A tempest in a teapot if there ever was one. (Credit Cicero) Marx wasn't the first one to say "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs," but it will always be associated with his name because he popularized it (in his Critique of the Gotha Program) and made people understand the importance of the idea. Locke talked about "life, liberty, and..." and used the phrase "pursuit of happiness" before Jefferson, but Jefferson gained immortality by putting them together and popularizing them. Few people read Locke now, but everyone reads Jefferson. The trick is to make people care--by elaborating, contextualizing, showing connections to other matters of public concern. T.S. Eliot said "immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better." (In A Sacred Wood), and IMHO the same can be said of people who write on Substack.
Great quotes! And that's the perfect phrase for all of this: a tempest in a teapot. I suppose that it is quite a blessing, to be consumed by storms that small, as it means one is currently being spared much larger and more dangerous storms.
I once thought I had invented the phrase "Pure jackassery", but alas, no. Someone had beaten me to it. Pure jackassery, like tonic masculinity, must be an organic phenomenon, popping up everywhere, like mushrooms in the spring. So I get no credit for coining "pure jackassery", but please, call it out whenever you see it.
All the best and most infectious memes are open-source creations by anonymous patient-zeroes! And this even predates the internet. The other day, I saw a "Killroy was here!" drawing in a public latrine, and I thought, the forgotten memory of some anonymous WWII GI lives on! Infantry grunts probably have created more popular cultural memes without receiving credit for it than any other group of people ever. If I had to guess, it was some anonymous 11B sergeant who walked in on a group of privates fucking around in the barracks who coined that term "pure jackassery" while smoking them for whatever they had just done. On a different note, now that our military has gone full woke, the creation of such memes will undoubtedly suffer. And that is a terrible shame and a loss for our entire civilization.
If pure jackassery did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it. The current controversy and actions of Mizz Tereza seem to fit the bill and what I was hinting at.
Its possible that "James J. Kilroy, an inspector at the Fore River Shipyard in Braintree, MA, who supposedly wrote "Kilroy was here" on various parts of ships as they were being built"
<;-}> As the inventor of the term "roadkill on the information highway" (at least it became very popular after I thought of it), I say someone needs to chill and be happy about successfully adding to pop culture vocabulary.
Damn! If all the fame and fortune you've experienced has come from using that phrase, I'm going to try it too! Does that make me a fourth-hand term user?
A fourth-hand term user? Now THAT is living dangerously! Nostradamus prophesied that in the last days fourth-hand term users would appear on the earth. I read that and thought he was surely speaking figuratively. No way could a prophecy that incredible be literally fulfilled, but reading your comment, I am literally shaking. The apocalypse is surely at hand!
A fun read. I followed a link into the rabbit hole. If I am understanding it correctly, Tereza first used the term in her comment on Eisenstein's post on November 27, 2022. You noted that the term was used previously in a 2019 article. I did not know if you knew that someone else went back in time, too, and snagged the URL of tonicmasculinity.com, apparently in January of 2022. (https://tonicmasculinity.com/blog/)
And I had a little snarky thought of my own... perhaps instead of referring to "tonic masculinity", you could call it "tonick masculinity", a double entendre of sorts. On one hand, you 'nicked' the idea from someone. On the other, it is sort of a play on magic vs magick.
With reality being crazier than even the most outlandish satire, it is becoming difficult to do, but reports of its demise are greatly exaggerated. (Let me attribute that phrase to Mark Twain, before his ghost haunts me for being guilty of another count of "third-hand phrase using!")
I know the guy who coined “philosoraptor” and man, if ever there was someone who deserved internet royalty riches it is him. He is, however, quite... philosophical about the whole thing, although it irks him a little when he gets the whole “nice name, real original!” crap from nubkins who don’t know better.
Very funny, Daniel, thanks for the sincere apology and citation ;-) I'm sure it will now bring me fame and fortune on my free substack. One small correction, I'm never irate. I know that emotions can be hard to read in print but if you watch the video, you'll see that there's no heat, no hatred.
Some, who don't want to wade into the comments section, have sent me private messages. This one I got today maybe speaks to your point that it's been used before: "One way that you're being downplayed is the claim someone made that the term existed before you wrote about it in response to Charles Eisenstein. It wouldn't surprise me if others had come up with the same phrase -- it's a big world out there. But it's clear from the discussion that it's your use of the phrase that engendered the recent discussions, not the supposed invention of it prior to yours."
