I’ve mentioned before that there’s a body of sociological analysis demonstrating that Islamic radicalization is most effective not among the poor and desperate but among the middle class and disaffected, especially young men with some education. Whereas those who are truly struggling spend most of their waking hours on mere subsistence, young middle-class men have the resources to engage with news and social media and the free time to wind each other up or be wound up by manipulative influences. It seems self-evident that Andrew Tate types target the same demographic and operate much the same way.
ISTR that that was also common among both left and right extremists, in Europe (especially between the world wars) and it was also noted in the Sri Lanka uprisings of the 1980s.
Slight nitpick - Andrew Tate, at least, is not White.
Always angry white dude? Lewis Black comes to mind.
I think you’re on to something with the younger guys. If you eliminate the toxic masculinity, there’s not really a non-toxic masculinity sitting around to take its place
However, here’s what I see with the older guys. It’s a bit different I think.
One, you’ve got the older white man who’s angry. In my experience, this is a consequence of what we’d call toxic masculinity rearing its ugly head when what these guys wanted to do conflicts with how their lives have turned out, and those older guys not having the mental health tool kit or the emotional maturity to handle it.
So you’ve got some older guy who in essence did what society told him he should do, but he wasn’t the guy at the top of the pyramid, and he’s upset about it. Maybe his wife is not the partner he’d have liked, maybe his kids are disappointments, maybe his job sucks and he doesn’t make enough at it to do what he wants. Or maybe he never wanted to be in the corporate world/trades/business, and wanted deep down to be an artist or nurse or whatever that wasn’t highly looked on. Or maybe he thought he wanted all this, but now that he’s got it, he doesn’t want it, but can’t see a way out. He feels like despite having done all the “real man” stuff, he’s not actually one because he’s not successful, and he doubles down on all that nonsense. They’re dreadfully afraid that if they drink a fruity drink at a bar, that someone will call them out as not a real man, and that it’ll be true.
They’re angry, feel like life has dealt him a shit hand, and like they’ve been trapped, but don’t know how to handle it or break out of that rut. Then they see others who they’ve been historically told are lesser (women, ethnic people, LGBTQ, etc.) challenging him in some way, or doing better than he is, and they resent it. Not only have they been dealt a cruddy hand, but this other person is doing better. They can’t say “Well at least I’m not a X” anymore implying that at least he’s got a better deal than them.
And most importantly, they don’t know how to handle this. Therapy would likely help a lot of these guys immensely, but that’s not what ‘real men’ do. So they suffer and are angry, and occasionally lash out. Politicians that speak to them get their loyalty.
It might also be the case that being angry at the world is a personality type that is distributed more or less evenly across all demographic groups, but the rich white dudes are the ones who get away with displaying it. A poor black guy with those same characteristics would probably end up in prison, and therefore out of sight, if he didn’t learn to mask it. Women are also under strong pressure not to act angry in public, so angry mean women learn early on to disguise it and engage in subtler sorts of relational bullying. Poor-to-middle-class white guys – well, they DO get away with that sort of behavior some of the time, but unless they commit a mass shooting or something, it doesn’t affect anyone outside of their immediate social circle.
Nice theory, but not how the world works at all. If the Left doesn’t do it, the Right will - and has. And most people aren’t interested in “forging their own identity”, they want to know what they are “supposed to do” so they can do it.
I have a hard time seeing how this is anything other than life. Even the luckiest among us have to live with dissatisfaction about something. What is it in an angry white man’s life that demands an ideological solution when most of us are just playing the hand we’re dealt?
I don’t know what they can do that women can’t, but as a group men have a distinctly different energy that I don’t think I could live without. With a handful of exceptions, I feel safer with them around. It’s challenging to explain; what I get from them is ineffable.
The thing is, at least with the examples I provided, these men did seem to have been dealt a winning hand. Or at least they were able to win with the cards they were dealt.
