Jack Donovan joins me to discuss what it means to be a man and defining true masculinity. During our conversation Jack and I explore who to trust, the fear of masculinity tied to protection, and how duty is tied to identity. Jack also dives into the concept of toxic masculinity and how to address it in everyday life.
Jack Donovan is the author of The Way of Men — a straightforward, politically incorrect theory of masculinity that became an underground hit around the world.
You can learn more about Jack here: https://www.jack-donovan.com
Episode Transcript
My guest today is an unrepentant masculinist that believes political correctness is just another way of calling a man a coward. Jack Donovan is the author of The Way of Men, Becoming a Barbarian, A More Complete Beast, and his new book Fire in the Dark, which is available now.
01:15
and I highly recommend. Jack champions heroic masculinity and has been writing and speaking about masculinity and the masculine philosophy for over a decade. You can learn more about Jack at jack-donovan.com. If this conversation resonates with you, I highly recommend that you get his entire catalog, go to his website, grab all of his books and listen. His content is incredible, but if you want the real impact, get his audible versions. Fire in the Dark is an incredible read, but it is an even more powerful listen. Jack.
01:44
Sorry for putting a long string on that, Kai, but I want to give you the respect you deserve. That was a very spicy intro. There’s a lot of people out there that may not understand your philosophical ideals and your beliefs. And a lot of that is based on your religion, the neo-paganism. Could you give us a little bit about what that is and how that may differ from what most people are looking at when they look at a religion or philosophy? Well, I mean, I think my belief system at this point is basically my own. I don’t really adhere to anyone else’s viewpoint of what that is. And a lot of what fire in the dark is,
02:13
was really having to answer the questions like, what do I actually believe? Rather than, you know, like picking up a book and saying like, oh, I believe exactly this. Look at a big picture. And so obviously I’ve practiced Germanic paganism. I’ve built rituals and shrines and I recently just sold a plot of land that I was doing rituals on for five years to a friend of mine who’s still doing them out there. And that’s why I sold it to him. Obviously there’s Christianity, there’s the major Abrahamic religions and that’s what everybody’s familiar with. And then beyond that,
02:42
really a wide range of what people believe. There’s a lot of people who would say that they’re pagans who are like nature worshipers really. I’m really not that. I don’t hate nature, but you know, I’m not a nature worshiper per se. The version of paganism that I probably resonate with most is probably an ancient Greek, ancient Roman version, but I’m not a reenactor. I don’t really, I’m not following their religion exactly because it’s not three, 4,000 years ago.
03:11
I’m living right now and trying to make sense of the world as it is. I like that ideal. And I’m very much from that same understanding where to me, the truth is just this collection of philosophies and religions, and those are just sort of the names of what they gave it at that moment in time at that location in the world. So whether it be the battle of semantics in your new book, you talk about that extensively, especially near the end where everything sort of dovetails. And that’s what I really like about it, because you’re able to absorb truth irrespective of source.
03:40
And there are many people, especially in today’s society, that cannot do that. There’s a chapter in the book, as you know, called the Hlidskaf Dilemma. Basically, it’s based off the idea, because I’ve spent a lot of time talking about Odin and Thor and so forth. Hlidskaf is the mountain shelf. It’s the seat that Odin sits on, where he can see everything from all time and all around the world. He can observe all things. And we are at a strange place in history in that we can do that right now.
04:06
Anywhere in ancient history, you know, ancient Greece, they’re like, I think maybe over there, they practice a strange religion. Biblical times, same thing. Like, well, those guys over there, I’m not sure what they’re doing, but it’s something like that. Even, you know, the Library of Alexandria with all its things has nothing compared to what we have if we could just look something up online. We have the access to all the information that ever was or that remains of what is known over history. So we have all the religions and then we can see how they changed.
04:34
Fire in the Dark, one of the main ideas of that book was to look at how these things have changed, but what stayed the same. And I did the same thing with The Way of Men because everybody say masculinity is always changing. It’s never the same. And it actually is. There are superficial things that change, like, you know, like what style of clothes that are well, like if there were bell bottoms right now, I would get weird looks from a lot of guys. It would be seen as flamboyant because it’s not in pace with the time. But when John Travolta was wearing bell bottoms, it wasn’t a problem.
05:03
Because these superficial things change, people think that masculinity changes all the time, but John Travolta still wanted to be a trough guy. You go throughout history and the reasons why men do these things are very similar. Men have always cared about being strong, they’ve always cared about being courageous, they’ve always thought that their role was to hunt and to fight and to protect, and all these things are very constant. And so I wanted to look at spirituality and men’s spirituality specifically, because I try to stay away from telling women what to do ever.
05:31
because it keeps me out of a lot of trouble. None of my business. When it comes to men, I look at the spirituality of men over history and all these myths together. What is the same? What are these recurring themes that happen over and over again? Because if any people think about literalism in terms of biblical stuff or myth, it’s not real. What’s more real than this thing we’ve repeated over and over and over and over again? Like this repeated theme is real.