Thanks for being a good sport. And I acknowledge you as the one who inspired Jay Rollins to write about the theme, and that he was the one who inspired us to write about it. And had I known at the time I wrote my initial piece, I would certainly have credited you with that.
On a different note, I was wondering about your remarks about Aly Drummond, whom you characterized as a "pick-me girl" that curries favor with men by "throwing other women under the bus." That was a curious choice of words. After watching a few of her videos, I get the sense that she's wanting other women to do well in life and thrive in their relationships with their husbands and children. Perhaps, to borrow your phrase again, one might call her project "tonic femininity." And looking back at what you wrote about her, I got the sense that you were treating her as if she's a competitor who needs to be taken down a peg in the pecking order. Am I reading this dynamic correctly? And if so, is that a tonic response on your part?
I actually disagree with the term tonic masculinity altogether because it's based on the premise of toxic masculinity, so it's interesting to watch all the fuss. Toxic masculinity is any form of masculinity that doesn't serve women to their perfect liking. If a man saves children from a burning bus, then thank God! But, if a man asks his girlfriend not to go to a bar with girlfriends, then he's oppressing her. Isn't mate-guarding normal, romantic, and masculine? Or did I misunderstand the literature on pair-bonding for men that shows men in long-term relationships have a romantic preference for their woman? (I don't think I did!)
Anyway, I hosted you gentlemen despite this because I knew it was an alternative paradigm that my male audience could benefit from. My audience even pointed out that tonic is a response to toxic and are wary of it, but I did tell them essentially, "Hey, it's a different POV and you might like these guys regardless." And they did!
As for the term pick-me girl, it is now defunct. Calling her use of it "choice words" is putting it nicely. It is feminine mudslinging to call another woman a "pick me" as it isn't used with its original definition anymore. Basically, any woman who appeals to men either sexually or through a supportive role is considered a pick me girl. And typically, I am hearing this from a woman who is not "male-identified," AKA "skip mes."
I don't curry favor with men by throwing women under the bus. Women have shunned me for most of my life for being outside of personality normatives and (possibly) intelligence. I am a disagreeable woman compared to other women, but not in comparison to men. I have been this way since I was a girl and promptly had my femininity stomped out by many older women and continue to, to this day. (https://youtube.com/live/9ssjDzQIscc)
Today, I actually get along fabulously with other disagreeable free-thinking women who don't look to appeal to the sisterhood first, but rather place themselves and their comprehensive life-paths as primary motivating factors. People go where they are welcomed. I just now, in the past two years, have really come to grow a feminine network online and in real life. It just took some time to find likeminded women.
Your voice is sorely needed in our culture right now, Aly. And since our culture is certifiably insane (and would be labeled as such if that insanity hadn't already infected and completely corrupted the mental-health institutions), being disagreeable is a must -- it is definitely not a virtue to agree with insane and harmful delusions, especially when so many powerful and influential people are trying to force those delusions onto the entire culture, including its children! It's never easy to swim against the current, but you are getting it done and showing others how they can do it too. I'm encouraged by your success proclaiming a message that would have been standard fare in healthier times and cultures, and hope you enjoy even greater success and influence in the future!
It is interesting you don’t like the term much at all. I agree that the use of toxic masculinity is largely just to say “bad man”, but I think it is worth bearing in mind that each gender’s traits have tendencies towards the bad as well as towards the good. Saying competition is toxic masculinity is insane, for instance, but I do think there are times it goes too far. Again with the Aristotelian mean idea of the virtue being in the middle of two vices.
That said, I would be quite pleased to see a solid basis of virtues being developed such that people could recognize good vs bad behavior and just drop overstretched phrases like toxic masculinity forever. I think we are just at the beginning of that project, unfortunately.
Hi, Aly. I'm glad to have a chance to tell you directly that I enjoyed From Feminism to Freedom, about your formative journey. With three daughters and all their friends who think of me in a mom role, I've seen a lot of what you've struggled with. FWIW, feminists in third world countries say that neo-liberal feminism has ruined the concept, looking at the 'glass ceiling' rather than the hearth.
I apologize for applying the term 'pick-me girl' to you. It isn't accurate, especially with you being married and pregnant!
