Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018) • Hacker News Board

Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)

#281

Post by atoav » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 10:45 AM UTC

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #177

77pt77 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the difference? Give examples of vulnerability that is not also weakness.

I prefer to use the term "open" instead of vulnerable, to avoid exactly the situation you're pointing out. And you can be open without being weak or vulnerable if you have self-confidence. Not faked confidence, but the genuine kind that comes from dealing with your shit instead of repressing it and putting on a mask of fake confidence, strength, stoicism, invulnerability, etc.

Yeah you can be open too and this means by definition you are confident about the topic at hand and that you trust the other person enough.

But if all you ever do is only talk about topics that you can confidently speak about with out risking something, then you are missing out on something. And sure you can also go and deal with it on your own till you got the confidence to talk about it without exposing yourself, but there are connections you will be never able to form if all you ever do is deal with yourself.

Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)

#282

Post by marble-drink » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 10:52 AM UTC

sabarn01 wrote: post #19

Whats wrong with stoicism. Feelings are fleeting in general didn't lead me to positive places. I think we should put a high value on people that can handle their own problems.

Indeed. For me, being stoic is the only way. Crying about problems does nothing so why do anything at all? We all have the power to choose to be the best person we can be given our circumstances. That is what I try to do every day.

For me, men who need to share their feelings are weak. This is what women do. But we can't all be women. Men need to learn to enjoy their advantages: superior strength, speed, and resilience, but accept that problems won't just go away if you cry about them. Either solve the problem or accept it and don't give it another precious moment's thought.

Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)

#283

Post by johnisgood » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 10:52 AM UTC

throwaway87378 wrote: post #146

munificent wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's not only the men causing it. One thing I find fascinating about humans is that we are so compulsively cultural that we will actively propagate cultural practices that are harmful even to ourselves. When you are young, you absorb whatever culture is around you completely uncritically, and then you immediately turn around and start broadcasting to the next generation. Cultural changes and evolves, of course, but…

> Cultural changes and evolves, of course, but it's really hard to uproot a norm or more once it's settled in, even if it's one that causes you personal pain. Terence McKenna lectured on this at length. Here are some apropos quotations: "As a global civilization, we can no longer afford the luxury of an unconscious mind. When you can pull down the fusion processes that light the stars on the cities of your enemies, w…

I am not sure if I watched yours or if the speeches overlap, but these are my favorites:

Terence McKenna: Don't Believe/Follow/Consume/Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV1RC2zlymQ

Dissolving the egoistic boundaries of society (Terence McKenna): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7sfZiRLqOE

Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)

#284

Post by meshenna » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 10:56 AM UTC

Ancalagon wrote: post #30

sabarn01 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true but I think that is what close friends are for. Everyone needs support I just think the goal to be not to let your feelings master you.

That's true too, but even then its hard to know sometimes who your close friends are, and what they will think of you for relieving that kind of information to them. Sometimes, the stoic man doesn't have a close friend. You can reply with "well they should get more/better friends", but therein I think lies the catch-22. Reveal your inner self, and maybe you'll get a close friend, or maybe you won't have any friends.

Solitude is preferable to fake relationships.

Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)

#285

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 10:59 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #136

ericmcer wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our society will always value men who are confident, this is so much deeper to me than being scared to share your feelings because “it’s gay”. Women are attracted to confidence, employers reward confidence, hiring managers are impressed by confidence. Vulnerability and weakness are just not rewarded for men or women, but especially for men.

Confidence and vulnerability aren't opposites. The confidence that comes from going through vulnerability and coming out stronger is worth more than the facade style of confidence, which covers unprocessed weakness.

Confidence and overt vulnerability are opposites.

No one is going to be impressed if you burst into tears during a code review. They're going to be a lot more impressed if you bullshit your way through with positivity and can-do.

This is irrespective of the quality of the code.

This culture rewards overt displays of competitive individualism and punishes weakness irrespective of actual productivity, value, or objective performance.

Generally, being confident gets you breaks, even if you're astonishingly incompetent or just plain manipulative and dishonest.

Sometimes there's pushback from the surrounding culture before something goes horribly wrong - but just as often there isn't.

Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)

#286

Post by SuddsMcDuff » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 11:03 AM UTC

atoav wrote: post #52

ionforce wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you're saying this is a high priority issue. Why do you feel that way?

