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By David Futrelle
In 1941, writer Dorothy Thompson invented what she described as “an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game” called “Who Goes Nazi?” The idea was simple: the next time you’re at a party, or some other social gathering, take a look at those around you and try to guess which ones would, “in a showdown … go Nazi.”
You don’t do this out loud, of course, unless you really want to be punched.
The game feels as relevant at this point in history as it was when Thompson wrote her classic Harper’s essay explaining the rules of the game and offering a series of descriptions of the assorted social types she thought would (or most definitely would not) turn into literal Nazis when the chips were down — from the bank vice president who “has risen beyond his real abilities by virtue of health, good looks, and being a good mixer” (definitely a Nazi in embryo) to the downwardly mobile editor who manages to be intellectual without being a snob about it, about whom Thompson remarks that she “will put my hand in the fire that nothing on earth could ever make him a Nazi.”
Thompson’s portraits of these assorted social types, and her theories about who would and wouldn’t go Nazi, are a little too pat for my tastes; she basically thinks that nice people are immune to Nazism while mean and bitter types are drawn to it like moths to a lamp.
“Kind, good, happy, gentlemanly, secure people never go Nazi,” she wrote.
They may be the gentle philosopher whose name is in the Blue Book, or Bill from City College to whom democracy gave a chance to design airplanes—you’ll never make Nazis out of them. But the frustrated and humiliated intellectual, the rich and scared speculator, the spoiled son, the labor tyrant, the fellow who has achieved success by smelling out the wind of success—they would all go Nazi in a crisis.
Not far from the truth, I think, just a little oversimplified.
Still, the game itself is genius.
Over the last couple of years, for obvious reasons, Thompson’s article has been resurrected and passed around on social media, and several writers have proposed modern updates of her famous game, from the “office edition” to one focused on media figures. The only trouble with playing the game now is that so many of those who would have gone gone Nazi in Thompson’s day already have, in ours.
While the original game is still worth playing, let me propose an alternate version that might be even more entertaining for readers of this blog: Who Goes Red Pill?
Think of the various people you’ve recently met — in real life or online — and try to figure out who among them is most likely to embrace the toxic misogynistic ideology that unites the otherwise disparate groups that make up the manosphere, from MRAs to MGTOWS to incels to PUAs. What personality traits do they exhibit? What behaviors are obvious (or not-so-obvious) tells?
Are they NiceGuys (TM) stewing in aggrieved entitlement? Do they like South Park maybe a little bit too much? Do they get suspiciously angry about female superheroes? Are they fans of Pewdiepie, or Joe Rogan, or Jordan Peterson? Do they complain that women are sexually harassing them by wearing yoga pants? Do they know more than Chris Hansen does about age-of-consent laws? Do they describe themselves as “equity feminists” or “egalitarians?”
The game is a little trickier than it might at first appear. Some of these Jordan-Peterson-loving NiceGuys have already swallowed the Red Pill (and sometimes have even embraced the even more nilhilistic Black Pill), thus disqualifying them as candidates for the game.
Others may exhibit several seemingly obvious tells — but their flirtation with the Red Pill may end up being little more than a passing phase. I’m not sure I quite understand just what makes one person a Red-Pill-swallower and another a Red-Pill-spitter-outer. But maybe you do.
Share your own thoughts below as to what personality types you think are most drawn to the Red Pill (or to Nazism, if you’d prefer to play the original version). Let the games begin!
@Paireon
If you’re not a misogynist, you’re not an incel. Lots of people have trouble with relationships and/or are virgins, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. You don’t seem like an incel, because you seem to be a good person, which incels are not.
No they’re not and as repulsive as I find their attitudes I love it that the very existence women like me upset them. They deserve it and I love to ridicule them like they deserve.
Maybe a NiceGuy(TM) is worse but I don’t think I’m even going to try to have that debate because it’s like sludge vs. slime.
But I definitely despise guys who used to claim to be friends but then revealed their NiceGuy(TM) selves.
The sad reality is that in a situation like Germany in WWII most people would either “go Nazi” or else silently go along with Nazis or do nothing whatever to stop Nazis. That game seems like a gimmick people use to try to convince themselves that they would magically be different. A better question is “What would it take for *me* to go Nazi?”
(Or Red Pill)
In a related note, one “tell” for people who are highly likely to go white nationalist/separatist/power/whatever is how much they talk about or obsess over specifically white women’s birth rates and/or miscegenation.
So far, this has been pretty much a universal tell every time I’ve encountered it.
