An Alt Opinion; 'Free Solo' = Epidemic of Toxic Masculinity

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Largo

Sport climber

The Big Wide Open Face

Dec 22, 2018 - 09:17am PT

It’s not like ranting and shaming helped me win the presidency. Oh wait, it is like that.
---

No one's saying that ranting and shaming never leads to action. It did, in large part, win Trump the presidency.

The question, of course, is: Was electing Trump the correct action? That is, did that action lead to a solution or course-correction that in turn, led to greater understanding and a positive sea change in the way things and people are?

Seems debatable, at the very least.

Note how people hold onto their right to rant. Fair enough. But decisions and actions drawn from ranting itself are often disastrous. We can easily see why.

Tarbuster

climber

right here, right now

Dec 22, 2018 - 10:51am PT

You guys just made some good points.
Regardless, (heck, probably in support of your points) I feel the need to once again channel our fallen comrade, BVB.

One of the more whimsical and dead-on musings of his:

If anyone finds that language offensive & inappropriate, such that they might complain to the moderators, please first say so here, and I will kindly remove it.

Spencer Lennard

Trad climber

Williams, Oregon

Dec 22, 2018 - 11:50am PT

Fantastic analysis of toxic masculinity and adventure sports....and patriarchy in our culture

Rattlesnake Arch

Social climber

Home is where we park it

Dec 22, 2018 - 03:54pm PT

I stick by my guns that shaming is not a constructive way to bring about change.

Agreed. Shaming just fans the flames. Men and women have a symbiotic relationship. Its a truism that they need to get along. The analogy to US politics is striking...

Trump

climber

Dec 22, 2018 - 04:29pm PT

But decisions and actions drawn from ranting itself are often disastrous. We can easily see why.

Sure. Maybe the evolution of humans was disastrous too, in retrospect, after humans are gone. And I expect that’ll be easy to see why in a hypothetical future that we create in our minds. Still, I’m not inclined to go off myself just yet.

The stuff we see doesn’t always seem to end up being true, and I’m not sure that the ease with which we see it is really evidence of its truth, much as we might have evolved to see it that way.

We gather information and make analyses and form understandings, but the way we do it, and the results that we get, are always biased by who and what we are, individually, tribally, species-ly. We evolved to our position of success because of our excellence in behaving in ways that have promoted survival of the fittest - ME! - and the way that we form beliefs is a yuuuge! element in our success in doing that.

And we can try as hard as we want or as hard as we think is “good” for us to transcend that connection between our own self-interest - our own belief behaviors that have evolved to support survival of the fittest -ME! and the way that we form advantageous beliefs, and try instead to form beliefs that are true, but try as we might, or believe as much as we believe that we have successfully transcended our evolved tendency to form beliefs that work in our self-interest, rather than beliefs that are true, we probably always fall short.

So when other people have different strongly held analyses and understandings, maybe expressed as rants, that’s extra information that we can use to broaden our own understanding, to the extent that we’re able to try to understand and incorporate it, as opposed to just trying to deny and disprove it to ourselves in defense of our own need to see our own pre-existing self-biased beliefs as being true.

Try as we might to change the way we work to be agents acting purely for a global good, rather than intelligent agents acting towards our own self-interested survival, that’s not how we’ve evolved to work. And we might find, if we ever lose our tendency to act towards our own survival by biasing our beliefs towards ourselves, that we’ve lost something that was essential to, and was contributing to, our survival.

But still, I like it that it seems like we try so hard any way to understand and believe what’s true, rather than just what’s in our self interest to believe. Often, but not always, the most advantageous thing to believe is the truth.

And things aren’t true because we say they’re true, or because of the way we say them - they’re true because they’re true. And there’s some truth to be learned from someone feeling the need to rant, even if it’s a truth that comfy ole me might not quite see. Yet.

And to the extent to which we allow ourselves and our beliefs to be biased, in either direction, by the emotionality of the presentation of some information, or our individual interpersonal relationship with the person presenting the information, or our tribal affiliation with them, or the consequences for ourselves if what they’re saying is true - however we react to that, that’s on us. We do those things because doing those things works to our advantage.

So to Erin, and all, thanks!

Happiegrrrl2

Trad climber

Dec 22, 2018 - 04:44pm PT

Shaming just fans the flames.

"What were you THINKING?" - shaming a young woman for going to a party by herself and having to fend off the "nice guy who offered her a ride home."

"What did you expect to happen, wearing a low cut blouse?" - shaming a woman who is complaining abut the cat calls she endured walking from the office to the local restaurant for lunch with friends.

"If you're going to behave so competitively, you won't have any friends." - shaming a middle school girl who wonders why some of the kids in her class made fun of the presentation she made which she'd worked very hard on and which was on a much higher level that most ones made by the other students.

"You'll never marry a good man if you/if you don't(insert just about anything a young woman is doing/not doing). - shaming a female for not subordinating herself to be appealing.

"Sounds to me like she can't get a date." - Shaming a woman for writing an article that expresses opinions people find unsettling.