I think your point is good that tonic masculinity is based on the premise that toxic masculinity is a real thing, something that you and the guys disagree with. And your audience also rejects that notion. So that group of guys appearing on your show with your audience is a good fit. The term 'Tonic' however, makes no sense for them because they reject that the inverse exists. The play on words is meaningless if there's no toxic masculinity, as they see it.
Personally, I think that wokism, neoliberal feminism and the culture wars all have the purpose to divide and dominate us, aka what I'd define as toxic masculinity. My focus, in my book, is an alternative feminine economy that puts children at the center as the purpose of our labor. I think that competitive maleness is manipulated to serve the hierarchy, as soldiers or in jobs that make the rich richer. Somewhere I think there's an alternative masculinity that would be working with mothers to bring a childcentric economy about.
But I certainly don't fault anyone for making practical decisions about their own life-paths in the meantime. Thanks for clarifying your own hesitation with tonic masculinity, and why it doesn't seem like a unifying and intuitive term for the POV these men are putting forward.
Hmmm... I would say that Charles Eisenstein inspired me to encapsulate his ideas in my definition and phrase. I'm not sure I'd call what Jay took from me inspiration, but I appreciate your statement that you'd have given me credit and don't want to quibble.
The pick-me girl or nlog (not-like-other-girls) is an internet meme. My daughters have shown me several videos when this topic came up. From how it's defined, the common characteristic is being a guy's girl who emphasizes her difference at the expense of other women. I only watched the interview and Aly's initial manifesto, but here are the ways I'd say she fits it: 1) states that she has a nearly all-male audience and that will probably always be the case 2) her manifesto is 'From Feminism to Freedom', so is expressly against feminism, 3) talks about a gynocentric social order, 4) says all her problems were caused by women, 4) states that she had male mentors because she's attractive, 5) wants to serve her husband, 6) says that women yell at her when she quotes statistics.
I think that Aly's business model is coaching other women. At least that's what I got from what I saw. I didn't hear her talk about any women that she looked up to, only to blame them and say that the only good advice she got was from men.
As I said to Jerome in the other thread, tonic femininity's not a thing. The phrase tonic masculinity only makes sense because of its opposition to toxic masculinity. Competition is a characteristic of toxic masculinity.
As I said in my video, I like Aly. She thinks for herself and she's authentic. She's also a year older than my youngest daughter, who's also an original thinker. In my imagination, I'd love to see the two of them have a conversation, I think it would be very interesting. I wish Aly well in her pregnancy and marriage. She's at the beginning of a journey I started 30 years ago with my oldest. I'm very happy with where I am in my life and don't envy her. I do think she's going to be an excellent mom because she's tough. But you're welcome to believe what you want.
Oh, I already had it in there. Because I record video, it takes me awhile to get all the pieces together. And I posted this in reply, did it not go to you?:
Thanks for your generosity in reposting my comment, Jay. I think it's for readers to decide whether your dismissal was 'entirely appropriate' and 'entirely polite.' Without knowing what you were responding to, that's more difficult.
I wouldn't say that I 'forgot the content of said grievance' unless you think what I actually wrote is substantively different than what I summarized in my post. I had spent a considerable amount of time thinking about how to word it to give the best chance of not offending. And I'm still glad I did spend that time because then I knew you (and likely the others) were going to take offense no matter how I worded it, so I might as well be direct.
When you wrote "stealing that" and I gave you my blessing, you didn't specify that you were only stealing the last two words devoid of the meaning I'd given them. Had you stolen and expanded on my concept, I would have been delighted even if you'd never mentioned me again.
Ideas only increase by someone taking them, it's like taking a branch from a tree and grafting it onto your own root stock, your way of thinking. What you did was say, hey, that looks like a tree with some vigor, and pulled it up by the roots then grafted your own ideas onto it. It destroyed the idea and used the stock phrase to promote an entirely different, and I think opposite, idea.
I'm absolutely not trying to define healthy masculinity, or proper masculinity as Doc phrases it. Those are entirely things I leave up to you, the way I think that feminine intelligence shouldn't be defined by a man. But the word tonic only works because it's the inverse of toxic. And I don't think you or your group recognizes what's toxic.
