Posted Jan 31, 2018, 7:41 PM UTC
Men who demand empathy for their gendered fear of dying un-cared-for, unwanted, and unmourned without referencing feminism are acting in bad faith—they would like us to pretend there is no distinction between the solitary deaths of an abuser and an abused person. They would like gendered consoling while remaining indifferent to the deaths they, as a gender, are responsible for. They would like cosmetic cultural change while believing that emasculation is bad, as though it is horrible to change out of being a toxic oppressor. They would like us to care about men as men, when there are people—disabled, old, sick, poor, queer, migrant, discriminated-against PEOPLE—who are dying and are lonely. Those are the ones we should be focused on. If some of them happen to be men, well, let us try to not hold it against them.
This article strikes me as a good example of a particularly abject failure of certain philosophical/political framings to understand the phenomena they purport to explain, and thereby reaching the conclusion that the suffering of the outgroup is therefore unworthy of attention. It's been especially disheartening to see the enthusiastic response this article has gotten in places like MetaFilter.
It's been especially disheartening to see the enthusiastic response this article has gotten in places like MetaFilter.
The politics of Metafilter comments are pretty much full SJW. But somehow it's scarier because they are more articulate than the tumblr ones.
Men, compounded by straightness and whiteness as applicable, are the worst theorists of loneliness.
Why? Why are men the worst theorists of loneliness? Remind me again of how the dating world typically works? It's still largely men pursuing women, right? So... again... how are men the worst for this?
They operate from the mind-boggling assumption that there must be something structurally wrong with the world if they are faced with any indication that it does not wish to keep company with them.
No, there IS something structurally wrong with the world if any group of people is getting an indication that people don't want to keep company with them. Mind you, I'm not talking about all people not wanting to keep company, but any. We're talking about people who don't have anyone that wants to keep company with them.
Granted, this is a problem of technology, of larger cities, of hobbies and media consumption. Isolation, in general, is an ever-increasing problem in the western world, and a fair bit of it is also self-imposed.
They can fathom no structural reasons as to why they might be deemed unwanted.
Yes, because such a concept is absurd and to suggest that such a reason exist, justifiably, heavily disregards their humanity.
If you try, however, to apply this logic to childcare, health care, a minimum wage, or housing, you’ll be told that there are structural reasons why your needs are impractical.
Because those things all cost money... they're not really comparable. Further, being lonely has negative health implications that compound the healthcare problem. If they gave a shit about healthcare, as they suggest, then they should also give a shit about loneliness, even for their chosen out-group.
And pointing out that sex workers, like massage- and psychotherapists, are also in the business of treating loneliness and should therefore be able to negotiate for ethical recompense just leads to morality lectures.
I agree, but this is an issue of moral stances and religious bias, not of gender or people not being free of loneliness.
Companionship for men, as patriarchy tells us, is the natural order of things, and there must be something terribly wrong if a Regular Nice Guy has to pay for it.
Remember, kiddies, it's really easy to make an epidemic of male loneliness not a problem if we just frame it into an ideology of male oppression.
Because straight white men refuse to recognize their own unpalatability
Wait, why are straight white men unpalatable?! That's rather racist and heterophobic, isn't it? I mean, I'm reluctant to use heterophobic, but they did specifically point out straight, white men, so...
they come up with solutions to loneliness that appropriate the rhetoric of justice- and freedom-based ideologies without actually engaging in any rigorous structural analyses of their culpability in oppression
Again, ignore that this may actually be a problem by framing it into an ideology where its their own fault. 10/10.
Uhg. If you can't at least recognize the humanity of a group, simply because you don't like them, and because you can easily throw them into an out-group by way of your own twisted ideology, then why the fuck should I take any of your ideas seriously in the first place? If your ideology takes precedence over treating other people with humanity, and a particularly massive group at that, then I give zero fucks about what you have to say on any topic that involves the humanity of others. You want us to consider the humanity of X group, but you want to deny it to Y group. No thanks.
This is just an article about someone making huge generalizations of a whole gender (well, actually she is very specific and points at white, hetero, cisgender men, with some other restrictions as well, all or most of them not chosen by them, but defined at birth), attributing intentions to their every word and assuming the worst of them.
And if what she says can be said about a group, then by the same logic could be said about others, or simply disproven by the very existence of all of those "where did all the good men go?" articles out there, or this sort of rethoric like the one here that seems to only work under the assumption that women are, by default, entitled to the love of men. Which seems to be, ironically, the sort of rethoric the author of this essay seems to attribute to "lonely men" complaining about their loneliness.
