners. My daughter worked with a girl that had over 200 sex partners by the time she was 18! No thanks.

  24. A.O. Scott’s definition of ‘patriarch’ is ridiculous. Indeed childish.
    Don Draper and Walter White are not patriarchs. Draper is just some vapid playboy, a shallow narcissist. Walter White may make a lot of money and provide for his folks, but he’s reverted to high school mentality. (And Tony Soprano is emotionally 18 yrs old, if that.)
    Patriarchy cannot simply be defined in terms of economics. It’s about culture, values, a state of mind. Vito Corleone was a patriarch. So was his son Michael Corleone.
    But Sonny was a half-patriarch at best and Fredo was no patriarch.
    Vito Corleone had a profound sense of family and roots. So did Michael Corleone.
    Sonny took care of his family economically but sexually he acted like some high school jock and emotionally was an immature punk. Fredo took care of his woman, but he had no ideas about anything.
    Whether one makes little money or lots of money, patriarchy is not just about the individual and people in his life but about the line of one’s people. It’s about memory. It’s about the connection between oneself and one’s father, one’s father’s connection to one’s grandfather, one’s grandfather’s connection to one’s great-grandfather, and etc.
    Patriarchy is also profoundly moral. It’s not just about men making money and taking care of some people. Even black gangsters do that. Using this meaning of patriarchy, any black NFL player who sires a bunch of kids and takes care of them financially is a patriarch.
    Though patriarchs can be involved in criminal activity–as Vito Corleone is–, they have a sense of life apart from his economic life that is essentially moral. Vito Corleone may operate illegal gambling, but as a father and husband, he is loyal and faithful. And he passes that mindset to his son Michael.
    Initially, Michael is an individualist who wants to marry some bland wasp girl, but when his father is almost killed, he feels a strong connection between himself and his father, and it is there that he gains a patriarchal sense. Patriarchy isn’t simply about man taking care of his wife and kids but about a man’s connection with his father and a man’s connection to his son. From one’s father one learns to be a man, and one acts like a proper man to teach one’s son to be a man.
    There is none of this in Don Draper and Walter White who are shallow twerps despite their privilege or money. Draper is a walking fashion ad, and Walter White might as well be some high school drug dealer. He’s terribly immature emotionally and there’s hardly anything cultural about him.
    But even a poor Orthodox Jew is a patriarch because he maintains the culture and identity of his people. He is mindful of his father, and he is mindful to be a proper father to his son.

  25. I’ve only watched 5 or so show the last 10 years: XFiles, Calofornication, Game of Thrones, a few Mad Men episodes, and Vikings. All have some red pill themes, but come with heavy blue pill messages as well, possibly making them worse than the standard TV that is 100% feminist/beta male. Even Vikings, one of the better shows, has annoying grrrrl power themes in parts.

  26. There’s one simple counterbalance to all this: don’t watch television. I know the masses will never give it up, but red pill thinking isn’t about following the herd.

  27. The New York Times article laments the loss of adulthood, but seems to “admit” that it was never really necessary. Such an assumption can only exist in people that think they live in a vacuum. Why do adults exist? Simple: because a society that doesn’t have adults will soon be beaten and usurped by one that does.

  28. IMO the direction Adulthood is going is becoming informed, informing others, and banding together against the elites for the purpose of reaching our potential as individuals and as a society. Evolution rather than devolution.

    1. the elites are banding against everyone else. The elites who have usurped adulthood, deciding amongst themselves in their largely secret unrecorded meetings what is good for everyone, while calling it democracy. The progressives, leftists are just as undemocratic: they too know what’s good for everyone, they’ve identified the ends to work towards and like the elites will use any means available to achieve those ends. This is a kind of adulthood that treats the rest of society, the demos, as children.

      1. Which neatly answers the question posed by the article: “who killed adulthood in american culture?” – ’tis the elites that did so.

  29. Adulthood died the day people started listening to the ’emotional’ feel good drivel that girls/women were passing off as life advice.
    This shit:
    http://i58.tinypic.com/jtkxlv.png
    … killed any need to cultivate ‘adult responsibility’ in the last few generations.
    Without a need for adult responsibility early on (the likes of which war, natural disasters, hard times prior to technology produced in immense supply).. there is no need to ‘grow up’.
    And when women shirk growing up and being responsible in their 20’s… men will follow.
    Which will be followed up by article after article asking where all the good men are, peter pan men, and man up shaming.

