White Knights undermine civilization

Yes, Mr. White Knight, white-knighting really is so bad:

I spent a long time in high school and college trapped deep within the ‘Friend Zone.’ (And if you don’t know what the friend zone is, just think about the guy who you can tell everything to, trust implicitly, yet have absolutely no desire to go out on a date with. That poor soul is trapped in the friend zone.) In fact, I was so nice that one evening, when my friends set me up with a young woman of questionable morals, rather than pick her up, I helped her get back together with her ex boy-friend.

Go me.

But you know what? I like being the nice guy. I think it is still important, and worthwhile. And while I know I’m not as nice as I think I am, I am always trying to be that guy, the one who does the right thing. It’s one of the ways I define myself.

 So why am I writing about this? Well, I’m currently working through a book (review to follow next week) and one of the things said in this book is that guys like me, the White Knights, are enabling women to continue to erode away men’s rights. And while I can understand the point being made I have to disagree because there”s a huge whole in the discussion.

Why are men supposed to be polite?  Why was chivalry important? Why did my mother and father hammer home these behaviors?

Let’s start from the simple truth that as a group, men are stronger and more aggressive than women. Yeah, I know, sexist pig, stereotypes, yadda yadda. Deal with it. Pick 15 random men and 15 random women, match them up one on one, and you’re going to find 12 or more men still standing. That’s just the way it is.

So, women are naturally going to feel about as nervous as a long tailed cat in room full of rocking chairs whenever she is surrounded by a group of men, even if she knows them. It will be even worse if they are strangers. She has no way of knowing whether they will take advantage of the power differential in order to take advantage of her. So what can we do, as men, to allay her very reasonable fears?

As Aristotle pointed out, there are people, like this gamma male, who are totally incapable of learning through the receipt of information.  It's obvious that this guy can't do it, not just because he keeps doing the same thing over and over again even though it produces results he does not like, but because his response - women's fears are very reasonable - is not even related to the claim - women are being enabled to erode away men's rights.

So fear is sufficient to override intrinsic and unalienable rights?  That's the case he is inadvertently making, and it is obviously a non-starter.  So, it is clear we cannot respond to him with dialectical reason, we can only resort to crude rhetoric.

WHITE KNIGHTS ARE HELPING WOMEN DESTROY WESTERN CIVILIZATION!  IF YOU DO NOT LIVE TO WISH IN A CAVE BEING RULED BY TOTALITARIAN THOUGHT POLICE, YOU MUST STOP WHITE KNIGHTING!

Thus endeth the lesson.