General Discussion

I want to preface this to acknowledge the inherent maleness of the use of bro.

My intuition is that the rightward lurch among young men is due to general retarded social development. Many were not socialized during covid. This, coupled with social media has literally altered the brain chemistry of boys and men that were hormonally predisposed to be exposed to certain cues at certain ages.

They are resentful that the world of "history" was even more weighted in their favor. They could smoke in the office, have a whiskey with a client, have an idyllic family. These were myths, but this generation is connected to that story only through grandparents, and there is always going to be an interesting psychosocial dynamic between grandparents and grandkids. Especially when technology is involved.

So what do these boys do? In part they lean into hyper-masculine pathological subcultures a la Andrew Tate. These are probably sick kids that need some help.

Another group become gym bros and get validation from a subset of the population. Online communities are very weird - these are people that use supplements, so drinking bleach for covid isn't too many steps away.

Others, perhaps those less athletically inclined, become sophists. They follow in the shoes of conservative intellectuals, but they lack the education or gravitas. These the bros that aggressively debate on social issues not in good faith, but as an exercise in peacocking.

So, how do good bros respond? Well, for one, we don't beat our partners. We don't commit rape. We don't defend rapists. We condemn sexual misconduct. We ask consent. We acknowledge that woman also want to have sex for fun and not just to make babies.

When we play sports or work out we don't objectivify or harass. We try to improve ourselves, but we remember to respect public spaces and honor other's right to those spaces.

When an asshole wants to debate you, be knowledgable enough to shut them down and do it with enough style that a young man that doesn't have a fully formed ego structure yet remembers that the good guy is also the cool guy.


Please engage more with me on this, I think it is a very fascinating issue and a salient problem for our party.