[RD] Why Men Need to be Involved in the #MeToo Movement

[inthesomeday]

No.
Every highly developed society "on earth" today is the result of incremental change, pragmatism, diplomacy and compromise.

Give me one example of a modern “highly developed society” that formed how it exists today without at least one major conflict absolutely central to its current form of government and economy.

 

[metatron]

Give me one example of a modern “highly developed society” that formed how it exists today without at least one major conflict absolutely central to its current form of government and economy.

You are moving goal posts.

 

[El_Machinae]

If you go back, there will always be blood. But Canada became independent after its last bout of amazing conflict.

 

[inthesomeday]

You are moving goal posts.

Okay, give me one modern nation state without a government conceived by an ideological struggle or conference that actually established it in the interests of the ruling class.

 

[Traitorfish]

It's true that every society is a product of "incremental change, pragmatism, diplomacy and compromise".

But it's also true that every society is the product of deeply-rooted ideological and social conflict.

The error is in imagining that these are two distinct and opposed processes.

 

[Camikaze]

Isn't the point of utopianism that it is the deliberate modelling of a society with the conscious aim of creating a self-defined utopia? Not that it actually creates a utopia, or that the deliberate modelling of elements of society on a discrete basis is necessarily part of some consciously broader vision.

 

[metatron]

It's true that every society is a product of "incremental change, pragmatism, diplomacy and compromise".

But it's also true that every society is the product of deeply-rooted ideological and social conflict.

The error is in imagining that these are two distinct and opposed processes.

The error rather is that [deeply-rooted ideological and social conflict] is not an acceptable substitute for the terms i used.

Okay, give me one modern nation state without a government conceived by an ideological struggle or conference that actually established it in the interests of the ruling class.

There's allways ideas and ideology in politics, yes, but that's not utopianism.
Governments are created on the rationale of "Well, there has to order, no?", to guarantee rights (which as you correctly point out is often enough rather a protection of privileges).
Point is, there's little vision and little revolutionary change. The structure of society is improvised according to opportunity and necessity (to favor your beloved "ruling class" if you insist).
What little vision there is, is largely reverse engineered hoopla (barely) fitting current circumstances.

A utopian society at least attempts not to bother with any of that. There's a theory. Based on that theory a society is designed. It's forward engineered that way and usually untested.
Typically this involves a view of the human condition revolving around humans being "good" by default and society merely being poisoned by one toxin vice or another.
Often there is a glorified past, some pristine condition before said vice, to be restored.
Usually the utopian design is to be implemented not by negotiation, compromise, corruption or disorientation of the opposition, but by force.
Usually, since the whole thing is insane bullpucky, things quickly devolve to an attempt to re-purify society by purging the vice or the people perpetuating it.

So, the societies built by Reagan, Erhard or Madison (no endorsements) are not utopian societies. The societies built by Stalin, Hitler and Mao (also no endorsements) however, are.
I do understand that for reasons of your personal politics this whole argument is entirely unacceptable to you (i believe to understand that you favor the implementation of some sort of "anarchy" that mean, cynical, jaded me might call "utopian").

I advise you, though: The two of you can argue all day that the United States budget for 2018 constitutes a utopian vision, that for that matter my shopping list does, and that either of them may be enacted with revolutionary force.
Pardon me, though, if i show decreasing activity in that debate.

Also, excuse me for saying so, but if i were you i would recognise that what i just said applies bigly to Trump and the Brexiteers, with the exception that they lack the grandious unifying theory.
If i were you i'd prepare for the day they get one rather than debate semantics with cute little metatron.

 

[Cutlass]

One man's utopia is another man' hell.

 

[Lexicus]

Liberal capitalism was a utopian project at one time.

 

[inthesomeday]

The error rather is that [deeply-rooted ideological and social conflict] is not an acceptable substitute for the terms i used.

I disagree entirely. Deeply-rooted ideological conflict is exactly how you define utopia, as

Basically any attempt to design a society (usually derivative of some grandious "theory" or another) and implement it by way of revolutionary change.

At least in the context TF uses it here. You go on to add another caveat to your definition, that utopian projects result in the establishment of a hierarchical society with the utopians at the top.