Maybe if it weren't for all the shaming, there wouldn't be a need for all the ranting! The flames have been fanned for a long time.... and yeah - shaming doesn't really work so well after all, now does it.

yanqui

climber

Balcarce, Argentina

Dec 22, 2018 - 04:46pm PT

ranting and shaming

People tried this with homosexuality and obesity. How did that work?

Rankin

Social climber

Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Dec 22, 2018 - 05:01pm PT

This piece is postmodern drivel that went stale over two decades ago but still clouds university departments like an old fart. If the author is attempting to be as verbose and adolescent as Derrida she has succeeded. But let me refute her entire piece in four words: intention in speech matters. That's it folks. Don't waste your time or breath with someone who is not interested in rational discourse.

Rattlesnake Arch

Social climber

Home is where we park it

Dec 22, 2018 - 05:03pm PT

and yeah - shaming doesn't really work so well after all, now does it.

We're in total agreement...

Pete_N

Trad climber

Santa Cruz, CA

Dec 22, 2018 - 10:29pm PT

Hey Happiegrrrl2...thanks for contributing to this thread. And thanks ST for having a pretty good conversation on a challenging topic!

Vitaliy M.

Mountain climber

San Francisco

Dec 23, 2018 - 06:20am PT

Dumbcunt.omg

Ken M

Mountain climber

Los Angeles, Ca

Dec 23, 2018 - 09:38am PT

Vitaliy, you make the clear point that the author of the article has some very real points to gripe about.

You make it clear that her opinion is worthless, because she is a woman, and a lesser sexual being. Quite a message in a short package.

Of course, I don't know why we should care what an unAmerican thinks, anyway.

capseeboy

Social climber

portland, oregon

Dec 23, 2018 - 09:45am PT

The stuff we see doesn’t always seem to end up being true, and I’m not sure that the ease with which we see it is really evidence of its truth, much as we might have evolved to see it that way.

Seeing and believing are often both wrong---Robert McNamara

Vitaliy M.

Mountain climber

San Francisco

Dec 23, 2018 - 11:16am PT

I have too much toxic masculinity in me.

Degaine

climber

Dec 24, 2018 - 05:37am PT

Thanks to Happie, Tarbuster, and Largo for your thoughtful posts.

This far into the thread just a few short comments. I personally enjoyed the read, found the blog post thought provoking, and consider most of the analysis to be on the mark. If some of you thought the tone of the author's writing to be a bit over the top, isn't that the norm for a blog post of this type?

I also thought the part about the warrior image/mentality was particularly interesting and poignant, along with the notion of feeling useless or participating in what amounts to a useless activity. Terray hit it on the nose with his title, "Les Conquérants de l'Inutile" (Conquistadors of the Useless). While I personally find climbing fulfilling in several ways, I harbor no illusions about its worth to society. I mean hey, c'mon, we ain't curing cancer.

For those on this thread who took offense or at least felt, for whatever reason, personally targeted, your level of anger is ironically equal to the level of anger you perceive the author of the article to be expressing. In simple terms, it's pretty clear a lot of projecting is going on. Your posts also read as if you either failed to realize or simply glossed over the fact that she includes herself as being part of the problem.

Degaine

climber

Dec 24, 2018 - 06:46am PT

Largo wrote:

The challenge Kate Courtney faces per "gender equality" is a tricky business from both a male and female perspective. For starters, Kate is not merely "cute." She's stunning, a plain fact that she and her sponsors have capitalized on per how she is marketed in social media.

Good looking male athletes are marketed this way as well. In history class we're taught that the original Olympics in ancient Greece were a tribute to the human form. I don't think we can or should try to escape the fact that athletes - professional and amateur - are often attractive people. We shouldn't deny the fact that we find them attractive.

However, said attractiveness should not be their defining characteristic relative to the athletic accomplishment. As Kate's quote alludes to and as we have all probably witnessed, when a male athlete performs well in a given sport, commentators and fans alike usually talk about his talent, strength, courage, training, etc., long before how good looking or attractive he may be, if his attractiveness is ever mentioned.

Largo wrote:

The challenge is to come up with some constructive suggestions on how males might expand their focus, learning to emphasize her skill above and beyond her looks. A strategy that is doomed to fail is to try and shame males who find her cute on Instagram, and in races as well, the implication being we should minimize or forget the cute factor and focus, instead, on the skill, at least once the race is on. This is unlikely to happen, for better or worse.

Good point. For lack of time, brain cells, or a better phrase, all I can think of is the broader notion of "manners," "common courtesy/decency," and "professionalism." I work in an office environment and an industry with a lot of young and attractive people (I may or may not be one of them). As a guy, when I encounter a woman in a professional situation, her attractiveness is completely irrelevant in the context of a stellar presentation or project result, the furthest thing from my mind is commenting on her looks.

Could this apply to a spectator / athlete situation?
Most adults in some way, shape, or form have learned to act professionally and to differentiate between professional and personal situations.

As you write, shaming won't work to really change a person's approach or mentality.