The Masculine Principle

The Masculine Principle is a philosophical concept that is described in the beginning of Otto Weininger's Sex and Character. Throughout the book, Weininger refers to "The Male Principle" or "The Female Character" in a way that

Click Pic for "Sex and Character"

means "The Absolute Male" or "The Purely Female." In reality however, there is no such thing as a 100% masculine male or a woman that is completely female. What is present instead is an over-riding "principle" that dominates a man or woman's character in varying degrees.

". . . The fact is that males and females are like two substances combined in different proportions, but with either element never wholly missing. We find, so to speak, never either a man or a woman, but only the male condition and the female condition. Any individual is never to be designated merely as a man or a woman, but by a formula showing that it is a composite of male and female characters in different proportions."
-- Otto Weininger, Sex and Character, "Males" and "Females"

For example, the average man is not "purely male," but instead something like 80% male principle and 20% female principle. Therefore this average man is influenced mostly by the male principle, but also to some degree by the female principle. Another man standing next to him might be 60% male principle and 40% female principle, which still makes him dominated by the male principle, but he takes on more female characteristics as well. Females obviously are dominated by the feminine principle in the opposite but corresponding way. Thus, the name of the book - Sex and Character.  

This philosophical concept can be visually observed with the diagram of the Yin and Yang. Men and women are two sides of the same coin, but those sides are not the same. They are starkly distinct from eachother. Also, in each side can be found a dot of the other - but they are still distinct from eachother. The dots aren't an androgynously melded grey area, but rather distinctly represent the characteristic of the opposite side - white or black.  

This manifests itself both physically and psychologically.

In a newborn baby boy, for example, a few drops of milk might secret from his nipples. In fact, the rudimentary biological structure is in place within the male's nipple to secret milk just as in a female's - it's just not as developed in the male's body, but the female element is still present. Conversely, women have facial hair just as men do, except theirs is finer and does not grow in as thickly as a man's. This is the male element present in a female's body. And, when observing that some women have more facial hair than others, we can say that in regard to that specific characteristic, one woman has a greater degree of the masculine element, say 20%, than the woman with less facial hair, who exhibits 10% of the masculine element. In both cases, the women are dominated by their female characteristics, but display characteristics of the other sex to a varying degree. Some men have wider hips than others, but they are still "men," and some women have less developed breasts than others while still being "women."

Click Pic for "Hardwired Differences Between Male and Female Brains...""

In the same way, men and women have different psychological characteristics which form their mental character - and while no-one is fully of the male psychology or the female psychology - when detached and in the concept of an absolute "principle," it becomes much easier to define what is "male" and what is "female."

Thus the title of this book, The Masculine Principle.

The following pages explore what the masculine principle actually is, and of course, how it relates to and compliments the female principle - and vice versa. Why is it that marriage has produced, throughout all of recorded history, a synergy that is a greater force than merely the two opposite parts? Would there be any synergy at all if both halves were androgynously grey?

In the corporate world, mergers and acquisitions are motivated by synergies - they seek to add new companies into the fold that compliment eachother, rather than merely to grow into a larger corporate blob of the same nature. eBay, for example, purchased PayPal several years back not because it was a competitor of theirs, but because they wanted to enhance eBay's performance as a company and speculated this could be accomplished with adding PayPal's unique payment system to eBay's existing structure. Well, that was the idea anyway - not just to "grow" but to create a synergy that made a combination of the two worth more than they would be separately. Both had a role to play - eBay to sell the product, and PayPal to collect the money. What they did not do was buy PayPal and try to turn it into a competitor of theirs. 

A man and a woman can create such a synergy within the family, if they compliment eachother rather than compete with eachother. An example might be how fathers traditionally have been the authority figure in the household - a position that needs clearly defined principles of right and wrong to be established and enforced. The father will generally make it known that his daughter should not come home pregnant, for that would clearly be wrong. The mother, however, by following the female principle, has a more diffuse concept of right and wrong and is motivated by her compassion to forgive her daughter's transgression and help her rather than punish her - to show mercy, as it were. But, it must be noted, one cannot actually show mercy unless it has first been established that the daughter did, in fact, do something wrong. Mercy without the principle of right and wrong is not actually mercy. It needs justice for it to exist as a concept, otherwise it is merely blind emotion and instinct - which is how animals exist in their brutal and harshly uncivilized world.

In this case, the synergy is created by the masculine principle establishing right and wrong, but being made into something mercifully forgiving by the influence of the feminine principle. Together, the two principles combine to create something better than they were separately. The father should not kick the daughter out of the house, but instead ought to show her mercy. On the other hand, the mother should not be so overwhelmed with compassion that she refuses to even acknowledge the daughter did wrong. If it is not first established that a wrong was committed, then what is to stop all of the rest of their daughters from coming home pregnant as well? Together, these principles combine to create a system of justice that is capable of showing mercy, and the offspring of the man and woman will fare much better as they attempt to survive in the world because of it. A synergy has been created because the man's character and woman's character complimented each other rather than entering into competition with each other.     