There's allways ideas and ideology in politics, yes, but that's not utopianism.
Governments are created on the rationale of "Well, there has to order, no?", to guarantee rights (which as you correctly point out is often enough rather a protection of privileges).

Why isn’t it utopian? What makes the USSR utopian but not the UK, or the USA, or the post-WWII republics?

Point is, there's little vision and little revolutionary change.

There is at the least the same amount of both of these in the establishment of western Bourgeois democracy as there is in the establishment of state socialism.

The structure of society is improvised according to opportunity and necessity (to favor your beloved "ruling class" if you insist).
What little vision there is, is largely reverse engineered hoopla (barely) fitting current circumstances.

But this isn’t true. The conflicts that established all western bourgeois democracy all had very well-defined ideologies before they were carried out. Obviously the actual wars fought to achieve them had little expression of the ideology at hand but I don’t think that rules out their definitions as utopias.

A utopian society at least attempts not to bother with any of that. There's a theory. Based on that theory a society is designed. It's forward engineered that way and usually untested.

I’m still not seeing how this rules out all these western states, bar maybe Luxembourg or Monaco or something.

Typically this involves a view of the human condition revolving around humans being "good" by default and society merely being poisoned by one toxin vice or another.
Often there is a glorified past, some pristine condition before said vice, to be restored.
Usually the utopian design is to be implemented not by negotiation, compromise, corruption or disorientation of the opposition, but by force.
Usually, since the whole thing is insane bullpucky, things quickly devolve to an attempt to re-purify society by purging the vice or the people perpetuating it.

Here we get into YOUR ideological bias with your definitions.

So, the societies built by Reagan, Erhard or Madison (no endorsements) are not utopian societies.

Why not? The example I’m most familiar with, Reagan, follows almost all the exact same definitions even your heavily biased parameters allow. Supply-side neoliberalism was thoroughly sold as a brand new idea that would result in the perfection of society, that targeted degenerates for purging (mostly POC drug users, unionists and leftists) and harkened back to the glory days of pre-Keynesian America. They obviously led to the elevation of the inner circle of preachers for Reaganomics— corporate elites, billionaires and multi-millionaires, the conservative and neoliberal political and military class— into absolute power over the country (although they’d already had this for the most part). The only thing that seems to be missing is a direct “revolutionary” conflict, but then Hitler was democratically elected, Stalin rose to the position of Secretary-General in a way that didn’t result in any open conflict on the streets, and even Kim il Sung was peacefully placed in power in a largely bureaucratic manner.

The societies built by Stalin, Hitler and Mao (also no endorsements) however, are.

Here is where YOUR bias becomes evident. Why should Maoism be utopian but not British republicanism, which required a major “revolutionary” conflict to establish and follows all the other definitions of utopian? Why Hitler, who was democratically elected, but not Reagan, who even both had similar platforms? Why Stalin, whose rule may well have been the most pragmatic of the bunch, but not, say, Winston Churchill?

I do understand that for reasons of your personal politics this whole argument is entirely unacceptable to you (i believe to understand that you favor the implementation of some sort of "anarchy" that mean, cynical, jaded me might call "utopian").

The result of this analysis is this question: why would you consider anarchism, literally the disestablishment of hierarchies, any more utopian than liberalism, which seems, quite similar to any other “utopian” theory discussed here, to attempt to establish the one just hierarchy (^TM)? Is it because you are a liberal and I am an anarchist? That seems to be the answer here; but you seem to think I said to myself “I’m an anarchist, so everything but anarchism is utopian”, while in reality it’s closer to “well there’s a lot of Utopianism out there, I’ll try and find a political theory that’s not utopian.”

You, however, have grown up in liberalism, learned it your whole life, and still rep it today, despite its very obviously utopian aspects (by your own definitions and parameters). Yours seems more the case of “I’m a liberal, so everything else is utopian.”

Also, excuse me for saying so, but if i were you i would recognise that what i just said applies bigly to Trump and the Brexiteers, with the exception that they lack the grandious unifying theory.
If i were you i'd prepare for the day they get one rather than debate semantics with cute little metatron.

Oh I agree completely that Trumpism and Brexit both have the same parameters for utopia that you’ve established here. I disagree though that either lacks a grandiose unifying theory. Just because nobody wrote it down doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Moderator Action: Please remember that this is an RD thread, and we are straying wildly off topic. Please re-read the OP and first page to re-familiarize yourselves with what this thread is about. Thank you.

