Things are looking up for this 59 year old left winger.
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 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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
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.
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 think they mean dark humour as in “scream a racial slur as loud as possible and call it a joke.”
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
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.
What does “right-wing” and “left-wing” even mean at this point?
Historically it apparently meant who sits on the right side and who sits on the left side of the president of the french National Assembly. From wikipedia:
The terms “left” and “right” first appeared during the French Revolution of 1789 when members of the National Assembly divided into supporters of the Ancien Régime to the president’s right side and supporters of the revolution to his left side.
But i think that’s a kinda stupid categorization because it doesn’t explain why things developed like this. They could have developed completely differently, and are therefore arbitrary and not reliable.
Not only that but what most people call the left nowadays (socialists, communists and beyond) categorically refused to be called left until the 30s. They saw themselves as playing outside the Assemblée.
The left of the time were calling themselves the “Radicals”, and they were fine and dandy with capitalism, just liberal in their cultural beliefs, whereas the right was conservative/reactionary (in that they wanted to keep the status quo/go back to monarchy/more autoritarism). Socialists were fighting against both left and right.
The left and the socialists only allied themselves during the Front Populaire, a large union against fascism that was heavily on the rise in France (and Europe obviously) at the time, with a failed far right Coup attempt (la Cagoule) and a ton of high profile people having at the very least sympathies for Hitler (those were instrumental in France’s defeats and surrender at the beginning of the war by the way). The sentence “Plutôt Hitler que le Front Populaire” (better Hitler than the Popular Front) was used a lot, and is still widely remembered today.
It’s only after the Front Populaire that the socialists started to be bundled with the left in their and the common political discourse.
Funnily enough, today’s US democrats show a perfect example of why socialists didn’t want to be labeled in the same way as the “Radicals” at the time.
“Wing” has started to lose meaning, yeah. All of the explanations I’ve seen for this have essentially described women moving left and men moving right. To call either move a move into a “wing” seems pretty unfounded.
They are Joe boys and UFC fans. The RNC literally lasso’d these low hanging fruit that get their news in 10 second videos… As soon as their parents kick them out and they have to work and pay rent, they quickly run from the dark side. It’s easy to sway INCELS. The DNC simply chooses not to and it’s a bad game plan. Most of them were Bernie Bros until they, gasp, gave the nomination to Hillary. I have two that have done the circle of life with this exact scenario.
Bernie Bros Voted for Trump Voted For Biden Voted for Trump kicked them both out and all they even do now is bleat about how Trump hasn’t done a GD thing to help them. No shit.
Incels were not Bernie bros. That’s was the Hillary campaign trying to artificially create negative press.
You’re telling me people privileged in a system are more likely to defend that system? Wowie, I hadn’t thought of that.
This is how the entwives ended up getting lost.
And they will never be found because they don’t call themselves “entwives”
South Korea, what the fuck?
From the article:
The #MeToo movement was the key trigger, giving rise to fiercely feminist values among young women who felt empowered to speak out against long-running injustices. That spark found especially dry tinder in South Korea, where gender inequality remains stark, and outright misogyny is common.
In the country’s 2022 presidential election, while older men and women voted in lockstep, young men swung heavily behind the right-wing People Power party, and young women backed the liberal Democratic party in almost equal and opposite numbers.
Korea’s is an extreme situation, but it serves as a warning to other countries of what can happen when young men and women part ways. Its society is riven in two. Its marriage rate has plummeted, and birth rate has fallen precipitously, dropping to 0.78 births per woman in 2022, the lowest of any country in the world.
Seven years on from the initial #MeToo explosion, the gender divergence in attitudes has become self-sustaining. Survey data show that in many countries the ideological differences now extend beyond this issue. The clear progressive-vs-conservative divide on sexual harassment appears to have caused — or at least is part of — a broader realignment of young men and women into conservative and liberal camps respectively on other issues.
young women backed the liberal Democratic party in almost equal and opposite numbers
This is only partially true. The key swing vote in the election, that handed Trump the win were; 40+year old white women without a college education. Until this election, that group was almost entirely in the Democrat camp, but went full MAGA.
The youth vote only has a small turnout, with voting patterns locked into geographic regions, there wasn’t too much unexpected that happened with the youth vote.
