In Defense of the Bugmen

“But I am not interested in chiding Bronze Age Pervert—as other publications, such as National Review, have done—for his use of dehumanization. Instead, I want to offer a full-throated defense of these nasty bugmen.”

In the new Netflix series 3 Body Problem, aliens on their way to Earth determine that humans are like bugs. Throughout the first season, there is commentary about whether or not humans are, in fact, no better than bugs. Maybe it is true? In the final episode, this attitude is embraced whole-heartedly when one of the lead characters observes that humans have been trying to get rid of bugs forever. “But look around. They’re not going anywhere.” Which is to say: Even if we are bugs ourselves, that does not mean we can be easily defeated.

This attitude is instructive in the context of an entirely different kind of threat to civilization—a threat that comes from looking backward in time, rather than forward. It is articulated in the infamous 2018 book Bronze Age Mindset. According to the book’s author, Bronze Age Pervert (BAP), human flourishing peaked during the Bronze Age, when men were free to be men in the most cliché sense of the word: muscular, brave, warring, close to nature, and unencumbered by the demands of modern, liberated women. For example, in praising the ancient Greeks, BAP writes:

“You know about their great art, science, and literature, or think you do. But these were men of conquest, exploration and adventure first. Aeschylus had on his tombstone engraved that he fought at Marathon, not that he wrote his plays. The free man is a warrior, and only a man of war is a real man.”

Central to the thesis of Bronze Age Mindset is the notion that bugmen are to blame for perpetuating the weakness inherent to modern society. To BAP’s followers, the destruction of the bugmen is an exciting call-to-action. As one reviewer on Goodreads put it: “If you’re tired of tasteful banter in wine bars and want to scorch the bugmen from the anthill I recommend [Bronze Age Mindset]!”