Nathan Alberson of Warhorn Media has made some surprising claims in the discussion of his podcast. When I responded to his description of the podcast with disappointment that he had chosen to avoid focusing on ideas and instead point and shriek, Nathan accused me of doing exactly what he expected me to do:
One of his readers asked why he made this charge, and asked if there was further history he should know of. I’m not sure if Nathan’s next comment was in direct response to that question or not, but Nathan then claimed that we never set out to have a back and forth discussion via email:
What Nathan is saying here simply isn’t true. Nathan approached me via a comment on the blog some time around the second week of January, explaining that he was with Warhorn Media, the site that Pastory Bayly is on. He wanted to know how to contact me. On January 12th I sent him the following email titled “What can I do for you?”:
Dal Rock [redacted]
Jan 12, 2019, 11:12 PMto nathanalberson
Hi Nathan,I recieved your message. What can I do for you?
Best Regards,
Dalrock
Nathan replied:
Nathan Alberson [redacted]
Jan 14, 2019, 12:02 PM
to me
Hi,We’re putting together an episode of our podcast Sound of Sanity on Red Pill, Game, MGTOW, all that good stuff. I wanted to see if you would consent to a phone interview sometime in the near future. I’d like to get as clear an articulation of your views as I can, and present it to the world. The questions would be quite simple (I prefer simple questions that allow for more elaborate answers, as needed):
1. Who are you and why do you talk about the things you talk about?
2. What are the problems facing men today?
3. How do you address these problems on your website and in your writing?
4.. What does a man need to do to live a satisfying and productive life in today’s culture?
5. What does a woman need to do to live a satisfying and productive life in today’s culture?
6. How do these answers relate to God and the Bible?
7. Define red pill. Define game. Define MGTOW. How do these things relate to your work?Full disclosure: as you probably know, we don’t agree on everything. If I’m not mistaken, you see the work of my pastor and others like him as somehow undercutting the concept of female moral agency. I see your work as needlessly undercutting male responsibility in the name of establishing female moral agency.
The podcast may ultimately reflect these differences, but I’d like to give you a fair chance to say your piece. This won’t be “gotcha journalism.” Actually, in that spirit, I’ll warn you about the potential “gotchas” right now:
I would like to press you a bit on the misogynists that work like yours seems to attract. I’ve seen more than one commenter in your archives say that a woman needs a good old fashioned spanking. I see in your “comments policy” you ask people to refrain from discussing marital corporal punishment. It seems to me that if you have to ask people to refrain from that topic, you may be attracting the wrong sort of people. I’d like to ask you frankly about that and let you answer however you choose.
I hope that sounds amenable to you.
Thanks,
Nathan
I declined Nathan’s offer, and suggested that Rollo might be interested, and also suggested that I might answer his questions in writing. Here is my full reply to Nathan:
Dal Rock [redacted]
Mon, Jan 14, 3:00 PM
to Nathan
Hi Nathan,I very much appreciate the spirit that you are engaging with. I will decline, because podcast isn’t my medium. Rollo Tomassi has been asking me to do the same for some time now. Incidentally, he might be open to a joint podcast with you.
With that said, your questions are good. I’m not sure I will have answers that do all of them justice, but if you are interested we might still cover the same material in a written format. If you are interested let me know. We could keep it very simple and I could respond to your questions and comments in your email in a post.
Nathan replied:
Nathan Alberson [redacted]
Mon, Jan 14, 7:58 PMto me
Yes, I would very much appreciate a response to my questions in written form, in an email or a post or however you see fit. As I said, we will be using them in a podcast.I’ve expanded the questions a bit since this will be the brunt of our exchange. Thanks in advance!
1. Who are you and why do you talk about the things you talk about? How did you get into it? Why do you chose to do it pseudonymously? (I assume Dal Rock is a pseudonym; if I’m being presumptuous there please forgive me.)
2. What are the problems facing men today?
3. How do you address these problems on your website and in your writing?
4. What does a man need to do to live a satisfying and productive life in today’s culture?
5. What does a woman need to do to live a satisfying and productive life in today’s culture?
6. How do these answers relate to God and the Bible?
7. Define red pill, game, and MGTOW. How do these things relate to your work? Or do they? What do people need to understand about them? What label would you give yourself?
