The Way of the Superior Man: A Spiritual Guide to Mastering the Challenges of Women, Work, and Sexual Desire
by David Deida
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Book Reviews of The Way of the Superior Man: A Spiritual Guide to Mastering the Challenges of Women, Work, and Sexual Desire
Book Review: Check out Baron-Cohen's "Essential Difference"
Summary: 1 Stars
A book about male-female differences that I would give five stars is "The Essential Difference" by Simon Baron-Cohen. Dr. Baron-Cohen, a psychologist at Cambridge University in England, crams his cutting-edge book full of supporting evidence drawn from multiple academic disciplines -- psychology, evolutionary biology, primatology, anthropology. He holds himself fully accountable for distinguishing facts from opinions and theories, and has the honesty and self-respect to admit there is much that he does not know. The book is written in a clear, concise and engaging style that synthesizes complex knowledge in a form accessible to lay readers.
I'm mentioning Baron-Cohen's book to provide a sharp contrast with Mr. Deida's book.
Usually, I only review five star books, but for once I'm inspired to write a one star review. I wanted to find merit in this book, which I chose to read after hearing a guy I respect mention the author several times. And I did find merit in it. I appreciated the author's forthrightness in asserting rather than camouflaging his true opinions, and I enjoyed his observations when they actually mirrored and validated some of my own experiences. Apart from the latter self-referential gratification, however, I found it impossible to evaluate whether David Deida knows what he's talking about.
First off - what are his credentials? His "About the Author" bio makes no mention of education or training, which gives me the impression that he'd rather not mention whatever it was. (According to a Google search, Deida was a follower of a sex-scandal-tainted guru "Da Free John"). Instead, his bio makes vague references in the passive voice, e.g., "Known worldwide" (by whom?) and hyperbolic superlatives, e.g., "one of the world's most insightful... spiritual teachers" (says who?) to lay claim to high authority.
And, yes, the voice of authority-from-on-high does resound throughout Mr. Deida's prose, which is loaded with his opinions stated as if they were universal facts. To me, a person who habitually states opinions as if they were facts is dishonestly manipulative -- or else unconsciously careless -- in his methods of persuasion.
Here's one example, from page 5-7: "people who have what I call a more balanced sexual essence, sexual polarity doesn't really matter. They don't really want much passion in intimacy... And for these people, this book will be irrelevant, possibly even offensive."
My questions start with: Who are these people and how does Deida know how ALL of them feel? Is he referring to white American middle class folks, or to all people in the world, or does this observation draw from the highly self-selecting sample of people Mr. Deida has happened to meet?
Another example of stating-opinions-as-facts is his essentialist claim, that "90% of people have either a more masculine or a more feminine sexual essence." On what factual basis can it be claimed that such a core essence exists? He never tells us, and I think such a claim can never be proved or disproved. Its value depends entirely on the value any given reader attributes to it, based on his/her experience. I, for one, felt gratified by and therefore "agreed with" aspects of Deida's book that matched my experience -- but this proves nothing about their validity as universal facts.
Here's another problem. Deida states that the book is "written explicitly for people who have already achieved respect for other genders and sexual preferences, and who consider men and women to be social, economic, and political equals."
The last time I checked on economic and political realities, men and women were not equals in either of those areas (except perhaps in Norway, where half the national legislators are women). Anyone who believes him/herself freed to "consider" men & women equal in these ways I think must be living a sheltered life, within a privileged enclave. How else could he feel free to ignore widespread, measurable realities outside that enclave? What kinds of people are free to arrogate to themselves the grandiose power to define reality according to idealized or mystical thoughts about how reality should be? (Such ignorance, I would argue, carries with it the terrible price of entrapment in a narcissistic bubble of self-reinforcing, self-serving beliefs, along with rejection of any information that might threaten those beliefs).
