Hubris, Grace, and the Work of Raising a Civilization
How To Call Other Men Without Becoming a Pharisee
I’ve been thinking a lot about hubris.
Not in the abstract, but in the very real sense of:
“Who do you think you are, Greg, telling other men how to live?”
I’m building this “Dissident Dad” thing. I’m talking about Kinward, about eternalist generationalism, about faith and family and land and community like they’re not just good ideas but the way forward.
And underneath all of it, I feel the tug of a very old sin:
The temptation to believe that because I think my way of life is better, I am better.
I hate that. I don’t want that in me. I don’t want to become that guy: another puffed-up internet preacher dunking on “normies” for likes and social status. So this is me putting it all on the table. This is as much a public examination of conscience as it is a manifesto. If you’re reading me now (or will in ten years) this is where I’m coming from.
So, let’s be honest: there’s a kind of “trad” posture online that’s just smugness in a flannel shirt. “Look at me on my land, with my wife, my kids, my chickens, my based opinions. If you’re not doing this, you’re a clown.” I want absolutely nothing to do with that spirit.
But here’s the tension: I do believe that a certain pattern of life is closer to the truth of how God made us:
Marrying the opposite sex
Having and raising children
Planting roots in a real place
Participating in the life of that community; parish, neighbors, work, land
Living under the kingship of Jesus Christ, not the globalized machine
I genuinely believe that most humans, most of the time, would be happier, saner, more grounded, and closer to God in that old pattern than in the sterile, individualistic, “infinite choice” mess we’re sold now.
So where’s the line?
Is it pride to say, “I think this way is better”?
Is it pride to say, “I think many of you would be far more fulfilled if you turned toward this life”?
Or is pride when I cross into, “Because I’ve chosen this, I’m better than you”?
For me, that’s the line:
I can believe my way of life is better without believing that I am better.
My life..this homestead, this marriage, these kids, this awakening..has been given to me. I did not earn grace. I didn’t outsmart the world. I just got shaken awake early, and now I’m trying to shake a few other men before the house collapses on them too.
Furthermore, I don’t look at the average thirty-something, whose overworked, over-entertained, spiritually numb, renting everything (home, faith, body, future), and think, “What a loser.”
I think:
“This guy got drafted into a war he didn’t even know existed. And the side that hates him has been running his culture, his screens, his food, his schools, his timeline, his spiritual formation since before he could walk.”
I believe a lot of people have been:
Talked out of marriage
Talked out of kids
Talked out of community
Talked out of God
Talked into a life of sterile “freedom” that somehow feels emptier every year
So yes, I’m going to say blunt things like:
“Childless consumerism is a dead end.”
“The globalized industrial machine wants you isolated, infertile, and dependent.”
“The most natural human path is still: man, woman, marriage, children, rootedness, worship.”
But if I ever sound like I’m spitting on the people who got swept into that current, then I’ve missed the mark. The villain isn’t the guy who believed the lie. The villain is the liar. As Dissident Dad, I want to aim my firepower at the Machine, not at individual souls who’ve been mangled by it.
And to get even more to the heart of the matter, here’s the real engine under everything I say: I love my children in a way I didn’t know existed before I had them. And it didn’t stop there. When I look at my kids, I see their kids. And theirs. And theirs. A line extending beyond my own lifetime. I want to see them all again. I want to be with them not only on some farm in New England, but in the Kingdom.
That desire is intense. At times it probably borders on selfish:
“I want my blood, my line, my descendants with me for eternity.”
But it’s honest.
And once you feel that, deeply, you can’t help but see the world differently:
You stop thinking in the present moment, or “what vacation[s] am I going to take next year?” and start thinking in centuries.
You stop asking, “What do I want right now?” and start asking, “What will bring my great-grandchildren to Christ and keep them there?”
You stop seeing yourself as just a consumer and start seeing yourself as a steward.
That’s what I mean by eternalist generationalism. Life is not “one and done.” If eternity is real, almost nothing is trivial. So yes, I’m going to push. I’m going to write as if it matters what kind of world your great-grandkids inherit. Because I believe it does.
And here’s the fear I keep circling back to: that in trying to pull other men toward this pattern of life, I become hardened and proud. That I end up like a Pharisee with chickens; outwardly trad, inwardly rotting.
That’s why I’m writing this.
