For those who need it on here and actually want to address the biggest problems they are facing I’ll leave this here: https://www.choosingtherapy.com/15-best-books-on-self-love/
The comments here on this Lemmy post can serve as a perfect demonstration for the reason behind men turning right-wing. Any comment trying to point out some specific aspect of life where men are experiencing more hardships is immediately shut off and getting told these experiences and concerns are invalid.
There is a limit to how much “fuck you” one can hear before going “well, fuck you too”.
There’s an art to diplomacy, and sometimes it involves omitting truths or carefully framing it, even when dealing with awful people, and compromising or postponing grand strategic goals for short-term gains.
I feel like many young men are being alienated by people pissed off with the status quo that fail at or refuse to engage with them diplomatically. I get it, I don’t want to compromise or negotiate on basic human rights and dignity either. I don’t want to wait for things to get better. I don’t want to coddle the sensitive pride of chauvinistic dickheads.
But reactionary grift thrives on the (negative) reaction to being told your way of life, your habits, your norms are bad and wrong, and particularly to the (exaggerated) impression that you are bad and wrong for reasons beyond you control (like being born with a dick) or that you are irrelevant.
We need to find a way to communicate issues more diplomatically and include these men in the conversation and solution rather than making them “the other”.
And we also need to reign in the hardcore misandrists who genuinely do want to turn this into us vs. them.
we know how do it. bernie sanders, aoc, and mandani show us the way.
the issue is their ‘way’ is wholesome and isn’t based on self-righteous rage and self-importance, so people don’t like it and it freaks them out. the issue is so many people use politics as nothing more than a drug to fuel their self righteous superiority complex, where they are ‘right’ and everyone else is ‘wrong’ based purely on the beliefs, not any objective reality or facts.
the issue is their ‘way’ is wholesome and isn’t based on self-righteous rage and self-importance,
No they are very few, we need more of them on community levels, and before you jump “be one then” I would have surely tried if I had resources.
no dude. i have tried myself. it’s pointless because the delusional psychopaths will push you out. they can’t stand anyone who doesn’t agree with them and then will character assassinate you, lie, and spread rumors and hateful things behind your back. for them social solidarity and control takes precedent over truth and justice, because truth and justice derives from belonging to the group, not from an external objective reality.
because to them there is no wrong-doing for a just cause. violence and even murder is justified as long as it’s towards the non-believers.
Thanks for putting it in words, people from the left at core want to help but they attack anyone who is in close proximity to them and appear to be the part of the statues queue, like " if not privileged why privileged shaped"
The whole situation becomes like:
“hi, I have problems with my job…”
“But you are a man, you are working for a multi-billion dollar company founded by men, who are part of oppression and putting the world in a dangerous place…”
“But I am a server at McDonald…”
“Is anything factually wrong with what I said… No right, see you are part of the problem”
The above example is over simplification but that’s how many of the conversations have felt when I tried to explain my position.
the issue is people need an enemy. the left pretends it doesn’t ‘other’ people because that’s against it’s values… but they do. they just other what is perceived as the dominant sex/ethnicity because that’s punching up, but the issue is they lump in everyone when the demo they should target is really quite small. they go on and on on about incels, but incels are not a significant population anymore tham femcels or radicals are.
and they should get courting the average office worker and mcdonalds worker. they used to. bernie and mandani do, but for some reason they have brainwashed themselves that the average white guy is the problem with society… turning him into some evil boogeyman that must be eliminated/converted and if not eternally punished.
and while they go on and on about incels being evil they just genrealied to all men and of course… alienate men. nobody wants to hear how awful and shitty they are when they have done nothing awful and shitty. men are guilty by default in the eyes of the left, very similar to how the right wing seeks women as guilty by default.
Honestly, I am not sure how we can deal with that “enemy” thing, As of now, distancing from the online communities is one of the few measures one can take. But even on that I am not sure how much it works.
What you’re describing is exactly how these echo chambers naturally form.
You’ll have a group of active people that share a set of beliefs and anybody who doesn’t share all of those beliefs is treated as an enemy and bullied. Name calling, downvote brigading, strawmanning their position, etc. until that person leaves and the community is just a bit more of an echo chamber.
This happens in video game communities and in social justice communities. One thing that everyone has in common is that as soon as someone is identified as an enemy then there is little that you can do to them that is immoral.
