Masculine Self-Interest

Is self interest positive, negative or both? Leave your comment below!

“The Lord has made all for Himself, Yes, even the wicked for the day of doom”.

Proverbs 16:4

Contrary to the popular Church dogma which informally adopts Rousseau’s idea that man is a “noble savage”, everyone is working an angle and there is no such thing as doing something “out of the goodness of your heart”. Even God made man for Himself, and we may never know the reasons why. To deny this is to deny reality.

The Bible clearly states God made man for Himself and therefore took action in His own self-interest.

If God took self-interested action by creating man, then by definition of the nature of God, self-interested action cannot be sinful (Habakkuk 1:13). This is not to say that the creation of man was exclusively in the interest of God, obviously God also takes action in the best interest of man. People have angles they are working, folks, and it’s not a bad thing. 

Every bit of small talk you have engaged in has been directed towards advancing your angle. Contrariwise, every time someone engages you in conversation they are advancing their own angle as well. This could be as simple as building enough rapport with you to allow them to ask you for a favor. Or it could go much deeper, and their interest in you is motivated by money or power. Just because people in the Church are Christians does not mean they are above the petty power struggles innate in human beings. 

Working angles is not always evil either. We need incentives for everything we do, or we would never do anything. In life we barter with time and money. Less known is the fact that we also barter with our actions. We are pushing agendas. We manipulate. Every action is a manipulation. Even the Latin root for manipulation means to “fill with the hand” – to use the hands to change the orientation of an object. Take some time and observe yourself in action, you will see that everything you do has some personal angle. Maybe it’s not immediately apparent, maybe you have to look a little deeper, but there are benefits to you. 

Key: No man takes an action that does not have at least one benefit for himself.

There is nothing wrong with self-interested action (Here is a great article at gynocentrism.com. Society improves by transactions of action, and those transactions are fueled by our interest in the self. Men get jobs, go to school, build careers because they want success. They want success because women are attracted to success and more women will want to have sex with them if they are a high performer. This is reality. 

Self-interest only becomes a problem when it inflicts suffering on others. Accept your non-sinful self interest and you will be freer and more successful. 

Mantra

I accept that I have an angle. I bend the world to my will.

Application

Observe yourself and observe others today. Look deeply to understand the reason behind why they take the actions they do. Look long enough and you will find their angle. Once you find it, manipulate it to your angle. Most people are unskilled at hiding their personal agenda from others because they lack even the slightest hint of social intelligence. Pay attention to who talks to you and why. What subjects do they bring up? 

If they come up and begin small talk and proceed to talk about themselves, you realize that that this individual wants attention. Do they talk about themselves in the past or present tense? Most men you encounter in the Church will talk about themselves in the past tense, especially before they had children. This is because their best days are behind them and they have to look in the mirror to see the “good ole days”. These men have had purpose sucked out of their lives and their ambition is gone. Realize that these men want attention, praise and for you to covertly tell them how “cool” they were and to make them feel special. This is how you begin to manipulate them. Slowly praise them in small ways, because you can guarantee they are not getting any praise from their wives. Ask about their past and direct them to continue talking about themselves. By the end of the conversation you have said very little and now they think you are a “great guy”. Continue employing this strategy of ego stroking and attention giving and you will have a loyal follower.

When women talk to you they will primarily bring up their kids, unless they are single and assessing your capacity for success, which is your sexual market value.

Women talk about kids because they have invested the prime years of their lives into creating new human beings, and they are very self-conscious about this. They know they are judged by their kids. Mothers, and sometimes even fathers, will determine their own self-worth by comparing how well their children are doing compared to other people’s children. This is an area of sensitivity and a good place to concentrate your manipulation. Dote on her kids. Compliment the aspects of the children that normally are not noticed or that you see the mother is working very hard to improve. Do not waste time saying her kids are “cute” or “smart” or “funny”, those are a waste of time because they are too commonly used. Attack the flank with your compliments, find ways to actually compliment the mother instead of the kid, or compliment both mother and kid in the same line. “You are doing so well raising your son, I see his behavior improving because of you every week”. Or, “You are working so hard, it is really paying off with his behavior”, and then try to cite specific examples you notice so your compliment doesn’t look like a mushy schmooze. Use your warlike tactics to dominate the social sphere.

Understand: this is not a wicked manipulation.

This is what all people do, simply not at a conscious level. These are just two examples of basic manipulations. Use the basic blueprints to build more manipulations depending on who you are dealing with. Every individual and situation is different so you will have to construct your strategy accordingly. Simply ask:

• What does this person value?
• What does this person want?

The answer to these two main questions will give you most of the information you need to maneuver through various social interactions. And concentrating on others outside yourself has the added benefit of reducing your anxiety, because you are no longer “living in your head”.

Make your agenda look like their agenda and your allies will be much more interested in helping you to achieve it. Rid yourself of the moralization of amoral characteristics that weak Church males force on you.

Common Church Quibble: “How dare you encourage young men to manipulate people?”

Simple: because everything is a manipulation. Take, for example the interviewer who has a celebrity guest and is asking him questions. He carefully selects questions designed to elicit particular responses. He knows that if he gets these responses he increases the chances that the video or article of the interview will go viral. If the interview becomes popular it drives more customers to his interview platform (website/video channel etc). More people on his website or reading his articles means more money for him or the company. This is a manipulation. It is not that people consciously think in these ways and purposefully go out of their way to design manipulations, but this is how we structure ourselves. Manipulations are part of everyday life, therefore, you might as well be conscious about them and use them properly.