The upper classes are the boogeyman that made everyones life suck to varying degrees using the made up subdivisions they’ve designed to keep themselves in control. Blame those at the very top of the hierarchy, you may be higher up on it than others in more marginalized groups but unless you’re worth billions you still aint close to the top

I am very depressed and never feel like my feelings are valid. I can’t point to a boogeyman and say “that’s the reason my life sucks” cause I’m the boogeyman and the only reason my life sucks is because I suck.

At least that’s the better attitude. If you are depressed and you cope by hating on whatever minority you get told to hate, it won’t really cure your depression.

The only thing that helps is learning to love yourself and doing things, however small, to love yourself a bit more. It’s very hard to do, and it wont reward you as instantaneously as drugs or cash. I hope you find that and wish you luck.

Alas the internet thrives on rage funneling. Hard to avoid, but very toxic. There’s also an extreme left flavor of funnel, though.

First, man hating feminists aren’t feminists, they’re just assholes who use acceptable rhetoric (feminism) as a cover for spreading hate and bigotry. Feminism is about equality and taking down patriarchal systems that harm everyone. Although it is female centric and tends to deal with aspects of the patriarchy that affect women and gender minorities. Feminism is VERY effective, and we’re now in a situation where the harmful effects on men of patriarchal ideology are becoming more and more obvious. I believe men’s lib is a GREAT banner for men to take down the patriarchy where they’re the most affected. Working with feminism, LGBT+ and anti-racism we can ensure all harmful aspects of patriarchy are dismantled.

Second you’re not To blame. You’re not the patriarchy and you’re certainly being hurt by it in meaningful ways. If you’re not reinforcing the patriarchal systems that are harming you, you had nothing to do with the pain you feel.

You do have places to point the finger. The patriarchy and right wing ideology harms young men. Fiscal conservatives who gut education budgets, and force a focus on STEM at the expense of physical education, cooperative group sports, and recess time. Librarian educators who put all the physical activity budget into competitive sports so that “the strong rise and the weak perish”. Pearl clutching conservatives who accuse male teachers of homosexuality, grooming, and pedophilia when they try to connect with students or introduce acceptance of LGBT+ ideology ruining the careers of male teachers and robbing boys of positive role models. Men and women who spread toxic masculinity and ridicule young boys who express their feelings or emotional needs. I could go on to show the ways right wing ideology robs boys and young men of their life satisfaction and societal prospects.

Therapy is great for personal growth. For growth within your friend group and family, you can also start looking at how toxic masculinity and regressive gender norms harm you and those around you. Most young men and women parrot these views but don’t understand them. Occasional calm, polite, assertive explanations about the ideology they’re spreading is enough for most people to realise what they’re doing. You can improve your friend group over time, as well as help you encourage good supportive friendships and trim harmful ones. That will also help your emotional and mental well-being.

Just want to say, the fact that the right capitalizes on those topics makes me automatically cautious when I come across those discussions. Even reading through this community, I had to be defensive about getting hooked into something that is good on the surface but not so much underneath. My point is, its hard to talk about these topics now that its essentially associated with the manipulation tactics used by those influencers. Not sure how we can reclaim the positive while separating it from the negative.

Yep it lacks a lot of nuance.

The right have also vertically integrated their problems into society. Capitalism and patriarchy are the problems, and the right also conveniently offer the solutions while reenforcing the causes of the problems.

The left’s solution to these problems is to try and change the system itself. Which is great, but does little to help people suffering under it.

The left has no easy solution to the right’s problems.

I wholeheartedly agree but I would also argue that F.D. has a similar take at least the way I see it.

I would say he argues that while right grifters are nothing new they were usually not as successful and medially present as they are today. He attributes this to the fact that media engagement is the only metric that counts and that any sharing of a video leads to it being more present in the algorithm. Additionally he argues that in the past most men were able to eventually get a job and support themselves and a family and that with the rise of neoliberalism and worsening wages and inflation the rate of men who are able to do that has shrunk drastically leading to a rise of mental health illnesses but also suicides and other Deaths of Despair. Which have become a somewhat breeding ground for grifters to enrapture more men to their cause with their false promises.

Finally he argues that it is not in the interest to even try to appeal to men the same way the right does as it is - as you have yourself stated - fundamentally antithetical to our causes and beliefs. But that the focus should always be placed on changing the system and being active in our communities. And that changes to the system have to be understood as being beneficial to men as well (duh!).

So I think maybe my framing of his video was a bit too shallow, but thank you for posting your comment. I feel the same way especially in that “the left has failed men” has become an incredible oversimplification for a multilayered problem

Politics, on the left and right, is about taking people’s struggles and suffering and giving them purpose, meaning, and catalyzing them to action that will improve their situation and society.

The left used to be the party of the people, peaking in the new deal era of the 30’s. After the great depression into the baby boomer era and the early 2000’s, middle class white men and boys had it pretty good and lost interest in leftist ideology instead adopting to the “got mine” right wing libertarianism typical of the era. The left in this time focused on minorities and women who had a lot to gain from progressive socialist ideology and political action with great success in this front.

With this historical focus on minorities and women it’s easy to forget that socialism is about the power of what can be achieved by working together instead of on your own. Young boys and men right now are crying out to join something and work together. Their suffering is caused by the patriarchy and their needs are well aligned with leftist ideology. If we capture them we have a chance at locking down DECADES of strong leftist and progressive policies and putting a full generation of gap from racism and bigotry. If we give up young boys and men to the right we’re going to be locked into the current situation where we’re barely able to keep fascism at bay.

But maybe it’s also kind of my fault for not giving a better overview but I think I have learnt something for the next post.

Thank you for mentioning it :)

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Uh thanks for linking it! I hadn’t seen the discussion!

I also liked the historical contexts :)

It’s not so much the contradictory expectations that bother me, it’s how success and failure are framed in modern society. The messaging is that for cis white men success should be externalized and failure should be internalized while for everyone not cis white and male it’s the opposite. The messaging is that the system is built for the benefit of cis white men so when they succeed it’s because the system pushed them to success and when they fail they do so in spite of the system pushing them to succeed so their failures are do to some particular flaw within themselves. The system is built for the benefit of cis white men so when someone who isn’t cis white and male succeeds they do so despite the system pushing them to fail so the success is because of some special strength within themselves and when they fail it’s because the system pushed them to failure.

There is truth to the premise that the system is built for the benefit of cis white men but the system doesn’t push cis white men to succeed, especially not poor and working class men. It does give cis white men advantages but it does so primarily by creating additional barriers for people who aren’t cis white and male. Your parents economic status is the most reliable indicator for success.

No, the right is pulling boys and young men because they’re the only ones that acknowledge that these boys are not thriving in modern society. The left still generally still thinks that young middle class and working class boys and men are prospering from the patriarchy and late stage capitalism. This hasn’t been true for at least a few decades now.

Ironically patriarchy and right wing libertarianism is to blame for most of the problems of these young men so all we need to do is acknowledge their suffering and point them to the obvious socialist and left wing solutions to their problems.