Masculinity is Fake
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- Опубліковано 8 вер 2024
- Masculinity is Fake. In this video I would like to provide you with a simple and accessible introduction to Žižek and Lacan’s conceptual framework of sexuality and the Žižekian critique of masculinity.
Thanks for watching!
Julian
#zizek #philosophy #lacan #psychoanalysis
Anything actionable or do we just question endlessly, presupposing so much?
A lot of men are aware of this, the fakeness of masculinity they just cant usually articulate it, but what are they to do?
You take a rotting support beam, and replace it with what?
Thank you for your question and I’m glad I saw it. Personally I believe that the articulation of a problem, rather than being that which creates the possibility for an “actionable” solution, IS in fact itself the very solution. So rather than “replacing” masculinity, with some other supplemental fantasy, the goal is to confront the real (the ontological status of sexuality as repressed knowledge of the traumatic encounter with the real) head-on, therefore shattering its hold over us.
Still, the question remains, how are we supposed to replace this rotting beam (as you put it)? After all, just knowing how it works doesn’t mean it ceases to work as it does. Like the joke about a Marxist student who complains that even though he knows the commodity fetish isn’t real, everybody else still acts as if it is. The point is therefore that it works “precisely” because everyone knows it’s not real. Almost all men -as you say- have some awareness that masculinity is fake but cannot see an alternative. In fact, much violence against women can be explained from the standpoint of this frustration. My own view, therefore, is that the only way to emancipate men from masculinity on a universal/collective level is paradoxically to embrace its futility. To see it as a farcical role that we are doomed to play, and that relegates us to an inferior status to women, who know perfectly well how frail our conception of masculinity is.
Which isn’t to say that we should be “non-toxic” men. The distinction between so-called toxic and non toxic men is a politically correct fiction that tries to evade the central problem: we are doomed to be men (which perhaps helps explain the anger many men experience against trans sexuality, as it represents what appears to them as an “escape” or a betrayal of sorts), and masculinity is therefore the central fiction, the role that we learn to play for ourselves. The deeper problem is of course “sexuality” as constitutive to the subject as such. The Freudian wager is that sexuality is an ontological category. Masculinity, and the debate on it, is a convenient way of avoiding the problem of sexuality, to which we are intrinsically bound. Masculinity, if you will, is how we “tarry with the negative”
This means that videos claiming to “teach men how to be men” paradoxically do the very thing they claim to be against, which is to treat masculinity as essentially performative. The emphasis on choosing a role-model follows the standard formula of the Lacanian “subject who is supposed to know”, I.e. who is supposed to know how to be a man on their behalf. Ironically this relegates said master to the feminine position (the one who upholds masculinity).
In sum, my video could therefore be characterized as not “how to be a man”, but rather, “how does the desire to want to be a man emerge in the first place?” What is the horizon of impossibility against which the conceptual category of masculinity emerges in the first place? The key lies in a seemingly simple question: who do men really perform their masculinity for? The answer is “to other men”. The secret of masculinity is therefore that men perform it for each other, not for the woman. In fact the classic gangster-movie trope is the man who has to be ruthless amongst his peers but is sweet and soft to his lover. The central truth of masculinity is therefore arguably homoerotic. Men are masculine for other men, so that in private they can be who they truly want to be with their partner. The short circuit occurs precisely when men emasculate another man, and he then has to prove his “masculinity” to his female counterpart.
@@julianphilosophy What would you say the problem of sexuality is, which requires this performative masculinity? There seems to be a strange unspoken tying of sexuality to ones sexual orientation and the subsequent labeling of which hides a discrete homophobia, by labeling expansive sexual play outside of the implicit sexual normative, which does not exist as strongly for women, amplifying this with sexual partners being the few places where non-platonic love which expressed among more women can exist for men. These are generalizations but this is my hypothesis, perhaps what I said above is merely a symptom of a more underlying problem. What would you say is the reason to why the confrontation with sex leads to the necessity of this gender role? I'm curious
Some idea i find useful:
BE the guy YOU want to be friends with.
(How does a quality-person behave according to you? Do that!)
