Saying what I truly think publicly hasn't worked out well for me:
I moved to a new city last year and contacted the local team of the competitive sport that I play, asking to join practice. I went to a couple of practices but then some woman "stalked" my social media presence (where I wrote stuff like "I believe there are exactly two genders"). She took the most spicy quotes and sent them to all local teams.
Now I'm ostracized from all these teams.
Obviously these people are retarded but I still regret posting that stuff under my true name rather than anonymously. I really loved playing that sport.
An activity I did in my 30s that I wish I had done as a teenager was trying to get strangers to sign a petition allowing a candidate (me at the time) to run for office. It forces you to go up to a huge number of people and ask them for something, knowing that any one person is likely to reject you and you are doing all of this in a way that is socially approved of because it's literally written into the law.
Thanks for this. I am 25, and i have been improving on this over the past two years. I had a major surgery in my early 20s that set me back and impeded my progress.
Anxiety really can be so crippling to the point that it impairs your general productivity. I would be at home in my apartment. I try to read whenever i can, but often the negative emotionality would get in the way.
And even though I was always fairly right wing, i come from a family that believed in—and at times had sent me to—therapy (jewish), so i bought into some of the mental health garbage without much thought.
This stuff is such poison to young men. I only wish I had tried adopting this philosophy sooner. So much time, and so many opportunities were wasted
I agree that the norm sucks. I have followed a strategy similar to yours but it has some key differences which I’ll share in case people feel heavily put off by what you’re writing. I overcame a drug addiction as well as bipolar disorder, and I remember people having that judgmental language as intending to help, but not actually helping. That was better than the victim narrative, though, which actively made the problems worse by proving me with a set of excuses and reasons not to try. But at least I felt cared for, which built my trust in them.
Telling someone to “man up” will only work if they already believe they ought to do so. Otherwise it just makes them think you’re an asshole, which makes them less likely to consider the rest of what you have to say.
What ended up helping was the concept of Satan.
A lot of the approach you share expressing makes sense if you imagine there’s some “adversary” trying to make your life miserable by making you scared and anxious. Imaging an adversary helps muster the internal aggression response to fight the adversary, rather than project that aggression outwards. In traditional terms, this is the utility of a belief in Satan as real: it provides an outlet for healthy contempt which is directed entirely at an incorporeal being.
Absent that internal outlet for contempt, I think we are likely to direct concept towards real actual people, which ends up making us feel worse. And that external contempt is easy for people on the outside to see as being fundamentally bad. I can imagine people reading this and thinking, “wow, so my choices are to be anxious and afraid or to be a belligerent judge mental asshole. I choose anxious and afraid.”
If you are thinking this way, please, perhaps consider there is an alternative whereby you see everyone as suffering, and you seek to alleviate that suffering, starting with yourself and then hopefully with others.
Aug 23, 2022·edited Aug 23, 2022Liked by Richard Hanania
I relate to this so much. I was super into that PUA stuff for over a decade...only problem was I come from a long line of alcoholics, so having a lifestyle of going to bars and clubs at least 2~3 nights a week kind of derailed me. I should have been a teetotaler like Tyler and Mystery! But it was an adventure and sort of a rite of passage. I had some fun crazy experiences... And forcing myself to do it, even when I was alone and not having a great time...was pretty character-building.
You're right about inner game... The "radical" idea that's it's all inner game is what a lot of them have been preaching for a long time now, last I checked. Some of "techniques" can have a place...a lot of them fall in the category of things that are too common sense to put into words for more socially savvy people, but hopeless nerds need to have it explained, and convinced that it's ok to do it, and then it takes a lot of practice for it to not seem totally weird and super-cringe. By using canned "lines" for example, I learned that yes, I can actually tease and compliment people, and it can be really fun and make everyone involved feel good. But it still doesn't come naturally to me.
I have an MA in psych, so all this stuff is just inherently fascinating to me, and it's hard for me to comprehend how anyone could not find it interesting.
I've only recently come to suspect that I may actually be a bit of a sperg (or "on the spectrum"...the name Asperger is now verboten apparently because he collaborated with the Nazis). And already I'm over it and don't really care anymore.