05:58
Whether you say like Heracles really did divert rivers to clean stables, I don’t know. Doesn’t really matter. The idea that there’s this hero that uses his ingenuity and uses his strength and uses his courage to do all these things, that’s a universal idea. And that’s true. You know, there’s truth to that that’s eternal. And so that’s what I was really looking for in this book is like, what’s eternally true? What are these recurring themes in masculinity and masculine religion over and over again? One of them obviously is the sky father.
06:28
the sky father, whether you’re Christian, I have Christians and Mormons who love this new book because they just see the sky father in what I’m writing. Especially go Old Testament, you’re gonna fire and burn stone, lightning from the sky kind of deity. That’s not so different from Zeus. That’s also not so different from Odin in many aspects and these themes are repeated over and over and over again. And this idea of a warrior, it’s not this specific warrior, it’s like all warriors. Like what is the ideal of a warrior? And the warrior in many ways acts on behalf of
06:57
light and goodness, but He is the storm. He is the storm of the sky. The heavens are the brightness, but He is the storm of the sky and brings the vengeance of heaven down upon the enemies of order and light. Obviously then you have this repeated theme of this warrior God bringing thunder and lightning. And whether it’s Thor or it’s Indra or Zeus or Apollo, and all these people that are like from the sky and have the vengeance of the sky on this kind of-
07:25
creepy earth creatures, which are usually serpents or dragons or whatever. But they symbolize obviously something else. Through all these religions, you also have like some kind of fertility figure. And when we’re not fighting or creating, we just need to do a lot of work. I mean, that’s generally what men do in life is stuff that’s not exciting. Your taxes still need to be done. The fields need to be plowed. The animals need to be taken care of. Something needs to be fixed at your house. That’s really what life is for most of the time. While that’s not as glorious and exciting.
07:54
in many ways as the warriors, the sky gods, it’s part of human life. And so I think that’s a part of the system that always has to be there. I absolutely agree. And there’s a great part that you talk about this in this newest book. You talk about the crisis of masculinity and that identity, this lack of initiations, that they’re encouraged to feign uncertainty to make them feel unique and special while almost honoring the victimhood that they stay in. It’s an intentional mentality.
08:21
Can you talk more about that? Yeah, I mean, so easy to be a victim, right? I mean, that’s the easiest thing in the world. Things happen to you. So it’s an easy out for a lot of people, especially, you know, we have a society that’s hyper empathic and excess of empathy to the point where we can’t say no to anyone. We can’t make anyone feel bad. And we want to make everyone feel good no matter what they do or who they are or what mistakes they have made. Maybe they could do better, but they’re not. Instead of encouraging them to do better and having higher standards.
08:51
We don’t like having higher standards because we higher standards make people feel bad because they don’t always reach them. In fact, almost no one does. The easiest thing is to just congratulate people for being whatever they are, which is so sad. It’s such a sad way to think about human life. The idea is for most of human history has been we envision what is best and then just shoot for that. We shoot for that. Realize it. Don’t make perfect the enemy of the good. Realize that you’re not necessarily going to get there.
09:19
I mean, I’m not a great swimmer. I’m a little dense. I think if I’m going to go swim, you know, I’m not going to be an Olympic swimmer tomorrow, but that doesn’t mean I can’t go swim. That’s true of so many things in life. You try and you have your priorities and you’ll set them up differently. You know, I’m going to go work out tonight with people. One of the guys who probably show up as an ex Navy seal and he’ll do his thing. And then there’s some older people and they’ll do their thing. It’s like, we’re all at different levels and that’s fine. I think that people.
09:45
luxuriate in this idea that they’re victims because it gives them an excuse for not doing better. Yeah. And once you have that victim mentality, you start carrying around this chalk. You’re the victim. So often you want to just make a chalk outline of how many times you’re offended. You can’t wait to be victimized by somebody else or something else. And that becomes your identity. And now once they’ve kind of paint themselves into that corner intellectually, they can’t even get out of it, even if they want to. I mean, everything’s about a narrative. You tell yourself to a certain extent, they’re telling themselves that they have this narrative and I can’t because victim, victim, victim.
10:15
Again, that’s very comforting. It’s a very safe space for them to be. If you get points for being offended, if it’s a way for you to hurt somebody, because that’s what it is right now, it’s your weapon. It’s a weapon for people. It’s like, I want to hurt somebody. So I’m going to say that I’m offended. And it’s a way for them to wield power. What easier way to wield power than to be powerless and say, you hurt my feelings. I have two sisters. And so I was always the boy and I was always oldest. I could get in trouble for really anything.
10:41
because they’re little girls. No matter how nasty they were, whatever they would do, my youngest sister was great at just, she could cry on command. She could cry on command. You’d have an argument with her, like, that’s my thing, you can’t have that. They’d like, why are you having these stupid arguments or whatever kids have? You’d be authoritative and take it away from her or whatever. And then she’d just look at you and be like, and then start bawling. Just start crying and crying and acting like I hit her or did something, like make stuff up.
