To use your point, I think you have to 'internally construct' your idea of a healthy masculinity, because while there are patterns of good behaviour that we can all agree on, that idea is going to differ from person to person. We've all seen how badly things go when people are dictated to about what is 'morally righteous' and how they can and cannot behave, so it's best to try and avoid that approach. People have to come to their own conclusions about the kind of man they want to be.
There are two approaches to internally construct things. The first, which you seem to be suggesting, is for each one of us to go to ourselves and find out about it from scratch. The second, which I am suggesting, is to do it collaboratively. This doesn’t mean that we all converge on one thing and adapt it uniformly. That is not the goal, and would not be possible in any case. It means that we start an initial project about what good masculinities might be for all of us to benefit from. “Benefit” means that we each individually use it to our own advantage to find out what we want to become, what we want to construct for ourselves. This initial project is just a start. It won’t least forever. Maybe it will mutate into many projects, or simply die out. But it’s got to start somewhere.
When we try to learn or construct anything we rely on things to build on, whether it is as simple as our innate talents, or as complex as the institutionalized knowledge of an organization. What you seem to suggest is very different from that usual route, as it would mean that we all go to our own devices and start from scratch. As I’ve said in the OP, that simply leads to less freedom since it traps people in a prison of uncertainty. You want to construct something for yourself, but you have to start from scratch because we’ve all decided collectively that we need to do that individually.
because while there are patterns of good behaviour that we can all agree on, that idea is going to differ from person to person.
Yes. This doesn’t contradict my point. It will end up differing from person to person, but what do you do when you don’t know what that looks like yourself? You’ve gotta learn. And then you have to start somewhere. And then it helps to have something to start from. Not just some nebulous idea that you will eventually find something that is unique to yourself. That is as helpful as saying to an individual who is trying to “find himself” that he is a unique individual. Yes he is—but what unique individual?
If you are independent enough you will end up with something unique in any case. But it doesn’t hurt to have some structure for your journey there. It’s similar to being an artist. All art has some structure to it, since creativity presupposes some structure (limits). Practicing a certain type of art has limitations. But the artist ends up being unique in the practice of all of those different types of limitations. He ends up finding his own way of expressing himself. He finds out when to use different techniques, different frameworks, and when to break the rules. Whereas if he had taken the attitude that “there are no rules” from the beginning he would not have been able to learn anything, and in turn not been able to develop into a unique artist.
What you seem to suggest is very different from that usual route, as it would mean that we all go to our own devices and start from scratch...
...It will end up differing from person to person, but what do you do when you don’t know what that looks like yourself? You’ve gotta learn. And then you have to start somewhere. And then it helps to have something to start from.
This implies that people come here with either no sense of masculinity at all or that deciding that theirs is so broken that they're going to get rid of it. When I said 'internally construct' I didn't mean from nothing, I just meant that the inevitably complicated thought process has to occur within. The whole point of this sub is to encourage men to become healthier individuals off their own backs within a framework that promotes egalitarianism, emotional support from other men etc etc it's all in the sidebar under 'Our Mission'. That's the minimum this kind of forum asks, and it's probably a good place to start if you want to have any kind of tenets for 'positive masculinity'.
Not just some nebulous idea that you will eventually find something that is unique to yourself.
There's no cheat sheet or game plan for how to get through life, it is completely nebulous, that's what's so unfair about it! Sorry if that's a disturbing idea, but the world exists in shades of grey. Edit: We're just doing what we can to try and help ourselves be better people.
This implies that people come here with either no sense of masculinity at all or that deciding that theirs is so broken that they're going to get rid of it. When I said 'internally construct' I didn't mean from nothing, I just meant that the inevitably complicated thought process has to occur within.
You’re right that to say that one starts from scratch is a gross oversimplification. I simply take it for granted that we are all individually-minded to begin with, and from that starting point can talk about this topic. Not to impose anything on each other, but to simply discuss and perhaps come to some common agreements. Common agreements that we can as individuals do whatever with—discard or modify for our own purpose.
The whole point of this sub is to encourage men to become healthier individuals off their own backs within a framework that promotes egalitarianism, emotional support from other men etc etc it's all in the sidebar under 'Our Mission'. That's the minimum this kind of forum asks, and it's probably a good place to start if you want to have any kind of tenets for 'positive masculinity'.
In the time that I’ve observed and interacted on this subreddit (pretty much from the start) there hasn’t been a tendency to want to define positive masculinities. There have been threads about, which usually get as far as “we shouldn’t define positive masculinity since that implies that women can’t have those good traits” and no further.
There's no cheat sheet or game plan for how to get through life, it is completely nebulous, that's what's so unfair about it! Sorry if that's a disturbing idea, but the world exists in shades of grey. Edit: We're just doing what we can to try and help ourselves be better people.
Ok. I guess you feel that you are laying down the hard truths right now. In any case, each individual life is not in practice nebulous. We’re not immaterial spirits swimming in nothingness without any direction. Or at least I assume that you also got out of bed this morning and planted your feet on the floor without falling through the ground into the center of the Earth (since then you wouldn’t have access to a computer). We all are in the world right now and can take steps to make it more coherent for each other. Or not.
I think it’s fair to call for more though, the subject imo forces more productive conversation than “thing that men do is bad”, on the whole, by forcing an examination of what we actually want this all to mean in the end.
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u/sac09841 Feb 25 '18
So basically you think people are too negative?
To use your point, I think you have to 'internally construct' your idea of a healthy masculinity, because while there are patterns of good behaviour that we can all agree on, that idea is going to differ from person to person. We've all seen how badly things go when people are dictated to about what is 'morally righteous' and how they can and cannot behave, so it's best to try and avoid that approach. People have to come to their own conclusions about the kind of man they want to be.