When people talk about the 'masculine' respect for reason, objectivity, and cool debate, what they're really thinking of is the culture of the enlightenment. This was indeed quite masculine, but so is religious fundamentalism and tribal warfare. It's only one mode of masculine discourse and most male dominated cultures don't share it.
Also, Vance is out here defending those Republican group chats of those young people saying “I love Hitler” and saying it’s just young kids making dumb edgy jokes and we shouldn’t want a country where ‘kids making jokes’ can ruin their life.
But 2 weeks ago he was vouching for young people to lose their jobs if they joked about Charlie Kirk’s death and if you know anyone who has joked about his death, you should call them out and contact their employer (like a Karen btw, complete Karen behaviour despite Conservatards complaining about them). Very funny double standard there.
We can also classify the Trump and Elon feud as a “Catfight”. When conservatives used to cry about how if women got into power they’d too gossipy/bitchy and there’d be a ton of catfights, well Trump and Elon have behaved in every single way republicans accused future female politicians of behaving.
We’re literally seeing conservative men like Stephen Miller and JD Vance employ the exact same tactics they accused those ‘miserable single cat ladies’ of. Just last week JD Vance tried to sneakily get Destiny arrested and Mike Johnson is using the same gaslighty tactics on Dems about how they’re responsible for the government shutdown.
If cancel culture is really because of ‘feminisation’ then Republican men like Vance, Miller and Johnson seem to be really in touch with their feminine sides.
Vance is one of the most feminine men in the conservative movement, a closeted homosexual with high probability. Miller is more incel-coded, not necessarily feminine but sexless, even though he’s married. If there’s any truth to the Elon Musk cuckolding rumors that proves my point.
Stephen Miller is genuinely spooky character though, that slip up where he said ‘I have the power’ instead of Trump has it was really concerning.
I’ve never considered this because I’m not conspiratorial at all but the idea of Trump secretly being this senile old man that’s being a puppet by these much more twisted characters in Stephen Miller and Mike Johnson is almost a much scarier scenario for me.
This is also what Republicans accused the Biden admin of, with Biden being a puppet, it’s always projected all the way down with Republicans. Every accusation is projection.
Trump is being manipulated behind the scenes. From what I understand you need to personally flatter him as much as possible, and also avoid imitating his style or try to upstage him. Very much similar to some developing world autocrat. Miller probably knows how to flatter him, and probably tries to be the last person to talk to him since Trump also tends to favor that viewpoint.
Yeah, one of the biggest changes Trump has done since his first admin to his second is that he’s replaced every cabinet member with a sycophantic ass kisser that will suck up to him no matter what. He doesn’t want another Mike Pence who would actually defend Democracy before Trump.
You’re so on point with the flattering stuff too, forget this country you see it with Putin too. Anytime Putin flatters him, Trump starts defending Russia again, anytime Zelenskyy compliments Trump, he defends Ukraine again. He’s actually such a man-child.
At this point I’m convinced Hamas could have flattered Trump into becoming Pro-Palestinian and siding against Israel lmfao.
This is how it's always been. Trump positions himself as some kind of godlike figure who cares about the truth and will stand against everything harmful (the "Demonrats" obviously) to defend his base, when really he doesn't care about them at all. In his first term whenever he did something stupid his base would be like "he's just surrounded by bad people!" even though if Trump really was this strong truth seeking figure who would stop at nothing to accomplish what he told his base he would do, then wouldn't just fire them? I mean, he's the president, he has the ability to do that. But no he didn't. And then when he was running for his second term, he was like "yeah I learned and now I'm going to FIRE EVERYONE" but then he just surrounded himself with even worse people. Trump's biggest weakness is that he really doesn't care about anything but flattery. If you say nice things about you, he likes you, if you don't, he doesn't. Trump doesn't even care about his own base if they're constantly worshipping the ground he walks on. A few months ago he literally trashed his own base and called them his "former supporters" because they called him out on the Epstein thing. He has no principles, if someone flatters him, they get in.