  30. An issue close to my heart. Adulthood is key. Feminism identifies itself as attacking the patriarchy, and in practice this involves attacking the role of the father, the authority of the father, and therefore the responsibilities of the father in the modern family (and more broadly of men in society). There is some truth in the idea that male authority may infantilise women although equally the counterargument is simply that women still behave childishly when under their own authority. Nonetheless in promoting matriarchy in all but name (for feminism cannot be honest or upfront about its tactics or goals) it seeks to infantalise men I think in two ways. Firstly it infantilises men who are already adults, fathers, managers, or in any other position of responsibility, with a view to knocking them off their spot, or at least downsizing them and clipping their wings. Here perhaps emasculation
    is the more obvious phenomenon, but infantilisation can and does occur with
    grown men (consider the contrasted role of an elderly eastern patriarch ruling
    his family to old age versus the western tendency to position the elderly (men and women) as children, removing them from positions of influence. The second way feminism infantalises men is by failing to rear boys who will become responsible, adult men. This is fundamentally about how males (and females as well) should be educated, including with respect to the roles they should occupy. As such under feminism to the extent that it promotes matriarchy education of males by feminists or feminist influenced males or females simply is infantilisation.
    In identifying the trend in society towards matriarchy here one critical factor should be noted. That is the matriarchy does not merely infantilise men it infantilises everyone, both men and women. There is a paradox here because when women
    substitute for men as the heads of families, as managers, CEOs, etc., they appear to take on board the authority that was once considered the primary preserve of men, however feminism violates what ought to be the fundamental principle of political science, namely the (spiderman) principle that with great power comes great responsibility. The whole of feminism violates this fundamental principle of adulthood, the taking on board of actual responsibility.
    It is in the nature of feminism, as a claim for redistribution that it must necessarily project responsibility away from itself, away from women, and towards men and male society. So when it seeks adulthood through matriarchy, objectively but not actually a variety of adulthood, it splits authority, which it seeks to keep for itself, from responsibility which it projects outwards, identifying it with the male of the species in order to attribute blame. But the sword of spurious justice that it yields is a double edged one, for ultimately by refusing to take responsibility for itself, by training women to take authority on the basis of victimhood, it creates the conditions for its own collapse, opening itself up for attack by those who as men are prepared to take on board both parts of adulthood, authority and responsibility.
    I have for some time believed that there are varieties of progress that could be worthy of the name. Bonhoeffer wrote about a world come of age, the adulthood of the world. And the essence of this is that we take responsibility for ourselves, take
    responsibility for our actions, or failures, for our families and communities
    and to the extent appropriate, for the world at large. A more traditional way of saying this perhaps is: a man does what man has to do. Feminism simply fails here. Beyond systematic and organised destructive sniping it has no ideas of its own, and simply freeloads on radical left ideas, many of which can and will be easily discredited.
    It is time for us to make the claim, which we can surely evidence in detail, that feminism is damaging the whole world by infantilising not just men
    but everyone in society, turning all of us into a collective of whiny abused victims,
    too delicate to live in the real world, needing the false protection of an ever
    burgeoning state, that is only too keen to step in to take the actual authority which is alienated from those fit to exercise that authority. Feminism is the counterfactual of adulthood, of all responsibility and of real, actual, justified authority. All we need to do is to clearly articulate and demonstrate what we already know: that FEMINISM INFANTILISES EVERYONE and that there if we do not do something about this it is not just men but everyone who will suffer

  31. First of all, why be traditional in a society that makes any form of traditional civilisional manhood a supremely legal liability? When alimony, false rape claims, odious domestic ‘violence’ laws, and child support have been abolished then ok, I’d be Mr. Civilisational Paragon. Until then, there will absolutely no prisoners. I won’t be Mr. Captain Save-a-Hoe or Mr. Captain Save-a-Society (a society that could give two fucks about me). Why tell men to be disciplined obedient serfs on the ‘Animal Farm’? If men are going the way of Walter White or rather ‘Heisenberg’ then so be it. We won’t achieve real change in this country with a plethora of compliant, law abiding beta males.
    And let’s look at Don Draper’s character, a man who’s completely beholden to pussy, who doesn’t know how to keep his bitches in line, who allowed his ex-wife ‘Betty Draper’ to completely run roughshod over him without so much as a yell and cries every 3 episodes. Fuck him and his character. Being a compliant male is usually in some other male’s paradigm, you are abiding by his rules, not the end all be all template for humanity. So when that paradigm is legally suited for a family centred life then by all means I’d live it, until then, MGTOW, until it burns, all of it.

  32. I guess it depends on how one defines ‘adulthood’. Any man who is self-sufficient and not up to his eyeballs in debt is an adult in my book.

