Why Very Demanding People Always Win

In school, we say that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. In the workplace, we say that we must learn to toot our own horn a bit in order to get noticed in order to advance our careers. In politics, we say that it is necessary to raise awareness of an issue in order to affect change. These are different ways of saying the same thing: Those who make their demands known are those who get their demands met.

Before I tackle this idea, let me first make it clear that there is a positive aspect of this and a negative aspect of this. The positive aspect of this would be the fact that, whenever we have emotional or physical needs, it is important to communicate with others so that we can get the help and support we need. This kind of communication is an unequivocally good thing. No disputes here.

The negative aspect of this is when one demands more than one's due, or when one's demands become a burden on others, or when one makes consistent demands to the detriment of others.

In order to differentiate between the two, we apply a sense of justice. A full discussion of justice is out-of-scope here, however, and we will simply have to accept it as given that each of us has a reasonable and acceptable sense of justice, even if we don't always reach the same conclusions*.

The Many Ways People Are (Negatively) Demanding
Let's start with a few examples.

John is an ambitious consultant. In the workplace, he is quick to ask questions and to request that other, more experienced consultants help him solve the problems he encounters in his project work. He spends a great deal of time having one-on-one interaction with his supervisor, dominating the supervisor's time and cultivating a closer relationship between them than the other employees have, a relationship based solely on the fact that he has spent a disproportionately greater amount of time with the supervisor. When John's projects go over well, John is quick to dispense his advice and lessons learned to his colleagues. When John's projects do not go over so well, he is quick to blame the project's other contributors for the problems they all faced. When interacting with larger groups of colleagues, John condescends to his peers in order to make himself appear more knowledgeable, while at the same time he supplicates to his superiors beyond the call of good taste, thereby captivating their attention and preventing them from noticing other employees. In all ways, John is totally over-bearing.

Ralph is always in crisis**. No matter what seems to be going on in anyone else's life, Ralph's thoughts are dominated by his own problems. When Ralph talks to his friends and family members, he steers the conversation toward his problems and how they can be solved. When he is actually required to respond to the problems of other people, he is only capable of re-framing the problem in such a way that its essential characteristics are the same as one of his problems. Therefore, if his friend is dealing with a difficult coworker, Ralph will discuss his friend's issue as though the coworker is exactly the same as someone difficult in Ralph's own life. This perspective will not merely be informed by Ralph's problems, but rather Ralph will be unable to see any aspect of his friend's problem unless he (Ralph) assumes that the problem is exactly like Ralph's own problem. When Ralph solves one problem, the celebration is fleeting. He quickly advances to the next crisis, which then begins to occupy his every thought. In all ways, Ralph is totally over-bearing.

Fred is not the center of his own universe, nor does he live in constant crisis. Nevertheless, Fred has emotional issues that he is trying to work through. These issues take up a lot of space in his thoughts, and as a result of that, Fred falls into a pattern of analyzing all things from the perspective of his own emotional issues. Whereas Ralph will only be able to understand problems that Ralph himself is going through, Fred has a good understanding of other people's problems, and a large amount of empathy. Unlike Ralph, however, Fred has created a world in which his own personal issues are the primary problems of the universe in general. Fred's explanation for all problems - even those experienced by other people - is the same as the explanation he has developed for his own emotional issues. Therefore, whenever any discussion comes up, Fred's lone contribution to it is to find a way to rationalize the issue from the perspective of his emotional issues. If Fred believes his issues were caused by another person's lack of generosity, then Fred will see heavy automobile traffic as being caused by a lack of generosity, he will see the nation's political issues as being a contest between those who are generous and those who are not, he will see his own relationship problems as being traceable somehow to the comparative amounts of generosity possessed by the relevant parties. If, on the other hand, Fred believes his issues were caused by another person's lack of attentiveness, then Fred will see heavy automobile traffic as being caused by a lack of attention, he will see the nation's political issues as being a contest between those who are attentive to others and those who are not, he will see his own relationship problems as being traceable somehow to the comparative amounts of attentiveness possessed by the relevant parties. If, furthermore, Fred believes his issues were caused by another person's lack of maturity, then Fred will see heavy automobile traffic as being caused by a lack of maturity, he will see the nation's political issues as being a contest between those who are mature and those who are not, he will see his own relationship problems as being traceable somehow to the comparative amounts of maturity possessed by the relevant parties. No matter what Fred's particular explanation is for the issues he has, Fred will apply that explanation to each and every situation he and anyone else faces. In this way, Fred is totally over-bearing.

How Being Demanding Affects Others
I have called John, Ralph, and Fred over-bearing because most of us will agree that their behavior is very much so. Yet, if it were so easy to declare someone over-bearing and walk away, the story would simply end here (or, more realistically, I would never have started writing this blog post).

The reason being demanding or over-bearing is a problem is due to the fact that the rest of us are extremely tolerant of this behavior. We have good motives for tolerating it. We tolerate John because we wish to appear cooperative in the workplace, and we wish to succeed on projects even when we must work with John. We tolerate Ralph because he is a dear friend or family member whose well-being is truthfully very important to us. We tolerate Fred because he is a good listener and an empathetic person, so we recognize the value he adds to our lives.

Unfortunately, if we indulge the demanding people in our lives, John will throw us under the bus, Ralph will ask for much more than we are even capable of giving him, and Fred will unwittingly pull us into an emotionally fragile world in which everything about the universe is rooted in a psychological wrongdoing that occurred only in Fred's life. Thus, indulging the overly demanding people in our lives subjects us to the threat of (1) looking bad, (2) taking on undue hardship ourselves, or (3) getting sucked into someone else's emotional problems in such a way that they can adversely warp our own perspective.

Each in their own way, John, Ralph, and Fred all take advantage of us. John takes advantage of the fact that the person who first acts over-bearingly in the workplace controls the social dynamic; this is social manipulation, basically. Ralph takes advantage of our desire to be supportive. Fred takes advantage of our respect for his point of view.

All of this is true, but there is also one other crucial aspect of the dynamic of very demanding people.

Social Cooperation And The Desire To Smooth Things Over
We humans have an inert and probably instinctual desire to facilitate social cooperation. Every event in human history is testament to that fact. We need not study history to see it, of course. Every moment you spend with others is a moment in which you are working to facilitate cooperation among you, on some level.

Being very demanding is highly unpleasant, and clearly uncooperative from a social standpoint. However, when individuals violate minor social mores, they are not ousted from the group immediately. Whenever someone rubs up against the group in the wrong way, the group will immediately respond by giving the individual the chance to either redeem himself/herself or take a mulligan.

