Nice People

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
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Matt Gregory
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Nice People

Post by Matt Gregory »

Leyla Shen wrote:David Quinn wrote:
Men also quickly realize that what women are attracted to in men is their potential earning power, their social status, their willingness elbow people out the way and climb the greasy pole, their ability to create exciting and envious lifestyles, etc. The nice guys know this is the only way they will ever attract a mate, and so most of them plunge headlong into a life-long, mind-numbing, soul-destroying career. All because women are essentially attracted to what is evil in a man, and not what is good.
Nice guys? Nice guys?? A man who sells his soul for an (near complete) unconscious mate (“woman”) is a “nice” guy?

Wow.

What do you call a man who sells his soul for a nice guy?

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I take it you consider "niceness" to be a virtue, Leyla? That's the only reason I can think of for why you responded in that way.

I don't believe in nice people myself. I think some people consistently behave in a way that could only be called "nice", but I think most people act that way out of laziness more than anything, since being mean is kind of a lot of work.
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Post by s_e »

It's worth repeating...
  • I can't help but wonder what kind of people you, David, and Kevin hang with. What a grandiose and biased statement to make: "Women are attracted to what is bad." You remind me of a fellow I once knew who was attracted to women who tend to be portrayed as "bombshells" by the media -- think "Baywatch Babes". If he could secure one of these women for himself he would win (supposed) immeasurable status for himself within society, yet he couldn't do so because he didn't possess the same (supposed) worth via the big wallet, car, home, career that would make him attractive to one of these Baywatch Babes.

    Instead of realizing that he held the lynchpin to his own misery (Lose the attraction to plasticized bombshells, bud) he consistently portrayed women as being of this shallow, physically oriented type and rejected them all on the basis of his limited, biased and narrow-minded interactions with them. Needless to say, the guy has never had a healthy relationship with any woman and instead spends his time commiserating with other men who operate from the same dynamic.
I cut and pasted that post. It was exceptionally lazy of me.
s_e
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Post by s_e »

I take it you consider "niceness" to be a virtue, Leyla? That's the only reason I can think of for why you responded in that way.

Listen carefully, Matt...
  • Throughout history, there have been many fine and upstanding gurus who have taught the path to enlightenment and have demonstrated a great kindness and love for humanity.

    Source: The Guru's Trap
Is "being nice" a virtue? Apparently it is, according to all of the acknowledged great spiritual teachers. Even that paragon of detachment himself -- the Buddha -- devoted his life to assisting and helping others. Devoted. His life. If that isn't "being nice," I don't know what is. "Kindness is my religion," says the Dalai Lama. "Love your neighbor," says Christ.

Being mean is what's easy, Matt. If you examine the history of this world you'll easily discover that humanity has always paid the highest price for unkindness. Kindness is cheap.
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Post by emma »

Kindness is not cheap /. "Love your enemy" is very hard to do, but a necessary part of enlightenment
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Post by s_e »

Kindness certainly isn't easy, but as compared to unkindness, it is cheap.
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Post by Leyla Shen »

Matt, you wrote:
I don't believe in nice people myself.
Do you think David believes in nice people?

David wrote:
The nice guys know this is the only way they will ever attract a mate, and so most of them plunge headlong into a life-long, mind-numbing, soul-destroying career. All because women are essentially attracted to what is evil in a man, and not what is good.
If not, what substance is there to the above bolded part of his comment?

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BJMcGilly
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Post by BJMcGilly »

SE wrote:
Is "being nice" a virtue? Apparently it is, according to all of the acknowledged great spiritual teachers. Even that paragon of detachment himself -- the Buddha -- devoted his life to assisting and helping others. Devoted. His life. If that isn't "being nice," I don't know what is. "Kindness is my religion," says the Dalai Lama. "Love your neighbor," says Christ.
When I think of "niceness," visions of plasticity and sycophants immediately come to mind. In my thinking, niceness is irrevocably linked to posing, to flattering another's vanity while affirming one's own. Whether it be flattering someone with a "nice" comment, or being "nice" enough to hold open a door and thereby affirm another's self-value. In my mind's eye, the letters in "nice" form a slick cheshire-like smile.

Kindness is far different. Kindness is sharing, kindness is giving, kindness is loving. One is only temporarily "being nice," one acts (acting being heavily rooted in vanity), or performs one of these actions, distinct from one's character.