Click Pic for "The Truth About Misogyny"

Be forewarned, however, that what we are about to explore is not a politically correct topic. This subject is one that exposes many of the falsehoods people like to tell themselves for the lies which they really are. Over the past couple of centuries - and especially in the past few decades - our society has become increasingly influenced by the feminine principle - to the detriment of the masculine principle and the synergies created by its combination with the feminine. One of the effects of this has been the over-riding of the objective truth with the subjective truth.

Truth must be ordered for it to be a functional benefit to humans. America's Founding Fathers borrowed heavily from John Locke's system of ordering, which he derived from the "philosophical position" of God and the Bible - from "The Absolute."
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This, by the way, has nothing to do with whether God is real or not, but rather what God philosophically represents. Buddhism as well acknowledges The Absolute, as do countless other religions and philosophies. In a functional sense they are all interchangeable because philosophically they all represent the same thing thing: Absolute Truth. For the sake of keeping things simple, however, I am going to refer to Christianity and the Bible here, because it is the religion most of us are familiar with, thus making it far easier to use as an example than a religion or philosophy which is more obscure.

In the Bible, when God refers to himself it is usually in the form of a riddle:

"I am who I am."

"I am the beginning and the end/the Alpha and the Omega."

"I am the TRUTH!"

Every riddle God gives in the Bible to his identity is also synonymous with "Absolute Truth."

"God" is Absolute Truth.

Absolute Truth existed before we were here, and it will exist after we are gone. The Absolute Truth just “is” – It is what it is (I am who I am) – the Absolute Truth doesn’t need to explain nor justify, it just IS. The Absolute Truth exists on a different plane than we do, therefore, whether we figure out the true nature of Absolute Truth or not, does not in anyway refute the existence of said Truth. It exists externally from humans, even though elements of it are found within us.
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The ordering of Truth, therefore, with Absolute Truth at the top, is as follows: 
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1 – God’s Law/Absolute Truth

2 – Natural Law/Apparent/Objective Truth

3 – Civil Law/Relative/Subjective Truth
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It works like one of those Russian matryoshka dolls where the one fits inside of the other, in order to contain the wild malleability of the human mind (We can justify anything if we really want to, ie. Relative Truth – Jail is full of self-claimed "innocent" people).

If a Civil Law/Relative Truth contradicts a Natural Law/Apparent Truth, then the Civil Law/Relative Truth is a false one, and so forth. In this way, the “lower truths” are contained by the “higher truths,” and thus we are provided with a philosophical framework that anchors us to reality.
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Now, some things that were true yesterday are no longer true today. Changes to medicine and technology can indeed change what is true. 200 years ago, I would have said it is absolutely true that man does not have the ability to fly, let alone propel himself faster than the speed of sound… but today, the truth is different – the truth evolved. Also, sometimes things we once assumed were true, like the earth being flat, are illustrated to have been false. Thus, we need something “higher” than apparent truth - because we are not omniscient. We can't be 100% rigid in our beliefs in apparent/objective truth after the Absolute Truth has revealed itself to us. Once
we acknowledged the earth was in fact round, we had to adjust our objective thinking to accomodate this newly known fact - it changed our thinking of the sun, moon and stars. Further down the chain of truth, we had to alter the subjective truth and stop believing we would fall off the edge of the earth if we sailed out too far, and therefore, any laws preventing us from doing so were obviously false laws and had to be removed from the books.

This ordering of truth works as a hierarchy and it can't work in reverse. You might be saying, "Well, duh!", but the Soviets illustrated how this can happen by the way they ordered their farmers to plant crops according to a scheduled date on the calendar, rather than to the actual rythym of the seasons. This left their farmers sometimes planting crops into frozen ground. The resulting failed harvests led to starvation for the people. Somehow the bureaucracies in charge convinced themselves that the seasons could be legislated, rather than their legislation having to accomodate the seasons. This happened to them because they un-ordered the truth. 
Absolute Truth is purity. It controls all other truths. It is without fault. It is never wrong. It is enduring, it never changes. It couldn’t give a rip if we understand it or not. It is eternal, and it exists on an entirely different plane than us, and often, our understanding. That we thought the earth was flat had no effect on the physics that ruled the earth and the solar system. On that level, our understanding is irrelevant. Absolute Truth trumps all, no matter what we conjure up in our brains.

