The Importance of Being Sexy
Why "Traditionalism" Fails at Solving the Relationship Crisis
It is very important to identify a problem accurately. When the incorrect problem is identified, then incorrect solutions are entertained, and it becomes very challenging to determine why these solutions don’t seem to solve the problem we feel even if they technically resolve the problem we articulated. This is how I summarize the relationships crisis felt worldwide by men, women, and all the confused people who believe they are in between.
The foremost symptoms of the relationship crisis are these: a low marriage rate, people getting married later, a low birth rate, people questioning whether or not having children is even a good thing, an open hatred of women by men in male discourse, an open disdain of men by women in mainstream culture, people making LOTS of money selling “relationship advice”, and a culture where it is considered “realistic” to not believe in true love.
Traditionalism attempts to solve the problem in a very allopathic way, for lack of a better word, because it addresses the symptoms rather than truly understanding the root cause. Traditionalism is the logical idea that if relationships between men and women were better in the past, then perhaps we can imitate social and cultural aspects of the past to solve the problem today. This seems like a sound idea.
However, there are many holes in this strategy that are not always considered. Which past are people referring to, when they talk about when the problem did not exist? How can we be sure that the past we use to recalibrate the present didn’t contain within it the inchoate beginnings of the very crisis we face today. For example, do we need to refer to the social culture of 1950s America, or 1850s England, or do we need to return to the Eurasian Steppe in 1200 AD? In addition, there is no system by which mere “traditionalism” can determine which aspect of this nebulous past was so conducive to healthy relationships. You cannot see the solution unless you understand the problem.
The problem is best articulated by Oswald Spengler in “The Decline of the West Volume II” and I heard it explained very well in a spaces episode on twitter co-hosted by @SperglerAcolyte and @_MedGold.
(Spengler, pg 316)
Human beings comprise both bestial and angelic qualities. This means we have bestial instincts, but we also have rationalism that permits us to make conscious decisions and understand the world through logic.
Neuroticism Kills Sexiness
We are beasts, but we can also be aware of ourselves. These two impulses work well when they are used in the correct contexts. Being too aware of yourself, and in the wrong context, is called neuroticism. Neuroticism, insofar as it is a hyperawareness of the self, is a form of narcissism. This narcissism is at the core of all of the problems that inhere in the relationship crisis.
Sexiness is not just about physical appearance, it is about being able to be present in the moment, and to stop thinking about yourself. The most charming people are not always thinking about themselves. Neurotic people are. Both men and women, in their chronic isolation and lack of socialization have sabotaged their sexiness and they’re going about it all wrong to try to solve the problem.
Young people are now confused about what sex they are because they’re spending time thinking about it at all. Have your ancestors expended any energy at all on such an absurd question as “am I really a girl?” Young men think far too much about how and where they should flirt with a girl, and this is why they solicit the help of “gurus” to help them. They spend more time calculating how to approach a girl rather than just going up to her and being cool, making her laugh, telling her how pretty she is and then asking to take her out for ice cream. They spend their time trying to construct a feminine appearance through cosmetics and surgeries (not unlike trans “women”). They are effortlessly pretty and sweet and don’t have neurotic Type A plans about when they want to find their serious boyfriend, finish “building their career” and then get off birth control to have their first child. Even girls snapping out of the feminism bubble are still buying type A guides on “how to be more feminine,” completely missing the point that they need to think less not more.
An entirely different essay can be written about the nutritional and medical contributors to the relationship crisis, but I believe that essay would not address the main issue. You can be a perfectly healthy specimen of human, sitting alone in your room, with no social skills to go and talk to someone you find attractive.
The widespread popularity and acceptance of prostitution and sexual promiscuity among women is paired with an unbearable sexlessness between young people. Young people do not experience romance as frequently in the same way; it is no longer fun and effortless. This is why they are not getting married young: they are thinking too much about it.
Birds are better than you because they don’t make pros and cons lists
Most egregious, in this confusion, is the greatest symptom of the relationship crisis: people asking the question, “Is it Rationally beneficial for me to have a child?” The presence of this question alone in the collective psyche is a sign that mankind in the dominant culture is seriously divorced from his instincts. Spengler writes about the fact that beasts do not question whether they should reproduce, they just do. Birds don’t need to read or study about how to select a mate, they just understand instinctively. Beasts cannot lie to themselves. Rationalism is what permits man to lie to himself. It follows that rationalism is what permits man to separate himself from his most fundamental natures that teach him about beauty, survival, hunger, and that most basic impulse toward life: sex and reproduction, that has no why behind it.
A man or woman asking, “why should I have children?” is equal to them asking, “why should I live?”
Logically, both of these activities invite great suffering and pain. Nevertheless, even the ant that runs to avoid a boot that might crush it, understands the answer at some primordial level. What has made man so numb to these basic instincts? What makes man pause under the boot and ask “why, logically, should I run?”
This question is masked in many ways. People argue that children affect the climate, that they affect your ability to “travel” and “make money” or that one is not “mature enough” to raise children properly. All of these are, frankly, excuses that allow the individual to avoid the more serious existential dilemma that a rationalist society has burdened them with. The question “should I have children”...should have never been asked in the first place. Self-destruction is the fashion of modern culture. Everyone now must justify why they should live, and they are not even aware of the philosophical abuse they tolerate.
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