Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW)

A growing number of men identify themselves as MGTOW. In other words, they no longer feel bound by society's expectations of how they should live or what they should strive to achieve (marriage, family, career, etc.). This can mean different things for different men, but at a minimum it entails no marriage, no cohabitation, and no children. Apart from those benchmarks, the men feel at liberty to do whatever their hearts desire regardless of whether society frowns upon it. Some MGTOWs earn as little as they need to survive in order to enjoy life more. Some MGTOWs "ghost" and drop off the radar to live anonymously in foreign lands. Some MGTOWs minimize or cut off their relationships with women. And some MGTOWs do the opposite of all these things.

This has gathered more mainstream attention of late, but it also has caused a sort of civil war within the manosphere. An article at the popular "red pill" website Return Of Kings ignited a firestorm of controversy by scorning men who go MGTOW. The comments demonstrate that MGTOWs indeed are numerous and will not be shamed into re-assuming their traditional roles anytime soon.

Under ordinary circumstances, I would agree that going MGTOW is selfish and narcissistic, for society depends on people who live for more than just themselves. But here's the thing: modern "society" is depraved and not worth preserving.

Since women already have cast off the chains of their traditional roles -- something they are quite proud of, by the way -- it stands to reason that men will do so as well. For every action there is an equal but opposite reaction, and it is presumptuous in the extreme to expect men to stay on the plantation picking cotton when everyone else is having a party. For a man to persist in a traditional role today amounts to making himself into a mark. Plenty of men have walked the straight-and-narrow path only to have their lives destroyed in the the family-court gulag. A man's wife, house, and children are no longer his, since they all can be taken away by force of law for any reason or no reason. Even if the family remains intact, the man has no say in what his children are taught by his teachers or Hollywood -- who are both hostile to him -- meaning that he will leave no legacy (unless perhaps he goes Amish). To make the tremendous sacrifices of investing in these things makes as much sense as plowing the ocean. 

Apart from family matters, there is precious little that men can count on. The more he earns, the more the government steals from him to finance unconstitutional wealth transfers to hordes of parasites. The more he saves, the more the government depresses the interest rate to punish him and reward profligate spenders. The more honest, earnest, and sincere he is, the more he is lampooned in the popular culture.

Why should it come as any shock that some men politely decline this? And that's all they're doing -- politely walking away. You wouldn't know it from all the sound and fury directed at them, much of it from other men. There is no sound basis for attacking people who are not engaging in hostilities, UNLESS you admit that you can't do without such people. And that's why MGTOW has everyone scared. They should be.