Same with solidarity, we all want community, we all want to be "in this together," before politics even comes into it.

I disagree. I think you can run into a lot of people who relish in how much they don't give a fuck about things that don't directly affect them. Someone told me I haven't spent enough on Palestine to have actually gave a fuck about it. They asked for dollar amount directly, received a non-answer, and used that as justification. I think being grillpilled or going on your winter arc (not in these words, but the same way just wanting to grill is to rugged individualism what the purple flavor of vitamin water is to the Coca Cola Company) beats out solidarity in a lot of people's hearts and minds. And it's hearts and minds informed by this individualism that enter into gendered issues of which some are relevant to choosing leftist philosophy. I seldom hear people espousing the importance of focusing on your locus of control also telling you to use it to help others unless you're already in a leftist space. The exception is suggesting volunteering as a line item in a list of things you can do to bring yourself out of a bad headspace.

I think you're reacting to heroism, not masculinity.

I'm not sure what I believe about it or that I even have a worldview that's going to withstand the pressure test of talking through it, honestly. Let's find out, shall we? The October Revolution was an instance of gun violence but it was still generally a good thing and an act of heroism that I celebrate. The violent outburst and act of heroism in the case of United Healthcare isn't necessarily gendered, but the philosophy informing it seems at least male-coded if we grant that Luigi is the guy and the manifesto is real. Otherwise I feel like male gendered philosophy is reduced to when someone wants to use their penis to reproduce and they must oust someone else's penis for access to reproductive resources.

That’s where UnitedHealthcare went wrong. They violated their contract with my mother, with me, and tens of millions of other Americans. This threat to my own health, my family’s health, and the health of our country’s people requires me to respond with an act of war.

Which to say he didn't feel like they represent a ethically reprehensible institution, but that they violated a contract and threatened his family. And I think that is a distinction informed by the ideals of masculinity he references in the manifesto and imbibes his actions.

You don't even need to drastically change masculine archetypes to imagine them as leftists.

And this disagreement ties it together for me. I don't need to do much to think of a stoic farmer having a copy of the communist manifesto instead of a bible in his nightstand. I think I represent a minority belief with that. Let's start with Hasan Piker - I think he presents masculine, but not stereotypically so.

Hasan Piker (courtesy of NBC)

CEO of Black Rifle Coffee

He's a good influence and uses his platform well (I don't like his streams personally, I think it's boring when he gets stunlocked), but I don't think he's defining the meta of masculinity. He's going to get blocked out of hearts and minds by accusations of "just be attractive (or worse)" and he'd admit the same when he does segments like "giving Chadvice." If you can't tap into that disillusionment, you can't tap into the lines that get to the kids who grows up to think the military is cool or the entrepreneur who winds up peddling supplements and dropshipping courses.

I don't think these archetypes have a clean split from misogyny. I think there's a lot of fun and even some enlightenment to be had in genderswapping, but if you're going to tap into/confront/interact with gendered ideals, you're going to have to answer questions like "Why was Tywin Lannister wrong?" or "What was Patrick Bateman's facade and how was it meant to be torn down (I'm sure I can dig up some irl examples, but I'm a little treat goblin and these idols are expedient to my point)?" And I think those answers have to be palatable, succinct, and resonant. I think it's the same dynamic as the Epicurean paradox. It means that God has to be beyond understanding or you need a new paradigm of how you come to understand God. You either need to untie the Gordian knot of blame and anger or you need a shiny, new sword. And I'm not saying untying the Gordian knot is impossible either, just that it's rare and takes a craftsman's touch[1].

And God forbid the blame and anger involves romantic connection with women. Mewing, Chad/virgin, and rizz have become children's playthings. 10 years from now, when someone wants to tell a frustrated young man that women will respond better to you if you embody traditional gender roles, that marketing job is going to be as easy as when Coca Cola still had cocaine in it. "I heard you should seek to understand women and they'll recognize the upside of your personality." He'll say. "Oh, did a blue haired feminist tell you that?" The recruiter will respond, "Here's a chart about how your looks strongly correlate to your positively perceived personality. What you need is... aura... masculine aura." You could sell them anything at that point. Women's nature is X. Women's nature is Y. Z people are poisoning the culture. If they threaten you it's an act of war. You are on your own. Look how much they want to take from you with nothing in return. You should join the army.

And for that man to join a leftist space instead, he'd need to do self-crit because nobody else would feel safe engaging with him. For him to join the army, they'd pay for his college and give him a bunch of friends who agree with him. Hell, if he went to a looksmaxxing forum instead they'd validate his anger with scathing indictment of the other and they'd drown him in information about what to do about it. Everyone else has an easy to swallow poison pill. These places don't have to belong to men, but they do in ways that inseparable from gendered ideology. And I question whether, given a fair playing field (if it were as simple as choosing between pokemon red and pokemon blue), men at a hinge point would commonly choose leftist ideology as it stands compared to the quick, resonant, pointed anger of the individualist when questions of cishet gender expression are involved.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOCY7JN-Zec

Ethan Becker, digital artist, after having rolled his nat 20 to open his eyes about racism