You mean his beard? By the way have you seen the latest scuff on the right between Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley’s groyper son? The far right is increasingly made up of self-hating minorities who want to be white.
Helen isn't arguing in her article that the difference between feminized institutions and masculinized institutions is that the latter care more about truth. She's primarily arguing that feminized institutions have failed in surprisingly tight conjuction with the majority flip. She offers up some explanations, but none of them are as simplistic as you are saying here.
The one I find most resonant is that men are better at compartmentalization. They are better at containing their conflicts to their domains, and therefore are better at institutional conflict generally. The opposite behavior is commonly referred to as "borderline", which is *notably* gendered.
During the Great Awokening, especially its climax during the George Floyd Racial Reckoning, lots of center-left institutions that had ably represented masculine values of rationality over the generations, such as the New York Times, universities, tech companies, etc., went insane due to emotion overwhelming reason.
BPD was formerly considered a “mostly female” thing, but recent work in the field has found that BPD males were wrongly getting funneled toward a “sociopathy” diagnosis instead, and the true numbers for BPD may be closer to 50/50. It’s really hard to tell whether gender bias exists in the pathology itself, or in the process of diagnosing it, because our only tool for telling the difference is…biased human opinions.
I think "truth seeking" is masculine coded, but in the same way that "astrophysicist" is masculine coded. If someone is an astrophysicist then they are probably also male, but if you pick some random guy off the street and ask them to work for NASA or whatever, they are almost guaranteed to do a terrible job.
Ultimately, I don't think you can make truth seeking institutions better by consciously excluding women. In fact, the truth seeking ethos requires being open to arguments regardless of who they come from! However, practically speaking, I think the people who will rise to the top of these types of institutions will generally be male, and if that discomforts people enough that they begin practicing some form of affirmative action, I think that can lead to institutional rot.
I guess my point is that I agree with Hanania that masculine vs feminine is not a great way to frame the nature of institutional decay, but I also think rejuvenating these institutions will require skepticism of a lot of feminist rhetoric regarding bias/oppression/equality etc.
Not one word said here addresses Andrews's basic point that women's tendency is to care more about relationships than about rules and that this is going to have an impact on institutions that get flooded with women. Not one word. This whole essay is a pathetic exercise in whataboutism. (And quite surprising to me, since I normally regard Richard as the best thing going in political commentary and anaylysis.)
Bringing up Donald Trump to "prove" that men aren't always into strictly following the rules makes about as much sense as would be bringing up Margaret Thatcher to "prove" that women don't always put their feelings first. Neither point needs proving. Both are beside the point of Andrews's essay.
Richard's own analogy shows the problem with his piece:
Person A: "Christian fanatacism can inspire terrorism. Look how some evangelicals murder abortion doctors."
Person B: "Wrong! You neglected to mention Islam!!!"
Helen Andrews presented a theory about Western Civilization and the rule of law. She then decided to do a complete hack job on one side of the political spectrum and ignored everything that contradicted her thesis for partisan reasons. Pointing this out isn’t whataboutism, and I in fact said she was right about some things. But the piece is still partisan hackery.
Hmm. If your essay is more about Helen Andrews's specific piece than about "the 'feminization' talking point," maybe your title should reflect that.
I'm more interested in theories of culture than talking points. There do seem to be some basic, culture-independent differences between men and women that can have an important impact. This can't be wished away by saying Republicans are all into masculinity and they don't care about truth or the rule of law.
Helen: There's a profound but often overlooked trend that has been slowly undermining the serious institutions of American society over the last half century, with its pace accelerating over the last dozen years.
Richard: How come she's not talking about Trump? Huh? Huh??!!!
Is it really beside the point to note famous woman leaders -- of countries and 'institutions' -- who hardly support Andrews' essentialism? Or just inconvenient? The premises that women 'tend' to 'care more about relationships than about rules', and that it does so to the detriment of 'institutions' suchas 'the law', are themselves tendentious. MAGA gals (including the ones now helping run the government) are loudly proclaiming their love of 'the rules', while perverting both law and the truth..just like MAGA guys. Are those ladies bucking 'the trend'?
