The latest on Roissy

(Note, March 18: the discussion continues)

Mark Richardson writes:

You might be interested in an item I’ve just published on Roissy. Someone left a link on my blog to a recent Roissy post. Roissy (rightly) criticises an American conservative called Paul Greenberg in this post for claiming that men are inferior to women. Roissy chooses to rebut this claim about female moral superiority by revealing that he has regularly slept with other men’s wives. He also describes both men and women as vile in their natures, this being the “ugly truth” about humanity. He admits too that he is attracted to what is degraded in human behaviour.

I do remember that you predicted such an outcome for Roissy quite early on. That people were overstating what he offered politically and that you felt instinctively repelled by his selfish nihilism.

I thought of your assessment as I read Roissy’s post. The selfish nihilism of it was unmistakeable.

LA replies:

I’ve read your post. The Roissy readers’ comments you’ve quopted give a sense of what the Roissy thread is like.

On a side point, calling Paul Greenberg, who is a Southern Jew, a conservative, is incorrect in my view. I’d call him a moderate liberal with some conservative leanings. Also, everything he says is based on his feelings, as in this column. You are right when you comment on all the liberals lately who quote Burke by way of proving their conservatism.

You write:

“Roissy chose to rebut this claim about female moral superiority by revealing that he has regularly slept with other men’s wives.”

You mean he’s been withholding from his readers all along this tid bit? I thought that he told his readers everything he is up to with women, that that is what his site is about.

Also, during VFR’s week-long discussion about Roissyism last September, and since then as well, I repeatedly said not just that Roissy is selfish and nihilistic, but that he is evil. And that was why I didn’t—and also strongly urged others not to—read his site, because to read it was to be in the presence of evil. For example, I wrote:

There is an element of truth in Roissy’s advice that Mark quotes, But it’s mixed up with something false and negative. To say that men need to be strong, that they need to be the leader in the relationship, and that that is what women want, is not the same thing as the deliberate manipulation that Roissy counsels. What he says is not good. The badness of Roissy simply radiates from everything he writes. And frankly, not intending disrespect to anyone, I feel that people who do not see this about Roissy have gone astray.

Evil always comes mixed with good, otherwise it would have no power to attract. So Roissy offers some things that seem helpful. But (1) Roissy is evil; and (2) whatever truly valid element there is in Roissy’s advice could be found and practiced without Roissy and his baggage.

Then there’s this:

LA replies:

James wrote:

The reality is that the answer to “devil or angel” is, “both.” For the good man to prevail, he has to love, really love, that bad guy he’s trapped in the same body with, for that bad guy can only be overcome with love.

This is getting rather precious, and I think is missing the point that Roissy and his followers are actively advocating evil.

[end of comment from August entry]

Richard W. writes:

Everything I know about Roissy, which is far more than I care to, is from the discussions of it here at VFR. Perhaps, as you say, his philosophy is evil.

Of what there can be no doubt is that it is incredibly banal. Who can take seriously or spend time discussing a philosophy who’s main concern is ‘How To Score More Chicks’? He is no Plato.

Jeff W. writes:

I would just like to compliment you on your analysis of Roissy. It’s exactly right.

A lot of commenters get hung up on the question of whether what Roissy says about women is true. I believe that much of what he says is true, and it is truth, moreover, that is largely unknown because (1) The fact that women desire dominant men has been actively concealed by modern liberals/feminists; and (2) Earlier, in Victorian times, women were idealized in popular culture—they were portrayed as angelic. Roissy’s claim to fame is that he reveals the concealed truth about women.

But Roissy is still a nihilistic destroyer. To preserve civilization, men and women must form strong families that can raise good children. Because Roissy focuses instead on how a social atom succeeds at bedhopping, he is anti-civilization.

LA replies:

By the way, among the innumerable lies spoken about me at the recent Mangan’s threads attacking me, was the statement that I have (at least prior to a very recent post) censored any positive statements about Roissyism. That’s simply untrue. In the huge VFR debate on Roissy in late August (eight days of all Roissy, all the time), I posted every angle on the subject, including many comments from readers telling how Roissy, or at least Game, had helped them in their lives or at least showed them them truths about modern society that are concealed by liberaism/feminism.

