How America Became Infatuated With a Cartoonish Idea of ‘Alpha Males’

[Bob Butler 54]

(05-25-2016, 05:00 AM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(05-24-2016, 05:18 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I for one would prefer not to talk about old cultures with old flaws.  I would rather not drop people into this bucket or that, by age, gender, race or culture.  Talk about the direction we ought to be moving, into the future, and let’s all move there together.

In order to do that you have to reject Regressive Left PC culture and adopt Enlightenment Classical Liberal Universalism.

I'm not that concerned with labels.  I'm not here representing, say, the Communist Party or Donald Trump.  I'm not pushing anyone else's agenda, but speaking my mind.  

The above post is me.  It is coming from where I've always come from.  It says it with different emphasis as I'm focused on a different time and issue, but the core of it is from where I've been for quite some time.  It follows that I don't have to reject 'Regressive Left PC culture' because I've never stood for 'Regressive Left PC culture'.

Not that you would have noticed.

There is a common style of strawman argument where a contributor creates a vile parody of how is opponents think then repeatedly attacks the parody.  That's what I see when you go off on your 'Regressive Left PC culture' spiels.  As Reagan said, 'There you go again.'  I don't think that way.  

Of course, it might be easier for you to attack your strawman rather than to actually try to listen to what I actually believe in.

As for your father, I see him playing some classic 'masculine' roles: angry, assertive, tribal, combative, etc...  He's used some of that well.  He's gathering a following using those tools.  I just don't want the question to be if we want more or less masculine leaders.  As I indicated above, I see both good and bad aspects of the classic 'masculine' stereotype of years gone by.  I'd as soon pursue the good while disparaging the bad.  This means questioning rather than embracing the stereotype.

I see him as a divider, rather than a uniter, which to me isn't a positive.  I see him as confronting (at least in talk) the establishment, which to me is a positive.  I see an attacking angry style, which I wouldn't oppose entirely if he were attacking different things.  I see him attracting the Republican base by embracing many of the traditional Republican memes, which puts him on the wrong side of a lot of issues from my perspective.

But I'm going to decide (or rather have already decided) based on these issues rather than on the question of whether your father is more masculine than Hillary.  Rather than embrace stereotypes, I'd rather question them.