Start the World – Jack Donovan Podcast

(For audio version, scroll to the bottom of the page.) The primary role of Thor is the primary, evolutionary role of all men — to protect the perimeter inhabited by his people and to do battle with chaotic forces that threaten its order, prosperity and continuity.  It is only when that zone of security has been established and maintained that any of the civilized joys of life can develop and be experienced in their fullness. Without security, there is no art, no love, no higher learning — only anxiety and the struggle to survive.  Thor is a guardian — protector of Asgard, of sailing ships, of crops and the common folk. In Dumézil’s tripartite ordering of Indo-European societies, he is a manifestation of the warrior archetype. He is the hammer of the gods and the people — the juggernaut of the Kshatriya — a crushing force set loose on malevolent jötnar and all encroaching forces of chaos and disorder.  In the words of Longfellow, his “eyes are lightning” and his name means “thunder,” with an origin reaching through the Proto-Germanic “Þunraz” all the way to the THOR “LIGHTNING” T-SHIRT – BUY NOW AT BRUTALCO.COM Proto-Indo-European tongue of the steppe.   To fight and protect — this is the role of Thor. He is a warrior. That is his job and his duty.  But what does it feel like — to experience being thunder? What does it feel like to be a terrible rumble in the sky that seems to shake the very earth?  It sounds like it feels pretty good.  It sounds like it feels like power and winning.  Nietzsche wrote that, “…a living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength…”  This is the joy of Thor, of being Thor, of being the personification of thunder itself. To have strength and exert it — to use it. To bring the BOOM.  This isn’t Thor’s duty or his higher purpose, it is simply what he is and what he does. In the stories about Thor, he is always revving his engines, looking for a reason to do what he really wants to do and to be what he really is. He’s chomping at the bit, waiting for an opportunity to become Þunraz. And when the god of thunder becomes thunder, I imagine the corner of his grimace turns upward just a bit.  Because it feels good to exert strength. Because it feels good to BE thunder.  One might call the gods projections, or mysteries, or eternal truths. In some sense, they represent aspects of ourselves. They are pieces of human nature.  Strength is one of the defining characteristics of Thor, and it is also one of the defining characteristics of men. Greater average strength is one of the qualities that distinguishes men from women. All men are not stronger than all women, but most men are stronger than most women. Strength differentiates men, and greater strength helped us to perform our differentiated role and responsibility throughout the majority of our evolutionary history. Men needed to be stronger to protect their territories and the more vulnerable members of their tribes and families.  But this strength, this virile potentiality, is also part of what we are. Having and using this greater strength is a joy in the way expressing any of one’s talents can bring great satisfaction. In the way that an artist fulfills his potential in painting the best painting he is able to paint, or a mother is fulfilled when she puts everything she has into raising and nurturing a child to the best of her ability, a man fulfills an aspect of his potential when he discharges his strength. He becomes more of what he is, and there is a magnificent joy in that becoming.  Several years ago, I wrote that I “train for honor.”  I was looking for a higher reason — beyond mere narcissism or physical maintenance — some greater purpose for training. It has always been the job of men to be strong and to demonstrate that strength, and in an age where weakness is encouraged and even celebrated, I considered strength training of any kind to be a revolt against the modern world. I wrote that I trained to be worthy enough to carry water for my barbarian fathers — for men who lived harder lives in a harder world. That I trained to avoid being a living, breathing embarrassment to their memory. I wrote that training for honor meant training to earn the respect and admiration of my spiritual peers and the men who I myself admired as exemplars of masculinity and the tactical virtues.  It is important — even defiant in this rootless age — to express this kind of commitment to the memory of your ancestors. In this emasculated era where even the word “honor” — when employed solemnly and seriously in its traditional patriarchal sense — has become socially taboo, to show a commitment to earning and maintaining your reputation within an exclusive group of men is absolutely radical. Today, I do train to be an example to men in my circle, to earn and reaffirm their respect and esteem, and at the very least, to avoid embarrassing them or making them look weak by association. Training to honor your peers and to honor the memory of your stronger forebears are both high, purposeful and significant motivations for any kind of self-improvement. And, if you recognize yourself to be in your own honest and self-aware estimation that “Exhibit A” of modern male weakness and dissolution, these are probably the best reasons to begin training, and begin training hard. If you have been training for a long time and you are thinking about stopping your training to rest on your laurels and regale eye-rolling youths with stories of how strong you used to be — about how much you benched in 2003 — these are probably the best reasons to keep training. Until you fucking die.  But the truth for me today is that I like training. In fact, I love training. It’s actually my favorite thing to do and the hours I spend in the gym are usually the best and happiest hours of my day. I don’t have to force myself to train. I have to force myself to do things that make me money so that I can keep training.  The possibility of shame and dishonor is a powerful motivator. The possibility of disappointing men who I respect and men who respect me and men who look up to me in some way is a powerful motivator. And yes, the disgraceful prospect of being the withering, ignoble end of a line of stronger and harder men should get your ass into the gym. Shame and dishonor are negative motivators. And they work. But they are tolerances. Baselines. Your back against a wall covered in spikes. THOR “LIGHTNING” T-SHIRT – BUY NOW AT BRUTALCO.COM   The attainment of honor is a positive motivator. Self-improvement, self-creation, self-revelation and becoming the best version of myself that I can be at any given time — those are positive motivators.   At this point in my life, I want positive motivators.  I want to do things because I am passionate about them, because I love doing them, because they give me a sense of fulfillment. I train because I love being strong. I love feeling strong. I train because I want to be mighty and beautiful and because I believe that it is good and RIGHT to be mighty and beautiful. I train because — like every righteous living beast — I want to discharge my strength as hard as I can for as long as I can.  When I walk into a gym I want to train for no one else and compared to no one else.  I want to train because I’m alive and I want to feel alive.  Because I’m a man and it feels good to be a man.  Because I’m strong and it feels good to be strong.  Because I want that one moment every day when I am fucking THUNDER.  Because I want to know and feel the JOY OF THOR.  !:ÞUNRAZ:!       The Challenge of Thor by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow I am the God Thor, I am the War God, I am the Thunderer! Here in my Northland, My fastness and fortress, Reign I forever! Here amid icebergs Rule I the nations; This is my hammer, Miölner the mighty; Giants and sorcerers Cannot withstand it! These are the gauntlets Wherewith I wield it, And hurl it afar off; This is my girdle; Whenever I brace it, Strength is redoubled! The light thou beholdest Stream through the heavens, In flashes of crimson, Is but my red beard Blown by the night-wind, Affrighting the nations! Jove is my brother; Mine eyes are the lightning; The wheels of my chariot Roll in the thunder, The blows of my hammer Ring in the earthquake! Force rules the world still, Has ruled it, shall rule it; Meekness is weakness, Strength is triumphant, Over the whole earth Still is it Thor’s Day! Thou art a God too, O Galilean! And thus singled-handed Unto the combat, Gauntlet or Gospel, Here I defy thee!  

An interview with my bro from the Wolves of Vinland, Matthias Waggener about his new book, Love is Death in Your Veins — a transcontinental motorcycle travelogue exploring love, divorce and life on the road. We talked about the book, but also about leadership and building strong groups of men. I’m also joined by my Brutal Company shipping guy, sparring partner and bro Afi, who didn’t end up saying too much this time but you should follow him on Instagram @afivolundr. (He used to be Cascadian Warboy, that’s an error in the podcast intro) You can buy Love is Death in Your Veins at http://matthiaswaggener.com. Follow Matthias on Instagram @werewolfhexologist.

