The Way of the Superior Man (1997) is a self-help text and a popular manosphere book mixing spiritualism with relationship and sex advice.
In this review, we’ll break down what it gets right and where it fails for ambitious and high-value men.
Takeaways
- Embrace your masculine energy (or feminine energy if you are a woman)
- Find your purpose: respect everyone, but follow your purpose first (and before her)
- Don’t wait for a future moment to be happy: your moment to embrace is always now
Notes
About the Author:
Born as David Greenberg, David changed his surname to Deida.
His biography seems a mix of medical background with more ascetic practices, such as developing yoga techniques for intimate relationships.
Find Your Life’s Purpose
David Deida recommends that you find a WHY for your existence.
He recommends you go to a quiet place and think. Think about who you are, what’s important to you, and where you want to go. Do it for as long as it takes until you find your purpose.
He says that your woman will test you to see if you found your WHY and if you are serious about it. She wants to know that you can stay the course and she doesn’t want to be your first priority in life.
She will also prod you and test you to see that your happiness does not depend fully on her and that all your eggs are not solely in her basket. But deep down, she wants to relax and let herself in your direction and leadership.
Put Your Purpose First
Deida writes:
Admit to yourself that if you had to choose (..) the perfect intimate relationship or achieving your highest purpose in life, you would choose (..) your purpose.
(…)
TPM Note: This is only true for men who can reliably get women
Men can only reach this point when they can reliably get women. Otherwise, he’s only lying to himself because deep down, evolution always prioritizes reproduction. Reproduction is the main ‘purpose’ of life.
Embrace Your Masculine Energy: Polarization Attracts
Deida’s book is heavily based on the male and female energy of the yin and yang philosophy.
Both men and women have both male and female energy within them. But for a harmonious, passionate, and successful relationship there has to be a balance where the man embraces his masculine energy and the woman embraces her feminine energy.
When neither gender embraces their gender-specific energy, the relationship lacks passion. When one gender is not embracing their energy, the other partner is forced to make up for it.
A man who does not embrace his masculine energy is forcing the woman to act more like a man.
And a man who embraces his masculine energy allows the woman to celebrate her femininity.
Deida says:
If he spends more time in the mirror and his own radiance and life force makes him happier than his woman she will be upset (..)
If he spends more time combing his air than he spends receiving radiance, then there is no polarity.
TPM Note: There is no ‘energy’, only hormones and behaviors. And exceptions apply in seduction
Narcissistic men and more feminine men can be very successful with women. Just listen to the song “You’re so vain” and you will hear a woman who fell desperately in love with a narcissist who was all about his own image.
Also see: “archetypes of lovers“.
Read more on masculinity:
- Masculinity: the science
The Masculine Traits
You need to define your own masculine traits, but The Way of the Superior Man offers a few pointers:
- Lead the relationship
- Find a life purpose
- Live with integrity and honor
- Seeks freedom
- Faces his fears
Also, see more examples in “alpha male traits” and “how to be an alpha male“:
Embrace Her Drama (Don’t)
David Deida advises men to welcome their women’s drama, embracing it with love and a good spirit.
He says:
You can’t escape the tussle with the feminine.
Learn to find humor in the unending emotional drama the feminine seems to enjoy so much. The love that you magnify may realign her behavior, but your effort to fix her and your frustration never will
He must seek to understand what she really needs because women will rarely say what they actually need. And the vast majority of the time her turmoil stems from not feeling loved.
As most relationship books advise, Deida says you must listen to understand, not fix.
TPM Note: Low-power advice. And what if she’s a drama queen?
This is the OPPOSITE of putting one’s own mission first. Mission-first men have no time for her drama. Some women are also drama queens, and letting them control the drama faucet leads to toxic relationships.
See for example, borderline personality disorder, or bad personality matches with the anxious-avoidant trap.
See instead a different approach to handling relationship drama:
Women also use drama as a way to control men, or as a manipulative relationship game to acquire power, so I actually don’t recommend men to “embrace drama”.