M. Jose writes:

The thing I find most vile about the Roissy article linked to by Mark Richardson is the penultimate paragraph.

As a man who is drawn to both the beautiful and the degraded, my aim is to act as a bridge between conservative men and liberal men, holding the liberal’s hand tenderly to the conservative’s crotch. I shall bring understanding between the two mortal enemies, and together we shall march into the nearest bar, our minds fortified with the knowledge of women’s true natures and our hearts swollen with masculine conceit, and lay waste to that place, claiming battalions of p***y for our own. Without excuse, without apology. Without god, whether supernatural or political.

Such a grand, utopian-sounding, awesome means, to achieve such a shallow and petty end. At least the liberals and the egalitarians and those who want to destroy our civilization have grandiose plans. What good can come from a person who can’t see beyond his own genitals?

Voeg writes:

Roissy is interesting. On the one hand he is very clear in declaring himself a nihilist interested only in the pursuit of pleasure. On the other hand he rails against the destruction of traditional America in a fairly passionate way. To top it off he also explains that the only way of restoring the U.S. is a return to traditionalism. When Roissy claims that Game will save America, what he means by “save” is “destroy,” i.e., this and this.

The virtue of game—according to Roissy, mind you—is simply that it will hasten the destruction of society. The worse the better. He is perfectly clear in declaring that his lifestyle is not socially viable. So at least he is fairly honest about his evil. Always something I guess.

I do think that Roissy is useful. As I noted previously, it is much easier to convert a nihilist to traditionalism and Truth compared to a liberal. The more liberals that are converted into nihilists by Roissy et al, the better.

Finally, Roissy himself is evidence that truth, community and tradition are important and powerful even to self-declared hedonists like Roissy, even though they claim otherwise. After all, otherwise he wouldn’t spend valuable time (better spent in a bar/bed on a pleasure-per-hour basis) writing passionate outbursts against the people destroying our society. Truth, can’t live without it. And that’s why traditionalism will win out in the end—hopefully not via the route envisioned by Roissy (total social collapse) though.

LA replies:

This is interesting, especially your idea that a nihilist may be more open to traditionalist truths than a liberal. However, as far as Roissy is concerned, I can’t take what you’re saying about him seriously. You want us to believe that a man who wrote this:

… together we shall march into the nearest bar, our minds fortified with the knowledge of women’s true natures and our hearts swollen with masculine conceit, and lay waste to that place, claiming battalions of p***y for our own. Without excuse, without apology. Without god, whether supernatural or political….

is a man who is seeking to save America by means of a restoration of traditionalism. This is one of those statements that only an intellectual could believe.

March 18

Voeg replies:

Yes, perhaps it is my inner intellectual shining through—although I think the underlying psychology is a bit more complex, which makes my point more plausible (because the important point is not what it appears to be at first glance). First, I really want to press this point though: To say that Roissy “is trying to save America” is really a complete misnomer.

In his own words, he is only trying to “save America” or Western society in the sense that he believes that the hastened destruction of the current social order is sped up as a side effect of his self-interested pleasure seeking. [LA replies: you mean, it’s the Roissyite version of Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand? By selfishly seeking his own (sexual) profit, he inadvertently benefits the society as a whole.] He is very clear in that his own priorities are entirely selfish, and that he merely intends to extract the maximum amount of pleasure from the social decline of the West. This concept of “saving society” (i.e. wrecking it and enjoying the process) is pretty much 100 percent compatible with your quote below.

Now the psychological point: Given his self-proclaimed total selfishness and disinterest in the fate of our society, I find it very interesting that Roissy spends so much time … railing against the fate of our society. Walking away from truth and community is much harder than one might think, even for the would-be nihilist supercad. I find that encouraging.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 17, 2010 10:50 AM | Send