DOD186: Who Can Fix the Men?

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:02 Clip: I'm the cool dad. That's my thing. I know now what I can offer you that no one else can. Complete and utter dependence. I'm a man. I'm sensitive. I need to feel loved. I need to be desired.

0:00:22 Clip: Telling is the only part of being a father that I enjoy.

0:00:28 Tom: Welcome to Dear Old Dads, the podcast that's all problems and no solutions. I'm Tom Curry. I'm joined as always by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello, gentlemen.

0:00:40 Thomas: It going? I don't, I'm curious to hear how this, uh, all problems and no solutions, huh? All right.

0:00:45 Eli: Are listening to this week's podcast thomas I'm I'm excited for this one I've decided not to participate so much as I've descended to just be the first listener tom

0:00:55 Thomas: I sent tom what I taught. I sent both what I felt was a thoughtful screed that someone wrote and, but no, it's being labeled as uh just all problems okay yeah

0:00:57 Tom: Woman it's uh it

0:01:05 Eli: Is poisoning the well that's

0:01:05 Tom: I am poison well that's the that's the editorial control that I get by writing the joke at the beginning yeah watch out

0:01:08 Thomas: I guess yeah he wields so much power by

0:01:12 Eli: Tom shows up to our show he heaves editorial control there at the opening

0:01:16 Thomas: That'd be

0:01:18 Tom: That is my my one moment of autonomy yeah like

0:01:23 Eli: You guys think when this is like the the world's number one podcast and we're like more famous than joe rogan and stuff like we'll all be in like a super cool sound studio with like mics and headsets and stuff be so cool yeah

0:01:33 Thomas: Really fun tom

0:01:34 Tom: All together in the same

0:01:36 Thomas: Will still be doing this stupid job for some reason we have more money than god and he's like yeah they need me down at the fucking bullshit

0:01:39 Eli: Number one podcast in the world and he's like guys I gotta move out my boss had a phone call he says I got a phone called to the phone there

0:01:44 Thomas: Factory

0:01:51 Tom: Look I am I am definitely willing to quit my day job for 150 million dollars spotify contract I'm just I'll quit the shit out of my day Job for 150 Million Dollar Spotify Contract

0:01:56 Eli: We go oh

0:02:02 Thomas: Would take such a tiny multiple of that. It's embarrassing.

0:02:05 Tom: Yeah same yeah look same man I'll take I'll take fucking 10 percent of that that's great awesome no problem they're

0:02:11 Thomas: Thing I love about Joe Rogan and Donald Trump and Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg is they're like us, guys. They're the ordinary,

0:02:19 Eli: For us they're ordinary people people.

0:02:19 Tom: I feel a kinship.

0:02:22 Eli: You know, when you're on spaceship and there are a hundred million people and they ask you like maybe end hunger and you're like, but that's not jazz party. And you are having jazz party and they are doing, what is water from ice again? They're doing that. And You're like yuck. Lulz. It seems like you are getting pwned by starvation. And they're like it's pronounced out starvation and you're like actually I bought dictionary .com and now it's stravation everything is the thing I buy equals truth all the time but

0:02:20 Thomas: Get their hands dirty, you know, working men. Oh, fuck.

0:02:58 Eli: You know the only thing worse than the very real sentences of elon musk that I just said gentlemen why it's the auto ads the auto adds I listened to our show with auto adsthe other day it was so many there's so many auto ads why are you putting yourself through that podcast listener they're every like seven seconds it's just you get like a maximum volume someone being like fucking staples .com has the shit we had 20 years ago how can it it's nuts and you can put an end to it you can make it all stop make it all go away over at patreon .com forward

0:03:16 Thomas: Yeah, just quit listening to our show. Oh, no, sorry.

0:03:32 Tom: I'm worried about what your solution is going to be.

0:03:33 Thomas: I know, Eli. Eli, Eli, you

0:03:34 Tom: Yeah. It was very uncomfortable Uncomfortable for a minute.

0:03:33 Eli: Slash dear old dads for

0:03:35 Thomas: Can make the voices stop.

0:03:39 Tom: Very uncomfortable.

0:03:39 Eli: As little as a dollar you get a commercial free version of every show we got a little punsmanship on the end of last week's show some of the Zelda jokes that Thomas has been busting out at bedtime over in the Smith household and get all that plus bonus episodes all kinds of fun exciting cool stuff over at patreon.com forward slash and hey you know what I don't say it often enough but if you support our show thank you cause you know What I can beg these These motherfuckers, these auto ad listening pieces of shit all day for money.

0:04:14 Eli: But you already stepped up. You already did the right thing. And everyone else, they're a thief. They're stealing this free podcast. So thank you for compensating for their selfishness. Into it. This

0:04:31 Tom: Right. So, Thomas, you found this one from Reddit. Is that right?

0:04:34 Thomas: Yeah, it was. And I promise it wasn't a prank on Tom. It was a Tumblr post that was posted on Reddit. And so the screenshot was terrible. And so it might have been a good prank on time. I just sent it was like, hey, take a look at this. Very easy to read.