I’m starting to think that Mr Dangles here does not seem to realize that there are policy options other than either be besties with a dictator or bomb their country. Or that anti-war and anti-interventionist are two different things.
Gotta love the smug mediocrity of the brocialist.
@IronCthulhu
Except “prolapse” in general is a term referring to slipping down of something; granted usually made in reference to bodily organs, but on occasion it can be made in reference to words and vernacular.
But even that creative turn of phrase is different compaired to you and your Manosphere ilk’s usage of a deliberately fabricated false equivalence dog whistle.
Basically your usage of the term “Divorce Rape” is an intentional red herring and false equivalence trying to trivialize and normalize actual rape by equating divorce to rape?
After all; where in any sort of divorce case does their involve, on it’s face at least; any form of sexual assault? Rape is various forms of sexual assault.
Words mean things but you and your ilk want to render words meaninglessly less.
As J. R. R. Tolkien would put in: you and your kind speak Orc Speak.
@StaceySmartyPantsTwiceRemoved – LOL no worries, you didn’t cause me distress in the least, I’m just busy and sleep-deprived, as I said. I’m also brutally honest with myself, which actually helped me a lot in bootstrapping myself into becoming a better person. And I actually feel really good about being able to talk about this openly with you folks, it’s not painful at all – or at the very worst (which is a rarity) it’s like the pain of a good bawling your eyes out when you’re really down in the dumps- it’s not immediately pleasant but you feel much better thereafter.
Plus I don’t mind the stereotypical traits much except for the fact that it pisses me off that incels are “like that”, but only because they’ve chosen to let those traits turn them into despicable, bigoted manbabies, or excuse their behavior, or make them feel entitled to shit they automatically disqualified themselves from deserving by picking up the incel label for themselves, or a mix of all the above.
TL;DR: Yes, I know my resemblance to them is purely stereotypical and surface-level, and I know I’m better than that/them, but to quote one of my favorite web series it still makes me extremely, earth-shatteringly, unreasonably fuck-ass mad. But I can live with it. Also, I think I fit pretty well in the nice guy category (NOT NiceGuy(TM), BTW – note the absence of caps and trademark so totally different LOL)
Also, good luck and good times with your sub beefcake, as always!
@Naglfar – Oh, totally agree with you on that, and while I don’t like my status as a 40-year-old virgin I don’t feel ashamed about it. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here with you folks discussing it openly.
@Paireon
It sounds like you are just a nice person. I really like that rather than nice guy without the TM (though I knew what you meant) because what does it matter what gender a person is if they are kind and genuine? Anyway, I mean just good for you.
But, yeah, no surprise it’s soooo often cisgender guys who always seem to claim to be friends but the whole time are just thinking they are I guess accumulating credits they can cash in for me doing what they want.
(possible TMI warning)
Thank you for the good wishes but he’s not my sub, he’s my slave and as I said he’s not beefcake-like, more lean and cut but muscular and strong. I see beefcake as more bodybuilder-like which I don’t like if it’s too bulked up. Really as long as that body looks masculine and sexy in his harness that’s what I want. Next time I get to play with him I am going to try straddling his back just sitting for a few minutes at first but with a goal of being able to ride him that way eventually because I would feel like such a princess and goddess. So fun! And a beautiful connection to modern goddess worship spirituality. 🙂 (I have one of my guy friends reading up on that now, at my prompting.)
@StaceySmartyPantsTwiceRemoved
Could I ask a favor? The term “slave” is extremely fraught with negative history, so it’s not a great word to throw around like that with a completely different meaning in how you’re using it to what it actually means. It’s both harmful to use it in that way and uncomfortable for those of us who don’t want to be part of your scene. You’re not even letting people opt out of using it themselves when you correct its usage, and no one has given consent to see you use it like that in the first place.
I’m really happy for you that you’re enjoying your BDSM group, but remember to always get consent from observers when bringing it to a public space. Keep it SSC, please.
@kupo and everyone
I’m so sorry. Kupo you are so right and I was insensitive. My mentor would say just what you just said. I have been getting too TMI on here about that and maybe I should take a break from posting about that part of my life here. Thank you for being so kind. I really like your posts and respect you so much.
@kupo
And you said all that so nicely without kink-shaming me or slut-shaming me at all and I so appreciate that and admire how you do thinge. I have plenty of other outlets for talking about that part of my life besides here that are more appropriate maybe so I can just read the blog and other people’s comments for a while. Plus I was too wall of text anyway lots of times. I do like using talking about my group and my partner in it (I can say it that way) to toy with trolls and I thought too that this place is pretty open and it is but yes you are right in what you say so thanks for telling me and being so awesome.