I think maybe @Slithy_Tove inadvertently hit the nail on the head. As a man, regardless of what hands we have been dealt, the expectation is that we largely have to just “figure it out”. Maybe you dad tries to guide you, but I know at least with my dad, whatever path he walked to get to where he is has mostly changed.
Life is not always going to be “fun”. Jobs sometimes suck or are taken away. Sometimes your wife and kids are a pain in the ass. But you do what you need to do because that’s what you need to do to raise a family.
I also think maybe as men get older, they feel like younger generations maybe don’t have it as hard as they did so they get annoyed by their complaining. Like a 28 year old complaining about having to go to the office 3 days a week. I had to get on an airplane and be at a client site 4 days a week in a suit and maybe got to wear business casual in the office on Fridays at that age. But it’s not like I was working in a coal mine either. So I think there’s a bit of “why do these soft idiots get a hand up? Can’t they just fucking figure it out like we did?”
“Just world theory” and a conviction of superiority? I mean, here’s the thing; if you really believe the idea that the people naturally succeed in life because of their virtues, and that as a white male you are superior to everyone else, but aren’t on top…well, that has to be somebody’s fault, right?
It can’t be yours as you are the superior race and gender, but since you haven’t gotten the perfect life you “deserve” anyway, it has to be the fault of Them. The Deep State, the Jews, women, liberals, some evil plot by somebody.
Because the alternative is admitting that the world isn’t especially just, gender and skin color don’t make you superior, and that people tend to end up on top by a combination of luck, inherited wealth and a lack of scruples; not because they are better or harder working.
True. I think in the examples you listed, it’s likely as much performative as it’s actual. I mean, if you’re most of these guys, you’re as much of a showman as you are whatever else it is that you are. And the way to reach out and be authentic to the men I’m talking about is to reflect that specific anger back at them.
I think a lot of men are successful by many metrics, but they’re not happy, and they feel like they got screwed somehow. And many aren’t even successful or happy. So when some guy comes along and reflects that back to them, and essentially validates their anger, they’re far more likely to listen to this guy.
That and for whatever reason, there’s a certain archetype/meme/perception, especially among the more conservative, that the real world isn’t a happy or comfortable place and anyone who claims to be happy either has something wrong with them, or is trying to sell you something. And a lot of “being a man” has to do with how you adapt/overcome/or apparently just marinate in that discomfort. Witness all the clowns that won’t do any number of pleasant or comfortable things because something pleasant and/or comfortable isn’t manly.
Just google “comfortable isn’t manly” and marvel at the hyper-macho stuff that search returns.
So when boys/men are steeped in that kind of thinking, they’re going to be pretty hostile or at least disdainful toward anyone who they perceive as having it easier, or who aren’t doing it the ‘manly’ way.
You’ve basically just described Fight Club. Some dudes just did not get the correct takeaway from that film.
Reflecting emotions is also a standard communication/relationship tool.
But you’re right- Fight Club was pretty much exactly what I’m talking about in a lot of ways.
I think one thing that resonates with a lot of men who watch that film is the lack of purpose and social isolation experienced by the narrator and other Fight Club participants working at “jobs they hate for shit they don’t need”.
That’s definitely true.
What I’m getting at is something a bit more… existential? More like they’ve been fed this tale for their entire lives about how the ultimate situation for a man who doesn’t somehow get rich through some kind of windfall or luck, is to have a good paying (white collar) job, a family, kids, house, and all that stuff.
Then they get there and realize that it’s just not what makes them happy, but they’re kind of stuck- they’ve got dependents, they’ve got house and car payments, in-laws, soccer games, and all the bullshit of modern middle class life, and they can’t even get a few hours on Saturday to go fishing or whatever it is that they want to do.
It’s that sort of “Wait a minute… I’ve arrived here, and it still sucks. Had I known, I’d never have taken this route; I could have been equally unhappy being a beach bum, river guide, bartender, etc… and potentially been happier. And I can’t get out of this either.” sort of frustration and resentment.
