I. Stagnation Do we have functioning institutions that exist to support failing young men? An MR post that has stuck with me for a few years starts out with: The contemporary world is not very well built for a large chunk of males. The nature of current service jobs, coddled class time and homework-intensive schooling, a feminized culture allergic to most forms of violence, post-feminist gender relations, and egalitarian semi-cosmopolitanism just don’t sit well with many…what shall I call them?
Imagine being one of these men and seeing your local college promote women into every sphere of work. Woman in STEM? Scholarship. Conferences. Woman in healthcare? Womeninhealthcare.org. What statistics need to change for the focus to be distributed more equally? Can't be graduation rates, women outnumber men already in STEM. Suicidality? Depression?
I agree with your points on masculinity, but there is already much lower-hanging fruit. Simply implement the same programs for men that are currently in place for women.
> It is known that some men are clever and some not, which largely explains why some are rich and those less lucky are poor. Further, some men are honest and frank, while some are good at lip service and conjuring deceptive contracts; some men live by their work and some by the work of others.
> Also, **many women and certain men are very good at playing victim and appealing to powers that be, to summon punishment on the heads of their competitors; other men are aloof, untalented and uninterested in that ignoble sport.** Those men can be violent to their enemies, or they can be useful and kind to those who deserve their trust; in the intermediate regimes, where the less macho sort of cruelty is a must, they flounder.
> In an advanced postindustrial financialist society, they are driven to more or less direct suicides and, speculatively, over a long time span the society as a whole evolves towards a more Chinese kind of competitive ruthlessness, devoid of physical violence except for punishment mandated by law.
> China is not a nice place to live in. Singapore is just about the best that Chinese civilization can offer, and it's still not nice. Rich, orderly, clean, not nice at all.
I have not hated to read something more intensely since I learned of Greg Abbott. That is how I know you've written something significant.
If you are on to something here, then the extent to which I have come to hate the word 'man' is that extent of masculinity being taken from, or warped in, me. And I tell you, I despise each and every mention of this 'masculine virtue', as some salvation, yet just naturally there, unchanging, and given in some bio-essentialism, but unexplicated in the text. You mention a deep imperative, and only mention it. You kowtow to hierarchy as a given, situating your case in relation to hierarchy with no analysis of that thing. "Firmware to interoperate with society", again as if both the latter and the former are unchanging, given. What society?
It's the essentialism that grates on me, but also, the way that all of this obviously empathetic writing dangles an idea of a good, but gives no clue of what it is. That you give a testament that you know something, but gate both it, and even recognition of it, behind returning to the past.
Imagine being one of these men and seeing your local college promote women into every sphere of work. Woman in STEM? Scholarship. Conferences. Woman in healthcare? Womeninhealthcare.org. What statistics need to change for the focus to be distributed more equally? Can't be graduation rates, women outnumber men already in STEM. Suicidality? Depression?
I agree with your points on masculinity, but there is already much lower-hanging fruit. Simply implement the same programs for men that are currently in place for women.
Quote from this comment feels applicable: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/vgemda/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_june_20_2022/idkgts1/
> It is known that some men are clever and some not, which largely explains why some are rich and those less lucky are poor. Further, some men are honest and frank, while some are good at lip service and conjuring deceptive contracts; some men live by their work and some by the work of others.
> Also, **many women and certain men are very good at playing victim and appealing to powers that be, to summon punishment on the heads of their competitors; other men are aloof, untalented and uninterested in that ignoble sport.** Those men can be violent to their enemies, or they can be useful and kind to those who deserve their trust; in the intermediate regimes, where the less macho sort of cruelty is a must, they flounder.
> In an advanced postindustrial financialist society, they are driven to more or less direct suicides and, speculatively, over a long time span the society as a whole evolves towards a more Chinese kind of competitive ruthlessness, devoid of physical violence except for punishment mandated by law.
> China is not a nice place to live in. Singapore is just about the best that Chinese civilization can offer, and it's still not nice. Rich, orderly, clean, not nice at all.
I have not hated to read something more intensely since I learned of Greg Abbott. That is how I know you've written something significant.
If you are on to something here, then the extent to which I have come to hate the word 'man' is that extent of masculinity being taken from, or warped in, me. And I tell you, I despise each and every mention of this 'masculine virtue', as some salvation, yet just naturally there, unchanging, and given in some bio-essentialism, but unexplicated in the text. You mention a deep imperative, and only mention it. You kowtow to hierarchy as a given, situating your case in relation to hierarchy with no analysis of that thing. "Firmware to interoperate with society", again as if both the latter and the former are unchanging, given. What society?
It's the essentialism that grates on me, but also, the way that all of this obviously empathetic writing dangles an idea of a good, but gives no clue of what it is. That you give a testament that you know something, but gate both it, and even recognition of it, behind returning to the past.