@@julianphilosophy "Almost all men as you say have some awareness that masculinity is fake but cannot see an alternative. In fact, much violence against women can be explained from the standpoint of this frustration."
Interesting. Can that somehow explain the highest rates of DV happening in lesbian relationships?
"videos claiming to teach men how to be men paradoxically do the very thing they claim to be against, which is to treat masculinity as essentially performative"
I don't think any of those videos explicitly claims such thing simply because phrases such as "performative masculinity" or performative or normative anything, are used by leftists/feminists/neo-marxists, and people making positive videos about masculinity certainly don't fall into those categories. I watched at least a dozen of such videos and never heard any of those phrases in them. But as soon as I open any neo-marxist content, it's almost always there.
What feminists and other leftists do however, is mocking men who struggle with relationships (incels, etc.) and claim that those men "don't try/want to improve", i.e. get a (better) job, get in the gym, buy better clothes, become confident, etc., which is just a different way of saying "become a real man", even though feminists would label that particular phrase as toxic masculinity or whatever. On the other hand, I see a lot of contradictory "advice" on the left addressed to men. For example "just be yourself" vs "you need to improve".
"how does the desire to want to be a man emerge in the first place?”
Isn't this fairly simple? First, intra-sexual competition among males. Second, sexual selection by females. Agree or disagree? Female choice is also heavily influenced by their menstrual cycle (hormones). Depending on which phase they are in, they prefer either gentler men with more feminine traits or more rough macho types. If you think about it for a moment, it makes sense from evolutionary perspective.
You might want look up for example this: "Longitudinal data suggests physically aggressive men tend to have more sex partners"
By the way, what is your definition of "man" and "woman"?
@@julianphilosophy Also, do you have a hypothesis on why fatherless/single-mother homes produce the highest rate of criminals? And why the erosion of a nuclear family didn't bring utopia but rather the opposite, with every 4th woman being on antidepressants and lots of men having no purpose in life, turning to pron, drugs, not looking for work, etc.?
The sound quality is excellent. When the video started I thought someone was here talking to me
This reminds me of when Kevin Spacey in House of Cards says "everything is about sex, except sex, which is about power".
He's quoting a feminist philosopher there, if I'm not mistaken. Simone de Beauvoir?
@@EarlofSedgewick Really?! Even though I dispise the characters in that series, those quotes have got stuck in my head for a long long time
@@RuiCBGLima I was wrong, apparently it's Oscar Wilde
While discussions on masculinity have dominated the narrative for quite some time, conversations about femininity are abscent. Negative or toxic feminine traits don't even register to most people it seems like, and I think that is dangerous. Is it perhaps high time we shed light on the complexities of femininity in the same way we have for masculinity?
First, I should note it is quite possible for women to perform masculinity or people of color to perform whiteness and so and so forth. For example, women in positions of power often overcompensate with traits of hypermasculinity.
And secondly unfortunately, a lot of women and a lot of feminists are very misogynist and femmephobic.
Finally, you may want to read up on "patriarchal bargaining."
I mostly think of toxic masculinity in terms of hegemonic masculinity and subordinate masculinities. In my opinion, masculinity would exist even without the existence of women. Hegemonic masculinity is more about the ownership of others via social norms and money, protest masculinity is more about the ownership of others via strength and violence.
I think there is a need to speak of "toxic femininity" but in the sense that toxic femininity is mostly just toxic masculinity. It's unfortunate that a lot of women do not understand that they can do hegemonic masculinity and protest masculinity as well. People also do not understand that hegemonic masculinity is just as bad or even worse than protest masculinity. Protest masculinity is a violent abuser, hegemonic masculinity is a benevolent abuser but still an abuser.
However, I would also like to note that due to women entering the workforce and other economic changes comphet has changed from an economic pressure affecting solely women to a pressure affecting the lower class men as well. In the past, a woman had a much larger pressure to marry a man to have a house and feed herself and her kids. There was economic pressure for hypergamy and for women marrying upwards. But many men could survive as bachelors. Today, the situation is a bit more ambiguous and there is an economic pressure for dual income no kids households in general. I guess this overlaps with ace discourse on compulsory sexuality but I need to read more into that and I think usually that is usually treated more culturally than economically.
