That’s literally all there is to it. Even in the olden days it was a well known fact that a generation of young men without (economic, social, romantic) perspective is a generation who will radicalize to either side. If the system isn’t working for them they will seek to change the system.
If politicians were serious about curbing extremism they would make sure everyone simply lives a decent standard of living, with prospects for their future.
Its also why I believe most modern governments try REALLY hard not to go to war. Not because of the death and destruction but because they dont want a combat trained populace.
Also because shared adversity unites, the differences between people get really unimportant when they are trying to keep each other alive in combat.
The idea of a significant percentage of “us” coming back and being united and trained well enough to actually threaten the system scares the piss out of them.
I think your more or less correct, but I wanted to point out that there is also a lack of support for these men.
I’m currently at university and so far as I have been able to find there is exactly zero support, or desire for white, cis men. There are advertised support groups, grants and bursaries, and programs for literally every other demographic on campus. If your a white man however your on your own, often because “oh, your part of the patriarchy and don’t need help”.
It makes it tough to change for the better when its seems that all the groups that seek to improve conditions for the repressed usually point at white men and say “Your bad and should feel bad because your a man”. I either stand alone or with the fascists, so I stand alone and do my best to be supportive of human rights for all from the outside.
That is true, more support is needed all around, and there is a crisis of men questioning themselves and their society, along with well-funded outside forces ready to radicalize them.
The central question is compelling because self development and changing society are both vitally important, and we need to be doing a LOT better than yelling “No, not like that!”
It also must be noted that the left in the US has been vilifying men for many years now. It’s starting to change, but that made it easy for extremists to swoop in and radicalize men.
To me what stands out is not the fact that men speak up more than women do, but that women get ignored/dismissed when they do speak. I make an effort to:
Give them attention
Understand their point of view
Engage in their point of view
Not let others (men) interrupt and if they do, quickly get back to the core discussion until the speaker is satisfied/has said everything they wanted to say
Basically give your attention not to the loudest ones, but the ones that deserve it. Things like these make all people who usually don’t engage in discussions more likely to engage in the future.
I think you are absolutely right. In general I think that everyone should feel comfortable to speak when they want but in return should respect that other people get the right to have their voice heard too.
One: because fascist would ensure their place at the top of the social/political/financial pyramid.
Two: because the world’s economic system lied to them. Being a morally good, hard working human guaranteed a comfortable life. In fact being morally good and/or hard working may actually be a hindrance to living a comfortable life.
Three: poor education and exploitation. Ever book that is banned or text book that says, “slavery was understandable in fact slavers are benevolent leaders saving the ‘others’ from themselves.” and you know, being used by those that actually hold power. Donald Trump would pretend to be the next Joseph Stalin if it ment he would be protected by those willing to do violence in his name. Just the fact that governments have" heads of state" means those that want to be president, king, prime minister probably should be allowed to be leaders.
Not sure point One is fully correct. I think they often realize things is going to be shitty for everyone, but they think it will be less shitty for them if it gets more shitty for others. They know they will be an exploited working class (even if it is not phrased that way for them) as long as there is a part of the working class (immigrant workers, women workers, …) that is beneath them it makes them feel more ‘on top’.
Ya but making everyone else’s life more shitty ensures they are still “on top” in their eyes. It’s the same reason most confederate men fought in the civil war even though they didn’t own slaves. Ya their life sucked but at least they weren’t slaves. The moment more human beings get emancipated, be that from slavery, wage slavery, women suffrage, segregation, etc that means they have more competition in the flawed economic, social, and political systems designed around capitalism.
I’m really glad this article exists, but i wish it went bit further. Nobody of any gender should be pressured to participate in a sexual and romantic and legal entanglement. Conditions for dating are awful and misogyny is way too prevalent, but there is simply no world in which it is normal or fine to say “people need to be married for their own good and the good of their children”. How extremely regressive and gross. Single people are not responsible for the failings of the society they live in. If single people truly do have worse outcomes, then the solution is to change systems of financial oppression and create better social safety nets and offer more services, not tell people that they have to get into long term romantic relationships and create little nuclear families for socioeconomic reasons. We have already seen the outcomes of forcing people to get married and have babies or else. It wasn’t good back then, and it’s not going to help now either.
