In writing of those online spaces collectively known as the "manosphere" the common tone of the mainstream press is one of moral panic, especially insofar as its personnel identify that manosphere with the guy who used to be a handyman on a '90s sitcom about a radio station who seems ready to listen to anything about the paranormal; a "professor of psychology" prone to ultra-obscurantist ravings that are supposed to have something to do with the work of Carl Jung(?) and the habits of lobsters; and a kickboxer who offers "Big Thinks" about such matters as the comparative "attractiveness" of Hulk Hogan vs. Megan Fox were certain aspects of their anatomies switched who at last count was under investigation for crimes (including human trafficking) by the governments of three countries. However, those offering what they seem to expect us to regard as a slightly more nuanced view of the phenomenon tend to stress the extent to which much of the manosphere mostly seems a venue for "self-help."
In discussing this the implication of most of the commentariat is that this is fairly innocuous, benign, even salutary stuff--reflecting the essentially respectful attitude the mainstream (conservative, conformist, breathlessly aspirationalism-promoting) takes toward self-help--the more in as it hews to a narrative that young men are in "crisis," and need "guidance," by which they mean that the Tragedy of the Age is that too many Eric Formans do not have a Red Forman threatening them with "Foots in Asses!"
They are, of course, displaying a characteristic incoherence. After all, complaining ceaselessly about "toxic masculinity" they would at the same time expect us to think that narrow-minded, intolerant middle-aged men bullying their insecure children with threats of physical violence is something good for them and for society. Moreover, what the manosphere's purveyors of "self-help" offer makes old Red Forman look like the most broad-minded and gentle of father figures as they pontificate about the necessity of cultivating an extreme hardness of mind and body that will lead to "success"--to money, to respect, to women and all else that young men hope to find in this world.
To those at all dubious about self-help crapola all this can only ever have about it the reek of glorified hucksterism exploiting desperate hopes for the good things of life which few of the takers of this advice will ever get, and that in spite of rather than because of that advice, all as this particular flavor of said crapola is the especially distasteful "Pseudo-Macho Bully," which has more than a whiff of the Brownshirts--or rather, the Black Shorts--about it. But of course that is not something that the not-so-good people of the Fourth Estate would ever say. Instead they do their duty as people of their ideological bent would have it by (once again) affirming the bourgeois verities for which self-help culture stands, and shouting down anyone who makes the least reference to there ever having been such a thing as fascism in the world in a manner that makes it very clear that if Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler were alive and politically active today in exactly the same fashion they were a hundred years ago they would be penning essays about why they are not really fascists, and anyone who uses the term is a callow ignoramus or ideological fanatic indulging in the sin of "political language" for saying otherwise--as we can confidently say because in Mussolini and Hitler's old stomping grounds (and not just there!) the political elites of the moment are showing us that they "never forgot where they came from" as they stamp out civil liberties, persecute minorities, rob working people and reorient their economies to Weltpolitik-minded rearmament with said media never less than respectful of, and often enthusiastic about, the project.
Likewise never occurring to them as they imagine young men to be seeking this all out eagerly, and grateful for the severity and the sternness when they get it, is the fact that a great many young men have had too much "Red Forman" in their lives--precisely because it runs against the media folks' aforementioned conservative prejudices, which have them preferring to believe the opposite. And so even in the "liberal" New York Times one sees the "liberal" Ezra Klein actually put in a good word for the Big Think-offering kickboxer in trouble with the law, as Mr. Klein's colleagues ignore the reality that contrary to the idea that the manosphere has a powerful hold on the mind of the younger generation very little of said generation may be paying it any mind at all--and a significant portion of it plausibly put off of it by a Message whose unpleasantness extends far, far beyond the ways in which it offends the subtler sensitivities of the identity politics-minded.
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