WillCameron

I got into an exchange in my youtube comments. I was talking about the interaction of science and myth, and the commenter criticized that view. Their perspective was that science is an empirical process and attempting to talk about myths of science doesn't do justice to how the process actually comes to discover truths about the world. There view was that viewing science as a process is not a myth about science, as you'll see below I disagreed with this. I wanted to share what I said to get your perspective on whether or not my understanding is actually up to par. I appreciate the help! Here it is: The idea that myths are value-laden stories is not my original redefinition, but comes from the work of many from disparate fields that have converged on something to the effect of the following idea. We have to remember that the human mind is narratological, and so we construct meaning about the world in the form of narratives. Values are what arranges the landscape of things into a forum for action. If I am hungry I value food and so signals of food are going to be highlighted within the landscape of things so that it can become a forum for useful action. Whether through the use of images, tastes, and scents, or with actual language, the organism will then remember the trail and process applied in a narrative sequence so that it can get to that food again in the future. Myths then are not merely collections of allegorical and symbolic fantasy, but specific representations of a specific forum of action given a specific set of higher order values. I can have a myth involving the symbolism of the Hero, but the superficial features of that Hero can change drastically depending on the culture I'm in. From heroic dictator who uplifts our noble people through conquest of "barbarian" peoples to low-born rogue who steals from the rich oppressors. The purpose of such myths, or value-laden stories with symbolic representations, are again, to guide us through the landscape of things such that it becomes a useful forum for action toward the fulfilment of certain goals. If I seek a heroic dictator I am going to be inspired toward very different ends than if I seek a liberator from the dictator. What's more, the scientific process, however empirical, is going to be used for very different ends. Think about how that might change the funding of various areas of research. Sure our science is discovering provisional truths, but of the provisional truths it could discover, it has now been directed in a very different direction. With this definition then we can better understand how both science as absolute truth and as process are myths - value-laden stories with symbolic representations for transforming landscapes of things into useful forums for action. You've said that I am conflating myth and science, but I am differentiating and then re-integrating them. Yes, science is not myth, but the moment we begin to use science we have inevitably re-engaged science with myth. We need to distinguish between them if we want our science to work well, but my point is that they do inevitably interact. For example, if I value reliability, accuracy, and falsifiability then those are turning the landscape of empirically observable things into a forum for action as scientific inquiry. We then have not-entirely-true symbolic representations such as the atom as a solar system, we also have heroes as the humbly exploring scientist, villains as the plagiarizing data fabricator, and even god as the objective, material world that exists beyond our rational view-from-nowhere and can be accessed unmediated for the discovery of truth (not saying every scientist believes exactly that, but just making a point). However empirical, rational, and scientific that myth may seem, it is still a myth - a value-laden story containing symbolic representations meant to transform the landscape of things into a forum for useful action. And that's really my point in making this series - to highlight how we are a mythologizing species and however empirical our methods, our cognition is mythological. We have to reckon with those aspects of our mind if we want our science to work as intended because we inevitably shuttle our myths into the process of science. Even though they should be thought of as different things (notice the value statement there), you can never remove the scientific process from myth as long as humans are using it. Thanks again for reading. How could I be less wrong?

Ah my apologies. I use a proxy. I didn't realize it would link that.

For the past year I've been using the plus version of ChatGPT to have it measure short to long essays on their complexity using the Model of Hierarchical Complexity. You can find out more about that here - https://metamoderna.org/what-is-the-mhc/ The prompt I use is - Using the model of the hierarchical complexity, please identify the highest stage of performance that is demonstrated by the following: As to what it's reliability or accuracy is, I don't think it's the best. Unfortunately at this juncture you have to take its word with a grain of salt. However, it can give you a general sense of what you're looking for. Engage it in conversation to get a sense of what is missing, what could be added, and to argue with you about your position. The point is to increase the complexity of your reasoning by having more nuanced and well-thought out understandings of things. Another note is that this is only enhancing cognitive development in the form of essays. This may not necessarily track with "lived development", as in what you're able to produce on the fly or in other domains. I think there is slow crossover over time, but don't take this as gospel. It's one exercise among many that you should be engaging. I also recommend having an embodiment practice like yoga or something similar, along with other spiritual practices. Cognitive development is obviously important, but it is only one facet of development. The most effective development is holistic. You can have the biggest brain but be incapable of going out into the world and enacting that increased capacity. In that situation, what is the point of all that cognitive development? You may as well not have it.