I think, after a while of studying this whole malaise we are in as a society, eventually one gets exposed to the changing philosophies of mankind, such as how a change of thinking about fraternity and equality arose out of the French Revolution and this led to a philosophical change in the way society viewed the reality about us. It is often pointed out that this philosophical change is what led to the birth of Marxism and feminism, which are both based upon "the Relative Truth Uber Alles."
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Click Pic for "The Suffragettes versus The Truth"

It is these concepts that will be explored in this book. The Masculine and Feminine Principles and what they are sexually, biologically, and psychologically. How do they interconnect with each other? How do they relate to the structure of our civilization and to the philosophical nature of "The Truth." What is it that separates us from the rest of the animals and makes us human? Could it be the concept of Truth itself?

The following pages will attempt to speak clearly without regard for personal feelings - we are seeking the Truth and trying not to perpetuate falsehoods simply out of politically correct fear. Sometimes the Truth hurts - but it's still neccessary to have it.

Click Pic for "I Stand Alone Today"

There  are certainly anti-feminist sentiments to be found here but make no mistake, this isn't a social justice warrior's treatise trying to foment some men's movement to counter feminism. Movements, like herds and harems, are the domain of the Feminine Principle. It would be anti-thetical to the Masculine Principle to attempt to counter the Feminine Principle by mimicking it - that's where androgyny comes from, a condition I completely abhor and reject. The Masculine Principle must be masculine, and one of its features, which will be discussed later on, is its ability to seek the Truth so we can better understand the structure of the world about us. It's something men have been doing since the beginning of time, and this book will attempt to continue in that ancient, masculine tradition.  
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Generalizing in a Politically Correct World (NAWALT)

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Possibly the most consistent argument one is faced with when discussing politically incorrect subjects is the knee-jerkingly reflexive, "You can't generalize like that!" This is usually followed with an anecdote about someone's friend's cousin who lives next door to a lady located in a neighbouring town - ten years ago. The purpose of telling this story is that it "obviously proves" the politically incorrect premise is wrong. It is the trick of personalizing an individual characteristic over a group characteristic - which, by the way, indicates the person giving the annectdote has already lost the plot and is not arguing in good faith. 

Any logical person will soon realize that when discussing macro-issues in regard to society and its trends, not only can you generalize but in fact you must generalize. To fail to generalize is to demand all things must only be regarded one-dimensionally and in terms of the lowest common denominator. A more complex and proper way of thinking is that “there are individual groups and there are individuals within those groups.”
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For example, saying something like “women have larger breasts than men” is a sweeping generalization. But it's a true one – even though some women have smaller breasts than some men. In the collective group of “women” there will be some individual women who have small breasts, while in the collective group of “men” there will be some porky men sporting a set of man-boobs. But only a simpleton would try to cherry pick a flat chested woman and stand her next to a
man-boobed male and claim that this is in any way an honest reflection of the physical nature of man and woman, therefore, we should not say that “women have larger breasts than men” anymore. It would be lunacy! The only thing we might be able to learn then is that “both men and women have nipples.”

Wow! Stop everything right there! The Tower of Babel is already reaching into the heavens! What more could we possibly learn?

Generalizations are absolutely necessary in order to learn anything about macro-issues and societal trends.
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Of course, what a person cannot do is take one individual and generalize that the entire group resembles that individual. Take Marc Lepine, for example. Feminists have been screeching for over twenty-five years now that Marc Lepine is “proof” of the murderous hatred men harbour for women. Now that is pure bunk. The actions of one man is in no way a reflection of the mentality of the 15,000,000 other men who live in Canada. That is a wrong generalization.

But, to say that men are taller or heavier than women? Yes, this is a proper generalization, because the majority of men are taller and heavier than the majority of women – even though in some individual cases, you will be able to see a taller or heavier woman than a man.

We generalize that “birds fly.” But oh my gosh! You can’t generalize like that! Don’t you know that Emus, Ostriches, Kiwis and Penguins don’t fly? This is such a lame argument and it ought to be obvious that any biologist worth his salt must necessarily generalize that “birds fly.” Look up, grasshopper… not down!

In fact, generalizing is very beneficial and is used quite successfully in many areas of society - such as when the insurance industry analyzes the average frequency of an event (ie. a housefire) in order to offer protection to the individual homeowner while still reliably turning a profit. The government generalizes as well when they pass such laws as speed limits with fines for punishment. It is fully understood that not all of the people will reduce their speed, but most of them will and therefore, it works to keep most people driving at a reasonable speed and makes the roads safer - which is the positive result that is being sought.

Another example is that if we can see that men politically vote 60/40 for principles extolling freedom versus those which promote socialism, while women tend to vote 30/70 on the same issues, then there is little doubt that over time the government will become less freedom oriented and much more mired in socialism - as has been explored by John Lott and Lawrence Kenny's study titled, "Did Women's Suffrage Change the Size and Scope of Government?"   