I think that Richard's point is that men and women both have a tendency to care more about relationships than rules. It just manifests differently. Women care more about making people get along than the truth, while men care more about asserting dominance and loyalty than the truth. Flooding an institution with women won't make it care less about the truth. It will make it care more about harmony than about dominance. It will make it passive aggressive instead of regular agressive.
Andrews is pointing out a supposed “problem” that has been in academia (in every single sphere, actually) since before women gained access. Men have always canceled each other over opinions, over ideas, over disputes; sometimes with words and sometimes with violence. There is no “feminization” problem, it’s just so many people thought women were vastly different from men that them displaying similar behaviors is a shock to the system.
I think there is one main feminine archetype, but two very distinct masculine archetypes. There's the classic masculine everyone pictures- hits the gym, gets in fights, very competitive, high libido. But there's also the nerd masculine. Plays strategy video games, loves programming, values the literal truth, gets confused by social situations, can't get laid.
The woke left is feminine. The MAGA right is classic masculine. What we need more of in power is the nerd masculine.
I think Jungian archetypes are bullshit. As are your facile typologies. And I'd say we've had more than our fill of creepy 'nerd masculine' in the last few decade. You've heard of techbros? Musk? Zuckerberg? Theil? Andreasson?
I can't exactly prove this, but I don't think partisanship is exactly the explanation here. It seems to be related to a criticism of the left, but more broadly strikes me as some sort of error of association.
Among all people, it is predominant for people to disregard truth and embrace feel-good nonsense, partisan hackery, .etc. The average man and woman both have weak epistemology.
However, for whatever reason (male variability?), among those who have the rare traits (however those come about) for genuine truth-seeking, men are disproportionately represented. As a result, if you look to people who are genuine truth-seeking, you will see a bunch of dudes.
Among this group there is a real and masculine-norm influenced culture, which is the predominant truth-seeking group.
The mistake here is conflating that group with masculine disposition more broadly, and painting them as representative of men, the vast majority of which are not in that group.
(My own belief here that I am shamelessly trying to support is that ideas and their validity are largely independent of individuals, and that good epistemology can be taught to anyone and can manifest in a myriad of ways.)
It is pretty clear to me that both women of the radical left and men of the radical right place self-interest over truth. Radical leftist women are responsible for the rise of social constructivist epistemology in academia, that is, the denial of objective reality. If they perceive facts as hurtful and oppressive, they will deny those facts by constructing an alternative fable that they believe advances their interests. For example, many leftist women believe that facts from evolutionary psychology support the oppressive patriarchy, so they make up different facts about the irrelevance of biology in human affairs. Richard has done an excellent job of documenting the denial of objective reality by Trump and MAGA (not that this was a difficult task). Who should we worry about the most? Richard makes a good case for worrying about the radical right. If the legal system does slide toward feminization, favoring mercy above justice, this might result in the non-conviction some people (probably mostly women) who are guilty. But MAGA ignoring both mercy and rule-of-law justice in their attempts to jail their political opponents is downright Soviet Union.
I really like where your headed with this Mr. Johnson but want to push back just a bit. Your observations about ineffective pedagogies hits especially close to home but (and here I might be accused of a bit of misogyny I suppose) aren’t the origins of almost all these wrong ideas in pedagogy the brain farts of truth-seeking men?
Also, I’m not sure I follow you on the evolutionary psychology bit. I thought the left-wing view was more likely to NOT explain undesirable male behavior in evolutionary terms and more likely to explain it as a purely cultural phenomenon. MEN, by the way, do exactly the same thing when a woman proves reluctant to have sex with a virtual stranger about whom she knows next to nothing AND has no physical or personality traits that might signal an ability to beget strong health children or be a good provider. We say (or said, decades ago) “it’s just 2000 years of patriarchy that’s holding you back; c’mon baby, have another drink and live a little.”
I'm a lefty who has spent the last 10 years trying to convince my friends that conservativism isn't just a cover for racism/misogyny/exploitation/whatever. The last year in particular it's felt like parts of the right are determined to lean into all their most unhinged accusations.
