The Left doesn’t have male role models for young men.
One of the good things about talking to people on a podcast is that it forces you to put your ideas into words. This happened recently when I was interviewing comedian and podcaster Jamie Kilstein.
Kilstein, a former self-proclaimed “male feminist,” was making his own interesting point: The Left doesn’t have male role models for young men who need to learn about how masculinity can be a force for good.
He discovered this when he went through a bout of depression and found himself listening to Jocko Willink―the podcaster, author, and former Navy SEAL who espouses values like self-discipline and determination. Kilstein confesses that, back in his days as a progressive, he couldn’t openly admit to admiring Jocko, inasmuch as it would be tantamount (on the Left) to talking up a war criminal.
But here’s the thing: If you’re depressed, guys like Jocko tell you to get your shit together, go for a run, take up some martial arts, and maybe do some volunteer work. They urge you to channel your masculinity toward being a better husband, father, or man. In other words, start moving and acting like a winner. I’m simplifying here, but you get the point. It’s great advice for the guy who’s feeling sorry for himself, even if it clashes with a progressive ideology that feeds off victimhood.
That’s where my insight came in. The Left, I told Kilstein, doesn’t want people to cast off the shackles of victimhood. That’s because they don’t see people as individuals. They see people as members of groups or coalitions that are oppressed. And if you truly believe that a group of people is being institutionally and structurally discriminated against, the last thing you want is for them to try to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and make the best of a bad situation. In fact, you would rather they be pissed off enough to radicalize and rise up and demand change.
At the macro level, this makes sense. But at the micro level, it’s a recipe for misery. If one of your kids became obsessed with the notion that The Man was keeping them down―that no matter what they did, they couldn’t get ahead―you would be insane to allow them to wallow in their depression. Regardless of the obstacles, you would never want your own child to see him or herself as a victim. For one thing, that mindset can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. For another, it’s impossible to be happy and live a joyful life when you don’t have agency—when you don’t believe you control your own destiny. So you would probably give them the same advice as Jocko: Don’t play the victim, start moving.
In any event, I think this illustrates the conservative preference for individualism, as well as the progressive inclination for viewing people collectively as a group—with an “ends justify the means” mentality where individuals are too often collateral damage. Sure, you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet. And if a few people end up miserable during this stage of our march toward utopia, how can you complain about it?
Listen to my full discussion with Jamie Kilstein here.
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