Humans can never escape dominance hierarchies and the maneuvering that goes on in them whether that be in a philosophy forum, at a bar, or around the dinner table. The truthy stuff is more or less a sideshow. That's not a value judgement by the way just an observation.

(Think about it, if you were just after the truth, you could just go read some books). — Baden

It might take an evolutionary biologist approval for making me agree with the above. I don't think everyone is driven by primitive instincts or levels and responsiveness to testosterone or estrogen.

It's my belief that philosophy kind of requires one to take a more 3'rd person perspective (selfless) than 'I' and 'me' propositional attitudes (what benefits me the most).

I wouldn't put it exactly like that. It's masculine to be assertive and dominating. It's feminine to be flexible and accommodating. Cruelty and love are different things to me. You can be assertive and loving or flexible and loving. And dominating is not necessarily cruel.

Sure and that's a sensible strategy to gain respect, and so a higher placement in the hierarchy in this intellectually orientated environment. You can be conscious of it or unconscious of it. Being unconscious of it helps some because you don't have to think of yourself in ways which could cause cognitive dissonance. On the other hand, you're unlikely to ever fully convince yourself of your own sincerity. Hence doubts and uncertainty. That's the basic idea anyway.

(I'm not trying to mess with you here by the way. Feel free to discount this. I just find it a fairly coherent, if not particularly pleasant, way of looking at social interactions in general.)

Women are more agreeable, and higher in neuroticism, but only after puberty, and onward. I think this is simply because physical violence is the most extreme, and trumps all other forms of domination in the final analysis, and women are generally always at a disadvantage in this regard.

I think that we have to be careful about how we talk, as women don't have to be more masculine to be more assertive, and men don't have to be more feminine to be tempered.

I think we may have watched the same Jordan Peterson video. :)

I think that we have to be careful about how we talk, as women don't have to be more masculine to be more assertive, and men don't have to be more feminine to be tempered. — Wosret

Semantics really. Masculinity is not exclusively male and femininity not exclusively female. Neither is either exclusively physical or mental. So, pick your cards and play your game. As long as everyone knows the rules it's fine.

Is there a certain way that we ought to express masculinity? — Posty McPostface

Bravo! What, over 30 posts now and no mention yet of size differences as a true measure of a man’s worth!!! Still, shows how far removed this crowd is from them average people out there in the world. (btw, men and women ... yup, this is all funny to me)

Never liked the sound of “lord” and “lady” … until I checked out the two terms etymology on Wiktionary: “bread guardian” and “bread kneader” … two roles that are equally important, mutually important, and complement the other. As to bread, not only does bread sound very similar to “all” in some Languages (e.g. pane & pan) but there’s this Christian custom of bread representing the body of Christ(/world?). Sometimes makes me think it might have been an easily established code in ancient days, maybe similar to “vine (of life)” and “wine” as regards the spiritual side of reality … at least according to some interpretations.

Anyways, the lord / lady dichotomy is about as good a description of masculinity and femininity as any I’ve heard of so far. And then you can get into how each role contains some of the other in it. Now, I very much doubt that there’s only one way to guard bread, figuratively that is; but, still, some guys could be deemed to better express this role than others. Probably not by hording bread at baker's shops, though OK, it ain’t a perfect description of masculinity, but at least it’s better than pulling out that ruler to confirm size measurements, I say. (I hang out with the commoners often enough, don’t you all know).

I've watched them all, I like facts more than interpretations though.

The point is precisely that it isn't merely semantics, words correlate to the world, and mean things. They also are associated, which is why when people are trying to become something, or like someone they emulate superficial traits and qualities as much as the substantial ones, because they can't tell the difference. Drawing improper associations is as misleading as not drawing proper associations. Saying, basically, that gender has no relation to sex, is wrong, at the very least on must admit statistically wrong.

Yes, but there are some situations where you negotiate terms in order to have a sensible conversation. As in, if by what you mean by masculine is A then I was saying B. Obviously this is going to happen a lot in philosophy. In other cases though where there are political ramifications such as the gender / sex point you mentioned, you can't negotiate the term without ceding something important.

I've watched them all — Wosret

You've watched them all. Really? There are hundreds.

I'm simply saying that we shouldn't be associating positive attributes to one, and negative attributes to the other, on the notion that they have no real basis in reality, because we like one more than the other.