8. I’ve seen more than one commenter in your archives say that a woman needs a good old fashioned spanking (or words to that effect). I see in your “comments policy” you ask people to refrain from discussing marital corporal punishment. I have several questions about that. First (just to get it out of the way): do you or any of your more serious followers support marital corporal punishment? Why or why not?
9. Related to question 8, does work like yours attract misogynists? Why or why not? If so, is there anything that can be done to avoid it? If not, is there something an outsider like me isn’t understanding about the people that it does attract? Is it fair for me to ask the spanking question and the misogyny questions right next to each other? Are my biases making me see misogyny (for example, in the wife spanking crowd) where I should see something else? If so, what am I (and others like me) missing?
I hope those questions (particularly 8 and 9) don’t seem leading. I’d like to sincerely understand and present your point of view, even where our camp diverges.Cordially,
Nathan
I responded proposing that we have a discussion via email which I would then turn into a series of posts and he could use for his podcast. This would be more work for me than simply writing a series of posts, but I offered it because I believed that part of what Nathan wanted for the podcast was to have a back and forth exchange.
Dal Rock [redacted]
Jan 15, 2019, 11:34 AM
to Nathan
Yes, I would very much appreciate a response to my questions in written form, in an email or a post or however you see fit. As I said, we will be using them in a podcast.
Lets at least start via email, and if we find it takes too much time we can reconsider and I’ll respond to any remaining items in post form. But this way we get some of the back and forth that I think you are looking for. This should give you good content for your podcast, and I’ll find a way to format/edit it suitable for a blog post (or posts). Larry Kummer and I did something similar back in November, although we only considered sharing the discussion once we were already knee deep.
I’ll grab a question or two at a time and send you a separate email on each. This way we can parallel process the discussion and it should make it (somewhat) less difficult to track by topic. I’ll probably be inconsistent in the timing of my responses due to my schedule, etc. but I’m ok with that (for you as well) so long as you are.
Nathan accepted my proposal:
Nathan Alberson [redacted]
Tue, Jan 15, 11:42 AMto me
Sounds great. I look forward to your responses. You have my questions, so you can get us started. Thanks again!
As you can see, when Nathan claims we never set out to have a back and forth exchange, this isn’t true. I proposed exactly that, and he accepted my proposal. It was only part way into the process that Nathan started pushing back on offering responses, first asking to delay his responses, and eventually stating that he would save all responses for the podcast. If I had known this upfront I would still have answered his questions, but I would have saved a great deal of time by simply writing my responses as posts.
This morning Nathan sent me the following message advising me that the podcast was now up:
Nathan Alberson
7:29 AM (11 hours ago)
to me
Our podcast came out today: https://simplecast.com/s/793c8cb6It’s brutal, as you’ll see. But after much thought and prayer, we decided what you’re doing is not just misguided but harmful, and we wanted to inoculate people against it.
I hope you don’t think yourself ill-used. I did ask the questions in good faith, despite what your followers say about me. And then we took a long time to weigh our options and craft a response.
And I hope you consider seriously what we say in the podcast. I hope you stop or radically change your method of operation. I hope you really are the considerate and thoughtful man you present yourself as.
I have my doubts, for the reasons enumerated in the podcast. And because your followers are thoroughly nasty people. The way they treated me in the comments was without charity, dignity, or kindness. Yes, I’m generalizing. And no, I’m not personally offended. But I do want you to see that, no matter how reasonably you present yourself, a man like me is not going to take you seriously. Not with a rabble like that validating you.
So consider this a personal exhortation: drop the pseudonym, and place yourself under the authority of men who can discipline what your write and help you discipline your followers. That or get out of the business altogether.
Your followers who validate you are are not really loving you.
I am.
Sincerely,
Nathan
For the record I never expected the podcast to be friendly to my ideas. I also didn’t expect to win Nathan, Bayly, and the others over in the exchange, although I did my best to answer as persuasively as I could. But I did expect Nathan to honor the original agreement of a back and forth exchange of ideas via email. When he backed out of that mid process I continued and tried to frame it as kindly in my posts as I could, but I was disappointed. I wasn’t going to make an issue out of it, but now that Nathan is stating we never set out to have such an exchange I want to clarify that it is not true. I also expected Nathan to do as he originally promised:
I’d like to get as clear an articulation of your views as I can, and present it to the world.
…
The podcast may ultimately reflect these differences, but I’d like to give you a fair chance to say your piece. This won’t be “gotcha journalism.”
…
I’d like to sincerely understand and present your point of view, even where our camp diverges.
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