Broken Masculinity won
What Elon Musk's Nazi salute means for young men
Among the online-left, there is a long outstanding debate on the role and importance of masculinity in radicalizing a particular segment of young (mostly white) males on the internet. "The left is failing men!" is a common outcry both from self-proclaimed leftists, but also from across the political aisle. The further right you go, the less you get of men being directionless and lacking good role models and the more you get of the left is attacking men, but the general consensus seems to be the same. That left wing politics is failing at winning young men over. Young men who are feeling increasingly disenfranchised by a society which they feel does not care for or about them.
In the most direct form of this argument, you sometimes hear of the male identity crisis. The idea that because of devious left wing Marxists, nearly all traits which previously defined masculinity have either been labelled toxic, in the case of generally negative traits or detached from masculinity, in the case of generally positive traits. I am, of course, not the first person to notice that in building a positive view of masculinity, free from the toxic stereotypes of aggression, one immediately runs into a problem. That any set of positive traits which embody masculinity would be equally desirable in women as they would be in men. Strong, brave, confident, ambitious, self-sacrificing, etc. are considered so universally virtuous that they become useless in building a masculine identity. Combine this with the erosion of the ideal of the man as the breadwinner and sole provider of the household, and you arrive at men in a sort of vacuum. An empty space devoid of any meaning. In other words, they are just people like anyone else dealing with the absurdity of existence. The shock and horror indeed.
The unfortunate effect of this seems to be that a lot of men, who have been brought up in the belief that life ought to give them meaning and that they possess inherent privileges, facing the reality of their situation and a left-wing discourse which is far more occupied with discussing the actual oppression happening, that of women, queer folk, immigrants and so forth, go into a sort of revolt against the world. Their very existence is stuck in an incongruence and in seeking to resolve that incongruence, they contextualise themselves as the victim, the oppressed. And eventually an opportunist will come by and sell them a convenient story of just who is doing the oppressing. At this point the left wing analysis usually diverges, either suggesting men can go suck it, or more usually into materialist analysis, suggesting that men ought to refocus their anger at the real source of their oppression: late-stage capitalism.
If you can’t tell, I am quite partial to the latter and I am quite fed up with the idea that the left is attacking masculinity and that this is supposedly to blame for the rise of the alt-right. And the reason I do not buy this narrative is quite simple. When people suggest that what the left is attacking is male character traits and that this is driving young men towards radicalisation, they are wrong. If a return to traditional masculinity, that image of the strong, courageous, ambitious career man type was what the young man so truly needed, then we would have to contend with the question: Why in god’s name, did America elect such giant dweebs?
The answer you might be unsurprised to hear is power. Elon Musk is the perfect embodiment of masculinity as a power performance. He does not embody the virtues which we would use to define a positive masculinity. He is not a manly man in any way that matters, but in one particular way. He has a lot of power. And he is looking at young men in America, who are struggling with their own masculinity and he is saying: We are going to restore your power, which you ought to have by virtue of your birthright as a man. In this way, he is a perfect complement to Trump, whose rhetoric of "Make America Great Again" doesn’t necessarily appeal to young men who’ve never lived through what they could consider great times.
When Musk goes on stage and does a horrible rendition of a sieg heil, he is appealing to an image of an era where men held power. White men specifically held power, and he is saying that now it is our turn to wield that power again. And of course, just as it was a lie back in nazi Germany, it is a lie now. His supporters will wield a power, but it is not a power which enriches, it is a power which destroys and diminishes the self. The power to cuss out your Jewish neighbors, the power to tell a US-born Hispanic to go back to his country, the power to participate in trans people being systematically erased from society. They will be useful pawns in a campaign of cruelty and violence, and they will watch in glee, as at least someone else has it worse than them and the rich continue to enrich themselves.
I don’t have much to say in regards of bestowing hope or confidence in the future. At best, I am hoping for limited damage. But I do hope that if you are reading this, and you are in despair, you will at least know that millions feel the same. If you have the energy and possibility to do so, help out in your local community. Better times may yet come, but there will be a lot of pain before that.
If you are reading this, as a young man struggling with your gender identity however, I do want to end with an outline of what a positive masculinity for the future could look like, for those who may feel like they it. And it is this: If we can’t construct a vision of masculinity from first principles, as I don’t believe we should, then what is left is to construct one purely by its relation to what already is. By accepting that masculinity inevitably already exists, whether you chose to embody it or not, we can define our own through contrast with this societal relationship. Often times this is going to look like a partial rejection of masculinity. After all, when we are accustomed so totally to a particular normative vision of what masculinity should be, it is only in diversion from that ideal that we actually notice gender performance. Like a strong, handsome man wearing a dress. Or being open about mental illness. So if you do feel like embodying a positive masculine image, please feel free to do so and pick any virtuous qualities which appeal to you. But be aware of what you are doing and when you can, use it to be a good person. By breaking from that mold, when the situation demands it. And stand up for queer people. You have that power and should use it.