Toxic Masculinity

A very thoughtful reply.

 

I've said it before and I will say it again there is no such thing as toxic masculinity or toxic femininity. There is however toxic behavior and whenever possible it ought to be discouraged. Toxic behavior is something all human beings engage in time to time and individuals not groups should be held to account for their behavior. Group think sucks. I am not responsible for the behavior of white dude in this country nor is Barack Obama responsible for the behavior of Black dude in the country.

Again individuals are responsible their behavior not the group to which they belong. If you are tired of bad behavior, quit encouraging it. Don't make excuses for it.

 

I fear I do already know the rest.
It's called "negative panic".

Many plane crashes, contrary to popular myth, are actually survivable. But often people don't survive, because they "dig in" ... the plane is on the ground, kerosene is leaking onto the hot engines ...but everone is stunned ... they just stay in their seats, in shock ...

Here's some information.

[SOURCE]

There are literally millions of people in this country who sense, at some level, what is happening and are disturbed by it.

Hundreds of thosands -- those who know something about history, who have some sense of the cultural sinews that are necessary for societies to survive -- and see them being cut, one by one -- are in fact deeply worried.

But at the moment, we have a kind of 'negative panic'.

We're all still sitting in our seats, waiting for the nice voice to tell us to unfasten our seat belts, get our things from the overhead luggage, and
line up to exit the aircraft.

The smoke is drifting up .... time to get out.

Or, rather, time to start talking about getting out. We need to normalize the idea, to get everyone used to it as a possible, albeit unlikely, event.
We need to do a lot of work about post-separation arrangements. We need to find allies on the Left.

But at the end of the day, we've got to get out. We can't keep sitting in our seats.

 

My point was- separate from who? Wherever human go, they take or create human problems, there is not really any escape from that. The left wants to make everybody "equal'- and I see that as a major issue, because people make themselves unequal. You can resolve a great many prejudices, but so long as one person produces more than someone else, there will be those thinking they are entitled to that persons property. I once heard a well known judge say that character would be a "social vaccine", curing a vast number of ills- and I fully agree with that. Character is a thing that only exists in a man who values it, thus self-respect, self-discipline and the understanding that others have the same obligations and rights, are a necessity. I don't know how you would go about insuring that would be a universal value characteristic in any new group.

I'm a person whose values have been dramatically changed. I had good parents, who provided a good environment- but I always thought things could and should be better, spent the first half of my life looking for the real rules to life, the principles that make it work or fail. When I found them, they were so simple and clear, I realized the examples of them are all around us- and it was mother nature who created them, not man. Millions of species have thrived for millions of years, using only the few principles that I live by now. Write them on the back of a business card. To me this is like a master key that opens the truth to about every condition and person- and always works, so long as I pay attention and don't violate the principles. However- teaching that to people is virtually impossible, because the things they already think they know prevent them from making fundamental changes in thinking. I ran classes in the process for about three years, giving me a very good look into the factors that control people's thinking. The obstacles are in their own heads; they insist on new ideas fitting in with what they already believe. Sort of like a computer with deeply flawed ROM memory programming- garbage in, garbage out. If I knew how to change that in the average person- I'd still be teaching.

 

Could you spell these out for us? Maybe on another thread?

There is an old Socialist song: Die Gedanken Sind Frei (Thoughts are free) Popular back in the dark days of the 1930s. ("Frei" is German and is pronounced "Fry").

Die gedanken sind frei
My thoughts freely flower
Die gedanken sind frei
My thoughts give me power
No scholar can map them
No hunter can trap them
No man can deny
Die gedanken sind frei
I think as I please
And this gives me pleasure
My conscience decrees
This right I must treasure
My thoughts will not cater
To duke or dictator
No man can deny
Die gedanken sind frei
Tyrants can take me
And throw me in prison
My thoughts will burst forth
Like blossoms in season
Foundations may crumble
And structures may tumble
But free men shall cry
Die gedanken sind frei

You can listen to it here:


Very wonderful, but ... I would rather be singing it in a free society. We are on the way to becoming a not-free one.
We must get out.

 

One of the things that I discovered over the years is that everybody measures new values with the ones they already believe. Learning the principles I live by is easy- understanding and believing is the part that is extremely difficult. All of us have too much trash in the way from our past environment that we cannot discard.

