It’s no secret that male comradery is on the downswing, and also no secret this is seen as a good thing by the people in power. In the drive for absolute equality and the elevation of the mediocre above the strong, it’s implicitly assumed sex segregation is a relic of a bygone era, replaced with the new world where there are no boundaries between ethnic groups, religions, and the sexes whatsoever. Formal fraternal organizations have been hardest hit, with groups like the Elks and Moose lodges being essentially forced to become co-ed through creative interpretation of the law. We, of course, don’t have to go into the mess that is the Scouts now.
College Fraternities have also been hit with the Eye of Sauron, getting relentlessly hit with sanctions that go far beyond reasonable prudence by the University system. Instead of the classic Animal House scenario of a fraternity causing innumerable amounts of trouble, the Universities are relentlessly causing trouble for the fraternities. The message from society is clear, male spaces are not acceptable.
This isn’t to say they don’t exist anymore or do good work, however. I remember when I was initiated into my first secret society, The Knights of Columbus. Many of you know this organization personified by fish fry, ringing bells for the mentally retarded handicapped, and other fanatical activities.
To be blunt, I joined mainly for the life insurance, which requires you to be a member. The ceremony happened in a room within the local parish with concrete walls on every side. I had to vow before God that whatever happened in the ceremony would not be spoken of with anyone. I’m keeping my word to this day, but I can tell you right now there were no Eyes Wide Shut level shenanigans happening.
After the ceremony, we had our monthly meeting, which had all the formality and pomp one could ask for, while also being as dull and boring as our worst corporate meeting. I looked around and saw that I was one of the youngest in the meeting, most of the men being in late forties to long into retirement. This isn’t necessarily a fault of the organization for these demographics, as it’s catered primarily to family men who have time on their hands. This does not apply to single men or men with young families.
There are all sorts of wild titles and formalities associated with the organization, including: Grand Knight, Warden, Chancellor, etc. A lot of the older guys loved the slow but rich procedures, even as they strung along the meeting to excessive lengths, but I decided to make my exit and never attended another meeting, only paying my 40 dollar annual fee to remain a member and keep my insurance.
This sort of structure is not just a KofC thing but permeates through just about every fraternal secret society1. Another famous secret society, The Freemasons, have similar strange titles and formalities:
The masons go to even further lengths, with secret handshakes, meetings, and the like. They also were a legitimately powerful political force whom many of the American founding fathers were members. One other common element of these organizations and others like it is they both are bleeding members.
Also, the Knights have been found to inflate their numbers also, meaning both organizations are having trouble with retention. Clearly, there’s trouble across the board.
It seems strange at first glance that, when it’s becoming harder and harder to find male spaces and comradery, that these traditional organizations are having a hard time getting members. As society becomes more atomized, it would seem men would become more attracted to these organizations. However, there are a lot of reasons why this is not only explainable but expected.
Historical Fraternal Organizations Require Rootedness and Stable Family Structures
Most of these societies consist of member who are fully rooted in a community, likely for the rest of their lives. With the earlier generations this worked, as men would raise families close to where they grew up and often had a legacy, with their father being part of the same council he would join. This created a deep, generational connection that created interest in making sure the organization thrived.
Men don’t have that anymore, with few men feeling the need to stay close to family and the fathers failing to transmit the traditions and values of the organization. There is an expectation of independence in the young that clashes with these old forms. Sadly, many young men have never really had a father.
Historical Fraternal Organizational Structure Now Resembles the Worst of Modern Managerialism
While all the pomp and formality is fun for the older folks, they likely were more involved in trades and, being older, have time to burn. The young, on the other hand, likely have worked in an office their entire lives, and the formality of meetings and all the hoops to go through tends to feel like you are volunteering for the hell of office life in their spare time.
Add to this the countless layers of hierarchy, reports, etc. and you feel in the same stifling environment that saps your vitality. While at one time this was useful for a young man to learn responsibilities, and comes across as boring and fake, because it’s as boring and fake as their office job.
Historical Fraternal Organizations Support Established Men in Becoming More Established
When one joins a Fraternal Organization, more often than not the man is married with a stable job and a reasonable social circle. The men in the group would then use their connections to make these already connected men more connected with like-minded people. In most times, this was fine, as failure to launch impacted few men, and most were part of an organic social structure to find a means to support themselves. You always had the drunk who never grew up or the local screw up, but they were always a small portion of the general population.
That’s not the case anymore, as most of the organic structures have gone down the drain, leaving a huge swath of men bored and without direction, wasting away their life on getting the next high and maybe working a menial job. For people in this situation, there’s really not much the organization can offer, as the men in the group don’t want to stake their reputation a someone who has always been a bum, and often they have to be of good standing to even be considered.
Historical Fraternal Organizations are focused on giving back to the community.
Most of these Fraternities started existing in a time of high social capital, where the fraternity would take care of its own members, followed by taking care of the well-being of the member’s families and friends, followed by being a force multiplier with group action that benefited the community at large. There was a symbiosis between the fraternity and society at large. For many generations this worked, as it made sense to give back to the community and would give good PR to their outfit. Unfortunately for young people, things are different now.
Younger men believe that society at large is out to take everything from them. It makes less and less sense to “give back” to a society that is actively hostile and seeks to simply extract resources away and give nothing in return. When someone is sucked dry already, they aren’t making a beeline to give blood with the Red Cross.
So why would they join a fraternity that expects effort and giving back to someone who despises them? They rightly think, “What’s in it for me?”
Can Fraternities Regain Relevance?
Yes and No.