The sages taught empathic kindness, which is a coming together of the grand indifference of Nature with the ultimate answer that is unconditioned Love.
Being mean is what's easy, Matt. If you examine the history of this world you'll easily discover that humanity has always paid the highest price for unkindness. Kindness is cheap.
Being mean and being nice is being an actor.

note: edited format
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Cory Duchesne
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Post by Cory Duchesne »

David said: woman give themselves sexually to assholes and the nice guys don't get sex, but instead get to be a shoulder to cry on.

It would seem that the 'nice guy' is more feminine (passive) and lacks the aggression and single mindedness to be appealling to woman.

The 'asshole' has the aggression, but the aggression is totally invested in the attaintment, maintence and amplification of femininity - so, despite he has masculinity, it is the feminine which is master.

Perhaps the nice guys aggression is more on the back burner, his instincts are sound enough to prevent him from wasting his fuel on a goal that he is not even close to being sure of. If he's lucky he is strong enough to turn his attention away from woman and get down to business.

I would say that the more of a nice guy you are, the more meek you are, and thus the more broad thinking you are, the less willing you are to allow your mind to coagulate into a very biased and prejudiced view. In other words, you carry a greater sense of responsibility and have a more subtle understanding.

If you are too broad thinking, and carry too great of a sense of responsibility, then you would become an alien - you would become appalling to unconscious, animalistic people.

Those who fit better into the asshole category appear more aggressive and strong to the woman, and she instinctively equates this aggression with more power.

Kierkguaard wrote:
make a girl unhappy, and then tell her: I did it all out of love for you - and you break her, her mind snaps. Adapt yourself to her and say: I am a thoughtless scoundrel - that she will be able to bear, and she will heartily forgive you. But then she also escapes the dialectical redoubling.

Lets examine part 1:
make a girl unhappy, and then tell her: I did it all out of love for you - and you break her, her mind snaps.


This is an example of how a nice guy would deal with a woman if he managed to become clear minded enough. An asshole would never say something like that, but rather, the woman within him would suddenly emerge and thus he would do the more submissive thing and say.....

I am a thoughtless scoundrel - that she will be able to bear, and she will heartily forgive you. But then she also escapes the dialectical redoubling.
Last edited by Cory Duchesne on Fri Sep 15, 2006 1:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Matt Gregory
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Post by Matt Gregory »

Leyla Shen wrote:Matt, you wrote:
I don't believe in nice people myself.
Do you think David believes in nice people?
I think someone who is 100% nice would have to live in a 100% wise society in order to avoid running into a conflict of interest and therefore being forced to be mean, so no, I'm pretty sure he doesn't believe in nice people.

David wrote:
The nice guys know this is the only way they will ever attract a mate, and so most of them plunge headlong into a life-long, mind-numbing, soul-destroying career. All because women are essentially attracted to what is evil in a man, and not what is good.
If not, what substance is there to the above bolded part of his comment?

.
He was talking about guys who are nice on the surface...the ordinary understanding of "nice". I'm sure Hitler was very nice to his mistress (whatever her name was), yet his job was totally evil, so he was both nice and evil.
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Matt Gregory
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Post by Matt Gregory »

BJMcGilly wrote:When I think of "niceness," visions of plasticity and sycophants immediately come to mind. In my thinking, niceness is irrevocably linked to posing, to flattering another's vanity while affirming one's own. Whether it be flattering someone with a "nice" comment, or being "nice" enough to hold open a door and thereby affirm another's self-value. In my mind's eye, the letters in "nice" form a slick cheshire-like smile.
Yeah, that's what I think of usually. I should have been more careful in that first post.
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Post by Kevin Solway »

I thought that by "nice" David meant something like "respectful". But when men learn that being respectful doesn't attract females, they give it away.
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Matt Gregory
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Post by Matt Gregory »

I have a theory that a woman instinctively prefers a man that unquestioningly takes what he wants from her because it indicates that he would unquestioningly physically defend her as well if she were threatened.
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Post by Kevin Solway »

Matt Gregory wrote:I have a theory that a woman instinctively prefers a man that unquestioningly takes what he wants from her because it indicates that he would unquestioningly physically defend her as well if she were threatened.
That's right. It means he doesn't think too much, and therefore will be a suitable beast of burden. He will also be suitable for ripping-off other people and accumulating material wealth.
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Post by Tharan »

I have a theory that men think women want a tough guy who might protect them if they are attacked by a sabretooth cat. But sometimes, I think it is more geared to those giant bears from the Pleistocine Era.
Leyla Shen
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Post by Leyla Shen »

Matt,
I'm pretty sure he doesn't believe in nice people.
Well, I'm not so sure anymore! I'll attempt to demonstrate why.
He was talking about guys who are nice on the surface...the ordinary understanding of "nice".
Right. So he was saying that ultimately women are attracted to dishonesty.