Consider situations in which someone accidentally says something embarrassing. The group's reaction is often to stay silent in hopes that the offender will diffuse the situation voluntarily. Sometimes the group responds with laughter, which is an attempt to dismiss the offense by turning it into a humorous anecdote.

Whatever the specifics of the reaction, people ensconced in social circumstances experience great discomfort when one group member commits an offense. The social pressure of the situation seems to inspire us to devise ways to forgive the offense while simultaneously maintaining all members of the group. We make allowances for the transgressor, our minds create excuses and opportunities to allow the offender to "make up" for what has been done.

The Power Of Escalation
Now let's return to our very demanding people.

John understands (at least, on some level) that his actions violate the social norms, but he also understands (again, on some level he understands) that the group will be highly reticent to dole out punishment for his behavior. The few that dare to do so will only make the group dynamic more uncomfortable, and then they, not John, will receive the group's wrath.

Ralph, too, understands that his problems make other people uncomfortable. In fact, he expects this to be the case since, after all, his problems also make he himself uncomfortable! Ralph's whole motivation is alleviating his own discomfort, and he knows that those who take the time to listen to his problems will be moved to express some form of sympathy. They would be uncomfortable behaving otherwise, and even if not, Ralph could quickly escalate the situation by claiming righteous indignation at the fact that they had failed to express their empathy. The resulting escalated social conflict would be sufficiently uncomfortable as to inspire the desired sympathy.

Fred understands the respect we hold for his point of view, and he values our friendship. However, Fred desperately needs his phantom psychological explanation validated by other people in order for him to maintain its illusory explanatory power. So, if we disagree with Fred, he will staunchly repeat his explanation again and again until the listener acquiesces. Minor disagreements among friends are insignificant; major disagreements wound deeply. Therefore, Fred is willing to create mountains out of molehills if it serves his illusion. Dealing with Fred is particularly tricky, since he will soon respond to a prolonged conflict by creating a rationalization for why the listener, too is guilty of the same underlying problem that has caused Fred so many emotional problems in the past. The listener, on some level, will pick up on this dynamic, and will work to assuage Fred and maintain a positive relationship with him.

Hence, in all three dynamics, the very demanding person will employ escalation tactics to manipulate other people into behaving in ways that serve their demands. Meanwhile, the rest of us are all too willing to give in to their many demands to maintain the social order and to avoid further group conflict.

Conclusion
At some point, demanding people have learned just how elastic the social order really is. They have learned better than others that much can be demanded of the group before it starts to break down or wear thin. Of course, people are individuals, and we all have varying levels of tolerance for the demands of others, as well as for the particular kinds of demands being made. But because many of us are highly indulgent of any demands (we want to be socially cooperative, we want to be socially successful, we want to be well-respected and highly regarded), we often find ourselves trapped in situations with very demanding people who easily ask too much and leave us to suffer the social consequences of their actions.

What's important to remember is that we will have to face these consequences regardless of how we choose to respond to the demands being made. A quick, eviscerating "No!" will sacrifice a great deal of our own respect within the group, but will spare everyone else's having to endure prolonged social conflict. Excessive indulgence will not only prolong the group's suffering, but will also expose us to personal social and mental health risks. A moderate approach is our obvious tendency, but this really just constitutes "splitting the difference" rather than arriving at a true "balance" based on behavioral efficacy.

The reason demanding people always win, then, is because they are in control of the whole problem. It is they who initiate group conflict while the rest of us act to maintain order. It is they who escalate conflict while the rest of us act to mitigate it. There is simply no way we ourselves can solve the problem, because it is not our problem. We are neither the aggressors, nor the escalators, nor the ones making demands in the first place.

The key point is this: No matter how much a demanding person will use social cues and our innate sense of cooperation to manipulate us into meeting their demands, the problem is not really a social one. That demanding people are so demanding is their own, personal problem. Nothing we do will change that. There is no right answer because there is nothing for us to do. The problem is in their minds, their psychology. It merely appears as a social problem.

It is not a social problem, it is a personal one. There is nothing you can do to help.

_________________________________
* Defining justice has always been one of the great philosophical problems. In fact, Plato wrote a whole book on the topic, and he wasn't the only one. So it is unlikely that I will be able to unravel the concept of justice here. We will have to accept that the definition of justice is a matter of further philosophical interrogation, and I leave you to it. I recommend you start with Plato's The Republic and proceed from there.

** For more on the mindset of constant crisis, see this excellent blog post from Simon Grey.

The Decline Of Music Continues

In a surprisingly interesting article covering the SXSW Festival, Mikael Wood of the Los Angeles Times is full of fascinating observations, culminating in this beauty:

All these overlapping agendas led to an atmosphere of frenzied excess, and they raised a question: If everyone comes to be noticed at SXSW, isn't the net effect the same as if no one came?

He's right, of course. SXSW began as a local music festival. When I was growing up in the 90s, I remember reading it as a place where "local" undiscovered talent went to be part of the indie music scene. Of course, back then you simply weren't cool if you weren't an independent artist. Bands lost their cool the moment they  were signed to a major label. (Those of you who are young enough to be curious about where the phrase "indie" comes from, that's it. "Indie" didn't used to be a musical genre, it was an indicator of whether your were a corporate sellout or a true artist.) So they all flocked to SXSW, or NXNW, or etc. etc. in order to have a celebration of the music that was really cool.

Of course, since it really was cool, it didn't take long for the recording industry to start siphoning off the most corporate-ready acts. Festivals like SXSW became the fertile waters from which the "best" would be culled by corporate talent scouts, and awarded with a recording contract. Thus "independent music" became the victim of precisely that which it was attempting to avoid; SXSW became commercialized. First came the talent scouts, then came the corporate sponsors, then came the bands that had already been signed by labels, and now... well, most of the article linked above discusses Prince's set (one of the most commercially successful songwriters of all time).

Mr. Wood makes the point that, in today's musical environment, even the established hit-makers must clamor for attention, on seemingly equal footing with the independent plebes. Thus we gain exposure to yet another artist-driven source of modern music's decline: the desperate, pleading, whining, clamoring for attention. Think about the most beautiful woman you've ever seen. Does she clamor for your attention, desperately trying to be the most-noticed thing in the room?

Great art, like great beauty doesn't beg to be noticed. But turn on the radio and your ears will feast on over-compression, bass frequencies boosted beyond the capacity of stock audio speakers, non-existent high frequencies, and a blaring midrange. Female voices dominate, with their more-piercing vocal timbre, and of those females, the ones with the most accosting bleats - Beyonce, Rihanna, Demi Lovato, et al - are greatly preferred. What few male voices remain are nearly all tenors, the most womanly of male singers.