Be skeptical of recent survey data, reflection on this past election, or any survey data for that matter, especially in a Medium article.Seven years on from the initial #MeToo explosion
it’s crazy to me that that was as late as 2018. i definitely felt that circulating in school in 2012.
The flaws in their culture, where they’re expected to be invaded by North Korea at anytime, and nearly all the males – even pop stars – are also expected to do military service. Of course the men have become deeply reactionary, what with anti-communist propaganda heavily embedded throughout, and they’re not happy with South Korean women being more assertive now than 50 years ago.
It’s not helping that South Korea is so much of a horrifyingly thinly-disguised corporate dystopia.
where they’re expected to be invaded by North Korea at anytime
it could be noted, maybe, that in case of a war, probably only men would have to go to the frontline. so much for equality.
Well… Just goes to show, we all need each other’s help to balence things.
Also, who wants loose liberal women everywhere? Honestly, I dont want to marry someone with more partners than I can count on one hand… I dont think im crazy here? Cuz liberal women usually have many past lovers, in comparison to conservative women, in general…
Over all, I find these graphs very positive. And I think things are starting to turn around. A lot of women these days realize that their grandmothers had a lot less pressure and a lot more freedom. Sure, there was more pressure to have babies, but there was much less pressure about getting a degree and a career. Women are looking back and realizing “homemaker” was an enviable position, usually.
I long for those days ive never seen. Where a guy can get an entry level position and make enough to support his family on that single income. Why did that stop? Why is nearly every household a “dual-income” house? In a large part, it is because of the feminist movement. Women wanted things to be equal in the work force, and they did. Now things, like rent, are WAY more expensive because they assume most house holds are dual income.
Edit: dual*
Sit down, you ridiculous little child.
who wants loose liberal women everywhere?
That and free weed, and you’ve got Paradise City baby!
Also, who wants loose liberal women everywhere? Honestly, I dont want to marry someone with more partners than I can count on one hand… I dont think im crazy here? Cuz liberal women usually have many past lovers, in comparison to conservative women, in general…
More past partners probably means they know some more wild things to surprise you in the bedroom. An experienced partner knows how to please both of you. An inexperienced partner won’t
A lot of women these days realize that their grandmothers had a lot less pressure and a lot more freedom
Yeah, needing your husband’s signature just to have your own checking account is totally freedom. Good luck to any women who kick their abusive husbands to the curb too because they won’t have any legal ability to be financially independent even if they do work!
The big difference between now and 75 years ago that you’re referencing is that wages are way lower compared to expenses now than then. Over the last 50 years productivity per employee has grown explosively while wages have been stagnant when adjusted for inflation. That’s going to make you feel a pinch in your pocket
I long for those days ive never seen. Where a guy can get an entry level position and make enough to support his family on that single income. Why did that stop? Why is nearly every household a “dual-income” house
This ain’t got jack to do with feminism and everything to do with Regeanomics and also earlier Republican fuckheads like Nixon. See above regarding wage stagnation. Also costs of college tuition, housing etc. have increased significantly when adjusting for inflation compared to 50-75 years ago further leading to a financial crunch
If feminism was as successful as you say it was women would be making equal pay to men, and they’re still right now in the year of our Lord two thousand and twenty five AD only making about 80% on average of what their male counterparts in the same positions make.
who wants loose liberal women everywhere?
🙋♂️
Honestly, I dont want to marry someone with more partners than I can count on one hand… I dont think im crazy here?
I actually think this by itself is a reasonable take, though I’d say it also depends on the age. As a young (<25) guy, personally I would probably not date a girl with a 2-digit body count. Probably, because people are never that simple and you can’t be sure who the other person is without getting to know them. For some people this may not make a difference, and for others it may be a positive. We all have our own preferences. If you’re a low libido vanilla person, then you probably don’t want a freaky partner who likes sex a lot.
Women are looking back and realizing “homemaker” was an enviable position, usually.
This is because most jobs suck, wages are low and people want to enjoy their hobbies to stop thinking about all the global issues. Most men I know don’t see any issues with the idea of being stay-at-home husbands. It’s not women-specific.
