Jack Donovan is a cultural critic and author best known for his books The Way of Men, Becoming a Barbarian, and Fire in the Dark. He is also a photographer, videographer, and visual artist. In this episode, Jack talks about why gossip masquerades as moral authority, how calling men out often replaces real accountability, and why it s important that men have a code to live by.
00:00:00.000Too many men today aren't struggling because they lack information.
00:00:03.780They're struggling because a lot of us are just drowning in noise.
00:00:08.520And I think it's time that we start unpacking why the quote unquote modern masculinity space has just become obsessed with hot takes and call outs and online outrage.
00:00:21.380What I would call performative accountability and why none of that builds strong men or meaningful connection or even lasting improvement.
00:00:29.280Today, I'm joined by my friend Jack Donovan to talk about why gossip masquerades as moral authority, how calling men out often just replaces real accountability.
00:00:42.600We also talk about the differences between integrity, honor and reputation and why social media rewards division, not necessarily leadership.
00:00:51.060We get into the dangers of pedestalizing others and why it's important that men have a code to live by.
00:02:38.420He's also an artist, and he's really well known for his analysis of masculinity, tribalism, and he's best known for his books like The Way of Men, Becoming a Barbarian, Fire in the Dark.
00:02:52.660But he takes a deep examination into what makes men strong and loyal and effective through history and anthropology and philosophy.
00:03:04.500And for me anyways, and I know this is true for a lot of men as well, his work challenges us to think beyond our comfort or what's popular or a certain ideology and instead chooses to focus on strength, courage, mastery, and honor.
00:03:18.200Over the past decade, Jack has become a very respected and, yeah, oftentimes controversial voice in these conversations about masculinity and culture and power.
00:03:28.820But like I said earlier, he doesn't chase trends or online outrage, which is a focus of today's conversation.
00:03:35.160He wants to build something real, just like we do here at Brotherhood, identity, meaning.
00:03:40.240He's also a visual artist and photographer, and a lot of what he does in that realm mirrors his philosophy of masculinity as not just something to talk about, but something to embody and build and live.
00:03:55.120You can find a lot of his thinking and writing on his substack under Jack Donovan.
00:03:59.540Yeah, I saw that you were doing some videography.
00:04:04.220I saw the primarily with the gym, with you working out, but I think you did one for the gym owners or something too.
00:04:28.420So I started training there, and then, you know, I've been thinking about doing photography because it's kind of something that I've enjoyed over the years.
00:08:10.860You know, if you just go there, it's going to happen.
00:08:13.240So, I mean, you're opening yourself up for that.
00:08:15.640If you become the guy who attacks people, then you're also asking to be attacked as well.
00:08:20.240And that's, you know, if you want to do that, there are some guys who just like they look at the comments and there's all these people calling them names and they just laugh and they think it's great and it's fantastic.
00:09:20.120Like, I don't like Manosphere, but everybody understands the term.
00:09:24.020You've been in this space longer than I have.
00:09:25.780And what's interesting is after me doing this for a decade, so 10 and a half years now, almost 11, geez, I see a lot of people do these takes.
00:09:38.320I see a lot of people drum up a lot of angst and frustration and contention and the tribe mentality.
00:09:45.400And you're going to drum up a lot of engagement.
00:09:52.700But these guys who drum up engagement, it's interesting because they'll reach out to me and say, how do I actually create a movement?
00:10:01.920See, engagement, and what people don't know, is engagement doesn't automatically translate to movement, which doesn't translate into having a vocation.
00:10:13.880A lot of these guys are just doing this, scrambling to try to get as many people riled up as possible, and then they're going to bag groceries at their local grocery store for a living.
00:10:23.620But they're not creating a movement that actually moves men or whoever their audience is in a positive, constructive direction.
00:10:31.820Well, yeah, if you're not saying anything and you're just giving hot takes to give hot takes, then what do you even believe?
00:10:39.340You know, like, the things that I've written about over the years, it's like I have a pretty – I've changed my mind about some things and whatever, but I have a pretty clear arc.