11:11
and then my mom would come and yell at me and then like as soon as my mom walked away she’d be like she knew you know these people who are doing that feel the same way they’re like if I cry then I get to hurt that person who I could not hurt in any other way and I get to wield this power of an authority beyond me they’re bullies you know I think the word that they use is cry bullies you know like they’re they’re cry bullies because uh you know they’re bullies they they’re wielding their own violence and a lot of people don’t understand violence at all
11:40
They aren’t really their own violence. They’re just calling it violence by proxy. If you write a law, you’re writing into law of violence. That being all laws end in violence. If I don’t obey the law, someone with a gun comes and tells me that I should. That’s how that works. All these past year, like if I don’t like what you’re doing, I’m gonna call somebody and then the health department’s gonna come. So I’m gonna tell on you and then the authority is gonna come and beat you up. But I’m just a poor victim. And you’re the one who’s initiating this. They’re using power by proxy. Yeah, they do that because like you said, they can’t use logic in the conversation.
12:10
they can’t actually look at the facts of what’s going on. And so because of that, they default to the cry baby kind of mentality or the cry bully. When you can just cry about it. That’s what it’s like. So they just go right to that. They just cut right to the bottom line. Here we go. Yeah, we’re saying that it’s victim, but they’re actually just efficient. So clearly I need to work on that. We’re both doing the hard thing. We shouldn’t have to do this. Speaking of that with what’s going on.
12:36
There has been a diluge of emails that have opened up about what happened with what’s been going on with COVID with everybody being put in this political correctness of I have to wear a mask. I have to do this. I have to do that. This person’s offended. This person thinks that I’m an asshole because I don’t want to do this. What do you think is happening now with this huge amount of cognitive dissonance in society when it comes to what’s going on really with COVID and the vaccines that all. Oh, I mean, I mean, you’re, you’re like a babe in the woods. If you don’t realize you’ve been lied to by now.
13:05
If the CDC said the fire was hot, I’d be like, what’s your angle? I don’t really think I don’t really trust that. I think they burned all the trust that they’ll ever get from me because they weren’t clear about anything. And they they did massive amounts of damage that I don’t think anyone can atone for. I’ll dial back how spicy I was going to get with that. I think that there’s levels of punishment. Whatever happens is not going to be adequate for destroying thousands and thousands and thousands of businesses and futures and knowing that you were doing it.
13:33
Because I think that there was malice involved at a certain point. Even if at the beginning, everybody was just confused. I think that people doubled down on whatever their narrative was to great harm, great harm. And you don’t know who knows what or who was controlling what. I don’t have a favorite conspiracy theory and I don’t pretend that I know what went on, but I know that people were lying. I know what being lied to is like, and it’s more a matter of I don’t trust anyone now as far as what facts are.
14:02
You know, you have all these fact checkers and that’s so obviously motivated by politics that that is no longer like now we can’t agree on what facts are anymore because I don’t trust you anymore because I know I know you have an agenda when you’re only fact checking one political party. That’s just what you’re doing as if the other political party never lies because we know that that’s not true. They get caught lying all the time. If you’re only checking fact checking one side and you have a clear agenda.
14:30
you’re outside of the realm of science. And major universities really have been outside the realm of science for many decades in certain categories. You know, like if you’re in the fire is hot category, I think that they can still do science. And this is a confusion. People say that you don’t believe in science. If I got in an airplane, I believe in science. We are using science right now. I obviously believe certain things in science work. I don’t believe, especially when you get into things that have to do with humans and politics,
14:59
and other motivations and human social interactions and what people say about how they feel, which is all sociology. That’s all very subjective and I don’t think it’s qualifies as science and no, I don’t believe it. And no, when I know that people are corruptible and there are other motivations, I don’t necessarily believe everything that a government agency has, which used to be weirdly what the left did. The left used to be like, I think the government’s lying to us and we have to get to the bottom of that.
15:27
Now it’s just like, have you looked at the government’s website? That’s where reporting is now. Have you looked at the government’s website? The government has a huge history, left, right, or whatever of lying to us and doing all kinds of crazy things we never would have imagined at the time. If you turn on the TV and you’re like, Oh, then what the newscaster is telling me is obviously the truth. I don’t even know how to talk to you as an adult at this point. Like I can’t do it. Just like you were saying, you almost have to cite your source to say, what is a fact, what is true. Truly you can have one event. And.
15:57
see it from 11 different perspectives from the people that are doing the newscasting. And most of those perspectives are obviously slanted in a capacity to if it bleeds, it leads. If it gets advertising, if they’re making money off of it in some way, shape or form, or they have some sort of leverage politically, of course, they’re going to continue to just double down, triple down on that. Something that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, the role of actors. Actors really weren’t a huge part of society before the 20th century. They were like traveling carnies.
16:24
They weren’t really like people that were respected in society at all. And not to say that being an actor is bad in and of itself because it’s hard. I mean, I have to do audio books. I know I have some idea of what that job is. Takes hours and hours of practice and whatever. When you have people who are paid to make you feel something and they’re really good at it, wouldn’t we know like when they’re on Twitter or when they’re at an award show or whatever, like are they even being real? They’re so influential. Why wouldn’t politicians weaponize that?