But during my brief time in ASD forums...I recognized a lot of the problems many of them have, although mine are mild in comparison. But also...many of them want an identity, and it's offensive to them to suggest that they could do anything to change. I can understand their frustration, but... I've always known I was smart and good looking. And I always knew I ended up with the nerds and misfits instead of the cool kids because I didn't know how to interact with people. It was obvious that it was the things I did... How my eyes moved, how I carried my body, how I move the muscles of my face, etc that made an astronomical difference in how people respond.
This is why I suspect ASD... I always thought I was shy or socially anxious, but it seems more like being withdrawn was a protective mechanism against the negative responses I would get. The possibility of seriously creeping people was not an irrational baseless fear for me, as I learned. But I also learned that it's usually not the end of the world, either. But that's where "skills" come into play...for some of us, getting over fear might only be half the battle.
Anyway, it worked out in the end. I'm now I'm engaged to a gorgeous woman who is pretty much perfect for me. And that's why I got into it in the first place; I was worried that that would be very difficult for me to find. And I wasn't willing to settle. And I still think it was a very reasonable concern. Plenty of women were into me, but ones I was attracted to were "out of my league"...but ONLY because of my deficient social skills.
The theory, which made perfect sense to me, and it still does, is: if you want that one special woman, get good with women in general. Just like the fat chick with acne who's really deep and shares all your nerdy interests isn't the one you feel is the woman of your dreams... The things that make a man more or less attractive to women in general are pretty consistent. And they're not primarily what a lot of guys seem to think they are.
So I didn't use any "tactics" or anything to get her... When the time was right and the opportunity presented itself, I was just like, ok, we're doing this. And that was that. Total clarity of purpose is I think what made it happen. Could it have happened anyway if I hadn't gone on the journey that I did? It's hard to say, honestly. But it's very likely that I would have lacked the confidence, that I would have too weird and needy.
>while there is virtually zero downside to trying to talk to any attractive stranger you see
You can quickly become known as the guy who hits on anyone. Then your social status drops to nothing, and no woman will date you. Like the high school guy who was working part-time in a mall, and used PUA methods, hitting on girls every day. When he finally found one who'd date him, she cancelled when she heard that he was a "shark", doing this to anyone.
There is also another downside. The human psyche can't take that much rejection. And hitting on girls constantly, knowing you're making them uncomfortable when you approach them in the street, will make you feel dirty. You are bothering people. You are bothering fifty girls to get a date with just one. It would be much better to meet someone through social activities and social circles. Most people meet a girlfriend through their own friends. But PUAs didn't talk about the importance of having many friends, because most of the audience didn't want to hear that. It was beyond their ability.
>Why is social anxiety so common, when fear of flying isn’t? I’m convinced it is because society tells us the former is natural and inevitable, while ignoring the latter.
Because people need to fly, and often. Also, there are at least two kinds of fear: Physical fear and social fear. Social fear is far stronger. People will go out in war and die rather than risk social ostracization.
Alright boys, what do you think the three or four forbidden topics are?
I'm guessing one them is guns. RH had a twitter thread of things he loves about America, and guns didn't make the list (though the death penalty did). Now there are lots of countries that practice capital punishment, but America and America's Hat are the only places where an ordinary citizen can purchase and take home a handgun in one day. So it seems odd to exclude them from the "uniquely masculine aspects of American culture" list.
If RH doesn't reply to this comment, assume he's a closet gun controller. 😜
I love how clearly you write-- it's so fun to read, even when I disagree with you.
"Why is social anxiety so common, when fear of flying isn’t? I’m convinced it is because society tells us the former is natural and inevitable, while ignoring the latter."
No way! It's just that it isn't actually as scary to fly as you surmise it should be evolutionarily. It *should* be scary to go 50 mph on a train, evolutionarily speaking, but it just obviously isn't.
Although I'm glad it helped you, pop-evo-psych is mostly garbage. The field of evolutionary psychology is based on highly questionable assumptions: the truth is that no one knows what our evolutionary past looked like, what sorts of social arrangements there were a million years ago, or whether a trait like "fear of high-status individuals" is even genetically well-specified enough to be operated on by the forces of natural selection. Simple caricatures of "tribespeople" f***ing and fighting paint a crude, animalistic and fundamentally flawed portrait of human nature. You can reject blank slatism without falling into evo-psych's story about an evolved nature: religion and literature provide a much richer and more correct understanding of human nature. [C.f. https://www.hallpike.com/wp-content/uploads/some-anthropological-objections-to-evolutionary-psychology.pdf]
But none of this is to say that I disagree with the main point, that fear is a powerful emotion, our modern lifestyles lack real danger, so our predisposition to be fearful is irrational, unhelpful, and must be overcome.
