The Commander on the ground makes the final decision, or why older men and established communities think younger men and new comers are stupid and haven’t a clue of what they are talking about.

In World War One but especially World War Two, one of the things the German army did that was revolutionary was that high command would make a mission with certain objectives and then assign this mission to a unit. The commander of the unit, the subordinate to the high command was then free to accomplish the mission in any way he felt necessary. The rationale was that the commander on the ground had superior tactical knowledge of a mission than high command and therefore was well equipped to make changes in the plan in response to the change conditions on the ground. The high command accepted the fact that the best laid plans often fall apart and the best way to work around that was to let the commander on the ground change the modus operandi to fit the current tactical situation instead of rigidly following a plan and guide lines set by higher.

Other armies that were slow to adopt this line of thinking and operating had trouble reacting to the ever changing conditions of the battlefield. Commanders who were competent but did not always follow orders to accomplish missions often got court martialed and their careers stalled, hampering their ability to positively affect the war effort on their nation’s behalf. Commanders who were known for rigidly following rules often got their men killed when they could adapt to the ever changing tactics and strategy of the enemy.

Sometimes older men, jaded through experience, are quick to dismiss the ideas of younger men who seek their guidance because they feel like they know the answer already and that there is no other way to arrive at the same answer. Sometimes they dismiss the younger men as stupid for not seeing the answer like they do, because it is so blindingly obvious and “How can you not see what the answer is?”

Often the same issue is parallel in established communities where new comers are trying to break ground. One of the examples that most comes to my mind are scientific communities like the ones that revolve around physics or anthropology. Often they dismiss newcomers as too inexperienced to make any observation worth a damn or just plain crazy.

Usually the issue is that the older party or established community, having so much knowledge and experience in store, comes to conclusions pretty fast. Just like a boxer who can perform his combos faster and faster due to practice or can recognize the moves his opponent is using, fast enough to counter them, an older man or established organization uses all of their data points to come to conclusions and find answers pretty fast. Most of the time, this is a good thing. Sometimes, though, it prevents the older party or community from learning something new. Maybe the kid actually has something worthwhile to say. Maybe the up and coming anthropologist’s new theory actually has a lot going for it. Of course nobody would know unless they stopped to think that maybe they don’t have all of the data points and maybe they might learn something. It certainly doesn’t hurt to listen to all of new idea’s arguments, if not to only be surer of its usefulness or lack of it as opposed to making a snap judgment. It is important to keep your mind open so that you do not discourage younger people or new comers from forming their own opinions and bringing them to you.

The worst case is that they’ll tell you you’re full of shit and take their ideas elsewhere and learn things the hard way.

My father, despite his abundance of experience, does not belittle any ideas or suggestions I make and does not answer any stupid questions of mine as if it were a burden to do so. Sometimes he may think he’s a little forceful in debate, but he’s usually good about acknowledging the fact and apologizing if he thinks he has gone too far (he’s never actually apologized, but I did catch him explaining how he was tired and therefore his method of debate was little less diplomatic than usual and that he was not mad at me). Consequently, I seek out his advice often and pay attention even when I think his answer is off the mark.

My brother on the other hand does not do the same. He has gained lots of experience like my father and has done relatively well for himself. However, his attitude is different when offering answers to questions or advice. While he’s nice enough over the phone or through email, in person, his arrogance is corrosive. Every now and then I ask him questions and he’ll oftentimes sigh as if he is carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Then he answers my questions as if I’m the stupidest person in the world for asking those questions. Or he’ll ask me to do so something for him and when I do it wrong or don’t understand what is asked of me, he’ll look at me as if I’m a retarded monkey capable of little more than eating bananas and slinging poop. And then he’ll tell me how I’m stupid and doing it wrong in a disappointed tone. This makes me dislike asking him questions. He just sounds like a pri-madonna douche bag who gets annoyed that he has to help me out or explain things to me. Sure he has more experience living life than I do, but not nearly enough like my Dad to warrant his attitude.

One time when I drove with him over 1,000 miles to keep him company on the way to see the birth of his first born son, I talked with him about a girl I was involved with. At the time I was started develop heavy feelings for her as she had already told me “I love you” plenty of times and I thought that maybe she might be sincere after all. My brother tore that idea apart with how it would end miserably because I wouldn’t see her for 18 months if I went to the service academy that I desired. When I told him about how I made her make me a sandwich and blow me while I ate it because she was “being too much of a woman” he told me that I was abusing her. He thought I hated women. I was appalled. How could he say I was abusing her? It’s one thing if beat her and forced her to make the sandwich, but to come to that conclusion? Just like that? He didn’t even stop to be on my side for a minute because I’m his brother? Or congratulate me on it? What? I hate women now?

