Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
naraburns nihil supernum
1yr ago
(text post)
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Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
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Notes -
As we prepare to celebrate the single most important event in history, I want to celebrate some positive things in the culture war arenas rather than focusing on the negative.
Item: the NFL is so often an arena of the worst of inarguably Toxic Masculinity, full of murderers playboy plastic surgery victims and whoremongers, all beating each other into early onset alzheimers. But the Philadelphia Eagles' pro-bowl bound best offensive line in the damn business made a Christmas album to raise money for charity, and it is an example of pure masculine excellence.
Seriously, watch that documentary, it's seven minutes long and it is all fantastic. Just three of the biggest, baddest sons of bitches in the world, drinking heavily, laughing their asses off, and working on their singing voices. Jordan Mailata, who could play Goliath with zero special effects, croons like he's Bing fuckin' Crosby out here. Jason Kelce, a multi-millionaire world champion, is wearing his favorite Christmas sweater: a women's sweater he got at a thrift store (seriously, how big was this woman? Kelce is 295 lbs!) and ranting about how much he loves it. Lane Johnson, who looks like he's cosplaying as [CueBall from Pokemon](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Roughneck_(Trainer_class)#:
:text=A%20Roughneck%20(Japanese%3A%20%E3%82%B9%E3%82%AD%E3%83%B3%E3%83%98%E3%83%83%E3%82%BA,%2C%20Eevee!%2C%20Punk%20Guys.), is working hard at hitting all the notes.This is what ideal masculinity looks like. Strong, big, tough, accomplished men who are hanging out, talking trash, singing, playing for a good cause, humble but striving to do their best at every task. Giving props to each other, and to the experts they brought in to help them. If one day I want to show my son the ideal of masculinity, this is it.
Seriously, hometown bias but still, how can you hate this Eagles team? Jalen Hurts answers every interview question "We're just taking it one week at a time." The offensive line is making a Christmas album for children's charity, the wide receivers are all Batman no Robins, while the cornerbacks stand up for each other. Most lovable NFL team I've ever had the pleasure of watching. In the wildest dreams of DelCo drunks, if this becomes the new NFL dynasty, we have to assume it represents a moral improvement for our country over the Brady-Belichek Patriots era right?
Item: every week we have a new Woke-Bait or Woke-bation media property to complain about, forcing diversity where it doesn't belong. I want to take the day before Wigilia to call out a perfect example of trans-inclusivity done right: the TikTok classic Girls by The Dare. Listen to the whole thing if you don't know it, it's like two minutes with no solos.
The lyrics to the first verse run through a list of types of girls the singer wants to bone:
That's just brilliant. The trans inclusive clause "Girls with dicks" comes right in line with tall, small, call, and instathots. Treated as perfectly normal! Girls with dicks are girls, the singer is (ridiculously, libidinously) heterosexual, girls with dicks are girls so he likes them. At the same time, they are included in a list right before the perfect perverted poetry of:
and another list made up of pregnant girls, Catholic girls, and kinky girls; this all winks at the idea that girls with dicks are something of an acquired taste, that real heterosexual manly libidinous Dionysians like the singer might like it, but others might not. And that's fine, more for him!
That's how you do inclusion! Don't force it, don't try to make it "nice," acknowledge perversion for perversion and celebrate perversion as perversion! Don't force it down everybody else's throats, force it down the throats of other consenting adults!
Give me all your favorite examples of things that are just done right! Ideally things that aren't culture-war combatants, but things that do CW stuff right.
Ideological disagreements withstanding. Hate to be thay guy. But this reads as insincere enthusiasm. Maybe because Im not from Philly or watch the NFL.
But this brand of masculinity being the pinnacle of masculinity, is just too on the nose. Too similar to the woke PMC ideal of masculinity that is just femininity with beards, muscles and beer! (Read the Last Psychiatrist?). Its too focussed on the aesthetics, would you sing the same praises if it was 3 lanky programmers and not NFL players singing for charity?
To me its just 3 dudes taking the piss and having fun... for charity. Which is great, but I am left wondering whats so inspiring? That they are not afraid to be goofy?
Archetypically, Charity is feminine, its sharing, its communism. Masculine excellence is creating wealth out of nothing, exploring the frontiers, its being devoted to a goal singlemindedly for the love of the game..
