This comment section: "Actually I'm pretty sure the bike fell over for reasons unrelated to the stick"
this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2024
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Backwards thinking.
Andrew Tate isn't creating these young men out of well adjusted people.
Young men today face a mountain of issues with zero sympathy from the people or institutions around them. And grifters prey on these men.
Having grown up in the "teach boys not to rape" era of progrssive rhetoric, it's actually insane to see all these people just insist being in a guy's world is all sunshine and rainbows and all these men are just awful people falling of their own accord.
Young men get told some pretty damaging things growing up, even from progressive people.
Everyone has problems, lots of people are coming of age all kinds of fucked up, and we can't fix this by implying it's all their own doing.
You mean there is more to this than a black and white interpretation of the issues??
Young men in many areas are ridiculously hopeless with despair - its not really something that is talked about.
With uncontrolled climate change slowly destroying the world as we know it, can you blame them for being hopeless with despair?
You just revealed a lot more than I think you realize.
Climate change isn't part of the discussion.
No one is trying to blame anyone in this context.
We're talking about cultural issues that are tied in with the mental and emotional growth of people.
So very much hate and malicious intent is created by unstable people brought up to sincerely believe that what they do and believe is right. Often this is due to some religious indoctrination, though other reasons exist. Few are those who are truly evil at their core. In another group we have the confused and the uncertain trying to just exist in a world that is often cruel and unfair. As they grow and in moments of extreme vulnerability they reach out for answers.
As an online community one of the healthiest activities we can do is talk about these things. Express that shit is hard and offer encouragement and positive, safe places away from conmen and manipulators, as much as we are able. To do that we need to focus where we can.
Idk, I don't feel like young women are really offered any kind of safety net or support system that isn't being offered to boys.
This is the thing, I constantly hear how awful young men are being treated. I don't ever really hear any specific reasoning that can't be explained by other means other than sexism against men.
Imo this is one of the first generations of young men, especially young white men, that weren't born on third base. The men's right movement is a reactionary movement that's just upset about being placed on an equal footing, and then falling to achieve the same results of previous generations of young white men.
That feeling of slowly rolling a stone up a hill all day as others unbound by such heavy burdens briskly walk by is the same feeling poc and women have experienced in this country since it's inception. You aren't being treated worse than everyone else, it's just that equality feels like prosecution to those who have traditionally lived charmed lives. Welcome to the jungle, I hope you learn to enjoy your stay. I think the affectations of the moneyed class have ended, they have decided they don't have to keep up the charade. We're all the same to them now, and will all be exploited as such.
Ignoring the issues people face becuase they come from what you determine to be a "privileged" class is just another form of bigotry.
Young men don't stand to benifit from the same patriarchal systems we do, nor do we stand to benifit from the patriarchal systems our fathers did. And even if it did, one privileged doesn't nullify the issues faced by other inequalities such as race, wealth, class, ability.
The issues they face are real reguardless of what privilege they have or are assumed to have.
Equality should be about giving every individual a fair chance at life regardless of who they are or what they came from. Not some team sport where "one side" must be crushed under to goosestep of self proclaimed progress seekers.
Simply stating that the problems are not intrinsic to being male is not ignoring the problem.
Who is we? What I'm saying is that young males are not being hurt anymore than any other demographic, they just aren't culturally inoculated to it, and so they think they're worse off.
I never claimed it did?
Like? As I said, I keep hearing these blanket statements attesting to unique issues, but no one claims what they are or how they occur.
Do you think that we are living in some sort of post scarcity society? If there is an elevated class, its only means of elevation is to stand on the heads of it's "equal"counterparts.
Lol, and those who stood on our heads suddenly proclaimed themselves victims. How do you think they stand elevated if not by crushing down the competition?
It's only goose-stepping when the boot is on your face, when its someone's else's face they're told to turn the other cheek.
Nobody is arguing for "elevation", nobody in their right state of mind anyway, and I'm not asking anyone to turn their cheek to anyone wrong doings done to them. However, when it's men who feel wronged you ask them to turn the other cheek. Man up. Deal with it.
The fact of the matter is it's exactly this dogmatic rejecting of men that pushes them towards people like Andrew Tate. If the progressive zeitgeist refuses to listen to someone, they will follow anyone else who will. We shouldn't tolerate the intolerant, but if we truly seek to defeat it we must understand it and treat the systemic issues that cause it to arise. It's not the romantic ideal of the rebel taking down the empire in a victorious display of self-satisfaction, but it is the method that gets lasting results.
I've never stood on anyone's heads, least of all yours. I'd appreciate it if you could at least treat the next generation with the same respect.
I think validating the claim that young men are specifically being treated worse than others in similar demographics is a tacit validation of allowing them to maintain their hierarchy.
I can't control how people feel? If someone feels wronged, but can't explain how or why, am I supposed to genuflect in agreement? If two people are struck in the face, and only one of them cries, should I ignore the stoic? We should be improving the lives of all young people, not just the ones who shout about it the most.
