Op: don’t link testosterone and violence - the real problem is toxic masculinity not testosterone a thing all men have.
Someone: you’re not doing this, but toxic masculinity is a motte and bailey
Someone else: no it’s a well defined idea
You, moving the goalpost: how the term is used socially it is
If someone is using the term as you suggested, by all means call out their actions. But if they are not - as op did - why bring this up?
Personally I find the idea of toxic masculinity a useful tool to understand and categorize the things society is telling me i should aspire to, many of which are harmful to who I am personally
Feminist theory is a serious academic discipline that isn't just making shit up to attack men.
As we all know, naming things is one of the two hardest things.
Just call it something like "toxic gender roles" or "toxic gender expectations" and you short circuit the entire debate.
But regardless, the name does derive from some historical reasoning. For many decades feminist theory used to consider the feminine to be aberrant and the masculine to be the cultural norm and a pure good, only investigating the ways in which femininity trapped and harmed people. "Toxic masculinity" was a re-evaluation of these assumptions, identifying ways that masculinity, like femininity could trap and harm people. The term was positioned against the assumptions of the time and "toxic masculinity" expresses this position much better than "toxic gender roles" since it was explicitly about changing how feminism thought about masculinity.
That is no longer especially significant to the term, but inertia exists.
>It truly is about how many masculine-coded expectations trap men in harmful behaviors and patterns.
That's the motte. The bailey is using the term to sell expected patterns and behaviors that are not necessarily any less harmful, just more desirable to the person doing the talking.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/testosterones-eff...
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12191-hormones-affect...
The concept of testosterone=aggression is damagingly simplistic, and should not be held up as a good model.
I speculate that is likely why libertarianism is the most male-dominated political ideology, and its adherents have the highest income levels.
Testosterone could also explain why libertarians are the most-rational/least-emotional of the political typologies:
It also attracts people with an egotistical streak and those with low empathy, plus those with a high confidence in their own rationality.
They did not become all of those things by being libertarian, they became libertarians because that ideology attracts people who are comfortable in life and focus more on individual personal gain than on an empathetic society that benefits everyone more equally.
>>It also attracts people with an egotistical streak and those with low empathy
High ego and low empathy is also correlated with testosterone.
The silver lining is the sense of fair play mentioned by the parent comment, as well as imperviousness to superficial peripheral traits that appeal to emotion.
I remember reading that libertarianism appeals to the stereotypically male mind, but I don't know if the studies that conclusion was based on controlled for income.
Die hard libertarians in my circle of acquaintances have argued against stores hiding away tobacco products to discourage smoking as irrational, because they see making as much profit as possible as the only rational objective.
When you can define anything you personally believe in to be rational, all your opponents automatically become irrational because they disagree with your enlightened position. Since they are irrational, their arguments can be dismissed out of hand.
It is an extremely arrogant worldview. Believing that it makes you impervious to emotional arguments just makes it even more arrogant.
>"fair" is defined as something that adheres to the libertarian's personal definition of what is rational.
Do you have any kind of scientific evidence supporting this hypothesis, or is it just speculation based on intuition and observations of personal acquaintances?
>>When you can define anything you personally believe in to be rational, all your opponents automatically become irrational because they disagree with your enlightened position.
It's tautological that a person will view beliefs that they personally view as rational/right, as rational/right. This is irrespective of their political ideology.
As for arrogance, I think "live and let live" is the least arrogant political philosophy one can hold, and that's the defining ethos of libertarianism. I think that lack of pretence/arrogance in this ethos is what draws people to libertarianism.
Any non-libertarian political persuasion will advocate for all manner of government measures that use force against peaceful people to force compliance with a larger social plan.
I personally don't see how the person opposing this sort of mandate is arrogant, while the person advocating for it is not. But I guess these issues are subjective.
>>Believing that it makes you impervious to emotional arguments just makes it even more arrogant.
From what I recall, the study found that libertarians are less likely to pay attention and give weight to peripheral cues that appeal to emotion, and be more focused on substance.
Any non-libertarian political persuasion will advocate for all manner of government measures that use force against peaceful people to force compliance with a larger social plan."
If you were talking about the original socialist libertarianism, then you would have had a point.
Unfortunately libertarianism today is more of a "live and let die"-type ideology, where those who cannot support themselves must fail, as they provide "no value". It is social darwinism writ large.
Regulations exist for a reason and the effects of gutting for instance the EPA has massive consequences, irreparable damage to the environment and to people's health. Or do you think the people in Flint, Michigan should just move somewhere else?
We absolutely cannot trust powerful people and corporations to do the right thing, since they do not feel the consequences themselves and thus actively do not care, because that would eat into their profits.
Voluntarism doesn't work, for that exact reason. Hence why regulations and laws are needed.
Altruism is completely orthogonal to libertarianism. The only consistent property of libertarian policies is that they protect and preserve the right to voluntary interaction.
How people choose to voluntarily associate is in no way a concern of what's defined as libertarianism.
In other words, one can believe and promote a society based on compassion, sharing and collectivism, or a society based on self-sufficiency and only profit-motivated interaction, and be equally libertarian.