16:54
Why wouldn’t they be like, hey, if you would like a invitation to the dinner next week, yeah, there will be important people going to be there. Maybe you’ll get that next movie deal. You know, because I don’t think actors, once you’re like a multi, multi, multi, multi, multi, millionaire, like money is not even a motivation. I don’t think anymore people have other motivations. So you have to wonder like how many favors are being traded and maybe maybe the editor Capra doesn’t even believe in global warming, but he’s like, but this is what we’re saying right now. And like, you know, my publicist thinks it’s good.
17:21
My whole job is to lie and make people believe it. There’s a real questionable element in our society that has a lot of power and influence of people who are literally professional liars. It’s a very weird thing. People trust them. You saw like during this whole thing, like the CDC got all these celebrities to come out and be like, hey, we should do this guys, because da da da. And there’s all these special messaging and whatever and like play your character that everybody thinks you are. You know, if you’re Sylvester Stallone, be like, hey guys, you gotta do this.
17:50
Do whatever you have to do to get the message across. I mean, they are propaganda tools. They knew that back, you know, World War II, you know, they were doing that kind of stuff. I mean, they sent actors and actresses from Hollywood to go out and entertain the troops and like give messages and read things. And they’re propaganda tools. So again, when people believe them or take them seriously, I find it very questionable. It is questionable. And it’s sad that we as a society are willfully suspending disbelief.
18:18
to buy into that because of the emotion that we get from it. I always say that emotions assassinate the truth. And once you’re in that place, it’s impossible to be objective, especially when you’re feeling good because this person’s telling you what to do. Yeah, this person who I really like, who plays a character that isn’t anything like who they are in real life. I really like the character that they play on television and this character is telling me a thing. It’s very strange. There’s a powerful part that you talk about in your book, so much of the book I loved, obviously. There’s a part where you’re talking about the striker.
18:45
Could you tell the audience a little bit about the Stryker first? And then that way I can expand on the rest of my question in regards to that. Well, the Stryker, I took the name because I needed a name for this warrior figure. I think it comes from one of the earliest Proto-New European, which is a theoretical language, Pequenos is one of the earliest forms of that. Then it becomes a form of Thor up in Eastern Europe and more Slavic areas. And then the name Thor goes a different direction, but basically the Stryker is the ideal.
19:12
warrior, hero, and really the root of masculinity as well. You don’t have a striker, you don’t have all the other things. If you can’t defend the space, you don’t have it. It’s kind of the root of masculinity as well. And so the striker is really what we have to, you know, as men deal with, I think, first, as we separate ourselves from women. And you see a lot of guys, when they’re teenagers, they gravitate towards violent imagery or macabre imagery, whether it’s skulls and heavy metal, or whether it’s video games and like Call of Duty.
19:41
any of these things, they’re looking for what is this role that men do and what makes us different from women. They know that that’s how they define themselves. That’s how they feel. They feel it because no one’s telling them to do that, but they’re seeking that out. So they’re identifying themselves with danger and death and fear and all of that. And the striker, he’s the guy who goes and slays the dragon. That’s the oldest story in the world, really. You know, like, Gwent Hongwim or Oguim Gwent, Proto-New European.
20:07
slays the dragon or kills the serpent. Yeah, I mean, it’s one of the oldest formulas in the world. Indra kills this dragon, Vrtara, free the warriors of the world. Apollo kills Python. Zeus has to kill something before he can become king. He has to kill a giant typhon, and this warrior is slaying the serpent. Dragon slayer is this great archetype. So that’s what the Striker really is. The lightning of heaven, the storm of heaven, the warrior that goes out into darkness with the sun at his back.
20:36
and fights darkness and uncertainty so that everyone else can be safe. And that’s what the striker is, a combined archetype of all heroes. It’s like the hero’s journey, very much that rite of passage. And I absolutely agree with you, without warriors, a tribe is forgotten. We have to have that. But you made a great point in the book, which I’d like for you to expand on, which is this idea that society wants the striker, when this barbarians at the gate, when they’re in danger. But then when we’re in the perimeter, there’s the fear of the striker. There’s the fear of this person, of this man, of this masculinity.
21:06
that has this capacity for violence, how can we reconcile that so that people understand, people will even use the majority of Machiavellian as if it’s negative, there has to be violence to have peace. There has to be this capacity to be able to hold on to what we truly have. Why are these people missing the point on this? Well, because they’re spoiled children. I mean, they’ve always said, people who have lived in a completely protected society think that protection happens by accident, and they don’t deal with the ugliness of the world. And so they think…
21:34
foolish, silly things like, we’ll just defund the police and then everyone will behave. You’re not even an adult. We’re not having an adult conversation, I feel like, if you’re saying that. Yeah, obviously I left Oregon and they did that. And I didn’t live in Portland. I lived in Portland for 15 years and it was sad what happened to it. It’s a beautiful, it was a quaint, almost European city where there was no crime. It was so easy to do anything. It was so easy to live there. It was beautiful. It was clean. I moved there from LA and I was like, this is a lovely place.
