Thoughts
A Few Thoughts on MGTOW: Men Going Their Own Way
If you’ve never heard of MGTOW, it is a growing group of men that believe the deck is stacked against their sex. You can look at it from any number of perspectives — males are the overwhelming victims of suicides, violent deaths, homelessness, they are liable to pay half of their money upon divorce, and may not even have the chance to see their children, just to name a few.
So, if society doesn’t take care of them, these Men Go Their Own Way. They forego marriage, or relationships with females of any kind, and refuse to let society bully them.
The idea is to close themselves off from the pain, engage in their own interests, and interact as little as possible with the noxious influences outside. They view society itself as “gynocentric”, where everything is done in service of the female, and males are viewed as disposable items to be used in the pursuit of that goal.
I agree with some of their points, the antagonism between the genders in various countries is untenable. But the keyword in the previous sentence is “in various countries”, which implies that in many others it isn’t the case.
The MGTOW has supposedly swallowed “the red pill”, so named after that scene in the Matrix wherein the protagonist is offered a blue pill that erases his memories from reality, or the red pill that makes him permanently aware of the truth.
But here’s the thing, you don’t see movements like MGTOW in most countries outside the West. The one notable exception perhaps being the “sōshoku-kei danshi”, or “herbivore men” in Japan.
To make a long story short, “herbivore men” are men who reject the “salaryman” culture; wherein Japanese men are expected to sacrifice their life in favor of a company where they’ll be permanent employees to a single entity that will likely work them to death.
This rejection happens at the social level as well. Given their loss in status, they otherwise don’t pursue romantic relationships or find it worth the bother. In 2010, single Japanese men were questioned on the phenomenon and it was determined that 61% of men in their 20s and 70% of men in their 30s considered themselves to be “herbivores”.
Other than that, the West is alone in having such movements.
To me, it would seem like both the cultural and economic forces simply create an environment that facilitates this type of behavior and status quo. It’s not a universal truth of the human condition.
The easiest solution to this problem reminds me of a bad joke you sometimes hear doctors say:
“Doctor, doctor, it hurts when I move my arm like this!” says a patient with a cast on one arm and pained expression as he lifts up his arm.
“Well, stop moving it like that then!” the doctor responds exasperated.
MGTOW does identify some injustices and cultural trends, but its prescription for the malady is wrong. Rather than try to make the best out of a bad circumstance, why not simply change the situation entirely?
If your arm hurts, then just use the other one. If your dating and day-to-day life suck where you are, then go to a place where it doesn’t. That’s what the MGTOW philosophy doesn’t understand. They look out of their window and assume the whole world is like their limited point of view.
But here’s something interesting — according to psychological research, the average person can have 150–210 close connections with other people at one time. This phenomenon is known as “Dunbar’s Number”.
This is because our brains evolved in tribes of roughly that size. For 100,000 years, those 150–210 people were almost the entirety of our world, until we began creating villages and then cities.
However, we’re still programmed to make inferences based on what society is like according to whom we hang out with. In the wider social framework, this is barely statistically relevant.
Even if every single person in your social network has a certain characteristic, it hardly matters when we’re talking about the behavior of millions or even billions of people. Birds of a feather, flock together.
The world is much, much bigger than you subconsciously think it is.
That’s why a political candidate can win and you will hear people say, “I don’t even know anyone who voted for them.”
Extend this framework, not only within a country but into a global perspective and you have an infinite amount of configurations for those 150–210 people.
You are the average of the people closest to you. Do not be around people who define themselves through their pain and struggles, find people who characterize themselves through their goals, dreams, and how they overcome obstacles.
There is no reason to be a martyr.
You don’t have to change the world, just your world.
There is good out there, you just need to be willing to give life a chance. Don’t identify with the pain, identify with hope.
There are 7.4 billion people in the world and 195 countries to choose from — all with their unique history, cultures, and regulation. By staying in one place, it’s like reading the first page of a novel, over and over, while complaining about the fact that nothing changes.
Yes, nothing is different, but because you didn’t allow it to change. If you venture out into the unknown and find a place you can call home, then all the MGTOW reasons, or any other fringe ideology you hold that drove you to embrace pain and misery as a default, will seem pointless.
I’m telling you as someone who lived through similar frustrations as yourself — go where you’re treated best and live life on your own terms. You won’t regret it.
