Why I left the left? I used to be a radical leftist, who believed in radical ideas like <most lukewarm liberal opinion> and <thing that is standard in Europe>, but then I went through <signs of cognitive decline> and also got falsely accused of rape after having sex with a drunken woman, so I became a moderate christian conservative who believes in <opinion considered theocratic by people with more than two brain cells>, <thing that would make Hitler blush>, and <literal nazi thing, but “extermination” is replaced with “removal from society”>.
How possibly?
Submitted 19 hours ago by Chippys_mittens@lemmy.world to [deleted]
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/4aa24445-b1a1-4823-9aed-5bba179a1c02.jpeg
Comments
ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 28 minutes ago
ShrimpCurler@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 hours ago
Sometimes it feels like the term male privilege is just a way to tell men to suck it up, don’t cry, keep your feelings bottle up on the inside. Meanwhile, hypocritically being against toxic masculinity.
basxto@discuss.tchncs.de 1 hour ago
I’m so overprivileged, it makes me cry.
Wataba@sh.itjust.works 7 hours ago
We don’t need ragebait in this world.
Chippys_mittens@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
False
SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zip 17 hours ago
I hate the word “privilege” used in this context. Words have connotations, and “privilege” conjures up images of playing polo at the country club with the upper crust of one’s community, then going back to the office to work as executive vice president of the company your father founded. Yet, the people concerned about social justice seem unreasonably attached to their particular jargon, even if it gets in the way of communication. Over the past 15 years or so, I’ve seen a handful of people get it when it’s explained to them as, “imagine you grew up hardscrabble dirt poor, but also had to deal with racism.” But mostly, the online discussions devolve into a fight over the definition of the word privilege. C’mon, let’s just ditch the word, ferchrissakes! Keep the concept, call it something more relatable!
Same with “toxic masculinity.” Yes, I get it, the “toxic” adjective is a modifier to talk about a particular type of masculinity, but the people who hear it as “masculinity is toxic” have a point, too. People use adjectives as intensifiers. I guarantee that the people talking about “evil homosexuals” aren’t adding “evil” to distinguish from the good ones.
chuckleslord@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Whatever term you come up with, conservative think tanks will immediately poison. Trying to twist yourself in knots to find the perfect way to express the idea is just failing to understand that the issue is that those who benefit from these systems at the highest levels have every incentive to keep things as they are. They can and will use their captive audience to fuck with any explanation you try to give that’s contrary to the system as it exists today. The only concessions they will give will only be to get enough people to pack it in since “we won”. And those will only be temporary.
usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca 16 hours ago
I also hate the term privilege because it implies those people have something they shouldn’t have, i.e. they need to be brought down, when really it’s that other people have a disadvantage. This makes the ones labeled privileged defensive because it seems like an attack instead of a call for help.
Everyone should be at least at the same level as the “privileged” ones.
guy@piefed.social 15 hours ago
Yes, and that’s the point with male privilege? It’s an advantage without any other reason than the holder being male.
Raising women to hold the same privilege is the same as removing it for men, if everyone has it it’s not a privilege.
I think this is why the equality in society moves forward too slowly, not necessarily because men don’t want women to have equal rights and opportunities, but as you said the privileged are defensive because they don’t want to lose their privileges.
TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today 14 hours ago
I think you’re running into a little cognitive dissonance. In this scenario, the privilege is what is causing the disadvantage in the first place. You cannot be privileged in a truly equal society, therefore you can’t elevate everyone to a privileged class, you can only equal the playing field.
It’s a zero sum game.
TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today 14 hours ago
fight over the definition of the word privilege. C’mon, let’s just ditch the word, ferchrissakes! Keep the concept, call it something more relatable!
I think it’s naive to believe whatever terminology you use as an alternative wouldn’t eventually end up with the same stigma.
The people who interpret it as “masculinity is toxic” aren’t doing it because they have a hearing disability, they interpret it that way as a means to justify their own beliefs.
The same goes for your example of “evil homosexuals”. Anyone who is blaming all homosexuals for something does not have to modify them with the term evil for you to know they are being a bigot.
I don’t think it’s people fighting for social justice who get unreasonably attached to words. I think that describes the people who feign an inability to utilize context or reason when they hear them.
jaggedrobotpubes@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Yeah there’s no magic word choices that make good communicating automatic or guaranteed.
