Why Liberal, Open, Disagreeable Men Have the Worst Life Outcomes
Statistically, highly liberal, open, disagreeable men fail at life more than most demographics. This occurs for a variety of reasons. Men build cultural structures of values and set these standards on one another. Success requires participating in the maintenance or rebuilding of outdated structures. Seeing the cracks in the structure and continuously attacking them makes this man an enemy of everyone and not a valued asset, especially if the disagreeable trait includes neurotic withdrawal, which is a common pairing for those who see too much. Men in this category will need to find a way to dedicate themselves to the group and display their group benefit as competent and beneficial, indispensable and even masterful – obviously so – and aim to become the “hero who laughs.”
Personality Indicators of Success
There are three indicators of leadership success within one’s personality. These are:
Conscientiousness subdivided into Industriousness and Orderliness. A lot of effort, well presented, yields success.
Openness subdivided into Intelligence and Openness to Experience. Recognizing the right actions to take is critical.
Extroversion subdivided into Enthusiasm and Assertiveness. Warmth and intention are key to motivating groups.
This is equally true of men and women, all those who score roughly the same in these three personality categories. We colloquially describe individuals like this as “hardworking, present, warm, and enthusiastic.” The two categories that typically differentiate the sexes are:
Neuroticism subdivided into Volatility and Withdrawal; and
Agreeableness subdivided into Politeness and Compassion.
The primary 5 traits are often called the “Big 5” by psychologists, and their subdivisions are called the “Big 10,” which contain additional sub-traits for each, 30 total). As a group, men are statistically lower in Neuroticism and Agreeableness, which is explained, from a personality perspective, by the male ascent to dominance. Women test (though not always) as higher in Neuroticism and Agreeableness, as a group. They tend to be more aware of danger (neuroticism) and engage with more Politeness or Compassion (agreeableness), which keeps individuals and children safe. Though less common, many so-called “beta” or non-dominant males adopt these strategies even if not temperamentally normative, often to cultivate relationships with women. Thus women and betas are much less likely to end up on the top or the bottom, where most men find themselves.
Neuroticism and Agreeableness are neither good nor bad. Neuroticism helps us respond to threats (volatility fights, withdrawal flees), and agreeableness helps us build mutually supportive teams, whether formal (politeness) or close (compassion). If we cannot anticipate threats, we risk making bad decisions or forming relationships with bad people. We might invest our money poorly or ignore a potential partner’s series of shallow relationships or business failures. Conversely, if we expect threats where none exist, we may miss opportunities or alienate people who would help us. Likewise, if we are too agreeable we risk being exploited, and if we are not compassionate or polite, we alienate ourselves from both close supporters and formal allies.
Disagreeable Female Successes
Before discussing men, I want to note a pattern caveat that may confuse some people—why are highly open, disagreeable women so often successful? Expectations. Western society tends to expect women to be agreeable and neurotic, so we frequently ignore female neuroticism even when it poses a challenge or a threat. Moreover, men are not allowed to compete with women like they do with other men. Men are often limited by other men and expected to curb their competitive aggression towards women. Perhaps because of size differences, male aggression toward a woman is viewed as inappropriate yet men losing to women is seen as shameful. This puts men in a double bind and gives women driven towards success a cutting edge. Their primary tool is dismissing and ignoring her, and while most women are not accustomed to this treatment, it is typically is often less severe than normal male competition. If she continues to assert, all but the most assertive men will move out of the way. Most of their severe detractors will be toxic bosses dominating everyone or antisocial, aggressively misogynist types not supported by the rest of the group. (Maria Konnikova has some excellent observations of how men behave when a woman enters male-dominated group environments.)
For a good primer on how to self-assert in the workplace, I recommend both men and women read Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office: Unconscious Mistakes Women Make That Sabotage Their Careers by Lois P. Frankel PhD
Disagreeable, Open Men
For disagreeable, open men, high intelligence and a wealth of experience fall short of success because they lack the enthusiasm or warmth necessary to convey what they know in a way that will be accepted or trusted. This prevents empathy and leadership and hurts camaraderie. Extroversion is required for group success and group success is critical for life success. A lack of warmth means this man cannot gain followers or a partner and is perceived with distrust. His life is worse because his lack of discipline means he cannot build, so his insights are not actionable – and therefore purposeless – and instead appear to be insubordinate or even whiny. Worse, because he is smarter than most and sees things others do not (common of high openness, which typically yields very liberal thought), everyone perceives his insights to be attacks, even attacks from an enemy. This further isolates him, and, knowing he is right, he is faced with the horrible choice of not speaking, speaking falsely (which he cannot do without sarcasm because he is disagreeable), or fighting everyone.
Speaking what other men cannot see in a manner that upsets the status quo turns a man into a dragon to be conquered. And so he ends up alone, waiting on God or politics to change his situation and spiraling towards a nihilistic end. If he wasn’t neurotic already, he will become so, and then he will be even further on the outside.
A Caveat
These men often have the worst life outcomes. However, if they can conquer nihilism and find courage, they are also the individuals who often change society in the loudest, most permanent, and longstanding ways. This occurs when they learn to communicate effectively and stand up resolutely to the predominant narrative. Then if they survive long enough for their voice to find power in a truthful, unashamed, confident way, others will look to them for leadership. If by that time they can become organized and lead a team, the world will change.
Here are some transformative maxims that apply:
We cannot fight dragons on all sides. We must limit the problems we see to those we can address.
Slaying a dragon is meaningless if the battle destroys civilization or there is no structure to rebuild.
Rebuilding requires a team, and teams require hardworking, organized, warm, supportive, trusting peers and extroverted, reliable leaders.
Conclusion:
Such men are in desperate need of someone who will listen, and question their endgame. We can rationalize our own path out, but we will have to pay someone of equal intellect to allow us to process externally and acknowledge the result of our choices before it’s too late. We will also have to pay someone to redirect our theorizing to questions of building processes. Therapy will be a good fit if there is trauma, but if we are causing our own trauma due to personality, the last thing we need is a safe space – we need to change our behavior.
We must.
(See also: Male Success Pathways and Consciousness and Male Castration)