22:03
And now it’s a garbage dump. And I think they’ve recently published that they had an 800% increase in murder in the past year, which is far beyond what I even would have projected. Wow. Things are really going bad. I actually think that’s good because it shows the world what happens. Everybody who’s a cop in Florida, the stuff that he deals with on a regular basis compared to what normal people deal with. They live in a fantasy world. I almost never have to deal with problem. A threat in real life. Very rarely do I have.
22:33
anything like, hey, because I don’t look like a target. There’s that. But most of us live in relatively safe places and they’re safe places because there is a fear of punishment that is there. Yes. People don’t want to please because they’re mean. They they have weapons and they could hurt people. And sometimes they make mistakes, which has always been true. But if you don’t have them, good luck. You’re just not dealing with reality. Locks on doors, locks on doors. If you’ve ever watched a locksmith pick your lock, he can do it in seconds.
23:02
Locks are like basically a theatrical control. Anyone can get in your house whenever they want to. The only thing that’s stopping them is A, maybe you have a gun and you can shoot them, or the police are gonna come and take them to prison. If you don’t have that fear of doing that, I mean, what’s to stop, you know, any of us from like, we’ve all had thoughts like, maybe I would like to hurt that person. Or, you know, maybe I would just take that. This person doesn’t seem to need that, I’ll just take it.
23:31
And, you know, I was raised, yeah, I was like to say by hobbits and like very normal middle-class people. And, you know, I generally don’t operate that way. I signal in parking lots. It’s like I’m kind of a following guy when it comes right down to it. But, you know, we’ve all had those thoughts of like what we would do if no one if there were absolutely no penalties. These people are living in a fantasy world because they spend most of their time in universities and being coddled. People will just be nice.
24:00
If you just give the people the opportunity to be nice, they’ll just be nice. And that’s not real. Maybe they’re getting a lesson in what human nature actually is versus what they would pretend it would be. There are a lot of people who would, oh, there’s no one coming if your lock doesn’t work on your door. So I’ll just come inside and take what I want. And if I have to kill three or four people on the way in, then that’s fine too. Cause there are a lot of people like that in the world. You can’t fix all of them with like talk therapy. You can’t say, don’t do that.
24:27
going to do it. But you know, going back to your question, obviously, we need to be protected. It’s always been a thing. And this is what you were getting at as far as the point in the book. It’s always been a thing that like once you know, a man has the capability to be very dangerous. Of course, that’s very scary to people who aren’t that makes them uncomfortable. We don’t even think about it. I would consider myself. I’m not like tough guy, whatever. I try to do some things and I’m you know, I can be reasonably scary. I have some skills.
24:56
I don’t put myself forward as the exemplar of that. If I want to get mouthy with someone who’s like shorter than I am and frail, what’s to stop me? Aside from police, to have people like that around is very unsettling for some people who feel they talk, they’re used to talking real loud because they’re protected. They’re aware that they’re quite fragile and that they really couldn’t do anything. You really couldn’t do anything to stop me if I wanted to. You’re depending on someone else to come save you.
25:24
you having guys around that are scary, you would think it was comforting. I think it’s comforting for my dogs. You know, like, yeah, dogs want, you know, the alpha in the room or whatever, like, like, they want to be around, like the biggest one and be like, okay, there’s somebody here. And I think that’s the way people used to be. But right now, I think they’re so used to being protected by some outside force that is supposed to just sweep in when necessary, that being close to people who are dangerous is unsettling. I felt the same way. A lot of guys who were
25:53
at very advanced levels in the military, who have seen a lot of combat or been to some dark places and done some dark things. A lot of them like my work and they’re attracted to it and they meet me and whatever, but I don’t want that guy mad at me. Yeah, like if that guy’s a little unstable and he’s mad at me, that is a problem. I don’t have the tools to deal with that. And most people don’t. A lot of times those guys, if one of them goes off the rails a little bit, you need another one to talk to him because I’m only gonna be so aggressive.
26:23
with a guy who I know has killed people. So I see how other people feel about it to a certain extent, but you also have to realize that those people provide a service. And having them there is better than not having them there. So there’s always this balance that I think societies have had to find between like, hey, what do the warriors do when they’re not at war? Do they just rule us? You know, like there’s things that you have to think about. It’s a difficult issue. And so societies have always struggled with it. And you see it in myth and in history, you know, all the time.
