A Tempting Invitation
What is masculinity? How can we challenge it?
So ask the great minds behind Earth First! UK, a “non-hierarchical organisation” that will soon be hosting a six-day series of eco-activist workshops at an undisclosed rural location in the North East of England and which employs unspecified “direct action” in order to “stop the destruction of the Earth.” It all sounds very Flash Gordon – except, I suppose, for the challenging masculinity thing. Curiously, a definition of masculinity seems to have proved elusive and no indication is given of exactly why masculinity should be challenged. It just should, apparently. They’re quite emphatic on this point. Which sounds a little like jumping the gun, but there we are.
As if to heighten the intrigue, the official tweet, linked above, links in turn to the official Earth First! UK website, which also has no information whatsoever about why challenging masculinity is a thing one ought to be doing, and doing urgently, or how one might go about this pressing task in a suitably planet-saving manner. In fact, the workshop in which these high-minded rumblings will apparently occur, thereby averting catastrophe, isn’t mentioned at all. Conceivably, the aforementioned “non-hierarchical organisation” may be a factor here.
Those untroubled by such mysteries and who wish to save the world from rampant masculinity, possibly by chaining themselves to something, are advised to bring “a tent, a sleeping bag and a torch.” Rest assured that meals will be “made vegan and collectively,” which sounds promising. And do bear in mind that “everyone is crew,” another gloriously collective sentiment, and consequently, “toilets and running water will be run by all of us.” The words foolproof and hygienic leap immediately to mind.
Via Julia, who is no doubt already airing her sleeping bag.
Fortunately for these non-hierarchical organisers of water, food and toilets; cholera and dysentery are mere inventions of the oppressive patriarchy.
Conceivably, the aforementioned “non-hierarchical organisation” may be a factor here.
That.
Will there be free wi-fi?
That.
And nothing says good times quite like the words toilet rota.
In other threads you and others have noted the symptoms of clinical dysfunction rife throughout the progg community, David. Another aspect are all the alternative moralities. The progg is constantly on the lookout for something traditional and normal to condemn.
Where previously the soul’s own ailments constituted a conscious moral challenge, today we have that sense of projection: you, fellow citizen, are harming existence. You are inferior. You shall be chastised. That Buddha and Christ stuff involved introspection and personal displacement and non-judgemental remedy. Not any more.
Guys are the dicks they frequently are, but that really means that the traditional, self-responsible, self-governing, civil moralities shall be done away because, argle bargle, you’re in that half of the population. I am not defective, but we’re gonna need a whole new litany of terms, conditions, prohibitions, and naturally recourses about you.
But we won’t need a root cause. Maybe the progg is so shattered by judgement that s/he’s resorted to simply ruling out whole populations by the vaguest terms imaginable.
It’s said that having no history means having no future. By the same token having no foundation means having no reasonable platform.
why challenging masculinity is a thing one ought to be doing
Well that’s obvious. To ensure there is no push-back as they destroy the West of course.
…links in turn to the official Earth First! UK website, which also has no information whatsoever…
Yeah, but their twitters is great – right off the bat, a workshop where you can communicate with a non-human for a whole hour (unless it is a tick, then you get to communicate longer), and contribute to Violet, a brave heroine who for a whole five hours chained herself to a pipe. I imagine you also get to hang out with chill dudes like this hard and committed eco-warrior.
The Babylon Bee is on it:
https://babylonbee.com/news/least-masculine-society-in-human-history-decides-masculinity-is-a-growing-threat
Will there be a man-bun judging contest?
Pretend
Project
Prevaricate
Many people who oppose capitalism AKA free enterprise also oppose “toxic” masculinity. Perhaps the link is opposition to competition for scarce resources: material goods and sex, respectively. But this never works out, because it denies biological reality.
Unfortunately it clashes with my “Unlearning Whiteness Seminar”, so I’m going to have to pass. Pity. It looked absolutely thrilling.
Do they consider the act of challenging something to be masculine?
It’s said that having no history means having no future. By the same token having no foundation means having no reasonable platform.
Now that is a wonderful turn of phrase. Applicable not only to progs, but also to virtually every political party in the western world.
challenging masculinity
And yet there is nothing more permeated by “toxic masculinity” than the wild nature that Earth First! claims to defend.