Jack Donovan interviews Martin Lichtmesz and Martin Sellner, Identitarian activists based in Vienna. Topics include the Yukio Mishma, the power of the image, New Right vs. Old Right, and the differences between American and European nationalist and identity movements. In my opinion, this is one of the best Start The World podcast episodes to-date. In February 2017, I spoke in Schnellroda, Germany at the Institut fur Staatspolitik‘s Winterakademie. You can watch my speech, titled “Violence: Beyond Good and Evil,” on YouTube, here. I met both Martins there, and after I returned home I invited them to come on Start the World. Guests: Martin Sellner Martin Sellner is a well-known Identitarian activist in Vienna and across Europe. He has a degree in philosophy, so he sells t-shirts at phalanx-europa.com. You can follow him on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and though his web site at martin-sellner.at.  Wenn Sie Deutch verstehen, hat Martin auch einen podcast. Martin Lichtmesz Martin Lichtmesz is a writer, translator and activist in Vienna, Austria. He translated the German edition of The Way of Men — Der Weg der Manner, and has also translated Camp of Saints. You can follow him on Twitter. Listen on YouTube: Download Podcast or Listen Live:  

STW Episode 21 features JIM GOAD, author of The Redneck Manifesto. As a writer, Goad has been rustling jimmies since the early 1990s, when he started publishing his legendary cult zine called ANSWER ME! He’s been physically attacked and dragged through the sleazy American legal system for his writing. Nazis and Antifa both hate him. He wrote a comic called Trucker Fags in Denial and then recorded an album of trucker music and toured with Hank 3. Goad has a talent for pointing out the hypocrisy of political correctness. Some might even call it an affliction — and he’d probably agree with them. In recent years he’s written some razor sharp cultural commentary for Takimag, and he also writes for Thought Catalog. Goad is a top-tier stylist, and I’m sure that reading his work has taught me to be a better, and funnier, writer.  His latest book is titled The New Church Ladies a collection of essays that eviscerate the “extremely uptight world of social justice.” I thought I got the idea for calling SJWs “Church Ladies” from Goad, but he researched it and says I actually came up with it first. His take on it in the title essay is excellent, and you should read it. I’ll link to one of the old SNL Church Lady skits for anyone too young to get the reference. Goad has lived one hell of a life so far, so I let this podcast run a little longer than usual. My voice sounds a little weird, because I’m switching my podcasting operation from PC to Mac and I ended up with an annoying hum that I had to filter out in post-production. For more on Jim Goad, look him up on Twitter or check out his web site at jimgoad.net. You can buy his new book, The New Church Ladies on Amazon. I was going to post a link to the SNL Church Lady skits, but after searching YouTube I discovered that apparently Dana Carvey has been doing Church Lady again on SNL recently. The new segments are still kinda funny because Carvey is a pro, but they do have a touch of that smug New York liberal in-group humor that has made SNL increasingly unfunny and irrelevant for decades. I encourage readers/listeners to seek out the older segments.

K.D. Mathews (http://kdmathews.com) talks with Jack Donovan about giving your dog a sense of purpose, basic dog training concepts, realistic expectations about using dogs for personal/home security, building a relationship with your dog, human/dog evolution and more. I uploaded this podcast to YouTube, and I plan to do that with all future podcasts. Check out my slick new intro video to go with the original theme music from David Lee Archer. Podcast Link at the bottom of this post. TOPICS: Using a dog as a “layer” of security and maintaining realistic expectations about your dog’s potential Common dog training errors Pit bulls Rebooting your relationship with your dog “Nothing in life is free” Clicker training “Be fair to the dog” LINKS: KD Mathews http://kdmathews.com Why Train? – Looking Far Beyond The Superficial Obviousness To Daily Training With Your Dog http://kdmathews.com/why-train-looking-far-beyond-the-superficial-obviousness-to-daily-training-with-your-dog/ Theme Music by David Lee Archer Find releases from David Lee Archer and the Luckless Bastards here: https://www.reverbnation.com/davidleearcherlucklessbastards

My latest book, Becoming a Barbarian, is now finally available in audiobook form through Audible, Amazon and iTunes. (iTunes is lagging, but should follow within the next few days.) I put many hours into this project and invested in some new recording equipment, so I think you will find that the levels of both quality and the performance have improved since the audiobook edition of The Way of Men was released in 2015. I have also always felt that this book will be more enjoyable in audiobook form, due to both the content and style of writing. So plan a road trip, and “press play” to become a barbarian. A sample chapter was released in November, and is available via YouTube and as a Start the World podcast. I will probably make a second preview chapter available soon.    

