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Society vs Male Radicalisation II - Male Role Models/Surely This Time Our Plan Will Work
I was on the internet this week, and I found this:
Labour to help schools develop male influencers to combat Tate misogyny
It is interesting to note that there is an increasing shift towards talking about "role models" for young men and boys as a means of cooling the gender kerfuffle, rather than by repeating feminist talking points at males until they concede as was the case when I was a teenager. The Labour Party, the UK's apparent next government, has come up with policy to reduce the influence of Andrew Tate among schoolboys with the intended aim of safeguarding women and girls. It means to do this by creating counter role models to whom boys can look up to. This would not even the utterly embarrasing 30 year old boomers trying to guess what resonates with children, but would consist instead of older volunteer boys taken from within the same school. This if it is implemented, will have educators select the real life version of Will from Inbetweeners as its senior male role model and think themselves of sound mind for doing so. You are only ever going to get uncool loser types volunteering, and it is the fear of becoming an uncool loser (or worse) that motivates young men to go and consume manosphere content.
Feminism's defenders will counter that there are many existing role models available for men, often listing real or fictional people like Ryan Gosling, Marcus Rashford or Ted Lasso. These men are either fake or literal one percenters whose lifestyle an average young man has no hope of to attaining. This betrays a complete lack of understanding about why men choose the role models they do and how they attempt to emulate them. These role models are deliberately or implicitly chosen as role models for young men by people who aren't young men often because they display qualities that are useful, rather than valued, to society. This is because almost all policy dreamt up by institutions concerning Men and Boys is not to their benefit, but instead to neuter a perceived threat against Women, Girls and the wider society. For every Marcus Rashford, there are multiple Mason Greenwoods or Kurt Zoumas who continue to receive all the signifiers of male success and receive no punishment for any of their transgressions.
It is clear that what educational and social institutions want are meek, inoffensive and productive men who do not question the rules of society. This is in direct contrast to what young men want, which is to be outspoken, to be popular with women, to be socially and economically successful. No role model ever produced or selected by the state could manage this, particularly not when operating under the notion that it must maintain women's liberation, which itself requires the stifling of men. I question for how much longer this approach will be kept in place. There are hundreds of people like Andrew Tate across SM, each ready to teach boys what society is unable to teach them. Educators can more easily dispel Tate because of the sex trafficking offences and because Tate himself is a clown, but people like Hamza, whose lived experience is much closer to the boys he is trying to proselytize to than that of Tate's, they have no counterargument.
There's been a fair amount of discourse in lefty spaces over the last 2-4 years about how feminist/progressive ideology is good at telling men what things to stop doing but bad at teaching boys what they should do instead, leaving a lot of young men who want to be progressive without a reliable script to follow. Presenting and promoting role models is the solution, that project is very much in early days and not going to be very good at first, but in the long term it's the only way to stabilize a new normal.
I mean if you ask anyone to name some role models off the top of their head, those people are going to be very famous and therefore almost-by-necessity rich or fake, almost by definition. A non-famous role model isn't necessarily a contradiction in terms, but it wouldn't be the first example most people think of. And it's hard to be famous in a positive way without being rich or fake these days.
But there are plenty of viable non-famous candidates that the community is growing and embracing on its own in the normal, market-driven, organic way. Just like I've never heard of Hamza, I'm guessing you've never heard of FD Signifier, but he's an example of an organically-grown explicitly leftist microceleb who can serve as a good role model for young black men. And of course there are plenty of creators who aren't explicitly politically aligned but exhibit the virtues of non-problematic masculinity and are popular with younger boys, like Markiplier or SuperEyepatchWolf or etc.
And conservative communities have little difficulty producing positive role models for boys. Which seems like an obvious drawback- leftist communities need to astroturf someone into a role that is already filled elsewhere.
Asked with genuine and humble curiosity, what are some positive conservative role models for boys?
I think a rising one could be Mike Gallagher:
What sets it over the top is that he announced he's not going to seek reelection because "being a full time politician isn't what the founding fathers intended." That sets him pretty distinctly apart from conservative politicians who talk the talk and do vote the vote ... yet have only ever had the job of "man who talks in front of cameras about politics and stuff" so they come across as disingenuous. See, for instance, Josh Hawley - he's trying to lead their weird masculinity revival ... but he's wholly from the path of Harvard-Yale-Lawyer-Congress.
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The ones that exist in their IRL communities.
