this was such a banger. it was so well-expressed. it works because, manifestly, after all those years of "fire men into the sun" jokes, this essay makes it so transparent that you fundamentally respect me more than J.D. Vance respects himself.
The comparison to white women who have to function in "ugh white women ruin everything. white women hands off my Beyonce" discursive environments is especially clarifying. (honestly, some red-brown grifter should try that tactic as part of their heel turn. "I felt violently attacked when someone called me Karen. I love Trump now")
I think the reason that I faintly, slightly, and with considerable irritation, feel a little sympathy with the idea that men, or white straight men, might feel a little adrift in leftist spaces is that, if you're around people who are really into maximalist versions of standpoint theory -- that people's knowledge is determined by their identities, and that there are essential truths that we'll just *never hear* unless we hear from every representative of every category and every possible intersection of categories, while white men, men, etc., have in some essential sense already been "heard from" -- well, that implies a world in which men have no real knowledge to bring or contribution to make. all we can or should do is shut the fuck up and take orders. all the declarations about who the future of the left "looks like" and who it doesn't look like sound this way to me: you can take them as a statement about who is at the actual center of the story, but you can also take them as a statement to the effect "I wish you weren't alive at all, but since you are, I'll grudgingly tolerate your silent presence in this movement, for now." (in a situation like that, of course some of us are gonna run off at the mouth twice as much.)
there are two rhetorical ways I can see to make clear that this isn't the argument. one is to offer some account of the special things men, white men, straight men, etc. can see and know. for obvious reasons I really don't want anyone to do that. I don't think it's true. any of us may be specially gifted in some area; as a group, we're not special. (the one exception to this is that I do think our physical presence can confer a certain amount of protection on others -- it's just a little harder for a racist soldier to fire live ammo if he sees a bunch of white dudes at the front of the Black Lives Matter rally, or whatever. we should remember this. it's just practical.) the other avenue, which I think *is* open to the left, is just to occasionally reaffirm a rhetorical commitment to those dreaded universal principles, to the idea that, actually, human subjectivities are singular, other white men haven't already "spoken for me," the world will never be fully mapped, the mind and the imagination are as much a part of our experience as what we label "lived experience," a hostile stranger doesn't actually know what my "lived experience" is just from looking at me, everyone really is a unique little snowflake. leftists sometimes don't want to say things like this because it sounds too much like "western individualism" or "liberal individualism." I think it's just true, though, and I feel paranoid when I'm surrounded by people who I think genuinely have stopped believing it. I'll still go to the meeting, if I think my presence there might matter, but I'll always be watching my back, and if another guy says "It's weird being around people who value me most when I am bringing the least of myself" (as a male former prisoner who was trying to adjust to progressive norms once told me), I do get it.
I realize I sound paranoid and like somebody who overthinks shit. No kidding!!!! we're all like that, it's called being a leftist.
yeah I think one of the issues here is that it's not like there's a shortage of non-toxic male role models on the left; women and leftist men are always going on about different men you can be like -- Mr. Rogers, Captain America, the guy with the big hair that paints, &c. The problem is that for a large cohort of men, they don't WANT that. They WANT a society organized around them being heroic champions of evil or, maybe more immediately, they want a bikini model sex mommy that they are the boss of.
If someone fantasizes about being rich, you can't win them over by offering them a job working on a farm where they'll be paid in potatoes -- no matter how good or satisfying that life is, the reason I fantasize about being rich is because I don't WANT to grow potatoes.
And so there is no way for Leftists to accommodate this, because the only way to attract that cohort is to give them what they want, and what they want is... counter-revolutionary, I guess. The only thing that is going to make this change is eventually all of society making it clear that no matter how much you want your fantasy, *you can't have it*.
Maybe we'll reach some kind of critical mass or something and it will turn over. Or maybe there'll be a shooting war between the genders, I don't know, but there just isn't a way for free people to accommodate men who dream of being masters.
fully agreed, and in particular the point about vance (and others like him) being the actual attackers of masculinity is such a good point, and verbalized something that i’ve tried to put into words for a while.
i care very little about the performance of masculinity in 99% of scenarios, but when i see a manosphere guy talking about how macho he is while being disgustingly sycophantic towards right-wing authority figures or reflexively writing aggrieved five paragraph essays in response to women just, like, existing, *that* is what triggers the masculine disgust in my brain more than anything else.
like, that guy in the screenshotted tweet is not only being a psycho, he’s acting like a total pussy even *within the boundaries* of the patriarchal framework he purports to love so much. it’s such an embarrassing display of weakness and cowardice, and the idea that that guy (and the movement he represents) is acting *on behalf* of some ideal of masculine strength is just, like, obviously insane
this was such a banger. it was so well-expressed. it works because, manifestly, after all those years of "fire men into the sun" jokes, this essay makes it so transparent that you fundamentally respect me more than J.D. Vance respects himself.
