34 Aphorisms For A Civilization In Decline

The red pill is a common metaphor that roughly equates to “truth,” of seeing things as they really are. It came from The Matrix, a movie where the main character is unplugged from a false reality and introduced into the real world. One of the better red pill movies is actually The Truman Show

Truman begins learning the truth of his false existence where he’s an unwilling participant in a reality show. The city he believes he lives in is nothing more than a massive Hollywood sound stage. In the movie there’s an interview with the show’s creator, the god of Truman’s life:

Reporter: “Why do you think Truman has taken so long to understand the true nature of his world?”

Creator: “We accept the reality of the world with which we’re presented.”

Reporter: “If he absolutely wanted to discover the truth, there is no way we can prevent him.”

Creator: “Truman prefers his cell.”

He does not, eventually deciding to take the red pill. The most poignant moment of the movie is him banging on the wall of his large jail, of coming to the realization of his lifelong imprisonment.

The irony of game and learning how to get laid is that it primes you for the red pill. Men get into the game for sex, but dealing with the large quantity of women that is necessary for mastering it starts to teach you the true nature of women and all the little lies that society tells you about the sexes. The truth will set you free, but the sad fact is that many men rather remain plugged in.

141 thoughts on “34 Aphorisms For A Civilization In Decline”

  1. This my have been better had it had more substance and wisdom. If men had their own version of cosmo, this would be considered deep. And have a section devoted to “How to lease your woman.”

    1. Wait…you can lease women?
      Damnations, this changes *everything*!
      I considered the points to be offered in the style of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations rather than as some point by point run down of mini-points of debate.

    1. I don’t believe it’s the few.
      Look at what keeps consumerism, mass entertainment, and democracy alive … it’s the many. They don’t have a gun to their head.
      Rule by the many = modernity.

      1. There are plenty of ways to manipulate and control the masses without putting a gun to their head.
        Huxley’s vision has proven far more accurate than Orwell’s.

      2. If people had a fighting chance I’d say it was their own fault. As it is now, you get “conformity” “equality”and “consumerism” shoved down your throat before you can walk.
        Its like the Matrix or some shit…people are so hopelessly dependent on it that they will fight to protect it.

  2. In the end it doesn’t matter… we can describe the horror of modernity until we die of old age. No one is coming to save us or listen to us complain. There will be no “awakening”.
    All young men have two choices:
    1) be part of the group, and live out your days in hedonism as a PUA or beta jerking it to porn, or perhaps gamble on marriage and kids (this means getting sucked into the collective inevitably)
    2) strive towards true independence of purpose, which means that your purpose sustains you and allows you to reject degenracy and work 50 to 60 hours a week at a job that most likely sucks, but insulates you from modernity. You must be disciplined like a Marine not to be side tracked
    There isn’t much middle ground if you want more than mediocrity, it’s just a question of if the latter option is worth the suffering. I think it is, if you have an existential purpose.

    1. Option 3: Make lots of fucking money, act like a man, and realize the greater problems of “society” (western society doesn’t actually exist, it’s just a pervasive meme, a billion people that happen to like the same TV shows do not form any sort of real society) are not YOUR problem. Think 20 years into the future, prepare for SHTF (SHTFwon’t be all at once, shit has actually been hitting the fan since the 90s at least) by forming friendships and business partnerships with people with similar ideological bents, buy some fucking land and hire similarly ideologically inclined men to manage it, and start your own proto-kingdom.

      1. Exactly. Starting your own business is very fulfilling…its what men do.
        If you have a real marketable skill or talent, you should be able to start your own. It’s the only way to live. Otherwise, don’t bitch about your cubicle job

      2. That is my plan, but I’m not confident … you see, wealth can only be protected when the ruling class is on your side.
        None of us are immune from the collective toxicity… unless you become super wealthy really young and know the monetary trends down to a science. You think massive asset taxes aren’t coming?
        We have a Bolshevik governing class, 50 percent of the population doesn’t contribute jack, and 200 trillion in unfunded liabilities.
        The idea that you can start a farm that is self sufficient and be left alone is fantasy.
        The Russian peasants thought similarly.