Why did that stop? Why is nearly every household a “dual-income” house? In a large part, it is because of the feminist movement.
Almost every single word in this part is incorrect. First of all, feminism isn’t any more responsible for degrading quality of life than worker unions are. The ruling class simply decided they’ve had enough of ungrateful peasants fighting for more rights. Second, feminism has been dead for a while, so you can’t really blame it for anything substantial. 90% of modern feminists are just reverse misogynists, while the remaining 10% rarely speak out. They aren’t really considered ‘feminists’, but that’s because people generally don’t know what feminism is (or used to be?).
Now things, like rent, are WAY more expensive because they assume most house holds are dual income.
This is probably one of the last positions on the list of why rent is higher. There’s practically zero connection here. In short, rent is astronomically high, because capitalism doesn’t work. Not because women - also known as people - fought for more rights. Demanding basic rights is never a bad thing for anyone, regardless of additional unintended consequences.
Yeah, being with a woman that actually likes sex and knows what she wants is terrible…
I never insinuated anything as such. And it also 100% sounds like justification for being loose…
Also, who wants loose liberal women everywhere
It sounds like justification because it is. Putting sex on a pedestal and treating it like some extra special thing you only do for procreation with your soulmate leads to all kinds of weird hangups about it. It’s not common for someone to get lucky enough to find a partner who matches them on the first attempt.
It’s not common for someone to get lucky enough to find a partner who matches them on the first attempt.
i did. that was a long time ago. life happened and now we’re apart.
i’d give you half an upvote and half a downvote because you get some things but miss others.
Also, who wants loose liberal women everywhere?
I want.
A lot of women these days realize that their grandmothers had a lot less pressure and a lot more freedom.
Surely times were less stressful if you had fewer responsibilities like work or education. What i regret deeply is that feminism didn’t offer women the choice to work and study, but instead it made it mandatory. You can’t choose whether you want to work today or not; you simply have to. It replaced one kind of oppression (being forbidden from working and studying) with another (being forbidden from not working and studying).
Where a guy can get an entry level position and make enough to support his family on that single income. Why did that stop?
It stopped because companies don’t have as much demand for human labor anymore, because a lot of tasks have become automated and don’t require humans to do them anymore. As a consequence, there’s less demand for human labor. Now, if you’re familiar with the basics of how markets work, you’ll have heard about the rule of supply and demand. If there’s less demand for human labor, that means the price for that labor (a.k.a. wages) are gonna decrease. And that’s exactly what’s happening today: wages have decreased significantly since the 1970s.
I don’t think wages are gonna go up ever again, TBH, because demand for human labor is mostly caused by growth, and there’s no healthy way the economy can grow on Earth anymore. Except if you develop spaceflight and fly to mars, where there’d probably be a lot of demand for human labor. But that’s another story.
I can’t tell if you’re sarcastic or a time traveler from 1870.
you’d be surprised, but some people actually think that way. it’s a consequence of never exiting one’s bubble.
Or korean (different sociology).
dual
Eep. Thanks.
Being in this demographic, I don’t get this. How is right wing even an option, how do you tell yourself you’re okay with all the bullshit they’re pushing. I get if you were already right-wing, chances are you’ll stay like this, but how do you even go from ‘everyone should have rights’ to ‘maybe we should cripple ourselves, the rich deserves more’.
Shit’s wild
You’ve received a tonne of responses and I’m not even sure if this has been posted by someone else already, but there’s a YouTube video called “How to Radicalize a Normie” which goes over at length exactly how the alt right gets its hooks into young people and why it’s so hard for them to break out.
Being in this demographic, I don’t get this. How is right wing even an option
it’s very simple. men have nothing to lose and a lot to gain. at least that’s what they think.
My honest opinion. The right pipeline is meeting boys where they are. The left needs to stop pontificating about shit and get on their level.
It’s no different than the fact that the education system as it’s been designed is easier for girls to navigate than boys. Look at post-secondary attendance by gender over time.
This is a problem that has been brewing for decades and we have done nothing to stop it and the right wing despite all their faults are actually engaging these boys where they are.
If you are a parent. Hell if you are a mother, you should be scared as shit at how your sons are checking out of society writ large.