There are numerous other weaknesses I could describe. Several are redundant to points made in the other "one star" reviews. I'll end with this one: Deida's book borrows a grab-bag of tools and ideas taken from various Asian wisdom traditions - and he often simply presents these ideas as if they were his own! Occasionally, he'll hint that he's drawing on Hindu deities or Chinese medicinal concepts, but he also presents specific techniques invented by Tibetan Buddhists and Chi Gung masters -- and he makes no mention of these sources.
When I compare Deida's blatant cultural plagiarism to the 41 pages of rigorously documented references and bibliography in Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen's "The Essential Difference" I have no difficulty understanding which of the two authors can be trusted. Dr. Baron-Cohen, with substantive, fascinating, groundbreaking knowledge to share about male-female differences, is clearly "The Superior Man."
Book Review: 50's stereotypes dressed up as mystical insights
Summary: 2 Stars
in the introduction to this book, david deida repeats a lament we heard many times during the conservative cultural backlash of the late 1990s: men have become less men, while women have become more so. men have become wimpy and "sensitive" while women have become ball-busting dragon ladies. discontent sweeps our culture (by which Deida really means with white, upper class culture) because woman have lost touch with their femininity. anyone who takes an unbiased look at the steroetypes still prevalent in popular media, the incidence of gang violence, the growing machismo of corporate America, the continued sexualization of women (esp. teenage girls) and a myriad of other cultural phenomena, will see the hollowness of Deida's claim. Deida has taken the same stereotypes we have had for the last hundred years -- women are receptive, sensitive, and need to be lead; men are cold, aloof, and purpose driven -- and fleshed them out, dressed them up with spiritual lingo and self-righteousness, and sold the package as something new.
at the heart of his argument is (groan) another invocation of tantra and the Shiva-Shakti duality. you know, women represent unfolding manifestation and men represent the inner purposeful core of identity. by claiming that there's a spiritual component to the sexual dynamic, Deida tries to obscure the fact that this binary is inherently unequal. the idea that women are essentially womanly and have the right to be women is hardly new -- it was the battlecry of the feminist movement of the 1850s. later feminists realized that the ideas of what constituted the feminine -- much like the shiva-shakti binary -- came into being in a patriarchal culture. these ideas are inherently disempowering, justify male dominance, and ought to be subject to the utmost scrutiny.
sexual identity is one of the most contentious and complicated subjects in modern culture. the feminist, queer and postmodernist movements have throughoughly deconstructed our sexual stereotypes, yet the stereotypes themselves remain, and even, as Deida mentions, show up in such unlikely places as the gay male community. and while they are insightful, the critiques of feminist postmodernist gender theorists fail to account for the biological and energetic components of sexuality.
as Freud originally showed, gender lies at the heart of our personalities and our views on gender penetrate every aspect of our life. how we feel about being men or women is the most fundamental part of our personalities, one which can lead us to make or break ourselves in society. changing our concepts of gender can completely transform our understanding of ourselves and of the world around us.
hopefully one day someone will undertake a truly insightful, psychoanalytic investigation into male and female sexual energy, social and historical gender constructs, and their relatioship to the complicated forms of gender coming into being in our society.
alas, that's not what you will find here. but if you're looking for a quasi-spiritual pretext for perpetuating patriarchal steroetypes, this book will hit the spot.
I gave this book two stars simply because Deida is an intelligent person and provides an example of how we can subject our sexual relationships to intelligent scrutiny, even if the product of his invetigation says far more about his biases and hang-ups than it does the subject at hand.
I'd like to make one last remark about Deida's "sexual advice." people have been trying to prove -- literally for millenia -- that ejaculation is harmful to men. despite the constant efforts of ayurvedic practitioners, Freudian psychologists and the Catholic church, no one has ever come up with a shred of evidence. actually, impeding ejaculation can be very harmful, as the ejaculate can be accidentally discharged into the urinary bladder and lead to infections. this practice was once considered an "advanced yogic technique."
so what about the claim that your masculinity and effectiveness will be subtly diminished after ejaculation? there's actual an everyday word for that feeling of being somehow slightly less worthy, slightly less powerful, slightly less of a man. it's called "shame." our culture places such a heavy stigma on ejaculation that few men can experience it without a twinge of guilt.