        1. I share similar concerns. Even amassing wealth seems like a precarious situation… What is to stop the state from brandishing you and re-distributing your wealth really?
          The populace? Most of them are horny frustrated white-knights begging to god for the opportunity to go on a witch-hunt and demonstrate mate value the only way they know how… By ganging up on other men…
          The general zeitgeist is shifting… you can see it blatantly… practically every week some new meme reminding us how men are rapists comes out… Its noticeably getting ridiculous… And it shows no signs yet of just being a fad.
          This seems like the popular narrative now. In the 90s there simply was not this much cultural tension between the sexes… I think everyone is frustrated by the times and we’re taking it out on whatever excuse we can. Right now the popular excuse is to just blame everything on men… And as the tension builds up, so does the hatred and degree of projection.

        2. “None of us are immune from the collective toxicity… unless you become super wealthy really young and know the monetary trends down to a science. You think massive asset taxes aren’t coming?
          We have a Bolshevik governing class, 50 percent of the population doesn’t contribute jack, and 200 trillion in unfunded liabilities.
          The idea that you can start a farm that is self sufficient and be left alone is fantasy.”
          WHAT HE SAID.

        3. “None of us are immune from the collective toxicity… unless you become super wealthy really young and know the monetary trends down to a science. You think massive asset taxes aren’t coming?”
          When do you see this happening? What year?

        4. We are living in a prison.
          At any moment the guards or inmates could rob us blind or beat us to death.
          That sounds bleak, but get back to me in 10 to 20 years and see what happens …

        5. Could be 20 years, but this illusion of secure prosperity is very weak.
          The government has obligations it can’t pay, where is it going to get the money?

        6. Don’t you see mate it’s already happening the scum are using a boil the frog slowly tactic not a loud bang tactic

        7. “practically every week some new meme reminding us how men are rapists comes out… Its noticeably getting ridiculous… ”
          You have no idea. Words escape me, but the decline of civilization seems to be an appropriate place for this:

        8. I may be drawing conspirator-like conclusions here, but I believe this is where digital currencies and Google’s “Green Wallet” come in. Straight out of a backyard DARPA/NSA experiment under the guise of libertarian anarcho-capitalism. Cash is the only thing left that stands between complete government asset seizure and unchaining from toxic debt obligation. Short of killing its people, the government cannot reclaim assets you hold physically in your hands.
          It happened already in Spain taxing bank deposits of its citizens to cope with rough economic times. I give it 10 years and shit like ApplyPay and the likes will “revolutionize” the economy, aka increase the number of revolutions the freely accessed backdoors in all of your modern day computer software, vehicles, wireless devices, etc. revolve as they further deplete all of their physical livelihood.

        9. Without a doubt there is shit ton of rage among middle age white men who have no control over their lives. Unable to get what they want in relationships, lacking security in their jobs and with no vision for bettering their lot in life they are pots ready to boil over. I see it around me everyday

        10. Bolshevik is right. I have an interesting theory about why our Bolshevik overlords have disenfranchised men and the civilisational necessity of patriarchy and patrilineality. Societies with strong familial formation are very patriarchal societies where the government is an extension and representation of that family usually a monarchy that has ethnic-socio-religious ties to his people. To me democracy is heresy, a bunch of citizens who believe they possess equal intelligence to vote. In a system like this, the monied classes run the government because they decide the elections through money, and they give the plebeian masses the illusion of real choice. Strong families led by men prevent a system where the government no longer identifies with its people. The United States is ruled by a foreign power (we all know who) and its monied classes share nothing in common with the modicum of real men left. They must turn women against men to prevent group formation and thus, competition.

        11. I don’t want to live on this planet anymore. I bet I was probably a German soldier in a past life who died at Stalingrad only to be reincarnated to see what shit the West has turnt into. This is absolutely atrocious. The collapse whether immediate or protracted, cannot come soon enough. These poor girls being shoved toxic drivel down their throats by their mothers all to the applause of some doormat mangina probably. When I see absurdities such as this, it really wants to make this agnostic pick up his bible again.

        12. The intact nuclear family is of no use to the globalists and communists. Hence, it has been destroyed.
          May the West implode before this cancer we have started here infests the rest of the world.

        13. It’s not that it was just of ‘no-use’. The traditional ‘pater-familias’ was a direct threat to their consolidation of power. Strong intact homes, where the children receive strong guidance from the father, while the mother is there for support and love and every home like this probably armed. You cannot have a nation like this, if you do not identify with the values of the people you seek to rule. This should tell you one thing, we are governed by people who are alien in creed. You only treat a nation’s people like this that you seek to pacify. The United States and Western Europe have gone through a six decade tenure of pacification.