The comparison to white women who have to function in "ugh white women ruin everything. white women hands off my Beyonce" discursive environments is especially clarifying. (honestly, some red-brown grifter should try that tactic as part of their heel turn. "I felt violently attacked when someone called me Karen. I love Trump now")
I think the reason that I faintly, slightly, and with considerable irritation, feel a little sympathy with the idea that men, or white straight men, might feel a little adrift in leftist spaces is that, if you're around people who are really into maximalist versions of standpoint theory -- that people's knowledge is determined by their identities, and that there are essential truths that we'll just *never hear* unless we hear from every representative of every category and every possible intersection of categories, while white men, men, etc., have in some essential sense already been "heard from" -- well, that implies a world in which men have no real knowledge to bring or contribution to make. all we can or should do is shut the fuck up and take orders. all the declarations about who the future of the left "looks like" and who it doesn't look like sound this way to me: you can take them as a statement about who is at the actual center of the story, but you can also take them as a statement to the effect "I wish you weren't alive at all, but since you are, I'll grudgingly tolerate your silent presence in this movement, for now." (in a situation like that, of course some of us are gonna run off at the mouth twice as much.)
there are two rhetorical ways I can see to make clear that this isn't the argument. one is to offer some account of the special things men, white men, straight men, etc. can see and know. for obvious reasons I really don't want anyone to do that. I don't think it's true. any of us may be specially gifted in some area; as a group, we're not special. (the one exception to this is that I do think our physical presence can confer a certain amount of protection on others -- it's just a little harder for a racist soldier to fire live ammo if he sees a bunch of white dudes at the front of the Black Lives Matter rally, or whatever. we should remember this. it's just practical.) the other avenue, which I think *is* open to the left, is just to occasionally reaffirm a rhetorical commitment to those dreaded universal principles, to the idea that, actually, human subjectivities are singular, other white men haven't already "spoken for me," the world will never be fully mapped, the mind and the imagination are as much a part of our experience as what we label "lived experience," a hostile stranger doesn't actually know what my "lived experience" is just from looking at me, everyone really is a unique little snowflake. leftists sometimes don't want to say things like this because it sounds too much like "western individualism" or "liberal individualism." I think it's just true, though, and I feel paranoid when I'm surrounded by people who I think genuinely have stopped believing it. I'll still go to the meeting, if I think my presence there might matter, but I'll always be watching my back, and if another guy says "It's weird being around people who value me most when I am bringing the least of myself" (as a male former prisoner who was trying to adjust to progressive norms once told me), I do get it.
I realize I sound paranoid and like somebody who overthinks shit. No kidding!!!! we're all like that, it's called being a leftist.
yeah I think one of the issues here is that it's not like there's a shortage of non-toxic male role models on the left; women and leftist men are always going on about different men you can be like -- Mr. Rogers, Captain America, the guy with the big hair that paints, &c. The problem is that for a large cohort of men, they don't WANT that. They WANT a society organized around them being heroic champions of evil or, maybe more immediately, they want a bikini model sex mommy that they are the boss of.
If someone fantasizes about being rich, you can't win them over by offering them a job working on a farm where they'll be paid in potatoes -- no matter how good or satisfying that life is, the reason I fantasize about being rich is because I don't WANT to grow potatoes.
And so there is no way for Leftists to accommodate this, because the only way to attract that cohort is to give them what they want, and what they want is... counter-revolutionary, I guess. The only thing that is going to make this change is eventually all of society making it clear that no matter how much you want your fantasy, *you can't have it*.
Maybe we'll reach some kind of critical mass or something and it will turn over. Or maybe there'll be a shooting war between the genders, I don't know, but there just isn't a way for free people to accommodate men who dream of being masters.
"they would prefer to do absolutely anything other than be embarrassed" you're an oracle of our generation because this was spot on.
Loved reading this. I really appreciate this viewpoint.
No, we can't do that!
(Sorry, bookmarked to read later.)
fully agreed, and in particular the point about vance (and others like him) being the actual attackers of masculinity is such a good point, and verbalized something that i’ve tried to put into words for a while.
i care very little about the performance of masculinity in 99% of scenarios, but when i see a manosphere guy talking about how macho he is while being disgustingly sycophantic towards right-wing authority figures or reflexively writing aggrieved five paragraph essays in response to women just, like, existing, *that* is what triggers the masculine disgust in my brain more than anything else.
like, that guy in the screenshotted tweet is not only being a psycho, he’s acting like a total pussy even *within the boundaries* of the patriarchal framework he purports to love so much. it’s such an embarrassing display of weakness and cowardice, and the idea that that guy (and the movement he represents) is acting *on behalf* of some ideal of masculine strength is just, like, obviously insane
Great piece. Also, your book just arrived at my doorstep all the way over here in Australia. So there!
Good article
Me slightly missing the point: the image is a collage, definitely not ai generated. It looks like…some level of care went into it.