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The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills

mosaicscience.com

61–70 of 359 posts

Re: The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are you, what's your budget and what do you enjoy?

I am in TX with a budget of ~1500 for a week or two. The longer and cheaper alone time is better. What do I like, you know I've been so slammed and in my head that I can't even pick a vacation spot or remember what I like. I think I'd enjoy just some peace somewhere, disconnected from it all for a week or two.

You could probably just buy a laundry van on craigslist and drive out to somewhere rural for a couple months, if you want to most bang for your buck.

Re: The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

huh? I hardly feel threatened by basically everything you just listed there. Do you? I get the feeling if you asked most women: "Do you think men are awful?" The answer would be "Yes but we love them anyway." and, to be on a less cutsey point. There was a time in my life where I was seriously depressed, and it was not because I thought society treated men poorly on average. It was because I thought I would have no pl…

haha, wow. That was at +5. You MRA guys don't mess around!

No kidding. I really thought Hacker News was better than this, but a large number of the replies here are little more than parroted MRA talking points and other myopic comments.

Re: The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills

#63

look, men are disposable. and it's always been this way, biologically speaking. throughout most of history, mens' purpose was disposability - through soldiering, exploring, entrepreneurialism (the high risk / high reward activities), or just working your fuckin' ass to the bone in the fields of fealty or a in a grey cubicle (the low risk / low reward activities). let's define some terms. "meaning of life" (note i did…

There's nothing like a large population of angry young men who are under-employed and over-educated. The Arab Spring/chaos started with a guy lighting himself on fire because he didn't have work, and a lot of the fundamentalist appeal over there is that at least it gives you a purpose.

The internet and globalization have made us too complacent, probably won't ever happen.

Re: The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills

#64
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at some of the stories from the media. Some airlines will not allow males sit next to unaccompanied children. A theme park bans single males from bird watching, "in case they are predators". Female sexual assaults are disgusting while male sexual assaults are funny, to most people. If a little girl has a problem, it is immediately attended to, whereas if a little boy has a problem, he is told to "be a man and su…

Going off of that Vice article, sometimes I think that a 40/60 ratio of men to women would be favorable... it'd probably reflect the proportions of our hunter gatherer ancestry, and a lot of psychological benefits would come with that I'd imagine. But everything else she said was extremely misandrist and sexist.

You can actually see the difference in gender relations in places with different gender ratios, and by age, as well.

"Single men become a rare commodity later in life due to our unfortunate propensity for dying. If you can get to 50 the world seems to be nothing but women."

http://jonathansoma.com/singles/

Re: The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills

#65
When it comes right down to the basics, with humans as with most species, males are less useful than females. Females have an inbuilt basic purpose, males have to prove their usefulness to the species/tribe/society. However tragic it may be, maybe it's just perfectly natural behaviour for the "superfluous" males to give up. I guess the opposite reaction would be to go around venting their frustration by raping and pillaging.

(And no, I'm not writing this from the safe distance of a successful male. I've been close to that edge, like many of us, and I have no illusion I may not end up there again.)

Re: The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills

#66
post #42
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're right about society's role, but I see a much more pernicious tendency that I think damages boys and, eventually, men. Society teaches boys to bottle up their feelings. "Be a man" means be strong, and don't show emotion. Crying is a sign of weakness. And god forbid you talk about your emotions...that's a female thing. But the thing is, those activities are what allow us to be vulnerable and what allow u…

My experience has taught me the opposite. My grandfather and father were never taught to express feelings. Both were products of their time and circumstances. And there is nothing wrong with that. Both were successful in life despite the odds being stacked against them. I do not have children. I would not have a clue how to raise a girl, but if I had a boy, I would be teaching him stoical techniques to dealing with p…

You are conflating two different things. Stoical calm isn't just silence, it's silence when the situation calls for such, when making your voice known cannot improve things. Engagement in communication is encouraged if it is believed to lead to good outcomes(although how "good" is defined is left more ambiguous). Stoic silence works best when it's used to be a good listener.

In comparison, masculine silence of the "strong silent" form, which occurs frequently in my family, and even myself, acts to reinforce existing privileges - it leads to excessive maintenance of a self-assured, unflappable image, not betraying weakness or answering to anyone, even when you need to ask questions, share responsibility for a problem, or should collaborate and submit to a group policy on behavior. It's ultimately built on the kind of anxiety over one's role described in the article, and it's a major penalty to healthy communication within the family, because it creates a stagnant bubble of "shall-not-be-challenged" behavior and outlook.

I'm actively working to disentangle the two within my own life. I've had the listening part down pretty well for a while. I had to learn when my responses were turning into image-asserting judgments, explanations that were unasked for, and other communication-blockers. I still have some trouble asking for things. I still have plenty to learn about when to become more engaged and active.

Re: The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills

#67
post #7
post #4

I think some people need proper perspective on life. We are all actors playing out silly games of ambition. Achievement is really no different than a life of non-achievement, although your human instincts tell you otherwise. Also there is no such thing as being perfect unless perhaps you are a strong artificial intelligence that is a million times smarter than humans.

And taking your own life isn't such a big deal if it's all just a game. Achievements or none; they won't matter to you when you're in the ground.

Perhaps, we can still show compassion for those who will be here after we're gone.

Re: The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

haha, wow. That was at +5. You MRA guys don't mess around!

It's dangerous to make assumptions about why a comment was downvoted. Such assumptions can lead to a growing gulf of misunderstanding and resentment, even to seeing enemies where there are none.

sure, blaming things willy nilly when you have little substantiative proof can clearly produce some highly antagonistic and overly entrenched thinkers. I C what you did there.

Re: The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills

#69

The demonization of all things male has had a pernicious effect on boys and men over the last 20 years. I've seen it negatively impact friends and, worse, my own boys. Oone of the best things I ever did was cut the live TV feed and the commercials that only show men as drunken idiots, drunken leches, or bumbling idiots (notice: drunken and idiots is a repeating theme). As a society, we need to come to terms with masc…

I don't understand this. In most stories, arn't protagonists primarily male? Arn't they typically courageous, or intelligent, or unyielding, or strong, or determined? I don't understand.

In old stories, yes. But just look at The Simpsons as a major and early example to the contrary.

Re: The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills

#70
post #51

I'd like to offer a different perspective. Suicide is a violent crime, the killing of a human being. Now, if we believe Wikipedia, then around 90% of homicides in the US will be committed by males. It seems reasonable that the male-female ratio should be about the same in the UK. Then a 0.8 ratio of male to female suicides could be accounted for by the increased male homicide rate alone. The Wikipedia page: http://en…

First of all - suicide is not a crime.

Also - suicide isn't more common among criminals AFAIK.

Additionaly - equating it to murder makes about as much sense as equating masturbation to rape (BTW Catholic church did sth like this, at least in my language masturbation is called by priests a "self-rape").

So I don't think you can explain one by another.

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