        14. Families ruled by intelligent men are basically mafias.
          I’m not talking about hoodlum idiot mobs, I’m talking about groups of well connected people with self-esteem and sense of purpose. People that are willing to defend what they love and work together.
          My grandfather on my Italian side and his ilk (including my eldest uncle) had these qualities. These were not men you would have wanted to fuck with, and they commanded real respect. An essential part of their power though was the fact that their women contributed just as much… the children were fed, there were holiday gatherings, there were male and female role models, the men were secure, the men worked together and built things of value…
          Its sad to see what their children (my cousins) are going through… Divorces, live-in-girlfriends, daughters and sons with parents in different homes, difficulty in maintaining the group, insecurity, depression… The holiday gatherings are fewer and further between compared to when I was a child… and there is less of a group-sense.
          I still go to the occasional big Italian wedding… which makes it seem like the good ol’days… but things aren’t the same as they used to be.
          In Toronto there are lots of functioning immigrants now… Asians, Muslims… they are clearly ahead of the curve and are showing up my retarded white-brethren. But I wonder what their communities will look like 2 generations from now… Can these cultures withstand the materialism and “progressivism” of the West? Maybe they’ll be smart enough to not so blindly fall for that shit…
          Wouldn’t be surprised though…

        15. Man you guys are depressing. The world is not that bad and mankind has gone through worse, much worse. To think the horrors we have experienced over the millenia and you guys are complaining about… not much.
          The trouble with human beings. They need something to complain about.

        16. I agree. Do you think it will come by waking up one day and the government demanding the masses to fork over a huge lump sum? Or rise, bit by bit in taxes over time?

        17. Ha, there are valid points in that video, but it’s execution is f’ing irritating, like that Always ‘run like a girl’ one. Maybe someone should mention to these women that their pay discrepancies are offset by the amount free drinks they’ll get everytime they go out, and life really isn’t that bad.

        18. There is no pay discrepancy. That issue has been debunked so many times the only people using it are people intentionally trying to mislead their audience. When they work the same jobs for the same hours, they are receiving the same pay.
          http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina-hoff-sommers/wage-gap_b_2073804.html
          http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303532704579483752909957472
          “The AAUW has now joined ranks with serious economists who find that when you control for relevant differences between men and women (occupations, college majors, length of time in workplace) the wage gap narrows to the point of vanishing.”…emphasis is mine.
          How was occupation not part of the statistics feminists have been bandying about for years? They weren’t even comparing the same job when looking at wages for their “women are paid less” idea. The 77% pay idea wasn’t just bad data or an unsound, but well intentioned theory….it was just bullshit.
          And the rest of this video is child exploitation in my view. Feminists exploiting their children to sell a few t-shirts.

        19. It depends on your sensibility.
          If you are satisfied with mediocrity, hedonism, and stupidity, yes, the modern world is a wet dream.
          Any real man is horrified by what he sees.

        20. This couldn’t be more true.
          Marx mentions the “abolition of the family” in the Communist Manifesto and Engels predicted the full emancipation of women would be achieved with the construction of socialism, since women would be allowed to work:

          The first condition for the liberation of the wife is to bring the whole female sex back into industry, and […] this in turn demands the abolition of the monogamous family as the economic unit of society.

          The destruction of the family has always been central to the “World revolution,” read: a Communist world government; Feminist and LGBT rights movements are simply means to achieve those ends.
          Marxism is too lucrative a scam to unmask, especially after so many people have committed their lives to it. Either way, it’s essentially a done deal for the Anglosphere. The West will fall, the only question is when.

        21. Mass cruxifixions or Vlad style impalings are horrifying. Next to that mediocrity is a relief.

        22. That does call into question however an interesting question.
          Which is better, to be in charge and unconditionally responsible for your life, as a man, even if it means that you have to stand outside your village and defend it from invading hordes (or your own demented “leader” Vlad), and nominally only answer, very rarely, to one or two men in the hierarchy above you
          or
          To have nearly zero real control over your life due to an over-bureaucratic and authoritarian system patrolled by nearly faceless police working for thousands of men you’ll never meet, that claims your entire life as its own, however you get a nice salary and can drink a six pack every night to drown the realization that you have no real agency in your life?
          No right or wrong answer, just an interesting question.

        23. The irony in your comment is that it was made in the manosphere which seems particularly obsessed with never forming families in the future.