2 thoughts on the notion that addiction is a disease. 1 AA uses the phrase as a mantra yet its solution is more Maoist then APA. So they are using a "soft metaphor" as they get on with the business of the 12 steps which assumes and fosters agency. 2 The metaphor becomes "hard" and evolves into junk science when used by practitioners who have become parasitic on the war on drugs and are a piece of the justice system. These profiteers are the true believers. The therapy they provide as an alternative to being locked up is really just another form of punishment and outcomes are entirely secondary. This is where addicts are convinced they are hapless sufferers and the chemo they are forced to endure includes constant monitoring and infantilization. In this case, language and practice combine to create a thoroughly dishonest and compulsory regime of punishment-therapy, similar to the treatment Soviet dissidents received in the era of international scientific socialism.
It is this second model that has seeped out into popular culture. Of course, the non-judgmental aspect of the narrative is what leads, but lurking in the shadows are the mitigation techniques of life-long pharmaceutical prescriptions, attention-seeking as a sensitive and thoughtful type and ready excuses and apologies for behaving like a child.
Confidence and anxiety are def context/domain specific. I’m most at ease and confident at my local gym because I’m jacked and high status there. The best job interview I’ve ever had happened when I got the call mid workout.
I think this is one of the key reasons Mormons tend to be successful. Getting the door slammed in your face in the mission time after time teaches bravery.
While I've not suffered from anxiety, I do think that approaching and engaging with strangers nowadays has been made much more difficult because people don't seem to be "in the moment." Instead, they are transfixed by someone somewhere else that they're texting with or watching on their phones. There is less experience in spontaneous interaction as a result. With many people continuing to wear masks, this interaction is even less possible or rewarding. I find that younger people are even less likely to be open for any spontaneous engagement.
Great stuff. File this under, “ articles I wish I had read 20 years ago” 😂
Saying what I truly think publicly hasn't worked out well for me:
I moved to a new city last year and contacted the local team of the competitive sport that I play, asking to join practice. I went to a couple of practices but then some woman "stalked" my social media presence (where I wrote stuff like "I believe there are exactly two genders"). She took the most spicy quotes and sent them to all local teams.
Now I'm ostracized from all these teams.
Obviously these people are retarded but I still regret posting that stuff under my true name rather than anonymously. I really loved playing that sport.
An activity I did in my 30s that I wish I had done as a teenager was trying to get strangers to sign a petition allowing a candidate (me at the time) to run for office. It forces you to go up to a huge number of people and ask them for something, knowing that any one person is likely to reject you and you are doing all of this in a way that is socially approved of because it's literally written into the law.
Thanks for this. I am 25, and i have been improving on this over the past two years. I had a major surgery in my early 20s that set me back and impeded my progress.
Anxiety really can be so crippling to the point that it impairs your general productivity. I would be at home in my apartment. I try to read whenever i can, but often the negative emotionality would get in the way.
And even though I was always fairly right wing, i come from a family that believed in—and at times had sent me to—therapy (jewish), so i bought into some of the mental health garbage without much thought.
This stuff is such poison to young men. I only wish I had tried adopting this philosophy sooner. So much time, and so many opportunities were wasted
I agree that the norm sucks. I have followed a strategy similar to yours but it has some key differences which I’ll share in case people feel heavily put off by what you’re writing. I overcame a drug addiction as well as bipolar disorder, and I remember people having that judgmental language as intending to help, but not actually helping. That was better than the victim narrative, though, which actively made the problems worse by proving me with a set of excuses and reasons not to try. But at least I felt cared for, which built my trust in them.
Telling someone to “man up” will only work if they already believe they ought to do so. Otherwise it just makes them think you’re an asshole, which makes them less likely to consider the rest of what you have to say.
What ended up helping was the concept of Satan.
A lot of the approach you share expressing makes sense if you imagine there’s some “adversary” trying to make your life miserable by making you scared and anxious. Imaging an adversary helps muster the internal aggression response to fight the adversary, rather than project that aggression outwards. In traditional terms, this is the utility of a belief in Satan as real: it provides an outlet for healthy contempt which is directed entirely at an incorporeal being.
