This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
This doesn't happen because to express one's grievances as a male is to invite ridicule from all (except a small group of other aggrieved), not just Democrats. Part of "traditional masculinity" is to not make such grievances. This of course leaves men at a severe disadvantage, politically -- it's fine to be a Stoic when you're the Emperor of Rome, not so much when you don't have the power to solve your problems yourself.
Surely there is some guy, somewhere, who is already in a position of high status, who can act as the mouthpiece or advocate for disaffected males without implicating any individual man as the complainant. Someone who can beseach the egregore on behalf of his brethren by amplifying the words they are individually scared to mouth.
Just one dude, somewhere, who has the necessary 'clout' to say "no, many men are suffering under current norms and these norms should shift, and men should demand much, much better treatment (while still being worthy of it)."
Oh wait. That's Andrew Tate.
Once again I point out that the fact that Tradcons have largely failed to provide the men they want to step up and "lead" with either a viable path to becoming worthy, or a proper incentive (i.e. an appealing pool of marriageable women) for doing so. They could at least provide a realistic and admirable role model to provide the inspiration and advocacy men crave.
Oh wait, that was Charlie Kirk.
In principle I agree with your point entirely.
In fact, I think this dynamic, mixed with the fact that the internet grants a massive advantage to those who are able to freely type out their complaints and form (the appearance of) a massive public consensus by finding other people who are also typing out their similar complaints and then form an 'interest group' that types out their complaints en masse to ultimately steer the debate to their preferred outcome.
i.e. we get dozens of articles from women discussing womens' grievances, whereas men are mostly commiserating amongst themselves, so on a social level the average normie assumes women's complaints are much more important because they're that much more salient.
And this dynamic is amplified by the fact that the internet rewards grievance and rage farming with more attention.
So basically because men aren't rewarded at all for speaking out about their struggles, especially in the medium-form article format, and women not only find that format more intuitive they are continually rewarded with attention for raising it, the feedback loop is pretty predictable from there.
No, there isn't. It's not just that making the complaint implicates the complainer. It's that the complaint itself is invalid by the standards of traditional masculinity. Portraying men as somehow in opposition to women already takes you out of the traditional Overton Window.
Never said they had to frame it as opposition to women.
Andrew Tate surely doesn't. He frames it as opposition to "The Matrix."
What is a young man supposed to do when he's hobbled from the start by educational programs that favor women, college admissions that favor women, jobs programs and diversity mandates that favor women, and a general social environment that favors women?
He doesn't have to say women are the problem, if the problem is in fact the policies that create the outcomes he experiences.
If those policies don't change, he's at a disadvantage for life. One that he's forced to pay taxes to support, no less.
Who can point out that this is an obstacle that one can't solve by 'self improvement' alone, and demand policy change?
If there is no such person, where do we think this ends up?
"Man up" and overcome all the challenges that face him through masculine vigor and endurance, all with an uncomplaining stoic demeanor, or die trying? Recognize that he is the "disposable sex" who has to earn his personhood through deeds and through suffering?
And what happens when the rewards for all that effort are, rationally, not worth the effort and expense?
More to the point, after a guy goes through the painful efforts of making himself better, can he expect to achieve a loving marriage, have a kid or two with a loyal wife, and see these kids to adulthood in an intact home?
The stats on that are bleak, as of now.
If not, then what, truly, is the point? Why does he do what he does if not to preserve his status and pass on his genes?
The answer the "Traditionalist" view, which I've outlined above, gives to these questions is perhaps best exemplified in comments by Fox News talking head Tomi Lahren, as covered in this Shoe0nHead video, particularly the bit she said on Piers Morgan's show, on the topic of what women owe men in return for their efforts (at about 15:17 in the linked video):
It is your born duty as a male to work, suffer, and sacrifice for women, children, and society with absolutely no expectation of reward for it, simply because it's part of being a man, and if you don't do it, you're not a man.
In asserting this duty, Western traditions will tend to emphasize it being the will of God, or some such; East Asian ones will tend to put a bit more emphasis on owing it to the spirits of your ancestors. But in the end, they all reject the liberal/libertarian "pure individual," atomized and unbound by any obligation or duty not freely chosen. Instead, you are born in a particular place, a particular time, to a particular family, in a particular class, a particular nation, and, yes, with a particular sex. This unchosen role into which you are born comes with equally-unchosen duties and obligations to which one is bound. (Like the "filial piety" owed to your parents — even if you didn't choose them, and didn't choose to be born — recognized by pretty much every culture save the Modern West. Note, after all, that the first of the Ten Commandments involving one's duties to fellow human beings, as opposed to the earlier commandments covering one's duties to God and the sacred, is "honor thy father and thy mother.")
The duties remain, but the actual structure that supported and encouraged performance of those duties have atrophied.
Guys don't have an innate urge to uphold their society or even their neighborhood. Their drive is not to just accept a crappy status quo simply because its "normal."
Especially when there's clearly a class of male who is accruing all the benefits and status and women, and enduring much less of a sacrifice. I can't think of any stable, highly civilized society that survived long with such an imbalance.
Saying "men have a duty" rings utterly hollow. They need "buy-in." Stakes, if you will.
I'm not even criticizing the point that being the male protector is a thankless role. That is part of the game, sure. I'm criticizing your implication that men will just cast aside their own interests to become a protector, unless they identify something they need to protect.
A society that values them, or a genetic legacy that will survive them. Or, AT LEAST, the promise that they'll earn their way into a blissful afterlife. Valhalla works as a reward for a society that wants men to go forth and pillage and die in battle, and even that society promises rewards to their men.
The promise of Western Society was that the men would drop everything to repel invaders or catch and kill a criminal or rescue people from a natural disaster.
And then, when the crisis passed, they could return to their farm, with a wife and kids they were relatively sure were their own, and would otherwise have significant leeway to run their own affairs. If they survived the crisis.
That promise has been eroded and replaced with nothing, the duties have no real attachment to any underlying purpose whatsoever, and the previously stableish equilibrium has been wrecked by unpunished defectors.
How can you not expect rebellion at that point?
"What's the penalty for failing to carry out my expected male duties?"
"Get screeched at by harpies for having toxic masculinity, rejected by any moderately attractive woman, and the spoils of your efforts captured by foreigners and sociopathic male rivals."
"OH. Whats the reward for carrying out my expected male duties?"
"Get screeched at by harpies for having toxic masculinity, rejected by any moderately attractive woman, and the spoils of your efforts captured by foreigners and sociopathic male rivals."
"Well then."
They ain't going to fight for a civilization that doesn't at least pretend to work in their favor.
Agreed, and I'd totally support fixing them back up (reactionary Monarchist, here).
Because material comfort, electronic distractions, ersatz simulacra of success, etc. dull the rebellious spirits of the youth. Obesity, falling testosterone levels, and psychiatric drugs all suppress it further. Plus, peasant revolts have always failed outside of East Asia, and modern states have (or are gaining) various institutional and technological advantages that make them increasingly rebellion-proof.
Basically, all the same reasons Tyler Cowen gave in Average is Over for why we won't expect rebellion when 80% of the population, rendered economically superfluous by automation, are immiserated and packed into overcrowded favelas to subsist on beans.
Oh yes. This is indeed a recipe for the collapse of liberal civilization, with basically two possible outcomes depending on how well memetic transmission of modern Western views can be maintained.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link