Emasculation of the Western Man
- Thread starter luka
- Start date
Clinamenic
Binary & Tweed
Let the record show that version made a post about hating the word 'praxis' but has since deleted it.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
WashYourHands
Cat Malogen
people affected by Teaness
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
I think the word you're looking for is blessed.
entertainment
Well-known member
The internet is feminine dominant by default isn't it? You can never present yourself on the internet in a directly masculine way. Masculinity can only be expressed indirectly.
The feminine wins out on the internet because it naturally identifies strength in the many, in community, in social cohesion. Already by logging on you are conceding masculine terrain I think.
People who are "being good" on the internet act on their tendency to identify the good as the ideas that foster safety and cohesion within an imagined community. Things like courage or individuality aren't important.
People who have a natural distaste for those who are "being good" on the internet think that this is an unfortunate levelling out of virtue. That it shouldn't be that easy to be good. That the real goodness should be reserved for those who sacrifice themselves, who show strength in individuality, belief in their own reasoning and courage to stand up to the masses.
But the discursive playing field of platforms like Twitter skew against this I think. It is easy to leverage the wheight of "common sense" against the individual standing out from the masses. It is easy to deflate the masculine ideal.
I'm not saying oh how terrible this all is! But it's crucial to the emasculation thing.
The feminine wins out on the internet because it naturally identifies strength in the many, in community, in social cohesion. Already by logging on you are conceding masculine terrain I think.
People who are "being good" on the internet act on their tendency to identify the good as the ideas that foster safety and cohesion within an imagined community. Things like courage or individuality aren't important.
People who have a natural distaste for those who are "being good" on the internet think that this is an unfortunate levelling out of virtue. That it shouldn't be that easy to be good. That the real goodness should be reserved for those who sacrifice themselves, who show strength in individuality, belief in their own reasoning and courage to stand up to the masses.
But the discursive playing field of platforms like Twitter skew against this I think. It is easy to leverage the wheight of "common sense" against the individual standing out from the masses. It is easy to deflate the masculine ideal.
I'm not saying oh how terrible this all is! But it's crucial to the emasculation thing.
entertainment
Well-known member
With the internet age masculinity is being forced to confront its own internal dissonance: that it needs attention and privilege. You go out into the woods and be self sufficient only to discover that you are dependent on being noticed, that your ideals lose their meaning as soon as you exit society.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
But being a survivalist in the woods is only one stereotypical way of being 'masculine', though, isn't it? Most of the others that spring to mind require other people for the role to make any kind of sense - being a dad, being a boss, being a (team) sportsman, being a soldier...
The other thing with the net is the hard coded masculinity in the sense that it originated as a military project but also that a lot of the modes at work are inherently a bit sexist. The naming conventions and so on. The stuff Sadie plant goes over in zeroes and ones and all that (cos ofc a lot of the early computer pioneers were women)
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Could you enlarge on the naming conventions thing a bit? Were cookies originally called 'boobs' or something?
This is a book dealing with it https://amzn.eu/d/1NJieEF which I was recommended but I've not actually read it myself yet
entertainment
Well-known member
Yes, I was just painting an example.
entertainment
Well-known member
The conflict of masculinity brought on by the internet age is that once the common life has de facto shifted onto the internet, it is harder for the masculine to be noticed and appraised "casually". He finds that he now has to log on to be noticed, which subverts the masculine ideal of being independent of others appraisal. You have to make that confession and I think it put things slightly but painfully askew for the masculine ideal.
entertainment
Well-known member
Of course there are masculine expressions available on the internet, that's not the point. (Some of them compensatory of course).
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
The internet might have accelerated something that was already happening, but I don't think it caused it. Fight Club, surely the 'crisis in masculinity' ur-text, came out in the late 90s (the novel in 96, film three years later), and while the internet existed then, it didn't dominate how we think about the world like it does now. And I'm sure people were saying much the same thing in the 60s about these young men with long hair and colourful clothes who'd rather bum around smoking weed than get a job and raise a family like real men do - hell, I expect padraig could find us a quote from Cicero or whoever about how the youth of today are a load of workshy pansies...