Don’t kill your ego. Sacrifice Yourself To Yourself. Bruce Lee wrote that: “Punches and kicks are tools to kill the ego.” It sounds like mountaintop mysticism, like some far-out, far-eastern form of overdubbed, white-bearded enigmatic enlightenment. It’s become a training cliche. Whether you are training with weapons or weights, someone will eventually tell you that your ego is your enemy. The problem with that is, your ego is also — you. People tell you to kill your ego because they want you to get out of your own way. They want you to stop acting like you already know everything, because by seeking out training, you’ve already acknowledged on some level that you don’t know everything.They want you to leave your status or perceived status in the world behind, so that you can submit to the learning process as a student — with no chip on your shoulder and nothing to prove. They want you to train with humility and avoid hubris — an ancient Greek concept describing a man who overestimates his own power or status and brings himself into conflict with natural law, which is, from a mythopoetic perspective, the will of the gods. His hubris eventually leads to his downfall. In the case of training, a man’s hubris makes it more difficult for him to learn and grow as a practitioner — his hubris becomes the cause of his stasis. Conceit, hubris, arrogance…this kind of ego-tism is only one negative connotation of the word ego, which also describes a much broader concept of self. “Ego” is actually a Latin word for “I,” sometimes translated as “I, myself.” The Twentieth Century use of “ego” in English to mean “self” stems from the psychoanalytic work of Sigmund Freud, who used the simple word “Ich,” also “I,” in German. This seems less editorial and more in keeping with the Latin “I, myself.” In the Freudian model, the super-ego, or Über-Ich is the ego above and beyond the self. It’s the part of the conscious and unconscious self that absorbs and processes collective identity as well as the demands and the norms of the group, culture, society — tribe. If you train on purpose — if you train because you want to train — your training is driven by the ego. Voluntary training is endured in the service of the ego, with the ultimate purpose of validating the ego, increasing self worth and improving social status. You train because you believe that you are good enough to be better, and worth improving. Or perhaps you see yourself training for the sake of others, for the group, to protect them or fulfill a role you believe you are good enough and able to fulfill. If you train for honor — to be worthy of your peers, your ancestors, your gods — you train because you believe yourself to be capable of honoring them. (1) This too, is a product of your ego.   For more on training for honor, read my essay, “Train for Honor” in the collection A Sky Without Eagles.(2014) The ego, in both the broadest and the psychoanalytic sense, describes your conscious mind. It makes up the bulk of your “I” or “Ich.” Your ego is what separates you from dust in the wind. It’s the part of your mind that is awake, sentient, self-aware. To whatever extent you are the master of your own fate and the captain of your soul, the “you” is your ego. It is your ego — inseparable from any knowable version of “you” — that perceives and processes information about the world around you, evaluates that information, and selects a direction or course of action. It is the ego that manifests will. Men train in the service of a higher version of the self, imagined and willed into existence by the ego. Training is self-creation — becoming — not self-destruction. The aspects of the ego which must be destroyed or contained in training are self-imposed scripts and limitations and habits which may impede the progress of your self-development.This is a pruning of the ego — a sacrifice of old growth to stimulate new growth. This pruning may be painful as you clip away or brush aside cherished ideas about the talents or even perceived limitations that you believe make you special. People seem to take almost as much pride in the untested reasons and rationalizations they’ve dreamed up for why they can’t learn in a certain way or do a certain thing as they do in untested delusions of grandeur — especially in this slave age that prefers victims to victors. Often, their perceived limitations are like those of a boy who believes he can’t swim or doesn’t like swimming because he fell in a pool once and didn’t know what to do. The world is also full of men who want to tell you how much they used to lift or how fast they used to run, before they got “old” or suffered some injury that elite athletes work through all the time. “Limitless potential” is a fantasy, but most people set their own limits long before they come anywhere close to the top end of their potential. While some believe they can’t when they can, many others believe they could when they probably couldn’t. Millions of doughboys overestimate their ability to fight because they won an altercation in high school once — or worse, because they’ve watched a lot of videos of fights and think they “have a pretty good idea of what they’d do.” You can find them second-guessing professional fighters and quarterbacks in bars and in front of television sets all around the world. To truly become the kind of men who know they have the ability and the conditioning to do what these men merely believe they can do, these couch captains would have to abandon their self-authored fictions about themselves. They would have to go through a process of failing and looking stupid before they even started to look like they knew what they were doing — much less became truly capable of performing as they’ve imagined.   To train successfully, you must be willing to sacrifice portions of your present self-concept to a future, higher version of the self created by your ego. It is your ego, god-like, that is initiating and driving the process of self-transformation and becoming. This process requires you to exchange something you have for something you want. Nothing worth anything is truly free, and everything worth having requires some kind of sacrifice. Instead of “killing your ego” — instead of fighting yourself — approach training as a sacrifice of a part of yourself to a higher self. This is the way of Odin. Odin is usually depicted with a missing eye, because he sacrificed one of his own eyes to the giant Mimir in order to drink from his well of wisdom. He sacrificed a portion of his superficial sight for a deeper, higher way of “seeing.” . In another tale, Odin disguised himself as a farmhand and labored through a growing season, doing the work of nine men to gain access to Óðrœrir, the mead of poetry and inspiration. To get the mead, the hooded wanderer eventually had to seduce the giantess Gunnlod, whose name translates roughly to “invitation to battle,” and slam her out for three nights in a row. (It must have been a rough three nights.) Odin is perhaps best known for his self-directed ordeal hanging from the world-tree Yggdrasil, wounded by what was (presumably) his own spear. After hanging without food or drink for nine nights, the runes reveal themselves to him, and from them he gains magic and a greater understanding of the universe. While this scene is superficially Christ-like, and it makes sense to wonder how much Christian imagery and intent colored any of the surviving stories of pre-Christian European pagans, the stark difference here is in Odin’s motivation. The spirit of Odin’s ego-driven self-sacrifice is captured in the following lines from the Hávamál: og gefinn Óðni sjálfur sjálfum mér a sacrifice to Odin myself to myself   The Hávamál is known as “the sayings of the high one” — sayings attributed to Odin himself. The majority of the first 138 verses pass down practical advice for living, as if from a grandfather or a wise old king. These lines about the sacrifice of self to self are found in a distinctive portion of the text that reads as if the speaker has slipped into a trance. In this dream state, the high one recalls his initiation into the mysteries of the runes, through starved meditation, while hanging from the world tree (2):   Veit ég að ég hékk vindga meiði á nætur allar níu geiri undaður og gefinn Óðni sjálfur sjálfum mér á þeim meiði er manngi veit hvers hann af rótum rennur * Við hleifi mig seldu né við hornigi nýsti ég niður nam ég upp rúnir æpandi nam féll ég aftur þaðan I know that I hung on a windy tree for nine full nights wounded with a spear a sacrifice to Odin myself to myself on that tree which no man knows from what root it runs * None made me happy with loaf Or with horn I looked down below I took up the runes Screaming I took them And then fell down from there   Odin’s martyrdom is a self-martyrdom, done in the service of no one but himself, for reasons of his own. He sacrifices himself to reach a new level of understanding, and through that understanding becomes a higher version of himself. Odin acknowledges that he doesn’t know everything, and instead of sitting on his throne sipping mead and marveling at his own creation, he pushes himself out of his own comfort zone and forces himself to do what he believes to be necessary to know more and become better. The Allfather could easily compare himself to other gods and humans and all of the lesser creatures, and be satisfied. But Odin doesn’t measure himself against others, he measures himself against himself. The opposite of Odin wouldn’t be a giant or a dwarf or a man — or even the wolf who swallows him and ends his life. Odin’s opposite would be the person who tells you to “just be yourself” or to “be happy just the way you are.” The story of Odin is a challenge and a reminder that no matter who you are or what you’ve achieved, you can do more, learn more — you can make yourself better in some way. The practice of Odinism requires no worship of Odin with kneeling prayers. One who practices Odinism acknowledges the worthiness — the original meaning of the Old English word, “weorðscipe” — of the Odinic ideal by embodying Odin. A man becomes Odin by acknowledging the worth of the way of one who is always seeking, always improving, always willing to sacrifice a piece of himself to become more, to become better, to do more. All training requires some kind of sacrifice of self to self. Of something you have for something you want. Of something you want to do now for someone you want to be later. It may even be a part of you that you cling to, some idea about yourself that you’ll have to give up temporarily or permanently, because it is preventing you from becoming who your ego believes you can become. When you’ve decided what you want to learn or what you want to do or how you want to transform yourself — work to remove the internal obstacles that are preventing you from achieving mastery or realizing that goal. Be the loosener your own fetters. Determine what you have that you need to give up — time, money, work, habit, comfort — and sacrifice it on the bloody altar of that vision. When you are tempted to feel burdened or victimized by the hunger of your vision for sacrifice, remember that you are the visionary — the father of it all. You are the god, the priest, the slaughter and the harvest. (1) For more on training for honor, read my essay, “Train for Honor” in the collection A Sky Without Eagles.(2014) (2) The translation is mixed and simplified, based on the comparative work done here: https://notendur.hi.is/haukurth/norse/reader/runatal.html. I’ve done my best to mimic the reconstructed Old Norse pronunciation in the recorded version on that page, albeit with my own quirks and dramatic inflections. Following the example of Paul Waggener, I’ve made this a part of the opening of every Wolves ritual I conduct.