I really think the conflict at this point isn't left vs right. It's more like people with any kind of commitment to liberal principles and intellectual integrity, vs various flavors of ideologues and grifters.
The comparison between individual actors like Trump and Rogan and the pervasive, insidious feminist culture that has infiltrated institutions, legal systems, and public discourse, pushing for supremacy, preferential treatment, and normalizing the idea that men are guilty until proven innocent, is a new low even for you, Richard. Any accused vacuous statements from those 2 are in no way comparable and you know it. Ironically enough this entire letter reads as pure projection and partisan hackery from none other than yourself. Instead of addressing the accusations of feminization in the article, you shoehorn two of your favorite political punching bags into the discussion where they clearly have zero relevance to the actual point of feminization.
They don’t have relevance to the discussion is what I mean by individual actors. They aren’t “masculinizing” anything, I can agree to everything you’re saying about them being imbeciles for argument sake, but it is simply not relevant. They are not “masculinizing” society in the same way there has been feminization. Your entire point here is unironically feminization in action. You’re comparing them saying things you think are dumb to something like the entire therapy and psychology space being taken over by women. Therapy being seen as a ritual by women to worship. Find me anything actual comparable to such gendered power grabs and narratives, and not just Rogan saying something braindead.
Sure. All of workers’ rights can be considered “feminine.” Why would brave, strong workers need protections from toxic chemicals, or only work for forty hours a week? Protectionism reduces competition, and is therefore feminine. Xenophobia indicates fear of new experiences/cultures, therefore feminine.
Of course, if you look at the actual history of unionization, you’ll see it was quite violent and almost entirely driven by men. America First is essentially paleo-conservatism. Hard to think of a more masculine word than that!
That it’s mostly arbitrary to say a movement is driven by male or female values, and is usually a substitute for “things I do or do not like.” I agree that framing speech code around “harms” is exceptionally feminine. But harsh punishment for sexual misbehavior (and harsh punishment/summary judgment generally) codes as masculine, in which case, you can argue that Title IX excesses were driven by malignant masculinity.
The Palestinian cause, which I think in many ways codes feminine, expresses many violent and transgressive sentiments, and therefore should instead code masculine.
“… normalizing the idea that men are guilty until proven innocent …”
I confess that this is my operating assumption. If a woman accuses a man of behaving like a dick I’m inclined to believe the woman, especially if does things to lead men on like shower, pay attention to her hair, laugh at my jokes, and crinkle her nose just so when …
… er… I lost my train of thought …
OH YES, but that doesn’t men still aren’t entitled to a fair hearing! It isn’t “feminization” that has had this effect, it’s men knowing what dogs men are. Indeed, I code “let trans women use women’s private spaces” as “feminized.” It’s men who know instinctively why that is a very, very bad idea.
When people talk about the 'masculine' respect for reason, objectivity, and cool debate, what they're really thinking of is the culture of the enlightenment. This was indeed quite masculine, but so is religious fundamentalism and tribal warfare. It's only one mode of masculine discourse and most male dominated cultures don't share it.
Prisons are overflowing with emotional, hypermasculine men.
Correct
Also, Vance is out here defending those Republican group chats of those young people saying “I love Hitler” and saying it’s just young kids making dumb edgy jokes and we shouldn’t want a country where ‘kids making jokes’ can ruin their life.
But 2 weeks ago he was vouching for young people to lose their jobs if they joked about Charlie Kirk’s death and if you know anyone who has joked about his death, you should call them out and contact their employer (like a Karen btw, complete Karen behaviour despite Conservatards complaining about them). Very funny double standard there.
>Of course, this isn’t even addressing the fact that there is a perspective from which you can classify Trump’s behavior as feminine, given
the fact that he routinely behaves like a sassy, bitchy gay man.
We can also classify the Trump and Elon feud as a “Catfight”. When conservatives used to cry about how if women got into power they’d too gossipy/bitchy and there’d be a ton of catfights, well Trump and Elon have behaved in every single way republicans accused future female politicians of behaving.