I do think some feminists are still trapped in the 50s and aren't aware of changing male body standards and changing economic pressures.
I appreciate the points you are making here in this video, I would like to share some of my own the flip side. Fantasy I would argue is more natural than the English language would give it credence, fantasy arises out of the mind of the universe (seeing the universe as whole, organic and alive and not just a thing full of interesting stuff). I’ve noticed in my country here in the UK that when people have children they are often blown away by the fact how girl like their girls are or how boy like the boys are(this is from a very young age), especially families that ban their children from screens and want them to grow up in a very open minded environment. The feminine and masculine traits are older than the human race it runs deep into the vast unknown aspects of time. The great egg that we are in is the feminine (the home the blood the land the waters) the masculine is the excitement of expanse and awareness to help grow and unfold the great egg. Fantasy and stories are older than we as a human form, they are alive transforming the ways of this world.
But I like James Bond, especially when he gives a woman in the film a well-deserved solid smack. How can masculinity be fake with that kind of evidence?
The taming of the..
Yeah! Or zelenski! Or Trotsky!
I absolutely love your content. Thank you for the thoughtful, provocative yet carefully articulated ideas you bring us.
Best wishes from a guy in Portugal
Watching your vids on Masculinity reminds me of a famous poem
Theres a fear of the female form in full
A fear of unlimited pink
He fears the length to which he'll go
Unequal the depth to which he'll sink
She fears her form in full
Better to let boundries lie
Than be subject to loss
Without the object of his desire
Im so glad I started following you and your great and succinct takes on ideas that are so important today. Never stop
Masculinity is often seen and defended as a very good thing for the family,everybody talks about how a son needs a masculine father,but i think that having a masculine father can be worst and can be more traumatic than not having a father at all,even if the father genuinly loves his son,it get to the point when he has to see him as another man,and the son will not scape this necesity from the father to be "the man",to dominate and excelled above other men,so the son gets to an imposible position were he is demand to respet and love someone who is tryng to attack the core of his identity,someone who is tryng to emasculate him,sometimes the father need to believes that the son needs him to go trough life and the son even if this is not true can pretend that it is to sustein the fathers identity and not hurt him,but of course that the son can not asume a more feminine role to asserte the father masculiny.This relations beteween father and son are very idealiced but the true is that even if not alway can be detected this dinamics are there and are deeply traumatics
i just love the fact that both zizek and you are married👍
Based! 😎
Also a married man here. From my perspective, I see my marriage as something I did for me and the person I love the most in this world not as a performative gesture for others (though it still is because of the society we live in obviously, but internal justification is more important here). I'd argue that this removes some of the classical "seeking a mate" that masculinity, as a concept, perpetuates. Not a status of ownership for broad society, but a message from each of us to the other that we are committed to preserving the relationship between us for the long haul. So it isn't about a masculinity thing, it is a human to human connection thing. Honestly, I think this is why conservatives think gay marriage is wrong. They can't separate out the male ownership construct and domination from the institution of marriage.
To eachother?
@X_TheHuntsman_X I've often argued that we are only half a person, only becoming a whole person when we 'couple' with another half person.
😂😂😂@@DJWESG1
From watching my entire life discovery and planet with my dad I have engraved in my mind that in nature the bird that build nest and has a fish in its beak has it all. The philosophical birds are not especially prominent on those two channels ;) Masculinity is having resources period. In the competitive environment of naked nature and naked instincts that is ;)
Love your videos, always such an inspirational input in particular about Zizek and Lacan which i am constantly working on to use their ideas in musicology questions (for instance Kundry in Parsifal of Wagner with the concept of hysteria). Thanks for the well presented inside of those brilliant thinkers! Greetings from Germany
I have rarely felt victimized by masculinity. It has helped me from being victimized.
Truly glad it’s working for you. It truly does not work for every man, though it often has a lot to do with how and to what extent we are defining masculinity.
Hey Julian, I'm considering your thoughts here and I was wondering if you would elaborate more on biology/nature being used to reify culture. What is your opinion on hormones and their effects on human behavior? Surely hormones cannot fully account for masculinity as a whole and that culture must have a significant effect on the psychology of the individual. Yet to me it seems like a somewhat adequate materialist explanation for the manifestation of femininity or masculinity would involve hormones. What do you think the role of these biological factors play in the manifestation of masculinity, if any?
