The Case for Being a Good Person (Manosphere Critique)

One of the main takeaways I had from Louis Theroux's documentary on the Manosphere was the new cultural norm of contempt for being a good person. Today I want to talk about why it is good to be good, and how relishing in being the bad guy is a sign of mental dysfunction and exceptionally low self-worth, and is therefore a faulty model of living if you want a high quality enjoyable life.

As neuroscientist and commentator Sam Harris recently pointed out, the bad guys used to at least pretend they were good. They had to pretend in order to get away with being bad. But these manosphere influencers openly brag about being awful people, and on occasion even openly admit to scamming their loyal followers and customers.

So I wanted to write to the few people who will read this and make a case for being a good person.

Firstly, I must define what a “good person” is without devolving into pages of philosophical argument. So for the sake of this article, being a good person simply means "you intend to take actions that make life better for those around you as well as yourself."

This is not to be confused with people-pleasing, which is a manipulation to give the appearance of being a good person. While the behaviours can often appear to be the same - e.g. self-sacrificing acts of kindness - the intention is different. People pleasers have the primary motive of seeking approval and validation. A genuine Good Person does things for the sake of being good, even if this means being misunderstood, unappreciated, or even hated.

To further clarify what it means to be good, we can also define what it means to be bad. For the sake of this post, being “bad” means intentionally doing acts that you know are likely to harm others, for your own gain. Either the goal itself is to cause harm (sadism), or you’re simply willing to cause harm to achieve another goal even when a less harmful way is available, e.g. choosing to make money ripping people off instead of earning it honestly.

Being “bad” is not the same as being assertive or doing necessary harm for the greater good. Being a good person sometimes means doing things that people don’t enjoy because in the longer term it would create a higher quality of life, e.g. hosting an intervention for a drug addict, giving a staff member critical feedback, or even using minimal violence at a small scale to prevent violence at a much larger scale.

Let’s move on assuming you’re ok with these definitions, at least for this discussion, because the definition of good is not actually the main point of this post.

What I want to talk about is WHY it’s good to be good! I want to contradict the manosphere’s claim that sociopathic selfishness, misogyny, humiliating others for attention, and crushing others to get to the top is not the best available way to live.

Firstly, the most obvious point is harming other people hurts them. Only a sadist would consider this to be a win. Sadism is the enjoyment of witnessing and/or causing harm to others. It’s a trait serial killers often have in common, and is a symptom of extreme mental illness and Personality Disorders. And when you harm others you are almost certainly being a hypocrite, because you wouldn’t want this done to you. Therefore it requires a lack of integrity (i.e. a lack of confidence) to hypocritically hurt other people.

Secondly, it’s a myth that bad guys enjoy winning, even though it often appears that way. One of the main reasons it appears that way is because these guys are constantly bragging and posting about it. Why would they need to do that if they were satisfied with their lives? Why are they always hungry for more? It’s because no matter how smug they appear to be, under the surface they feel empty, agitated, and unable to enjoy their success. Confident people are quiet about their wins because they don’t need validation from others.

I’ve studied psychopathy my entire adult life, and one fascinating finding was that psychopaths actually do experience regret and remorse much later in life. What typically happens is their chickens come home to roost: all their scamming and betrayal and selfishness only wins for a certain period of time, and eventually karma comes back to them. They usually die alone and unloved, with significant financial problems and terrible health issues. And they secretly regret it, even though it takes them a whole lifetime to realise they caused their own demise.

I’m sure there are exceptions. But I’ve worked with many of these guys, both in Corrections and out in the world of coaching, and I’m absolutely convinced they’re unhappy at a core level. Their behaviour proves it. Even when they have enough they always seek more. They can’t get laid without telling everyone about it, as if it has no value unless other people approve of them. They stir up arguments for no reason other than to get a few more moments of attention. They are deeply insecure, and the more they show off on the outside the more likely they are miserable on the inside.

Being good, on the other hand, benefits us in numerous ways. And I don’t even need to make an ethical or moral argument. Being good is better for health, relationships, reputation, career, and overall life satisfaction, not to mention that the acts themselves often feel emotionally rewarding as they are being done, and often provoke other people to reciprocate with kindness back to us.

