like - you can imagine a big-ass causal network of reasons things happen - X happens because Y, Z, W because Y1, Y2, Z1, Z2, Z3, W1, etc. etc. - and laying out the whole network is costly and confusing so in practice we single a node out somehow and stop there
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in public discourse depressingly often people ask "why thing bad?" and traverse the network until they get to "ahh, because outgroup bad," raucous applause from ingroup, but does not go far enough imo - even to the extent that it's true... why outgroup bad???
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ex: common tactic in feminist discourse to traverse the network until you get to "because men bad," but... why men bad??? i don't dispute the point, many men are awful in many ways, but haven't you ever gotten curious about why???
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it's sorta funny you're doing the same thing in reverse: the "men bad" stuff tends to be venting; while "patriarchy harms men too, by having them suppress their emotions & enforce masculinity and often the hurt they cause comes from that" is actual feminist analysis
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there was a tweet the other day that was like “most men would assault you if they could and the rule of law + your male partner defending you is the only reason they don’t” and like, first of all, ofc a tweet like that is coming from some very painful history, but also like...
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...where would you put that on the venting-to-analysis spectrum? i don’t think the OP would have considered themselves to be venting
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that kinda stuff feels like it's either someone overdosing on bronze age mindset-like writing or it's a trauma-informed worldview that came to be? or both? it's kinda close to a lot of the evopsych bullshit applied to society stuff; but maybe personal too, and merged?
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that's how I would read that; honestly it doesn't even immediately occur to me that that isn't a take from a man or someone with no trauma
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I thought about it more in shower, actually:
sometimes people who are desperate for an explanation for what happened to them buy into abusers narratives -- like, "this is just how men are" or, e.g. With trans women it's the whole AGP blanchardshit discourse
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it's a form of denial, for sure, but it does give a succinct answer for "why did bad things happen to me?" "why am I feeling these things that make me ashamed?" and it's convenient to just buy into it. redpillwomen in particular has that vibe too.
could be that kinda thing
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yeah. this is part of why i feel conflicted about bringing this kind of thing up at all
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there is a style of tweeting that for lack of a better word i'll call "stating honest beliefs that undermine other people's coping mechanisms" and i feel more conflicted about it now than i used to
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i *hope* things balance out and on net me saying what i think somewhat but not too carefully will be more helpful than harmful but idk could go either way
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i uhh, take the liberty to declare that this kind of cope is actually just denial and a bad thing. surely a person with those views must constantly run into opposition, and if I see them hurt from opposing views I'll stop; but that's a badddd coping mechanism
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this is assuming I like, know them and care enough to engage; with most online stuff it's just not worth
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