Most of them are the same. He only has so many lectures on his on page, and I've watched those, as well as many interviews that are scattered around, which aren't on his own page. I may not have seen all those. All of the short clips are just segments of his lectures that have been cut out. It also gets pretty repetitive after awhile. He only has some many positions, so many facts, and I've seen him say them all about fifty times.

I don't have much of a life, I spend most of it absorbing material.

OK, I don't consider being flexible more negative than being dominating though. Or being aggressive more negative than being accommodating. Both have their place and both are needed. Yin / yang as I said. Maybe assertiveness isn't a good term because the opposite does seem mostly negative.

Hence the need to express one's own masculinity. But, philosophers are above these silly interactions based on a unknown unknown or unknown known for the layman or woman. A good life or some sense of satisfaction can never be achieved for the masses. And so it seems to be true.

Yes, and that is again the right thing to say in this environment. We're at an impasse because you'll just keep making all the right moves and proving me right every time you say something intending to prove me wrong. (And being honest I don't care much about being right about this. Or do I...?)

He only has some many positions, so many facts, and I've seen him say them all about fifty times. — Wosret

I'm close to that point. I also think a lot of his philosophy stems from his own super high conscientiousness. I haven't heard him address that. Much does ring true too though.

I don't know what to say to the idea that it's actually the opposite of that... I think we must live in different worlds...

I find him interesting because he thinks a lot of the same things as I do, although I don't think that our personalities are all that similar. I also think that his motivations differ, and think that his artificial regulation of serotonin has kept him largely immune to the effects of competition and status, but my powers are mystical.

Yeah, but there are some things that symbolize being 'masculine'. Being a bodybuilder with high testosterone levels, or owning a large car, yacht, guns. That's all for display; but, then there's a need to express it too, no? — Posty McPostface

Some things symbolize being 'masculine' -- definitely, and some things characterize masculinity. Wearing a tie, white shirt, and a suit with oxfords is symbolic masculine dress. So are hard hats, boots, tool belts, t shirts (in warm weather) and heavy duty trousers. Also symbolic are standing at a urinal, ogling women, or going out alone for a walk at night. Having lots of pockets in one's clothing is a symbolic masculine thing. A lot of women's clothing is pocket free (and women carry purses, symbolically female). Having a hairy body doesn't "symbolize masculinity" it is a characteristic of many men, like having balls and a dick is characteristic of men. Most men. Some men seem to not have any balls, but that's another problem altogether. Testosterone doesn't symbolize masculinity -- it is masculinity (and most men have enough, without it being high).

Men and women body builders can achieve similar results (height, weight, etc. taken into account) but they won't look quite the same when they are done lifting weights. Men more readily develop visible musculature, if the have little body fat.

Athletics are not limited to men, these days, but lots of men like to engage in physical activity in a disciplined, strongly driven way -- whether that is bicycling, weight lifting, swimming, or any number of other sports. Given youth, a healthy diet, and persistence they are going to get good results, and they will not only look healthy and fit, they will be healthy and fit. That's both real and symbolic.

However, the beautiful body with the gorgeous tattoos sometimes comes with a personality that is quite a bit less interesting than chopped liver. I mean, what good are they?

Guns and cars... except that everybody owns a car these days (well, a large percentage do) and guns have various meanings. Hunting is one thing, the machine-gun useful for wiping out concert goers is something else. Yachts? No very many people own yachts. In fact, they say that the two best days for boat owners is the day they bought the boat, and then the day they sell it to somebody else.

Power tools seem like a pretty masculine thing. Most guys like using power tools. We like to build stuff. Guys are supposed to know how to "do stuff" -- fix a car, build a garage, repair plumbing, dig big holes in the ground, pour concrete, forge steel, paint the house, all that good stuff. Most of us don't, but we would like to.

So, what's the deal with expressing masculinity? — Posty McPostface

Get some power tools if you can afford it--hand tools if not, some wood, nails, screws, and so on and have yourself an orgy. You'll be able to boost your T-levels in no time at all. Just holding a nail gun gives some guys an erection.

BTW, the power nail gun can serve as a home defense system too. It's just that by the time you hook up the compressor, get the nail gun out of the tool box (you have a tool box, right?) and put a clip of nails in it, the home break in might be all over. Plus, you have to press the barrel of the gun up against the invader's head before the nails will fire off. Clumsy but highly effective. Maybe a regular revolver would be better.