"The girls are fighting" was in fact a popular meme during their feud.
There are people on the right who will eventually accuse Trump of acting like a stereotypical black man, once he starts to disappoint them.
“Feminine” is anything I don’t like and “masculine” is anything that I do. I am very smart and a truth seeker, you see.
#brave
We’re literally seeing conservative men like Stephen Miller and JD Vance employ the exact same tactics they accused those ‘miserable single cat ladies’ of. Just last week JD Vance tried to sneakily get Destiny arrested and Mike Johnson is using the same gaslighty tactics on Dems about how they’re responsible for the government shutdown.
If cancel culture is really because of ‘feminisation’ then Republican men like Vance, Miller and Johnson seem to be really in touch with their feminine sides.
Vance is one of the most feminine men in the conservative movement, a closeted homosexual with high probability. Miller is more incel-coded, not necessarily feminine but sexless, even though he’s married. If there’s any truth to the Elon Musk cuckolding rumors that proves my point.
Stephen Miller is genuinely spooky character though, that slip up where he said ‘I have the power’ instead of Trump has it was really concerning.
I’ve never considered this because I’m not conspiratorial at all but the idea of Trump secretly being this senile old man that’s being a puppet by these much more twisted characters in Stephen Miller and Mike Johnson is almost a much scarier scenario for me.
This is also what Republicans accused the Biden admin of, with Biden being a puppet, it’s always projected all the way down with Republicans. Every accusation is projection.
Trump is being manipulated behind the scenes. From what I understand you need to personally flatter him as much as possible, and also avoid imitating his style or try to upstage him. Very much similar to some developing world autocrat. Miller probably knows how to flatter him, and probably tries to be the last person to talk to him since Trump also tends to favor that viewpoint.
Yeah, one of the biggest changes Trump has done since his first admin to his second is that he’s replaced every cabinet member with a sycophantic ass kisser that will suck up to him no matter what. He doesn’t want another Mike Pence who would actually defend Democracy before Trump.
You’re so on point with the flattering stuff too, forget this country you see it with Putin too. Anytime Putin flatters him, Trump starts defending Russia again, anytime Zelenskyy compliments Trump, he defends Ukraine again. He’s actually such a man-child.
At this point I’m convinced Hamas could have flattered Trump into becoming Pro-Palestinian and siding against Israel lmfao.
This is how it's always been. Trump positions himself as some kind of godlike figure who cares about the truth and will stand against everything harmful (the "Demonrats" obviously) to defend his base, when really he doesn't care about them at all. In his first term whenever he did something stupid his base would be like "he's just surrounded by bad people!" even though if Trump really was this strong truth seeking figure who would stop at nothing to accomplish what he told his base he would do, then wouldn't just fire them? I mean, he's the president, he has the ability to do that. But no he didn't. And then when he was running for his second term, he was like "yeah I learned and now I'm going to FIRE EVERYONE" but then he just surrounded himself with even worse people. Trump's biggest weakness is that he really doesn't care about anything but flattery. If you say nice things about you, he likes you, if you don't, he doesn't. Trump doesn't even care about his own base if they're constantly worshipping the ground he walks on. A few months ago he literally trashed his own base and called them his "former supporters" because they called him out on the Epstein thing. He has no principles, if someone flatters him, they get in.
I’d honestly just love for JD Vance to ask his right wing and groyper audience what they think of his Indian Wife lmfao.
You mean his beard? By the way have you seen the latest scuff on the right between Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley’s groyper son? The far right is increasingly made up of self-hating minorities who want to be white.
See also, Mike Johnson. I think Trump sees them both as eunuchs
We’re resembling some degenerate late-stage monarchy with scheming court eunuchs (Vance, Miller, Mike Johnson).
Helen isn't arguing in her article that the difference between feminized institutions and masculinized institutions is that the latter care more about truth. She's primarily arguing that feminized institutions have failed in surprisingly tight conjuction with the majority flip. She offers up some explanations, but none of them are as simplistic as you are saying here.