I'm not rejecting that young men face problems, I'm just claiming they don't face any problems more dire than anyone elses problem in the same demographics.
You just interpret that as rejection because you don't empathize with the others.
And we do that by being more concerned about the problems of young men than others?
What do they want, what are you willing to give them? According to the men's right movement, their problem is that women are too free to turn down their advanced, women are too educated, no one wants to be their trad wife, and that there's just too much competition in the job place because of things like affirmative action.
If that's their problem, I don't care, and I don't really feel like he needs to validate their opinion.
You are an individual.....we are talking about socioeconomics. We are talking about the systemic abuse that's affected every demographic in America besides white men since the inception of this country.
Do you think the golden era of American history that the men's right wants to revert to was shared by everyone in the country? That black families were able to afford a spacious house and take care of a large family on one person's income? No, that was only a possibility for certain demographics. White men were given free home loans from the government, black families were sent to the projects, and women weren't even able to open bank accounts.
You aren't worried about the next generation, you're only worried about the next generation of young white men.
Progress isn't a competition, there need not be losers. We can acknowledge two things being bad at the same time. As we type there are children being forced to mine toxic cobalt with no protection just so we can have these electronics to argue. How can we argue our lives are any bad compared to them? Might as well put off anyone's progress until we finally beat out the modern salve trade. It's a unproductive way of thinking.
Do you think a newborn "white male" as your oppressor too? Someone who has never had the chance to do anyone wrong? Must they really be subject to your scorn?
And what of the white men today? If they gain nothing from your progress, then why must they be concerned with it? After all you seem to think that white men as a class have the ability to crush others with their privilege. How could we expect these people to work in the interest of a movement that only seeks to take from them indiscriminately? And wouldn't it be natural for them to simply follow the example that you have given them? Be wrathful, spiteful, hateful, boil down human beings to their perceived class, do anything to get a win for their own group. Hell just look at the news, abortion rights are being repealed in America. This is happening in real time, and I promise you neither of us are happy about it.
Socioeconomics can say whatever it wants about groups and demographics and "numbers this" or "numbers that", that doesn't change the fact that we are individuals in a world of many other individuals. Privilege, true and quantifiable privilege, is always relative and we should listen when people tell us about their problems, since it will encourage and empower them to do the same.
We can together to build a world that's better for everyone, but that requires that we don't waste our lives away trying to hold each other down out of a need for revenge. Every step we take for ourselves or our own perceived group is a step backwards, and it'll be our children who will have to make up for that. Do you care for the next generation, and what you'll leave them to deal with?
Then why do you insist that we divide class solidarity among gender? Why not advocate for improving life for all young people instead of insisting that men's problems take priority?
Lol, what kind of rhetoric is that? Children in other countries work in cobalt mines, so it's okay if American kids work at McDonald's.......
We are talking about equity in our own country, we are talking specifically about whether young men in the west are really experiencing more or worse problems than their counterparts.
Lol, we are talking about sociology, not an individuals psychology. I don't scorn individuals for being a part of any class, but i do scorn individuals try and preserve the class hierarchy for their own benefit.
That's the thing, when we protect the most disadvantaged class we help protect every other class perceived as better than. This is a foundational to ideologies like feminism. If you can't charge a disadvantaged class with some accusation, then there is no fear for the classes perceived to be more valuable.
This is one of problems with labeling white men as the most disadvantaged class. If we spend all our effort protecting A class that doesn't really need protection, then we are leaving people actually in danger out on a line.
Do you think white men today as a class have not benefited from generational wealth created by systemic racism? What do you think slavery was if not crushing others with privilege?
So now equality is stealing? Just because I don't think that white men are the most disadvantaged people in our country, I'm now taking from them indiscriminately?
What is progressive to these young men, what else could they possibly want that other people have?
Yeah..... Seems to be exactly what they are doing. You have heard of Andrew Tate, correct?
And your solution is to .....validate the men's right movement? You're literally claiming that men are not privileged, yet they are able to pass abortion laws. Further more you are saying that they are doing this because we don't baby them enough in progressive political spaces.
You do understand that we don't make policies around individuals?
Relative to what....?
Oh yeah, I'm sure that encouraging the klansmen to air his grievances will surely benefit me, a man of color?
It's problematic to me that you think equality euates to revenge. I'm not saying to be mean to young white men, or even judge them. My only claims is that we shouldn't prioritize white men's problems over other demographics. And to you that means I'm thirsty for revenge?
And how does that apply to your original claim?
I still find it hilarious that you haven't answerd my original rebuttal. How exactly are young men any worse off than anyone else in a similar demographic?
Because those grants are usually in fields where the demographics are skewed male and they want more women in that workforce. That's motivated by owners who want to lower labour cost, not because anyone's targeting men.