Hunting is one thing, the machine-gun useful for wiping out concert goers is something else. — Bitter Crank

Yes, that seems to be a problem. Do you see some correlation between some pent-up issue related to masculinity and acts of violence? Criminals do it all the time on the streets and inside the jail, where they belong. The even more psychotic types like rapists, gang-bangers, murdering as a sport, and so on seem to take the whole thing to a whole new level, and with that often get labeled as 'lunatics' or 'crazies' or 'nutjobs', which detracts from understanding the complex issue.

Something is obviously being expressed by these 'crazies' (like the Las Vegas shooter who had a squeaky clean criminal record and on face value appeared 'normal' to his family and friends) and such, methinks it has a lot to do with the masculinity of the extreme variety.

You've watched them all. Really? There are hundreds. — Baden

This by the way is quoting him when someone said that they had watched all of his videoes to him, but obviously hadnt.

Is there a certain way that we ought to express masculinity? For the sake of the thread, I'd like to focus on men rather than the loving and caring female that tempers the drive to express one's masculinity. — Posty McPostface

'Masculinity' is a sickness, it is a pathology stemming from a self-defeating desire that mirrors a distorted and imaginative ideal saturated by the influence of fear. Our desires are formed by unconscious or instinctual needs and children initially mirror the stimuli illustrated by their family and then social environment as they relationally develop a language that motivates how they perceive and identify with the external world. Even our emotions are structured and asserted by a relational narrative formed by others - like a child of a racist growing to feel real hatred and anger for this Other; its not actually real - usually starting with one's father and then moving on to their social environment as they begin to form an idealised version of themselves.

Men who take steroids and act tough are no different to women who get plastic surgery and inject shit into their lips; they are both creating an idealised version of themselves based on this self-defeating pathology that stems from the fear of rejection. If, as children, we mirror our parents where our ego is formed by this negative differentiation, the fear of being rejected ensures doubt within us until we reach an age where this is transferred to our social environment; others form the language of our identity and therefore we become socially constructed ourselves.

And yet, they are congratulated for forming this public image that solidifies this identification to their ideal. Why? Think of it like Stockholm syndrome or traumatic bonding, where a hostage begins to defend and sympathise with the captor; women don't find aggressive men attractive, they are afraid of them that they act passive and gentle to save themselves from becoming a victim. A man in a tolerable but unhappy relationship for long enough will eventually think he is happy and in love. We are erroneously responding to the trauma from the potential fear of being a victim that we submit only to end up defending this unidentifiable social aggressor.

So what is the difference between an image of this ideal version of man and an authentic one? Men acting aggressive and macho are actually exposing the same emptiness as a woman who acts sweet and lovely but is actually inadvertently cruel and bitchy [backstabbers with a smile]. There is a lack of moral substance. I don't think anyone has said it better than the Solomon: For the lips of an immoral woman are as sweet as honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil. But in the end she is as bitter as poison, as dangerous as a double-edged sword. What makes a beautiful woman? It is the substance, the very 'within' of a person and not an image that is nothing but a mindless display. Those men that desire those women are still attempting to express this ideal version of masculinity because having such women is another part of this display.

They lack moral consciousness, genuine love. They are incapable of giving love because their identity is structured on an image, not on themselves. Only by transcending this social and environmental ideal version of 'masculine' or 'beauty' by forming an idealised version of ourselves based on virtue and morality can one ever identify with who they are independent of this influence. It is no longer an image that articulates their identity, but love. A masculine man is not someone who fights with his fists but one who fights for righteousness and someone who follows other people cannot ever understand what it is to feel despair at injustice, who will see no value nor understand the importance of defending and supporting the vulnerable and weak. They are slaves to their own fears.

Masculinity is a social construct.

'Masculinity' is a sickness, it is a pathology stemming from a self-defeating desire that mirrors a distorted and imaginative ideal saturated by the influence of fear. — TimeLine

Our desires are formed by unconscious or instinctual needs — TimeLine

Masculinity is a social construct. — TimeLine

You can't have it all ways -- that masculinity is a sickness, instinctual, and a social construct -- because the causation is quite different, like social norms vs. biological instinct.

First, that masculinity is a social construct... Style is socially constructed, certainly. The style in which some men present themselves--powerful, woman-abusing, insensitive--is one construction. The troglodyte is another. There are a few dozen other constructions too, like "the one who fights for righteousness". But men and women--humans--have instinctual drives, as well. Instinct produces society which produces culture which constructs style.

