Risk and Extortion LV: Competition is for Losers

Right Wing Politics, Libidinal Desire and the Manosphere 1

Weaving previous posts on kakistocracy, the rise of fascism and World War 3 together under the banner of Risk and Extortion, I hope that it has become clear that what we are facing is a post-apocalyptic condition. Whereas in the USA, the political culture is already explicitly apocalyptic, both in terms of excesses of clownery combined with excesses of violence on the one hand and the astonishing cowardice and complicity among those who are supposed to uphold the institutional functions of democracy on the other hand, this is – barring some notable exceptions – not yet the case in most parts of the rest of the world.

There is one specific phenomenon, however, that is likely to ensure that every place on earth is going to be covered in right-wing extremist excrement: sexually frustrated, violent, toxic masculinity. Having to fight for the retention of their entitlements, many (young) men have started to realize that they are not actually able to compete with their superegos. As one particularly toxic male, Peter Thiel, once said: “competition is for losers”. His argument is basically, that winners do not compete, because they not only define the rules, but they also do not need to play the game to begin with. They have already won it.

Looking at dystopian films about games, such as the Hunger Games and Squid Game, Thiel has a valid point. The competitors in both games are always-already losers, because they have to compete. The winners are those who are being entertained and those that can translate entertainment into political and/or economic capital. Peter Thiel, like any other sociopath, believes that values such as loyalty, honesty, honour, fidelity, equality and justice are for losers too. Just like the evil rulers and rich people in Hunger Games and Squid Game, so-called winners such as Thiel unapologetically exhibit traits of malignant narcissism.

The fact that we are invited to identify with the losers of their sick games, however, also says something about the relationship between entertainment, subjectivation and solidarity. Ultimately, Peter Thiel might be admired by those who sense his particular sociopathological libidinal desire as an expression of the Übermensch: a loner who rises above everyone else but ion order to do so has to instrumentalize everything for the sake of his individuality. In the case of Peter Thiel, this libidinal desire is exclusively masturbatory. Everything serves his self-satisfaction. So Peter Thiel is likely to be admired by masturbators who somehow conflate masturbation with master-morality.

Masturbation is of course the curse that incels have to live with; hence it makes sense to transform that curse into a blessing. Turning their inability to form meaningful relationships into a justification to use women as instruments for masturbation, requires incels to semantically redefine women as objects of hatred and loathing. Their sole purpose is to help men satisfy themselves. That masturbatory logic then allows them to also portray themselves as loners, as Übermenschen, as winners.

Many of these masturbators are attracted to right-wing extremism because fascism itself is a masturbatory political culture. The idea of insisting on the superiority of a specific race, ethnicity or nationality because you are of it, is not just fuelled by a neurotic, narcissistic disorder, but also cultivates life-forms in which one’s libidinal desire depends on the instrumentalization and brutalization of others for the insatiable need of self-satisfaction. This is why fascists hate women with agency (the Beckies). Women with agency are a threat to the masturbatory sense of autonomy. They exceed their instrumental attributions. They represent the Masturbator’s ultimate anxiety; being castrated.

Like Peter Thiel, Andre Tate, the ultimate incel hero, suffers from castration anxiety. That is why he propagates promiscuity and possessiveness as masculine, and loyalty and fidelity as feminine. He literally fucks around because he fears love, commitment and linking equality and justice. He is in fact extremely vulnerable.  This is thus not the place to ridicule Masturbators and their lonely ways. Malignant narcissism is a serious affliction. The crisis of masculinity that is related to it, is nothing to gloat about.

Masturbators crowd together in the manosphere. In the absence of women with agency, they fantasize about women that are identical to AI chatbots and virtual companions (the Stacies). They are afraid of women that do not act like chatbots. These masturbators like to hang out with other men in virtual manospheres but also in actual ones. Then they form gangs. They like to parade with big guns, probably because they lack size elsewhere. They like to act tough when they are in larger, heavier armed groups. They like to bully and intimidate only when they have the upper hand. They are indeed cowards at heart.