domain:aporiamagazine.com
Corvos
1m ago
I don't literally mean 'want' as in literally 'will happily tell you that this is their intention'. I mean 'want' as in 'cannot be swayed from their path' i.e. they act as though they want to self destruct. Saying so is a defense mechanism, yes, but it's also that I have known such people and they will reject, subvert and oppose anything that will actually help them so actively that 'want' seems to be the correct word for it.
I do not think that ordinary people can help this subset of addicts and the mentally ill because that would require the power and authority to straight-up enforce 'help' on unwilling recipients, and in some cases it would take active mind-control.
Corvos
6m ago
@self_made_human, how are you getting on with the new PC?
I actually copied your specs, on the basis that you seemed like someone who knew what he was talking about, and I'm liking it very much but I need a proper monitor. You were going to get an OLED TV rather than a conventional monitor - did you? And if so, what do you think of it?
EDIT: apologies for the repost, I had the wrong Tinker Tuesday.
astrolabia
7m ago
What a payoff, thanks for asking, @butts!
This guy reminds me a lot of a younger version of myself. I suppose stoicism is a skill - I certainly attempted to reach inner peace with a combination of weed and videogames at some points, but was driven to try at life by a desire for women. It sounds like this guy was "scared straight" from engaging with the world.
This guy honestly sounds accomplished to me in his own way. He really learned to tend his own garden! I wouldn't trade my life for his, but if I was a NEET, I can't think of a nicer setup.
I wonder if his parents could have done anything differently, or if this is just the way it goes sometimes.
What happened with your post?
Gas. It's an underdeveloped idea. Convoluted.
I wrote until I ran out of time. I pressed send. If I had hated it, then I would have deleted it. If I liked it more I may have dumped it on you today in improved form, or worked for a future a top-level. Is there any part you consider interesting or worth reading besides the stroke?
Something's in that mass of mush I can feel it.
The interpersonal exit veto (I won't be dissuaded) has a lower barrier to execute than Move to Canada. Lana's collection of ideas, beliefs, ailments, and suffering in were normalized, grown, and reinforced in she spaces sought out.
I don't think Sentence 1 is stroke-y? Lazy, dull. It's missing a the. Sorry. Sentence 2 is repulsive, I agree. A form of Sentence 2 was written first, then I added more words, words, words in another pass to the second half of it. We don't need those sentences at all. Let's try that.
OliveTapenade
19m ago
Chesterton was a localist and a distributist - his political views strongly tend towards small government. He criticises both capitalists and socialists for concentrating property in the hands of the few who can then wield arbitrary power over individual citizens. As an ethical matter, I think Chesterton is also conspicuously opposed to bullies. He presents himself as a champion of the ordinary, no-longer-free Englishman who craves a return to ancient liberties.
I would say that MAGA involves a centralisation of power in a single office, or more properly a single man, and that man is grossly intemperate and vengeful. I'd guess that Chesterton would see Trump as akin to one of the more demagogic kings of England, vicious in his lusts, but nonetheless opposed to the suffocating bureaucratic-parliamentary class that the common man sees as a more direct enemy.
In his Short History of England, Chesterton writes that "the case for despotism is democratic". I suspect he would see Trump as a 'democratic despot' along these lines, and Chesterton's observation that "[despotism's] cruelty to the strong is kindness to the weak" might enable him to regard some of Trump's excesses with a measure of sympathy, even if the man himself remains a despot. Thus, still in Short History:
This conviction, as brilliantly expounded by Bolingbroke, had many aspects; perhaps the most practical was the point that one of the virtues of a despot is distance. It is "the little tyrant of the fields" that poisons human life. The thesis involved the truism that a good king is not only a good thing, but perhaps the best thing. But it also involved the paradox that even a bad king is a good king, for his oppression weakens the nobility and relieves the pressure on the populace. If he is a tyrant he chiefly tortures the torturers; and though Nero's murder of his own mother was hardly perhaps a gain to his soul, it was no great loss to his empire.
Naturally I do not think Chesterton would be at all sympathetic to the American left, especially as that left has become increasingly institutionalised and regulatory. I am sure he would see that as a thicket of weeds choking the natural liberty of the people. That is simple an instance of The Servile State.
So I can see Chesterton having a kind of, if not affection precisely, at least understanding of Trump, as a kind of poetic expression of the American genius. So perhaps Trump is a Nero figure - someone whose own soul is perhaps contemptible, but whose effect, insofar as it weakens America's de facto 'nobility', is good.
