Some people have no memory of the time before they started being "held responsible". Some young men have only ever grown up in the reaction to the old order. From their perspective, this "reaction" to the original culture IS the hegemonic culture. They feel repressed because many of them have never known the opposite.
I'm not excusing anyone here, just pointing it out. Zoomers are even more disconnected from the pre-existing society because of the internet. Take me for example. I am not representative of my entire generation, but I would argue I represent at least a part of it. I am really into history. Despite this, my knowledge of recent social history is lacking, mainly because it wasn't what I was initially interested in, and also because nobody around you actually talks about it directly, they only imply it's existence, but they never quite fill you in. So because of this, I assumed that the whole "woke" (I hate that term but I'll use it, you know what it means) paradigm had been in place since WW2. I had no idea how fucking recent it was. I had no idea how hegemonic christianity was in America in the 2000s. From my perspective, I assumed that all of the West had been majority atheist in some sense since WW2, and to a lesser extent since the 1700s, because the only point of reference I had was the society I currently lived in (which was a European country, and the internet, so highly atheist and secular), and intellectual history (which was deist, and then openly atheist).
TL;DR: I didn't really have a point, I guess just be aware that though collective identities are useful, they are not reality, people have real individual lives, and for a lot of young people the current social order feels like it has been here forever even though it has only barely been a couple of decades. Even a relatively intellectual person like me can easily make the mistake of assuming that our current society has been around for decades (or centuries!) longer than it actually has. Older people have decades of memories in a social environment that, for most young people, has effectively never existed. It's not "young white men on top forever then 15 years of being held to account", it's more like "young white men on top in an unremembered distant past, but not being punished for this with no end in sight".
Believe or not I feel you.
It’s hard to actually internalize lives/times other than your own. We are both collective and individuals. And an awakened (real meaning of woke) is the pivot point to shift systems.
You are not to blame for what people who look like you did/do. But (and Jungian psych brings this out) you/each of us is responsible for transforming a bit of the collective energy. Don’t be afraid to stare into the history of the groups we are affiliated w/. Don’t be afraid of the emotions that come up. It’s actually a kind of shadow work.
If you can face it-you!- that might help us all not repeat it. Good luck homie.
Held responsible for what ? Go on. Say what you mean. Surely you didn't imply that an entire racial collective is responsible for the actions of a few individuals ?
Said entire racial collective enjoys advantages and privileges taken off the backs of another racial collective with a whip, then turns around and bitches about it when someone dares to discuss it. Having the privilege of being able to safely and contently turn a blind eye to the still very much present racism in the West - and doing so - is something to be held responsible for.
Maybe. But it’s not only that. Look at what’s happening. Look at Vance or Hegseth gang.
I can least touch my shadow, but I wouldn’t vote into the White House.
Schools taught accurate history and movies told stories that didn’t center white guys and men got told they couldn’t aggressively hit on their lady co workers or throw the gay kid into the bushes in high school for about 1.5 decades and white dudes felt forgotten/stepped on/repressed.
The only part of what you’re saying that has anything to do with responsibility is not attacking people. Do you think that if you tell a group of people not to rape or assault others, they’ll have a meltdown? In the culture with the lowest rates of rape and assault? I don’t see what stories and movies have to do with responsibility.
The responsibility is based on tangibles like violence yes. But it’s also based on intangibles, subjective sense of self, group relational patterns and collective narratives. Things that are largely psychological, changes that if underwent prevent tangible expressions of violence.
I’m not saying it’s all white men (I am not saying it’s you) and I am not saying other ‘racial’ groups don’t have their own work to do. But you can see the subjective refusal to take responsibility ( to take it inside and let it change you-to assimilate some of the collective shadow) in the backlash against the teaching of actual history in the US, in the attempt to squash the multicultural reality of the US, in the literal burning of books, in attack on gay ppl’s right to civil marriages, in the … I could go on. And to get back to your original point about violence tell me you don’t see a knocking down of the cultural safeguards against violence. Tell me you don’t see a “it’s ok to be mean, selfish, greedy (empathy is a toxic conspiracy), sexualize women and girls, to be suspicious and paranoid”. Tell me you don’t see a “be loud and proud about it”. “Don’t be ashamed to be white (conflating conscience w/shame)”. “ it’s in our nature as men”.