Midrange. Distortion. Compression. Piercing voices. All of this is designed to grab you by the ears and dominate every thought you have; and just when you think it can't get any worse, the song ends and the radio advertisements begin to play - at a higher volume, a greater level of audio compression, and a spectral skew even further toward the midrange frequencies.

It's all such a desperate cry for attention. Records are produced that way, songs are written that way, festivals are designed that way. With each passing year, every aspect of music creation is nudged further toward a desperate whine for more attention, calling to mind memories of your college friend's, whining, begging, scheming to get you to come out to their next show. You don't want to listen to the radio anymore, and you feel this way for precisely the same reason you didn't want to go to that college friend's gig: It's all a bunch of unpleasant noise.

And please note: I don't mean this in the crotchety-old-codger sense of the term "noise." I mean it in the literal sense: fewer sonic options spread across fewer sonic frequencies, every artist clamoring for your undivided attention, using every aspect of modern audio production to grip you and force you into listening to it, this is what produces terrible, gut-wrenching, mind-obliterating white noise.

Good music doesn't require coercion. Great art doesn't demand your attention. It doesn't beg to get noticed. It doesn't travel around to little-fish festivals to present itself as the pond's undisputed leviathan.

Great music is simply beautiful when you hear it, and it matters little whether the artist responsible for it is rich or poor, famous or obscure, young or old, cool or uncool. But in today's world, artists care more about fame, success, getting noticed, and generally being the center of attention than they do about the quality of their art.

The artists themselves, though, continue to blame the faceless specter of corporate involvement. Please! No more whining.

Throw Caution To The Wind

Let me begin this post by providing the usual caveats for this sort of advice: If you are trying to make a complex and important decision, it is always best to proceed calmly and rationally, analyze the available information, and make the most informed choice you possibly can. 

For most days in life, though, the choices and decisions we make are not so serious. It is for this reason that I recommend throwing some caution to the wind. I'd like to explore that concept a little bit this morning, and I will begin with an example from personal experience.

Why I Didn't Bike To Work Today
As I may have mentioned before, I intend to start biking to work. In my previous post, I had the good sense not to mention a specific date I would begin biking to work so as not to embarrass myself when the date came and went, and I didn't start biking to work... Of course, we here at Stationary Waves don't really have to resort to such face-saving measures, because part of the creed of this website is to confront all of our illusions plainly and simply, and work to overcome them. So, let me formally acknowledge that today was the day I initially intended to start biking to work every day, but doggone it, I chickened out.

I'm acting a bit silly here. There is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of in a situation in which I have determined to take on a new challenge, and find myself not quite ready to tackle it. It's a new challenge, which means it's something I'm not already accustomed to doing, which means it's above-and-beyond the proverbial call of duty, which means, Hey, I'm a busy guy with a lot on my plate and if I have to chicken out on a new project because I'm not quite ready, that's okay. No harm, no foul.

This is what it means to confront the illusion (in this case, the illusion being that I am totally awesome and perfect and can take on any number of projects without ever failing) plainly and simply. Now it's time to work to overcome it.

The Courage To Fail
I have discussed fear and exercise before:

I certainly know plenty of runners who are convinced that they could "never" bench press their own body weight. I know - I used to be one of them. Then I met a good runner friend of mine, call him DC, who could bench press nearly double his body weight, and could still run further and faster than I could. What was my excuse? I furrowed my brow and proclaimed that I couldn't understand his ability to lift weights. 

But by then it was obvious: I was afraid to lift.

There are two sides to fear and exercise. The first is what I wrote about back then, which is the idea that we furtively cultivate a false narrative designed to help us avoid doing something that we know is difficult. When I was avoiding strength training, I was engaged in just such a narrative. The other side of it is the fear, not of attempting something difficult, but of failing to succeed. What's the difference? One is a fear of one's own abilities. The other fear is a fear of how one's performance will appear to others.

You might be afraid to run a marathon, for example, because you think you're just not built for it - that if you even attempt it, you will suffer significant injury. That's the first kind of fear.

The second kind of fear is when you actually do want to (say) run a marathon, but you're afraid to start training because if you have to back out for some reason, you think people will judge you harshly. You're afraid of the endless supply of pessimistic jerks who are ready to pounce on anyone's inability to achieve one simple, stupid think (and there are a lot of people like that out there). You're afraid of the well-meaning, but insufferable, sympathy you'll attract from friends - the kind of sympathy that expresses their own fears, the kind of sympathy that makes you feel like, just because you couldn't succeed this one time, you'll never be able to succeed.

Regarding my bike ride to work this morning, I'd say it was a good mix of the two kinds of fear. The majority of the fear was the first kind. I felt like I just wouldn't be able to make it all the way to work, and then shower at the gym, and then start working at a decent hour. But a good part of it was the fear that, after telling everyone about my ambitious plan to start biking to work and become a fitness superman, I'd humiliate myself if I bungled the ride.

The question is, though, what's the big deal? Even attempting a daily bike commute is more than what most people are willing to try. Sure, there are many people out there who bike to work and don't make a big deal out of it. But I think if I told them I couldn't quite bring myself to bike to work this morning, they'd understand. This is no different than how I react when someone tells me that they couldn't quite run a marathon (or a 10K, or heck even a 5K). I totally understand what it means to feel unsure of myself when it comes to running.

So there I was this morning, driving to work in the vexing freeway traffic, complaining as all the other motorists bobbed-and-weaved among each other, honking, swearing, speeding. All I could think about was how gorgeous the weather and sunrise were this morning, and about how much fun it would be to be riding my bike along the route I mapped out for myself over the weekend.

I was a sucker. I really should have just thrown caution to the wind and biked to work. I should have had the courage to fail. It's part of my creed. And in this case, the stakes are so low that I was simply foolish not to have done it.

Conclusion
Hobbies aren't very fun if you succeed every single time. Think about it. Whatever your hobby might be - whether it's gardening or video games or cooking or sports or fitness or music or whatever - if it is something totally easy, with a known outcome that can be predicted with 100% certainty, it just isn't very fun. The whole point of pursuing a hobby is taking on something that is beyond your current level of expertise and trying to do it.

When you finally do it, you have to expand your horizons. That means that if your hobby is video games, you have to buy a new game when you win the previous game; if your hobby is fishing, you have to try catching a 2nd fish (or a larger fish, or a fish in a more remote area) after you've caught the first fish; if your hobby is cooking, you have to cook something new once you've perfected the previous recipe; and so on.

The remarkable thing about all of this is that, because we enjoy our hobbies, we are almost completely unaware of the fact that until we succeed, we're failing. It comes with having a hobby.

See? Failing isn't a big deal. Success is the big deal. Everything else is just a warm-up.

I'm biking to work tomorrow!