00:10:51.380And there's still things that I still agree with, and they're fairly consistent.
00:10:54.860And, you know, but if you're just saying, this guy sucks and that guy sucks and that guy – and just this issue, this hot issue that everybody's talking about, I have to have a take on it.
00:11:04.880I mean, X is actually the worst platform, I think, for that.
00:11:09.440You know, I mean, if you go – if you spend a couple hours on X, you will be absolutely convinced that our world is actually falling apart.
00:11:19.380You know, there's so much dissent and so much arguing and so many, like, people – and there was this guy, Razib Khan, who writes about genetics.
00:11:28.980I've been following him for a long time, and he made a post one day.
00:11:31.960He's like, you know, all of these tweets or posts that you guys post, X, they sound really clever, but if you built them out into an essay, you'd realize you're retarded.
00:12:14.140And people always remember the last thing you say.
00:12:15.920So if you say something really positive or really negative or whatever, they'll remember the last thing, and maybe all the other stuff didn't have to make sense.
00:12:21.900You know, they'll just remember the – they always say people remember how you make them feel.
00:12:26.180You know, but with writing, it's a little bit –
00:12:49.740And in a one-to-one conversation, if we're both respectful, we can have that dialogue.
00:12:53.860And I think people can hold conflicting thoughts.
00:12:59.140I can hold two thoughts that conflict with each other, and having somebody to work through it is meaningful.
00:13:04.880But I definitely agree with the writing process because I remember when I wrote my first book in, I think it was 2018, 17, 18, I would write a paragraph or write a chapter or even just a statement.
00:13:21.600And I'd ask myself, wait a second, do I – do I really believe that?
00:13:27.040Is that – and also, people are going to fact-check me, so I need to support this with anecdotes and actual data.
00:13:36.340I'm like, wait, I've been saying this for three years.
00:13:39.320I don't think I actually believe that.
00:13:42.400And it really helps you flesh out ideas in a way that just spewing nonsense out of your mouth doesn't.
00:13:49.200Oh, yeah, I've written myself out of opinions before for sure.
00:13:54.060Like I sat down to write this angry essay about people making AI art just using AI graphics because I just got so tired of seeing AI slop.
00:14:04.700Like on Instagram and stuff, you see all these things like you took 10 seconds to make that, and that bodybuilder's arm is like this.
00:14:10.820You know, it's – you're making garbage.
00:14:14.380And I wrote myself into the opinion that I'm actually just a snob.
00:14:17.900Like I'm like – I have a very developed aesthetic sense, and people who don't are making garbage stuff because they don't have a good aesthetic sense.
00:14:27.080And I'm like, well, now that essay is kind of dumb for me.
00:14:29.760I can't really post it because that's what it – I'm like, oh, I'm just – I'm being snobbish about it really.
00:15:25.500You might as well make up a story that serves you and leans into humanity of people and gives them the benefit of the doubt and just keeps you in a better spirit, frankly.
00:16:03.720Obviously not everyone else who's driving is retarded.
00:16:06.620I always laugh about that too because if you've lived in several states, people in every single state seems to think, you know, people in my state don't know how to drive.
00:16:30.380Yeah, I, I, uh, art, art is interesting when you talk about AI because I remember taking an art class, uh, years ago is my first semester of college and I hated it.
00:16:52.660I don't get much into abstract art, but then you see guys like, um, Andy Warhol and what's the other guy, Jackson Pollock, I think is the name is with the splatter art.
00:17:01.880And, and then I think, you know, like, is that actually art?
00:18:17.300How did you look at some way like, uh, you know, like talking about art museums, like, uh, I always bring up Andrew Carnegie, uh, you know, like we know his name.
00:18:25.560Why? Cause he's not, because he's just a rich guy, but because, you know, he built all this stuff about Philadelphia.
00:18:30.980Andy Warhol's stuff is in his Carnegie art museum and, and you build colleges and so forth.
00:18:35.920And they commissioned those things to why? Because they wanted to be great.