Imagine we all have a few value tools in our minds. Deeply implanted ones that work automatically, not consciously, one that instantly cause you to feel of believe certain things.
These might be compared to the tools used everyday in life- a yardstick, a scale, a level or square. We measure people and interactions with these things- and virtually without question. The define fair and unfair for you conscious mind, tell you who is to blame for something. They dictate a structure which in turn dictates the parameters of your conscious thought and reasoning. Sort of like a box, which you can't think outside of.
Now what if everyone's tools were calibrated wrong- your yardstick was not 36" long, your scale weighed short, your level didn't indicate true level- but your conscious mind trusts them implicitly. What if everybody else's tools were also calibrated wrong- but not with the same errors as yours, and they also trust them implicitly. Imagine the degree of conflict that would result from these differences, all errors in themselves, but different in extent or fashion- when people enter into relationships, transactions and so on. Look around you in society and see conditions don't fit with that amazingly well.

One of the psychologists that came to my Llifeskills classes asked me to do interviews, give him a look at where I had come from, and I agreed. After the third one, he asked a question. "How did you get from where you had to be to where you are now? Who was your psychologist? I told him I had never been to a psychologist. He didn't believe it, and asked- "Then how did you do it?" I told him I had worked on it since I was 17; put it together in my later 30's. He told me that was impossible- and I asked why. He said "That would take courage bordering on heroism sustained for years". That did not make sense to me; I told him that I had no choice- I had to find the answers. However he was right in some details. It is not grasping the principles that requires courage- it is getting past all the BS and distortion that environment and society have been packing in our heads since the day we were born.

I said I live by three principles. These are sequential; if you can live by the first, the second will soon become self-evident, and honoring that, so will the third- and with that comes identity, self respect, power over your own destiny despite what the rest of the world does.

The first principle is that Every individual is fully responsible for themselves- including everything they think, everything they feel, everything they say, everything they do.
It's corollary is that when you accept that for yourself, you also must apply it to all others in the same way. This changes your life role- and the way you relate to other people.
That's where you start the journey; learning to do that without compromise.

 

Very interesting!

Of course, as you say, you get your values from somewhere.
I think the anthropologists have identified, among what they call "human universals", a weak sense of something like 'fair play'. But not much else.

So if you're born into a society where everyone else believes that killing ______ is okay (fill in the blank with anything you like), then you yourself
are likely to believe it. Of course we know that as society gets more and more modern, we get more and more 'diversity' of view -- so by the time we get to the 20th Century, in advanced countries, you have a fairly wide range of ethical beliefs from which to 'choose', if those of your family don't suit.

Then ... there seem to be people called 'sociopaths' .. suffering from 'Anti Social Personality Disorder' as it's called --. and they're evidently not so rare ... who evidently literally have something wrong with their neurologicl wiring. There seem to be genetic links, although we're still in the process of discovering them.

It's that age-old philosophical chestnut, 'Free Will vs Determinism'. I'm with Dr Johnson here: "Dammit sir, we know our will is free, and there's an end on it."

Have you written further on this? The next two principles, for example?

 

Did you just assume someone's gender? Don't be a hateful biggot.

 

Arguments loose their credibility as soon as they compare the best intentions of one/some to the less-than-best intentions of another/others. Comparing 'apples to oranges' is a common way to beg an argument.

Masculinity is only toxic until you need it, then it's a tonic.

The whole gender bending wave has not encroached into my world yet. It's still a man's world.
Unfortunately, a smaller and smaller percentage of young men lack a certain toughness that can be described as masculine. There is most certainly something out there that is toxic to masculinity as is evidenced by the ever increasing number of sissies. Quite frankly, these boys aren't even trying to be manly. They cry! Did you read that? They cry ON THE JOB. Now, if your dog dies and you don't cry, that's messed up. If you sustain an injury and know that your career is over and you cry, that's understandable. I can even overlook a silent tear behind a compound fracture or some such thing, but these boys cry because I hurt their feelings - right in front of everyone. I mean, if it's that bad, take a swing for God's sakes. We'd all have more respect for you. Just don't CRY. Needless to write, but of course these boys don't cut it for long. There are more men retiring from masonry than entering masonry. If you're a man under thirty and still have your ba11s, there are one hundred thousand dollar a year jobs begging for you.

 

I have idly wondered if it's something in the water, so to speak. Have a look here.

Here's a snip:

[SOURCE in link in first paragraph.]