Masculinity (and I suppose, femininity) as a sickness is just...species loathing. We aren't all going to be Pope Francis and Dorothy Day, the Deli Lama and Gertrude Stein (or whoever your heroes and heroines, if any, are). Most of us humans are going to be kind of rough, unresolved, unrefined, basically decent people with flaws, sometimes second rate aspirations, and a mess of other stuff -- not because we are rotten to the core, but because it's the best we can do under the circumstances.

Your problem isn't that you are stereotyping; profiling; I have nothing against either stereotyping and profiling. But it's important, if anyone is going to understand people, to have lots of categories, lots of profiles, lots of pigeon holes to put people in. I was in a Whole Foods store the other day -- first time in a couple of years, and I thought the customers looked familiar: Oh sure, this is the Food Coop crowd. Nice people, but a segment of the market populated by more than the usual number of vegetarians and organic snack eaters. People who eat meat, but want assurances that their chicken, pig, cow, and lamb all lived fulfilling lives before they met the axe.

To add some fuel to this fire:

This song in part touches upon male homosexuality, so it likely isn’t for the really true macho men out there (unless, maybe, they’ve spent too much time in prisons). Other than that, it kind of speaks to the underlying issue of masculinity for us male heterosexuals as well.

The version I know of:


Cut and pasted from Google search:

------

Lyrics

Take your mind back- I don't know when-
Sometime when it always seemed to be just us and them.
Girls that wore pink, boys that wore blue,
Boys that always grew up better men than me and you.
What's a man now, what's a man mean?
Is he rough- or is he rugged, cultural and clean?
Now it's all changed- it's got to change more.
We think it's getting better, but nobody's really sure.

And so it goes, go round again,
But now and then we wonder who the real men are

See the nice boys dancing in pairs,
Golden earring, golden tan, blow-wave in the hair-
Sure they're all straight, straight as a line.
All the guys are macho, see their leather shine.
You don't want to sound dumb, don't want to offend,
So don't call me a faggot, not unless you are a friend.
Then if you're tall, handsome and strong,
You can wear the uniform and I could play along.

And so it goes, go round again,
But now and then we wonder who the real men are

Time to get scared, time to change plan,
Don't know how to treat a lady, don't know how to be a man.
Time to admit, what you call defeat,
'Cause there's women running past you now-
And you just drag your feet.
Man makes a gun, man goes to war,
Man can kill, and man can drink, and man can take a whore.
Kill all the blacks, kill all the reds,
If there's war between the sexes then there'll be no people left.

And so it goes, go round again,
But now and then we wonder who the real men are
And so it goes, go round again,
But now and then we wonder who the real men are
And so it goes, go round again,
But now and then we wonder who the real men are

Songwriters: Joe Jackson
Real Men lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

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(Bread, man, bread ...)

Boys tend to be more naturally game oriented and build a hierarchy from coordinating in a larger group than girls.

Ribbing (endless teasing, after puberty) is there to continually mediate and check status of others.

Testosterone contextually mediates for status in a group setting, an amplifier of context specific behavior (like ribbing). It can make males who are prone aggression more aggressive but it can also attenuate aggression as a means of maintaining or attaining individual status in a group hierarchy.

Imagine a philosophy forum stripped of its testicles. I can't.

What is the ratio of male responses to female ones in this forum? Secret curious statistic...

Is there a certain way that we ought to express masculinity? — Posty McPostface

No. I take the view that if one is man, then whatever one does is an expression of masculinity. And I am a real man, so you can safely agree.

And I am a real man, so you can safely agree. — unenlightened

But, what if you were transgender or gay? Would that detract from what you are saying as a 'real man'? It all seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy, no?

In regards to my previous post, I just read yesterday about a transgender teenager being stabbed to the death by a teenage male in the groin area who gauged out their eyes and then a group of three or four accomplices disposing of the body by burning it. Then there was an incident where a transgender was stabbed some 80 times by another male not too long ago. The utter cruelty of the incident stands out as if the transgender person was some "repulsive" 'thing' and not a human being.

What is being expressed here? Very depressing shit to read about.

Here's the article:
https://nypost.com/2017/09/27/sheriff-insists-murder-of-transgender-teen-not-a-hate-crime/