Many people who oppose capitalism AKA free enterprise also oppose “toxic” masculinity. Perhaps the link is opposition to competition for scarce resources
If so, it is deeply ironic because it is economic freedom that so dramatically increases wealth and reduces scarcity, so that silly superannuated children can worry about not having enough luxuries instead of enough food to survive.
Remember to bring your instrument if you want to play during the acoustic open mic.
Play Freebird!
Oh, I thought they were taking requests.
Yeah yeah but nobody has answered if there’s free wifi or not
You can defeat these loons with the ultimate weapon: a tightly closed jar of pickles.
Unfortunately it clashes with my “Unlearning Whiteness Seminar”, so I’m going to have to pass.
Admit it, you’d love to spend a week surrounded by unwashed misfits, while denouncing masculinity and munching on those collectively conjured vegan meals, eaten by torchlight, and while wondering if its possible to go six days without venturing near the makeshift toilets.
You ache for such an adventure.
Would fabulous pants be malapropos? Asking for a friend.
…six days without venturing near the makeshift toilets.
I can’t imagine there being too many tradesman or engineers among the attendees. So it’s likely they will learn that shit runs downhill the hard way.
I am beginning to understand why the Morloc finally came to where they simply ate the Eloi.
Morloc – Productive Conservatives
Eploi – Progressive Wastoids.
You can defeat these loons with the ultimate weapon: a tightly closed jar of pickles.
Or letting loose a jar of spiders near the collective cooking area.
surrounded by unwashed misfits,
The residents and workers near Los Angeles city hall have that pleasure daily …
The results of the Hartlepool and District Socialist Worker Collective and Anti-Brexit Co-Operative are in.
Earth First! Mars Second! Uranus (please, no joked here) Third!
The U.S. branch of Earth First! may be familiar to long-time readers.
principles of non-hierarchical organisation
This almost seems like a contradiction in terms. Some people are going to end up in charge no matter how “non-hierarchical” they claim to be.
We’ll also have a kids workshop
Do you think non-hierarchical Barbie will be involved?
Remember to bring your instrument if you want to play during the acoustic open mic.
Sounds like a show for the ages.
Admit it… You ache for such an adventure.
Replace “masculinity” with “whiteness”, and that sounds exactly like my upcoming seminar.
already airing her sleeping bag.
Was the pharmacy out of chlorpromazine?
Some people are going to end up in charge no matter how “non-hierarchical” they claim to be.
“We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week. But all the decisions of that officer must be approved at a bi-weekly meeting by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs, but a two-thirds majority …”
At some point, one of those executive officers, with help from some of his larger, more physically-imposing friends, will decide the “bi-weekly meetings” are pointless wastes of time, leading to unproductive bickering, and no, he and his cohorts are not stepping down.
Was the pharmacy out of chlorpromazine?
I suppose the question is whether the ‘activists’ in the video are actually, medically unhinged or just so lost in their collective pretensions that the distinction is no longer obvious. I mean, if your political worldview entails pretending that apologising to trees is a meaningful act, for the trees, and you keep on pretending that it is, to the point of weeping and shrieking, then that sounds about as unhinged as actually believing it.
That last link led to a youtube video. Because I just roll that way, I read the comments and one of them recommended the dance remix:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biWc0OIqWxw
I have to say, it’s much better.
They don’t have any idea what masculinity is (easy to believe), but whatever it is they are against it (duh), and anyone who disagrees with any of their evidence-free presumptions about everything under the sun is a fascist who deserves an “anti-fascist” beating by masked Black Shirts, because gender-confused eco-totalitarianism is the top of the Social Justice Warrior pig-pile don’cha know, washed clean in their minds by the purity of their malignant idiocy.
I don’t even follow baseball but holy crap. Add to it this fun graphic!
The Left has lost its shit.
Regarding the screaming hippies (opening for The Trees are Dying) remix, they sound a lot like Snake River Conspiracy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYLAwKZKvuU
Perhaps. But first you have to have the will to defeat them. Not seeing much of that. These loons control the police in some cities. Many of them run or at least have significant sympathy from those in our media and academic institutions. But do people do anything to stop them? No. Nothing remotely serious. We even let them go so far as to define reality for us. I challenge you to try telling a normal person that globalistic warmering is not a very real thing happening right now and completely provable or that Trumps recent tweets were not racist or that George Zimmerman was justified in shooting St. Trayvon. In such an environment, how is Earth First! any more odd than your local knitting society or sneaker manufacturer, or even your local Republican “thought leader” or representative?
