The Secret King Complex and putting random people in their place
We’ve noticed that there are guys out there who can’t resist the urge to message women on dating apps, just to correct them.
They aren’t interested in these women—they just start the conversation in order to issue the correction.
For instance, they’ll see that a girl’s profile says Christian—but her profile photo is immodest. So they strike up a conversation in order to call them to act more modestly, as Christ requires.
This is a bad idea.
Last week we talked about taking a passing dog by the ears. This is a classic example. Larson Hicks recently posted a good exhortation on this:
Often this impulse is because men want to exercise authority on behalf of God. But exercising authority requires you to be in the right place on the hierarchy. God delegates his power to husbands and fathers; not to anyone who wants it.
If you want women to respect God’s hierarchy, you have to respect it yourself.
To presume to exercise fatherly power, or even brotherly power, over a woman who is not your wife or daughter or sister, is to presume to reorder and redesign the creation pattern that God instituted—just as much as it is when a woman usurps authority over a man.
The same is true of presuming to exercise fatherly power over other men. Especially over men who are old enough to be your fathers.
We see this all the time in various ways. Often it is not even intentional—the internet makes it easy to speak to your elders as equals, simply by concealing persons behind avatars. In abstracting human relationships out from their natural, incarnational forms, it flattens and removes all those features so essential to these relationships as God instituted them.
It turns into an e-gnosticism.
Many become “anons,” thinking this is a feature, not a bug.
Detachment from embodied relationships feeds presumption. We are a haughty generation who hate any authority that doesn’t rubberstamp us as captains of our souls. Though we profess to long for a return to the God-given authority structure of creation, we forget that if the internet were conformed to that authority structure, our own activity online would likely be severely curtailed.
Are we against the gift of teaching being used and recognized? God forbid.
Are we against building up the next generation of fathers? God forbid.
Are we against the free and open exchange of ideas? God forbid.
Are we against iron sharpening iron? God forbid.
Are we against men struggling together? God forbid!
But…we are against the presumption that being right in our own eyes, and being determined to articulate it, is a justification for doing so—even if we are right.
We are against replacing gravitas with ego; confusing character and knowledge; presuming to be grown up, without growing up.
We are against, to use the language of Vox Day, men being gamma males.
Vox Day is a very mixed bag, but he nails this particular personality pattern—and his term “Secret King” captures the essence of it perfectly.
The Secret King personality is one we see constantly among Reformed men, especially online:
One of the most interesting attributes of the gamma male is the manifestation of what’s called the Gamma Delusion Bubble, aka the Secret King Complex, characterized by “delusions of grandeur” that help the gamma to deal with the reality of his lower status within the hierarchy.
To put it simply, gammas often create a false narrative and reality around themselves to help them feel better about being constantly rejected by women and overlooked/dismissed by other men.
They may see themselves as the “true” alphas of the group—except that the group is too “unintelligent” to realize the scope of their genius.
They may see themselves as “martyrs” to the cause they believe in—and believe that the constant rejection and disregard they experience makes them “morally superior” to those who have a better experience within the hierarchy.
They may even go as far as to believe that anyone who is having a “good experience” on the dating marketplace must be a useless “player” or “slut,” thereby cementing their belief that they’re actually better than the people who are more successful than them.
Many Secret Kings almost can’t help writing extremely long messages to people they have no actual relationship with, just to explain to them how wrong they are. They tend to be habitually stuck in the world between their ears, where they alone reign supreme. They have all kinds of excuses for why the world outside isn’t as good a benchmark for their true value as men.
On Facebook, Isaac Ohman and Eric Anderson make some sound observations about these kinds of men:
Men who fancy themselves deep thinkers often get stuck in the Observe and Orient side of the OODA loop.
When another man shows the way out of that side into Decide and Act, the natural impulse is to extol the virtues of thinking everything through thoroughly, being properly oriented before striking out, not being too rash.
These are the guys who “endlessly process out loud” in order to talk themselves out of taking manly action, versus the guys who process with other guys in order to gain courage and wisdom because they have already committed themselves to manly action.
We’ve also noticed, not coincidentally, that Secret Kings tend not to like our book very much. We’ve seen a couple of hilariously long reviews that were written by paradigm gamma males. (It is likely the only people who have read those reviews in full are they themselves. We sure didn’t.)
We do read critical reviews of our book—when they are intelligent and thoughtful. They challenge us to improve in our writing and thinking. The problem is, these are pretty rare. Most of the negative critiques are tied to…
Not understanding the nature of generalities or proverbial speech;
Making wild, ideologically-motivated extrapolations of a single phrase or word, and then imputing these extrapolations to us;
Complaining about things we didn’t say that they thought we should have said—or, to put it a different way, not liking that we didn’t write the book they thought we should have written.
Our book was written to men, for men who are alive right now, with an eye towards actually taking action to be the man God made them to be.
It’s not about women—nor for women. Nor about marriage, or fatherhood. It’s not for 20 years ago, nor for 20 years from now. It’s for now. It’s not a carefully nuanced theological lecture. It’s more like a sermon that pushes for repentance. It’s not a scholarly work for the halls of academia. It’s a handbook for everyday men.
