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Episode 811: The meaning crisis with Dr. Aaron (Patreon)

Published:
2024-12-15 01:29:33
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2026-06
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Content

Tom is off this week and I am joined by Aaron Rabinowitz Ph.D. to talk about his latest article in the Skeptic UK: https://www.skeptic.org.uk/2024/11/the-meaning-crisis-and-how-we-rescue-young-men-from-reactionary-politics/

Also check out

https://creatoraccountabilitynetwork.org/

And follow Aaron on Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/etvpod.bsky.social

 

Comments

Asymetra

The Behind the Bastards podcast has a couple of great episodes on the history of the manosphere. The problem starts back in the 1800s when men started realizing boys were being raised by women; men were off in the factories working all day*, meanwhile, women were raising boys at home and educating them at school. Plus women started riding bikes, which gave them a greater measure of independence (Men: "Oh no!"). They were no longer bound to the house and started wearing pants because the penny farthing bikes (1 giant wheel) weren't designed like today's bicycles (girl's bikes are designed for dresses). On another podcast on parenting, the guest developed a test of 4 either/or questions on parenting styles. Picking the authoritarian style answer for each question reliably predicted a 7% increase (28% in total) in the likelihood of voting for tRump. People vote on belief not policy. Anxiety is (generally) an ungrounded fear looking for a place to latch onto (say suddenly developing a fear of elevators for no apparent reason). When men are being told they're losing power, they believe it and develop a fear that has no grounding in reality, so when immigrants are blamed, they latch onto the story (we are creatures of story, after all). When they're struggling to make ends meet, they don't see lagging wages as the problem**. So, when they're told the economy is shit, they blame the President (who doesn't control the economy), not corporation focusing on shareholder value over employee wages and job security (another source of anxiety that latches onto a good enough story to blame, like indulgence spending on lattes*** b/c blaming people for being undisciplined is a fine authoritarian narrative too many people like to swallow). * Thanks to the Industrial Revolution destroying family life. Turns out the Luddites were on to something. They wanted the wealthy and the gov't to help society transition to the new way of life. Instead, when both ignored them and they lost that culture war, they were labelled as dolts fearing change. B/c, we all like a good story about how dumb people are over facts. Fathers went off to the factories to work, kids moved across the country to work (and die) in factories while being generously educated by their employers. ** Did you know that the rising cost of houses is not calculated in inflation? 30 years ago, houses cost 3x median income, today it's 6-10 times, subsequently a significantly larger portion of income goes toward housing cost (rent/mortgage). This gap gets blamed on immigrants/women/millennials/small penises, not wage stagnation. *** A millennial would have to drink 3.5 lattes a day from birth to age 60 in order to spend as much as a house would cost. (Median house price: $420K / median latte cost: $5.46 = ~77K lattes, divide that by 21,900 days (365*60) = 3.5 lattes/day). Remember, house prices climb faster than lattes. **** **** Damn! That's a lot of footnotes. Did you make it this far?

Asymetra

I think part of the problem with men and the patriarchy is the language and concepts we use when we talk about the problem. When we say white men have more power, that's accurate while also not being entirely true. Power comes from leveraging advantage. White men certainly to have more advantage (our society is built around this), but that doesn't always translate into power. If you imagine power working like compound interest, advantage can be leveraged to gain power, which leverages more advantage, which leverages more power, and so on. If you overlay an inverse curve on the compound interest curve, that's the number of people who have that much money (and hence, power). The amount of power held by the greatest number of white men (the left side of the scale), while definitely more than women and minorities, isn't all that much. Meanwhile, on the right-side of the scale, are the wealthy with the greatest amount of power, and the highest amount of whiteness. Money and power trickle down* to women and minorities through purchasing Supreme Court Justices ("Did you hear? There's a Clarence sale on Supreme Court Justices!"). * Trickle down: they're telling us they're pissing on us.