Bad faith pretends otherwise, for cover.
SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zip 12 hours ago
Sure, as somebody pointed out above, any social justice term will be attacked and tarred by well-funded right-wing think tanks. But let’s not give ‘em a head start by using words that consistently turn off our audience, eh? In my experience, “privilege” and “toxic masculinity” do just that. This example actually bolsters my point: The people using “evil homosexuals” don’t need to add the “evil,” because they’re bigots who believe that homosexuality is evil. Likewise, the people who use “toxic masculinity” don’t need to add the “toxic,” because they’re bigots who believe that masculinity is toxic. (No, I don’t actually believe that, but lots of people seem to.)
LurkingLuddite@piefed.social 13 hours ago
Nah. Many, many people who come from inside that peivilege are being naive. To think they’re trying to defend the privilege itself is exactly the problem coming from outside the blinders.
The “evil homosexuals” comment is trying to elucidate you to that reality for crying out loud, but noooo, you just want to make yourself feel better by pretending it’s not able to be perceived the same way…
From someone who grew up conservative and now hates conservative values… Your attitude is part of the problem.
Failure to communicate is a two way street.
eestileib@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 hours ago
Fact is that as white people in North America, we DO get privileged treatment from the banking system, law enforcement, shopkeepers, bus drivers, random people in the street…
And white people in North America have it their whole lives, and will continue to have it their whole lives for the most part.
Is it unpleasant to be reminded that you’ll spend your whole life playing with the White Assist mode, and that every single non white person knows that about you? Yeah.
That there are circles you won’t be let into by default because of actions taken by other people? Yeah.
White supremacist ideology is bad for everyone, including white people, but it’s bad for white people in an emotional health way, while it’s bad for non white people in a life and death way.
SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zip 11 hours ago
The question you have to ask yourself, though, is this: Do I want to scold white people for their privilege, or do I want to get them on my side to fix it? In my experience, rubbing their noses in it is going to set people’s minds against you. Yes, they’re wrong, yes, they’re bad people, but the real world means hard choices between the euphoric glow of self-righteousness, or actual political effectiveness.
bizarroland@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
I personally don’t like the idea of the phrase toxic masculinity because I don’t believe that the masculine energy is toxic in and of itself. I feel like a more appropriate term would be pseudo masculinity. Because that implies that people are not naturally this way, but they are forcing themselves to act this way in pursuit of some perceived ideal of masculinity.
I mean, humans are frequently guilty of using terms that mean a very specific thing in a much broader sense as a shorthand for clearly communicating what we specifically mean in that instance.
For instance, I have heard people are use the phrase “toxic masculinity” to describe boyfriends that don’t want to do the dishes, when the actual correct term is “lazy piece of shit”, but for some reason, when communicating this information to other people, it is easier for them to ascribe an issue with the sex of the person than an issue with the sex of the person, implying that the only actual fix is to repair your emotional relationship with your own sex instead of accepting that everyone has a human responsibility to contribute to doing the chores around the house.
Once again, I reiterate that masculinity and masculine energy is not toxic, any more than femininity and feminine energy is toxic, and I also exhort anyone that took the time to read this much to do their best to effectively and accurately communicate using specific language rather than emotional shorthand.
flambonkscious@sh.itjust.works 6 hours ago
I’m also strongly resonating with pseudo-masculinity!
Thanks for coining that wee gem
Wren@lemmy.today 10 hours ago
Love the term “pseudo-masculinity.” It takes away from the gender slant of toxic masculinity, implies anyone can have it, and makes clear it’s not what masculinity should be.
nightofmichelinstars@sopuli.xyz 15 hours ago
I’m not married to those terms, but I’ve never heard anyone suggest better ones for what they mean. These concepts must be communicated somehow. Got any ideas?
SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zip 12 hours ago
Yes, I suggested that what I’ve seen be effective is suggesting that white people imagine their struggles, but with the added burden of aggressive policing, employment discrimination, housing discrimination, and racism in general. There’s no need to drag the term “privilege” out of its academic context, because it has the baggage of many connotations in vernacular usage. That is, just don’t say the word privilege.