Pretty sure men and women get scholarships to play every sport in college? And I'm pretty sure there's a lot more males getting those scholarships than women, football teams are pretty large.
That's just because women are better communicators than men. They seek help when it's less severe and are more likely to respond to treatment. Most men who seek help before suicide so it as a last resort, and America has really shitty healthcare. Again, not targeting men.
Well, shame on whoever told you that and I'm glad you sought help yourself. However, that's mostly something we men are doing to themselves. We can't blame anyone else for that, nor can anyone else but us fix it.
Because of other men....... Have you tried having a platonic friendship with a woman or maybe better quality not man, they don't tend to think less of you because you talk about your feelings. I talk to my friends about my feelings all the time, no one thinks of me as a lesser man.
Because we don't communicate our feelings as well or as often as a whole. We also tend to be less squimish about our method of suicide, when women tend to think of the aftermath more.
It used to be a common belief in family court that mothers were more important to child development than men. This was assumed to be true as men traditionally were away at work more often and children required a stay at home mother.
This wasn't targeting men, it was implemented by men who believed in the idea of the atomic family.
Who is making that discretion? The vast majority of police officers are men, they have the discretion to determine who gets arrested.
By who? And do those people think being a lesbian or bi is okay?
I mean just legally and economically....
You think that's not happening to women?
Most men are not dealing with that kind of isolation, and I don't think you have hung out with enough women to make that determination.
It's easy to get stuck in an echo chamber because of how connected we all are, try different groups.
And those grants are for what?
Lol, okay so men have more access, but you're mad they don't have exclusive access?
And the consequences of that is........men not communicating.
Sounds like you just have shitty friends.
Well, you were the one who said you were completely alone and isolated and only relied on the comfort of your cats for companionship. Now you say you have a bunch of gal pals, but they call you snowflake when you tell them you in counseling?
Lol, why? I have great talks about mental health with my homies all the time. I'm a happily married man, with a wife who cares about how I feel just as I care about how she feels.
FEMALE! It's a dead giveaway my friend. Also the whole grant and suicide thing is a pretty popular trope in those circles, despite being pretty easy to explain if you actually did a little research.
There is no uniform mindset for men or women. If you spend all your effort caring about what people think of you, or worrying if you're being manly enough, you're never going to find the time to actually find someone or something that makes you happy.
Alternatively who's fault is it? Are women responsible for our mental health? Who else can be responsible for your mental health other than yourself?
This is a gish gallop and nobody should take such a thing seriously.
A gish gallop, easily googled, is when someone makes a large number of arguments regardless of quality instead of quality arguments.
Other approaches to debate you should get familiar with are ad hominem and strawman, I won't answer your questions about those though because, like the gish gallop, they are easily googled.
You didn't make objective arguments, you made ten assertions in the form of questions, without sources or papers or support, and then attacked me personally with a story you made up on the spot with absolutely no true knowledge of me or my background.
You have no credibility, and nobody should listen to you, and certainly nobody should waste time cataloging, researching, sourcing and then articulating a response to that gish gallop.
Ah yes, classic gish gallop. You make 10 claims with no support and everyone else needs to do the legwork.
Yet I present you with a single term, gish gallop, and you ask me for the definition. Curious this double standard. Further demonstration that you are an unserious person making an unserious argument.
You're picking fights, more or less.
Now, let me pick one of your points to counter and at the same time demonstrate why the gish gallop makes you unserious.
A serious person would, for example, not just ask why men have a 3x higher suicide rate, but would at least cover the gender paradox and therefore recognize that young women have higher rates of suicidal ideation and attempt suicide more often than men of the same age. Women overall attempt suicide 2 to 4x more often but have a lower completion rate. Gender discrepancies in suicide completion come down to myriad factors including the tool used and strength differences, not typically found to be due to men getting a bad deal from society though, or whatever point you wanted to make.
So here's the thing, you get to make that 3x claim devoid of meaningful sources and context (and I will reply in turn ala Hitchens Razer) , and in a single sentence tucked in the middle of a pile of other claims. Me, on the other hand, have to write a whole paragraph to dispute it. Now imagine how long and involved a reply to the full gish gallop is. It will, in fact, be longer to address each and every talking point you make than it was for you to write it. Worse, you push the burden of finding evidence for your claims off onto others. Worse still, as you've already demonstrated, being called out leads you to ad hominem and strawman arguments.
You aren't serious and nobody should feel obligated to reply to you as if you are.
I cannot speak for "that country", assuming you mean the US, as I don't live there. That said, I think people don't have actual past lives as a reference. If my grandfather or father lived in a different world, this can at most create expectations, but cannot be really generating a feeling of prosecution, because the current one is the only life I have actually lived and I know.