Assorted Analogies

• A career is like a windmill; you'll only be productive when there is change in the air.
• Life is like a telephone; the more you put into it, the more you get out of it.
• Women are like poetry; the most exciting ones are new, the most inspiring are old, and the ones that can tell a good story are simply epic.
• Ambition is like a stamp collection; For the most part, it's only really interesting to you.
• Vanity is like pie; the biggest mouth indulges the most.
• Truth is like sunlight; a little lifts the spirits, a lot of it warms the heart, too much burns.
• The creative spirit is like a hot rod; endless fine-tuning produces a masterpiece.
• Politics is like a pork farm; so much filth and noise to produce something that only rots us from the inside.
• Happiness is like a cup of coffee; wait, not like. Just is.
• Children are like stars, twinkling, sparkling, bringing light to the darkest moments, pointing us in the right direction.
• Life is like a cubic zircon; it doesn't take something exceptional to be beautiful.
• Men are like raindrops; one or two can be charming, but more than that and you're all wet.
• Knowledge is like riding a bicycle; without a little legwork, you'll never get anywhere. The most difficult part is building up a good momentum. Once you do, you can really get going without a lot of effort. The moment you stop trying, you start to slow down.
• Courage is like pennies; seldom used despite the fact that most of us have more than we realize.
• Time is like wisdom; it's easy to waste too much of it on the wrong people.
• Music is like food; best taken in large portions, among friends.
• Irony is like a fine spice; the right dose is genius, but too much reveals a lack of substance.
• Words are like automobiles; usefully propelling us forward up until they start crowding each other out.
• Friendship is like a wardrobe; the right combination will always reflect well on us; the wrong combination can ruin an evening; boring people should add to it; shallow people collect it merely for their own vanity.
• Philosophy is like a map; you have to know how to read it to get anywhere.
• Love is like art; without passion, it's really only a pretty picture.
• Religion is like expensive cheese; fine, if you don't mind the taste it leaves in your mouth.
• Circumstances are like modern art; if you don't know how to look at it, it appears bad even when it's good.
• Health is like love; the fun is in the chase, but the real benefits come later.
• Logic is life's secret ingredient; if you don't use it, you'll always be missing something.
• Family is like a New Year's Eve party; everyone's having a good time whether you're there or not, so you might as well join in the fun.
• Thoughts are like greeting cards; if you don't share them with others, they're worthless.
• Life is like a boat; keep your head up and you'll have many great adventures, keep your head down and you'll make yourself sick.
• Heartache is like eating a bad meal; most of the dissatisfaction comes from thinking about what might have been.
• Arguments are like silly string; it seems satisfying when you're going at it, but the moment it's over, you realize how much cleaning up there is to do.
• Trust is like the floor; it's hard to stand on your own two feet without it.
• Romance is like an expensive sports car; if you spend all your time considering what's practical then you'll never have any fun.
• Life is like horticulture; anything can be beautiful, if you know what grows where.
• Love is like money; you have to invest it if you want to make it.

The Minimum Wage Issue Wears Thin

Robert Murphy responds to Daniel Kuehn, providing us with more empirical evidence of disproportionately high youth unemployment and employment volatility, and suggesting that "proponents of a minimum wage increase (or at least, those saying it won’t be harmful) need to do more than simply say, 'This is nothing new.'"

Kuehn writes multiple replies, as he is often wont to do. In the second reply, he asks:

Surely there are more explanations for persistent youth unemployment than just the minimum wage. Are you saying that because you have one potential explanation the ball is in their court?

There are only two reasons youth aren't working:

1. They can't get a job; 
2. They don't want a job. 

Seeing as how the youth in group (2) aren't part of the employment statistics, that means we are only really talking about group (1), people who can't get a job.

Someone might not be able to get a job for a variety of reasons: she doesn't have reliable transportation, she can't be bonded, she has a history of delinquency, she has white supremacist tattoos on her face, she is mentally ill, there is insufficient "aggregate demand" (whatever that means), and so on. Most of those things aren't policy questions.

But a few of them are. I mentioned insufficient aggregate demand to be fair to Keynesians, even though I'm not a Keynesian. Keep in mind, however, that stimulating aggregate demand need not have any effect on wages at all, and certainly never involves the minimum wage. (Go ahead, ask Paul Krugman if raising the minimum wage is an effective way to stimulate aggregate demand.) So, let's take that one out of the picture.

What's left to consider?

There are a series of policies that keep youth unemployment higher than it needs to be: Minimum wage laws, child labor laws, payroll taxes, union shops, "forklift operator licenses" (that one kept me out of a few jobs when I was a youth), legal curfews, mandatory benefits provisions, and so on. These are institutional barriers put in place to prevent youth from working as much and as many hours as they might otherwise choose to work.

The fact is, there are only so many considerations that are under our control. We know what those considerations are, and we have the means to address them immediately.

So why do we not take steps to alleviate the problem?

What Happened To Jury Trials?

Yet another alleged shooter has been gunned down by law enforcement.

In a statement from Governor Cuomo’s office, law enforcement personnel have shot and killed the man responsible for killing civilians in the upstate town of Herkimer, New York. The engagement between law enforcement officers and Myers resulted in one fatality – that of an FBI dog. 

"This morning law enforcement officials entered the building and, after being fired upon, shot and killed the suspect, Kurt Myers. There were no injuries to law enforcement officials, though an FBI police dog was fatally shot. We commend the courage and extraordinary efforts of the state police, the FBI, and local law enforcement officials in finding the suspect and ending this horrific spree of violence and bloodshed,” said Cuomo in the statement. “It is now time for mourning those who we lost in this senseless act of violence. In the darkest of times, the bravery, kindness, and the spirit of community of New Yorkers shines the brightest, and that is what we saw yesterday in Herkimer and Mohawk as the community came together during this difficult time. The thoughts and prayers of my family and of all New Yorkers are with the friends and loved ones of the victims."

The crimes that Kurt Myers is alleged to have committed are atrocious, let there be no doubt about that. However, the true identity of the shooter will never be know, thanks to trigger-happy police officers.

I am sympathetic to situations in which police officers, forced to defend themselves or others in immediate danger, may have to fire upon suspects. However, any time a suspect is not brought to justice through the standard channels of the legal system, your own rights, articulated in the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution, have been compromised.

If it happens that the altercation between Myers and the police was captured on video, and that video is made available to the public, and also happens to clearly show that the police officers were both in immediate danger and had no option available to them except to use deadly force, then I will be the first one to thank them for their service and give them a pass here.