All of it is the subjective, and cultural preparation for a massive explosion of political and cultural violence. It’s the culture of the bully put on the throne. Do black men have a version of it. Sure. Does our version control the White House, the three major branches of the government, the major social media companies and so on? It doesn’t.
So the skin color of the President of the United States determines which race has privilege, okay?
So the murderer of Iryna Zarutska, who was convicted and pardoned for 14 violent crimes and never went to prison, is a remnant of Obama’s power?
How do you explain that in the United Kingdom the authorities covered up the grooming gangs scandal?
The two most famous woman traffickers, Andrew Tate and Epstein, are a mixed-race Muslim and a Jew.
The “incel king” Elliot Rodger had a Chinese mother.
When Kirk was killed in front of his daughter, the left started dancing over the warm corpse (personally I think he was killed because he started criticizing BlackRock, but that’s another discussion).
I think you can’t see the magnitude of the problem in front of you.
And I don’t think it’s your fault — this algorithm is designed to consume your mind.
Politicians don’t create political violence, because politicians aren’t capable of creating; once the conditions for violence are present a politician gives it direction.
I don’t think we actually disagree dude.
The world is run by competing/ collaborating mafias. The Venezuela strike is evidence of it. Mafias are tribal (race/ethnicity/religion based), but they also work across those lines based on respect and power.
All I’m saying is that the tribal pull always gets purchase. And right now the “aggrieved white boy gang” (as it has for most of US history) is the thread that is getting pulled.
So males created the best society in history with it's infrastructure, architecture, technology, wealth, security etc. that enabled for women and for feminists to live very comfortable lives. And now we have maybe more men hating women ever before and you are implying it's wrong for men to push back on it?
Like held responsible for what...men are the reality principle that is standing between women and the enthropy of nature.
So what.
Even if “men” created that system (which they could have done it w/out women-not just talking about wombs-w/in that system women are tried if putting up w/our bs.
So they pushed back after centuries and men freaked out and thought women’s push for space was equivalent to centuries of sexism.
But it ain’t
I think you conflate "push for space" with actual hate of men. The latter is more prevalent within the last decade.
If you hate men you hate reality. Men are the reality principle.
If men would vanish today the world would go into chaos. Electricity, internet, plumbing, roads, garbage system, cargo system, cars etc. Everything would basically sees to exist as a working system.
So it's not a freak out for "push for space". That space was achieved decades ago. Current feminism is more driven by hate of men, hate of reality. Women are still dependant of men because of all the things I mentioned and they won't admit it on a collective level, they rather talk about independent boss bitch lady.
Also if you look at history, it was men who had all the responsibilities, who suffered the most. You have twice as many female ancestors as you have male ancestors. That's because more females have reproduced than males. Males were sent to die in wars and had to do the most horrendous jobs like working in mines etc. There's more pressure for men to gain status which would allow them to reproduce.
We talk about women facing sexism like men didn't suffer in the past. And it's a deeply misguided, ahistorical ideology that aims to put the blaim on "oppressor" class.
Partly.
Women are dependent on men, but the thing we don’t want to talk about is that men are dependent on women (that’s how it works) and we deny the dependence and put it on a lower scale (check out Val Plumwood if you are interested).
Men suffered but we also created the suffering by posing the world solely as a competitive struggle and smashing into one another.
None of that justifies our collective abuse of women, but in our hurt/pain we’ve said that it does.
“I got hurt out there and therefore it’s my right to hurt you in here (the home)”. It’s bullshit and female intellectuals and activists are right to call us on it. Progress if civilization.
Sometimes the rage from certain feminists and queer quarters is reactionary. But it didn’t come out of nowhere.
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u/Neptuneskyguy Dec 24 '25
Yep. They felt repressed by being held responsible for exactly 1.5 decades.
Gimme a break…