From the video starting at 41:05:
We’re all clear on the problem.
What’s the solution?
Rory got a quote for us that we’re gonna use. This is a book called The Will To Change by bell hooks. She’s one of the leading feminists. That—it writes about patriarchy. And this is a quote right here by her. It says:
By learning the arts of compartmentalization, dissimulation, and disassociation, men are able to see themselves as acting with integrity in cases where they are not. Their learned state of psychological denial is severe…Since most men have been socialized to believe that compartmentalization is a positive practice, it feels right, it feels comfortable. To practice integrity, then, is difficult; it hurts. Peck makes the crucial point: “Integrity is painful. But without it there can be no wholeness.” To be whole men must practice integrity.
One thing I think missing from this instance is a discussion about solutions to toxic masculinity and how incredibly difficult it can be to live them. It’s easy to say men need to be more emotionally available, less violent, value themselves for who they are rather than what they do and how they perform. And while this video doesn’t really demonstrate men doing that, they discuss their lived experiences and explore that difficulty. One of the guys towards the end even asks, “I hear what you’re saying. But, when I go home, how do you honestly expect me to teach this to my young son?”…or something to that effect.
I thought the documentary was interesting for really emphasizing that being a better man isn’t easy and that it may be even harder to sustain it.
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Being a better person was hard when I sucked as a person. Once you work on yourself enough to be a “good” person, being better each day becomes a natural pursuit (if you want it).
I think the real challenge is wanting to be a better person enough to really pursue it. I didn’t watch the vid, so no idea how relevant my rant might be. I don’t have time for videos. Give me text. /End rant.
I don’t have time for videos. Give me text.
I feel this.
I think the real challenge is wanting to be a better person enough to really pursue it.
That was one of my criticisms of the video: these men lived up to patriarchal masculine standards and were punished for it. Being in prison can make it really easy to see that an alternative is not only wanted, but desperately needed. It seems only natural to me that there’s a space in prison for discourse like this. I wonder if feminism would’ve have had the same force if it had been offered to these men when they were receiving more rewards from patriarchy, before it’d taken so much from them.
To be whole men must practice integrity.
I think the missing thing here is in that word “whole”. What does it mean to be “whole”? Where can I find information on what being whole is? Who decided on that information? Why is being “whole” something we all must aspire to?
The entire argument is based on the appeal to purity fallacy. They’ve invented this nebulous higher standard which, by definition, excludes the men they perceive as being “unwhole”.
What does it mean to be “whole”? Where can I find information on what being whole is? Who decided on that information? Why is being “whole” something we all must aspire to?
So, in The Will to Change, bell hooks is using a concept developed by M. Scott Peck in “Further Along The Road Less Traveled” labeled compartmentalization.
Peck argues that compartmentalization is a way to avoid feeling pain: “We’re all familiar with the man who goes to church on Sunday morning, believing that he loves God and God’s creation and his fellow human beings, but who, on Monday morning, has no trouble with his company’s policy of dumping toxic wastes in the local stream. He can do this because he has religion in one compartment and his business in another.”
And they discuss this concept in the video really well. I added the timestamp at the request of the mod so you can pick up the video where the quote begins. They discuss how they abandoned their ideals in the moment to live up to patriarchal values. That’s not who they really were, but the performance they thought they had to play.
Being whole isn’t an appeal to purity. Nor is it nebulous. It means not wearing a different mask for different occasions, not compartmentalizing, and not playing roles that go against or, worse, undermine your values.
That’s just called integrity.
There are already words for these things, there is no need to make up overly complicated variations on it, especially when these variations are actually more vague than just using the word integrity.
I mean…yeah.
That’s exactly what it’s called. Did you watch the video??
But as the original quote says, patriarchy encourages compartmentalization, where men believe they act with integrity when they really don’t. To some extent, then it’s enough to say “that’s just called integrity”. Many men have a false sense of it. How can we differentiate between the two? By referencing the idea of compartmentalization and wholeness.
That is, it’s as complicated as it needs to be for language to describe the exceedingly complex world of human behavior.
How about “consistent”, then? What’s more complicated about this than a simple lack of consistency?
Feelings of being consistent when you’re not.
Agreed, this gets frustrating sometimes because it’s so common in a lot of articles talking about this issue.
“Not being whole” is often used a metaphor to describe varying degrees of feeling of inadequacy, since it feels like you lack something.
This video is excellent. Would you be willing to post a timestamp for the section you specifically mention?
I added it to the original post.