That is a great point and I wish they went further on the better social safety nets. If you really want healthy children that should be the focus regardless of gender of the parent. I think its odd when people talk about how marriage is only for children or you need to be married to have children its gross and so old fashioined.
yeah like why can’t people just get married if they want to get married, or not get married if they don’t want to get married? has never made sense to me
There have been scientific studies to determine if humans are monogamous or not … it was inconclusive … we like to think that we can or should be paired together for life and live happily ever after but in reality, most of us are not.
The majority of my friends get together for a few years and then divorce, separate or live together in a personal hell because they feel they have to.
I have friends in Quebec in Montreal that have been together for 50 years now. They never had children worked as artists and writers their whole lives and pretty much had a free life between themselves. They made an agreement with each other when they started living together that every five years, they would sit down and discuss if they wanted to continue their relationship. They’ve been doing that ever since.
I do that in a way with my wife every few years … we also don’t have kids … we just sit down and talk about whether or not we want to continue. It’s not done during a crisis, a falling out or when we’re angry or out of sorts … we try to have it when we’re clearly thinking of things but it’s not easy … it’s not an easy topic to discuss … which is also why it’s important to have. After 28 years, we still choose to be together.
Yup, been with my partner for over a decade. Live together, not married, no kids. Originally there was some talk of marriage, but I’ve always said that there’s no reason to insert the state or the church into our relationship. There’s nothing stopping either of us from leaving the relationship if we’re not into it any more. It keeps us treating each other with respect, knowing that there’s no higher authority telling us we have to stay together until we spend thousands of dollars in paperwork and waiting periods.
The current assumptions and expectations that society has about monogamy and commitment are insane. The idea that one person should meet all of your social, relationship and sexual needs is insane. Especially for those people who consider being attracted / look at other people / looking at porn to someone else as cheating. Like you don't stop feeling physical attraction or even get crushes if you are committed. You just don't do anything that violate other peoples trust.
The queer communities take on monogamy and commitment that does have any assumptions is really the best method going forward. Not to mention the removal of gender expectations for house work etc. Its exactly like you described it. An on-going discussion about what your commitment means and what is and isn't allowed. It priories the relationship over everything else.
I think one of the biggest issues everyone glosses over is … we change during our lifetimes.
We are not the same person in our 20s, our 30s, our 40s for all kinds of reasons … our work, our situations, events in our lives, trauma, biological changes, genetics or just psychological changes. Some people stay the same sexually and stay the same throughout their lives, whether its being straight, bi, gay or anything else … I know some people who changed over time from being straight, to bi, to gay or to just asexual … in one way to another. I’m sure everyone know people like this. It’s human nature, most people are not born a simple being that stays the same forever, we evolve and change sometimes because we want to, we have to and other times against our will and biology.
So to have an ever changing pair of people living together … we should not expect them to stay the same forever and want to be together indefinitely.
But the inverse is also true too … maybe the two 20 year olds accept one another but change when they’re 30 … and now the 30 year olds now accept each other at this age … and on and on.
Exactly. People and relationships should change and mature. We should also look at different measures of success. A couple of was married for 15 years and then got a divorce but don't hate each other. That is a successful relationship but it didn't last an entire lifetime
Gen-X men see eye-to-eye with male Gen-Zers. An identical 43 percent of men in that bracket call themselves feminists, compared to 49 percent of the generation’s women.
I feel like the authors think these 2 sentences are supporting the same argument, and I think they do not.
Asking someone if they “identify as a feminist” is vastly different than exploring their core values. “Feminism” is a badly exploited word that means many different things to many different people, even within a generational cohort.
It’s entirely possible that the sample of Gen-Xers that identify as feminist also carry more regressive beliefs than Gen-Zers that said they were not feminists.
The way this study was summarized in the article smells a lot like an older author (read: Gen-X or Boomer) trying to make sense of Gen-Z by plopping them into buckets created for the older generation.
I don’t know anything about anything, but this smelled less of science than an article reporting a study ought to.
I like the suggestion that we concern ourselvrs more with the quality of men’s internal lives, but I do worry we’re still objectifying men as ‘the problem’.