On Sebastian Junger’s “Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging” An audio presentation of this essay is available below, recorded as STW Episode #17. In his new book, Tribe, Sebastian Junger attempts to expand on one of the most daringly alert and off-message observations made in his 2010 book, War. War is generally portrayed as a terrible experience which must be endured, but no one is supposed to like it. While talking to soldiers who served in Afghanistan and other wars, Junger recognized that while war may be terrifying and exhausting and painful, men often miss the experience of war when they return to civilian life. Men and boys are routinely encouraged by public health institutions, educators, therapists, women and the media — everyone but their peers and the occasional stern father figure — to “open up” and “express their feelings.” A lot of guys I know will joke around and say that they, “have no feelings.” When men say that they, “don’t have feelings,” what they mean is that they don’t want to luxuriate in emotions that make them feel weak, they expect that anything they say can and probably will be used against them, and they know their honest thoughts and feelings probably aren’t the thoughts and feelings that most people want to hear. Men and boys in the modern world spend a lot of time hearing about why their feelings are wrong. They aren’t supposed to sexually objectify women the way men have always sexually objectified women. They aren’t supposed to want to help women, because that’s wrong, too. If they hit a woman it is always wrong, unless she wants to take martial arts, and then they are supposed to treat her like a man. Sometimes. Kind of. Men aren’t supposed to want to protect their own interests or be wary of the motivations of strangers or outsiders — because that’s xenophobic or racist. Men are still theoretically supposed to be prepared to be heroes and fight to protect their loved ones if necessary, but if they attempt to acquire the tools and skills to actually do those things — instead of just expecting to magically download them like Trinity in an emergency — they are called paranoid or labeled “gun nuts” and treated with suspicion. Men are supposed to be prepared, theoretically, to use violence, but they are never supposed to actually like it. To hope for some kind of opportunity to use violence, to enjoy the idea of being violent, to enjoy actually being violent, to kill another human being and not feel bad about it — these are the most taboo of feelings. These are not the kinds of feelings people want to hear. When men reveal or even hint at having the wrong kinds of feelings, those feelings are either shouted down or condescendingly explained away in some perverse and convoluted manner. Usually, more education is recommended. Educated people are supposed to know better than to have the wrong kinds of feelings. The recommended education will just be more people telling men why their feelings are wrong. This was probably similar to what being a woman or a girl was like for many females in some pre-feminist societies. Women who liked sex, who wanted to do things women weren’t supposed to do, who didn’t want children, who didn’t care about the things women were supposed to care about…they were probably all told they were having the wrong kinds of feelings and should get back to their needlepoint. Likewise, as we are often reminded, men who wanted to do the things women were supposed to do were bullied and told they were having the wrong kinds of feelings. Now the old outcasts are applauded, and men and women who feel drawn to traditional gender roles get the equivalent of, “shut up and make me a sandwich,” which is, I guess, “shut up and take Women’s Studies and Diversity courses until you feel differently.” Telling people to have different feelings doesn’t exactly help them process those feelings, it just teaches them what feelings to reveal and what feelings they can never talk about. When men today return from combat, they are returning to the society they grew up in. They know how they are supposed to feel about violence. They know they are supposed to feel victimized by it. They know they are supposed to suffer from having been exposed to violence, and they know they are supposed to feel guilty about having killed or having helped someone else to kill. They know they are supposed to want, more than anything, to get a good job and buy an SUV and start a family and have barbecues and drink Coors Light responsibly. They aren’t supposed to wish they were back in the Middle East. They aren’t supposed to say they feel more connected to the men in their units than to their families and old friends. They aren’t supposed to say that that no matter how stressful it was at the time, the experience of fighting for their lives made everything else seem boring and trivial. They aren’t supposed to admit they ever enjoyed it. When Junger explained in War that many combat veterans do have these feelings — that they do miss war and have many fond memories of war, up to and including killing other humans, it struck me as jarringly honest. He didn’t apologize for their feelings or explain why they were wrong for feeling that way. Actually listening to how men feel, instead of telling them how they are supposed to feel, is going to be essential to helping them work through a problem. In the context of war, this has obvious applications for helping veterans who have symptoms of PTSD. In Tribe, Junger, relates his own account of having PTSD-related panic attacks when he returned to the “bitter safety” of New York City from a particularly perilous reporting assignment in Afghanistan. He goes on to explore responses to trauma, danger and loss from war, disease epidemics, and rape. Setting Junger’s conclusions, proposed solutions and missed opportunities aside, Tribe is worth reading for anyone interested in the phenomenon of PTSD. It contains some sugar-free statistics about the number of vets who claim benefits for PTSD versus the number of vets who actually experience combat, as well as some interesting thoughts regarding the discrepancy between the two and some reasons why it isn’t always as simple as fraud — though there is surely that, too. Junger also presents a wide variety of useful information, evolutionary theories and relevant anecdotes about processing responses to extreme stress. Short-term PTSD is a normal and, Junger argues, evolutionarily adaptive response to life-threatening experiences. It may act as a reminder to remain in a heightened state of awareness immediately following an event to be sure the danger has passed. However, Junger seems to suggest that acute PTSD becomes chronic PTSD and lingers because there is something missing from modern Western society. Junger thinks that while life in the modern West is safe and comfortable, some of the reasons returning soldiers find themselves yearning for the war, and why even civilians who have lived through conflict or disaster find themselves remembering their ordeals, “more fondly than weddings or tropical vacations,” may be because they miss being in a situation where their actions truly mattered, and people helped each other out. He writes: “Humans don’t mind hardship, in fact they thrive on it; what they mind is not feeling necessary. Modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary. It’s time for that to end.” This is absolutely true, and I’ve written basically the same thing about the general ennui of men in modern post-feminist nations — where their natural roles are performed by corporations and government institutions, and they are reduced to mere sources of income and insemination. Junger says people in modern society are missing a sense of tribe, and he’s right, but he stops short of either truly understanding or being willing to address the totality of what it means to be part of a tribe. The elements of tribalism that make it fundamentally incompatible with pluralism and globalism go unmentioned or unexamined in Tribe, and what remains is a handful of vague, disappointing bromides about not cheating and treating political opponents more fairly and helping each other so we don’t “lose our humanity.” He fumbles at the truth with statements like this… “In a country that applies its standard of loyalty in such an arbitrary way, it would seem difficult for others to develop any kind of tribal ethos.” …and then resolves them with cotton candy like this… “Acting in a tribal way simply means being willing to make a substantive sacrifice for your community — be that your neighborhood, your workplace, or your entire country.” Junger seems to think that tribalism can be reduced to the old Boy Scout slogan, “Do a good deed daily.” The question is, for who? Is your tribe just anyone?  What does being a Good Samaritan have to do with tribalism? Indiscriminate love for humanity, which is what Junger preaches in Tribe, is, even at the most basic dictionary level, the exact opposite of tribalism. Tribalism is human, but it is not humanitarianism. Tribalism is defined as, “strong loyalty to one’s own tribe, party, or group.” Tribal belonging is exclusive and the camaraderie and generosity that Junger admires in tribal people is functional because the group has defined boundaries. Tribal people are generally not wandering do-gooders. Tribal people help each other because helping each other means helping “us,” and they know who their “us” is. In a well-defined tribal group where people know or at least recognize each other as members, people who share voluntarily are socially rewarded and people who do not are punished or removed from the group. Reciprocity is also relatively immediate and recognizable. There is a return for showing that you are “on the team.” Junger writes that, “It makes absolutely no sense to make sacrifices for a group that, itself, isn’t willing to make sacrifices for you.” He recognizes that American tribal identity, to the extent that it ever existed, is collapsing internally when he warns that, “People who speak with contempt for one another will probably not remain united for long,” and remarks, “…the ultimate terrorist strategy would be to just leave the country alone.”   Junger strongly criticizes the media for promoting divisive rhetoric, he damns the stock market and banking industry opportunists for the economic damage they have done to the country and their betrayal of their fellow Americans, and he criticizes average men and women for claiming benefits fraudulently and…littering. It’s clear from the runaway popularity of both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump that the average American suspects that the government is corrupt and probably aids or even encourages financial malfeasance in big business and especially the banking industry. This completes a three-way web of finger-pointing and fuck you’s between average Joe and the government and big business. There’s been a complete breakdown of trust that probably can’t be repaired, in part because the failure of nationalism — which is basically just large-scale, bureaucratically-aided tribalism — in the West stems from the failure of the idea of “national pluralism” that is built into the structure of modern society. You can’t have a tribe for everyone, and nations without physical and cultural boundaries effectively cease to be nations. Without a unifying culture that provides a collective tribal identity — a sense of who “we” are, and where the boundaries of that group end — it makes no sense to make sacrifices for that group. These people are all essentially strangers to each other, and there’s no way to know if anyone would actually be willing to return any favors. The nationalistic pluralism of the early United States was a project started by men with similar religious beliefs (however ready they were to die over the details). Those men also shared a similar European cultural and racial heritage. They all looked alike, and while they came from different regions, each with its own quirks and sometimes even a different language, they were all the genetic and cultural heirs to a broader Western heritage that stretched back to the Classical period. American pluralism was initially a pluralism within limits, but those limits were either so poorly defined or relied so heavily on implied assumptions that membership was progressively opened to include anyone from anywhere, of any race, of any sex, who believes absolutely anything. At one point in Tribe, Junger mentions that Israel is the, “only modern country that retains a sufficient sense of community to mitigate the effects of combat on a mass scale.” He credits this with compulsory national military conscription, and quotes an expert as saying that the Israelis have a low rate of chronic PTSD because they are benefiting from a “shared public meaning” of the war, which gives them context for their experiences and a robust network of people who understand exactly what soldiers who have experienced combat are going through. While this may be true, the Israelis are not a pluralistic hodgepodge of people of different races with different religions and different cultures. Israel is an explicitly Jewish nation, run by and for the Jews. It’s worth noting that their Arab citizens are not conscripted. Jews in Israel are able to maintain “a sufficient sense of community to mitigate the effects of combat on a mass scale” because they are not just behaving tribally — they are actually a tribe. They are known as THE Tribe. They share a common culture and a common heritage and a powerful common narrative, which is why they have a country in the first place. If you want to emulate the success of the Jews in maintaining a sense of community, you have to be willing to admit that they have more going for them than some government policies. The Israelis have a collective ethnic identity, the like of which is being actively undermined by the governments of every nation in the European Union, and is completely taboo in the United States. Imagine the public outrage if the US did something as simple as making Muslims ineligible to register for the draft? Given how much time he’s spent in the Middle East, Junger should know that arbitrary borders aren’t enough to make people come together as a nation and share a singular tribal identity. Despite some neat lines drawn on a map for Westerners, Iraq and Afghanistan remain zones where tribal and religious identities continue to supercede any attempt to construct and impose a meaningful national identity. Borders do not make a people. People make borders. Francis Fukuyama observed in The Origins of Political Order that the natural human group is the small survival band, with kin-oriented or “patrimonial” loyalties. The tribal level of human social and political organization requires a unifying narrative, usually the acceptance of a common, often mythical ancestor who unifies the kin groups. The Jews have that kind of unifying ancestral narrative. People in Western nations haven’t “somehow lost” the kinds of ancestral narratives and common cultures that unite people and encourage them to look out for each other and stick together. Those cultures and narratives have been systematically undermined by the institutions of Western governments, in favor of a “multicultural” approach that better serves the interests of globally oriented corporations. Junger is right. Tribalism is the solution to the loneliness and alienation of modern societies — to “not feeling necessary.” Tribalism is the solution to unchecked greed, and it encourages people to be helpful and more generous to other people within the tribe. But what Junger is promoting isn’t tribalism. It’s some feel-good Hollywood humanitarianism that’s going to sound great on NPR. It’s not going to change anything. Until people get brave enough to start creating exclusive communities with segregated, clearly defined identities, Westerners will remain mere consumers, lost among strangers. They’ll feel no loyalty to each other, and they’ll keep screwing each other over to get a little more money to buy a little more stuff. Then, to satisfy the nagging part of them that isn’t “dead inside,” they’ll indulge in a little cheap, fashionable humanitarianism and convince themselves they are saving the world. Readers can find my 2010 review of Junger’s excellent book War, here. My review of Fukuyama’s Origins of Political Order can be found at Counter-Currents, here. “Outlaw Wolf Fire” by Horseskull is available at Bandcamp https://horseskull.bandcamp.com/album/horseskull Subscribe to START THE WORLD on iTunes here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/start-world-jack-donovan-podcast/id844102780 START THE WORLD is also available on Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=75247&refid=stpr