I want the record to be clear: I know I am not the finished product. I know my own weakness, laziness, lust for comfort, addiction to screens, ego, and cowardice. I know what kind of man I could become if I stop repenting and just keep “preaching.” If I start speaking like I’m above the sins I’m calling out, call me on it. Because this is a spiritual war. And pride is one of the Devil’s favorite uniforms.
So, if I’m going to do this in public, write under “Dissident Dad,” build Kinward as a remedy, invite other men into a different way of life, I need guardrails.
These are mine. I’m sharing them with you so you know where I’m trying to stand.
1. Attack systems, not people
I will:
Attack the Machine: the globalized, technocratic, anti-family, anti-local, anti-God system (I will start defining the Machine is more in the coming months to you understand what we’re up against).
Attack ideologies that sterilize, isolate, and confuse.
Attack the cowardice of elites and corporations that profit off our misery.
I will try not to:
Randomly humiliate people just for being where the culture placed them.
Treat childless or secular or urban neighbors as subhuman or beneath mercy.
If I critique people, I want it to be with this posture:
“This could be me without grace. This was me, in part. I am one bad decade away from the same cliff.”
2. Speak as a fellow sinner, not a finished saint
I will try to:
Write in the first person: “Here’s what I’m learning, failing at, wrestling with.”
Tell on myself: the hypocrisies, the shortcuts, the comforts I still cling to.
Use “we” more than “you people.”
I’m not your judge. I’m your brother-in-arms shouting from a little further up the trail, “Watch out for that pit!!”
3. Lead with witness, then argument
I’m going to keep this rhythm as much as possible:
Story – what I saw, felt, messed up, learned.
Principle – the truth or pattern that emerged.
Invitation – “If you’re feeling this too, here’s what to do next.”
That keeps me from floating up into abstract scolding. It anchors what I’m saying in my own conversion and daily grind.
4. Make the love explicit
I won’t assume you just “know” I care. I’ll say it.
You’ll hear variations of:
“If this feels insensitive, know it’s written as much to myself as to you.”
“I don’t hate you; I hurt for you.”
“I’d rather have you at my dinner table or on a hike with our kids together than dunk on you to prove a point.”
Because it’s true.
5. Hold conviction without pretending to be God
I’m not going soft on what I believe:
I believe marriage and children are the normative path for most men.
I believe lifelong bachelor consumerism is usually a trap, not a path to freedom.
I believe Christianity (specifically the Catholic Church) is true, not just “my personal sentiment.”
I believe rootedness in place, parish, and people beats the disembodied global life almost every time.
At the same time:
I do not know every story.
I do not know how God is working in each person’s life.
I do not know exactly which cross each man is supposed to carry.
I’m going to argue hard for the pattern of life I’m convinced is closest to God’s design for most of us.
But I will try never to forget: I am not God.
So Why Keep Writing Like This at All?
If there’s this much risk of pride, why don’t I just shut up and focus on my own family? Because my family doesn’t live in a vacuum.
My kids will grow up in a culture shaped by the choices of other men:
Other dads deciding whether to lead or abdicate.
Other men deciding whether to marry, have children, show up at church, coach little league, build businesses, steward land.
Other families deciding whether to rebuild community or retreat into screens and resentment.
I want my great-grandchildren to live in a civilization, not a scattered archipelago of individuals. And that means I care deeply about whether you, a man I’ve never met, wake up or not. So yes, I am trying to instill these beliefs in others; especially men and fathers. It does “behoove” my descendants if there are more men around them who share this vision and live it out. I’m not going to pretend otherwise.
I want other families on the ark.
That said, you asked, along with me:
“But again, is this all just hubris on my part? … I guess one day, that one day that all of humanity shares in common, we shall see.”
That’s where I land too. One day, there will be no more Substack, no more X, no more brand, no more “influencers.” Just the King, and what we actually loved.
On that day, either:
This whole project of mine (Dissident Dad, Kinward, eternalist generationalism) will be revealed as a sincere but clumsy attempt to cooperate with grace…
or
It’ll be exposed as a mostly ego-driven exercise I dressed up in Christian language.
I don’t get to declare the verdict now.
What I can do is keep dragging my motives into the light, keep repenting when I cross the line into pride, keep speaking the truth as best I can, and keep loving my children and yours with a long view.
If you’re still here after all that, welcome.
I’m not writing as a man who has it all figured out. I’m writing as a dad who feels the rot, loves his kids, and refuses to make peace with a world that wants them numb and alone.
If you’ve made it this far and all that resonates, you’re in the right place. I’m glad to have you.
God Bless,
-Greg @ The Dissident Dad
