“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.
@lowquacks, does your pipe band tour to Highland gatherings?
I like my steak blue, yum. And I don’t mind liver and kidneys. Guess I quite like the iron tang.
And I love spiced and spicy food. We will never cross paths in a restaurant, I fear, Kitteh.
@Kittehs
Yeah, stuck to the more conventional beef sausages myself. But the drunk Scots seemed to love the haggis on the barbie.
Ok, I probably wouldn’t eat ’em unless it was that or starve, but eyes seem fairly safe. Gross, but safe. They’re mostly fluid, and that fluid has no contact with anything else and the seems pretty safe.
@argenti, I was traumatised by the monkey eyeball soup scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. That and just melting off my cinema seat every time I looked at Harrison Ford.
It ain’t the safety or otherwise of eyes that puts me off, lol.
BigMomma – I doubt I’d cross paths with many Manboobzers in restaurants, unless they were eating Italian that day. 😀
I think my issue with brains is that they look so weird. I just can’t look at that and think “mmm, dinner!”.
I was just thinking of that scene too, BigMomma!
That plus taxidermy-type work is about as much exposure to disembodied eyeballs as I need in this lifetime.
@BigMomma
I believe they do! I’m just a learner piper rather than a fully-kilted member and don’t play with the band, but we tend to take every vaguely Celtic/folk/military-themed gig we can get.
@CassandraSays
They sort of give the impression that if cut correctly they could be mushroom-esque to me.
Ha, that’s funny, lowquacks. My town hosts an annual highland gathering, has done for 100years. Imagine how surreal I found that, still slightly jet lagged from flying in from Edinburgh and there are pipers marching down the high street. This after watching kangaroos bouncing through the garden.
@BigMomma
I think I know which town you’re talking about! My dad had a similar experience moving back to Bedfordshire, where he grew up, and seeing wallabies. A population had escaped from a zoo at some point and by some miracle had managed to survive and continue.
*Sees kangaroos in garden*
*Sees pipers*
*Thinks “damn, these are some good drugs”*
That’s funny about your Dad, that would be a mind scrambler.
Does the town you are thinking have gimmicky lamp posts?
“They sort of give the impression that if cut correctly they could be mushroom-esque to me.”
AAAAAHHHHHH you had to say that, didn’t you? I like mushrooms!
@BigMomma
Not sure; I’ve never been.
@lowquacks, it’s an alleged tourist feature of the town…tartan lamp posts.
Better that than “the Big Haggis”, I suppose.
Tartan lamp posts?
ermagerd
@kitteh…I know. There is also a wee Scottish shop in town that blares tinny pipe music out and sells dodgy Scottish stuff. It’s been a strange 6yrs. We didn’t come to this town because of the Scottish thing, I need to say.
Regarding food textures, yeah, texture is important to me too. Some textures I just can’t stand. There’s a kind of cheap chocolate mousse that children generally love, but I’ve never been able to stand it (despite loving chocolate) because I’ve always thought, since I was little, that the texture is all wrong. And a few years ago when I was studying in Budapest and went back to being lacto-ovo-vegetarian for the two weeks duration of the visit (because it was hard enough to get vegetarian food there, let alone vegan food) I just hated cheese. I used to like cheese before I went vegan (seventeen years ago now), but dairy cheese has a particular texture that no other food (including soy cheese) has, and after being vegan for so long I couldn’t stand that texture either.
The texture I really dislike is fat or gristle. Bit on some on tonight’s steak – gah, that squishy resilient crunch, blerk.
BigMomma – it sounds like a concentration of Scottish Kitsch. All it needs are the bright orange wig-and-tam combinations and toy Highland cattle that are everywhere in Edinburgh and every darn woollen mill between Berwick and John o’ Groats.
(Tell me they don’t sell those things …)
On the subject of food, I’d better get lunch made and then head to bed. Niters, all!
@kitteh, it’s mostly tea towels and china scotty dogs. I kinda wish they sold the ginger tam o’shanters so I could wear them to the Aussie tennis open to support Andy Murray.
Niters, hanging on for q and a
There’s a Filipino blood soup type thing as well, Mr. HK’s father used to make it.
There’s quite a few foods I won’t eat due to texture alone, but the biggest offenders are oranges/citrus (love the flavor though) and beans.