I was thinking about utility and futility of status symbols recently, in relation to the Andrew Tate controversy, so let me share my thoughts here.

First of all, status symbols are useful when you interact with new people, because you want them to properly identify your social position, in order to avoid the slow and impractical process of introduction, and in order to get to the point where they react to you appropriately. For instance, if you don’t dress appropriately for your social status when you try to buy something expensive, you might find yourself in an awqward position where they don’t believe that you have the money to buy what you want to buy, and if they don’t take you seriously it might require excessive effort on your behalf to convince them. Dressing appropriately is not as essential as behaving appropriately, but it helps. Status symbols are, in those cases, the equivalent of a uniform for a doctor, fireman or a policeman; if you don’t have a uniform, you might be as qualified for your job as ever, but people might not believe you without some convincing, and an appropriate uniform makes this tiresome step unnecessary. Note that this step is only necessary in the environment where people meet you for the first time. If everybody knows you’re a doctor or a policeman, for instance if you live in a small town, the uniform is nowhere near as important, which might be why people pay more attention (and money) to status symbols when they live in big cities. If people don’t know you, the kind of car you drive, as well as your suit and watch, are something that tells people something about your level of social success and standing. Certainly, there are people who fake this by wasting all the money they don’t have on status symbols, and they can “hack” the first impression, but it will only get them so far, and if they make a poor impression later on, it will all backfire on them heavily. So, status symbols are useful, but also “hackable”, and thus not reliable.

The second point is that status symbols can backfire if you don’t know what you’re doing. For instance, if you live in a small town, where everybody knows you, wasting money on status symbols doesn’t add anything to the impression you’re making, because everybody already knows what you do and what kind of money you’re making, so if you behave wastefully, they won’t think you’re wealthy, they’ll think you’re an idiot. Also, status symbols put pressure on your environment to try to match you, and this might financially strain them, so they will subconsciously blame you for putting such pressure on them, which won’t make them like you very much. You basically motivate people to alienate you and think poorly of you, because that’s a less expensive way of dealing with the pressure you are exerting.

The third point is that in a small environment, where people know you, they will judge your social status by the most expensive thing you own, for instance your house. Spending money on an expensive car or a watch doesn’t do anything after that point, because everybody already knows you’re rich because you own a big house. Also, if you don’t own a big house, but you own an expensive trinket, they will think you’re an idiot, so that is counterproductive. In a big city, however, that might work, but as people get to know you, it will backfire later. It is always better to surprise people positively as they get to know you better, because otherwise the positive first impression will backfire on you. A normal car parked in front an expensive house in a good neighbourhood makes a much better impression than a fancy car parked in front of a shitty house in a cheap neighbourhood, because if your primary status symbol is less impressive than secondary and tertiary ones (cars, clothes and trinkets), you will leave a very poor impression, because such behaviour is usually associated with people of low class. People of high class, however, usually have their priorities straight and they feel comfortable with their status, and so don’t spend excessively on trinkets.

Also, status symbols are not necessary if you are famous. For instance, if someone is a famous musician, actor, politician or something, everybody who recognizes you will already know your social standing, and spending excessive money on status symbols will do nothing for your public recognition; it might, however, leave an impression of gaudiness and wastefulness, so acting appropriately means that you have to present yourself according to social norms for decency. For instance, if Bill Gates goes somewhere dressed cheaply, and people recognize who he is, they won’t suddenly conclude that he’s poor. If anything, they might like him more because they won’t feel he’s signalling his enormous wealth in ways that make them feel like losers, thus making it a preferential choice for them to isolate and reject him.

So, basically, the status symbols are sometimes useful, for instance when you need to present yourself to new people in such a way that the first impression you make is useful for them to assess your social standing correctly. For instance, I told my son that he has to present himself more formally, because people would otherwise underestimate him, because he’s young; he is a competent young professional and needs to present a public persona that conveys a correct impression. If he dresses like a broke loser, people will tend to treat him as such, and that’s neither pleasant nor useful. That doesn’t mean he has to overspend on clothes and trinkets, but a nice shirt  and a clean looking watch can already do most of the work. However, status symbols very quickly reach a point where people feel as if you’re rubbing it in, and exerting pressure on them to act wastefully, which is basically why Andrew Tate pissed me off; he actively tries to set a standard of wasteful behaviour, to which I react with “how about ‘no‘”, and he achieves the exact opposite of his intentions, despite the fact that I actually like him quite a bit. There is obviously a line of propriety regarding status symbols; you need to look like you belong there, but you also need to avoid presenting in such a blatantly ostentatious way as to intentionally make other people feel bad, because that tends to end badly, and especially so when ostentatiousness is combined with arrogance and haughtiness.

I recently got flooded by all kinds of videos by or about that Andrew Tate guy who is supposed to be controversial. I watched lots of it, mostly because I have an instinctive dislike for the guy and I wanted to get to the bottom of that, since my dislike obviously doesn’t have anything to do with the things he is actually saying, which are both true and so self-evident one really has to wonder about the nature of the world we live in if it’s controversial that 2+2=4, the sky is blue and rocks are hard.