00:18:40.220That's why I kind of like, uh, we have a lot of rich people who don't want to leave a legacy.
00:18:44.760It seems like in the same way that, uh, you know, like, uh, that's what I like about Trump.
00:18:49.440It's like, he's the kind of, he's an old style rich person that like, I want to build things and, and put my names on things and whatever.
00:18:56.380Yeah. I'm two hours from Vegas and you see Trump tower and it's this gold gaudy building and it says Trump.
00:19:04.400That's all it says. I'm like, yeah, as it should be. He built that.
00:19:08.640Yeah. Well, and like, you know, I was just in Florence and, uh, the, all the Michelangelo stuff and all the, all the beautiful art, the Catholic art that you were talking about.
00:19:17.680I mean, that was funded by the Medici family. They're a banking family, you know, like they, they, they said we want to make this whole town beautiful and they did.
00:19:25.500And that's, that's how this happens, you know? So after the guys who's got the third, uh, Lamborghini that he's flexing on, um, maybe you should make something beautiful.
00:19:35.520Uh, you know, because there, there are people who not, I, and that's not like a plea for me. I don't have anything I'm even planning to make, but, uh, there are a couple sculptors that I think are really good.
00:19:43.740There's one, there's this one guy called Fendivier and he kind of, he, he, uh, uh, uh, I think he's from Scotland and he, he makes really good modern art and he's kind of on the right.
00:19:53.120And, uh, but it's, it's very art deco kind of inspired, like these pictures of people wrestling and this good stuff, you know, uh, you know, you can connect with it.
00:20:03.900And I just think we need more of that. And, and the thing is people who aren't as satisfied with the far, far left, because there's a lot of people who have defected recently.
00:20:12.980Uh, you know, they're waiting for the money, you know, it's like, if you're, if your whole livelihood as an artist depends on left-wing money, you got to kind of moderate in that general direction, uh, or just shut your mouth, uh, you know, about certain things.
00:20:27.360But, uh, you know, if they can make a living, uh, by working with other people, then, then that's, you know, they're more free to do the things that they want to do, you know?
00:20:37.480So we get, you know, I think we need people to fund that stuff.
00:20:40.220I wholeheartedly agree. And we need to, yeah, we need to fund it, right? Not people need to, we need to fund it because life, whatever you want is on the other side of a story that you craft and tell.
00:20:52.720Right. So for example, the clothes that you wear, the clothes that I'm wearing right now, the backdrop of your studio, the backdrop of my studio, this is a story.
00:21:00.820These aren't words behind me. This is a story that I'm telling through visual representation.
00:21:06.800And I wish more men understood that, you know, when you go on a date, you're creating a narrative and a story about who you are and why this woman should be interested in you.
00:21:15.220Um, if, if you're going in for a job interview, you're going to dress a certain way. You're going to carry yourself a certain way. You're going to present and communicate a certain way to craft a narrative as to why that guy should hire you.
00:21:25.840Oh, and, and I, I really do wish that we were better as just men in general. We were better storytellers. Cause we think it's, we say it's not important. Oh, don't, don't judge a book by its cover.
00:21:37.420Clever, but not accurate. Nobody does that. We all judge a book by its cover and the story that it tells us.
00:21:43.520Yeah. I mean, George Washington was fantastic about that. Like when you read his biography, he was like, he was like, this is the way I need to ride on a white horse. And this is where I need to look. This is the way the president.
00:21:52.840Yeah. Because all of that was important. All of that display, uh, was very important for people. And obviously the ancient Romans were very good about that. You know, men have, you know, always, that's how you command power.
00:22:04.180Oh, I, I feel, I feel like there's, that's the title of a book that a friend of ours wrote. Uh, you know, the appearance of power, Tanner Guzzi. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so yeah, I mean, there, there's, I think you have to care about that.
00:22:17.420And there's this idea that I think that, and it has to do with people's feelings about vanity and so forth. I think in America, we have a kind of strain of Puritanism in America. Uh, I think that affected that maybe more than in Europe, but, uh, yeah, I think telling that story is really important. We need to be invested in, in, in telling the story that like you're talking about.