The one I find most resonant is that men are better at compartmentalization. They are better at containing their conflicts to their domains, and therefore are better at institutional conflict generally. The opposite behavior is commonly referred to as "borderline", which is *notably* gendered.
Right, well said.
During the Great Awokening, especially its climax during the George Floyd Racial Reckoning, lots of center-left institutions that had ably represented masculine values of rationality over the generations, such as the New York Times, universities, tech companies, etc., went insane due to emotion overwhelming reason.
BPD was formerly considered a “mostly female” thing, but recent work in the field has found that BPD males were wrongly getting funneled toward a “sociopathy” diagnosis instead, and the true numbers for BPD may be closer to 50/50. It’s really hard to tell whether gender bias exists in the pathology itself, or in the process of diagnosing it, because our only tool for telling the difference is…biased human opinions.
I think "truth seeking" is masculine coded, but in the same way that "astrophysicist" is masculine coded. If someone is an astrophysicist then they are probably also male, but if you pick some random guy off the street and ask them to work for NASA or whatever, they are almost guaranteed to do a terrible job.
Ultimately, I don't think you can make truth seeking institutions better by consciously excluding women. In fact, the truth seeking ethos requires being open to arguments regardless of who they come from! However, practically speaking, I think the people who will rise to the top of these types of institutions will generally be male, and if that discomforts people enough that they begin practicing some form of affirmative action, I think that can lead to institutional rot.
I guess my point is that I agree with Hanania that masculine vs feminine is not a great way to frame the nature of institutional decay, but I also think rejuvenating these institutions will require skepticism of a lot of feminist rhetoric regarding bias/oppression/equality etc.
Not one word said here addresses Andrews's basic point that women's tendency is to care more about relationships than about rules and that this is going to have an impact on institutions that get flooded with women. Not one word. This whole essay is a pathetic exercise in whataboutism. (And quite surprising to me, since I normally regard Richard as the best thing going in political commentary and anaylysis.)
Bringing up Donald Trump to "prove" that men aren't always into strictly following the rules makes about as much sense as would be bringing up Margaret Thatcher to "prove" that women don't always put their feelings first. Neither point needs proving. Both are beside the point of Andrews's essay.
Richard's own analogy shows the problem with his piece:
Person A: "Christian fanatacism can inspire terrorism. Look how some evangelicals murder abortion doctors."
Person B: "Wrong! You neglected to mention Islam!!!"
Person A: "Are you retarded?"
Helen Andrews presented a theory about Western Civilization and the rule of law. She then decided to do a complete hack job on one side of the political spectrum and ignored everything that contradicted her thesis for partisan reasons. Pointing this out isn’t whataboutism, and I in fact said she was right about some things. But the piece is still partisan hackery.
Hmm. If your essay is more about Helen Andrews's specific piece than about "the 'feminization' talking point," maybe your title should reflect that.
I'm more interested in theories of culture than talking points. There do seem to be some basic, culture-independent differences between men and women that can have an important impact. This can't be wished away by saying Republicans are all into masculinity and they don't care about truth or the rule of law.
Helen: There's a profound but often overlooked trend that has been slowly undermining the serious institutions of American society over the last half century, with its pace accelerating over the last dozen years.
Richard: How come she's not talking about Trump? Huh? Huh??!!!
Is it really beside the point to note famous woman leaders -- of countries and 'institutions' -- who hardly support Andrews' essentialism? Or just inconvenient? The premises that women 'tend' to 'care more about relationships than about rules', and that it does so to the detriment of 'institutions' suchas 'the law', are themselves tendentious. MAGA gals (including the ones now helping run the government) are loudly proclaiming their love of 'the rules', while perverting both law and the truth..just like MAGA guys. Are those ladies bucking 'the trend'?
I think that Richard's point is that men and women both have a tendency to care more about relationships than rules. It just manifests differently. Women care more about making people get along than the truth, while men care more about asserting dominance and loyalty than the truth. Flooding an institution with women won't make it care less about the truth. It will make it care more about harmony than about dominance. It will make it passive aggressive instead of regular agressive.