26:53
Even the samurai in the 1500s, when they stopped invading every continent that they possibly could because they ran out of men and war chests, they had to figure out, listen, let’s make these men multifaceted. Let’s give them the capacity to read a coin. Let’s give them the ability to do a tea ceremony and a flower arrangement in addition to being able to kill people with their bare hands. And that was that ethos, that philosophical notion that you very much speak about in the book, this idea of doing the right thing. And I love how you talk about, even in society today,
27:21
We as men, we like to solve problems. We always hear guys say, hey, my wife, girlfriend came to me and said that they had this problem and we tried to solve it. Sometimes they just want us to listen to them, which like you said, there’s some of the differences there. But in society, you point out the fact that, especially politically, some people, it’s not in their best interest to make sense. They don’t want it to be logical because there was other motivation for them. They don’t really give a shit if it’s really the truth or not. And I think that that’s something that a lot of people aren’t even saying today, which…
27:50
it’s on the tip of everybody’s tongue. Yeah, well, I mean, because, you know, then you’re calling someone a liar. That’s dicey. That invites conflict. It’s true. I really don’t believe that most people care if they make sense. If they’re getting points, if they’re getting points, if they’re getting affirmation, I don’t think a lot of people actually care if they’re right or if they’re making sense. And also a lot of the motivations are far different than they used to be. And a lot of guys have real problems figuring this out and seeing it for what it is
28:20
They want the world to make sense. And, you know, when you see things that they’re doing to the military right now and so forth that clearly aren’t about making the military stronger or more effective. Nope. Their heads explode. And this goes to dudes who are like active in the military to like just normal people. They’re like, why would you do this? That doesn’t make any sense. We train for the best people, that’s it. And the top level or people die and they’ve seen their friends die because people weren’t good enough. That doesn’t make any sense to them,
28:50
consider the possibility that like the politicians making decisions actually don’t care if you live or die. And that’s like a bridge too far for a lot of people to imagine, but you think Nancy Pelosi cares if you live or die? No! I think that woman sit on a mountain of dead babies. And not, and like, giggle. I think she’s the total sociopath. And I’m sure there are people on both sides that are like that. There are a lot of people who are like that, let’s be real. You used to like make decisions about your nation to make it stronger.
29:18
But that’s a nationalistic way of looking at things. And you’re dealing with people who have a globalistic perspective. So they have globalist investments. Bill Gates doesn’t care if America does good or not. Why? He has investments all over the world. He has more money than most countries. He can do whatever he wants, wherever he wants, all around the world. He’s interested in entirely different things than making America strong. And so his advice is like null and void. The same is true for most of these people. It’s like they serve different masters.
29:47
At least when you had kings and so forth, they were deeply invested in the future of their nation because like, I am the king of France. France must succeed. France must be strong. It’s deeply tied to his identity. If America collapses tomorrow, Bill Gates is still Bill Gates. You know, he doesn’t give a shit. And you have so many people, and I think many of our politicians, even though they swear oaths to protect the American people, but clearly they don’t. With immigration and so forth, like, and you know, whatever your views might be on that, like, it doesn’t make any sense not to control it.
30:18
That’s what a nation is. If it has no boundaries, it actually doesn’t exist. You’re elected by the people within the boundaries to serve their needs, not other people’s needs whenever you feel like it. And if you don’t control a border, then it’s clear that you don’t care about the welfare of your country. I think treasonous. They’re living in an entirely different world with entirely different motivations, thinking entirely different things. Most guys just can’t wrap their minds about that. Like, well, why would you let thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of people in the middle of a pandemic
30:47
Why would you let all these people in in a completely uncontrolled way? That doesn’t make any sense to anyone. Like that’s like basic elementary school, like kids, what would you do? Like, of course you wouldn’t do that. But they don’t care because they have different ends. And so that’s a different, it’s really time for people to stop assuming the best. When it comes to their leaders and it comes to their public figures, they’ll assume the worst once they smell blood in the water and then they’ll go after you.
31:17
We’ve been assuming the best, I think, for too long, because I think we had reason to. For most of American history, I think my grandfather’s America, you would like to think that the people all the way up the chain were invested in America. Now I don’t think that that’s true. And there’s a lot of people that, to play devil’s advocate, will push back on that and tell you, well, that just sounds like toxic masculinity. And I know you’ve heard that before. What is your answer to that when people say things like that?
31:45
Well, toxic masculinity is a woman saying, I don’t like something that you said. That is full stop what that means. It has no meaning beyond that. It is a control phrase. It doesn’t really deserve to be dissected further than that. It’s basically like whenever a feminist says, I don’t like that, or you make me feel threatened by something that you said, then it’s toxic. It’s an implied value judgment, which means the person making the value judgment is actually controlling what the value is.
32:14
You know, it’s like the word, like the prefix hyper on something like hyper masculinity, hyper masculinity assumes too much masculinity. Well, for who there’s all these value judgments based into that. Toxin maxima is like, don’t do that thing. Cause it makes me mad. It doesn’t really mean anything. And they’ve been doing this for decades and they made to call it testosterone poisoning, it was hyper masculinity, but that’s too intellectual.
32:34
so that it became toxic masculinity. They’ve been playing the same game for years and it’s very disingenuous. Well, it’s political correctness run amok and much like that quote that I made of you earlier in the conversation, I think that that’s dead on. I’ve never met anybody that’s been successful or been strong in some capacity that hasn’t gone through adversity in their life. When I was in here, when I was paralyzed, when I die on the table, that forced me to really look at what adversity was. It showed me what I was made of. It stripped away all the shit that I wasn’t.