Many of the arguments that get put forward in regard to sensitive issues (like the War of the Sexes) automatically get dismissed with the intellectually dishonest statement, “You can’t generalize like that.”

Nonsense.

In fact, no-one is going to figure out anything if they fail to generalize. Ignoring the similar actions/traits/situations in 80% of the cases because 20% of the cases do not coincide… well… that is not going to help us at all in analyzing the world as it unfolds about us.

The thing to keep in mind is that there are individual groups (ie. men and women), and there are individuals within those groups.

The way to learn something is to recognize that the trait of the group follows in “this” direction, even though there are individual exceptions which follow “that” direction.

It’s time to stop looking for the lowest common denominator.

There are individual groups, and there are individuals within those groups. 
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Click Pic for "The Wife of Noble Character (Would Make Me a Sandwich!)"

"Meanwhile, as long as there's one honest woman living at the temple atop Mount NAWALT in Tibet..." -- White Knight
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Mathieu of Boulogne (1295) on NAWALT

From “The Lamentations of Matheolus”

"Yet one might disagree with me, criticize my conclusion. and, putting forward the opposite point of view, suggest that my words are completely untrue. For, if some women are evil and perverse and abnormal, it does not necessarily follow that all of them are so cruel and wicked; nor should all of them be lumped together in this general reproach. A speech is badly composed if one's general conclusion is only partly valid. Logic hates this type of argumentation. Nevertheless, this present work, which expresses the pain in my heart, wishes me to exclude nothing, but commands me to push my argument to its logical, if extreme, conclusion, which is that no good woman exists. Solomon, in his works, makes an amazing comment, which supports my case, for he exclaims, "Who could find a virtuous woman?" The implication here is, of course, that this would be impossible. Since he says this, who am I to disagree? Why should I be shocked? What's more, he says that a base and broken man is worth more than a woman when she's doing good. Thus there is no woman worth anything at all; I don't need to look for further proof. That's enough logical demonstration.

My exposition is clearly valid, for woman has - and there is ample evidence of this - deceived all the greatest men in the world; I shall be basing myself on rational argument. If the greatest are deceived, then the lesser naturally fall. In the street where I live they say that what applies to the greatest amongst us applies even more to lesser mortals. Who were the greatest lords? Who has ever heard of greater men than Solomon or Aristotle? Yet good sense, riches and reason were not worth a dung-beetle to them; all were made to look as if they had gone out of fashion; these men were both outmanoeuvred by women, deceived, vanquished, and tamed."

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Belfort Bax on NAWALT

It seems not much has changed in a century, but this is a beautiful reply (Notice how he only responds to male feminists? Lol!):

The Fraud of Feminism - Belfort Bax, 1913 pp24-26

"At the time of writing, the normal person who has no axe to grind in maintaining the contrary, declares the sun to be shining brightly, but should it answer the purpose of anyone to deny this obvious fact, and declare that the day is gloomy and overcast, there is no power of argument by which I can prove that I am right and he is wrong. I may point to the sun, but if he chooses to affirm that he doesn't see it I can't prove that he does. This is, of course, an extreme case, scarcely likely to occur in actual life. But it is in essence similar to those cases of persons (and they are not seldom met with) who, when they find facts hopelessly destructive of a certain theoretical position adopted by them, do not hesitate to cut the knot of controversy in their own favour by boldly denying the inconvenient facts.
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One often has experience of this trick of controversy in discussing the question of the notorious characteristics of the female sex. The Feminist driven into a corner endeavours to save his face by flatly denying matters open to common observation and admitted as obvious by all who are not Feminists. Such facts are the pathological mental condition peculiar to the female sex, commonly connoted by the term hysteria; the absence, or at best the extremely imperfect development of the logical faculty in most women; the inability of the average woman in her judgment of things to rise above personal considerations; and, what is largely a consequence of this, the lack of a sense of abstract justice and fair play among women in general.

The afore said peculiarities of women, as women, are, I contend, matters of common observation and are only dis-puted by those persons--to wit Feminists--to whose theoretical views and practical demands their admission would be inconvenient if not fatal. Of course these characterisations refer to averages, and they do not exclude partial or even occasionally striking exceptions. It is possible, therefore, although perhaps not very probable, that indi-vidual experience may in the case of certain individuals play a part in falsifying their general outlook; it is possible--although, as I before said not perhaps very probable--that any given man's experience of the other sex has been limited to a few quite exceptional women and that hence his particular experience contradicts that of the general run of mankind. In this case, of course, his refusal to admit what to others are self-evident facts would be perfectly bona fide.

The above highly improbable contingency is the only refuge for those who would contend for sincerity in the Feminist's denials. In this matter I only deal with the male Feminist. The female Feminist is usually too biassed a witness in this particular question."
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