So, let‘s take the whole quotation:
But as Bryan and CP mention, it is hardly a controversial observation. For example, it is well known among young men that being a "nice guy" with women gets you absolutely nowhere. If you're lucky, you might get to become a shoulder to cry on when the "assholes" they date instead dump, betray or hurt them. But if you want a sexual relationship with them yourselves, then forget it. You fall way back in the pecking order and all you can hope for is some of the spillage.

Men also quickly realize that what women are attracted to in men is their potential earning power, their social status, their willingness elbow people out the way and climb the greasy pole, their ability to create exciting and envious lifestyles, etc. The nice guys know this is the only way they will ever attract a mate, and so most of them plunge headlong into a life-long, mind-numbing, soul-destroying career. All because women are essentially attracted to what is evil in a man, and not what is good.
Here’s how I read it: in the first para, we have the idea that the “nice guy” doesn’t get the woman -- in quotation marks because of D’s values, not because of any disagreement with what a nice guy looks like, but because this guy actually is a nice guy. This guy doesn’t get the woman.

In the second para, we have a different type of nice guy who is really an arsehole being dishonest and who gets the woman even if it means abandoning all his arseholeness, and looking like he is an actual nice guy, to do so.

So, David is actually saying three things to my mind: (1) that women are attracted to arseholeness in dishonest form, (2) men who get women are, in fact, dishonest, (3) those men who don’t get women are nice and are in fact the kind of men women should be attracted to!

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Leyla Shen
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Post by Leyla Shen »

PS: would somebody care to remind me why a man is attracted to a woman?

.
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Matt Gregory
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Post by Matt Gregory »

Because she has a skinny waist and big tits.
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Post by Matt Gregory »

Actually, it's not that simple. Men derive a lot of emotional pleasure from women, even if they don't have sexual relations with them.
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Matt Gregory
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Post by Matt Gregory »

The whole thing with the nice guy is that at least he tries to be a good person, even though he fails. The usual brute of a man doesn't even get that far.
Leyla Shen
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Post by Leyla Shen »

So, men are evil?

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Kevin Solway
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Post by Kevin Solway »

Leyla Shen wrote:So, men are evil?
Of course they are. Hence the expression "Evil genius".

Being evil is of course a step-up from being unconscious, because it involves willful behaviour.

Women are, generally speaking, not evil, and not immoral. Weininger calls them amoral.
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Post by Leyla Shen »

Well, I’m glad we sorted that out. Women are unconscious and men are evil.

Now what?

Since men are the conscious ones, we solve men’s evilness (immorality) with an understanding of women’s unconsciousness (amorality)?

That’s like hammering a nail into into the moon.

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Pye
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Post by Pye »

.

(. . . still fighting the good fight, Leyla . . . still ferreting the layers of non-sense in this precept out of their rabbit holes . . . :)

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Leyla Shen
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Post by Leyla Shen »

I love sense.

Hey, Pye, who was it that spent their lifetime looking for a moral man?

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Kevin Solway
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Post by Kevin Solway »

Leyla Shen wrote:Well, I’m glad we sorted that out. Women are unconscious and men are evil.
Yes. In the words of an evil genius, "The main difference between men and women is that men are lunatics and women are idiots."
Now what?

Since men are the conscious ones, we solve men’s evilness (immorality) with an understanding of women’s unconsciousness (amorality)?

That’s like hammering a nail into into the moon.
Imagine an unconscious person in a coffin. That's woman. Somehow man has been able to pry-open the coffin lid a fraction, and the light is pouring-in. But the light is sending him crazy - because he's not used to it. He's accustomed to the long comfort of the dark, and he doesn't know what to do.

By settling his mind and coming to grips with both the light and the darkness, the consciousness and the unconsciousness which is himself, he can become sane.
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