Have an identity, even if it sucks

Never let yourself be subsumed

When modern times are good, the gender-war sector of the internet becomes filled with rabid individualists. Woman influencers who insist that women should be boss-babes and that men should leave women alone while they have fun lives filled with dating and casual sex. Male influencers who insist that men should be working out, making money, and learning enough game to have casual sex while having lots of cool male hobbies.

When modern times are less-good, we instead see a surge in idealists and collectivists. It never fails to entertain seeing kids on the internet, born in 2002, who genuinely believe the 1950s were the golden age of humanity based on their 30-second internet understanding of what the 1950s were like.

But that’s where we are today. The economy is sucking it up and times are getting harder. So now collectivism is rising in popularity. Depending on your politics, you’re either a socialist or a traditionalist — both being forms of collectivism.

One of the biggest problems with collectivism is that in a collectivist society, individual humans are expected to have no identity of their own. Their identity is defined by their role in the collective.

I know that sounds dramatic. Even untrue. And it’s not like there’s some kind of law that prevents you from having your own unique identity. It’s just that socially, people will proudly declare your individual identity to be shallow, empty, and worthless, while pointing at their role in the collective as something to take pride in.

Left-wing collectivism is a little scary. There’s a reason the entire world bristles and goes to war, cold or hot, over communist/socialist regimes. But putting aside governments and their shenanigans since none of us affect any of that anyway, and just looking at individual people, the main theme of left-wing collectivism is dehumanization. Blank slate-ism. The idea that all of us are generally-equivalent humans, which in a collectivist world means each of us is an interchangeable economic unit and labor unit. And that all problems are generally-equivalent problems, differing only in magnitude.

Any time there’s a problem that needs solving, we just need to assign enough economic units and labor units to the problem. If it’s ever not solved, then the issue must be that someone got greedy and didn’t spend enough units and we need to murder him and take all of his units. Or if we haven’t slid that far and had a revolution yet, we can just say mean things about him on the internet and try to take his units through laws and taxes.

Right-wing collectivism is less scary but more annoying. It comes from a sense of well-intended social duties inspired by traditionalism.

Among internet women, we’ve seen a shift from influencers proclaiming that women should be fun party girl boss babes and men need to shut up and leave women alone to more “trad” content. Sundress-moms declaring that men need to step up and take care of women, who shouldn’t have to work and should lounge around posing for pictures with their kids to post on the internet all day.

In fact, six months ago or so, I wrote a little bit about the sundress-mom fetish, so I’ll just paste a link here and piss on men instead: https://archwinger.substack.com/p/send-your-women-to-work

So on to men: Look no farther than your nearest internet connection, and you will see all manner of popular male influencers declaring the proud duties that men have to others (primarily women and children) and to society.

A man who does things for his own benefit and enjoyment is regarded as a child. A “real man” is measured by how useful he is to others. By how well he serves. By how strongly he completes his duty to others and to society, with no complaint or expectation that he will get anything out of this other than the satisfaction that he has done his duty — because only hedonistic children expect some kind of reward for doing their duty.

For example, there are many men able to make quite a pretty penny on the internet promoting “traditional” talking points that many internet kids who also think the 1950s were the golden age of humanity (for some reason) gravitate toward and rabidly agree with. Your mind no doubt has already thought of several such people who have carefully cultivated an internet brand that goes something like “Look at me. Be like me. I’m a dutiful family man, just like we had in the 1950s! Probably mixed with a dose of religion and/or right-wing politics.”

To be honest, a lot of men are married. And a lot of men have children. A lot. Trying to create some kind of brand around a normal thing that most normal people do seems kind of strange. But then here we are in the Red Pill sector of the internet branding ourselves on how we view sex, when even more normal people have sex than get married and have kids. So maybe I’m off-base here. Maybe you can make a brand out of doing normal crap that lots and lots of normal people do. What do I know?

But where things go astray is when this lifestyle becomes a person’s identity.

Out one side of his mouth, an advocate for this duty-bound role in life will tell you that your entire life is shallow and empty. All of the women you date and have sex with, all of your hobbies that bring you enjoyment, all of the money you earn — every single thing you do that provides yourself with some kind of benefit or enjoyment — is worthless and empty.

Maybe an individualistic identity focused on personal benefit and enjoyment is a bit simple. But at least it’s an identity.

In contrast, how does this man measure the identity of himself and other men? By how well these men fulfil a duty assigned to them by others. By how much benefit and enjoyment they create in others (women, children, society). By how useful they are to others. By how effective of a servant they are.

That’s not an identity, per se. It’s the opposite of an identity. The name of the game there is for your identity to be subsumed by your duty. To abandon childish notions of being your own person with an identity and instead define yourself by the wife you have, the children you have, the job you do contributing to and uplifting society. To become an interchangeable labor unit and live a life focused on becoming the best labor unit possible at accomplishing the duty he’s been assigned.

I suppose his strong male identity compared to other men would be how good of a labor unit he is compared to other men who may be less good at laboring.

“Look at me. I work so hard so that my wife doesn’t have to lift a finger and my children want for nothing! I’m a benefit to society! That’s my identity!”

Who are you?

“My wife and kids are doing great and society admires me! My church too!”

Yes, but who are you?

“You’re a childish hedonist. I do what real men are meant to do.”

Who. Are. You?

Internet men: I would posit that if you are a weed-smoking video-gamer who can’t seem to keep a job, but is enjoying his weed and video games, at least we know who you are. At least you are somebody. Somebody very suboptimal who probably would benefit from some serious changes to your life. But you’re somebody.

If you have subsumed your identity and become a nameless, faceless labor unit — whether you’re a cog in the socialist machine or a cog in the traditionalist machine — you are nobody. An empty shell. But maybe your wife and kids are interesting people it would be fun to know.