Somebody already talked about this today in this thread - actualized.org/forum/topic/103971-women-don’t-love-you-they-love-the-life-style-you-can-provide/?__cpo=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYWN0dWFsaXplZC5vcmc My response to their post follows: I think the mistake that people often make when discovering tragedy is that they start thinking everything is "really" tragic. One of the ways that the neuropsychologist Iain McGilchrist has talked about the left brain hemisphere's dominance in our culture is in the left hemispheres need for perfection. So for example, the Platonic Forms are envisioning some metaphysically "more real than our reality" realm in which the perfect form of everything we see exist. All chairs we see are the baser instantiations of the perfect Platonic form of "chair". How this manifests in our culture can often be seen in terms of morality. People realize that perfect altruism can't exist because even in the case of self-sacrifice you do it because you believe it is a good thing to do, and so you feel good knowing you sacrificed yourself for a worthy cause. This realization makes them nihilistic because they think that at base everyone is selfish. The issue here is that we've become so hooked on the "perfect" altruism, that anything less is interpreted as being the worst opposite. We're either perfectly altruistic or we're all the basest form of selfish, which makes sense because it is the mirror image of perfect. It's like the anti-Platonic form or anti-perfection. The truth is that this perfection that the left hemisphere is focused on cannot exist and so comparing ourselves to an impossible perfection we can never reach is foolish. The reality is that true altruism cannot exist, but that doesn't take away from the very real ways in which people asymptotically approach altruism. If someone does something good for you they didn't just do it because they were selfish, but because they actually wanted to help you, even if they also benefitted from that. While selfishness is one motivator, reducing all of our motivators to mere selfishness is to deny the complex reality of all the various reasons we do things. Again, it is the left hemisphere that breaks the world down into parts and hyper-fixates on the one that it believes matters most. It is the right hemisphere that is able to hold reality at complexity, and see that just because one motivator is selfishness, doesn't mean there aren't other motivators that matter just as much and sometimes even more. We have to take in the gestalt, the whole, if we want to understand human motivation. So applying that to the question you have, yes women obviously have standards, but so do you. Are there women whose physical appearance would have you reject them no matter how good of a person they were? Does that mean you love the beautiful woman you marry any less? Our standards create the conditions by which we can create a good, satisfying relationship and it is within that context that "true love" can flower. However much there were standards that needed to be set, that love is no less real because what you consider "real true love" is a perfection that cannot exist. Why create resentful, bitter ideologies around non-existent realities?

It can't be forced, but it can be cultivated. Here's a simple exercise I did when I was recovering from body image issues. I'd stand in front of the mirror after weighing myself and say, "I love you no matter how much you weigh" or "I love you no matter what you look like". A negative thought would arise and rather than hating or rejecting that thought, I'd say, "thank you, I love you even if that's true. I appreciate you trying to help." You have to recognize that even the most hateful thoughts in your head are just trying to help. They have been splintered off and given self-negative or other-negative roles based on the experience that fragmented them. From that perspective then, they really do deserve your love, appreciation, and forgiveness. In some cases you must even ask them for forgiveness. We think we should respond to self-hate with hate, but that just becomes more self-hate. Love your self-hate and you are adding more love. That doesn't mean you agree with those parts, but you just calmly thank them and love them, and then continue to love whatever part you feel you can't love, whether that's weight, a lack of money, a lack of social skills, a lack of intelligence, a lack of whatever. One thing to be careful of is whether or not this exercise becomes overwhelmingly dysregulating for your body. If you find that this happens then take a break and go meditate, trying your best to recenter yourself and calm your agitated body down. It'll be hard work no matter what, but know and honour your limits. Self-love is a verb, so do the actions that make you feel more loving of yourself. One thing I do is take a hot bath with a book and relax as best as I can. Learning to love yourself won't make your dating struggles magically go away, but when done in tandem with nose to the grindstone action, this self-love will absolutely help you improve faster, and help you attract and be attracted to value-aligned, conscious women. By the way, I just wanted to commend you for your response to this thread. You put yourself out there to express your concerns and when people responded to you in sometimes hostile ways you kept your cool and took in their criticisms. Definitely feel proud and self-loving for that. Being assertive and standing up for your perspective is an indispensable tool in life, but so is knowing when to soften and integrate the perspectives of others. I think you've demonstrated that well here.

I feel like that would be spiritual bypassing. Not all problems can be solved through ego dissolution. Sometimes concrete solutions like going out and learning how to meet value-aligned women is the best approach.

You can't take everything any dating guru tells you as true, but someone like Todd V can help you get a better skillset at meeting women. Remember that cold approach advice is for the section of dating including "meeting and sleeping with" not "in a relationship with". That confuses a lot of guys. Once you have that skillset to a good enough degree it will not only help you meet a woman who aligns with your values, but also help you earn more money in pretty much any field that has even a tiniest sliver of a requirement for soft skills. A friend of mine was literally the first University student intern a company had ever hired after the internship because he had the soft skills. His starting wage is 80k immediately after graduation. Don't discount the power of rapidly connecting with people in a socially and emotionally intelligent way.

Great response, Marshall Rosenberg would be proud. To add to this point, I just released an article that goes into the psychology of the succubus and how it has defined a lot of how we think about sex. Myths are the stories cultures use to explain their reality and orient them through that reality, and even when that mythic language is gone the way they shaped our cognition remains. The manosphere is in many ways a response to the history of the Goddess being murdered by a male hero God, how that is reflected in agricultural societies becoming increasingly dominated by elite males, and the fertility Goddess being recast as a sexual demon. When viewing women through the lens of the succubus much of the manosphere's advice makes sense. For those interested you can read it here - https://metamasculine.substack.com/p/psychology-of-the-succubus

I'd like to hear your response to my own.