For instance, you speak in declarative sentences, telling me what I've done and why I did it as if that's just a fact. You declare your own actions blameless--just a fact. You give me orders like 'don't cast aspersions...' so that your ethics are off-limits for me to question. You tell me what this is about, call me bonkers, imply that my 'belated recognition' of the popularity of my term is about monetizing it.
And it's clear to me that you have no idea how offensive your statements are. It's an entirely unconscious reflex. You don't see how you're being dominating, competitive, arrogant, and even violent. You don't recognize when you're making threats and if I perceive them that way, you tell me not to do it again and that I'm 'cheapening the project I claim to care about.' You've made tonic into a fig leaf for toxicity.
I watched the video, and it seems like she mashed a few different themes together that should have been discussed separately: (1) the philosophical problem of evil, (2) forgiving Hitler, (3) the role of propaganda in shaping our understanding of the world and of history, (4) whether the Holocaust was really as bad as everyone says, and (5) whether the Allies' self-reported motives for fighting the Axis Powers were accurate.
The problem of evil and the effects of propaganda on our understanding of the world are both legitimate topics for discussion.
The historical accuracy of America's and Britain's self-reported motives for fighting the Axis is also a legitimate topic for discussion, but only if the discussion is had in good faith. Most of the time, it's not. Leaving aside the Germans for a moment, the Japanese were absolutely brutal, not only to American POWs, but also to the civilians in China, the Philippines, etc. Any discussion that criticizes America's actions in the War (and leading up to the War) without also acknowledging that the Japanese committed numerous war crimes, is not a discussion worth having. Most of the time, when leftists (almost always it's a leftist) want to condemn America for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the context of how the Japanese had conducted themselves throughout the war is completely missing from the conversation, and when you try to bring that up, you quickly find that historical accuracy is not what the leftist interlocutor is aiming for.
Forgiving Hitler? Absolutely not my job to do. I would defer to actual survivors of the camps, those who experienced the inhumane violence and degradation first hand, lost most of their family, and had to rebuild their lives afterwards while processing their own traumatic experieces for decades afterwards (as well as the nightmare of realizing how their deceased loved ones probably spent their final days and hours). As for whether the Holocaust was as bad as everyone says, again, I would defer to those who were there and have shared their experiences, and I've not heard any of them minimize the horrors and brutality of it.
Circling back to the problem of evil and coming to terms with suffering, Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning is essential reading. He was a survivor AND a psychotherapist AND a philosopher AND (as far as I can tell) a religious Jew, so he synthesizes a number of divergent perspectives and life experiences into an amazing and powerful whole. Definitely his is one of the best books I have ever read, and some of his sayings are absolutely a Godsend to have in your psychological toolkit when trouble comes your way.
Two of my uncles either served, or were going to serve in the Pacific theater during WW2. One was struck by lightning during drills (he was the radioman of the unit) and went to the hospital. He was patched up and was going to be sent out with the rest of the unit when WW2 ended.
Let me repeat that: the US military was willing to send out a recovering lightning strike survivor, up until the war ended. What I understand from this, is that the war situation was getting to be quite desperate. That sadly puts Hiroshima/Nagasaki into a different, but still necessary perspective.
There's nothing wrong with teaching history from many points of view, as long as the context behind the views is taught. Revisionism without understanding is just plain stupid.
Amen. WWII was the last time we absolutely, positively had to win a war, and fortunately we had leadership willing to give the troops the tools they needed to win, rather than tie their hands with a bunch of petty political considerations. (Another reason to avoid unnecessary wars at all costs.) Facing an existential threat clarifies things in a way that never happens in a university classroom or on a corporate media studio. And few things aggravate me more than hearing academics or media pundits second-guessing the decision to drop the bombs. For those who had skin in the game (i.e., those who, like my own grandfather, would have been part of any invasion of the Japanese mainland), precisely none of them had any problem at all with Truman's decision, because they understood the opportunity cost of not doing so would have been even worse.
This cracked me up! Well done word thief !
Thanks! Glad you liked it!
A tempest in a teapot if there ever was one. (Credit Cicero) Marx wasn't the first one to say "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs," but it will always be associated with his name because he popularized it (in his Critique of the Gotha Program) and made people understand the importance of the idea. Locke talked about "life, liberty, and..." and used the phrase "pursuit of happiness" before Jefferson, but Jefferson gained immortality by putting them together and popularizing them. Few people read Locke now, but everyone reads Jefferson. The trick is to make people care--by elaborating, contextualizing, showing connections to other matters of public concern. T.S. Eliot said "immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better." (In A Sacred Wood), and IMHO the same can be said of people who write on Substack.