0:04:36 Eli: Is a Tumblr post. Read this with the one eye that works, Gramps. Tom's just pressed his forehead to his computer screen. Read if your vision okay you got me visions right there the first line that's a good one

0:04:52 Thomas: Speaking of yeah speaking of the switch I just it had been in the midst of talking a lot about this baldoni stuff and a lot and I just resonated with me and I think it's something especially actually after the election uh it looks like this was kind of posted you after that and it was maybe more in response to like that whole thing but in terms of fixing men in in our society it really resonated with me. I think it's something we should talk about. You okay reading it?

0:05:25 Tom: So let me let me read it and we'll dive in. Yeah, yeah,

0:05:28 Thomas: Okay. You got your glasses, old man? You got it?

0:05:29 Tom: I'm happy to. Yeah, I've got,

0:05:30 Thomas: You get it?

0:05:30 Tom: I got, I'm wearing two pairs of glasses actually for this one. Yeah.

0:05:32 Eli: You get a magnifying glass and a snifter

0:05:34 Thomas: Tom has the monocle that goes in his vest or whatever that he takes out.

0:05:35 Tom: I've Got My. Yeah.

0:05:39 Thomas: That'd be sweet. Why haven't those made a comeback? Come on, hipsters.

0:05:35 Eli: Of brandy you can do it anytime you want they can't stop you you

0:05:44 Tom: Make it a thing. You gotta be the one. You gotta, you gotta make it a think.

0:05:45 Thomas: Oh, that requires effort.

0:05:47 Eli: Got to be the first brave one yes like analingus

0:05:52 Thomas: Everything's like analing to this guy. He says that after for every single joke.

0:05:55 Tom: A bidet is analingus for Eli Bosnick. Right, here we go. If your vision, if your vision for the de-radicalization of right-wing men begins and ends with other men telling them that that's gross and to stop it, then I'm sorry, you do not understand how masculinity works. Men who hold patriarchal status and men who are feminists are two groups who overlap less than you want them to. I'm Sorry. That's not solely because men are so happy with patriarchal stats that they don't want to risk it by policing misogyny, queer phobia and racism. It's because being misogynistic, queerphobic and racist and and expressing other forms of toxic masculinity, and often abusively so, are part of how people establish and maintain patriarchal status. The men who have the ability to stop this via nothing but peer pressure are the very people who are doing

0:05:58 Eli: Right had to pay extra for that one hashtag

0:06:46 Tom: It. That is by design. And engaging intervention is, in and of itself, usually the abrupt end of that status and its associated power to persuade misogynistic men. Like, I have worked in blue-collar jobs as a notably queer person. It was pretty much a constant deluge of verbal abuse. In my experience, most blue-collar work environments are exploitative, abusive, and bigoted, and very gleefully so. On the occasions I have spoken up about someone saying something that was super fucking out of line, asking me which of the girls walking by was the hottest while we were installing a portable classroom at a middle school, believe it or not, they completely failed to be shamed because nobody else on the crew gave a fuck I was the weird one they ghosted me a full-blown company ghosted I suddenly did not have a job anymore because they just straightforwardly stopped telling me where the next job site was like this doesn't mean that it's your job to do it but this vision you have of these big groups of men where everyone is on the fence and there is precisely one shitster who can be shut down by a brave feminist man who can single -handedly set the example for all of these other guys, you're high. You're describing an everybody -clapped -level absurd scenario. Of these truly virulent misogynistic guys either have zero friends because, you know, our society is atomized all to fuck, or they are in a group where the feminist guy is actually the weirdo who can be shut down and ostracized much, much easier than the misogYNists because there is no such thing as a man misogYness respect respect who stands up for women. You might be saying, well, we're talking about longstanding personal relationships, actually, like they need to have, to want to spend time with you. And then as a side effect, you can mind control them out of being a threat to us. The problem with that being a many, many feminist men also have no friends. See the atomized society above B feminized men already stopped hanging out with men who make rape jokes, because why the fuck would we want to to spend time with them. See, that isn't just because we respect women so hard. We are in many cases talking about men who are also deeply queerphobic, hierarchical, violent, and abusive to other men. What initially drew me to feminism and women was a lack of hierarchical squabbling and constant bullying and the ability to be openly queer. A lot of men who came to feminism did so because they knew that the patriarchy was not a place they would find success or acceptance. Acceptance. These are not the men who are going to be able to change right -wing minds. D. Men do not view themselves as a monolith. There is no universal brotherhood of men. The actual meaning of the term fragile masculinity is that men are constantly expected to prove that they are deserving of the status of being a member of their own gender. There are large swaths of men, including most of the men, who you'd look to as examples of good feminist men, who you want to undertake this project, who are considered failed men, sissies, faggots, soy boys, etc. They are not going to convince these men of jack shit, much less successfully shame them. Jesus. I know all of this sucks. I knew it would be cool to be able to just point at a group and have them be responsible for the work, but nah. It's gonna have to be a societal project, one that will probably outlast all of us. Sorry. The thing you want these men to do is absolutely the morally correct thing to do, but presuming that it would be effective is, and once again, I'm sorry about this, just ignorance of how these social groups function. That's why I wrote the

0:10:20 Tom: Intro.

