Parasocial Masculinity
Second political post in a row, I shall find something obscure and philosophical to kvetch about next I promise. In any case, today I'll offer some observations and plea for my fellow soft-handed intelligentsia men to maybe chill a bit.
Here is a phenomenon I have seen a lot of. Men doing some sort of intelligentsia job - in academia, in media, in the vaguely defined world of NGOs and staffers and aides that surrounds houses of power - get really enthusiastic about other men who display certain markers of masculinity. Those markers are the ones typically associated with what-they-imagine-to-be working class cultural signifiers. So among the more innocent of these are being well-muscled or at least having a physique that suggests they could do regular difficult physical labour; being somewhat gruff or blunt in tone or affect; eschewing highly elaborate theoretical modes of speech or explanation when called to account for things. And among the less innocent include: a certain hetero...