Great quotes! And that's the perfect phrase for all of this: a tempest in a teapot. I suppose that it is quite a blessing, to be consumed by storms that small, as it means one is currently being spared much larger and more dangerous storms.
I once thought I had invented the phrase "Pure jackassery", but alas, no. Someone had beaten me to it. Pure jackassery, like tonic masculinity, must be an organic phenomenon, popping up everywhere, like mushrooms in the spring. So I get no credit for coining "pure jackassery", but please, call it out whenever you see it.
All the best and most infectious memes are open-source creations by anonymous patient-zeroes! And this even predates the internet. The other day, I saw a "Killroy was here!" drawing in a public latrine, and I thought, the forgotten memory of some anonymous WWII GI lives on! Infantry grunts probably have created more popular cultural memes without receiving credit for it than any other group of people ever. If I had to guess, it was some anonymous 11B sergeant who walked in on a group of privates fucking around in the barracks who coined that term "pure jackassery" while smoking them for whatever they had just done. On a different note, now that our military has gone full woke, the creation of such memes will undoubtedly suffer. And that is a terrible shame and a loss for our entire civilization.
If pure jackassery did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it. The current controversy and actions of Mizz Tereza seem to fit the bill and what I was hinting at.
Its possible that "James J. Kilroy, an inspector at the Fore River Shipyard in Braintree, MA, who supposedly wrote "Kilroy was here" on various parts of ships as they were being built"
https://www.thoughtco.com/killroy-was-here-4152093
<;-}> As the inventor of the term "roadkill on the information highway" (at least it became very popular after I thought of it), I say someone needs to chill and be happy about successfully adding to pop culture vocabulary.
Keep on truckin'! </;-}>
Great phrase!
Damn! If all the fame and fortune you've experienced has come from using that phrase, I'm going to try it too! Does that make me a fourth-hand term user?
A fourth-hand term user? Now THAT is living dangerously! Nostradamus prophesied that in the last days fourth-hand term users would appear on the earth. I read that and thought he was surely speaking figuratively. No way could a prophecy that incredible be literally fulfilled, but reading your comment, I am literally shaking. The apocalypse is surely at hand!
Made me laugh out loud.
A fun read. I followed a link into the rabbit hole. If I am understanding it correctly, Tereza first used the term in her comment on Eisenstein's post on November 27, 2022. You noted that the term was used previously in a 2019 article. I did not know if you knew that someone else went back in time, too, and snagged the URL of tonicmasculinity.com, apparently in January of 2022. (https://tonicmasculinity.com/blog/)
And I had a little snarky thought of my own... perhaps instead of referring to "tonic masculinity", you could call it "tonick masculinity", a double entendre of sorts. On one hand, you 'nicked' the idea from someone. On the other, it is sort of a play on magic vs magick.
So a time traveler stole her phrase AND her URL? Oh, the horror!
Oh so much for selling the tee-shirts! There goes that business plan to make millions ;-)
You know satire is dead, right?
With reality being crazier than even the most outlandish satire, it is becoming difficult to do, but reports of its demise are greatly exaggerated. (Let me attribute that phrase to Mark Twain, before his ghost haunts me for being guilty of another count of "third-hand phrase using!")
💀
Gawd! I wish I could snark like that.
Oh, I have gotten myself into a lot of unnecessary trouble developing that skill!
"GASP!"
I know the guy who coined “philosoraptor” and man, if ever there was someone who deserved internet royalty riches it is him. He is, however, quite... philosophical about the whole thing, although it irks him a little when he gets the whole “nice name, real original!” crap from nubkins who don’t know better.
Wow, 1st result with brave search gives
Vhttps://fcpp.org/2019/05/06/tonic-masculinity/
ToNic Masculinity
Commentary, Culture Wars, Philip Carl Salzman
Crafty time travelers!
That was highly enjoyable. Very good. Kudos!
Very funny, Daniel, thanks for the sincere apology and citation ;-) I'm sure it will now bring me fame and fortune on my free substack. One small correction, I'm never irate. I know that emotions can be hard to read in print but if you watch the video, you'll see that there's no heat, no hatred.
