“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.
It’s the “well you don’t have to do X but if you don’t everyone will be disappointed and you’ll be ruining everyone else’s fun and people will think you’re a killjoy” aspect that I dislike. I hate it when people manipulate each other via social shaming.
Yeah, that was part of what made me so angry. Fine if people go there knowing that’s what’s up and are happy with it, but not when it’s imposed on someone. Definitely a consent thing. If I’d gone alone just wanting a meal and had seen that setup, I’d have walked out, but one can’t spoil the fun! Well, yes, I can.
That reply was to katz, btw, but yes, seconding what you just said, Cassandra.
Plus, fuckit – I was the guest, the overseas visitor, what the hell were they thinking? That’s not because it was *me* but because you especially don’t do that to guests.
Kittehs, that’s terrible! I can’t even believe there IS a restaurant like that.
There is – my mistake, it was Milwaukee, not Chicago. Same visit, I was getting the towns mixed up. It’s called The Safe House.
I’ve been to a theme restaurant here in the 90s – Cafe Crypt. Difference was they didn’t impose shit on the customers, it was just the setting (OTT Goth for laughs, natch).
I’d be so tempted to pull a “who are these people? I’m not with them” on someone who set me up like that.
My sister and I did once take our elderly mother to a drag-themed restaurant on Mother’s Day. In our defense, she picked the place. She read a review of it in the paper that was FULL of snarky coded references to what kind of restaurant it was, but she didn’t understand them and unfortunately neither my sister nor I read the review before going.
Not that there’s anything wrong with drag shows that serve dinner! It’s just that maybe they aren’t the best place to take my mother. On Mother’s Day.
Anyway, they were very nice, even though they must have been wondering what the hell we were doing there. On Mother’s Day.
cloudiah – whoops!
Cassandra – if it’d happened here in Melbourne, where I could get home, I’d have been sorely tempted. Couldn’t get away in Milwaukee, though.
@psychodan
That makes a lot more sense, though I was thinking the way spider from mars said it, which was men and women, so I was thinking the whole thing applied to adults.
@cassandrasays
I was only offered brains after the mad cow thing (became common? More heard of? whichever.) I was in a restaurant and our table was offered free samples of tongue, brain and guts, I think I chose guts but it’s been a while. /rambles. my main point is for my recent memory ‘no brains’ has been caused by that whole thing, and I’m rambling on it.
@bigmomma
I love spicy food too! 😀
@kittehs
Me too. Especially in sausage. Either that or there’s more in sausage?
@pecunium
And…now I kind of want to try brains. That’s not something I thought I’d be in danger of saying.
@cassandrasays
That sounds really yummy. I should try it.
Kittehs-
The Safe House is a Milwaukee institution, to the point I was confused when you said Chicago (“oh hell not another of them”). It was crappy of your friends to spring it on you, but not altogether surprising, they probably thought of it as local color/fun. I was not a big fan either, which was especially unfortunate as my husband is from Milwaukee and loves the place to the point that we have Collectibles. It’s definitely the prime tourist trap (if you don’t like American football) around those parts, sort of like going to Branson or Cedar Point in the rest of the American Midwest.
I wouldn’t want Branson sprung on me by surprise either, though. I also don’t care for having rolls chucked in my face.
Thanks for that background, Valerian. It’s even more surprising in a way, because I wouldn’t have picked those two friends as being into that sort of tourist trap except maybe with their kids/grandkids, let alone thinking I’d have any liking for it.
Weird. ::shakes head::
On the other hand, I loved the Pabst Mansion and the Milwaukee Art Museum. So did Louis and Katie!
In that case my response would be “why did you take me to a tourist trap”. Isn’t one of the main advantages of having friends in any given place that they can help you avoid the tourist traps?
One would think so! Or at least who’d say “It’s really touristy, but would you like to go to X?”
If I’d known what the place was like beforehand I’d never have gone. Informed consent, what is that?
Google sez… yes, there’s a recipe that looks like I can easily adapt it. And low-carb.
I think I know what’s for dinner tonight…
I really need to believe that those comments are all Internet bravado and these guys aren’t really as awful as they want each other to think. I need to believe this because the alternative is much too terrifying for me to deal with right now.