Today’s guest is Greg Walsh, founder of the Wolf Brigade gym and brand out of Rochester, NY. We talked about fitness, thought crime, entrepreneurship and publishing. Topics covered: Links: Wolf Brigade http://wolfbrigade.com/ War of Attrition http://warofattrition.com/blog/ Wolf Brigade on Instagram @wolfbrigadegym “Outlaw Wolf Fire” by Horseskull is available at Bandcamp https://horseskull.bandcamp.com/album/horseskull Subscribe to START THE WORLD on iTunes here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/start-world-jack-donovan-podcast/id844102780 START THE WORLD is also available on Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=75247&refid=stpr

Today’s guest is Hunter M. Yoder the Heiden Hexologist. Hunter is a Heathen folk artist who specializes in hexology and Traditional Deitsch  — that’s Pennsylvania German, or “Pennsylvania Dutch” —  Barnstars. He’s published several books on hexology, including The Backdoor Hexologist, and several collections of interviews with other Germanic men and women doing hexwork. Topics covered: What it means to be Pennsylvania Dutch, and the relationship between Pennsylvania Dutch culture and broader Germanic traditions What is a hex sign? What is a hex? What is a barnstar? The history of the production of hex signs in Pennsylvania Hex signs and Germanic heathenry Plants – Henbane, Datura, Cactus Links: Hunter Yoder’s Web Site – The Hex Factory http://www.huntermyoder.com/ “Outlaw Wolf Fire” by Horseskull is available at Bandcamp https://horseskull.bandcamp.com/album/horseskull Books Mentioned: Hex Signs: Pennsylvania Dutch Barn Symbols & Their Meaning: Revised & Expanded Don Yoder Hex Signs: Myth and Meaning in Pennsylvania Dutch Barn Stars Patrick Donmoyer Strange Experience: The Secrets of a Hexenmeister Lee R Gandee Subscribe to START THE WORLD on iTunes here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/start-world-jack-donovan-podcast/id844102780 START THE WORLD is also available on Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=75247&refid=stpr

Mike Lummio runs Bushcraft Northwest, which offers several courses on bushcraft as well as urban survival. Recently, he invited me out to one of his Bushcraft Weekends in Goldendale, Washington. Topics covered: What is bushcraft? Difference between bushcraft and wilderness survival Gear – over-dependence and what makes a good setup Responsible harvest Perpetuated myths Bushcraft in urban settings Upcoming book “Living Bushcraft” Links: “Outlaw Wolf Fire” by Horseskull is available at Bandcamp https://horseskull.bandcamp.com/album/horseskull Bushcraft Northwest https://www.bushcraftnorthwest.com/ Wild Food Adventures http://wildfoodadventures.com/   Books Mentioned: Essential Bushcraft Ray Mears Bushcraft: Outdoor Skills and Wilderness Survival Mors Kochanski Edible and Medicinal Plants of the West Gregory L. Tilford Subscribe to START THE WORLD on iTunes here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/start-world-jack-donovan-podcast/id844102780 START THE WORLD is also available on Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=75247&refid=stpr

