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16 - Culture Wars Can Kill

Aggrieved masculinity is a public health problem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 June 2023

Karen Lee Ashcraft
Affiliation:
University of Colorado Boulder
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Summary

The end of aggrieved masculinity is neither near nor certain. If these are its last legs, that's one hell of a stand. Part IV takes up with the fact that manly grievance is on the move, intensifying rather than dissipating. Increasingly, aggrieved masculinity runs the world because it runs around the world, increasing.

We have worked to establish two things: one, that anger management—or government by pufferfish—is a maladapted reflex that is bad for the world and, two, that a sense of MANLY RIGHT, WRONGED is what sends it around the world. Now it's time to consider more carefully how a feeling once said to be destined for extinction continues to multiply exponentially, and to ask what else we might do about it. These are the tasks of Part IV, and they are not small.

Easy answers will not be found here, but an alternative pathway will. Empathy from the side, lateral empathy, is how I referred to this route from the start. Lateral, in that it goes past The People's presenting story to the animating force, the propelling feeling that moves them to content. Empathy, as it recognizes our common stake in addressing this spreading disease and knows that we can't simply banish those who feel it. Anti-populism saves no one. Nor does vanquishing this or that pufferfish or expelling those who carry entitled grievance.

More than any particular host, it is the feeling of manhood under siege—the growing agitation itself—that needs our attention. What kind of attention, and how to wrestle with it, are the questions of Part IV.

I will propose a new course of action but stop short of declaring what forms it should take. Others will be more qualified to fill in those blanks, and I say that from a populist sensibility, which makes room for all kinds of knowledge and skill. I don't pretend to know exactly what we need or who (and what) can best bring it to bear. What I am equipped to offer is a doorway. Enter here if you can help slow the spread of aggrieved masculinity and wish to collaborate in doing so.

As we proceed, remember that I do not seek to replace existing approaches through direct confrontation or empathy from the front. All hands on deck are needed, I figure.

Type
Chapter
Information
Wronged and Dangerous
Viral Masculinity and the Populist Pandemic
, pp. 159 - 173
Publisher: Bristol University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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