Then there is another issue, which is that in reality there are a lot of factors that determine whether you are born "in third base". Gender, historically, has been one of them, but it's far from being a guarantee. However, the political discourse often flattens this issue and makes it almost two-dimensional. If you are a white man, you are privileged, period. Fact is, there are tons of white man that are absolutely not privileged, and are also victim of an unequal and oppressive society. These people are substantially alienated because their voice is simply not represented anywhere. My leftist interpretation is that some of the egalitarian discourse (feminism, LGBT rights etc.) has been to some extent swallowed by the status quo, and lost a lot of the revolutionary potential it had, becoming more focused on individual perception and rights, rather than on systemic issues that therefore could capture also the dynamics of a white man being also oppressed, even if from a different angle. In other words, if feminism is purely focused on battles of women as a group of individuals, and not as part of a system that oppresses them within a wider mechanism, then oppressed people that don't strictly belong to that category have a much harder time to see in women a reflection of their own oppression.
Basically, a realization such as:
was true already decades (centuries) ago, and that's why lots of feminist battles were linked to socialism and leftist ideologies. This is nothing new, really, and forcing to read the current issues only from the racial perspective or only from the gender perspective (etc.) makes it much harder to build solidarity between groups who are instead left to fight battles within the system, without a perspective or a struggle to move past it.
The problem is that even if your grandfather isn't around to tell you about it, the evidence of his accomplishments outlive him. You don't need to embody someone's personal lives to understand that your grandfather lived an upper middle class working at a factory, and you can barely afford to make rent. That your father married his highschool sweetheart and started a family in his twenties, and you're thirty and can barely afford groceries for yourself.
Right.....but can you claim in an academically honest way that a poor white man has historically been offered more opportunities to succeed than a poor black man? That poor white men and poor black men have the same opportunities to lift themselves out of their class structure?
Idk, I would say the majority of the United States Congress has been very open to mens rights advocacy. This discourse revolves around people like Tate who have created space specifically for men to air their grievances.
Some say they are driven there because they have no progressive place to go. I just think they don't want anything to do with progressive spaces, because progressive spaces do not put them on a pedestal. They are included vicariously, the progressive ideology of supporting young people doesn't preclude young men. It just isn't solely focused on them.
I agree, but until recently there has always been a social understanding that what is good for the goose is good for the gander. So long as the upper class threw enough scraps down from the table, the pet class would support the hierarchy.
That is my problem with specifically focusing on mens rights, it's just another division in class solidarity.
Sure, and that's why I spoke about expectations. But a feeling of being prosecuted requires something else, in my opinion. Everyone in the situation you describe would realize that the problems are common, and not "mine" because male. What I thought you were referring to was the dissonance between expecting a privileged life and having a regular one, such as not being handed over things on a silver platter and having to simply "work" for them.
Sure, but that doesn't help anybody, because we don't live in statistics and we don't live historically. If I am a struggling person, telling me that historically the category that I happened to belong to was privileged hence I am privileged feels like adding insult to injury. In fact, the moment arguments such as "sorry, it has been centuries the turn for [CATEGORY] now it's the turn of [OTHER CATEGORY]" are thrown around is the moment those categories will see themselves as adversaries for vital space, and not on the same side fighting against an oppressor, which is exactly what I think happens in many instances today. And make no mistake, I think this is by no means a coincidence, this is absolutely functional as such struggle is less threatening to who detains power.
I am talking about mainstream and daily life. And it's not even about men's right, it's about struggle of people independently from the individual social group(s) they belong to, but more focused on class (for example). The "men's right" movement is a reactionary movement that sees in feminism and other movements a threat, and to some extend, they are a threat. Intersectional feminism is not mainstream, it did not really breach the social norm or discourse. What did breach is the superficial/apolitical version of it that stays on the surface. This is what people see everyday in movies, TV series, on the workplace, on social media etc. This is what I mean by not having representation, not having a voice.
I can't talk about what's going on in US, but what reaches on the other side of the ocean, doesn't include men at all. In fact, the main cultural result of progressive movements that I can observe from here is "woke"-ism, which I lack a better term to define, which is basically apolitical and fully focused on individual elements within the status quo, but lacks a proper political frame and analysis and therefore is very narrow in scope (women, race and LGBT).
I mean, the biggest political struggles happened almost 50 years ago. I really don't see what you are referring to, nor I do see right now in any form a coherent political movement who focuses on the class struggle as main objective. Am I missing something, maybe?
I addressed this point earlier, but I will repeat it just to elaborate. I don't care about men's rights. I care about a class analysis and a political movement that uses it, which is able to channel all the struggles from oppressed people, starting from women and other minorities, without alienating some of them due to irrelevant differences. This is in essence my problem: the current mainstream "progressive" discourse has been so neutered politically that has become individualist and as such doesn't capture the whole dynamic of class oppression. To make a concrete example, in tech the debate about women and other minorities is extremely hot and it's absolutely common to be the sole focus of diversity initiatives etc. Obviously this is posturing from the companies' perspective, but even the progressive people often fail to talk about other issues such as ageism (and many other things, ofc), which is an even bigger discriminatory factor in tech. It's not that one is more important of the other (or viceversa), it's that they are both results of the same exploitative dynamic and focusing on one of them without capturing the higher level problem becomes neutered and alienates people.