Andrews is pointing out a supposed “problem” that has been in academia (in every single sphere, actually) since before women gained access. Men have always canceled each other over opinions, over ideas, over disputes; sometimes with words and sometimes with violence. There is no “feminization” problem, it’s just so many people thought women were vastly different from men that them displaying similar behaviors is a shock to the system.
I think there is one main feminine archetype, but two very distinct masculine archetypes. There's the classic masculine everyone pictures- hits the gym, gets in fights, very competitive, high libido. But there's also the nerd masculine. Plays strategy video games, loves programming, values the literal truth, gets confused by social situations, can't get laid.
The woke left is feminine. The MAGA right is classic masculine. What we need more of in power is the nerd masculine.
I think Jungian archetypes are bullshit. As are your facile typologies. And I'd say we've had more than our fill of creepy 'nerd masculine' in the last few decade. You've heard of techbros? Musk? Zuckerberg? Theil? Andreasson?
You call the archetype bullshit, yet call techbros(basically the same thing) real
Because he’s a truth seeker.
I can't exactly prove this, but I don't think partisanship is exactly the explanation here. It seems to be related to a criticism of the left, but more broadly strikes me as some sort of error of association.
Among all people, it is predominant for people to disregard truth and embrace feel-good nonsense, partisan hackery, .etc. The average man and woman both have weak epistemology.
However, for whatever reason (male variability?), among those who have the rare traits (however those come about) for genuine truth-seeking, men are disproportionately represented. As a result, if you look to people who are genuine truth-seeking, you will see a bunch of dudes.
Among this group there is a real and masculine-norm influenced culture, which is the predominant truth-seeking group.
The mistake here is conflating that group with masculine disposition more broadly, and painting them as representative of men, the vast majority of which are not in that group.
(My own belief here that I am shamelessly trying to support is that ideas and their validity are largely independent of individuals, and that good epistemology can be taught to anyone and can manifest in a myriad of ways.)
It is pretty clear to me that both women of the radical left and men of the radical right place self-interest over truth. Radical leftist women are responsible for the rise of social constructivist epistemology in academia, that is, the denial of objective reality. If they perceive facts as hurtful and oppressive, they will deny those facts by constructing an alternative fable that they believe advances their interests. For example, many leftist women believe that facts from evolutionary psychology support the oppressive patriarchy, so they make up different facts about the irrelevance of biology in human affairs. Richard has done an excellent job of documenting the denial of objective reality by Trump and MAGA (not that this was a difficult task). Who should we worry about the most? Richard makes a good case for worrying about the radical right. If the legal system does slide toward feminization, favoring mercy above justice, this might result in the non-conviction some people (probably mostly women) who are guilty. But MAGA ignoring both mercy and rule-of-law justice in their attempts to jail their political opponents is downright Soviet Union.
I really like where your headed with this Mr. Johnson but want to push back just a bit. Your observations about ineffective pedagogies hits especially close to home but (and here I might be accused of a bit of misogyny I suppose) aren’t the origins of almost all these wrong ideas in pedagogy the brain farts of truth-seeking men?
Also, I’m not sure I follow you on the evolutionary psychology bit. I thought the left-wing view was more likely to NOT explain undesirable male behavior in evolutionary terms and more likely to explain it as a purely cultural phenomenon. MEN, by the way, do exactly the same thing when a woman proves reluctant to have sex with a virtual stranger about whom she knows next to nothing AND has no physical or personality traits that might signal an ability to beget strong health children or be a good provider. We say (or said, decades ago) “it’s just 2000 years of patriarchy that’s holding you back; c’mon baby, have another drink and live a little.”
Thank you!
I'm a lefty who has spent the last 10 years trying to convince my friends that conservativism isn't just a cover for racism/misogyny/exploitation/whatever. The last year in particular it's felt like parts of the right are determined to lean into all their most unhinged accusations.
I really think the conflict at this point isn't left vs right. It's more like people with any kind of commitment to liberal principles and intellectual integrity, vs various flavors of ideologues and grifters.