Unfortunately, these instances in which the police deem themselves judge, jury, and executioner are becoming far too common for comfort. All that need happen in the State of New York is for you to be accused of a crime. From there, the police may simply shoot you. As long as the governor issues some cursory claim that you had fired on officers first, all will be forgotten. You'll be dead and no one will know the truth.

Is this the kind of world we want to live in? Are we sure?

My Response To The Google Reader Thing

As you may have heard, Google is shutting down Google Reader, which is a great feature that I will sorely miss. Much is being made of the hooplah, and people are asking how they will react. I can't solve all of your problems, but I can tell you what I'm going to do.

First, I'm going to scribe to all of my favorite blogs via email.

Second, I'm going to create filters in my Gmail that route each blog-related email to a special Gmail folder titled "blogs."

Voila. In two steps, I've replaced Google Reader without any significant additional work on my part.

UPDATE: I just discovered dozens of perfectly viable RSS readers that are available as add-in applications for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. The hubbub surrounding G Reader is a lot sillier than it needs to be.  Microsoft Outlook, of course, already has RSS feed capabilities if you have a full version of the software. There are great options out there.

It Will Always Be Real Estate

Part One: The "Housing Is A Bad Investment" Crowd
Robert Shiller is a bear on the housing market. He considers housing investments to be a fad. As he puts it, "Housing traditionally is not viewed as a great investment. It takes maintenance, it depreciates, it goes out of style. All of those are problems. And there's technical progress in housing. So, new ones are better."

Shiller has been beating this drum for a few years now. Frankly, he's made a name for himself this way. He's been quoted and lauded by Stiglitz and Schiff alike (no small feat, considering how opposite those two viewpoints are). Nancy Grace, the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Suze Orman, Oprah... everyone wants to participate in the flogging of the real estate "myth."

Lucky for you, you're a faithful Stationary Waves reader, so you already know about The First Stationary Waves Principle Of Coming Out On Top: When you see a crowd of people all going one direction, that's your queue to go the opposite direction.

Part Two: A Ten-Year Vision
Simon Grey has more, and as usual, his thoughts reflect a higher degree of rationality than the mainstream media's soundbite culture is capable of generating. Grey's response is:

If you want to remodel your kitchen because you want something prettier or more functional, or more spacious, or whatever; then remodel your kitchen because you want to.  But don’t pretend that remodeling your kitchen is somehow an investment in your home.  That’s just bullshit that salesmen use to get you to spend lots of money on upgrades.

If you want a nice, comfortable place live that you can customize to your exact preferences and specifications, more power to you.  But don’t lie to yourself and pretend that modifying your home to your specs is somehow a reasonable business investment.  It simply is not.

And if you want to invest in real estate, either buy rental property or buy development property, or some other property that you can flip in short amount of time.  That’s investing in real estate.  Remodeling your home is not.

The bottom line is that, at some point, people developed the idea that "flipping" houses was a good way to invest. Or did they? Flipping houses is, by definition, market speculation. I am not convinced that the idea ever took hold that flipping houses was a way to invest money.

I remember when day trading first became a fad. Because buying and selling stocks has long been part of savvy investors' overall investment strategy, I think people somehow started using the word "invest" interchangeably with the phrase "buy something and make money when you sell it." To be sure, that phrase probably qualifies as some sort of extremely crude definition of the word "investment," but it seems to me that there is more to it than that.

In a more traditional sense, investment connotes a long-term strategy, a policy of choosing purchases that will yield a large payoff far into the future. Those with extremely lengthy cognitive time-horizons will excel at this sort of thing. Those who see any kind of investment as a bit of a gamble will never do very well, because they don't have very long cognitive time-horizons. They fail to see the long-run connections between A and B, and so to them when prices become volatile, the best explanation available to them is one that involves "luck" and "risk" and "gambling." But the only people who think this way are bad investors and people too afraid to invest in anything at all.

So Grey is correct to point out a few things that seem obvious when we shine the light of longer cognitive time-horizons on the issues: (1) Buying a home isn't automatically an investment; (2) Remodeling your home isn't an investment at all; (3) If you want to make money buying houses, then buy income or development property. I approve of this advice because it demonstrates the savvy and rationality associated with about a decade-long cognitive time-horizon, perhaps even two decades.

Part Three: Seeing Across Many Milennia
For most people, it is wise enough to adopt Grey's strategy. That is good enough to make them wealthy. We have to add the usual caveats about developing an eye for good real estate location and potential land value appreciation. It wouldn't hurt to develop good relationships with local contractors and the good folks at the Title Registry. The more you do it, the better you get at it.

Nevertheless, there is a very important, eons-long game at work in real estate that I think it is extremely useful to keep in mind when thinking about the housing market.

There is a reason, after all, that real estate is the most reliable form of loan collateral for an underwriter. There is a reason real estate can be leveraged more highly than other assets. There is a reason there was a "housing bubble" in the first place. And yes, that reason involves government intervention, but that "explanation" really just kicks the can down the road, and begs the question: Why did the government promote real estate so much in the early 2000s?

The Ludwig von Mises Institute crowd seems to believe in something they call "the myth of the American Dream," or "the myth of Home Ownership" or whatever else. To hear them tell it, the government just magically decided one day to promote the myth that we could all own houses, thereby saddling us all with debt and skewing the American economy toward debt and debt management. I suppose their explanation involves some attempt to seize power through the financial and banking sectors. This explanation is ironic, considering Ludwig von Mises' own views on the demonization of bankers*.

To properly understand economics and real estate, one has to recognize the crucial role real estate has played in human history with respect to the structure of power.

In the days before the Enlightenment, land ownership made all the difference between a lord and a serf. To procure land from a king or queen meant to either gain access to the corridors of power through favor and insinuation, or to fight for that land to the death. Nearly all battles fought across Europe during antiquity were wars waged for the conquest of land and territory. Those ancient people had no concept of modern land utilization economics. They did not seek to acquire land in order to build factories and housing developments. They sought only power, and land was the ticket to that power. With land, one gained control of the denizens living on top of it, whom you could now tax, conscript, and otherwise exploit. Money was in sufficient to gain this kind of power. Being a member of the king's court was insufficient. Only land ownership could suffice to grant that kind of power.

When the New World was discovered and the Enlightenment unfolded, people gained an understanding that being free to produce and trade is what lead to prosperity. Those who were most passionate about these ideas found many ingenious ways to gain access to the New World, where existing property rights were not yet established. There, they could homestead a patch of land free themselves from the burdens of taxation and conscription. Instead, they could leave peaceful and productive lives trading with one another. Power transferred out of the hands of kings and into the hands of democracy, and land was the vehicle through which this occurred.