Also, I don’t know whether I dislike the actual person or a persona he’s putting on for the sake of the audience; there are contradictions there, so I got interested enough in the guy to watch a lot of his stuff.

Recently, he got arrested in Romania on what looks like fabricated charges, which appears only to have increased both his fame and the amount of his stuff in my YouTube feed, so I had enough material to articulate my opinion, so here it is.

He is a pashavi, which is what yoga and tantra would call a “physical” type of a human, who is for all intents and purposes a body only, and perceives only the physical world. I heard that Gnostics also have some classification, into physical, intellectual and spiritual types, but Gnosticism is not my thing so I am not too familiar with its nuances – in any case, you can probably understand what I’m trying to say. The guy thinks he figured out the rules, he’s winning the game, and all men want to be him, and all women want to fuck him. That part is actually funny; what I find annoying is the “if you have it, flaunt it” attitude (money, houses, cars), which I perceive as crass, rude and oozing hubris. The reason why I think that is obvious from what happened to him – someone in the top echelons of politics or intelligence agencies simply pressured the Romanians to put him in jail, and this suddenly put him in a position where all the things he was so proud of were suddenly of very little use. Basically, I find it very annoying when someone who is basically a slave flaunts “status symbols”. Conversely, one of the most impressive status symbols I’ve seen is the fact that Mahavatar Babaji from Yogananda’s “Autobiography of a Yogi” is described as being dressed in a simple piece of cloth and owning only that cloth and a staff. Why is that impressive, you’ll ask? It’s impressive because he can materialise a huge palace or any other object if it’s needed to give some student a lesson, he travels by teleportation and can basically do whatever he wants. The minimalist appearance is in fact the ultimate statement of power; basically, compared to him, an expensive car is merely compensation for not being to move quickly on your own, so you need an expensive wheelchair. An aeroplane is just evidence you can’t fly on your own. A house is a thing weak beings use since they are otherwise harmed by so many things. When someone flaunts signs of human weakness and limitation as status symbols, it strikes me as a sign of idiocy. Having the best, jewel-encrusted wheelchair still makes you a cripple. Just have your normal wheelchair, it’s actually less pathetic.

What kind of status symbols make sense? Something that has something to do with your accomplishments – for instance, the protagonist of Carl Sagan’s book “Contact” wearing improvised jewellery made from throwaway synthetic rubies she made when designing MASERs for amplifying radio signals from the Arecibo telescope. The other example is Tim Cook wearing an Apple Watch, or Mate Rimac driving a “Nevera” to his wedding, or Richard Feynman drawing Feynman diagrams on his van, or the guy who designed the Mars rover having a “my second vehicle is a Mars rover” bumper sticker. What did that Tate dude do to make his money? He’s pimping out cam whores. Literally, he whored out his girlfriends to entertain perverts on the Internet for money for him. I would understand if Elon Musk or Mate Rimac wanted to flaunt their accomplishments; at least Rimac acquired Bugatti the right way. Just buying one because you can afford the cost is a second-rate accomplishment. Driving one because you own the company would be another matter entirely. That, BTW, is also the reason why I feel contempt for all those Arab petroleum billionaires who flaunt their wealth around, and their only virtue is being born at the place where the black stuff squirts from the sand, and somebody is prepared to pay huge money for it, and they don’t think it’s ethical to just take it from you and have you enslaved, although they easily could.

What do I consider to be proper status symbols? The things that can never be taken away from you. The things that show pride in your personal accomplishments – a doctorate in physics, a Nobel prize, a technological artefact that improved the world and made you rich, a medal of honour, a scar you earned by doing something virtuous, a monument commemorating your heroic death, praise from the people you helped. Pimping out your girlfriends and buying a Bugatti to show off your great success? Go fuck yourself. You know whom I admire? I’ll tell you a story. A Russian fighter-bomber pilot, a squadron commander, got shot down in Syria fighting ISIS. His wingman was ordered to return to base immediately because of enemy fire from the ground. He disregarded the order and stayed in the air, providing air support to his commander, under enemy fire, until he saw that his commander died taking out himself and the surrounding terrorists with a hand grenade rather than be taken alive, and he himself ran out of fuel and actually had to return to base. No Bugatti, no 300M dollars, no yacht, no private jet, no whores.

I watched a short video clip where Jordan Peterson answers a young woman’s question about “toxic masculinity”, and it turned out that she couldn’t even define the thing, at least when asked about the differences compared to toxic humanity or toxic femininity. Dr. Peterson then proceeded to make a statement that would have one believe that “toxic masculinity” is just one of those liberal leftist phrases that are poorly defined and are in fact meant to target positive traits by being over-generalized, for instances purporting to target “toxic” masculinity, and in fact targetting masculinity as such.