Other commenters have offered some good suggestions. Instead of “toxic masculinity,” I’m partial to The Man Box, which frames the issue as discussing the outside factors that trap men into negative behaviors, rather than implying that they themselves are bad or broken. Wherever the problem actually exists, men are much more receptive this framing.
LurkingLuddite@piefed.social 13 hours ago
Instead of ‘male privilege’, “equality” or better, “equity”.
For “toxic masculinity”, I like, “machismo”, or better “toxic machismo”, since not all sorts of masculine pride are harmful.
newtraditionalists@kbin.melroy.org 15 hours ago
Any suggestions? It's pretty useless to write 2 paragraphs that deride how dumb something is while providing zero alternatives to the dumb thing. At that point youre just noise.
AlfalFaFail@lemmy.ml 14 hours ago
There’s always going to be issues with the terms because both any termd chosen will fail to capture both the internal and external perspectives. Toxicity, for example, only shows how a certain type of manhood effects people who come in contact with it. However, a young man searching to be an adult in the world may come across this way of being a man and doesn’t necessarily see it as a good fit. So it’s too “rigid”. I’m not sure we’d want to talk about one’s “rigid manhood” but the quality is notable. We could also use the term “The Man Box” to capture the difficulty of people who struggle to meet these impossible standards.
I also like the term hyper-masculity, but there are worthwhile questions there too.
It’s important that remember that no term will do a great job of capture the full range of issues facing society and men, but even a cursory investigation will show how different vantage points help show and counter balance different terms.
For white privledge, we have to remember that in this society the baseline or default is white, male, young, affluent, etc. These people don’t get that suspicious look or assumption that they aren’t capable or criminal or dishonest like the OP noted. We could say society has minimal friction for them.
So as to not just have some more noise, here are some of my dumb suggestions: white tailwind, white standard, white default, white baseline, presumed while white.
MarcomachtKuchen@feddit.org 14 hours ago
I disaggre. I feel like it’s valid to point out an issue to make everyone think about it and possible solutions to it.
SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zip 12 hours ago
I would point out that I have already shared what I have seen work to get people to understand the issue: Acknowledge that they were not privileged, and to imagine their non-privileged life with the added burden of racism. As for an alternative to toxic masculinity, AlfalFaFail covered some good ones.
jaggedrobotpubes@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
You don’t need an alternate route to justify a “bridge out” sign.
Establishing that something is a crap use of energy and attention is perfectly fine as a standalone statement. It needs nothing else.
MarcomachtKuchen@feddit.org 14 hours ago
AFAIK there is a term to describe the phenomenon when talking about discrimation : Intersectionality. But I’ve only read this in German literature so it might not be used internationally.
It describes how discrimination feels is unique and everyone faces different forms of discrimation, but there is some overlap (intersection of circles) between these discriminative experiences. By arguing with Intersectionality your experience is unique to you while still using the umbrella term discrimation. This situation here seems similar to me but instead of the negative discrimination we are talking about the positive privilege. But to me it seems like the concept still applies.
chuckleslord@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Yes, the term intersectionality was invented here in the states. Conservatives have already poisoned the term and made it into “the oppression Olympics”, rather than what it actually is, a framing device to explain that life is different for a black man and a black woman or for a black woman with a disability.
Cause that’s the real problem here. US has a high-powered counter-propaganda movement called The Chicago Institute & Friends (Conservative Think Tanks). Any term you come up with to explain how our world is fucked up will be subsumed by conservative think tanks into the worst idea imaginable.
Open borders? You mean letting in criminals by the boatload, rather than a measured response to the harms of immigration quotas.
15 minute cities? You mean communist lockdowns, preventing the free movement of people and ideas. Instead of what it actually is, designing urban spaces to accommodate the people that live there instead of devoting every square foot to car dominance.
White privilege? You mean demonizing people for the color of their skin, exactly what MLK didn’t want to happen. Instead of what it actually is, a framing device to show white people that there is more going on in this country than just what directly impacts them.
The fact of the matter is that “the left” (big tent, from liberal to anarchist) doesn’t have a messaging problem, it’s that the opposition has a lot of funding and influence to drown out whatever point the left is attempting to make.
Sartre’s quote on anti-semites here
eestileib@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 hours ago
Intersectionality is in use in English as well, mostly by people with no power.
jaggedrobotpubes@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
This comment is a breath of fresh air.