        24. That’s a simplification of the actual real issue Jeff. The issue is not the men obsess on RoK about not forming families, is that that men do not want to be legally disenfranchised by forming a family in the West. The options given by the United States government is 1.) Lose child and marital rights by cohabiting with a women 2.) Revel in the degeneracy. Most men who come here do have a biological urge to procreate within the traditional pater-familias structure, it’s just that structure no longer exists (here at least).

        25. Well said my man (Both posts). You hit the nail right on the fuckin head with that statement. When you sever the father from his children you break a indispensable link. You also remove the child’s naturally number one protector from their lives. A kid without a father is like a ship without a Captain. Noone loves a child as much as that child’s biological father. Of course there are exceptions to this. But very very few in my estimation.
          And I also agree with you in regards to the “governing class” not sharing any real commonality with those they rule. That is why I cannot see for the life of me why so many guys like us wrap themselves in that fuckin shitty red white and blue rag that they like to flash around. They flash the rag around when it is time to coral the dumb asses like ourselves to fight in their little shitty overseas excursions. It makes no fuckin sense. We fight their wars, then they tell us how scummy we are. Fuck them, and fuck their wars. We need a spiritual awakening to break free of these emotional and psychological shackles that they have placed on us.
          And that is the ultimate form of slavery. To have a virtual slave class with no real power, that quite literally fuckin WORSHIPS the very symbol of their oppressors. I was in the Marines for four years. Infantry through and through. I served as honorably as I could. I am no means a fuckin hero of any sort, (everyone seems to be a fuckin hero these days. From a park ranger who nurses a squirrel back to health, to a Marine cook who made people eggs in the chow hall every day.) However I only mention my Military stint to illustrate that I am not inherently anti-American. I can see the brainwashed lunatics going red in the face when I refer to their flag as a rag. LOL!!!

        26. I would unreservedly say that we are now living in the best time in all of human existence. All of us have choices that were unavailable to people living even 100 years ago. This is not to say there are not challenges. However you have the opportunity to greatly improve your life and the life of your fellows through the ripple effect. You have the choice between being the best man you can be or just throwing your hands helplessly up in woe.

        27. How can you be so contented with men being 2nd class citizens in the West? With men having no legal parity with women when it comes to child custodial, marital and reproductive rights? Sure there are plenty of options in the modern world, between what? iphones and android? Chelsea or ManU, the Redskins or Cowboys? Variations of pornsites? All of these things are meaningless, baseless and a means of surreptitiously subjugating men through favourite pastimes, degeneracy and sex. This is of course the best generation to be a degenerate.

        28. Low grade civil wars between genders (Rape!) and races (Furguson) fueled by the MSM have the added benefit of distracting the American public from nightmare domestic issues (healthcare) and nightmare foreign threats (Russia+China).

        29. I know a mangina who thinks this way. He’s contented to be a second class citizen and snipes at me every time I make a comment that’s in my own or other mens’ self interests. The pile of PC shit has gotten so high that I have just decided to adopt an attitude of apathy and schadenfreude as I watch the West destroy itself. I enjoy watching the decline these days instead of lamenting it. As a matter of fact, I’d like to see men do things to speed it up.

        30. Absolutely, I emphatically reject the notion of ‘saving the West’ these days, because there’s nothing left worth saving. I live in a city where the average middle-class/upper middle class woman (especially white and East Indian women) walks around with this smug air of pretentiousness. They don’t even show respect on the sidewalks, they refuse to get out of your way and think men are supposed to sidestep and show deference when Ms. American princess walks the street. This is Rome during the decadent decline, and Rome needs the barbarians at this point.
          I wonder how smug and pretentious the looks on their faces would be if these bitches had no legal parametres to protect them, if a marauding horde of savages a la’ Genghis Khan or the Soviets in East-Prussia circa 1945 came rummaging, through gang-raping, killing and looting wiping those fucking smug and entitled looks off their faces. I think we’re at the point where men like us, could give two fucks. In fact as you suggested with schadenfreude, there’d be a feeling of joy in their suffering, but actually it wouldn’t be joy but a feeling that the sword of justice would be balancing the scales of nature once more.

        31. I think you are running away with things there. Obviously I am not content with such things. But let’s putthings in perspective. Not a hundred years ago Lance you and I would scarcely register as citizens. So to be second class is a massive step up from that. Humanity moves in an upwards path towards greater liberty even if it dips occasionally. However we will not move things forward for ourselves by adopting a negative attitude and excessive hand wringing.

