“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.
If you’re questioning that, you’ve either never read AVfM or have really poor reading comprehension skills.
You’ve already been told crazy is no more acceptable than insane on this site. It’s not a matter of having offended individual members, it’s blog usage.
lmao. did a spider actually just say that? unless you’re an actual spider that’s as cute as this (an actual spider pic for those who get creeped out by them), then I third the fuck off.
Plus, you’re a paradigm of synergistic disruption, reaching out to streamline your disruption of empowerment and diversity, attempting to grow the impact of your words in order to leverage your position in a proactive exit strategy.
Yes, I can use buzzwords to create word salad too! And yes, they make more sense then whatever you typed, even though they’re complete nonsense.
Blauregan, I don’t know where you usually frequent online, but going Dictionary Lawyer doesn’t go far at all in these parts. Just because medical professionals don’t call people “crazy” doesn’t mean the word magically avoids the connotation of mental illness.
Like, no shit: nobody thought you were giving anyone a DSM diagnosis by using the word “insanity”.
Triple-signing the aforementioned “fuck off”.
“@Ally S I remember a few comments from a self-declared radfem-site that wished for M2F to experience abuse.”
True, some of the cissexism from radfems is violent in nature. But for the most part, it’s still not like what’s found among most MGTOWS.
“Leading and commonly acknowledged MRA officially condone and support assault?”
There are many examples, but Angry Harry comes to mind immediately.
blah-ren, why don’t you just use the words to actually mean what you say? As in “Those people act awful and that’s due to them being assholes”. If you aren’t even creative enough to come up with synonyms for ableist shit, maybe you shouldn’t be writing on a mockery site…
also, you should read over the last thousand+ posts on this blog. They’re pretty much about prominent MRAs and people who are considered to represent the movement as a whole, as well as prominent MGTOWs, PUAs, ect. And they fucking advocate, not just support and condone, abuse against women.
@Kittehserf: I’am just not used to so much sensititivity regarding ‘insane’ and ‘crazy’, because I don’t associate them strictly with mental health problems.
The apple macintosh was for example described as ‘insanely great’, ‘crazy prepared’ is a common phrase that doesn’t necessarily imply mental health problems, and in my language the equivalent terms ‘verrückt’ and ‘irre’ are quite often used in both a positive and a negative context meaning exceptional/unusual/beyond the normal, though admittedly that wasn’t what I meant here.
Anyway. Thank you for the explanations. I will try to avoid the terms here.
blauregen, you should read this because you still don’t really see why we think it’s problematic.
blauregen: you’ve been told that “crazy” and the like don’t fly here, so stop rules lawyering and trying to pass it off as a quirk of your language.
In short, fuck off.
My favorite part of Spider’s little rant was the “female-run patriarchy” bit.
@Ally S: Thank you for the link. Looking up Angry Harry.
Here’s an example of Angry Harry’s horribleness:
[TW: domestic abuse apologia]
From http://trishwilson.typepad.com/blog/2006/07/angry_harry_on_.html
Have you actually read any MRA sites, blauregen? You do know Elam says male jurors should vote not guilty in any rape trial, even if it’s clear the defendent is guilty? You know he says he’d do so himself? You know he carried Thomas Ball’s terrorist manifesto on his front page as a call for action for ages? You know he’s said men should slam women’s faces into the wall and then make them clean the blood?
And look at the very thing this article is about: these men want men to leave little girls to drown. They don’t want women in the world at all, they want us dead.
This isn’t extremeist fringe ranting vis a vis the MRM: it’s the core, the stuff of which it is made.
Agree with kittehserf.
I don’t really think blauregen is that dumb or anything. He sounds like those people who don’t really know much about the MRM, so they don’t realize how bad it is.
It doesn’t sound like he has ever read an MRM site.
Ignore the “that” in “that dumb”, since I sounded condescending.
I’m hoping blauregen hasn’t read any of their sites, auggz! Too many trolls here praise Elam et al for being such great guys and never, never answer when they’re asked how such great guys espouse violence against women.
@Ally S: The example is rather implicite, but yes I can see how it can be understood as promoting abuse. Your position regarding ‘ableism’ is understood too.
@Kittesehrf: I followed a few links to AVFM and the Spearhead (some from here), but I don’t read them regularly, and yes I am aware of that Paul Elam-citation.
Although the last person advocating men’s rights, I discussed with explicitely disowned Paul Elam, so I don’t think he considers him an authority, and none of the people I spoke with advocated assault or violence.
blauregen, you do realize there is a difference between using something as a compliment and pejorative, right? Saying something is “crazy good”, which is still using the term inappropriately, is not the same as saying someone is “insane” – one is associating crazy with wacky or unusual, the other is associating insane with wrong and abnormal.
But regardless, it doesn’t matter what the reason is, once someone has said and explained why using a term is *-ist, it’s pretty much decent behaviour to apologize for the usage and avoid it, instead of trying to come up with workarounds.
I don’t mean to be rude, but if you’re going to offer strongly stated opinions that movement X is basically good and worthwhile and should be taken seriously it might be a good idea to dig a little deeper than “saw some comments on a blog from someone who identified as part of X and they seemed reasonable”. If you can’t be bothered to familiarize yourself with the main sites associated with movement X before offering your opinion on it to an audience full of people who’re already deeply familiar with the movement in question then you really shouldn’t expect anyone to take you seriously.
And Ally S. explained the problem very well. Again thank you, Ally S. And again, I am sorry if I offended anyone with those terms.
“because you cannot stand my truth and beauty”
It blinds!
Blauregen, just reading posts on this blog should give you an idea of what the MRM, MGTOW and PUA mobs are like.
Also, what the hell rights don’t men have that women do?
@CassandraSays
Ok, my background: I familiarized myself over the course of several discussion with the demands and criticisms of men’s right advocates. Admittedly I didn’t read much AVFM, because in most english discussions, I read, they were labeled as often extremist and unnecessary provocative. From what I gathered the kind of men’s rights movement they represent is more concerned with anti-feminism than with gender equality or men’ right anyway.
After going through a few articles by Karen Straughan, who was recommended to me, I noticed too that at least she apparently has a penchant for historical revisionism.
Overall, yes. I think the men’s movement has a few good points and at least in europe their activities served to bring some problems into the public consciousness, which, as an example, led to policy decisions of the European Court of Justice, which subsequently prompted national governements to change to fairer custody laws.
So it looks like the whole “insane” thing is over (pun utterly intended). But did I mention that I found an SSI lawyer? I’m strangely proud that other people think I’m fucking nuts. (Oh gods, my brain is so fried I just…take fucking nuts in the sense that involves fucking, and walnuts/almonds/etc)
It’s official, I should give up forming sentences and go back to writing formulas in excel. (Guys! Guys! I have gender, ethnicity, religion and smart assery left! I’m like half done, question wise! And David gave me permission to do an interactive infographic!)
*collapses into thread* please send pizza, and a canoli.
Yeah I hope I don’t sound rude, I don’t really understand why you’re here, blauregen.
I’m not trying to be mean, btw, tone is hard to tell through the Internet sometimes.
Are you just a n00b MRA, and you’re interested in learning about it more, including the awful parts? How long have you known about the MRM, and how long have you been an MRA?
Does it not concern you that Straughan was recommended to you as a person whose opinions were worth considering? How deep have you dug into, say, Fathers for Justice in the UK?
What I’m getting at is that once you dig a little deeper you’ll find that the anti-feminism isn’t just an occasional glitch, it’s at the core of the MRM. There’s also a disturbing prevalence of men with documented histories of abusing their partners and children, and of supporting men known to have done either/both.