I think I posted this on the other site but it bears reprising: the liberal project is, in many ways, a project about the constant creation and recreation of the self (laudatory). a liberal society is in many ways a society that affords you the legal and material ability to do that as you please - ThreadSky

grapesmoker.bsky.social • 4 days ago

I think I posted this on the other site but it bears reprising: the liberal project is, in many ways, a project about the constant creation and recreation of the self (laudatory). a liberal society is in many ways a society that affords you the legal and material ability to do that as you please

Reposted from jamelle

my most conservative-coded trait these days is that i honestly think that the worst possible thing that can happen for young men is for the entire society to coddle them. what they need to hear is that they have one life to live and they have to take responsibility for it.

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grapesmoker.bsky.social•4 days ago

the problem of course is that even a large fraction of people who have the material wherewithal to live this way don't want to do that. for one reason or another (upbringing, psychological makeup) they find this somewhere on the spectrum from unpleasant to downright immoral

grapesmoker.bsky.social•4 days ago

the idea that you can change your life, your profession, your circumstances, even your gender as you change as a human is something they find repellent. if you don't live by The Script (whatever that may be) you're doing it wrong, in their eyes

grapesmoker.bsky.social•4 days ago

part of what's happening right now is that the old forms (the scripts) are being degraded but the new forms either don't exist or to the extent that they do are unavailable to most. what you're left with is a society that increasingly prizes atomization but without the concept of self-creation

grapesmoker.bsky.social•4 days ago

what this looks like functionally is the get-rich crypto or gambling scheme. the reasoning goes: society will not afford me any opportunities. thus, no one is for me unless i am for myself. and therefore anything i can do to get ahead i should do.

grapesmoker.bsky.social•4 days ago

versions of this exist at the elite level too in finance and tech. those aren't any more pro-social, but they are more accepted; the old forms still have some sway in the sense that you gotta pay the rent. but for the men under discussion here those avenues are largely inaccessible for class reasons

grapesmoker.bsky.social•4 days ago

so, we have a large population that demands "scripts" to live by, but the material foundations that once supported those scripts are cracking. whoops got contradictions in my mode of production again! anyway this all produces a huge amount of psychological stress in many people

nanzhounoodles.bsky.social•4 days ago

Okay, but why does this not translate into higher educational attainment, still the most obvious and least risky way of increasing earning potential.

grapesmoker.bsky.social•4 days ago

i think a lot of it is the appeal of the gamble: big risk but big reward. getting a higher education is a slog; it's also one of the "scripts" that people had been taught in the past but now feel like they don't deliver

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