Tons of people use a few correct points about social justice as a way to make themselves publicly noble. It’s horrendous, and it sends the signal to everybody else:
“we’re like you, we don’t care about the underprivileged either, we just leverage their plight differently, for different personal gain”
There’s no greater goal to work towards with such a person. They’re looking to set themselves above you, nothing more. This is not the step with which most group projects begin.
spip@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
If you don’t want these discussions to continue, you should probably learn to scroll past a meme without engaging in said discussion and keeping it alive.
Chippys_mittens@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Shhhhhhhhhh I’m having fun
Godric@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Fuck you bud, 10/10 bait
Chippys_mittens@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
What on earth do you even mean
fartographer@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
As a white guy, I have the kind of privilege that allows me enough space to realize that I’m sad. Hell, I could probably just walk up to a cop and tell them I’m sad, and they’d offer me some horrible, but well-meaning advice.
But when I mention my Judaism, something interesting might happen. Especially if I told them that my Zionist family lives in Israel. But the real excitement will start when I say “free Palestine.”
But the saddest part of all is that I could say nothing, and just be white, and no one will give a fuck. It’s mostly sad because I’m incapable of saying nothing.
percent@infosec.pub 3 hours ago
I’m pretty sure every cop that I’ve ever met (in the US, anyway) would be indifferent to anything in that second paragraph. It would be such a wildly uninteresting encounter for most of them, they’d forget about it by the end of their shift.
flambonkscious@sh.itjust.works 6 hours ago
That was quite the rollercoaster and I’ve got a complex bundle of sympathy and relating going on (as a kiwi, not the Zionism)
MyVeryRealName@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
That applies to white women as well
1984@lemmy.today 24 minutes ago
Im pretty sure the programming you are supposed to get is that white men is the problem. Women are just strong when they are abusive. Didnt you get the memo about this?
FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca 8 hours ago
Being sad that black people are in movies isn’t oppression
fartographer@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
But what if I’m stupid or racist? Or both?
TerdFerguson@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
Is it even possible to be racist and not to be stupid? I understand the concept, but in practice it always seems like a package deal.
garbage_world@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Holy strawman
Chippys_mittens@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
lemmyartistforhire@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
This tweet is going to be 11 years old very soon!
For the anniversary I wish she would tell us what movies her boyfriend possibly could have meant, and how she liked them.
flambonkscious@sh.itjust.works 6 hours ago
Where do they get these people?!
Samskara@sh.itjust.works 18 hours ago
Men
- higher loneliness
- seen as dangerous by default
- higher mental illness
- worse academic performance
- higher suicide rates
- higher rates of homelessness
- less likely to get child custody in a divorce
- less support infrastructure
- are more likely to be dismissed when asking for help
- work more dangerous jobs
- higher workplace accident rate
- higher probability to be victim of a violent crime
- more likely to suffer from addiction (gambling, porn, substances)
- lower life expectancy
TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today 13 hours ago
Women
- economic inequality
- unpaid labor and caregiving
- gender based violence
- greater healthcare discrepancies
- professional and political barriers
- education barriers
Do you see the discrepancies between the two list? Everything you listed is something that we men either do to ourselves, or is done to us by a political/economic entity that is dominated by other males. The same can’t be said for list for women.
LurkingLuddite@piefed.social 13 hours ago
Two things can be true at rhe same rime. FFS, this oppression competition is beyond pathetic.
Asafum@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
Yes, but I think the point was the white part of “white men.”
I was “lucky” enough to have my privilege put in plain english during a job interview. I’m white and this guy literally says “it so hard to find a clean cut white guy for this job, I don’t want some Dominican walking into a customers store with our logo on.” If I was not white I would not have gotten that job.
But yes, as you say, I’m stuck working in a factory right now with shitty air quality, I’ve been single for almost a decade, have severe anxiety and depression, and am fairly poor. Still doesn’t mean I don’t have privilege for simply being white. :/
ZJBlank@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
Big fucking yikes, they just said that out loud?
I’m in kinda the same boat, early 30s white guy, shitty job (truck driver), single, and so depressed and anxious that I’m currently on short term disability because of it.
I feel like the big problem with the discourse around white privilege is that most people misunderstand what it actually means. It doesn’t mean that everything is handed to you purely because of skin colour, and it doesn’t mean that things can’t be difficult. It just means that we get an unspoken, and often unconscious advantage over our racialized peers in our white-dominated society.
