Boethius

I think an interesting perspective is that in the J.D. Vance versus Tim Walz portion of the 2024 election, one of the key battles is over who represents a more authentic vision of American masculinity in today's culture. Some commentary on this can be found, for example, here https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/17/opinion/masculinity-liberal-conservative.html with maybe the key quote as "The choice is clear. On one side, there’s the enlightened maleness embodied by Harris’s vice-presidential pick and her husband, Doug Emhoff. These are the good progressive dads, Rebecca Traister of New York magazine writes, the “nice men of the left” who do guy things like coach football but also manifest liberal and feminist virtues — like being “happily deferential” and “unapologetically supportive of women’s rights” and “committed to partnership” in marriage and politics alike. Walz especially is being held up all over as a paragon of liberal dadhood: “A regular guy,” Mona Charen of The Bulwark writes, “at a time when the country needs reminding that being a regular guy is actually pretty great.” Then there is the other model, the dark side of the Y chromosome: the toxic masculinity of Donald Trump, the anti-cat-lady conservatism of JD Vance, all of them wrapped together in a package that Zack Beauchamp of Vox describes as “neo-patriarchy.” This is a worldview, he writes, that may claim to allow for more female agency than the older patriarchy but really just wants a “reversal of the feminist revolution,” in which men finally get to be he-men again while their wives stay home and rear four to seven kids." Another piece of media I have found intriguing comes from the Youtube channel "The Elephant Graveyard", whose channel is gaining lots of views after he provided an analysis/review of Joe Rogan's recent Netflix special "Burn the Boats". A distillation of TEG's thoughts can be found at Do this view of 2024 as a showdown between two visions of masculinity resonate with others?

I'm an American who has only spent a few weeks total in the UK over the years, so take my observations with a grain of salt (though similar dynamics are sadly at play here too). It seems like there is disagreement over the proximate causes of the riots -- whether the killing of 3 children by a 2nd generation Rwandan was just the last straw after other incidents involving machete attacks and etc (here I am going off of reports and analysis from the Lotus Eaters podcast) OR it was just the incident that far right instigators were finally successful in exploiting to turn out the protestors. I won't try to resolve this argument, except to say that it's certainly not a peaceful protest! Watching men breaking windows while drinking beers is a terrible look, lol. Now that being said, in moving forward the government can either clamp down on the people protesting (through increased surveillance and restricting movement, as per the video from a soldier that Consept shared) and/or by addressing the needs and concerns of those rioting. Of those needs I think we have identified in this thread (1) Need for physical safety from crimes perpetrated by immigrants (2) Poor economic prospects (3) Preserving English culture I sense (3) is generally out the window -- that battle was fought and lost generations ago. But (1) and (2) might still be on the table. So my question (and God bless you for your patience!) is whether the governing elite has anything concrete and substantial to offer in addressing these concerns, how these two concerns should be balanced, or if the expectation is to bypass addressing these concerns in favor of "managing" the protestors by means of surveillance and control?

How are you experiencing the shift from orange to green in the USA? As an example. I think of the debate over mask use (I don't want to use a mask as I don't feel personally threatened by covid VS I should use a mask to protect those around me). In my own life I feel increasingly "guilty" if I know that some action (like air travel) increases overall carbon pollution, whereas I feel good if I know I am buying a product (like silicon straws) that reduces pollution. So in what ways do you find yourself (perhaps against your individual egoistic self!) moving more towards the overall good of humanity?

I am hopeful there is a sensible middle ground to be found on this issue. Perhaps it will help to bring this from the abstract into the concrete.... So to what degree do people support the following actions that a school might take: in elementary school, allowing a gay/lesbian teacher to talk openly about their spouse in elementary school, reading a book about a child that has two mommies or two daddies in elementary school, inviting a drag queen to read a book to children in elementary school, providing a lesson on gender identity and inviting students to share their pronouns in middle school, teaching about anti-bullying policies (including ones protecting sexual and gender minorities) in middle school, making books available to students on queer people, possibly containing profanity and mild descriptions of sex in middle school, inviting students to participate in school-led pride events in high school, teaching about gay sex and HIV prevention in sex ed in high school, teaching about the civil rights movement for the LGBTQ community

Has anyone tried introducing Spiral Dynamics to family and friends? I've tried to explain the evolution of Orange to Green to certain people in my life, as a way of making sense of what's happening politically in contemporary society. I find that some people find it super intuitive and most others don't see what the purpose could be of such a "theory". I'm curious to know about other peoples experiences in this regard!

That's interesting, and in line with my experiences. Thanks!

If the youth believe the problems of the world are overwhelming and there's no hope of them being solved, then yeah I would expect to see a lot of mental illness develop as a result. There are also millennials in their 30s who are declining to form families because they think this isn't a good world to bring children into.