I am not that confident this is true. I don't expect that level of self awareness in the majority of young people.
First I do think we live in statistics, some of us may be unaware of this but it affects nus either way. Secondly, I think the internal contradiction is that a poor white person is likely to believe they should be more privileged based on their race, but are not because of progressive policy. The same way poor people protect the wealthy from taxation.
Finally we are discussing social class, not how individuals react to the idea of social class. I didn't say all white people were privileged people, I said white people belong to a privileged class. It's the same as saying San Fransisco is a rich city, instead of saying everyone in San Francisco is rich. If you are not a rich person in San Francisco, and I said the problem is inherent in the wealth of San Francisco, would you take it personally?
Right, but who does have that kind of representation or voice if not white men? Even in your example you highlighted how intersectional feminism never got its time in the mainstream.
I mean, I think that's fairly natural if there really isn't much room for men to progress in a society. If you're already at the top, where else is there to make progress other than supporting allies who haven't made it yet?
What I mean is that if I am a white unemployed, poor, knowing that 90% of rich people are white and male doesn't make me any richer or privileged.
based on what you think so?
But this is the problem. Class is not tied with demography in itself, class has to do with relationship to wealth. White people don't belong to a privileged class, the privileged class is mostly composed by white people. They are not the same thing. I would take it personally if you defined policy that worked on the assumption that "San Francisco" is rich, if I am one of the thousands of homeless people, indeed.
Women and other minorities today have that representation. Mainstream discourse involves a lot these topics. Unfortunately not intersectional feminism, because that's way too threatening.
That's the thing, being a man doesn't make you on top. Thinking this way, with airtight categories is indicative of the kind of idea that as long as "a proportionate amount of women" are going to be "on top" (i.e., in position of power), we are fine. We are not. This always leave a significant amount of people oppressed. That's why I think feminism should be (and partly is!) a transformative movement, and why I think it's a problem that it has been swallowed by the status quo. This, to me, is the wrong battle. If someone told me that since I am man I am "on top", and therefore I should just be an ally, I would feel alienated, because this fails completely to capture the mechanism of the system that oppresses both me and women.
Would that person be claiming that young white men are the most disadvantaged class?
Remember, I didn't claim that all white people were privileged. Only that if you were to for some reason break class down to race and gender, young white men would not more discriminated against than anyone else.
I mean we are talking about people who are claiming that young white males are being ignored or specifically discriminated against. So they're already drawing conclusions based on race. In America a common trope is to blame minorities for economic disparity. Going back prior to the civil war, where poor white farmers blamed the slaves for ruining the labor market.
Again, the original context was about a group who already specified their demography. The premise was that young white men were specifically disadvantaged.
My rebuttal was that specifying young white men, instead of just young people was problematic. But if we were to examine this demographic as a class, it would be hard to say they were disadvantaged. I did not define the structure of class in this argument, the person I was originally responding to did.
And white men do not?
When I said the top, I meant in policy. If we are talking about political equality, there are not a lot of reasons for men to justifiably advance their own rights.
And if they told you they were progressive about mens rights?
I don't think so, and I don't see why it's relevant. Young white men are not a class, also, and I don't see why they should think in those terms. The fact is, if you are told that you are on top due to the population you belong to, but you effectively are not, you are alienated by that movement. I think it's fairly straightforward, no? A movement that considers "young white men" a class (a privileged one), is alienating because it fails to capture the reality of class structure.
And I agree with this.
Yeah but we are not talking about the people of this article specifically, are we? I am talking about generally poor men. Why these people should think that they should be more privileged based on race? I think that the majority of people would simply want to have more, exactly like everyone else. The idea that people should deserve more based on their race seems closer to white suprematism which is a minoritarian ideology. Also this is very unlikely in countries that don't have the same racial divide as the US.
And this - to some extent - is also my argument. Specifically, they are because their oppression is not acknowledged nor part of the agenda for the progressive movements. They are alienated as oppressed and they are not member of the upper class by virtue of their population, hence they are as oppressed as others, without anybody representing their problems. So they are specifically disadvantaged from this perspective as there is not even a movement that they can support in which they recognize themselves. Some of them, turn to reactionary ideologies/people (like the ones in this article) that capture their problems.
Not in the same way. Again, the mainstream cultural discourse lost a lot of the political connotation and flattened purely on gender/racial issues, so no, white oppressed men don't have a political outlet that capture their struggle in the same way, right now. This to me explains the growth of the Jordan Peterson & co., which act as representation for those people's issues, and are the exact reflection of the progressive movement who -failing to put class struggle at the center, and focusing on individual populations- pushes the idea that oppressed populations are actually in competition with each other for vital space (sorry, nothing to do for white men, you are already on top, now we need to support [POPULATION]).