Deida has put the horse ahead of the carriage here, just as he does when he argues that male and female gender roles among homosexuals prove that gender stereotypes are a natural phenomena. homsexuals form gendered relationships because they grew up in a society obsessed with gender roles. likewise, men feel ashamed about ejaculating because society stigmatizes ejaculation. the argument that society stigmatizes ejaculation because it produces weaker men has been disproven over and over -- because ejaculation simply isn't bad for you. the fact that he recommends we avoid this feeling of shame by supressing a perfectly natural outcome to the sex act suggests he has not fully come to terms with his own masculinity.
Book Review: Difficult concepts for some...
Summary: 5 Stars
Here's some of the chapter headings in this book:
She Wants the "Killer" In You
Turn Your Lust Into Gifts
Use Her Attractiveness As A Slingshot Through Appearance
Don't Force The Feminine To Make Decisions
You Will Often Want More Than One Woman
Each Woman Has a "Temperature" That Can Heal Or Irritate You
Controversial stuff, huh? The concepts in this book are difficult for many people who were children in the seventies. You didn't have to be raised by hippies to have been exposed to the egalitarian mood of that age. Some boys were given dolls. Some girls were given toy guns. Almost all had equality preached to them.
"Boys - there's nothing wrong with you being nurturing."
"Girls - you can be warriors."
In my case we had sex ed. every year from third grade until the last year of high school. We spent a long time on the concept that anyone can be or do anything he or she wants to be or do.
Preachers of equality weren't wrong. Many women have served well in the military. Many men have served well as the primary caregivers in their family.
None of that should take away from the fundamental truth: men and women ARE different. The reactions of the seventies were due to a lack of respect and understanding being accorded to one sex and these reactions weren't just about sex it was also about race too. As a society, we've improved.
Still, given that conditioning, many of the concepts in this book are perceived as offensive. Just look at some of the other reviews.
Male and female ARE opposite. One of Deida's main points is that men are driven by a sense of mission while a woman's search for love touches her core. The book helps one explore these concepts and what they mean to an individual. It's a classic in the sense that, as you live, you get something new out of it every time you read it because you start to realize more about yourself and others.
The way I best understood what truth Deida was leading his reader to is to think about what terms and in what way people criticize others. A man without a sense of mission is characterized as someone who's wishy-washy, weak and ungrounded. A woman without a sense of mission isn't vilified in those same terms (unless she's in a leadership position). It's a bad for members of both sexes to be perceived as wishy-washy but most would say a man is criticized more roundly.
What about an unloving woman? She's called cold, harsh - a bitch! An unloving man isn't excoriated that way. People are more likely to say he's misunderstood.
These truths are not self-evident. Men and women don't think and aren't gratified by the same things. Keeping in mind the differences can immeasurably improve one's romantic life and work life. It can prevent divorce or get you married to the right person. The importance of the wisdom in this book cannot be understated - it deserves not one reading but many.
Book Review: Your interpretation will come from your personal consciousness
Summary: 5 Stars
Yes, some people find his direct use of certain words & phrases offensive (potentially to woman holding a certain point of view)...
However, if your heart & mindset while reading come from a place of LOVE, then you will realize David shares from a purer source regarding the "ying & yang" within such. When you come from a place of love and understanding, the principles within this book resonate a connection to the masculine's deepest source - without any negative connotations of control or misuse. If you come from a stagnant diagnostic standpoint, or from a consciousness of reckless advancement, then this book will manifest completely different results and opinion.
To truly love, from your depth while upon your purpose, is what makes a man. The "wimp", a stereotype so many people in the reviews have complained about, has become the majority of the males in our society.. those boys giving into to social constraints and material wants without truly living from their deepest passion & purpose in this life.