Without delving into nature vs nurture too much, although it has important value in this discussion, I would say that whether masculinity is only performative or not, doesn't really matter. It still gives structure and meaning that somehow "feels" very coherent for men. I think the decontruction of masculinity is very dangerous and has in the long run led to the rise of rightwing politics in the western world as an metaphyscial reaction. I would also say that men that are more akin to their feminine side and are more reflective and melancholic can't really appreciate the full disposition of masculine "beingness", becuase they don't have to carry a heavy load. It's like an extra dimension of Heidegger's throwness, where we are thrown into a being of powerful forces that pulls you blindly like Schopenhaur's metaphour of the blind beast and the lame man that can see. I'm not saying that men are blind beasts without free will. I'm just saying that there is another dimension to masculinity which acts upon us all the time and enforces it's will, whether we act upon it or not is another question. And denying it doesn't have a fruitful effect on our being, rather it can be very destructive.
Thank you so much for taking on this topic. Well done.
Good one
“Masculinity is a fantasmatic frame that covers up the traumatic encounter with the real.”
Maybe about half right
Masculinity is those traits and behaviors imposed on men first and foremost by reality and only to a limited extent influenced by different cultural ideals or “fantasmatic frames,”if you will.
You can find traditional cultures where men are supposed to hit women and where they’re not supposed to hit women at all but you will not find a big, successful civilization which allows men to be weak outside of current anomalous levels of post scarcity comfort in developed countries, and even then, you will not thrive or even function beyond basic survival if you do not adopt some masculine traits, however flawed or marred by ideology they may be (ie scam artist masculinity influencers and their weird pseudo-morality or your idealist great-grandfather who is stronger and and more practically competent than you but limited by a overly benevolent morality towards women that doesn’t work anymore)
There’s a reason why matriarchal societies get consumed and all but wiped out: the biological impetus to compete and overcome is always on men whether we like it or not, and I say this as someone who doesn’t really like it, who naturally is quite passive and even kind of feminine, but I can’t magically make women viscerally desire these traits and I can’t expect all of reality to be more fair and less demanding of men
This makes for a particularly interesting framing of the Barbie film.
Barbie's world is hell.
First, Thank you as always
Well said thank you
Alimento para o pensamento e para a alma. Muito obrigado
Where should I look to better understand that knowledge of ones parents sexuality is traumatic? It seems like a fundamental part of the idea here. Is it not being presented in an "essentialist" way? I mean this question in good faith, I'm realizing that there is a lot of nuance in terms used in philosophy and don't want to misunderstand what's presented.
Yes, the Freudian/Lacanian/Žižekian position is “essentialist” to a certain degree. As for a good starting point, Freud’s essay on Infantile Sexuality would be an appropriate place to begin in this context. Happy reading
@@julianphilosophy Thanks! Really enjoying your content.
@julianphilosophy I beleive his daughters work on child development went one step further, with the British government using much of her work in the early care system
Thoughts on feminization kink and the chastity cage?
I hear "patriarchy bad" and "masculinity bad" but I didn't hear what they should be substituted with. Any ideas?
Please see my pinned comment. Also, my argument is precisely NOT masculinity and patriarchy are “bad”.
Feminism obvs
Thank you for this, Julian!
This is great. Thank you for the video, it is great food for thought.
Well done!
I feel quite tempted to show my 2019/20 music composition, that is about identity, and does it so through a framing of the sexuality theme, specifically "the encounter".
And this comes from people who always complain about "generalisation of women". Yet, when feminists/communist are generalising in order to support their own argument, then generalisations are not a problem anymore. It seems that generalisation is only bad if it leads to conclusions that are in odds with feminist/communist beliefs.
And btw, what is the alternative to patriarchy?
Patriarchy certainly has been on the decline in the modern Western society in the last decades, and yet, we have the highest rates of young men with no purpose (no family, no job), depressed, resentful, incels, etc. Boys from fatherless families cause most problems. And women aren't that much better either, with every 4th woman being on antidepressants.