Yet, those in control of the American government never lost sight of the value of land as it pertains to power. The Lousiana Purchase was made by America's second president, the author of the Declaration of Independence, a man who had the good sense to know that America's prosperity and the gateway to the ascension of its people was through the acquisition of more real estate. Thus was born the idea of Manifest Destiny, which Americans used to justify a mad dash toward gathering up all the empty land they could get their hands on.

Those who made it to the West coast profited most. California turned out to be a literal gold mind, and a silver mine, an agrarian paradise, and a fabulous well of oil and natural gas. Anyone who managed to acquire this land during the 19th Century must surely have guaranteed the wealth and power of several generations of his progeny.

But this was only the beginning. Even the sparsely populated American midwest is dominated by the few old families who have descended from the initial inhabitants who took advantage of the wide and unwanted expanse of land by setting up their homesteads on tracts so wide they extended further than the eye could see. For one hundred years, they existed in modest poverty, king of a domain no one was interested in. But in the 21st Century, those unable to compete with the prevailing power structures in New York, California, Pennsylvania, and so on, are gradually migrating inland, into the midwest, where land is comparatively cheap and plentiful.

Don't kid yourselves: The folks who managed to gobble this land up in the first place will make the first millions, or billions. It is the land that gives them the money and the power here. And it always will be.

Finally, people in the United States and Canada are taking notice of the many foreign real estate investors who are making a long-term play in North America. The media is replete with stories of Arabian, East Asian, and South Asian millionaires who are excitedly buying up real estate here at prices that we locals consider to be insane.

Are these foreign millionaire's stupidly buying into the Federal Reserve's lies or the long-standing myth of the American Dream? No. They simply understand that even high prices here are a bargain when it comes to a long-run vision of acquiring wealth and power. Throughout the ages, it has only ever been land that has provided men with access to wealth and power, and it only ever will be.

It will always be real estate.

___________________
* Cf. Mises, Ludwig von, The Causes of the Economic Crisis, Chapter 5, Section 1. Remember, folks, there is more to Ludwig von Mises than just freedom and gold standards. Just because we reach the correct conclusions doesn't always mean we reached them for the correct reasons!

Bike Review: Windsor Clockwork Plus (Part 2)

As I previously blogged, my household has seen the addition of a new member. I hear the pitter-pattering of tiny spokes. That's right, I'm talking about my fabulous new Windsor Clockwork Plus. These babies are selling right at the top of the single speed page over at BikesDirect.com. Last time, I covered everything I covered short of the actual ride, so I won't hold you in suspense any longer. On with the real review.

Assembling this bike was a piece of cake, but at the urging of my avid-biking older siblings, I took the bike to the local shop before giving it a real ride to ensure that everything was as it should be with the bike. I went to the mechanic's counter and asked for a tune-up, explaining that it was a new online purchase and that I wanted to make sure it was ready to go. The mechanic pulled out an invoice, then looked down at the bike. He narrowed his eyes for a moment before muttering, "...hang on a second..."

From there, he took the bike into the shop and gave it a full inspection, checking each of the parts. It took only a couple of minutes, and then he wheeled the bike back over to me, shrugged, and announced, "Looks good to me..." No service, no charge. This is an important point because this means that the bike shipped in a road-ready state. That's great!

Finally, I was ready to take it out on the road. Rather than start by braving the morning commute - bear in mind that I haven't owned a bike for about three years, and I haven't even ridden one in six or more - I thought I'd do some easy riding along the local neighborhood streets.

Because this is a track bike fitted with brakes, the narrow wheels and single-speed configuration initially felt like an "advanced ride" from my novice perspective. I was wobbly and unsure of myself. Within a few minutes, though, I really took to it. The bicycle is remarkably quiet, and it glides smoothly and briskly on the street. The more I rode, the better I liked the ride. After about 15 minutes of riding, I couldn't stop smiling. Everything about the ride of this bike is fun, fun, fun.

There are a number of small hills, dips, twists, and turns in my neighborhood, so I had a good opportunity to experience the full range of what riding my Clockwork has to offer. Downhills are predictably speedy - it's easy to work up to quite high speeds, but the ride is so smooth that I hardly even noticed. But riding uphill was, for me, a phenomenal experience. Naturally, the big "if" in the single speed equation is this: It's a fun bike to ride, if you don't mind the difficulty of riding uphill without changing gears. On that front, I can safely say that riding uphill on this bike is an absolute pleasure. Whether this is due to the single-speed setup, or the nice wheels, or what, I'm not sure. All I know is that my legs felt connected to the road in a way that I don't remember experiencing on a bicycle before. Every degree of motion on the pedals corresponded to smooth, direct pressure on the road below. I have decent leg strength, so the effort was not too much. It was a blast. I soon found myself seeking out uphills and attacking them hard.

The handlebars are incredibly comfortable. I was reticent when I saw that the website described them as "padded foam," since it immediately called to mind images of the 10-speed bicycles of the early-80s, with their black sponge grips. On the contrary, the Clockwork has a nice, comfortable grip that is easy on the hands and feels very ergonomic. The drop handlebars put your body in a nice, aerodynamic posture that is still totally comfortable. Here I should probably note that I used BikeDirect.com's sizing guide for track bikes, and it ended up being the perfect fit for me, but of course I am of average height, so that is to be expected.

If you are accustomed to pedaling on the balls of your feet, the Clockwork's pedals will be perfect. If you are a less-experienced rider who is used to situating the pedals under your arch (or worse, your heel), then you need to be aware of some overlap: when you turn, the front wheel may hit your toes. Keeping your feet in the proper position, though, ensures that this will probably not be an issue for most people.

Bumps in the road are as noticeable as they would be on any road bike. Those riders more accustomed to mountain bikes or bicycles with bigger tires may be a bit unnerved at feeling that much of the road. But to me, I feel as though I am gliding on my Clockwork Plus, even when I roll over bumps.

It should be obvious by now that this is a glowing review of the Windsor Clockwork Plus, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is similar to me: Looking for a good, fast, high-quality, single-speed commuter bicycle for a low price. What else can I say about this? It seems to be a pure winner. My primary motivation in buying this bicycle was that I thought it would be a fun bike to ride. I couldn't have been more correct. What a great bike.

I will provide a Part 3 of this review once I have had the opportunity to put in some better mileage at higher speeds and in a wider range of conditions.

Incremental Fitness

Lately, I have been experimenting with placing a greater emphasis on strength training than on endurance training. To that end, I have been adhering to a muscle-building workout regimen that will be the subject of a long post/review as soon as I am finished. (I am just over the half-way mark on this, and so far the program is delivering what it promised. But I will withhold further details until I have completely finished.)

Naturally and by design, I have had less time and energy to devote to aerobic activity. I have time only for short cardio workouts after my strength training sessions, and defer the longer and more serious aerobic activity to strength training "rest days." This has resulted in an anticipated trade-off; that is, my cardiovascular ability has suffered for the sake of better muscular fitness.

