Whether hard-working folks can attain dignity and social respect is a factor of society itself, not merely a side-effect of material circumstances. The poorest countries in the underdeveloped Third World have far more recognition and respect for those who work hard and provide for their households (and the happiness/life satisfaction indicators to go along with it) than much of the rich West.
I feel it's always worth asking whether there are unstated axioms here being snuck into the discourse. Especially in a big conversation about how 'everything is being ruined because people won't stick to the old good ways'.
Though it may be an uncomfortable question to some, to what extent does this rest upon female humans serving as livestock and spawning/rearing children, being relatively disposable themselves?
If you REALLY want to maximize 'men attaining dignity and social respect', to what extent does this rest upon the existence of a subhuman underclass which doesn't count as 'men' and can be enslaved for their labor? Dignity and social respect are RELATIVE. The easiest way to make them seem enhanced for some is to strip 'em from others. People vary far too much to make 'free market' human interaction easy and seamless, and every time we run up against a conflict our dignity and social respect takes a hit.
How badly do you want your dignity? And how much is your end goal just you and not anybody else? (this would be an abstract 'you', not intending it as an argument that the original commenter is this 'you')
In the meantime, maybe ease up on flamebait language like "subhuman underclass" and trying to insinuate the person you're replying to is some kind of scoundrel and try suggesting solutions to the fraying social balance instead? Because it's increasingly obvious that there's a problem here.
From my perspective we are looking at social balance that incorporates more variation, and that there were obvious problems with the previous balance that's now said to be 'fraying'. I think 'dignity and social respect' is a zero sum game, and largely dependent on power balances: you can never truly feel 'I am treated with dignity and social respect!' unless you're being kowtowed to by at least some. Otherwise, your perspective will inevitably be challenged, perhaps a lot if you mingle with a lot of varied people.
The state of actual freedom, is a state of social instability. Nobody defaults to the dominant, nobody's guaranteed to win, and the larger the pool you're in, the more likely someone is going to turn up, compete hard, and make you VERY challenged indeed. And they're in the same pool so there's doubtless something making them very insecure in turn, even if they're stomping all over you.
You can make this seem like a solid, reliable, secure social balance as long as you're able to crush opposing forces and have whatever your class/gender/race is, totally dominate everyone else. Then it won't seem 'fraying' or 'a problem' at all, because you'll not be in serious danger: others will.
The nice thing about humans is that, as thinking life-forms, we get to self-govern the appetites we share with dogs. As such we cease being livestock. This counts for women, too, exactly as much as it counts for men: it's more aspirational than practical. But we do get to question these things, both personally and societally.
What does that mean? Is everyone going to attend college and become coders? Who is going to collect the trash. In my home country the dominant job opportunity is subsistence farming, people still manage.
One of my favorite parts of living in Germany has been the relative lack of social hierarchy associated with one's job. I'm in a martial arts class with a mix of doctors, lawyers, musicians, carpenters, students, and (actual) garbage collectors, and not once have I noticed a stratification or class connotation in discussion during or after class. They have very different economic means of course, but "dignity and social respect" is exactly the right description for the quality they all grant each other as contributing members of society.
It's a cultural quality I've come to accept as a marker of a functional social democracy.
The obvious solution is to discard classism and extend dignity and respect to the garbage-collectors. Why shouldn't they be respected? They perform an essential service for their community.
Yes progressive values are a thing, but its media representation is nuts, on purpose.
The it's us vs them narrative leads to subjucating all values to pure "survival". This promotes long term irrationality. The powers at be know this and capitalize it. On both "sides". In my biased opinion this sort of Machiavellism is more common with conservatives, but its definitely common enough in non conservatives.
You said it yourself, cultural wars are just distraction to keep the elite in power and talk about everything except classes. People in power don't care about conservatives or liberals, they just pick a team and play the game.
By making immigration-without-visas a criminal offense, rather than an administrative one, the anti-immigration movement serves to drive immigrants (but not immigration) underground and makes their labor cheaper.
It's a lot like prostitution: since prostitution is a criminal offense, all prostitutes are criminals. They can be abused freely because they cannot go to the authorities without certainty being punished themselves.
By the same token, an undocumented immigrant cannot contact authorities to report they're underpaid, stolen from, beaten, imprisoned, or enslaved. (These are all things that happen regularly.) Their "criminal" status is used as a cudgel to abuse them.
Keep in mind, these are all people that just want to work in exchange for money, and they're responding to people and companies that want to hire their services. The "illegal immigration" posturing is just the buyers' way of artificially depressing prices.
- are severely uneducated. Consider distribution of political alignments in Academia. Consider the fact that antivaxxers and conspiracy theorists are in their overwhelming majority politically conservative and authoritarian. Belief in conspiracy theories is highly correlated with an impoverished interpersonal functioning, such as interpersonal paranoia, narcissism, disagreeableness, insecure attachment and Machiavellianism [1]. Impoverished interpersonal skills signify lack of empathy, which fuels dehumanization, and enables exploitation of others.
- grew up hammered by propaganda and the red scare, where anything that resembles social welfare is considered communism even if they themselves are dependent on such systems. Accepting that one needs help is exceptionally difficult for a person high on narcissism and paranoia.
Furthermore, when threatened, the brain takes "conservative" stances, i.e. stances that preserve the status quo. When faced with an ever changing world that does not resemble anything that they were accustomed to, they cling on to the closest sense of status quo even if the person or structure that supports it only does so for optics.
The lack of education makes it difficult for them to see that they are played like pawns by the bourgeoisie, that they receive preferential treatment through systemic issues [2], and finally they misattribute the reasons for their successes due to their obliviousness [3].
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6282974/
[2] https://libcom.org/library/advance-class-struggle-abolish-wh...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_(psychology)
Kind reminder that I stated facts, so please argue, as adults :) .
"Creating an economy where men can attain dignity and social respect."