The estatement
They would like gendered consoling while remaining indifferent to the deaths they, as a gender, are responsible for.
is particularly interesting, as she so quickly decides to delimit the responsibility for whatever deaths she's referring to to men, that is, by gender. I propose a different delimitation and say that they are not only men, but human, and therefore all humans are guilty. I hope she won't have a problem being pointed to as guilty, since I assume she's human, too. Unless, that is, she's willing to admit how bad of a generalization she made (otherwise, mine is not that much worse).
On a more serious note, Let's not give this sort of people any more attention than they deserve. Articles with this lack of good intent don't really offer too much for us to discuss.
Do you want groups like TRP or incels?
Because this is how you get them.
Its almost as if they want to create more of them...
Yeah, I don't see much to debate here. Potentially mentally ill person writes article on site I've never heard of before.
Does this happen to be by anybody noteworthy, or directly endorsed by anybody noteworthy?
Because I'd rather not have any discussions like "I fear that (other ideology) might lead to this, and somebody did write this, therefor this is proof of (other ideology)'s problems". Nor do I think it's helpful to say "This is what lack of empathy for a demographic popularly seen as powerful looks like", because to me this just looks like irrational hatred and folks generally already know what that looks like, regardless of the source or the target demo. :/
An impressively bitter, angry, sexist article.
They would like us to care about men as men, when there are people—disabled, old, sick, poor, queer, migrant, discriminated-against PEOPLE—who are dying and are lonely.
/#AllLivesMatter
discriminated-against PEOPLE
Kind of sounds like she's implying men aren't people.
In the same sense that the Communist Manifesto “implies” that it advocates for communism.
An illness becomes an epidemic, and therefore worthy of attention, when enough of the right kind of victims—cis/straight/well-off/white/western/men—begin to suffer from it. This was true of PTSD
It wasn’t until 1980, when forcibly drafted American men were returning from the Vietnam War complaining of nightmares, anxiety, anger, depression, and poor responsiveness, that the term PTSD was added to the DSM
Oh yeah because it was totally white rich men that went off to the Vietnam war oh wait no it was mostly poor whites and minorities. Suddenly the army is white rich men when it fits your narrative but when being in the army sucks it has more minorities? Jesus fuck read your history on the Vietnam conflict you sheltered historically ignorant moron. As far as why men? Because men have to fight in war women don't (normally) you stupid asshole.
That part of the article stood out to me to the point I had to rant about it. I will ignore arguing with most of the rest of it since it is likely a waste of time but lets accept the persons argument if a person is lonely it is 100% their fault (preposterous but lets assume)... does that mean you still have the moral right to punish them further for it instead of for example helping?
This isn't even getting into all the problems it causes for society if men are unable to integrate to society look at how badly that effects the Middle East and Africa or societies where polygamy is the norm which creates a barrier to entry for young men.... or hell even historically that is one of the major recipes for violent revolution.
They would like us to care about men as men, when there are people—disabled, old, sick, poor, queer, migrant, discriminated-against PEOPLE—who are dying and are lonely. Those are the ones we should be focused on. If some of them happen to be men, well, let us try to not hold it against them.
Because men aren’t people. Or if they are, it’s despite being men. This passage is more or less the entire article in microcosm: men are not people unless they are part of some other protected class, and therefore their problems are in fact deserved. They are men’s cosmic punishments for being subhuman usurpers.
What an age we live in.
excruciatingly blinkered essay by reassuring Men Like Him that it’s “normal” (meaning Not Gay) to want intimacy. Not that being gay helps, even if you’re an assimilated cis white man, as Michael Hobbs mourns in the Huffington Post.
I... what? Suddenly awknowledging there's stigma means you support all the stereotypes society makes in order to spread that stigma? I haven't read this, but this homophobia accusation really seems to be coming out of left field.
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So is this just a huge generalization of men? While simultaneously stating that lonely and depressed men should more or less be left alone to suffer without any help? Or am I missing something?
95% of the arguments seem to rest on the assumption that men are a monolith that acts to help and support male interests. She attacks loneliness support groups by assuming they don't support welfare for women and don't support gay people. And also constant hints that lonely men must be violent and unpleasant. Furthermore, men are incapable of being genuinely alienated by society because...?
There's a couple interesting points about PTSD and heart attacks (not sure about the ADHD example). Even if men are still the majority victims of these, I think it's reasonable (and symmetrical to several MRA positions) to raise awareness about the existence of atypical victims.
Sounds to me more like she’s saying lonely and depressed men deserve to be left alone to suffer, and other men deserve the same.