Well this in my opinion is an extremely limited perspective, because oppression and inequality is not solved by policy.
I would answer the same I answered before, I don't care about mens right per se. I generally strongly oppose this idea that class should be divided in the different population, each with its own set of problems and demands. This to me seems like a perfect way to shatter class unity which becomes purely based on mutual support (being an ally) rather than on common interests and reciprocal recognition as members of the same class and victim of the same dynamics.
I think this has been our problem, yes I have been specifically talking about men who have already self identified as being more disadvantaged because they are young white men.
I don't believe that class has to do with race, but that was the specific claim I was originally negating. My arguments surrounding race were attempts to point out internal contradictions within this claim. If we do accept the framework of race specifying class, as the claim was stated, things don't really make sense.
It is only a minority view depending on what part of the country you are in. When I went to elementary school in South Carolina they taught that the civil war was about state rights, and that the majority of southerners didn't even like slavery, and that was because slaves made them poorer.
I think you are underestimating just how racist certain parts of this country are, and how important racial ideology is to their culture. And just how effectively it utilized race in class division. "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
Right, but that's namely because western politics is devoid of any actual class consciousness. It primarily is still focused on individual rights, of which white men aren't really disadvantaged.
See that's where I disagree, there are progressive political parties who engage in class consciousness. They just aren't popular, and don't tend to attract a lot of white young men, or at least in my area.
Fox News doesn't match that description? Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson, a slew of other networks or anchors that specifically talk about this constantly? They have plenty of political outlets, just not a lot of healthy ones. But again, this is because those same networks are ran by the people who benefit from preserving the status quo.
Plus, i think the same problems are endemic to minority groups as well. It's not like this representation is really focusing on class politics, they're all based around individual rights. What exactly is the difference between the leaders of black lives matter and Jordan Peterson, other than one may have more legitimate complaints?
Yes, but that is typically what progressiveness looks like outside of class consciousness, and I don't really foresee us evolving past that any time soon.
Right, but this debate did not start in a vacuum. The original affirmation was that young white men were specifically disadvantaged.
I think there was a confusion where you thought my arguments within the framework of the original affirmation were taken as individual claims instead of rebuttals to claims. I think part of that is due to me responding to a slew of gish gallop made by the op.
I think we have essentially been in agreement, with maybe some differences in opinion about the scope of white supremacist ideology being practiced in America.
I also want to expand the perspective and not be US-centric. I am not from US, I don't live there. There are many other places that share similar situations. I can agree that perhaps in some parts of US what you are saying is true. I am saying that this is definitely not the case in many european countries where there is no such racial divide. Of course, right-wing parties still utilize race whenever they can (e.g., immigration).
Yeah, of course they exist, this is the same in Europe. They are not mainstream, they are not among the parties people vote to see their representative in parliament etc. This is why I stressed on the "mainstream" aspect.
You are right, and probably I did not specify well enough. I am talking about progressive (and leftist) political outlets. You quoted exactly the kind of people I was referring to when I mentioned those who end up capturing the problems for these people and then using them for their own interests. To simplify: if a poor white man sees in his interest the Carlson's agenda and not the one from a progressive movement, this is a failure first and foremost of that movement imho. To me it is a failure in building an analysis and making proposals that people from all races and genders can understand and recognize themselves into. This is why I mentioned that imho the Carlsons are just the flipside of the coin of a neutered progressive (mainstream!) movement.
Exactly my point! And yet BLM is the mainstream movement that reaches the news and essentially the only one that we know of from US on the other side of the ocean. I am sure that for locals things might be different, but that's exactly what I am referring to as the problem. The main political discourse is occupied by movements which lost all traits of class politics, therefore laying the ground for people to entrench themselves into movements based on characteristics which are (politically) irrelevant. If you are a poor (maybe relatively uneducated) white man, your political opinion is hardly shaped on niche analysis and research, and more based on what you see around you (TV, socials etc.). If all this person sees are movement who don't talk at all about problems they might be facing, then they will turn to those who do, Carlson and these other toxic guys.
Me neither, but this means that the struggle is completely neutered and within the boundaries of the system, and as such cannot address systemic issues. I think it's absolutely necessary to see past it, given the global political situation.
Very likely, and probably also because I live in a different world and I have a different background, so I did not want to dismiss but also did not want to focus solely on US issues/perspective. I also believe that the people the article talks about are -unfortunately- not only is US. I remember Peterson having a talk (or whatever you can call those) where I live and it was fully booked...
I mean, there are special scholarships and programs only for women, and explicit preferential hiring for women in some fields. There is nothing like that for men, even in fields men are grossly underrepresented in (which also tend to be fields where men are mistreated or have their duties restricted for more or less explicitly sexist reasons - like child care).
Here's the trick - when you hear how say women or black folks are mistreated, you don't require "any specific reasoning that can’t be explained by other means other than" discrimination against them.