I think the mistake that people often make when discovering tragedy is that they start thinking everything is "really" tragic. One of the ways that the neuropsychologist Iain McGilchrist has talked about the left brain hemisphere's dominance in our culture is in the left hemispheres need for perfection. So for example, the Platonic Forms are envisioning some metaphysically "more real than our reality" realm in which the perfect form of everything we see exist. All chairs we see are the baser instantiations of the perfect Platonic form of "chair". How this manifests in our culture can often be seen in terms of morality. People realize that perfect altruism can't exist because even in the case of self-sacrifice you do it because you believe it is a good thing to do, and so you feel good knowing you sacrificed yourself for a worthy cause. This realization makes them nihilistic because they think that at base everyone is selfish. The issue here is that we've become so hooked on the "perfect" altruism, that anything less is interpreted as being the worst opposite. We're either perfectly altruistic or we're all the basest form of selfish, which makes sense because it is the mirror image of perfect. It's like the anti-Platonic form or anti-perfection. The truth is that this perfection that the left hemisphere is focused on cannot exist and so comparing ourselves to an impossible perfection we can never reach is foolish. The reality is that true altruism cannot exist, but that doesn't take away from the very real ways in which people asymptotically approach altruism. If someone does something good for you they didn't just do it because they were selfish, but because they actually wanted to help you, even if they also benefitted from that. While selfishness is one motivator, reducing all of our motivators to mere selfishness is to deny the complex reality of all the various reasons we do things. Again, it is the left hemisphere that breaks the world down into parts and hyper-fixates on the one that it believes matters most. It is the right hemisphere that is able to hold reality at complexity, and see that just because one motivator is selfishness, doesn't mean there aren't other motivators that matter just as much and sometimes even more. We have to take in the gestalt, the whole, if we want to understand human motivation. So applying that to the question you have, yes women obviously have standards, but so do you. Are there women whose physical appearance would have you reject them no matter how good of a person they were? Does that mean you love the beautiful woman you marry any less? Our standards create the conditions by which we can create a good, satisfying relationship and it is within that context that "true love" can flower. However much there were standards that needed to be set, that love is no less real because what you consider "real true love" is a perfection that cannot exist. Why create resentful, bitter ideologies around non-existent realities?

Yeah I would agree with that. I don't think that masculinity or attraction are purely socially constructed, and biology definitely matter. As I said in the third paragraph of the essay, there is evidence of biological causes for psychological sex differences and the final section on transperspectivalism also states that. However biological the definition of masculinity may be it is not purely biological, nor are our attractions. Sure there are biological constraints and affordances on what we might find attractive, but again, we can't reduce to the biological. Our attractions are the effect of a complex system of causes that can be described by Integral Theory's quadrants.