0:10:20 Thomas: Question to you, yeah, no, fair enough. Now, now that I hear it, my questions to you this really resonated with me, but but really want to start with the question. Is this just too convenient? You know, is this just passing the buck? Is this just cause like my instant reaction was this really hits hard for me, But I always want to make sure, wait a minute, is that me trying to get out of something? Is that men trying to Get Out of Something? You know, like, what do you think? Do you think there's validity here? Or do you Think this is something where, you making possibly this person and maybe me, if it's resonating with me, are making excuses? What do you thing?

0:10:53 Eli: I think while this person makes valid points about some men I think there are a lot of men there area lot more men than they are willing to admit or at least seem to be willing to emit in this that can be moved by other men right and I will say from my own personal experience I saw my father do this all the time because men looked at my dad who was big and strong and looked as though he had put his face into a blender at various points in his life because he essentially had by being a football player and they were like this is a guy's guy he's gonna get it but he was certainly for his time wildly feminist wildly anti -racist and so I watched a lot of the time while people would would make jokes and comments and sort of presume that my dad believed the same things they did, and then at the very least feel awkward when he was like, nope, we're not doing that, right? Think what this person speaks to that I think is really important is that we tend to put a it's men's job to fix men blanket over all men without understanding that not all men are in the position to correct and influence other men right tom can shut down the jibber jabber at a barber shop way faster than I can right tom's

0:12:18 Eli: Like it's not okay right because he has a haircut right but like tom saying that's not ok in a room means a lot more than me saying that it's ok in the room right I think the message that a lot of men have have received especially feminist ones who tend to be on the me side of the spectrum of physicality they feel as though they are being put put in this position of endangerment put in This position of non -safety of non -comfort right when it is more complicated than that and that's what I really like about this right is that it speaks to the experience that there have to be other ways to to intervene when you are not in the hierarchy of privilege among other men right

0:12:17 Thomas: Because he has hair. Yeah.

0:12:21 Tom: Yeah because it's $70 a week, you know.

0:12:45 Thomas: Yeah.

0:13:00 Tom: I appreciated very much the same kinds of ideas from this. I think this is worth talking about. Like, I don't want to like shit on it with my intro. I think it's just very much worth talking about and I think a lot of what this person is describing is probably true enough that it's worth talking about. But I also think this person is describing a, you know, we all live in very siloed lives. Whoever Whether you are, you do not live a representative life, right? Person does not live representative.

0:13:27 Thomas: If you're listening to this show, especially, yeah.

0:13:29 Tom: Yeah, none our experiences should be thought to be universalized. A understandable impulse that all of us have and that all of us need to make sure that we try to guard against so like this person is a notably queer person working in a blue collar environment that is a very different silo than the silo that I find myself in right or the siloe Eli that you find yourself in in your life and in your social circles or you Thomas are you the listener our experiences are always not representative and I think that that's really important and they kind of make a point of saying like hey there's no universal brotherhood of men totally agree with that there is no like you know at the traveling pants for us right are not monolithic our

0:14:14 Thomas: Be traveling dresses because the girls' one is pants, so ours would be dresses. Is skirts

0:14:19 Eli: Allmen only have one thing in common which is that we want to be squished in the hand of giant elizabeth hurley at the end of bedazzled that is the only thing 100 of men agree on I

0:14:28 Thomas: Is that the thing you've been showing because it was boss baby too and now now it's this obscure reference

0:14:35 Eli: God I would love for my son to get into bedazzle oh my kingdom for my sun to start watching the first 20 minutes of Bedazzled. You know what they don't tell I'm sorry to take us off on a little side tangent You know, what they won't tell you about being a screen time parent who limits screen time is you never get to watch A full fucking movie, you know what aren't 40 minutes movies So I just watch the first 40 minutes of fucking boss, baby or minions

0:15:01 Tom: And you can't watch the back end of it because kids like repetition

0:15:05 Eli: Have no fucking idea what happens to these minions no

0:15:08 Thomas: Think your gonna pick it up where it left off and they're like no start it over ah yeah

0:15:11 Eli: I want to start from the beginning yeah I have no idea what happens to these goddamn minions and I want to know I'm curious

0:15:17 Thomas: Through the most herculean effort you guys I've talked about how tough remy is he is so add to adhd potentially that he has to have a new food and a new show every minute it's a joke like he has just and I finally was like no we're not doing this I can't take this anymore he literally was just sitting there he was like eli on his phone I he was sitting sitting there with the iPad hitting a different like YouTube video every 30 seconds. And I was like, no, this is too little to be doing that. There's two, no way. And, I made a new rule, only movies. And it was hard. I've had to fucking fight my kid. Like it

0:15:20 Tom: Good

0:15:52 Thomas: Is, I said, only movies, like that's talking about limiting screen time. I'm not limiting screen type, but I've gotten to the point.

0:15:53 Tom: For you I'm limiting it to an hour and a half block at a time that's it

0:16:00 Thomas: I be gotten to the point where at least you have to watch something where you You actually sit down and look at it and process it and don't just have this reaction of, ooh, colors, and then go to another one, you know? And he fought me so fucking hard. But you mentioned Minions. That's one of the reasons I want to do it. Oh, my God. I told you the burgers thing, right? He thought Minions were burgers because of the Happy Meals.