        32. I’m well aware of the legal entrapment of marriage, I was simply commenting on the irony of his comment given the site it was placed on. Whether we like it or not, we’re basically reacting to the Left’s destruction of the family pretty much as they’ve planned it from day one. We are reacting logically and rationally, clearly, but that doesn’t negate that they have effectively put society in such a state as to bring about this desired outcome.

        33. Capitalism and Christianity have been more destructive to family solidarity than greasy Marx. Both are much more potent advocates of the individual to the extent of the individual identity superceding the family one.

        34. Not all of ‘these things’ you mentioned, are meaningless. There is Liverpool FC, after all…

        35. Or you could just drop shoulder and run into the bitches. What the fuck are they or anyone else gonna do about It? Honestly? Are they gonna give you the “stink eye”? Big fucking deal. Respect is a two way street. If they want to act like a man I’ll treat em like a man.

      3. “Option 3: Make lots of fucking money, ”
        Wouldn’t we all want that…. problem is that is no easy ticket.

      4. I just closed on a parcel in VT. Southern exposure, 12 acres of fields, 30 acres of woods,natural springs on site and on a dead end dirt road. My vision is a solar powered home and a small self sufficient farm. Worry about the future – not really. Too many of the zombie hordes wouldn’t be able to waddle their way more than 1/10 of a mile from the nearest town and or Mal Wart let alone raid someone’s garden for food.

      5. While to an extent I agree with making money too many people are opting for this and pissing away their actual freedom (read:potential) as individuals. Modern society has taught us one way or the other that making money is the purpose of existence.
        How about partnerships – as you said. If you aspire to a greater spirituality, virtues like detachment, courage, intrepidity and self-sufficiency of your psychology are where you want to be – love of money and aspiring full-heartedly towards it are tragically detrimental.
        Money and greed are ultimately what got us here in the first place and its not gonna get us out – its whats fucking society up. I’m emphatically stating that i’m not opposed to its use and only an impractical fool would deny its power and utility but masculine spiritual virility is what’s lacking not more money.
        Your protokingdom idea will be built on the power of good strong masculine relationships divorced from actual money

      6. The disdain of wealth and money is lauded by those who consider themselves leasers in the class system, only to pursue both in hopes of separating themselves from the poorer in the hierarchy, under the flag of the American Dream — doing better than their parents and grandparents — condemning them, and guaranteeing the American Nightmare of their children’s children condemning whatever achievement wealth and lifestyle they themselves have attained.

  3. Lost me at 1 dude. It is self contradictory.
    Further, I can see great men and I am certainly not God.
    Drama, whinny drama.

    1. My interpretation was that men aren’t accomplishing like they used to and that recognition wouldn’t go to them even if they were.

      1. This isn’t accurate though. Look at what SpaceX has been doing. Go look at people who are actually innovating despite the madness of modern society, you just have to find it.

    2. Indeed. Although I don’t personally know most, if not all of them, I contend that some of the writers and commentators here at ROK fall under the umbrella of “Great Men.”

      1. In times of twilight leading to darkness, great men are usually found existing in the shadows, whispering plans for bringing back the light while the rest of the world huddles cold and scared in their basements.

      1. Perhaps. Although the author stated that “a great man is like God” meaning “man” singular and “God” capitalized. I hope you catch my meaning from there. I could write paragraphs from there, except work beckons.
        He could have said “great men are like gods” (Greek or pagan). He merely associated greatness with being unseen without addressing omnipotence. The men who climbed the WTC stairs for the last time were great men; Ronald Regan was a great man, etc. and I have no
        confusion thereof with the God of Abraham. The author has projected his own limited perceptions and conflated them with the state of our “civilization”.

        1. Dang work…always getting in the way of a good discussion…
          It seems to me that the author is equating, deliberately “a great man” with the Abrahamic God and the ongoing debate as to His existence, noting the seeming absence of great men. I see it as only a metaphor and an apt one e.g. “Maybe he(a great man) exists, but where is he?”
          Using the God of Abraham as his example is proper since many people still believe in Him, whereas the pagan gods are, of course, not believed in at all (excepting some loons who just want attention). His statement allows for the possibility that a great man is among us, but marvels at his obscurity. The unseen part is the crux of it, while omnipotence is extraneous in this context.