Beebabe@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
This is a good point to bring up. My friend who is far less educated and her husband have awful jobs compared to me, but because they have generational wealth they are much better off in life. They have homes, land, etc all because they were passed down. At the same time, they would rail against being called privileged, but they could sell that home for half a million dollars and never go into the debts or put in the work others have to just to have a roof over their heads.
angstylittlecatboy@reddthat.com 14 hours ago
I don’t see how nobody else sees a connection between the way men are viewed, and the way black people, who are viewed as more masculine in society than other races, are viewed. A significant portion of that list is a list of what black people go through, black men even moreso.
Hacksaw@lemmy.ca 18 hours ago
Yes and you know what all us leftists say, “if you have any adversity it means you never had any privilege at all in the first place” very valid. Thank you for your contribution.
stupidcasey@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
You sir can eat the fattest sloppiest bag of dicks your saggy cunt mouth has ever whored for.
hesh@quokk.au 17 hours ago
These are all great reasons for men to want to dismantle the patriarchy (the cause of them all)
Samskara@sh.itjust.works 17 hours ago
You don’t dismantle the patriarchy by attacking men and blaming them for everything. The patriarchy is upheld by women as well. Women have privileges under the patriarchy, that feminists are not ready to let go off.
A post patriarchy has to be better for everybody and can only be reached by gaining the support of men.
The current trend is a growing political division between men and women with women moving to the left and men to the right. The currently employed strategy of putting men down makes this worse.
Chippys_mittens@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
These are all true and factual, excellent job.
NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
What is the source of these issues?
Maybe men should stop being so shitty to men, but more so they should definitely stop being so hostile and abusive to women.
ShrimpCurler@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 hours ago
I’m sure all the male homicide victims would be really glad they weren’t killed by women because then they would have lost their privilege…
I really hate this reasoning I see sometimes that because men hurt other men we don’t need to care about those victims. We can just dismiss them and assume they still have all their male privilege because a smaller number of women are also victims. How about we stop framing all this stuff as men vs women and who has it better and instead focus on the actual problems and the actual victims regardless of their gender expression?
LurkingLuddite@piefed.social 13 hours ago
Maybe it’s not all men and using such generic language is akin to saying, “maybe the gays should stop being so flamboiyant if they want acceptance”?
Chippys_mittens@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
My posts usually get lots of upvotes and engagement. Figured I’d fuck with the average ratio today
saltesc@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
Literally what shitposting is, by definition.
And you’ve done it once gain, Maestro. Well done.
Chippys_mittens@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
AlexanderTheDead@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
Shitpost communities are fucking terrible because it’s either shitposts, which are like 50/50 on being good, or it’s a bunch of regular memes mixed with good shitposts that people upvoted.
I mean, at least it keeps it on the shit theme.
Bgugi@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Keep out… Baitin’
Chippys_mittens@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Master level
woelkchen@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
I guess class divisions in my country are imaginary then.
Chippys_mittens@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
Chippys_mittens@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Hee hee ho ho ha ha
Hupf@feddit.org 12 hours ago
OIIA?
tangonov@lemmy.ca 14 hours ago
Shut up and let me cry with my privilege already
Chippys_mittens@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
No
Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 43 minutes ago
White guys make up a large chunk of the population. There are white guys that have some of the same problems that are harming minorities as well. Poverty, addiction, mental and physical health, inflation, an unfavorable jobs market, and so on.
They see a democratic party that is at best useless at addressing these problems, when they admit that they exist at all. At worst, they see a party that is dismissive and hostile to these concerns, and to them personally. In contrast, they see a republican party that is full of welcoming con artists who will happily tell them that all their problems spring from minorities.
Neither side is offering actual solutions, but republicans are acknowledging that the problems exist, even if they’re offering false solutions.
svullo56@feddit.nu 21 minutes ago
In a society where white men are favored they still have that. Which isn’t a small thing! They will probably always win if put up against women or people of color when looking for jobs.
A bet a lot of the minorities would prefer to be a white man to have it easier in life.
Kind of ironic saying they have nothing and then automatically being accepted in the fine boys club which fight for their kinds right to stay in a superior place in society.