“Zed,” also known as “The Zen Priest,” was one of the originators of the Men Going Their Own Way “philosophy” and is treated as a wise elder by many longtime MRAs.
WF Price of The Spearhead described a compilation of Zed’s writings as “really quite profound as well as a great read” and used to give it out as a bonus for everyone who signed up for his email newsletter. Paul Elam of A Voice for Men laid it on a bit thicker, saying of the man he described as both a mentor and a friend:
[H]is writings have taken him to iconic status in the minds of many men who have been at this for a while, this writer included. This has happened despite the fact that he has eschewed the path of self promotion and opted to speak from behind the persona of an archetype, maybe because of it. Either way, he has wielded a sharp sword from his underworld den, and worn the uniform of a warrior in the battle for sanity between men and women … .
So what kind of fellow is this Zed?
Well, as I learned from a recent thread over on MGTOWforums.com, where he is officially an “elite member,” he’s the sort of person who thinks you should’t bother to save a four-year-old girl from drowning, because then she’ll grow up into a woman, and most of them are just terrible.
The regulars on the forums there were discussing the case of Michael Patterson, a Georgia man who was paralyzed after diving into a creek to rescue a four-year-old girl from drowning, and who has now died after several weeks in the hospital.
While a few suggested that Patterson was a hero, others made clear they wouldn’t have done the same thing themselves. 0kool put it like this:
i know i would never save an adult CUNT….and i know that as sure as i breathe air. however, i would be hard pressed to save a female child knowing what she might have the potential to do in the future. My hat’s off to the guy. Let’s hope his death isn’t in vain and the child doesn’t become a CUNT piece of shit!
Zed, that grand underground warrior for gender sanity, that icon of the Men’s Rights movement, argued the same thing in slightly more restrained prose. In one comment, he warned of the dire possibility that the seemingly innocent little girl you save could grow up to be
another Amanda Marcunt, or Jessica Valenti, or Betty Friedan? Do we think it is worth a man giving his own life to save the life of a woman who will spend it being totally destructive?
In another, he raised the specter of an even more hated figure, at least amongst MGTOWers and MRAs:
Given the evidence around me, it does appear far more likely that a girl will grow up to be another Sharon Osborne – who thinks it is “fantastic” when a woman cuts off the penis of her husband, or the audience of women who cheered that statement – than a woman who contributes much, even to her own family.
I really can’t think of any woman in the public light who the world would be much worse off without.
When a female is in trouble, if I don’t know her, I don’t see her.
This is the kind of timeless wisdom that makes you an icon in the Men’s Rights movement, I guess.
NOTE: Thanks to @taylerlp on Twitter for the tip.
EDITED TO ADD: When I wrote this post, there were 13 or so comments in the MGTOWforums thread; there are considerably more now, including a number from MGTOWers who say they WOULD try to save a little girl. But Zed only doubles down on his position.
Oh, I wasn’t researching it, just looking for an online copy of McGonagall’s poem for those poor innocents who’d never read it, and browsing the other sites while I was at it. It was seeing the name Tom Martin that caught my attention. 🙂
leftwingfox – in the current open thread. It’s nested in a comment about reading some weird fic (fanfic?) about men in kilts. I think I’m still The Kittehs’ Unpaid Help on Femniste, but my avatar’s the same as here.
Yeah, I’ve known about McGonagall for ages – Mum got the Reader’s Digest copy of Prebble’s book sometime back in the 60s. Knowing about his poem was incidental to knowing about the bridge, as it happens. Plus I went through a bit of an 1850s Britain phase ten years ago or so, hence visiting Scotland then (it’s all her fault).
Got it.
The failure was the result of a lack of critical analysis, catastrophic brittle failure, poorly-fit members, and ignored warnings. Nothing there that is even REMOTELY reminiscent of the MRM.
LOL just looked in at the Feministe thread and Willard says zie doesn’t know if zir soul will ever recover from the anguish of being introduced to McGonagall! 😀
Ha, that’s an apt comparison, nedbeaumontjr!
Could one say the MRM is the Beaumont Egg of social movements? (Prolly better comparisons but I’m itching to introduce Beaumont Egg into the terminology somehow.)
For those who asked, I NEVER would identify as single. I’m married, have been for years.
RE: BigMomma
ROBBIE BURNS! 😀 I went to Burns Night once, and it was FABULOUS. (Helps that our birthdays are really close to each other.)
RE: Argenti
(Totally worth it, now get Biff printed for me! [please and thank you])
I will. Give me a break, the past ten days, I’ve sold seven stories, Sneak pet-sat for a weekend, cleaned a dude’s house, and had my anniversary. I didn’t plan on that much success, so ‘Bodily Reconstruction’ got delayed till this week.
LBT — oh gods, as if whatever the fuck this is with the zombies wasn’t bad enough…
Hey, I only MST the worst of the worst.
RE: Kittehserf
I would far rather give the credit to people who prompted and paid me, that’s for sure.
Even if trollorion was in the queue for muse status (which he isn’t), he’d be waaaay back behind everyone who suggested prompts for LBT’s writeathon.
LBT — I was (mostly kidding about Bodily Reconstruction, I have too much data to read it anyways! I almost want more zombie MST, but then remember you’d have to read it for that >.<
Everyone — I'm going to post something long in the survey thread, can you pop over and give me opinions? Thanks!