  33. Talk to anyone who was a young adult in the 50s or 60s. They will tell you that our current society is unrecognizable compared to what it used to be.
    The horribly misguided social experiments that America has been subjected to over the last 50 years are really showing their results. And the results are ALL bad.
    At the current pace at which this society is degenerating, it will be unrecognizable to us in less than 20 years, granted of course the society hasn’t completely imploded by then.
    Who knows how bad it will get? Will we see children openly raped and abused in the streets? Will we see murder being openly accepted?
    Ask yourselves these questions. How bad will it get? Will morality even exist anymore? Considering the pace and voracity in which traditional Christian morality has been demonized and jettisoned from Western Society, I don’t think those examples are too far fetched.

    1. In the Soviet Union they bulldozed churches and killed parishioners, today, the Russian Orthodox Church is healthy. I agree, its as though this path is irreversible, however, things go in cycles. Look around, from education to ISIS, the progressive agenda is failing miserably.

      1. There’s no bigger Russophile than me, but I think you are a little too optimistic in your assertion about Americans or the West in general. Yes the Russian Orthodox Church was completely decimated, in total, over 20,000 ancient churches originating from the Kievan Rus’. However nefarious the Soviets were, they still left, and I say this with context, ‘traditional’ structures in place. They never legalised homosexual marriage, accepted feminism, a soft male population, nor did they accept societal ignorance/stupidity. However repressive the Soviet regime was, they produced some of the most phenomenal scientists, engineers, doctors and mathematicians; after all, the first man in space was a Russian. The Soviets, anti-Tsarist in their initial regards towards Russia, only left in place especially after two brutal 20th century wars, a thoroughly masculine, traditional, and patriotic population.
        Now let’s discuss our beleaguered nation, America hasn’t gone nor probably will go through any brutal famines, purges or show trials, but America has been spiritually destroyed. The Russian spirit was never destroyed, only the outer remnants. America is completely destroyed, churches architecturally exist but they are spiritually and soulfully bereft of any meaning. America has no moral high-ground. In hindsight, it’s crazy to think that Trotsky, Lenin and Stalin probably made a Orthodox Christian Russian much stronger. Russia is a population made up of men, still under auspices of Western influence but still men in every sense of the world and women who still look to men for leadership.

        1. “However repressive the Soviet regime was, they produced some of the most phenomenal scientists, engineers, doctors and mathematicians;”
          all these said scientists, engineers, doctors, and mathematicians, they had no problem with using their people and keeping them in the dark. Sometimes intelligence without common sense can lead a whole bunch of people to being contaminated. look up Mayak and Chernobyl. All the engineering and math in the world couldn’t make up for the carelessness of the state. to a certain degree, we’re a little bit better off, but not by much.

        2. So America nor any other Western country uses its people and keeps them in the dark, and uses scientists/science to achieve those ends? MK-Ultra ring a bell? Don’t try and put the onus on Russia, as if Russia is only culpable and capable of ‘using’ its people. You don’t think our own government is doing this at this very exact minute? Why do you think the US Gov never lets those NSA people leave or travel beyond a certain square kilometre radius?

        3. I said not by much. at least we don’t have whole swathes of our populous glowing in the fucking dark.

        4. Russia is not that great. Upward social mobility is non-existent in Russia. Would you rather live here, or in Russia? Enough said.
          Russia is a shithole compared to most developed Western nations, and you know it. It is a gangster criminal state.

        5. This comment elicits how important economics are to the national state. I’ve said this in previous threads, that America’s only redeeming quality is the ability and the ease with which to ‘make money’. Hands down, America’s technological/entrepreneurial innovation is second to none but outside of that the culture is misandric, soft, degenerate and garbage, there is no sense of community and a police state unfolds before our eyes as political correctness reaches new heights of sheer absurdity.
          In reference to Russia being a criminal state, it was under the Yeltsin years especially when Gorbachev and Yeltsin sold their country to Western bankers. Putin has pretty much eviscerated the strangle hold the oligarchs had over Russia and is the reason guys like Boris Berezovsky, are dead. Russia is recovering from two century long plagues both emanating from the West, Western funded Bolshevism and Western funded oligarchy. I will tell I’d rather live in Russia’s shittiest city than live in a place like Detroit.

        6. As America’s population sinks into degeneracy, the ‘Nation’ will lose it’s ability to make money. An economy is only as good as it’s people. The US no longer seems like a nation. The population does not share any sort of cultural understanding. It has just become a huge money game, where nobody gives a shit about what happens after today.
          It now seems to resemble a North American economic system, as the US southern border boundary is no longer observed by the law in any meaningful way.
          It is bizarre to watch America slowly unravel. The pace of the decline has been very steady, and now it appears to be accelerating.