When you’re bad, you build up stress. You make enemies, you have to remember all your lies, and you start getting into more and more trouble. And if you're not totally psychopathic, the guilt and remorse slowly eats away at you over time. There's a reason prison suicide rates are 10x those on the outside, and it's not because of unsolicited affection in the showers. This stress creates a massive cognitive and emotional strain, increasing risk of burn out, depression, and longer-term physical health problems like strokes, cancer, heart attacks, and dementia. Sure, they might have abs now, but they'll have catheters later.

Being good, if nothing else, means peace of mind. You don’t have to track your scams or keep looking over your shoulder. You don’t need to remember what you said. And there are constant healthy dopamine highs from impressing yourself with good deeds, not to mention the serotonin build up from being a confident person, and the oxytocin dumps from having high quality relationships. All of these serve to repress cortisol build ups. Being good means feeling good, living longer, and enjoying life more, at a chemical biological level, not just a moral sense of peace.

Psychopaths end up alone because being a manipulative user who's promiscuous and selfish is a strategy with an expiry date. You will eventually develop a reputation of badness that cannot be repaired. These manosphere guys can never make a relationship last, even when they want to. I've known many Pick Up Artist gurus personally, and they could get laid easily but they all struggled to find love. When you're always a bastard, eventually everyone figures out that you suck, and the only people who will remain with you are damaged and unenjoyable to be with, or other psychopaths looking to take you out. You cannot trust people, no one loves you for who you are, and every friend is just an enemy waiting to happen.

Being kind, thoughtful, honest, dependable, loyal, and straightforward is a strategy that goes the distance. Relationships grow rather than deteriorate. Your reputation improves a little each day, and if your goodness is genuine the reputation becomes armour against malicious attacks. You can rest assured that if you miss your flight someone will help you get home, and that on your death bed you’ll be surrounded by loved ones and true friends.

If anything, the case for being a good person should appeal to even the most selfish people. Indeed, I’ve made this argument with actual psychopaths, showing them that being good is simply a slower yet more stable pathway to getting their needs met. Being bad can get quick wins and more extreme levels of success, but the fall is inevitable.

Just look at Jeffrey Epstein (deceased), Andrew Tate (charged with trafficking), Tai Lopez (exposed as a fraud), Danny Masterton (jailed for rape), P Diddy (excessive use of baby oil) - they all made it big but life caught up with them in the end. Every other day we’re hearing about yet another high profile celebrity or politician or influencer getting burned to the ground, never to recover.

Even with the harmful people currently doing well you can easily predict the fall. Look at Trump for example - politics aside, he's just clearly not a good person. And his grip is slipping. The Epstein files are closing in. His legacy is looking precarious. The public protests are escalating. He will not be remembered fondly. And even if he dies before his karma circles around, do you actually think he enjoys his life right now? He’s one of the most defensive and thin-skinned public figures I’ve witnessed in my lifetime, tweeting like a bratty 14 year old mean girl and lashing out at reporters. He’s clearly a deeply insecure fragile narcissistic personality, and so his internal state must be a miserable one.

Success is meaningless if you feel empty, hollow, isolated, agitated and needy for more all the time. The bad guy strategy might deliver some early highs, but these quickly fade and create an even bigger hole in the psyche than was there before. You can see these online influencers slowly slide into a form of madness. They usually start as personal trainers with a small grift, and within a few years of youtube success they start spouting conspiracy theories, burning their friendships, and getting into serious legal issues.

The only reason you might be tempted to give up on being good because it "doesn't work" is because you haven't actually been good, not really. You've tried people pleasing and virtue signalling and fitting in, but these are just pretend good, and they only deliver short-term shallow rewards. The fact you think it doesn't work reveals your true intentions were selfish - what else would "work" mean in this context?

It took me a long time to figure out what being truly good meant for me. I've tried people pleasing, and then I tried being bad and selfish. Both were equally unsatisfying, lonely, and miserable. Then I found the confidence and sense of wellbeing that comes with genuinely doing acts of kindness without seeking external rewards. Just today, I noticed a sign outside the supermarket had blown over. Everyone else was stepping over it. I picked it up. I didn't look for approval, and just felt a sense of wellbeing pour through from doing what I knew was right - being, as Ghandi might say, the change I want to see in the world.

And yes, I know bad things happen to good people. Being good doesn't negate Fate or bad luck. But I can promise you that being bad invites WAY more bad luck into your life than being good. Criminal offenders have way more problems than decent citizens do, you can take my word for that. Their lives are never-ending hassles and dramas. And if you're being good just to earn points and you feel entitled to not have bad things happen to you, then you're not really being good!

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