00:22:36.780I mean, now that I'm doing more filming of things, you know, then I have the actual, you know, the additional thing of movement, uh, to think about. I'm like, Oh, I'm filming like, and I'm like, well, what does my character do? Like, what is he doing? Like, what is he wearing? Like what, what, what makes sense? You know, like even when I'm making little videos for Instagram, cause you know, I'm really just making those to show clients what I could theoretically do, but it's also super fun for me.
00:23:00.780So, but I'm like, I'm like, ah, this doesn't really fit with my whole vibe. I need to like figure something out, you know, like that makes it more cohesive. Cause that's really what a lot of, what makes something good aesthetically is it's almost, it's integrity. Like are all the pieces of this saying the same thing? You know, like, is that message, like you said, it's a story. Is it all telling the same story? Are you telling, is it a mess? Yeah. You know, I think it doesn't matter what
00:23:30.740the story is, but something becomes aesthetically really impressive if it's telling a cohesive story.
00:23:37.060Yeah. And that's the note I just took right here. So when you say integrity, you're not talking about
00:23:40.660moral integrity. You're talking about congruency or consistency in a message you're delivering.
00:23:45.720Yeah. I mean, it's all kinds of the same, you know, like, I mean, what moral integrity is, is really
00:23:50.120just, uh, uh, the, all the, that the, your actions and words line up your, your, the things that you believe, the things that you do, you know?
00:23:58.880Well, I hear that, but then most of us wouldn't say, and I don't think this is actually the definition of the word.
00:24:04.420I agree more with what you're saying, but I think most of us would say that a Muslim jihadist is, is not
00:24:10.340an, an, a person in integrity, but I would, I would actually argue the opposite. I would say that that
00:24:16.120individual who's willing to go die for his belief is actually very much an integrity.
00:24:21.500Yeah. He's doing what he says he believes. It doesn't have to be what you believe, but he's doing what he says.
00:24:25.540And so that's, that's consistent. And, you know, I, I, uh, when I had a, an event with one of my guys,
00:24:32.060with some of my guys recently, uh, one of the things I talk about, we, you never hear the word
00:24:37.240disintegration. Uh, you know, that you never hear them used together as opposites, but integration
00:24:44.100and disintegration are like, you know, opposite things. And it becomes very, it's an interesting
00:24:48.620concept to think about that. Like if you're integrated, everything is part of a whole. Uh,
00:24:54.000everything is part of a whole that makes sense. And if you're disintegrating, you see these like
00:24:58.300things like Thanos things in a movie where people were just floating away and it's like, they, they,
00:25:02.980all the different pieces are dispersing and they just don't make any sense. You know?
00:25:07.480So I never thought about the words, that compound word as two separate words, but that makes sense.
00:25:12.900Yeah. It hit me on a road trip. I was like, wait, those are the same. That's an integer. Oh yeah. I mean,
00:25:18.100integral, integral that root means whole. And, and so like wholesome actually kind of means the same
00:25:23.480thing too. We think of it being a different thing, but wholesome basically means the same thing as
00:25:27.520integrity. Well, as you're saying this, I'm thinking about this dis man disintegrated. It's
00:25:36.260even hard to say dis integrate integration. It's even hard to say that word. Cause you don't think
00:25:40.100about it like that, but, um, I think about that as society, like we're so, we're, we're, we're so
00:25:47.240confused. We're so, everybody's pulling in opposite directions. Everybody leaves somebody, something
00:25:51.660different and there's no integration. There's no. And so we're disintegrating right before our very
00:25:56.560eyes. And we see this collapse. I think we're in the real world collapse of the United States,
00:26:01.360quite frankly, it's disintegrating before our eyes. Well, yeah. I mean, there's a lot of things like
00:26:06.840that. Well, that's, you have things pulling in different directions and that's the disintegration
00:26:11.640part, you know, like all these things pulling in different directions. I mean, I I'm a little more
00:26:15.540hopeful about where we're at right now, way more hopeful than I was two years ago, but, uh, uh,
00:26:20.620there, yeah, I mean, that's what social media does to us too. You know, like that's, it disintegrates
00:26:26.220our mind. If you think about it, it's like, Oh, it's, you're constantly in a state of distraction
00:26:30.040and it pulls you in all these different directions, you know, and, and kind of, that's why people
00:26:35.400meditate. That's why people go to church. That's people that like, they, they do this thing that
00:26:39.560brings them back to the things that they care about and the things that they believe it pulls
00:26:43.780them back to like this center rather than having them all over the place. You know?