Celebrities and influencers and pundits are not role models. Most people live essentially boring, normie lives and need role models that are people like them. This seems kind of obvious, but a lot of people miss it- neither a celebrity nor a fictional character makes a good role model because they aren’t normal. And the people you’ve heard of from beyond your Dunbar group are mostly celebrities, fictional characters, and a few cousin’s boyfriend types.
Conservative communities are generally quite good at positive IRL role models for boys from within or maybe just beyond the Dunbar group.
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Mr. Rogers? Although I guess he was progressive back then.
Unironically, Mike Pence.
The "I can't be trusted alone in a room with a woman that isn't my wife" mike pence?
During an interview in 2002, Pence told a reporter that he would not have dinner alone with a woman other than his wife.
The "I want to force people to have funerals for their miscarriages" mike pence?
The "retarded children should be forced to full term" mike pence?
In March 2016, as Indiana governor, Pence signed into law H.B. 1337, a bill that both banned certain abortion procedures and placed new restrictions on abortion providers. The bill banned abortion if the reason for the procedure given by the woman was the fetus' race or gender or a fetal abnormality. In addition, the bill required that all fetal remains from abortions or miscarriages at any stage of pregnancy be buried or cremated, which according to the Guttmacher Institute was not required in any other state.[155][156][157] The law was described as "exceptional for its breadth"; if implemented, it would have made Indiana "the first state to have a blanket ban on abortions based solely on race, sex or suspected disabilities, including evidence of Down syndrome".[156]
"Coal is the future" mike pence?
Pence has been an outspoken supporter of the coal industry, declaring in his 2015 State of the State address that "Indiana is a pro-coal state," expressing support for an "all-of-the-above energy strategy", and stating: "we must continue to oppose the overreaching schemes of the EPA until we bring their war on coal to an end.
He is your hero?!
Updated with the appropriate context.
If a conservative shares these views (strawman/slanting aside) why do you expect this to be a problem for them?
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We've just had a comment elsewhere about a guy that got crucified when his workplace fuck buddy turned on him. Wanna take another go at the Pence Rule being dumb?
He didn't say he couldn't be trusted alone in a room with another woman, he said he adopted a form of the Billy Graham rule: when in public, at an event that involves alcohol, one-on-one with a woman not his wife - don't. Have at least a third party there.
And seeing as how there were plenty of people willing to dig up dirt on Graham and others, any kind of E. Jean Carroll "he raped me in fifteen seconds, no I don't have a witness, that'll be $83 million thanks" accusation would have been smeared all over the media. Same with Pence, same with anybody not 100% on board the liberal agenda. Bill Clinton can be promised that the feminists will strap on the presidential kneepads to give him blowjobs, Joe Biden is of course innocent and we never said "believe all women", but if you're the wrong party or the wrong kind of opinions, we will hammer you to the wall for #MeToo.
Why do you think there are glass panels in meeting room doors? Why do you think there are guidelines around being alone with children/vulnerable adults? You're fully entitled to sneer at those precautions if you want to do so, but you can't blame it on Pence alone as being a dumb horny redneck that can't be alone with a woman without wanting to rape her.
Link?
Okay, I know I replied to someone quoting the case of David Sabatini on March 12th, according to the search history, and I'm fairly sure it was on here but I don't think I can find it. Unless I'm hallucinating like ChatGPT and it was a discussion elsewhere, entirely possible.
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During the height of MeToo, >50% of men working normie corporate jobs implemented the Mike Pence rule, even if they didn't announce it.
For male managers / any position with real authority (hire/fire, performance reviews, etc.) this was >80%.
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You've gotten a ton of reports for this comment. While we are less strict about straw manning and insulting public figures than we are about doing so to other posters, this still isn't a very good post. In response to someone who says "I admire Mike Pence" you kind of sneeringly rattle off reasons why he shouldn't, and the sneers are at best uncharitable interpretations of his positions. And below you get indignant when someone reverse unos you.
You are not ennobling the discourse.
I mean are all the comments about biden being a child sniffing senile corruption magnet getting the same treatment?
https://www.themotte.org/post/865/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/185995?context=8#context
Maybe the alone with women one is a bit misrepresentative, although he went about it in a weird way, no one else seems to publicise their avoidance of alone time with women the way he does. But the others are all dead accurate and I stand by them. They are not "straw-men" in any way shape or form, but actual policy positions taken from reputable sources.
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These are all political positions and not matters of character.
Insofar as they reveal character, they are virtuous, in the Aristotelian sense, which is to say that the virtuous man has made habit of preventing himself from moral failure through self discipline.
What exactly isn't heroic about Mike Pence? Not sharing your views isn't disqualifying.
