Matthew Royal reviewed The Rational Male by Rollo Tomassi
Review of 'The Rational Male' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
Reading this book as a gay man is a bit like watching the ritualized mating dances of tropical birds: surprisingly complex and ultimately pointless.
I am sympathetic to Tomassi's critiques on monogamy and soul mates, but reject his thesis that men are naturally rational. Tomassi positions himself in the "manosphere" primate dominance hierarchy as a data-driven philosopher -- far above mere behavior-mimicking Pick Up Artists.
He doesn't understand that gender is a societal construct rather than a universal truth, so he sees the modern definition clashes with the imaginary 1950s American definition he has in his head, and concludes that women are responsible for the difference. He talks about women like they're part of a wide-reaching conspiracy -- very powerful, but somehow not rational. It reminds me of white American fear mongering which cast Chinese-Americans in San Francisco as a sprawling hive of subhumans that was somehow also clever... and …
Reading this book as a gay man is a bit like watching the ritualized mating dances of tropical birds: surprisingly complex and ultimately pointless.
I am sympathetic to Tomassi's critiques on monogamy and soul mates, but reject his thesis that men are naturally rational. Tomassi positions himself in the "manosphere" primate dominance hierarchy as a data-driven philosopher -- far above mere behavior-mimicking Pick Up Artists.
He doesn't understand that gender is a societal construct rather than a universal truth, so he sees the modern definition clashes with the imaginary 1950s American definition he has in his head, and concludes that women are responsible for the difference. He talks about women like they're part of a wide-reaching conspiracy -- very powerful, but somehow not rational. It reminds me of white American fear mongering which cast Chinese-Americans in San Francisco as a sprawling hive of subhumans that was somehow also clever... and inimical to mankind. Now and then, this view of "the other" group is self-contradictory and wrong.
A lot of the things that this guy says reminds me of fundamentalism, in that his assertions are interwoven and not falsifiable; if you disagree with them you're just a beta male. His mathematical formulas describing Sexual Market Value grant the certainty with all the authority of the most learned of phrenologists. Naturally they yield the same accuracy as the Drake equation (for deriving the number of habitable planets in our galaxy) both in terms of rigorous thought applied to the variables (none) and the actual predictive utility (also none).
In the last part of this book, he gets emo. Men are sad, men are emotionally fragile, men just want a safe space and unconditional love, and mean ol' women just won't play along. Every time he says "the feminine imperative" it reminds me of Piers Anthony's child protagonists talking about "the adult conspiracy": endearing when in the mouths of babes; less cute when used by grown men.
His reality is based firmly in the Now, in that he has no understanding of history. He takes men and women's equality under the law as a given, and assumes it always must have been so, so the only explanation for sad things in his zero-sum life are those Others. He accuses women of being natural solipsists, but this attitude that men are rational and women crafty game strategists seems based on a deep egocentricism that can't allow for other minds or emotions. He's the protagonist of his own struggle, and no amount of female-centric jabbering will jar him from his reality.