00:26:48.780Yeah. I've thought about that specifically with, with faith, which I've always had faith. I've never
00:26:54.440been somebody who's overly religious or even all that faithful, quite frankly. Uh, but even just over
00:27:00.840the past several weeks, I've started to read the Bible. I've started to pray every day for the past
00:27:06.380two and a half, three weeks now. And as I was thinking about how it makes me feel, I was thinking
00:27:13.240of it on a, on a, a more secular level. I think outside of this spiritual faith-based component, even
00:27:21.800from a secular perspective, that wholesomeness, that code of conduct, because most people don't have a
00:27:28.200code of conduct. So if you use Catholicism, for example, or you're a Baptist or, or whatever,
00:27:35.040pick your, your, your religion of choice at a minimum, I think it gives you a code of conduct.
00:27:42.200And that's what I think a lot of men are missing is how do I operate? What is, what is my standard
00:27:48.800operating procedure? You know, when you, when you buy a new computer, it comes with a manual and it says,
00:27:53.840these are, this is how this computer works and here's how you operate it. But men don't have
00:27:58.940that. And we haven't spent much time thinking about that. I think, I think in the past we've
00:28:03.860adopted that from our ancestors, right? We worked in the field with our dad and he taught us lessons
00:28:08.800while we were tilling the, the, the fields, or we were in the factories and this is how it needed to
00:28:13.680be made. Or we went on a hunt with our fathers and grandfathers, or we went through a rite of passage
00:28:19.060and that knowledge was passed down from elders to the youth. But those, to use the word are
00:28:25.140disintegrating. Those institutions are disintegrating. And now men are left wandering around aimlessly
00:28:29.780without a code of conduct. Right. And I would say like, uh, I mean, you can figure one out. I mean,
00:28:35.280that's what, you know, the ancient creatures were doing, uh, like, well, let's figure that's what
00:28:39.300philosophy is. Like, let's figure out what our code of conduct even is. Uh, but, uh, I always say like the,
00:28:45.440you know, philosophy is at least being a philosopher is at least a part-time job and it doesn't pay very
00:28:49.500well. It's a lot of work, you know, it's a lot of work to figure all those things out. So yeah,
00:28:54.920people do, I mean, and that's why people listen to you. That's why people read my books. That's why
00:29:00.180whatever, because they're like, they're looking for, okay, what do I agree with? What do I disagree
00:29:04.240with? What do I believe? What do I not believe? Uh, the tricky thing is, is when you have so many
00:29:08.980different voices coming at them in forever, every way, and you never take time to solidify what that code of
00:29:14.320conduct is, you know, what, what, what things are non-negotiable for me, you know, like what things
00:29:21.200are, are the core things that I won't let go of and what things do I not care about? You know, cause
00:29:25.940that, that's the thing, different things are important to everybody. So, you know, you can have some
00:29:30.400things like, I definitely won't do this. Um, that's my line, but a lot of people don't have even taken
00:29:36.240time to figure out the line. If you haven't figured out the line, then when someone asks you, then I guess
00:29:39.860you're like, okay, you know, like you don't have any things you have. That's the default.