I like using criminal justice as an example of this:
If I asked you to prove that the criminal justice system was racist, you could throw a whole pile of statistics at me. A whole panoply of stats demonstrating how black people are treated worse by the criminal justice system. But if you take those same measures and break them down by sex instead of race, they more or less all have a sex gap, that sex gap favors women over men, and for most of them it's a similar or larger gap than the racial one. The core difference is that you will treat the racial gaps as proof of racism in and of themselves, while requiring the sex gaps to prove that there is absolutely no other hypothetically possible cause other than sexism.
When a gap lies in one direction, blaming discrimination is the default move and when it lies in the other then every other possible explanation has to be provably false before it can even be considered.
So long as you define "being on an equal footing" as others having explicit institutional benefits you don't.
For example, girls outperform boys in education K-12 (and there are studies that suggest this is at least in part a result of bias in grading favoring girls), girls both enter higher education and graduate from higher education at higher rates than boys, etc, etc, etc.
My favorite is people being angry when men apply anti-discrimination laws to things like differential pricing that favors women, differential benefits that favor women, literally any application of Title IX that benefits a boy, that sort of thing.
Ironically, the oldest known expression of this notion comes from a proto-MRA on USENET in the late 90s, except he was talking about women.
Right, but that's not really an adequate comparison. Women are biologically intrinsically different from men, this presents in attitude and aggression. There is no intrinsic difference between a black or white male.
Now I'm not claiming that this is an explanation for all of the legal disparity, I'm sure that there is a cultural input. However even if cultural input was entirely responsible for the disparity, it still wouldn't be an appropriate cross comparison.
With regards to black men in prison, it's easy to see who is responsible for the disparity. Black men were victimized by a system controlled by primarily white men.
With regards to the disparity between men and women in prison, who is responsible for the disparity? We're women in control of the legislative bodies who set up the justice system? Are these men being arrested sentenced and guarded by a state apparatus largely run by women?
Like.....?
Lol, I haven't heard of that one. It's kinda silly to propose when we already know that girls emotionally and physically mature at a younger age.
First off, thank you for demonstrating my point. You're totally comfortable with jumping to discrimination as being the first and only (or at least primary) explanation when looking at disparities affecting some groups, but require every other possibility be exhausted before considering it for men.
So, biological factors that explain why men are more likely to be convicted when prosecuted for a crime, tend to get harsher sentences when convicted for a given crime, tend to be given higher bail for similar charges etc, etc, etc? Let alone being 95% of those killed by police and a large majority of those convicted of violent crimes.
It's interesting that you claim there is no intrinsic difference between black and white males, when there are measurable genetic differences (not just between black and white folks, but between black and white folks with ancestry from different regions and those differences are larger than the genetic differences between males and females from the same reason) that manifest as phenotypical differences and one would argue that in the difficult to separate mess of nature and nurture there might in fact be differences in attitude and aggression between typical white and black US males.
Except those differences apparently do not justify any differences in treatment and any gap between population distribution and distribution of negative criminal justice outcomes is necessarily discriminatory, while the SRY gene does a lot of heavy lifting in terms of criminal tendencies and criminal culpability.
In a particular way that causes them to be graded better than boys, but for much of that difference to go away in standardized testing where the student's identity is not part of the equation at all?
I think you might just be jumping to conclusions that fit your biases.
No, I'm saying that they aren't really comparable. There are too many variables that can't be accounted for to draw any meaningful conclusions.
Lol, no. The physiology that is most associated with things like attitude and especially violent behavior is based on hormone production. There aren't going to be phenotypical expressions that modulate hormone production in a significant way.
Also the genetic variability between ethnic groups are immeasurably small, and inconsistent. There is often more genetic variability within a single ethnic group than there is between two completely different ethnicities. Ethnicity is largely a social construct, with things like skin color just being an expression of phenotypical mutations.
My dude, saying that something doesn't make a decent comparative study is not making any kind of claim.
Yes? Outside of standardized testing what are children being graded on....? Things like cooperation, class participation, communication, and reading and writing. Things girls typically advance in at a younger age.
The problem with your claim is that discrimination requires someone to be the discriminator. What group is responsible for this discrimination in the justice system? A system that's historically been comprised of almost entirely males?
Yes, the justice system in America is messed up, but who exactly is responsible for that if not men? Even if we pretend you are correct, that men have been sent to prison specifically because of their masculinity..... Okay, now what?
So we hunt down those responsible for the discrimination? The judges....male, the cops....male, the lawyers.....male, what about the lawmakers?.....oh yeah mostly men. Okay, so men are discriminating against other men? Maybe......that suggest that masculinity in and of itself wasn't actually the target in the first place?
It's almost as if the drug war establishing a prison industrial system had some unforeseen consequences...... Consequences you may be misinterpreting in a way that fulfills your own preconceptions.