I’m a 48 year old dude with 3 kids. My daughter will be fine. My boys on the other hand? I’m doing my best to make sure they’re adjusted and successful but it’s exceedingly hard.
In what way is the education system easier for girls to navigate? That doesn’t make sense to me at all.
the education system changed in the 90s thanks to the no child left behind and other inisitaives that forces tons of standarized testing down kids throads. recess was cut, arts were cut, lunch was cut.
the past 30 years due to these changes women have greatly outpaced men in educational attainment because they are better suited mentally to being test takers. all the curious, impulsiveness and physical of boys is actively oppressed and dismissed, and frankly, tons of boys are not drugged into submission from as early as 6.
the diffences in edu performance start from the time they enter school.
school wasn’t like this 30-40 years ago. we changed education vastly start in the 90s/2000s and now those kids are entering college and teh workforce and we are seeing massive changes in their educations and incomes due to this.
a further reason is that male teachers have all but disappeared from the educational system apart from high school and coaching roles. there are virtually no male teachers in primary schools or middle schools anymore. further exacerbating and accelerating boys struggles and lack of role models in schools.
it goes on and on like this. we’ve basically decided to setup our school systems to be for and by women, and the obessiong with testing benefits girls over boys.
also, don’t worry, the differences in achievement between upper quartile boys and girls is not that bad. if you go to elite rich schools boys/girls are mostly treated the same and perform the same.
it’s most the bottom 3/4s of the economic ladder where this goes on. women from single parent househoulds do WAY better than boys from single parent households.
but hey, don’t let all this complicated facts and social changes get in the way or your political beliefs! let’s just explain all tehse social trends doucmented for decades away as boys are stupid incels who just need to vote for democrats and magically they will be able to get to college and get good jobs.
The down votes on your comment are a head scratcher. No matter what you as a parent (or even young men commenting in this thread) say, that perspective is shouted down as manosphere brainwash propaganda.
It’s almost like retrograde toxic masculinity. Vulnerable young dudes trying to explain why left messaging makes them uncomfortable are being told to man up/grow up/get over it.
Vulnerable young dudes trying to explain why left messaging makes them uncomfortable are being told to man up/grow up/get over it.
it was referred to as “positive discrimination”: discrimination, but about “white (old) men”, sometimes also just white men or men in general.
some crazy feminists actually thought that was a good idea, to “hit back”; instead it just creates further problems.
anytime the left is criticized by a man, they just scream at you and insult you. they don’t value any input as to why men don’t listen to them anymore.
and if you ask the left what a man is to do… they tell you to fuck off and figure it out, or they just espouse traditional values of masculinity… but also saying how they are wrong and bad and ‘problematic’ those trad values are. the left has no positive agenda for men because it sees me as inherently bad until proven otherwise by their hypocritical values. they just want you to be a traditional man who gives your money to leftist causes, and attributes the struggles and suffering of minorities to systemic issues, but the struggles of men are never systematic. if a man is struggle it’s entire his own personal fault and what he should do is shut up and give his money to people who have it worse than he does.
it’s simple. the left offers young men nothing other than shame and harassment. so why would they want to deal with that? the right at least gives them a goal to strive for and actually acknowledges their problems aren’t their fault.
they are checking out of society because society offers them no reward anymore.
there is no point in be a part of it when you can’t own a home, can’t find a wife, and can’t have kids. all of that has been priced out of the market for any guy who isn’t in the top 10% of income/wealth. average men has no chance at any of that anymore. and they see that and they are attracted to the right because the right says ‘you can and should have those things’ the left says ‘you don’t deserve them’.
secondary
How come every fucking time. Every. Fucking. Time. Every time y’all talk about “men’s issues” you talk about “how difficult it is to find a wife”
Get. Your. Own. Shit. Together. First. Then you “find a wife”
And what does “finding a wife” have to do with money? How are you “priced out of” finding a wife? “Cause all women are golddiggers” or what?