Considering that only 52% of gen Z are non-Hispanic white and the rest are youth of color, might it have something to do with the fact that the US has yet to dismantle its system of white supremacy? A lot of young people are stressed out by things like climate change, racial injustice, and political instability. If we wish to support the young (as compared to bashing them for the sake of propping ourselves up), then maybe we should do something to fix the environment in which they are growing up.

I will answer the questions one by one, from an American perspective since that's what I know best: Decades worth of policy decisions that benefited the Boomer generation most especially, and had little regard for future generations. It's already been escalating, for the past few years, with all of the political instability we've been experiencing. No, it's not, but the Boomers won't be around forever either....

I would guess that contemplative spirituality is the future (and the present, given the popularity of meditation and mindfulness). But to be more than shallow, contemplative spirituality requires a structured container. That's why the traditional religions are not going anywhere; they are simply being upgraded.

I'm so bored of the various narratives and counter-narratives that seem to form the basis of contemporary politics and societal discussions. I'm tired of ideologues sucking up 90% of the oxygen in the room and going to "war" with opposing ideologues, either on the internet, on cable "news" channels, or in person. It all feels so tedious, and unlikely to change anytime soon. Ken Wilber wrote in his 2017 book (Trump and a Post-Truth Society) that 10% of the US population will be at Yellow by the end of this decade, presumably out of necessity to solve these disputes that ideologues are incapable of working out themselves. But being a centrist in today's society feels extremely risky. I'm thinking of Barack Obama (the only Yellow politician in today's society?) saying in late 2020 that slogans like "Defund the Police" were more harmful than helpful. The progressive activists painted him as out of touch at best, and complicit in upholding white supremacy at worst. And yet he was right! The movement to defund the police has failed in its goal (or whatever you want to call it, since the activists always hedged on exactly what it was they wanted) of defunding the police, and instead cities are awkwardly working out compromise piecemeal reforms of their police departments. So if narratives just lead to unnecessary divisiveness, and conscious dialogue feels a bit pie-in-the-sky at this moment, what is the way forward? https://unherd.com/2021/12/how-defund-the-police-backfired/

My family is similar, and I have found the theory of Karpman's drama triangle to be very helpful. It is a tool for avoiding the mind games, though it's not a substitute for going low-contact or no-contact with toxic people. I also find "grey rocking" to be a useful technique.

I agree that Biden seems to have learned this lesson, but I also think he has much less leverage to work with than Obama did. I can't help but see Biden as a rather weak president (and I say this having supported him in the primary and the general elections). A lot of time remains for the Biden administration to turn things around, however, so I try to remain hopeful. I agree that one of the scariest parts of climate change, which is grossly under-reported, is the effect of forced climate migration on global stability. This is the reason why the pentagon regards climate change as the number 1 threat to American national security. Of course a lot of conservatives probably think we just need to take an "American first" attitude, but that doesn't seem to me to be reasonable (to say nothing of lacking in compassion!) Yeah, I probably agree with this. As all piecemeal efforts fail in the coming years to conclusively "solve" the problem, we will have to increasingly ramp up our efforts and act cooperatively with other countries to face the challenge. I don't see this as possible any time soon -- there are simply too many in-denial Boomers for us to muster the energy needed. I believe that a lot hinges on what China understands as being in its own best interests. It would be one thing if the world could be divided into developed Western nations that have created the problem of climate change versus exploited 3rd world countries (Vanuatu, anyone?), where the primary issue involved is one of compassion. But China is rising as a great power, and while it's clear that China doesn't give a f*** about anyone but China (just look at the Nazi like treatment of the Uighur population) it's not clear how much of a threat climate change is to Chinese interests. So I'm sceptical of our ability as Americans to simply shift resources away from defense and towards fighting climate change. Eh, I didn't mean to be quite so snarky in my previous post. I myself kind of like the idea of living in harmony with the natural world. But I suspect a massively technocratic approach will need to come first before the more romantic ones can be given a try.

