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/
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/
Young men are more left leaning than any generation befire them.
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 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 joke is on the right-wing men. Good luck finding female partners. Also, the best time to be a left leaning progressive guy.
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)
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.
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.
A few incels snuck into this comment section
If “the left” called you “a bigot” or “sexist” or “isn’t letting you find a wife” you’re probably a sexist bigot no one would touch with a 10-foot pole.
Every damn time “men’s issues” come up there’s like 100 dudes saying one of the issues is “can’t find a wife”. We all know what that means. Go jerk off. Politics is above you.
My favorite are the incels on reddit et al that talk about how family courts are stacked against them and that the women leave them and “take everything”
I worked as a family lawyer before, men didn’t even show up in 9/10 cases.
I don’t think this is factual. I think there are many reasons why families have declined.
pssst don’t let the facts of reality get in the way of good liberal/leftwing narrative that narratives where men are evil and women are good. any any women and men who disagree with our politics are stupid and bad people.
because clearly nobody can have any legitimate reasons for being conservative… nor can we let a little thing like economic reality of young men being bleak get in the way of our moral grandstanding about ‘incels’. as if they some huge political force and and not a tiny minority
This post sounds superficially like it’s trying to justify conservatism, but that bleak economic reality is caused by conservatism.
Eisenhower was conservative and ushered in the 50s economic boom. pretty sure the world was much more conservative in the 50/60s, weird how that was such a prosperous time for the USA.
Eisenhower’s economic policy was perfectly in line with FDR’s New Deal and had nothing to do with the Reagan’s and Trump’s “enrich the rich” policies. His top marginal tax rate was even higher than that of other New Deal administrations: 90%!
That economic boom did not come from racism and sexism; they had that before. It came from the New Deal.
This is just so bizarre to me. Like what devilish teat are you suckling to get this narrative? Who’s saying this? I consume leftist media and this isn’t a message I’ve taken away at all, like seriously 0%.
This sounds an awful lot like “hey bro I heard what they were saying about you, totally fucked up and you should be so mad!” As in, they’re stirring the pot with cherry picked examples and rather than pulling your head out of their ass for a minute to get your bearing you’ve just inhaled smoke straight out of their buttholes and have fine to the conclusion the world smells like shit.
If it’s the economics that have you fucked up, and you’re not a 50+ year old furniture maker or coal miner; you’ve been fucked by the conservatives who’ve worked with moderate Dems to leave the middle class out to dry while crafting policy that only benefits corporations and the ultra wealthy.
no you got fucked by bill clinton, and NAFTA who wasn’t a conservative. he was a liberal.
but again, don’t let the facts get in teh way of your ideological purity where all conservativsm is bad and all liberalism is good.
it’s bizarre to you becuase you live in a social media bubble and only ever listen to ideas that re-inforce your existing viewpoints and demonize viewpoints or ideas that don’t fit into your ideology. and anyone outside your beliefs is seen as a heretic or idiot or liar. because you you know ‘the truth’.
You said that it’s liberal narrative, but somehow my liberal media is part of some bubble that reinforces the opposite?
NAFTA required better education to offset the jobs that would dissolve, the area I grew up in did invest in public schools and as a result I’m well educated and earn good money. I’ll let you figure out which areas decided education wasn’t an important investment.
You also missed me with the whole liberal thing, 100% independent. I’ve voted conservative, libertarian and liberal but in the past few election cycles a conservative vote equates to a reduction of freedom, rights, and general fucking sanity. Any vote for a conservative is a vote for team Trump at this point, and if you’re cool with that; fuck yourself traitor.
so you reply is ‘I benefited, therefore it’s great’
‘anyone who got fucked deserved to get fuck, so fuck them’
I mean I get it. You’re well-off, and you hate people who are less poor than you. Must be nice?
No. You’re misinterpreting everything I wrote to suit your own narrative rather than even attempting to have a good faith discussion. Either that or your comprehension is actually that poor.
Either way; not my problem or job. Hope you have a blessed life.
But women just don’t get me, if they just listen it would be easier.
Meanwhile gestures vaguely at what they have to listen to.
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.
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.
