On integrity, responsibility, and the toxicity of divisive identities
I was raised, in my earliest years, by my grandparents.
My grandfather was a decorated Korean War veteran, a former shoemaker, and a father of three. He wasn’t the type to deliver speeches. He didn’t sit me down for “life lessons” the way movies portray. But every so often—usually in the middle of something ordinary—he’d offer a sentence or two about what it meant to be a man.
And the thing that stands out most, now that I’m older, is what he didn’t do.
He never tried to define what a woman was.
He never spoke in the language of “us versus them.”
Never implied that manhood existed in opposition to womanhood.
Never framed masculinity as something to defend from the modern world.
To him, “being a man” wasn’t a gender role. It was a standard of character. And the more distance I get from childhood, the clearer it becomes that what he was pointing toward wasn’t “male identity.”
It was human integrity.
There’s a larger conversation here about identity and the way the mind turns labels into battlefields—something we explore more broadly in why the self you’re trying to hold together so often fractures under pressure—but the heart of this piece is simpler than any ideology:
He wasn’t training me to be “a man” in a cultural sense.
He was trying to show me what it looks like to live like a person.
When “Being a Man” Meant Being Reliable
When my grandfather used the word “man,” he meant:
- Live with integrity
- Be honest in your dealings
- Take responsibility for your life
- Don’t run from your problems
- Face your fears
- Respect other people who are carrying their own burdens
None of that was about dominance.
None of it was about status.
None of it required an enemy.
It was about being someone others could depend on—because you were willing to be someone you could depend on.
Even as a kid, I could feel the difference between his version of manhood and the version I would later encounter in culture.
His was quiet.
It didn’t advertise itself.
It didn’t need applause.
And it didn’t need women to be a certain way in order for men to be “men.”
The Cultural Shift: When Manhood Became a Side
At some point, the word “man” stopped pointing at character and started pointing at a camp.
Once “man” becomes a gendered identity to defend, something subtle but dangerous happens:
Manhood becomes reactive.
It becomes about:
- proving something
- protecting something
- winning something
- restoring something
And this is where many modern masculinity movements quietly lose their footing—not because they name no real pain, but because they turn pain into identity.
A movement like the “red pill” worldview illustrates this shift clearly. Framed as an awakening, it positions men as newly enlightened to a hidden truth: that society and feminism are stacked against them, and that women now hold disproportionate power.
But beneath the rhetoric, the psychological move is familiar.
“Man” stops meaning responsibility
and starts meaning group membership.
Once that happens, grievance replaces self-honesty.
Divisive Identities Feel Like Relief (Until They Don’t)
Divisive identities don’t spread because they’re persuasive.
They spread because they’re relieving.
They offer:
- belonging
- certainty
- a script
- a shared enemy
- a way to make pain feel justified
If someone feels lost, ashamed, lonely, or disoriented, a divisive identity can feel like oxygen.
It gives suffering a cause.
It gives anger a direction.
It gives fear a mask called “clarity.”
This is why such movements often describe themselves as awakenings.
“You were asleep.”
“Now you see.”
But what’s usually being offered isn’t truth.
It’s a story that reduces complexity.
And reduction feels safe when uncertainty feels unbearable.
What My Grandfather Taught Me Instead
My grandfather’s version of “being a man” didn’t offer relief through blame.
It offered something harder:
- If you’re afraid, admit it
- If you’re wrong, own it
- If you’re avoiding something, face it
- If you want respect, be trustworthy
- If you want strength, stop lying to yourself
This doesn’t create a movement.
It creates a person.
And it’s worth noticing how little space this orientation occupies in modern masculinity discourse—especially when resentment feels easier than responsibility.
Identity as a Shortcut Around Self-Honesty
One of the least examined functions of identity is how effectively it can bypass self-examination.
If I’m “red-pilled,” my bitterness becomes realism.
If I’m “traditional,” my fear of vulnerability becomes values.
If I’m “strong,” my avoidance of pain becomes discipline.
Identity gives emotional avoidance a uniform.
And this is why divisive identities are so corrosive: they allow people to feel justified while remaining unconscious.
In Proof That You’re God, this mechanism is distilled into a single, disarming question:
“Who are you when you stop telling yourself who you are?”
