Kind of a ramble, but fully sincere. Appreciate any who reads and doubly so for any who comment in good faith.

I hesitate to critique the umbrella of the men's rights movement. I have always felt like it's not even a 'fair' move to claim there is a cohesive movement for men's rights or men's interests to begin with, so 'criticism' usually amounts to pretending there is a coherent movement and attacking that fantasy. Which is a big ol fart of a waste of time.

At the same time, I think there are identifiable reasons for our lack of a real movement that must be acknowledged and addressed by anyone serious about making any progress. I am not claiming to be the sole authority on those reasons, rather I am presenting my list of factors I believe are critical obstacles to the formation and functioning of the movement.

This approach, the presentation of my perspective in order to improve it, should be recognized as an attempt to demonstrate by example the first of the missing factors that keep us from effectively pursuing our goals: humility. The willingness to not only be flawed but to commit to the task of managing and repairing our flaws. Too often I see otherwise respectful, intelligent, and sincerely good intentioned men trap themselves in their own ego - including myself. We undo ourselves every time we deny our need for adaptability and expanded perspective.

If you think I am mistaken, that men are by and large humble enough to engage in our own collective empowerment, all I ask is to explain to me how you can possibly believe that. Look at the numbers of men engaged with con artists pushing MLMs that are explicitly based in concepts of greater or lesser value men and tell me with a straight face that we are not too chained to our fantasies of hyper-individualized egocentric supremacy to functionally organize for our collective benefit.

If we were to ressurect Sophocles himself from the dead to show him what has become of men, he would tear his own eyes out at the hubristic delusional mess we are a lot faster than Oedipus did.

We need to adopt an inflexible intolerance for anyone peddling these manipulative ego traps as male empowerment. Nobody should feel the need to quote Jordan Peterson or Tim Poole or any talking head grifter in order to engage in men's collective empowerment - if anything we need to treat those people and their content like the para-social relationship drug dealers and drugs that they are. Liberation will not come from YouTube. No one subscribed to any grifting influencer's worldview is even capable of committing to the cause men's empowerment because they are loyal first and foremost to a hierarchial concept of social organization which indulges their superiority complex - and is the very concept that underpins the exact society that is disposing of us right now.

The world those influencers seek is the one we already have: the one where men are sacrificed en masse for the indulgences of far more psychotic men. Might as well ask private prison CEOs to design our schools while turning to Manosphere grifters for tips on improving our lives. Might as well give Epstein the Frankenstein treatement and put him in charge of state mandated daycare facilities.

The 2nd missing factor is directly tied to the first: brotherhood that is founded on principled equality. Why would any self respecting man feel any drive to commit to a movement which does not respect him as an equal from start to finish? Any movement which fails to build itself out of that respect is doomed either to failure to start or to merely recreate the same system which makes men so disposable: hierarchy.

This is why any movement that refuses to challenge the current day dogma of capitalist mode of production is also doomed. Our economic model is the primary source of enforced hierarchial structure in our lives, there is no room for principled egalitarianism in a world that still reveres privatized profits as a bigger societal priority than human rights and human lives.

This is also why men will never find anything but our own hopeless graves in conservativism, which brings me to my last missing factor: any functional awareness of or principled opposition to fascism. Yes there are plenty of men willing to call feminists "feminazis", but the ability to identify fascist tendencies in others is not good enough and will NEVER be good enough. It is necessary to identify and delegitimize the fascist tendencies within ourselves. It is not possible to oppose fascism by declaring it only exists in an Other, fascism is the abuse of our instinctual and socially ingrained willingness to organize against the Other.

The only way to actually oppose these forces that would strip us of our happiness, humanity, and very lives is by forging a movement of positive constructivist action and goals - not a movement of opposition to an Other but a movement focused on building ourselves.

If you want to debunk this premise, here's how: build a man shed. Get a bunch of local guys to come help you put it together and let them share it as compensation. Organize a communal culture of creativity and shared hobbying around your manshed, and take note of any self-reports on the well being of the men who participate. If the man shed fails to improve the disposition of the average guy who attends, then the premise is debunked.

If you happen to create an enduring foundation for men's happiness in your local community? Well, then congratulations on making infinitely more progress towards men's empowerment and health than every content creator and comsumer in the Manosphere combined!

TLDR: Moar Man Sheds Please!