Absent that internal outlet for contempt, I think we are likely to direct concept towards real actual people, which ends up making us feel worse. And that external contempt is easy for people on the outside to see as being fundamentally bad. I can imagine people reading this and thinking, “wow, so my choices are to be anxious and afraid or to be a belligerent judge mental asshole. I choose anxious and afraid.”
If you are thinking this way, please, perhaps consider there is an alternative whereby you see everyone as suffering, and you seek to alleviate that suffering, starting with yourself and then hopefully with others.
I relate to this so much. I was super into that PUA stuff for over a decade...only problem was I come from a long line of alcoholics, so having a lifestyle of going to bars and clubs at least 2~3 nights a week kind of derailed me. I should have been a teetotaler like Tyler and Mystery! But it was an adventure and sort of a rite of passage. I had some fun crazy experiences... And forcing myself to do it, even when I was alone and not having a great time...was pretty character-building.
You're right about inner game... The "radical" idea that's it's all inner game is what a lot of them have been preaching for a long time now, last I checked. Some of "techniques" can have a place...a lot of them fall in the category of things that are too common sense to put into words for more socially savvy people, but hopeless nerds need to have it explained, and convinced that it's ok to do it, and then it takes a lot of practice for it to not seem totally weird and super-cringe. By using canned "lines" for example, I learned that yes, I can actually tease and compliment people, and it can be really fun and make everyone involved feel good. But it still doesn't come naturally to me.
I have an MA in psych, so all this stuff is just inherently fascinating to me, and it's hard for me to comprehend how anyone could not find it interesting.
I've only recently come to suspect that I may actually be a bit of a sperg (or "on the spectrum"...the name Asperger is now verboten apparently because he collaborated with the Nazis). And already I'm over it and don't really care anymore.
But during my brief time in ASD forums...I recognized a lot of the problems many of them have, although mine are mild in comparison. But also...many of them want an identity, and it's offensive to them to suggest that they could do anything to change. I can understand their frustration, but... I've always known I was smart and good looking. And I always knew I ended up with the nerds and misfits instead of the cool kids because I didn't know how to interact with people. It was obvious that it was the things I did... How my eyes moved, how I carried my body, how I move the muscles of my face, etc that made an astronomical difference in how people respond.
This is why I suspect ASD... I always thought I was shy or socially anxious, but it seems more like being withdrawn was a protective mechanism against the negative responses I would get. The possibility of seriously creeping people was not an irrational baseless fear for me, as I learned. But I also learned that it's usually not the end of the world, either. But that's where "skills" come into play...for some of us, getting over fear might only be half the battle.
Anyway, it worked out in the end. I'm now I'm engaged to a gorgeous woman who is pretty much perfect for me. And that's why I got into it in the first place; I was worried that that would be very difficult for me to find. And I wasn't willing to settle. And I still think it was a very reasonable concern. Plenty of women were into me, but ones I was attracted to were "out of my league"...but ONLY because of my deficient social skills.
The theory, which made perfect sense to me, and it still does, is: if you want that one special woman, get good with women in general. Just like the fat chick with acne who's really deep and shares all your nerdy interests isn't the one you feel is the woman of your dreams... The things that make a man more or less attractive to women in general are pretty consistent. And they're not primarily what a lot of guys seem to think they are.
So I didn't use any "tactics" or anything to get her... When the time was right and the opportunity presented itself, I was just like, ok, we're doing this. And that was that. Total clarity of purpose is I think what made it happen. Could it have happened anyway if I hadn't gone on the journey that I did? It's hard to say, honestly. But it's very likely that I would have lacked the confidence, that I would have too weird and needy.
>while there is virtually zero downside to trying to talk to any attractive stranger you see
You can quickly become known as the guy who hits on anyone. Then your social status drops to nothing, and no woman will date you. Like the high school guy who was working part-time in a mall, and used PUA methods, hitting on girls every day. When he finally found one who'd date him, she cancelled when she heard that he was a "shark", doing this to anyone.
