Monday, April 15, 2013

The Problems With PUA and Game (Part 3)

The last post dealt with the faulty logic supporting PUA and Game, stating that have a fundamental misunderstanding of what manliness is, plus that their Social Darwinist influenced views are obsolete at best and outright presently maladaptive in this world at worst. Now we will look at the implications of believing those misplaced values, attitudes, and mindsets; particularly where it concerns sizing up the true worth of another person:


They start with the assumption that having the ability to score with women if one so chooses is a necessary component of a respectworthy man, if not the most important trait for a man; then build their whole skyscraper on that foundation.  Not only is this simply not true, it outright contradicts oft-stated necessary characteristics of what society considers a “real man”. More detailed aspects of this point are
@ Insists people conform to society’s idealized gender stereotypes in order to be worthy of respect.   The further implication being that true individuality is held in contempt.  PUA/”Gamers” – and seemingly mainstream society in general - sees people first and foremost as members of a gender rather than as individuals with their own will, opinions, consciousness, desires, interests, personality, and so forth. In the case of men, they say that a man has to be bold, extroverted, be a commanding presence, take charge, be dominant, and radiate a sense of confidence; and those men who are not like that deserve whatever disrespect that comes their way - regardless of any other positive qualities they may possess. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that this sentiment qualifies for bigotry, or at “best” bordering on it; which leads directly to the next point.

 

@ There is a certain level of bigotry present in the PUA/”Gamer” mindset.  It implies that respect-worthy men, by their very nature, can easily and frequently obtain consent from many women to have sex. It follows that a man who cannot easily obtain such consent from a woman is a loser deserving whatever snubbing, mockery, ridicule, or patronization that comes their way for that reason alone. Similar things can and do extent to women whom few – if any – men would sleep with. Also, as discussed above, the same attitude also exists in gender ideal matters well outside the scope of sex and romance. Again, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to see any meaningful difference between castigating the sexually unsuccessful as people second-class-people at best and racism, homophobia, Islamophobia, and (to a lesser degree) disdain for the physically or mentally disabled.


CONCLUSION 


All the above means that the reptilian-basebrain-generated desires for short-term gratification and self-indulgence (not just on sexual matters) plus the likewise generated ways of sizing up one’s respectworthiness – the very assumptions driving much of PUA/”Game” itself - are at best incompetent at setting the stage for further progress and overall taking humans beings where they really need to go and at worst  anti-progressive by their very nature. Therefore, anyone who seriously believes either satisfying one’s on reptilian-basebrain instincts is the only way to true happiness or that a man’s very worth depends on his ability to obtain easy and frequent sex certainly needs to question the underlying metaphors and assumptions driving the logic behind PUA, but also the likewise metaphors and assumptions driving our reptilian-basebrain-generated instincts and drive as well – namely to decide whether such drives are both a trustworthy route to true sustainable happiness and whether they’re appropriate behavior and attitudes for this day and age.

3 comments:

Ann Sterzinger said...

This reminds me of Karl (Just say no to life)'s excellent post on happy atheists.

Alvaro said...
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No Avail said...

Hands down, the best takedown of PUA shenanigans I've come across. Well done.