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If someone uses "Nazi" to mean "conservative", then they obviously don't refer to conservatives, but would their usage really not affect their inferences or the inferences of others?
True, different men, like different women, have to work more or less hard to get romantic success. (This is more unforgiving for women than men: almost any woman can get sex, but what people usually want is a loving long term relationship, and men tend to be the gatekeepers for that. A man can work to balance out his unattractive physical traits, whereas a woman's degree or money is unlikely to help her much with the opposite sex.) This is because people care about physical appearances. Physical attractiveness is certainly helpful for initial attraction, though things like conscientiousness and agreeableness seem to be more important for maintaining love long term, since the latter requires a lot of empathy and (rewarding) hard work.
Now, why is working harder to get what you want through labour, exercise, study etc., rather than largely getting it due to inborn attractiveness, not "masculine"? Stereotypically, I would have thought the opposite: a man who is admired by women through displaying virtues and competence is more "manly" than one who is admired by women purely on innate physical grounds. Consider a reversal: is there something unusually masculine about the story of a woman who DID win the affection of her beloved through her abilities and character, despite her plain looks and innately awkward personality?
I appreciate the appeal of gaining easy approval due to one's looks, but I see it as a more classically female way to gain romantic success. Even in nature, among animals that do mating rituals, it's the male that needs to prove himself through dances, chasing the female around etc. in order to mate. Usually, the female just has to look fertile and healthy, and perhaps not even that, even if the result of mating is the male being eaten.
Think Cinderella (be beautiful and agreeable, then someone will eventually be nice to you) vs. Indiana Jones (handsome man, but still only gets the girl by proving himself, proves himself by solving problems and by saving her from danger - sometimes repeatedly in the same movie). Obviously, the latter is more of a classically masculine archetype: the questing knight in European folklore.
This is also seems to be why "saving the man from danger" has more of a maternal rather than romantic feel when it's a woman doing the saving, whereas "saving the woman from danger" has more of a heroic and sexy quality when it's a man doing the saving, unless it's literally saving his daughter as in the Taken movies. And if a man can save the village/kingdom/world/universe, then he's that much more of a classically masculine figure, since he must display great virtue/competence to do so.
To play your own game, if someone uses the term 'conservative' to refer to conservatives, I don't really know what they mean either. A conservative in rural Kentucky is not the same as a conservative in Washington party politics. A conservative today is not the same as a conservative from 60 years ago. What people are talking about and referring to is derived from context. Who they are, who they are referring to specifically and to what end.
I can, for instance, recognize that some person on twitter calling some 'conservative' a nazi is probably a lib/left/progressive voicing their emotional distaste more than they are making a relevant 1:1 comparison between 'conservatism' and the National Socialist German Workers Party of Adolf Hitler from the 1930's. By the same token I can disagree with their terminology I can recognize their actual contention.
As for the rest of the points you make, I feel like you are going a bit beyond the relevant subjects.
On this we agree. The rest of the paragraph, however, is irrelevant to the matter at hand. This is not a dissection of the sex wars from a point of view of who has it better or worse. Even if men in their current state are on aggregate more happy than women the problems they are having still exist and they can still be miserable. On top of that, men who can't even get a reply on Tinder are not gatekeepers for relationships. Looking at the situation from this angle loses sight on the topic of: attention from women, prosocial behavior and masculinity.
Because, as I maintained in my reply to OP, getting women is a competition. If you lose the competition it doesn't matter what you've done or how hard you have worked. And ultimately every man understands that if you are not successfully getting women, you are in a sense a loser compared to those who are successful. You can't be masculine and a loser.
How we see things in the abstract, infused with all our idyllic romanticism, is completely irrelevant. Like the Japanese veteran turned beggar shows. The heroic soldier doesn't return to the women of the country he fought for, where they await him with open arms in recognition of his struggle and feats of bravery. He returns to see them fornicating with the guys who nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And he is forced to beg them for scraps.
We don't need a hypothetical analogue from the animal kingdom to dispel our fantasy notions of how things ought to be. Some men need to own a house, at the very least, to get any attention from women. Other men don't.
You might really like the notions of masculinity and chivalry you express, or notions similar to 'constructive masculinity' as expressed by the author of OP's article, but that's just that. I'm not going to repeat what I've said on the problem prosocial masculinity faces, as I've already written a comment on it here
But I think it's safe to say that, again, it's dead in the water and a lot of men realize this.
Ok, now I'm sure I don't know what you are talking about. Why not?
Let me put it to you a different way then; If you can be masculine and a loser, why should a man who gets no attention from women but wants attention from women want to be masculine? Especially in the sort of prosocial sense as described by you and the author of OP's article.
Good question. I'll assume that by "loser" you mean something like "not romantic approved by women".
"Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all." - Ecclesiastes
In the modern world, it seems that the best bet that most men have for romantic success is to embody a certain archetype of the Noble Warrior. I think that Jordan Peterson put it something like "dangerous, but civilized". Women will often go with just dangerous (the Andrew Tate phenomenon) but this seems to be when they have lost hope of the combination with being civilized. So, while there is no guarantee of success from anything in life, there are probabilistic rewards from virtuous masculinity for a lot of men today.
Additionally, there are valuable things in life other than women's approval, which isn't to deny the very strong attraction of the latter for most men. Many (perhaps all) masculine virtues are useful for these. Partly because life has these complexities, I don't regard every man who isn't approved by women as a "loser", if as this word requires some sort of negative judgement. Based on what I know about things like depression and procrastination, I think that such terms - though motivated by a desire for success in various activities, including romance - actually are counterproductive and lead, ceteris paribus, to diminished performance.
And yes, I've experienced that state of mind where it seems like women's approval (or even one woman's approval) is the only thing that really matters. It seems common among men at some point in their teens or twenties. I don't think that's a rational or useful mindset - except insofar as the suffering it causes incentivises them to greater states of knowledge, strength, and wisdom.
So, in short, you are right that there are no guaranteed rewards from prosocial masculinity, but this is true of anything, so if that was a reason not to want to do X, then it would be a reason not to want anything. Women's romantic approval can be an awesome experience, useful, fulfilling etc., but it's not the only thing that matters, and it's certainly not a basis for holistic judgements of a man's character.
I explained what I mean by 'loser' here :
But you are missing the point of the question. Which was sort of rhetorical and intended to help you understand what is being talked about, but your answer will suffice. As a followup:
If being prosocially masculine was not the best way to become a winner, why should anyone who wants to be a winner do it?
What do you mean "the best way"? Guaranteed results for everyone? Or just the best bet in an uncertain game?
Also, does "wants to be a winner" mean just wants to be a winner (romantically successful) or that this is one of multiple goals they have?
I am using the term 'best' in the same sense you used it in your previous post where you said their best bet for romantic success was 'virtuous masculinity'
This is genuinely starting to feel like an exercise in futility. The point I'm making isn't hard to understand. It feels more like you are trolling or deliberately being obtuse so you don't have to engage with the topic.
No, I think you're making a serious and significant argument, which is why I am trying to understand it carefully. I wouldn't spend time on it otherwise.
If being e.g. a femboy or a cad is someone's best bet at romantic success and that's all they want to do, then it's rational for them to do that. And there are no guarantees in love or life, ever. However, it doesn't follow that prosocial masculinity is impossible or irrational for men in general.
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