When you hear brotherhood you might think Templars, Assassins creed, freemasons, fraternities, biker clubs, the fire departments, law enforcement or the military to name a few. Though I don’t believe that brotherhood is being fostered by the members or allowed anymore by the higher ups in most fire departments and law enforcement agencies or most of the military. The only exception might be special operations units to some degree, specifically 75th Rangers and units from the Marine corps based on talking to and listening to members of both.
Brotherhood is more than just having a male friend, or even a few of them. It is about having men in your life that care about each other and are willing to have each others back. Who you are willing to put before your self if the need arises. It requires a commitment, to show up, and put in work with or to help the men in your group.
Brotherhood also requires honor, in short, you and your brothers will have to figure out what honor means to you, what your code is and what constitutes fallowing it. This honor code should be one part of the set of rules that govern your brotherhood, following them is honorable, the more you follow the more honorable you are and if you break them you dishonor the group.
Brothers will need to know that the men beside you are going to have your back and are not going to turn and run, they also need to know the same about you. You will need to be able to count on them in times of crisis. In order to be successful you will want the other men to prove they are committed to theIr brothers.
Brotherhood begins as an alliance between men against all external forces. This oath be it formal or informal spoken or unspoken is the most sacred aspect of the brotherhood. The oath of brotherhood creates a voluntary kinship a sense of collective identity a foundation of trust. The oath of brotherhood is what holds everything together and without it or when it has been irreparable corrupted by conniving and betrayal the brotherhood will inevitably fall apart.
~ Jack Donovan
Now that we have recapped what brotherhood is a relationship sense from our last article https://modernbarbarian.substack.com/p/what-is-brotherhood lets talk about the structure of A brotherhood.
Building your brotherhood
Now I cannot tell you what will work and what doesn’t as This is still a work in progress for me, and in reality what works for me might not work for you. You might have a large pool of friends to start from already, while others may have to build from zero. Some groups will just grown naturally and other you will have to claw and fight to get them built and staying together for reasons that are to numerous to list.
What I can do is layout a basic strategy that I am currently trying to follow as well as some wisdom and philosophy from others and wish you the best.
The basic out line will in many ways will be the same As building a tribe. The only difference is that you would add a men only requirement for your brotherhood. I mention this first as well because if your starting from scratch, a brotherhood would be a an easier thing to build than a tribe if for no other reason than size. And once that brotherhood is built or coming together, by bringing the families together a tribe can naturally grow out of the brotherhood.
Standards
I have covered before that I have higher standards than most when it comes my relationships. As I think you should as well I understand that some wont. You could be looking for just a super tight group thats just a step above friends. That is fine, I would classify that as the lowend of brotherhood, and for some that just may be where you want to start and build on.
My thoughts on a brotherhood are more structured and on the high end. A group that fosters bonds and relationships closer to family than to friends. To that end some of whats to come may apply to you and some may not, take what you like leave the rest. Grow your brotherhood how you and your brothers see fit. Some things may grow out of your group naturally and some may never come up.
You don’t need a formal group with tax documentation to be a brotherhood, you don’t need membership roster or president, or rank structures etc. you need face time and bonding. The rest can come later or will come naturally depending on how organized you want to get.
Whats important is that you start strengthening your in person relationships And help each other grow. Everything else is just gravy.
Create proximity
your friends on Facebook are going to be useless if a crisis strikes near you. Even if it only affects you such as a family member dying, your boys showing up in person are going to make a much bigger impact than some likes, and well wishes on Facebook.
Find men who are geographically close to you, or focus on your local friends you already have. If this is not an option consider moving to their location or them to yours. This can be amplified by moving into the same neighborhood or apartment building. Being close create familiarity and a shared Identity which will help create your us.
This can be done online but only to a point. The internet is great tool for finding people if you don’t have a group to start from and group chats are great for keeping every one in touch, but you NEED to do things together you need to build that trust.
Make a regular occasion to grab a couple beers, smoke some cigars, play poker. These are great for socializing and are a great start to get to know each other a bit or to throw in once in a while to unwind but you need to learn how each other operate. Go to the range, train together, take a martial arts class or seminar, go hunting, play paintball, go to the gym, something, anything that teaches you a skill or improves yourself and each other.
You need to get together in person. Other wise you can’t truly hold each other accountable. If you never see someone in person, you can hide the fact that you are not putting in the work and you can ignore more effectively any attempts to push you To keep going. Now to go to a darker place for a moment to drive the importance home, what happens if one of your brothers is suicidal? How are you going to pull that gun out of their hand if you are not near by.
