Last week, I wrote about a bad male self-help article, then tried to figure out why men love being told they are emasculated and weak so much. You can read that article here.
This week was supposed to be Part 2, where I talk about why the left has dropped the ball so spectacularly and how they could Not. I have pages of notes on various articles, a bunch of ideas, and a reading list. I have something resembling an outline.
I also, unfortunately, have symptomatic COVID.
I’m doing all right, which is to say that I’ve felt like absolute unmitigated dogshit for the past few days but better today. I am still very tired, my throat still hurts, and I still periodically make a noise more like a cat hacking up a hairball than a traditional cough. But I’m definitely recovering.
(I am vaxxed and was boosted a month and a half ago. All Moderna. I live in Brooklyn. Omicron came for me)
All of this to say, the promised follow-up is not happening today. My foggy and tired brain cannot do the subject justice right now. That will happen next week, provided I keep getting better.
To fill the space this week, I originally wrote something about Omicron and fear and the balance between safety and sanity. Looking at it this morning, though, I realized that the world jut does not need another thinkpiece on COVID. People have already said every interesting thing there is to say at least a million times. I don’t hate what I wrote, but I’m not proud of it. So I’m scrapping it.
Instead, I am going to share and respond to some of the very cool comments and questions people had about Save the Males. Perhaps, if I am very lucky, some of those responses will even make sense.
Let’s find out.
Positive Affirmation
(If you haven’t read the initial article yet, you can do so here)
A few people shared personal stories of their experience with the bind of masculinity that I really appreciated. I’m going to share some excerpts below (edited for brevity):
From Ornithomancer:
After a lifetime of struggle I finally gave up and went to therapy six, seven months ago. The stigma of doing that kept me away for a long time. I'm supposed to be stoic. I'm supposed to take it. Grunt through it. And let's face it, I had shit insurance that didn't cover therapy so I couldn't afford it even if I admitted I needed it.
…I learned the other day that my grandfather, that I always saw as a very stoic, very self-controlled, very quiet but firm man was an opium addict for like... 50 years. That knowledge kind of changes how I saw him. I still love him and miss him and in some ways admire him but... fuck man, that kind of masculinity where whatever is wrong with you you just become a 50 year opiate junkie quietly and go through life until your brain explodes from a series of strokes is not any kind of man I want to be. It's like, the answer to masculinity and suffering was to either medicate or blow your heart/brain out as young as you can.
From Marvelicious:
Years ago, a friend had a "save the males" bumper sticker. All of the toxic stew you describe was twisted up in this guy and constantly at war with his basic nature: at his core, he was one of the kindest people I've ever met. He was raised hyper-Christian and politically libertarian/right. Honestly, this guy is practically an avatar for all the contradictions you mention here, up to and including repeated attempts at suicide. He died a few years ago in a single car accident that his (Christian conservative) family adamantly swear was not a suicide. Whatever gives them peace, I guess. For my part, I just hope my friend finally found some peace, whether intentionally or not.
And, as a sneak preview to some things we will be talking more about next week, a message from Patric M:
The right has the “boys don’t cry”/John Wayne style masculinity that prevents guys from speaking up about real problems. The weirdly-similar version on the left is often framed around “emotional labor” – i.e., don’t force emotional labor on those (especially women) around you by dumping your feeeeelings on them.
Lots of guys definitely need to hear that the women in their lives aren’t there to be their unpaid emotional dumping grounds; unfortunately, though, one of the results is that I get the message that “men aren’t allowed to talk about their shit” from both sides of the political spectrum.
I’ve been in progressive spaces my entire life. There’s no way I’d be able to access those conversations [about masculinity on the left] if I were 17, or didn’t know the entire vocabulary of leftist terms, or whatever, and I’m veeeeeery concerned that young white men have a much easier onramp into fascist/nationalist spaces than into leftist spaces.
Thank you for taking the time to write these. And I’m sorry. I wish things were different.
And now, onto some people who have Questions:
Is There A Problem?
F.I. Goldhaber asks:
“Which came first, the grifters selling their ‘solutions’ or men questioning their ‘manliness’?”
Many (even white, cis, straight) men have welcomed and learned to appreciate equity and diversity. Are those who have red pilled (asking as someone who lost a dear friend to the MRA movement) done so because they actually believe they have a problem or were they first convinced they had a problem by the grifters selling the "solution"?
I would agree that masculine self-help peddlers like Peterson and Witcoff sell their audience on the nature of their problem. But I think the core unhappiness existed long before the grifters got there.