In today’s culture we often hear messages about masculinity being toxic or positive, or even as oppressive, limiting men in all of these ways, but, in other ways, being the very force that liberates them. To be able to understand and make our way through the complex conversations around masculinity we need to understand how it actually develops over our lifespan. In this essay I’m going to use the movie Boyhood (2014), which chronicles the life of Mason, as an example of how masculinity develops. I then offer the very powerful framework of the MetaMasculine, which will help you understand your own life narrative in regards to masculinity. If you haven’t watched the movie already you can still benefit greatly from this piece, but I do recommend going to watch the movie afterward because it’s amazing. Two important features of masculinity that I think will help guide us are agency and sexuality, and how they often become incredibly tangled up as we develop through childhood. In fact, one of the key stereotypes that separate the genders is agency vs. communion1. Men, being agentic, are seen as being assertive, independent, and rational, whereas women, being communal, are seen as considerate, relational, and emotional. There is even neuroscientific evidence to suggest that these are not just roles given to us by some patriarchal society, but are instead a part of our nature as male and female animals. Masculinity as Agency, Power, and Domination Like each of us, Mason is taught from an early age to abide by these stereotypes. One of the first scenes that illustrate this takes place at a bowling alley with his dad and sister, Sam. Sam is celebrated by her father for her skills whereas Mason is lectured. An obvious explanation for why this happens is just that she’s better than him at bowling, and her victory won her celebration. However, I think if we can look a little deeper, it serves as good example of what I’m talking about. She’s congratulated, she’s supported, she’s given care and consideration. Her father is treating her well and with relational warmth. Mason on the other hand, is immediately given a certain role to fill, be a man who takes responsibility for himself. When Mason asks for bumpers to help him bowl, his father teaches him that, “bumpers are for kids.” Even at the age of 6, he’s not allowed to be a kid. He has to take ownership of his ability to do better through his own actions. Again, we can chalk this up to Sam doing well and Mason not, but this serves as a good visual example of how a difference in how their father relates to them can lead to two different strategies in how they approach life. In the context of an entire childhood of such messages, it makes sense that the stereotype of agency would develop. And what do we see once his dad’s back is turned? Sam supports Mason relationally. As a girl, she is considerate, kind, and compassionate. Thus, reinforcing that this is how she should behave as a girl. The difference was created by the father, but then maintained by the children themselves. While Mason’s dad may teach him the difference between agency and communion, it’s his stepdad, Bill, who really drills that message in. When Mason is playing golf with his stepbrother, Randy, and his stepdad, he learns another very powerful message about agency. By definition, agency is about separating oneself from others, which means it often requires competition with others. Mason’s dad didn’t have him compete with his sister, he was competing with his own agency or lack thereof. Mason’s stepdad blatantly puts him in competition with his stepbrother, putting Randy down and explicitly telling him to look at how Mason is doing better. Think about how this affects the stepbrothers’ relationship. Mason and Randy likely consider themselves brothers and friends. They spend most of their time being together, playing together, learning together, and growing up, together. Now, one of the most important role models in their lives is forcing them into a new role where they have to compare themselves relative to one another, and whoever comes out the victor will get more support. When they play, they are going to be figuring out who does things better. What was once just a game to have fun, now becomes another avenue to see who is more deserving of this man’s love. This doesn’t merely paint their relationship with the colour of competition. It also feeds into their agency itself. Like I said, agency is separating oneself from others, and now we know that we do this by competing with them and being better than them…or else our father won’t love us. To top all of this off, we then see the stepdad fail. A string of curses is ended with a violent attack on the ground, a demand for his children to get his things, and a drive to the liquor store. Unpacking this sequence of events, the boys learn that upon failure, a man should react with aggression. They’ve already learned that only doing well is acceptable, but now they’ve learned how to deal with their own inability to do well – get angry and take it out on something. Remember, being a man is being an agent, and when they are commanded to get his things, they are given a message about how agency is exercised. I am a man, I am an agent, and I exert my power over those who are beneath me. You are submissive to me, so do as I say. We can see how, through agency and how we are taught to express it, masculinity becomes tied with competition with others, power over others, aggression, and an inability to accept personal failures. And finally, we end the day with alcohol. To be clear, it isn’t necessarily the case that the children will learn to deal with their day, their problems, and their lives with alcohol. The fact that the stepfather is an alcoholic, and is later shown to be abusive, may actually be a reason for why they learn to be careful with alcohol. However, what children learn from an addict, is that they deal with problems not by dealing with them, but by escaping from them. The stepdad is a man, by his every action he is teaching them how to be men. The girls are going to learn how to deal with their problems from an addict, but the boys are also learning that masculinity itself is intimately woven with the very characteristics that are associated with being an addict. I’m going to talk more about how this ties into addiction later, but the final stepdad lesson that I want to talk about is Mason’s haircut. This is such an important memory for Mason because it solidifies everything we’ve been discussing so far. Mason has long hair, and his stepdad forces him to buzz all of it off. During the haircut itself, the stepdad acts with his trademark lack of empathy and makes fun of Mason, who is very clearly upset. Again, this reinforces masculinity as agency, agency as power, as treating the submissive in a certain way. It’s not just that he’s taught to be powerful as a man, but that being powerful as a man means being an asshole. Being powerful means disregarding the emotions of others when you hurt them. What’s more, being a man certainly means NOT being a woman and that’s precisely why he’s getting his hair cut. The stepdad tells him, “you’re going to look like a man instead of a little girl.” With that simple phrase, he’s given a vision of what a man is, which specifically includes not being a woman, and as such, women are seen as less than a man. The reason women are seen as less is because Mason is given a vision of the ideal man, something he should aspire to be, and is then told that everything that is “woman” is something that doesn’t fit that ideal. Mason may begin to interpret anything that is associated with femininity as being worse than the ideal, and thus inferior. When he sees this behaviour in women or men, he will view that behaviour as inferior in some way. Even if he doesn’t agree that femininity is inferior, the fact that this association has been made means that it may become automatic. He will have to be conscious of the ways it might infect how he defines certain behaviours if those behaviours have been associated with femininity. Again, he doesn’t even need to make the association clear by thinking, “oh that behaviour doesn’t fit the ideal, therefore it’s not masculine, therefore it’s feminine, therefore women are inferior.” He may simply see a woman perform that behaviour, and think that specific woman is less than him, without making all of those leaps. If women have been taught to perform that behaviour more than men, then he’ll simply be more likely to believe that certain women are inferior more often. The fact that this is all being defined by emotional pain makes it all the more powerful. To give a specific example, think about what he’s learned from his stepdad. Men are agentic, powerful, and dominate others. When they make someone submit to them and that makes them angry and upset, their emotions are meant to be laughed at without empathy. What does all of that mean? If women are empathetic, emotionally vulnerable, and willing to listen, then they’ll be assumed to be weak because each of those things violate the definition of power and dominance he’s been given. If a woman displays any of those behaviours, he is far more likely to just roll his eyes or ignore her because these strategies are “ineffective.” More will be posted tomorrow!

I think one of the mistakes of privilege discourse is that it wrapped privilege in a normative hierarchy where it became easy to think of those with privilege as bad people, especially if they refused to acknowledge their privileges. Part of accepting their frame means that you would be incentivized to climb the moral hierarchy by proving that you weren’t as privileged as you appeared to be, otherwise you were a bad person. If you wanted people to acknowledge their privileges so that they would be more empathetic for those who did not have such privileges, at least enough to be willing to invest in these groups, then it completely backfired. Again though, people were now incentivized to downplay their privileges and focus on their disprivileges as a means of demonstrating themselves a good person. “You don’t know how hard things were for me,” became a way to demonstrate one’s virtue, which unfortunately, prevents someone from acknowledging that others might have less privileges, which in turn prevents them from empathizing in the hoped for way. An expected rebuttal would be that privilege discourse was never about accusing people, but systems that afforded people privileges based on group identity. Fair enough, but in practice, people have difficulty understanding issues at a systemic level, and so what people heard (and were often told) was that it was the individuals that were responsible, rather than the system itself. Thanks for reading, in what ways could I be less wrong?

I welcome criticism that is specific and constructive, which is what you have provided, so thank you. I actually agree with what you're saying, as I stated here, "Masculinity is the way in which men see themselves, engage in the world, and are seen, in turn, by that world." I would include femininity in "world". Is this what you meant or am I missing something? Thanks again for engaging with my essay. I appreciate that very much.