Kupo and others might clarify for Stacey whether the issue is just the word “slave”*, or bringing up the kink hobby generally**, or bringing it up too often/in too much detail***. (I don’t personally mind either way, just agree that “slave” sounds a bit crass.)
* In this case, I think “submissive” or “sub” would be more neutral kink terminology. Also “play partner” or “scene partner”, if you don’t want to be explicit about the dom/sub roles.
** If one were to skirt around the kink aspect altogether, the framing gets interesting, because this aforementioned BDSM group sounds rather unique. Maybe the guy would be a “stage partner” in “erotic performance group”?
***IDK if someone (other than incels) might also mind the detailed discussion of male physical hotness.
@Stacey
I’m honored. I’ll be your little jester, sure.
@Definitely not Steve
Pretty sure I said “unwinding”. And who am I yelling at? I actually came here because I’m tired of hearing about you feminists/leftists second-hand from screenshots on tumblr & whatnot. I want to study you up close. If entertaining you means you’ll keep me around then it’s mutually beneficial.
@Naglfar
OMG what a snowflake you are! Let me buy you a vegan cookie & give you a (consensual) hug.
@Shadowplay
Groovy man.
@IronCthulhu
Hi can you pretty please not use the word “rape” when talking about divorce, your in a space with actually rape victims that have to live with the scars and trauma from that painful body violation. I hope that was a nice enough plea for you, please don’t respond to me if you don’t want to do this. I won’t come back to this thread. I’m not strong enough for someone like you right now. Your just making people relive trauma from an actually violent crime to someone’s body and not something that comes at the end of a marriage for whatever reason, the two are not equivalent. Have a nice day.
@OxidizedCthulhu
@IronCthulhu
Do… do you often give NON consensual hugs???
Maybe don’t???????
The funny thing with choosing ‘hug’ as your ‘joke’ is that a non consensual hug is literally someone just grabbing and squeezing someone else!
It’s pretty obviously a super jerk thing to do. Like, transparently bad. The person doing it always looks like the ‘bad’ person.
Re – i want to ‘study’ feminists up close (and by implication learn from the source material rather than second hand information) –
Calling bullshit on that one, friendo. You 100% don’t want to learn, and i would think a rational man would know enough to be honest with himself and others about it.
If you wanted to learn, you would be listening to people who tell you that using the word ‘rape’ to refer to anything other than literal ‘rape’ hurts people who went through a thing we have a word for, it’s ‘rape’.
If you wanted to learn, you wouldn’t be in here picking apart what people say as you ‘wind down’. You would be engaging with it.
What you’re here for is to see your own views (feminists are sensitive snowflakes who also happen to be wrong) proven right. You’re hate reading this, the same way i would hate read whatever r/redpill subreddit i landed on. (I don’t hate read, this blog is as close as i come to that.)
But i’m not a liar, so if i *did* hate-read-and-comment, i wouldn’t imply i was there to ‘learn’. Because i wouldn’t be, and everyone would see through it in a hot second, just like we saw through you.
Iunno, maybe you will learn something. Women are human, with wants and needs as diverse as men.
Having a wife who stays at home and takes care of the kids DOES contribute monetarily to the household, since someone would need to be paid to cook, clean, and take care of the offspring. Her getting a split of the assets the man made while she took care of everything else makes sense, because she TOOK CARE OF EVERYTHING ELSE. How much money is this hypothetical man going to make going in to work with 3 children under five? With everyone in unwashed clothes? Probably won’t get that promotion he’s aiming for, i would imagine.
If you want to talk about how the divorce courts see women as the default caregivers of children, congrats, that’s feminist as fuck. Women aren’t magically all about children, and while statistically child care still falls mostly on them, we are making strides for the fathers to be more involved, and that needs to be recognised in the courts.
Guess who is actually doing real activism around that, why don’t you?
Re: this bit –
Do you honestly think that men are the only ones who have problems with this? Do you (remember, you’re being honest with yourself) think that men are the only ones with a sex drive?
Honestly????
I mean, that’s super old propaganda, friend. Like, Victorian old. Women can like and want sex as well, and men might have a change in their own want for sex. We are taught that “all men want sex 100% of the time, they are always ready to go!!!!” And “all women need to be convinced to have sex, they never want it, they have no sex drive.”
