Once, anti-establishment youth disillusioned with mainstream politics headed left. Now increasing numbers are tilting right. Why?
Josh is 24 years old and works as a carer. It’s not easy work, but he prefers it to his old job in a supermarket: most of his clients are elderly and “just want someone there with them, because they’re lonely”. In his spare time Josh used to be into boxing. But lately he’s got into politics instead.
Like many of his gen Z contemporaries, he’s thoroughly disillusioned with the mainstream kind. “The two parties that have been in power for 100-plus years have done nothing. The economy’s a mess,” he scoffs. But if he sounds like the kind of anti-establishment young person who once rallied to the radical left, Josh’s frustration has taken him in another direction. An ardent leaver in his teens, who backed Boris Johnson in 2019, he now belongs to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
Amen. I’ve been saying this or a while: stop using the term toxic masculinity! It’s ostracizing men. The left has to stop treating men like the enemy and stop with their purity tests.
Then the left wonders why people aren’t flocking to them. They preach diversity, inclusion, openness, safe space, and so on, but if someone utters a thought that doesn’t fit the narrative you’re a nazi, a misogynist, an enlightened centrist, a capitalist, or whatever else can be thrown at you.
All in all, a great article, but if shared in left-wing circles, there’ll probably a lot of name-calling and jokes about “men are afraid of strong women”, “they’re afraid of losing power”, “see how it feels”, and so on. It’s like people cannot find the empathy in themselves they so loudly call for in others.
This is opinion, masquerading as fact, folks. It’s most likely a regurgitated opinion in my estimation, too.
Its not like you have to go far to see it, Lemmy has lots of people who will shout you down for being a step right of Mao.
Yes and the right has Nazis. What of it?
So it’s not opinion masquerading as fact, it is something that happens?
“Fact” would imply that there’s a level of certainty about it, I would only argue it’s fact if it happens an overwhelming amount of the time, or is party policy, or is done by senior leadership.
The question is what is meant by “a thought that doesn’t fit the narrative”?
Please give some examples, because they could be talking about likeing pineapple on pizza, or they could be talking about ‘A womans place is in the home’; the latter would be something I’d expect a Nazi or a misogynist to say and agree with.
Does purely saying that make you either? Perhaps not, but if someone has a history and pattern of making similar statements that when looked at could paint a picture that certainly looks like a Nazi or misogynist.
Oh and toxic masculinity harms men, as much if not moreso than it harms women. It’s the part that tells people to man up when they are struggling as opposed to actually helping. It the thing that makes men who have experienced abuse or rape not speak up cause his ‘mates’ will take the piss, it’s a contributing factor in the amount of teenagers and young men who are suffering due to knife crime.
The point being is it’s been twisted by the rights narative to say it’s attacking men, when in reality it’s a term given for harmful behavior and a harmful ideal to adhere to.
The one point being when discussing toxic masculinity, it should be paired with discussions of positive masculinity.
What hasn’t happened is a mens liberation movement where we move passed the whole, men are robots whose feelings extend to happy, horny and angry.
The opinion was presented as a universal truth, not a rare occurrence, or even a common occurrence. The word “sometimes”, or similar would have had to have been used for it to be “something that happens”.
And I think you know that.
Yes, it probably would have been phrased better as “often” or “frequently”, but you then saying it was entirely opinion and worse not even something they had the wit to come up with on their own was also poorly phased given that you then admitted it does happen.
Irrelevant; it is still opinion masquerading as fact. It is an opinion I have encountered many, many times. So the conclusion that it is not an original thesis is reasonable.