John Mosby is a former U.S. Army Special Operations soldier and author of a new book, titled Forging the Hero. He is best known online for his contributions to the magazine Forward Observer, and his blog, Mountain Guerrilla.  FORGING THE HERO A tribal strategy for building resilient communities and surviving the decline of empire Topics covered: The historical reality of decline vs. collapse fantasies Group survival vs. the Hollywood loner myth The importance of tribe Building tribal cohesion through gift-giving Identifying shared culture and values Frith, Innangard and Utangard Links: “Outlaw Wolf Fire” by Horseskull is available at Bandcamp https://horseskull.bandcamp.com/album/horseskull Mountain Guerrilla https://mountainguerrilla.wordpress.com/ Forward Observer https://readfomag.com/category/mountain-guerrilla/ Books Mentioned: A Study of History, Vol. 1: Abridgement of Volumes I-VI Arnold J. Toynbee The Fate of Empires: Being an Inquiry Into the Stability of Civilisation (Classic Reprint) Arthur John Hubbard Subscribe to START THE WORLD on iTunes here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/start-world-jack-donovan-podcast/id844102780 START THE WORLD is also available on Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=75247&refid=stpr

Progressives use every man’s natural fear of showing fear to manipulate him — inventing fake “phobias” and implying he is afraid of everything they want.  But what men are truly afraid of are the legal, social and financial consequences associated with challenging the progressive agenda.  To listen to the audio version of this essay as a special STW podcast, scroll to the bottom of this page.   Progressives only have one good trick, and men keep falling for it. They keep calling you a coward, so that you’ll do or say whatever they want to prove that you are not a coward. If they want you to accept a group of outsiders, they call you a xenophobe to dismiss any rational concerns you might have about the motivations of strangers. The only way to prove you don’t have an irrational fear of foreigners is to welcome them with open arms and without questions. If you question the sanity of a man who can’t be “who he really is” until someone surgically removes his dick, they call you a transphobe. The only way to prove you’re not afraid of trannies is to agree that transsexuals are not only sane, but heroic, and should be welcomed into any women’s restroom.  If you reject any demand made by any woman, you’re “just afraid of a strong woman.” This accusation has been repeated so many times that a substantial portion of the population actually seems to believe that men are at the very core of their being constitutionally terrified by any woman with “attitude.” There is probably some truth to this, but only to the extent that men would rather avoid the frustrating reality that no matter how strong a woman claims to be or what she says, no man or woman on earth will ever forgive a man for knocking her the fuck out. To prove they are not afraid of women, men end up giving women whatever they want, because they can’t stand up to women the way they stand up to each other. Progressives get men to do whatever they want by manipulating our fear of being afraid. When you recognize this manipulation, you’ll begin to see it in nearly every argument appealing to men and every progressive narrative written about men. Their strategy is to portray masculine men, even men who have demonstrated courage in battle or in legitimately heroic endeavors where they have faced and overcome fear, as being driven primarily by fear and a sense of inadequacy. It may be tempting to say that this strategy is a reflection of their own fear — that they are so defined by their own fear and weakness that they can’t imagine anyone being motivated by anything but fear. Progressivism is embraced and promoted primarily by women, educators and urban males who tend to be not only physically weaker than other men, but who are also untrained and uninterested in self-defense. Rationally, they should be more afraid than more capable men. But that’s just you and me thinking like men, again. They don’t see the world that way. These people have been protected all of their lives. They are the meek who have inherited the earth, and like all spoiled brats they have no experiential understanding of what it took to create their world or what is required to maintain it. Like an heiress who doesn’t care where the money comes from as long as she gets to keep spending it, they have no practical understanding of violence or its role in maintaining their safety. As I wrote in The Way of Men, the social role of men has been oriented around perimeter defense for the majority of human history and prehistory. Men are adapted for that role, and it is reasonable to say that more masculine men are going to be more interested assessing threats and preparing to deal with them. One of my best friends installed bulletproof windows in his house just because it seemed to him like the obvious thing to do. He is naturally oriented to see himself as a guardian, to concern himself with protection and defense, even when no immediate threats are present and there is nothing that really needs protecting. He isn’t more afraid than anyone else. In fact he is probably less afraid than most people. He isn’t paranoid or obsessive about preparing for danger — it’s fun for him. He’s drawn to it like painters are drawn to painting or musicians are drawn to playing music. He’s good at it and doing it makes him happy. People who have been protected all of their lives, and who have no interest in self-defense, don’t see themselves in the guardian role. They have always lived inside the perimeter, like women, children and the infirm. For the protected, the role of protection is “someone else’s job.” They feel secure because it is in their nature to trust that someone else will protect them from harm.   Masculine men see violence as their responsibility, and the protected see violence as someone else’s responsibility. Threats are as abstract to them as electrical power is to me. My dad was an electrician, but I have no idea how that shit really works, and I don’t care as long as the lights go on when I turn the switch. I’m not afraid of the lights going out. I never think about it. It’s someone else’s job. I don’t think protected progressives are afraid of violence all the time and I don’t think they realize how vulnerable they look to the rest of us. They are the pinkest, plushiest, softest of targets but they don’t think about threats because they don’t think it’s their job to deal with threats. And they won’t, until the lights go out. When the lights go out, they’ll realize how vulnerable and helpless they’ve been their whole lives. They’ll see what we saw the whole time. This may be why they seem to be so profoundly traumatized by violence when it happens, and so “triggered” by references to violence afterward. If you’re expecting violence and someone gets the best of you, you’re going to be angry about it, but you have a way to process it. It makes sense. If you’ve always assumed that violence happens to other people, and then it happens to you…it’s going to turn your whole world upside down. Masculine men are, by their very nature, afraid of being afraid. Or perhaps more accurately, men are naturally afraid of being seen as being afraid. Looking scared means losing the circular stare-down that precedes violence. Vulnerability invites violence. It makes it look easy. This is a rational fear. It can collapse into irrational paranoia, sure, but unless you are trying to blend into a crowd, why wouldn’t you want to look like a hard target in a flock of fleeced pajama boys? Men in groups don’t want to look vulnerable for the same tactical reasons. Men don’t want to be associated with vulnerable-looking, fearful men in a group context, because men signalling weakness or cowardliness make the whole group look vulnerable. Appearing to be afraid lowers your value to the group. On the other hand, demonstrating courage makes you a more valuable member of the group. Men don’t want to be seen as being afraid, because their value as men, their identity — their honor — is closely tied to having a reputation for being willing and able to process and overcome fear. Modern civilization lacks sufficient opportunities for men to prove their courage to other men, because modern civilization has eliminated many risks, and by design the majority of men must live within the protected perimeter. The efficiency of modernity means there aren’t as many guardian jobs as there are guardians. Men have also lost opportunities to prove themselves within tightly bonded groups of men, because young men are forcibly integrated with women in nearly every aspect of modern life. They are integrated with women at school, at work, and in almost every gym or school of martial arts. As a result of this integration, bonds among men tend to be weak, and few young men have had sufficient opportunity to build a secure masculine identity — a firm sense of who they are as men within groups of men. As feminists have shrewdly pointed out, many modern men have a particularly fragile sense of their own value as men. They have little experience overcoming fear, no reputation for demonstrating courage, and no sense of belonging within a group of other men. These men are aware of this either consciously or subconsciously, and it makes them anxious. This anxiousness about their own manhood makes them easy to manipulate with made-up phobias and groundless goads like “you’re just afraid of a strong woman.” Progressivism is presented as a revolutionary movement. Its propaganda encourages people to believe that they are “standing up” to some kind of powerful evil, or “speaking truth” to power, which can only truly be done without violence and with the relative impunity that progressive “rebels” enjoy because their aims are either complementary or