…first you have to have the will to defeat them.
After we’ve made the world safe from vegans, electric cars, and sportsbowl kneelers like the founders wanted.
Clear evidence that the radical environmental movement is merely a cover for Communist agitation, just like the feminist and homosexual movements. Gin up grievances, wind up the cognitively disenfranchised, then aim them at capitalist society.
The proof: you cannot predict the take of any of these movements on any issue unless you know what country(ies) it affects. But you can predict their take if you do.
Examples: do radical eco-nuts rail against the Soviets turning the Aral Sea into a festering cess pool of pollution and death? No. Crickets.
Do they rail against Chinese and Indian production of carbon dioxide? No. They rail against that of the West.
Do radical feminists rail against the treatment of women in Islamic countries? No. “It’s their culture.” I guess we don’t get our culture.
Do homosexuals rail against the treatment of homosexuals in Islamic countries? No. Again, “it’s their culture.”
So the hypothesis that they’re legitimately concerned about the issue is thereby falsified. The alternative hypothesis, that they merely use the issue for agitation in the West, allows one to predict more accurately how they will respond.
This almost seems like a contradiction in terms. Some people are going to end up in charge no matter how “non-hierarchical” they claim to be.
I’m always amused to read about someone being described as an organizer of an anarchist demonstration.
The U.S. branch of Earth First! may be familiar to long-time readers.
At the 1:08 mark the woman starts by saying, “I think we’ve lost …”
I waited for her to say “our minds,” but was disappointed.
Jay Guevara, that was an intriguing thesis. I had typically thought that leftism was anti-human, anti-christian, anti-god. And so I was puzzled by certain gaps, wherein they would ignore certain kinds of piety and goodness while attacking others. But understanding this as an emanation of Marxism, in which the goal is to topple the West rather than, I don’t know, usher in the Antichrist, brings greater clarity.
Posted by: Smallish Bees | July 22, 2019 at 00:13
Thanks.I’m a physical scientist, and so naturally look to the predictive value of a hypothesis as a measure of its utility.
Also:
Did peace and anti-nuke activists rail against the Soviet Union and its immense military and nuclear arsenal? No, of course not.
Well, it’s great that you’ve independently developed the hypothesis but thanks to the Venona intercepts and confirmation post-fall of the Iron Curtain, we now know beyond a reasonable doubt that the environmental (nee anti-nuclear), feminist, and civil rights movements were thoroughly riddled with, if not completely fabricated by, Soviet agents for the purpose of destabilizing the West.
The problem is that the movements have become self-sustaining even though the upstream flow of cash and resources has been cut off.
Posted by: Daniel Ream | July 22, 2019 at 01:47
True. But the approach has wider utility than that.
Consider educational results. Liberals would have us believe that spending more will yield better results. The data do not bear out that belief. In fact, even a cursory examination shows that educational results are zeroth order in per pupil expenditure. No prizes for guessing what educational results DO correlate with.
Daniel Ream: setting aside your sarcasm, I noticed that pattern long before the publication of the Venona intercepts.
Jay Guevara: Indeed. The method continues to yield valuable insights.
God bless Godfrey Elfwick.
Replace “masculinity” with “whiteness”, and that sounds exactly like my upcoming seminar.
I’d imagine “whiteness” will be in there somewhere. The menu of purported causes and grievances is fashionably random and includes everything from “ecological injustice” to “transphobia.” It’s not a coherent or focused agenda so much as a bag of social markers, an exercise in preening, aimed at people for whom “love, rage and solidarity” is an enticing sentiment.
Basically, the kind of person who sees the term “non-hierarchical” and doesn’t register it as both a lie and a warning sign.
All flash. No Gordon.
Will there be free wi-fi?
Judging by last year’s effort, I’m guessing not.
Judging by last year’s effort
LOL. Ten saddos in a field. It’s a social revolution!
Ten saddos in a field. It’s a social revolution!
I have to say, given the bluster about saving the planet and the claims of being the “frontlines of eco-defence,” I was hoping for something a little more… spectacular.
On the upside, I now have a tag for Collective Toilet Management. Which I didn’t see coming.
No prizes for guessing what educational results DO correlate with.
Parental investment in the child’s success. More powerful than socioeconomic status or IQ. It’s not like there’s a lack of research into what works to resolve any number of these kinds of issues. But, pace the kerfuffle about severe prison sentences not deterring crime, people don’t want to hear it. To the point that they’ll continue to waste billions of dollars rather than hear it.
