The Hollow Virtue Ethics of Entrepreneurs and the Manosphere

From the masculine entrepreneurial culture currently ripe in the United States, a curious intersection has arisen between classical ethics and the controversial realm of the manosphere. According to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, the “manosphere” refers to several interconnected misogynistic communities found primarily online and ranging from male supremacist discourse to men’s rights activism and incels. Certain manosphere influencers, including figures such as Andrew Tate and even some Silicon Valley leaders, profess an adherence to Stoic philosophy. Initially conceived as a philosophy for Meditations, the famed Stoic work authored as a personal diary by Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, Stoicism has become a staple for C-suite executives dealing with the complexities of the corporate world. They strive to emulate its four virtues of temperance, courage, wisdom, and justice, and to keep the mind calm, rational, and free from pain and emotions. Tim Ferriss, author of books such as The 4-Hour Workweek and The 4-Hour Body, describes Stoicism as an ‘operating system,’ and his words are widely read by both manosphere influencers and executives alike. However, a fundamental question, first posed by the Roman Stoic Cicero, still demands exploration: Cui bono? Who benefits?

John Doerr, an early investor in Google and Amazon, called the Silicon Valley Moment ‘the greatest legal accumulation of wealth in history.’ While manosphere influencers might not have developed the tools that led to this wealth, they employ them for marketing and wealth generation. This stands in direct opposition to Stoic purpose. In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius reiterates the universal Stoic principle: ‘The only rewards of our existence here are an unstained character and unselfish acts.’ While traditional Stoic understanding of civic virtue is tailored to a form of classical republicanism no longer present in the modern day, the root purpose of Stoic action, the benefit of the common good, remains applicable to any social circumstance. However, for these entrepreneurs, Stoicism is employed merely as a means to an end, a tool for the accumulation of wealth, made worse still considering the well-documented harmful effects of social media on mental health. Aurelius said that ‘what injures the hive injures the bee,’ yet influencers like Tate will run affiliate marketing programs, encouraging production of attention-grabbing media to keep their audience on platforms that they simultaneously encourage their audience to avoid and which they avoid themselves.

Narrowing in on Tate’s actions and beliefs illuminates this. The first of his ‘41 Tenets’ is the belief that men have the ‘divine imperative’ to maximise their power and competence. He writes toward the end of the list that he believes men should try to help the world and those they care for. In one social media post, Tate shared a video of himself ostentatiously throwing money around on a train. Tate has claimed in articles to have started a foundation to protect women from domestic violence; however, no trace of any such organisation or action can be found beyond these statements. To many, Tate’s persistent exploitation of women on the internet through his webcam business appears to conflict with the stated mission of his alleged philanthropic foundation. However, his proclivity for making overconfident assertions lacking substantial evidence reflects Tate's support for the capitalist hustle culture. His focus on accruing wealth and power above all else is also an expression of a hegemonic understanding of masculinity, one fixated on dominance and exploitation. Perhaps Tate views selling sex on the internet as an act of philanthropy in itself – that all men have the right to sexual gratification. Whether it's women crawling around on camera to earn money for him, or strangers crawling to take it, this Stoicism fixates on power and how to accumulate it.

Those who propagate Tate’s affiliate marketing often post clips of him discussing these endeavours with titles like ‘reject modernity/embrace tradition,’ pairing this with video clips of bodybuilders or Greek statues. Yet their efforts at escaping modernity are demonstrations of modernity par excellence. Firstly, by valuing power and capability in their own right, they are playing into the modern understanding of virtue. That is, virtu, as elucidated by Machiavelli. Their valuation of Stoic habits and bodybuilding as an expression of virtue demonstrates this well – these habits are employed for their own sake, or toward achieving greater personal gratification in the long run. The value of these tools is self-referential, rather than aimed toward a higher purpose, the classical understanding of virtue.

Their failure to escape modernity becomes even more apparent through the juxtaposition of Ancient Greek Statues alongside bodybuilders. This juxtaposition evokes the concept of ‘a supermarket of identities,’ or an ideology resembling a salad bar. Modernity and its social structures possess a malleable, liquid nature, allowing individuals to select and adopt them like commodities in a shopping mall, devoid of historical context or traditional significance. The classical value of strength, which holds only when directed towards the betterment of the community, bears no resemblance to figures like the bodybuilder Ronnie Coleman. From an Aristotelian perspective, as outlined in the Nicomachean Ethics, such excess would be deemed undesirable. The manosphere confuses inherent capability with intrinsic value, failing to recognise the nuances of virtue and its alignment with the common good.

At the heart of this critique lies the prioritisation of individual interests over the welfare of the community. The Stoics, as previously mentioned, were not the sole proponents of valuing the common good. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, which delineates virtues similar to those endorsed by the Stoics also emphasises the importance of being a responsible citizen. Even Socrates, often quoted by these influencers while promoting physical training, as noted in Xenophon’s Memorabilia, later describes that this emphasis on physical fitness is driven by its impact on one’s reputation as a citizen. Thus, the traditional perspective on the value of physical prowess centred around its contribution to public virtue. The contemporary view regarding strength as inherently valuable or primarily serving personal interests is a distinctly modern and strictly non-classical concept. In other words, these appeals to virtue ethics merely serve as superficial representations of cultures these influencers fail to understand. At best, the entrepreneurial adoption of Stoicism can be seen as effective branding and a shallow ethos guiding their pursuit of wealth, often to the detriment of the community. In this view, the bee can survive while the hive dies. 

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