The concept of the masculine saturates our culture; no one can escape it. It’s in the media and the expectations of almost everyone we meet. We cannot escape it and–as we will talk about a lot next week–it is an impossible standard to live up to. People like Peterson and Witcoff provide something to explain the inevitable gap between who men actually are and what they feel they should be. But they did not create that gap.
Many men avoid the grift. Individual choice does matter. We all have agency and are ultimately responsible for the decisions we make. Nonetheless, any man who does not actively question the dominant assumptions about masculinity are going to find themselves sliding towards feelings of deep inadequacy and shame.
Remaining Men Together
Ruben Gonzaga had a few questions/comments. Here’s the first one:
“If men don't tell men how to be men, who else is going to do it? Is there any group more appropriate?”
The short answer is that I think it’s awesome when men talk to men about how to be men, but I think some men are giving really bad advice.
One of the worst things about our culture’s ideas about masculinity is the thing where men aren’t supposed to have or express emotions. As bad as far-right male self-help culture is, it at least enables men to talk about the formerly-taboo subject of male unhappiness. Everything after that is pretty bad, unfortunately.
I also think outside opinions can be helpful. Someone standing in the middle of a forest is going to have a close-up view of the trees. Someone in a helicopter above the forest can see the whole thing. Both perspectives are, I think, necessary to understand the forest itself.
“You wrote: "The concept of masculinity centers the ideal of individual power, control over one’s destiny. Ambition. Aggression. Competence." I'm not sure where you got this definition, but it's far from the definition Witcoff presents. This seemingly secular definition you present can intuitively give rise to authoritarianism, but has clear values in tension with qualities such as "obedience", "humility" (not in Witcoff but very Christian), and self-dominance (as opposed to dominance of environment).
You’re absolutely right: I’m using my own definition here (which I’m going to get way more into next week). It is a secular one. I think it would be very neat to look into the role of Christian theology on the right (as Gonzaga later suggests) at some point, and I might do it. This, though? This is definitely a secular perspective.
Aside from “control over one’s destiny,” however, I do not think Witcoff’s definition is as far off from mine as you suggest. Control over one’s destiny is out, but Witcoff does advocate for submission to God, but also dominance over the masculine sphere (the family, and others as a Christian leader).
Emphasis on both dominance and submission fits better into an authoritarian framework, not worse. A culture full of so-called “alpha males” would just be one constant brawl over who gets to be the alpha-est. A system that provides for both absolute dominance and absolute submission, however, allows for a stable, top-down authoritarian structure.
“You rightly identify that an ideal Authoritarianism requires a perfect authority (God at the top), but then you surprise me by saying: "But even if it worked as advertised, authoritarianism would still suck.", as if a perfect ruler would not wish us to have agency?
Rigid and severe punishment for stepping out of line seems central to the workings of authoritarianism. After all, the entire structure depends on everyone staying in their place and performing their function so that the whole can remain balanced and perfect. Anyone who deviates from their role threatens the entire structure and has to be punished. Which, I maintain, is no way to live, even if the rules themselves are perfect (which, if God was in direct control, they presumably would be)
(All of this assumes there actually is a perfect set of rules and roles that work for everyone, which I just don’t think is true)
Next Week, For Sure
That’s all from me this week. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to drink another gallon of herbal tea and doze off and binge-watch…something. I just finished Squid Game. Holy shit was it good. Not sure anything is going to beat that for me but I’ll try.
Good luck out there.
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You wrote: "Anyone who deviates from their role threatens the entire structure and has to be punished. Which, I maintain, is no way to live, even if the rules themselves are perfect (which, if God was in direct control, they presumably would be)"
Would you rather not live in a society where rape is outlawed and punishable?
I think there's a common oversight in analyses of how men are taught to repress their emotions. There's a huge exception, and it's the exception that proves the rule: Anger.
Male anger is accepted, celebrated, and outright valorized in a way that no other type of emotion is (and in a way that female anger never is). While men may be mocked, belittled, and disrespected for expressing sadness, fear, loneliness, or even positive emotions like joy and affection, they aren't looked down upon in the same way when they express anger, even though it's an emotional reaction just like the others.
I've known so many men throughout my life that, because of this cultural pressure and their own predispositions, just automatically shunt every negative emotion into anger. If they're afraid, they express it as anger. If they're sad, they lash out with anger. If they're uncertain, they react with anger. It's a reflection of the fact that their environment has taught them that that's the primary acceptable way to express unpleasant feelings.
Hell, if you get really good at expressing anger you can get a talk show like Alex Jones.