this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2024
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Yup. You get it. The solution is simple, with one exception. Simple doesn't mean easy.
We need socialized healthcare including mental healthcare. That would do a lot, there are almost always signs that a non-gang mass shooter is mentally unwell.
Gang and crime based mass shootings would fall through the floor if we removed the incentive for them, prohibition of drugs. Addiction should be treated as a health problem.
We need to identify these sources of hateful propaganda, the nests of poisonous ideology and root them out through education. We aren't teaching critical thinking, I think that also has a lot to do with it.
You also have many young men that lack good role models for positive masculinity. This is a big thing I'm not sure how to fix. Toxic masculinity has become so pervasive and has infected almost every straight man that can be considered macho. I'm a very masculine man, and proud of it. My zippo says Daddy. My straw hat also has a pride/equality pin next to a Ruger pin. The number of men that I meet like myself is quite low. Met a very macho trans man once that I found had a similar worldview. Have met similar men in the gay leather communities but they tend to cluster in large cities and form insular communities for their own safety.
You've met at least one here, I was raised by nutcases out in the boonies, raised deeply conservative and religious, did a sharp 180 when I got out on my own/escaped, and have now settled into an ideology that's really all about harm reduction, personal freedom and kindness to one another, something that is completely at odds with how most men see masculinity right now.
I have walked in both worlds, I get it, I get how so many people can feel so afraid and so ready to withdraw from the system and fight anyone who would take away their comforts. I get how so many young men are so lonely, traumatized and insecure. I get how so many women can't trust men and end up making the problems worse as a result. I get how so many people are tuned-out from politics and social discourse and what this is doing to the world.
The causes of all this are many, but they all highlight a massive failing in the human experience, we are a cursed creature who are stuck on the rails of biology and evolution, we think we have far more free-will than we really do, we think we're somehow logical and rational, but we can't even see the actual universe around us, if there even is one. We are trying to fit a ridiculously complicated world into our brains that were formed over ice ages and only really knows how to predict dangerous predators.
And I don't know which is worse anymore. Having awareness of all this, or being naive, blissful and ignorant. Neither gives peace, neither offers solutions, neither makes our lives better.
We'd probably get along just fine.
Knowing is better. Knowing is always better. All we can do is try and tell others what we've learned and keep trying to grow ourselves. My purpose is loving my people, my little family. Care for them and treat other folks with respect and kindness. To err is human, and we forgive others when we can.
On that last point I think part of the issue is positive masculinity needs to be tied with self love/empowerment. The focus on toxic masculinity has overall been negative and easily spun as "men are toxic" (even though the people who'd benefit most from positive masculinity would be men themselves). Men are struggling because its hard to find a way forward that society accepts and supports
Yeah. I have no clue how the path out of it works.
Lots of disenfranchised young men full of anger and drives, piss and vinegar, see negative messaging for liking the stereotypical things that young straight men like on one side. On the other side they're welcomed with open arms and then drip fed poison while reinforcing their identity.
Here on Lemmy if you talk about hunting, meat eating, etc.; people get all riled up. Think I have at least one troll following me and down voting every post.
The left is failing young men and driving them into the open arms of fascism.
I have no clue what can be done about it.
Yeah, I agree with you on pretty much all points. All I can really do is see my peers or juniors who may be at risk of falling into the darker corners, and try and bring them into my circle before that happens, but I only have so much time and energy, and that only helps the ones who get seen before they fall