I thought of sharing my experience but people here were already shouting “you are lying or exaggerating” to anybody who shared their experience opposing the narrative, So I didn’t bother, I reach out to some communities when I feel down or hopeless but don’t expect any support,I know I am not entitled to help but gaslighting that your suffering doesn’t matter or are not real sometime hurts, I’m just trying to find ways to deal with them alone.
i shared my experiences. nothing but insults and abuse were thrown at me.
if anything bad happens to a man its’ because we deserve it for not being leftist enough, apparently. oh and even if you are leftist, and you are critical of leftistm or sympathic to non-leftists… well then you deserve to suffer and be in pain until you are ‘reeducated’ to the proper way of thinking where you are a true believer and never critical of any leftist talking point or belief…2
it’s just all masked misandry where their rage at the social elites is projected onto working class and younger people, as if men suddenyl voting democrat is going to radically change our society… it won’t.
oh and even if you are leftist, and you are critical of leftistm or sympathic to non-leftists… well then you deserve to suffer and be in pain.
I have experienced this one too, and it’s disheartening.
it’s just all masked misandry where their rage at the social elites is projected onto the working class and younger people.
I mean I kind of get it, social elites are so well protected and out of reach that angst people attack anybody who appears like them in their closest proximity.
Anyway chin up we still have much more individual control over life than we think, Socializing is hard even more in developed countries and I don’t know your background to suggest that, but try therapy or counseling if not financially troubled, try finding some sports or gym community too it helps, don’t be hopeless there are still some people who are helpful and not hostile with misdirect anger. cheers!
I mean I kind of get it, social elites are so well protected and out of reach that angst people attack anybody who appears like them in their closest proximity.
yeah man. that is the real rub. much easier to attack the average guy working to get buy and blame him for child-rape or something, than go after the social elites who actively do rape children.
it’s so self-defeating. and why the left is so bad at coherent organizing and shit at social issues. the left does much better when it focuses on economics, but economics doesn’t morally outrage people as much as does rooting out the ‘wrong’ people from their political tent.
socializing is easy as long as you avoid leftist idiots who spend all their time being hateful bigots who are shouting about how it’s the right a that is hateful bigots.
social elites who actively do rape children.
One even became the president.
socializing is easy as long as you avoid leftist idiots who spend all their time being hateful bigots who are shouting about how it’s the right a that is hateful bigots.
I would not encourage that charged approach, I know some are very dismissive but yet that attitude will have net negative output.
I’m interested in my own happiness. Not making myself miserable for the sake of other people who choose to be miserable hateful bigots and take deep pride and joy in doing so.
Sure is weird how none of my boys have issues dating and maintaining relationships.
It’s almost like these right-wing “children” were raised poorly, and by the same people that scream and cry when they hear the phrase “it takes a village”.
Noting is a good excuse for being a fascist.
I cant find any stats to suggest there is any difference in the relationship status of right wing men vs left and its not a good idea rhetorically to punch down on men struggling to date.
Thank you for proving his point
His point is shit. If they are on the right wing they naturally dont find women who are interested in them. The only one to blame is themselves but since right wingers are incapable of this they blame everyone else.
If this was some one off case yes, I would agree with you. But since the sample is big enough that it affects statistical data for a very broad segment of the population, I think he might have a point. Or let’s keep the head in the sand, and then cry about why Trump is going to win every next election.
You also provided only empirical evidence (mine are fine therefore it’s everyone else fault). Not the best kind of proof.
Here is a video that highlights some of the problems. It’s two years old and still relevant: https://youtu.be/rQv8VuLpKN4
Men have real problems that don’t get talked about, sure. That’s not an excuse for being a fascist, because nothing would be
No one has mentioned anything yet what the right offers to help men as a solution. They only said going right as a ‘fuck you too’ threat towards the left.
You have a choice. Be the change or make threats.
If you got a flat tire you can pull over to the side of the road and either:
1: repair it
or
2: punch a hole into the rest of the tires and bitterly yell at all the other cars for having working tires.
If the second was your choice, you can’t pretend for a moment you got involved legitimately to fix a tire. It is a choice. It is your choice. Not everyone else. Not the left. Yours.
The right offers community for men and a traditional pathway to life milestones that are a core part of happiness for men. This pathway of work hard, go to church, meet a women from church, have kids is very appealing for a lot of men.