unthreatening to the aims of those who are actually in power. When power comes at you with bean bags and tear gas and rubber bullets, you are not a serious threat. When power sees you as a threat, it comes after you with S.W.A.T. teams and Apache helicopters. Progressivism employs the language of violent revolution, but this is pure melodrama at this point. Progressive views are establishment and conservative. For instance, it ever was, it is no longer “revolutionary” to be against racism. There has been a systematic campaign in education, in the media, in government and in the military to tell everyone in the Western world that racism is wrong. You grew up in a society that was forcibly integrated against the will of many of your ancestors, probably before you were even born. You’ve been exposed to positive media images of people of other races, protected from negative ideas about other people and taught by every institution that racism and stereotyping of any kind is morally wrong. If you believe that racism is wrong today, to borrow the words of Barack Obama, “You didn’t get there on your own […] You didn’t build that.” You did not “reason” your way out of racism. You are not enlightened or sophisticated or evolved. You believe exactly what you’ve been told to believe. Pat yourself on the back. Throughout the Western world, there are major social and financial risks associated with being racist or being perceived as a racist or being associated with racists. In mainstream social circles, you’ll be ostracized. If you’re a celebrity, your career will be over. If you apologize, no one will believe you and they’ll talk about it for the rest of your life. Mainstream politicians call each other racists and compete to outdo each other in the feel-good diversity and token-pimping department. If you’re an employee, being found out as a racist can make you virtually unemployable in the age of search engines. If you have a business, you may be boycotted, and other businesses may cancel your accounts to avoid associating with you. If you’re an academic, you will be attacked in the media and you may even lose your job for coming to a conclusion that seems racist, whether it is true or not. In Europe, you can be arrested for writing or saying something openly racist or “xenophobic.” Saying something that could be perceived as racist or in any way derogatory about another group, whether it is true or not, actually takes courage. Being a “racist” or a “xenophobe” actually takes balls. There are no social, financial or legal penalties for saying that you are against racism or xenophobia. None. Self-proclaimed “anti-facists” who want to get a danger boner “fighting racism” actually have to hunt down accused racists and harass them in the street, hoping for some sort of scuffle. And they when they do it, they do it knowing that they’ll be absolved of any potential legal hassle by the lawyers who will either volunteer to “fight racism” in court for them pro bono or be paid by any number of well-funded and well-established anti-racist activist organizations. It takes absolutely no courage to say you’re against racism or xenophobia because there are absolutely no risks. Anti-racism, orchestrated integration, multiculturalism, pro-immigration, anti-xenophobia, anti-profiling, anti-stereotyping, “diversity is our strength”… these are all establishment ideas and default positions that are socially rewarded and affirmed. Risks only result from challenging these ideas in some way or other. So who’s really afraid? The same can be said of outright sexism, homophobia, transphobia and any of the other initiatives that progressives say secretly scare men to death. How many male politicians would ever dare imply that things would be better off if women didn’t vote, or if they hadn’t been encouraged to seek equal pay and treatment in the workforce? It’s illegal in most places to start a business that excludes women as employees or customers, and apparently God won’t help you if you refuse to bake lesbians a wedding cake. After they smear you in the media, they’ll sue you and ruin you financially. Every male employee of every major company knows he can be fired for saying something “insensitive,” or which could be possibly perceived subjectively by someone else as “sexual” or “threatening.” A tattoo client of mine was recently told by his human resources department that he was “too manly” and needed to be more “gender fluid” because his “certainty about his gender” might make those who were uncertain of their genders uncomfortable. He was asked to shave his beard and wear baggy clothes to hide his muscular frame. The Harrison Bergeron world of the Handicapper General is no longer dystopian fiction — it’s becoming dystopian fact! Every male student and every soldier has been subjected to hours upon hours of training about sexual harassment and cultural sensitivity. They’ve all signed policy statements and handbooks explaining the penalties for doing or saying or even implying the “wrong” thing. They know they’ll be punished, not only by institutions, but by the people they call friends and maybe even their families. And that’s what they’re really afraid of.   When a woman says she’s for equal rights, or that she thinks people should help refugees or that she’s against racism, I chalk it up to natural empathy and moral signalling. She’s telling people that she is of high moral virtue based on the criteria of the society she lives in. Instead of making a big deal about being a lady or a Christian or a virgin, she’s hard-signalling the only kind of moral purity anyone cares about here in this international empire of nothing. When a man makes sure to tell me that he’s against racism or sexism or xenophobia or homophobia or transphobia or whatever the thing of the day is… …all I see is fear. He’s afraid of losing his job. He’s afraid of losing customers. He’s afraid of getting kicked out of school. He’s afraid of being smeared by the media. He’s afraid of getting sued. He’s afraid of losing his house.. He’s afraid of losing the support of his friends and family. He’s afraid of losing their wives or their girlfriends. He’s signed the manuals, he’s watched the videos and the Powerpoint presentations. He knows the rules and he’s seen what happens to men to break them. A lot of men are afraid to even think the thoughts that lead to saying the words that could get them in trouble. It’s scary. I get it. I only became self employed a couple of years ago and there’s no guarantee that will last forever. I worked for 20 years, signing manuals and policy statements. I’ve watched the mandatory videos. I don’t come from money and I’ve never had much of a safety net. A man’s gotta eat. But where does it end? How many phobias are you going to allow them to make up to exploit your fear of being afraid? How many impossible things are you going to agree to believe? When you stop falling for the same cheap trick, how many more times are you going to nod your head and say the words that you no longer believe? When I see men arguing about who is more racist or sexist or transphobic on television  and shaming each other as if they’ve never said or thought the same things — political pundits and even sportscasters seem to do it all day long now — all I think to myself is, “what a bunch of lying, opportunistic money-hungry cunts.”   When I see a man apologize for “offensive remarks” or, worse, claim to be “offended by remarks” I see a scared, desperate man. Maybe he’s protecting his family or his friends or even his employees. That’s legitimate. I get it. But how often and for how long is he going to debase himself like that — publicly supplicating himself, supinating his open outward-stretched hand like a scared chimpanzee? I know that career-destroying public statements are probably too much to ask for most guys. And here’s no point or honor in arguing with women about what they believe unless you’re dating them. But men, you can start by refusing to be afraid by refusing to bullshit the guys you see everyday. Stop bullshitting each other. Stop assuming that other men believe the things you don’t believe, and just say what you actually do believe. If some guy gets offended and starts lecturing you — if he starts repeating all of the things he was taught in college or by the media, just ignore him. You probably didn’t actually have much in common, and he sounds like a cunt anyway. Life is short and the world is getting stupid. Surround yourself with allies who share your values. And if you’ve ever found yourself saying you support things you really don’t even care about because you think that’s what people want to hear, like Patrick Bateman in American Psycho talking about ending apartheid and the nuclear arms race, stop doing that, you sociopathic scumbag. If another man accuses you of being a racist or a sexist or a homophobe or a xenophobe, accuse him of being weak and afraid and easily manipulated. Accuse him of being too worried about his bottom line to think for himself or say what he means. Don’t backpedal. Don’t qualify that shit. If another man accuses you of being a racist or a sexist or a homophobe or a xenophobe — own it and make him feel like a cunt for pissing his pants about it. Progressives want to convince you that you’re afraid if you disagree with them, but the truth is that most men today are afraid to disagree with them. Call them out on it. They’re not afraid of “strong women” or dickless dudes or gay weddings or “foreigners.” They’re afraid to speak their minds because they’re afraid of social and financial and in some cases legal consequences. That’s real fear. And they’re painfully aware of it. Call them out on it. Call them cowards. But if you do, you should probably also be prepared to get punched in the face by a guy who is really, profoundly afraid of what it means to be labeled a sexist, or a racist, or a xenophobe, or whatever other scare words they make up to manipulate him.  