There is also another downside. The human psyche can't take that much rejection. And hitting on girls constantly, knowing you're making them uncomfortable when you approach them in the street, will make you feel dirty. You are bothering people. You are bothering fifty girls to get a date with just one. It would be much better to meet someone through social activities and social circles. Most people meet a girlfriend through their own friends. But PUAs didn't talk about the importance of having many friends, because most of the audience didn't want to hear that. It was beyond their ability.
>Why is social anxiety so common, when fear of flying isn’t? I’m convinced it is because society tells us the former is natural and inevitable, while ignoring the latter.
Because people need to fly, and often. Also, there are at least two kinds of fear: Physical fear and social fear. Social fear is far stronger. People will go out in war and die rather than risk social ostracization.
Alright boys, what do you think the three or four forbidden topics are?
I'm guessing one them is guns. RH had a twitter thread of things he loves about America, and guns didn't make the list (though the death penalty did). Now there are lots of countries that practice capital punishment, but America and America's Hat are the only places where an ordinary citizen can purchase and take home a handgun in one day. So it seems odd to exclude them from the "uniquely masculine aspects of American culture" list.
If RH doesn't reply to this comment, assume he's a closet gun controller. 😜
I love how clearly you write-- it's so fun to read, even when I disagree with you.
"Why is social anxiety so common, when fear of flying isn’t? I’m convinced it is because society tells us the former is natural and inevitable, while ignoring the latter."
No way! It's just that it isn't actually as scary to fly as you surmise it should be evolutionarily. It *should* be scary to go 50 mph on a train, evolutionarily speaking, but it just obviously isn't.
Although I'm glad it helped you, pop-evo-psych is mostly garbage. The field of evolutionary psychology is based on highly questionable assumptions: the truth is that no one knows what our evolutionary past looked like, what sorts of social arrangements there were a million years ago, or whether a trait like "fear of high-status individuals" is even genetically well-specified enough to be operated on by the forces of natural selection. Simple caricatures of "tribespeople" f***ing and fighting paint a crude, animalistic and fundamentally flawed portrait of human nature. You can reject blank slatism without falling into evo-psych's story about an evolved nature: religion and literature provide a much richer and more correct understanding of human nature. [C.f. https://www.hallpike.com/wp-content/uploads/some-anthropological-objections-to-evolutionary-psychology.pdf]
But none of this is to say that I disagree with the main point, that fear is a powerful emotion, our modern lifestyles lack real danger, so our predisposition to be fearful is irrational, unhelpful, and must be overcome.
2 thoughts on the notion that addiction is a disease. 1 AA uses the phrase as a mantra yet its solution is more Maoist then APA. So they are using a "soft metaphor" as they get on with the business of the 12 steps which assumes and fosters agency. 2 The metaphor becomes "hard" and evolves into junk science when used by practitioners who have become parasitic on the war on drugs and are a piece of the justice system. These profiteers are the true believers. The therapy they provide as an alternative to being locked up is really just another form of punishment and outcomes are entirely secondary. This is where addicts are convinced they are hapless sufferers and the chemo they are forced to endure includes constant monitoring and infantilization. In this case, language and practice combine to create a thoroughly dishonest and compulsory regime of punishment-therapy, similar to the treatment Soviet dissidents received in the era of international scientific socialism.
It is this second model that has seeped out into popular culture. Of course, the non-judgmental aspect of the narrative is what leads, but lurking in the shadows are the mitigation techniques of life-long pharmaceutical prescriptions, attention-seeking as a sensitive and thoughtful type and ready excuses and apologies for behaving like a child.
Confidence and anxiety are def context/domain specific. I’m most at ease and confident at my local gym because I’m jacked and high status there. The best job interview I’ve ever had happened when I got the call mid workout.
Null hypothesis is you simply aged out of it.
I think this is one of the key reasons Mormons tend to be successful. Getting the door slammed in your face in the mission time after time teaches bravery.
Now I really need to know the topics that even Hanania won't touch.
Richard, do you happen to know of any pseudonymous substackers with interesting articles planned? ;)
While I've not suffered from anxiety, I do think that approaching and engaging with strangers nowadays has been made much more difficult because people don't seem to be "in the moment." Instead, they are transfixed by someone somewhere else that they're texting with or watching on their phones. There is less experience in spontaneous interaction as a result. With many people continuing to wear masks, this interaction is even less possible or rewarding. I find that younger people are even less likely to be open for any spontaneous engagement.