Without necessarily disagreeing with his thinking in regard to this, I immediately thought that I actually do perceive toxic masculinity, and I think I could cite enough examples to be able to come up with a generalised enough definition. So, let me cite examples.

I’ve seen men starting to act like fools when they are around other men. Acting dumber and speaking in a more coarse and simplified language, typical of the lower social classes, usually in deeper voice, and talking in ways that accentuate the assumed consensus with other males. Also, talking about generically “masculine” topics, such as football or other generally popular sports, about cars, construction equipment and building houses, and consuming alcohol in amounts significantly greater than they would consume normally. Furthermore, displaying an aggressive, overtly-masculine stance, where you need to look tough and get into fights. Women are discussed with a dismissive, detached attitude, where the goal is to fuck them and increase the counter, and a wife’s place is in the kitchen, and so on; such an individual will treat even his wife worse when he’s around his male friends. Basically, the point of having sex with a woman is to increase your social standing among men, and the ideal wife is a combination of a cook, a house maid and a whore. Seeing your wife as a friend and a partner, and someone you talk to about sophisticated ideas, would be ridiculed in those circles. Trying to appear less intellectual, simpler and more “down to earth”, because that’s how men are supposed to be. Frowning upon any display of vulnerability and gentleness. Constantly poking other men and trying to establish hierarchies by either bullying someone, or sucking up to the perceived leader by going along with his nasty shit. Trying to think in wolf-pack hierarchies of either being an “alpha” or a “beta”, and a “true man should be an alpha”.

I think we have enough of a pattern here to attempt a definition; toxic masculinity is appropriation of patterns of behaviour that are perceived as stereotypically masculine to the point of caricature, in order for an inherently insecure individual to find acceptance and belonging in male company, even when those patterns of behaviour go against his personal choices manifested in his private life.

So, it is quite obvious that I find this pattern of behaviour objectionable, and let me tell you why. I find it objectionable because it reeks of weakness. It is all about making a show of strength because you are weak and you don’t have the courage to calmly stand behind your personal choices and defend them even if they go against what “everybody else” believes. It’s about being afraid of the consequences of not fitting into a group, so you make compromises that go against your personal beliefs and choices to the point where you feel humiliated and worthless afterwards. It’s about appearance over substance. Also, it’s a reduction to a pattern typical for men of lower social standing, and this is not something one should aspire to. If you think you have to reduce yourself in order to fit somewhere, you are probably trying to fit into a wrong group.

It seems we have a robust definition of toxic masculinity, but it is so obviously an aberration that we must also define healthy masculinity in order to get a clearer picture.

Confidence. Competence. A man should be confident enough of himself to persist in his personal choices and behaviour regardless of the preferences and beliefs of a group. His confidence and composure will in fact make others want to follow and emulate him, rather than him having to conform to the beliefs and actions of others. If he doesn’t belong to some established social group or a pattern, he will shrug and leave, and it is very likely that a new group or a pattern will start to form around him, simply because he creates an aura of coherent stability around himself, and if this is based on competence, it has great persuasive power, because other competent people will always prefer the company based on competence and calm confidence, to some vacuous concept such as hanging out at a bar and talking about football and getting into fights when drunk. Such a man will see a woman as a valuable person and talk to her seriously and directly; if he thinks she is wrong, he will clearly state this and show her the errors in her thinking, instead of being either dismissive of her and acting as if trying to score points against her to impress other men, or being so entranced by her femaleness that he would swallow any kind of nonsense she spouts. His attitude towards a woman he likes is “I know the goal, and if you trust me, I will lead you there and take care of you”. He is confident enough to constantly learn, instead of trying to pretend to know it all; mistakes are immediately acknowledged and corrected. Weakness is not tolerated, but weakness is defined as insufficient moral and spiritual strength to adhere to the right goals, principles and ideas. If he needs to change the course, or persist on the current course, he will think about this from the position of higher values and higher good, make a choice and then implement it. He’s not scared of appearing indecisive, of changing course, or of persisting until death. He’s scared of not seeing what the right thing to do is, because that’s what a man is supposed to do – see what the right thing is, and then do it; also, cooperate with others who want to achieve worthy goals, and oppose those who are disruptive, who want to impose unworthy goals and ideas, and are of lowly character. Follow God and the right principles and ideas, and lead and protect your wife and children first, and, as an extension into a wider society, show such good example of virtue, proper spiritual orientation, kindness and strength, that others would want to follow your good example and cooperate with you in creating a wider society based on such virtuous principles. Be a barrier of force between good principles and good people who chose them, and predatory seducers and evil ones who want to lead them astray. Attempt to raise the level of every social interaction by demonstrating a good example of kind humour and intelligence. Ignore bad ideas and people of lowly character, and steer the direction of a conversation towards something of value. If your company shows resistance to goodness and virtue, leave. If you see something admirable, follow it.

So, there you go, it wasn’t that hard.