Some, who don't want to wade into the comments section, have sent me private messages. This one I got today maybe speaks to your point that it's been used before: "One way that you're being downplayed is the claim someone made that the term existed before you wrote about it in response to Charles Eisenstein. It wouldn't surprise me if others had come up with the same phrase -- it's a big world out there. But it's clear from the discussion that it's your use of the phrase that engendered the recent discussions, not the supposed invention of it prior to yours."
Thanks for being a good sport. And I acknowledge you as the one who inspired Jay Rollins to write about the theme, and that he was the one who inspired us to write about it. And had I known at the time I wrote my initial piece, I would certainly have credited you with that.
On a different note, I was wondering about your remarks about Aly Drummond, whom you characterized as a "pick-me girl" that curries favor with men by "throwing other women under the bus." That was a curious choice of words. After watching a few of her videos, I get the sense that she's wanting other women to do well in life and thrive in their relationships with their husbands and children. Perhaps, to borrow your phrase again, one might call her project "tonic femininity." And looking back at what you wrote about her, I got the sense that you were treating her as if she's a competitor who needs to be taken down a peg in the pecking order. Am I reading this dynamic correctly? And if so, is that a tonic response on your part?
I actually disagree with the term tonic masculinity altogether because it's based on the premise of toxic masculinity, so it's interesting to watch all the fuss. Toxic masculinity is any form of masculinity that doesn't serve women to their perfect liking. If a man saves children from a burning bus, then thank God! But, if a man asks his girlfriend not to go to a bar with girlfriends, then he's oppressing her. Isn't mate-guarding normal, romantic, and masculine? Or did I misunderstand the literature on pair-bonding for men that shows men in long-term relationships have a romantic preference for their woman? (I don't think I did!)
Anyway, I hosted you gentlemen despite this because I knew it was an alternative paradigm that my male audience could benefit from. My audience even pointed out that tonic is a response to toxic and are wary of it, but I did tell them essentially, "Hey, it's a different POV and you might like these guys regardless." And they did!
As for the term pick-me girl, it is now defunct. Calling her use of it "choice words" is putting it nicely. It is feminine mudslinging to call another woman a "pick me" as it isn't used with its original definition anymore. Basically, any woman who appeals to men either sexually or through a supportive role is considered a pick me girl. And typically, I am hearing this from a woman who is not "male-identified," AKA "skip mes."
I don't curry favor with men by throwing women under the bus. Women have shunned me for most of my life for being outside of personality normatives and (possibly) intelligence. I am a disagreeable woman compared to other women, but not in comparison to men. I have been this way since I was a girl and promptly had my femininity stomped out by many older women and continue to, to this day. (https://youtube.com/live/9ssjDzQIscc)
Today, I actually get along fabulously with other disagreeable free-thinking women who don't look to appeal to the sisterhood first, but rather place themselves and their comprehensive life-paths as primary motivating factors. People go where they are welcomed. I just now, in the past two years, have really come to grow a feminine network online and in real life. It just took some time to find likeminded women.
Your voice is sorely needed in our culture right now, Aly. And since our culture is certifiably insane (and would be labeled as such if that insanity hadn't already infected and completely corrupted the mental-health institutions), being disagreeable is a must -- it is definitely not a virtue to agree with insane and harmful delusions, especially when so many powerful and influential people are trying to force those delusions onto the entire culture, including its children! It's never easy to swim against the current, but you are getting it done and showing others how they can do it too. I'm encouraged by your success proclaiming a message that would have been standard fare in healthier times and cultures, and hope you enjoy even greater success and influence in the future!
And P.S., Aly, I can see a #1 bestselling book with your name on it in the future.
It is interesting you don’t like the term much at all. I agree that the use of toxic masculinity is largely just to say “bad man”, but I think it is worth bearing in mind that each gender’s traits have tendencies towards the bad as well as towards the good. Saying competition is toxic masculinity is insane, for instance, but I do think there are times it goes too far. Again with the Aristotelian mean idea of the virtue being in the middle of two vices.
That said, I would be quite pleased to see a solid basis of virtues being developed such that people could recognize good vs bad behavior and just drop overstretched phrases like toxic masculinity forever. I think we are just at the beginning of that project, unfortunately.