The irony is that my brother once taught me that I should let what people say about or to me get to me. If some drunkard on the street told me, “I fucked your mom last night” I wouldn’t care. He doesn’t know me, or my mom, and probably didn’t fuck her. But to hear these sorts of comments from my brother blew me away. In ninth grade my brother once told me that I could ask him anything about girls, especially about how to have sex because he had no shame in discussing such matters and I was his little brother, dammit. Now the thought of asking my brother for any advice towards girls repulses me.

Later I learned that my brother acted the way he did as he was feeling guilty of some his own personal demons. I still don’t think he should have projected his bad behavior and morals regarding such on me but I largely forgive him for it. When I brought up the issue to my Dad, he explained to me that my brother had a hard time imagining that when I think of wrong answer, I come up with it, because at my age it makes sense and I don’t know any better. He will learn in time with his son that young people ask a ton of stupid questions and he’ll mellow out on giving advice. I certainly hope so.

~Wald

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, or why younger men sometimes totally disregard the advice of their older peers.

I’ve known this cliché for a long time, even at a younger age. For the longest time I thought that this cliché was one of empowerment in that, if you have even a little knowledge you could be capable or dangerous to others. Through conversation with my father I learned that I didn’t have the complete answer.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing means that though one may know something, one does not know what one doesn’t know and make faulty decisions based on a the three data points when one should make a decision based on twenty. That is to say, if someone has a small knowledge of martial arts, he should not assume that he is therefore a kung fu master and start getting into fights. Sure, he might beat up a few guys who don’t know anything about fighting, but should he come up against someone with medium experience he’ll lose bad.

This cliché is especially applicable to younger men like myself. Often we learn a few things in a field of interest and we jump to many conclusions. Maybe we even accrue some experience that supports our grand total of five data points in head. Often we get to the point where we’re so confident in our expertise that we ignore the advice of our older peers who are trying to help because we think what we’re doing “makes sense” and “it’s worked before”. Of course, the guy trying to help us out is working with fifty data points and sees exactly where we’re going wrong and even explains it to us and still we ignore him only to learn the hard way that he was right all along.

This has happened to me plenty of times concerning advice with my Dad. This happens to plenty of younger guys just starting out in the game when their culturally ingrained beta advice wins out against the advice they get from their player friends or experienced mentors. This has also happened to me more times than I’d like to admit. It is all well and fine to learn by trial and error, and young men certainly have the time to learn from their mistakes. Often being young is the perfect time to learn from your mistakes because the consequences are relatively small. I mean, compare heart-break, writing love poems, and whining to anyone who will listen about how you fucked up to getting raped in divorce court, losing your kids, your lover, and tons of money in asset division; child support payments, and alimony. Learning from your mistakes at a young age beats the shit out of doing the same when you’re older.

But there’s another way to learn that’s faster and less painful. It’s called learning from the mistakes of others and taking the advice of others. I’ve had good relations with my parents and have stayed out of a lot of trouble because I saw, or rather, heard what happened to my siblings when they misbehaved. The screams that echoed through the walls and throughout the house were effective in convincing me to pay attention to what they did and not repeat it! My siblings often thought I didn’t get spanked enough. I laughed and thanked them for being stupid for me. For the longest time I didn’t learn from other people’s mistakes regarding girls. But when I started to, I avoided a lot of pitfalls. Sure, I occasionally have an episode where I’m headstrong or my feelings get the best of me, but I learn so much more this way than just learning from my mistakes. This is not say that I don’t also learn from trial and error, I do both. I attribute following my father’s advice to a lot of success in my life.

How do I do this? I accept that my Dad has seen and done a hell of lot more than I have and pay attention to his advice. It helps that I’ve naturally preferred his company to my mom’s since around fourteen years of age and have had plenty of time to pick his brain when we’d go shoot sporting clays for the last four years. I learned what Emotional Quotient or EQ is, when to recognize that mine was low, and how to deal with it so that my emotions don’t control my life (or affect my shooting!). All I have to do is look at how successful my Dad is, what good health he is for his age and then the quality of his advice is self-evident.

I don’t only take advice from my Dad. I take advice from what I read on various blogs in the manosphere. Somethings I have to take with a grain of salt of course, because it’s the internet. Usually I read something, keep it at the back of my head, and quietly evaluate whether it is true or useful or not based on my own experiences. I don’t take advice from just anyone, however, I take advice from people who I have reason to think know more about a subject than I do. And I keep taking their advice until they prove otherwise.

~Wald