It is a legitimate question. I feel that way, because as a society we are in a state of transformation right now. By pure rational thought many young men have accepted to treat women like equal human beeings, just as many women have understood that the traditional division of gender roles might not fit all social encounters. The issue is, that understanding and doing are two seperate things and switching between the…

> "By pure rational thought many young men have accepted to treat women like equal human beeings"

You make it sound as though men have never considered women as equal human beings until some recent enlightenment. I find this world view to be absolutely apalling, and arrogant. You're denying a history where the vast, vast majority of relationships between men and women (eg. marriages) were cooperative, reciprocal, and built upon a foundation of mutual respect.

> "The thing we aim for as a society here is defintly worth it (I could experience for myself how amazing a relationship of equals between man and woman can be)"

A relationship of equals betwen a man and a woman is not some novel new concept we should aspire to, it is completely normal and has been for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)

#287

Post by johnisgood » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 11:12 AM UTC

sabarn01 wrote: post #19

Whats wrong with stoicism. Feelings are fleeting in general didn't lead me to positive places. I think we should put a high value on people that can handle their own problems.

In my opinion, this is a great book on stoicism: https://www.amazon.com/Guide-Good-Life-Ancient-Stoic/dp/1522...

Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)

#288

Post by aortega » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 11:15 AM UTC

apatters wrote: post #171

ericmcer wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our society will always value men who are confident, this is so much deeper to me than being scared to share your feelings because “it’s gay”. Women are attracted to confidence, employers reward confidence, hiring managers are impressed by confidence. Vulnerability and weakness are just not rewarded for men or women, but especially for men.

Most people believe that vulnerability is a weakness and a disadvantage but this is demonstrably untrue. Showing vulnerability is a way to develop rapport and connection with other people. Here is a great example using Jennifer Lawrence who is particularly good at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btud-zsdmk4 There are definitely caveats to this. It has to be done a certain way. It works better when you already h…

>Showing vulnerability is a way to develop rapport and connection with other people.

Also a way for people to attack you. A vulnerability is always a weakness, it's the definition of vulnerability. You are talking about faking a vulnerability, a social technique so old that is in Sun Tsu's "The Art of War".

Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)

#289

Post by paganel » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 11:15 AM UTC

goatinaboat wrote: post #275

bmarquez wrote: post #3

I participated in men's work, not specifically the ManKind Project but a closely related organization. I personally found it helpful doing weekly check-ins and having people holding me accountable to my goals. Unfortunately, the stigma regarding men sharing feelings is prevalent in western society, and it's not only the men causing it. When I told several female friends about the work they did, their response was: "A…

When I told several female friends about the work they did, their response was: "Are they gay?" It's funny. From the days of chivalry all the way to the modern patriarchy, men's behaviours have been conditioned by one overriding factor: what will impress women? I don't see that evaporating overnight. Men suppress the emotions for the simple reason that women have demonstrated a preference for men that do that, and th…

12th or 13th century chivalrous poetry from South of France was still full of feelings and what have you, and a little earlier the Arthur-related stories were not void of feelings either. I personally blame the “Protestant ethic”, for lack of a better name, which started culturally imposing itself starting with the mid-1600s in England and present-day Netherlands (in the early 1600s a guy like Shakespeare was still not afraid to share his feelings in his Sonnets).

Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)

#290

Post by claudiawerner » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 11:16 AM UTC

pdub123 wrote: post #279

If you think "The Patriarchy"^TM exists, you have a very simplistic, univariate understanding of reality. You're associating causality for whatever negative things happen to you in your life, not with your own set of circumstances, choices, or human agency, but rather with one single factor-- some ethereal 00.00001% group of conspiratorial, ostensibly straight white old men... with whatever happens to you in life. It…

This condescending comment ("whatever negative things happen to you", "more complicated than that, dear") ignores at decades of research in sociology, critical theory and political philosophy - which, at the very least, say that concerns about the effects of gender in the structure of society cannot be so easily dismissed.

>but rather with one single factor-- some ethereal 00.00001% group of conspiratorial, ostensibly straight white old men

This is not what "patriarchy" or "the patriarchy" refers to in any academic text. What you're saying is more akin to an anti-male conspiracy theory. The claim is not that there is a group of conspiratorial men in charge, or even men with bad intentions. You can read the most rudimentary details of the theory at Wikipedia[0] or at the highly regarded Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy[1].

I'm not a strict adherent to the theory myself, but I think it's worth pointing out when a claim as to what the word means and what the theorists say is obviously wrong.

(Side note: it's curious how my comment, in line with current research and citing respected sources, is downvoted by people who don't bother to engage with the arguments themselves.)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarchy [1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminist-power/