I am not sure how far he'd go with that in practical terms, though, because Chesterton's distributism was very much concerned with the real distribution of property, and as much as Trump has symbolically offended an elite class, he has done very little to remedy the actual concentration of property in America.
I offered via Chesterton a kind of qualified defense of despotism, but I am bound also to mention his description of the same in Heretics:
Next to a genuine republic, the most democratic thing in the world is a hereditary despotism. I mean a despotism in which there is absolutely no trace whatever of any nonsense about intellect or special fitness for the post. Rational despotism—that is, selective despotism—is always a curse to mankind, because with that you have the ordinary man misunderstood and misgoverned by some prig who has no brotherly respect for him at all. But irrational despotism is always democratic, because it is the ordinary man enthroned. The worst form of slavery is that which is called Caesarism, or the choice of some bold or brilliant man as despot because he is suitable. For that means that men choose a representative, not because he represents them, but because he does not. Men trust an ordinary man like George III or William IV. because they are themselves ordinary men and understand him. Men trust an ordinary man because they trust themselves. But men trust a great man because they do not trust themselves. And hence the worship of great men always appears in times of weakness and cowardice; we never hear of great men until the time when all other men are small.
(This leads him on to a defense of 'hereditary despotism', i.e. monarchy.)
If we interpret MAGA as a type of Caesarism, which I think is about as reasonable a comparison as is available to us, I think this gives us a look at some of Chesterton's attitudes towards that. The worship of great men always appears in times of weakness and cowardice.
If you'll pardon a long quote, one of the next passages of Heretics strikes me as particularly apposite:
Everything in our age has, when carefully examined, this fundamentally undemocratic quality. In religion and morals we should admit, in the abstract, that the sins of the educated classes were as great as, or perhaps greater than, the sins of the poor and ignorant. But in practice the great difference between the mediaeval ethics and ours is that ours concentrate attention on the sins which are the sins of the ignorant, and practically deny that the sins which are the sins of the educated are sins at all. We are always talking about the sin of intemperate drinking, because it is quite obvious that the poor have it more than the rich. But we are always denying that there is any such thing as the sin of pride, because it would be quite obvious that the rich have it more than the poor. We are always ready to make a saint or prophet of the educated man who goes into cottages to give a little kindly advice to the uneducated. But the medieval idea of a saint or prophet was something quite different. The mediaeval saint or prophet was an uneducated man who walked into grand houses to give a little kindly advice to the educated. The old tyrants had enough insolence to despoil the poor, but they had not enough insolence to preach to them. It was the gentleman who oppressed the slums; but it was the slums that admonished the gentleman. And just as we are undemocratic in faith and morals, so we are, by the very nature of our attitude in such matters, undemocratic in the tone of our practical politics. It is a sufficient proof that we are not an essentially democratic state that we are always wondering what we shall do with the poor. If we were democrats, we should be wondering what the poor will do with us. With us the governing class is always saying to itself, “What laws shall we make?” In a purely democratic state it would be always saying, “What laws can we obey?” A purely democratic state perhaps there has never been. But even the feudal ages were in practice thus far democratic, that every feudal potentate knew that any laws which he made would in all probability return upon himself. His feathers might be cut off for breaking a sumptuary law. His head might be cut off for high treason. But the modern laws are almost always laws made to affect the governed class, but not the governing. We have public-house licensing laws, but not sumptuary laws. That is to say, we have laws against the festivity and hospitality of the poor, but no laws against the festivity and hospitality of the rich. We have laws against blasphemy—that is, against a kind of coarse and offensive speaking in which nobody but a rough and obscure man would be likely to indulge. But we have no laws against heresy—that is, against the intellectual poisoning of the whole people, in which only a prosperous and prominent man would be likely to be successful. The evil of aristocracy is not that it necessarily leads to the infliction of bad things or the suffering of sad ones; the evil of aristocracy is that it places everything in the hands of a class of people who can always inflict what they can never suffer. Whether what they inflict is, in their intention, good or bad, they become equally frivolous. The case against the governing class of modern England is not in the least that it is selfish; if you like, you may call the English oligarchs too fantastically unselfish. The case against them simply is that when they legislate for all men, they always omit themselves.
I think you can trace from this the Chestertonian criticism of the academic left and the bureaucratic state, and insofar as MAGA is opposed to that, they and Chesterton have a common enemy.
