Gramsci wrote: Sun Oct 20, 2024 2:35 pmCountries without guns

A_Man_Who_Tries wrote: Mon Oct 21, 2024 4:36 am

Gramsci wrote: Mon Oct 21, 2024 4:25 am There’s truth in that. But I definitely think there’s plenty of room for all the shades of inequality to be fought simultaneously as long as the big picture is kept in mind.

You're right, but that's my point really. If the framing device is nothing but socioeconomic hardship, everything gets scooped up as you go, pretty much in order of urgency, and nobody gets to be a crybaby.

PASTA wrote: Mon Oct 21, 2024 1:59 pm

Gramsci wrote: Sun Oct 20, 2024 2:44 pm

losthighway wrote: Sat Oct 19, 2024 11:02 pm It's hard to take anything seriously that's centered on the plight of the white man specifically. Even if you could parse something narrow out of it the search would bring you through the depths of the seediest underbelly of nativist reddit threads and boogaloo Civil War grievance clans that it wouldn't be worth looking.

I definitely would not start ranking suffering into a list of who goes first because everyone can go at the same time.

this, on the follow up to your prior post in this thread is some of the truest, and most beautiful things written on this forum in ages

Gramsci wrote: Tue Oct 22, 2024 2:01 am

Being an everyday person with everyday happiness and sorrow is a thing of raw beauty. Most here will know I live with a non metastasising blood cancer. It’s significantly less brutal than a hard organ cancer but will kill me in the mid to long term. That has really focused my view on things. My tolerance for bullshit has dropped to zero, and my sense of wonder at basic things has spiked. One thing I now see unfiltered is the dickheads that are clamouring for our attention. Fuck them, all of you are great as you are, and any work you do in yourself should keep that in mind. Becoming a “better person” IMO should be about showing more kindness to yourself and others, not getting jacked or treating women like shit.

Aren't white guys in America the most at risk for fentanyl and meth addiction?

Gramsci wrote: Sun Oct 20, 2024 2:35 pm Hugely social. Countries without guns have similar stats.

My take on any issue like this is the massive gap between what men are told they are expected to be by our society and economic system and reality. This also speaks to toxic masculinity and every other psychological pathology you can think of. It’s not just women and minority groups that capitalism fucks, it’s baseline white dudes. That ripped influencer with the lambo and the reality of your 9 to 5 experience are so glaringly disparate it’s almost like life is now performative rather than experiential.

The non-real expectations that society imprints on men is self generating and insane.

My exit from this is to focus on how wonderful a basic, normal life can be. Let’s celebrate everyday people exhibiting everyday kindness. I try and think about this a lot. I credit our departed Dear Leader for helping me (not in person) understand that making music for the sake of it, as a social experience and/or creative process rather than “to do it as a job” and “be a rockstar” is the goal. I try to apply this across my life.

dontfeartheringo wrote: Fri Oct 25, 2024 2:28 pm

I think this is very close to the mark. As the tide goes out on post WW2 American economic supremacy, two generations, maybe three, of American men are still comparing their daily life to their Grandfathers'. You said 9-to-5. In rural America, that workday is often 6:45-6. As the gap between "hours worked" and "what I can't buy" gets wider due to the increased pressure on businesses to make absurd profits in a fading empire, dudes are tired. Labor is increasingly treated as a nuisance expense, and under capitalism the only resource these men have to sell is their labor.

When I worked at the needle exchange, I saw hundreds of working class white men over 50 in active addiction. These were men who worked a couple three jobs until they fell off a ladder and got prescribed 30 mg oxys for the pain. They went home and washed three down with a High Life (Champaign of Beers, motherfucker) because their shit was hurting bad, son. Twenty five minutes later, for the first time in their lives, they didn't feel anxious. After that, it was all slippery slopes and the loss of everything they'd ever loved.

You get built up from a young age:
"You have two jobs as a man- Protection and Providence."
"You build or buy what you need, never borrow."
"You are the rock for your wife and children."
"If you fail, don't darken my doorway."
"I will not come get you out of jail. Call someone else."

The first man I ever saw dead was a farmer who had hanged himself. Rugged individualism assumes that you will never need to ask for help.

I'm a rural white dude, albeit with urban pretensions and a white collar job. I can tell you that the safety net frayed and vanished ages ago. Why do men like me, with a closet full of guns and a belly full of anxiety, kill ourselves in Late-Stage Capitalism? Because we were sold a bill of goods and told it was our fault if we were made redundant to Capital.

Fuck you, that's why.