This comment section: "Actually I'm pretty sure the bike fell over for reasons unrelated to the stick"
this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2024
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You got it backwards mate. Young men are falling for those charlatans because they provide an easy solution to the loneliness epidemic (of which young men are the most likely victims).
Yep and it's people like OP that only serve to reinforce their us vs them mentality. The political movements that paint masculinity as evil, or just simply stupid, paint with too broad of a brush. The western world moved mountains to understand and fix things like a lack of women in STEM - to the point that it became a meme. And likewise, society at large is so downright hostile to the struggle of the average joe who tries to do what society asked of him and talk about his problems that it's also become a meme.
The fact that they don't see the dangerous appeal of a man who claims to have all the answers reminds me of another time in history. The "morally righteous" will fail us again.
"If you criticize the bad stuff people do, they will just double down!" is the stupidest take of the last decade. It is an attempt to shut down any criticism by blaming the critic for pointing out the shitty people's behavior.
There are plenty of good examples out there, they just aren't edgy and engaging because being a decent person is not exciting.
I think critism is fine.
I think that the issue at a societal level is the lack of culturally elevated alternative role models.
I think this is particularly a byproduct of engagement driven media algorithms. Viewpoints and the people who espouse them which drive engagement are algorithmically rewarded. These algorithms can't tell the difference between toxic or not, and toxic viewpoints generally drive more engagement.
There have always been forces which drive availability of viewpoints and personalities. When television was the primary form of media, it was TV execs. MTV decided what was cool.
But there was also public programming which could drive these things for social benefit. PBS in the USA and CBC in Canada. Both of these are now "out" in terms of medium (television/radio), and they also don't get the funding to be competitive anyhow.
We ceded the space to "influencers" on the internet, governed by private companies , and we are reaping the benefits now.
Even Hollywood is terrible. Ted Lasso is maybe the only culturally powerful representation of positive masculinity I can think of. And I think people were starving for it.
So while I think critism is appropriate, I think exclusively laying it at the feet of the stupid indoctrinated masses is only half of it. Criticising a the capitalistic media system which abandoned these men is appropriate too.
That is because being a decent person isn't exciting. Obama was a decent person and as far as the public can see, an excellent father. Being a decent person with a solid marriage is boring.
The reason that these shitheads get attention is because they are selling immediate results instead of long term relationships, and a lot of people like quick results with minimal effort. Changing from a selfish jackass to a decent person who understands other's perspectives takes time and patience, and young men aren't really known for patience. They want results now, which is encouraged by toxic culture, but that doesn't mean that there aren't decent examples of positive masculinity, but again positive masculinity is boring. That isn't a bad thing either, just that there isn't conflict and competition in decency.
There are tons of positive male role models in media. Dr. Grant from Jurassic Park. Hell, I thought of that and wasn't surprised that he was listed on my first google search result for positive male role models. In addition to taking care of kids, despite disliking kids, he also talks to women as equals.
I agree with everything you've said. Generally.
I think it's maybe telling that the character who popped into your head was from a film 30 years ago, though. Do you think it's possible the availability has been on the decline in the last 30 years? Most of the young men who are being woo'd by this nonsense weren't even alive when Jurassic Park was released.
And I'm not saying good role models don't exist, just that they're discriminated against for airtime because they don't score as highly in the recently popularized metric of "drives engagement" by the consolidated private media entities.
The character 'popped into my head' because I watched it yesterday and it was a popular movie that is still talked about. Honestly, there are more engaged dads and men to look up to in media now than 30 years ago, even if my ADHD brain can't think of all of them off the top of my head.
Ok. I am wrong. Positive male role models are numerous and recieve equal airtime to their toxic counterparts.
That's a very dismissive attitude as well. I've never listened to Jordan Peterson or any of these other people but I totally get why some people do and this conversation is a great illustration as to why. The person you responded to was trying to have a discussion about the issues men face in society, in a thread about that topic, and your response to them could easily be interpreted as "shut up idiot those aren't real problems". I don't think you necessarily intended to convey that message but you definitely ignored the larger point they were making in favor of a short and dismissive quip that was only tangentially related to what they said.
There are a bunch of examples of things like this happening in society, especially to white men. I can feel people reading that statement thinking "white men don't have problems" and that right there is the issue. Of course they have problems, society just doesn't want to hear about them. They're focused on other things instead, often for good reasons, but ignoring people when they talk about their problems while preaching open-mindedness and tolerance doesn't exactly help the group you're ignoring to embrace those ideals. They're going to gravitate towards people who listen to them and at this point in time the people who listen them are telling them things that you don't agree with. If you actually care about fixing that problem then the least you can do is commiserate with them when they complain about their problems. You already go out of your way to do it for everyone else so it should be easy.
Where did I say that they don't have problems? I didn't mean to convey that, which is why I didn't say anything of the sort.
It is possible to call out shitty behavior without dismissing the existence of problems.
You didn't explicitly state it you implied it by ignoring almost everything the guy you responded to said. Again, I don't think you meant to come off that way but that's what happens when you pick one small part of a large post to respond to and do so using negative and corrective language. You imply the rest was received in an equally negative fashion but was even less worthy of response.
No, you inferred something I neither said nor implied based on your assumption that not mentioning the irrelevant part of their post meant something.
You're still doing it. What you're calling the irrelevant part of the post was more than 90% of it. You chose not to address any of it and to act pretty condescending in your reply. Now I'm telling you how some people are going to interpret that and you're refusing to acknowledge it as a valid interpretation. I don't give a shit if you accept what I'm telling you or not but at this point you can't say you're unaware that you're coming off like an asshole. Do with that information whatever you like.
I don't really care if you think I'm an asshole for not wasting time on the part of the post I agree with that wasn't the part being discussed. Maybe you should go back and read the conversation again and engage with what I wrote instead of what you assumed I meant.
What political movements paint masculinity as evil?