There’s no doubt in my mind that these organizations will exist in some form or another in the next fifty years. What is also clear is new fraternal organizations are going to have to be created to deal with the new realities of male existence. As opposed to when the fraternal societies above were created, the new male is increasingly unestablished, rootless, with strong feelings of animosity for society at large. He is going to be more ambivalent to general community service to a society that just spits in his face, and will be looking for a more tribal organization. He’s looking for someone who can make him stronger, a Mannerbund that is a force multiplier. He wants comradery with like-minded men who can make him strong, the rest of the world be damned.
A critical aspect is to never allow a legal bullseye on the Fraternity’s back, in a way that mimics the following
modern classic.The New Fraternities will be Informal
In order to deal with these new realities, the organization will need a physical presence, yes, but a large part can be supplemented by online existence, which renders the formal meeting structures of the old ways moot. There won’t be official rolls of local councils, but a loose network of informal members in the general area that get to know each other, and when a man moves, there is no official paperwork, just a new informal network in the real world.
While older fraternities valued order, service, and stability, with well written charters, the new fraternities will likely have no official statements whatsoever. Instead of a hierarchy, it will act more like a system of nodes, the members simply moving like schools of fish to new inputs. They will act like a group of spread-out light signals, with light nodes being far stronger and gravitate others to them. The informal arrangement will make it harder to coordinate large actions, but give the benefit of being far more difficult for the ruling classes to take out the top members.
The New Fraternities will be more Mafia-like
The age of being a respected member of the community is gone, with society at large deciding that young men are required to cede ground to girl-bosses and their inferiors for the sake of equity. In order to be a good person, you must give everything you are, and in return maybe society as a whole will tolerate you, as long as you admit your privilege like a dog on command.
In a world like this, helping old ladies in nursing homes is not on the menu. These guys aren’t going to be volunteering to build houses for free, and they aren’t going to be ringing bells for the disabled. The core principle of the new fraternities is to extract resources from their enemies and enrich themselves and their friends. It will be an overt patronage system through and through.
Note this doesn’t even necessarily involve illegality, though some will certainly follow that path. It could be someone in a corporation recommending his fellow secret member into his organization, even if there was someone technically more qualified. It could be inverting the left’s massive NGO network to fund their own ends.
They will eschew political action through traditional channels
For anyone aware of Patriot Front and The Proud Boys, you know the ruthless nature of federal power when a right-wing group organizes in force with the clear potential to do violence. They will find any nonsense charges they can find, put you in trial in D.C. where they are assured a rubber stamp conviction, and off to prison you go. Such visible street action only has downsides, and the display of force shown isn’t enough when the display is only going to get you arrested. At that point it’s only a display of helplessness.
The system is broken, and playing the game where you protest in the public square, take public political stances, or try to enact change in the ballot box is simply fighting in an area the enemy has total control. The main focus of the fraternity is consolidating power for their own group, and any talk of political action is only talked about in terms of the group gaining more power, without abstract stances with regards to social policy. Any talk of higher ideals than what is good for the tribe will be dismissed. They’re not here to change hearts and minds or changing laws, they are here to enforce their will through power.
They will be seen as a Rite of Passage they never had in their youth
What these Fraternities, first and foremost, need to promise its members also needs to change. They need to offer the most important thing missing from modern man’s life. AGENCY.
Most young men never got a chance to experience an event that truly tested their mettle. While sports are a solid rite for many, the ever-creeping safety-ism has created an environment where many a man has never felt the exhilaration of finally leaving his mother’s skirt. The Boy Scouts had one of their final tests as being able to survive 24 hours in the forest by oneself. They would then be greeted back to the pack as a conqueror and finally “a man”. These healthy outlets are in short supply.
by Kruptos has an excellent series going into detail about the necessary transitions a boy must make to see himself as a man, and how lacking such rites of passage are in the modern day. Instead of testing for character based on their past actions, the new fraternities will demand conflict and proving oneself from the start. It will begin as an adversarial relationship between the acolyte and the seasoned members of the group already respected by the wider culture.
Conclusion
Note I’m not making any moral claims in this article. Frankly, a society in which a man can only get dignity by acting like a raider and pirate is a society that deserves what it gets. When all traditional structures of masculinity such as being head of a family, embracing military life, or the academic life of the mind is poisoned and inverted from their original goal, the men of a society will revert to more primal forms.
In the end, a society has always relied on rough men to keep things running, and society will soon find out what happens when those rough men no longer have a place. We have the choice of whether we build communities hospitable to the Knights Templar, or the Hell’s Angels. We have the choice between creating men who gravitate towards acting like the Christeros or MS-13. Let’s hope we choose wisely.
The Knights of Columbus is not technically a secret society, as the Church forbids them. To be in good standing, every KofC event has to have the capability to be monitored by a Catholic Priest
I too am a KoC (technically) but have found it to be effectively a boomer club which is why I haven't been to a meeting in probably over a year. I'm the youngest member there by approximately 10 years and I'm not a particularly young man (31)
You hit on most points pretty well and offered some interesting insight into future, more de-centralized fraternities, though I think there's a significant opportunity for young right-wing men with the fraternities that already exist. The KoC specifically, even your local chapters, have some significant funds that are not being used (I live in a smaller community with two KoC chapters and even the one I'm in has north of $20-$30k in its coffers).
These organizations are also vying for young blood to take the helm. A dissident movement that sufficiently de-boomerizes the KoC, Oddfellows, Elks, Masons, Shriners etc; will have some significant political horsepower behind them. The issue is that if you want not-your-pop's KoC (i.e. if you want more than playing pfeffer and hosting fish fries), you need to make it not-your-pop's KoC right out of the gate, which is where I think the hesitancy comes in.
"We have the choice of whether we build communities hospitable to the Knights Templar, or the Hell’s Angels. We have the choice between creating men who gravitate towards acting like the Christeros or MS-13. Let’s hope we choose wisely."
Well said and great issue to possit.