So you think it is "heroic" to not allow yourself in a room with a woman that isn't your wife? Falling on a grenade for your buddy in a fox hole is heroic. Forcing a family to have a funeral after a miscarriage is about the furthest thing I can imagine from being a hero. Making a poor mother bring a retarded child into the world is about as anti-heroic as you can get. Not to mention a burden on society and the family, and the child.
You have a simplistic understanding of heroism that doesn't allow for it in anybody that doesn't agree with your terminal values.
I hate communism, and yet I wouldn't pretend Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov's hero of the Soviet Union awards were undeserved.
If maintaining one's moral standard and virtue in the face of prevailing social mores or any form of great difficulty is not heroic, the word has no useful meaning except to honor one's friends.
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He seems like a good role model to me. An honest person. A good family man.
Actions matter than words.
Even if we do care only about words, no one's words can survive a motivated effort to strawman their belief system as you have done for Pence.
That isn't a straw man. Those are stated beliefs/actions on his part. It is all on his wikipedia page even.
The dude probably wouldn't even be able to articulate his views in a satisfying way. I'm sure you could beat him in a debate.
tl;dr, "not an argument".
Argumentum ad Wikipedium is not sufficient support for any point, especially around political figures. Have you ever interacted with the users who actually edit those pages on the regular? A charitable description would be "opinionated control freak with a lot of free time". Any information you get from them beyond the object level "thing happened" is suspect, and even the object level descriptions are often maximally uncharitable or tactically out of context.
Could you? You're welcome to re-watch the VP debates against Kaine and Harris. Or I suppose you'd be watching them for the first time, since it sounds like you haven't seen Pence debate before.
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Show me the part of his wiki page that says he can't be trusted with a woman?
I don't even care about pence but this is just a ridiculous strawman.
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The "I know this will cost me my political future, but I'm not going to subvert the Constitution" Mike Pence.
Thank you for addressing zero of my points and substituting your own. Maybe he was just smart enough to know taking over a building doesn't actually topple the government.
When someone does something brave in service to what is right, it is understandable that others may call him a role model. As for your points, they are not addressing the question at hand which is "what are some positive conservative role models for boys?" For a conservative the fact that Mike Pence commits himself to virtue in the sexual sphere, believes consistently in the sanctity of human life, and is pro coal are positives, not negatives. They would be good reasons for Mike Pence to not be a progressive role model, but are no obstacle to being a conservative role model.
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Wasn't that about avoiding spurious accusations?
The refusal to be alone in a room with a woman that wasn't his wife, yes. That it was on grounds he couldn't be trusted is the partisan strawman.
And this is such a fascinating window into modern leftist psychology. Implicit here is the insane assumption that of course a woman wouldn't ever lie about a man making improper sexual advances in private, and that no one will point this out because to do so would be anti-woman.
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No, it was about making his wife feel secure in their relationship.
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Local scout leaders, church leaders, etc. Two of my bishops growing up (I'm LDS) were huge role models for me.
My biggest secular role models as an adult are probably John Carmack and Richard Hipp, but that's because I work in software development.
I haven't much experience with scout and church leaders though I also was a teenage admirer of John Carmack. I realize I knew very little about him until I listened to his four hour Lex interview
What makes him a good young role model? Even in a space like video games he can make a mark and be successful
Okay he seems pretty awesome. Someone kids could look up to.
Does this stuff make him a conservative male role model though?
Eh Carmack probably isn't a super good role model of conservative values outside of a role model for the value of hard work and education, I agree. Though he is anti-woke to some extent (good friends with Musk, guest speaker at an explicitly anti-woke sci fi convention, etc.).
Richard Hipp on the other hand would probably be a good conservative role model. Devout Catholic, family man, hard worker and successful. Also massively impactful worldwide (you probably have a few dozen instances of SQLite running on your phone or desktop as we speak). And appears to be very humble in spite of that.
I guess I was hoping to see a definition of "conservative role model" that didn't automatically imply religious.
Seems like the ghist of it is
To be honest, I don't really think such a thing exists. Non-religious conservatives are a thing, absolutely, but the most prominent and famous ones seems to have, uh, colorful personal lives at best. I love Clint Eastwood and his movies, but I definitely would not want to emulate his personal life.
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Mm, I'll take your word for it. I'm pretty unimpressed by SQLite :P
If you need a SQL database and don't need multiple concurrent writers nothing beats SQLite in terms of performance and simplicity. But yeah if your usecase falls outside of that it's not really a good fit. Though the SQLite docs explicitly acknowledge that.
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