Hi, Aly. I'm glad to have a chance to tell you directly that I enjoyed From Feminism to Freedom, about your formative journey. With three daughters and all their friends who think of me in a mom role, I've seen a lot of what you've struggled with. FWIW, feminists in third world countries say that neo-liberal feminism has ruined the concept, looking at the 'glass ceiling' rather than the hearth.
I apologize for applying the term 'pick-me girl' to you. It isn't accurate, especially with you being married and pregnant!
I think your point is good that tonic masculinity is based on the premise that toxic masculinity is a real thing, something that you and the guys disagree with. And your audience also rejects that notion. So that group of guys appearing on your show with your audience is a good fit. The term 'Tonic' however, makes no sense for them because they reject that the inverse exists. The play on words is meaningless if there's no toxic masculinity, as they see it.
Personally, I think that wokism, neoliberal feminism and the culture wars all have the purpose to divide and dominate us, aka what I'd define as toxic masculinity. My focus, in my book, is an alternative feminine economy that puts children at the center as the purpose of our labor. I think that competitive maleness is manipulated to serve the hierarchy, as soldiers or in jobs that make the rich richer. Somewhere I think there's an alternative masculinity that would be working with mothers to bring a childcentric economy about.
But I certainly don't fault anyone for making practical decisions about their own life-paths in the meantime. Thanks for clarifying your own hesitation with tonic masculinity, and why it doesn't seem like a unifying and intuitive term for the POV these men are putting forward.
Hmmm... I would say that Charles Eisenstein inspired me to encapsulate his ideas in my definition and phrase. I'm not sure I'd call what Jay took from me inspiration, but I appreciate your statement that you'd have given me credit and don't want to quibble.
The pick-me girl or nlog (not-like-other-girls) is an internet meme. My daughters have shown me several videos when this topic came up. From how it's defined, the common characteristic is being a guy's girl who emphasizes her difference at the expense of other women. I only watched the interview and Aly's initial manifesto, but here are the ways I'd say she fits it: 1) states that she has a nearly all-male audience and that will probably always be the case 2) her manifesto is 'From Feminism to Freedom', so is expressly against feminism, 3) talks about a gynocentric social order, 4) says all her problems were caused by women, 4) states that she had male mentors because she's attractive, 5) wants to serve her husband, 6) says that women yell at her when she quotes statistics.
I think that Aly's business model is coaching other women. At least that's what I got from what I saw. I didn't hear her talk about any women that she looked up to, only to blame them and say that the only good advice she got was from men.
As I said to Jerome in the other thread, tonic femininity's not a thing. The phrase tonic masculinity only makes sense because of its opposition to toxic masculinity. Competition is a characteristic of toxic masculinity.
As I said in my video, I like Aly. She thinks for herself and she's authentic. She's also a year older than my youngest daughter, who's also an original thinker. In my imagination, I'd love to see the two of them have a conversation, I think it would be very interesting. I wish Aly well in her pregnancy and marriage. She's at the beginning of a journey I started 30 years ago with my oldest. I'm very happy with where I am in my life and don't envy her. I do think she's going to be an excellent mom because she's tough. But you're welcome to believe what you want.
Thanks, Jay, I was looking for a quote to lead off my next article. This is perfect.
Oh, I already had it in there. Because I record video, it takes me awhile to get all the pieces together. And I posted this in reply, did it not go to you?:
Thanks for your generosity in reposting my comment, Jay. I think it's for readers to decide whether your dismissal was 'entirely appropriate' and 'entirely polite.' Without knowing what you were responding to, that's more difficult.
I wouldn't say that I 'forgot the content of said grievance' unless you think what I actually wrote is substantively different than what I summarized in my post. I had spent a considerable amount of time thinking about how to word it to give the best chance of not offending. And I'm still glad I did spend that time because then I knew you (and likely the others) were going to take offense no matter how I worded it, so I might as well be direct.
When you wrote "stealing that" and I gave you my blessing, you didn't specify that you were only stealing the last two words devoid of the meaning I'd given them. Had you stolen and expanded on my concept, I would have been delighted even if you'd never mentioned me again.
Ideas only increase by someone taking them, it's like taking a branch from a tree and grafting it onto your own root stock, your way of thinking. What you did was say, hey, that looks like a tree with some vigor, and pulled it up by the roots then grafted your own ideas onto it. It destroyed the idea and used the stock phrase to promote an entirely different, and I think opposite, idea.
