The leader of the New Zealand Green Party once stated "I am a violence prevention minister and I know who causes violence in the world, it is white, cis men."

I strongly believe (or hope) that in the future the idea of viewing everything through a lens of group theory and identifying who has privilege and who suffers the most in terms of stereotypical cohorts, which is the dominant medium for attributing blame in society at large now, will be viewed by future societies with disdain.

> "I am a violence prevention minister and I know who causes violence in the world, it is white, cis men."

That may well be true, but its also true that the main victims of that violence are "white, cis men"

But people love to lump other people together by shallow characteristics because looking at individuals is hard, and looking at systems individuals live in.

It's a zero-sum game. Everyone, and I mean everyone, is pursuing power. Power means different things, in different contexts, but it always gets back to power.

The most obvious form of power is resources and money. But there are so many other forms. These identity and gender issues we've seen over the last 10 years have absolutely, undoubtedly been at the core about one thing: power.

Now before you get all upset, pursuing power isn't always a bad thing. If you've been historically marginalized, aren't you within your right as a human being to seek equality? The question really is in how you do it, and who suffers as a result, and how far you take it. It's very easy to swing the pendulum back too far, and end up in a society that may or may not be any better but just different.

Your comment isn't saying anything though. Everything is about power. Noted.

Being able to say that as a political figure and not getting an unequivocal drumming down by everyone else shows how far gone the west is. There is no turning this ship around.

I hope you agree it's because she identified a demographic group of as causing a lot of problems, not because of which group she chose, right? The most powerful man in the world is blaming trans women for half the world's ills and we can all agree they're both bad statements?

Maga and woke are two sides of the same retarded coin. Choosing some group and blaming them for everything bad in the entire universe.

Somehow many people think the problem is choosing the wrong group. Nope; the problem is choosing a group, full stop.

Is it even possible to step back from this level of polarization? Centrists quickly get shoved into one side or the other depending on where their funding or family loyalties are. It just keeps ratcheting up when I start to think it's starting to level off

The New Zealand Green Party got 13.3% of the vote. Declaring "the west gone" is something better left on a reactionary platform like X, rather than something like Hacker News.

I don't know about white and cis, but you can't argue with facts that men are overwhelmingly the source of individual violence (as opposed to wars, etc.).

In the last election cycle, major political party and pundits made it their agenda to frame male violence as good manly man thing.

>What do you expect when most men have been priced out of a happy life?

Most PEOPLE are being priced out of a happy life. I'm not aware of any "man tax" men are having to pay when they go out to eat, or when buying groceries, or renting/paying their mortgage.

Your anger is misplaced. You we're raised to believe that a mans job was to earn a high enough income to provide for their family, and now that shit is expensive, that perception society forced unto you makes you feel like a "failure". You're not a failure, you're just someone living in a capitalist society.

>What do you expect when most men are villainized in the stories that dominate narratives in modern media?

Most men are not being made up as villains. This reads like your algorithm/news feed is trying to enrage you.

Are there idiots out there who are attributing the wrongdoings of certain men, and/or the issues of men as a whole to individuals? Yes, but that some idiots voice their opinions on social media is nothing new, nor is it unique to men to be unfairly judged on the internet. Every demographic has bullshit thrown their way these days.

look at the sibling comment

> You're not a failure, you're just someone living in a capitalist society.

I think I need that on a T-shirt.

Men and their ideals, are portrayed as inherently evil in a good chunk of western media. It's pretty obvious to anyone looking at the West from the outside.

It's also a reason why the West is failing, but certainly not the only one. Social Welfare states like Europe are burning, since it was never sustainable.

America is fighting among itself, because there is no Asabiyyah (social cohesion), and the wealth inequality (wealth pump) is growing massively.

Compare that with China or Singapore, where social harmony is perhaps the most important thing in their society, food is subsidized, education as a high priority, their laws are punitive, infrastructure is extremely new, etc.

That’s a crazy comment for me.

I don’t think you’re open for a discussion but I’ll try; just judging from experience talking to other people who hold similar entrenched beliefs, I might be very wrong.

> Social Welfare states like Europe are burning

I live there and wasn’t aware that it’s burning - Europe also isnt a singular entity.

> the West is failing

I wasn’t aware of that either! Seems to me that western countries (I assume you mean US and EU with that?) still hold most of the power worldwide?

> Men and their ideals, are portrayed as inherently evil in a good chunk of western media

The opposite is also true. I think it’s just because most heroes and villains in western media are men - hell most characters are men.