        2. …or maybe you project your own limitations through an unquestioned adherence to the beard-sandals-robe-God-of-Abraham. You’ve never seen Odin either but since you grew up with Invisible Friend Jesus, you’ll defend that to the death but ridicule everyone else?
          Nonsense.
          If “salvation lies within”, then let us each be the GOD we know we can be and leave humility and meekness to women.

        3. Maybe the absence of the Great Man stems from the preoccupation with being “humble-er than thou”. I mean, no one’s really ALLOWED to be great anymore, the “greatest” thing you can really be anymore is the slightly-less talented victim that everyone can feel sorry for.

        4. Chase, cool your jets and READ what I wrote. You can’t tell what side of the theological divide I stand.
          Go in peace (ha).

        5. Most great men, become so through their own will. Alexander, Caesar Augustus, Charlemagne etc. All had to overcome some form of adversity and rise above mediocrity on their own.

    1. I was just thinking last night, you could substitute two years of college with just reading Robert Greene’s books.

  4. Unrestrained female hypergamy, feminism. And the destruction of the family. . No need to go further. . This is the root cause of decline.

    1. Who unleased the unabashed female Id? And why? What you describe is the tool, one which has been used systematically for a purpose. There you will find your root cause.

        1. Haha, for sure. People need to do their own research, study economics, history, psychology and come to some rational conclusions. Doubtful though.

        2. Pattern recognition is one of the most manly traits. Sad that even on here people seem oblivious. You can only be evicted so many times before you’re the problem, not your previous landlords.

        3. The problem is that so many want to blame them, them and only them. When you do that you miss a lot. Would you care to know who said ‘There is more that binds us to Bolshevism than separates us from it”. Hegels was a Protestant. Margaret Sanger born a Catholic. Just like Teddy Kennedy. I could give you a list in the thousands. Was it Mao Berg and Pol Potstein? Statism gains credence with the masses everywhere and psychopath leaders of all stripes are more than willing to accommodate the lemmings. Yet some of you want to blame YKW for all the evils in the world. Would it be that simple.

  5. Modernity=Triumph of the Mediocrity
    Triumph of the Mediocrity=The eventual destruction of civilization.

    1. Agreed, Nietzche predicted that very exact statement! It seems as if someone has been reading Also Sprach Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil here on RoK. In being the Nietzchean that I am, I will go a step further and say that Christianity as an offshoot of Judaism corrupted and destroyed the natural European (natural male human for that matter) impulse for polygamy. Schopenhauer and Nietzsche criticised Christianity and Europe for diminishing man’s natural impulse for the conquest of women. There was an interesting school of thought, which doesn’t have a shred of evidence but nevetheless intriguing.
      The theory posits that Paul proliferated Christianity as a means to undermine European civilisation while still working as an agent of Judaism (Paul was a pharisee afterall). But look at masculine religion that celebrates the nature of men, Zeus, Ares, Poseidon, Odin, Thor etc… And then now we get a fucking religion that preaches that man must accept one woman, that he must limit what nature made him to be. The weak must be exalted, the titans amongst men must be monogamous. The only good thing about feminism is that it’s destroying that poisonous slime from the deserts of Judea. No wonder Kaiser Wilhelm II and Hitler favoured Islam over Christianity. I felt your brilliant summation worthy of a long supportive rant. Goodnight!!!

  6. The answer to a civilization in decline has always been barbarism. Be the barbarian, not the decadent Roman.

    1. I don’t think stooping to the level of a barbarian because everyone around you is in decline is the answer. Let them do what they want.
      Tranquility that comes when you stop caring what they say. Or think, or do. Only what you do.
      – Marcus Aurelius

      1. Barbarian simply means not being a member of the dominant culture. An outsider.
        When a culture is in decline, only the barbarian can have virtue.

        1. Yea. I read some of his other posts and this one made more sense after that. I just misunderstood it when I first read it.

      2. That quote is brilliant. I have recently felt an immense sense of tranquility because I have adopted that attitude.

    2. I suppose if “barbarian” means doing what you feel you ought to, then yes. Just because you don’t subscribe to prevailing morals (or lack of), it doesn’t make you the heartless barbarian, even if it does make you a little unpopular.

