My workplace has a ton of these "Rise & Grind™️©️®️" Sigma and Ligma mindset books all over the place. I read them from time to time to gaze into the dreaded and loathsome Manosphere and understand my enemy.
The core of these books is a sort of bastardized self-actualization. I genuinely don't think becoming accountable to set of values and being active member in one's own life is a bad thing; in fact I think if they left it at that a lot of guys would be better for it. However, I find it to be uniquely corrupted by neoliberalism and capitalism, in that it twists and warps manhood into this ideal that demands the domination of everything and everyone around. It turns manhood into a zero-sum game.
A lot of these books blogs websites do offer somewhat meaningful mental frameworks for “achievement” but I'm always questioned as to what end. much of it is a false myth of manhood and recapturing a masculinity that never existed which I feel uniquely disappoints men. Patriarchy leaves men particularly vulnerable to these sorts of traps and snares when they are feeling down and out.
I do think it's good to strive and do your best, but that should never EVER come at the cost of someone else doing the same. If anything you should be helping others become their best too, so you two can be your best together and shine even brighter. I hate how the modern world has made being a dude about just being a dick with a bunch of stuff rather than being a good person. Discipline, steadfast commitment, pushing through failure, all that sort of stuff is great and good but not if it's just implemented to get a new shiny bauble or whatever. Capitalism really does hinder men's ability to live up their supposed values and virtues. We can’t be the mean we want to be with under capitalism, we can’t be the men we actually should be as along as capitalism is rules over us
Being a great man should be defined by your ability actually live out manly virtues, not these fast food Mc-ideals of debasing yourself for some coin. A good dude is more than his ability to dominate.
I don't know what my larger point is, but I'm just typing this at work cause they got me working on a Sunday and all these dumb books are lying around the "leadership" library. It's just so fuckin' corny.
The goal is to get cis men to a level of social self-awareness where you can talk to them without pulling your own hair out or want to throw up. The level of solidarity that will be necessary to overthrow capitalism will require men to be a bit more open to getting along with people who have different goals from themselves and maybe have some theory of mind as to why others might have said goals or needs. The tendency of leftist cis men to gravitate toward Caleb Maupin Thought is really troubling and today we've seen the outcome of that inability to let go of the patriarchal drive for power when the CPI dissolved due to sexual abuse.
This kind of whinging at being told you need basic empathy is the exact same as when white people balk when you tell them to read Settlers. We're not trying to take away your humanity and tell you to go away, we're trying to restore it to you. Consider that even though I've been one of your greatest detractors on here, I've had some of the longest conversations on here with you. Do you think that's because I want you to disappear or because I want you to thrive? If it were the former I would have simply ignored you.
This should be said more often and can't be repeated enough
Pedagogy of the Oppressed is one of my biggest influences. :freire:
Ideology, I do not want to get into another argument with people about this.
I also hate having to explain my life circumstances to people because it takes forever, as most of it is relevant, and nearly all of it is bad. Just as well, when I do try to it makes me want to lie down & stare at the ceiling for an hour; and I often have a number of things I want to do in a given day. In fact, I had been sitting here for the better part of a day trying to write a summary on the matter, but I inevitably get bogged down when it comes to my experiences in Special Education. This is because they involve me enduring a lot of physical abuse as enacted by my, admittedly mainly women, teachers & overseers; consequently it is very difficult to write about in any degree of specificity.
I feel that at some point I must try to explain to you the position I am making my statements from. Because without knowing that I admit that it's easy to read what I write as interchangeable with any other online sad boy.
Until then, however, there is a very fundamental problem between the two of us. That problem is that I have no actual reason to believe anything that you're saying when you say, "We’re not trying to take away your humanity and tell you to go away, we’re trying to restore it to you." I don't have a reason to believe that, because I don't have a reason to believe that anyone in "My Own Community" has any real interest in my wellbeing. They have proven to me through a lifetime of exclusion, neglect, & abuse that they do not think of me as meaningfully human, and that they absolutely will not ever behave in a way that takes into account my best interests, even when they're ostensibly acting on my behalf as a guardian.
And in the end of it all; I don't necessarily believe that you can do that. I don't believe that you would do what would actually help me, and help build an actual IRL community around me that would not treat me poorly.
And given all that, is it that surprising that I'm a particularly stubborn bastard about all this?
I had a longer reply typed up and then I thought about it for a sec. Something that might be more productive than spending a lot of time trying to figure me out might be to hang out with @wtypstanaccount04 on cytube. I don't think I've seen you there.
cytube is a cool and good place
it's great for chatting, I do most of my socializing there