They offer structure, discipline and motivation for young men to better themselves.
There is more but these are core I think.
yep. for some reason the left thinks men wanting these things is evil and wrong. it’s bizarre. but if a woman wants those things they are 100% on board. tons of comments in here shitting on men for wanting stability, family and community.
right thinks men are people and offers them what people want. left doesn’t’ see men as people, it seems them as monsters of entitlement who deserve nothing and should have zero complaints because they are ‘privileged’.
right thinks men are people
I’d disagree here and say that the right see men as ‘useful’ and play off that.
And take any chance you get to troll online to threaten hostility to the left. That is after all why you’re here in this thread on this topic. It isn’t offering much in the way of dealing with feelings and handling challenges of life.
The whole thing hinges on a fragile balance on a very specific mindset that isn’t sustainable without following a very specific path.
Easy to melt a snowflake under that kind of pressure.
And throwing away homosexual men. Their safety isn’t even considered in your one little check box box when they face some of the biggest challenges among men.
Not really convincing me that men’s health is the forefront of your interest here.
Fuck off. I’m not trolling or “threatening hostility to the left”. I offered my perspective on what attracts people to right wing ideo
they listen and acknowledge their problems. instead of telling men to shut up and fuck off and die.
the fact you think the left having to acknowledge men as legitimate human beings who suffer is sacriled5igous is precisely the problem. the right treats them like people, and isn’t ‘ashamed’ to ask for their support
So you think joining in threads just to rub threats in faces is the help men need. You’ve chosen Poking holes in all the tires and yell. That was your choice. The left didn’t make you this. You chose this.
Man, thats some high quality projection right there.
I hope you’re getting paid well, because holy hell to be able to say that shit with a straight face is almost impressive.
Nah dude, i am just not an ideologue. I don’t view politics as one side good, other side bad. I don’t treat politics as if it’s religion where we must shun and kill the non-believers.
And sadly that is a perspective so called ‘open minded tolerant’ leftists cannot abide. the possibility that maybe they are just as wrong and stupid as the people they hate because their politics is governed by belief and tribalism above all else. and how totally alienating that is the average person goes right over their heads, because they are true believers who think belief it and of itself justified all their shitty actions and words towards non-believers.
"Im totally not an idealogue, I’m totally open minded, thats why I can safely say that liberals are evilbad and republicans are flawless and love and respect everyone equally, despite 15 mount everests of facts and proof showing otherwise. Also its totally the democrats that want to kill non-believers, its totally not my pure, loving republican party that wants to do that. "
i never said any of that, but i’m glad you can’t take any criticsm of the leftism without devolving it into good vs evil. which is precisely why young men are anti-left. they don’t want to be told how evil they are. nobody does.
Yeah, Thats why young people are anti-left.
It has nothing to do with the fact that there are entire youtube and facebook groups engineered for and dedicated to funneling the vulneralbe into the right wing hate machine, and how every one of them has family members concerned and saying they changed and became so hateful after starting to listen to whatever right wing predator dejure they picked up.
No no, its the evil left, for being super evil with their calling out republican nonsense, propaganda, and lies.
Truly, Republicans are the greatest, most oppressed victims on earth. Even Jesus weeps for the unfair cruelty of their plight.
Look at you. You’re blaming an entity for ‘abandoning’ you.
You know who doesn’t sit around being bitter and live in fragile worry about being abandoned?
People who actually reach out and deal with their mental health and take some ownership over it.
Doesn’t sound like the right are helping you. Sounds like they are Just feeding you a victimhood complex.
i don’t support the right or the left. they are both largely ignorant ideologies that most get off on opposing each other than caring about real people and real problems.
you realize that is a possibility, i hope. i’m a big gay weirdo who thinks everyone has the right to be happy and secure, no matter their beliefs or identity. i dont’ regard happiness and security to be awarded to people based on their political beliefs.
Trollollolloloooloo
Nice profile.
as anyone who has ever done any amount of volunteer work can confirm…you can’t help someone who doesn’t even think they have a problem, all you can do is try your best to inoculate yourself to their bullshit
it’s basically ‘if men don’t believe in left wing causes then fuck them’ and then they are like ‘why don’t men support us’.
the irony is totally lost on these douchebags who think anyone who doesn’t believe what they believe is wrong/bad/evil/deserves to suffer. then some rant about how pathetic anyone who isn’t as enlightened as they are deserves to suffer. it’s simple pure arrogance and cruelty.