    3. Yeah why fight the decline. Enjoy the sex from American shanks and never marry them. Live for yourself

  7. “Civilization is what old men manage to salvage from the onslaught of young idealists.”
    — Don Colacho

  8. “We have let the culture teach us that if we get as much as we can and experience as much pleasure as we can this will somehow make us happy.”
    David Foster Wallace

    1. “Nothing. I did absolutely nothing; and it was everything I dreamed it could be.”
      –Office Space.

      1. That movie has a hell of a lot of red pill embedded in it, if you have eyes to see and can perceive more than the up front comedy.

  9. As a young man (26), I see it this way:
    1) Men need something to live for. This hasn’t changed since the dawn of time, be it physical, social or political. Men are thinkers and doers. We rely on this mentality, it is our bread and butter.
    PROBLEM: Modern society has all but forgotten this. Each man possesses the medium, but without a place of exchange; this is what society was for. American jobs are overseas, college costs have made the middle class debt slaves and the up and comers like me have no where to turn for good advice or a swift hand to take us down a notch or two.
    2) Men need to build something (metaphorically by today’s standards), but they need to create something. We each have that intrinsic drive be it our careers, our bodies, or philosophies, etc. A testament to our mortality. I liken this to what the family unit used to stand for. Find a solid first mate, have some children, teach them well and die surrounded by the fruits of all your labor. A lifecycle in a way. This really can be anything, it doesn’t have to involve marriage, children or being ripped. The example provided was just a societal proxy that worked well for a number of years.
    PROBLEM: Society has all but exploited every single penny, soul and human body from every process in its machine. It used to be about traditions and the character, honor and integrity derived from maintaining and abiding by them. Now it’s about pontificating individualism and unabashedly proclaiming ignorance in lieu of responsibility.
    3) Men need something to pass on. This used to be simple. A life well lived was a life well cherished. The ancients knew this quite well. Young learn from old, child learns from father, etc. Knowledge isn’t invented. It is discovered, refined and passed down.
    PROBLEM: Society no longer values, or values much less, this basic tenet in a man’s life. Men are used and discarded. Overworked and underpaid. Uncelebrated and damnified. Only as good as your last whatever. No longer is the process of learning, understanding and thus passing on something worth anything anymore. The prize is those that can buy it, without earning it. A valuable man used to be as rare as sewer caps in NY, but now you would be hard pressed to even find one of those men, let alone one that even makes them.
    My point is this. Learn the current rules and break them effectively and for the good of the manosphere. It’s simple to be a man, but hard to act like one.

    1. This massive social decay all happened in the 1960s. But unlike now, material prosperity masked systemic problems.

      1. I agree completely. Your post and subsequent posters below yours prompted me to write what amounted to a verbose passage that I could have summed into a few sentences in hindsight piggybacking on of yours/others thoughts.
        What’s scary to think is that I’m not too sure the road ahead was ever paved with good intentions. We may have diverged from those good intentions years ago onto something so massively uncontrollable we may see a fundamental breakdown in many areas of life.

        1. Bottom line: no one has your back in an atomized society. It’s a resource war of all against all.

      2. ‘But unlike now, material prosperity masked systemic problems’.
        You sir are a genius. I don’t mind if I’ll help myself to your stroke of wit in the future.

        1. And it is that apperant material prosperity that keeps most people from seeing the systematic problems all around them. This is why so much massive counterfitting has been going on at the fed over the last 6 years….to keep up the illusion, just a little longer.

      3. Did it really just start happening in the 60s? We started down the road to perdition well before that, but like any large object, it starts moving in a certain direction slowly at first.

    2. You have a really good perspective for a 26 year old. Keep it up. Work for yourself because you will be sadly disapointed at the lack of incentive or encouragement for doing the right things these days, as you have figured out.
      Take what you want and don’t take no for an answer, and like you said, figure it out quickly and then break it. It will make your future success all the more sweet.

  10. Men can’t afford families or the ability to be financially I independent. Outsourcing, unions busted up, most American females are fat single mom’s. Most men can’t man up and if they could why bother if a fat skank will just ruin your life via divorce. No ability to grow up and no incentives to do so for men. As a nations men go, so goes society. . Sadly the feminists will not suffer the brunt if this as their daughters and granddaughters will be the women who go through life with deadbeat men, unemployed men and the stigma of being a worthless poor single mom. Enjoy the decline. .it’s obvious help isn’t coming and women don’t give a shit about destroying society

    1. Your incentive is your own life and personal satisfaction. You only get one, so why would you let these terrible bastards who have brought this on us the satisfaction of ripping everything from us? Men should grow up, develop themselves and take what they want no matter the odds and the f’d up situation. Remember, they WANT you to give up.

