Nikola Tesla
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|---|---|
| Name: | Nikola Tesla |
| Date of Birth: | July 10, 1856 |
| Occupation: | Inventor, Physicist, Electrical Engineer |
| Ethnicity: | Serbian |
Some members of the incelosphere frame Nikola Tesla, a pioneering inventor and engineer, as a protocel, although some cybercels disagree and call him volcel given he stated about his celibacy as a choice sparked by his negative reaction to feminism rather than him describing anything as involuntary. He may be a better figurehead for, or an example of, "MGTOW".
Volceldom[edit | edit source]
He was interviewed at length by the Galveston Daily News in 1924,[1] with the interview focusing on the fact that he was unmarried, and his stated reasons for remaining so. The framing of the article clearly implied that he had chosen not to marry voluntarily, thus making him volcel, as stated in the introduction to the interview: "WHEN a man who has made a name for himself deliberately chooses to remain a bachelor the world is naturally curious to know what the reasons were that impelled him to this choice ... when some pre-eminent man shows a firm determination to sidestep it everybody wonders whether his superior intelligence has revealed to him some fatal defects in the institution of matrimony which are not apparent to the average person".
The reporter who conducted the interview stated, that it was his impression that Tesla perceived what he saw as the increasingly androgynous nature of the sexes as a "sure indication that our civilization is deteriorating". Telsa said that he has previously revered women, stating: "I worshiped at the feet of the creature I had raised to this height, and, like every true worshiper, I felt myself unworthy of the object of my worship." But his attitude towards the female gender had recently soured: "Now the soft-voiced gentle woman of my reverent worship has all but vanished. In her place has come the woman who thinks that her chief success in life lies in making herself as much as possible like man--in dress, voice and actions, in sports and achievements of every kind."
The writer of the article stated that it was likely that these opinions would prove controversial, and that that those opposed would likely dismiss them by attributing them to Tesla's eccentricity and frequent social isolation, writing: "Some who read them will urge that his view of womankind is distorted by the years he has spent in the laboratory, dealing with inanimate things and developing perhaps an abnormal shyness which acts as an insuperable barrier to marriage. Others will say that the very fact of his detachment from the ordinary routine of life makes him all the better qualified to point out its defects and to criticize the change for the worse which he believes new conditions have brought to womankind." He was also likely a believer in the idea of 'sexual transmutation' i.e. abstaining from sexual activities to increase productivity and insight.
I do not think you can name many great inventions that have been made by married men.
—Nikola Tesla
Predictions regarding then nascent feminism[edit | edit source]
Tesla made prescient comments concerning the increasingly gynocentric nature of Western society and human society in general, and he also observed and warned of growing male disposability: "Perhaps the male in human society is useless. I am frank to admit that I don't know. If women are beginning to feel this way about it--and there is striking evidence at hand that they do--then we are entering upon the cruelest period of the world's history.
"Our civilization will sink to a state like that which is found among the bees, ants and other insects--a state wherein the male is ruthlessly killed off. In this matriarchal empire which will be established the female rules. As the female predominates, the males are at her mercy. The male is considered important only as a factor in the general scheme of the continuity of life."
In a later interview in 1926, he correctly predicted that feminism would lead to declining birth-rates: "The acquisition of new fields of endeavor by women, their gradual usurpation of leadership, will dull and finally dissipate feminine sensibilities, will choke the maternal instinct, so that marriage and motherhood may become abhorrent and human civilization draw closer and closer to the perfect civilization of the bee." [2]
In the same interview, he again predicted that feminism would eventually lead to female dominance: "This struggle of the human female toward sex equality will end in a new sex order, with the female as superior. The modern woman, who anticipates in merely superficial phenomena the advancement of her sex, is but a surface symptom of something deeper and more potent fermenting in the bosom of the race."
This suggests that Tesla's views of women stemmed from a betrayed idealistic view of women, common among some traditionalists such as many self-proclaimed MGTOWS. But it can be argued that he was also very prescient in some of his more pessimistic predictions, that were concerned with what he predicted were the likely outcomes of the increasing dissemination and adoption of feminism.
Relations with Women[edit | edit source]
He had a strong hatred of fat people, particularly landwhales, that resulting in him firing one of his overweight female secretaries because of her weight.[3] He also claimed to have acquired his prodigious intellectual abilities primarily from his beloved mother, Đuka Tesla, who was also an inventor of sorts, and who was also known as a female guslar, or singer of epic Serbian poetry. This kind of poetry was concerned with historical themes, chiefly being focused on recounting the history of the Serbs' lengthy struggles against the Ottoman empire. As the recitation of these extremely lengthy poems (recitals could take days), required a titanic capacity for memorization, Tesla credited his own eidectic memory (he was said to be capable of recalling all of Goethe's works off by heart) as an inheritance from his mother.
He also reportedly engaged in cacophobic jokes concerning his two female aunts supposed "sublime ugliness". He was likely not a misogynist though, as he is reported to have generally been gallant in his interactions with women.
He also had a high appreciation for the female mind in general, stating in 1926 that: "the female mind has demonstrated a capacity for all the mental acquirements and achievements of men, and as generations ensue that capacity will be expanded; the average woman will be as well educated as the average man, and then better educated, for the dormant faculties of her brain will be stimulated to an activity that will be all the more intense and powerful because of centuries of repose. Woman will ignore precedent and startle civilization with their progress."[4]