This is perhaps one of the most important aspects of a brotherhood. Too much time is spent online as it is for most people. We need to change that. There are many online “brotherhoods” and they are well meaning but despite what the public has been sold, you will never be able to substitute in person relationships with online relationships.
Mission
Your group needs to have a mission, goal or specified purpose. Something that the members work together to further the efforts of, or attempt to achieve. Such as combat effectiveness for the military units, or religious efforts for the religious orders. This could be simply self improvement, or building a grou homestead for your families.
Shared identity and view
Many factors come into play for this but they can come from a shared family background, shared profession, and shared or similar religious beliefs to name a few. In short because it should be fairly obvious, the members have to have similarities. Some foundation to build future bonds on. This is part of what makes your “us”.
Selection
Groups need a selection process. Whether its open enrollment and then they test the applicants, or they actively go out and recruit specific people. There would be a process of choosing the potential members so that they have the best chance of fitting into the group, culture or mission of the group.
If your goal is to get you all homesteads then someone who doesn’t want to move out of the city is not a good match. Not everyone will be. Being selective about your members will give your group the best chance of success. Not everyone wants to rise some people just want to stay where they are.
FNGs
Fucking new guys for those that don’t know, is a term for new members to a group. Coined in the military and it then filtered out to other groups as veterans left the military. They are the newbies, that don’t know the rules, or how to do their jobs yet. Most structured groups have these. They are the rookies, or probies, rushes, prospects and so one. They reference members who have passed selection and are now on a trial basis within the group, partial members you might say. Most groups can expel these members more easily than full members and they are not privy to all info or benefits of the brotherhood yet. Now they have to earn that full membership. Usually after a list of required tasks and a vote for approval by the current full members.
Codes
They are all going to have a code, or rules for how the members conduct themselves. This is how the members know when a member is being honorable or not. The FNGs have to now learn and abide by the code in order to be eligible to move up to full brother. Your codes are going to stem from your groups views, and its mission or goals.
Fighting, danger, and suffering
Most of these groups involve fighting, combat or danger of some kind. Now while this is not necessary, bonds forged over fighting and gander can be stronger than those not if for no other reasons that their is consequences if you fail your brothers. Now depending on how this is approached legality becomes an issue so don’t break any laws. However this can be added to your group simply by going to a martial arts school as a group, the more practical the style the better, and ideally one that spars regularly.
Many people love the movies where bonds are forged through tough times, such as war, disaster, a heist and being hunted by the police, take your pick depending on your preferred flavor of cinematic entertainment. This is due to the nature of hard times and suffering. It presents those opportunities for individuals to step up and really help there tribe, their brothers, or their family, or even the guy down the street. There is consequences for failure and the stakes are high. This is part of why I believe that First Responder organizations and the military used to have that brotherhood.
It goes back to the “they will cross the country for your funeral”. The higher the stakes or the greater the suffering, the more likely someone might step up. So what happens when you live in a decadent society where people pretend to care about everyone, making it impossible to care about anyone? You get most people living in a situation where they won’t experience true suffering, and won’t have the chance presented for them to step up in those major events or if they do its once in a life time.
So what do you do about it? Make yourself and your group suffer, do a 20 mile ruck march, go run a spartan race or a go ruck even, do something that strains you all as individuals and separately so that you can pull together to help each other finish, it won’t be anything close to what its like in combat, but its as close as you might get artificially.
Traditions
Brotherhoods are going to have symbols, rituals, traditions, inside jokes or routines. They all are going to have an oath of some kind. This all helps form their shared identity and sense of belonging to the group, especially for those that had fewer commonalities with the group to begin with. These are based on history of the group, their mission, former members especially those that were heros for their group and so on. This could be anything from swearing an oath to join the group, to holidays from the groups history, or routines for opening and closing meetings.
Your just playing around
Now I have often heard reluctance to starting a more formal brotherhood. This usually revolves around “your just making stuff up” “your larping” “your just playing games” etc. But really think about it, everything in this world was made up at some point. Every group we have talked about wasn’t created with the world, they didn’t discover biker clubs in some temple some where. Someone came along built it and gave it name. Some things grow organically out specific situation such as friend groups out of a class, or a religious order out of a specific mission from the church, but someone put a name to it, making it up. You might be building it from scratch for a specific mission or goal or you may just be putting a name to something thats already there formalizing it Either way get over your self if your having this thought and if you not don’t let the haters detract from what you are trying to do. They will be sitting at home alone watching Netflix while you have a group of brothers out there conquering.
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