Evolving the MetaMasculine To accomplish this goal I want to introduce a very powerful framework I have found for understanding masculinity, but also just life and reality in general. When applied to masculinity I call this framework the MetaMasculine. To begin understanding what that actually means we first have to look at the word “meta”, which, according to Jonathon Rowson, has at least three meanings. The first meaning is “with,” which means that no matter what we do as men we will always be with our masculinity. Masculinity is the way in which men see themselves, engage in the world, and are seen, in turn, by that world. Even if I were to wear a dress and makeup there are people who would literally take that as a challenge to continue to treat me as a man. So, as someone who is a man, I will always be with masculinity whether I want to be or not. There are games being played and so we must play them, change them for the better, but play them nonetheless. As such, I must take ownership of my masculinity so that I can improve it for myself and others. Secondly, we have meta as “beyond,” which means going beyond or above masculinity. To be able to change our masculinity for the better we have to be able to look at the elements we want to change and how they actually relate with one another, which of course, requires us to be able to see it from the outside. This is what I’ve done throughout this essay. I’ve taken a bird’s eye view of how masculinity developed in Mason’s life. We’ve learned that masculinity is about how we as men exercise our agency through the employment of power over ourselves and others, through competition with others to prove that we are worthy of love and positive attention, and through sexual conquest of women who are seen as inferior because they aren’t masculine. As such, this requires that we reject anything feminine within ourselves and use shame any time we are unable to effectively play the games of masculinity. From the vantage point we gain through the use of meta, we can begin challenging these narratives and changing them toward something better for ourselves and others Finally, we have meta as, “after,” which situates masculinity in a historical context, both personally and culturally. Again, I have done this throughout the essay by going over how masculinity developed for Mason personally. Your story may be different, although the general themes may be the same because of how masculinity has been defined for us culturally. This is where we get into how masculinity has been defined by the wider culture around us and how it has changed over the years based on the environmental pressures placed upon it. We have to understand that Modern masculinity isn’t the same as what was masculine 1000 years ago or even 100 years ago. The challenges that today’s men face are different and so the ideal vision of masculinity is going to be different. As men we need to be able to define for ourselves what vision of masculinity will actually be able to handle the complexity of our age so that we can create positive change for, you guessed it, ourselves and others. With this tripartite understanding we are afforded the best grasp of masculinity that we can currently muster. The MetaMasculine then, is not so much a definition of masculinity as such, but is a definition of a certain kind of relationship with masculinity. In that spirit then, we must be able to take what’s called a transperspectival view of masculinity. This has nothing to do with transgender, but is simply understanding that masculinity can be seen from various perspectives, whether traditional, Red Pill, feminist, biological, developmental, etc. This is important because we run into problem when we become too attached to any one lens and assume that all the answers can be found when we take that single lens as gospel and reject every other lens. For example, viewing masculinity through a feminist lens can help us see the ways in which patriarchal power has oppressed not just women, but also men. However…viewing it exclusively through the feminist lens would have us see masculinity as an oppressive force that must be deconstructed so that we can come to that utopian female future we’ve all heard so much about. The same can also be said of Red Pill that would have us liberated in many ways and yet in many ways simply reinforces the games of false agency, competition with other men, and the conquest of women. It is through challenging our own perspectives and properly integrating the perspectives of others that we are able to come to that transperspectival understanding. We’re able to go beyond our current understanding of masculinity in order to create something that can come after everything that masculinity has been up to this point, all the while being with our masculinity as men. Finally free, we are no longer forced to look for escape in addiction or asceticism, but can face ourselves and our lives with the strength, wisdom, and compassion of the MetaMasculine. Either way, that is enough for today. Thank you so much for your time and attention. Please consider following my account for more essays and conversations that go very deeply into masculinity, psychological development, and the cultivation of a meaningful personal mythology. Thanks again, and all the best to you.