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I have had my share of struggles and hardship, definitely not the worst anyone’s had it, but enough to empathize I think. I lived in a camper for 5 years, was lucky to have that tbh. Shit jobs, shit pay, no respect. I live in the boonies so I work with all these guys. I’m a white straight guy too, so I pass, and I get to sit with them while they share their terrible opinions.
I guess what I mean to say is that somehow the exact experiences that are turning these man children into hateful far right weirdos have happened to me. Somehow I went hard to the left instead. I wasn’t a “radical” before I moved out here, it’s a response to the last 10 years mostly. Was it because I was raised differently? Probably, my mother is one of the most compassionate people I’ve known, and selfishness was ‘punished’ when I was young. Was it the psychedelics? Also probably. There are lots of other experiences that I know most of these guys haven’t had that helped me be a better person, travel, volunteer work I had to do, I’m sure I am forgetting a lot. But what helps me understand also makes it more difficult to excuse. A lot of these guys have had every opportunity I have, some a lot more. It’s difficult to listen to somebody that has had a chance at promotion complain about their pay, for an analogy that comes from reality. When I also know so many other groups of people are flat denied that opportunity. They don’t have solidarity because they are selfish. I think that’s what it boils down to.
Terminate Stoned Sunday ramble/
What I’m gleaning from the worst of the posters I’ve seen and responded to on here, it’s not even the hardship so much as low self esteem from making comparisons about the hardship they are feeling and getting most hung up on.
Every one of them get hung up on their perspective someone else’s thoughts about them. It’s always about someone else who ‘hates them’. And they cannot overcome it.
they aren’t seeing this as a self esteem problem but a problem with the world for not gifting them what they are missing from themself. Self acceptance. And living in that resentment and taking it out on everyone around them. You can see it in how their first go-to is ‘to tell the left to fuck off’ as being their entire reason for going right. They don’t even lead with what they are getting on the right unless you dig more than one conversation from it. So that tells you right there how little they are willing to work on themself when you have to basically pull teeth to get it out of them that there’s supposedly any depth in their decisions to go right.
this isn’t growth. This isn’t the trait of a survivor. This is not someone who is getting their needs met. This is victimhood mentality. You see this kind of rhetoric in full blown addicts who won’t seek therapy to stop their carousel of self destruction.
These incels are their own worst enemy. Not the world. Themselves.
I’m going to guess that you are speaking well about your mother as she’s helped you gain some good tools to see your self worth and regardless of what possible mean thing another person might even say to you: that’s a reflection of themselves. Not you.
And you said it yourself: others have had it as bad or worse than you. And you can recognize this.
you’re not alone in your struggle. No one is really. In group therapies you especially see this as each person tells their story : it’s the same thing for every listener (who is working on the self) that regardless of where they come from’ , we’re all struggling. And we’re not here to compare ourselves to others.
Looking at your situation as well as any survivors of hardship: they understand that they have to make a decision every day to commit to surviving. It isn’t something given, it’s something you do for you with intention.
I’ve not yet heard anything yet that at the right are actually offering them that helps them deal with this problem. There are no tools. All there is only anger and spite towards the left and a healthy side of a ‘poor me’ attitude.
Group therapy was the best thing that has ever happened to me
did it ever occur to you other people aren’t you? that maybe other people’s issues aren’t your issues, or that it’s not about you and your struggles?
all you are saying is ‘i had bad expereinces and i turned out this sway, therefore anyone who turned out different is wrong and bad’ your post is one long circle jerk about how great you are for being a leftist and if others had bad experiences and aren’t leftists they shitty people.
and self aggrandizing yourself only to shame others is precisely the fucking problem. ‘be like me or fuck you’ isn’t how you win people over to your side.
Your comment is the most helpul unhelpful reply I’ve ever seen. The fact that you took their pondering as a clan challenge says way more about you than anything else. Now, whether you realize how insecure you are and how your reaction proves it… well I won’t hold my breath on that one.
I’m not a part of any clan dude. They objective said anyone who isn’t like them is ‘selfish’ while pontificating about how glorious their suffering was because it lead to their leftist. They are treating their politics as if it’s religion.
weird how all my right wing family are the least selfish people i know… and weird how most of my leftist friends are often self absorbed jerks who think of nobody but themselves.
lol @ “least selfish right wing family” who actively supports one way tickets to el salvador for brown people. You’re right… sounds more like a klan than a clan. My mistake.
they don’t support any of that. not all conservatives are the same.