I'm absolutely not trying to define healthy masculinity, or proper masculinity as Doc phrases it. Those are entirely things I leave up to you, the way I think that feminine intelligence shouldn't be defined by a man. But the word tonic only works because it's the inverse of toxic. And I don't think you or your group recognizes what's toxic.
For instance, you speak in declarative sentences, telling me what I've done and why I did it as if that's just a fact. You declare your own actions blameless--just a fact. You give me orders like 'don't cast aspersions...' so that your ethics are off-limits for me to question. You tell me what this is about, call me bonkers, imply that my 'belated recognition' of the popularity of my term is about monetizing it.
And it's clear to me that you have no idea how offensive your statements are. It's an entirely unconscious reflex. You don't see how you're being dominating, competitive, arrogant, and even violent. You don't recognize when you're making threats and if I perceive them that way, you tell me not to do it again and that I'm 'cheapening the project I claim to care about.' You've made tonic into a fig leaf for toxicity.
I watched the video, and it seems like she mashed a few different themes together that should have been discussed separately: (1) the philosophical problem of evil, (2) forgiving Hitler, (3) the role of propaganda in shaping our understanding of the world and of history, (4) whether the Holocaust was really as bad as everyone says, and (5) whether the Allies' self-reported motives for fighting the Axis Powers were accurate.
The problem of evil and the effects of propaganda on our understanding of the world are both legitimate topics for discussion.
The historical accuracy of America's and Britain's self-reported motives for fighting the Axis is also a legitimate topic for discussion, but only if the discussion is had in good faith. Most of the time, it's not. Leaving aside the Germans for a moment, the Japanese were absolutely brutal, not only to American POWs, but also to the civilians in China, the Philippines, etc. Any discussion that criticizes America's actions in the War (and leading up to the War) without also acknowledging that the Japanese committed numerous war crimes, is not a discussion worth having. Most of the time, when leftists (almost always it's a leftist) want to condemn America for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the context of how the Japanese had conducted themselves throughout the war is completely missing from the conversation, and when you try to bring that up, you quickly find that historical accuracy is not what the leftist interlocutor is aiming for.
Forgiving Hitler? Absolutely not my job to do. I would defer to actual survivors of the camps, those who experienced the inhumane violence and degradation first hand, lost most of their family, and had to rebuild their lives afterwards while processing their own traumatic experieces for decades afterwards (as well as the nightmare of realizing how their deceased loved ones probably spent their final days and hours). As for whether the Holocaust was as bad as everyone says, again, I would defer to those who were there and have shared their experiences, and I've not heard any of them minimize the horrors and brutality of it.
Circling back to the problem of evil and coming to terms with suffering, Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning is essential reading. He was a survivor AND a psychotherapist AND a philosopher AND (as far as I can tell) a religious Jew, so he synthesizes a number of divergent perspectives and life experiences into an amazing and powerful whole. Definitely his is one of the best books I have ever read, and some of his sayings are absolutely a Godsend to have in your psychological toolkit when trouble comes your way.
Two of my uncles either served, or were going to serve in the Pacific theater during WW2. One was struck by lightning during drills (he was the radioman of the unit) and went to the hospital. He was patched up and was going to be sent out with the rest of the unit when WW2 ended.
Let me repeat that: the US military was willing to send out a recovering lightning strike survivor, up until the war ended. What I understand from this, is that the war situation was getting to be quite desperate. That sadly puts Hiroshima/Nagasaki into a different, but still necessary perspective.
There's nothing wrong with teaching history from many points of view, as long as the context behind the views is taught. Revisionism without understanding is just plain stupid.
Amen. WWII was the last time we absolutely, positively had to win a war, and fortunately we had leadership willing to give the troops the tools they needed to win, rather than tie their hands with a bunch of petty political considerations. (Another reason to avoid unnecessary wars at all costs.) Facing an existential threat clarifies things in a way that never happens in a university classroom or on a corporate media studio. And few things aggravate me more than hearing academics or media pundits second-guessing the decision to drop the bombs. For those who had skin in the game (i.e., those who, like my own grandfather, would have been part of any invasion of the Japanese mainland), precisely none of them had any problem at all with Truman's decision, because they understood the opportunity cost of not doing so would have been even worse.