Men are interested in things, while women are interested in people. That's probably why most characters are men overall. Same with men being more likely to be Autistic.

That being said, it's quite noticeable that people in the entertainment sector, who are probably marginalized, are directing some anger against men.

Ghostbusters 2016, likely started this, and I do wonder if it was to appease the women and other groups after the the #Metoo movement, where marginalized people were given a voice, to pretend that Hollywood was like them (they aren't, look at their governmental funding before #Metoo).

> Men are interested in things, while women are interested in people.

Seems like a generalisation. I’m a man and I’m more interested in people than in things for example.

> That's probably why most characters are men overall.

How does this follow what you wrote before; I don’t see any connection tbh

If men are into things, then they likely are into abstractions, concepts, ideas, etc. Stories are one of these.

France is burning because they're defaulting and can't pay for their social welfare benefits, and Germany's economy isn't doing so well. That's a good chunk of Europe's economy in a nutshell.

China is rising, and so are other (previously and currently) Third World nations. It's a matter of when they take power, not if. India and Indonesia seem to be heavy hitters, for now and probably for the near future.

I stand by my statement of Western entertainment demeaning men, probably out of anger, or as something of an alibi for Hollywood after the #Metoo movement. Occupy Wallstreet is also notable for this.

Germany has the third largest GDP worldwide so I don’t think it’s “not doing so well” considering how tiny it is.

China/Asia, South America and Africa have the most space, people and natural resources so it just makes sense that they would be more successful in the long run though.

>I stand by my statement

That is fair. I stand by mine that this doesn’t convince me. Of course men are the villains when they hold the most power. You can’t really be an effective or convincing villain if you’re powerless.

Germany made its money through high end production (which is handled by Asia) and its Mittelstand (which like most of the West, is starting to slow down massively).

Germany is still in a good position for Europe, but it can't compete as well as it once did compared to Asia or the US. Even then, the US is having issues with China.

"Of course men are the villains when they hold the most power."

I agree with the statement, but not the context.

Looking at Velma, Dragon Age: Veilguard, Ghostbusters 2016, Star Wars sequels, She-Hulk, and much more, a good chunk of such Western media feels like they have some disdain for a large portion of fans who watch them.

Like a Superiority complex formed out of deeprooted insecurities of their feelings towards men.

You could argue men have reacted to this in the same way, especially in Instagram and the like.

> I live there and wasn’t aware that it’s burning - Europe also isnt a singular entity.

As a resident of Portland OR, I'm all too familiar with people pointing to protests confined to a few downtown city blocks as evidence of the entire city being burned to the ground.

Seems like France/Europe is currently suffering from that same sort of propaganda. "Europe is so far gone because thr Gucci store in Paris got looted and some cop cars burned."

Historically, French protests have always been rowdy and widespread. I don't think Portland's protests were even close to what France has seen.

French protests are known for their ferocity in European context, yes. But what was dominant in the recent weeks were not protests, it was the rioting. Obviously.

People protesting poor school conditions don't burn down their schools or random public buildings.

Your description seems to ignore that a historic town hall that survived two world wars was invaded and torched, and burnt to the ground, and that entire neighbourhoods -public spaces- in major cities have been turned into warzones from weeks of riots involving hundreds of thousands of people, causing extensive property damage, widespread feeling of insecurity and environmental damage.

Your takeaway from this was apparently 'looted luxury store and burned cop cars'.

Is it your source of news that's to blame for that misapprehension, or your personal stance on things?

edit: typo

The sex ration of completed suicides in the USSR as a whole between 1984 to 1990 was 3,9 men to 1 women.

That is, near exactly the same as in the 'capitalist' world then, and now.

(In the Slavic-predominant part of the USSR, that is Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, it was an even worse 4,6-to-1. Somewhat lower in Central Asia at ~2,7-to-1).

Okay snowflake. Nobody is "vilifying men" in general. If you feel targeted, perhaps you should wonder why? I've lived as a man, benefitting of male privileges that I could CLEARLY SEE were there, and that's unfair, so it's normal that women demand an equal play field. And I've never felt "vilified" because I'm a man.

I've been asked to try to think about what privilege I have without having "merited" them. And I did. And I think it's only fair.

>Okay snowflake.

Isn't "okay snowflake" a vilification in itself?

Only if you pretty much wanna confirm what they said.

Good lord cry me a river.