Well, everything is going fine, but for the fact that I am really starting to miss the feeling of having an endless supply of endurance. I'd like to recover a large portion of that, but at this point I don't feel as though I can because I am dedicated to my current fitness regimen.

Not only that, but I see the current regimen as part of a longer-term, more ambitious fitness plan that will encompass almost an entire year of working out. By this, I mean to say that my recent dedication to strength training fits in the context of an overall goal to achieve a much different kind of fitness profile this year than I have in the past. Where a runner might start by building an endurance base before gradually phasing-in ever-more-demanding speed training workouts on his or her way to the goal of running a personal best marathon, this year I am applying similar principles to achieve an overall sense of profound personal fitness.

Therefore, I have started out the year with what is essentially a body-building program to achieve a "base" level of muscle strength, size, and shape. Just as an endurance base serves to provide the underlying backbone of an athlete dedicated to achievement in the endurance sphere, a strength base should (conceptually speaking, at least) provide the backbone for more strength-related objectives. In fact, when I think back to my days of competitive running, seasons of competition tended to be preceded by "off-seasons" during which athletes would focus on the weight training and muscle building that was to be largely neglected during the days of heavy competition.

From there, I will phase-in ever-more-demanding plyometric training. Plyometric exercises aim to convert muscle strength into speed as efficiently as possible, resulting in some sense of muscle "power." The combination of strength and power should provide me with a very different kind of fitness than I am used to. In the past, "being fit" has meant being able to run a large number of miles (endurance training) in a very short period of time (speed work). If I achieve my goals this year, I hope to be very strong (strength training) and very agile (plyometrics).

Of course, just as there is an important need to maintain some strength training during an endurance training regimen, so I still have a need to maintain some endurance training as I pursue more strength-related goals.

Back to increments: The process of starting with one thing, and then gradually taking on more is what I mean when I say "incremental fitness." In this case, I start with some weights, and then I phase-in plyometrics and endurance workouts incrementally.

Pitfalls Of Self-Producing

I am wrapping up the recording of my aforementioned contribution to a DFW-area artist showcase CD. Overall, I am mostly pleased with the results of my efforts. Nonetheless, the mixing process has been excruciating, thanks to the psychological difficulties of hearing the sound of my own voice and my own instruments.

If you don't play music, then you may have noticed something similar in regard to, say, re-reading a letter, a postcard, or an email you previously sent to someone else. If you re-read what you've written with close attention to detail, you find the sound of your own voice creeping into your thoughts. Not only are you reading what you've written, but in a way, you sort of "hear" yourself the way you intended the message to be written.

For this reason, you may fail to see spelling and grammatical errors. Your mind is taking shortcuts as you read. You know what you were saying, you know what you meant. Your brain simply skips over anything that isn't perfectly clear, because it's filling in the holes.

...And, of crosue, mnay of us are aawre of the biran's alibtiy to atuo-crorcet wrods and pharses as lnog as the frsit and lsat lteters of ecah wrod are the smae...

Similarly, when recording and mixing one's own music, the mind attempts to take similar shortcuts, gloss over imperfections, and make excuses for things that, to an objective third party, would not sound particularly okay.

But in my case, there is one additional mental hang-up that is particularly difficult to overcome: When I hear my singing voice or the sound of my own guitar playing, my mind starts to sort of "tug" on the sound, trying to push it into the place it's supposed to be. I think this is because my brain knows both how things are supposed to sound, and how they actually sound.

Well, nobody's perfect, and it would be a mistake to follow the quest for perfection into a bottomless rat hole. Sometimes we record something that sounds great, but still falls short of perfection, and due to time and other constraints, we have to make due with "great" instead of "perfect." Ordinarily, this would be fine. But, I find that as I try to mix and produce the track, and small diversion from perfection captivates my whole attention, drawing important cognitive resources away from being able to focus on how, for example, a vocal melody sits in the mix, and instead focusing on the fact that in a perfect world I would have hit a particular vowel sound with a bit more grit.

I think this kind of obsessive thinking is a one-way ticket to the funny farm, and I am utterly certain that this is why even the very best recording artists hire producers, professional third parties, to help them record and mix.

However, until such time as I can make music professionally (ha ha ha...) I will have to content myself with tackling my mental hangups and artistic objectivity head-on. The better I get at overcoming such things, the better my music gets.

Some Links

The internet is just full of great links this morning! Here's a sample of some interesting things I've been reading:

Allan Savory argued that while livestock may be part of the problem, they can also be an important part of the solution. He has demonstrated time and again in Africa, Australia and North and South America that, properly managed, they are essential to land restoration. With the right techniques, plant growth is lusher, the water table is higher, wildlife thrives, soil carbon increases and, surprisingly, perhaps four times as many cattle can be kept.

That is from this link, and Lubos Motl has more here.

Frances Woolley looks at negotiation usefully. Here it is in a single chart:

Those two links alone are worth the price of admission, but this morning, it's like Christmas in my Google Reader feed.

Next, Simon Grey gives us a remarkably insightful post describing how economic uncertainty becomes a list of "phantom jobs" that don't really exist. Anyone who has been in the job-search market recently knows that Grey is preaching the truth:

As a result, the jobs being advertised by major firms are more appropriately thought of as phantom jobs since filling the positions are generally viewed as risky.  Employers want to find the absolutely best candidate, so as to ensure that no money is wasted by hiring someone new.  What this means is that employers are interested in minimizing hiring and training costs (HR is basically a fixed cost, so having HR people jerk applicants around doesn’t really affect the bottom line while the extra costs of actually bringing a new employee aboard aren’t realized until the actual hire) and thus take their time hiring.  They make rescind the position if the macroeconomic data trends suggest that potential economic growth is diminished or negative.

These jobs are phantom jobs because their existence is contingent on improvements in macroeconomic trends and conditions.  If the economy doesn’t get better, employers will continue to delay hiring people.  If the economy gets worse, they may forego hiring altogether.  Thus, these jobs are mostly contingent on macroeconomic trends, which are themselves subject to government manipulation.  Therefore, the hiring freeze could be nothing more than unrealized government stimulus, which makes these jobs essentially fake, since economic stimulus is nothing more than a false signal of demand.

Finally, here's a note of housekeeping: Some of you may have noticed that the music videos have stopped coming on a weekly basis. I am knee-deep into recording a new rock vocal song for an upcoming DFW artist showcase CD. The core track is finished, only the vocals are left to record, and then some final mixing and it will be ready to submit for mastering. Details on how to acquire this CD will be provided as soon as they are available. In the meantime, you can expect the videos to start reappearing later this week.