But Chesterton was never good at biting his tongue and making common cause against a common enemy - to H. G. Wells' great frustration - and I can't see him joining or supporting a movement that, by his own lights, is weak and cowardly.
faceh
22m ago
"Hard Rightie pundit living off of family wealth" seems like a notable archetype.
Tree
24m ago
Interesting perspective.
Everybody attaches their hobby horse to this problem: “it’s modernity, it’s lack of religion, urbanization, female education, not-enough state support, the wrong kind of state support, the housing crisis, devalued motherhood, it’s feminism, it’s not enough feminism...”. Men accuse omen and women accuse men, rightists accuse leftists and vice versa and so on and so forth.
You: “Women just dislike the pain and physical damage”. Everyone: “D’oh!”.
In my defense, I thought the problem was pretty much relegated to the past outside of some minor exceptions, but yeah if I look around irl the physical and psychological issues associated with pregnancy are still very common.
I guess we increase the painkillers/meds and supercharge the research into artificial wombs. Drip in, and baby out, asap.
chooky
26m ago
I completely agree that the general support for abortion stems mostly from both men and women wanting pregnancies to be optional; I think calling this desire an "accountability problem" is a pointlessly obtuse way of framing the issue except that it attempts to build consensus. Fwiw, both of my children were from unexpected pregnancies (birth control ain't got shit on me) that we actively elected to keep, which seems far better than having unexpected pregnancies that we were forced to keep and never got to consider "wanted".
However, I think you dismissing the extremely rare cases too easily. Having your daughter/self forced to carry a child of rape is a completely horrific scenario that you can except essentially no chance of. Having your wife (or worse, mother of your children) die because they were forced to carry a life-threatening pregnancy is another absolute nightmare. These are things that, from my perspective, need to just have a zero probability.
Yes, that is why I was talking about general attitude. In general men may view loneliness as more problematic, for instance according to Pew research 57% of 18-34 men compared to 45% of women want a family. That is why I previously mentioned that men are more likely to see loneliness as a bad thing and approach it from despair, while women may view loneliness as an empowerment and something they want.
I think this goes hand in hand with general trend where men have more societal expectations put on them when it comes to traditional gender roles - strive for high status, provide for and protect your family and your community especially women and children. While for women the gender roles were targets of more attacks, to the extent where some traditional gender duties like motherhood were dropped completely. To even talk about having children as duty for women is viewed as misogyny.
This also informs how the topic is handled - incels are universally reviled as failures of their own character, while femcels are victims of society in general and men in particular at best. But this may also change in the future and men will be more comfortable also dropping the societal expectations - like 40 year old guys just working part time and playing video games completely reneging on social pressure on their behavior, similarly how it is with women now. However I would not see it as cure for loneliness, just more acceptance of shitty situation.
sun_the_second
44m ago
I'd assume in the ancestral environment the young women would be mostly daughters and nieces or otherwise related to the older women. So it wouldn't be competition, it would be trying to spread one's genes more.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
47m ago
While conservatives report much higher mental health ratings, asking instead about overall mood eliminated the gap between liberals and conservatives.
Isn't this just a replication of hedonic adaptation? No matter how good you have it, most people feel "average" most of the time.
Mental health isn't really related to how someone's mood. Mental health is a measurement for how well a person can respond appropriately to life's challenges and has a good working model of the world. Even something like a "mood disorder" is one where there is a disconnect between actual life circumstances and the person's state of mind or feeling. If someone was feeling miserable because of actual life circumstances - say they're locked in a basement and getting tortured, no one would consider that a mood disorder. And a mood disorder also covers feelings of elation caused by BPD, feelings of anger, etc.
SSCReader
47m ago
Except men commit suicide more often and are more likely to be conservative. All that counting the number of people who say they have or are in treatment for mental health issues, can tell you is the number of known people, people who seek treatment or talk about it.
Men more often keep it in until they snap. Working class men specifically (who went about 63% for Trump) make up the majority of fatal drug overdoses, alcohol related deaths and suicides it appears. Self-medicating, coping and keeping it inside until you can't is the male strategy basically.
Blues have worse visible mental health is perhaps all we have the data to say. But I think there are enough signs that say that a lot of Red men particularly suffer what Blues would call mental health issues, they just don't talk about it and suffer through it in silence, until they drink/drug themselves to death slowly or kill themselves directly.
The truth may well be that Blue women particularly talk about it too much, and Red men particularly, don't talk about it enough. Which is going to confound any easy way to compare rates of mental health issues.