And never fucking ever has the left said “you don’t deserve to start a family”
You know what, my dude? Vote MAGA. You deserve it
I think you’re hitting some good points, but the thing we need to teach these boys is that they shouldn’t be looking towards society for rewards. Society’s rewards have become a gamified rat race, so the way out is men to look inward. Not gonna lie though, that’s easier said than done…
I recently wrote a post too that touches on this topic: https://philosophyofbalance.com/blog/the-emancipation-of-men/
right, let me sit around on my ass and look inwards, while my costs go up faster than my salary.
surely that will fix things.
the fact you think men need to look inwards tells me you come from a position of massive privledge and wealth. those of us who have had to struggle to pay bills, and feared being homeless don’t care about ‘looking inward’ we care about not being broke.
most young men can’t afford their bills dude. no amount of inward emotional work is going to fix that. and they are being told to fuck off for even daring to ask that maybe if they work hard the yshould be able to afford the basics of a life. a home, a family, healthcare, security and community.
and all those things are actively being denied to them by the world. college grad can’t even afford to live with roommates anymore because rents are so high and wages are so low. how is a 24 year old guy ilving at home making 35K a year supposed to feel? while the left endlessly shits on him what a loser he is for not makign 250K a year.
How is any of that exclusive to men?
Though I agree it is somewhat of a privilege to have the time and security it takes to allow for self-actualization, that’s a struggle that a lot of us have to deal with, regardless of sex, gender, or sexual orientation.
Maybe we should cripple ourselves
Naaaaah
Maybe we can become rich and dominate others
That’s what’s actually on their mind.
The entire right-wing propaganda goes as: “if you work hard and make smart choices, you’ll become rich too and will be able to exploit others for your benefit”. The rest are seen as passive doomer mob that just aren’t dedicated enough, and so end up subjugated by the alphas who pushed hard to pursue their dream (to dominate others and live a rich life on their backs).
This kind of propaganda works beautifully well on young folks who didn’t yet get to experience just how hard and unlikely it is to build a successful business or high-payed career, especially without compromising on one’s principles.
I spent over a decade thinking “God this sucks, but at least things will get better once the boomers die off.” The worst political blow of my life was realizing that the younger generation also lacked critical thinking skills.
Millennials are apparently the first generation to move “left” as they grow older, instead of right.
There are changes. Some positive.
Presumably meaning the percentage. Not all GenX went right, but I will admit I’ve been disappointed in seeing how many around my age did lose any semblance of critical thinking. And some of them very early, so it may not be age at all that’s a factor, but something else that affects people. Maybe millennials have managed to avoid whatever that is.
As a 50 year white guy old who has never voted for a conservative, and always tries to support the most progressive candidate, let me assure you, we exist, and we are tremendously disappointed in our demographic peers.
I think there is something to the “millennial’s refuse to grow up” mantra that boomers and genx accuse us of.
Like, if growing up is adopting a “fuck you i got mine” mentality… nah.
Tiktok and the like. Millenials grew up at the perfect time, where the internet was at its peak, then it all became consolidated into large echochambers which are more easily manipulated. Generations after millenials don’t remember the internet outside of tiktok, instagram, snapchat etc. they don’t what they missed out on.
That article was about Australia and even then the headline didn’t support the claims. Millennials have always been like 14 points more liberal than Gen X before them, but they haven’t moved more liberal over time.
elder milennials(too much baggage from thier boomer or Xer family members) turned right more than left, the younger ones tend to be left wings, barring some poc, and lgbtq+ are already on the left.
Statements like these require the burden of proof. Voting habits show otherwise.
people move to the right when they buy homes and have kids. elder millenials are already there. younger ones haven’t started yet.
all of my friends who have bought a home and had kids have been way more conservative. both political and personally, they want to conserve things and not change things and see development/progress as a threat to themselves, their family, and their finances.
This is the story.
It’s also survivorship bias. Wealthy people live longer, and wealthy people are more conservative. As a cohort ages, the poor liberals die off and the wealthy assholes remain.
It’s also being annoyed and fed up with people harassing the shit out of you for being ‘rich and privileged’ when you live a pretty basic life. I paid for my own undergrad and graduate educations, lived cheap and saved up for 15 years, and finally got a house and some stability in my life.