Agency and Power Expressed Through Sexuality What’s very interesting about the haircutting experience is that one person completely changes his perspective. A girl approves of his haircut. Here everything we’ve discussed so far is recontextualized by how it becomes tied to approval from women. However the lessons of manhood were shaped by the pain of that haircut, they are now also tied to how good it feels to have a cute girl in your class tell you that you look cool. Having short hair is an expression of masculinity as agency, power, and dominance, and a girl has now approved of that masculinity. Here we finally come to how masculinity defines and is defined by sexuality. Up to this point in the movie, we have been given hints of how Mason is developing sexually. From lingerie magazines to suggestions of explicit material on a computer screen, what’s clear is that this is something to be hidden. When his sisters enter the room, the laptop is quickly shut. Why exactly do they do that? From early on we learn that sex is something taboo. Whether it’s hiding our body parts, or not being allowed to talk about it, or knowing adults are trying to keep it a secret, the thread that connects all of these things is that there is something about sex that is inappropriate and that’s not acceptable...it is simply something shameful. Okay…so we have something that is shameful, but also something that becomes a direct means through which we exercise our masculinity. At one point Mason is in the bathroom and two boys start bullying him, pushing him around and calling him gay. Notice how his agency is being challenged, once again calling forth its association with competition, power, and submission. Notice also how it is all now being associated with his sexuality, once again calling forth a vision of the ideal man. The ideal man is agentic, powerful, competitive, and exerts his power in the hierarchy through his sexual prowess with women. His masculinity is implicitly tied to women because his masculinity is defined by how he is attracted to women. It’s not stated outright, again, it’s implicit or connected indirectly. This implicit lesson is that if he’s not attracted to women he is immediately placed at the bottom of the hierarchy. Again, this connects his sexuality and how it’s expressed with shame, with not being enough, and with needing to climb a hierarchy in order to become enough. We see this same weaponization of sexuality when Mason is hanging out with some other boys, some of which are older than him. Because of their age the older boys are automatically higher up the hierarchy, and so the younger boys are naturally going to look up to them. Throughout this scene everything we’ve talked about already is reinforced. The younger boys are called pussies if they engage in certain behaviour, which connects these behaviours with femininity, which is again connected with inferiority. Additionally, not only is being gay inferior, but now the sexual conquest of women is explicitly, outrightly, tied with masculinity. The boy’s position in the hierarchy is defined by how many women they’ve slept with, but only when the woman hasn’t slept with anyone else. One of the boys is belittled for getting sloppy seconds. In other words, she’ll increase your social status, but by less if she’s also slept around. Fnally, agency over women is also reinforced with the statement, “it’s not what they want, it’s what you want.” We are agentic men who gain status through the sexual conquest of chaste women who must submit to us, and if we don’t operate effectively enough, we are shameful at the bottom of the hierarchy. All of this takes place within a backdrop of violence. They bond as they break things, connecting masculine camaraderie with aggression, power, and sexual competition. These demands of sexual competition are further reinforced by his first girlfriend, Sheena. While they’re still in High School, she leaves Mason for a guy from college. She forced him into competition with an older, better male and he lost. Mason’s biological father reinforces this message by telling him that women are never satisfied, they’re always looking to trade up. However, no one is responsible for you…but you! A man’s agency is tied back into this competition, and of course, once you exercise your agency, you will be surprised by how many women will line up. We have now finished the loop that started back at the little girl who approved of Mason’s haircut. Your agency and power as a man are defined by how well you compete with other men for the attention and approval of women you conquer and who must submit to your agency and power…unless of course you fail, in which case you must deal with the shame of being inadequate as a man. Within this framework one finds little room for genuine fulfillment or love. And that’s the issue. Within this framework, we seem trapped within sexual competition where we’re constantly fighting with other men, preventing us from truly connecting with them, and constantly looking for approval from women to prove just how masculine we really are, when all we really want is to live a good life with someone who will love us as much as we love them. Does it make anyone wonder why so many men seem to be checking out of sex, romance, and life altogether? Whether it’s through the use of adult videos and escorts, or through celibacy and asceticism, this lack of healthy masculine camaraderie and authentic, fulfilling love, simply leads many into the pathologies of sexual addiction or sexual anorexia. With our sexuality tied so tightly with shame, we either try desperately to numb ourselves to that shame with addiction, or desperately try to escape from that shame by cutting our sexuality away completely. This trap raises the important question about whether or not this definition of masculinity is really about agency and all its many expressions. Notice how this definition of masculinity creates a hierarchy in which men must compete with each other in order to secure their agency. In other words, you have to submit yourself to the rules of someone else’s game in order to be successful enough to have your own agency and power. But…how can we have agency when we are submitting ourselves to someone else’s definition of success? This is the paradox of our masculinity. We play at agency, at power, and at dominance, all the while ignoring that someone else has defined the terms of that agency, power, and dominance. Then, when we find ourselves overcome by the stress of constant competition and beat ourselves up when we fail, we act surprised when we run to the liquor store or type in an adult website we promised ourselves we wouldn’t go to anymore. We’ve been locked in a game given to us by our forbears and been taught that the only means of escape is addiction or asceticism. I don’t think I need to tell you that addiction is not a real means of escape, and asceticism often simply becomes a never-ending self-imprisonment fuelled by self-hatred. Instead, we must learn to deconstruct and then reconstruct our masculinity and all the elements we’ve discussed. Look out for the last part tomorrow!

That's fair enough. Not everyone will enjoy everyone's work. Thanks for your engagement. Edit - just to add. In the future, it's better to provide a substantive critique. I can't really go on anything you've said here, so your criticism is more a vague allusion to disagreement or lack of understanding. That doesn't qualify is legitimate critique. I don't know how to say that without sounding combative, but I honestly do I appreciate your attempt to help. Like I said though, this just seems like you didn't like the piece rather than that your criticism has merit. Perhaps your criticism does, but I can only go by the substantive critiques people give, and elsewhere, others have said it is well-written, along with other similar positive statements. Perhaps the source of the confusion is because this was merely a third of the final essay. I've shared a link to the full essay so you can go there if you're curious enough to engage with the entire piece. As I said at the end of the original post, more of the essay will be posted here tomorrow.

What I understand you to be saying is that the argument is getting lost in layers of unnecessary complexity, but I'm not exactly sure how that prevents the point from being made. Perhaps you could point out specifically what is confusing or what you disagree with.

I appreciate the criticism. Could you please explain a little more about what you mean by that.

I appreciate your interest and definitely understand that this is a pretty big bite. It's difficult to offer a TLDR to an entire argument. In brief though, this article is about how definitions of masculinity get tied up with agency, dominance, power, and the conquest of women. Later parts of the essay that have yet to be posted go more in-depth on that and offer a framework that honours traditional definitions of masculinity while opening up the definition for update. You can find the full essay in video format here. I'm also on spotify.