>>the effects of gutting for instance the EPA has massive consequences, irreparable damage to the environment and to people's health. Or do you think the people in Flint, Michigan should just move somewhere else?
There are a multitude of types of regulations, and not all of them violate the non-aggression moral principle that libertarianism holds as inviolable. Environmental regulations generally do not violate the right to free association, and can indeed protect rights, so are generally consistent with libertarianism.
Moreover, regulations have a multitude of effects, and not all of them positive. To quantify their net effect on human welfare requires far more evidence than the single data point you've provided. It requires a comprehensive and methodological accounting of their entire impact.
>>Voluntarism doesn't work, for that exact reason. Hence why regulations and laws are needed.
Voluntarism does not imply a lack of laws. Voluntaryism can only be enforced with laws and a state to back it. There is a distinction between laws that protect people's right to their life, liberty and property, and laws that violate it.
It always boils down to "doing something I agree with", defining any perceived violation of ultimate personal freedom as aggression, leading to any retaliation to be "justified" as self defense, which is utterly morally bereft.
The pure and simple truth is that a society based solely on voluntary interaction is no society at all. Along with the benefits of being part of a society, there will always be obligations. You can act as if that doesn't apply to you, but someone always has to pick up the bill or do the work and you can't count on there always being a volunteer.
Libertarianism is a pie-in-the-sky utopian thought experiment ideology.
Libertarianism posits that all interactions between people should be voluntary, and that the misfortune of one does not justify coercive measures against another.
Rational does not guarantee correct, if you don't consider all the variables.
Anecdotally, I find Libertarians are just as susceptible as people of all political parties of being selective with arguments that support their points of view, and ignoring others.
What is unique to Libertarians I know is an arrogance about the objective correctness (because of their lack of emotion and rationality) of their philosophy.
>>Rational does not guarantee correct, if you don't consider all the variables.
Of course, but a rational mindset is more likely to base its beliefs on evidence and logically sound suppositions, and thus be correct, than an emotional one.
>>What is unique to Libertarians I know is an arrogance about the objective correctness (because of their lack of emotion and rationality) of their philosophy.
I think the willingness of adherents of non-libertarian ideologies to use the force of the state to force peaceful people to bend to their will reveals a greater arrogance. I find "live and let live" to show the greatest humility, but I suppose this is all subjective.
What is your basis for that claim? Go on r/conservative and you’ll see plenty claiming the opposite.
(Genuine question — I’m not familiar with the metric and the differences seem small)
The link between aggression and testosterone in modern studies is a complicated one. The theory that testosterone levels can be used as a predictor for violence has been extensively debunked. However violence is a predictor for high testosterone, a finding mostly done on apes. The prevailing theory, as far as I seen in modern research, is the challenge hypothesis. If two males fight, the winner of the two will have raised testosterone afterward. The winner will also be more likely to be more vigorous defending themselves if their new won status is challenged.
On a more subtle human experience, place people in a economic game and inject some with testosterone. What ever behavior that the game has in order to defend status will be increased in those injected. If status is preserved by giving money, those injected with testosterone become more generous.
A similar study has been done on sport fans. When a team wins a match, male fans of that team will have their testosterone raised afterward. If there is a confrontation between fans of the two different teams, it is more likely that the winning side will react more aggressively.
Talking about toxic behavior, there is also a similar finding for women. It is however a bit more complicated and involve multiple hormones. The aggression is also more complicated, harder to define, and is more context sensitive.
There is plenty of scientific research on the topic. "Testosterone == violence" is plain wrong. In some papers, partial correlation was indicated.
The belief that testosterone is some sort of "manly warrior hormone" is an example of cultural bias that has been researched as well (see google scholar) and fits very well the description of "toxic masculinity".
There's a biological basis for men being less risk-averse than women. If you think about cavemen days, as a woman, if you are pregnant, or could be pregnant, going hunting, making physical threats, or taking unnecessary risks will reduce your chances of reproductive success. It's better to be safe and conservative, because the life of your children could be at stake.
As a male, in primitive times, it was the opposite. Obviously it wouldn't be to your advantage to just pick fights with everyone, but there is much more of a competitive dynamic. The men who go out, hunt, and bring the food, will have more success within their tribes. In order to succeed as a caveman, you had to leave the camp in a hunting party and risk getting killed.
AFAIK, based on studies on mitochondrial DNA, we have 2-3x female ancestors as males. Meaning most males died childless. This is obviously not a model for how we want modern society to be, but I think it's healthy to understand where we come form, and why males may have more of a tendency for violence, or to get themselves killed in motorcycle accidents. It's not just because of socialization. There is a biological basis.
And I don't intend to. The topic is big enough for a degree and specialization in endocrinology.
I recommend to read the books from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Sapolsky or at the very least watch all his lectures on youtube.
> I don't believe in toxic masculinity. Masculine and feminine traits have
You are confusing "toxic masculinity" with "masculinity is toxic"
"toxic work culture" does not mean "work is toxic"
It doesn't "===" violence but if you're intentionally using "==" for type coercion, it could be true.
The whole phenomenon of "toxic masculinity" is not about "masculinity makes you toxic" but about the ways we terrorize young males and indoctrinate them with fear & violence at an early age.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-...