8 ms·

The rise of excluded male extremism has been predicted for some time, but sadly anyone who mentions it usually gets blasted online. I think the “I drink male te

• hombre_fatal 7y ago
  Steven Pinker pitches a convincing theory of how/why young men self-radicalize due to social exclusion that had me nodding along from my own personal experience. Made total sense and described exactly how I once was tempted to partake when I was younger. I had no idea it was so controversial. Every time I've seen coverage of Pinker, his statements are completely taken out of context and he's spun as some sort of alt-right apologist. These are conversations we need to have. (I first saw him talk about it in his sit-down with Sam Harris.)
  • bschne 7y ago
    Do you have a link / reference to that discussion?
    • 37 7y ago
      Not OP, but here is a link to the Pinker-Harris talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByGC3Vwaio0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByGC3Vwaio0
  • Reedx 7y ago
    > his statements are completely taken out of context and he's spun as some sort of alt-right apologist. This also happens a lot with Sam Harris, Joe Rogan and anyone who critiques or discusses certain topics. Even though they are obviously not remotely alt-right (indeed they're on the left). It's incredibly frustrating, self-defeating and has a dangerous chilling effect.
    • mieseratte 7y ago
      You can witness the same problems in this very thread.
    • foldr 7y ago
      >Sam Harris Sam Harris has been consistently taking alt-right positions for the past few years (at least). I don't think it's unfair to associate him with the movement. I think perhaps part of the issue is that lots of Americans who think of themselves as liberal, and who were shocked by the idea of Trump becoming President, actually agree with him on a lot of issues. So, yeah, Sam Harris still presents as an anti-Trump liberal. But if you look at what he's actually saying, he's much closer to Trump than he is to the liberal left. (His atheism is these days just a fig leaf for an anti-Islam stance.)
• growlist 7y ago
  Establishment: let's attack men for decades, undermine their position in society and the structures they value Also establishment: why are men so angry?
  • Nursie 7y ago
    Has society attacked men, undermined their position in society and the structures they value? Or has it just moved on and empowered everyone else to expect the same freedoms and responsibilities as men? From where I'm sitting (white male, in an office, working a tech job) it looks very much like the removal of the systemic disadvantages on other groups is misinterpreted by some as an attack on them. Removing laws that keep others down is not an attack on you.
    • buboard 7y ago
      > and the structures they value? I don't know about the rest but about this, e.g. most male spaces have been actively dissolved or forcefully turned gender neutral.
      • igorkraw 7y ago
        what is a "male space"?
        • 9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago
          Boy scouts would be a good example.
          • deleted 7y ago
            [deleted]
          • cbm-vic-20 7y ago
            For those unaware, the Boy Scouts of America changed their policy a couple of years ago to allow girls into more parts of their program, since they realized a lot of boys had their sisters tag along, in part because the Girl Scouts program has little emphasis in hiking and camping. Even with the new policy, at the troop level (~30 kids), which is where most BSA activity is focused, they will still be gender-segregated: there will be boy troops and girl troops. They will interact at district and council levels, but that's it. Cub Scouts (for younger kids age 7-11) will optionally have mixed units. There's still plenty of "male space" in the BSA. And learning how to interact respectfully with other genders at that age is a good thing.
• 420codebro 7y ago
  The media is the source of nearly every mass shooting. This should be reflected on deeply. Fuck the media and fuck CNN specifically.
• armada651 7y ago
  Seriously? You're using a column to back up your claim of the “I drink male tears” coffee mugs? Columns are exeggarations meant to incite discussion, they are personal opinions and should be taken with a massive grain of salt. A columnist is not a journalist. The fact that people can't tell the difference anymore is deeply troubling.
  • malvosenior 7y ago
    It’s a piece published in mass media. It does have an impact, a large one. > Columns are exeggarations meant to incite discussion We’re discussing it now.
    • armada651 7y ago
      If you knew, then why did you state it as a fact by adding a "source" to it? > It’s a piece published in mass media. It does have an impact, a large one. But... it's the column section? It's not journalism. They're meant to be controversial and you can say anything you want no matter how far fetched. The author of this particular column is a writer of feminist literature so of course her views are going to be extreme. Are you saying mass media should stop the age-old tradition of the column section because people don't know how to read a newspaper anymore?
      • malvosenior 7y ago
        > The author of this particular column is a writer of feminist literature so of course her views are going to be extreme. The Guardian is a mainstream publication, not an extremist one. They can publish whatever they want, I’m just saying this rhetoric is hateful, unhelpful and possibly part of the problem of male extremism mentioned in the OP.
        • armada651 7y ago
          > I’m just saying this rhetoric is hateful, unhelpful and possibly part of the problem Except you didn't say that, instead you claimed all journalists in the mass media hold the views of one columnist in a left-leaning newspaper.