For Real Passion: Let Go, Ravish Her
Deida writes:
When was the last time you really ravished your woman? That is, when was the last time you really “took” her, savagely, lovingly, with no inhibition whatsoever?
He makes fun of “neutral” loving:
If you want real passion, you need a ravisher and a ravishee; otherwise, you just have two buddies who decide to rub genitals in bed.
The female can do her part by letting go of her sense of direction to allow her partner to exercise direction (ie.: be the leader in bed).
Leverage Sexual Energy: Don’t Release
Deida puts it in his usual indirect prose, but in practice, it’s about delaying coitus.
He says:
Third level man walks away from her without consuming the desire
My Note: But also focus on yourself, sometimes
If you’re not ejaculating because you make it too much about her, then it’s not coming from a masculine, high-power place (read: No More Mr. Nice Guy). Otherwise, ravishing and releasing are not mutually exclusive of course-
Face Your Fears, Do Your Best (& Get Friends Who Do The Same)
Deida exhorts the readers to do their best in life, to go after their grand vision, and to be intolerant of mediocrity.
Men should have friends who do the same and who help and push each other. With love and caring, our friends should hold us to our highest standards and nudge us towards facing our fears and pushing our limits.
CRITICISM
Woo-Woo Content… And It’s Not Masculine
There are obvious differences between genders, but Deida’s take doesn’t go much beyond woo-woo-sounding ‘energies’.
I quote the authoritative Cambridge Handbook on Sexual Behavior:
Looking at selected pop psychology books and ancient civilizations is not the best way to understand the differences and similarities between men and women – instead, we need to turn to scientific evidence
At times, it’s plain untrue.
Deida says that ‘variety is feminine’, but instead it’s men who enjoy more sexual variety and score higher on thrill-seeking.
Even “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus” was superior in its stereotypes and generalizations.
Unfounded Conclusions: Sexual Chemistry = Bad Relationships?
The author says that the woman who most turns you on sexually will turn you off for the rest of your life.
I’d like to know based on what does he say that.
So, for a happy relationship, in Deida’s words, one should pair up with partners whom they don’t find sexually attractive.
Accepting Drama Is For Inferior Men
Men shouldn’t “embrace drama” unless they enjoy it. And I don’t believe that “the love you magnify may realign her behavior”.
That’s not effective advice for men who wish to retain masculinity, power, and leadership.
Deida’s advice sounds like over-investing jester behavior, reacting to her frame:
A superior man sees his woman’s moods not as a curse, but as a challenge and an amusement.
There are many ways to creatively deal with her moods and help her to open. Tickle her. Take off your clothes and dance the watusi. Sing opera for her. Make animal sounds. Shout at her louder than you ever have and then kiss her passionately. Press your belly into her until she melts. Lift her off the ground and spin her around. Occasionally, talking with her helps, but not as often as humor and physically expressed love
In truth, evolutionary and power dynamics principles related to social investment suggest that it’s lower-value men who invest more and work twice as hard.
Convoluted Gospel: Poetry vs. Actual Advice
Deida went in between a self-help book and a poem.
Here’s an example:
Her gift is to test you with her darkest moods, over and over and over, until your consciousness is unperturbed by feminine challenge, and you are able to pervade her with your love, just as you are here to pervade the world. In response to your fearless consciousness, she will drench your world in love and light.
While some men may find this speaks to them, more rational men may find this is the opposite of masculine clarity and logic. To some, it sounds low-power, passive, and cringe.
Review
The Way of the Superior Man offers a new age and spiritual approach to masculinity and relationships, but it under-delivers when it comes to actual advice and strategies to remain a strong relationship leader.
Some concepts are profound and some others are valid, like ‘ravishing’ and getting in touch with one’s own disinhibited, animalistic side.
But large parts of the book feel like a mumble jumbo of gender generalizations and watered-down manosphere wisdom packaged in new-age poetry.
Check the:
Once you’re ready to move past woo-woo and into actual strategies and behaviors of high-agency men that will give you status, respect, and attraction, go here:
Lovely work
Thank you Mike!