 

[Mouthwash]

The #MeToo movement is about power, not liberation. A movement that seeks to openhandedly allow women (and only women) to bypass legal protocols for dealing with sexual misconduct and allow them to present themselves as victims without the burden of evidence isn't acting in good faith. What about men who give their coworkers an 'unwanted' compliment/hug/invitation in an 'inappropriate' setting (both of those qualifications being decided solely by the recipient)? Is he supposed to feel guilty? I've seen that happen and probably have done it myself.

Men are chasers, women are choosers, and favoring one side or the other is simply going to benefit the most privileged of that side while making least privileged of the other side suffer. This is why I think #MeToo is an evil movement, regardless of the genuine victims it might help along the way. As with capitalism, freedom is completely illusory if you are dependent upon the goodwill of another class to live a decent life, and yes, women are necessary for the welfare of men. Loneliness is deadly. And I'm not even talking about how, in an anonymous setting, 80% of females only go for the most attractive men, or how attractive men get away with ridiculously harassing and controlling behavior, or how being too awkward at sex is now considered oppressive to women by feminists. It's that the men who *really need* female companionship are going to be ugly, uncharismatic, physically inept or crippled, poor, underachieving, depressed, i.e. the ones who are least likely to get it. I don't hear leftists calling people who demand higher than minimum wage entitled, labeling their attempts to unionize as "theft culture" or claiming that they just see employers as bags of money. Being deprived of something basic to human happiness is as much a wrong as having your personal space or body violated.

What the #MeToo movement doesn't understand is that men use The Hunt because it really works. You really do get more dates/sex through boldness and incessant pressure, and there are plenty of men whom I don't blame in the least for it.

(What I can't understand is why any Marxist would jump aboard this train. To define sexual relations as being based on 'rights' or 'contracts' seems as bourgeois as morality could possibly be. Marxists, what do you find attractive in #MeToo and more broadly, feminism?)

 

[Synobun]

Are you saying undesirable men deserve the reward of sex from a woman?

 

[Mouthwash]

Are you saying undesirable men deserve the reward of sex from a woman?

No, I absolutely don't believe that women owe men sex as a matter of course! That idea comes about because liberals can't conceive of sexuality as being based upon anything but 'mutually consenting parties,' so suggesting that men have a right to a relationship or sex implies that the other party must be forced into it.

 

[inthesomeday]

Your analysis is... first of all laughingly cliche, and secondly indicative of one of the absolutely most disgusting functions of modern sexism.

Moderator Action: Try to make your point without mocking other posters in an RD thread please --LM


In comparing sex from women to wages from a boss you discuss it as a commodity to be traded. Sex is not a commodity to be traded, it is an activity to be enjoyed by, yes, two consenting partners. To think of it as anything else is horribly problematic and dehumanizing to men as well as women.

(What I can't understand is why any Marxist would jump aboard this train. To define sexual relations as being based on 'rights' or 'contracts' seems as bourgeois as morality could possibly be. Marxists, what do you find attractive in #MeToo and more broadly, feminism?)

Marxist analysis of gender in history very clearly displays a long-standing material oppression of women by men. We recognize that the unfortunate and disgusting capitalist commodification of sex serves more to objectify and dehumanize women than men, guaranteed by men’s material privilege.

 

[Mouthwash]

Your analysis is... first of all laughingly cliche, and secondly indicative of one of the absolutely most disgusting functions of modern sexism.

In comparing sex from women to wages from a boss you discuss it as a commodity to be traded.

No, it doesn't, and I'm surprised that a self-avowed Marxist might see welfare as commodification. Of course I don't think the solutions should be exactly the same (sex and intimacy are fundamentally social), but the underlying injustice is still there, and just as urgently needs to be eliminated.

Marxist analysis of gender in history very clearly displays a long-standing material oppression of women by men.

Sure, but why frame the solution in terms of rights?

 

[Cutlass]

No, I absolutely don't believe that women owe men sex as a matter of course! That idea comes about because liberals can't conceive of sexuality as being based upon anything but 'mutually consenting parties,' so suggesting that men have a right to a relationship or sex implies that the other party must be forced into it.