I guess maybe it’s a long and roundabout way to say that maybe this is a sort of new/modern manifestation of the classic “mid-life crisis” that I saw men that age in my youth have. They’d get divorced, bail on their families in large part, hook up with a younger, hotter woman, and usually get a convertible sports car.
It’s the frustration that they can’t really relieve that has them angry at everyone else who they see as having it better, or as getting unwarranted help. I don’t doubt that there are an equal or larger number of women just as frustrated (or more so, honestly) for the same reasons, but they act out differently if they do.
I don’t know how you fix that; it seems more like a situation where you work on showing their kids that the whole “job, family, kids” life archetype isn’t for everyone, or even the default.
To quote a riff on the short “Hired!” from MST3K, “Work… booze…work…”
A couple of things I’d say.
Firstly, it’s tied into some culture’s idea of masculinity.
America in particular is a very macho culture, so even guys trying to look intellectual and have had a very blessed life, have to also appear fired up and taking no nonsense etc.
Secondly and more importantly though – it drives clicks in the new media environment.
I’ll admit, for example, to have listened to almost every debate by Darth Dawkins, who is a Christian pre-suppositionist with some of the worst manners and debating tactics of anyone I’ve ever seen / heard.
It’s a kind of shameful entertainment. And I am far from alone. The only thing I can say in my defence is I am not listening to his debates to form opinions, whereas those listening to charlie kirk, stephen crowder etc, generally are.
That explains why middle and upper-middle class guys like me are angry. But I don’t think that was ever fed to anyone as a “path to get rich”. As long as I’ve been alive, that’s just been fed to men as “the path” (college-good job-wife-house-kids-suburbia”. It’s often portrayed in media as a path frustration and mediocrity at best.
The best I can figure it, is that people who are really wealthy who don’t just fall into a windfall generally do that by either pursuing their own business or success in highly lucrative careers like tech, investment banking or big law firms. And I would assume that until they get rich they get a lot of pressure to adopt more conventional lifestyles while putting up with all sorts of shit related to building their business or career.
Also once you have money, you can afford to outsource a lot of crap you don’t want to do. But that has it’s own frustrations in having to make sure all these helpers are doing things to your standards,
Like there’s a reason they call it “fuck you money”.
I wasn’t saying it was a path to getting rich. But it is portrayed as a sort of path to “success”, and then once many people get there, then they aren’t happy with where they’re at, and feel like they’ve been sold a bill of goods, so to speak.
There seem to be two basic paths to success- family money or windfall. Everything else is a variant of that. Even pursuing your own success in highly lucrative careers like tech, investment banking, law, or medicine is largely a matter of luck as to whether you end up really wealthy or just well off. I mean, when you get out of school, that tech firm may not be hiring then, or you may rub someone the wrong way and be shut out of promotions, or whatever sequence of events leaves you just well off, but not really wealthy. Same goes for law, etc…
Meanwhile rich people hire each other’s children for high paying jobs and preferentially choose each other and each other’s kids for investment opportunities, and so forth. It’s a virtuous cycle where having money sets you up to make more money, and having the wealthy connections supercharges that. That’s how many wealthy families stay wealthy- they have wealth, split it between their kids, and then those kids actually have the connections to grow it into similar amounts as their parents had, rather than having it diminish with each generation like would happen to the majority of people who aren’t connected.
I’m kind of torn, in that it’s not fair exactly, but neither is it particularly shady. It’s just human nature to share opportunities among people you know and their kids. I mean, I got a lucrative summer internship in college because my mother’s teacher’s aide was married to one of the partners of the engineering firm, and mentioned to her that they were looking for a summer intern, and they knew I was in college in the right major and that I should apply. It wasn’t nepotism, it wasn’t shady, but it wasn’t competitive either.
As far as the more blue-collar types go, it’s likely similar, but shifted downward. As blue collar workers, they’re not seeing the job growth and gains in salary that many white collar fields are seeing, and they’re feeling cut off from economic success in the first place.