33:03
Can you tell us about a time in your life when you went through a tremendous adversity that at the time you didn’t even think you would be able to make it through, but once you were on the other side and you were able to look back in retrospect, you were able to find a gift or an opportunity and you would have never been able to find any other way. I mean, honestly, yeah, a lot of people who achieve anything usually have a moment or a story like that. I really don’t. I’ve actually had a pretty easy life in that way. I just, I came to a lot of the conclusions that I came to just out of pure reason.
33:30
and just sort of living life. It’s not like I’ve had like a silver spoon in my mouth or anything. I mean, like I’ve had like 27 jobs or 37 jobs. I have to actually make a list to figure it out. You know, I’ve done crappy jobs. I mean, I figured I’d never own a house. I just had a very like working class adulthood for most of my adulthood. And now I’ve gotten to a point where I’m like middle class. You know, like a middle class, a middle class and I don’t have kids. So it looks like I’m more of the middle class.
34:00
Yeah, just living life has got me to where I am. Obviously, yeah, you go through all that stuff where you can barely pay your bills and all that kind of stuff, but that’s baby stuff. I don’t want to give that credence. You know, it’s like when people like an athlete that’s been like children of millionaires goes on and talks about their how their parents are divorced. It was so hard. It’s like who cares? My problems are bullshit and mostly self-created. How about that? No, that’s the truth about most people. And like you said, it’s all relative, but you’ve lived your life without compromise. How were you able to maintain that?
34:30
integrity with yourself without compromising or without changing because it would have been much easier like you said to just kind of take that path of least resistance and live in this mediocrity. Yeah I know I’m messing up. Yeah I mean there’s certain choices that I could have made at any given time that would have put me in a different direction where I’d be like I don’t know making more money or I mean even really even with the opportunities I have now there’s certain things that I just won’t do because I can’t justify it to myself.
34:57
And there’s a lot of things like that. And not to take away from anybody who does it, but you know, there’s the guys who have like big personal groups, whatever, that pay them a lot of money. And, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I just don’t know what I’ve never convinced myself that that was the right path for me. And that that was something that I had to offer. And so I didn’t do it. And obviously I’ve gone to some sketchy places in my life and done some sketchy things. I’ve always been that way. I mean, I like, from when I was a kid, you tell me I’m not allowed to do something. I’m definitely going to try and do it.
35:25
I always wanted to go to the place that no one wants you to go to. And that’s got me in a good bit of trouble throughout my life. You know, as I’ve hung out with people that are very politically incorrect, like deeply, like on the far side of other politically incorrect. But what’s cool about that, and what’s a real shame, is that it used to be like, under us, obviously, you could go hang out with the Hell’s Angels. You can go out and, you know, as an intellectual or a thinker or whatever, you could go out and spend time with groups of people and do some things and really understand them without necessarily signing on.
35:55
But now it’s like if you were in a room with so-and-so at such-and-such point, you’re clearly sharing every single belief that they’ve ever had, which is just a weird, gross kind of way of looking at life and not accurate at all. Because I have hung out with people who you’re not supposed to hang out with, I feel like I have a much better understanding of why they’re wrong. I have a much better understanding of what I don’t like about them and what, you know, rather than someone told me they were bad, so I’m not allowed to hang out with them, which is 99% of people.
36:25
You know, like I heard that they were bad on the news. Well, of course. You know, like aside from that, which is like, okay, baby. I’m like, no, I’ve been in a room with that guy and had a drink with him. And like, he’s not all bad, but you know, like he’s wrong about this. Or he’s like, there’s this thing that I don’t like about this group as in general, there are some okay people in it, but like they’re just on the wrong path. And this is why I think that. You know, I have been lucky.
36:50
I often say that I’m really good at jumping off a sinking ship right before it sinks. I don’t know, I have some kind of intuition of like, I better just get out. Like I’m in the wrong place. Like right before it becomes really obvious that it’s the wrong place. I’ve managed to stay alive in that somehow I’m not completely cancelled, I think because of that. I think I’m better for it and I understand more than most people.
37:18
because I have gone to those places that they’re afraid to go to. That makes you actually qualified to understand that much more than somebody else who, like you said, is given a blanket generalization or this cancel culture mentality. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I’ve been everywhere. I mean, I’ve lived in San Francisco and been in New York City and hung out in the club scene with drag queens and whatever and done all that kind of stuff. And then, you know, like…
37:40
Yeah, I’ve hung out with neo-Nazis and I’ve been everywhere. You know, I’ve hung out with a lot of people with a lot of different views over the period of my life. So I actually have a pretty good idea of where people are at and what they believe and what they think they believe and what they’re probably wrong about. It’s the human condition, right? And that cognitive bias and cognitive dissonance is everywhere. You’re constantly looking to push yourself to this idea of audit to this idea of excellence.