0:16:22 Thomas: And so now we call it like, hey, do you want to watch Burgers 1, Burgers 2, or Burgers 3 to watch the different – yeah, exactly. And so I – now they watch those, but I'll take it. I'll fucking take it, dude. Because they at least have the same thing on for more than 20 seconds so anyway that's that's my life right now but back to this yeah

0:16:26 Eli: Despicable burgers 3 back

0:16:41 Tom: All one other thing, though, and I wanted to bring this up when we listen to the Baldoni piece as well, because I think this is super important and they keep people keep fucking this part up. And I think it's like the most important part of like breaking through that wall and reaching people and actually making change happen. I really strongly believe that the key to changing men is not by focusing our efforts on women and feminism, but by focusing efforts on the experience and impact of men. Like not because those things aren't important they are important but I don't think they're effective and I want to draw a hard line between those things like I really do think that if we try to have conversations with men about the male experience about masculinity about pro and we do all of that through this lens of the impact that that has on women we've already already lost the thread. We've already lost a thread. The guys on the right, right? What are they talking about? They're talking about how follow my advice and your life, your specific personal life gets better. I see you. I understand you make your bed and you'll get laid. You will be a happier version of yourself. And over here on the left, we're like, won't somebody think about, you know, queer people and women and like, look, all of that is right, but none of that that is effective. It's the wrong tack to take. But

0:18:04 Tom: Baldoni takes it. This writer assumes it. They assume that like the antidote to toxic masculinity is feminism. It is not. Feminism is, I think, a natural outgrowth of positive masculinity. But we've got to get to positive masculinity first and focus our time, our efforts, and our attention on helping men understand how how to be better versions of themselves at a personal level and focusing our attention on understanding and empathizing with that experience. And then the rest will work itself out in payroll because we will have built better men.

0:18:41 Thomas: I think so I agree with some of that I I do think that I would put it this way I think feminism is the framework for more properly understanding the world and what's actually happening but when it comes to de-radicalizing I don't know if I'd put it I think we mostly agree I don'T know if I put it as like a uh these things in opposition to each other I think feminism is a framework that helps you understand. And I think when it comes to de -radicalizing anyone there, you talk about any other issue, no one who knows anything would say, well, the thing to do is yell at them the extreme opposite of their view as hard as possible. You know, that that's not going to work. And so in that sense, I totally agree. And I think that that I've been talking about this just in politics on the other shows. I don'T try to talk to each other at all anymore. AndI don'T mean that in, you know, I think we've been saying some cliched version of that for 2016. 16. Um, it's just more and more true. And, and I think what really got me is after this election in which we lost the popular vote, not, terribly, you but we did lose it is still people doing the, I don't care. It's not my responsibility. I'm shutting down everyone who, whatever. And I'm just thinking how, little does the group of us, the group of people who give a shit about truth and feminism and women, anything, how How little does that group have to get before we stop doing that? Before we're like, no, the solution is don't even talk to them. Like

0:18:50 Tom: Agree. Right. Yeah. Yeah,

0:19:58 Thomas: There's going to be 10 of us. I was gonna be like, yeah, well, yep.

0:20:00 Tom: There'll be five. Yeah it'll be down to zero dude. It'll be done to zero.

0:20:02 Thomas: Don't talk to him. It's like, really? I think we need to maybe do something different. Like I, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe like this is the one blip and it'll get all instantly better in four years or whatever, two years. But like, I worry that it's not. And I it's hard too, because there's also a lot lot of stereotypes that aren't true. I think that when on the left in their real lives, I think are much more, much more reasonable than the stereotype that has pervaded all of society about us, you know? And so there's part of that where it's like, I don't want to get on people for a stereotype that isn't actually accurate, you Know, and is largely a result of the right -wing media just spreading horrible propaganda about the left all the time. So I also don't want to feed into that. But at the

0:20:08 Tom: You're not wrong no

0:20:43 Thomas: Same time, I

0:20:43 Eli: Don't know I resemble that that pretty fucking hard Thomas always

0:20:46 Tom: I wrote I wrote a blog years ago on the problem of being right like and I think that that's part of like happening here is that oh yeah I haven't mentioned in months like really do think that that's a big part of what's happens in the world and what's happening here's that yes I completely agree with you thomas that feminism is the framework that we should use as the lens but like when we're talking to people that have been radicalized when when we're talking to young people, when we are trying to build an antidote to messaging that comes from this whole manosphere and this red pill horrible shit, if we are saying that part out loud rather than trying to connect with people where they are right now, we will be right at the risk of being effective. I really think that there is a huge problem in how we are approaching masculinity culturally right now, where so much of our focus is understandably on telling people all the things that we need to fucking stop doing because we're doing horrible shit that's ruining the world. But what we're not doing is replacing stop doing this with here's how to be a man that gets to embrace a kind of positive masculinity. We've not put our arms around those ideas yet and because we've not put our arms around those ideas and we've pulled away all of these traditional elements what we I think have done is created a vacuum for young people and that vacuum is easily exploited by the red pill right -wing lunatics and I think that because it's fucking happening and we're watching it happen and the only reason that that's effective is because because there's a gap. There's a gap there that can be filled. We need to have conversations about masculinity that don't ever use the word feminism. Really believe that. Not because feminism is the wrong word. It's just that we're going to lose people in those conversations. We will get to all of those ideas. Those ideas will be the natural outpouring of a more positive masculinity. Masculinity, we'll get all the stuff we want. But if focus is on something that has been sold to people, even though we know it's not, but it's been sold to People as an opposing idea, we lose. We're automatically going

0:20:53 Thomas: Think

0:20:53 Eli: Plugging his blog Tom

0:23:06 Tom: To be losing.