Did it ever occur to you that the other way is objectively corrupt and immoral? It’s not even unspoken immorality anymore. It’s just plain old comic book levels of evil. We just blew up another fishing boat, because they’re brown. It is pure unabashed racist villainous behavior.
So yeah. He did say that. So what?
Ewww
I mean I’m on the left and even I’m getting tired of hearing how all men are trash, which seems to be the only message about men I hear. Young men are only being courted by the right, and the left doesn’t seem to care or even seems proud about it.
Young men are more left leaning than any generation befire them.
The joke is on the right-wing men. Good luck finding female partners. Also, the best time to be a left leaning progressive guy.
Might want to check the dating app statistics before talking about how good men have it, regardless of political leaning. Something like 10% of men get like 90% of the attention from women. That’s part of the problem making a lot of the young men are miserable. A huge amount of them have reported as not dating, not approaching women, etc. And a lot of that is because it’s not socially acceptable to approach women in public (get called creeps) and dating apps seem like the no brainer option that uses mutual consent, but fails to address the gamification and filtering issues that result. Most women want a man that makes more than them and is at least 6 feet tall. That’s automatically eliminating a HUGE amount of men from the dating pool.
Feels like a recipe for disaster down the road.
Young boys are exposed to near constant right wing internet programming and are increasingly attacking girls in school, verbally and physically, starting as early as elementary school.
Combine that with largely apathetic and inattentive parents + very few male teachers and school is becoming an absolute nightmare for everybody
This essentially reflects the rise in incel school shooters except these young men just grow up to become bitter right wing misogynistic bigots instead. They have nowhere to go but right
the incel thing is such a self fulfilling prophecy - they embrace it then can’t imagine why women recoil from them. so they further radicalize.
nice job conservatives, you really fucked up an entire generation
its a negative feedback loop. J peterson, and joe roegan, shapiro achieve that by negative reinforcement.
yep. I feel bad in some ways for the male youth population, they’re surrounded by these opposing views and it’s hard to separate the signal from the noise. when I was a kid, it was rush, he was obviously a conservative loon and that was that.
fuentes, groypers, incels, chan boards etc., phew… a harsh env to grow up in
it isnt by accident, since russia/gop needs to shore up thier numbers in order to be voted in power. thats why they have such a large propaganda apparatus. Youtube is another one people seem to miss.
valid, and, run the country into the ditch hard enough and you don’t even need to keep investing in propaganda…
I like how the maga women are leaving their maga husbands even in White House it’s like yeah…just wearing an maga hat doesnt make you as alpha as you thought bro. On that note I wish Steve miller gets swallowed by his top lip one day.
we can’t expect women to stand by their man when their man is literally making the handmaidens tale a reality.
those misogynists’ may expect it, but it’s unrealistic and those women deserve support escaping their shitbags
in r/teacher sub, the hs students are doing that, specificaly the male students have become more disrespectful towards female teachers.
As a man I would genuinely like to thank women for holding the torch of progressivism.
This means that left-leaning men will raise happier families, while the incel-aligned will have their own bloodlines end in deserved extinction. 🎉
You boys better start getting real into fucking each other
No wonder they are trying to suppress women’s ability to vote again. I’m fairly certain women outnumber men just given by a statistical outcome of X vs Y chromosome at birth. I’m not certain but there’s probably a statistical study somewhere out there that a left leaving woman married to a right leaning man will vote right due to proximity. I’ve seen the former example in real life many times over sadly.
I think toxic podcasts have a big influence on young men, especially those who grew up without strong father figures. My own dad wasn’t perfect (I joke a bit about it on my profile), and many of us went through that risky “2015 phase” of consuming unhealthy online content.
What many politicians and advocates on the left often overlook is that toxic masculinity isn’t solved by telling men to be “less masculine.” You can actually counter unhealthy masculinity with healthy masculinity. Instead of shaming men, we should be teaching a better version of manhood one that includes therapy, emotional intelligence, and being able to talk honestly about what’s going on inside.
