Tragic Fallacies of the APA's Toxic Psychology of Boys and Men

Twenty-nineteen is my 40th anniversary.  It's been 40 years since I resigned from the American Psychological Association.

A tragedy befell humanity at large through the 1970s.  The APA permanently abandoned a great and unique mission to create and disseminate scientific, universally relevant psychological theory, and instead reoriented philosophically to destroy the Judeo-Christian moral code.  Since the 1970s, the APA has accredited tens of thousands of pieces of anti-moral propaganda designed to normalize and trivialize the psychological effects of abortion, including infanticide, and to devalue sanctified monogamy and the father-led family.  Especially, APA literature has evidenced a full-blown obsessive disorder in incessant worshipfulness toward variant and deviant sexuality, symptomized by pathologizing Judeo-Christian morality regarding the problem of sex and by ceaselessly troweling LGBTQ slop onto a cultural pedestal.

The recently published "Guidelines for the Psychological Practice with Boys and Men" was instantly recognized by people of common sense as dehumanizing toward the male sex.  The Guidelines epitomize three vast, tragic fallacies.  They are anti-natural and anti-moral and exemplify irrational polemicism, which displaced scientifically based psychological theory in the major position statements of the APA.  The Guidelines represent a new low in composting psychological theory.

The standing anti-moral movements of the APA, such as promoting abortion and homosexuality, have some basis in the humanist worldview and in researchable existential facts.  However,  the Guidelines can't even be said to be properly political because their fundamental message is gibberish.  As proudly proclaimed by the principal composter, the Guidelines deny biological sex as the origin of masculinity and femininity and promote silly "non-binary" gender theory of social conditioning as the sole explanation of masculinity.  The Guidelines are toxic because they promote the feminization and homosexualization of males as a remedy for men's struggles.  They demean the dignity of manhood and masculinity, thereby fueling the crises of depression and suicide among middle-aged men.

1. The Guidelines are anti-natural.

The Guidelines are a discussion of the problems of "traditional masculinity."  This term is almost oxymoronic, but alas, it is just moronic.  There is no such thing as "traditional masculinity."  Testosterone doesn't send out Christmas cards.  Newborn males do not have 20-25% heavier muscles than newborn females around the world due to "gender stereotyping," nor do they display significantly more forceful muscle movement than females due to "gender roles."  When a person suffering transsexualism wishes to simulate the opposite sex, he turns to endocrinology — not to non-binary gender theory.  He takes opposite-sex hormones to masculinize or feminize his psyche, appearance, and behavior because nothing else will.

The APA Guidelines conclude that traditional masculinity — marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance, and aggresson — is on the whole harmful.  Let's dispense with "competitiveness."  Anyone who thinks males are more competitive than females has never belonged to a sorority.  Males in general are more cooperative and less competitive than females.  Males are more naturally disposed than females to form successful teams and to accept their place in a dominance hierarchy.  If a group of males or a group of females undertake a task that calls for cooperation, there will tend to be more competition and infighting among the females.  Have you ever seen a girl fight — hair-pulling, scratching, a furious swing or two — end in a handshake?

It's not that males are more competitive; it's that they compete in naturally masculine ways that are disrespected by the APA.  Males play football, are NASCAR drivers, and fight against enemies with instinctual courage, all of which gifts are disparaged by the APA.  At its core, literature such as the Guidelines is instigated by unconscious shame.  Men who produce "non-binary gender theory" are too timorous to risk their lives for others, so they disparage men who do.

Stoicism, dominance, and aggression are biologically based.  Males have a higher threshold for pain from birth and throughout life.  The biological imperative regarding aggression can be restrained only by moral training and punishment when morality fails.

The Guidelines say stoicism, competitiveness, dominance, and aggression are harmful.  But males are too stoic and dominant compared to what?  To kangaroos or maybe African violets?  Doubt not: the APA opines that heterosexual men are too dominant and aggressive compared to homosexual men and females.  The Guidelines bemoan manhood in the opposite way to Henry Higgins's lament.  The APA asks, why can't heterosexual men be more like women and gays?

2. The Guidelines are anti-moral.

To understand anti-morality, it's necessary to understand morality.  Morality is often mistaken for altruism, situational virtuousness, or ethicality.  It is none of those.  Moral codes arise in civilizations as experience of Divine presence, articulated in group religious experience to restrain human selfishness.  Cults, social groups, and organizations engender rituals, conventionalities, or ethics, but morality can derive only from recognition of the intrinsic, unchanging value of life based in the Divine.  That is a universal human experience, prefigured in some animal species, so moral codes tend to be stable and reflect cross-cultural imperatives.

Judeo-Christian moral methodology had become the most humane in world history, even as its nemesis, modern psychology, came to the forefront.  Judeo-Christianity maintained the ideal of the father-led family and the privilege of sex confined to sanctified marriage, even as violent punishments for moral lapse, still inflicted by some religions, were eliminated.  As science provided a level of material security that largely removed the survival benefits of moral conduct, all that remained was the intrinsic reward of righteousness.  Godless anti-moral philosophies, prominently systematized by the APA, removed the challenge of righteousness by normalizing unnaturalness, weakness, and selfishness.

The Guidelines are the culmination of this effort to destroy Judeo-Christian morality regarding manhood and masculinity while offering no possibility of replacing essential moral ideals.  For decades, the APA has demeaned enlightened patriarchy; disregarded masculine courage in military and police service; and degraded the natural love of the father for his children by normalizing divorce, illegitimacy, abortion, and infanticide.

3. The Guidelines are anti-scientific.

Reading the Guidelines in their entirety is a harrowing experience.  Guideline 1 says it all: "Psychologists strive to recognize that masculinities are constructed based on social, cultural and contextual norms."  Before striving begins, consider this dimwitted statement in support of a dimwitted thesis: "Many men are socialized by friends ... family ... peers ... and ... society."  Other men have brains like a paramecium and aren't socialized by society?  Mainly, this guideline rounds up and blames the usual suspects: "[d]ominant masculinity was historically predicated on exclusion of men who were not White, heterosexual, cisgender, able-bodied and privileged."  Immigration status — a euphemism for illegality — is also cited as a barrier to dominance.  If we assume that the majority of men are not "privileged," then most have been denied a shot at "dominance" in their own families or social groups, which is absurd.

Apparently, the principal compiler is Dr. Ryon McDermott, a counseling psychologist associated with a professional school, a low rung in academic psychology.  Powerful intellects in psychology don't stoop to "non-binary gender theory."  Dr. McDermott recently published "College Male Sexual Assault of Women and the Psychology of Men: Past, Present, and Future Directions for Research."  A psychologist who studies the worst in heterosexual men is the APA's mouthpiece regarding masculinity?  (Because homosexual men don't rape.  Just ask the pope.)  Dr. McDermott asks, "What is gender in the 2010s?" and concludes, "It's no longer just this male-female binary."

To answer Dr. McDermott's question: Gender theory is a tragic hoax perpetrated by angry, jealous leftists threatened by the self-evident truth of human nature, formed man and woman together.

(Dedicated to the manhood of a beautiful boy, born 2/2/19.)

Image: Chris Schmich via Flickr.

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