In terms of masculine & feminine energy, we have no question become de-polarized as a society! You can see it all around us. The question isn't about what roles or careers we choose as men & women, but how we live them out - amongst social rules or expectations, with our lovers, friends, family, all the while cautiously strapped to the fears & walls we create within. There is so much research on this topic resulting from studies in demographics, divorce rates, the history of social & political seasons, men becoming more metro, women becoming overly independent & closed off, etc, that those who say David isn't founded are only correct in the point that he doesn't list enough references and credentials. (BTW, credentials are B.S.! Give me someone with credentials you find impressive, and I'll show you 10 write ups of people with half the education or experience with even more rock solid bios or "achievements")
MOST IMPORTANTLY-
This book is not about one sex being more superior or stronger than the other, yet instead a guide for men (or those individuals with a masculine core) to reopen their deepest power and resonate in all of their glory. IN TURN, through love, purpose, passion and understanding of these principles, his loving feminine partner will also be able to truly open her deepest core as she will no longer require to make up for the lack in her life.
My beautiful, spontaneous, ever flowing, and ever open girlfriend & I have BOTH read this book. Our relationship and lives will never be the same! We now communicate and hold each other in more respect while upholding the depth of our deepest desires... it has launched us through the stratosphere in passion, understanding, and love for each other and ourselves.
For those who ask "superior to what?.. the thought of being superior is offensive"... I SAY BE SUPERIOR TO YOURSELF! A superior man challenges himself and doesn't worry about what the rest think, do, or compare.
Book Review: This book will turn a man into a whipped sissy
Summary: 1 Stars
The title of this book first caught my eye. However, once I read this book, I found out that "The Way of the Superior Man" is nothing more than a man giving other men terribly wrong advice on how to behave toward the opposite gender.
David tells men to be kind, loving, supportive, gentle, and caring toward women. He believes men should cater to a woman's every need and always be there for them. That's fine and dandy in an alternate world but here in the 21st century United States, those nice guy tactics will either get a man nowhere or lead him to a broken heart.
Basically, David is telling men to play the "nice guy" role. The terrible truth is if you follow this book's advice and compliment women, then the women will think along the lines of "Wow if he thinks I'm hot, imagine the hotter guys I can attract." This is mainly a problem in the western world. Nice guys are seen as the losers and jerks the winners. David wants men to continue to be meek losers.
It is very ironic that women want to be dominated in a relationship yet they complain that men don't respect them. Women truly are their own worst enemies.
If this book is helpful to anyone at all, it will be to men who are middle-aged or older. This is because women only want nice guys after the women themselves are past their prime. When women are no longer hot and have been around the block more times than the Good Humor man, then they go after the nice guy. Then they suddenly want respect after living the life of a morally bankrupt, high-maintenance, gold-digging tramp.
It is sad to admit the fact that most women, especially American women, possess a ridiculous sense of entitlement. Yet, besides their bodies, these shallow women have nothing else to offer anyone. Most young women today do not even know how to cook a meal, clean a room in a house, or do laundry. They are merely gold-digging psychotics.
Unfortunately, the only way for a man to succeed in modern relationships in the United States is to jettison all of the advice given in this book.
A man must then become "a player" because the player game is the complete opposite of being a nice guy. Yet all its tactics of being glib, superficial and saying whatever a woman wants to hear to get her to date him absolutely WORKS. Being a nice guy who gives and has his kindness reciprocated by a woman is how things should be but women only get turned on if you play a lying, manipulative trash-talking snake character with them.
Though not all women are like this, for the VAST majority, this is so true and it's almost nauseating.
The minority of American women who are attracted to nice guys, have good personalities, and are half-way intelligent or talented are ugly women. And this is because they have to make up for how unattractive they are. If a girl in a bar asks you to buy her a drink, get her a glass of water.