Guess who is pushing back on this one dimensional view of men and women…? Hmmm?
@TalcCthulhu: Such a pity you’re a right-wing douche troll considering we’re both Lovecraft fans… Oh well, c’est la vie.
Also, LOL @ you using the term “snowflake” considering all the special pleading in favor of your privileges you people make.
@Paireon
Conservatives like HematiteCthulhu have always been the real snowflakes. They’re the ones who melt down when you wish them a Happy Holidays or question their Dear Leader. No liberal that I’ve seen has ever had a tantrum comparable to the continued meltdown conservatives are having about having to recognize the humanity of people that aren’t exactly like them.
I mean, the right have compared Trump’s impeachment to the witch trials, the crucifixion of Jesus and Pearl Harbor just in the last week or so. And they’ve still made time for their annual meltdown over the phrase “happy holidays” so it’s never not ridiculous when they claim the left are snowflakes.
It’s more like the left gets upset about injustice while the right gets upset about infringement on their privilege. The latter is way more snowflakey.
What is it with some dudes (and they’re almost always dudes) who seem to think that their best way to “learn” about something is by running their damn mouth about it?
If I want to learn about, say, linear algebra, I don’t show up in a class about it and start making proclamations about what I think linear algebra is about. I go to the class, I listen quietly to the people who know more about the subject than I do, and then once I have a basic understanding, I’ll ask questions. Iron Cthulhu has made a lot of broad, sweeping (almost entirely incorrect) proclamations, and asked almost no questions (and absolutely no questions in good faith).
(Of course, this is all a rhetorical question, really. I know what these dudes are trying to do, and it isn’t to learn. It’s to try to show off how smart and superior they are about a topic that they’ve hardly even had to think about, because this shit is sooo easy for them and there’s nothing for them to learn, only to be proven right about.)
I can only speak for myself, but…
a) slave is definitely a no-go, in this context/usage
b) I don’t care about vaguely talking about kink or sex in general
c) when any sex talk gets into too much detail it makes me feel like an unwilling participant; if it’s only occasional I’ll just skim past it, but if it’s constant it starts to get uncomfortable
Think of it like PDA, maybe? If you’re just holding hands or cuddly or kissing that’s nbd, but if you’re full-on making out, dry-humping, etc. in public not everyone is going to be okay with that. Like with that video that went around on Twitter with the people doing BDSM dangerously and publicly on the train, the issue isn’t doing it (well, aside from not knowing enough to keep it safe), it’s that all those people around them didn’t agree to be a part of it.
Personally, I have absolutely no interest in hearing about the specific goings on of a BDSM group, but that just means that I tend to skip over Stacey’s posts. *Shrugs* My view on the matter is if other folks want to discuss it, then they can.
For what it’s worth, I’ve been in social groups where they discussed much more uncommon things (which I won’t go into since they’re not relevant).
@IronCthulhu
If you want to learn, it’s best to stay quiet and observe before running your mouth. To follow Catalpa’s comparison, the teacher doesn’t like it when you claim to know more than they do or insist that the curriculum is wrong.
I admit i’m uncomfortable reading about a bdsm group, so i typically read until i hit that, and then skip the rest.
I want this place to be sex positive (both in people having and not having sex), but i get uncomfortable about the level of detail that can be shared sometimes, especially if it comes up frequently.
I understand that you’re happy and excited, Stacey, and want to share that. But maybe this space ism’t quite the appropriate one? Maybe you could give us broad strokes here (“had a great weekend with my play partners!”) And then a link to a blog where you go more into detail?
Then people who want to read that can, and people who don’t can still be happy that you had fun.
That would be my suggestion.
@Rhuu (and everyone expect the troll)
Again I’m really sorry and like I posted right after Kupo said all that to me, I don’t have to talk about that part of my life here all detailed like that and like I said I have plenty of other outlets to share about that so I don’t have to do it here and I won’t, like I said. I really do hear what you and Kupo say. I mean I take it to heart and I won’t be explicit and TMI because it must be distressing for people who don’t like it and Kupo is right about word choice. I said before you are right and what she said is like what my mentor would say about talking about that in more public spaces. And even if it’s sex-positive still have discretion so I am so sorry again really sincerely and I value this community so much and am happy to just read and if I post not about my group. And my mentor is telling me I need to blog more and not just write in my own journal so yes you are right so thanks and sorry.
@RustedCthulhu
You are still a jerk and I’m not apologizing to you.