I can’t tell you how many ‘leftists’ love ot mouth off at me now that I’m some rich privledged asshole. to them i might as well be a billionaire because if i ‘really cared about other people’ i’d let homeless drug addicts live in my spare bedroom or sell my home and give all the money to some women’s shelter. I haven’t taken a vacation in 3 years, meanwhile they are living off mom and dad and trust funds and traveling abroad 3x a year and screaming about how ‘underprivledged’ they are and how anyone who has a nominally better life than them is bad/wrong and they are some heroic struggling figure because they are ‘above’ traditional employment that might actually give them a better income.
It’s the hypocracy and the irony that I can’t stand anymore. When I grew up the left was more about equality and bringing people up, now it’s about tearing everyone else down to boost whomever is the most ‘oppressed’ at the moment.
ironically when leftists focus on economics, and not identity politics social justice bullshit… they get tons of support and votes from men of all ages.
The Boomers designed (and then aggressively defunded) the education system that these kids are being raised in, so it’s not really a huge surprise that they aren’t learning critical thinking.
Then combine that with the social media/advertising landscape that they’re constantly exposed to, and it’s really a losing battle.
One reason why so many are turning bigots, you expressed it yourself: your refusal to consider them on your same level, as intelligent and critical thinkers as you. Somehow everyone is stupid but you (and I don’t mean “you” specifically, rather everyone who approaches discourse in the same way).
Calling our opponents dumb is being polite, or maybe a psychological defense mechanism against the horror of the alternative.
If you are dumb it’s not your fault. You didn’t, know better. If you are ignorant you can learn.
If you are smart and you still made the choices knowing the outcomes, then we have to go to other explanations: greed is the next least bad, and certainly it plays a part, but honestly that doesn’t usually follow. The vast majority of conservative supporters have no chance to benefit from their policies, so we have to go further to find an explanation.
Cruelty. They want the suffering, the death, the destruction of human potential. Or maybe sadism. They enjoy inflicting pain and deprivation.
The mind recoils, so we call them dumb, because the world in which the ignorant masses are being misled by nafarious elites is less soul crushing to contemplate than the world where the masses act out of cruelty and sadism.
Yep.
I have a graduate degree, been left/progressive my entire life. Only in the past few years have I been told, to my face, that I’m a bigoted ignorance stupid piece of shit. It’s almost as if the left has gone off the rails and basically thinks anyone who won’t vote for them should f off. And they wonder why they don’t get votes or population.
I used to be proud to be a Democrat. Ever since Clinton I’ve been ashamed and all the party has done is double down on their stupid sexist bullshit.
I remember talking about how clinton was a bad candidate and was going to lose in 2016. all i ever got in reply was ‘you’re a sexist piece of shit’. yeah, god forbid i be critical of clinton’s shity campaign, and her crappy policies that alienated huge swaths of america.
This bias is real. Everyone thinks they’re the smart one. There also do exist huge differences in intelligence.
Social media is an incredibly strong tool. It started off pretty nice, so we thought once the boomers died out we would be better off and for a while it was looking good, but it has quickly turned into algorithmic slop which can easily feed people propaganda without them even realising it.
Pushing fake alpha male bullshit is my guess. See tate and the likes.
but how do you even go from ‘everyone should have rights’ to ‘maybe we should cripple ourselves, the rich deserves more’.
You compare ideal left versus bad consequences of right. They do the reverse. Both of you feel good about your choices.
Both of you don’t see that it is divide and conquer and that the positions of the parties would shift if people started voting differently to allow the elite to choose their politicians.
To overcome this, you can learn to see the strong arguments of the right and the shortcomings of the left.
You’re making the assumption that these kids had a proper education that taught them critical thinking skills and how to spot propaganda.
I’m curious what would be the bar for proper education. Yesterday I was lectured by my fucking dentist (8years of college) on how poor people are all abusing the system and should lose all social protections. And he’s absolutely not an isolated case. Most of the engineers I manage are exhibiting similar thoughts about the jobless or immigrants. Again, at least 5 years of college. This shit is a poison. This is being relayed more and more by persons from 26 to 40 and I guess above all around. It feels like a national sport ; always shit on the one perceived below.
If my dentist ever said stuff like that to me I would tell them to shut the fuck up, and just do your job taking care of my teeth. If you don’t I’ll go to another dentist.