00:29:45.040Yeah. Yeah. People just say, all right. You know, like, uh, but I mean, that's why, and we've both
00:29:49.660talked about this a lot. It's important to have groups of men that, you know, you hold you accountable
00:29:55.720to the same things that you said you were going to do, or just that you want to impress, uh, you know,
00:30:01.280like that you want, okay, I want these guys to think well of me. So I said that I was going to do
00:30:06.980this. So I don't want to do the opposite of that. You know, that's so much of what honor is. I've,
00:30:12.880I've written, talked a lot about honor over the years and, and honor is really your reputation for
00:30:18.700virtue. You know, it's with other people or yourself, or how would you define that?
00:30:24.440Well, you can break it up into a lot of different ways and they have, but I think, uh, honor is
00:30:30.060fundamentally reputation. Uh, I think when it becomes something else, then it, because I read a thing by
00:30:35.980Brett McKay years ago where he kind of said, Oh, it's integrity. Well, that's integrity or we
00:30:40.540already have a word for that, but the ancient understanding of honor is your reputation
00:30:44.580and that your tends to be reputation. It's with your honor group. And so, cause I think that makes
00:30:50.860sense because that's subjective, right? Because if we go back to the Muslim jihadist, we would say
00:30:55.940he's an integrity, but we wouldn't say he's honorable. Well, they, but he, they, they would
00:31:01.620absolutely say he's honorable for his community would his community. And that's what, and that's
00:31:06.980what thing it's like, that's, you know, like talking about being, you know, people on the
00:31:11.340internet. Uh, you know, I, I can't, I can't take everyone else's opinion seriously. You know,
00:31:16.860I can't take input from everyone and have them all evaluate my deeds. But like, there are certain
00:31:21.800people that like, okay, I respect that guy's opinion. So he's kind of in my honor group.
00:31:25.760Like, I don't want to disappoint this person. You know, I, I, if I'm doing well, if I'm
00:31:31.340impressing this guy, uh, with the things that like, because he's someone I agree with and
00:31:35.480we share the same values. And so you have to, your honor group has to be, I mean, obviously
00:31:40.460traditionally your honor group is the group that you're brought up into and this is their
00:31:45.380community. And they, they might have terrible values by our standards, but their value, that
00:31:50.360is their honor within their group. You know, if you're brought up in ancient Rome, uh, you
00:31:54.400know, that is your honor. And that's, you know, that's annos that's, it comes from ancient
00:31:58.220Rome and that's your, their values are your values and your reputation for within that
00:32:04.740community is your honor. And, uh, and then if you break that, you know, but they obviously
00:32:10.200they, their, their version of honor would be, uh, very different from ours. I mean, their
00:32:15.240fathers, we like the word patriarchy, but their fathers were actually allowed to kill their
00:32:19.580children if they didn't like them. You know, like that, like, I mean, they're like, you
00:32:24.340were literally in charge of, we don't want to kill our children at certain points in
00:32:27.560life. Exactly. Exactly. But they're like, you know what? You're a bad seed out, you
00:32:32.260know, like, yeah, but they had absolute authority and the patriarchy had absolute
00:32:36.880authority. And, and, uh, we would probably tone that down a little bit in modern
00:32:41.400society, you know, but, uh, I even think about like when I, when I was grew up and, and I was
00:32:46.560playing sports in high school, I grew up in a small Southern Utah town, Parolin, Utah.
00:32:50.460Uh, I think there was 2,200 people in the entire town, 42 kids in my graduating class.
00:32:56.540And there was a, there's a town that's about 30, 40 miles North of Parolin called
00:33:00.820Beaver. And we hated Beaver. That was our rivalry. So we hated and, and all the guys
00:33:05.900there, we hated all the guys there. They were assholes. They, they were jerks, like
00:33:09.500whatever we had to say to villainize them. And then I got into college and there was a
00:33:13.500couple of guys from Beaver who graduated the same year I did. We got to college and we
00:33:16.380were best friends in college, but a year earlier I hated them. Yeah. And so it is
00:33:22.740interesting. I think it's important that we choose our group wisely that aligns
00:33:27.340with our value and then question whether or not this is a group we want to continue
00:33:30.880to belong to based on what that group is producing.