So, time to shoot you a link. I apologize for it being daily mail up front.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13239821/Female-influencer-rape-boy.html
Short version is that a 46 year old woman sexually assaulted a 14 year old boy. Not just because he's underage, but he wasn't consenting even insofar as his consent is relevant being underage and all.
Her name is protected from the media, she'll be eligible for release in less than a year, and she likely won't be considered a risk to children and subjected to anything as a consequence. She was considered to have reduced culpability due to an eating disorder, an anxiety disorder and an adjustment disorder. Hell, I'm pleasantly surprised the media actually described what happened as "rape" rather than an "incident", "affair", or "romp" like usual.
I can't imagine a 46 year old man being convicted of forcing himself on a 14 year old girl against her will and potentially getting less than a year, not being considered a risk to children and having his name hidden by the media. And they definitely wouldn't be reducing his time in incarceration in favor of longer parole because of how bad prison might treat him.
Nothing about this story is easily explained by biological differences between men and women. But it demonstrates malagency pretty well - she's not being punished like she's a man because as a woman she's not treated as responsible for her actions as a man would be.
No worries
Right, but is that the specific criteria that we utilize define demographically motivated discrimination.
This is an anecdotal account, and I don't really see how it helps your initial claim. Roy Moore raped little girls and almost became a sitting senator. Brock Turner admitted to raping a girl and was given a slap on the wrist.
If there is systemic discrimination in court on things like sexual assault, I would feel comfortable guessing that women are the victims of said discrimination the vast majority of the time.
Also this happened in the UK where perpetrators have a lot more rights, so we don't really know if she is being treated differently than other males in that particular justice system.
Men are much more likely to commit sexual assaults, therefore the courts are much more likely to have a precedent when sentencing men. When anything you are familiar with is presented differently, you are more likely to treat it differently, even if they are virtually the same
I had a teacher point this out to me too by just pointing out the percentage of girls in the class. They call them the lost boy generation because good intentions to get women into paths like STEM resulted in forgetting about investing in the boys.
But also some of us boys need lots of damaging things its not a one size fits all. Not traumatizing stuff but damage is needed for boys. Boys need to be pushed and discipline and we need to break bones and fight and get dirty to become an adult who can go on to teach a new generation how to do those things safely and responsible.
I'm a stem teacher, and I work hard at trying to get more women into stem.
The no opportunity for males to be exceptional is a dog whistle. Stem is still there for men. There are still high standards.
The problem is a lack of men in teaching roles.
Young men have few, sometimes no, men who act as role models..for example, I get comments from students who love the fact that I have a beard and they like that a teacher is proud to present in one.
Secondly men and women have different skills socialized into them. Guys are better at exams and practical tasks while women are socialized to be better at communicating tasks. As men left education assessments moved from practicals and exams to essays.
Socialized isn't entirely correct it's also a lack of focus on the difference between how young men and women develop in primary years which also leads to skill issues
Anyway ranting on my phone sucks. More women in stem, especially in digital technology and engineering is great, women have ideas, they can solve problems, we should learn why engineering is a sausage festival instead of just assuming that it is because men are more exceptional at engineering than women.
Thank you for bothering to rant on your phone despite the fact that it sucks.
I am a middle aged engineering student (undergrad) with two young daughters (6 and 8), so many of the things you refer to are on my mind a lot.
In my country (UK) the number of male teachers/carers is strongly proportional to the age of the student. Nursery staff : predominantly women Primary school staff: maybe a few men as main teachers Secondary school: is it 50/50? or still more like 70/30? (I dunno, it's a long time since I was there, and my kids aren't there yet)
Anyway, it's easy to have young boys, especially if (their father works away, or is otherwise distant from the family), get up to the age of being aware of Andrew Tate with very few male role models.
I don't know about the UK, but my experience in the US was exclusively women in elementary school, 80-90% women in middle school, 60-70% women in high school. I was actually surprised when I first had a male teacher in middle school, I guess I had thought that male teachers was like an old timey / TV / college thing.
This is something that men will need to step up and do. We need left wing men who'll help them out. And each of us can do what we can to help the boys we know too.
I get what you are saying, but we just need men. Socially healthy, well-adjusted men. Especially in early education. Role models matter.
All true. But because teaching is historically "women's work," it is undervalued and underpaid.
Most teachers I know have at least Master's degrees, yet we're paid less than B.A.s start at in many fields. I took a 20k/year pay cut when I became a teacher, despite having received a Master's degree before entering the field.
Until we value teaching as much as we value other types of work, we're not going to attract large numbers of qualified people, whether they're men or women.
On top of all that, these days most rejection of men happens before there is even any opportunity for the men say anything. With dating apps putting so much emphasis on looks (a very small minority of users of these apps do anything but look at the first photo before swiping left or right), and surveys finding that women consider over 80% of men less attractive than 'medium' (i e. a 3 or lower on a 7 point scale), mean that tons of men reach that conclusion in the final panel simply from getting no traction with women at all, making whether they're a Tate acolyte or whatever not even relevant.