Navigating interpersonal relationships in a time of evolving gender norms and expectations “requires a level of emotional sensitivity that I think some men probably just lack, or they don’t have the experience,” he added.
I like the quote above about this topic but it does still seem like men are the problem. The problem is that we as a society haven't taught those skills and worse yet reinforce the opposite. We should be concerned with men's internal lives and mold them to fit into modern society
Seriously. We can’t just call men “the problem”. We have to address the problems men are having in their social lives and in dating. Men are not being given a fair shot to bring their best selves.
He had recently read about a high school creative writing assignment in which boys and girls were asked to imagine a day from the perspective of the opposite sex. While girls wrote detailed essays showing they had already spent significant time thinking about the subject, many boys simply refused to do the exercise or did so resentfully.
I mean, we're not just talking about the ability to communicate (which is important), but the basic ability to empathize. If men (in general) are unwilling to even consider the female point of view, is it any wonder why women have a difficult time dating? This isn't happening in a vacuum; there are real reasons why this is happening.
Think of the structural issues which have caused this to be the case. Blaming men for not achieving an externally defined target isn’t going to help anyone.
Boys refusing to do an exercise about imagining a day as the other gender represents a social problem, not a men problem. High school boys who refuse to imagine themselves as someone else were taught to be resistant to that idea, and not only by men but society as a whole.
Maybe we stop with top down one size fits all solutions to human interaction? The article is a good example of part of the problem, as it seems to exonerate one group while putting all the onus for change on the other. Mainly by it having essentially a single position from all them people that the author uses as sources and references and the narrow scope that they actually show.
You couldn’t be more in your own echo chamber. If other men are telling you woman also act the same way as some men and also have issues and you refuse to see another position or point of view you are the problem.
I would hesitate to draw conclusions from something like that. Both me and a lot of the other men I know just flat out skipped basically every assignment like that if it didn’t give enough points to be worth the effort, from middle school up through college.
Beyond that, it just seems like a shitty assignment as a whole. Because either a) it’s done under an assumption that their day as the opposite sex would be spontaneous, and thus would have very few relevant differences from their normal days (and we can easily guess those differences) or b) it’s done under an assumption of having always been the opposite sex, in which case it would just be an exercise in the butterfly effect, since huge amounts of things would be different, to the point that any generic hypothetical day would work.
All this is to say, it’s a prime assignment for skipping
For example discussions on the difference between what women think they want in a man vs what actually turns them on. Conscious vs unconscious desires. This isn’t a women-only phenomena mind you. It takes most people a lot of experience to figure out the difference. This could obviously come off as infantilising or mansplainy.
I think the article brought that up as a good point. It would have to walk a fine line and would work best as advice column to answer specific questions. I think the generalities can cause sexist issues much more than a specific example
But generalities are wrong, period. When the subject is described subjectively, then you’re not crossing any lines. When you question your own perception, there’s no way you could really inadvertently cross any sexist line.
You think? I dunno. It’s 100% about how you actually view women. When you talk about the woman you’re dating in a way that just recognizes them as another person, then there is no problem.
I believe wholeheartedly I could write this column without issue.
Because they are immersed in an ecosystem that pretends that respect for human dignity and unearned respect for authority are identical because they use the same word.
They believe that others should respect the innate authority they feel they should hold as men. Simultaneously, since they don't get that, they don't feel like they need to respect other people's right to exist.
And then a group promises them everything they've ever wanted, if they are willing to do fascist shit. Of course they're into it.
I highly doubt any language is more correlated with authoritarianism, particularly the English language. There is a cultural aspect to collective action over individualism, but I think authoritarianism is a base human personality trait.
You might change your view about that if you ever read “Mutual Aid” by Peter Kropotkin. I used to think the same, but it appears things like authoritarianism and hierarchies actually run contrary to evolution. Not that the trait doesn’t exist, but it appears to be something that has been exacerbated in cultures that deliberately adopt a hierarchical system vs. something that’s just natural to all humans.
I am someone who believes that multilevel selection is a primary driver of evolutionary dynamics and works at levels ranging from the organism to the ecosystem (at various levels of effectiveness). Kropotkin is nice philosophically, although he is read about far more often than he is read. That’s entirely reasonable, because his theories provide a foundation for lines of investigation we still pursue today but are obviously outdated, as are the ideas of everyone whose work predated discoveries like genes.