00:33:34.420Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. You, uh, I mean, that's, that's, that's male
00:33:38.940tribalism as at its finest. I mean, that's what we do. That's part of that whole
00:33:43.720process is cause you're technically at war with that other team. That's, that's
00:33:48.360the idea. And you're in the process of dehumanizing them so you can kill them.
00:33:52.580I mean, that's basically what it justify what you're doing. And that's one of the
00:33:56.300reasons why I like, you know, that, that saying, uh, you know, different between
00:34:01.260being a good man and being good at being a man is I had to separate those two
00:34:04.180because what you'll do is that man is not even a man because he's like the people
00:34:12.860on those teams. Oh, they're, they're liars. They cheat. They, they, they're not even
00:34:17.200men. Like they're, they're not even men. And so we, we unman people that we don't
00:34:21.900like. That's part of our whole process. And you know, if, if you know what people
00:34:26.000are doing as an adult and you've, you know, like you're like, well, okay, they're
00:34:29.700doing the thing. That's, that's what you're doing. But, uh, you know, I mean,
00:34:35.040if we, we see it happening with wars and stuff right now, I mean, I think every,
00:34:39.860every side always claims that the other side is killing babies. That's, that's
00:34:43.580kind of, that's, that's a convention. I guess that's a universal thing you don't
00:34:47.060do. Right. Right. Right. So everyone will always claim that the other side is
00:34:50.500killing more babies or whatever. Uh, it's just one of those things. And like, see,
00:34:53.840they're barely even human. What are they doing? Uh, you know, it's, it's one of those
00:34:58.260things that is just part of tribalism and yeah, it's the, it's part of the
00:35:01.840process for making it, for being okay with killing that person. Uh, you know,
00:35:06.180that is interesting about the killing babies because there's all, so it's
00:35:09.720killing babies and killing old people. Right. So the right says the left is
00:35:13.920killing babies through abortion. And the left says the right is killing old
00:35:17.660people through their, you know, lack of, of empathy towards Medicare and
00:35:22.340Medicaid and social services and social security. So we're killing grandma and
00:35:26.080grandpa. So like we're doing the same thing. It's infants and grandmas and
00:35:30.360grandpas. Well, and you're, you're killing the trends because you're making
00:35:34.080them kill themselves and you're killing all the outsiders who make your, all the
00:35:38.480cute people that you're making feel bad by having standards. Uh, you're, you're
00:35:42.140killing all those people like hurt because you're hurting their feelings, all
00:35:45.200the microaggressions. Yeah. Yeah. It's all, it's all part of the same process.
00:35:48.960The other, just accusing you of different, you know, different, different, uh,
00:35:52.320atrocities. Yeah. Interesting. Well, I, like you said, I think you have to do
00:35:57.200that in order to justify your own actions or behaviors or even thought
00:36:00.900process towards an individual. I can't imagine that even in my own life, the
00:36:06.000way that I've thought negatively about certain people at certain aspects of my
00:36:09.080life, I, if, if I couldn't justify me feeling that way, I would just be a
00:36:13.160horrible, horrible person. And I am at times, just like all of us are.