    2. ” . . . our current society is unrecognizable compared to what it used to be.”
      I have moved to a foreign country by staying in the same place, although it did take 50 years to get here, which is piss poor performance in terms of average speed.
      “How bad will it get?”
      I don’t know, but I know how bad it can get. Buckle up, it could be a very bumpy ride, with no place to run and no place to hide.
      Every house will be divided against itself.

  34. Having never seen Mad Men (and probably never will since it is ultimately progressive) is Draper’s taking a new identity considered a positive or negative thing?
    On the one hand becoming who you want, even if going against the circumstances of your birth, is admirable to say the least.
    But it is also an extreme example.

  35. Don’t compare men to TV characters.
    The reason men are failing to follow the traditional path to manhood (I.e., one defined by civil responsibility and honor and hard work) is because it has no practical benefit. Not only the fact that it won’t get you laid, but it will also get you humiliated; and most of all you will be humiliated for not getting laid.
    Women prefer criminals and thugs and physical dominance, so what’s the point?

  36. Boys cannot be men if they keep following advice from people like this:
    Here’s a lie that had recently been been exposed:
    goodlookingloserexposed.wordpress.com

  37. Why is it that a man who won’t marry is not Manning up yet a woman in her 20’s who won’t Marry because she is on the cock carousel is empowered. Women say no man deserves sex yet they demand men give up their most valuable asset which is commitment for free to these fat land whales after the bad boys are done filling them with cum

  38. An interesting take on our decaying culture. The upcoming generation are the ones I really feel for. Single mothers, feminist centric schooling along with a guilt enforced upon the young men for well being a non ethnic male. A female centric corporate wasteland to look forward to after wasting money on a useless college degree some mangina careers counsellor recommended. A very dissatisfied life is about all they can expect. One can only imagine this society in 20 or 30 years from now.

  39. The free market of sex has dictated the free market economy. I personally have had a great education, decent but not spectacular career, and a good amount of promise for a future upper-middle class life. This hasn’t seemed to matter to the women I meet.
    This whole college thing was a great, fun experience, but a retarded financial investment. Getting laid as a college/MBA/law educated wage slave is infinitely harder than a club promoter, bartender, yoga instructor, and homeless vagabond traveler.
    Men need to realize that their corporate careers that we’ve worked our whole lives for are probably more of a turn-off for women.

    1. With no societal control on women, they’ve regressed to their primal instincts and nothing else. If you aren’t a loud, entertaining, jacked idiot with tattoos who gives her emotional spikes with your erratic and illogical behavior, she wont even be attracted to you. They could care less about intellectual pursuits.
      Its only when theyre 31 with a kid they decide they want a smarter dude with a good job. Don’t save these hos.
      Of course even if you don’t marry these sluts, they can still live off your money by voting themselves benefits off the taxpayer (male) dime.

    1. Everyone longs to have children. It’s a natural, human response. The problem is having children in a society that is doing its best to hamstring the natural male tendencies to raise kids in a healthy way.

  40. Would Walter White be considered Dark Triad? If so, is it a set of innate character traits, or a special kind of reaction to their environment?
    Are there real, contemporary DT men whose patterns have been recognized and studied?

  41. We’ve become a society enmeshed in the Leftist nightmare of a “caring” government, perpetrated by Feminism and allowed by Beta men who pursue power to the detriment of the individual. When the State is allowed to be “father” the rest of us are diminished. Collectivism is an evil which will destroy western civilization and usher in the age of the brute.

  42. Gents, “they” took cultural archetypes and re-molded them into things that “they” wanted them to be. That’s the M.O. The important thing to remember is that this is all make-believe…now, indeed, make-believe or not, it has influence, even profound influence. But, its not like our DNA has been reprogrammed. Moreover, its fickle, though it appears to be much stronger. Send out the right cultural queues and you can resurrect the male persona, complete with Han Solo and Major Dutch…all it takes are making the movies and TV shows.
    The good news is that there are natural precedents for the formerly strong male archetype, ergo, the popularity. Please…please fucking take note – all the metrics for measuring the popularity of mainstream media are in decline. Golly Gee, wonder why? Perhaps going against nature has something to do with it? Methinks yes. The MSM is in decline and in its place WILL be a vastly more decentralized paradigm. Today, Davis Aurini is one of a handful, at best, culture producers in the manosphere but tomorrow who knows? Since its natural for men to be men such content (Dutch, Matrix, Solo et al) will be back. Why? Because there is demand. And making and distributing content has never been easier.
    Matter of fact if you’re a red pill gen M…do you want to make a very nice living as a youtube entrepreneur and our artistic etc? Duh, yes? Then find other red pillers and start making movies that don’t suck.
    Hat tip to Aurini.