  Tony Blauer is the founder and CEO of Blauer Tactical Systems, known worldwide for his SPEAR system. Topics covered: How people react in sudden violent encounters Preparing yourself to process fear and act during a violent encounter Why all humans are “human weapons systems” Fighting is so natural, even a caveman could do it Taking responsibility for your own survival and the protection of your loved ones Links: “Outlaw Wolf Fire” by Horseskull is available at Bandcamp https://horseskull.bandcamp.com/album/horseskull Tony Blauer Tactical Systems http://www.tonyblauer.com/ CrossFit Defense http://crossfitdefense.com/   Subscribe to START THE WORLD on iTunes here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/start-world-jack-donovan-podcast/id844102780   The post STW Episode #11 – Tony Blauer appeared first on Jack Donovan.

In STW Episode #10, I interview Greg Hamilton, Chief Instructor at InSights Training Center in Bellevue, WA. A few weeks ago I drove up to hang out with Greg and take his General Defensive Handgun course. I learned a lot, and Greg shared so many insights about learning, survival, guns, masculinity and the psychologies of violence and self defense that I asked him if he would appear on Start The World. Greg Hamilton is an over twenty year veteran of the U.S. Army Rangers and Special Forces.  He is the founder of InSights Training Center, and has trained over 20,000 private citizens, police, and military personnel. Though Greg has trained tactical teams and instructors internationally, his specialty is training the individual — the “lone operator.” Greg stresses that guns are tools, and based on his extensive experience as an operator and an instructor, he cut through noise and broscience you’ll find online about handguns and shared with us the same gear recommendations he gives to his students. If you’re trying to figure out what to buy and how to get started, here’s Greg’s shopping list. Greg’s Gear Recommendations Handgun: Glock G17 Sights: Heine straight eight ledge sights Holster: Kramer #3 IWB in horsehide with screws not snaps Magazine Pouch: Kramer horsehide single magazine pouch (get the G19 one for both the G17 ands G19, the G17 pouch is too tall) Belt: Most people will do best with a 1 1/2 belt. IMO the best is the Kramer shark/horse. You need to order the magazine pouch to fit the belt, the holster is adjustable Books Mentioned: Ancient Plutarch on Sparta The Song of Roland Beowulf Fiction Gates of Fire Western Gunfighters – Charles Askins Unrepentant Sinner – Charles Askins WWII German The Blond Knight of Germany Stuka Pilot WWII American The Filthy Thirteen Fighting with The Filthy Thirteen No Better Place to Die Mountaineering Nanga Parbat Pilgrimage: The Lonely Challenge Free Spirit Reinhold Messner Extreme Alpinism Mark Twight Learning Don’t Shoot the Dog   The post STW Podcast Episode #10 – Greg Hamilton appeared first on Jack Donovan.

My guest for episode 9 of Start the World is Dr. Sherman House, DDS. He’s a dentist who specializes in emergency dentistry, and he teaches something not a lot of us think about — “disaster dentistry.” Like most people, I always thought of dentistry in the cosmetic sense — until I came down with an infection in my wisdom tooth that put me down for days with a fever and caused me so much jaw pain I couldn’t eat solid food or train for a couple of weeks. I came across Dr. House’s Facebook page at that time and was surprised to find many examples of how dire dental emergencies can become. People used to die from the dental problems he deals with every day, and if there were some kind of breakdown or collapse or zompocalypse, they would start dying from them again. Wouldn’t that be a bitch? You survive the collapse, become a trailer park warlord, and die from a jacked up tooth… Dr. House is full of interesting information, so I more or less just encouraged him to tell stories and re-educate us for an hour. If you are able to take one of his classes, you’ll become a more valuable member of any tribe. If you have a shooting or survival group, consider booking him to speak in your area. “Classic Mountain Dew Rot” For More Information Visit: www.disasterdentistry.com Facebook : The People’s Dentist : The Real Doctor House http://revolverscience.wordpress.com/ Topics Covered: Tooth Extraction Are Periodontal Disease and Tooth Decay STDs? Preventative Tooth Care and Dentistry Ancestral vs. Modern Diets and Tooth Decay Books Mentioned: Where There Is No Dentist Subscribe to START THE WORLD on iTunes here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/start-world-jack-donovan-podcast/id844102780 The post STW Episode #9 – Disaster Dentistry appeared first on Jack Donovan.

  In Start The World Episode #8, I interviewed Hunter Cuneo, who runs his own private men’s strength and conditioning gym in California. I’ve talked to a lot of guys who want to start their own gyms for men, but no one seems to think it is possible. This guy is doing it. I asked him how and why. Check out his promo video below.   MENTIONED: http://strengthbeyondstrengthtraining.com/ “The Iron” by Henry Rollins   Subscribe to START THE WORLD on iTunes here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/start-world-jack-donovan-podcast/id844102780 The post STW Episode #8 – Strength Beyond Strength appeared first on Jack Donovan.

After I published my recent article about The Wolves of Vinland, a bunch of guys sent me questions. Most of them were along the lines of “how do I start a tribe like that?” or “where do I sign up?” So I invited Paul Waggener — Grimnir from the article — to come on Start The World and answer some of your questions.   Subscribe to START THE WORLD on iTunes here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/start-world-jack-donovan-podcast/id844102780 The post Start The World Podcast – Episode#7 – The Wolves of Vinland appeared first on Jack Donovan.

  Somewhere in Portland, a horned sorcerer is building an 80,000 pound machine designed to generate demonic energy. And he’s dead serious. That’s what I like about Rex. Rex doesn’t follow his pronouncements with a nervous laugh or a submissive smile. He’s not being cute or ironic. He doesn’t “just want to be loved,” and he doesn’t care if you understand. Rex is a man who is taking his idea all the way, no matter what the cost, and no matter what other people think. He lives like a monk, devoting most of his free time, energy and money to his great magical endeavor — and his gargoyle-like canine companion, Hannibal. He sleeps in a steel sarcophagus. He likes sake, hiking in the Columbia River Gorge, and working out with his demon kettlebells. I don’t believe in black magic, personally. I’m sure Rex thinks I am charmingly naive in this regard. But I do believe that if anyone could pull it off, it would be Rex. Maybe he’ll be the one who starts the world. If so, be afraid. Be very afraid. Links Black Sun Occult Engineering and Design (for more detail photos of the Ragnarok Engine) Mandelbrot set Kali Yuga H.R. Giger Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche The Goonies Astoria, Oregon   Subscribe to START THE WORLD on iTunes here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/start-world-jack-donovan-podcast/id844102780 The post Start The World Podcast – Episode #6 – “Occult Technology” with Diabolus Rex appeared first on Jack Donovan.

In STW Episode #5, Swiss author and survivalist Piero San Giorgio and I probe the deeper mysteries of  Conan the Barbarian (1982), the finest film ever made. Piero San Giorgio’s book, Survive the Economic Collapse offers both an engaging overview of many of the problems that may cause the complex societies of the First World to implode, and a basic strategy for surviving in the absence of modern conveniences. The information is broken up by these great little collapse scenarios that add humor to the apocalyptic narrative. Survive the Economic Collapse was a big hit in France, and is now available in English from Washington Summit Publishers.  It’s a great introduction to basic survival strategies for individuals, families and groups. Relevant links: Milius – Biography of Jon Milius, Conan Director Alexander Nevsky – An influence on Conan? Regardless, listen to the score. Valhalla Rising – Another barbarian film with a “mute” main character, mentioned by Piero. Listen from this site (see below) or via iTunes. https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/start-world-jack-donovan-podcast/id844102780  The post Start The World Podcast – Episode #5 – “Deep Conan” with Piero San Giorgio appeared first on Jack Donovan.