I think philosophy videos that teach young men how to "be a real man" are more useful than any neo-marxist hogwash.
Dude you've got some serious self reflection to do
@@eurongreyjoy2 Care to elaborate?
Sometimes I feel philosophy is good at criticizing but not at constructing. Thinking is unescapable as we're human beings but at the same time we sometimes forget we're biologically wired to survive and pass our genes, which aren't necessarily things that depend of how "civilized" we are whatever that means. I'd argue that, from a purely evolutionist point of view, western nations (but also now China) failed the mission (no much procreation/ people getting too old etc.)
“I think philosophy videos that teach young men how to
"be a real man" are more useful than any neo-marxist hogwash.”
What you’re looking for is a self-help program, not philosophy.
@@Divide_et_lmperaThe only generalisation here is how you described the ideas as "generalisation" when it's so much more rigorous and exact than anyone talking about how 'women are becoming less feminine' men are becoming less masculine', etc., etc. Also, do you think there's no alternative to Patriarchy? If so, why? Isn't that the very epitome of ideology, making the people believe that there simply is no other way of living/being?
At the end of the day we have the same goals, you're complaining about men losing jobs, purpose, being depressed. This is what the critique of capitalism aims to address. You don't even have to be a marxist to acknowledge how capitalism and the overall incentive structures around us are hurting young men and women. To describe it as neo-marxist hogwash only outs yourself as someone who doesn't understand the ideas being shared in the video. I get having an opinion, but you could at least try to understand an idea before attempting to criticize it.
Yes
Clickbait . You are not Zizek
📚 The Manipulated Man by Esther Vilar is the best to start with.
Its an interesting topic.
I'm mostly an observer to topics but this seems only to position masculinity as conflicted, in perpetuity.
Why arent we adressing the conversational imbalance of femininity? Instead we get this splitting effect in contemporary societies. Masculinity bad, femininity good.
Quite telling and very binary in thought.
I actually came to comment something similar, but this strikes the target I was aiming for soundly.
The ability to see problems, and solutions, holistically is certainly diminished in contemporary society. Everything is compartmentalized and categorized and separated. If something (masculinity in this case) has positive attributes in real terms, we tend to shuffle those attributes to a different category of opposition in an attempt to justify our vilification of that something so that it more closely aligns with our worldview rather than seeing the spiderweb if interconnectedness that ideas and archetypes share.
My latest ebook is available here: www.patreon.com/julianphilosophy
Will definitely check it out, that is, if i can put my todd mcgowan book down first
Q: what is a woman? A: the nodal point at which the supplemental frame can unravel.
One question: if I, as a man, would try to emancipate myself from masculinity, how do I proceed? You say women simply do not believe in femininity but then within Zizekian framework not believing in ideological premises is not enough as there are still others who believe for you. There is no individual way out of the ideological maze. What is that you call 'emancipation' then?
See my pinned comment 🙂
@@julianphilosophy thanks, but again, 'to embrace its futility' cannot be an individual act as it will continue to work as long as sufficiently many men (and women) will uphold it. The problem is not that much to expose it (altough it is fundamental) as to make everybody acknowledge it and not just intelectually. Do not know...
Feel like you have put more videos than what is listed.
What does zizek mean when he says we don’t want what we think we want ?
That what we really want is to keep up wanting,that what we desire is desire itself,so we are actually afraid of obteining the object of our desire because this will make desire desapair,i think a perfect example that zizek uses is the one of the men who has a misstres and he fantasies all the time with the idea of his wife leaving so he can be along with his misstres but in the moment that the wife leave the relationt with the misstres fail,the men didnt really wanted to be with the misstres but having her in the distance as an object of desire,in the moment that you remove the obstacle(the wife)the fantasi colapse(this explanation may not be enterily accurate but is something like that)
m.ua-cam.com/video/RnTQhIRcrno/v-deo.html
It's just those deep desires that are not often on the surface, these are the things that are looked for in focus groups for politics and marketing.
Tony Blair famously won his 97 victory with this method. By manipulating everyone into thinking something they didn't even know they were thinking.
thank you!!!