A Final Mutiny

Here's a symbolic little poem a wrote some time ago...

A Final Mutiny

With water all around us
Weathering the storm
You built yourself a sailboat
And welcomed me aboard

We set out on the ocean
Steady as she went
And over the horizon
Our journey reached its end

Captain, did you build this ship
To carry us across the sea?
Was our lonely expedition
Really what you hoped to see?
Captain, is this timber true?
Or is this boat just me and you;
And are we only swimming?

When the sun was setting
Bathing us in red
The mast began to falter
And waver overhead

It came down without warning
And shattered on the deck
Descending much like rainfall
At least, in retrospect

Captain, did you build this ship
To carry us across the brine?
Was a voyage to the maelstrom
Really what you had in mind?
Captain, is our timber true?
Or is this boat just me and you;
And are we only swimming?

Fighting for survival
I reached out for a plank
And threw my weight upon it
But found I only sank

Upon the cresting waters
The tipping of the hull
Gave rise to realization
As I overcame the pull

Captain, did you build this ship
To travel safely to the shore,
Or did my wild imagination
Tell me there was something more?
Captain, was our timber true?
Or was it all just me and you;
And are we only swimming?
Captain?

Misunderstood Male Psychology

My recent post on "masculism" elicited a fair number of responses, including several critical comments from a faithful Stationary Waves reader. In thinking through my responses to her thoughtful comments, it occurred to me how deeply misunderstood certain male sentiments are. This misunderstanding is one of the reasons I think a new concept of "masculism" is desperately needed in society, and so I would like to explore that aspect of it now.

In that last post, the misunderstanding is confusing the concepts of "women shouldn't be competitive" (which is a terrible thing to believe) and "a woman cannot be offered a prize that she has already won for herself." What does a woman who runs a 2:30 marathon care that I ran a 2:47? As a marathoner, I have failed to woo her. To be sure, I may yet have a chance to woo her on related grounds, such as the ability to train with her, or the ability to share an interest in road races, or to pace her, etc. I may also be able to compete on unrelated grounds, with my sense of humor or my big blue eyes or my multi-million-dollar investment banker salary. But in the competition to impress her as a runner, I have not succeeded.

It's true that women own the issue of whether or not women should compete. That question belongs to feminism and has long since been answered in the affirmative. But the question of whether a man has any desire to compete with the object of his affection belongs to men. If men answer this question in the negative, women can have no say in that, even if they dislike the answer.

A New Example
Consider the following two statements:

1. An equally qualified woman should be paid the same salary as man if they are both doing the same work.
2. A man should never feel ashamed of earning a lower income than his wife.

One of those statements is deeply, profoundly, importantly true from an ethical point of view. The other is deeply, profoundly, importantly crazy. Which one is which?

Well, I won't hold you in suspense. Statement #1 is true, of course! Assuming there are no important economic differences between a man and a woman (differences such as age/work experience, intentions to take extended periods of leave, educational qualifications, internal versus external candidacy, and so on) it would be morally reprehensible and bigoted to pay the woman differently than the man. Equal pay for equal work.

That means that I consider Statement #2 to be crazy. But why?

Let's turn the tables a bit. Let's compare Statement #2 to an analogous statement, as follows: A woman should never feel ashamed of being less-able to nurse her infant than her husband. You see, no matter where you stand on the issue of gender roles and male-female interaction, nursing an infant is one of the most significant and uniquely female aspects of womanhood. It's true that there is nothing stopping a man from preparing a bottle and nursing a child. In fact, it's true that every man who has a child will find himself doing this very thing on numerous occasions. Nevertheless, if an infant were to always prefer being nursed by his father rather than his mother, I submit that that woman would feel a significant - and perfectly natural - sense of inadequacy with regard to nursing her child. This is due to the fact that, as I said, nursing her infant is one of the most significant aspects of life as a woman.

Likewise - and regardless of how much women wish it were not so - being thought of as a provider is one of the most significant, and at least traditionally, male aspects of manhood. Fifty years of feminism are not enough to suddenly nullify a man's deeply felt belief that he has a responsibility to provide for his family. It simply does not matter that a woman may prefer it to be otherwise, nor does it matter if every woman were to wish it otherwise. The reason it doesn't matter is because we are talking about the thoughts, psychology, and experiences of men, not women.

Just as a woman whose husband is the child's preferred milk-giver may come to terms with this and learn to make a maternal connection with her child through other means, a man who earns less than his wife may devise other important ways to feel like a provider. He may take on household projects, he may produce artwork, he may take on responsibility for household accounting, he may pick up slack in other aspects of household management, and so on. It is possible, and perhaps even easy, for a man who is out-earned by his wife to still feel like a provider, yes.

Other men, in fact, may not feel the same way at all. Other men may be perfectly comfortable with the fact that the wife is the family's primary bread-winner. Those men also contribute meaningfully to their relationships, and the family unit can be equally as happy and successful.

Notwithstanding all of this, one fact remains: It is crazy to suggest that any man "shouldn't" feel certain emotional pangs in response to being deprived an important traditional male role.

This is not a guarantee that all men will feel this way. Rather, it is a simple acknowledgement of the fact that men who choose to hold themselves to traditional male responsibilities are doing nothing wrong. To suggest that they are is as wrong as to suggest that no woman should under any circumstances become a homemaker. Millions of women make that choice out of personal preference and personal beliefs about how they want to define womanhood for themselves. If a man likewise determines that providing for his family is his primary responsibility, that is his choice!

Conclusion
Naturally, this is just an example I am using to illustrate the important difference between male-female equality - which is unequivocally good - and the point at which feminism ends and male psychology begins. The reason I feel that men need to create an intellectual framework of masculism is so that we can learn to understand precisely these kinds of issues from a male point of view.

Being a strong male provider is unequivocally good. This certainly does not mean that all men must adhere to that role. I have no problem with any man who does not or prefers not. But the image of a strong male provider is a heroic one, one that any father would be proud of his son for aspiring toward. Moreover, it is an image that even the strongest woman would be happy to live with - even the most successful and wealthy female captain of industry would be happy to be with a strong male provider.

This archetype, and all similar male archetypes, are every bit as positive as female archetypes, from the doting mother to the comely maid to the CEO of Yahoo to the Supreme Court Justice. If it's positive, it's good. And a man who aspires to do something good is a man with a strong sense of self and an admirable creed.

Therefore, when I hear or read statements like #2 above, I have to shake my head. Feminism has done an admirable job of framing certain gender issues, and we should accept feminism as it stands today. But feminism is ill-equipped to deal with male psychology. For that, only a male equivalent can fill the void.