I think he was operating at Yellow as well as he could given the constraints of the (predominantly Orange) system in which he was enmeshed. Personally, I don't have much patience for the sort of "Bernie bro" critique that any politician not actively working to implement the socialist revolution is a shill for corporate America, and I can't help but feel that that bias animates much of the leftwing criticism against Obama. That's definitely true! Obama said he kept waiting for the Republican "fever" to break, and yet it continues to go on 6 years since Obama left office. I was really hopeful, back in 2011, that the Simpson-Bowles commission would propose a grand bargain on federal spending that would actually garner bipartisan support, but the Republicans refused to grant Obama any sort of a win. Obamacare. Along with stimulus for addressing the 2008 financial crisis and reform of Wall Street. Was it the socialist revolution? Nope. Did it go far enough? Probably not. But as you yourself say, he was stymied at every turn, and so he probably did the best he could given the conditions he was handed. I think there is the centrism that mindlessly tries to split things down the middle, and then there's the centrism that tries to systematically understand the issues involved and reach a balance of interests between the various stakeholders. The first form of centrism is probably more Orange in nature, at this point in time, whereas the second form of centrism is fundamentally more likely to be Yellow. I argue that Obama's centrism was more of the second type -- not least of all because Obama always seemed principled, to a fault even. Even though climate hysteria on the left is fashionable these days, I don't think scientists are seriously saying that "apocalypse" is what we face, and I'm personally sceptical about whether this is the most helpful sort of language in the world. I do agree policy options for addressing the challenge of climate change are narrowing ever more as we continue to drag our feet in acting, but I think middle of the road options like "cap and trade" and certainly nuclear energy remain our best options. I mean, what else would you propose? That we deconstruct the American highway system, revert to local autonomous communities, and go out in our backyards and start worshipping the trees again?

Who said the purpose of affirmative action, in the first place, is to improve the "condition" of the Black community? I'm not convinced that companies, politicians, or academics are thinking that affirmative action is going to "equalize" the Black community with the dominant white community, let's say. Most of the decision-makers involved are white people, after all, who probably don't have a refined understanding of the needs of the Black community. Instead, it seems to me that most institutions are primarily interested in increasing the representation of people who have been historically marginalized and oppressed, not least of all because it makes these institutions look progressive, equitable, and inclusive. Following this goal, it makes sense that institutions would elevate Black women into positions of power over Black men since Black women suffer a larger number of intersecting oppressions. I will say that it would be very interesting to see whether Black Americans generally feel that affirmative action has helped their community. It could be that your criticism (as I am reading it) of affirmative action is more widely shared.

Well, I suppose narratives do serve some purpose, even if they are never fully true. I'm just not sure what to do with this fact. To bring it to the personal level, don't most people, in their own personal lives, get tired of telling stories about themselves? Doesn't it get tiring always painting oneself as a victim of every interaction, or the hero, the suffering saint, the perpetually misunderstood, etc? Can a person really live their entire life consistently exagerrating and misrepresenting the interactions they have with others? That is what strikes me as a rather boring way to live.

I think this is the last thing Orthodox priests would recommend anyone do -- they seem pretty protective of this form of prayer and fearful of the consequences of people taking it up willy nilly. As far as your comments on God, don't you think he wants people to come into the light instead of just rotting in the dark in the basement?

@Opo Isn't killing someone a sin? I'm not using the word *sin* to refer to things like consuming caffeine or watching R-rated movies (activities that went against the Church of Latter Day Saints, for example), though I do recognize that probably many people hear the word in those ways. Instead, I would say that the word *sin* in Christianity plays much the same role as does *suffering* in Buddhism -- it is an essential aspect of how a believer experiences the world, and it is something to be struggled with, either by avoiding sin as in Christianity or by transforming suffering as in Buddhism.

@Opo Well, lol, I hadn't thought of it that way, so yeah, fair point! But still, the joker is what a person runs the risk of becoming when they "exempt themselves" from the moral system, which is what comes to mind by the comment about "realize that there is no such thing as sin".

@Opo Of course. My point (similar to SgtPepper's comment) is that to deny the reality of sin is to risk becoming a nihilist, just like the joker.

Like this guy did?

The biggest problem with the metaverse is that it is a fundamentally disembodied existence. I would have thought that spiritual forums, like the ones here at actualized.org, would be more attuned to this issue, given the amount of importance paid to issues of embodiment in spiritual practices like yoga, meditation, mindfulness, Buddhism, etc. I also think we would be better off working out why we find our current reality to be so unhappy that we are eager to build some sort of "alternative" reality like the metaverse to which we can escape. Of course escape is only an illusion, as we will inevitable recreate in the metaverse the same problems we have left unaddressed here in the physical universe.

What is the point of this?

Powerful straight white men have been the ones in control of our society for long enough! It's time to create a space at the table for women, POC, and the LGBTQIA+ community. None of the groups of people I just listed benefit from selling men a message that they need to be tough and go beat the sh** out of their competitors. If straight men can't sort themselves out, then that's on them.

It seems to me that a lot of "conservatives" think they are owed some sort of social respect or deference even as they stake out anti-social positions like refusing to comply with mask mandates or get vaccinated rejecting Black Americans' demand for police accountability respecting a woman's right to bodily autonomy not using a trans person's proper pronouns, etc. But the fact is that no one owes you anything. You get what you give, and if your interest is in "owning the libs" then you can expect people to think very little of you.