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| quote: | Originally posted by kush paintings
As for the media negatively influencing males, I think you grossly underestimate just how much is embedded in your subconcious. You should really read some masculinity theories, they may shock you as you may finding them to be describing exactly how you act, as they do for me. The only problem is they always seem to go a step to far as suggesting men should become feminine rather that just better people (and the same can be said of women). I will discuss more later when I have more time. |
I'm well aware of many of the popular masculinity theories being advanced within the domain of the so-called "social sciences," the most popular of which appears to be the notion of a "masculinity crisis."
However, I do not share your identification with the men described therein. They seem to be comsumed with a "need to be needed." I possess no such need, as independence ranks high among the virtues I advocate, nor am I particularly interesting in associating with those individuals who do not exhibit a similar independence. I believe that genuinely fulfilling social relationshiops can only exist between independent individuals, rather than the clumping together of people into groups of "friends" to compensate for their insecurities about personal worth. They typically exhibit anti-intellectual tendencies and celebrate the loudest and most obnoxious individuals among them - values which are almost diametrically opposite to mine. Furthermore, many of them seem to be frustrated with their perceived lack of power or influence over their environment especially in relation to women.
They often profess belief that women have an advantage over them in almost every sphere of their lives: personal relationships, career and educational opportunities. Sometimes they complain that women have the ability to advance themselves either by their aptitude, their appearence, or by a combination of the two, whereas men have only their aptitude to work with. In other cases, they espouse the idea that women hold a superior position in social and romantic relationships - suggesting that if they do not acquiesce to the demands and wishes of their significant other then she will simply find another man who will but not believing that they are in a position to make similar demands. I do not share these feelings at all. To me, they are nothing more than an indication of a weak man who has no idea how to make himself stronger.
In case it is not obvious, I not only do not relate to the men described in masculinity theories I've been exposed to, and in fact I actually have a rather large degree of contempt for them. To me, they are weak, disgraceful, and in many ways less-than-human. Not only do they not possess values similar to my own (I could respect that, even if I didn't like it) but they seem to possess no individual values at all, operating like lifeless automata programmed to perpetuate the wealth of the few.
My values are just that: my values. I didn't pull them out of some movie or some book, I didn't base it on the latest hot summer fashions or what some jackass celebrity said, and they aren't the product of some frivolous subconscious belief manifesting itself as an emotion. I believe in physical and mental strength - that one might overcome the greatest number of potential challenges. I believe in discipline, honor, indepedendence, and integrity - to keep one's strength properly focused and maintain good relationships with other strong individuals. I believe in a strong separation of cognitive and emotional functions and a controlled expression of emotion, because emotion, while valuable, is an inherently personal experience and should never be the basis for decisions about how one should act or what one should believe. To me these values are masculine because I am a male, however there is no reason a woman couldn't choose to live in accordance with similar beliefs, and I would encourage that so long as she came to hold those values by a process of critical rational analysis rather than simply accepting them as an article of faith.
I essentially agree with you: both men and women should become better people. But the notion of what constitutes "better" is where I strongly disagree with most of the sociological domga I've been exposed to, and I also disagree that it is a group phenomenon as opposed to a prevalent individual phenomenon. The solution to the "masculinity crisis" and to essentially every problem that sociology deals with is individualism but sociologists don't and never will want to hear it because in that case they're really nothing more than a poor man's psychologist (which is what I would classify them as anwyay, and I'm not even a big advocate of modern psychology.)
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RECOIL! RECOIL!!! I'M RECOILEDD!!! 