• buboard 7y ago
  > The rise of excluded male extremism has been predicted for some time I actually don't think there will be "excluded male extremism" in a significant scale. There is a huge, precipitous drop in testosterone levels and other indicators like sperm motility in the past decades that everybody knows but is rarely talked about, and T in particular is correlated with aggression. Society as the collective effect of hormones is thus less aggressive in general. This creates an interesting situation for the future of democracies. Even liberal democracies tend to be overweight on the protection of children and their mothers, and there is a strong rhetoric towards women to vote based on their identity. IMHO the largest effect will be seen in the erosion of belief in democracy as a fair system of government rather than in extremist action.
  • hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
    Erosion of belief in democracy will lead to extremism.
  • belorn 7y ago
    Testosterone levels are correlated with aggression but does not actually cause it, and research which tries to predict aggression based on natural occurring testosterone levels always fail because... it does not actually cause aggression. More recent (ie newer than 20th century) research into testosterone levels have found a more accurate model of what testosterone actually do in regard to aggression. It increases the amount of energy an individual will spend in order to defend social status when challenged. In societies where male social status is tied with aggression you thus see a link. Testosterone levels however does not predict attempts to gain social status, including in societies where aggression is the main method for it. You can pump up a man at the bottom of the social hierarchy with as much testosterone as the person at the top and the hierarchy does not change one bit. Its a purely defensive mechanism, which is further explained in that testosterone levels increases after people gain social status. It is a response to how much effort should be spent defending social status based on recent success. Society as the collective effect of hormones would be the amount of instability that the social hierarchy will have. The lower the amount the less people will defend it, the more incentives there will be to attempt increasing it, potentially resulting in more "aggressive" behavior.
• throwaway94857 7y ago
  It's not just the journalists who tend to be anti-male. The psychological and sociological establishments have been subtly anti-male for a long time. An example of how this anti-male bias manifests is in the very language used in academic work on men. So often there is talk about "toxic masculinity" when discussing boys and men, and discussions of how male traits are problematic - described as 'aggressive' and 'uncooperative' - while female traits are almost universally described in more positive terms. Of course both genders exhibit destructive behavior, but women do not have to suffer the same harsh treatment in the academic literature as men. We could speculate on the reasons for this bias, but I believe it can be tied to the overall anti-male climate, which in itself is an overreaction by the rest of society - but the intellectuals in particular - to the unequal treatment of women for most of history. More speculatively, I believe the high numbers of women and effeminate men in academia, especially the social sciences, have biased the field.
• AlexandrB 7y ago
  Here's the problem: If I took what you just stated and replaced "excluded male" with "African American" it would make just as much sense and be a societal force going back hundreds of years. Yet there's a segment of society that claims that racial equality is already achieved and the African American community is solely responsible for its own problems. In fact, this is often the same segment that complains loudly about how society excludes males. This is why it's hard to take the "excluded male" argument seriously sometimes.
  • astine 7y ago
    This is a superficial comparison of these trends and also dodges the point. So what if the people complaining about excluded males are hypocrites. Are they correct? They can be wrong about black people and still correct about men.
• akhilcacharya 7y ago
  > I drink male tears” coffee mugs as sipped by journalists at global media publications* look particularly dangerous and distasteful in this age of mass shootings If someone commits a mass shooting I don’t think it’s the text on a mug that’s responsible.
• lordCarbonFiber 7y ago
  Blaming the victims of mass shootings for antagonizing the shooter is never a good look. The reason you get "blasted" online is because the sentiment takes a broad brush and paints men awfully (ironic considering the "pointing to all men statement"); this fatalistic (and frankly entitled) view that unless men are babied and served to at the exclusion of everyone else they'll turn violent and ruin the party for everyone. If you want to assign systematic (and in some cases personal) blame I'd say look to the voices championing strongest for a back step of social progress for the "sake of men". Just from my own experiences in the southern US (poster child for the "follow an arcane set of rules and defend your "masculinity" and cash out on full ride entitlement") I've seen the systematic undermining of young men's skills and development in favor of baseless dreams of a past (that may have never existed). A handful of journalists taking the piss are nothing compared to the semi-coordinated movement looking to weaponize a vulnerable (by their own making) segment of the population. Sympathy for the lonely, education for the unskilled, exposure for the unsocialized; these are all good ideas to move forward. Just, imo, never fall into the trap of assuming any of this is "natural" and something to be accepted (or even embraced).
• jackvalentine 7y ago
  Interestingly the same writer wrote this recently: "I’ve written before about the lack of resources for young men during critical times in their lives. What feminism does for women — providing girls with alternative media, cultural norms, and a language to understand sexism — is what we need for boys and young men. I don’t believe young American men end up in racist and sexist online spaces — spaces that radicalize — because they are innately bigoted. They end up there because they are confused and seeking out community, and no one else is providing an alternative." https://gen.medium.com/young-white-male-rage-is-the-biggest-threat-to-our-country-495917022630 https://gen.medium.com/young-white-male-rage-is-the-biggest-... The principle of charity leads me to take the view her heart is in the right place but she like many of us has published caustic words on the internet that don't really represent us correctly.