Appropriately Inapropriate

Thank you Cecil for pushing back a bit on the man v bear discussion. In my opinion the point is being missed on every conversation I've heard about it (it may be coincidence that it's almost always men who I am hearing from). I see the question as, would a woman be more frightened to encounter a bear in the woods or a man. Unless the man is known to me I would 100% be more frightened to encounter a man while in the woods alone. Most bears would rather avoid a person, I don't feel that most men would rather avoid a woman. I know many would, but odds are greater that I'll be bothered by a man while alone in the woods than a bear.

Kelly Slate

One woman or girl is killed every 10 minutes by her male family member. One in three women has been the victim of SA. Miss me with Aaron’s #NotAllMen nonsense. In the 1800s when people of color could be hurt or killed by white folks, would it have been unreasonable to fear all white folks? Or would that have been stereotyping?

Ian (no, not that one)

I'm highly offended at Aaron saying everyone in the 40k universe are bad guys. The Tyranids just want lunch.

Lisa Bees

A bear being able to run 30 miles a hour is a reason for Aaron to be afraid of them, not me. A man just has to run faster than me and they don’t give a shit about bear bells.

Katy Stuck

I always love your episodes about masculinity. I am a woman who has always been in majority male spaces. I was raised with four brothers by my dad, I’m currently living with three men, and men make up the majority of my social and work circles. I’m really concerned about the men in my life, whose well-being I care about deeply. They aren’t doing well and I see them struggling with all the things you discuss, and for some, that has them exploring the ideas of the people that *will* talk to them and take their fears and frustrations seriously - the manosphere influencers. I’ve watched the boomer-aged men in my life really collapse into significant anger and my millennial friends struggle to find romantic partners or grow emotionally/intellectually/career-wise. They’re kind of floating along letting life happen to them and being depressed or frustrated things aren’t how they want them to be. We have some discussions, that are somewhat limited by my gender, but I wanted to do more, so I give advice to men in /redpillrecovery on Reddit. These are men and boys looking for meaning and relationships who have found the manosphere lacking or actually harmful and are actively seeking deprogramming. I’ll definitely point them in the direction of both your podcasts.

Driller32

Bears are the deadliest animal on this continent. The global winner has to be tigers, though. They can run, swim, climb, dig.. if you can do it they can do it faster and better! Plus they have webbed paws to help propel them through the water. Yay!

Katy Stuck
>>158351009

Yeah, I think maybe he’s underestimating the damage that a not-small minority of men are causing. I don’t know a single woman who hasn’t been sexually assaulted (not “just” harassed), only those who have told me their story and those who will eventually tell me their story. That’s every single female relationship I’ve ever had, from my friends, to my MIL, to my aunts… While I think his stance is reflective of how the discourse was causing distress among his male listeners, I think the point that he’s missing, one that he almost got when talking about the agency and complexity of humans vs bears, is that bears are *predictable*. I see a random bear, and I generally know what the bear will do and what my actions and behaviors should be. Alone with strange men, you never know what to expect. Will politeness be misinterpreted? Can you diffuse too much attention by being submissive or straightforward or by being aggressive, and which one of those might provoke that particular person instead or divert them? Almost all the arguments Aaron put forth against the meme, saying it’s too focused on a bunch of other details, are arguments made *by men* who pretend to not understand the analogy. I wouldn’t be surprised if he misinterpreted the video of the woman saying “I could fight off a bear, I can’t fight off a man” was actually the video that said “people would believe me if I told them I fought back against the bear, and wouldn’t believe me if I said I fought back against the man.” It’s been a long time since I was afraid of a man. I was raised by men, live with several men, and socialize and work with men. I love men. But over the summer, I found myself being stalked around a 7/11 by a stranger. No other customers and no staff were in the store at all as this man tried to pin me into a corner while becoming more and more irate that I wasn’t responding to his gross questions. That fear was deep and visceral and was as scary as the time I was stalked by a mountain lion on a hike, no exaggeration. I think he really can’t relate to or comprehend that level of fear and that’s where the issue originates.

Jon Ownbey
>>158351009

This is a very enlightening response. Thanks for the perspective. It's quite helpful.