I’ve been saying it for years:
I think the fundamental conflict of the world isn’t left vs. right, woman vs. man, labor vs. capital, race vs. race, or any of those.
I think it’s “narcissists vs. everybody else”.
Trump might be the whiniest little bitch in American political history. Seems a bit feminine to me.
Not to mention that universities have gotten more competitive and rigorous since they admitted women- it’s dramatically harder to get into graduate school, or get a job as a professor, than it was a couple generations ago when the only folks allowed to compete were independently wealthy white men. https://open.substack.com/pub/darbysaxbe/p/are-universities-too-woke-to-exist?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
But the competitiveness could just be because more *people* are competing for those positions.
The job market for managers and above is similarly “more competitive” since they “admitted” women. I’ll read your link and be back …
It's definitely partly because there's a larger pool - but that's generally a good thing when it comes to rigor. Thanks in advance for reading!
The refutation of Helen Andrews here seems to be mostly “but Trump”. Weak tea.
The comparison between individual actors like Trump and Rogan and the pervasive, insidious feminist culture that has infiltrated institutions, legal systems, and public discourse, pushing for supremacy, preferential treatment, and normalizing the idea that men are guilty until proven innocent, is a new low even for you, Richard. Any accused vacuous statements from those 2 are in no way comparable and you know it. Ironically enough this entire letter reads as pure projection and partisan hackery from none other than yourself. Instead of addressing the accusations of feminization in the article, you shoehorn two of your favorite political punching bags into the discussion where they clearly have zero relevance to the actual point of feminization.
Exactly, Trump and Rogan are just "individual actors" with no power or relevance to anything else going on in society.
They don’t have relevance to the discussion is what I mean by individual actors. They aren’t “masculinizing” anything, I can agree to everything you’re saying about them being imbeciles for argument sake, but it is simply not relevant. They are not “masculinizing” society in the same way there has been feminization. Your entire point here is unironically feminization in action. You’re comparing them saying things you think are dumb to something like the entire therapy and psychology space being taken over by women. Therapy being seen as a ritual by women to worship. Find me anything actual comparable to such gendered power grabs and narratives, and not just Rogan saying something braindead.
Sure. All of workers’ rights can be considered “feminine.” Why would brave, strong workers need protections from toxic chemicals, or only work for forty hours a week? Protectionism reduces competition, and is therefore feminine. Xenophobia indicates fear of new experiences/cultures, therefore feminine.
Of course, if you look at the actual history of unionization, you’ll see it was quite violent and almost entirely driven by men. America First is essentially paleo-conservatism. Hard to think of a more masculine word than that!
What is your point here.
That it’s mostly arbitrary to say a movement is driven by male or female values, and is usually a substitute for “things I do or do not like.” I agree that framing speech code around “harms” is exceptionally feminine. But harsh punishment for sexual misbehavior (and harsh punishment/summary judgment generally) codes as masculine, in which case, you can argue that Title IX excesses were driven by malignant masculinity.
The Palestinian cause, which I think in many ways codes feminine, expresses many violent and transgressive sentiments, and therefore should instead code masculine.
Where’s your proof for any of what you’re claiming. Sounds like pure conjecture.
I mostly agree with Mr. Granderson, and yet …
“… normalizing the idea that men are guilty until proven innocent …”
I confess that this is my operating assumption. If a woman accuses a man of behaving like a dick I’m inclined to believe the woman, especially if does things to lead men on like shower, pay attention to her hair, laugh at my jokes, and crinkle her nose just so when …
… er… I lost my train of thought …
OH YES, but that doesn’t men still aren’t entitled to a fair hearing! It isn’t “feminization” that has had this effect, it’s men knowing what dogs men are. Indeed, I code “let trans women use women’s private spaces” as “feminized.” It’s men who know instinctively why that is a very, very bad idea.
Honestly, you sound like a woman.
Got any other critiques?
I can just picture you with your arms crossed, head cocked slightly to the side, tapping your toe. "Got anything else!?"
Hey pal. You confused filling the space with words with answering my question.