This sort of content drives Secret King types mad. And we think that’s pretty funny—which of course makes them even madder.
These types have an emphasis on intellectual mastery and the inner life of the mind. While that deeply matters, our goal was closer to acta non verba. We weren’t providing a total systematic theology of sexuality or even masculinity. It was a field guide of sorts; a topographical map with instructions on how to set your compass. It was for men who didn’t just want to have right thinking, but right living.
It’s fascinating that some of these guys can’t understand this—but a critical review done by a woman unfamiliar with the topic did:
She misunderstood or missed a few things. (We’ll cover some of that next week, as it’s a good opportunity to issue some clarifications and expansions.) But overall, she is a sharp thinker, and does an impressive job at summarizing key concepts.
Unlike many Secret Kings.
Btw, if you haven’t read our book, you can see buying options here: https://igtbam.com
Use the right voice for the occasion
Mature men have a voice for each other.
Mature men have a voice for women.
Mature men have a voice for children.
Mature men have a voice for friends.
Mature men have a voice for foes.
If you have the same voice for everyone, you lack maturity and probably are a fool.
Notable:
Dark Holler Episode 1 (Paranormal Docu-Series Free Full Episode) - YouTube. Dark Holler comes at the paranormal from a Reformed Christian perspective, aiming to re-enchant the world biblically, in a time when a great many people are attracted to re-enchantment but are only finding pagan answers. It’s worth checking out.
The Patriarch Convention, The Gospel Coalition, and Snap Judgments
Lost & Found in the Cosmos by C. R. Wiley | Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity
Gender Rules are Stricter for Men than Women | Society for Personality and Social Psychology
Signs of the Fall full conversation with Jonathan Pageau - YouTube
We also found a few notable pieces this week that are worth summarizing or quoting more fully:
Some highlights derived from the article:
There is a mental health crisis and increase in loneliness that has disproportionately affected young adults. Happiness, physical health, meaning, character, social relationships, and financial stability have all significantly declined for young adults.
This is a crisis in meaning and identity; a crisis in connection. Psychologist & brain researcher Lisa Miller calls it “the absence of support for children’s spiritual growth”—the innate set of perceptual capacities through which we experience connection, unity, love and a sense of divine guidance. Lack of religious involvement has contributed to alarming rates of depression, substance abuse, addictive behaviors, and decreased well-being.
The reasoning is that religion provides a set of moral orders that delineate good and bad, acceptable and unacceptable ways of being, and a focus on “virtuousness,” including self-regulation, a strong sense of self, and compassion for others. Religious participation builds competencies, including coping skills, knowledge, and cultural capital, that strengthen health, social status, and “life chances.” Relationship ties with adults and peers are also opened up, providing resources and opportunities, emotional support and guidance, and models of demonstrated life paths from which young people can pattern their own lives.
Miller’s brain imaging has found that when we make full use of our natural capacities to connect with the transcendent—through which we experience unity, love and connection, and a sense that we are held and guided—our brains become structurally healthier, indicated by a thicker cortex in the regions of perception. This reduces incidents of depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and increases grit, resilience, optimism, and creativity. Using these natural spiritual capacities allows adolescents and young adults to move from “loneliness and isolation to connection; from competition and division to compassion and altruism; from an entrenched focus on our wounds, problems, and losses to an openness to the journey of life.” That sense of connection to a transcendent source takes an adolescent beyond a “pieces and parts model of identity” and “a splintered, fragmented view of self,” she argues, to a deep awareness of “who we are to one another” and a way of being built on love and connection.
Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you.
The Tragedy of Our Commons - The American Mind
Picking spouses from an internet database according to specified parameters sounds like an increase in efficiency, like progress. But it has meant effectively wiping out a whole substructure of behaviors and equilibria that each had a purpose and were organically aligned with human nature. In the current system, a lucky few will be very lucky, and the great mass will get lost in commoditized heartbreak or the illusion that they are fundamentally ineligible. Using the same interface to find a spouse as you do to order a sandwich can affect how you feel about that relationship—who knew?
At the same time, under the rule of pure autonomy—again directly and indirectly, pushed by both Left and Right—the simple act of being together has been warped beyond recognition because every previously agreed upon norm is now optional. Your only mission, your only imperative, is to introspect, to investigate your desires in the moment, and from a place of deep authenticity to exercise consent.
Peter Zeihan Reveals China’s Unstoppable Population Collapse - YouTube
Best guess is that China only has 1.3 billion people now, the population probably peaked more than 10 years ago, and by 2030 there will be more retirees than workers, and by 2050 the entire population of China will have dropped below 650 million. It is beyond terminal. The Chinese system collapse is this decade for sure, assuming nothing else goes wrong, and there are plenty of other competitors to put the bullet in China’s head. All the way from pre-industrial, to post-industrial collapse, in 45 years.”
Talk again next week,
Bnonn & Michael