    2. I wonder, among those little girls in that “F” word video, how many are being raised by single mothers. I knew they would throw a fattie in there because fat acceptance is something you get shoved down your throat like a double bacon cheese whopper.

  11. A part of me longs for the decline. I know that while it will be a dangerous unexpected future there’s a certain measure of freedom that comes with it. Freedom to give up a lot of the material trappings dead end activities and useless relationships that comprise what’s “normal” in today’s society.
    I think the decline will not be easy by any stretch: it’s give up a rock for a hard place but as a man I must say adversity is what we are designed for so it’d definitely be much easier for us to adapt.
    I don’t know what’s in store for the modern woman.
    I prefer to look at it from now as a starting point for a new kind of freedom from the current status quo

    1. Agreed.
      The world will be full of opportunity for the smart and resourceful. Those that have wasted their years with pointless drivel, are weak, fat, do not have desirable skills, and lack imagination will certainly suffer. But nature would approve of their suffering, yes?

      1. Nature is amoral – it won’t care 6 ways from sunday who how where or what suffers.
        The weak and the women who now prop up the current status quo with their materialism and trivial lives know no real adversity. Or rather, the know the faux adversity that exists against the background of a society of men that shields them from what exists outside their comfort zones. To an extent all of us exist like this but I think men – the more grounded and adaptable of the sexes; the great protectors – are better able to handle the change.

        1. Indeed!
          Nature does have laws though and does indeed help those who help themselves and those that respect her. She also provides, almost at times like she does care what is good and right, but only in a system that is in harmony with nature, and not one that seeks to live outside of it like we have today.

  12. Yea, I dunno. This seems like a young man’s take on things. I say that
    because my 25-year old self would be nodding and interested. My 40-year
    old self, however, is nodding off and uninterested. Experience and hard
    use make master, and these bullet points, where they’re not paraphrasing
    of things already said, are a mirror being held up to a young man’s
    maturing. I suspect that the author will be allright once he gets his
    hands a litle dirty and learns to tune out the extraneous, rather than
    lament it.

  13. Yes, the west is in decline and will remain so until the majority of men, and not necessarily some ephemeris data group labeled alpha or beta stop allowing women and gays to make our decisions for us and tell us that they know a damn thing about anything other than being gay or a woman.

  14. C. I keep coming back to this article because many of the thoughts expressed here mirror how I also view our grand civilization. The reason virtues like courage and sincerity are lacking is because deceit and falsehood will always triumph over the more noble virtues that hold actual meaning. Those who are wise become cynics in the lies and those that are fools find some form of comfort in their ability to lie. Evil is the true nature of humans and that is why evil will always prevail in any society we create. Your thoughts on the matter will be most appreciated.

  15. I dig most of them…but #7 pimps our current joo-dominated system…so therein lies a problem. And #14 contradicts it.

  16. Reading an article about aphorisms, literary diet wise, is like eating a cannister of protein powder by the spoonful. It’s like getting concentrated click bytes of assorted thought. So many people normally converse in simplespeak or MSM (newspaper) dumbspeak with no words over six syllables. In simplespeak people censor their ability to be forciful and weaponize their thoughts into action. When fluent in speaking powerfully with quotes, you crack the codes the controllers use to quarantine our inner resources and shape our belief systems. To an uninitiated simplespeak person, ROK reading in general is chock full of aphorisms and quotable passages. The quotable passages on here are so frequent you can’t even choose what to feature in any compilation of quotes. Hell just quote the whole durn thing. Just work on trying to speak in quote-ese, concentrating quotable prose at least once per sentence. Begin growing a massively large beard and start spitting quote after quote.
    I’ll add this aphorism:
    [No woman can rule because no woman can have a beard. A woman can only follow a beard but not have one]

  17. Deming’s First Theorem: Nobody gives a hoot about profit — sustained profit — if we did we would operate as a system.
    – William E. Deming

  18. Jeez Louise you’d think everything sucked. Cheer the fuck up. We are living in amazing times and, coincidently, they are the only times we get to chose from.

  19. Hi Jennie. Looking at your rack, your “I make lots of money over the internet post” is the first one I’ve ever believed.

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