Indivisible
Boys, Men and People - Companion to Bro Show (but, like, really leaning into talking about fascism)
Aha! I found the book that I reference in yesterday’s episode “Bro Show” where I examine the arc of my own attitudes and experiences of boys and men throughout my life and how they have changed over time which I attribute to a combination of both a cultural shift in attitudes and my own personal evolution and life stage; Biologically, I literally do not need a man to procreate anymore because I’ve had my children and am doing just fine raising them on my own. I don’t need a man to attain a new stage of life. I am not at the mercy of men to attain certain goals or fulfill a romantic image I once had. As a result, I want different things of love which takes the pressure off. I can view men and my love for any particular man more objectively without need and emptiness getting in the way. At the same time, I feel a certain sadness to having lost the romanticization of men that I held dear in the earlier parts of my life. There is sadness in freedom.
If you are driven by fear or lack, how can you truly have an empowered connection?
I suspect my objectivity toward all men would shatter if I were to fall in love again. I do feel I still have the capacity to fall in love but it is muted and relegated to the background. The negative aspect of this is numbness. There is a vitality and magic to being in love but in my experience, the pain and loss of mental freedom is greater than the benefit. I’m still open to being proven wrong. Just less open. There is strength in freedom.
Freedom and Relationship: Coming Together
In the episode, I also examine men that have succumb to right wing rhetoric, feeling alienated and overwhelmed by their loss of centrality and prestige just by the mere fact of being born male (and white, most specifically). Also because of the disappearance of economic opportunity due to the consolidation of economic power in the very few and outsourcing to A.I.
I empathize with the need to belong. I need to belong, as independent as I am! I don’t think we have done the right thing in leaning so hard into alienating and overly complex jargon and scolding. It has clearly pushed men further to the right. If we are claiming it is not a zero sum game, we sure are acting like it. A friend of mine remarked a few years ago that it was time for white men to “pass the mic”. Yeah definitely, but look what’s happening now. The white men are just louder.
What to do? What to do?
We can wiggle out of this situation if we stop believing the lies that separate us and start engaging with people wholly and not based on external signifiers. It is hard to do, but we must. All people must do this.
Look at the bookmark that was in the book from so long ago! Amazing! I read this on a train into Grand Central from school at Bennington back in 1992. Look what the bookmark says and look where we are. (Look at the Hitler quote at the end too.)
Ca Ca Doo Doo Pee Pee
My little sister used to say “ca ca doo doo pee pee” when she was 3 or 4. A lot. She would repeat it over and over. It made us laugh. Now our president says this every day and people nod along.
For all his stupidity, the President is being lifted up by more intelligent, soulless men using him as a puppet as he uses the power of repetition that ‘immigrants are criminals’, ‘we are involuntary changing the sex of children’, that all government is bad and must be destroyed, and America was great and he is the one to make it great again. By aligning himself with false statements of an imaginary evil and imaginary ‘great’ end and past, he is making himself the salve. He is conjuring old paternalistic myths:
Daddy’s home.
It’s a man’s world.
Let the man handle it.
Father knows best.
and xenophobia:
The enemy is at the gates, and they are strong. We are under attack by spies and saboteurs, by those who want to destroy the revolution. We must root out the enemies of the people, whether they are within or without the country. The people must be vigilant against foreign elements who wish to destroy our great Soviet Union, and we must remove all traitors, no matter where they come from or who they are.
- Josef Stalin, responsible for the deaths of between 10 - 20 million people in Russia from "The Great Purge" to man made famine (tariffs are doing this) to the Gulags.
Father will make America great again.
America is great by the power it has over other countries and anyone who doesn’t fall in line with his bullshit.
Another totalitarian vision is upon us right as we were on the cusp of a more openly diverse multicultural and empowered society, one where we didn’t need hierarchy, hard manual labor, or even to work for money. With the help of technology, buttons were pushed to elevate:
Fear, fear, of a black planet.
Fear, fear of a diverse planet.
Fear, fear of not having absolute power.
Fear, fear of the self.
Fear, fear of the truth.
Fear, fear of change from one population makeup to another.
Of one economic model to another.
Of a shift of power to the many where we don’t have to work in exchange for money if we all collectively choose.
There is enough for all people on this planet.
We are at a very clear fork in the road. Many thought that when Obama got elected we were headed toward a new society that wasn’t ‘tolerant’ (what a word…) but embraced difference, a more evolved society. One that didn’t fear freedom, taken in by the lure of of its escape of getting in line like sheep to but here we are but we forgot to replace the Democratic party with more modern, progressive thinkers and vision. (Sorry Bernie for what they did to you.)
A confluence of manufactured fears fanned by algorithms, intentional confusion, and economic tyranny by an outdated mode of economics: ‘free market’ capitalism which is no longer free, no longer empowers the entrepreneur and small business creative, has taken over like a dark cloud on a sunny day.
Then there’s A.I. and men and women and humanity are at risk of drifting further apart.
I believe in a more human-centered approach without shaming and blaming is the way forward for men and women, white, black, every background, language, country of origin, LGBTQIA, label this, label that, short, fat, tall, etc. Don’t let them continue to divide us or lie to us. Go talk to your neighbor. Have a great day.
-Chauncey
Actual People is available wherever you get your podcasts.