38:05
How do you stop yourself from being hit in blind spots or being caught within your own cognitive dissonance about something or a belief? Well, I mean, I do think that because I have tried out a lot of things, I feel like I’m pretty comfortable with what I care about over the period of my life. A lot of truth is subjective to a certain extent. I mean, a lot of truth is like, you know, well, could be this or it could be that. It’s based on what you want. And I think that that’s really at the end of the day, a lot of what you’re looking for. Like, what do you think is truly good?
38:34
What do you think is good and beautiful and right about the world? Are there things that are less valuable than that that can have to be sacrificed to attain that? And you can go down a dark road with that as well. To a certain extent, I think what I believe is good and right is pretty consistent. I’m sure with some stupid issue like that. I really don’t care about you could trap me in like me talking out my ass like about some subject that I don’t know about like I don’t give a shit about abortion either way. So I could run my mouth about it and you’d be like, well, did you ever think of this? I’m like, oh, well, I don’t know. That’s not an issue that I care about.
39:04
There are lots of issues that I just don’t care enough about. So I probably have some cognitive dissident opinion that’s received about it. But the things that I really care about, I think that I’ve worked out to a certain extent. And I’ve chosen the hills I’m gonna die on on certain things. The things that are most valuable and I think most important, I think have been pretty consistent over the years. Or they’ve just been distilled, I think is the best thing. Like things I thought were important, I’m like, now I really understand why I think they’re important and what I’m not.
39:34
ready to bend on. You know, like if you want to talk about economic policy, you knock yourself out. I don’t know anything about that. You want to talk about is, is it better to be strong than it is to be weak? No, I’m comfortable with saying that is better to be strong. That’s good. I’m comfortable with that. Is it better to be beautiful than it is to be ugly? Yes. Yeah. Is beauty important? Yes. Are men better if they try to be stronger and more courageous? Yes. I’m not gonna backpedal on those things. Yeah, are men and women different? Yes.
40:04
That one I’ll go to my grave saying, I’m not going to take that back. No, there’s definitely, obviously anyone can get caught in like little cognitive distance traps with things, but I feel pretty consistent. I could find that I fucked up somewhere along the way with something. We all could. I would have said four years ago or three years ago, you would have heard coming out of my mouth that I’d be like, no, that is not the right way. You know, now I’d be like, you shut up. Yeah. I go back to my former self and be like, you shut up. That was stupid. And here’s why. That’s what learning is.
40:34
Right? You know, I mean, like that’s a lot of those things I know now because I’ve had enough experiences that I feel like the world has changed. You know, the world has changed. Like the circumstances have changed. So the solutions have changed the potential solutions, you know, we can only see so far down the road. I mean, if you would ask anyone two years ago, what’s going to happen last year? Good luck. Everyone was wrong, you know, except maybe some people who were wargaming this like whatever, but almost everyone would have been wrong. So everybody had to recalibrate.
41:03
And we all have to do that from time to time. Well, and I think that you made a great point about that, about this idea of, you know, whether it be martial arts, whether it be jujitsu or any of these things, these martial endeavors, these warlike endeavors, that’s where we start to learn about ourself. That’s true self-knowledge. So if we’re trying to go after what somebody else says is this ideal or we’re afraid to say anything because of political correctness or whatever the case may be, it’s impossible for us to truly even understand, like you said, what do we believe in? What’s truly important to us? What hill would we die on?
41:33
And I think that that knowledge is what allows you to be this beacon, to be this fire in the darkness for so many people with your work right now. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you so much. Listen, I want to be responsible for your time, Jack. Where can our listeners learn more about you? How can we support you? How can we learn more about what you’re up to? Well, I’m an Instagram guy. So my Instagram is at start the world. My website is jacksjohnovan.com. Over the next couple of months, I have a couple of big projects for people who really liked fire in the dark, the more esoteric masculinity, the more art side of me, I started a…
42:02
website called Pater, which is PH2T3R. Like I said, a little more esoteric. For a more mainstream project, I started a business with my friend, Tanner Guzzi. We are starting an online magazine called Chest. The idea is based on the C.S. Lewis quote saying, we make men without chests and expect of them industry and so forth. Based on that, and the idea is that we’re, instead of interviewing actors,
42:30
What would GQ write about if GQ was still a men’s magazine? What would these magazines write about if they were actually catering to men at all? And so we’re gonna try and go in that direction because you have this huge culture and obviously you’re connected to it and so many other people are. You have your Ryan Micklers, you have your Draco Willings, you had John from Warrior Poets Society. There’s so many guys out there who are doing so much positive work for men and none of them can get any good press state of their lives because of the way the system is. So like, well, let’s just change the system and make our own.
42:58
We’re creating a magazine to do that. That’s the plan. So I’m pretty excited about that. That’s going to be a major project that I’m working on right now. Well, I’m excited about it too. And I’m sure that all of our listeners are excited about as well. Jack, thank you so much for being an uncompromising voice. And I look forward to speaking to you after this as well. Thank you.