That question isn’t philosophical decoration.
It dismantles the structure identity is propping up.
The Red Pill as an Identity Machine
Strip away the internet aesthetics and much of the “red pill” ecosystem functions like an identity factory.
It supplies:
- a shared language
- a shared enemy
- a ready-made explanation for every relational failure
That’s the tell.
When every experience fits neatly into the same story, the story can’t afford to be wrong.
And if questioning the story threatens coherence, the story becomes sacred.
But coherence is not clarity.
Sometimes coherence is just a well-organized defense.
When Identity Hardens, Integrity Softens
When identity hardens, integrity quietly slips into the background.
Not because people stop caring about values—but because values get replaced by narratives.
Responsibility turns into blame.
Strength turns into posture.
Honesty turns into allegiance.
At that point, the question is no longer “How am I living?”
It becomes “Which side am I on?”
And once that shift happens, character no longer leads.
Identity does.
What my grandfather was pointing to had nothing to do with sides.
It had everything to do with how you show up when no one is watching.
What Happens When Gender Becomes the Main Thing
When masculinity is defined primarily in opposition to femininity, the conversation collapses into comparison.
Instead of asking:
- “Am I honest?”
- “Am I reliable?”
- “Am I facing my fears?”
We start asking:
- “Who has it worse?”
- “Who’s winning?”
- “Who’s to blame?”
These questions don’t build character.
They build factions.
And factions always require fuel.
The Addiction to Blame
Divisive identities always need a villain.
And blame, while emotionally satisfying, is corrosive.
It reduces people to symbols.
It interprets individuals through ideology.
It replaces encounter with projection.
When women become “hypergamous,” “manipulative,” “the enemy,” or “the problem,” relationship disappears.
What remains is theory.
And theory is far easier than presence.
Strength Versus Posture
One of the quiet tragedies of modern masculinity culture is the confusion of strength with performance.
Posture says:
- “I’m unaffected.”
- “I don’t need anyone.”
- “I’m above this.”
Strength says:
- “I can stay present.”
- “I can be honest.”
- “I can face what’s uncomfortable without outsourcing it.”
Posture is armor.
Strength is availability.
My grandfather didn’t perform masculinity.
He embodied reliability.
You didn’t need him to say anything.
You could feel it.
Integrity Is Genderless
Remove the labels and what remains is remarkably simple:
- Treat others as yourself
- Don’t lie
- Don’t run
- Don’t hide behind stories
- Take responsibility for what’s yours
That isn’t masculine.
It’s human.
And in a culture addicted to identity, choosing integrity over affiliation is quietly radical.
Because it refuses the frame entirely.
Beyond the Red Pill
Although this piece names one movement, the deeper issue isn’t any single ideology.
Divisive identity appears everywhere:
- politics
- spirituality
- morality
- relationships
- self-help
- even “awakening” itself
Anything can become toxic when it’s used to avoid uncertainty.
That’s the real danger—not the label, but the psychological function it serves.
As the book puts it:
“When we ask who we are, the mind answers with a role—hoping that if it can hold onto something, it won’t have to feel uncertainty.”
This is the trap.
Masculinity Without an Enemy
Imagine a masculinity that doesn’t require women to be wrong.
Imagine a strength that doesn’t depend on dominance.
Imagine a sense of self that doesn’t need a villain.
That’s what I grew up around.
Not perfection—just honesty.
And the older I get, the more convinced I am that what people are actually hungry for isn’t another identity.
It’s relief from wearing one.
A Closing Without a Conclusion
I don’t write this to dismantle anyone’s beliefs.
I write it because I’ve seen what happens when integrity is replaced by ideology.
I’ve seen responsibility traded for resentment.
Self-honesty traded for certainty.
Humanity traded for teams.
The clearest example of “being a man” I ever had didn’t teach me how to win a culture war.
He taught me how to live without hiding.
And in a world increasingly obsessed with identity, that might be the most radical inheritance of all.
If this resonates, Proof That You’re God explores these same mechanisms in greater depth—how identity forms, how it fractures, and how awareness restores something simpler beneath it. Not a better story. Just a more honest relationship with what’s already here.
