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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   35058 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023

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Those don't really work, they're just random examples, as if ‘The Amazons, Margaret Thatcher, Aileen Wuornos” were valid counters to a thesis of men’s greater tendency for violence.

But what unites the three examples you’ve provided is that they are all surprising or counterintuitive, because they represent inversions of the qualities one would associate with women. Whereas the examples I provided are recognizably masculine archetypes - Donald Trump, for example, is frequently referred to as an appealing masculine archetype, because of his pure will-to-power and his ability to “hold frame”: to adhere to a particular narrative framing in order achieve a desired result, such as obtaining/maintaining power, or humiliating his enemies. This is a dominant and masculine form of lying; it’s the kind of lying you can only do if you’re either already in power, or if you hold (or believe you hold) a hidden leverage which will soon grant you an edge over your interlocutor.

I can accept ‘strongly driven to achieve power and wealth’ as a decent ‘pro-lies’ male characteristic you’re trying to get at with your examples.

That, and they are all united by “confidence and the ability to project that confidence in order to inspire trust/deference.” Whereas the feminine counterpart is “fragility and the ability to project that fragility in order to inspire protection/indulgence.” Both are prevalent forms of lying, and I don’t see one as more frequent than the other.

Why would you assume they equalize? Who's more likely to lie, one with overt power, or one with no power/covert power? Does the master lie more to his slave, or the slave to his master? Does the dictator lie to his ministers, or do they lie to him? The mouse to the cat, lawyer to the judge, jester to the king?

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