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OMG I have never been this mesmerized listening to someone on UA-cam❤❤❤❤❤ Thank you so much Julian! I would have listed you as my top fictional man character but you are real haha just amazingly fantastic! ❤❤❤❤
Can someone tell me, please, if there are any books in which either Lacan or Zizek address this topic in particular?
It’s addressed in most of Žižek’s books at least once, but he doesn’t have a book dedicated to it. Whereas for Lacan the starting point would be “feminine sexuality”, edited by Jacqueline Rose and Juliet Mitchell. Happy reading
@@julianphilosophy Thanks a lot, Julian. I'm just getting started on psychoanalisis and Zizek. I'm quite interested in Zizek's definition of the subject and everything related to Lacan and Freud. Would you mind telling me what books to read in regards to this? I'm already reading "The interpretation of dreams" and "Three essays of sexual theory".
@pmunoz2008 there a really good video of earlier zizek talking about 'flowers', I think on point.
that concluding statement was very delicate but when considering the emotional frailty of the one to whom it was addressed this makes complete sense.
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Of course " intellectual" man thinks masculinity is something not real, isn' t that obvious? I think Nietzsche is best the thinker in this subject.
Ad hominen per excellence
I totally agree. I'm currently writng a book on the topic of 'waanhoop' (a dutch neologism between hope and magical, irrational, thinking) in which I'm making a connection between masculinity as in "the strong leader" (not John Wayne but sociopaths like Putin or Trump) and the need for such a leader (and/or movement (MAGA)) to use violence, lies and the suppresion of truth, in order to gain and sustain power.
My thesis here is the trauma of castration of those who relate to the MAGA or the extreme right philosopy are feeling disconnected from society, due to the speed and complexity in which modernity i.e. technological innovation, imposes itself on ordinary people's lifes. They can't keep up.
Those ten minute lectures are great.! Good luck.
you cooked!
Masculinity has nothing to do with sex and interaction withv women. Its just a set of paraneters that much more often observed in men than in women. Simple observational and descriptive thing, without this unnecessery psychologisms. Zizek is such a big mess, as always.
The notion of observation being the most reliable is exactly what is displaced by asking “who is it being performed for?” And the answer of it being to cover up a traumatic real is what observation cannot encounter.
the category "men" is necessarily an interaction with sex and "women". ask yourself why masculinity is moreso observed in men, and you will return to your psychologisms. we are not essentialists here...
This reminds me of the fact that many heterosexual men tend more harshly reproach homosexual men that "act like a woman" than homosexual men that are more "masculine" in behavior. In other words, it appears that misogyny is a precursor of homophobia.
i think that homophobia is the fear of men to engage in homosexual fantasies or have and homosexual desire because these will implay that they are less masculine or something like that,they fear for their masculinity so they try to repress the idea of homosexuality,try to pretend that it does not exist,sometimes the more homophobic people turn being homosexual them selfs who are unable to accept it,so with the gay man who acts masculine you can preten that is just a men and repres the idea of homosexuality but with the men that dress as a woman is imposible
well yeah! And how! BTW why is it I feel totally alone reading comments like in this string? Why is every apparently a straight male intellectual? Where are the women, and am I the only fag? Oh, sorry, I just said I word that men usually only use about me after I leave. Philosophy in the old days, hey, remember Socrates got everything he knew from Diotema? Please where are some women I can relate to here? Because if it's just you straight guys, I'm outta here. It's an old boys club in that case and is that going to be helpful to anyone in helping to make the world a better place? Guys, get over yourselves. Let down your hair. Don't you want to be regular people just like regular people are? I do! There's something wrong in a string of comments that's so inner directed to masculinity. There are many much more serious problems going on now, climate change, how about that? Onset of Trumpian fascism? The political division of the US of A into two different red and blue countries? Puh-lease! Not to speak of getting old, having to die? Guys get over yourselves. There's more to live than just your problems of straight male confusion these days. Put your shoulder to the common wheel, not forgetting your problems, but helping to make common cause with our society as a whole please!
snakes
Nailed it. 🫡🎯
Black.pillers already knew this
Agree but what about bad boys. Woman love bad boys.
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