Pretty brave, telling someone who has already admitted they are a sadist to shut the fuck up, right before they get all in your mouth with metal tools!
Ah good point lol!
Just because you do a lot of it doesn’t mean it was a proper education. In the US education is all about making you ready to be useful to “The Economy”, not to train you to be more intelligent.
Belgium here but I guess it’s fair enough.
Did you change dentists
Yeah, even if someone participates in what would be considered proper education, it doesn’t guarantee they learn from it. No one is safe from propaganda, and we’re living in the worst propaganda era so far. Who do you even believe nowadays if you are incapable of thinking for yourself? And if you can think for yourself, how much can you trust yourself to not fall for fake or misleading information?
Yeah sure but then it’s not so much about « getting a proper education » anymore. Or the education system is failing us which is even worse because then what’s the way out? How can I / we steer this situation so that people suck less? Man I’m terrified my kids will end up like that.
because the left actively hates young men.
imagine yourself being a 19 year old kid:
one side is saying how shit you are and how you deserve nothing. it’s only women who are worthwhile and you should just fuck off and die.
the other side is saying ‘do this and you’ll be successful’, it sucks right now but you will get there if you try.
which one are you going to find more appealing? pretty sure you’re not going to want to hang out with people who tell you how shitty and awful you are, but the people who tell you that you have a shot at a good life.
one side is saying how shit you are and how you deserve nothing. it’s only women who are worthwhile and you should just fuck off and die.
Except this is a right-wing talking point and a misrepresentation of what left-wing ideals encompass.
the other side is saying ‘do this and you’ll be successful’, it sucks right now but you will get there if you try.
Except that’s not what they communicate, because while they offer “solutions” (mostly towards a rather suppressive and overly strict understanding of gender stereotypes) they immediately find in and shift the blame for young men’s problems towards an out-group, such as the “radical left” and LTBGQ people.
In fact, I find it’s the right that actively hates me for just being me because I don’t conform to their idea of what a man is, even though I’m a cis-hetero white male.
“Don’t try to find your own way because this is what you need to be, and everything else is degenerate and shameful.”
I know which I find more appealing.
dude i am a man. i have been a leftist man my entire life. i don’t wnat to be a part of the left anymore because it’s so pathetic and shameful to be a liberal these days. the left wants me to support them, give them my votes and money… but their political agenda does absolutely nothing to benefit me or men in general. we are told that because of historical oppression we ‘owe’ giving our work/money/time to minorities and women, that we should just endless sacrifice… that’s not how any of this works. and men are not interested in being used and abused and told me to be grateful for it.
what you fail to get is that it is a talking point… a talking point that is absolutely true. one that the left adamantly denies, but is true of the lived experience of tons of men and men are going to listen to who talks to their truth and their experience. not the left which adamantly denies we have any inherent value or worth… to the left our only worth is what we give to women and minorities.
dude the left hates me way more than the right does. that’s been my experinece. i went to college only to get harassed, assaulted and screamed at. people on the right don’t scream at me and tell me how i am a threat for minding my own business at a bar/cafe because my penis is a ‘threat’ to them. i’m glad you have enough white guilt to be shamed into submission, but i don’t. i worked my ass my entire life from the age of 14 and i am sick of being shamed and harassed for simply providing for myself. of being told that i’m an asshole for not giving more money to women and minorities when I was broke as shit and eating expired food. maybe you never had to provide for yourself because you had a well-off family to pay your bills, but a lot of us didn’t.
when i was in college i had rich women and minorities screaming at me how i shouldn’t exist becausei ‘stole’ their opportunity by getting a scholarship and their parents had to pay full tuition. Fuck the left, fuck their anti-penis obsession. men have every right to health and happiness as women do. and until their messaging and political goals become more inclusive, they are going to continue to alienate younger men.
people vote for their own self interest. they don’t vote for the interests of oppressed minority groups.
MANY people are just dumb. They will react and fear the way their favorite newsperson wants.
I will get down voted for this. But if you want an answer, here’s what I believe happens:
Initially young men were mostly okay with social left, because: “let gay people be gay”, “don’t treat women worse than men”, “don’t be hateful to foreigners” are easy to agree to, they follow the principles of “let people do whatever they want if it doesn’t affect you”, “every human should be treated equally” and “don’t hate entire groups of people for attributes they can’t control, some individuals are good and some are bad in every group”.