As corny as it sounds there’s a reason when there’s a bad take by a misinformed feminist calling all men evil on twitter ganders a response like “This is why men turn right” and sure while that stuff doesn’t work on me anymore, It’s not 2015-2016 there’s still some vulnerable people that unfortunately fall for it, does that mean though that the feminist is wrong in her views? Not really, but I’m not talking about myself I’m talking about a lot of men that do fall for it.
Most working-class men who grind through 9–5 jobs, going from shift to shift, are worried about affordability and stability. If someone comes along and says “I’m going to make your life easier,” that’s who they’ll vote for even if it’s Trump. You can call them naïve or say the leopards ate their face or whatever , but the reality is that many of these men are desperate for change. And they’ll keep voting for whoever promises that change. When society pushes these men aside or dismisses them, some end up looking for someone to blame. That’s when you get people saying, “Women are the reason my life is hard,” or “Jews control everything.”
Of course, some people are genuinely racist or sexist, and there will always be trolls who just want attention. But why do those trolls exist in the first place? Often it’s because they feel insignificant, and attaching themselves to extreme movements gives them a sense of identity and purpose they don’t have otherwise.
One of my favorite counter-arguments (so to speak) against Toxic Masculinity being the “true” masculinity is that it’s based so much on toughing out emotions, denying them, not showing physical or emotional weakness, etc. Yet, this misses the incredible display of deep confidence and self-image that come from being able to display humility, compassion, and sadness without feeling like that’s a risk to your “manliness”.
If what defines someone as a man is based so heavily on what others think of them or code them as, they are actually saying other people control whether or not they are considered masculine/manly, which is not very Alpha Male of them.
On Parks and Recreation, Ron Swanson wins an award and teases Leslie Knope about it. She ends up saying to him, “That’s not really the attitude I’d expect from an award winner.” He responds, “Everything I do is the attitude of an award winner, because I have won an award.” I feel like this can be adjusted for anyone self-identifying as “masculine”, “feminine”, or any other such thing - “Everything I do is inherently manly, because I am a man.” (adjust as appropriate)
That last part reminds me of a 4chan (?) meme of the Chad saying that he knows that trans women are women because he’s straight so everyone that he likes is a woman.
jordan peterson, and joe roegan under putin played a big part in shoring up gop support in the usa, and then the other right wing talking heads. tate brothers is just a side benefit, which are borne out of the toxic pickup artist games.
Could you name a few books by “advocates on the left” that criticise masculinity but argue for less masculinity rather than a redefinition of masculinity?
go look at all the OG rad fems and gender theorists of the 70s. butler, dworkin, etc.
To be honest with you I don’t know a lot, and yeah I guess that’s your point but I remember reading The will to change: men, masculinity, and love by beli hooks back in my 2015 phase and I don’t remember a lot from it, but I think it made some good points.
The good news, I guess, is that people can get better. I was one of those people who moved further right in young adulthood. I’m glad the social media and such didn’t exist then as I was not equipped to handle that by my upbringing and would have fallen right into that trap. We just had Limbaugh and Beck and the like. At some point, I pulled a 180 and, now in my mid-40s, find myself probably somewhere around center-left to left as most western European countries might define that.
Not really a coherent philosophical narrative for them to latch onto; ‘the world is fucked, they’re fucked’ is the main message they hear.
not to mention
‘nothing you do matters, so might as well just do whatever you want and fuck everyone else’
‘nothing you do matters, you can’t even hurt anyone else, so you’re actions really aren’t important’', is more of the nihilistic message.
Huh, interesting that Limbaugh and Beck had that effect on you. I feel like they weren’t as readily accessible as modern right wing talking heads. What changed for you? What made you realize things and turned it around?
I had a lot of issues growing up. Neurodivergent kid in rural Ohio in the '80s, lots of conservative people around, abusive people in my family making stuff hard for much of my young childhood, and a number of other things. I wanted the same thing anyone joining a gang wants, really. Acceptance, feeling like I belong, and feeling like I was fighting something or for something better.
I came from a place where I, very much without knowing it, was very entitled and privileged. I was kept away from others a lot as a kid (lived with my grandparents for a bit and wasn’t allowed to play with the other neighbors (who were in my class) because they were not white. Other perspectives were few and far between when and where I grew up. There are some other reasons that there were huge gaps in my critical thinking and bullshit detection (partly due to not questioning people in power and getting heavily punished when I did). I got taken advantage of a lot when I first got out on my own and had to basically do a lot of lessons that most kids/teens learned as an adult with much more dire consequences.