Severe prison sentences only deter crime if the criminal expects to be caught (qv speed cameras). On the other hand, they certainly keep a reasonable number of scrotes off the streets for longer than mild prison sentences.
Daniel Ream: setting aside your sarcasm, I noticed that pattern long before the publication of the Venona intercepts.
As did I. But then, I got to peek behind the curtain at any early age. As a young, earnest (read: stupid) undergraduate, I was acquainted with Angela Davis. Once when she was ginning up outrage about some issue (free speech, IIRC), I asked her about some tactic she was urging that was the antithesis of free speech.
She looked at me with utter contempt for being so stupid.
“The Party doesn’t care about the issue. The issue is merely a vehicle for building a mass movement.”
I was stunned. But that cynical comment began my movement away from leftism and toward conservatism as the scales fell from my eyes.
“The Left has lost its shit.”
That’s an absolutely bizarre article. The Left obsesses over the evils of “othering” while fanatically trying to “other” the mainstream.
“The alternative hypothesis, that they merely use the issue for agitation in the West, allows one to predict more accurately how they will respond.”
A perennial favourite that bears re-reading occasionally, because its message is easy to forget: this stuff is deliberate. “[T]he Noam Chomskys and Michael Moores and Robert Fisks of the world (and their thousands of lesser imitators in faculty lounges everywhere) are not brave transgressive forward-thinkers but pathetic memebots running the program of a dead tyrant.”
I think the best comment (for me) was the guy who throws toothpicks into the forest and (I hope sardonically) calls out, “You’re home”!!!
I was hoping for something a little more… spectacular.
I wonder what the reaction of the collective would be, if someone took their call for radical direct action seriously and arrived tooled up, expecting to go the full Baader-Meinhof.
they certainly keep a reasonable number of scrotes off the streets for longer than mild prison sentences.
No, they don’t (and thank you for proving my point). The number of violent and property crimes that get successfully prosecuted and the offender incarcerated is a trivial fraction of the number of violent and property crimes committed. It doesn’t count. It’s a rounding error. Assuming you want to deter crime instead of just getting revenge, you have to focus on making people believe that they’re going to get caught.
Well, I have indeed read that most criminals commit many crimes before they are caught, but that does not prove that punishment cannot deter, merely that it may not deter if the chances of being caught are sufficiently low. And then there is the problem of reduced sentences thanks to lenient judges, overworked prosecutors, and overcrowded prisons. Also: I believe that retired prison doctor Theodore Dalrymple has written that some criminals are deterred by sufficient penalties while others seem to be too impulsive or crazy to care. Still, those who are imprisoned will not prey on the public as long as they remain there.
Meanwhile, in Canada, the nemesis of waxing salons has a
temptingquestionable invitation that should go over swimmingly, especially with parents.If he is allowed to go ahead with this, I bet he’ll have cameras hidden everywhere.
I think SJWs may be hitting their sell-by date.
http://ace.mu.nu/#382420
There’s an interesting point about these people who talk about “toxic masculinity.” When you ask them: What is left of “masculinity” when you remove the “toxic” parts? They can only list gender-neutral features, which are things which women also possess. So there is apparently nothing left of masculinity when you remove the toxic bits. The idea which they seem to believe but refuse to say aloud is that masculinity is all toxins and nothing else. They also can’t seem to think of any purpose for masculinity, apart from oppressing women.
If I am incorrect, I have yet to be given a better idea of what the operative principle is.
Meanwhile, in Canada
There’s some severe overlap in that trans woman / nonce Venn diagram.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OdeOyrLHdSg
Much better to sing to trees than to scream.
What is masculinity?
Masculinity is a combination of traits that results in behaviors such as resistance to domination, resistance to dependency, and resistance to foreign invasions. It is therefore veryplus ungood.
How can we challenge it?
For the brave, wrestling.
For weasels and chickenshits, organized ball-cutting.
But then, I got to peek behind the curtain at any early age. As a young, earnest (read: stupid) undergraduate, I was acquainted with Angela Davis….I was stunned.”
Yikes. I would be too. I never knew such a prominent communist, but the ones I did know unintentionally influenced me with their dishonesty (conclusion: these people lie therefore cannot be trusted) and their dishonesty regarding things of the greatest moral seriousness (conclusion: these people are fundamentally evil and every supposedly moral stand is a cloak for that evil.)