In order of importance: Brendan Graham Dempsey - Metamodernism: Or, the Cultural Logic of Cultural Logics Gregg Henriques - A New Synthesis for Solving the Problem of Psychology Bobby Azarian - The Romance of Reality John Vervaeke - Awakening from the Meaning Crisis (lecture series on youtube, but still) Layman Pascal - Gurdjieff for a Time Between Worlds Iain McGilchrist - The Master and His Emissary Iain McGilchrist - The Matter With Things Zak Stein - Education in a Time Between Worlds Some of these are arguably turquoise, but I think the quest for turquoise is pointless for the vast majority here. Focus on Yellow because that'll be the next 5-10 years of your life and on the way you might stumble into turquoise.

This is definitely something I've experienced. I made it my goal to approach at least once before I met up with a wing and at least once after we parted ways. The only thing that's going to get you through this sticking point is consistently practicing it. Maybe even have a session per week you do by yourself if you want to make the time for it.

I enjoyed this a lot, thanks for sharing it. Have you considered sharing to the Metamodern Spirituality group on facebook? I'm not sure if you've read Metamodernism - The Future of Theory by Dr. Jason Storm, but this seems like a natural extension of his thoughts on metamodernism, especially meta-realism and process social kinds. I'm looking forward to the final product!

You might like this book - https://www.amazon.ca/Force-Persuasion-Process-Relational-Perspectives-Power/dp/1666784427 I'm reading it right now. It mainly takes a look at Christianity, but there are applications to Buddhism and if memory serves they mentioned Advaita. They also talk about political theory and axiology from a process perspective. I'd start with the two appendices and then read the rest though. Appendix A especially is phenomenal.