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
50m ago
I've been toying with the idea that anti-abortion is intrasexual competition - menopausal women want to see younger ones saddled with babies, preferably out of wedlock, so they'll be less attractive to 40-something men.
desolation
You shall love your crooked neighbor, with your crooked heart
50m ago
Hm. Not been a huge fan of them in the past, but will take a look.
Definitely a different tone and culture than here or even the schism, and a particular focus that can be frustrating at times. A few other Mottezans have made rounds over the years.
I don't think I'm asking the world and the seven seas.
Indeed.
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
52m ago
No, I see it as an obvious direct consequence of their decisions. You're the one loading this completely-unobjectionable fact with emotional valence.
It's not a fact - abortion can avoid it, just as technology has allowed us to avoid many "obvious direct consequences" in the past 300 years. Yet only this one you take issue with. I wonder why.
Grant_us_eyes
1hr ago
...you just split suicides/suicides attempts into gendered groups, not political. Men tend to be more successful, women tend to attempt it more.
What I had one person point out that's always stuck with me, however, is that an 'attempted suicide' moment for a man is going to be different for a woman. 'Attempted suicide' in that case is going to involve a man taking out a loaded gun, staring at it for an hour, and then quietly putting it away.
The crux of the argument being, 'attempts' in this situation are going to be manifest differently and trying to measure them scientifically is going to be messy and lossy as the result.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ, Υἱέ τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἐλέησόν με τὸν ἁμαρτωλόν
1hr ago
Good to have you join us! yeah @naraburns is a gem. There is some genuinely great writing here. I liked your post as well.
"Already old and has grandchildren" is quite the goalpost movement. When I think of the modal "lonely male" it's not someone who already has grandchildren, it's someone who never had children yet, or estranged from them in a divorce.
Grant_us_eyes
1hr ago
Having friends - even close ones - is a different experience from having a girlfriend/fiancé/wife you come home to every evening.
There's also the other side of this equation, when some friends get married(and have children) and the rest don't. Even worse if they move away. You're still friends, you still talk alot, but circumstances change when you can only see each other face to face once or twice a year.
sun_the_second
1hr ago
This is the kind of guy they make uplifting youtube videos about. "This man has been picking pineapples for 30 YEARS, this is his story.".
2rafa
1hr ago
I know of zero relationships that ended because the guy went too far right.
I know of one, the man now has a tiny twitter account retweeting BAP and Fuentes, NYU dropout, beautiful girlfriend, handsome and from a good family, started very loudly talking about how slavery was justified at parties, was literally part of the tiki torch march at Charlottesville, now lives in a small town inland in Florida off what most of his friends think is his grandfather’s inheritance. Went to private school in NYC (I didn’t know him then, but I have friends who did). Gained 50+ lbs.
AvocadoPanic
1hr ago
I've had very similar experience with friends, some from childhood; divorce, asymmetric undercut in unnatural colors, attempts at lesbianism and public online displays of mental health issues. I've had the same thoughts about reaching out but ultimately didn't think I'd be heard in a way that added value.
tend to our own gardens
This is where I am, I like to think of it as being Mary, not Martha.
The opposite side of this we are now beginning to see in the online 'white well-being' posters. Some of this I think is just women being more influenced by their perceived peer groups.
Crowstep
1hr ago
I can't give a definitive answer to your question (which I guess you're not really expecting). It's far too personal, and reasons you've given are valid to consider.
Louise Perry likens pregnancy and giving birth as the female equivalent of going to war. It's dangerous, intoxicating, glorious, painful and rewarding all at once. It's brings you close to death and closer to life. You're going through something that all of your female ancestors went through and coming out the other side having created a new soul.
If you do go ahead and have another baby, you'll be doing something heroic. That's all I can really say.
thejdizzler
1hr ago
One of my problems in general, but certainly when it comes to self improvement/wellness is trying to do too much at once. For example, here is my list of goals for this month:
• Chores spreadsheet
• 400k words read Spanish
• 2 substack posts
• Read 3000 pages total (~100/day, roughly 8-10 books).
• 4 Spanish gramar exercises
• Up 3k spanish Anki cards, 500 italian Anki cards
• 300 minutes of meditation total (average 10 min/day)
• 20 days fap free
• Swim 4 days a week
• Build to 50 miles a week running
• Savings rate of at least 20%
This + goals at work seems to overwhelm me. Are there specific goals in this list that you think I should focus on? Things that I should cut? Is there a better way to approach goal setting in general?
Religion can take up a lot of time, and is quite nice to have. ;)
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