00:36:16.520Man, I'm going to step away from my conversation very briefly. Uh, most men,
00:36:22.840as I said earlier, we don't need more information. Sometimes what you need is
00:36:26.120to get away. You need to get away. You need to have honest conversations like
00:36:30.020we're having here. Uh, and you need brotherhood that sharpens you. And that's
00:36:34.520why we are releasing the men's forge that is coming this spring. So April 23rd
00:36:39.740through the 26th, 2026, it's designed to pull men out of isolation and away from
00:36:46.400distraction, like the things that we're talking about on this podcast and away
00:36:50.320from the surface level, self-improvement stuff and put you into an environment
00:36:54.000where you have actual accountability, like we talk about here in purpose. And
00:36:58.160it's, this is not just a conference that you see where you just sit back and you
00:37:01.140take notes. It's an immersive experience. Uh, we're going to be confronting why
00:37:06.000you may have been coasting in life, why you're carrying unnecessary weight, where
00:37:11.220you need to step up and want to step up as a husband, father, leader, and man in
00:37:15.520general. And because Larry from the dad edge and I are doing this together, it's
00:37:19.560like two events in one and all of your food, lodging speakers, events, and the
00:37:25.640total experience is covered when you get there. And unlike other conferences, you
00:37:30.520actually will stay on the property with us going through obstacle courses, pistol
00:37:35.300range instruction, jujitsu classes, team challenges, physical training, and a ton
00:37:41.060more, including our speakers. And I just got word that Dwayne Noel, a lot of you
00:37:44.920guys know who he is a former guest of mine as well. Uh, but Dwayne is going to be
00:37:48.820headlining the experience with us among a half a dozen other powerful speakers. So
00:37:53.380again, that's April 23rd through the 26th, get your ticket as soon as you can. That
00:37:58.180also might be a good Christmas gift. If your wife or, or the woman in your life, or
00:38:02.780maybe even a brother or somebody in your life is wanting to get you something
00:38:06.420that's going to be the gift that keeps on giving. If you will go to themensforge.com
00:38:12.160that's www.themensforge.com. All right, let me get back to the Jack.
00:38:20.200Yeah, I do want to shift gears because you had sent me this article and it was really
00:38:24.780interesting. It was, it was something that you wrote on your sub stack and I can't
00:38:27.700remember the title of it right off hand, but you talked about this concept of gossip and
00:38:32.200how men will often laugh and poke and, and, and mock women for gossiping. And yet we engage
00:38:39.180in it to the same degree with a little bit of a twist, maybe even more so. Um, yeah, I'd
00:38:44.500like to hear your take on that because that is something that we definitely engage in and
00:38:47.980especially in the realm of social media and building movements like we're trying to create
00:38:51.980here. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, definitely in the realm of social media, I don't think men
00:38:57.260really realize how much of what they do is technically gossip. Uh, you know, just because
00:39:01.900we, you know, they say women gossip about celebrities. Well, men just have different
00:39:06.000celebrities. You know, if you watch ESPN three quarters of that, all their talk shows are
00:39:10.840just gossip. I mean, they might talk a little bit about what actually happened on the field
00:39:15.140and everything else. Can you believe that so-and-so was taking this contract? And then he said
00:39:19.280this, and then he said that, and it's all this, all this moral judgment and arguments about
00:39:24.520that and whatever. They're going back and forth. They're basically gossiping. And the same thing,
00:39:28.300I mean, like the jujitsu world, like, you know, like whatever Craig Johnson and, and, uh, uh, uh,
00:39:34.420what is it? Gordon Ryan, whatever they're saying back and forth. Uh, it's all, and there's,
00:39:40.140you look at the comments, there's thousands and thousands of comments on all of those posts of
00:39:44.240guys being like, yeah, that guy sucks. That other guy sucks. They're all just gossiping back and
00:39:49.020forth about it. And that's, and, and that's what drives so much as we're talking about
00:39:53.020engagement. Uh, you know, like, uh, YouTube comments, all that stuff. People start these
00:39:57.660wars to start all these guys gossiping back and forth. And it's really just not, I don't think
00:40:04.460it's very dignified and it's not, uh, it's, it's, it's very non-productive. I think it's a very
00:40:11.080unproductive use of your time. You're like spending a lot less time talking about yourself and talking
00:40:14.840about some other guy and all the things that he's doing now where that, you know, in that piece
00:40:21.000that I wrote, it's called, I think, uh, gossip carrying call, I think is what it's called.
00:40:25.280Uh, but on my sub stack, I, that was one of those pieces where I wrote myself to a little bit of a
00:40:30.560different opinion, uh, because I went through the anthropological research and what, what
00:40:35.780anthropologists say about gossip. And they tend to talk about it in this very neutral term because
00:40:43.400a lot of it is what we do to regulate each other's behavior morally.