(Sorry if the convo has moved on; I just got back from vacation and haven’t caught up with the comments yet)
I just have one question. (hypocrisy check)
What do you think of the girls mother, who was on the scene and saw her girl drowning, but did not go into the water to try to rescue her own daughter?
Forcemeat liver (terrines, sausages, etc) are fine, but the straight stuff, nope.
Argenti: But mango juice is amazing!
Lots of things are amazing, Good Gin, for example. 🙂
I am somehow more disturbed by the idea of you LARPing than eating brains…
Most LARPs are nothing like that. One dude tried to “impress” me (or perhaps the woman in his group, by trying to overpower me. Since I was an NPC with a huge amount of authority (even power), it didn’t go well for him. A bit embarrassing actually. Even more so later when there was some fencing to be done.
Falconer: Huh. Better not mention to this crowd the mango sherbet we enjoyed last summer, then.
I’m all for other people enjoying them. And it’s only the “raw” fruit (i.e. one in the skin, getting ripe) which really gets up my nose (because it gets up my nose, in the literal sense).
The PVC/foam is almost certainlt LARPing. SCA uses things that are much more substantial (rapier uses actual steel, schlägers with buttons).
Kittehserf: One of the things I hate about people who like foods others don’t is, the, “You’ve never had it done well”. Bullshit. I like lima beans. I don’t like mangoes (they taste just as the smell). Cooking spinach renders it inedible.
I am an adult. I know what I like, and telling me that I’ve been too stupid realise that for going on 50 years spinach which has been exposed to heat makes me retch, or that mangoes are (for me) one of the most revolting things on earth, is insulting.
As to the restaurant, katz hit on the head; coercive is out. So much the fuck out.
Gin *gags*
Ok, you got me. You keep that slime to yourself, and I’ll keep the sweet stuff to myself.
Oh, yes.
I love a good mango on something.
I also can’t stand the taste of garlic.
After all the grief I’ve taken over the garlic, the odds of me telling somebody else ‘no, no, suppress your gag reflex–it’s awesome!!’ are somewhat low.
Random food we loathed as kids, and I haven’t dared try again?
Stuffing. We LOATHED stuffing as children. I don’t know what it was, texture, flavor, what, but I recall it making us retch. Thankfully, we only deal with it once a year, and now that we’re an adult, we don’t get shit about how we ought to eat it.
To be fair, some foods people haven’t tried well at all. Like tofu. I swear, about 10% of the people I know who say they hate tofu, respond with “I got a pack and put it in my pasta or stir fry, it was awful”.
Then most of the people I know who “hate tofu” haven’t ever even tried it, or think that all fake meats are tofu(they’re rarely tofu, they’re more heavily processed proteins from various plants or even dairy).
I live around a lot of vegetarian haters btw, so I am exposed to a lot of ignorance about vegetarian stuff.
I have no information on what the mother did or did not do, so I can’t comment on it. If she deliberately attempted to not save her child, that’s awful. If she freaked out because her child was dying, that’s an understandable reason to freeze/panic. If she was in the process of helping, that’s awesome.
Also, this is a derail and not at all a hypocrisy check. It’s irrelevant what the mom was doing because the topic of conversation isn’t the mom, it isn’t the girl, it isn’t the man who died, it’s not even about the situation that happened – it’s that some shitty people think it’s okay to let little girls drown.
Well obviously we have no problems with her because women are perfect and can’t do anything wrong ever.
There, satisfied? I told you want you wanted to hear. Now go cite this as evidence of misandry in a highly pretentious screed and shoo.
RE: auggzilliary
Through years of practice, I have forced my body to accept tofu, but as of yet, I have still only ever encountered one form of preparation that I actually enjoyed. (And believe me, I’ve eaten tofu in many dishes–soups, deep-fried, stir-fried…) That was a little Buddhist nun’s version where she stir-fried it with tumeric and… something leafy and green and mushrooms, I think? It was a long time ago.
I don’t know what it is. Texture, maybe.
RE: justice741
Oh, you totally got us there! It’s true, we believe women are under no onus to help people. We believe that women are useless, you see.
(Note: I’m being sarcastic.)