“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.
Aw, don’t hate the LARPers! Most of my friends here are LARPers, and they always seem to have a grand old time. (The only reason we haven’t joined them is because I just KNOW it’d become a massive time-sink, and I can’t make that commitment.) I have no sense of my own dignity, so bonking someone with a foam sword is totally fine.
Regarding food–count me among the people who don’t like the texture of mango. I CAN eat it, but I don’t seek it out on my own. Fat, on the other hand, I’m on like mad. (Funny for an ED guy…)
I’m a bit ashamed that I seem to have trouble with meats that actually show what part of the animal they’re from. I veer towards vegetarianism just because I feel like if I’m too squeamish to deal with the fact that I’m eating an animal, or kill it myself, I shouldn’t eat it. (This rule applies to me, not to people around me.)
RE: Kittehserf
One of the DIY comics guys I know made a great nonfiction comic about a local Morris dancer coming back from the dead! (He had a heart attack, was officially dead for a few minutes, and then revived.) The local Morris Dancer group celebrate every year the man’s recovery.
You have no idea how unfortunate the mental images this conjures up for a Brit are.
Cassandra – or an Aussie! 😀
LBT – what a great idea!
RE: CassandraSays and Kittehserf
You two have dirty, dirty minds.
I’m all, but how would you get the foam firm enough for it to…
RE: CassandraSays
Ask not, lest ye be answered.
And now I’m seeing Thomas asking Raige all those zombie questions…you really don’t want to know.
RE: Argenti
Never, ever ask about zombie procreation. Unless you plan to be celibate for the rest of your afterlife.
Look, I know there’s a stork involved, and am going to choose to believe it’s summon by the Good (neither good nor nice) Magician or something!
RE: Argenti
It was a weird retcon. For the first six books, people had kids the normal way, and then in Book Seven, Piers Anthony decided to make this whole ‘summoning the stork’ thing, which isn’t actually a euphemism. Hugging very closely creates an ellipses, which goes to the stork and tells them to bring babies. So now there’s apparently no pregnancy in Xanth, and women just gain weight for… reasons?
I am so sad that I remember these things. I am also sad that even without any exaggeration, it SOUNDS completely made up.
At least it’s doesn’t have, um, I’ll let Voltaire handle this one…
http://youtu.be/bcON9ZmGDBc
Now, idk wtf these … have to do with it, but at least it isn’t that ^
I had to make a great deal of effort not to spit out my iced tea when I got to the bit about the tip.
(We hate sex, feminists, we don’t like jokes about it at all.)
You made it that far without putting down your tea? *is impressed*
LBT – a dirty mind? Moi? I am shocked, shocked! you would suggest such a thing.
SittieKitty – “I’d rather be called no fun then be laughed at…”
I’m not that fussed about doing stuff I want to, because what strangers think of that, well, meh, tough shit, who’re they? Yet things like tripping on rough paving, or going the wrong way coming out of a shop, or tiny trivial things like that, embarrass me. How silly is that?
On the fun part, what I am NOT interested in is being pressured to do stuff or try food because “It’ll be fun/tasty! Go on, try it, you’ll like it! Don’t be a wimp/killjoy!” I loathe that sort of “we know what you like better than you do” with a side order of bullying. Like a time in Chicago when friends had booked a restaurant and hadn’t bothered to tell me it was a spy-theme restaurant. You couldn’t get in without doing some little song and dance at the entrance, which was filmed and broadcast inside. I wasn’t remotely interested in this sort of shit, least of all when it was sprung on me, and I flat out refused to do it. My sense of humour had gone minus-zero in that situation. Fortunately the staff member realised she’d better just let us in – she ran some spiel about me not breaking under interrogation – but oy, friends, NEVER DO THAT TO ME. I won’t cave like I would have twenty, thirty years ago, I’ll just get really, really angry.
Kitteh, ugh. I hate Wacky Surprises. Come on, people.
I hate Wacky in general, and would tend to expect friends to know this about me and not put me in situations where being publicly wacky is required.
They call it a surprise because if they said let’s all get together and blind side someone it wouldn’t sound like any fun at all, now would it.
What got me was that it was two friends I’d never expect to do that. I’m not sure they didn’t think I knew what the restaurant was like – which is really stupid itself: hello, Chicago, never been there, never heard of this place, how the fuck would I know what it was like? Not to mention that booking it without finding out first if I was okay with it was stupid.
At least they know now not to try something like that again.
I can imagine a frame of mind I could be in where that would sound fun and I certainly know people who would love it, but anyone with two brain cells to rub together should know that a lot of people would die of embarrassment doing something like that. Why do people feel like it won’t be fun if they just ask ahead of time?
…I’m seeing a little parallel with consent here.
And then when the person who gets the “surprise” doesn’t react well everyone immediately starts going on about them not being a good sport and ruining the evening and how it’s their own fault for not appreciating the fact that the intentions were good and…
I’m thinking katz might be on to something here.
Exactly, katz! I’d much rather have known and had the chance to say no (which I probably would, these days). Being humiliated for other people’s amusement is not my thing.
I hadn’t thought of the consent parallel, but it is creepily similar.
Cassandra – oh gods, yes. I got so much “just do it” from my friends – not in a nasty way, but they were surprised and, I think, embarrassed that I was refusing and angry about it. “It’ll only take a minute and then we can go in,” yeah, well, fuck that, I’m not a goddamn performing animal with no choice in the matter.
‘sfunny how that came back, I hadn’t thought about it in ages. Lurking in the depths of old annoyances, ready to spring!
The coercive aspect is what makes it so bad, IMO. “Hey, you can dance for the camera if you like; it’ll be fun!”: probably I won’t, but whatever, it’s just silly. But when it turns into “You can’t do X until you dance for the camera,” then that’s demeaning.