Well, sex should be based on mutual consenting parties. That's really the whole point. The point behind #metoo is that this has very frequently not been the case. Men do not have a right to sex. Not with someone who doesn't consent to it voluntarily. Coercion does not count.

This blew up in Hollywood because there was a subculture within Hollywood that effectively lived in a bubble. Not just within Hollywood, but within the entertainment industry as a whole. So while these are people that, looking in from the outside, most people may have expected to be aware of, and respectful of, the changing social mores regarding sex and sexual freedom, somehow the bubble prevented it from penetrating. And so the idea of women in the theater as being available to whatever men who were paying, which was probably always more stereotype than reality in the first place. But then you had the golden age of the casting couch, and whether true or not, the rumors have always been that even top actresses had to sleep with producers and directors to get parts. So a lot of men who came up in that bubble never came to understand that it was wrong. Despite the reputation of Hollywood being liberal, the people running Hollywood have never really been on board with feminism.

Not that this is limited to the entertainment industry. Wherever power and money come together, there's a paternalism of Boys Club Rules. It hasn't been long at all since conventions of finance people or oil people came with complementary prostitutes. And sexual misconduct among religious leaders is legion.

The point being, if you are willing to open your eyes and see what's going on, it's all over the place. But the reaction now is in large measure the built up frustration because a very high percentage of sexual misconduct allegations, up to and including forcible rape, have never been properly investigated and prosecuted. The fact that women could not trust the system to fairly defend them is what made it possible for this to go on so long.

And so now we have a problem in that the men are 'convicted' without the benefit of a jury decision. But then we've always had a problem that the women were 'convicted' without the benefit of a jury decision. Not an unbiased one, at any rate. So neither outcome is fair. But then no one knows how to get to fair.

 

[stinkubus]

What in the world do the preferences of Tinder's female users have to do with a movement that is centered around exposing inappropriate behavior? Not measuring up is a problem for the 80% of men who don't get any "matches" to correct, if they so choose. The responses the fake Tinder profile got are even less relevant. Demonizing women for finding or not finding a particular sort of man attractive is exactly the sense of entitlement which needs to be quashed!

I'm curious which "legal protocols" that the #MeToo movement is attempting to subvert. I have yet to hear anyone clamoring for removing the presumption of innocence in criminal cases. In the United States (can't speak to labor laws in other countries) unless you are a union member or otherwise have a contract with your employer you are almost never entitled to a presumption of innocence, or anything else resembling "due process", in cases of workplace misconduct. Almost anyone can be fired, at any time, for any reason at all. Your bad jokes don't even need to be sexually inappropriate to get you canned.

 

[El_Machinae]

The #MeToo movement is about power, not liberation. A movement that seeks to openhandedly allow women (and only women) to bypass legal protocols for dealing with sexual misconduct and allow them to present themselves as victims without the burden of evidence isn't acting in good faith. What about men who give their coworkers an 'unwanted' compliment/hug/invitation in an 'inappropriate' setting (both of those qualifications being decided solely by the recipient)? Is he supposed to feel guilty? I've seen that happen and probably have done it myself.

It's power both ways. There are many ways in which this is zero sum. Either men get punished for making unwanted advances, or women get the burden of dealing with unwanted advances. If you see this transition as evil, it might just be latent conservative tendencies, where 'the old way was better'. It's not, it's zero-sum.

 

[inthesomeday]

No, it doesn't, and I'm surprised that a self-avowed Marxist might see welfare as commodification.

What are you talking about?

Of course I don't think the solutions should be exactly the same (sex and intimacy are fundamentally social), but the underlying injustice is still there, and just as urgently needs to be eliminated.

Women getting the power of consent is not an injustice, and to say that is tantamount to advocating slavery.

Sure, but why frame the solution in terms of rights?

Again, what are you talking about?

It's power both ways. There are many ways in which this is zero sum. Either men get punished for making unwanted advances, or women get the burden of dealing with unwanted advances. If you see this transition as evil, it might just be latent conservative tendencies, where 'the old way was better'. It's not, it's zero-sum.

Hm... I think there’s something deeply flawed in portraying men being punished for unwanted advances as some sort of hierarchical power dynamic favoring women.