0:23:07 Thomas: I disagree in so far as I don't even think we're to that point. I don'T think conversations are happening at all in the ways they need to. I think the conversation you're talking about is mostly just us to ourselves. I DON'T think we're actually talking to anyone on the right or anyone in this position with those words. I, so it's almost, I think I have a more pessimistic view of the current state of things, but

0:23:26 Tom: And maybe you're right. Yeah. Maybe don't know, Thomas, if we're having those conversations broadly, culturally, socially either. But what I know is that the right is effective in their messaging. The right is winning this war right now. So when read this thing, I'm like, all right, cool. So what do we do? What do we do? And again, I feel so strongly like the answer is not a message of stop doing this. Here's feminism. That I can tell you, that message is not going to hit because that's an opposing binary concept for people that don't understand that it's not an opposing binary concept. So are going to receive that in a way that's not empathetic and feel

0:24:07 Thomas: Especially when billionaires have stripped this country for parts and people aren't actually doing well, it's pretty hard to say you have privilege. Like it doesn't, no one's going to accept that because they're going to see where they are and be like, I can't afford a fucking house and it's going going to be a tough, but we, we also need to address the fact that our message is just harder in all. I'm not just feminine, like all this stuff. Our message is complicated answer that is actually true rather than easy answer that doesn't make you do anything. Like that's just a really, I hard. That's a hard battle to win. I don't know how we even fucking do it, but,

0:24:42 Eli: I ask a question as as said negative Nancy, because I've really disconnected from the idea of reaching across the aisle and I want to sort of voice where my head's at. And I think this is true of of feminism and and misogyny as well as politics right now. And obviously, like, you know, when we talk into microphones, we know people hear them. And so a lot of what I keep in my head about what I talk about out loud is like how to convey my opinions without encouraging people to abdicate their social responsibility. Right. When I say things like I don't think we can reach people on the right, it's very easy for people who are wrong about their disenfranchisement in two years to be like, I don'T THINK VOTING MATTERS. Right? So I have to be careful about that kind of stuff, but here's where my head's at when we talk about conversation. I think right now we live in 1939 Germany. Us are Germans. Certainly everyone on this podcast is a blonde -haired, blue -eyed German, and we're going to make it through whatever happens over the next couple of years. I don't know that mind changing is possible or realistic when I look at the scope of history right think the viewpoint that now is a time when minds can be changed and people can be brought back to truth I think that's uh a very specific product of this information age right the belief that we're like constantly in communication and be able to change each each other's minds. Whereas when I think if you look at history, what usually happens is that civilizations rot, right? And then they rot so badly that they collapse. And then a new civilization is sort of born in its place, right. But I don't think we could change minds in Nazi Germany. I don't we could changed minds in Maoist China. I don' t think we can change minds, you know, russia right I don't think there are conversations across the aisle that could have been had that would have changed those moments I think it is the nature of human civilization to collapse and for a lot of people who are not at the top of the pyramid during those times to die during that collapse but for me right now where I'm at and I hope this doesn't sound defeatist like where I'm at is like I'm more in like a how do we hide jews in our attic mindset then how

0:27:02 Thomas: Be fair that's always how you've been what you've

0:27:04 Eli: Right then how do I just want to visit your guys's attic uh and it's then like how do I reach these nazis I don't think these nazies are I mean I mean this genuinely I think most americans are not physically capable of understanding the concepts we want them to to understand right son no matter what you do he's a smart kid he's a sweet kid he does not understand long division you cannot teach him long division when his brain matures you will be able to but most of the people I think in this country are either um addicted to drugs um mentally ill um underwhelmed by undereducation and poverty that they are they are essentially living the life with the mind of a of what we would consider to be a child right a combination of those factors so I I think

0:27:04 Thomas: Been doing if you know yeah yeah I mean honestly I agree with that hmm Jesus

0:27:55 Eli: Most americans right the people who went and showed up for donald trump I think you could sit them down I think you could get them to self -pity which is what we see happen on those cnn panels and those fox news panels right because when you sit those people down right smart educated college people right Right. And they do this every election. Right. They trot them out and they get fucking Bubba out. And they're like, hey, Bubba, don't you think killing kids is wrong? And Bubba's like, my back hurts. And again, that's not because Bubba is a bad person. There's no such thing as bad. Bubba ist physically incapable of understanding why keeping trans women out of sports will mostly kill children. Trip, right? Have the processing power. He can't run Mario 64 on his brain and he can't run empathy, you know? And so for me right now where I'm at, and I think this is sort of a part of what this person is talking about and where I met in sort of the like how to convert misogynist conversation where I meant is like, they're not killing people yet. I mean, they are, but they're not killing in ovens yet. And it's so funny because the minute they start killing people People in ovens were going to be like, well, those are J62 ovens. And in the Holocaust, they used

0:29:05 Eli: J63s. And the minute they start using J63, I'll tell you, I'm going to get me a musket right up there. Because we're all a bunch of fucking chicken shits. I'm not lying and pretending I'm an underground railroad warrior or whatever bullshit, right? But because the thing is not happening yet, I think conversation the conversation about conversation is easier than, hey, they're gonna start killing trans kids directly, right? They're gonna put them in camps. They're going to torture them. They'll call them something else. But we're like, we're not far. We're not multiple years away from children who are trans being ripped out of their homes and sent to a camp where a lot of them die by their own hand or just from neglect and abuse, right. That's like two, three years away and we can all see it coming. Right. The question I think we need to be asking is not how do we convince Bubba to vote our way in the midterms? It's how do мы hide our trans children?