    1. I am quite familiar with Aurini, thanks to his YT channel. He makes some interesting points and I find myself at various levels of agreement with him on subjects more often than not.
      Though his complaining about the “degenerates” (without ever defining what he deems a degenerate) gets tiresome.

  43. An interesting article. And one refreshingly short on vag-hate (a rare thing on ROK). I’ve never been a fan of either program but I’ve encountered enough of both to understand your references.
    I think there is hope, for men to be men. I say this because we all respond to incentives. And if the majority of guys out there are PUAs or Betas or just too unmasculine, then there is going to be a deficit of ACTUAL men. And it is there that men can establish a renaissance.

  44. “Walter wins back the respect of his family”. Wrong. Through entire series he remains a mangina little bitch, and his wife still hates him. He may be alpha at his job, but a complete beta in his own family.

  45. Adulthood was killed by women’s quest for eternal youth. In other word’s, she must keep her vagina as “youthfully” competitive as long as possible. The downside of this feminized, egocentric mass migration for youth is… A manly maturity in men is seen as old-school, dated and boring… until a flat tire or she needs a escort to save one of her best friends from “Whore-meltdown.” Through this desire, magnifified by clever makerting firms and their age detector (Mirror Walk) SMV depreciation observations, women have happily traded biological maturity for physcal immaturity. When a 40 year old woman, girlfriend, wife or slut removes your Barry White CD and replaces it with her immature Justin Bieber soundtrack to seduce and fuck you…a grown man – something is horribly wrong in America.

  46. I’ve watched every episode of Mad Men. As far as quality television goes, it ranks amongst the greatest. The time period and pace of storytelling is anachronistic compared to the fast-edit, action-packed style of modern television dramas. This deters a great portion of your average television audience.
    That being said, Mad Men is a show written primarily by women. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204908604574332284143366134
    The show was created by Matthew Weiner (writer for The Sopranos), and I’m sure he has final say over character arcs, but you can’t deny the feminist influence on the story. I’d say they’re accurate in portraying upper-middle class, WASP’s of the period–but there is a modern effort to portray women as the pawns of Depression-era men.
    The past season shows that Don has lost his vigor–personally and professionally–after several seasons of being the dominant, Alpha-male figure that women love to hate. We see him having numerous trysts with younger women, drinking Old Fashioneds and Lucky Strike’s like it’s his job (because it is: Lucky Strike is his Ad-firms biggest client).
    I approach the last season with some trepidation. Will the female writing staff bury all the chauvinistic characters through their modern, revisionist politics or will they give both the men and women of the 60s, Mad Men world an equal lashing for the wrong doing’s of their past?
    Ultimately, the shows lasting merit for “red pill” men hinges on how the show will end. Then you’ll know exactly what the message was from the beginning. Personally, I’m optimistic that the writing will be worthy of the well-crafted, equally balanced narrative that’s already been presented.

  47. Women want it both ways. When they’re young they want the muscular asshole jock type. But as they start to age they look for a wallet and want geeks who rake it in!!!FACT!!!

  48. “In the pilot episode, he is emasculated by his wife who harasses him over credit card bills and gives him a handjob with one hand while using her computer with the other. Over the course of the show, Walter transforms into a hardcore gangster and dealer, wins back the respect of his family, and becomes incredibly wealthy at great personal cost.”
    That’s crap. He loses his family. One of the last conversations between him and his wife (when discussing his actions) was not that he did it for the family, but that he did it for himself – throughout the series, he continuously tries to defend his actions by saying that he “had to do it for the family.” That slight alteration of that specific phrase is what earns him back the respect of his wife (admitting that his actions were selfish), and if you watch the season finale, his son still hates him up until the point he dies. Walter White’s character was selfish. His selfishness and willingness to put his family’s lives in danger caused his wife to cheat on him with (Ted Beneke) and his son to hate him.
    Seriously, did you not even watch the show?
    And honestly I don’t even recall his wife giving him a hand job in the first episode…I’ll have to re-watch the series.

  49. I’m not sure why Don Draper is held up as bastion of masculinity and patriarchy. Sure he gets laid a lot, but he has no morality or character. In fact his entire existence is a lie, as the article lays out.
    His profession is also a lie. He literally makes up bullshit for a living, selling stuff to people that they don’t need and getting by on style over substance, both of which are incredibly feminine things to do.
    While I think AO Scott is onto something, it’s sad that the models of patriarchy are an empty suit (Draper), a guy who pussied out of accepting his own mortality and became a gangster (White), and another gangster who lacks both conscience and soul (Soprano).

Comments are closed.