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rn i've got the idea of "toxic masculinity in mind" prompted by a convo I had with my gf about this Dr. K video https://t.co/MTNKpryB4l
there's a SUPER interesting dynamic that springs from the fact that 1/6 of them was Peak Masculine Jock who felt damaged and constrained from fitting the mold, and the other 5/6 felt damaged and constrained from not fitting the mold
they have a really dope group session, cover a lot of amazing ground, and even get some reps in on supporting each other when they need it it's a COMPLETELY different video from this one, which is a sort of top-down description of "toxic masculinity" https://t.co/dnI54Ic3hq
if you've never noticed that ways the various ideals/norms around being a guy hurt the world, this video tells you a little bit about it, and might help you talk to other people about this broad pattern. you can now talk about "toxic masculinity" and what to do about it
but i do NOT find that video useful for hurting myself and others less rollback to Dr. K. somewhere around the end he says "at the end of the day, there is no 'toxic masculinity'. there's just masculinity and you need to use it for good and not evil"
this might actually be easier to talk about if I switch to talking about tlp flavored narcissism for a sec let's say you read TLP, learn about the pattern of narcissism, and that it's bad. "being image obsessed in a way that you sacrifice the real and damage people around you"
me: "am i a narcissisit?" me: "hmmm, well what do narcissists look like?" me: "well tlp told me that narcissists are people who look like XYZ and ABC" me: "great, so then I won't do XYZ and ABC because then I'd be a narcissist"
do you see what happened? asking the question "am I a narcissist?" pushes me deeper into image. It pushes me deeper into the process of outsourcing my decision making and value system to a lossy compression of a concept that someone else gave me
it trains the muscle of "looking at the rubric" instead of the muscle of "looking at my actions and their consequences" if I want to make myself a better person i need to understand how my actions reverb through the world. that is where my attention needs to go, not to a rubric
k, let's port all of this back into toxic masculinity i'm hanging out with the boys, we're having fun, and across the course of the evening i lean a little too much into making fun of and shitting on my one friend who hasn't quite been able to keep up
later that evening I'm feeling a little bit off about it, but can't quite put my finger on it. different things happen if I ask myself "was I being toxically masculine?" vs "did I hurt my friend? Did I hurt our relationship? What are the repercussions of how I acted?"
the first leads me to recall everything i've read or heard people say about toxic masculinity. "7 signs you're toxic", "8 aspects of toxic masculinity" as I run through those in my head, i hold them up to my actions. I squint and see if they seem to match up
the second frame leads me to thing about how my friend feels. how I might feel if i was treated that way? if i get a "huh, he probably felt like shit" then the fact that i casually did something that hurt my friend might prompt introspection at why i did it
tying it back full circle to concepts that are good for coordination vs good for individual change a meme like "toxic masculinity" is useful as a handle for a pattern. it might help start conversations. it might even help you begin to notice ways you mistreat people
at the same time, any meme that's broadly useful in the sense can't give more than a mediocre assist in self growth. the place it leads you can help as a first step, maybe the first 7, but steps 8 through infinity involve turning away from the rubric https://t.co/dPNabaLUkF
the first leads me to recall everything i've read or heard people say about toxic masculinity. "7 signs you're toxic", "8 aspects of toxic masculinity" as I run through those in my head, i hold them up to my actions. I squint and see if they seem to match up
when you dive into the weeds of personal growth, "does X label apply?" only serves as a distraction i think Dr. K get's that. he get's that 90% of the game seeing with clarity the effects of your actions, and that labels and rubrics are antithetical do growing that clarity
i have minor quibbles with it as social tech, mostly related to @everytstudies's "cat coupling" idea, but this quibble is less important to me than the one about how to use the concept in your own life https://t.co/32RmxMgICy