Reclaiming Your Archetypal Mythology Let’s connect the dots I’ve outlined so far. I had a certain life narrative about my weight that informed the reasons for why I wanted to become muscular. At the time I self-identified as a nihilist, but I clearly lived “as if” my overweight was the reason for why I wanted to become muscular. I was then confronted by the archetype of the Olympian physique and this mobilized my energies toward the creation of my own Olympian physique. However much of a nihilistic atheist I was, I was clearly still living a mythology and it was quite literally threatening my life. As such, if you’re already living a mythology that influences and is influenced by the archetypes that exist out in the world, then it simply stands to reason, rationality, and logic – that you should actively, consciously start creating and living by your own personal mythology. This would be a mythology that is defined by your actual life narrative, but interpreted in a way that gives reason for who you want to be as a man and the life that you want to live. Additionally, rather than being pulled by archetypes that you compulsively view because you hate your body (or however that manifests for you specifically), you are instead motivated to seek out archetypes that mobilize your energies towards growth that would be healthy for you. With all of that being said, I know this all seems very abstract. Given the length of this article already I don’t want to go into too much depth. I’ll be applying this to specific archetypes, such as the succubus, in the future. However, what I’d like to end on is how exactly archetypes can be used to promote our growth. This is called the process of integration6. So let’s return to the example of the Olympian physique that motivates young men to have muscle dysmorphia and unhealthy lifestyles. Let’s say that you’re one of these young men. What you want to do is to start feeling into a wider context that allows for more possibilities. One strategy would be to start a meditation practice to cultivate awareness. Your increased awareness allows you to begin connecting your underlying beliefs and emotions related to the archetype with the archetype itself. Even though I didn’t understand archetypes at the time, once I realized how r/bodybuilding was affecting me, I immediately stopped using it. Awareness of the problem itself was the only curative I needed to stop my daily worship of the Olympian archetype. Within a matter of days the desire to use steroids again began to vanish. For yourself, whether you experience muscle dysmorphia or not, meditation can help you notice how the various things you engage with mobilize your energies toward emotions, beliefs, and lifestyles that you no longer wish to have. Meditation also helps to, “soothe [us] by relaxing the body enough to allow alternatives to emerge in our awareness.” In other words, rather than being knocked this way and that by your desperate need for the perfect body as a salve for your inadequacy, you’re able to find some sort of calm center amidst that still raging emotional storm. Ellis further describes meditation as a way to illuminate our mind so that we can actually see what’s going on in our mind. You’re now not so tightly bound to one way of feeling or thinking about things, and thus, new connections can be made. For example, you can create more reasons for self-compassion rather than mere self-hatred or self-denial. This would allow you to respond to your failures in ways that make sustainable success more likely. The reason I kept bingeing on food despite my desperate desire not to, was precisely because I punished my worthless self with compulsive exercise, rather than forgiving myself and loving myself. Again, if you’re also someone who struggles with muscle dysmorphia, you can begin to see how weightlifting can be an avenue for health and accomplishment rather than merely attaining some perfect ideal as a condition to finally love yourself. You can become aware of how the compulsive exercise is hurting your body and instead make room for something that relaxes your body, whether that’s some easy yoga or a hot bath with a good book. You can see how these moments of rest and recovery are as important for improving your body as a heavy workout in the gym. In other words, through the process of mindfulness you can begin to integrate, or bring together, the various elements of yourself that have been rejected based on old beliefs and unresolved emotions. By becoming aware of the archetypes that are already mobilizing your energies you can begin to challenge and change them, or perhaps drop them altogether for a better alternative. In either case, you are able to expand your understanding of yourself, your goals, and the world. Now, obviously the process of integration is far more complex than this, but you can already see how powerful something as simple as meditation can be for this process. Like I said, in the future I’ll be going far deeper into specific archetypes, as well as how you can identify your own and learn to connect with others that are more empowering. This was merely an introductory piece to demonstrate the importance of personal mythology and the power of archetypes in that mythology. You are already living a myth, likely one that has been given to you without your conscious awareness or consent. If you want to live a myth that supports you, you need to bring consciousness to the myth you’re already living and then transform it into a myth you’d prefer to live. On my substack I will be giving you all the theory and exercises you need to make your own personal mythology, but I will also exemplify the theory by offering my own personal mythology. If you connect with the symbols and narratives, then by all means use them, change them, adapt them to your own mythology, but also be open to finding other archetypes that suit you better. At the end of the day, personal mythology isn’t just an intellectual exercise. Bond says this well, “mythological consciousness comes from the need to live in a context. Fantasy coalesces into a ritual that moves our bodies. Play evolves into work that moves our hands. The game becomes a style that guides our lives.” As such,, I wanted to give some pointers on how you can take up a meditation practice if you haven’t already. One of the biggest mistakes that beginners make is to assume that it’s about having a perfectly clear mind. When they sit down they immediately realize they’ve just spent the last 5 minutes lost in thought. They think “oh damn I must be doing it wrong – I don’t have a clear mind! I guess meditation just isn’t for me…” This isn’t what meditation looks like when you first start. Instead, meditation looks like setting a 5 minute timer, sitting down in a chair with your back straight, and then doing your best to focus on your breathing. Then, in less than a minute you suddenly realize you got lost in thought. This might be frustrating, but when you first start meditating your first lesson is that you cannot control your thoughts. Every single time you become aware that your mind has wandered and you bring your attention back to the breath, you’ve won! The more you catch yourself lost in thought the more you’re winning because that means you’re becoming more and more self-aware. Over time you eventually gain the ability to become more self-aware faster. Connect that with what I said above about identifying emotions, beliefs, and archetypes. To be able create your personal mythology you must first become aware of the mythology you’re already living and how it is affecting you. Again, meditation is one of the best possible skills for doing that. I cannot recommend meditation enough. So, to be clear about how you can start: Set aside some time to meditate, I recommend every morning after your shower. Set your timer for 5 minutes. This is a good length to start with because you don’t want to overwhelm yourself. It’s better to start small and work your way up to 20-30 minutes because consistency is way more important at this point. Count your inhale 1, exhale 2, inhale 3, exhale 4 up to 10, and then start back at 1. Each time your mind wanders, try your best not to judge yourself, and then compassionately bring your attention back to your breathing, starting at 1. Two very important rules to follow are to number one – always sit for the entire session until your timer goes off. However difficult your session may seem during it, you will almost always gain the most by sitting it out. Even if your mind is wandering constantly you are always getting better at meditation as long as you do it consistently for the full time. Secondly though, you also want to cultivate compassion for yourself. A really cool piece of advice I learned from Vervaeke is to view your thoughts like puppies. When you notice the puppy has wandered off, you compassionately bring it back to you. You never get mad or hurt the puppy. That’s how you want to view your thoughts when they wander off. Either way, that is enough for today. Thank you so much for your time and attention. Please hit the like button and subscribe for more articles and conversations that go very deeply into masculinity, psychological development, and the cultivation of a meaningful personal mythology. Thanks again, and all the best to you on whatever journey you find yourself on. References: 1 – John Vervaeke (2019) Awakening from the Meaning Crisis—YouTube. Retrieved August 2, 2024, from https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLND1JCRq8Vuh3f0P5qjrSdb5eC1ZfZwWJ 2 – Bond, D. S. S. (2001). Living Myth: Personal Meaning as a Way of Life. Shambhala. 3 – MetaMasculine. (2024, August 15). Why Myths Still Matter: The Evolutionary Role of Fantastical Stories.; The Evolutionary Necessity of Myth—By Will Cameron. (n.d.). Retrieved August 17, 2024, from https://metamasculine.substack.com/p/the-evolutionary-necessity-of-myth 4 – Dempsey, B. G. (2023, June 14). Building the Cathedral | 2. Drafting [Substack newsletter]. Brendan Graham Dempsey. https://brendangrahamdempsey.substack.com/p/building-the-cathedral-2-drafting 5 – Quote by Viktor E. Frankl: “When a person can’t find a deep sense of meanin...” (n.d.). Retrieved August 13, 2024, from https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/5738688-when-a-person-can-t-find-a-deep-sense-of-meaning 6 – Ellis, R. M. (2022). Archetypes in Religion and Beyond: A Practical Theory of Human Integration and Inspiration. Equinox Publishing. 7 – Cerea, S., Bottesi, G., Pacelli, Q. F., Paoli, A., & Ghisi, M. (2018). Muscle Dysmorphia and its Associated Psychological Features in Three Groups of Recreational Athletes. Scientific Reports, 8, 8877. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-27176-9 8 – Meditating with John Vervaeke—YouTube. (n.d.). Retrieved August 17, 2024, from https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLND1JCRq8VujAHvDA482SXF1cJTQrwlx3