I felt like I was working hard and that others’ failures were because they didn’t work hard enough (and that I didn’t work hard enough when I was failing). In reality, a lot of people attribute way too much of their success to their own skill not luck and circumstance. At the same time I was thinking other people were lazy, I was also helped by some of my family through some financial hard times more than once (though I was briefly homeless another time). I came to realize, as I met more and varied people, that some of the hardest workers I knew were getting fucked over. Two jobs, caring deeply about their families, and barely able to tread water to support themselves and those that relied on them.
Contradictions between people claiming to be christians and anything that christ would have done. People thinking they were holy and great for holding some coat drive and stuff, but any tax dollars for a safety net were just terrible and those people were just going to spend it on drugs. People who kept pulling up every bit of safety because “fuck you, I’ve got mine”, for lack of a better term was just more and more visible when I looked at what was going on. Also being out on my own and working when 9/11 happened and the crazy amounts of hate and racism that followed that. I slowly started actually seeing all of these things, losing that entitlement, not othering people, and realizing things for what they were. I traveled to other places, saw other ways of life. The early internet and chatting people from around the world via IRC and the like also played a role in that.
Living as a minority in another country (I moved to Japan in my early 30s), getting randomly stopped and searched, struggling to find housing, and other things also cemented many of the other things I had already been learning. I am a deeply empathetic person, but I had always assumed that everyone was acting in good faith in a lot of situations and that merit would see me treated “properly”. That’s not the reality. The reality is that people are messy and flawed, that people are mostly good but often wary. This can manifest as racism in the guise of “protecting our culture and way of life” where those others getting stopped and searched (often in front of their communities, peers, clients, etc. who have no idea what is going on and assume the worst) was just a mild inconvenience. That experience in particular showed me exactly what white, male privilege in the US was. I could never see it clearly since I always had it.
This is a very long and rambling response. I guess the TL;DR would be seeing my own entitlement and privilege, realizing that people in power and authority often don’t get there through merit and/or hard work alone (if at all), and generally getting more experience and seeing and experiencing inequity.
My husband has said your TL;DR verbatim when we were early in dating. He got there a different way, but he said what he went through was an eye opener for him, changing him profoundly, while giving him a lot of gratitude for what he does have, and is able to do.
The feminist movement freed the women to have more choices but the men were displaced with fewer options than before. It’s not a loss of privilege but the closing off of options to be feminine or domestic stay at home partners.
pretty much.
also simple look at a man and woman of equal standing. same education, same job, etc. the woman will be celebrated as heroic for accomplishing these things, the man will be attacked for not doing more. a woman making 100K is a huge success, a man making 100K will be asked why he isn’t making 200K and if he says he is happy with 100K he will be told what a loser he is.
My teen observed …… guys are more likely to appreciate edgy, crude or offensive humor. Guys are more likely to be entertained by those assholes, even if they don’t agree with their message
Most queer folks have a darker, edgier, more offensive sense of humor than the average right-winger and they tend to skew left so I don’t think it’s the humor that’s winning them over.
I guess that’s true, but you’d also have to qualify that as being self-deprecating humor that’s clearly tongue-in-cheek, as opposed to straight-up hateful messages being passed off as humor. Like, “What up, f-slur”, “That was homophobic” for whenever something doesn’t go their way, and “Gays don’t deserve rights” for whatever silly thing they pretend to dislike. It’s all very self-aware and actually funny. The quality is on another level.
I think they mean dark humour as in “scream a racial slur as loud as possible and call it a joke.”
I’m reminded a lot of a discussion I read about people saying they don’t want tomvote for Dems because “Dems care too much about identity politics”, but “identity politics” just turns out to be code for “let me be transphobic”
Reminds me of a time I was at a party and this dude is like “hey I’ve got this super funny song, wanna hear it?” Then after folks agree to hear it he thinks for a second “also it kinda has some bad words, is that okay? You’re not gonna get offended?” Then plays a song that just has a bunch of racial slurs for shock value and nothing funny or redeeming about it. I don’t think a single person laughed and I hope it was as awkward for him as it seemed like it could’ve been
its all punching down, they just dont understand the nuances
I guess what I’m getting at is we shouldn’t let them get away with claiming that they like humor when they clearly just like bigotry. Humor takes nuance.