0:30:08 Thomas: Some amount of that I might agree with I think that it's it's a it is

0:30:11 Eli: Really asking, too. I'm not like I am. Yeah.

0:30:13 Thomas: No it's absolutely true that we should not be focused on trying to convince the guards at the camp we're trying to convince the people who don't pay attention enough, which now now that I live in now times, who knows what it was like in Nazi Germany? Who knows how many people were just like, yeah, the price of eggs. So Holocaust, I don't know, you know, probably. Um, so I don'T believe that there's any amount of convincing, like the, fucking the SS that that, like those diehard, like, I DON'T think that's the thing to do, but I do think having Having these conversations with people who are more on the marginal, you know, more either not engaged or that kind of thing. When it comes to like the political situation you're talking about, when it comes to this commenter and it comes to just dismantling, maybe we could talk about something a little less fucking genocidal than maybe arguably, which is just trying to get people to be a little less misogynistic, perhaps. Maybe resonated with me about this was how, much I agree with the idea that I'm not going to be friends with these people. Like, I also don't want to be Friends with these People. And I found that to be really an interesting conundrum. Like I wasn't sure what to do with that because it's absolutely true. Like the minute someone is a piece of shit like that, I'm, I'm Not hanging out with them. Like then and I have a little bit defensiveness is why, why would I have to do that? Like I don't, why the fuck do I want to hang out out with a rape apology. He's like, I'm not doing that. And so it gave me this feeling of like, shit, who, who is going to do this? I don't know.

0:30:29 Eli: Most of them.

0:31:33 Tom: I want to push back a lot on the sort of like biological fatalism that I think you're expressing, Eli. And I totally, because I think it's important to the broader idea. Because horrible that shit just happened, you know, in November. But four years before that, essentially the same cohort of people made a different decision. And, you Know, 12 years before that, a very similar cohort of people made different decisions. I don't think people are as monolithic I think people are incredibly reactionary. And I think that that's a big part of like what is happening right now as we descend into whatever madness we're descending into. But like, I, know that people can be changed. I, I, I have personally changed people's minds myself. I have done it. I've done it

0:31:40 Eli: Get in there.

0:32:22 Tom: On more than one occasion. No, no. With, with like, with, know, like I'll, I'll tell a couple of very quick stories. So there I Got a LinkedIn message this from guy named Brant. When I was at Burger King, when I was like 18, 19 years old, there was this guy name Brant who was about the same age that I was. And Brant came in and like, He was a blonde -haired, blue -eyed kid about my age, and he had some real shitty racist ideas. And I aggressively took him to the side. And he and I talked, and I was like, hey, that shit is not going to fly. We talked. That guy messaged me five or six years ago telling me that I changed his life.

0:32:22 Thomas: With force. Wow.

0:33:01 Tom: That after that, that I'd been a force, that he'd thought about me for years, that these conversations had mattered to him. I had a similar experience with a guy named Darren. I've had a similar experience with a guy named Ryan I I have have absolutely moved the needle for people I certain that you have too I know that people can be reached because I've reached people and I've had people reach out to me after 20 years of not talking to them and tell me that like hey changed my life and I know with certainty that I've done it. I've done it on, I mean, just off the top of my head, three or four people. It's possible. And I think like importantly, it's possible to just not build those people. Like this is a parenting show and like it's important to just not build those shitty people. We as parents can help not build those kinds of shitty people, there are forces institutional and cultural that are trying to build shitty Because shitty men will perpetuate a cycle that they believe wrongly. And this is the part that guys don't get. They believe wrongfully that they will reap advantages and rewards from that. But everybody who understands and studies patriarchy understands that patriarchy is not a big rectangle that all the men are in, but it is a pyramid with a tiny fraction of men at the top. And that all men, except for those at the tiny part of the top pyramid, suffer from patriarchy. They don't understand that, but they can be made to. And I know that they

0:34:37 Thomas: Force.

0:34:37 Tom: Can be made to." Yeah, no, like...

0:34:38 Thomas: No, sorry. I just have this image of Tom, I'm like crushing someone's head until the ideas the

0:34:43 Eli: His finger up someone's nose until they.

0:34:44 Tom: Me you have different thoughts or I'll squeeze them out of you.

0:34:47 Thomas: Ideas are too taking up too much space if I squeeze your head the ideas will get smaller until they go away yeah

0:34:51 Tom: You can't hold I

0:34:54 Eli: I when Tom does Tom's voice and it's me doing Tom's voice. That's good.