Charity is inherent to masculinity, magnanimity, abundance. It's the "King" archetype in the King Warrior Magician Lover grouping; I'll acknowledge that our society offers precious few examples of men who fulfill that role so it may be difficult to comprehend today. But every Indo-European pagan culture from the Sagas to Homer to the Vedas enjoined the great Kings and Lords to be generous to their people; every Abrahamic prophet from Mosaic Law to Christ and his Apostles and Saints to the Quran and Hadiths enjoined a true man to be generous to those less fortunate. To say that Charity is communism or effeminate, that sharing with others less fortunate is bad...that's just fucking lost, dude. Masculine excellence that is limited to striving is taking the warrior and the magician and losing the king and the lover. Which might be why the world is so lost, we have no fathers and no husbands because men don't exercise those archetypes, those virtues. Which is what made the video so refreshing!
100% if it were 3 lanky programmers who were top .01% in the universe at their craft, nationally renowned, and wealthy. Hell, I'd probably have the exact same feeling if a similarly joyful, bro-ful video of Sergei Brin, Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, and Elon Musk making a drunken Christmas Album for charity came out. That would be a similar, probably even more powerful, demonstration of the Christian spirit of giving and the masculine spirit of magnanimity and brotherhood and not taking yourself so seriously! Charity calendars are practically a tradition among young professionals these days, and widely celebrated.
Call it what you like, but personally I think there's a slight difference in tone there; I would call that Magnanimity, or gift giving for functional purposes (to create bonds of allegiance and affection, to increase the capability of an underling, or to ostentatiously show off wealth and power to third parties). Charity I would describe as gift giving out of pure empathy.
Maybe I'm being too tetchy about it, IDK.
I mean we can definitely play patty-cake with it for a million years about what is empathy, does altruism exist, was there a purpose to this action or that action, and where the historic sacred responsibilities to strangers fit in. And I'm sympathetic to the argument that there's a meme of stripping masculinity out of masculinity. But I disagree with the idea that charity is feminine, that just does not track for me by tradition, by experience, or by logic.
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See also, the seasonal carol "Good King Wenceslas."
I agree. I hate to invoke political, ideological memes in this context, but libertarians are prone to pointing out the difference between men with guns telling you what to do in the name of helping the less fortunate, and going out and doing it yourself because it's the right thing to do. In spite of being atheist, I'll also invoke my former religion, and leave a quotation that I was thinking about last night while I struggled through my yearly requirement of midnight mass:
-- Matthew 6:1-4, ESV
I feel like the world could use more of this sort of morality, of quietly doing what is right, knowing that that is good enough, and other people don't need to know all of the gory details. Exemplified by people like Nicholas Winton and Dale Schroeder, who toiled and risked for the sake of others without ever seeking a shred of credit.
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Charity is not antithetical to masculinity but it is only ever contingent, and contains within it a contradiction. A king might give alms, but his crown cannot be shared. We might wish for nicer, more generous, and more magnanimous kings - but we cannot all be king, no matter how gracious superior men might be to inferior ones.
What would be the point? The virtues of charity and magnanimity are predicated on being part of a superior elite to begin with. There's no value in being humble when you have nothing to be humble about, in being charitable when you have nothing to give, in being a generous and open-minded lover when nobody wants your love. For the average person who isn't a top .01% physical specimen or a millionaire, meekness and humility aren't assets, they're massive handicaps.
Yes, not every man can achieve the highest ideal of masculinity, just as he cannot achieve being the ideal of the student or the athlete or the tycoon or the Don Juan. That doesn't mean they can't learn from great exemplars.
But most every man is king to some in some way, and it's important that he treat his kingdom well. That's the philosophy of the great chain of being, whether it's a king and his nation or a peasant and his dogs, relationships of mutual loyalty and benefit follow the same schema.
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Didn't say it's bad. Just that it's not one of the principal components of Archetypal Masculinity.
My argument was more along the lines of if you extracted out the features that define both masculinity and femininity, you would have a set of different features. Some of those features would overlap (Charity might be one of them). But the strongest signals let's say the top 5 strongest signals would be different. That's the entire reason why two different words are used to refer to two different things.
Charity is sharing. It's making sure everyone has enough, that no one is left behind. It's a top 5 feminine feature, not a top 5 masculine one. Maybe a top 20 masculine one.
Which is why I said its a bit on the nose to claim that what is inherently a feminine archetype (not action) being Masculine excellence.
That's the (dare I say) feminine fixation on aesthetics.
Focussing more on the people than the act.
I'll think about The King Archetype.
Which gender does "stretching archetypes" belong to?
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