However, social left has moved the goalpost. Now it is: “we have to change the rules for the trans”, “we have to give women privilege to compensate for misogyny”, “we have to give minorities privilege to compensate for X-ism” which follow different principles than the first paragraph. And with the moving of the goalpost comes “if you are to the right of the goalpost after being moved, you are a fascist and a Nazi and I don’t wanna hear what you have to say”.
I liked and agreed with the first paragraph a lot. But I don’t like the second one at all. And I believe this happens to a lot more young men.
That being said, I’m not retarded, I would never fote for a right wing party, specially since they are doing the same and moving the goalpost to the right so much that most of them are actually fascists.
You are spot on. This is my personal beef with the left. Young men hate authoritarian bullshit, even if it’s leftist.
Also the same myself. I am now a Nazi because I believe in equality, not inequality based on sex/race/gender. I’ve also personally experience environments where a woman/trans person can assault another person and gets off scot free because they are treated like toddlers, but if a hetero or male person did that, they’d get the cops called on them.
Young men are well aware the world has stacked the rules against them and they are going to support/listen to people who tell them how unfair and fucked up that is.
But the deck is far more stacked against the working class than it is men or women. They need to understand that they are workers first and everything else, gender, race, sexuality, etc, comes after.
I don’t have a clue how to get there though.
I’ve been in the leftmost spaces most of my adult life. Accommodations for nuance have generally cost me a few calories in processing thought and not misgendering people but tha’ts it. It was annoying at times to learn new things but the impact on my ability to experience and navigate the world was nil. The benefits were that i got to have deeper connections with my friends of various genders and ethnicities.
I think if someone’s coming from an unchallenged experience of masculinity that when people ask for accommodation they feel it as a personal attack because they never had to expend a single calorie of energy on it before, and now someone is asking them to.
It also just takes a looooong time (decades even) to get over one’s own insecurities because it’s easy to hide those behind a mask of masculinity. That part takes a lot more effort whereas the manosphere tells you that you don’t have to climb that mountain because actualization is achieved hiding behind that mask.
I think if someone’s coming from an unchallenged experience of masculinity that when people ask for accommodation they feel it as a personal attack because they never had to expend a single calorie of energy on it before, and now someone is asking them to.
This is it.
Equality feels like oppression when you’re privileged.
Couldn’t be me talking from personal experience 🫠
Yeah, keep antagonizing everyone that doesn’t have the exact same opinions you do. It’s gonna end great.
Also, that’s a lot of assumptions you made there.
I meant the Royal “you”. Fixing.
Me too. leftist spaces used to be about freedom for everyone. Now they are about screaming at everyone who doesn’t agree with whatever the most ‘progressive’ point of view is that they are horrible and awful people.
Like, it’s fine if you wanna be a transgender poly person, but it’s not fine if you want to shit on everyone else who isn’t and act like they are ignorant nazis and spend your days shitting on anyone who isn’t in total agreement with your lifestyle.
Yeah it’s definitely not a monolith. There were always those cis-hating types of spaces around and that’s just counterproductive. Luckily my experience is in the “let’s figure it or together” types of spaces which are far and away the majority. But everyone remembers the most irritating voice which is often also the loudest.
I think there’s also a phase a lot of people go through in their journey where they feel a need to over-express their new identity. That can lead to social growing pains.
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Money. And acceptance. If you are loudly left wing you don’t get trust from those with the money. All the money is dedicated right wingers.
The death of the American dream is a big one. Speaking very generally, men want a better future for themselves and are willing to follow whoever promises it, while women are being specifically targeted by conservatives an don’t want anything to do with that shit. The weakness of the American left means that the average person only sees establishment centrism and far-right fascism as options.
Dumb fools who have no one decent to look up to end up blaming women for it, so move right. Women don’t want anything to do with dumb fools who want to take away their rights, so move left.
Sure, it is only this simple and you are very smart.
Here’s the FT article the graphic is from
https://www.ft.com/content/29fd9b5c-2f35-41bf-9d4c-994db4e12998
