I've never been much of a believer in historical theories about the Indispensable Man. There may be some examples -- Washington, Lincoln, Moses -- but they are few. But the indispensable woman, I believe in. Call it Greenberg's Law: Women are the innately superior sex. My theory may not be backed by any scientific evidence, but it's something every man has surely felt. At least if he's got a lick of sense.
You might even call it a prejudice -- in the sense of Edmund Burke's definition of prejudice as the body of judgments passed on as received wisdom from generation to generation, and that need not be proven anew in every age ...
When it comes to great truths, each generation shouldn't have to work them out by itself. They don't have to be written down, any more than the English constitution is. Every boy soon learns that women seem to know intuitively what the weaker male sex may grasp only by effort and education. Which is why it requires marriage and family to civilize the male animal. He needs a woman's tutelage.
Brighter boys learn the lesson of female superiority early; dimmer ones may never catch on.
I'm starting to feel sorry for Edmund Burke. He seems to be the one that faux conservatives turn to, to add a little rhetorical depth to their featherweight theories.
Where has this Greenberg been living his whole life? Has he missed the advent of the binge drinking, swearing, coarsely natured, bad boy chasing modern girl?
And does this Greenberg really believe that women want men to adopt such a pathetic and inferior position toward them?
Greenberg's misandry has been picked up on by the "Gamist" websites, as proof that conservatives in general are the enemy of the modern male. Even Roissy, who runs one of the most influential of these sites, has picked up on this theme: he claims that conservatives sanctify women and that this leads to the,
laws, policies, and cultural beliefs that are anti-male, and which we in the West are soaking in today.
So is Roissy then someone who is better placed to lead a men's movement? A movement of solidarity between men to overcome such adversity?
That would be no.
Roissy, in the very same article, wants to illustrate just how lacking in moral superiority women are. So he reveals the fact that he has regularly bedded married women. He has bedded married women even when their husbands were attempting to contact them, trying to find out where they were.
Not a great basis for a men's movement, is it? Roissy believes that other men's wives are fair game for himself and his followers. It is a selfish hedonism that pits men against each other in more serious ways than feminism ever devised.
And nor is Roissy's view of men better than that of the misandrist Greenberg. Greenberg may think that women are superior, but Roissy believes the following of men:
Women are vile creatures at heart, just as men are. An ugly truth, Mr. Greenberg
So we get to be equally vile. Feminists think that men are vile and Roissy ends up agreeing.
Many of the comments run along similar lines:
Cultured ape: We are a bunch of selfish and violent apes.
Riff dog: I’m definitely accepting of the fact that women are as depraved as I am. In fact, I count on it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve bedded some conservative’s straight and proper looking wife and started thinking, “Buddy, you have no idea.”
Lupo: It is the person who is married who is making the moral choice, not the person they’re sleeping with. When I [sleep with] a married woman, I break no vows: they do. You’re free to think me a bad person, and you’d be right in a way, but unlike married broads who cheat, I actually don’t cheat on anybody.
Vincent Ignatious: There’s nothing wrong with [sleeping with] a taken woman. It would only be wrong if you didn’t make sure the boyfriend/husband found out so he could drop her. 99% of married women in this country don’t deserve a husband. They don’t really deserve to be loved at all.
Str8up: I have no qualms about [sleeping with] women who are married or taken. The funny thing is, it is always the woman who initiates it. I don’t seek it out. I don’t need high fives from other guys. I am simply fulfilling my biological urge for sexual variety. I am not breaking a commitment to anyone.
Gamists are always criticising "beta" males for lacking self-confidence. And yet the thoughts expressed in the above comments are hardly likely to inspire men's sense of confidence in themselves. If men are vile, bad, depraved, selfish and violent apes, who are simply following biological urges, then on what basis do men positively assert their masculine character as fit for leadership in society or in a church or in a family?
Where is it that Roissy can take men? Are we to live as sexual predators, owing each other nothing, regarding women as vile conquests? Does that really match what men once achieved in the world, what men once were? Is it the basis of a self-respecting life, let alone a successful men's movement?
(Roissy's column is here but note that it's more explicit than I've described in this post.)
Update: Lawrence Auster has referenced this post at View from the Right. Auster has some knowledge of Greenberg's politics (I'd never heard of him before) and believes it incorrect to label him a conservative. He is more of a moderate liberal. So it's not even a case here of a mainstream social conservative making comments about female superiority. Therefore all the theories about Greenberg being a pedestalising socon are off the mark from the outset.
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