0:34:55 Thomas: That's even scarier yeah yeah

0:34:57 Eli: That says it's my cultural effect on the world.

0:34:56 Tom: I'm I am a hundred percent certain that can be changed I am uh I like a hundred certain too that like you can raise people that don't believe this shit and that won't believe the shit and then they will go on to make friends that don't believe this shit I about this when I read this I can tell you that in my entire life my dad has never one time ever said never told a joke or said anything ever that's denigrated women not one day, not ever, not once and I never had cause to think about it but do I think it's influenced who I am? Yeah, I think its 100% influenced who I am can You build these kinds of men, but we can't build these kind of men if we are not thoughtful about it. And we certainly can't do it if we think the work can't be done.

0:35:51 Thomas: Absolutely I I have to say one thing related to the that you were disagreeing with Eli about. I think the people who voted for Obama also did not understand what they were doing. I

0:36:00 Tom: I think most voters don't know what they're doing at all. That's why I don't put a lot of credence in it.

0:36:03 Thomas: I who voted for Obama, like so much of that coalition were like, oh, I did it because so that the racism would be over and we solve that. So now the racism is over. And that's why now I'm a Trump voter because we solve the racism And people are still complaining. That's like 90 percent of them. So I think that there is a very real sense in which I agree with Eli that many people just cannot understand these ideas or they've been.

0:36:26 Thomas: I think they probably could if they had better information, but they don't. And so it's like, where do you draw the line between just being incapable intellectually versus having the right information? That's a tough, tough line to draw. But message that's is harder. It's more complicated. And especially as the world gets more complicated, you know, it's not like we got one fucking railroad to talk about policy about, you there's so much stuff as he's dismantling the government, you see how much they do that we just even you and I, the three of us don't really think about or know about, but we trust that experts are going to do it. Um we're in a bad way but but I agree with you tom I think that like I'm sure we've had an effect on people the only thing I would also worry about with that not to disagree but to worry is that we've been framing things in terms of the sort of generational inevitability for a while and it hasn't panned out you and is that because we're not we haven't been raising kids the way we need to or

0:36:26 Tom: 100 % agree with that. Yeah. Right. Yeah,

0:37:19 Thomas: Is that because this propaganda is is that powerful I don't know

0:37:24 Tom: I say we're not raising people the way that we thought we were raising people because we've done a lot of I really believe like we've done a bad job of replacing with and has created a power vacuum for people to swoop into and to introduce bad ideas. Is. You go to like forums where men complain about being men and you strip away some of the ugly language and you try to really think about like the kinds of things that they're saying, a lot of what men are saying online is like a lot of what they're complaining about is as a man, it's not acceptable for me to have feelings, to feel things, to be heard. I want to be hurt. What they're saying is patriarchy sucks. That's a big part of what they're saying. The problem is that the patriarchy -sucks message gets co -opted by the red-pillers into feminism is the reason you feel this way, right? But it's not, and they voices to say, yeah, yeah 100% you should be able to to feel things that are not this like, like box of feelings that you have to perform. I get it. That part of how you've been socialized totally sucks. And we never have to talk about women or feminism in order to empathize with that. And to say, Hey, you know, over here, hang out with us. We totally get that, man. It's okay to be over here and to like be a guy's guy, whatever that needs to mean for you, whatever that needs to means for you but also to have a full expression of feelings we're not doing that, we're not doing the outreach, instead we're like we're poking, we'RE judging we're saying well that's our fault because of this, none that's helpful we're creating a camp for people to live in, the right is creating that camp, we are not doing that work because I don't think we understand that it needs to be done because we're so very rightfully and and understandably concerned with protecting people who've been victimized. I am a thousand percent, like I'm there. I just feel like the best way to do that generationally is to fix the other problem in as effective a way as possible. And I don't think we're doing it. So like, when I read this, this screed, it comes off as a screed to me. And I'm like, yeah, cool. What do we do? Because the answer

0:38:16 Thomas: Women are doing that to you yeah oh yeah

0:39:45 Tom: Can't be like shrug at it. You know, it makes me crazy. Like yeah well yeah

0:39:49 Eli: Dresden.

0:39:46 Thomas: No this isn't yeah well I but I'm so sick of that shit who's doing that like I'm honestly I I don'T mean to call you id like because I actually think you said this in a pretty good way like there's also this fake thing we're doing online that I see people do where they're was a there's a thing I shared I saw someone say um have to allow people who voted for trump if they say oh I was wrong this is not what I wanted we got it we got to let them in rather than tell them fuck you get get fucked and you you deserve to die you know like and I thought that was the most non -controversial thing and so many fake fucking tough leftists like the nazis weren't convinced that what and first off it's like the the scenario this person talked about was someone who said they were wrong and came over to our side and is a voter. And so everyone to, in order to be right, had to create this like scenario that what didn't exist in their head, where it's like, it's actually Vance is coming and saying like, I, you know, and then they had to do this thing where they say the Nazis, they convinced to which I have to say, like, do you have a militia going or something? Like what, what are these fake fucking tough leftists? Are you talking about?

0:40:55 Thomas: Are an army? Like, I don't know what that means. They have the army. They also have the Army. What are you talking about? Sorry, it's just so fucking frustrating.