If you want a more modern view on the evolutionary benefits of cooperation, I would suggest starting with Harvard biology professor EO Wilson, who specialized in ants and ended up concluding that humans were in fact a eusocial species - unique among primates and one of very few on earth. He invented the field (or at least added additional formalization to the study) of sociobiology - the evolution of social behaviors. It’s the same category as ants and bees. For an anthropological and cross-cultural perspective I’d suggest Graeber. For a mathematical and economic perspective, I’d start with Sam Bowles. For the foundations of pro-social behavior in primates, I’d recommend Frans de Waal.
I’d be happy to try to answer any questions on the subject.
I’m not qualified to engage in your discussion, nor do I have a good experience trusting random internet strangers who say they’re certain things, but here’s Kropotkin’s book for anyone who wants to read it: theanarchistlibrary.org/…/petr-kropotkin-mutual-a…
Social justice influencers acridly piling blame for social problems onto cis white males without nuance. This makes a lot of cis white males feel targeted for factors outside their control, and so they flock to ideologies that venerate them.
General dissatisfaction with career and other life prospects, in the shadow of an idyllic bygone status-quo propped up by exploitative short term policies. They saw their parents and grandparents thrive in that trad-coded utopia, and they’re noticing the inadequacies of their own prospects.
So mostly those two things, exacerbated by fascist propagandists who have taken advantage of them to promote the facade of a return-to-roots. Also good old fashioned cult of personality.
To your first point, the nature of communicating right now, particularly on the internet, means there is no room to have two different voices:
You can’t have an “inside voice” (communicating to those who already agree with you and reinforcing micro-cultural support) and an “outside voice” (communicating with everyone else, potentially finding or convincing new supporters); every statement is heard by everyone and is, de facto, outside voice.
And that’s only for people who would otherwise care to differentiate— the overall culture views conflict as a virtue, and so rewards people who “tell it like it is,” ignoring the fact that you can tell it like it is in ways that don’t maximize belligerence and alienation.
They aren’t left. They are paid assets or bots by the global fascist movement. I absolutely refuse to consider them left because their actions benefit the right. Who cares what they say, what do their actions do?
I agree with this bit, they aren’t left and their actions benefit the right. I came upon the histories of rich white men exploiting labor forces and toxic business practices to squeeze the lower classes when I was a teenager and discovered those same kind of histories had been evolved or evolve in some circles to outright hate for white people succeeding in life as if it was their white privilege and blood money inherited wealth that carried them that far. The truth I think is yea white privilege exists but also many of those people earned their place in society by working with the opportunities life made available, trying hard in school or getting into trade work and sticking with it. Of course their are many people benefiting from inherited wealth and status of their family and I imagine many of our oligarchs in America are white. Still now is not the time for these so called leftists to start outright hating every white cisgendered man or woman they meet. It only serves the enemies of progress to do that. It wrongfully ostracizes masses of white men and the only place they have to turn is to people like Ben Shapiro or other similar talking heads telling them, “look at how the left treats us and how much they want to destroy our way of life.” The left by its principles or ideals is a place of acceptance and equality. Anyone not practicing that towards all walks of life, excluding any violent extremists, is not supporting the left and should not call themselves a leftist.
You’re missing nuance. They don’t code white PEOPLE as bad, they code whiteNESS as bad. Whiteness is a social construct, it’s not an innate characteristic. If you’re white, it’s because some people 500 years ago decided you were white. It’s a choice that was made. It’s not part of you, it’s just a name for how society treats you.
So when I say “whites are evil”, I’m not calling you specifically evil. I’m saying that society tells you to be evil. To reject evil is to reject whiteness and society, and that’s what you should do.
But do they identify as a non-labelled person that respects women and their choices? Or is this just about political labelling made for marketing and division?
Often with women, if they’re attractive they aren’t taken as seriously (not considered as competent or intelligent for e.g.). I don’t think the same problem exists with men so this makes sense.
The next question is what percentage of men are considered attractive? My hunch is it’s not very high.
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