RE: Argenti
That MST actually ran dry because the book was so TEDIOUS. Seriously, you have no idea how much padding I was cutting, and normally I’m a stickler for completionism. Everything had to be explained OVER and OVER. It just wasn’t enough to make up for the sheer crackery of pedozombies.
@LBT, I have heard the McGonagall nights are like an anarchic Burns Night…did you have haggis at your Burns Night?
RE: BigMomma
It was there (and the people went to a LOT of trouble to get it; the city didn’t have any place to get haggis, requiring lots of driving) but I’m sad to confess I didn’t dare try it. *hangs head in shame*
Took the better portion of an hour, but I just took apart my Mighty Mouse, cleaned the scroll wheel and out it back together, and actually fixed it!
I fixed an apple product not designed to be repair 😀
Do you know what haggis is supposed to taste like, BigMomma? The one time I tried it (at a pub, which probably says it all) it was just like mincemeat saturated in pepper. Very disappointing.
Good work Argenti!
Thanks SittieKitty, now I can get back to work on the survey with a working scroll function!
Argenti: Pecunium — how can you be Catholic and anything else?! HOW???
Ignoring that Catholic is a family of religions (and so one may use other services in lieu of Roman Catholic when RC services are not available, and some lapsed RC attend other members of the Catholic family of relgions [e.g. Episcopalian] because that suits their need for community and ritual, while they have not renounced their membership/sense of identity as a Roman Catholic) there are denominations (e.g. UU/Quaker) which don’t require one to believe things which are at odds with Catholic dogma, doctrine, or practice.
Other faiths (Voudoun, Santeria) are parallel/related (because of borrowing/missionary/syncretisms). I know some RC who also practice Santeria.
People are complicated, and can encompass a lot of things which ought to be contradictory, Dawkins and his attitudes on women, ought to be at odds with his understanding of biology.
But he still thinks men and women are 1: really different, and 2: women suck.
“Other faiths (Voudoun, Santeria) are parallel/related (because of borrowing/missionary/syncretisms”
I tried exactly that example! She retorted that they aren’t Catholic. Honestly I think half the problem was that she’s all “go baptists!” now and hates the Catholic Church (or at least the priest at the one she grew up in).
In other things, Lithuania is absurdly white, so are Finland, Estonia, Denmark, Czech Republic, and Austria. Like, over 90%, approaching 100%. Iceland is less white and I’d have expected them to be Very Fucking White.
And I have Argentina as very white, I need to check that…
(Working on that ethnicities I’d expect to see given the wide range of [apparently very white] countries we got replies from)
California does the ‘reduce’ thing too, but in an awful way. If you get work you have to declare your gross income; for the worked period. That will be deducted from your next check (1:1), regardless of when the actual date of payment from the employer happens to be.
When I was last collecting I got a part-time job… gross was about 92 a fortnight. Net was less (taxes: call it 70), so my 392 a month was cut by 184, and I was therefore grossing about 330. Fun times (this was back in ’94). Best part… it doesn’t actually extend the life of your claim; and if you have to open another claim your benefits will actually be less than they would if you hadn’t been working during that claim.
Fucked up.
Oooooh, white Spanish. That makes sense. Sorry I doubted you Argentina. (Lol, autocorrect wants to make that into Argenti, cute)
Yeah CT requires you file weekly, or open a new claim. PA I was filing every other week since I could pay rent on that and also stretch it out longer. (Got myself an extra year in PA that way!)
That is really interesting, Argenti. I also would have expected Iceland to be Very Fucking White. I’m not as surprised about Argentina, just because of all of the Europeans who emigrated there, intermarried, and now consider themselves castizos (i.e. white) rather than mestizos (mixed race). Uruguay is the same way, as I recall.
Calif. requires a weekly statement of progress (jobs applied for, wages earned). Claim is good for a period of weeks: can be suspended. Suspended means you don’t have the 1 month delay from approval to first check.
But from the termination of one claim, you have to wait 180 days (as I recall) from the last open day of the claim to enter another one, and the value of the claim is based on income/time. There are rules for how that’s computed, but it’s sort of better to be totally unemployed, than partially employed. It’s fucked up.
Btw, PA no longer has any sort of welfare available to non-parents waiting for federal disability. Nothing. And it was only $80 in the first place, but that’s enough to sublet a room in some apts (college town, people shove in as many people as feasible, and I’m college age and look fairly normal, despite being batshit insane)
Oh yeah, I actually doubled my insanity pill today, fun! My pharmacy student on call confirmed I should be fine, but I still feel like an idiot.
Eesh. I feel lucky. There may not be welfare per se, but at least here I can get about $300 a month while my SSI app is in process and if I fill out all the requisite paperwork.
Though I’m having one of my periods of doubt, seeing as the past ten days, I did so much work. I feel kinda worn out (oh god, I have bonus sketches and printing to do, plus writing commishes) but I’m actually GETTING somewhere!
I, for one, can wait. In part because data burn out.
I should be researching ethnic breakdowns of, um, 11 more countries. And thn doing a weight average. And then some chi squared math. And then a chart.
And then politics. And then religion. And then smartassery. And then cats.
@LBT, Kitteh, good haggis is hard to get. It’s like a peppery, lamb mince really, best to think of it like that. Bad haggis can be sticky/greasy, good haggis is like slightly crumbly meatloaf. You can make a veggie one using mushrooms and barley. I quite like both types of haggis actually. What about black pudding?
Sorry for delay in replying, was taking eldest daughter to a sleepover and stayed for a cuppa.