0:41:04 Eli: I mean that that that's no no I think I think it's really valid because I do I do think that like Dresden is the way to change Bubba's mind right? I also think that we're uniquely unprepared for Dresdon which is why when I talk about it I'm like we need need to talk about hiding jews in our attic not revolution right we're not gonna be you know so funny people talk about I'm forgetting the name now that ghetto that like rose up against the nazis warsaw warsaw ghetto right it's a common parlance that's used among jews quite a bit I don't know how you it's used like popularly but like when we talk about anti -semitism it is much as the sort of like where is your militia among jewS there's a lot of like well you know know the warsaw ghetto right or the Bielski brothers or schindler or this that right we sort of talk about these individuals but it's important to remember that like everybody in the Warsaw ghetto did die right they didn't win and so like for me right my answer is like yeah absolutely I would love for there to be an army right I would like for there be a war to be a militia but there's not and I also know that I wouldn't join it right

0:41:31 Thomas: I forget. There is one. They have it. They control it. It's worse. It's not we're negative one army. It's like we're...

0:42:13 Eli: And then yeah 100 yeah and and that's the realism that I think is important to understand right we live in the worst possible time of nazi right we live when they have the country and there is no revolution there is none no one is coming to save us right all we can do is our is use our temporary position a little bit higher up on the pyramid on to to save the lives of others.

0:42:38 Eli: And, you know, I listened to Tom talking about changing minds and look, I I've been there, you know, that's the, it's how we all met, right. Is me coming on your guys' show to talk about safe spaces and, and trigger warnings and stuff. And I, I got messages from people who were like, I really thought that was bullshit and you changed my mind and blah, blah, blah. And maybe is just sort of pessimism and maybe this is again, I it's, it tough, right? Hard to separate your emotion from what what you should be saying as a public figure. Right. But like, I can't help but think when I look back at those times, right. Aside from gaining your friendships, which was obviously lovely, uh, and giving you the best episode of cognitive dissonance that anyone's ever had. I think we can all agree. We can all read it. It's a special episode that should be kept for only the most elite of listening.

0:43:11 Tom: Truly truly the only one we've ever issued an apology for

0:43:24 Eli: Exactly. The one that's rare and precious, like a fine vintage of wine but like when I look at the debates and I look at the time and energy that I spent right people trying to make people better um wonder if that time and energy wouldn't have been better spent um their victims but I'll never know I'll ever know because I was so sure that changing people's mind and I guess to me me, you don't know that it's necessarily wrong. I don'T want to say that it's wrong or that I disagree with it, but it's like, you know, when I see people who still do like the debate stuff in atheism, right?

0:43:58 Thomas: Yeah.

0:43:58 Eli: Like I loved a good atheist debate back in the day and I still like think about those points and make those arguments. I still think they're important, right. Like I fucking love that people are out there still doing that shit. I think it's fucking cool, but I just, it's It's not for me anymore.

0:44:11 Thomas: Yeah. I to say a strong voice in the favor of it was worth it. Oh, I can't say it was worth your time because that's only you could say that. I think you moved a lot of people, including me. I think I think you my mind on a lot of things. And there are plenty of listeners that we hear from that they for perhaps you or I or the three of us, they would be in the the manosphere, you know, and I think that's real. And I think that it's hard because we don't see it you know to

0:44:37 Tom: I here's how I know eli that what you're saying comes from a place of deep emotional exhaustion that is the most understandable feeling in the world like know that and it's it's because I'm drawing back to something we talked about a long time ago and we talked About like violence against women and one of the things that you and I disagreed with but one of The things that You said was that like most of the abuse that women suffer comes from A small fraction of men do you remember that like the physical abuse the attacks like the sexual assaults, that kind of thing. It therefore makes more sense to reduce the number of abusers just mathematically. If one abuser creates five victims, it doesn't make sense to go out and try to hide five people. It makes way more sense.

0:45:25 Tom: To reduce the number of abusors. That's just how the math has to work.

0:45:25 Thomas: Murder one man yeah interesting

0:45:31 Tom: It just is like Like, everybody on this call is going to do everything in their power to raise boys into men, very likely, to raise toys into men who are not red -pilled manosphere assholes. Because we understand that not only will their lives be better, but then they also will not create the downstream effects of, you know, leaving victim after victim in their wake. The math works that way. We have to do the work in this direction we just do like I know that that's the direction we have to approach this with depends

0:46:13 Eli: Right. Gentlemen, on that note, why, the only suit you shouldn't wear to a job interview? Your birthday suit.

0:46:25 Tom: On the job I guess uh

0:46:31 Clip: Want to meet sexy DILFs in your area? Email the dads at DearOldDads .com or, better yet, send us a message on Patreon. You can follow us on all social media by checking the links in the show notes. And if you need more podcasts in your life, you can find Tom on Cognitive Dissonance, Thomas on Serious Inquiries Only, and Eli on Godawful Movies and all the Puzzle in the Thunderstorm shows. Dear Old Dads is edited and produced by my favorite DILf, tom smith who also wrote and recorded the intro music which is used with his permission this podcast is a production of daddy issues llc copyright 2022 all rights reserved

0:47:13 Eli: Is the thing I buy equals truth all the time but